Stand in Your Power! Yoga For Strength and Confidence
Welcome back to your mat everyone. Today’s video is about standing in your power. I saw this meme on Instagram that my friend shared with me that said, “ What’s most powerful about you is you. No one else can be you and no one else can offer what you have.” So I thought that was a great meme for yoga class.
I’m going to talk about standing in our power, being powerful in ourselves and not giving our power away. This tutorial is going to be about standing poses. I have my blocks close by which I like to have whenever I practice because you never know when you will possibly need a block. I’m going to show you a few poses that will help you feel a bit more powerful.
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Let’s start by standing up tall and strong. One of my favorite poses to explore is mountain pose, just standing. What’s more epic and majestic than a mountain?
We will start with our feet about two fists length apart, or about the width of my block. I just use my block as a measurement for my feet. You just want to determine what feels right. You also want to make sure that your feet line up under your hipbones. So just make sure that when you’re looking down, you can align your hipbones up right underneath your feet. Lift and spread your toes and push down into the big toe mound, the inner heel, and then the baby toe mound, then the outer heel. Push down on your feet and feel as though you drawing up power from mother earth herself.
I have a block between my ankles if you can manage that then I’m going to ask that you to push the block with your ankles. Squeeze the block as though you’re squeezing your legs together. If you don’t have a block, I’m going to ask that you do the opposite. Push down into your feet and widen the mat just energetically. It is not an actual movement it’s an energetic movement. Then firm your belly to support your back lift up out of the roof of your mouth. Turn your palms forward and just lengthen your spine close your eyes. Squeeze your quads or the muscles in your legs. Firm your belly just a little bit and feel your heart lift. Smile and know that you are powerful exactly as you are.This pose is called Tadasana. Palms turned forward; you can do it with prayer hands if you like. Connection to self, connection to source.
Next pose I want to explore is warrior pose. With my blocks nearby I’m going to go ahead and step my feet wide. If you’re feeling playful, you can bend your knees and jump your feet wide. Turn your toes towards the long edge of your mat and then turn your toes out to the top of your mat. Bend into the square of your left knee and make sure that your knee lines up with the center of your foot and your knee lines up over your ankle. I like my back foot, my right foot to be parallel with the back end of the mat. But for some of us with knee injuries or knee sensitives that might not feel so good. So you can turn your toes in slightly if that feels better. I like to support my low back just by pulling my belly, just by tightening my core. Tightening my core muscles almost just makes me feel better, and makes me stand stronger. Lifting up the roof of my mouth, shoulders forward, shoulder back I should say chest forward. And then I just circle my arms wide. Oh, how wonderful I got that from Betsy Downing. I love that saying.
Look out over your center middle fingernail and now push your feet apart energetically on your mat. Warrior, I can weather any storm, right? I see you life challenge, and I raise you courage, now let’s do it on the other side. Hands to the waist, turn your toes to the long edge of the mat, turn your toes to the back end of the mat. Remember back toe can be parallel to the back end of your mat, or you can turn your heel out a little bit. Bend into the square of your knee. Knee lines up with the ankle. Firm the belly. Push the mat apart energetically. Inhale, a big circle with the arms, look out over the center of your middle fingernail, breath. Relax your arms, firm your belly. And remember you are powerful, beautiful.
Hand down by your sides; bring your toes back towards center point your toes towards the long edge of your mat. If you’re feeling playful, you can hop your feet together. Or you can heel, toe your feet together.
Great, take a breath, next one I want to explore is tree pose. So I’d like to break down tree pose into three different variations. I call this particular variation where I’m rooting down through my right foot, I bending the knee, firming the belly, bring my left heel to the inside of my right ankle and rotating my right knee out. I call this shrub. I’m going to grow my shrub and bring my foot to the inside of my shin just inside my knee. Now I have sensitive knees, and I don’t put my foot on the knee joint. For me, that doesn’t work. Find a space on the floor in front of you. Set your gaze. Hug your foot and your shin in towards each other. Firm your belly. I call this a bush. You can take your arms out to the side. You can take your arms out over your head, whatever works.
Next one is my version of a tree. My knees and my body don’t allow me to get my foot to the inside of my thigh. If that’s available to you there is a little divot underneath your sitting bone, if you can get your heel into that space and hug your legs together, then you can do a tree pose that looks like that. For me, my tree pose is I like to hold my foot. I bring my ankle to cross over the top of my knee. I grab my foot and bring it closed to my hip. This is my tree. Now if you’re able to hold this without holding the foot go ahead and give it a try. If not just enjoy it where you are at in the pose. There are as many different types of trees as there are people. So just enjoy your variation of a tree, whether you’re an oak or a maple, or a magnolia. Good, exhale and release.
Those are your three standing poses to build power. Remember you are a powerful being, and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise and never let anybody steal your power.
Thanks for being here, Namaste.
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