Named after an ambitious king who transformed himself into a yogic sage, Visvamitrasana is a complex asana: It’s an arm balance, hip opener, shoulder opener, hamstring stretch, and twist, all in one.” This beast of a pose requires a great deal of strength and flexibility. So this week’s featured classes will help you open and strengthen your body so you can get into Visvamitrasana safely and mindfully.
- Get into Visvamitrasana with Stephanie Snyder: Get into this class focuses on getting into Visvamitrasana. We prepare by thoroughly opening the hips, hamstrings and side body. Then attempt Visvamittrasana in stages. We cool the hamstrings with light backbends (optional Urdvha), twists and forward fold. This class ends with a long restorative twist. Enjoy!
- Visvamitrasana Class with Dice Iida-Klein: It’s all about Visvamitrasana! Part side plank (vasisthasana), part eka pada koundinyasana II (arm balance) and part side-angle pose (parsvakonasana), we use poses like bound side-angle and shoulder behind-the-knee in lunge to work deeper towards visvamitrasana. We use hanumanasana (splits) and a shoulder behind-the-knee variation of hanumanasana to get our hamstrings open for the pose. A few variations of handstand are introduced. We end our practice with a light backbend and hip opening from our backs.
- Visvamitrasana Tutorial with Sianna Sherman: Visvamitrasana is the Friend of the Universe pose. This tutorial instructs a skillful progression into the pose addressing the hips, shoulders and hamstrings that must be stablilized with good alignment before opening into the full pose.
- Visvamitrasana with Kathryn Budig: We workshop the hips, lateral stretches, twist and chest openers to prepare us for the big daddy arm balance: Visvamitrasana!
- The Journey to Visvamitrasana with Tara Judelle: Using the key of the femur bones to work towards the journey of opening the hamstrings towards the peak pose of Visvamitrasana. Includes, Visvamitrasana, Eka Pada koundinyasana, and Surya Yantrasana variation.
- Deconstruct Arm Balances with Jason Crandell: Full of deep groin, hip, and hamstring openers this smart flow sequence culminates in 3 demanding arm-balances: Firefly pose (Titthibasana), Visvamitrasana, and bhujupidasana. Learn how to deconstruct, understand and access these demanding postures in an intelligent, inventive sequence–and, if nothing else, you’ll get plenty of lower-body opening!
