Sivananda Yoga Salabhasana (Locust) Pose

Video Transcript

"Pose seven in the Sivananda series is the locust pose Salabhasana, but before you do that take the opportunity to do one-legged locust pose first. So I'm going to have Sue coming into it. Now with locust pose, there is a hand positioning, and you have a choice here. You can either bring your hands together, like this, underneath you, under the belly. Or you can bring it like this. This is my preference. Sue likes this right here. So kind of experiment a little bit and see what works best for you. Sue, come down onto the belly. Now we're going to come into half-locust first. Very important locust pose, the chin comes down to the mat, and stays on the mat even when you come into the lifts. What we're going to do is lift one leg at a time, but we're going to work with our breath. So find your hand position, really reach underneath there, get some nice stability. And the reason you come under like this is so when you're coming into it you can press into the mat, and giving yourself a little bit of power there. So coming into the pose, is your chin relaxed? Keep your chin on the mat throughout this series right here. Take a nice inhale, exhale completely. Inhaling up the right leg, reach. Yes. Now notice the right hip does lift. Left hip stays close to the ground. Lift, lift, lift, lift, lift, lift, lift. Good. Inhale. Exhale, slowly lower it down. Keeping her balance. We're doing both sides. Inhale up the left leg. Lift, lift, lift, lift. Notice this left hip is slightly lifting now. Press those arms into the mat; use that as your power. Keep that chin relaxed onto the mat. Good. Inhale, exhale, gently lower it down. Release your arms from out from underneath you, coming into crocodile relaxation. Let's take a breath."