Beginners Yoga - How to do Seated Forward Bend

Hello , Yogi .

It's Rosalie here and thanks so much for joining me on this last day , day 16 of the back to day six yoga challenge .

Well , I really hope that you enjoy this journey with Jane and I , and I hope you got something out of your practice as well .

Well , we are going to finish today with a seated Ford bend , great stretch through the back of your hamstrings and for your spine as well .

Just go ahead and shift around your leg straight out in front of you , moving any fleshy bits from behind you and now engage your legs .

So flex those toes , he has nice strong legs , your shoulders are soft , make sure there's lots of space here between your ears and your shoulder , shoulder blade sliding down your back .

We're gonna inhale , sweep the hands up on an exhale hinge from your hip to keeping your back nice as straight as your hands come next to your feet in front of you .

If your hands are by your feet , you can go ahead and reach around and get the outer edges of your feet .

This is really good traction .

So on , inhale , pull on your feet to make your spine even longer .

Finding lots of length , how I'm reaching the crown of my head now towards my feet .

It doesn't matter if your hands on the match doing the same thing , bring the chest towards your legs , crown of your head towards your feet and breathing into the back of that hamstring , finding lots of length in the spine and when you can't go any further , just go ahead and release into the pose .

This is one of those poses that it's really good to stay at least good and breath , stay longer if you can when you're ready to come out , just using the hands to walk yourself all the way back to a seated position .

Well , there are just a few things to watch out for in this pose .

And the first is that you don't round your back .

If this is the case for you and your hamstrings , feel a little bit tight , then go ahead and pop a cushion under your seat .

This will tilt your pelvis and it should help you find a nice straight spine as you go down .

The second thing you can do is to bend your knees .

It's much better to go down with bent knees and a straight back than it is to try and keep your legs straight and go down with a rounded back because you just won't get as much out of the pose if you do it like that .

And the third thing you can do is to use a strap , straps are fantastic props in yoga , use one even if you have a straight back just to help you go a little bit deeper in the pose .

And then other thing you want to watch for is that you don't let your legs flop out to the side .

If this is the case , you just need to engage those legs flex those toes up , head on over to my blog and you'll see an infographic with all this information .

Well , thank you so much for joining me and Jane on this back to basics yoga challenge .

It's been so much fun for me and I hope it has been for you too .

And I hope you've seen some improvement in your practice as well these last two weeks and a bit .

Well , thanks again and I hope to see you again very soon .