Virasana

Hi, I'm here with Betsy and Ilana to do this time the hero pose. Actually it's probably better to call the courageous person pose. Hero in Sanskrit is viras and a vira which is cognate with a couple of English words viro and virtue from the from the root vir. Now you may be familiar with the modern version of viras now where you're just sitting in between your feet or on a block between your feet but again what we have here is the traditional version of the pose which has a slightly different way of doing than the modern version. So let's take the right leg and bring it back into art of viras and our half hero right now please if you would and I'm having Ilana as always representing the less flexible student and so she's going to bring her right leg back yes and just have the blanket underneath her left buttock that's right. Always make sure that when you when you have the foot back in a viras in the position that you get the you get the top of the foot as broad and flat on the floor as you can manage. Usually what you'll feel is that there's a lot of pressure on the inside of the foot so what you'll do and you can show this please is bring your the base of your palm on your outer edge of your foot and press down to get a little bit more of the little toe side of the foot on the floor and sometimes what you'll find in if you're teaching this pose is that the the ankle is is is painful so what you want to do then if you have the if you have the props it may be your own your own ankle too is roll up like a towel or a washcloth and put it underneath the front of the ankle between it and the floor and that often takes the problem away from the ankle. Now for this for the second leg I'm gonna have her do this first and this is the this is the this is the more complete version what I wanted to do is is pull the thigh up into the torso and bend the knee flex the knee completely so you when you start in this position you always want to make sure the knee is completely flexed and then I'll have her sweep from the from the hip and bring the the foot up into the hip crease now yeah when you bring the knee down you've got to swivel it down from the head of the femur bone not from the S ratchet and notice that this foot again is in a in off to the side a bit so again as earlier this sole is perpendicular to the floor and not sickled up toward the ceiling this means for most people that the knees are a lot closer than they than they ordinarily would have them and this is the way the the traditional version of Virasana looked like now for the less flexible student again would you bend the knee flex the knee lock the knee in place and lift it yeah for her she's gonna bring the foot across and I'm gonna have her lay the leg down on a brick like that and I'm gonna ask her to try to bring the left knee a little bit more toward the right if that's at all possible I'd like to see that foot a little bit more in a neutral position and she's working on it so we won't we won't push it too far right now but it will let it go like this you have to be very careful if you're tighter in the hips and you try positions like this it goes right into the knee and that's not so good so you want to be sure that when you do things like this that you're warmed up the hips are warmed up and open before you try to do things like this one because otherwise there'll be some there'll be some trouble with the knees down the down the road more than likely now again to come out let's have them grab on to the top knee first lift it all the way up and then stand the foot on the floor and stretch the leg straight forward and then again the hero leg let's lean to the left grab on to the right ankle that's right I pick the foot up keep the knee completely flexed please good and then drop the knee all the way off to the side onto the floor and then stretch the leg out to the side nope stretch the leg out to the side very good and then swing the leg back to center great good and let's do the other side take the the left leg back into the heart of your ass and then yes thank you and then the right leg okay so what I would like you to do to bring the second leg in place remember this is very important is the first thing to do is to flex the knee completely in other words bring the calf right against the thigh bend the knee now you have to keep the knee completely locked as you do have it here and swing the foot around from deep inside the hip in other words all the rotary movement once again it's in the hip none in the knee that's right exactly good now again the the knee has to swing it a little bit closer than you might think if you look at the pictures of mr. Iyengar in light on yoga in a pose like this you'll see that his knees fairly close together and that that brings that foot as we've been working in the past all the way across the hip so the sole of once again yes it's perpendicular to the floor so I want to say once again that it's very important that you never push down on the knee to get it to go closer to the floor if it's above the floor what you want to do is always take the thumb into the hip crease turn the thigh and push down on the head of the femur bone and again as you did earlier in in Badrasana or Barakonasana take this knee not down but push it away from the pelvis out to the side and eventually it'll start to come down now notice here on Ilana that on the first side she had the block on its side and on the second side she's got the block on it one of its faces probably better to have the the same the same height on the block on both sides so even though you can lay it a little bit farther down on this side I'd like you to have the block turned on to its side so we're trying to create an evenness between the two sides of the of the body very nice everybody's looking terrific and this is the way hero was done mmm 400 years ago almost 350 very nicely done in Virasana good and then let's take the top leg out so lift the knee up please stretch the leg forward and then again you know what to do lean to the right grab the left ankle pick it up put the foot on the floor drop the knee all the way off to the side yes that's it and then stretch the leg out that side well done and swing the leg back from the hip bounce the upper down the floor a few times yes very nicely done thank you Virasana the courageous person pose