How To: Side Crow

hi friends i'm kathy madeo back with another tutorial this one all about side crow i actually pulled this tutorial from my latest online series called activate your arm balances i wanted to give you a glimpse inside what my online courses look like so stay tuned to the very end of this tutorial where you can get a sneak peek on the trailer for the online series and head into the description box where i have a gift for you it's a guidebook on the four things potentially preventing you from arm balancing as well as a special discount code just for you if you're interested in diving deep into these postures but for now let's get started [Music] [Music] i'll walk you through some key alignment points with this pose it's a deep twist so we need the ability to cross our body with our arms so i've got my left arm here i'm going to bring it to the outside of my right thigh so as close as you can get it as little space as possible it's really getting in there and as you hook the arm i'm hooking it to the back of my tricep and kind of hooking it under from there i place my hands down their shoulders distance apart and i begin to pin this free arm in now you can rest your whole side body on the arm it's called a shelf you can also keep it free most people will use this shelf to start i'm going to show it with it free and then we'll work on the shelf during the tutorial so as you shift forward and bend your arms and hug that free arm in you'll start to find that lightness through the feet the knees continue to squeeze together feet squeeze together and your gaze can turn to the direction of the pose let's grab our props and go through this pose more deeply so let's just find the position of this pose in our body so we're really going to prop up for this i want one block that will be under your hip that's underneath and one block probably in the medium setting maybe the higher setting depending on your anatomy we'll look at that in a moment and let's use the strap for this first one just to ensure that our elbows are hugging in so what you'll do is you'll sit with your right hip on the mat or on the block rather and your knees will be together so we're just kind of seated here and you'll take that twist so twisting to the right will try to hook the left arm to somewhere on the outside of that right leg so again really compressing in finding where that tricep muscle is hooking your arm here adjust the block as needed so what we're going to do is actually land our right shoulder on the block so it'll look like this it's okay wherever the hands are just let them be so i lift it up a little bit to come more onto the side of my right hip a little bit and then i can begin to bend take those chaturanga arms and bend and land my shoulder on the block and you'll notice my feet just kind of popped up there so play with the height of the block for yourself probably the longer the arms the higher it needs to be i'm somewhere in between so i'm going in between both and we're just finding this position here rocking shifting forward bringing those feet together tapping the block with the shoulder and then coming up let's do that on the other side so we'll sit down we're going to turn now to the left we'll compress in and try to hook the right arm to the outside of the left leg hands come down and begin to turn more onto the side of your left hip your block is going to be underneath your right shoulder now so the elbows hug in lower down let the feet come up maybe you can touch the block we're just doing a couple of these lowering down tapping and maybe you hold just to get the kind of shape of the pose here and we'll come out let's go through some of the common tendencies in this pose that prevent some of us from being able to get it initially so the first thing is it is a twist and if the your twist is lacking the rotation in your spine to be able to twist and cross the arm to the opposite leg that is going to prevent you from doing the pose because you have to get the leg onto the arm so what do you do in that instance you go back into strengthening your obliques deepening your twists practicing deep postures like revolved lunge or even moving into a revolved bound lunge these things will better prep you for your twists now if you have your twist but you're feeling stuck i have a nice little hack for you i want to give you right now so if you're here your hands are down and you're like i'm not going anywhere play with moving your feet out of the way because where do our feet end up in this pose they end up way over there so let's just get them set up already so if you move them over then as you bend you're pretty much in the pose and those feet can find that lightness now let's talk about this arm here another common tendency i see with people doing this pose is this arm actually locks out it stays straight now if this arm is straight and this arm is bent it's going to be very hard to do this pose this arm needs to bend so what you can do is bring it in a little bit you can even turn the fingers out a little bit if that helps just a little bit hug the right elbow in here and land your whole side body your ribs some of you depending on how long your arms are will actually be able to land your entire hip on the back of your arm and then you'll have a nice what we call a shelf to balance on so you'll land the ribs now if you're still struggling to get that weight shift forward we can use the blocks underneath the shoulder as well so we'll stay on the same side and then switch on all of these here so you'll take your twist i set my two blocks just so i have a wider foundation so i actually land my shoulder there so set your hands shoulders distance apart walk your feet out get them out of the way notice if your right arm is staying straight and need you to bend it hug it in and land the shoulders down and then from here notice my bottom hips i'm going to lift them up to get more lift in the pose let's practice this a couple more times we'll do the other side now so we'll twist to the left we'll hook the right arm to the outside of the left leg hands come down shoulders distance apart doesn't matter where you orient on your mat right just place your hands down shoulders distance apart walk your feet out of the way look at your left arm oh it's not bent enough so you got to bring it in and we can play with that shelf you can even turn the fingers out a little bit if that helps squeeze your feet together lift your bottom hip up and come down and we'll play with the blocks underneath the shoulders to see if we can get even more lift so we're twisting to the left hands come down we'll land our left shoulder on the blocks move the feet out of the way hug the left elbow in and see if you can make that contact playing with the height of the blocks let's go one more round here as we explore hands shoulders distance apart lifting up spreading through the shoulder blades a little bit rotate through the spine