Warrior Poses & Three-Legged Dog: 10-Min Tutorial (Day 5)

I can't really go deeper than this but probably I would have gone here and thought that this was it. So this is what I see over and over again especially with beginners. They come to class and they think they really are pushing it but they haven't even started to push it. All poses are not like that but these are definitely one of these poses that you think you're super deep in the pose and if you take a photo of yourself or watch a video of yourself you're like huh I thought the leg was up in the ceiling but it was really close to the ground.

So every time you do the three-legged dog push it push it push it you are working against gravity so you really have to put a extreme amount of effort to get this knee up and away from the other knee so you're trying to separate and split your legs apart lift your heel and push your head back. So what you're doing is you're basically trying to split your legs and doing a back bend so you're going maximum that way first and three-legged dog is great because you strengthen the back side you stretch the both the front side of the same leg so if I'm lifting my right leg I'm strengthening my back side and I'm stretching my front side there plus I'm stretching my hamstrings and my shoulders so it's at least four big muscle groups in one pose. Let's move on to the next exercise which is which I call the rolling knee and that fits perfectly together with the three-legged dog these two are inseparable you can't just do one and not the other in a flow class you get both of them and if you really put maximum effort here the combination of these two the three-legged dog and the rolling knee is just fantastic it's one of the things that helped me heal from my herniated disc that I had for six years and it was it was one of the key poses and exercises that did that but I had to really be strict with myself and I got a lot of help from my beautiful wife and yoga teacher to actually work it really really hard and you are in a tougher situation because I can't follow up but that's why I'm saying I'm assuming that you're doing it wrong and you're not doing it enough so always put more pressure in. Okay so you start from the three-legged dog lift up on your toes and look back try to see if you can look up to your knee if you can't see your knee that's perfect from here you start rolling your spine forward to a plank pose and then you pull your knee to your chest your chin your nose your forehead wherever you can just roll your knee as far forward as possible and then you go back so you go back to three-legged dog and of course here you inhale and you exhale as you start rolling forward pressing you're almost kneeing yourself in the belly in you inhale when you lift the leg you exhale when you round your spine and try to push your chest away from the floor so when you inhale you lift up on your toes point your toes and back bend when you exhale you roll your knee and try to lift your foot and your knee away from the floor I just did four reps but my heart is already beating fast and blood rush to my face this is much harder than push-ups it's different than push-ups but it's much harder than push-ups so you get a super strong core exercise and push with the arms which is great for Jiu-Jitsu this pushing hip escaping rounding of the spine is super applicable to Jiu-Jitsu plus you get the extreme stretch of the three-legged dog and since you're working against gravity on all fours all the time you get really integrated with your upper and lower body so every time I say stretch your leg out behind you inhale roll your knee as far as you can I don't mean that you should do this lift a little bit roll forward a little bit because you are just wasting your time you're not wasting my time because I'm on video so I have unlimited patience but don't waste your own time by just doing it 60% because it's going to take 60% longer if you don't do it properly last pose that we're going to go through today is the humble warrior so you are setting up from warrior one so just a quick recap on warrior one feet hip width apart big step back back leg straight and this is warrior one with your arms upright thumbs are pointing back imagine you're holding a big ball or a box bend your front knee you're not leaning forward it's just like you're standing with your legs straight like this and then you're just stepping into the pose so this is the the foundation of humble warrior so this is upwards strong everything is going up okay you interlace your fingers hook your thumbs grab your wrists grab your elbows whatever you can just clasp your your arms or hands behind your back and then you go back bend first prep on an inhale and as you exhale keep bending your left knee and place either your chest on the thigh drop your head and look towards your back foot if you can go deeper you can slide on the inside of the knee and lower the head down really low okay so this is humble warrior so the legs are strong the hips are still moving upwards but the back and the head is relaxing forward the arms are strong the legs are strong but the back is relaxed so you inhale look up as you exhale slowly lower forward chin to chest important and then relax your neck and your head and try to go with your head as low as possible or just chill out with your forehead or your chin to your shin or knee so that's humble warrior very simple just set up from warrior one interlace your fingers inhale up exhale go slow and low and chill out there for a breath or two that's humble warrior okay let's put these three together into a sun salutation flow