Plow Pose

Hi, welcome to Yoga & You, I am Sanjana Prasad. In today's video, we are going to practice and learn different ways of moving into Halasana, or Plow Pose. You can rock and roll and go directly into Halasana, transition from Sarvangasana, very advanced practitioners can even go from Prasarita Padottanasana, from standing, directly into Halasana. We can also use props, blocks, chair, wall, to help us experience this posture.

When you are practicing Halasana, if you notice, Halasana is very similar to Paschimottanasana, so it is basically a Paschimottanasana but in an inverted form, so it is an inverted forward fold, but a lot of people fear going into Halasana, it is just the fear of falling out of the posture on either side, and practicing these simple tweaks will help you and give you the confidence to get into Halasana comfortably. Let's get started.

Do not practice Halasana or any inversion when you are on your period or if you have any neck or shoulder issues, before you start to practice Sarvangasana, Halasana, make sure you practice Setu Bandhasana, bridge pose, leg raises, strengthen the shoulders and neck and prepare the body for the inversion.

Let's get started with the first variation where we are going to rock and roll and go directly into Halasana. The first one I am going to show you is without any support, what we are going to do is start at the top of the mat and keep the knees really really close to you and we are just going to have fun with this, we are just going to allow the spine to rock back to the floor and rock forward.

So use the momentum that is happening when you are rock back to come forward again, let's try that one more time and forward, okay, we are going to do this multiple times when you feel comfortable and you rock back, you are going to lift the leg up and support your back.

Let's practice this, one, on the fifth one, let's rock back fully into Halasana, two, you will notice as I am rocking back my hips are only lifting, three, almost coming in line with my shoulder floor and one more and down.

The next time we practice this, we are going to go into Halasana, make sure the neck is stable, you are not turning side to side because all the weight is on your neck and shoulders and they are supporting the entire body. Let's go, back and up, back and up, two more, back and up and let's get into Halasana here, bring, my palms are supporting my lower back, if you notice my hips are in line with my shoulders, get your elbows closer to each other, engaging the upper back and we will stay here for one, two, three, four, five, very slowly bend your knees if you need to and start to roll the spine down, lie down on the back, relax here for a few seconds.

And slowly come up to a seated position, now rocking and rolling into Halasana will be suitable for you if you don't really fear going into the posture and you are fairly comfortable with your Paschimottanasana and Sarvangasana, your legs feel free and you are just trying to experiment up to a new way into getting into Halasana.

Now what happens if you want to use this rocking roll technique but you are not able to get your feet to the floor or to the mat, we will practice that as well, we have to learn how to control the legs so that you can stop the legs halfway, so you are going to again rock back, get the hips up, down, up, down, this time you are going to rock back, support the back and just continue supporting the hips but you are going to extend the legs only halfway down.

So if you notice my feet are not touching the floor but my effort is to lift my hips up, I can even soften my knees and allow my feet to hang above the floor, we will stay here for a few breaths, breathe, definitely don't talk like me during the posture, focus on your ujjayi breathing, once you are done with about five breaths you can soften the knees and slowly roll down, relax on the back for a few seconds.

Now we are going to learn how to move from Sarvangasana to Halasana, so let's lie down, extend the legs forward, from here as you inhale lift the legs up, lift your hips up and support the back.

Now if you notice in my Sarvangasana my hips are not completely in line with my shoulders and this is one common mistake that happens while transitioning, so when I try to get my feet down to the floor I am not able to reach the floor because my hips are still far away from my shoulders.

So what you want to do is come back into Sarvangasana, first work on walking your palms towards your mid back, from my lower back I am walking the palms to the mid back and you notice as I do that my hips are moving higher, my glutes are engaged and I am bringing my hips in line with my shoulder, now I am able to extend the legs up, now as I exhale because my hips are in line with the shoulder it is easier for me to transition into Halasana here.

If you are very comfortable you can interlock the fingers and press the forearms down, breathe just like the rocking and rolling technique where the key difference is bringing your hips off the mat in line or almost in line with the shoulder, same thing here, bringing the hips up, lifting the hips up will help you to transition easier to Halasana, 3, 2, 1, slowly bring your palms back, find that support, bend your knees and roll down, vertebra by vertebra.

Now a lot of people can't take the legs back but again, fear is what makes them stop or hesitate, so what you can do is from Sarvangasana you can bend your knees close to your face and then work on getting your feet down, this is what it looks like inhale and lift up, now from here first soften the knees, get your knees towards your face, make sure the hips are in line with your shoulder, now slowly get one foot on the ground if you can, you can even alternate by switching side to side, this will give you the confidence that the floor is right behind you, there's nothing to fear here, now once one foot is on the ground, see if you can bring the other foot also down and then as and when you feel comfortable, your legs are starting to give in, you feel confident, you can straighten the knees and get into a full Halasana, slowly bend the knees and roll down, vertebra by vertebra, lie down on the back and relax for a few seconds.

So what if you can get into Sarvangasana, you're able to get your hip and shoulders in line but you're still not able to get your feet to the floor, this can happen if there is any restriction around the back of the neck or your upper back or even the lower back and the hamstrings, a chair will be very very useful for you to use to experience Halasana, let's give it a try, make sure you place the chair on the mat so it has good grip, it won't slide off when you place your legs on the chair, inhale and lift the legs up, hips up, support the back, get into your Sarvangasana, now when you're ready, slowly you can drop one leg onto the chair, other leg onto the chair and stay here, breathe, take full support of the chair here so you can walk your elbows together, lift the hip up completely, make sure you're not tipping the chair over, walk the feet carefully, if you're very comfortable, you can bring your forearms down to the floor, breathe, five to eight breath, slowly bring your palms back, bend the knees if you need to and roll down.

Now here we're using a chair, as you get more and more comfortable, you can reduce the height of this chair, you can even start to use yoga blocks to take your legs, when you feel more comfortable to get closer and closer to the floor, the last one we're going to practice is using the wall for Sarvangasana and chair for Halasana, so if you're very uncomfortable with Sarvangasana, you're feeling a little unstable and you feel like you need a little bit more support, then this variation is most suitable for you, so let's give it a try, start by getting your hips really close to the wall and from here you're going to lie down on your side first and then you're going to turn around and place both legs on the wall and if you need to adjust a little bit more you can get your hips a little closer, now from here let's bend the knees, place your feet hip with the part on the wall, as you inhale you're going to lift your hips up, now support the lower back with the palms, start to walk the elbows closer and keep pushing your hips up knees in line with your ankles, slowly when you're comfortable lift one leg up, if you're still very very comfortable you can also lift the other leg up into Sarvangasana, if not keep one leg on the wall as you exhale take your right leg here onto the chair, once you feel comfortable you feel well supported, you're confident you can slowly allow the left leg to peel off on zone, don't force or jump away from the wall, allow it to slowly come off and take your leg back onto the chair, stay there breathe, this variation keeps supporting your back, don't let go, after about 5 to 8 breaths, let's come back the same way, lift one leg off first, bring it back to the wall, make sure you have this support, place the entire foot not just the toes and then slowly bend your right knee and bring the right foot back, come back into the support in the Sarvangasana and then slowly bring your hips back down, you can stay in Viparita Karani, close your eyes and relax here for a few seconds before you come up to a seated comfortable posture.

So those with the different ways that you can practice Halasana, even if you are comfortable in Sarvangasana and very very comfortable to move into Halasana, sometimes having support just makes the practice very easy, comfortable it helps you to breathe better and helps you to focus on the breath, so definitely try all of them out and do let us know which one you like the best.