How to Do a Half Moon Yoga Pose on Wall

Video Transcript

"CINDY MASTRY: In this clip, Faith is going to help me demonstrate Ardha Chandrasana or half moon pose. Ardha Chandrasana is a wonderful balance pose but it is a little bit more advance. And so one way that you can learn and gradually build up to this pose is by using a block and also whatever you have around that can double for a wall. So we're going to ask Faith to come up against the wall, and she's going to turn her foot out towards the block. Good. She's going to lengthen her arms out and reach down her hand towards the block. Good. Lifting her back leg up. Good. So leaning against the wall, what we're going to do is align her shoulders. See how we can bring her shoulders into alignment? You want to press your shoulders into the wall and you want to press your hips into the wall. You want to engage your thigh and flex your foot and press out through the heel. That gives you the balance. And so using the wall can take away all the balance problems. It can elevate the floor to help you--using the block to help you so that you don't have to dip down quite so low and be able to come into this pose, which is a great pose that's healing and cooling for the nervous system. It massages your abdominal muscles. It takes a little bit of the gravity pull out of you, aligns your shoulders and aligns your pelvis, just a really great pose. And it allows just anyone who may not be very flexible at all to be able to do this pose."