How to Do a Downward Dog and Puppy Dog in Yoga

How to Do a Downward Dog and Puppy Dog in Yoga Lifestyle WebTV.com Downward Dog Bea Broda: Yoga has proven that it has benefits for strength, for stress busting, for flexibility and also for circulation and we’re going to learn a posture today that addresses all of those things. With me today is Sheila Miller and she’s from the Sound of Body Yoga Studio in Toronto. Sheila what is that magic pose? Sheila Miller: Today we’ll do downward dog. Very famous pose, we’ll start with a gentler version called the puppy dog. This one is a great warm up for downward dog also nice for people with sensitive wrist or shoulders. In fact you could either do a one armed version if that’s enough so if you have a quite sensitive shoulder you can still stretch the other side gently and with the tension. So we’ll start with the hands spread, shoulder width apart on your matt. Now there’s a temptation here to roll out. We want to keep the hands nice and flat. Press on the index fingers. For the puppy dog our gentler version, we’re going to walk the knees back. Ease the chest down until you find a stretch. Again you could just do one arm that might be enough or both arms if it’s comfortable but always comfortable stretchy stretch. Once you’re doing over arch in the back just scoop your tables under enough that your lower back is neutral but your ears are between the arms and we’re going to rotate the upper arms out so I’m just going to show you that. I want to rotate the upper arms out like this to soften the elbows so you’re not locking and this is for the very flexible people, people who have extended joints. You don’t want to hyperextend. You want to have them just a little bent if you have that tendency. Now flap hands, spread the fingers. Ease your chest down. If you’re not getting enough stretch walk thing is back. For your choice if you’re getting too much stretch raise the shoulders. Bea: I’m getting stretched. Sheila: Okay. So let’s move on to downward dog. Now the dog we’re going to tuck your toes and lift your knees. You might want to come forward a little bit. Again we’re spreading fingers, pressing into the index fingers and lifting the hips away from the hands. Bend your knees as much as you need to so many people need to bend their knees a lot start to ease the heels down but again many people will have the heels fairly high up and back few people will people will help them down. People rolling into those index fingers broadening the upper back, rotate the upper arms to do that, breathe into your shoulders dynamic graph reach your hips away from the hands. Get some extra blood flow to the head, neck and shoulders here that’s too much of a head rush just take a break. If it’s tiring take a break, we want to get your blood moving and then ease on down and that’s your downward dog. Bea: Oh I can really feel that exercise. You know I think that’s something true about all exercise classes is sometimes it’s hard to get going but once we’re there we just feel so great, we’re glad we went.