Sivananda Yoga Janu-Sirsasan Paschimothanasana Variation

Video Transcript

"A nice variation for Paschimothanasana is Janu-Sirsasana, one knee to head pose. So I'm going to have Sue and Risa both demonstrating here. Go ahead and straighten out your right leg, straight forward. Now I'm going to have Risa placing Silver Foot into the inner thigh. Sue is going to come into Half-Lotus Pose for this pose. Now engaging the legs, pressing through the heels, toes to the nose, sitting up with a nice long spine. Drop your arms down to the sides. Slowly, inhale up, keep the spine nice and long, and as you exhale, take that nice forward fold. Bending from the hips, keep the spine nice and long. Beautiful. Chin slightly lifted to keep the back nice and long. The minute they tuck that chin, that back starts to round, and you lose the benefits of the pose. So beautiful, hands on either side of the foot. Again, if your practice calls for it, please drop the hands down to the sides, or even onto the shin. And both of them can reach for their feet, and just relax that chest towards the thighs. Working with the breath, you can take a nice deep inhale and as you exhale, you can release the chest a little bit further towards the thigh. Now a lot of forward folds people think it's very important to get that head to that knee, but it's really not. You want to reach the chest towards the thigh. Now we're going to come out of it slowly. Extend the arms all the way forward, inhaling up, exhale hard center."