12. Crescent Moon Pose
3-8 BREATHS EACH SIDE
Inhale as you reach your arms up overhead and press your palms together. As you exhale, bend to your left and move your hips to the right. As you breathe in the posture, see if you can continue to extend through your fingers on the inhalations, and move your hips more to the side as you exhale.
Breathing here, notice the quality of the breath, where you feel it most, and how it differs from the right side to the left side of your body. When ready to come back to straight, inhale and reach up through your fingers to the ceiling.
Repeat on the other side.
Modification:
If there is tightness in the shoulders, you can place a block between your hands and press into the block while pressing up to the ceiling. Let this action maximize the broadness of your open back muscles. Maintain this openness even while bending to the side.
*13 . Sail Pose
3-8 BREATHS
From the starting position of CRESCENT MOON, clasp all your fingers except your index fingers, which point upward like a church steeple. Roll your eyes up in your head and then raise your chin only enough to see your pinkies. Don’t drop your head all the way back. Then, as you continue to reach up through your index fingers, move your hips forward as your heart opens up to the sky. This is a STANDING BACKBEND, but instead of thinking of dropping back, the action is reaching up and moving forward from the pelvis. This way you avoid dropping into the lower back.
Breathing here, notice the quality of the breath, the quality of your posture and balance, and the quality of your effort. Are you straining at all? If so, back out a bit. It isn’t a matter of how “far” you go into a posture, but how “deeply” you are in whatever depth of the posture you are in. Let go of thinking that you need to attain some abstract idea of perfection. When ready to come out from this posture, inhale as you reach up through your index fingers straight up to the sky. Exhale, releasing your arms to your sides.
14. Swan Dive into Standing Forward Bend
6-12 BREATHS
Inhale, lifting your arms up overhead. Then, exhaling, roll your thighs in as you fold forward from your hips, and lean into the back of your legs, pouring your torso out over your thighs. Have your arms out to the side at least a 45-degree angle as you do this, minimizing any possible strain in your back.
Breathe in the STANDING FORWARD BEND for at least four breaths and then SPINAL ROLL up into MOUNTAIN when you are ready. Throughout this movement, continue your observation of the breath and how the breath, the body, and the mind condition and interpenetrate each other.
Modification:
If tightness in the hamstrings or hips prevents keeping a flat back in SWAN DIVE, keep your knees bent as much as needed to release the strain in the lower back.
15. Tree Pose
10-30 BREATHS ON EACH LEG
From MOUNTAIN, shift your weight into the right foot and place the sole of your left foot into your right inner thigh. Press your foot into the thigh as the thigh presses back into your foot. Place your palms together at your heart in namaste (Anjali Mudra). It helps to gaze at something not moving, such as a spot of the floor about five feet in front of you, or at a spot on the wall at eye level.
If your balance feels challenged, just stay here and keep grounding down through your feet and keep the heart lifted and open. But if you feel confident in your balancing, reach your arms up over your head. Avoid sinking into your lower back by keeping the kidneys mentally “inflated” and the front ribs soft and not jutting out.
As you stand here, keep the focus on your breath. Notice if there is any tendency to hold the breath, as if that could help in keeping balance. Remember, stability and ease is what defines asana, but this refers to maintaining stability and ease in the mind, even when the body feels less than stable (though eventually you will attain more stability and ease of body as well). Notice what movements the breath initiates as you stand like a tree.
When ready to come out of this pose, lower the hands to in front of your heart, and then with full awareness, slowly lower the left foot to the floor, returning you to MOUNTAIN. Repeat while standing on the other leg.
Modification 1:
If unsteady, you can try with your foot pressing below your knee on your inner shin, or even have your toes on the floor for some added balance assistance.
Modification 2:
Practice against a wall, with your right hand on the wall. Use the wall to steady yourself. Try to reach your left hand over your head. If this feels okay, try taking your right hand up too.
16. Bent-Knee Bridge Pose
6-15 BREATHS, 1-3 TIMES
Lying on your back, bend your knees, drawing your feet toward your buttocks, just a bit wider than hip-width apart and toes turned just slightly in. Your knees should be just above your ankles, shins perpendicular to the floor. Keep your arms down by your sides.
Pressing your feet strongly into the ground, let your pelvis lift up toward the ceiling. Try not to “grab” with your back, and let the lift come mainly from your legs. Rock gently side to side, in order to roll your shoulders under, so you can bring your arms behind your back and interlace your fingers. Continue to press your feet into the ground as you also press your arms into the ground in order to lift your chest. Avoid tucking your tailbone between your legs by keeping groins and belly soft. Let your chest rise toward your chin, but don’t drop your chin toward your chest. Rather, very gently keep the back of your head firmly in contact with the ground.
Notice where you feel the breath in the body and how its quality changes as you maintain the posture. Notice that even if there is no further lifting higher into the posture, you must continue to “take action” in the posture, maintaining constant pressure into the ground through your feet and arms. There is, in yoga, a difference between an action and a movement. To stay in this posture, resisting gravity, one needs to continue actively pressing down into the floor although no movement results. So while it may seem like a static holding posture, you can feel for yourself how you must continue to work dynamically in order to create the posture moment by moment.
Coming down, relax your arms from behind you and let the pelvis descend back to the ground. Notice what happens to the breath as soon as you can fully release all effort.
17. Half Locust
The following is a description of the form and movement required to practice HALF LOCUST. Practice according to the instructions given for the three variations.
Start by lying face down on your belly with your legs together and with your arms down along your sides, reaching through your fingertips with the palms facing down on the ground.
As you inhale, lift the right leg straight up and back without bending the knee. Make sure you lift from the buttock and not by grabbing from the lower back. Keep your hips and pubis firmly pressing into the ground. As the leg comes up, draw the shoulders up away from the ground and curl the head and upper chest off the floor. Try not to simply lift the upper chest up, but think of how a sardine can opens with its lid rolling back without lifting up. Keep reaching out through the crown of your head, and do not drop your head back by jutting out your chin. As you exhale, come back to the starting position. Repeat using the other leg.
Variation 1: Practicing as described above. Inhale up and exhale down, alternating back and forth between legs until you’ve done each leg six times. Pay attention to the length of the breath. Let the movement and the breath be synchronized, moving along with the breath. Notice any changes in the breath as you continue to alternate back and forth.
Variation 2: Inhale up into the posture, then exhale, inhale, and then exhale back down into the starting posture. Alternate back and forth four times each leg. As you stay up in HALF LOCUST, don’t keep yourself rigid, but instead, let the breath freely move through the body and perhaps gently move the body. Don’t exaggerate any movement that you experience, but don’t inhibit it either. Simply let the breath guide you throu
gh the experience.
Variation 3: Inhale up, then exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, and then exhale back down. Alternate back and forth two times each leg. Please do not strain in this posture. If you let the breath freely move the body, the body can be more at ease and float on the rising and falling of the wave of the breath. If you attempt to stay up as high as you can and remain still, you will almost certainly be straining and create potential problems in the back. Notice how, while in a back-bending posture, the inhalation lifts you deeper into the backbend, while an exhalation drops you back out of it a bit. Of course, this is just the opposite of what we learned happens while breathing in a forward-bending posture.
*18. Locust Pose
4-10 BREATHS, EACH VARIATION
Start by lying on your belly with your legs together and with your arms down along your sides, reaching through your fingertips with the palms facing down on the ground.
Variation 1: As you inhale, lift your legs straight up and back without bending the knees. Make sure you lift from the buttock and not by grabbing from the lower back. Keep your hips and pubis firmly pressing into the ground. As the legs come up, draw the shoulders up away from the ground and curl the head and upper chest off the floor, as in the exercise above. Keep reaching out through the crown of your head, and do not drop your head back by jutting out your chin. Then, reaching out through your fingertips, let your palms rise up off the ground until your arms are parallel to the ground. Breathe here, noticing where you experience the breath, its quality, and any changes in it as you continue to breathe in the posture. Notice too any movement of the body as you breathe. When you are ready to come down, simply exhale back down to the starting position.
Variation 2: Start by lying as above, but reach behind your back and clasp your fingers. Keep pressing your pubis, hips, thighs, and the tops of your feet into the ground, and as you inhale curl your head, shoulders, and upper chest up off the ground. Reach back through your clasped hands and, keeping the wrists in toward each other, lift them up off your back. See if this draws more attention to the heart area and if the breath moves to fill the chest. As you continue to breathe in this posture, pay attention to how the breath moves in the body while also moving the body.
Variation 3: Begin as in Variation 2, but after four breaths extend out through your feet and let the legs rise up off the floor. Continue to breathe in this full posture and let the breath guide you in your effort. Notice if you experience the breath in the same areas of the body as in Variation 2, or if you feel the breath in other areas, and how the quality of the breath continues to change.
19. Child Pose
15-30 BREATHS
Begin by sitting on the backs of your calves with your sitting bones dropping into your heels. Your big toes should be touching, and your knees are slightly apart. Lengthen through your spine as if you were lifting up out of your pelvis and then fold forward, releasing your torso onto the tops of your thighs. Place your forehead on the ground and your arms alongside your legs. Make sure that your weight is moving back toward your heels and not on your neck and head by adjusting the distance between your knees. Release yourself fully into the posture and let the breath be natural. Where do you experience the breath? As you stay here, notice any changes in the qualities of the breath. Just letting the breath be cultivates calm as you rest in CHILD. When ready to come out of CHILD, continue to drop the sitting bones down onto your heels and, drawing the navel in and back to your spine, roll up into the starting position.
Modification:
If your hips do not touch your heels, and you feel most of your weight in your upper body and head, rest your torso on a bolster or some blankets. This will support your torso and allow your head to come to the height of your hips.
20. Staff Pose
6-15 BREATHS
Sit with your legs together straight out in front of you. Press the back of your thighs, calves, and heels evenly into the ground while reaching out through your heels. Press your hands into the ground beside your hips as you lift the chest. This full-body static contraction will have a profound effect on where the breath is most felt, as well as on the quality of the breath. See for yourself where you feel the breath. Is the breath more expansive or contractive in this deceptively dynamic posture? How does the quality of mind reflect what is happening in the body and breath?
Modification:
People with tight hamstrings will find that their lower backs will round out and they will be sitting onto their tailbone. This reverse curvature leads to a collapsed chest and shallow breathing. To help get onto the sitting bones and allow the back to maintain its natural curvature, try sitting up on a blanket or two. This will allow you to lengthen your spine while grounding your legs. The chest will now feel open and lifted, the mind more alert.
21. One-Legged Forward Bend
10-30 BREATHS EACH SIDE
From STAFF POSE, bend your right knee up as you slide your right heel in as close as you can to your right sitting bone. Then open your right leg out to the side. Grounding the back of the thigh, calf, and heel of your straight left leg, reach your arms up, lift up through your spine and fold out over the straight leg. Let your sitting bones spread back and widen away from the heel of the straight leg. Take hold of your shin or your foot and draw your torso further out over the straight leg by bending your arms.
Do you feel the breath in your belly or higher up in your chest? Can you also feel it moving through your back? What effect does the in-breath have on your posture? What about the out-breath? How does the breath change as you stay here in this forward bend? When ready to release, draw the shoulders back and open the heart. Lift up and out as you inhale and, exhaling, release to the starting position. Repeat on the other side.
Modification:
If you are coming into this forward bend primarily from bending in the lower back and not from the hips, sit up on a blanket or two and keep extending the torso out over your straight leg. Stop when you feel the pelvis start to roll backward and round your lower back. You can support yourself here with your hands gently pressing into your shins.
22. Seated Forward Bend
15-45 BREATHS
From STAFF POSE, reach out and grasp your feet or your shins. Soften your groins (the little valleys at the juncture of the inner thighs and the pelvis, also known as the inguinal crease) as your thighs roll slightly inward, sitting bones moving back and apart. Think more about lifting the torso out and over your legs than about how far you get in the pose. The back will round, but let it round evenly, and not until you’ve folded from the hips first. Move the chest out over your legs by using the strength of your arms, bending your elbows up and out to the sides. Gaze toward your toes, until the chin comes to rest on the shin. Then turn the gaze within or onto your “third eye.”
As you surrender into the posture, keep your focus on the breath. Here, especially, let yourself find that balance between working in a posture and giving yourself up to it. The Buddha compared it to the proper state of tension necessary in the strings of a lute in order to play in tune: “Not too taut and not too slack, but keyed to the middle pitch.” He states, “Take heed that when effort is too strenuous it leads to strain and when too slack to laziness. So make a firm determination that you will adopt the middle way, not allowing yourself to struggle or to slacken, but recognizing that faith, energy, concentration, and wisdom are the fruits of a calm and equable middle way.”
Modification:
We want to initiate this posture from a position firmly grounded at the sitting bones and folding forward from the hips. If in STAFF POSTURE you cannot maintain the natural curvature of your lower back and feel it rounding out, then sit up on a blanket or other bolster.
Keep the back lengthened and don’t worry about getting your head to your leg, but stay at your edge and allow the stretch to come from the back of your legs and your hips.
Coming out of this forward bend, inhale as you lift the heart up and out and then exhale
as you release to the starting position.
*23. Reverse Plank
4-8 BREATHS
From STAFF POSE, place your hands on the floor behind your hips with the fingers pointing toward or away from your toes (you may want to alternate, as both positions have their merits). Inhaling, lift the pelvis up toward the ceiling as you point the toes toward the floor. Keep the tailbone reaching toward your feet. Make sure your wrists are directly below your shoulders with your arms straight. Either keep your chin on your chest, or let the head release all the way back, supported by your upper back muscles. Noticing where you feel the breath and its quality in this somewhat challenging posture, avoid holding the breath or struggling against the posture. Keeping your focus on the breath, when you’re ready, exhale back down into the starting position.
Mindfulness Yoga Page 14