Warrior 1

Namaste, welcome back, and thank you again Winifred, Julie, and Matt for being here to assist essentially in showing some of the different ways a posture can look. So in this next clip we'll be pursuing, that sounds funny, we'll be pursuing Warrior I, Virabhadrasana I. Vira meaning hero. So the way we'll do this is find yourself in Tadasana, my friends. Let the feet be as closer, as far apart, as feels comfortable for you. Yes. Okay, big deliberate inhale, and exhale, this time let a little bit of a happen, and this time in this Tadasana soften the knees. So just like soften the knees a little bit, relax the belly, relax the floor of the pelvis, and just see if you can start to have a sense of the ground. Okay, so as the jaw slackens, and the mouth is relaxed, and the eyes are kind, beautiful. And then just enough, okay, the request here is please press just enough into the feet so that you feel this natural generosity of heart. Yeah, there's a quality of openness, and you'll know if you've overdone it, it'll feel anxious. Okay, so just enough through the feet so you feel gratitude, and generosity, and now please tune into the alignment of your skull so that she feels light, and open, and usually there's this little spot right at the base of the skull, pretty, yes, there's this little spot right at the base of the skull that widens, and it almost lets it feel kind of like honey, molasses-like, yeah. Okay, kind in the eyes, easy in the face. So we begin with Tadasana because Tadasana helps become the blueprint of alignment cues that can be useful in the posture. Okay, please, all of you, let your hands find your waist, and we'll start on the left side first this time. So keep the left foot forward and step your right foot back. Now, as we're assessing, okay, as we're assessing how long your stance should be, so how far that back foot should be from the front foot, generally a general rule, this isn't always true, but a longer, narrower stance. So everybody just step a little longer so that our friends at home know what I mean. So a longer stance, and by narrower, I mean that you would have the heel maybe even in line with the arch. So the narrower your stance is, and the longer it is, the less stable it is, okay, the more you're going to be working your balance. And now, will all of you demonstrate how a wider, shorter stance might look? So a wider stance, meaning that the foot kind of comes out from the, yep, exactly. So that back foot is out from the front foot a little bit. A wider stance and a shorter stance tends to feel more stable, more balanced. Does that make sense, Julie? Can you feel that? So from those two cues, would each of you please orient your stance so it feels right for you? So if a longer, narrower stance feels better, or a shorter, wider stance feels better, just pay attention. Beautiful.

Gorgeous. So nice. Okay, now to just assess how much you're going to bend that front knee, just a couple times when we bend and then straighten our legs, yeah, beautiful, bend and straighten your leg, we're stopping the knee right over the ankle. Okay, the temptation, Julie, we just show the temptation sometimes is to bring it too far forward. This puts a huge amount of pressure on the knee joint and is generally not comfortable for very long. So come back out of that. Okay, nice. Do all of you, do Winifred, did you find a good spot? Matt, did you find a good spot? Okay, now let the front leg straighten. Okay, and now what we'll do is we'll focus a little bit on the length. So all three of you interlace your hands in front of you, turn your palms forward, go up through the arms. Now wiggle a little bit longer, so lengthen, nice Julie, lengthen, pretty Matt, and then soften the elbows just enough so the shoulders relax back and down. What I mean by that, if you can't really quite see that, you just want to let your elbows bend so your shoulders relax. Okay, nice. Now maintain this as you slowly root back through this back foot. Remember the generosity of heart. Yes. And now you let this front left knee bend just enough so it's right over the ankle, beautiful. And then as you feel ready, you can release your hands so they're reaching up towards the sky, fingers enthusiastic. Nice. Now can you remember that little feeling of grounded that we explored in Tarasana? Can you let yourself feel a little bit more grounded? So pretty, a little bit more generous, so beautiful, so beautiful, and kinder in the eyes. And for the last few moments just like notice, like just notice, like just notice how the shape is approximately the same between Julie and Winifred but looks a little different. And then if we include Matt, if you can see Matt, like can you see how it's just a little bit different? My three warriors, beautiful. Okay, gently from here, all three of you, let your hands come down around that front foot. Okay, pause Julie, you're gonna stay there. Matt and Winifred, will you guys find child's pose? Beautiful. And why don't you step forward, step the back foot forward, take a little forward fold. Okay, nice. So what we'll do is we'll just take a moment and we'll just see if we can explore a few more details. Julie has been willing to be the middle yogi on this one. So will you roll back up to standing? Okay, is this okay? Awesome. Okay, we'll do the other side. So will you step your left foot back? Okay, and Julie is choosing appropriately a slightly shorter, wider stance. Yes, so many of these postures are designed for small male Indian hips and very few American women have small male Indian hips. So unlike Julie, where I prefer a wider shorter stance. Okay, okay, she's chosen the right stance for her. She's going to give a little attention to just like just letting this hip draw back and letting this hip roll forward and any pain on your back knee there a little. So what you do is you angle your foot in just a little more. Yeah, does that feel more comfortable? Nice. She's gonna reach her arms up over the top of her head. Now the play here is because the play here and try this one, this inner lace. Yeah, nice. The play here is can you feel that sense of length? Does that feel comfortable? Sort of. Yeah, exactly. Could it feel more comfortable if you let these relax a little? There you go. Generous. Beautiful. She maintains that as she, now Julie's got knees like a lot of us where they want to bend slightly to the back. So always in these you want to keep these a little soft as she lets that knee just bend enough. Beautiful. Do you feel like you have room to breathe? And now release the fingertips up towards the sky. So pretty. And so the play here is for Julie to find a place where she can feel her back leg working. She can feel her heart generous. Yeah. If you bend your elbows more does it feel better? Yeah, exactly. So the problem with the pictures, will you show arms together? Sometimes the pictures show this and that's not very helpful. Soft. Beautiful. A few more moments. Could this be more comfortable? Maybe by getting out of it.

Yeah, exactly. Okay. Inhale here. Exhale. Release your hands down and you find child's pose with your friends. They're waiting for you. Okay. So again we play with these shapes just like we play with anything in life. More is a sense of finding out how we're put together. Okay. Instead of trying to make ourselves fit into somebody else's mold. So again thank you Winifred, Julie and Matt for your time today. And thank you for your time. And let us know how it's going. Let us know what you're discovering. This is how we keep this yoga a living entity. Okay. Like yoga only exists with our participation. It only exists in relationship. And unless these postures continue to be a conversation, they don't serve us. Namaste.