crow yoga pose

hi. i'm liz mcdonald. teaching at my studio,brazilian yoga and pilates in los angeles. i'm here to show you crow pose or bakasana.now crow pose is a great poser with many benefit. one, it's an arm balance so we're really gonnabe strengthening the upper body. second, it strengthens the core because our upper bodyis going to be burying the weight of our legs and lower core is gonna be maintaining itup on our arms. third, crow pose is an excellent way for training fear because there's alwaysthe fear of falling forward. it's a great way for a yogi to start getting comfortablewith that idea of being upside down and it's just wonderful to overcome some of that fearthat we've developed as adults. when you think about it as a kid, you used to do tons ofsummersaults and things where you fell forward

but that movement becomes more and more unnaturaland that's why they... we become more and more scared of this idea of our weight shiftingforward. so if you know that's particularly challenge for... challenging for you, whywon't you post a video and start with a few summersaults before we move in to crow. allright. now, way that i like to prepare for crow especially if it's your first time istaking a blanket and creating something called a crash pad. now hopefully we're not goingto need to use this but it's there just in case and also there to make us feel a littlebit more secure when we're trying something new. so go ahead and take the blanket andplace it in front of you. now, i like to get in to crow pose by starting an (utasana?).so i'm gonna have my hands flat on the floor

and my legs are going securing my head uptoward the sky. now if you're not this flexible, it's totally an option to keep your kneesbent here. so i'm gonna begin making sure that my feet are in proper alignment. theywanna be hip width apart. my hands also want to be shoulder width apart. very slowly, i'mgoing to start to bend my knees and come on to the balls of my feet. now, my intentionhere is actually to take my knees and sort of store them in my armpits. they fit quitenicely actually. we're gonna be balancing our knee taps on our triceps in just a momentbut go ahead and start getting a feel for what that's like to distribute a little bitmore weight in the hands by stringing forward a few times. now as you get more confident,you might try picking one toe up off the ground

and then the 2nd toe will follow. breath acrossthe back. i like to widen in the toe before i come up. now for those of you who've beendoing bakasana for a while, let's get kind of (ushtaga?) about this and start to straightenthe arms and suck the toes in towards the core. take a huge breath and whenever you'reready to come down. lend once again on the feet. straighten out the legs and give yourselfa pat on the back. crow pose is not easy. it's a great pose for all of the benefitsthat we talked about. not only that, it's a great party trick. so when your friendsask you, "oh you're doing yoga now. let's see what you can do." this is the one thatyou best out. definitely practice at home first with a crash pad. thanks for watching.