- What's up party people welcome to Yoga with Adriene,
I am Adriene,
and we're back on the Foundations of Yoga today
with Garland Pose or Malasana.
This is an awesome pose for anyone who
knows they have tight hips.
And that's most of us, particularly in my culture,
that sit at a desk or a table and chair situation all day.
Our posture really gets cramped,
our style get cramped,
and so this is a great pose
to just get you down nice and low,
open up your hips, lubricate the joints,
really great for digestion.
Also really awesome for pregnant ladies.
So this pose is definitely for you
if you're in a prenatal yoga situation,
which if you are check out our new Prenatal Yoga Program
that I did with my dear friend Hilah.
And we can talk more about that at the end.
But let's get down and dirty.
Let's not get dirty, but let's get down
and open up those hips in Garland Pose.
(upbeat acoustic music)
Alright my friends we are going to start
in a Forward Fold today
and if you have a blanket or a towel
it might be useful as we come into this pose
especially first-timers.
So here we go.
You come into a nice Forward Fold,
you can come into it from sitting
or you can come into it from standing.
And you're going to take a couple breaths here
so you might walk the fingertips to one side
(inhales)
and then the other.
You might clasp the elbows
and rock a little gently side to side.
(inhales)
And then we'll bring our awareness
(exhale)
to the feet.
Walking the feet hip-width apart or slightly wider
and then turning the toes out.
Then I'll come up onto my fingertips here,
take a deep breath in (inhale)
and a nice conscious exhale as I bend my knees
and slowly lower my sit bones, my hips, my buttocks
down, down down.
So then you kind of look at the video right here
and you go, "Uh, that's not happening for my body,"
So here we go, a couple options.
So sometimes just anatomically we need to honor
what our body is doing, saying
and how it's structure is built.
And so for a lot of times I find my friends
who really just need to honor their body
it's about lifting the heels up.
Now eventually it might just be that that posture,
that everything is really tight,
the ligaments are stuck from sitting in chairs
and on toilets and all the things that we do
particularly in my culture
to kind of work against a healthy posture.
So here we are, kind of perhaps getting back down
to our roots in this squatting posture.
So in time I'll bet to say the feet might stretch out,
we might begin to drop the heels like so,
but for now, and even if your heels do drop,
you might take a second or two to come up on the heels
and this might be first about the feet.
So in the Foundations of Yoga,
in this series, I freaking love it,
because it really just gives us time
to break down the posture but also really focus on
kind of a traditional way of looking at
the postures of Yoga which is quite healthy
and going to keep you injury free
and that's by thinking of it from the ground up.
So you might be here, you might be here,
but we're all bringing our awareness to our feet
and then when the going gets tough,
fixing our mic, cleavage, excuse me.
When the going gets tough bringing it to the breath.
So rather than holding tight or getting frustrated,
(inhales)
drop into your breath, that energy.
(exhales)
Now if you have a blanket or a towel
it's sometimes nice to roll it up here
so that we can rest those heels that are lifted
up on a little support.
So we're not quite here, maybe we're beginning
to stretch out the feet and the ankles.
Get a little energy, a little Prana
flowing through the joints and we can come here.
Again we might not master this particular shape right away.
But that's okay we're here to do the work
and just be honest about what's going on.
And slowly as you begin to deepen this pose
and connect to your breath,
find the support underneath the heels,
or underneath the sit bones,
you might begin to experiment
with drawing the palms together at the heart.
We call this Anjali Mudra.
Palms pressing together.
And as we continue to grow the pose
I'll encourage you to connect to the action.
So drawing energy up from the earth
and then finding a little resistance here
as we press the elbows into the legs
and find this squeeze of the inner thighs,
even the knees, in towards the heart.
So that's kind of a lot if you're brand new
to this posture to be completely honest.
In a class I would invite this pose in stages.
So if you're working on deepening your pose
I really encourage you to work on that push and pull,
that resistance here,
that squeezing in of the inner thighs
and that pressing out of the elbows.
We find this lift in the heart
and this beautiful extension through the crown of the head.
If you're not quite here yet
it's just something to look forward to.
It's something to smile at and say
okay I'm going to work towards that, or someday.
Or how cool, my ancestors might have
used to have dinner like this.
A lot of cultures still eat and
go to the bathroom like this,
they have their babies like this.
So just kind of connecting,
something a little bit deeper here
trying not to get too hard on yourself.
Engage your abdominals when you need to for a little support
and breathe deep into the belly.
Super awesome for digestion too
if you can breathe into that lower belly.
(Inhales and exhales)
So a couple more breaths for here, or here.
We're lifted up in that froggy variation.
In the traditional Garland Pose
the feet are actually together,
the arches of the feet.
And we will touch on this as we continue to grow
the Foundations of Yoga series and the Yoga with Adriene
more Intermediate and Advanced practices.
So if you're like, "That's not Garland Pose,"
I do love your comments but you don't really
need to comment that down below
because we're starting here, nice and wide.
And this is also
the variation that you're more likely to see
in a public Hatha Yoga class.
Who knows, depending on where you live
and where you're at.
I like too that this series helps support you
and get you confident and rockin'
and feeling good and safe
and prepared to go rock out in a public class.
So, chances are you've already come out of the pose.
Or you're ready.
And to do that, we'll slowly release the arms
wherever they are to behind us.
And come up to a nice seated posture
with the soles of the feet on the mat.
So if you're on your blanket or block
you might spill off now.
I can stay on my blanket here.
And then nice and easy,
this is the chillest yoga pose ever,
I'm going to come onto my palms
and I'm just going to windshield wiper
the legs back and forth.
Let it stay there for a couple breaths.
So I'm breathing into the front of the hip crease,
I'm finding a little lift in the heart.
(Inhales)
A couple breaths to one side (exhales),
then you get a nice little booty massage
as you send the knees to the other side.
And a couple breaths here (inhales)
Don't collapse, why collapse now,
stay nice and lifted.
And then we can just rock a little back and forth.
Cool.
And we're done.
Alright great work my friends.
Again if you're new to this pose
and you're feeling a little feisty
or pissed off at me, totally normal.
We carry a lot in the hips and again,
most of the ways that we live our lives
is not in this shape anymore.
Used to be.
So I encourage you to maybe stick with Malasana
or Garland Pose as a practice.
See what you happens if you revisit this pose
every other day or every day.
You can favorite this video
or put it on a playlist.
You can practice this while you're watching Netflix,
even while you're reading a book, why not?
And it's a great pose to do with children
or like I said, awesome for mothers-to-be.
If you have any questions or comments
you know I love hearing from you,
leave them down below.
Share this video or any other yoga videos with your friends
and let's spread the love.
Take good care. Namaste.
(upbeat acoustic music)