Do you ever find yourself in yoga thinking how far should I bend, should I be able to reach my toes, how much stretch should I feel, how much should I squeeze the muscles? These are great questions to be
Using other muscles in backbends
Last week we looked at using your glutes or buttock muscles in backbends to help protect your lower back. Squeezing your glutes or squeezing your thighs towards each other helps protect your back because it keeps the lumbar or lower
Keeping your back safe in backbends
Learn how you can use your buttock or glute muscles to stabilise your lower back in camel (ustrasana) yoga pose.
Protect your lower back by using your glutes in backbends
In every class we do several sun salutations. A sun salutation is a sequence of yoga poses that include down dog, plank, cobra and often lunges. In the middle of that sequence is a small backbend, called cobra pose. It’s
Jazz hands, seriously
That’s right, your hands are just as important as your feet – even when they are not on the ground. We’ve learned over the last 2 weeks how to activate the muscles in your feet and ankles in a way
The details of ankle alignment
Last week we learned about using ‘Barbie feet’ with your foot in the air when trying to balance – also described as flexing the foot and toes towards you, but then press through the ball of your foot forward (not the
Balancing on one leg – don’t forget the leg in the air
When balancing on one leg, it’s obvious that the foot you are standing on is doing a lot of work. You can feel your ankle muscles twitching and your toes gripping and pushing into the floor as you wobble. But
What we do when we balance on one leg
When you balance with a slightly bent or very bent knee it’s easier to activate your glutes and all your other muscles to help you balance.
Chair pose (mini squat to strengthen legs)
You know all the stretches we do near the beginning while in a mini squat (known as chair pose)? The funny ones, where we roll shoulders forwards and back, and flex our wrists up and down? Those are all combinations
Activating core muscles to stretch the neck and improve body awareness
I’ve talked before about using the shoulders to intensify a neck stretch. This is an action you can do in standing poses as well. When you do this in standing poses you get a gentle release of one of the