Sivananda Yoga Bridge Pose

Video Transcript

"Martha's going to be showing the bridge pose, setu bandhasana It's a lovely thing to do after you come into shoulder stand or halasana because it's like a counter pose. When you're in shoulder stand, in halasana, there's a lot of pressure on the spine, so with bridge pose it is releasing the lumbar and thoracic part of the spine, so two wonderful things to do after shoulder stand and plow is the bridge pose and also fish, which we'll be showing later. So first Martha's going to show us bridge pose. I'm going to have her lay down on her back. Okay, why don't you scoot down just a little bit more, perfect. Bring in your feet, bend the knees, yes, bring the feet as close to the hips as possible, arms down to your sides, palms on the earth. We're going to go into it very slowly. Always build your bridge as slow as you can, and also coming out of the bridge as slow as you can. Take a nice inhale. As you exhale press into the feet, start slowly lifting the hips up, lifting all the way up to the shoulders, keep pressing those hips up to the sky. Now in Martha's practice she likes taking her hands into a nice mudras that allows her to press the arms into the floor, giving her a little bit extra pressure there. Beautiful, pressing those hips, lift those hips up to the sky. Again, along with shoulder stand in halasana, she's got that chin nicely tucked under, so it's not good to look side to side in bridge pose. Beautiful, breathe. She's relieving the lower part of the spine from all the inversions, and just like going in you need to come out slowly. So relieve the hands. I'm going to have you press up to the toes first, come back up, press up the toes, take a nice inhale, exhale very slowly, lowering down. See if you can feel every vertebrae as you go down. Bring the knees into the chest, give them a nice hug, rocking side to side, loosen up any tight spots, give yourself a nice massage, and then dropping the legs down to the ground, coming into savasana."