Variations of Half Moon

Hi, welcome back. Today we're going to work towards Ardachandrasana or half moon and go over a few different variations of the shape. We're going to start in child's pose with our knees wide. So you can bring your big toes together. The knees can be as wide as is comfortable for you. And you'll bring the arms forward. Let the forehead rest on to your mat. And sort of sway the hips side to side. Saying hello to your inner thighs and your glutes. Stretch into the side body. Walk the fingertips forward here. And then from this space, we'll tuck the chin in and start to round through the lower back, rolling up and through like a cat position. And as we exhale, you'll lower yourself all the way down onto the belly. On the inhale, you'll lift up a little baby cobra. And then exhale, you'll move back into child's pose. Inhale, you'll shift up. Find all fours here. Take your right hand out to the side. Lift up with the inhale. And then with your exhale, thread through and under your left hand, lowering your face on down towards the ground. You can stay just like this. I like to tent up my fingertips. Your elbow points towards the ceiling. You might walk your fingertips overhead and continue to stretch through the side of the body and through the back. Another breath here. As we unthread, reground through your hand here. And then you'll swing out that left leg and step behind, coming to a little up, up and away. Opening on out, stretching into the chest. Breathing here. As you exhale, bringing the hand back down and shifting back child's pose. Inhale, rounding, rolling forward through a cat position. As you exhale, you bend into the elbows, lower down onto the belly. Inhale, a little cobra, lifting the heart, gaze comes forward. Exhale, back through child's pose. Inhale, we lift up all fours. Your hands underneath your shoulders. Left hand comes out to the side. Find an inhale to lift up even a little bit more, pressing down through your bottom arm. And then as you exhale, you thread the needle through your right arm, coming to the twist. The hand can come up onto fingertips, elbow points towards the ceiling, coming into the twist. A breath here, opening through side body, backside of the heart, and the spine. Collect energy into that right hand. Start to come on up. You'll pivot onto your right knee, point the toes behind you, and step that left foot out for another up, up and away. Reaching the arm up and over. Gaze can lift as well. Belly moves forward and should feel really nice. Bringing the hands back down here, shifting back child's pose. One more, rolling vinyasa, rounding, rolling forward. Exhale, we lower onto the belly. Inhale, maybe you're lifting up a little bit higher here. Gaze reaches up. And then exhale, shifting back here, child's pose. So I'm going to come into my downward facing dog. I'll go ahead and grab my black so they're there when I need them. Tucking the toes, lifting the hips, and finding downward facing dog. And breathing here. From here, taking your right leg nice and high, lifting it up behind you, and then externally rotating the hip, grounding through the bottom leg, and lifting the leg even higher. Take your gaze forward, step the foot between the hands, lower the back knee down, release the back toe, and take your hands up to the top of the knee. Soften through the hip crease, press into the knee, take the gaze forward, and maybe up. We'll take our gaze back down towards the floor, bring your fingertips inside your front foot, lift up that back shin, and pivot around towards the right, or towards the left just a little bit. And then you'll come up into sort of this knee down position for a mini side angle. Our right hand will come inside that foot here, and the left arm will start to come on up. If this is too much, you can always grab a block, right, and work more here. If you'd like, you can take the arm overhead, breathing, revolving from the knee of all. There's contact between the arm and the leg. Gaze comes down for stability, release that left hand to your hip here, and then we'll come back up. As we place our left hand to the ground, you want to make sure that your leg is straight up and down. So I'm going to use my block here to give myself a little bit of support. So not taking it over to the side, or over this direction, put it straight up and down here, and we'll extend through the leg, take the arm up, and find just a little mini artichandrasana. So I'm not even lifting my leg very high, I'm really just kind of staying straight out through the line of my torso. Working on grounding through that leg, breathing here, letting the chest be open and expansive. This leg is alive. I have the extended leg, lowering the foot on down here, and then I'm going to go ahead and put my hand on my hip and sit down on my seat, drawing that left shin underneath myself. I'm all set up for Janu. Taking a hold of the piece fingers around the toes, or hands along the side of the leg. I can work here, extended spine, right? Or I can start to come forward a little bit, still extended spine until I get about two-thirds of the way down, and then maybe deciding that I'd like to round and release the head. You can always place a blanket here underneath the seat to help bring your pelvis forward. I like to have a little bit of movement, pointing through the toes, flexing, pointing, taking a few breaths here. Now lift myself up. Take your right leg, swing it over the left here. Take your right hand behind you, reach your left arm up, find the inhale, and then twisting over to your right. A little seated spinal twist. Then we release this, and we'll come to the back of our mat, stepping all the way back, downward facing dog. Shifting forward here, lowering the knees down, coming to our child's pose. Rounding, rolling forward, all the way down onto the belly. Find the inhale, lifting the heart. The exhale, moving back. Packing the toes, lifting the hips. Take your left leg nice and high. Externally rotate, lifting. Take the gaze forward, step between the hands. Lower your back knee down, release the back toe, take the hands on up to the top of the knee. You're pressing down through the knee and forward, so you're moving that knee forward. Pelvis is releasing back here, strong in our thighs, and the gaze might lift up. And then hands come down, walk the fingertips around towards the right, pivot onto that back knee, and come on up for your mini side angle. So here's an option too, working elbow on top of the knee, fingertips down. I'm going to go ahead and use the block for me. So pressing down into the floor, elbow onto the thigh, fingertips onto the block, taking your arm on up. The leg and the arm connect, and then maybe arm goes over here.

Release this, move my block out of the way. Here, walking my fingertips over towards the right, I'll use my block for support. Again, nice straight up and down femur, extending out the left leg here. Left arm comes up, rooting through the knee, and then lifting the leg, and keeping this angle nice and short. Another breath or two here, this leg, extended leg is alive. I lower the foot on down, and then again, I'm just sitting down, so I'm pulling that right chin underneath myself, sitting down. Left leg is extended here, long through the spine, inhale, and then exhale, you might start to come forward. Any amount is fine. Maybe piece fingers around the big toe feels useful, maybe having the hands on either side. A few breaths here, extending through the spine with your inhale, exhale starting to soften. So again, I like a little bit of movement. You can wag the tail, wiggle the spine, and start to work your way in there. And as we come on up, you can grab a hold of your left leg, help it on over. Round through your seat, take your left hand down, right arm is up, inhale, and exhale, twisting over to your left. Breathing here, release the twist, step around, back to the front of our mat, downward facing dog. Shifting forward, lowering the knees down, child's pose, rounding, rolling forward, all the way down to the belly. Press into the hands, lift the heart, cobra, and exhale on back, child's pose.

And rising on up, we'll come to all fours. So when I have a block here for support, when needed, I'll start to balance onto that right knee and right hand just a little bit more, and start to lift up the left leg. So at first, I'm just taking it straight back. So before we practiced a half moon, and then we allowed the shin to kickstand out, here we're keeping it neutral, just to get a little bit more into that inner leg line. We'll breathe here, this might be enough. And then as you start to lift, so we're wanting to lift that left leg up and over. So I come on to fingertips, and I need this extra support of the block getting a little bit higher up, so I can really lift up and over. You see this difference? I'm moving that leg up and over my pelvis. And then from there, rooting through right inner thigh, reaching back through the toes. The idea here is that we're taking this line from inner leg line down to the earth, away from the pelvis on our standing leg, and then back up again through the pelvis and out to the toes. So there's this beautiful chain action that comes through. And then we release this down, and move the block out of the way. Here, shift back into a child's pose. I call this the hardcore child's pose. And so instead of it being a relaxing shape, we're trying to contract through our abs and round. So I come into a tighter variation. I'm pushing the mat away from me, and I draw my navel deep into my belly, and I get some stretch sensation to the back side of my heart. But I'm definitely engaging through the core, and there's a much more rounded action through the spine. And it's harder. And then I come on out, take a little little wag of the tail to release that. And then we'll try this whole thing on the other side. So grounding through our left knee here, I'll go ahead and move the block over towards my right hand so it's there. And so grounding through our left knee, starting to get that more rooted, taking the right leg up. So we're starting up, our pelvis is more or less squared-ish, right? And then as we start to take that leg up and over, getting the height underneath us, so using a block underneath your right hand to get that height, rolling the pelvis up and over, root down through inner thigh to get up through pelvis and out through your back toe, right? And so the whole thing is stabilized from the inside. Nothing is dumping all the weight onto the pelvis. It's nice and lifted. And then we release that shift on back. Again, hardcore child's pose, right? We're rounding through the back, and drawing the navel in and pushing the hands away.

We'll come on up. You might take a cat cow, inhale arching the spine. Exhale, rounding through the spine. I'll tuck my toes, come into downward facing dog. Take your right foot between your hands, and then come on up to a warrior two stance. So we'll straighten into our front leg here. I'm going to have my block ready for me. So it'll start here because we're going to move in. Our entrance number one will be from the ground. This is often the way that we get into half moon, like in a vinyasa flow class. So that's where we're starting here. So I'll straighten into my front leg, draw that pelvis back, come on over for my trikonasana, and breathe here for just a moment. And then taking the gaze down, I'll start to bend into that front knee. And if you bring your hand towards the back of your hip, it's a little bit easier than keeping it up. It's bringing the hand down, and then walking your right hand, you're out to the diagonal of that pinky foot, or the pinky toe. And then coming up until all the weight is on that front foot. Start to press down. So here's just like that we were doing when we were on all fours. We're sort of kind of squared with a hip. So pushing down to take this up and over the pelvis. And then I can find the line of chi from the floor across my hip out through the leg. Once I have that connection, then I can take my arm up. And breathing here.

And then slowly bending into the knee, lowering the foot back down, come on back, downward facing dog. And we'll take the other side. So left leg comes forward, finding warrior two stance. Take a moment here. And straighten into that front leg. I highly recommend blocks. They're awesome, right? Finding your trikonasana. Exhale, come on over. A breath or two here. And then our gaze comes down. Bend into that front knee. Walk your left fingertips forward and bring your right hand to your hip. Start to shift the weight into your left foot. And then lifting up that right leg. Noticing that here, we've got a little bit more of a squared pelvis. So we're going to root through the big toe of the standing leg and bring your top hip up and over. And then finding that down connection, carry it up through your pelvis across and back out the toes. And then taking the arm up, opening through the chest. Your artichandrasana. Slowly releasing the foot on down.

And stepping on back, downward facing dog. Shift forward, lower the knees down. Another rolling vinyasa. You can always change this up to something more vigorous or less so if you desire. Rolling down onto the belly. Inhale, lifting the heart. Exhale, sending it back, child's pose. And then back into downward facing dog. Right leg comes high. Step through. Virabhadrasana two again. Arms come out now. So here's entrance number two. This time we're going to bring our black. It's going to be already set up more or less about where I want my hand to land. And I'm measuring what is the distance between my hip bone and my armpit. And that's more or less the distance that I want from the black. A lot of times we end up having the black too close and that isn't of service to our balance. So from the upright position we start to move the back foot in first. And we're getting that connection of up and over here before we come in. It's like the I'm a little teapot variation, right? So instead of coming in this way and then finding it, which is actually harder, we're finding this openness first. So this might be the artichandrasana for this variation. Arms can come out and you can stay here, right? Hands can also be on the hips. That can be a little bit easier. Rooting through that bottom foot, just flexing the back toes here. Again, this can be your artichandrasana or starting to lift that leg. Notice how I didn't go this way, right? So I'm flexing the foot and then using my butt to lift the leg. From here I'm slowly coming on over, taking my time to maintain that contact to the floor, back up to my pelvis, and out through my back leg. I breathe here, release the arm, smile, and then come on down. Bring the hands back down to the ground, step back, downward facing dog. I won't try that on the other side. Left leg forward and setting up warrior two. So I'll go ahead and move my back to about where I think I need it. Straightening into that front leg and bringing my back foot all the way in, so all the weights on that front foot. I'm already in a standing balance here. I'm already working on trying to balance on one foot without even taking that back foot up off the ground.

Root through the big toe ball mound, flex the foot, pause there, find your stability. Then lift the leg, pause here, find your stability. Then take the arms out and slowly keep that openness as you tilt on over, finding the fingertips to the blocks. Press down, up and over the pelvis, point the back toes, shooting the chi out behind you. It rides the whole line of the body. Slowly come on back, bring the hands on down, downward facing dog.

Move my block out of the way, shift forward, lower the knees down, child's pose. Round, roll it forward, all the way to the belly. Inhale, lifting the heart. Again, you can always make this a little bit bigger or a little bit smaller if you'd like. Exhale, back, child's pose. One more, coming back into our downward dog. Take your right leg high, step through warrior two and coming on up. Again, this variation we're going to come in from a high point and I'm going to use two blocks so I get even more height so I stack mine like so here. I'm guesstimating about where I need it and I can bring all the weight onto that front foot. Again, these are stopping points so this time as we start to lift up our leg, we're going to bend into that knee and take a hold of the foot. I have my blocks a little bit higher because it's easier to get the leg lifted when we're higher up off the ground.

I'm still pressing down through the floor and then here I am taking that chain so push down through the floor, hip goes over and then I send the chi out the knee which closes the knee joint and makes it a more open shape. Instead of pushing it back like bow pose, we release this gently and slowly bringing the foot on down, come back, downward facing dog. Take a full inhale, long exhale here and then step forward, left foot, left side, move my blocks over, okay more or less and start to bring the weight all the way into that left foot. Pause here, make the connection, start to lift up your leg. So now you tell me my blocks are a little too close. Once you lift your leg up, start to bend into the knee.

If you can't get it, you can always pull the foot in. All right this is the side that's a little bit harder for me. So I'm finding the root through the standing leg then I take it up and over my pelvis and back through the knee. Hopefully that's visual enough to see that change and then it's really big in the heart and my knee joint closes when I can get that line connected. I release the leg slowly, bring the hands on down and downward facing dog. Lowering the knees down, shift back into your child's pose, move your blocks out of the way so you have space.

Last rolling vinyasa for again if you're wanting to take something bigger you totally can or if you want to just hang out in child's pose and breathe that's a great place too. Inhale lifting the heart, exhale shifting back child's pose. And breathing here, full inhale, long exhale. And then from here we'll start to sit on up to a seat and we're going to set up to come down onto our backs. So this is a supported back bend with our blocks. So you're going to, you have a couple choices for how you'd want to set this up. Two blocks, one underneath each shoulder blade on its low setting or on its medium setting. I do know a few spicy friends that like it on the high setting but I'm going to say for this practice probably medium is good enough. If low is feels too high feel free to use a rolled up blanket instead. You want to have some space between the blocks so that the spine goes between and shoulder blade shoulder blade here and then some space for the head. And it's worth being a little bit of obsessive about the positioning of the blocks to make sure that they're straight because once you get on them right you really can tell the difference. So you want them to hang off a little bit so they're over your shoulders so you should be able to tap them. Bend your knees, interlace the fingers behind your head, draw the elbows together, move them out of the shoulders and take your gaze up. From here press down through the feet, lift the hips up. You're not doing a back bend yet but you're just bringing a little bit more space into the body, into the chest. And then strongly moving from the elbows taking the gaze up and over the blocks and then from there lowering the seat back down. If you get stuck and you can't lower the seat back down it just means that your blocks are too high for you and you want to switch to a different setting. We'll take our arms out overhead and so here I'm rooting through my shoulders into the blocks and through the bottom of my sitting bones, my sacrum, taking the pubic bone away from my navel and getting this wonderful stretch sensation throughout my belly, my solar plexus, even into my upper chest. We take a few more breaths here.

Inhaling, lengthening, exhaling, softening. Say about two more. Inhale, lengthen, exhale, softening. And maybe this last breath you might decide to extend the legs out and just get one more nice and long. Exhale, soften. We'll take our hands behind our head so you get your head supported by the hands. You use your arm muscles to lift up your head. Pause, take a second to kind of recollect. When you feel ready your hands come to the ground. Get the hands underneath you so that you can feel the support of the earth and then press yourself on up. So I'll move my blocks off to the side here in the front of my space so that when I come over to my twists, they're there if I need them. Come back down onto your back, bending both knees. Take your left foot over the right. Press down into your right foot, lift your hips, and move them slightly to the left. And then you're going to come on over to your blocks potentially, resting the knees there. So my right hand rests on top of the knee. The left hand can go to diagonal. The gaze can be neutral. It can be towards the knees, which is a little bit more restorative. Or it can be away from the knees, which is a little bit more intense. For myself, I'm going to choose neutral. We're breathing here. Notice if there's any tightening or tension in the glutes. And if there is, changing the setting of the block to be a little to be higher. So moving it up to medium setting will give you more support. I'm always taking another few breaths here. Full inhale, full exhale. Really letting the glutes relax, right? They worked really hard, so we want to give them a nice little stretch. And then I'll release my hand off the knee, uncross the legs first, ground into my feet.

Come back through center. Bring both hands to the belly. Knees come together, feet are wide. Pause here in neutral for a moment. And then I'll take both my blocks, and I'll move them on over to the other side. Crossing the right leg on top of the left, push down into the floor with your foot and move your hips over to your right. And then taking the twist to the left, landing one of the legs onto the blocks. Your left hand comes to your knee. The right hand moves to a diagonal. So notice how this joint is straight out from my shoulder. I'm not creating an angle in either way, right? So it's just straight out to the diagonal. And then here I'm allowing this line to really soften. So these guys worked so hard, and all those artichandrosinas were half moons. And so we're really letting those soften, relax, and enjoy the rest. Again, if it's feeling like this side can't do that, you're going to want to lift the blocks up to a higher setting so you're not as deep in the twist. Shoulders are on the ground. So both shoulders supported on the ground. Let's take about one more breath here.

And then again, starting to uncross the legs first, ground into your feet. Feet a little bit wide here. Knees come together. And then we'll slowly extend our legs on out for shavasana. We're releasing the arms out to the sides. We'll wag the tail a little bit. And we're greeting the side or the back side of the body to the ground, allowing the whole thing to kind of shake. Say, hello, earth. How are you doing? Let me connect with you. And then eventually letting that shake slow down until you can settle into your shavasana. And so we'll rest here together for a few moments. If you'd like a longer shavasana, you should hit pause and take as long as you need.

Otherwise, we'll rest here together just for a few moments. You might let the eyes close. And check in with the body. Has your legs been able to release and relax into the ground? If not, can you send that invitation to them? They might accept. Let me settle here for a few moments. And when you're ready, start to bend into your knees, plant your feet on the floor. And again, you can always stay longer if you'd like to. Pause here, and then eventually come on over to your right side. Taking a moment in the space on your side body to transition back into regular yogi life. Take note of the results of your practice.

And slowly pressing yourself on up to a seat. Bringing the hands to the heart, bowing the head on in. Hmm. May you be receptive to grace. Namaste.