Yoga Yoga Yoga

October 19, 2009 Yoga Session #13
Monday Week 8

This week we’ll talk a little about twists and triangles especially with twist in our triangles and triangles in our series. Now that we’ve got the basic asanas down we can finally do them in series. Triangle poses have many variations but they are suppose to tone the ligaments and increase flexibility of the spine. It definitely stretches the hamstrings because you feel sore after holding a few breathes in triangles, it also strengthens the waist. It can help with back problems and reduce discomfort during your period, if you’re a girl of course . One of the easiest ways to get into a triangle pose is to start in warrior two and place your forearm on your upper thigh of the front leg then you open your chest and reach up into the sky with the other arm. Some variations include your hand on the floor either behind or in from of your foot. You can even do triangle poses with both your legs straight but it is also a little more difficult to hold and you can definitely feel the stretch.
There are also triangle poses that strengthen the quadriceps and stretch the inner thigh and waist. To make it challenging you can bring your elbow to the ear to increase the stretch forming a straight line from the wrist to the heel. But before I get into the challenges of the triangle pose is from reverse warrior two you get lower and place the right hand on the inside of the right foot and extend the left arm straight up while keeping the knee bent and the back contracted.
We did some series and we are getting faster at them, because we are learning to move from pose to pose with inhale to exhale. Like the king pigeon we went from the pigeon and lifted the back leg with our knee and we grab the inside of the foot and lift the other hand into the sky straight and look at it. It is one of the most empowering moves ever and it definitely stretches the thigh and quadriceps.
We also got our midterm today. We again did about ten minutes of freelancing it was really cool. I did the bridge and the plow and the shoulder stand…those with the dead bug / happy baby are some of my favorite poses.