Yoga Mini Tutorials -

Yoga Mini Tutorials

An Ayurvedic Approach to Yoga: How to Choose Asana and Pranayama to Bring Balance

In this video I’ll share 6 important factors to consider from the Ayurvedic perspective when teaching your yoga classes or doing your home sadhana. To find out more about my 100 hour online Ayurvedic Yoga Training click here.

Yoga Quick Tip: Cat Balance

Fine tune your ‘cat-cow-balance’ posture with these tips:

-Keep your hips parallel to the floor
-Internally rotate the extended leg femur bone
-Exhale and draw your navel towards your spine
-Be mindful of the placement of your head and neck. Keep it neutral with your eyes gazing down and slightly forward. (Often people look up or drop it down).
-Externally rotate the extended upper arm (to keep space around your shoulders).
-Feel the cross diagonal reach from the extended arm fingers to the extended leg toes.
-Breathe.

Yoga Quick Tip: Triangle (Trikonasana)

In trikonasana it’s important to stay elongated through both sides of the torso.

I often see students dropping their weight into their extended leg and collapsing through the underside of the torso.

Challenge yourself by only tipping over to the degree that your core can support you and maintaining integrity from the crown of the head to the tailbone.

Yoga Quick Tip: Side Angle Posture (Parsvakonasana)

When you’re practicing Parsvakonasana:

-focus on elongating the under-side of the torso to avoid collapsing
-keep you rib cage soft and not popping forward
-create a long line of energy from your back foot to your extended arm
-play around with putting minimal weight on the supporting arm (the one on the thigh)
-do not strain or struggle (there are variations of this posture with props that are great if you’re finding it difficult to breathe slowly and calmly here).

All the best to you in your practice.

Yoga Quick Tip: Half Moon (Ardha Chandrasana)

When practicing Half Moon (Ardha Chandrasana) focus more on the breath and extending equally through your 6 limbs in all directions (arms, legs, head and tail).

Consider the quality in which you are moving opposed to a shape you are trying to achieve.

Allow the pelvis to open to the side without displacing the back leg–keep it in line with the crown of your head. Ensure that the supporting leg knee is tracking over the second toe and not rolling in.

Expand like a six pointed star!

Breathe.

Yoga Quick Tip: Tree Posture (Vrksasana)

The number one thing I see students doing incorrectly in this posture is hiking the leg up and displacing the alignment of the pelvis.

Ensure that the pelvis stays neutral and doesn’t shift in any direction. If your hip is lifting up when you bring your leg higher up to your inner calf or thigh during the posture, return to a place where your body remains in alignment.

Never put your foot beside the knee joint on the leg as this creates lateral pressure and can be damaging to the knee joint.

Find a place where you can maintain integrity and breathe.

Yoga Quick Tip: Warrior 2 (Virabhadrasana II)

I often cringe if I’m a student in a yoga class when the teacher instructs students to “square your hips to the side of your mat.” Ack. No! Please don’t.