Standing Forward Bend is Easy like ABCD

When your fingers are able to touch your toes in forward bend, you must be thinking, "Yeah! My spine is healthy."

Whether your fingers touching your toes or your head touching the shin, it does not matter. What matters the most is how you bend your upper body or torso to reach to your toes and bringing your head down to your shin.

Our body spine is made up of the vertebral columns: cervical, thoracic and lumbar vertebrae together with sacrum and coccyx. When we sit, we stand, we walk or even we jump, our spine is working hard to hold the upper body strong and firm for us. By practicing folding forward, backward, side stretching and twisting, the directional movements will increase the mobility of the spine while keeping the spine stronger and healthy.

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Standing Forward Bend

UTTANASANA

Standing with the feet close together or in hip-width apart is fine, as long as the body is stable to do the forward fold.

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OPTION 1: Hold your waist with both hands at the sides

A - INHALE - lengthen the spine, chest up

B - EXHALE - rotate from your hip and fold forward halfway

C -INHALE - further lengthen the spine

D -EXHALE - draw the belly in, bring the belly as close as to the thighs

Fun Fact is..... Using both hands holding your waist, your thumbs can work for you by gently pressing your hips to help rotating the hips down more.

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OPTION 2: Raise both arms up above the head

A - INHALE - lengthen the spine, chest up

B - EXHALE - rotate from your hip and fold forward halfway

C -INHALE - further lengthen the spine, extend the arms halfway

D -EXHALE - draw the belly in, bring the belly as close as to the thighs, palm or fingertips down or just stay wherever you are!

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The reason to highlight B - EXHALE is because it is the key for a safe and good forward bend. I will always like to deliver a message, "Tell yourself, send an instruction to your brain, always bend and fold from the hips. Try to give more awareness to your back by pushing the spine into the body at lumbar area." From there, you will only be able to first rest your belly on your thigh, followed by your head to the shin.

It is fine if your belly could not touch your thighs, just repeat A-B-C-D to help you get into correct posture and the destination is not too far with practice as time is the only witness! Whether to round the back or flatten the back to get the perfect standing forward bend, you have to listen to your body. Be aware of how your spine moves, if too much rounding is not a good thing but forcing yourself in a perfect flat back may depend on how your hamstring and calf react to this! Too much pressure in flatting the spine in standing forward bend may highly likely strain the muscles or even tear the ligaments if your hamstring is not ready for this "perfect" standing forward fold. A right amount of rounding on the back is fine as we are human being!

There are always options. Bend your knees always whenever you need! Bear in mind, do not lock your knees or hyper-extending your knees while in this pose as it may hurt your knees in the end.

Highlights:

Put the awareness on the spine when you move.

Avoid hyper-extending the knees.

A right amount of rounding back is okay :)

Bend your knees at anytime if it is too much in this pose.

P.S. It is considered hard to straighten the legs for beginners, it is always okay to begin your practice to get into the right posture then only straighten the legs little by little, day by day! Do not stay too long to avoid dizziness in this upside-down pose.

Share with me how is or was your journey to Uttanasana in the comment below :)

Written with Full of Love,