Downward-Facing Dog

Namaste everyone, welcome to Yoga & You, you are with me, Joshna Ramakrishnan. Today we are going to learn how to do downward-facing dog, it is called Adho Mukha Śvānāsana in Sanskrit — how to do this pose right and where you should engage, which muscle group you are activating. That is what we are going to study in this video.

So to start with, you have to sit in Vajrasana. The first point of connection with Adho Mukha Śvānāsana is your hands — how do you place your hands on the mat? You have to make sure your fingers are separated and pressing equally into the floor, and try and take your legs a little more back there. So feel very strongly with your hands on the mat, now tuck your toes. When you tuck your toes, make sure you engage your navel. So you are not letting your stomach loose, you are going to suck your stomach in as much as you can, making infinite space between your stomach and your thighs.

Now you are going to tuck your toes and slowly lift yourself up. When you lift yourself up, your focus is to lift your hips back and up, lengthening your spine. Now try and keep your heels up and just imagine sending your hips higher up to the sky. At the same time, you are going to suck your stomach inside.

So first let your body get used to this position. Now drop your head down completely, relax your head. Do not bend your elbows, keep your arms straight. Now slowly from here, if you are comfortable, just drop your heels slightly down. If your calf is tight, if your hamstring is tight, you cannot actually touch the floor with your heels, but that is okay. You have to try and keep your knees straight and keep sending your hips up — that is your first focus. Stay here as long as you can, breathe deep and long.

Now when you are comfortable — comfortable, without bending your knees, without dropping your hips, without rounding your back, keeping that position of your spine completely straight — you are going to press your heels into the floor. So this looks like a V shape position. So don't squeeze your arms to your ears, try and rotate your shoulders slightly outside and drop your head, completely relaxed. Now suck your navel in, lengthen your spine, and stay here for five breaths.

My arms are firmly rooted, my legs are touching the floor, my heel is pressing onto the mat. I am trying to tighten my quad muscles here. So you are going to tighten, squeeze your quadriceps in and squeeze your stomach inside, creating a lot of space between your stomach and your thighs. Slowly lift your heels up, again send your hips up to the sky and rotate your shoulders out and relax here. Feel your chest open, breathe into your chest, draw your navel in.

Now slowly again go back to downward dog, you feel an immense stretch in your calf, immense stretch in your hamstrings and your whole body starts working. After a few breaths, lift your heels, drop your knee down, point your toes back, push your hips down and slowly come down to child's pose.

This position will actually help you strengthen your arms, strengthen your legs, strengthen your navel, your core muscles, your shoulders, your hips. This works on the complete body, so this is one of the very important postures, and make sure you do it with alignment and do it with complete awareness. This actually helps you to understand imbalance in your body.

Make sure your breath is normal, don't have fast breathing, try and relax and calm yourself, breathe normally and do as much as you can. If you cannot keep your heels down, it's completely okay, just keep your heels up. If you want, slightly bend your knees and breathe there in this posture. Slowly, slowly you can master it and this posture becomes a posture to rest after years of practice, Namaste.