Urdhva Mukha Svanasana: Up Dog

All right. We're back with the beautiful Alana. All right. Some of the same principles from Cobra will be weaving into upward facing dog. So to start, we'll just look at the alignment. All right, Alana, when you're ready, come on up. All right. So gorgeous. All right. So we see the engagement of the leg. She's not collapsing down on the earth. The lift of the deep low belly so that she's strong through the center and not collapsing into the low back. The lift from the heart with the shoulders back and down. So she's not scrunching the neck and rolling forward. All right. Also, yeah, take a moment whenever you need to. Also, it's sort of a steady gaze, slightly forward and up. And you're welcome to lift the gaze a little higher. However, we don't want to completely collapse back through the neck. Yeah, beautiful. You can come down and rest for a moment. All right. And then similar to Cobra, there's one sort of classic adjustment that will help deepen the whole experience. So as you're ready, Alana, come on up again. All right. The legs engaging, tailbone out through the heels, no collapsing through the belly. And then would you do me a favor and just roll the shoulders forward and kind of scrunch through the neck? No, it's hard to do it wrong. So we see the legs are on the earth and the belly is dropping. All right. And the cue here would be engage the legs, press through the hands and wake up through the core, right? Then we're off the earth. And here she's lifted through the heart and the shoulders are back and down. You can use hands on the shoulders, drawing back. Yeah. And cue a lift of the heart. Yes, beautiful. And then just go ahead and let it all release. Good. Rest for a moment. Yeah. So there's a lot going on in that pose. You want to be looking and then verbally cueing. And if there's a rolling forward, scrunching through the shoulders and the neck, you can use your hands to help open there. Right?

Play with it, see how it feels and enjoy.