Hey, welcome to Yoga With Adriene.
I'm Adriene and today we are going to learn
one of my favorite poses, the Bridge pose,
Setu Bandhasana, as part of our foundations of yoga series.
So hop on the mat and let's learn Bridge.
(upbeat music)
Okay, so we're going to begin flat on our backs today.
Letting the soles of the feet come to the mat
and the knees point up towards the sky.
Let's tuck our chins into our chests
and lengthen through the back of our necks.
And then maybe just take a second here to open the palms
and breathe letting the back relax into the mat.
(breathing loudly)
Then I'll bring my awareness to my heels,
I'm gonna draw my heels up towards my sit bones
and keeping my knees in line with the hip points,
I'll reach my finger tips down
and kind of use this as a gauge here.
So where my finger tips land
is pretty much where the heels can be.
Sometimes we bring them a little bit closer in yoga
for a more deeper approach,
more deeper opening in the front body.
But I would recommend as a beginner
using this little cheat here, finger tips to heels.
All right.
So, from here I'll press into all four corners of the feet,
so I really wanna spread awareness
through all four corners of my feet,
particularly the inner arches.
Sometimes we go, tend to let the knees widen,
and go to the outer edges of the feet, that's the tendency.
So I wanna keep my knees in line with my hips
and my awareness spreading
through all four corners of the feet, right?
I wanna pay attention to my alignment,
set up my pose just right.
So from here, I'll press into my feet,
take a nice deep breath in (inhaling loudly),
and on the exhale, I'll scoop my tailbone up,
drawing my navel down towards the mat,
hugging the navel to the spine.
I'll continue this journey,
scooping the tailbone up, pressing into the feet.
I begin to lift my hip points up,
palms pressing flat into the mat
for a little bit of support,
tailbone scooping up.
You notice here I'm going nice and slow,
traveling up the spine.
Kind of getting a yummy massage here.
(inhaling loudly)
I continue lifting the hip points nice and slow.
(inhaling loudly) Pressing into the spine (inhaling loudly).
I can release my palms open here,
(exhaling loudly)
I can grab onto the outer edges of the mat,
or I can just keep pressing all 10 fingerprints down strong.
So there's a couple different options here (loud inhale).
As I continue to lift the hips.
(inhaling loudly)
(exhaling loudly) Bridge pose.
Neck is nice and long here.
Again, the tendency is going to wanna come
to those outer edges of the feet to support,
but remember your alignment, stay stacked,
working with integrity, toes pointing forward.
Couple of action points and safety precautions.
I'm not looking at you on purpose right now
because I don't want to ever turn my neck, my head,
to look at somebody else's mat
or to look at you, my friends out there watching this now.
I wanna keep the neck nice and long,
not move it side to side, so we don't injure it.
Keep it nice and happy and supported.
This pose is tough,
but I don't wanna create any tension in the neck
or in the face or in the tush.
There's a tendency to really squeeze the tushy here,
I don't say tush or tushy,
(chuckling) I don't know why I just said that.
The bum, the buttocks, the glutes.
Keep 'em soft.
So that's the beauty of this posture,
is marrying that strength, that activity,
with a calm, with an ease.
(inhaling loudly)
Another action point, I wanna press my hips forward,
really reaching my knees towards the front edge of the mat.
So I'm not just lifting up towards the sky,
but imagine scooping your tailbone
to the backs of your knees or often, I tell my students,
sit bones to the backs of the knees.
So I'm lifting the hips,
but I'm really thinking about drawing my sit bones
to kiss the back of the knees there.
We can take a couple breaths here.
Perhaps you've already fallen out
and you're like why is she still up there? (chuckling)
But I encourage you on the journey down
to move with the breath.
I often go down on an exhale,
but, as always, I encourage you to experiment
with your breath, finding what feels good.
I don't fall out of the pose,
but rather I take this nice, slow journey down.
Feels yummy on my spine here
as I slowly release the hips,
the pelvis, back down to the earth.
Keeping my knees in line,
now I can turn my head and smile at you.
Okay, so, to go a little bit deeper in the pose,
we're gonna go up one more time here.
I'm gonna just show you one more thing
to go a little bit deeper.
I'll inhale, again,
pressing into all four corners of the feet.
Let this movement, rather than just hiking the hips up,
let's enjoy this journey, right?
You get a nice, solid back massage out of this, as well.
But let it start from the tailbone,
like we do in our Cat-Cow.
It starts here, the movement starts here.
I'll scoop the tailbone up,
lower back becomes flush with the mat.
And then I'm slowly gonna travel up my spine
as I lift up into my Bridge pose.
And actually for this one,
I'm gonna draw my heels a little bit closer,
in case you wanna try that to go a little bit deeper.
So heels draw in towards the sit bones,
toes pointing forward.
Knees up towards the sky and in line with the hips.
Pressing into the palms
or, again, sometimes it's nice
to grab the outer edge of the mat for a little stability.
Or if we're really going for the ease, the grace today,
I'll go palms up.
So you can experiment with that.
Inhale (inhaling loudly)
and on an exhale (exhaling loudly)
scooping that tailbone up.
Moving with your breath.
We don't have to do this all in one breath,
we can breath in and out nice and easy.
Slowly lifting the hip points up,
but thinking about drawing these sit bones
to the backs of the knees.
Knees really moving forward, energetically even.
(inhaling loudly)
Pressing into the inner arches of the feet,
pressing into the ball joints of the big toe
will really help you figure out
what the hell (chuckles) I just meant
by drawing your knees energetically forward.
(chuckles)
(humming)
Now to go a little bit deeper,
I'm gonna continue, nice, strong in the legs here,
continue pressing into the inner arches of the feet.
Continue to scoop my tailbone up toward the sky.
But this time I can walk my shoulder blades in together,
one at a time.
And perhaps interlace the finger tips
underneath my bridge.
Walking the shoulder blades in
and really stretching through the front body,
neck is nice and long.
I find that softness in my face here.
(loud breathing)
Can take a couple breaths here.
Sometimes we can also use the thumbs here,
the hands to support.
Or if we have blocks,
we can do a more restorative version of this posture.
But this is a great heart opener here.
I'm still really strong in my legs here.
(inhaling loudly) Breathing into my belly,
lifting those hip points up towards the backs of the knees.
(inhaling loudly)
(humming)
To come out of this posture,
I'll release the fingertips with grace
(exhales loudly)
and then let that be my cue to slowly release down.
Walking down the spine nice and slow.
And then pelvis releases.
As a quick counter-pose,
I'll hug my knees in towards my chest,
wrap my arms around my shins,
and just take a couple seconds here
to rock a little back and forth.
Careful you don't get too tense
in the shoulders here as you do that.
Remember, (loud inhale) to relax them down
and away from the ears.
We can do this a couple times,
we can even draw a couple circles with the knees,
just massaging the lower back.
And then I can release the soles of my feet to the ground
and sometimes it feels great to do it with a thud.
(exhaling loudly)
And then I'm here for another Bridge pose.
(inhaling loudly)
We can do this as many times as feels good
or often we'll begin or end class
with a couple different variations of this posture,
which we'll do at a later date.
(humming)
Okie doke, so that was Bridge pose, super yummy posture.
I love bridge because it's active and relaxing,
and so we can practice balancing those two.
Also, really great for the ladies.
(clicking tongue)
Really therapeutic for the women,
but really therapeutic for everyone.
I'll list all the benefits on the blog,
so visit the blog at yogawithadriene.com.
Make sure you subscribe, leave comments, questions below.
And enjoy your Bridge pose.
Thank you and namaste.
(upbeat indie music)
A really awesome pose for the ladies.
(clicking tongue)
In terms of therapeutic relief for lady problems.
Not problems, I can't say problems, dammit.