What's up, everyone?
Welcome to Yoga with Adriene.
I am Adriene and today I'm tackling a question about tabletop position for our yoga tips
episode.
I often get a question about this tabletop position, people wondering if they're stacking
the bones right and just not knowing necessarily if they're doing it right which in this particular
pose I feel you even though we talk about it's not about doing it right it's about having
an experience I did feel like this one warranted a little extra chat because we can take the
action and the alignment of tabletop position into so many other postures.
So, we're going to come on to all fours.
I have a little towel or you can get a little blankie to pad the knees if you want.
And we're going to come into what we think is that tabletop position.
So we're going to start with the palms.
So, first of all-- and I'm going to do my best to really talk you through this so you
can watch this one time through and then experience it but I'm going to do my best to really talk
you through so you can experience this while the video is playing rather than having to
crank your head the whole time.
So, here we'll take it nice and slow.
This is one of the great things about the foundations of yoga and these yoga tips is
we can really take the time to really break it down in public class or even maybe you
only have an hour for home practice or less, 10 minutes, 30 minutes.
You just kind of want to get through beginning, middle, end, have an experience.
But today we're going to break it down a little yoga tips yoga school.
Okay, so, we're going to come on to all fours.
We're going to start with the hands.
Hand to earth, Hasta Bandha, as we spread the palms wide, spread them super wide like
starfish.
So, it really does start here.
There's this kind of thing that happens with the hand sometimes when we keep them here
or the index finger and thumb get left behind and we're crashing into the outer edges of
the wrist.
So, really truly spread the palms wide, make sure you're pressing into that fleshy part
between the index finger and thumb.
There is a tendency here to roll to the outer edges of the wrist that can cause unnecessary
strain.
So forget about that.
Spread the palms wide, press into all 10 knuckles then go ahead and shift your shoulders over
your wrist here so if you need to walk the palms out, go for it.
And we're gonna keep a soft bend in the elbows as we practice pressing away from the yoga
mat.
So, here is a tendency..
there is a tendency again to kind of just forget about the hands crashing to the outer
edge, lock the elbows and shrug the shoulders.
But again just focusing on this part of the body we're going to press into the palms,
spread the fingertips wide, soften through the elbows and again press away from the earth.
This is half the battle right here.
Really paying attention to this.
You might begin to rock a little front and back.
You might, particularly if this is new, begin to feel a little shake and that prana kind
of vibrating and the arms getting really tired and this is a good thing.
This means we're working in the right direction.
So, we're building strength and awareness with proper action and alignment here.
Tops of the shoulders draw away from the ears again.
Careful not to lock the elbows here and keep a nice softness and yes, I really feel this
in my arm.
I can feel my left arm trembling a little bit for whatever reason.
And I'm stacking the bones.
Great.
Now let's pay attention to the head and neck.
So, tendency here is to just forget the neck is an extension of the spine altogether and
just kind of wait.
Also, Yoga with Adrienne, you're looking at the video so I try to consider that here so
now's the time where you can take your gaze from the video and draw it straight down.
Imagine me coming and placing a little teacup on the back of your neck.
So the neck is nice and long, arms are strong, we're working here with a lot of integrity.
When you get tired you're gonna want to collapse your heart down but see if you can stay pressing
away from the mat, finding a little resistance there.
Great.
So, there's lots of space between the ears and shoulders here, your gaze is straight
down, chin is tucked in just slightly so again we're not crunching looking forward, we're
not forgetting about it, that nice, long beautiful neck.
Then from the crown of the head we light this fire, this spark, that slowly travels all
the way down through the spine to the tip of the tailbone right here.
And we're just going to begin to walk the knees underneath the hips and begin to just
light a little light.
Light a little fire, shine a little light is what I meant to say, from the crown of
the head to the tip of the tailbone.
And for me rocking a little front and back helps me find that line and you might notice
that you're dropping the belly here and the tailbone's rocking up.
Or you might notice if the lower back is really tight that your pelvis naturally comes in,
kind of arching the back.
So, just see what's going on there and if you're new to the practice it's starting to
hurt your wrists, you're not used to working like this, you can take a little break by
coming onto the fists as we explore this posture, rocking front to back.
Now, if you start to get a little bored, you feel like your time is getting wasted, just
keep going through your checklist.
There's so much to do here.
Then we'll come back to stillness.
And now we're going to bring our awareness to the belly button, the navel.
Navel draws up to the spine.
So, here's an exaggeration of dropping the belly, forgetting about the abdomen, the abdominal
wall, and I'm going to spiral the lower rib cage in together, lengthen the tailbone towards
my heels and essentially I'm going to draw the belly button, the navel, suck it up towards
the back body and the spine.
Don't forget about that long, beautiful neck.
And now we're starting to cook with gas as my mom would say.
Now, notice where your toes are.
So we have the knees underneath the hip points, just a reminder.
Now, notice where the toes are.
They might have started to come in here or they might come out.
We might just not have that awareness.
See if you can draw the ankles in line with the knees and the toes in line with the ankles.
So, all sorts of fun stuff happens back here and we're going to create nice, strong lines.
We're stacking the bones, knees underneath the hip points, wrists underneath the shoulders
and we're drawing straight lines from those knees to press into the tops of the feet.
Now, inhale in.
On an exhale press away from the earth.
Go ahead and slap the tops of your feet down to the mat, press away from your yoga mat
and find that beautiful, beautiful long line from the crown of the head to the tip of the
tailbone as you draw your navel up.
So, essentially you can come and have a little tea party on my back here.
Hey, yo!
Really want to say it, sorry.
Alright, last but not least we're going to test out this tabletop connection by lifting
the knees, hovering cat.
So, I do this one as a core strengthener but also as a way of really checking in with all
my lines and all my muscles making sure everything's along for the ride.
Because when I let my knees hover, oh there I have to find that abdominal wall, that navel
to spine.
I can't let my shoulder blades shrug in I have to broaden through the upper back body
to support everything.
And when you feel like you've had enough you can lower down, curl the toes under and take
a moment and maybe just watch the next portion if the wrists are tired to maybe relieve any
stress in the wrist.
This does take time.
This does take time and I encourage you to not write anything off especially if you're
new to yoga.
I feel like for the longest time I kind of just wrote off that I had bad wrists and then
I kept practicing mindfully and with assistance from my mentor and it's like now we're good.
And when my wrists start to talk to me I know to counter that or to take a break and so
don't decide where it ends.
Don't write yourself off.
So, you might just watch this next portion if you need to take some weight off the wrists
but I just want to go through the lines and the actions one more time.
So we're pressing up and out of the palms, all 10 fingerprints, all of the knuckles and
especially the fleshy part between the index finger and thumb.
Then I'm walking my wrist out just a bit, the base of my palm out just a bit to make
sure that I have this nice long line from the top of the shoulder all the way down to
the wrist.
Stacking the bones.
Then I walk the knees underneath the hip points, nice long line.
And then I walk the ankles in line with the knees.
I draw the shoulders away from the ears and I lift up through the center back body.
Find that long, beautiful neck, gaze straight down then draw your navel up towards your
spine.
Now, to check this one last time we'll press into our foundation and lift up, just a gentle,
tiny lift up through the knees, just to check in with that line or that dunda from the crown
of the head to the tip of the tailbone that stick or that staff that literally holds us
up.
One more breath here and then exhale release.
Curl the toes under maybe we're joining our friends here, maybe you're taking a moment
to rotate the wrist.
And that's our tabletop tips today.
So, through your practice you'll notice that the more we strengthen everything in this
kind of tabletop position the more we can apply this to our standing postures high lunge,
half moon, really all the warriors, plank, considering this one piece and finding spacing
grace through the limbs.
So, always building our poses from the ground up.
Thank you so much for your questions.
If you have questions or you want to start a conversation please leave it in the comment
box below.
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Thank you, my friends.
I love this Kula.
I couldn't be more grateful and more excited for all of us.
There's so much potential.
So, thank you.
Namaste.