Scale Pose

Hi everyone, welcome to Yoga & You, I am Sanjana Prasad. In today's video, we are going to learn how to prepare for Tolasana. Let's get started.

We are going to start in Dandasana, so you can extend your legs forward, keep the feet flexed, palms on either side of the hips. Now, if you are not very comfortable here, you feel like a lower back is round, then you can use a cushion or a little bit of an elevation. This way, it will give you some space for you to lengthen your spine.

The first thing that you are going to do is work on opening up our hips a bit, so you are going to bend your right knee. I am going to show you the entire sequence on the right, so do not forget to practice it on the left. So, you are going to start by bending the knee, we are going to first just hug the shin towards the chest and you can just start rocking the leg side to side, to warm up and mobilize the hip. If you find this very comfortable, you feel ready, you are going to hook the edge of the foot at your elbow. Now, see if you can interlace the fingers around the shin, start lifting your leg close to your chest without rounding your back. So, keep the spine neutral as you should, you are just going to work on getting the knee higher and higher and start rocking, one, two, still very comfortable, lift your foot a little bit more, three, four and five.

Now, from here, start by placing your right heel towards the left hip joint, or you can see, little below the navel but on the left side. As much as you can, you are going to drop this knee towards the floor. Now, if you need, somewhere here, you want to use a pillow or a block to give it a little bit of support for you to go down. The first step, what we are going to do, is lengthen the spine as you exhale, lean forward and hold on to the left toes. I am not yet going down, I am allowing my hip to open up, giving it more time.

Then you feel more comfortable here, start folding forward deeper and deeper, take a big inhale, exhale, fold forward, you are still gazing at your toes, breathe, one, this is Ardha Padma Paschimottanasana, two, three, four, five, inhale and slowly come up, exhale, bring your hands down.

You are not going to change anything with the legs, the same right leg which is in half lotus, bend your left knee, move to the back end of your mat, again the right leg stays as is, you are going to shift your weight onto your knees, the right leg continues to stay there and you are going to lie down on your belly. Right leg is still in half lotus, your palms can stay on either side of the chest, stay here and breathe, you can rest your chin down, forehead down, one, start releasing the hip towards the floor. So you are not here, release, relax, two, three, four, five, for some of us this might be a lot so you can continue to practice this longer. If you are very comfortable here, rest into your palms, start lifting your chest up, little by little and at the same time your bum isn't going back, you are pushing your hip towards the floor, breathe, one, two, three, four, five, slowly walk your hands back and you are going to go back into this half lotus position.

From here lift your right knee up, take the right foot outside of the left knee, left heel is going to go towards the right hip for Ardha Matsyendrasana, take your left arm up inhale as you exhale, shoulder goes outside of the thigh, look back, stay here breathe, one, two, three, four, five, inhale and relax, keep the leg here, all we are going to do is drop one knee on top of the other, I will show you from the front. So you are going to just release this leg down, so your foot is relaxed on the mat, you can use your palms on either side of the knee to bring them closer to each other. So now they are stacked, as much as it is comfortable for you, no force anywhere, your heels are outside of your hips, you are not sitting on the heels. Now from here you are going to inhale and lengthen your spine, hold on to your toes, as you exhale lean forward, get your chin ahead of your knee, you feel a nice stretch on the outside of the hip, one, two, three, four, five.

Inhale and slowly come up and you can release the legs but continue to keep your right shin on top of the left, we are still working with the right side, what we are going to do now is hug the knees close into your chest as much as you can and from there balance on your sit bones, keep the thighs close and see if you can open your arms to show all the level on both sides, one, two, three, four, five, continue to keep the thighs close, lift your arms up, one, two, three, four, five, you are going to place only the edges of the feet on the mat, palms in between your hip and knee, both sides, lean forward so I am not relaxing my legs, my thighs are close, my hip flexors are active, press into the palms and lift your hips out, one, two, three, four, five, slowly come back down.

You want to repeat this entire sequence to the left side, finishing with left shin crossed over the right and balance lifting your thighs up into your chest, five breaths here, one, two, three, four, five, without moving the thighs away keep them close and arms up, one, two, three, four, five, palms down, edges of the feet down, lift your hip up, one, two, three, four, five, slowly come back down to the mat.

Now we have prepared the hips for Padmasana and also for your lift up by engaging the hip flexors and your arms, another thing that will really help with your Padmasana is that diamond drill, a part of which we are going to practice today, the first thing what we are going to do is start in Baddha Konasana. Now you are going to lift your right foot, take the right foot forward so that your right heel and your left toes are in the same line, hold on to the ankles, inhale and lengthen your spine and as you exhale lean forward, you will notice my right elbow is gently pressing into the thigh, keep leaning forward, breathe, one, two, three, four, five, inhale and come up, switch sides now, so your left foot goes forward, heel in line with the right toes, hold the ankles, inhale lengthen up, exhale and lean forward, one, two, three, four, five, inhale and come up.

Now we will try to get into Padmasana, so you are going to lift your right foot up, take the heel below the navel but on the left side, if you are still comfortable here, you are going to take the left leg up, you don't want to pull too much, very gently, if it is not coming in, your leg is not ready, you want to repeat more of the hip opening sequence, get into your Padmasana comfortably first, there is no force in your practice at all. If you are comfortable, gently take the left foot up, you are going to place it below the navel but on to the right, now from here, let's place the fingertips down, lean back slightly, show you from the side, so you can see it is better and you are going to keep bringing the thighs close to you, take your hands forward, so you don't have support of your hands, you are using your hip flexors here, breathe, one, two, three, four, five, release, relax, continue to stay in Padmasana.

Here is where blocks can really help your practice, they give you the required elevation for you to first experience the posture, so you are going to place the block on either side, you are not placing it behind or to the front, exactly where you placed your palms earlier, in between the hip and your knees, close enough for you to take support, look forward, slightly lift your knees up, from there, you are going to press into the palms and lift your hips up, so again I am not letting my knees go away from me, I am squeezing the knees in towards my chest, hold here for about five breaths and then slowly come back. Now you can also use this way, if you feel that you have more elevation, more balance here, but be careful because you are using the base then, now if you start getting very comfortable with the blocks, then you are going to place your palms on the floor, same position where you kept the blocks, lean forward, little lift up with the knees, so your hip flexors are engaged and then lift up, one, two, three, keep gazing forward, four, five, slowly come back down, release your legs and you can relax in your Sukhasana.

A great way to approach a posture you are working towards is to understand what are components that you need to work on to achieve that posture, so in Tolasana we required that arm strength, we required the hip opening for Padmasana and the hip flexor strength, so once you work consistently on all these components, the asana will happen very very easily.