Mountain Pose (Tadasana) - Yoga With Adriene

Hi , everyone .

My name is Adrian and welcome to yoga with Adrian .

Today , we're gonna learn one of my favorite poses , a very basic pose , but it has a lot going on more than meets the eye kind of pose .

Um So mountain pose or is great for Sciatica .

It's great for stress .

It's just an overall great grounding pose definitely can help you improve your posture and it's a great little container for tapping into the breath .

So let's hop on the mat and learn .

Ok , so to begin , we're going to be standing on our feet .

I'm gonna take my feet and I can do this .

Uh typically in a yoga class , this is a , a basic foundational pose that you often do at the front of your mat .

Um But stand anywhere on your mat or if you don't have a mat and you're on the floor , great stand anywhere in your house that you like or in your office or wherever you are .

And uh let's bring the feet hip with a part to start .

And because I have been practicing building my poses from the ground up , I'm gonna immediately think about my foundation that which is touching the earth and look down at my feet .

I'm gonna lift my toes .

I got distracted by my own toes there .

Sorry , because I realize you're all gonna see my bling toe , which um there's a great story behind my big toe art .

Um A new thing for me and I will write that story on my blog .

So if you're curious , you can read that story on the blog .

Let's stay focused together the mountain pose , starting at the feet .

I'm gonna lift my toes and right away .

I'm gonna see if I can connect all four corners of my feet .

Ok .

So that's the ball joint of the big toe , the ball joint of the pinky toe and the back two corners of the heels .

So I'm gonna turn to the side here just so you can see that when I lift my feet .

I can really tell if I've been uh sitting in the front part of my feet or if I tend to hang out in the back part by lifting the toes because then it requires me to go through all four corners of the feet .

Um We also call this in yoga and yoga , four part standing .

So that's where that comes from is ball , join to the big toe ball , joined the pinky toe in the back , two corners of the heels .

So I'm gonna spread my toes wide and then I'll relax my toes back down once I have more of an awareness or consciousness of my footing or where I distribute my weight , that alone is worth the price of your time in this video .

Just understanding where we carry our weight and you'll notice the more you start to practice this four part equal standing , the the more comfortable we become in our bodies .

The posture proves naturally and we just gain more awareness of how we stand regularly .

And it makes sense because if we're hanging out here all the time with the child or just carrying things all the time , then we need to take the time consciously to counteract that even in line paying bills at heb like sometimes I'm like , oh my God , this person cut me who cuts people anymore .

And then I'll just take deep breath and come to my four part standing building a little more awareness in the body and becoming a happier person .

But back to the .

So I'm gonna lift the toes , then I'll relax them down .

And uh let's see , we're at feet hip with the part .

Then I'm gonna travel up from my foundation , drawing energy up from the arches of the feet all the way up through the legs , engaging the legs all the way up through the groin , the pelvis area .

And then of course , traveling up the spine up through the crown of the head , fingertips relaxing down at my side .

So mountain pose or it's as if uh the tip of my head is the top of the mountain and then my fingertips grazing the sides .

You can turn your palms open or keep them parallel .

This is a good moment to give a shout out to my family and friends in Colorado Mountain , the rocky mountains and now for some action points .

So the great thing about is uh this is great for Sciatica , by the way , great posture um pose .

But is I wanna notice right away and I'll turn to the side here , but I wanna notice if my heart is beginning to collapse in and I'm finding this roundness in the spine .

And so of course , I want to loop the shoulders open and find that natural lift in the heart that lift in the sternum .

This is gonna allow me to draw my navel in supporting the belly and toning the belly so we can get beach body ready as my friend Dustin likes to say , and as I loop the shoulders , draw the navel in , open my heart , I have what I kind of called as uh Adrian getting carried away , which is like , I'm like , oh yes , feels so good yoga .

And then I'm like starting to feel this pressure and pain in my lower back and I'm like , I feel so open and then pain .

So I'll take that awareness that check in and I'll scoop my tailbone in to support this openness that I have .

So I'll literally go if I'm gonna exaggerate this for a second .

So I'm going from here like Titanic .

Um Titanic , I love Titanic .

So I'm gonna go from here to scooping my tail bone in to meet the pubic bone or the pelvis , which also tones my belly naturally without having to hold any tension but engages it .

So navel draws in as the tail bone scoops in .

I've opened my shoulders and my heart and now you're starting to see that I'm not um forward or back , but I am centered head over the heart hard over the pelvis .

And then it's like , ok , well , boring mountain pose and kids yoga , we go .

But actually it's all but boring .

It's a very conscious place where I'm present with the breath and there's a lot of activity going on where I'm actually engaged from the crown of the head all the way down to my heels .

I'm drawing energy up from the earth and the tops of the thighs have this really sweet inner rotation .

They're rotating in towards each other out towards the wall behind you or the windows .

Find me , right ?

And then same thing just to show you a little exaggerated version is I have this engaging , engaging quality .

I have this engaging quality in the legs where the tops of the thighs of the quads are rotating in and out towards the back wall .

And a great way to feel this actually is if you have a block or you can just um I don't know , put your smartphone in between your legs , don't do that , but you can put anything um substantial or square between the legs .

How about a yoga block ?

And this is just a great place for me to feel that engaging quality .

So here I'm kind of standing with my pelvis forward .

A lot of us stand like this naturally putting a lot of pressure in the lower back .

Um But with the block there , I feel this like in , in intense squeezing sensation .

And when I rotate my thighs towards each other and towards the wall behind me , it's almost like a Pez dispenser .

I really feel that action and now my legs are like working like mad and then so I'll just come into alignment here just so we can experience the full thing navel drawing back , heart lifted , shoulder blades , shoulder blades are coming together melting down towards the tail and the tail is scooping in to meet the Pelvis .

I would invest in the block .

It's awesome .

If I had tons of money , I would say send me an email , I'll send you a block , but maybe one day but not today .

Um Someday it will happen blocks for everyone .

Another great way to , I shouldn't make promises I can't keep .

Um another great way to practice this pose particularly for beginners is to back it up against a wall and use the wall to really check in with that alignment of the head over the heart , the heart over the pelvis .

Then once I'm here in tops of the thighs and rolling in and together , tail bone scooping under to meet the pelvis bone .

Heart , open shoulders open , let your arm , pit chest , breathe .

Sometimes long neck lengthening through the crown of the head .

Of course , I'll begin to tap into my breath .

What good is doing to as or the pose without marrying it to the breath .

And then from here , I can close my eyes and if you close your eyes , you may start to feel a little drunk , a little wobbly .

So , um that's ok .

Just hold on to your foundation , spread the toes , stay rooted in all four corners of the feet .

And if you still start to feel a little unbalanced or dizzy or like , mm I don't know if this is safe .

Just part the eyes open and find ad stier focal point on the earth to kind of hold on to a great tip for balancing poses to talk about another day .

But holding on to a little piece of lint or a little heart shaped piece of grass or dirt or dust or whatever on the earth .

Holding on to that as we lift and lengthen and engage the full body .

Often we'll bring the palms together here in and lifting the sternum to the thumbs lengthening through the crown of the head .

And another option that's super yummy just while we're here is we can take the fingertips , bring them behind the tailbone here , still checking in with the lower body going through all my checkpoints of Mountain Po or to Dawson .

But this time I'll interlace the fingertips , draw them down past the tail bone towards the heels and able to spine as I open up the shoulders , open up the chest .

If I can bring the palms together here , I will .

Otherwise I'll just keep the wrists nice and square shoulder blades drawing together and down creating space .

Counteracting all of those hours of the computer or anything that we do with the shoulders rounded , which is almost everything .

Hey , and fingertips drawing down , allowing the shoulders to rotate away from the ears , heart lifted , yummy , open chest , open , heart mountain pose .

We can also do this with the feet flushed together .

But I say as a beginning point , it's nice to go hip with the part , the bone stacked heels underneath the hips just for balance and stability .

Okey doke .

So that was mountain pose or , or um the great thing about is you can do it anywhere everywhere , anywhere and everywhere , not everywhere .

OK .

You thinking about liability here , not everywhere , but you get what I'm saying ?

It's a great post to check in with your posture with your alignment .

A great container for the breath .

As I've said before , you can do it in the grocery store , you can do it at the bar .

You can do it on the map , anywhere and everywhere .

Um Leave comments , uh read the blog if you wanna talk about my bling big toe .

Um Let's chat , I'll tell you the story .

Um Subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and see you next time .

Thank you so much .

Stay .