Using a Strap in Yoga

Video Transcript

"Hello, I'm Howard and welcome to this Introduction to Hatha Yoga. Now you may be wondering why do I have a bathrobe belt draped around my neck. Well we're going to use this as a prop for the next exercise, so get a bathrobe belt or a strap of this kind and the first thing you could do to help loosen up neck tension is to roll your head around in circles. Using the strap to support your neck is a lot safer than just doing this on your own. You may hear some snap crackle and pop noises and those are the calcium deposits starting to break up in your thoracic vertebrae in your neck. At any time of the day when you feel tight, you should feel free to roll your head around, deep circles, slowly in both directions. O.k., then we're going to bring the hands down by the hips, hold on to the strap with your hands, I don't know, about three feet apart. Bring your arms up by your ears, now the arms have to be straight, this does not work if you bend your elbows. The arms are straight, shoulders relaxed and then you?re going to try to bring the arms back behind you and you'll probably find the first time you try this is you can't, so slide your hands apart a little further until you can bring the hands smoothly and easily down behind your back. Now I'm just going to do that a few more times. Inhale, with the arms straight, bring the strap up over your head and down in front. Now you may be tempted to bring your hands a little closer together and that's fine but even a 1/2 of inch closer together makes this a lot harder. So just have your hands far enough apart that you could bring the arms up smoothly over your head and back down in front and you can do this as often as you like. At some point, linger around shoulder height and just work your hands a little bit up and a little bit below your shoulders. In this tight area in your middle spine and shoulder blades and then you can let your hands go all the way down behind you and all the way up over your head. Now bring your hands in a little bit closer so that they're about eight inches apart. Bring your arms up so that the strap is right above your head pull the elbows back and the hands apart and slowly straighten your arms up in the air and then bring the hands back down just a little bit above your head. Elbows back behind your ears, inhaling up. Exhaling down and although I'm making this look fairly easy, I do understand for some of you, have a lot of shoulder tension this is not an easy thing to do and then let your hands come down drape the strap or the belt around your neck and again allow your head to roll freely in circles a couple of times. Inhaling as your head comes back, chin lifts up and exhaling as you roll your chin down into your throat."