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Getting Started 8: Seated Postures
Feb. 24th, 2010 09:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
muck_a_luckDisclaimer: I am not a yoga instructor. I don't know anything about exercise safety or fitness instruction. I'm not even an advanced practitioner of yoga. But I have come to love yoga and am completely self taught.
You know your own body best, so please respect your known health conditions and use the variations offered by instructors that are best for you. Remember to balance where you are now with where you could be in the future. There is no perfect pose.
Seated Postures
Sorry! I fell victim to Snomageddon, but I'm feeling much better now, thanks!
So. At this point, you're probably thinking, "Isn't yoga supposed to be relaxing?!" And not I-must-find-inner-calm-so-I-don't-fall-down relaxing or where-the-heck-did-all-this-sweat-come-from-fall-down-exhausted-in-sivasana relaxing. More like that-was-almost-as-good-as-a-massage relaxing?
Well, it's time for some relaxing, peaceful, lunar forward bending.
Be sure to do a good warm up and some standing postures first. At least a few rounds of Surya Namaskar A and B, with maybe the Dancing Warrior sequence from Getting Started 7 on each side. The important thing is to be sure your hips are warm and stretched before you sit down. A lot of the seated postures are forceful and intense "hip openers" and getting some lunges behind you first will help you to get deeper into the postures and prevent injury.
Remember that as you are watching the instruction for these poses, the instructors are going to fold very deeply forward, and they are going to make it look very, very easy. Well, it is not easy to fold in some of these postures, especially at the beginning. Respect your own flexibility and challenge yourself without pushing too far. In my own experience of doing yoga three or four times a week, it took me a year to get my forehead to touch the floor in Wide-Angle Forward Bend, and I have done it a grand total of ONE time. You grow into these poses, so do what you can today. I think I've mentioned Brian Kest's comment before: The only difference between a more flexible person and a less flexible person is that the more flexible person has to go farther to feel something.
In the following list of poses, I suggest a sequence, where you perform all the postures for one side, then switch legs and perform all the postures for the other side.
( Pigeon Pose )
( Ardha Matsyendrasana )
Then shift your knees again, bringing one knee over the other for the next pose in the sequence, Gomukhasana.
( Gomukhasana )
Now, transition to the next posture by slowly unwinding your legs, opening your knees out, keeping the top leg on top. You are proceeding to the next posture stretching the same hip.
( Double Pigeon )
Now go back to the beginning, and repeat this sequence, bringing the other leg forward into Pigeon.
After completing the second leg, move on to three symmetrical poses to finish, starting with Baddha Konasana.
( Baddha Konasana and Upavistha Konasana )
( Seated Forward Bend )
( The entire sequence )
You know your own body best, so please respect your known health conditions and use the variations offered by instructors that are best for you. Remember to balance where you are now with where you could be in the future. There is no perfect pose.
Seated Postures
Sorry! I fell victim to Snomageddon, but I'm feeling much better now, thanks!
So. At this point, you're probably thinking, "Isn't yoga supposed to be relaxing?!" And not I-must-find-inner-calm-so-I-don't-fall-down relaxing or where-the-heck-did-all-this-sweat-come-from-fall-down-exhausted-in-sivasana relaxing. More like that-was-almost-as-good-as-a-massage relaxing?
Well, it's time for some relaxing, peaceful, lunar forward bending.
Be sure to do a good warm up and some standing postures first. At least a few rounds of Surya Namaskar A and B, with maybe the Dancing Warrior sequence from Getting Started 7 on each side. The important thing is to be sure your hips are warm and stretched before you sit down. A lot of the seated postures are forceful and intense "hip openers" and getting some lunges behind you first will help you to get deeper into the postures and prevent injury.
Remember that as you are watching the instruction for these poses, the instructors are going to fold very deeply forward, and they are going to make it look very, very easy. Well, it is not easy to fold in some of these postures, especially at the beginning. Respect your own flexibility and challenge yourself without pushing too far. In my own experience of doing yoga three or four times a week, it took me a year to get my forehead to touch the floor in Wide-Angle Forward Bend, and I have done it a grand total of ONE time. You grow into these poses, so do what you can today. I think I've mentioned Brian Kest's comment before: The only difference between a more flexible person and a less flexible person is that the more flexible person has to go farther to feel something.
In the following list of poses, I suggest a sequence, where you perform all the postures for one side, then switch legs and perform all the postures for the other side.
( Pigeon Pose )
( Ardha Matsyendrasana )
Then shift your knees again, bringing one knee over the other for the next pose in the sequence, Gomukhasana.
( Gomukhasana )
Now, transition to the next posture by slowly unwinding your legs, opening your knees out, keeping the top leg on top. You are proceeding to the next posture stretching the same hip.
( Double Pigeon )
Now go back to the beginning, and repeat this sequence, bringing the other leg forward into Pigeon.
After completing the second leg, move on to three symmetrical poses to finish, starting with Baddha Konasana.
( Baddha Konasana and Upavistha Konasana )
( Seated Forward Bend )
( The entire sequence )