0:00

Hello, hello. Before we jump

0:02

into this week's episode, I wanted

0:04

to let you know that Jason's

0:07

200 hour online teacher training is

0:10

ready and open for enrollment. So

0:13

he will be starting this next cohort

0:15

on October 24th. We

0:18

are right now in the early bird

0:20

enrollment period where you get $300 off.

0:23

So you can get all of the details about that training

0:26

and register at learn.jasonyoga.com.

0:29

We also

0:32

have a webinar coming up

0:34

on September 14th

0:37

where Jason will walk through how the training

0:39

works. So there is a component of the training that

0:42

are recorded. There's

0:44

a lot of recorded content and

0:46

practices and lectures. And then

0:48

there are the 11 weeks of

0:50

live calls with Jason with various

0:52

times, various days of the week that

0:55

you get to choose from. So he's going

0:57

to walk through that in this free webinar that's

0:59

coming up on September 14th at

1:02

9am Pacific. And you can register

1:04

for that webinar at

1:07

learn.jasonyoga.com

1:09

slash webinar. And if you can't

1:12

make it live, yes, we will send you a replay.

1:15

Last thing, this episode focuses

1:18

on how to practice and

1:20

teach backbends for beginners. Jason

1:23

has a whole specialized training within

1:26

the 200 hour on how to teach beginners.

1:29

So this is kind of a little preview to

1:31

that, to give you a chance

1:33

of seeing how he teaches and

1:36

see how that resonates with you. And if you are

1:38

interested in the beginners program, but

1:41

are not interested in the 200 hour, you

1:43

can do that

1:44

self-paced as well. And that

1:46

program is open at learn.jasonyoga.com

1:50

slash beginners. Okay. I hope this

1:52

was helpful. Enjoy the episode. Hey

1:55

everyone. I'm Andrea Ferretti and this

1:57

is Yoga Land.

2:00

Hi, Jason. Hi, Andrea. How

2:02

are you? I'm good. I'm hot.

2:05

It is hot. And I don't mean like, you know, spicy. Yeah.

2:08

Although I'm not too totally. Yeah, you had I was dropping that right

2:10

in your lap. Yep. It's the temperature is significant.

2:13

Yes. And also we record in our garage.

2:15

Yes. Yeah.

2:18

Yeah.

2:18

Yeah.

2:20

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

2:23

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

2:26

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

2:29

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

2:33

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

2:36

Yeah. Yeah. So the, the things that we

2:38

do for the love of yoga in our community,

2:40

I also just made us have like

2:41

some forced family fun where we marched around

2:44

by the beach with our dog and like, like 80

2:46

plus degree heat and

2:48

super humidity. And our daughter insisted on wearing

2:50

pants, sneakers, high

2:52

top sneakers with socks

2:54

and a sweatshirt. Yeah. So

2:56

just looking at her makes me hot.

2:58

Okay. Today we're going to

3:00

do the first in our series of looking

3:03

at categories of poses and how

3:05

to both practice them and teach them for

3:08

beginners. So today we're going to talk about backbends

3:11

and how to make them beneficial

3:13

for beginners. Yeah. And

3:15

I think this, this conversation and you

3:17

just mentioned it is equally applicable for

3:20

those of you that are yoga students

3:22

and you want to learn a little bit more about

3:25

the different families of postures

3:27

that we're going to work with. And for

3:29

those of you that are teaching, especially if

3:31

you're teaching beginners, because teaching beginners

3:34

backbends, which we're going to talk about today, arm

3:37

balances, which we're going to talk about upcoming inversions,

3:40

which are also going to have an episode on, they

3:42

can be a little intimidating to teach

3:45

to newer students. And

3:47

I want to talk through my

3:49

favorite postures within these

3:52

categories to teach my favorite ways

3:54

of teaching these poses and talk about

3:56

some of the benefits and some of the pitfalls of doing

3:58

so. I think the other. thing for me to

4:00

bring up right off the bat is obviously

4:04

this podcast is just an audio podcast

4:06

but you're going to get a lot from it. Each

4:09

week I'm also going to be releasing

4:11

a Yogan land teachers companion and

4:14

which is on YouTube. It's on YouTube. I mean

4:16

you can listen to it here wherever you listen to because

4:18

there'll be an audio version but I'm

4:20

going to demonstrate how to

4:22

teach each one of these poses. So these

4:24

are these are really built to work

4:27

together. Yeah.

4:28

I'll just

4:29

want to add to that. You've been working really

4:31

hard on YouTube for over

4:34

a year now. Yeah. And so there's a lot of useful

4:38

video tutorials and breakdowns if you

4:40

want to go there and if you subscribe

4:42

I think it gives you a little notification when

4:45

there are new videos because it's not

4:47

every single week but it's not. Yeah.

4:50

Yeah.

4:50

Okay. So backbends

4:52

I want to just say from the start

4:55

that I think backbends

4:57

are very complicated for

4:58

most people. So

5:01

most people coming to yoga unless they have a

5:04

background as a gymnast. I'm

5:06

trying to think of anything else even in dance backbends

5:08

are so different. Unless you have a background

5:11

as a gymnast doing

5:14

backbends is is it's a

5:17

completely different experience

5:20

and shape and because

5:23

the spine you know has different parts

5:26

some more movable than others and then

5:28

people's different genetic

5:30

makeups contribute to that.

5:32

They can

5:35

feel really strange

5:37

in people's bodies. I am not a natural backbender

5:39

and so for me backbends

5:42

never really felt good until I learned

5:44

about them in much

5:47

more in depth like in a training kind of situation.

5:49

There might be people who are on the opposite end

5:51

of the spectrum who you're teaching as beginners

5:54

who are kind of really natural

5:56

backbenders and they go to their absolute knocks

5:59

every day.

5:59

single time. So

6:02

they're just a really interesting category of

6:04

poses that we don't encounter in daily life.

6:06

However, it's important to keep in mind

6:08

that they're really beneficial for daily life,

6:10

right? So when we

6:13

sit in chairs and flex the hips

6:15

all day, we are doing the opposite of

6:17

what we do in back bending. We're doing

6:19

the opposite along the front of our legs. We're doing the

6:21

opposite along the front of our

6:23

abdomen. We're doing the opposite in

6:25

our upper back, in our neck. You

6:28

know, we often, now we have tech neck.

6:30

We're looking at our phones. So back bends

6:32

are just so, so, so beneficial

6:34

for people to have in their back pocket. But it's

6:36

really, really important that they understand

6:40

how to execute them the right way for their

6:43

body. I think one

6:45

of the

6:46

important things to bring up in the general

6:48

conversation that you're addressing is

6:51

that also back bends in addition to being

6:53

unfamiliar and counterintuitive for

6:55

many, when you do back bends,

6:57

you will feel your back. And

6:59

a lot of new students don't

7:02

have, don't really

7:04

have the ability to distinguish

7:08

between sensation and discomfort,

7:11

right? And so, and people tend

7:13

to have a lot of reticence

7:15

in feeling sensations in the lower

7:17

back at all. Mind often jumps

7:20

from sensation in the back of the neck

7:22

and sensation in the back of the lower

7:24

back to equaling a problem. And

7:27

so, I kind of want to also

7:29

throw out there that learning

7:32

back bends as a new student is also

7:35

a sensory

7:37

education. Yeah, absolutely. You know,

7:39

it really is and it's a really important one because

7:41

as you say, back bends have the ability

7:44

to really help counteract and offset

7:47

the mechanics of a daily

7:49

life. We spend too much times with

7:51

hip inflection and spine inflection. And

7:54

so, this equals really two

7:56

simple takeaways physically. The

7:59

front of the body, tends to be unnecessarily

8:01

short and tight, and the

8:04

back of the body tends to be unnecessarily

8:06

weak. Now, I think it's

8:08

very common that a teacher understands

8:11

that the front body is tight. I certainly

8:13

like got that my first decade of teaching

8:15

yoga, like, oh, the front of the shoulders are tight,

8:18

the heart area is tight, the belly and the hip

8:20

flexors are tight, quads are tight. But

8:22

what I don't think I understood, and maybe

8:25

more new

8:27

teachers understand this in this

8:29

generation than in my generation, the

8:33

back is also really weak. In modern practitioners

8:36

or modern, not even modern practitioners, just modern

8:38

life, our back body is weak.

8:41

Hamstrings are weak, glutes are weak, paraspinals

8:43

are weak, scapular muscles are weak, back

8:46

of the neck muscles are weak. And this

8:48

is really a problem that we can address

8:50

in backbends. Another

8:52

thing that's so nice about these poses

8:54

when you do start to work

8:57

with them, right? So just kind of talking you through, why

8:59

do we even wanna teach these to new students? What are the benefits?

9:03

Is when they're done

9:05

properly, we have the opportunity

9:08

to lengthen the front body and to strengthen

9:10

the back body. So we have this opportunity

9:13

really to lengthen quads, lengthen

9:15

hip flexors, lengthen abdominals, lengthen anterior

9:18

chest wall. We have the opportunity to

9:20

strengthen the glutes, strengthen the hamstrings, strengthen

9:22

the paraspinals, strengthen the posterior scapular

9:25

muscles. And these I think

9:27

should be really top

9:30

line physical priorities.

9:32

And we say it all the time, obviously we

9:34

know yoga is much more than physicality, but

9:37

physicality is the front line that

9:39

we're working with. And if

9:42

I could take a step back and say one thing

9:46

that in

9:48

general the general population needs is

9:50

more length on the front and more strength

9:52

on the back. It's so straightforward.

9:55

So we have to figure out a way to do these. And

9:57

also just as I was saying last kind of, benefits

10:00

I wanna throw out there before we look

10:02

at my favorite backbends to teach beginners

10:05

and kind of how I focus on them is

10:09

just like I was saying a moment ago, they

10:11

give people much more sensory awareness

10:14

of what's happening on their backside. You

10:16

know, a lot of times we're not aware

10:19

of sensation and proprioception

10:22

on our backside unless there's a problem. And

10:25

bringing your awareness into feeling

10:28

a healthy quality engagement

10:31

and being able to perceive our backside

10:34

is really, it's

10:35

a really valuable human thing.

10:38

It is actually, I mean, it makes you more whole.

10:41

Yeah. Which is our goal. Okay, so I wanna just,

10:44

before we get into your first pose,

10:46

I see your first pose here. I see it. Yeah.

10:48

I know it. I love it because

10:50

you have taught me to love it. There is a

10:53

joke in your trainings that

10:55

when you take the test at

10:57

the end of the training, that if you simply

11:00

answer this pose, you get 100%.

11:03

Locust pose. Because this pose. Yeah. Locust

11:05

pose is the answer to everything. Heels everything. We don't even

11:07

need to have a conversation. Everybody, do

11:09

locust pose more. Bye, thanks for listening to this.

11:12

Okay, so yeah, we're gonna start with,

11:14

so we're gonna start with the prone backbend category,

11:17

which just means that you're belly down.

11:19

Yeah. And locust pose is your first one. So

11:22

why is locust

11:24

pose so beneficial? This could take the whole

11:26

podcast.

11:26

Okay, first, let's

11:29

preview. There's really three backbending

11:31

categories to teach beginners. Okay. There's

11:34

face down backbends, there's kneeling

11:36

backbends, and there's reclined backbends.

11:39

When you're working with a more experienced

11:42

population, there's also the world of

11:44

inverted backbends, like scorpion and hollow

11:46

back and, you know, headstand drawbacks

11:48

and so forth. But when you're working with beginners,

11:51

I want you to all just kind of think, all

11:53

right, there's three classifications. Face

11:56

down or prone, kneeling,

11:59

and then. supine or reclined

12:02

and the reason that i put prone

12:04

first and then we're gonna get into

12:07

the rationale for locust and

12:09

then a couple of specific details about

12:11

teaching locust to beginners that

12:13

might be pretty different okay.

12:16

I tend to lead with

12:19

more strength and stabilization

12:22

over more flexibility

12:25

and range of motion. i want

12:27

both and they both relate to

12:29

each other but my first

12:31

priority in working with a student who's

12:34

relatively new to yoga is

12:36

to strengthen their backside. even

12:38

more than length in their front side and

12:41

so locust poses so good

12:43

because it's a body if

12:45

you can just think about it as a simple body weight exercise

12:48

gravity is pressing down on you. when

12:51

you lift the head the shoulders

12:53

the chest the arms the legs your

12:55

strengthening the whole posterior chain

12:58

everything literally from the arches the feet. through

13:01

the calves the hamstrings the glutes the

13:03

paraspinals the scapula the cervical

13:05

muscles all the way into the back of the

13:07

skull the other thing about locust

13:09

pose is. it's

13:12

it's highly accessible for

13:15

virtually every student and

13:17

it's also hard for virtually

13:19

every student. so if i was

13:22

in another way of thinking about

13:24

this is there are very

13:26

few prerequisites for this pose right

13:28

to do the deeper reclined or more

13:30

advanced backbends you have to have certain attributes

13:33

but pretty much everybody. can

13:35

do can lay down and lift stuff up

13:38

and yet if you took me or you

13:40

took you or you took the most season

13:43

students on the planet and you ask them to do locust

13:45

pose they still have to work for it. you

13:48

know so it's this very very evergreen

13:50

pose that strengthens the entire backside

13:53

and there's there's two details and again

13:55

i'm probably gonna keep saying the following. we

13:59

are also. releasing this yoga

14:02

land teacher's companion where I demonstrate

14:05

the following. Okay. Right. Got it. It's important

14:07

to remember that. Um, but there's a couple

14:09

of things where I want to, I want

14:12

to like highlight some details

14:14

about locust pose for beginners

14:16

and why this is important. So

14:18

everyone imagine what the arms are doing

14:20

in locust. Your

14:23

hands can be doing a couple of different things,

14:25

but commonly the thumbs

14:27

are facing the ground and the palms

14:29

are facing the side body. So the

14:32

arms are in a neutral position and that's not

14:34

bad, but for beginners, I do

14:36

not encourage that for beginners. I'd

14:39

like to have the palms face down. So

14:41

the palms are facing the ground and

14:43

the arms are elevating. Wait, wait, wait.

14:45

Okay. So you're lying on your belly. Where are your arms

14:47

reaching back?

14:48

Yeah. The arms are always reaching back in locust.

14:51

Okay.

14:51

And your palms are, okay.

14:52

So you're like, externally

14:55

rotating your arms so that your palms face the ground.

14:57

Yes. Your palms face the ground instead

15:00

of your torso or instead of your

15:02

hips. Because what this does is this strengthens

15:04

the external rotators of the shoulder. So exactly

15:06

what you said, right? So it just adds

15:09

another dimension of strengthening. And

15:12

also in general

15:14

with head forward position in life with keyboard

15:16

position in life with thumbs

15:18

on a device, those elbows are often flared. So

15:24

the elbows are out, the hands are in. And

15:26

so that's another layer of

15:28

weakness we tend to have is that external rotators

15:30

of the shoulders. And so adding

15:33

in that one little detail can be

15:35

really beneficial. You're addressing something that

15:38

is a need to be addressed. The

15:40

other thing, and this is a bigger difference, right?

15:42

So what the hips and legs

15:45

are doing. So it is totally

15:47

reasonable and appropriate to teach

15:50

what most people teach with the legs. The

15:52

legs are reaching back, the legs are parallel

15:55

and they're slightly internally rotated. Totally

15:58

reasonable, but that is not my preference.

16:01

What I prefer is the opposite of that.

16:04

I prefer the legs slightly externally

16:06

rotating and the legs hugging

16:08

together. Now, depending on the shape

16:10

of the legs, it might be the feet that come together, it

16:12

might be the inner thighs that come together, it might be both,

16:15

but I don't want the legs to stay apart.

16:18

I like to suction them together and

16:20

allow the toes to turn out a

16:22

little bit, right? And the

16:24

reason that this is, is like

16:28

externally rotating the arms, when

16:30

you adduct and when you hug together

16:33

the thighs and you externally rotate them, you're getting

16:35

more bang for your buck. You're strengthening

16:37

the glutes more, you're strengthening the piriformis more,

16:39

you're strengthening the adductors more. There's

16:42

more musculature that you are recruiting

16:45

with this way of working. And

16:49

that external rotation in this

16:51

pose is gonna give you more strengthening.

16:55

It is such a low range

16:57

of motion pose that even

16:59

people who are concerned about external rotation

17:01

in backbends really have no reason

17:04

to be concerned in this particular one. I

17:06

like external rotation in backbends, I actually think

17:08

it's preferable, but

17:10

at very least in this pose, you're

17:12

just gonna get more of that

17:15

back body to light up and to work.

17:17

Yeah,

17:18

okay. And then just

17:20

really quickly, you mentioned that locust

17:23

is hard for everyone. Yeah.

17:25

Can you talk about, so

17:28

I really used to have so much resistance to

17:30

doing this pose because I felt like it

17:33

didn't look pretty, it didn't feel that great,

17:35

it didn't, I felt like I wasn't doing

17:37

anything because I wasn't lifting that

17:39

far off the ground. Yeah. So

17:41

can you address that? 100%. So

17:43

here's what I think you should do, I think

17:46

not only should I address this,

17:48

but I think as a teacher, you should address it. So

17:51

let's talk about really briefly why this

17:53

pose is so kind

17:56

of onerous. It's hard to breathe because

17:58

your belly is pressing into the floor.

17:59

the front of the diaphragm is pressing into the floor, and

18:03

worse,

18:04

it's a lot of work for not going

18:06

very far, and the pose is not very

18:08

stretchy. So it tends

18:10

to be totally

18:13

contrasting to what we think we want

18:15

in yoga class, right? So

18:18

I used to load this pose

18:20

because I didn't understand the long-term

18:23

value in it, okay? So it's kind of

18:25

like the idea of when you're a kid learning to brush

18:27

your teeth. No, there actually isn't

18:29

a lot exciting about it. Like brushing your

18:31

teeth compared to eating candy, for

18:34

someone that doesn't understand the long run,

18:36

one is much more pleasurable than the other. So

18:39

I wouldn't try to sell the pleasure

18:42

of shalabhasana. What I would

18:44

try to communicate is

18:47

the long-term strengthening and

18:49

postural value of it. And

18:52

I tell my students all the time, even in an

18:54

experience level class, all right, when we're working

18:56

these poses, just don't think about how

18:59

far you can go. This is not about range, don't

19:01

work super hard to go far. This is about

19:03

tone, strength, control, and

19:06

evenness. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that

19:08

reframing helped me a lot.

19:09

And it is like a Swiss army knife of poses.

19:13

I mean, it's strengthening you from

19:15

top to bottom, so it's gonna affect everything

19:18

else. I'll throw one more thing in, which is how

19:21

you decide to include this pose

19:25

to your new students depends. It might

19:27

just be something that you put in the backbend phase of

19:30

a class. But if you teach simple

19:32

sun salutations to your students, to

19:34

your beginners, and again, there's pros and cons

19:37

of that, but if you do, put this in.

19:40

It's about repetitions of this over

19:43

time. Yeah. Okay.

19:45

Okay, so the next pose

19:47

that we're gonna discuss in the, I

19:49

say belly down, what do you say?

19:50

Prone, face down, belly down. Okay.

19:53

Anyways, yeah.

19:55

The next pose is cobra, medium sized

19:57

cobra. Medium sized cobra. Medium sized cobra.

19:59

Medium sized cobra.

19:59

That's Cobra. Okay, low

20:02

Cobra, to me in my mind,

20:05

there are three versions of Cobra. There's

20:08

a low Cobra, there's a medium Cobra,

20:10

and there's full Cobra, Cobra

20:13

Cobra. Low Cobra.

20:15

There's Cobra Kai Cobra. There's Cobra Kai Cobra.

20:18

By the way,

20:19

we tried to watch Cobra Kai at

20:21

that reboot. And I was a huge

20:23

fan of Karate Kid. I like martial art.

20:26

I like kitsch. It was hugely

20:28

popular. I don't mean to offend anyone

20:31

in our community. But we don't get it. I don't

20:33

wanna talk politic here. But

20:36

man, I didn't get it. And we watched the whole

20:38

first season. I could not hook in. Don't

20:40

mean to be divisive.

20:41

Don't mean to be divisive. And you know what?

20:43

If you love it, you do you. Yeah, you do you. I'm

20:45

glad you enjoy it. But we give a thumbs down. But

20:48

we give you a thumbs down. Give it a thumbs down.

20:50

Yeah. Okay. So

20:52

in low Cobra,

20:54

the hands are not used at all. So

20:57

the hands are kind of hovering. And I like that. In

20:59

teacher's companion, I'm gonna probably throw that in. Okay.

21:03

And essentially, locust, excuse

21:05

me, Cobra Pose without

21:07

the hands pressing into the floor at all. So those

21:09

hands hovering gives you a lot

21:12

of the benefits of locust, but it's also a little

21:14

bit more about scapular control. Cause

21:16

you can really teach students to retract the scapula.

21:18

But let's focus on medium sized. So

21:21

medium sized Cobra to me is

21:23

when you are pressing the hands

21:25

into the floor, hugging the elbows

21:27

in, retracting and descending

21:30

the scapula, but not

21:32

arching your spine to its maximum.

21:34

So those hands are giving you some assist.

21:38

Full Cobra Cobra Kai Cobra is

21:41

those arms are almost straight. Cobra

21:44

Pose, the elbows never get fully straight. That's not

21:46

the pose. They're always at least a little bit bent.

21:49

But the thing that I really love about medium

21:52

sized Cobra for beginners, okay,

21:55

is you get that same strengthening

21:58

of the backside. that you get from locust,

22:01

although admittedly a tiny bit less,

22:04

but you get a little bit

22:06

more understanding of scapular

22:08

control, right? So you lift

22:10

the front of the shoulders away from the ground and

22:13

that's actually achieved by scapular

22:16

depression. You hug the elbows

22:18

in, you get the scapula to come in and

22:20

then you also start to get a feel for a little

22:23

bit more spinal extension, a little bit more actual

22:25

motion of the spine. So medium

22:27

sized cobra to me is this nice

22:30

face down balance between strengthening

22:34

and now actually starting to stretch. You're

22:36

using those arms to get a little bit more thoracic

22:39

motion, but it's still not,

22:42

it's not overwrought. Yep. Yeah.

22:44

Okay.

22:45

And then the

22:47

third prone back then is sphinx. Yes.

22:50

Which I love. I love sphinx and

22:52

this is one of these things. I feel like sphinx,

22:55

I think that because sphinx

22:57

is so mild, I

23:00

feel like it's underutilized,

23:03

but there's a couple of details in sphinx

23:06

that I think are, they're really overlooked.

23:08

Okay. So I'm going to go over

23:11

the most important one now. So I want everyone to imagine

23:13

they're in sphinx, elbows

23:15

are directly under the shoulders, forearms are forward,

23:18

palms are face down. Those forearms

23:20

are parallel to each other. Okay. So

23:23

first let's think about the

23:25

pelvis in this pose.

23:28

In locust pose really

23:30

just,

23:31

we don't have that much nuance in pelvic

23:34

position. Cobra

23:36

pose, there's some nuance in pelvic position,

23:38

but when you're working with new students, you can't

23:40

tell them too many different things. So

23:43

I would say with medium sized cobra, you're really

23:45

focused on the hands,

23:48

arms, shoulders and upper back. But

23:50

in sphinx pose, you can really start to help

23:52

them focus on what they're doing with the pelvis. And

23:54

so you can get a little bit of that gentle

23:57

posterior pelvic tilt. So

23:59

you can... you can get them to get that

24:01

sense of gently pressing the pubic bone

24:03

down. Yeah. Now in general,

24:06

there

24:07

might be a listener or two that's like,

24:09

wait a second, I didn't think

24:12

we were supposed to posteriorly tilt the pelvis

24:14

anymore in backbends, right? Good

24:17

catch, we totally are, depending

24:19

on the situation, able to

24:22

anteriorly tilt or posteriorly tilt

24:24

the pelvis, there's a lot of different options. But

24:26

when we are working with raw beginners

24:29

and face down backbends, we probably

24:31

wanna have them default to some posterior

24:33

pelvic tilt. So that little bit of getting

24:36

a feeling of pressing the pubic bone down, I think is

24:38

really, really key. The

24:40

other big detail, cause

24:43

that's pretty common, but the big detail that's really overlooked,

24:45

let's think about what the hands are doing. For

24:48

virtually everyone that does this pose

24:50

and teaches it, the hands and the arms

24:53

are just kind of there, maybe they're pressing down

24:55

a little bit, but what

24:57

I want every listener to do, especially

24:59

if they've not done it, is do this pose

25:02

with your arms pressed down,

25:04

but then gently grab the floor and

25:07

create a pulling action. So

25:10

you're pressing down, you're pressing

25:12

down, but you're also creating the action as

25:14

if you're pulling the ground towards your

25:16

belly, right? It's like you're dragging

25:18

that ground towards you. And when

25:20

you do this as a student

25:22

or when you communicate as a teacher, all

25:25

of a sudden the musculature

25:28

of the back body comes alive and you

25:30

start to understand how to create length

25:32

in the spine, traction in the spine, how

25:34

to engage the scapula, how

25:37

to use the arms to connect

25:39

to the upper back. And this

25:41

is a really important skill, the

25:44

arm to scapula to upper back

25:46

connection is a huge technical

25:49

importance when you're working in

25:51

all backbends. And this is

25:54

just the easiest one to start to really

25:56

dial in.

25:57

And I just wanna, you might

25:59

talk. about this in the teacher's companion, but when

26:02

you say it's a good idea for beginners

26:04

in this pose to posteriorly

26:07

tilt a little bit, press the pubic

26:09

bone down, is that because it helps

26:11

stabilize the hips and the lower

26:14

back so that they're using the strength

26:16

of the mid and upper back

26:18

in this pose? I wouldn't say it stabilizes

26:20

because this is not a pose to me where

26:23

there's any instability because your pelvis is pretty

26:25

fixed on the ground. By

26:27

slightly posteriorly tilting the pelvis,

26:30

you're going to create a little

26:32

bit more length in

26:35

the lower back. You're going to slightly,

26:37

I don't wanna say decompress,

26:41

you're gonna slightly unarch

26:44

the lower back so that

26:46

there's more distribution of

26:49

the curve from the lower back to the mid back

26:51

to the upper back. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And

26:53

it's slight, it's subtle, but

26:56

it's gonna start to get people to get that feel

26:59

of, oh, if I

27:01

allow my pelvis to tilt a tiny bit one

27:04

direction, I feel a little bit more of this. If

27:06

I let it tilt the other direction, I feel a little bit more

27:08

of that. So educating students to become

27:11

more sensitive to their own pelvic position,

27:13

regardless of what in the long run they

27:15

prefer in their backbends is valuable. Okay.

27:19

Okay. Moving on to the next category.

27:21

So the kneeling backbends, and in this category,

27:23

you've got camel pose.

27:26

Or a version of angina

27:28

yasana

27:28

or low lunge. So let's start

27:31

with camel. Yeah. So two kneeling

27:33

backbends, camel pose. Now

27:35

camel pose,

27:36

I've been practicing yoga for a very long time.

27:39

Camel pose is still,

27:42

I won't say that I am completely resolved

27:45

in my relationship to camel pose. And I

27:47

think it's a really tricky, of all the backbends

27:50

that I'm putting out there today, I

27:52

think this is the trickiest, okay?

27:55

But there's a couple of things that I like if

27:57

we have some, some, my. reservations

28:00

and how we teach the pose.

28:02

First,

28:04

the thing that I like about this pose is

28:06

it's

28:09

we've started with those face down backbends

28:12

and in the face back face down backbends the

28:14

pelvis is not that free because

28:17

the pelvis is like fixed to the ground.

28:19

You can tilt it a little bit one way or another but the pelvis

28:21

can't move much in space. So

28:24

in camel pose now your pelvis is a lot

28:26

more free to tilt

28:29

in different ways but also to move forward and

28:31

back. So when I'm working with this with

28:33

beginners I like to do it two ways.

28:36

First, I like to have them just

28:38

take their hands and hold their hips. So

28:41

they take their thumbs to the top rim of

28:44

the buttock, right? This is kind of the back

28:46

part of the ilium or or even just the top

28:49

of the butt, top of the glutes is fine. And

28:51

then index fingers is on the

28:53

on the iliac crests on the sides of the hips,

28:55

right? Elbows hug in so you

28:57

get that that little chest opening

29:00

and then with the hands like to create like

29:02

a little grounding action like you're pulling down

29:05

on the pelvis, counter

29:07

that with lifting the spine

29:09

up and taking a tiny little back bend. So

29:12

in this first version we're not taking the hands to the

29:14

heels

29:15

and also this first version the

29:18

the amount of spinal curvature is

29:20

so modest that we

29:22

don't have to fuss with the neck.

29:25

The neck is not going to start to the neck doesn't

29:27

start to get into like a challenging position

29:30

but for your new students I promise

29:32

they're gonna register this as a stretch. Their

29:35

quads are gonna stretch, their hip flexors are gonna stretch,

29:37

the front of their belly and chest are gonna stretch a little

29:39

bit and it also just gives them

29:41

a lot of a little bit more feeling of space.

29:44

The other thing if you contrast this to the

29:46

face down backbends your

29:49

breath is a little bit more free because

29:51

your belly's not pressed into the ground, the front

29:53

ribs aren't pressed into the ground so even

29:56

though it's a it's a very modest backbend

29:58

done this way I feel like there's a little bit

30:00

more

30:02

potential for that feeling

30:04

of spaciousness. The

30:07

face down back bends, more about strength,

30:09

control, skill, full use.

30:12

Now we're starting to have a little bit more freedom and

30:14

space. The second way we can do

30:16

this, which is really common, there's a lot of teachers

30:19

that do this, which is taking

30:21

the fingertips to blocks. So you

30:23

just put blocks on ends, like

30:25

blocks on their end. So they're on the highest

30:28

setting. So

30:31

you're gonna put the fingertips next to the hips and

30:33

then take the fingertips to the block. There's

30:35

some details about this that I'm gonna lay

30:37

out in the companion. But

30:41

when you take those fingertips to blocks, we

30:44

wanna externally rotate the arms. So

30:46

the thumbs are gonna be facing forward. The

30:50

fingers are gonna be facing

30:52

backwards. Does that make sense? Yeah. Because

30:55

we want new students to understand the

30:58

rotation of the arm in this back bend.

31:01

The nice thing about this is it's

31:03

pretty accessible for many beginners, right?

31:07

To go a little further and get those fingertips down.

31:10

It's a little bit more opening, a little more

31:12

spacious. I remember when

31:15

I first practiced camel, I

31:17

remember having this sense of

31:19

like, oh, I'm doing yoga now. Like

31:21

it just felt a little bit more like

31:25

I was doing a shape that was,

31:28

that had no other scenario in my life what

31:30

I ever do. That's true, yeah.

31:33

The tricky thing with everyone, and we

31:36

could go on about this, but I'm gonna make it really simple.

31:39

If you get to the point where you're having your beginners

31:41

take their fingertips to blocks, that's

31:44

where, what do we do with the head? Right,

31:47

the neck. This is where it gets really

31:50

difficult and confusing right away. So I'm gonna cut to the chase

31:52

and say, just keep the chin slightly tucked.

31:55

Okay. When you're at the fingertips

31:57

to blocks height or the hands to the right,

32:00

on hips height, you are not

32:02

at the let the head drop

32:04

back behind you height, I promise. So

32:07

without getting into all the details of

32:09

how to keep that cervical continuity with the

32:12

thoracic spine, the bottom line

32:14

is you let the head and neck go

32:17

when you have a really deep

32:19

back bend.

32:20

I, years ago, edited

32:23

a very long intricate anatomy

32:25

column by Roger Cole about

32:27

what to do with the neck in

32:29

camel pose and I can tell you that I still

32:32

don't really,

32:35

can't really do

32:36

what was

32:37

suggested to

32:38

do. It is tricky. This

32:41

is where, I think this is where we can just be like

32:43

completely honest. There's not a great

32:45

solution for the head and neck. There isn't. Unless

32:48

you are a really deep back bender. Right.

32:51

And if you are a really deep back bender, you let the head and neck go. Absolutely.

32:55

And it feels great. Exactly. But

32:57

this is where, let me throw out one more thing

32:59

with this.

33:01

This is where

33:02

another sentiment, like

33:04

another basic concept to take any time

33:06

you are working with beginners is,

33:09

I would say when you are working with beginners or

33:12

if you are working with a big

33:14

challenge or a deficiency, more

33:17

repetitions, shorter duration

33:19

of time. So having

33:21

people like be in camel

33:24

pose for 7, 8, 9, 10 breaths,

33:27

if the head and neck are like not

33:30

perfectly resolved is too much. It's

33:32

better to have people like be there

33:35

for two breaths, come

33:37

out, pause, couple of breaths, repeat.

33:40

So more repetitions, shorter

33:43

duration when you are learning

33:45

a skill. Yeah. So

33:47

chin just a little bit tucked into the chest

33:49

for this population.

33:50

Okay. So then let's talk about

33:53

Anjana Asana or this

33:55

variation of low lunge that

33:59

you want people to try.

33:59

Yeah, so I call it new school Anjana.

34:03

To me, there are two main

34:06

versions of Anjanaosana.

34:08

There's old school Anjanaosana and

34:11

there's new school Anjanaosana. And

34:13

to be honest, I have a place in my heart for both.

34:17

But for beginners, I only

34:19

have a place in my heart for new school. Okay,

34:22

so I'm just gonna, and again, this will

34:24

be something that I demonstrate, but I think you can

34:26

picture this, okay? Old school

34:28

Anjanaosana, you're in just a

34:30

normal lunge, you bring the back knee down, both

34:33

hands are on the front knee or reaching overhead,

34:35

doesn't matter. But in old school Anjanaosana,

34:38

you're very passive in

34:41

your lower body and you're sinking the

34:43

hips forward and down. So the hips are

34:45

heavy and low. It's kind of

34:47

like you're going into a squat on the front

34:49

leg and that back

34:51

leg is passively taking

34:54

the weight of the pelvis and the upper body. The

34:57

other thing in the old school Anjanaosana

34:59

is the pelvis is

35:02

forward of the back knee,

35:05

right? It's like going forward and down. It's almost like

35:07

crescent lunge, like imagine crescent lunge, but

35:10

bring the knee to the floor and just sag forward

35:12

and down, right? I'm

35:14

not going to, on

35:16

this podcast, say this is a bad pose

35:18

and we shouldn't do it. It's a good pose,

35:21

but I think we want to do

35:25

it in a more limited

35:28

capacity because it's

35:31

a lot of weight on the anterior

35:33

capsule of the hip and for

35:35

a lot of people it's mistargeted. It doesn't really

35:38

get to the quads very well

35:41

because everything is so slack. It puts a lot

35:43

of stress on just one small part

35:45

of the hip flexor and the anterior part of the hip

35:47

socket.

35:48

You really have to be working your upper body in a very

35:50

specific way, I think, in that pose.

35:53

Yeah. So I would say to do that there's more risk

35:55

and

36:00

Well, I'll just say I think it's not what we want. Well,

36:02

let's talk about the one that we do in New School. Yeah. Okay.

36:06

So for anyone that does any functional training,

36:08

right? This is an easy answer. This which is essentially

36:10

you're just in a split squat. Okay. I'm

36:13

going to, I'm going to explain that to people that

36:15

don't know what that means.

36:18

But for those of you that have an understanding

36:20

of functional training, you're just in a, you're

36:22

in a split squat. For those

36:25

of you that don't, New

36:28

School Anjanae Asana, the

36:30

first thing that you want to think of is making a shorter

36:32

stride.

36:33

So

36:34

the front shin is vertical,

36:37

kind of like New School Anjanae Asana, but

36:39

the back thigh is vertical.

36:42

So you bring the back knee to the floor. So I'm going to, let's pretend

36:44

my right foot is forward. Okay. So

36:46

my right foot is forward and my left knee is on the ground. Old

36:50

school Anjanae Asana, there's a lot of distance between

36:52

my left knee and my right foot. I'm going forward

36:54

and down. My back leg

36:56

is at an angle. My pelvis

36:58

is forward of my back knee. New

37:00

School Anjanae Asana, my front

37:03

foot is down. My right foot's down. My back knee

37:05

is my left knee. My back

37:07

thigh is straight up and down. My

37:10

pelvis is directly above my back

37:12

thigh, which is directly above my back

37:14

knee. And my torso is directly

37:17

above. Right? So there's, there

37:19

isn't that hanging forward and down.

37:22

There is a plumb line from the top

37:24

of my head, through my spine, through

37:26

my pelvis, through my back thigh and

37:29

into my back knee. So it's a much shorter

37:31

stride. The thing that

37:33

is so nice about this and to make it work,

37:35

I'm going to give a detail or two about now

37:37

how to make it work is it

37:40

doesn't put the same kind

37:42

of anterior stress

37:44

into the front of the hip socket. And

37:47

at very least for a new student,

37:50

this is probably a good thing. This

37:52

is probably a good important safety thing.

37:54

The other thing is,

37:56

this is a little bit more

37:58

of a contained. stable

38:01

pose. Now to make this work

38:04

you are more active. So you

38:06

press the back foot firmly into the floor,

38:09

you accentuate posterior pelvic

38:12

tilt so you lengthen the buttock down, and

38:14

you draw the front ribs in. So

38:16

it's a more of an engaged

38:20

upright way of working

38:23

into the back thigh and back hip

38:26

flexors as opposed to a longer

38:28

more passive way.

38:29

Yeah and they'll feel it more along

38:31

the front of the back thigh.

38:32

They'll feel it more and they'll

38:34

feel it in a much more distributed way.

38:37

Right, exactly. Yeah most

38:39

people when you do old-school anginaeosinata

38:41

you do not feel your thigh at

38:43

all. You feel the very top of the hip.

38:45

And if you think that the hip flexor,

38:48

I got an anatomy course to sell you,

38:52

because mostly the anterior part of the joint

38:54

structure that you're putting load into. Yeah.

38:57

Okay so we've got our last category

38:59

here which is our reclined back bends. And

39:01

for beginners we're going to talk about a version

39:04

of bridge pose and then

39:05

reclining over a block. Yes.

39:08

That last one anginaeosinata I want to make a quick

39:10

acknowledgement. I'm kind of stretching

39:13

the terms of a back bend when I put

39:15

that one in. Right. I really am.

39:17

This is more of like an epic preparation

39:20

for back bends. It's a prep,

39:22

it's a compliment, it fits in that family.

39:25

Typically there's not a lot of spinal

39:27

back bend in this. Okay so I

39:29

just want to make that acknowledgement that this is really

39:32

about targeting the front of the thigh and the front

39:34

of the hip. It's a back bend

39:37

milieu pose. Right. It's not a classic.

39:39

It's going to help your back bends. 100%. A

39:42

lot. Yeah. Okay. All right so

39:44

let's go to bridge pose. Yeah.

39:46

How do you want them to work on

39:49

or teach bridge pose? Yeah

39:51

okay so I'm gonna I'm gonna try to keep my

39:55

blood pressure and mansplaining down when

39:58

we talk about this bridge.

40:01

I said this so many times, as

40:03

have many other people. Feet

40:05

hip width apart and parallel

40:08

in backbends, including bridge pose, is

40:11

A-OK. But

40:14

it is not better, nor is

40:16

it more safe, than feet wider

40:18

than the hips and slightly turned out.

40:22

Taking the feet a little bit wider than the hips and slightly

40:24

turning the feet out actually isn't

40:26

a mechanism for sacroiliac compression

40:29

or lower back compression. It just actually isn't

40:31

a mechanism. The mechanism

40:33

for compressing the lower back is going

40:36

too far. Whether your feet are parallel,

40:38

whether your feet are wide, the thing that compresses

40:41

the lower back is extending

40:43

it too far. Taking the feet out

40:47

doesn't do that in and of itself.

40:51

So I have literally

40:53

no problem with new

40:55

students having their feet parallel and

40:58

hip width apart. But what

41:00

I prefer for new students, and

41:03

actually for a lot of students, not just

41:05

new, is feet about

41:07

as wide as the mat instead of about as wide

41:09

as the hips and ever so

41:11

slightly turned out. So same

41:13

bridge that we always do, same techniques

41:16

that are pretty standard, but a

41:18

wider base. The

41:20

reason that I really prefer that wider

41:22

base, and again if

41:25

you think about the width of the hips versus

41:27

the width of the mat, it's not a huge

41:30

difference. If you think about the feet

41:32

being slightly turned out as opposed to slightly

41:34

turned in, it's not a huge difference. But

41:37

that little bit of additional space

41:40

is going to do a couple of things for most

41:42

beginners. Number one,

41:44

it's going to slightly decrease

41:46

the resistance

41:48

that the quads and hip flexors are presenting

41:51

to you. Because when each

41:53

leg is further away from each other,

41:55

the resistance that...

42:00

The legs are together, the resistance

42:02

to the right side and the left side, they are combined.

42:05

But when the legs are further apart,

42:08

the resistance on the right side and the left side are

42:10

not combined. Like it's

42:13

a little bit more, like that chain

42:15

is slightly broken. And so when the feet

42:17

are wider, you're going

42:19

to have a little bit less

42:22

hip flexor and quadricep resistance. Same

42:25

goes when the feet are a little bit turned out. The

42:28

feet a little bit, here's what I will tell you, I

42:30

can promise you yoga is the

42:33

only movement, literally the only

42:35

movement discipline

42:36

that is

42:37

just absolutely bent

42:40

on the thighs being internally rotated

42:42

during a back bend. There's no other movement

42:44

discipline that actually agrees with this. And

42:47

I have to say, I love yoga. It's

42:49

so sophisticated in so many ways. This

42:51

is a place, I think we're in

42:53

this like 60 year game of

42:56

telephone and follow

42:58

the leader instead of kind of really understanding

43:02

the optimal position of the femurs for hip

43:04

extension and allowing a little

43:06

external rotation to the thighs

43:09

actually helps

43:11

those hip flexors unwind a little bit.

43:13

You're gonna have more space and freedom. You're gonna have

43:15

probably less compression, certainly

43:18

not more. So feet

43:20

a little bit wider, just let that front side unwind

43:23

a little bit more. Feet a little bit wider

43:25

also typically helps us recruit

43:27

the muscles on the backside more. So

43:30

there's easier access

43:32

to using hamstrings and glutes. And

43:36

that should be a basic priority is

43:40

that the muscles on the front side are lengthening

43:43

and the muscles on the back side are strengthening.

43:46

We kind of said that at the beginning, like let's

43:49

get back really quickly to why are we even doing

43:51

these poses? Well, because we want

43:53

a little bit more length on the front and a little bit more strength

43:56

on the back. So that slightly

43:58

greater width and foot. position is going

44:02

to help us achieve those goals without

44:06

setting, without incurring

44:10

greater risk.

44:12

And then what do we want them doing

44:15

with like the

44:16

shoulders and the spine in this

44:18

version of the pose? There's a couple of things

44:21

and this is another thing I'll lay out. I

44:24

actually really like for new students

44:26

in Bridge to hold the sides of their mat

44:29

because

44:30

Bridge Pose to me starts

44:32

to come alive when

44:35

you get your shoulders underneath you. So

44:38

to get that opening, right? So

44:40

everything that I was just kind of talking about is more about the

44:43

lower half of the body. But

44:46

one of the great things about Bridge Pose is that

44:49

part opening, that thoracic opening, right?

44:52

So to get that, you have to get the shoulders

44:55

underneath you. You have to get the arms underneath

44:57

you. And you kind of have like, you'll

45:01

see commonly people have two

45:03

options in Bridge. Interlace

45:06

the fingers underneath you, if you can,

45:09

or arms alongside you, oftentimes

45:11

palms face down. There's other things

45:13

you can do, but if you don't have

45:16

the flexibility to interlace the fingers

45:18

underneath you, then

45:20

those arms, when they're separate

45:23

and palms face down, they're just kind of slack.

45:26

Like they're not really contributing

45:29

to the pose. But when you hold

45:31

the sides of the yoga mat, then

45:34

it's easier to get one shoulder

45:36

underneath. Also by holding the sides of the yoga

45:38

mat, you have to externally rotate the arms.

45:42

Also by holding the sides of the yoga mat, you have

45:44

something to grip onto and something to

45:47

slightly pull against. So

45:49

holding the sides of the yoga mat is the

45:51

same as interlacing

45:54

the fingers. But for new

45:56

students, everyone can hold

45:58

the sides of the yoga mat.

45:59

everyone can interlace their fingers. Okay.

46:02

And then once that's happening, those arms are just rooting

46:05

down. And I'll go into a couple more details

46:07

of that. That might be a little bit harder

46:09

thing to envision. So definitely

46:11

watch the video. Yeah.

46:13

Okay. All right. Last

46:16

pose would be reclining over a block.

46:18

So we're talking about opening the front

46:21

of the chest and the upper back with

46:23

this one.

46:23

Yeah. I feel like

46:26

the sooner we get exposed to some

46:28

sort of passive opener, the better. So

46:31

I said reclining over a block. It might be reclining

46:33

over a block. It might be over a foam

46:36

roller. It might be over a bolster. It

46:38

might be over a rolled blanket. But

46:40

for new students, I really love having

46:43

some scenario, some

46:45

supported, mild scenario

46:48

where people

46:50

are laying their mid to upper back. People

46:54

say the space between their shoulder blades

46:57

is where we're putting some sort of thing.

47:00

And we're gently back bending over that thing. I

47:03

like to be active with the

47:05

arms. So I like when I do this, everyone

47:08

imagine that you're in headstand,

47:11

right? You're cradling the back of the head and

47:14

you're gently hugging the elbows in. That's

47:16

the position that I like the arms to be for

47:19

new students in a passive backbend.

47:21

Otherwise the arms just

47:23

get kind of floppy and then the neck gets

47:25

kind of weird. So you just cradle

47:27

the back of the skull, hug the elbows in,

47:30

and then kind of as if imagine

47:34

you're sitting down like you're going to do bridge,

47:37

but you haven't done bridge. You're just sitting butts

47:39

on the ground, feet are on the ground. You just put

47:41

something back behind you that you're going to roll over,

47:43

lay back. Then once that upper

47:45

back gets to the bolster or the block,

47:47

you interlace the fingers, hug

47:49

the elbows in, support the back of the neck, and then

47:52

roll over it. This is really, really valuable.

47:55

Okay, great. And this

47:58

is now the perfect call. to

48:00

locust, right? Because in

48:02

locust we have this very

48:06

distributed, very

48:07

strength-focused

48:10

posture.

48:12

Now we have this reclined backbend and

48:15

in this reclined backbend we're

48:17

passive,

48:19

we're spacious,

48:20

we're targeted towards some

48:22

of our tightest mid

48:24

to upper back and shoulders region.

48:27

So if we if we see this whole

48:29

arc, right? You kind of see this whole arc. As

48:33

teachers or as students you can be

48:36

you can be using any one of these poses

48:38

in your class but you could also be

48:40

using this whole thing as a as

48:43

like as a continuum. Like

48:45

this could be a sequence of backbends. Yeah,

48:47

I

48:47

was gonna say we have a number

48:50

of sequences that I will link to

48:52

in the show notes on our

48:54

website that you

48:56

can utilize as you after you listen

48:59

to this podcast. We have a sequence for camel,

49:01

we have a neck and shoulder sequence,

49:05

we've got I know we've got a bunch

49:07

of locust stuff in here. So I will link

49:10

to those in the show notes

49:12

and thanks so much Jason. I'm looking forward

49:14

to the the next one which will be arm

49:17

balances,

49:17

right? Yeah, we're gonna do one

49:19

for arm balances and then we'll do another one

49:21

for inversions. Right, okay. And then let me just

49:24

plug one more time. So each

49:26

week we're gonna we will release

49:29

this audio episode

49:32

first which is like the big context

49:35

and then a day or two or three

49:37

later so another time that week we'll

49:39

do a teacher's companion where I go

49:42

through and I teach all of these poses and just

49:44

like break it down a little bit more. Great, okay.

49:47

So

49:47

I will link to those sequences in

49:49

the show notes and then once the teacher's companion

49:51

is up I'll link to that as well but you can find that on our YouTube

49:54

channel and I will

49:56

put the show notes at Yogalandpodcast.com

50:00

Thank you so much for listening. Thank

50:08

you so much for emailing

50:10

us, for joining our newsletter list, for joining

50:13

my Substack, which is yogaland.substack.com.

50:16

We love hearing from you and

50:19

looking forward to hearing how this all works out for you. So

50:22

let us know. You can find us on all

50:25

the places, Instagram

50:26

mainly. Alright everyone,

50:28

until next week, enjoy your practice.