Cool Yoga Tricks
Miriam Austin
Language: English
Pages: 320
ISBN: 0345465415
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Craving yoga’s benefits but unable to perform even the simplest postures? Think yoga is only for rubber-limbed supermodels?
If your yoga practice is giving you more stress than stress relief, Cool Yoga Tricks is the answer to your prayers.
Although it seems like everyone from Madonna to your eighty-three-year-old Uncle Teddy is practicing yoga, most of us are unable to do even the simplest classic yoga poses without undue stress and strain. Now in this clear, understandable, easy-to-follow book, Miriam Austin offers alternative yoga routines that help you reap the greatest rewards from your yoga practice, and she reveals shortcuts to help you perform yoga like a pro.
Using everyday items, such as chairs, walls, and blankets, Miriam Austin shows how those of us with normal flexibility limitations can experience the very real benefits of yoga—without dislocating our joints, overstretching our muscles, or giving up in frustration. She makes the basics simple, doable, and down-to-earth.
Dog Tricks—lengthen your spine more fully with these Downward Facing Dog tricks, designed to relax your neck, shoulders, and back—and make your Dog Pose much more lovable.
Befriending Backbends—increase your preztebility with a little help from your friends—and from some garden-variety folding chairs.
Tweaking Your Twists—learn the techniques that will stretch your spine and give you more life energy.
Super Stretches—feel as limber as your average bowling ball? Gently coax your muscles to new lengths by practicing the routines in this chapter.
Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
Yoga/Relaxation Bundle: Office Yoga, Travel Yoga, and Everyday Calm
your knee. UPAVISTA KONASANA Seated Wide-Angle Pose Upavista Konasana, Seated Wide-Angle Pose, may have the coolest name of all yoga poses. That aside, most students can perform this posture more easily than other forward bends because the hamstrings and hip flexors are not as challenged. Sit with your legs wide, flexing your toes toward you. Engage your quadriceps and roll your thighs slightly outward. Press the fronts of your thighs toward the backs of your thighs, and the backs
Ideally, your heel should be at the very top of your left inner thigh, but if that is impossible for now, simply place the foot as high as you can. Press your foot into your thigh, and your thigh into your foot. Keep your right knee aligned with your hip and roll that thigh outward. Continually lift your left quadriceps, your lower back, lower abdomen, and sternum. Soften the tops of your shoulders. Bring your hands to “prayer position” at your heart, or raise your arms overhead with
You will be amazed at how much more energy and freedom you will experience when you do a version of Trikonasana that is right for your body. Come into Trikonasana as you normally would. Depending on your freedom of movement in this pose, place your hand on a chair seat or a block. Extend the upper and underside of your torso evenly. Even if you are quite flexible, try this trick and see if you gain increased awareness in evenly extending both sides of your torso. Hold as long as
head while Jimmy needs quite a bit. If your back is uncomfortable with your legs straight, bend your knees. Block Bending Lying over a block can help open your chest and prepare you for traditional back bends. Start with the block at its mid-height. If that isn't comfortable, continue practicing the Blanket Bends. For these two tricks, make sure the block is down the center of your spine and that the edge of the block supports the base of your neck. Have your palms facing upward so
your armpits and deltoids when somebody does it for you. “But how do I do that on my own?” you ask. Here's the answer: use athletic tape to roll your deltoids away from your body prior to a session in which you will be practicing many postures that require this action. Use athletic tape that is three inches wide. I particularly like Elastikon tape, which is made by Johnson & Johnson. (Yes, this is a plug.) I have tried many brands and this is my favorite. It is flexible enough to allow movement