Back-to-Back Tadasana to Crescent Moon in Partner Yoga

Video Transcript

"A great way to start your partner's standing series is with a crescent moon side stretch. First we are going to start in Tadasana but I want to talk a little bit about Tadasana, a mountain pose. Gina is going to start with her feet just about hip width's distance apart so the toes are slightly in and her heels are slightly out so her heels are parallel to the mat. She is going to stack her knees right over her ankles, her hips right over her knees. Why don't we go ahead and turn sideways so we can see that Gina, good. All in perfect alignment, shoulders are going to lift up and rotate up so that her chest is open, shoulder girdle right over the hip girdle and she is going to lengthen right up through the crown of the head so maybe the back of the skull lifts just a little and the chin is tucked just slightly. So I am going to come into mountain pose and this is a very grounding standing pose, pressing your energy down into the ground and reaching up through the crown of the head right up to the sky. So Gina and I are going to take our arms out on the inhale, reach the arms up and then we are going to find our palms and hook into the palms slightly pressing. Inhale, lengthen the spine, and we are going to drop our front arm down and come into the side. We are going to roll our shoulders back and it is important to have our shoulders touching and that way we know our heart is open and we're looking up to our elbows. Inhaling coming back up and as we exhale over to the other side, just looking up to the hands and just looking up to the hands and feeling that nice length from he heel all the way up to the fingertips and opening up the side body, the side door to the heart, and then inhaling reaching both arms back up and exhaling slowly bringing our arms back down to the Tadasana or mountain pose."