Yoga Forward Bend

Video Transcript

"Usually part of any Asana series especially Venyasa flow is Uttanasa or Forward Bend. So, what I am about to show you starts from Tadasana or Mountain Pose, which I went into detail on the previous clip. You want to stand with your feet about hip width apart for more advanced practitioners you can be one foot ten toes. So, go ahead and bring your feet as a beginner about hip width apart, you can lift the toes up and find yourself grounded your weight grounded in the middle parts of your feet, so the mounds of your feet as well as your heels and let your toes drop back down. Find a way to push the energy back through your thighs, femurs, so your thigh bones push back and let your tail bone drop. Come to your Mountain Pose hands open towards the front scoop the arms up on an inhale and slowly fold forward. Keeping the weight grounded through your feet. If you have any back issues or knee issues you can let your knees bend slightly and if you have really tight hamstrings, you can let the block on the floor in front of you and grab onto the block if this is to far, you can also put the block up this way or have two blocks and hold and then let yourself fold forward. You can also lay the block this way and put your hands down. The main point of Uttanasa of Forward Bend is you want to use your muscles to pull you inward and let yourself fold forward. Trying not to pull with the hands and pulling too much force back there, if you rock the knees you will feel a strain in the back. So you want to take care to keep those knees slightly bent and then slowly let your abdominals and your core muscles bring you towards your legs and fold in and you hang here for just a moment and then you can slowly roll up bone by bone by bone, shoulders and then you head is the last thing to come up. And that is how you do Uttanasana or Forward Bend."