Sebastian Brosche · 6 min · 1,071 words
Previously titled: Flying Split Pose
Hey guys, welcome to another arm balance tutorial. This is flying splits pose. This is quite tricky and you do need a bit of flexibility for this like most of them. You don't need to be able to full split, but it might help.
I'm not that confident in full splits yet. I've got it kind of one side but not the other and I'm able to do this. A lot of it's going to feel like finding the balance point similar to one legged crow because your weight is stronger on one side and you've got one leg hanging behind you. So it's very similar.
If you've not done the one legged crow class yet, I really suggest you get a bit more confident in that and then come back to this. Definitely do a warm up class before this one. I recommend either the 10 and 10 hip day or one of my warm ups. I usually do a similar warm up to arm balances in most of my warm up classes.
So that's why I suggest that. So for flying splits, we want one leg out in front of us and one leg behind like we're kind of doing a flying split, which is why it's called that. So step one foot as you would outside one hand. So it's almost like I'm in a bit of a lunge here.
Hands are in how they would be plank. I go a little wider for this though. Walk that foot forwards and then I'm going to similar to in eight angle. I'm going to try and get my hamstring nice and high up my tricep, but I'm not opening my wrist elbows out to the sides.
I am trying to tuck my elbows out behind me. Okay. From that, I'm going to start to walk that foot forwards whilst being strong with my left shoulder on my hamstring. Again, just kind of like eight angle as well.
Then from here, try and straighten that left leg. See if you can lift the heel off the ground. Good. Now see if you can just start to creep forwards a bit with that back knee so that your weight starts to come forward.
Naturally, I've got quite long arms, but I have to bend my arms to get into this. Okay. So if you struggle for strength here, more crow work, maybe some more like flow classes as well that help you with that, like lower down and up that kind of chataranga stuff that's going to help or just give it a go and see how you get on. So we tucked our shoulder under that left hamstring, straighten the leg and I'm going to come forwards and lower and then straighten that leg.
Back leg comes out, try and hold and back down. So you see how again, similar to crow, my weight comes forwards. I need to go lower and then this weight can come off the back foot just like one arm crow. Very similar as I said, because my weight is on the tricep again.
It's just my hamstring and not my knee this time. All right. Let's try the other side. You'd probably be better.
Well, you'd definitely be better one side than the other. I find splits really stubborn on one side compared to the other. And as I said, the more you kind of work towards splits, the easier this is going to be. So same thing here.
So try and get that elbow out from from being out to back under, point the right foot, see if you can lift the heel first. Okay, now I'm going to start to bend down and take my body weight forwards and bend my arms more. So I straighten that leg forwards, straighten the back leg. My chin is nearly on the ground, but it's lifting up.
Keep pointing the toes, get back down, come out of that. Good. Sit on your heels. So you'll feel like you're wobbling a lot here and it's because you're so spread out, there's counterweights going on.
All right. So this isn't going to be this perfect static pose. Hopefully mine looks that cool one day. But it's a lot of kind of rocking like the scales are slightly uneven and they're just rocking.
Similar kind of thing. That's what I find here. Okay, let's go again. Hands in plank.
Again, I go a little wider just for this. I find, I just find myself more stable if I go a little wider than plank in my arm balances and stuff. It also helps you for when you start to jump through with the shins. If your hands are a little wider, then you can cross the shins through a bit easier, but that's way later.
Okay. Wow. My shoulders click loudly then. Okay.
So tuck that left shoulder under the left hamstring, then straighten the foot. I always do that first to begin with and back down just to kind of test out. Then I need to bend more. Okay.
Straighten the leg again. Start to bring my weight forward, straighten the back leg. Good. Hold.
Back out. Step back. Good. Sit on your heels.
Okay. Let's come back to wider than plank hands. Okay. Tuck that right shoulder under your right hamstring.
Start to keep the back knee back. Good. Then straighten the right leg. Feel it.
Good. Now bend the arms even more. Start to bring your weight forward, straighten the front leg. Lean your weight forward, straighten the back leg.
Good. Hold. And back. Good.
Back to all fours. Sit on your heels and breathe. Okay. So that is how I like to get into flying splits.
We can get there from a angle pose and things like that. All good fun, but we just need to get confident in that pose before we do that. Okay. So do this class a few times, then start working on holding yourself there for a little longer.
Start with one breath, then one and a half, then two, two and a half, and just keep going. It's good fun. And yeah, eventually you can start to find transitions in and out of all of them and it gets really fun. Okay.
So any questions, leave them in the comments and I'll see you in the next tutorial.
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