Chaturanga Dandasana

Hi everyone, welcome to day 4 of class. Today's class is about Chaturanga Dandasana, four limbs staff pose. This was one of the hardest postures for me. It took me a long time to be able to do this, and it's still pretty challenging every day, because you have to work on it and practice every day for it to happen naturally, because it involves tremendous strength in your arms, in your stomach muscles, and in your lower body. This is actually known as a yoga pushup, if you will. So you have to approach this slowly, take it step by step, nothing will happen overnight. So just put in the work, and one day this will happen for you.

Before that, let's just close our eyes and focus on the breathing. So come to any comfortable seated position, the spine is straight, the eyes are closed, the mind is calm, body is relaxed. Take a deep inhalation, a deep exhalation, join the palms together, let's chant "Om," inhale. Slowly open your eyes.

So today let's get started, one more time, on the hands and knees, okay. Open up the knees hip width, shoulders over the wrist, a nice table top position, and let's warm up the spine. Inhale as you arch the back, exhale round, inhale arch the spine, exhale round, you should start to enjoy these movements as you do it, inhale and release the spine, exhale round. Coming to a rounded position, press into your arms and let's hold it for five breaths, remember that the navel should be pulled in as much as you can, and breathe deeply. One, two, three, try to breathe with sound. Let the awareness go internally to the breath, four and five. One more time, inhale, just release the spine, arch the back, and exhale, round the spine, and hold it there for a moment.

The same movements that we did yesterday, we're going to do it a little bit more intense today, because the posture that we're doing requires more strength in the shoulders. So now inhale as you move the shoulders over the wrist, exhale back, inhale move it forward, exhale back, inhale feel pressure on the wrist and hold it there for a moment, exhale back, two more times, inhale forward, exhale back, inhale forward, let's hold it there. Notice how the shoulders are across the wrist, and deep breathing, one, pull the stomach in as much as you can, two, three, four, and five. Let it go, Balasana, let's take some rest, head down, and slowly come all the way up, okay.

This posture that we're working on requires tremendous strength not only in the shoulders but also very much in the core muscles and even the wrist. So now here's how we're going to work on that, coming forward, come on the toes and turn the fingers towards you, okay. We're just going to stretch out the wrist to really warm it up. Now inhale over here with the shoulders over the wrist, and then exhale, sit back, start to feel the stretch throughout the front of the wrist. Look straight ahead and breathe five times, one, it's okay if the heels of the hands are peeling off, no problem, two, three, four, and five.

From here, take the hands forward one more time and let's go for the puppy pose, okay. We've done this one before, knees together, hands are forward, bring the crown of the head down. Hips are lifted, and let's stay here, take a breath, a deep inhale, deep exhale, one more time, inhale and exhale.

Now inhale, come forward, shoulders over the wrist, hold it there for a moment with the shoulders over the wrist, exhale, as slow as you can with some control, start to lower the body down towards the ground. Inhale, pull the stomach inside, lift yourself off the ground, only the chest, knees are down, exhale, return to Balasana. Inhale, come forward, shoulders over the wrist, feel the strength in the arms, and then exhale as slowly as you can, go down to the ground. Inhale, big push up with the arms, come all the way up, and then exhale back to Balasana.

I understand if this is a little difficult for you. If it is difficult to do that, inhale, come forward, even if you're going to arch the back, go down as slow as you can, okay. Just start to feel the activation in the shoulders as you lower down, even as you come up, inhale, push into your arms, little arch in the back, and then exhale back, but we want to avoid the arch, with time that will happen, no hurry. Two more times, inhale forward, exhale down, inhale up, exhale back, inhale forward, exhale down, inhale up, exhale back. Now let's relax the shoulders, we need some break, so release the hands, head down, take rest, and then inhale back up, okay.

We're almost ready to try Chaturanga. Before that, let's do plank one more time to just make sure the shoulders and everything is nice and active. Coming back over to the hands and knees, inhale, release the spine, arch the back, exhale, round the back, come on the toes, lift the knees off the mat, and here we are, plank pose. Let's hold plank for five breaths, one, two, three, four, five, exhale to downward dog for a moment, open out the knees, open out the feet, and paddle the legs, let's keep going, five, four, three, two, and one, okay.

From here let's take it back to plank pose, if you need a break in between that, feel free to do Balasana and come back here. If you can keep going, come over to a plank, and now from here we're just going to drop the full body to the ground, so inhale, exhale, go down.

Now come on the knees, keep the hands next to the chest, and lift the knees off the mat, okay. And just come to this position here, this is the alignment for Chaturanga Dandasana, the four limb staff pose. It's not, we are using the support of the floor right now just for you to understand, shoulders are open, the elbows are pointing back behind you, and lift the knees off the mat. Five breaths here, one, two, three, four, and five. From here come on the knees, come all the way up back to the table top, let's take a break, Balasana, rest, and slowly coming all the way back up, okay.

From here we'll try that again, this time we'll keep the knees on the ground and we'll try to keep the chest off the ground. Coming back to the hands and knees, okay, start to walk the knees a little behind you, if you need to. Come from a plank, so this is a plank pose, drop the knees down, big inhale, and now as you exhale start to bend the elbows, do not let the chest go down, okay. Even if it's so much, it can be here, if you can go a little bit more, this is the position, and then all the way down, inhale, come back up, exhale, one more time, Balasana, take a break, and come up, okay.

We'll do one more exercise to really warm up and then we'll try to attempt the posture. Coming back over to the hands and knees, this one's kind of hard but go slowly, lift the knees off the mat, here we are in a plank pose. Now we are not going to just go up and down like we did previously with the shoulders, we're going to bend the elbows this time, okay. So inhale, just bend slightly and take it up, like you're doing a pushup almost, okay. Bend, take it up, three more times, bend, take it up, bend, take it up, last time, bend, take it up, bend, hold it there, five, four, three, two, one, take it up, push back, downward, drop the knees, Balasana, take rest. It's very important to keep resting in between as well, just so that you give your muscles a break and you're not overstressing any of the muscles, okay. Inhale, come up.

Now we're ready to try, it will take you some time to come to this posture, no problem. You just have to keep working on the drills that we did before. Return to this class regularly and just keep practicing. Lift the knees off the mat, inhale, move the shoulders over the wrist, and as you exhale, as much as you can with control, slowly lower the body down. See if you can hold it off the floor just for a moment, and exhale, come down. Cross the hands, turn the head to one side, take a break, come back all the way back, okay.

We'll just try that one more time and we're done, just one last time and we'll call it a day. Now inhale, lift the knees up, hold it there, exhale, start to lower, lower, lower, hold it there, five, four, three, two, and one, exhale. Inhale, come up. Exhale, Balasana one more time.

Let's do Balasana with open knees, toes touching, for a deeper stretch on the hips. Go down as much as you can. Let's walk back up, knees together, release the shoulders, the same thing that we did earlier, right hand in front of the face, left hand from inside, and then take it over to the side. Few breaths here and release. Just to show you again, left hand under the face, right hand from inside, take it over to the side. Just releasing the shoulder, no stress, take a deep breath in and a deep breath out, and let it go, okay.

Just rotate the shoulders out about three times back, three times forward, and then cross the legs, hands on the knees, arch the back. With the back arched, let's hold it there, hands in front of the chest, release the spine, take a breath, deep breath in, deep exhale out, and slowly return, neutral spine position.

Today we're going to lie down and rest in this position, so bend the knees, lie down, stretch out the legs. You can stay here for as long as you want, fully recover from the practice, and I'll see you tomorrow.