28/08/2020
One pose a day!
Feel free to suggest any poses that you would like us to explore.
Today our pose choice is:
Warrior III pose – Virabadrasana III in Sanskrit
Sanskrit is the ancient yoga language, asana means “pose”, vira means “hero” and bhadra means “friend”.
As mentioned yesterday, Virabhadrasana describes a whole series of poses: Warrior I, Warrior II, Warrior III, Reverse Warrior and Humble Warrior.
Yesterday we looked at Warrior I and today we move to Warrior III since, just like Warrior I, Warrior III is a closed hip pose and we love transitioning from one to the other, rather than the most common transition from Warrior I to Warrior II where you need to change the alignment of your hips.
We love Virabhadrasana III as it challenges your body and mind inviting you to pause, find your focus and strength and then relax into this, teaching you to develop a relaxed but focused balance. It’s wonderful!
As always the aim is not to achieve anything, but to be open to exploring and learning and to find the right place for you. You can also use the support of the wall to find the right alignment and then move away once you feel it.
Let’s perform Virabadrasana III:
• From Warrior I (check our post from yesterday!) press your weight into the front foot and start lifting the back leg and lower your torso to bring the body parallel to the ground.
• Straighten your standing leg as you continue to lift the back leg and lower the torso, but do not lock your knees. Keep the hips closed and parallel to the floor.
• Flex your back foot and reach out through the heel, as if you're pressing a wall behind you (you could actually use the wall here to start with)
• Reach your arms ahead but keep the shoulders soft. You can use a hand mudra to channel the energy here by interlocking the fingers except the index fingers which would point ahead (you could also start with the hands against the wall to begin with or bring your arms along your body to help you find balance and then extend the arms when you are ready)
• Feel the connection from your hill to the fingertips, extend powerfully and if you loose balance try again with a smile!
• As usual practice on both sides
Extra Fun: From Warrior III try to transition smoothly and softly back into Warrior I and back again into Warrior III, feel the flow!
Enjoy!
Photo courtesy of Paolo Capelli