Cat Pose

Marjaryasana

Marjari = cat

Step by Step

Start on your hands and knees in a “tabletop” position. Make sure your knees are set directly below your hips and your wrists, elbows and shoulders are in line and perpendicular to the floor. Center your head in a neutral position, eyes looking at the floor.
As you exhale, round your spine toward the ceiling, making sure to keep your shoulders and knees in position. Release your head toward the floor, but don’t force your chin to your chest.

Inhale, coming back to neutral “tabletop” position on your hands and knees.

This pose is often paired with Cow Pose on the inhale for a gentle, flowing vinyasa

Cow Pose
Bitilasana
Bitilasana_CowPose_248

Step by Step

Start on your hands and knees in a “tabletop” position. Make sure your knees are set directly below your hips and your wrists, elbows and shoulders are in line and perpendicular to the floor. Center your head in a neutral position, eyes looking at the floor.

As you inhale, lift your sitting bones and chest toward the ceiling, allowing your belly to sink toward the floor. Lift your head to look straight forward.

Exhale, coming back to neutral “tabletop” position on your hands and knees. Repeat 10 to 20 times.

This pose is often paired with Cat Pose on the exhale for a gentle, flowing vinyasa.

Come join us for Yoga Wednesdays at 1pm at the Healing Arts Institute in Perrysburg.

My Philosophy
I believe in a heart to heart connection. I believe in intertwining eastern
In today’s on-the-go lifestyle, there is so much pushing to the extreme. The more aches and pains one has, the harder it is to be efficient. Positional Therapy, Yoga and Personal Training build core extremity strength and flexibility as well as releasing muscle tension, thereby balancing effort with ease. Positional Therapy, Massage, Yoga and Personal Training create more space in the body therefore allowing more breath to circulate and enabling blood to flow more easily. The more full one’s breath, the more life is available.

Written By Emily Huber

Bharadvajasana I

(bah-ROD-va-JAHS-anna),Bharadvaja = one of seven legendary seers, credited with composing the hymns collected in the Vedas

Step by Step

Sit on the floor with your legs straight out in front of you. Shift over onto your right buttock, bend your knees, and swing your legs to the left. Lay your feet on the floor outside your left hip, with the left ankle resting in the right arch.

Inhale and lift through the top of the sternum to lengthen the front torso. Then exhale and twist your torso to the right, keeping the left buttock on or very close to the floor. Lengthen your tailbone toward the floor to keep the lower back long. Soften the belly.

Tuck your left hand under your right knee and bring your right hand to the floor just beside your right buttock. Pull your left shoulder back slightly, pressing your shoulder blades firmly against your back even as you continue to twist the chest to the right.

You can turn your head in one of two directions: continue the twist of the torso by turning it to the right; or counter the twist of the torso by turning it left and looking over the left shoulder at your feet.

With every inhalation lift a little more through the sternum, using the push of the fingers on the floor to help; with every exhalation twist a little more. Stay for 30 seconds to 1 minute, then release with an exhalation, return to the starting position, and repeat to the left for the same length of time.

Yoga isn’t becoming part of the national elementary school curriculum any time soon. But it is showing up in physical education programs, recess and break-period activities, and even classrooms, integrated into topics including mathematics, art, and science.

Three organizations—YogaKids, of Long Beach, Indiana; Yoga Ed., of Los Angeles; and Yoga’d Up, of London—have launched training programs that educate yoga teachers and school teachers in the U.S. and the U.K. on how to adapt their teaching to appeal to the short attention spans and special needs of young children. These programs also help yoga teachers get established in school systems, get funding for their programs, and, in some cases, go on to become educators who train the teachers who will ultimately integrate yoga into the classroom.
Yoga as a Learning Tool

All three programs use movement as an integrative method for learning. “When you give [kids] yoga poses, use visualization, and allow them to move their bodies, their whole learning ability goes up several notches,” says Marsha Wenig, founder of YogaKids. Yoga Ed.’s Kalish agrees that children learn best by doing. “When you teach kids, it’s not about telling them—it’s about creating experiences for them where they connect the dots, and create new dots.”

“The YogaKids program helps children learn how to control their energy so that they can focus and concentrate better,” adds Amy Haysman, coordinator of the program. “It teaches breathing techniques and poses that help them think more clearly.” For example, bunny breath, short inhalations through the nose and a long exhale through the mouth, can energize kids who need to get focused in order to take a test. Haysman has been hired by schools in Georgia to incorporate yoga into academic classes and physical education programs. In one program, called “Reading Comes Alive with Yoga,” teachers take a book, picture, or story and practice yoga poses associated with animals or objects in the story. “It helps the kids feel like they’re not passively listening. It’s interactive,” Haysman says.

Chair Pose
Utkatasana
(OOT-kah-TAHS-anna) utkata = powerful, fierce

Step by Step

Stand in Tadasana. Inhale and raise your arms perpendicular to the floor. Either keep the arms parallel, palms facing inward, or join the palms.

Exhale and bend your knees, trying to take the thighs as nearly parallel to the floor as possible. The knees will project out over the feet, and the torso will lean slightly forward over the thighs until the front torso forms approximately a right angle with the tops of the thighs. Keep the inner thighs parallel to each other and press the heads of the thigh bones down toward the heels.

Firm your shoulder blades against the back. Take your tailbone down toward the floor and in toward your pubis to keep the lower back long.

Stay for 30 seconds to a minute. To come out of this pose straighten your knees with an inhalation, lifting strongly through the arms. Exhale and release your arms to your sides into Tadasana.

I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Natarajasana

We’ll start with a modified version of the pose. The full pose will be described in the Variation section below.
(not-ah-raj-AHS-anna)

nata= actor, dancer, mime

raja = king

Step by Step

Stand in Tadasana (Mountain Pose). Inhale, shift your weight onto your right foot, and lift your left heel toward your left buttock as you bend the knee. Press the head of your right thigh bone back, deep into the hip joint, and pull the knee cap up to keep the standing leg straight and strong.

There are two variations you might try here with your arms and hands. In either case, try to keep your torso relatively upright. The first is to reach back with your left hand and grasp the outside of your left foot or ankle. To avoid compression in your lower back, actively lift your pubis toward your navel, and at the same time, press your tailbone toward the floor.

Begin to lift your left foot up, away from the floor, and back, away from your torso. Extend the left thigh behind you and parallel to the floor. Stretch your right arm forward, in front of your torso, parallel to the floor.

The second option with the hands is to sweep your right hand around behind your back and catch hold of the inner left foot. Then sweep the left hand back and grab the outside of the left foot. This variation will challenge your balance even more. Then raise the thigh as described in step 3. This second variation will increase the lift of your chest and the stretch of your shoulders.

Stay in the pose for 20 to 30 seconds. Then release the grasp on the foot, place the left foot back onto the floor, and repeat for the same length of time on the other side.

Full Pose

For the full pose, perform step 1 as described above. Then turn your left arm actively outward (so the palm faces away from the side of the torso), bend the elbow, and grip the outside of the left foot. (You can also grab the big toe with the first two fingers and the thumb.) The fingers will cross the top of the foot, the thumb will press against the sole. Inhale, lift the left leg up, and bring the thigh parallel to the floor. As you do this, rotate the left shoulder in such a way that the bent elbow swings around and up, so that it points toward the ceiling. It requires extreme flexibility to externally rotate and flex the shoulder joint in this way. Reach the right arm straight forward, in front of the torso and parallel to the floor. Hold for 20 to 30 seconds, release, and repeat on the second side for the same length of time.

Utthita Trikonasana

(oo-TEE-tah trik-cone-AHS-anna)
utthita = extended
trikona = three angle or triangle

Step by Step

Stand in Tadasana. With an exhalation, step or lightly jump your feet 3 1/2 to 4 feet apart. Raise your arms parallel to the floor and reach them actively out to the sides, shoulder blades wide, palms down.

Turn your left foot in slightly to the right and your right foot out to the right 90 degrees. Align the right heel with the left heel. Firm your thighs and turn your right thigh outward, so that the center of the right knee cap is in line with the center of the right ankle.

Exhale and extend your torso to the right directly over the plane of the right leg, bending from the hip joint, not the waist. Anchor this movement by strengthening the left leg and pressing the outer heel firmly to the floor. Rotate the torso to the left, keeping the two sides equally long. Let the left hip come slightly forward and lengthen the tailbone toward the back heel.

Rest your right hand on your shin, ankle, or the floor outside your right foot, whatever is possible without distorting the sides of the torso. Stretch your left arm toward the ceiling, in line with the tops of your shoulders. Keep your head in a neutral position or turn it to the left, eyes gazing softly at the left thumb.

Stay in this pose for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Inhale to come up, strongly pressing the back heel into the floor and reaching the top arm toward the ceiling. Reverse the feet and repeat for the same length of time to the left.