Hey everyone, welcome to Yoga With Adriene.
I'm Adriene, and today on the Foundations of Yoga, we're learning half moon, or ardha
chandrasana.
This is an awesome and challenging pose that's a full body strengthener.
This is such a great thing to do in the foundations, because we can really break it down and build
from the ground up, from our foundation.
I love this series, it's like yoga school.
You get to go in and experiment a little more on the poses than maybe you can in a public
class, or if you're just trying to get your workout done.
Take off your shoes and let's learn or deepen half moon pose.
All right, my friends.
To begin today, we're going to actually come onto all fours.
Just a quick check in to assist you when we get up on our feet in half moon.
Essentially, we're checking in with this line from the crown of the head to the tip of the
tailbone.
It's what Shibura [SP] calls the [inaudible 00:01:04], which I love, which in Sanskrit
means staff or stick, which it quite literally this line that that carries us, that holds
us up.
You can take a moment to just visualize that line from the crown of the head all the way
to the tip of the coccyx there.
As you come to all fours, stack yourself in tabletop position.
We also have a yoga tips for tabletop position.
Tabletop position video would actually be a really great video to also do if you're
trying to grow ardha chandrasana.
Here we are.
Tabletop position, wrist underneath the shoulders, knees directly underneath the hips.
Press into the tops of your feet, press into all ten fingerprints, and slowly begin to
lift your knees.
Let them hover.
It doesn't have to be a big lift here.
In fact, keep it quite small.
This isn't about impressing your dog or cat with your shape.
This is about checking in with those abdominal muscles and checking in with this full body
experience, a kind of sense of integrity.
Rather than collapsing here, we're pressing away from the earth.
We're remembering that the neck is a long, beautiful extension of the spine.
I can tell I am tired.
My body's like ugh.
Anyway, that's good.
Press into the tops of the feet.
One more breath here, draw your navel up towards your spine.
On an exhale, slowly release, curl the toes under.
We can rotate the wrist here a couple of times if we need to.
Then, we'll come up onto standing.
Here we go.
We're actually going to come into half moon today from triangle pose.
Go ahead and take the feet nice and wide.
There is a Foundation for Yoga for the triangle pose too, if you want to check it out.
Turn the toes in, take a second to stand up nice and tall.
We'll take the right toes out here to start.
Inhale, send the fingertips out, lift your heart, lengthen the tailbone down.
You can already begin to think about head, heart, and pelvis being in one nice line here
as we lengthen the tailbone down, relax the shoulders and lengthen the neck.
Take a deep breath in, and on an exhale, send your hips back as you reach forward.
Reach, reach, reach.
Keep length in both side of the body, in fact, all four sides of the waist here as we come
into our triangle.
We can make little adjustments as needed.
Whenever you're ready, inhale.
Open your heart up towards the sky.
Relax your shoulders down and away from the ears.
Imagine your two shoulder blades coming together and melting down towards the base of the spine.
We take a deep breath here.
Then exhale, send your gaze down, you can just soften in your right knee.
If you have a block available, you can take your block here, but if not, no worries.
We're going to bring the left hand to the waistline and we're going to step the back
foot up about halfway.
From here, I keep the length that I had in triangle, and I'm actually going to do it
without the block at first, just in case you don't have a block.
We'll send the fingertips in front.
Front knees bent, I take a deep breath in, I soften through the back knee, and on an
exhale, press into all four corners of that standing leg, your right foot here.
Right away, I begin to brighten through my left foot.
Now, I can go into this pose super fast, but chances are, if you're watching this, you're
a beginner wanting to deepen your practice, so we're going to slow her down.
Fingertips are about two palms length away from your pinky toe here, and we just begin
to lift that leg.
Now, you're coming in on the full pose here.
Left hands on the waistline, right fingertips on the earth.
What I can begin to experiment with here is my head and neck.
Even if you're looking at the video, it's okay in this posture to be looking at the
video, then coming back down to focus or keeping your head out is fine, if you're looking.
What I'm doing here is, again, drawing energy up from the center channel, imagining this
line from the crown of the head to the tip of the tailbone.
If the spine is kind of wilted here, see if you can grow a little tall through the crown
and lengthen your neck.
Then we might set that back foot down and ift up, take a little break here.
Dance break.
This is actually what my friend Hilo [SP] would do.
Dance break.
Okay, it's good to dance.
One time recently, I tried to do that in class to a particular song.
It took a while.
There was a lot of resistance.
Girl, we do a lot of your things, Adriene, but we don't feel like dance breaking right
now in the middle of our vinyasa.
But later on they did some dancing.
If you do have a block, you can bring it now.
Again, it's about one block's worth, or two palm's worth away from that pinky toe.
We can also begin to grow this pose from the ground up without the block.
If you have it, great, we can use it.
If not, no worries.
Okay, here we go.
Coming into our triangle, we take a deep breath in and exhale, tilt.
Remember this length is spaced and soften through that front knee.
We'll bring that back foot up halfway.
Fingertips are going to come to the earth, or palm to the block.
I bend both knees, inhale in, exhale.
Lift off.
This time, as I spiral my heart out to the side, I'm going to begin to lift that back
leg.
Sorry, it's a little hard to do it while I'm chatting.
Visualize this beautiful line from the crown of the head to the tip of the tailbone.
Draw energy up from the arch of your right foot.
Keep a soft bend in this right knee as you spread awareness through all four corners
of that right foot.
I'm pressing into my left heel.
I'm really engaging through that left foot, creating a full body experience as I extend
from the crown of the head to the tip of the tailbone and also tailbone, sit bone really,
to heel.
Left hand can be on the waistline here as we relax the shoulders away.
Remember what you had to do in your abdominal wall when you were in that hovering cat cow,
my friends.
As we grow the practice, we can open out here.
Also, of course we can do this from the earth.
Think about just, again, gathering energy up from the earth.
Take your time, slowly growing this practice, taking every muscle fiber along for the ride.
Long extension through the neck.
Everyone, charge through your left inner thigh.
Even if we're here, we can begin to engage that foot, draw the navel in to meet the spine
and start to charge that left inner thigh.
Check out this sexy pose.
This might be your half moon today.
Then here, and then here, and then here and relaxing the shoulders down and slowly we
grow.
Play a little bit here on the right side.
Take breaks if you need to.
Forward fold.
We'll just take a couple more breaths here, playing with half moon on the right side.
How can I create a full body experience drawing the shoulders away from the ears?
Soft bend through the right knee, so don't lock that standing leg.
Press into the left heel, charge that left inner thigh.
Deep breath in.
Extend through the crown.
Wherever you are, you're using exhale to slowly unravel it back with control, with grace.
Cool, we will all come into a nice forward fold here.
Grab the elbows, rock a little side to side.
We'll tuck the chin into the chest and slowly roll it up.
Take your time.
Classy, just noticed a little hole in my pantaloons here.
It's like somebody sent them like that, it's like distressed jeans.
Now we're starting to sell distressed yoga pants with holes in them.
Someone's going to steal that idea, and I'm okay with that.
Okay, here we go on the other side.
Let's take the feet out wide.
I'll walk you through this triangle.
If you're new to triangle, check out the foundations of triangle.
Yummy, yummy posture.
We'll turn both toes in, stand up nice and tall.
Find that length.
The beauty of this series, Foundations of Yoga, is we just get to slow it down, break
it down.
Keep this length as you turn your left toes out.
We really press into the outer edge of that back foot for triangle.
Inhale, send the fingertips out left to right.
Exhale, moving into triangle sending the hips back as we reach, reach forward.
Long torso.
We check it out here on the other side.
The reason I like to come to triangle first is tilting into half moon from tadasana, for
a beginner, is a little much, but it eventually will become fun for you, I think.
Also, we keep this length, and if we don't forget about the underbody here.
Chances are sometimes triangles kind of look like this.
See if you can create a lot of space between your left earlobe and your left shoulder,
as you draw the shoulder blades in together and down.
Cool.
See where you're at on this side.
Notice, of course, it's different than the other.
Then, we're going to go right into it.
We're going to release the right hand to the waistline, soften through this knee.
Just see where you're headed here, in front of that pinky toe.
Then, we're going to soften through the back knee and hike it up halfway.
Great.
Fingertips come out off the mat.
I'm going to actually center myself just so my frame looks good.
As you practice with the block, you can always at go different levels.
Yes, we know.
Here I go.
Engaging energy, drawing energy up from the center channel here, a little mula bandha
if you're familiar.
Also playing with that navel to spine.
Uddiyana bandha.
Drawing the navel into the spine and we lift the big toe up.
Flex that foot.
Find length.
If you're kind of here at the neck, remember, neck nice and long.
Here, again, we can just go to here, but chances are you're going to be holding on for dear
life instead of experiencing all this yummy yoga joy.
Take your time.
Just lift one big toe off.
Even if you have experience, you might just take a moment here.
You might notice if you're crashing down onto that left hand.
You might just bring just more consciousness into the body.
Cool.
We're going to go right into it from here.
Wherever you are, and I'm going to take my block away just to show you that if we don't
have that block, it's okay.
I'm going to keep this soft bend in this left knee.
Maybe you just stay here, my friends, playing, or maybe you begin to open up.
Use your breath.
Draw energy up from that left foot, but keep a soft bend in that left knee as you open
out.
Not everything has to happen at once, my friends.
You can work on charging that back leg, and then tend to the shoulders, slowly going through
your checklist as you extend through the crown of the head.
Charge that right inner thigh.
Eventually, we're opening out through the ribcage, right, and drawing that left ribcage
up and under.
Then, I set my gaze up and fall out.
That's what it's all about.
Here's a little playtime for you and me.
Left side is definitely different from than the right for me, and talking.
A couple more breaths here.
Keep playing on this side again, or anywhere.
We're here, we're here, we're here.
Sometimes, it is nice to practice this against a wall.
You can press that right heel right up against the wall.
Wherever you are, take one more deep breath in, smile, and exhale with control.
See if you can slowly, with control, unravel back to that forward fold.
Awesome, everyone.
Hang here, bend your knees generously.
Take a deep breath in through the nose.
Exhale out through the mouth.
We press into all four corners of the feet.
Once again, slowly roll it up.
Mountain pose.
Ta da!