The second section of Journey Into Power is Awakening. This part of the sequence you begin to get your blood flowing and heart rate up. This tends to be the most aerobic part of the practice as it is a little faster paced. When newer to yoga, it can feel very overwhelming, particularly if you don’t know the names of the poses or haven’t moved your body in a while.
Awakening is our Sun Salutation series. We do Sun Salutation As and Sun Salutation Bs during practice. Besides the quickness of this section, students tend to struggle with chaturanga, which we will break down further into this post. When newer to the practice, you may feel overwhelmed and forget you can modify Sun Salutations in many ways to fit your body. We will go through the poses, as well as modifications you can choose so you can catch your breath. Okay, here we go!
Sun Salutation A consists of the following: Extended Mountain Pose, Forward Fold (link back to Integration), Half Way Lift, Chaturanga, Upward Facing Dog, and Downward Facing Dog (link back to Integration). Sun Salutation B swaps out Extended Mountain Pose for Chair Pose and adds in Warrior One on each side. You can watch the video below to see what a Sun Salutation A vs Sun Salutation B looks like.
Extended Mountain Pose
We talked a bit about Mountain Pose in our previous post. The difference with Extended Mountain Pose is you reach your arms over your head. This pose kicks off Sun Salutation A. The lifting of the arms overhead helps to increase a deep inhale. The breathing pattern of Sun Salutations is important to helping maintain the flow of the practice. You will alternate between inhaling and exhaling in each pose. Again, extended mountain pose you will inhale.
Alignment:
- Toes are pointing at 12 o’clock and are touching. You can leave space between your heels if you do not like your ankle bones touching each other.
- Engage your quadriceps (front of your thigh) muscles.
- Pelvis is neutral. So what does this mean? The front of your hip pointers are facing forward (not down or up) and you will notice a small curve in your low back when doing it correctly. If your hip pointers are facing down, you will have increased extension of your low back. If your hip points are facing up, you will have a rounding in the small of your low back. This is something you will have to play around with to determine what works for your body
- Instead of arms by your side, you will reach your arms overhead. If you have decreased shoulder mobility, this might be tricky. Be sure to not poke your head forward to compensate for lack of your shoulders ability to reach overhead.
- Crown of your head stacks over your shoulders.
Modifications:
- If you are recovering from a shoulder injury, you can cactus your arms instead of reaching them all the way overhead.
Benefits of Extended Mountain Pose:
- Improves shoulder mobility
- Improves standing posture
- Helps you have the ability to take a full inhale
Forward Fold
Check back to our blog post about Integration to learn more about the alignment for a Forward Fold. As you move from Extended Mountain Pose to Forward Fold you will exhale your breath.
Half Way Lift
As you move into Half Way Lift, you will inhale your breath. This pose is a transition pose that helps to keep the flow of the Sun Salutations. It also sets your body to move into chaturanga.
Alignment:
- Toes are pointing at 12 o’clock and are touching. You can leave space between your heels if you do not like your ankle bones touching each other.
- Engage your quadriceps (front of your thigh) muscles.
- Hands are on your thighs, shins or ground, pending on the flexibility of your hamstrings and how long your arms are.
- Spine is long and your back is flat.
- Crown of your head reaches towards the top of your mat.
Modifications:
- You can use blocks underneath your hands rather than placing your hands on your legs or ground.
Benefits of Halfway Lift:
- Engages your abdominal muscles
- Stretches your hamstrings
Chaturanga
This is one of the tougher poses of the yoga practice. It is really a full body movement. It requires many muscles to be engaged if you want to practice this pose efficiently. This pose helps to increase heat during the practice.
This is probably the one pose where students can get injured. It is important to know which modifications are needed for you as you begin your yoga practice. Even if you have been practicing for a longer time, stepping back to the building blocks of chaturanga can help strengthen your entire practice.
Alignment:
- Begin in a plank position.
- Wrists are underneath your shoulders.
- Hands press the mat away from you. You will feel your shoulders spread apart as you do this. This engages your serratus anterior muscle, and is incredibly important to the shoulder stability as you lower.
- Lift the front of your pelvis up towards your nose. This will help you to feel your abdominal muscles engage.
- Hips and shoulders are in one line.
- Legs are engaged by drawing them into towards each other and the quadriceps are active.
- Lowering into chaturanga
- Maintain the activation of your core and legs to keep a neutral pelvis.
- Bend your elbow to 90 degrees and your elbows can point slightly out.
- Wrists move in line with your low ribs
- Shoulder blades move towards each other as you lower
Modifications:
- Place your knees on the ground
- Hold the plank and skip the lowering until you feel stronger. If you choose to hold the plank, instead of moving to an upward facing dog, press back to downward facing dog.
- You also don’t have to lower so that your elbows are 90 degrees, you can stop before that until you have improved strength.
- Lower your body all the way to the ground instead of stopping at 90 degrees of elbow flexion.
Benefits of Chaturanga:
- Improves shoulder, triceps, and pec strength
- Improves strength of your abdominal muscles
Upward Facing Dog
This yoga pose can be secretly tricky. It is again a very active pose and you can begin to feel tired here, especially after chaturanga. The purpose of this pose is to open your chest to allow for a long inhale.
Alignment:
- Toes pointing behind you
- Feet hip width distance apart
- Thighs are lifted off the mat
- Shoulders are stacked over wrists
- Press the mat away from you so that you lift out of your shoulders
- Draw your shoulder blades towards your spine to open the front of your chest
- Head is stacked on top of your shoulders
Modifications:
- Cobra – on your belly, hands in line with your low ribs on the ground, slightly lift chest off the ground, keep drawing shoulder blades towards spine and keep your legs active by pressing them into the mat
- If you don’t have the ability to point your toes behind you, it is okay to keep your toes curled under. However, keep your knees on your mat then
- Keep your knees on your mat, make sure to keep your quadriceps engaged and thighs and pelvis lifted off the ground
Benefits of Upward Facing Dog:
- Stretches the front of the chest, hip flexors and quadriceps
- Improves the strength of your shoulders
Downward Facing Dog – See Integration
Chair Pose
As you move into chair pose, take a deep inhale. The purpose of this pose is to help build heat in your body. It also helps strengthen your legs. The alignment of this pose can really vary body to body type. Some students have no problem keeping their chest lifted. Others will bend more from the hips and have their chest more parallel to the mat. This happens for a few reasons: ankle and hip mobility, hamstring and calf flexibility, or ability to activate the core muscles. It is okay to create the pose for how it fits your body, butthe general idea is to keep your core and leg muscles engaged to create the sweat we love in this practice.
Alignment tips for Chair Pose:
- Big toes touching
- Knees bent – working towards 90 degrees
- Hips drop back towards the mat
- Hands reach overhead and are in line with shoulders
- Palms face each other with arms over head
Modifications:
- Chest can lean towards your legs
- Knees bent to your degree that is workable in your body
Benefits of Chair Pose:
- Strengthens glutes and quad muscles
- Improves mobility of the shoulders, hips and ankles
- Creates heat in the body to improve flexibility throughout the rest of the practice
Warrior I
This pose is a modified lunge. Again, this pose helps to build heat in the body as it is activating most of the muscles in your body. The more the muscles are activated in your body, the more sweat and heat you will produce. It also helps to improve the flexibility in your hips which will later help when we get into backbends in the practice.
Alignment tips for Warrior I:
- Feet are hip width distance apart
- Front foot at 12 o’clock
- Back foot at 60 degree angle
- Front knee at 90 degree angle and in line with your second and third toe
- Back knee straight
- Front of hips are facing to the top of the mat
- Arms reach overhead with shoulders stacking on top of your hips
- Palms face in towards each other
Modifications:
- Decrease stance in lunge
- Bend your knee less than 90 degrees
Benefits of Warrior I:
- Strengthens glutes and quad muscles
- Improves mobility of the shoulders, hips and ankles
- Creates heat in the body to improve flexibility throughout the rest of the practice
Flip Dog
Flip Dog can be really confusing if you haven’t done it before. It seems like a bunch of arms and legs flying until you get in the right position. You can always simplify it as you learn the pose.
You move into this pose from Downward Facing dog. The easiest way to start this pose is to sit on your butt, lift one arm into the air, then lift your hips off the ground. You will have three points of contact, a hand and two feet. Read more about the alignment below.
Alignment tips for Flip Dog:
- Feet are hip width distance apart
- Front foot at 12 o’clock
- Hips lift away from the mat
- Top arm reaches either above you or down towards your mat
Modifications:
- Stay in downward facing dog with one leg lifted
- Reverse table top – both feet and hands are on the ground as you lift your hips off your mat
Benefits of Flip Dog:
- Strengthens glutes, quad, and shoulder muscles
- Opens the chest and creates more space for backbends and breath
Side Plank
This pose can be a difficult pose as it requires you to put a lot of weight through one arm. This does help to make your arms stronger, which will help with poses like downward facing dog, chaturanga, and arm balances.
Alignment tips for Side Plank:
- Legs are stacked on top of each other
- Bottom hand underneath shoulder
- Hips lifted from the ground
- Press ground away from you with your bottom hand
- Reach top hand to the ceiling
Modifications:
- Drop bottom knee to the mat
- Bend both knees and stack them on top of each other
- Place top foot on ground in front of other leg
- Rest elbow on the ground rather than hand
Benefits of Side Plank:
- Strengthens abdominal and shoulder muscles
As you can see,there are a lot of poses in Awakening. If you are newer to the practice of yoga, give yourself some time to know what the poses are called. When you finally get that, start to understand the alignment in more detail. Don’t put pressure on yourself to learn everything at once, it will take the joy out of your yoga practice. No matter how you choose to do the poses in Awakening, you will feel present and your body will feel warmed up and ready to experience Vitality.