How to do a Hero Twist Yoga Pose

Video Transcript

"GINA KENNEDY: Parsva Virasana, or hero's twist, is another pose we do based on the hero pose. So Faith is going to help me demonstrate this. She's seated in hero's pose. Her heels are slightly outside of her ankles, notice she's seated on the block, and eventually as we get--as our thighs open up more and more, we will be able to sit right on the floor, and not have to use the block, but that's what these blocks are helping us do, to eventually be able to come into the poses even deeper. We're going to take this hero's pose into a twist. So, she's going to place one block next to her hip and the other block behind her back. Good. She's going to inhale and lengthen up, and then she's going to use her breath to come into a rotation, taking her left hand to the block behind her back, and her right hand to the block next to her hip. Good. So with each inhalation, with each breath, with each inhale, she lengthens up, and with each exhale, she moves into the twist just a little bit deeper. The twist begins from the core, comes to the rib cage, and then the upper part of the spine is the most mobile so she'll be able to move and twist just a little bit deeper from there. So again, she's going to inhale, lengthen, and then, exhale move into that length that she's found by pressing into the blocks to give her leverage, and bring the floor a little bit higher so she can twist even deeper massaging her abdominal muscles."