Locust Pose

Hi everyone, welcome to Yoga & You, I am Sanjana Prasad. Shalabhasana, or Locust Pose, is a beautiful backbend that can help you to strengthen the posterior chain of your body, which tends to be weak for a lot of us. It helps to strengthen the legs, improve breath capacity, and also helps you prepare for deeper backbends. There are a lot of variations that you can practice in Shalabhasana, let's practice a few of them today.

We are going to start off by lying down on the belly. The first variation we are going to do, we are only going to use our legs. So you can place the chin on the floor, but if that is too much for your neck, you can also place the forehead down. Now you are going to take your palms and tuck the palm underneath the thigh. If you notice, my elbows are still outside the body line, I am not tucking my elbows underneath, my palm is just diagonally right below my hip bone.

From here, as you inhale, we are going to first just lift the right leg up as high as you can. When you are lifting the leg up, you are not going to turn the hip. Your hips are still square, try to engage the glute, lower back, and lift up. Inhale, lift the right leg up, exhale and down. When you are lifting the leg and attempt to lift higher, sometimes we lift and start bending this knee. Keep it straight as much as you can and lift, exhale and down.

Now this time you are going to lift the right leg up as high as you can. Now bend your left knee, take the left foot, support the shin. If you are still comfortable, move the foot towards your thigh, keep lifting your leg up. You notice my hip opening here, try to square the hip, stay there, breathe, one, two, three, release, exhale and slowly come back down.

Let's try this on the other side, inhale, left leg up, exhale, down, one, inhale, left up, exhale, down, two, keep the hip square, inhale, left up. Now bend the right knee, support the thigh, if your hip is opening, consciously stay in the center. So wait for it to arrive, stay at the center, breathe, one, two, three, release, slowly come back down to the mat. Release your hands.

Now you are going to place your forearms in front of you, so your upper body is propped up, you are in Sphinx pose. Now this makes it a little more challenging for you to lift your legs. Inhale, lift the right leg up, exhale, down, inhale, left up, exhale, down, inhale, right up, exhale, down, inhale, left up, exhale, down, we will do one more on each side. Inhale, right up, you can stay here for three, two, keep your chest up, one, exhale, down, inhale, left up for three, two, one, exhale, slowly come back down.

Get your chest down to the floor, here we are going to place the palms on either side of the waist. So it is not in Bhujangasana position near the chest, it is lower, closer to your rib cage. Squeeze the shoulders, elbows towards each other, as you inhale, you are going to lift your chest up and your legs up, exhale, go back down, inhale, come up, exhale and down, inhale, lift up, hold, three, two, one, exhale and down.

Release the hands, now my left hand is going to stay down by the side of the body, I am going to take my right hand forward, right palm is facing the floor, we are going to practice Shalabhasana, right arm up, left leg up, head and chest up, coming up at the same time, the Shalabhasana, or half Shalabhasana. Now as you inhale, lift your right arm up, head up, chest up, left leg up, exhale and down, inhale and lift up, exhale, down, inhale up, stay three, two, one, exhale and down.

Let's switch sides, bringing the right hand down, left hand goes forward. Inhale up, exhale down, inhale and lift up, three, two, one, exhale and slowly come back up, release the hands, the last variation we are going to practice, we are going to take both hands forward, you can either place them parallel to each other this way or join your palms in namaste, we are going to lift the arms up, head up, chest up, legs up together.

A common mistake here is we want to lift higher, so we start lifting the chin up to look up, we want to use the back to lift the body off the mat, so keep your neck neutral, upper arms and ears in one line, and think about lifting through your legs and the back of the body. Let's give this a try, forehead down towards the floor, inhale and come up, exhale down, inhale, lift up, exhale, inhale up and stay, exhale and down.

Release the hands, and to counter all these backbends, push your hips back and let's relax in Child's Pose for a few breaths, gently walk your palms back, you can come to Vajrasana, take a simple twist here, to release any discomfort in your back and slowly come back to neutral.

Those were a few variations of Shalabhasana that you can practice, and practicing these variations consistently will help you to move towards Purna Shalabhasana, chin stand, and even combination of asanas between Shalabhasana and Dhanurasana, so definitely try these out, keep practicing them consistently. Thank you.