#foundationyoga

Join a foundation yoga teacher training program designed for beginners to build strong roots in yoga. Learn yoga philosophy, asanas, pranayama, meditation, and teaching fundamentals to confidently begin your journey as a certified yoga instructor.

For more information visit our website: https://shivalayayogaashram.com/ 

Mula Bandha Check Up, Traditional

Strengthening your mula bandha aids in hip and lower back flexibility and requires intense focus on the space between the anus and genitals, the perineum.

Legs are open 60-70 degrees with one hand in between your legs and the other outside the thigh. Blocks are very helpful in this posture.

Initially, leave your feet on the floor as support and with straight legs lift your butt from the ground. Leaning forward, draw in through the lower ribs, engage your core and pelvic floor (women: contract through the vagina, men: pull the testicles in toward the body), inhale, and straighten your arms to lift the body away from the ground.

To lift your feet from the ground, pull your feet back with toes extending toward you and lean forward while drawing in lower ribs, activating the core, and straightening your arms to lift.

Your yoga practice will experience a stabilization as you learn to control over the mula bandha.

Standing poses set a strong foundation for your yoga practice and your life

By using the body’s large muscles, the one’s that support most of your body, you’ll build over-all strength, flexibility, and stamina. These poses require balance and grace, remember to enter and exit each pose with integrity…leave enough energy at the end of each pose to change with balance.

Standing poses help to build confidence of a warrior!

Chair pose (or Fierce Pose)-

one of the most commonly known poses

UTKATASANA (OOT-kah-TAH-sah-nah)

~Firey pose~

~Check in with the lower body~

~Stay nice open and graceful in upper body~

Origin: utkata means “fierce”

How to do it:

Stand with your feet together arms by your sides at mountain pose

Stand up nice and tall

Take a big breathe in then exhale and bend your knees deeply, like you’re sitting in a chair

Reach your arms straight up in a gentle diagonal, keeping muscles in your arms tight, nothing lose or hanging

Benefits: stimulates the core, strengths and tones the legs, butt, side of the body, and arms

Tips: 

Tops of thighs spiral in

Lower back length, draw tailbone down— Keep knees bent

Draw lower belly in

Draw chin into chest, find length in the neck

Shift weight front and back, feeling out the feet

Rock back and imagine sit bones hovering over heels, melting down over heels (alignment tip)

________________________________________________

Try listening to something like this when practicing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPVX75VIpqg

Or find silence both inner and externally, feeling the hum of the universe

Either way, feel the vibrations of the earth