Yoga Half-Moon Sequence

Video Transcript

"I'm Linda Black. We're continuing with Bikram's half moon series. We've done the side extensions now let's extend to the back. The hands at the heart center. On an inhale bring the arms down to your side and overhead, sweep motion, lifting through the heart and then exhale and bring the hands back down to the base of the spine, take the thumbs and place them on the sacrum so right in the center of the low back. Then the fingers come forward around the waist. That's your support system right there. The elbows are going to drop towards each other and on an inhale take the sternum and lift it up towards the sky. Press the hips forward gently and tuck the tail bone straight down towards the floor. This is not a really hard squeezing forward but just a nice extension of the tail bone drawing towards the floor so it is not lifted up. You want to protect the low back and lengthen the low back in this spinal extension. It is not a crunch it is an extension and then take it back as far as you would like. Protect the neck drawing the chin, lifting the chin but extending the back side of the neck. That's very nice. Inhale and lift through the sternum. Exhale and draw the elbows towards each other. The shoulder blade drops down the back so we get really open across the chest. It is a great stretch for the pictorials muscle where we're tight all the time. So very nice. Inhaling and exhaling, taking at least five breaths in this position. Firmly keeping the feet on the floor, very nice and strong quadriceps lifting and creating that sound based foundation. Awesome positions and Debbie here has got a lot of flexibility in her upper back. Beautiful. Inhale, come back to center. Using all those strong front muscles to lift yourself back and again hands to the sides. Very nice."