Warrior 2

Hi, welcome back. Thank you again Julie, Matt, and Winifred for being here. Though let's take a look at Warrior II, sometimes known as Virabhadrasana II. Vira in this case, V-I-R-A, is usually translated as hero. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna instruct my friends into the posture, hopefully to help them be set up for success, and then the request is for you to see, if you can see among our friends, how the posture might look a little bit different, and then we'll make an attempt to dial it in a little bit more and see if we can talk about a few of the details. Okie dokie. So we'll start in Tadasana. So all of you at the front of the mat, and this time let's start in Tadasana with the feet a little closer. So balls of the big toes dusting. If you have bunions that's super easy. Lift up through the toes, spread. Let your heart feel generous. Let your mind feel light. Ok, maybe big deliberate inhale. Exhale everything. Beautiful. And then as you feel ready, let your hands come onto your waist, and please step your right foot back. Now as you step your right foot back, turn your hips, and in our case, our hips are pointing towards the patero grill. I'm not sure where your hips are pointing at home, but now as you're finding the distance between your two feet, the play here is you want your feet to be wide enough so that as you bend this front knee, the knee lands about over the ankle. So just like back in and out of that a couple times. Lift up, bend in, and just adjust. Generally if you're going to take a shorter stance, ok, if you're going to take a shorter stance, then you take a shorter stance, but you don't let your knee come beyond your ankle. Yoga teachers love to argue about almost everything. Nine out of ten will agree on this one. Ok, so just to make sure that I'm being clear. So when I say knee over the ankle, I mean knee right over the ankle. This is about the distance. So Julie, you might just stop right there because you're in a slightly shorter stance. That's perfect. Now all of you, let your legs straighten. Let that front left leg straighten, and we'll dance with this a little bit. Usually we call this warrior two dance. So inhale your arms up over the top of your head. Now take a moment here and take a look back at your back right foot. When you look back at your back right foot, it will help ground the position. Let that right sit bone draw under just a little bit to the left heel just to help your pelvis even. Wiggle up a little bit longer. Beautiful mat. And we're gonna dance with this. So inhale here, and as you exhale open your arms out, warrior two. Let the front knee bend. Beautiful. Four more like that. Inhale, come up. Keep your gaze at the back foot. Exhale and open. Beautiful Julie. Inhale, come up. So nice. Exhale, open. Beautiful. Two more like that. Yes, open. Beautiful. Now one more like that. Inhale, open. And on this last one I'm gonna ask the three of you to hold the shape. Okay, now as you hold, do you remember the generosity of heart in Tadasana? Yes. Can you let the sit bones relax? And since most of you, your gaze now has come right over your heart. Let your gaze be out over the heart. Now last little alignment detail. Try this. Squeeze your shoulders up and around your ears. Nice. Exhale, drop. Let your elbows bend and let your palms turn up and just see how that feels. Last few beats. Beautiful. Okay, nice.

Matt, I'm gonna ask you to stay here a little bit. Julie and Winifred, will you guys windmill into child's pose? Now while they're windmilling, why don't you take a break? You can come out of it for a moment. Nice. Okay. Okay, now just in the interest of just showing a few more things, Matt, do you mind inhaling your arms up over the top of your head? Beautiful. And exhale, sink in warrior two. Nice. Now you'll notice if Matt keeps his gaze over his heart, it just allows his heart to be more predominant. The temptation, and often you see this in the alignment, often you'll see the gaze is suggested to be out over the middle finger. Would you do that for a moment? Now what happens there normally, can you feel that? How it brings all the weight forward. Yeah? And so when that brings all the weight forward, it puts all the work in this thigh. And so if Matt keeps his gaze in the center, so pretty, or even back over the back foot, yeah, it helps keep the pose more balanced. This tends to get super crunchy, so a little length here. So pretty Matt, really nice. Beautiful. Okay, and when you feel ready, you find child's pose too with the rest of our friends, windmill. Okay. Okay, these are just a few details. There's really as many ways to do warrior two as there are yogis doing warrior two. What we're hoping in these short episodes though is that you can start to get some sense, and that you can see that our friend Julie looks different than our friend Matt, looks different than our friend Winifred. But again, we're in this together, learning. Namaste.