Side Crow

Namaste, I'm Ishwarya. Today we're going to work a little bit on side crow. Before you practice or explore the side crow, take a few, again, sun salutations and do a few twisting positions to help you find your obliques — the sides of your core system that is responsible for twisting positions. If you're not quite so sure what they are, I'll just show you one quick one, sweep for you to fire up those external internal obliques to help you access the shape a little bit more.

So you can lie down on your back, and then from here, bring your thighs up, shin bones parallel, knees are stacked over your hips, flex your feet, always make sure your toes are nice and bright. And from here, I'd like you to place your hands on the top of your right thigh and extend the left leg out towards the earth beneath you, about two or maybe an inch above the ground. Now, notice how here the back is already arching off the mat instinctively. I'd like you to push your hands into your thighs, but resist the action of thighs pushing your hands right here. And then you'll just notice how that almost immediately contracts a little bit more of the right side, maybe a little bit of the left, but more on the right side — so the external and the internal obliques on the right here.

Again, you can stay here for about five to ten breaths each time, maybe even for three sets. And then when you're ready, switch sides. Same thing here: push your hands into your thighs, your thighs into your hands. Legs are really active. You will feel the external and internal obliques really firing.

And from here, you want to graduate to something a little bit more dynamic, a bit of movement here. Raise your fingers behind the head, extend the left leg out once more as you did. And from here, lift the head up, keep your head lightly supported, and you're going to twist towards your right — look more towards your knee, rather towards your right elbow. Come back to center again and switch sides. I prefer doing it nice and slow to really localize the experience here, so avoid bicycling the legs because you may be using a little more legs. Use control here by contracting your front abdominal system. Hold it for about three to five breaths and then switch sides. That could help you find a little bit more awareness to your obliques.

So now let's look at the side crow. I'd like to start again in a dog pose, in Adho Mukha Svanasana. Knee down. Now when you twist, notice how we tend to just rest the belly on the thigh itself. I'd like you to find those two pairs of pants. Pull the waistband up with rib cage hugs in. Again, you're finding awareness here and you're giving more space where your left hip crease is right here as you twist. You can take a little bit deeper here. Again, two pairs of pants with rib cage hugs in, drawstring pants and your zippy jeans. Pull the lower abdominal muscles up. You release and step forward into a forward fold.

Now we're going to take a chair position. A nice way to start in chair, or a little transition into your publeta, percussion right here, hand to the heart center, and you're twisting to the left. Let's start here first — so your right elbow to the outer left thigh. Make sure that your hips are neutral, so you're twisting from the spine and also twisting using your obliques rather than the hips. A dead giveaway is if your right knee at this moment is protruding way past your left — you're twisting from your hips and you're not twisting from the spine. You want to make sure that the spine is twisting and also make sure that the obliques are working. Then you can release.

Come now, take a squat. I like to lift my left knee up, right knee down. Use my left hand kind of gently draw my left knee in so I can really weave my right arm over. You don't want to be just resting your left thigh on the elbow. You want to try and rest your left thigh on the tricep itself. So first, knee in, wrap it over, draw the navel in, and then lock it there. Once you're there, resistance again will create strength — you push the left thigh out into the right arm and right arm into the left thigh. This resistance locks it and creates a lot of awareness and strength here.

Keep this. Once you're here, palms down, now lift the right knee up to meet the left. Think about the shape first and figure out where the center of gravity is. Once you realize where the center of gravity is, you want to make sure that you're able to move the center of gravity to where it should be, in the center of the body or in the center of the shape. In the castener, your center of gravity is more or less, again, here, just above the belly button, where your solar plexus is.

Okay, you're going to lift the hips up to be able to shift forward, so much so that the feet automatically get lighter. Hug this elbow in and lift up from here. If this left elbow — the elbow that's not being supported by the leg — is flailing out, you lose a lot of strength in the shoulder girdle. One more time, check out where the center of gravity is in the side crow.

Alright, from here, move forward, elbows are stacking over your wrist. Once you're here, lift up. Notice where the center of gravity is and notice where the center point of the shape is. So when you're preparing, you know that right now your center of gravity is way back behind the wrist. This is not going to work. You have to move the center of gravity forward and find your lift. Everything remains the same. Your chest remains the same. You're pushing down, contracting the pectorals. You're pulling the navel up. Your thighs are hugging into what's the midline. So your legs are really active. So if you're able to think about all that and start to join and connect the dots a little bit better, you'll be flying in no time.