- What's up everyone?
Welcome to Yoga with Adriene, I am Adriene,
and today we're gonna learn an awesome pose
called Knees, Chest, and Chin pose.
This posture is an amazing preparatory posture
for Chaturanga or Chaturanga practice.
Or if you're a beginner, this is a wonderful pose to
just kind of substitute so that you can
build strength in the transition from
Downward Facing Dog all the way through Upward Facing Dog.
Great for the back body, great for the core,
really great for the arms and legs too.
So let's hop on the mat and learn Knees, Chest and Chin,
or also called Ashtanga Namaskara.
Let's hop to it!
(plucky guitar music)
Alrighty, so to begin we're going to come to all fours.
And I'm just gonna kind of walk us through
a couple different stages of this.
And so, for starters we'll begin
with the knees already on the mat.
I'm gonna walk the knees in towards the midline
and walk my wrists underneath my shoulders.
So I'm gonna come to kind of a half plank here,
so I'll maybe lift the toes up and tuck the pelvis.
And again, just take a second to find your alignment.
Wrists underneath the shoulders,
pressing up and out of the palms.
If you feel like your shoulders are
kind of coming up towards the ears here,
you can, say, remind yourself to draw them away.
Okay, and then I'm gonna go knees.
Okay, knees are already on the ground.
And then I'm gonna think chest and chin.
So the next thing to come down is the chest.
I'm gonna hug my elbows into the side body.
They're gonna wanna splay out like a push-up.
Keep them hugging into the side body
as you lower chest down.
Now as I slowly lower chest down
I'm going to rock my pelvis
so that I can keep my hips reaching up towards the sky
as I lower chest to the mat.
Hips stay up, chist, chest comes down,
chist (laughs), and then chin releases to the earth.
Great, take a deep breath in here,
lower the legs,
and then inhale Baby Cobra, why not?
And exhale we release, curl the toes under,
come back to all fours and let's try that again.
So again, we're going knees, chest, chin.
So knees are gonna already be on the ground to start.
Got excited there.
I'm gonna hug the elbows into the side body,
inhale in, exhale.
I slowly lower chest down to the ground.
As I do that I let my hips rock up towards the sky,
Knees, chest, I look forward
and then slowly release chin.
Now this time stay here,
and rather than just collapsing
all your weight into the mat, blah,
keep elbows hugging in,
back body alive,
navel drawing in towards the spine.
Kind of awkward here (laughs)
in terms of online yoga video
but, just a yummy posture,
inhale in, and then exhale, releasing everything.
Belly comes to the mat, and inhale Baby Cobra (breathes in).
Exhale release. Awesome.
Curl the toes under and we come back to all fours.
Sweet, okay, take a second
to the roll the wrist if you need to.
And then we're gonna practice this
from Downward Facing Dog
which is typically where you'll kind of move into it
if you're doing a Flow class,
or most Hatha yoga classes, I guess.
You never know.
Okay, so taking a second
to check in with the body in Downward Facing Dog.
Pedal the feet for a second if that feels good.
Then I'll take a nice deep breath in (breathes deeply).
On my exhale, I come up onto my tippy tip toes,
I shift forward, and lower the knees.
Now, here we pick up with what we did before,
hugging the elbows into the side body,
I slowly lower chest to the earth.
Hip points rock up towards the sky,
chin releases.
Stop here one breath cycle,
in (breathes deeply), and out (breathes out).
Then I slowly press into the palms,
slide the legs out.
Awkward sound of my feet on the mat,
just kidding (laughs).
And then inhale, lift up Baby Cobra, exhale release.
Curl the toes under, press back up to all fours.
And let's try that again.
Hip bones up towards the sky, Down Dog.
Alright, ready to try it again?
Deep breath in, inahale (breathes deeply),
exhale, we shift forward, lower the knees first,
hug the elbows into the side body,
knees, chest, lowers down,
chin to earth.
Take a deep breath in (breathes deeply),
and on your exhale sliding through Cobra.
Gently release, curl the toes under,
press it back up to all fours.
Let's try one more time.
Hip bones up towards the sky.
Knees, chest, chin moving,
flowing with the breath,
and again, making sure that
when we release chest to the earth
we're not dumping our weight just into the earth
without any integrity,
but, again staying alive through the back body,
and really through the whole body, full body experience.
Here we go, inhale in (breathes deeply),
exhale, shifting forward, knees lower down.
Elbows hug in, chest,
hips up towards the sky.
Pause here, knees, chest, chin.
(breathes deeply) on an exhale, slide it through.
And exhale, release.
Great, curl the toes under,
press back up to all fours,
and then we'll walk it back.
Maybe taking a second to roll out the wrist.
Take a deep breath in (breathes deeply)
and then exhale, let it go (breathes out).
Alrighty then, so that was knees (laughs).
I just did an Ace Ventura thing, didn't I?
Alrighty then, I'm gonna roll with it,
let's not cut, let's roll with this.
Okay, that was Knees, Chest and Chin pose.
I think this is a great posture to practice
even if you're already doing Chaturanga.
I think this is a wonderful pose
to just have in your tool belt
so that if you're going hard or, you know,
just to have that tool.
If you're listening to your body and you're tired,
say you're in a faster paced class,
you can sub with this posture.
Or, if you're a beginner, you're new to yoga,
this is an amazing pose to work with integrity.
To give yourself the time and practice you need
to get to Chaturanga practice, okay?
I feel like often we rush this process,
and we end up injuring the shoulders
and just kind of being like, sad, you know,
like I can't do it, I'm not strong enough.
But hopefully with this posture you'll realize
that it's not just all about these guys,
but it's about full body experience.
So, leave questions, comments below,
let me know how it goes.
I love hearing from you guys.
And, peace be the journey, cool runnings.
(laughs) Namaste.
(plucky guitar music)