Downward Facing Dog to Upward Dog

Video Transcript

Hi, I'm Amy McCauley, and I'm going to demonstrate how to do a downward facing dog to an upward dog. The benefits for doing this: lots' of stretching through the back, the hamstrings, the chest, and the shoulders. So, we're going to start with a downward facing dog position. Take your feet just about the width of your mat. If you don't have a mat it's a little bit wider than shoulder width. You're going to draw your shoulder blades down the spine, away from your ears so we want to avoid choking the neck. Relax the spine, relax the shoulders, draw those hips towards the ceiling. So, your ultimate goal is to try to get the heels to drop down into the mat, and if your flexibility doesn't allow you to, try to slowly start to pull those heels down. You can alternate from one side to the other to loosen up the hamstrings and the calves, and then try to get in that full position. We're going to lift the hip hips and then we're drive it forward. We're coming all the way up. On the upward facing dog the shoulder goes down the spine, the chest is open. Avoid choking your neck. Let those shoulders roll down the spine. We're trying to get the pelvis to go down to the floor; opening up the chest wall. Curl the toes under, inhale, and then exhale, push it back. So, this movement goes from one movement to the other without taking too much rest. Find that flexibility, inhale, come up; exhale, push back. It's a nice slow, rhythmic movement; trying to stretch the front of the body and then the back of the body. You're going to find great benefits out of this because you will be able to get a lot more muscle stretching from the the back and the chest. So, if you feel like you're tight in either section let go of tension, hold that stretch for just a little bit longer; nice slow breath. And that is how we go from downward facing dog to upward dog. Relax the shoulders and the neck.

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