PERMISSION
TO CURVE
Inspiring Poses
for Curvy Yogis &
Their Teachers
Anna Guest-Jelley
Founder, Curvy Yoga
Permission to CURVE: Inspiring Poses for Curvy Yogis & Their Teachers
by Anna Guest-Jelley
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
3.0 Unported License.
Published July 1, 2012
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Curvy Welcome
My Story
Curves in Action: Welcome Video
Curvy Yoga Philosophy
How to Practice Comfortably and Safely
Using this Book
Setting Your Intention
Curvy Warm-Ups
Curves in Action: Centering to Start Your Day (or Anytime) Video
Curvy Ear to Shoulder
Curvy Chin to Shoulder
Curvy Head Press
Curvy Cat
Curvy Cow
Curvy C-Curve
Curves in Action: Seated Alternatives to Kneeling Poses Video
Curvy One-legged Table
Curvy Floor Salutations
Curves in Action: Curvy Floor Salutations Video
Curvy Chair Poses
Curvy Mountain
Curvy Seated Forward Bend
Curvy Seated Twist
Curvy Seated Backbend
Curvy Standing Twist
Curvy Down Dog with Chair
Curves in Action: Curvy Chair Salutations Video
Curvy Shoulder Openers
Curvy Hitchhiker
Curvy Clock
Curvy Cow-Face Arms
Curves in Action: Curvy Shoulder Opener Video
Curvy Standing Poses
Curves in Action: Sun Salutations with Curvy Style
Curvy Mountain
Curvy Crescent
Curvy Standing Forward Bend
Curvy Chair
Curves in Action: Curvy Wall Salutations Video
Curvy Warrior 2
Curvy Side-Angle
Curvy Triangle
Curvy Wide-Legged Standing Forward Bend
Curves in Action: Curvy Warrior 2, Side Angle and Triangle Video
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Curvy Warrior 1
Curvy Front Leg Standing Stretch
Curvy High Lunge
Curves in Action: Curvy Warrior 1
Curvy Wall Backbend
Curvy Balancing poses
Curvy Warrior 3
Curvy Standing Big Toe
Curvy Tree
Curves in Action: Balancing Practice & Curvy Tree
Curvy Half-moon
Curvy Inversions
Curvy Dolphin
Curvy Down Dog
Curves in Action: Curvy Down Dog
Curvy Bridge
Curvy Seated Poses
Curvy “Easy” Seat
Curvy Squat
Curvy Hero
Curvy Butterfly
Curvy Seated Twist
Curvy Seated Wide-Legged Forward Bend
Curvy Seated Forward Bend
Curvy Seated One-Legged Forward Bend
Curvy Low Lunge
Curvy Pigeon
Curves in Action: Curvy Seated Pigeon
Curvy Supine Poses
Curvy Knees-to-Chest
Curvy Supine Big Toe
Curvy Supine Twist
Curvy Cobra
Curvy Locust
Curvy Sphinx
Curvy Restoratives
Curvy Restorative Butterfly
Curvy Restorative Forward Bend
Curvy Restorative Heart Openers
Curvy Child’s Pose
Curvy Legs-Up-the-Wall
Savasana
Curves in Action: Guided Relaxation Video
Curvy Sequences
Curvy Wrap-Up
Curves in Action: Bye Bye Bye (for now)
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CURVY WELCOME
Yay! You’re here!
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ANNA’S STORY
“If we wish for greater wisdom and kindness in the world, perhaps we should start by inhabiting our
own bodies with some degree of wisdom and kindness.” ~Jon Kabat-Zinn
Curves in Action: Welcome Video
I decided not to start this book with a sad story.
That decision wasn’t as easy as it sounds.
You see, I’d wanted to tell you about the depths of despair and
how yoga has helped me heal — specifically from migraines and an
eating disorder — but even more from a fractured sense of self.
And I have told that story before.
But now? Now I want to highlight the juicy, transformative stuff — because it’s
there in spades. And ultimately, it’s this blend of the hard with the less-hard that heals us —
both in hearing others’ stories and in our own.
The Power of Story
I have a friend who always pushes me to say more about how yoga has helped me. I appreciate her feedback very much (even if my initial reaction is sometimes to feel defensive). It
brings me back to why I started Curvy Yoga in the first place — because I’d always wanted
to find something like it. And since I didn’t, I figured I’d better create it because I couldn’t
be the only one looking for it.
I wanted to find it because I knew on a really deep, bodily level, that something in my life
needed to change for the better. I knew this pretty clearly by the time I was 16 because I
spent that year, literally, within the grasp of a migraine. That was my wake-up call that something had to give.
It only took me 12 more years to figure out what.
Pain + Me
I started practicing yoga when I was 18. I practiced like gangbusters at first — that’s when
it helped me manage my migraines. Yoga and meditation taught me how to sit
quietly, visualize and observe my thoughts.
I began by visualizing my pain. For me, the image was always a very tight, compressed red
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ball. This ball radiated heat and the color red. It felt extremely angry. As I observed this ball,
I took a deep breath and visualized it slowly, centimeter by centimeter, expanding. As it
expanded, I could feel its intensity cooling. And corresponding to its opening, I felt a letting
go of the migraine-tight muscles behind my eyes, through my forehead and in my jaw. As the
softening occurred, my pain dissipated.
Now, this visualization alone didn’t “cure” me. But
it did allow me to tap into my body’s wisdom and
to realize that maybe I had more say over
my body than I’d originally thought. I’d
been going the Western medicine route for several
years, and I’d learned to be subject to external
forces. If my medication worked, I felt great and
couldn’t be bothered to think any more about
the situation. If not, I considered myself a terrible
victim who couldn’t catch a break.
It’s only in hindsight that I realize what a transformative lesson this was. Of course, at the
age of 19, I was just happy to be pain-free for a change, so I didn’t retain the lesson long on
a conscious level. But I certainly did (in retrospect) on a subconscious level.
Hello Again
Fast forward over the next seven or eight years, and I had two more bouts with chronic
migraines — both lasting almost a year. Each time I found myself desperately
turning to external fixes and, not finding them, moving back within — the
second time again with yoga and the third with yoga + acupuncture.
I like to credit acupuncture with “healing” me from migraines. And it has been a truly incredible tool in my life. If I could be its spokesperson, I would be. But the truth is also more
complex.
You see, I’d considered acupuncture in the past. My sister (who had horrific migraines —
even worse than mine) had even tried it, and it hadn’t helped her. So I had an attitude that
anything that worked to align the body’s internal systems was ridiculous. That it couldn’t be
that “easy.”
But what yoga slowly opened me up to is the elegance of working with
the body. And the understanding that while nothing about that process is “easy,” it is
possible and within my creative control. That I didn’t have to be subject to doctors’ whims,
dismissal when they couldn’t “fix” me (because I’m convinced there’s nothing doctors hate
more than chronic illness) and drug trials that left me feeling worse than before. That I
could find the perfect blend of treatment that worked for me, wherever I found it.
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As I learned this lesson in regards to pain, it also began to unfold on a
deeper level. And I truly believe that this is how I had to learn it (although that’s hopefully not true for everyone — surely many people are less hard-headed than me). First with
something I couldn’t avoid — pain — and then with something I could but didn’t want to
— body image and my feelings of self-worth.
65 Diets and Counting
The undercurrent of all of this is my lifetime of dieting and feeling less than because of my
size. As these stories often go, when I look back at pictures of myself, I see that I was always
an average-sized girl. I did favor my dad’s side of the family, which isn’t waif-like like my
mom’s side, but that’s it.
Regardless of how others perceived me, though, I felt enormous and like I stuck out like a
sore thumb. So like many intrepid young women, I set out to “fix” myself. Does this story
sound familiar? It should. Not only is this the story of countless others, it also nearly exactly mirrors the story of my migraines — this one just starts about eight years earlier and
continues a few longer.
As the years passed, I tried over 65 diets.
I know that may sound made up to some readers.
And I also know that others will be reading along,
thinking “I’ve tried at least that many!” Either way,
what really matters is that I was on a constant
search for external validation and cure.
I always felt that if I just read one more diet book,
I’d finally find the key to becoming the perfect, thin
person I’d always wanted to be.
Not too surprisingly, that day never came. But what did come was more weight, more anguish and more self-loathing. Pretty much the opposite of what I’d wanted.
In my late 20s, I finally realized that Albert Einstein was right: “The definition of insanity is
doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” I reasoned that if 65
diets hadn’t done it, 66 probably wouldn’t, either.
Path Forward
So I began working with a nutrition therapist. I again deeply believe that yoga laid this
groundwork for me. If not for yoga, I’m not sure how I would have believed
that learning to listen to and trust my body could have anything to do
with my body image.
This isn’t an overnight success story by any stretch of the imagination. I started working with this person in 2007, and it took me the better part of the next five years to truly
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absorb what she taught me. I was on and off diets throughout that time, although my off
periods did increase, and my perspective slowly shifted from weight loss to health and feeling good.
Eventually, I began looking more
inside. My work with a psychotherapist
helped me to see that I just may have had
a little issue with feeling my feelings. So
she asked me to start looking for them
— what feelings come up when I want
to binge? Or what comes up right before
them?
And because my yoga practice had been
coming with me all along, waiting patiently
for me to integrate it into my life, I was able to. Since yoga taught me how to feel my body
on first a gross physical level (where is my arm in space) and then a subtle level (how is my
breath moving in this pose), I was ready to proceed to feeling.
And through a (sometimes agonizingly) slow process, I learned to check in with myself.
Or, rather, I learned it in a different context. Because I’d learned it once before with my
migraines — and that gave me the confidence to learn it again. I didn’t need external rules
(although the support and guidance of trusted people like my therapist were really helpful)
but rather internal wisdom — which it turned out did exist. I’d had my doubts along the
way, but I continued to return to what I knew to be true.
I returned to my breath. I returned to the process, even when I’d hoped I was
“past” it. I returned to a less contracted, blindly ambitious way of living. I returned to
feeling — and ushered in what I’d locked out before: sadness, utter joy, grief, boredom and
everything in between.
As I did all of these things, I began to let go of my desire to change myself and lived into a
newly budding desire to be myself. For me, this meant dropping diets, negative self-talk and
the scale. Whenever I feel an interest in those things perk up, I take it as an opportunity to
see what needs I’m not meeting in my life or what feelings/stressors I’m not acknowledging.
Something is always there to investigate.
Are You on This Journey, Too?
I know that some of you reading this may be on a similar body image journey. Although our
contexts are likely different, I know we often share many common threads. So here’s my
best advice as you embark or continue along your way:
Develop Your Support Team: I know this is going to sound like my “I’d like to thank
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the Academy” speech, but it’s true. The support of key people has been integral to my journey. For me, this has included the professionals I mentioned above as well as a life coach, my
husband, my sister and my best friend.
For me, a blend of people I know and professionals has been perfect because I’m able to
meet different needs with different folks, and I also have different comfort levels with them.
My main encouragement here is to become and remain open for help coming in forms you
may not have expected. If no one in your personal life is supportive yet, find a professional.
If you cannot afford or do not have insurance to cover someone, find out if they offer a
sliding scale or any pro bono work. Some folks do. And if that doesn’t work, connect with
people online; there are many great body image and fat acceptance groups out there.
I also encourage you to become and remain open to change. I have (kindly) fired professionals who turned out not to be a good fit for me (primarily because they didn’t support
my journey of intuitive eating). That process is often challenging, but you deserve to work
with someone who is aligned with your goals.
Practice Radical Kindness: The
negative self-talk monster can really
creep up on you. I often don’t notice its
appearance until I’m in a total funk and
wondering where it came from. If the
same is true for you, I invite you to see
it as an opportunity to practice radical kindness. This could be as simple as
placing your hands on your heart for a
moment and sending yourself some love.
Or it could include any other number
of actions, including contacting someone
on your support team or practicing your favorite form of self-care (bubble bath, long walk,
cranking the music and dancing, etc.).
Find a Movement Practice You Love: Since you’re here, I’m assuming this practice
may be yoga for you – or at least you’re hoping it might be. And yoga is certainly a wonderful choice, but it’s not the only one.You might also like to switch things up and have a few
options. Some great ones to consider are walking, water aerobics and Nia (or other forms
of dance you might enjoy). Ultimately, though, the activity itself matters less than the result,
which is more connection between mind and body.
Invite Stillness into Your Life: Stillness is such a gift because it gives you an opportunity to observe your thoughts and rest. As you do this over time in a concentrated
container (like a meditation practice), you can begin to do it in other settings. Some of the
ways I do this are meditation (seated or lying down), a slow and deliberate yoga practice
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and journaling (which isn’t still but seems to share that brain-dumping/observing quality).
Take the Long View: If you, like me, have a long history of dieting, negative body image,
disordered eating or some variant of the above, you may have developed a desire to “fix”
or “change” yourself overnight. I’m right there with you, my friend. There’s nothing I like
more than cooking up a “New, Perfect Anna by Tomorrow” plan. But unsurprisingly, tomorrow never brings me that plan, which used to frustrate me to no end. So if you, with all
your best intentions, are hoping for something similar (even if you’re being generous and
giving yourself a whole month), I invite you to take a longer view. It didn’t take you a day,
week, month or even year to get here (most likely), so your way out is likely to also take a
bit of time. Know that you are not alone in this and
that change does happen over time; there is no doubt
about it.
Turn in the Road
As I began to practice the things above, I felt a profound shift. Notice I didn’t say I thought about it. No,
this was (and is) a very embodied process. And it only
makes sense: if I’m not present in my body,
how can I possibly hope to transform
something related to it — whether pain/illness
or my sense of self?
I couldn’t — and I can’t.
So mine is really a story of turning within,
of trusting my body’s wisdom despite the
multitude of voices saying not to — friends,
family, medical professionals and pretty much everything in the media.
And this is my wish for what yoga and this book can
do for you — to be a tool for connecting with your body and learning what it has to teach
you.Your story may be similar to mine, and it may be different; either way is okay. Because I
fully trust that your body knows what you need, regardless of what those needs may be. It
may be relief from an aching back, moving through grief, a closer connection with your body
or something else entirely.
Regardless, yoga can be a way in because it can give you a way to get in touch with your
body — which is, whether we like it or not — something we kinda need in order to find
bodily healing as well as deeper transformation. And the beautiful thing is that this perfectly
parallels the yogic path.
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How Yoga Unfolds
In yoga, we have a few ways to talk about this. One is with the koshas, which are the different layers of our body. The outermost level is the physical. Without that, we can never get
to the more subtle levels of feeling, intuition and what yogis sometimes refer to as the bliss
body. That sounds awesome, right? Thought so.
Another way to think about this is through the 8 limbs of yoga. Asana (yoga poses) and
pranayama (breath work) are the tools we use to reach the deeper levels of meditation,
concentration and connection with the universe.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what you call it. If you stay with yoga, the process will
find you. And that’s my intention with this book — to give you the tools to be able to
begin or continue more comfortably. Because if you can’t practice the yoga poses in a way
that works for you, it can keep you from the benefits. This is a powerful and transformative
practice, and it shouldn’t be kept from anyone.
This book is my attempt to open the gates a little wider.
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Curvy Prone and
Supine Poses
Curvy yoga on the floor--or bed, or couch, or
hammock (well, probably not hammock—unless it’s final relaxation pose!).
“We find that we have a partner on the spiritual path that we didn’t know about--our own body. In
our meditation and in our surrounding lives, the body becomes a teacher, one that does not communicate in words but tends to speak out of the shadows through sensations, feelings, images, and
somatic memories.” ~ Reginald Ray
I sometimes struggle with giving myself permission (hence the title of this book).
Maybe you can relate? For me, this shows up as ideas about what I “should” be doing as opposed
to what my body is asking for.
With this context in mind, I suppose it isn’t difficult to imagine how I didn’t used to let myself do
many lying down poses. I consistently cut the cool-down, quieting portion of my practice down
for a long time. I’d just do standing poses and then a very brief Savasana.
Over the years, though, I realized how much these poses can facilitate what I
want out of my practice — more joy in my movement and also internal inquiry. There’s
something about having your body in contact with the ground that facilitates a feeling of being
centered in your own body and being.
If you’re having a stressful day, or you’re wondering about something, I highly recommend adding
more of these poses to your practice and seeing what comes up for you from there.
KINDNESS ALERT
“Thanks for offering the class! For the first time in a long while, I felt comfortable
enough to focus on what I was there to do, instead of worrying about what size I
am or how graceful I look.” ~G.M.
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CURVY KNEES-TO-CHEST
Do you ever have those days where you just wish a massage therapist would appear and give you a massage?
I have those pretty much every other day, but since no magic massage therapist has ever shown up, I do the
next best thing: knees-to-chest pose. Here’s your guide to a quick, free yoga massage (you’ll need a strap
close by):
ONE KNEE LYING DOWN
Lie on your back.You can do this on your yoga mat, but you
could also do it anywhere else: your office floor, your couch,
and even your bed.
Begin with knees bent and feet flat on the floor.
Slowly draw your right knee in toward your chest. Hands can
be anywhere here: on top of the knee, interlaced around the
knee, or behind the thigh. Use the breath to draw the knee in
incrementally: inhale and draw in; exhale and pause. Continue
that for a few breaths or until you get to your edge for the day.
When you are ready to release, remove the hands and slowly
lower the leg back to the ground. Switch legs and repeat on
the other side.
KNEES-TO-CHEST (WITH STRAP)
You want to be able to keep your head down in this pose, so if it
feels uncomfortable to hold your knees or you’re not able to, try
this: grab your strap in your right hand (or left if you’re a Lefty)
and thread it behind your knee.Then thread it also under the left
knee so that the strap ends up behind both knees, with one end
in your right hand and one in the left.
Keeping your hands on the ends of the strap, draw your knees
into your chest. This motion comes mostly from lifting your legs;
the strap is there to make your arms a little longer, not to yank
your legs up.
Stay here for a few breaths, adjusting until you find a comfortable position. You may want to walk your hands up or
down the strap, depending on what works best for you.
CURVY SUPIINE POSES
CONTINUED...
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KNEES-TO-CHEST (WITH STRAP)
If you want to stay for a while, you might like to do this with your
feet on a wall.To do that, scoot yourself close to a wall and lay down.
Bend your knees, pick your feet up, and press them into the wall.You
can move yourself closer or further away until you find a comfortable position to hold.This is also a great choice because it allows you
to relax your back and belly and absorb the benefits of the pose.
As you hug the knees in (with or without the strap), play with
gently rocking a bit side-to-side.You can also do this rocking
motion with the feet on the ground; I like to call this windshield wiper legs. This is where the really good massage action
comes in; you can do this as long and as slowly as feels good to
you.
I don’t have the best history with knees-to-chest pose. Sometimes it feels great.
But other times I feel squinched and miserable — it can bring me quickly into
critical thoughts: “why is my belly so big and squished,” “what is wrong with
me,” “why aren’t my arms longer?”
When I get into criticizing the length of my bones (something that is so totally
beyond my control that it isn’t even funny — except that it’s kinda hilarious), I
know it’s time to make a shift.
And that’s how I discovered the wall version of this pose — by taking myself
out of the critical and into a place of ease and allowing. The surprising (or not
so, depending on how you look at it) thing is that once I was able to stop crazily gripping my muscles — physically and mentally — I received more benefits
from the pose than ever before.
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curvy supine big toe pose
One of the things I love about lying-down poses is that not only are they
accessible, they’re also a great way to work on alignment. With this
pose, you can work on opening the hamstrings and play with working
the leg toward straight, feeling what this like lying down as opposed to
standing.
You will need a strap (or your equivalent—tie, rope, belt off a robe) for
this, so please have one nearby before getting started.
Begin seated on your mat, legs extended in front of you.
“When we practice, we make room
to fully experience all our feelings
while at the same time not allowing
those feelings to paralyze or solidify
into our identity.” ~ Donna Farhi
Loop your strap around the ball of your right foot. One side of
the strap will be in your right hand, and the other will be in your
left.
Keeping the strap pressing into your foot, gently come to lying
down on your back.
The left knee can be bent here, foot pressing into the ground.
Alternately, the left leg could be extended on the ground.
Inhale and lift your right foot and leg overhead, keeping your knee
bent. Exhale and pause here. This is where you get to choose your
own adventure by beginning to work your leg toward straight.
I love the idea of “working toward” because it means different
things on different days, so see what it means for you today! You
can also experiment here by pointing/flexing your foot.
If your left leg is extended on the ground, ensure that it stays there.
Sometimes it wants to pop up and be sort of bent and sort of straight,
which can jeopardize your knee and lower back. Either bent knee or
straight leg is good, so just choose the one your body would like to stay
with today.
When you are ready to switch sides, bring your left foot up to
meet your right inside the strap. This is the simplest way to switch
feet. When the left foot is secure, slowly lower the right foot back
to the ground, either to a bent knee or straight leg on the ground.
Repeat on the other side. When you are ready to come out completely, release the strap from the left foot and gently lower the
leg back to the ground.
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curvy supine twist
This is one of my go-to poses. I love the wringing-out and releasing effect of it. It feels like a sigh for my body-whether or not I audibly sigh (although I often do!).
CURVY Supine TWIST
Before you lie down, grab a blanket or two. You’ll be using this
to rest your legs on. You don’t have to have a yoga blanket for
this; anything that you can comfortably rest your legs on and
that will give you some support will work--a blanket from your
bed, a pillow, a wadded-up sweatshirt, etc. Place it to the left
of your body at about waist-height, within your hand’s reach.
Once you’re ready, lie down on your back. Bend your knees
and rest your feet lightly on the floor. Hug your knees in to your chest and rock a bit side-to-side,
giving yourself a little massage. When you feel rocked out,
come back to center. curvy supine twist (angle 2)
Inhale; on your exhale, use your left hand to move your belly
skin either up a bit or in toward your pelvis and then slowly
lower both of your knees to the left. Use your left hand to
position the blanket under your knees wherever they come
down. If less of a twist would feel good, you can always add
another blanket (or more) to the stack. If more of a twist
would feel good, you can remove the blanket and let your
knees rest on the floor. Stay here for several breaths (or
even several minutes). Your head can look wherever is comfortable for your neck: to the left, straight up at the ceiling
or to the right.Your arms can rest wherever feels good or
extend out at shoulder height like the top of a capital “T.”
When you are ready to come out, inhale and slowly bring
yourself back to center. Exhale and either pause here or
gently lower your feet down to the ground. Repeat on the
other side. CURVY SUPIINE POSES
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CURVY COBRA
Although admittedly not my favorite imagery, Cobra is a wonderful pose for opening through the chest and
working on spinal flexibility at a variety of levels. This pose has four different options, so let’s check them out:
BABY COBRA
Begin lying on your belly. Tops of the feet should be parallel
and lightly resting on the ground. Forehead is resting lightly
on the mat; if this is not comfortable or your boobs preclude
you from doing it, bring a blanket nearby to rest your head
on (alternately, you could cross your arms and rest your head
in your arms). To mitigate any potential boob suffocation, try
moving your breasts a bit out to each side to give yourself
some more space.
Bring your hands underneath your shoulders. The right hand
will be pressing into the mat underneath your right shoulder,
and the same will be true of the left.Your elbows may have a
tendency to wing out here, so hug them in toward your sides.
From here, reach your chest forward; this will cause it and
your head to lift. Hands will continue pressing lightly into the
mat here, but the movement is coming from the back, not from
mashing your hands into the ground and forcing yourself up.
Continue to work here, lifting up another inch or two if it feels
comfortable. Baby Cobra is a subtle pose, but it offers immense benefits, especially to those with low-back issues.
After staying here for several breaths, lower back down to the
ground.
CONTINUED...
CURVY SUPIINE POSES
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COBRA
Cobra starts off the same way as Baby Cobra, so repeat the
beginning steps to come into position.
The difference comes once you get an inch or two off the
ground. From here, press a bit more firmly through the
hands and reach more through the chest. I describe this as a
reaching and lifting movement rather than an arching movement so that you’re not taking the whole pose in the low
back. Reach forward however far feels comfortable for you
and breathe there. Elbows are hugging in toward the torso.
When you are done, lower down slowly.
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CURVY LOCUST
Whenever I hear the word “backbend,” I think of something dramatic. I have a tendency to be an either/or thinker sometimes
(definitely not my best quality!), so I used to think that if I could
drop-back into Wheel then my backbends weren’t worth anything.
Unsurprisingly to you, I’m sure, (savvy practitioner that you are), this
doesn’t have to be the case. Many of us rarely move our spines
through extension, or what is commonly called backbending. So
what I love about Locust is that it is a wonderful, multi-level pose for
working on an extension in a supported way. Let’s give it a whirl:
Begin lying on your belly. Tops of the feet should be parallel and lightly resting on the ground. Forehead is resting lightly on the mat; if this is not comfortable or your boobs preclude you from doing it, cross your arms and
rest your head in your arms. To mitigate the boob issue, try moving your breasts a bit out to each side to give
yourself some more space.
Arms are by your sides here, palms resting on the ground and facing up. Inhale and lift your left arm a couple
inches off the ground, hovering it there. Exhale and lower; repeat on the right side. Next, inhale and lift both
arms off the ground and hover (your head and chest will lift a bit here, too); exhale and lower. These are subtle
movements that aren’t about jackknifing your body but rather growing our ability to engage muscles we rarely
use and experience extension in a new way.
We’ll now move to the feet and legs while keeping the arms on the ground. Begin by inhaling and lifting your
left foot and leg off the ground. Although your thigh will likely still be on the ground, visualize the whole leg lifting here, even if it’s just a millimeter. Exhale and lower down; repeat on the right side. Next, inhale and lift both
feet and legs off the ground; hover and lower down.
Finally, we will combine these movements. Inhale and lift both arms and legs off the ground, allowing the chest
to reach forward, which will move it up. The head will lift a bit, too; your gaze can be in front of you or down at
the mat. Hold here for a couple breaths and then lower down.
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CURVY SPHINX
I love this pose because it feels like coming home in a lot of ways.
You’ve probably been in this pose countless times and not known it;
I know it was a go-to, especially when I was younger, for TV watching
and staying up late at slumber parties, talking into the night.
The fabulous news is that my old childhood fav is also a fantastic
and beneficial yoga pose (love it when that happens)! Sphinx is
especially helpful for people who want to work on similar qualities
to Cobra and Locust with additional support from the arms.
To get started, lie on your belly. The tops of your feet will be
resting on top of your mat.
Bring your arms in front of you and rest your forearms on
the ground; elbows are directly underneath or in front of the
shoulders. This is what will feel familiar if this has ever been a
TV-watching position for you.
From here, reach the chest forward; this will cause your chest
and head to lift a bit. Breathe here; you can look in front of
you or down at the ground. If this position bothers your lower
back, walk the hands out in front of you to decrease the extension in the spine.
To come out of the pose, walk the hands out completely so
you are lying on the ground. From here you can move onto
other poses on your belly or shift up and back onto your
hands and knees to come into poses where you are seated,
standing or lying on your back.
What have you discovered in these poses?
You may have found a whole world, what feels like nothing, or something in between. Here’s the good news:
it’s all good! The practice changes from day-to-day (and sometimes moment-to-moment), and sometimes
what feels like nothing now can add up to a whole lotta something down the road.
Keep your intention on self-kindness, and you can’t go wrong!
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