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Boat pose is a core strengthener, and let me be clear because we are talking about the core in the context of the yoga world: I don’t mean the core in terms of our souls…I mean the physical core - the abdominal muscles.
Core strengtheners like boat pose are important poses in yoga, and the reason may surprise you. As we start to build a yoga practice, the building blocks start to come together. Poses not only exist on their own, but they also assist as stepping stones or gateways to other poses. Core strengthening poses like navasana is just one example of such a pose - a wonderful core pose on its own, but also helps to facilitate moving into other branches of yoga, including balance.
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Hi and Welcome to your Journey into Yoga! I’m Avery Rich and am so happy to have you along for the ride :)
Full disclosure alert!! As we take this journey into yoga, I absolutely intend to give away some yoga secrets - open up the playbook so to speak. I truly believe that the more we understand yoga and its many poses, the more we can make informed choices about our own needs. As we explore more and more poses, I want you to be able to take what you need and then maybe also allowing yourself to explore things that you are maybe curious about too. And yes, the ideal would be for then you see some poses that maybe dont interest you or you dont think you need and you become more open to trying those ones also! But lets not get ahead of ourselves - back to those secrets
Shhhhhhhh......
In episode 7 we explored the wonderful pose called childs pose where I briefly talked about forward bending postures, and how these postures bring cooling and calm to the body. Fret not, we will be examine and exploring many pore forward folds as we move along the journey, but for today I want you to change gears and join me in a discussion about heart openers or poses in the backbending family. Before you turn this episode off, we are not doing a backbend! But what we will do is explore a pose that opens the heart, helps to bring heat and energy to the body and gives both the physical and emotional body a nice needed boost! In sanskrit referred to as bishmasana, today we will explore a variation of bishmasana.
So what’s the big secret already??}
Ok, ok I see the suspense is killing you LOL - in the yoga world, heart opening poses have the intention of alleviating depression. As we give the heart a boost and an open, the hope is to combat any feelings of sadness and gloom one may be feeling. Now file that information away - it will come up again, but know that our posture today will aim not only at helping combat the blues, but it will also hopefully bring some heat and energy into the body too! For our pose today, if you have a yoga bowser and a small throw cushion you are set! No bolster? No problem - two bed pillows work well too, and maybe a folded blanket.
So here’s the set up, take your bolster or bed pillow and lie it down along the floor or yoga mat. If using a bed pillow, you may want to add a folded up blanket onto the pillow to boost it up a bit higher. Take your second pillow horizontally at the top end to receive your head, and if using the bolster, take your second cushion on the top end of your bolster to receive your head. Now, bring your sit bones right up to the bottom edge of your set up, keeping the legs bent, let your body rest down over the pillow, eventually resting your head. With the ride given by the pillow underneath your head, you should find yourself lying with your head slightly elevated. Once you are comfortably lying down, choices for your leg position: you can remain with your legs bent or you can straighten the legs out along the ground - let your low back decide what is a better leg position for you. Your arms can be anywhere that is comfortable you have arrived! Let’s remain here for 20 breaths.
Now, You can stay exactly as you are or or if you prefer, you can remove the pillow from behind your head and move into this heart opener in a bit of a deeper way. Let’s hold for another 10 breaths.
Preparing to release from the pose, if your legs aren’t already bent, return to a bent leg shape. With your feet resting onto the floor, now take your hands behind your head and gently lift your head up away from the supports - once your head is lifted now you can take your hands beside you and press yourself up to a comfortable seated pose. Another way you can release fro the pose is to roll over to the right and press yourself up - its up to you what feels better in your body! If interested, you are welcome to move into a shavasana to close your practice, but if you are ready to complete your practice, thanks for joining me on your journey into yoga and I look forward to seeing you next time! For more yoga fun, visit averyrich.com
until next time!
