How to Hanuman

Greetings tribe. Welcome. Thank you for joining me. Today's practice will be focusing on Hanumanasana to open up the lower body and your roots. If you have a couple of blocks and a strap and a bolster or even a folded blanket will work, that will really help you. Let's begin. Let's come onto our backs to start. And once you come down, position yourself so that your bolster or your folded blanket is right underneath your sacrum. And then just draw your right knee to your chest and let your left leg drop down. And what the bolster does is it just provides a bit of a fulcrum to lift the pelvis up so that the hip flexor and your psoas can drape up and over and down towards the floor. Take a very deep breath in here. And as you exhale, gently start to draw the right knee closer towards your rib cage. And at the same time, lengthen out through the left heel, pressing the back of the calf and hamstring down. And you'll start to feel probably a little bit of sensation here through the front of the hip. And we go into Hanumanasana. Of course, we need to work on opening the hamstrings, but also a fair amount of focus can go towards opening up the front of the hips, the quadriceps and the hip flexors. So let's start to progress this into a simple hamstring release. And you can take your right leg up to the sky. And if you have your strap nearby, go ahead and loop it around the sole of your right foot. And from here, start to just draw the right leg in any amount as you reach the left leg down. And so right away, we're going towards this shape of Hanumanasana, this opening of the roots. So take a very deep breath in here. And as you exhale, simply drawing inward and relaxing into the shape. You can allow the right hip to drop down a little bit, maybe even take your right thumb to your hip crease and just direct it down so that the hips stay kind of square here. And when we draw the leg in a little closer, the hamstring is what's actually being affected rather than hiking the hip to have the illusion of drawing the leg closer. So just keep the right hip down. And with each exhale, start easing your leg in any amount towards you. Nice deep breath in and exhaling to ease it in any amount. And then reach the right hand up the strap and let's open it up out to the side about 45 degrees coming into Supta Padagusthasana B. And again, as you open it up, you'll feel a little more play in the hamstring and the inner thighs. So you might be able to bring the right leg up a little bit towards your ear and maintaining that length through the bottom leg. Take a full breath in. And as you exhale, just come back to the center. Bend your knee, take the strap off of your foot and draw your knee into your chest once again before bringing it across your body into a simple twist. Reaching your right arm out in opposition, take a full breath in. Exhale, relax the rib cage, relax your tummy, maybe even turn your head lightly towards the right. And then coming back to the center and let's change sides, extend the right leg down, draw the left knee in and start to just find that relationship of drawing your femur bone in towards your rib cage, but lengthening down through the top of the right thigh, through the back of the right thigh down through the heel. Take a full breath here. Exhale, draw your knee in towards your shoulder at the same time, lengthening down up and over the surface of the bolster. And let's go ahead and take your leg up to the sky and grab your strap, loop it around your foot and gently start to pull inward. And the hamstrings, like most of the large muscle groups in our body, they take time. They take a little bit of patience to open. And so when you make your way into these shapes and start to feel what's happening, just try to maintain a little balance of ease and effort so that you have some sensation there. It's got your attention, but you're not gripping and holding and grinding your teeth while inside this shape. Just let it feel kind of good. And that's a really nice barometer for you to figure out how deep to go in any of these shapes that should have a little bit of ease and effort, a little bit of sweetness, a little bit of saltiness.

Same thing here. You can draw your left thumb down to your hip and just draw the hip down to square your hips off as you draw your left leg towards you. Take a full breath in. Exhale, relaxing the back of the body, relaxing the jaw. And then changing hands, open up your leg out to the side and reach your opposite arm in opposition, just spreading out here. And you can still feel that nice little bit of opening across your right. So as your right hip flexor, super therapeutic to just take a lot of time here and release the front of the hips over the bolster, take a full breath in. And as you exhale, draw that leg back to the center and bend your knee and bring it across your body into a twist. And because our hips are up on the bolster, we have this ability to actually drop deeper down towards the floor. And if that feels good to you, go for it. Otherwise you're welcome to just hang out. Let your body relax in its own weight here. Turn your head in opposition, full breath in. Exhale completely. And then coming back to the center and let's go ahead and lift our hips, slide the bolster out from underneath you, set it to one side, and we'll start to rock and roll along the length of the spine to get ready to come up to standing. Let your spine be super round here. You can let your feet kick over your head and let it feel a little bit like a massage on your back. And then let's go ahead and just turn onto the hands and knees and make our way into downward facing dog. So bicycle pedaling in your downward facing dog. We opened with a little bit of passive release on the mat on our backs. And now let's start to take it into a little bit more active preparation for hanumanasana. So just start to walk your feet towards your hands and on an inhale, lift the heart halfway coming into your arda uttanasana. Exhale, forward fold, uttanasana. Circle all the way out and up as you inhale, rising. Touch your palms over your head and exhale, bring your hands to your heart. And we'll move into a surya namaskar, sea variation. So let's inhale, out and up, full body breath. Exhale, deep forward fold, release all the way down towards your shins. Step the right foot back and inhale to your high lunge. And then as you exhale, shift your hips back and straighten the front leg any amount. And if the floor feels a little far away, you can do this whole progression with your hands on blocks. Step back to downward facing dog. Inhale, shift forward to plank. And as you exhale, lower your knees, followed by chest and hips. Inhale to a low cobra. And then exhale, release back to downward facing dog. Step the right foot forward to a high lunge as you inhale. Exhale, straighten the front leg. Step to the top of the mat and release into your forward fold. Inhale to come all the way up. Exhale, hands to your heart. Inhale, circle the arms out and up. Exhale all the way to your deep forward fold. Really complete the exhale. Step the left foot back to a high lunge. And then just adding this variation of partial tonasana as you exhale. Stepping to downward facing dog, shift forward to plank. And then lower down knees, chest and hips. Inhale through cobra. Exhale back to downward facing dog. Step the left foot forward to a high lunge as you inhale. Exhale, shift the hips back. Stretch the front leg long. Step to the front of the mat, forward fold. Inhaling to rise. Exhale, hands to your heart. Let's do one more full round. Inhale, circle out and up. Exhale, deep forward fold. Right foot steps back. Inhale. Exhale, keep the hips square as you stretch the front leg long. Step back to downward facing dog. Inhale, shift to plank. And exhale, lower knees, chest and hips. This time let's come up into upward facing dog on an inhale, standing in your hands in the tops of your feet. And then exhale, downward facing dog. Right foot steps forward on an inhale. Exhale, straighten the front leg. Step to the top of the mat, forward fold. And then inhale to rise. Exhale, hands to your heart. Let's take one more round. Exhale, circle the arms. Exhale, forward fold. Left foot steps back to a high lunge. Exhale, stretch the front leg long. Step to downward facing dog. Inhale, shift forward to plank.

Exhale, lower the knees, chest and hips. Inhale to your upward facing dog. Exhale, downward facing dog. Step the left foot forward, high lunge as you inhale. Exhale, keep the hips square as you stretch the front leg. So really keep that right hip pulling forward. Step to the front of the mat. And inhale to rise. Deep breath in. Touch your palms. Exhale, hands to your heart. Inhale, circle the arms out and up. Exhale, forward fold. Let's continue to a bit of a different progression to continue opening the hamstring. So lift the heart halfway. And then exhale, step directly back to downward facing dog. Sweep the right leg to the sky on an inhale. And just notice the difference here. If you keep your hips square versus if you stack the hips and open lifting the right hip a little higher than the left and just feel that ability to shift from square hips with the left hip pulling back and the right hip pulling forward and down versus open hips. And we really start to work with this when we get into hundumanasana. So we have that ability to move back and forth between open hips and square hips, but we always want to be working towards square hips in our hundumanasana. Let the right foot all the way through and lower the back knee down. And then uncurl the back toes. And as you reach forward and up into this low lunge, really feel the action of the pelvis, the tailbone reaching down and the front of the hips lifting up while you stay anchored in the hips. We really are opening the front of the left hip. Sweep the arms forward and up. And then as you exhale, just bring the hands back to the mat, curl the back toes under and lift the back knee. And same thing. Inhale, reach forward and up. Feel the action in the hips. Exhale, hands to the mat. Set the back foot for warrior one. Same thing. Inhale, reach forward and up. And then exhale. Step back to down dog. Split. Right leg is high. And let's walk our hands to the back of the mat, coming into standing split at the back of the mat. Relax your head and neck completely. And then as you exhale, just release your right foot down. And this is our connecting vinyasa. Take the left leg to the sky in standing split. Allow your spine to drape down. Allow your head to be super relaxed. Keep action in the left leg as you walk your hands forward to downward dog. And same thing here. Just take a moment to open the hips and then square the hips. And gently open the hips and square. Once more, open the hips and square. And then step the left foot all the way through to a low lunge. Lower the back knee down. As you sweep forward and up into your low lunge, feel the tailbone rooting down, the front of the pelvis lifting. Exhale. Release. Curl the back toes under. Lift your knee. Inhale. Come up to crescent pose. Once again, really opening the front of the right hip. Exhale. Release your hands down. Set the back foot for warrior one. Inhale. Reach forward and up to warrior one. And then exhale. Back to down dog. Split. Left leg is high. Walk your hands to the back of the mat. And connecting through the standing version of Hanumanasana. So really lift your left leg. Reach through the toes. As you exhale, release your left foot down. Inhale. Right leg to the sky. Release through the head and neck. Release the spine down. Take one more breath here. And then exhale. Release. Forward fold with Tanasana. Let's separate the feet hips width apart. And then take your hands either to the back of your calves or you can thread your hands through to your shin bones. Look forward slightly on an inhale. Exhale.

Draw yourself in deep. Just enjoy a few breaths here. Knees can be slightly bent or a lot bent or all the way straight. Sometimes it's kind of nice to just oscillate between a slightly bent knee and a straight leg because it stretches different aspects of our hamstrings. When the knees are slightly bent and if we're reaching the sits bones up, we target more of the upper hamstrings. And as we straighten the legs, it targets more towards the belly of the hamstring and down towards the back of the knees. So just kind of feel that in your own body as you shift a little bit. Maybe softening the knees one more time. And then exhaling to stretch long. Release your hands. Lift your chest halfway on an inhale. And as you exhale, walk your hands forward and come all the way to plank for a moment. And then set your knees down and we'll take our blocks and just set them up right at the top of the mat. So we'll hop through and come to a seated forward fold. And then we'll use our blocks to work on our hanumanasana. So set your blocks up maybe medium height. And from your downward facing dog, you can step all the way through and sit down or you can take a little jump through and have a seat and take your bolster or one of your blocks and just have a seat on top of it. And this allows us again to work with the tilt of the pelvis. So as you start to shift forward to reach for your legs, you want to feel that tilt of your pelvis. So tilt your pelvis forward towards an anterior tilt. Maybe even soften the knees a little bit and then reach your arms to the sky on an inhale. And as you exhale, reach forward towards your feet. You can take your strap and loop it around your feet or you can grab your ankles, big toes eventually with a yogi toe lock. Lift your chest and then draw the heart down towards your big toes. Relax your head and neck. And let's flow through that a couple of times. Inhale to lift the chest. Exhale, melting down. Inhale, rolling up through the spine like a wave. And then exhale, lowering down. Once more, inhale to sit tall. And this time as you exhale, hang out there for a moment or two. Deepening your breath and just finding that edge of sweetness and saltiness. When you're ready, slowly come on up on an inhale. And then as you exhale, we'll go ahead and take the bolster out from underneath us, setting it to one side and then making your way back to downward facing dog. From downward facing dog, inhale the right leg straight back, keeping the hips square. And then step forward about two-thirds of the way and shorten up the stance with the back foot coming into pyramid pose, Parsvottanasana. So again, you can feel the hips here, open hips versus squared hips and just pull the left hip forward, the right hip back. Blocks can be right underneath the shoulders. Lift your chest. And as you exhale, melt your spine down over the front leg for Parsvottanasana. We'll just hang out here for a moment or two. And again, just feel if your weight is equally balanced between the back foot and the front foot. Take a deep breath in. And as you exhale, soften the front leg, shift your blocks forward, your hands forward and come into standing split. And here we are again. We have that choice of open hip or squared hip. And if you have no SI, sikrowiliyaka shoes, feel free to open the hip and really go for the length here. But otherwise, a little more stable would be to keep the hips square. Take a very deep breath in. And let's take our standing split down for Hanuman. So we'll bend the standing leg, lower the back knee down and take your blocks back with you so they offer you a little bit of support here. When we start to work into Hanuman, the first thing that we usually learn is Arda Hanumanasana, our half split. And we might stay here for years. But at some point, we start to open up the gates a little bit and wiggle the front foot forward. Sometimes I even like to put a blanket on the wood floor in front of my mat and put my foot on the blanket to slide forward. But just start to open up the gates any amount as you slide down. And you can position your blocks underneath your shoulders to really support you. And bit by bit, we start to lower our hips down towards the earth. And you might notice that if you open the hips, it becomes like, oh, it's a little more accessible. And that's fine initially. But where we're starting to work towards is that squared hip situation. So we really maximize the opening of the back hip flexor and the front hamstring. So just feel that in your body. Notice if your left and right hip are pointed straight ahead, spine is upright. And whether you're down low sitting on the earth or up a little higher or a lot higher, you're just looking for that balance of a little bit of ease, a little bit of effort, a little sweetness, a little saltiness so it has your attention. So when you're ready, start to press down through the blocks, lift up through the pelvic floor, through your bandhas, draw your front leg back, and then just step directly back to downward dog. And it might take a little time to get up out of Hanumanasana initially, but that's all right. We just keep working on it. Let's take the left leg straight back on an inhale. And then as you exhale, step it forward about two thirds of the way, set the back foot up on a slight diagonal, and we come into Parsha Tanasana on the second side. So reach your heart forward as you inhale, and then exhale, melt down over the long leg. I'm just exploring your weight between the front and the back foot, and how that subtle tilt of the pelvis just really changes how it affects your hamstrings. Relax your head and neck completely, giving the shape a little bit of time, a little bit of release, a little bit of love. And taking a very deep breath, removing your breath. And then slowly lift your chest on your next inhale. As you exhale, shift forward into your standing split, and you can take your blocks with you as you lift the back leg, or take your hands to the mat. Feel the plumb line of your spine through the crown of your head, lifting the top leg, either open hips or square hips, or working with the inner play of both of those shapes. It's massaging the hamstring of the left leg, reaching up and back like an arrow through your right leg. Let's take one more breath here. Exhale completely. And then bend the standing leg, step back with your right foot, place your hands on your blocks, we'll lower our back knee down, and start to straighten the front leg for Ardha Hanumanasana first, and starting to shift forward, wiggling and sliding your foot forward any amount, sliding the right knee back any amount, and just making your way down towards the mat. Again, just feel that inner play of open hips versus square hips. And a lot of times we feel like I could get there so much sooner if I just let my hips open, but it really kind of compromises the lower back and compresses one side of the spine. So let's try to keep that sense of squareness in the body, and symmetry in the body by rolling your right hip forward, and you'll actually get much more out of it because it will open up the right hip and the psoas. Lift through the chest, keep a little bit of lift through the spine. Even if you're down on the earth, keep that sense of lift through the spine. I'm taking about three deep breaths here, just allowing the shape to work on you from the inside out. Finding that wonderful balance of ease and effort, focus and release. Reaching through the toes, take a very deep breath in here. And then as you're ready, press into your palms, lift up through the hips, start to stretch up and back all the way back to your downward facing dog. Very deep breath in here. Notice the difference in your downward dog shape, how it feels in the back body. And then as you exhale, we'll slowly come back down to our knees. You can set your blocks to one side. And then turn and just roll down on your back. We come back to right where we started. Draw the knees to the chest. Deep breath in through your heart. Exhale, release your feet back down on the mat. Let's come into a supported bridge pose. I like to use a block for this. So lift your hips and start with the block low just for a moment. It's that same shape that we were in at the very beginning of our practice. If you release your legs long, you get this nice release through the front of the hips. And if you feel any compromise in your lower back, chances are that you might have the block up too high. So you want to make sure the block is down low, right underneath your tailbone, right at your sacrum, so that the front ribs can soften in and down. The pelvis is the highest point. And then the femur bones just drape down to the floor. And just take a couple breaths here. In particular, expand through the rib cage as you inhale. And then as you exhale, just soften the front ribs in and down. And really feeling just this very subtle somatic response inside when we're supported by something. And then we're just allowing our body to drape and relax down into gravity around that point of support. So without really forcing, just feeling that opening and expansion as you inhale. And as you exhale, a sense of softening and releasing downward. And one more breath here. Bend your knees, place the feet flat on the mat. Come on up a little higher. Let's go to the next level with the block. Make sure it's underneath your sacrum really squarely. And again, you can see how it feels to release your legs down. Once again, if you feel a little crunchiness in your low back, just take the block a little bit lower. Sometimes even just a quarter of an inch can make a very big difference. Bringing the hands to the rib cage, let your legs totally relax.

And let's take a few breaths here. Big inhale, expand the front body. And as you exhale, softening the ribs, the back ribs in and down. Inhale, expanding. And exhale, front ribs collect in, back ribs dropping down. Bending your knees, place your feet flat. Let's come on up one more level, lifting the hips up, maybe coming up onto the tippy toes, and then turn your block a little taller. And depending on the shape of your pelvis and your sacrum, it might feel good to have the block sideways to you, or it might feel better to turn it lengthwise underneath your sacrum. So you can experiment with both. I like to turn mine lengthwise. And then reach your hands and lace your fingers just beyond the block here. Allow your shoulders to open. And so just the back of the head is on the earth, the backs of the arms, your sacrum supported by the block, and your feet. Just enjoy a few breaths here, opening up the front of the body in a passive, restorative way. You can feel how your pelvis is reaching towards an anterior tilt. And we'll come into a supported shoulder stand from here. So keep the pelvis in the same relationship to the block. We're going to take our legs up to the sky. And once we do so, try not to tuck the tailbone under. Otherwise, you'll probably tumble off the block. So keep the pelvis like it's resting on a cake plate. And then just reach your legs straight up to the sky. So go for a nice deep crease right at the front of the hips. The sacrum rooting down, the low back is in a nice deep extension. And just release your arms, spreading through the toes, activating the legs and taking three breaths here. Two breaths. One more breath. Bend your knees. Slowly bring the feet back down to the mat. Lift your hips, take the block out from underneath you. And then one vertebrae at a time, slowly roll down your spine. Once you're down there, you can set your block to one side, take your feet as wide as your mat, and just allow your knees to windshield wiper from left to right. And this gives us a really nice internal hip stretch and a subtle adjustment on the low back, quadratus lumborum, and all the wonderful connective tissue and fascia between the rib cage and the hips. So drop your knees over to the right side. Let's take the right foot and rest it on top of the outer left knee. Just feel that long line from the knee all the way up through the hips into the spine. And you can even reach up through your crown and through your left arm. I like to take my right hand to the left wrist and create a little more length here. Exhaling, softening.

Take the right foot back to the outer edge of the mat and just rock a couple times side to side. Taking your knees down to the left, let's place the left foot on top of the outer right knee. Gentle internal rotation of your right thigh, and then just start to follow the line of energy from your knee all the way up through the psoas, up through the spine, the crown, and reach up through your right arm. Left hand takes right wrist and lengthens. Going into a little more subtle work here internally. Last breath here. And then slowly release both feet flat on the mat. Hug your knees into your chest. Rock a little bit from side to side across your lower back. And then slowly rock on over to one side and press yourself up to a comfortable seated position. Sitting cross legged if you like or up on top of your bolster. And let's just bring the hands to the heart. So as we come into our closing, let's just take a moment here to sit quietly. So you can release your hands, your backs to the hands, to the knees, palms face up for open receptivity, or turn the palms face down on your knees for grounding. And really feel your roots grounding down through the tailbone, through the sacrum, deep down into the earth beneath you and rebounding that energy up through your spine, through your crown. Allow your inner eyes to stream down into the heart, taking about five breaths here in quiet stillness. Let's take one more breath here together, deepening your inhale to your heart. Exhale, draw the hands together at your heart. Open your eyes. Thank you so much for sharing your presence and your practice with me today. Namaste.