Tuesday ~ Pose: Child's Pose

(bah-LAHS-anna)
Bala - child

We're starting with something simple today, and a favorite to many! Child's pose, also known as balasana or resting pose. It seems pretty simple but here's the breakdown just so you know what you should be feeling:
Kneel on the floor. Touch your big toes together and sit on your heels, then separate your knees about as wide as your hips. Exhale and lay your torso down between your thighs. Broaden your sacrum across the back of your pelvis and narrow your hip points toward the navel, so that they nestle down onto the inner thighs. Lengthen your tailbone away from the back of the pelvis while you lift the base of your skull away from the back of your neck. Lay your hands on the floor alongside your torso, palms up, and release the fronts of your shoulders toward the floor. Feel how the weight of the front shoulders pulls the shoulder blades wide across your back. To come up, first lengthen the front torso, and then with an inhalation lift from the tailbone as it presses down and into the pelvis.

Benefits: Gently stretches the hips, thighs, and ankles * Calms the brain and helps relieve stress and fatigue * Relieves back and neck pain when done with head and torso supported

Modifications and props:
If you have difficulty sitting on your heels in this pose, place a thickly folded blanket between your back thighs and calves.

Go on, give it a try! Just make sure no one's around if you're at work. ;)