• Excellent way to begin the practice.
  
  
• Warms up and awakens the entire body, softening the muscles and opening the joints, thereby opening neurological, circulatory and subtle energetic pathways.
  
  
• Awakens the breath and initiates conscious awareness of the connection and synchronization between movement in the breath, body and mind.
  
  
• Focuses the mind.
  
  
• Emphasize the breath and with it emphasize a sense of expansiveness and presence of mind in the subtle or spiritual heart center. Give ongoing emphasize to openness and softness across the heart center.

• Begin standing in Tadasana with Samathihi and Anjali Mudra: balanced, present, awake, calm, grounded, expansive.

• Remember that your breath is of primary importance.

• Consider starting with 1-3 vinyasas of Tadasana - Urdhva Hastasana – Tadasana.

• Can also begin with 1-3 vinyasas of Ardha Surya Namaskara, “Half Sun Salutations”: Samasthihi – Tadasana – Urdhva Hastasana – Uttanasana - Ardha Uttanasana – Uttanasana – Urdhva Hastasana – Tadasana. • Consider holding Anjaneyasana for 3-5 breaths in the first salutation, slightly rising and lowering from the “edge” the lunge sensation to gradually awaken the groins and iliopsoas.

• In the transition from Tadasana to Urdhva Hastasana, emphasize keeping the pelvis level (it will tend to tilt forward) and floating ribs softening in. These qualities will help you learn and develop greater shoulder flexion while cultivating stability and safety in the spine.

• Always consider the option of gazing forward rather than up in Urdhva Hastasana as a means of protecting the neck.

• In folding forward from Urdhva Hastasana to Uttanasana, consider the option of having the knees bent to reduce tension in the hamstrings and low back.

• As you open in the hamstrings and low back, focus more on activating your feet, keeping your legs firm, knee caps lifted, spine long, shoulder blades drawing down the back and heart center open as you fold forward.

• Teaching “swan diving” forward encourages expansiveness across the heart center and deeper breath. Folding forward and down with the palms drawing down thru center – thru Anjali Mudra – can foster a deeper sense of heart-centered awareness.

• When inhaling into Ardha Uttanasana, emphasize lengthening the spine and further expanding across the heart center. Consider the options of having the knees bent, coming up onto the fingertips and/or placing the hands high up on the shins.

• In stepping back to Anjaneyasana, emphasize maintaining the length of the spine and openness of the heart center.

• In stepping from Anjaneyasana to Plank Pose, you may benefit from immediately placing your knees on the floor to take it easier.

• In lowering from Plank Pose on the exhale, sequentially place your knees, chest and chin on the floor.

• Next, release your hips to the floor, press your feet firmly down until your knee caps lift off the floor, firm your thighs while spiraling your inner things up, and draw your tailbone toward your heels.

• While maintaining the engagement of your legs, press into your hands – placed beneath your shoulders – to begin lifting your chest up while shrugging your shoulder blades down your back. The latter action will create space and ease around the neck while emphasizing the openness of the heart center and lungs.

• Finally, create a sense of trying the pull your body forward through your hands, which will gently deepen the backbend, drawing the curve up higher in the cervical spine while keeping the hips rooted, legs strong, tailbone drawing toward the heels and breath active.

• In transitioning from Salabhasana to Adho Mukha Svasanasa, consider the option of pressing up onto all fours as a transitional step.

• Always consider doing Surya Namaskara A with the option for folding into Uttanasana with bent knees.

• Always consider doing Surya Namaskara A with the option is stepping back into Plank Pose rather than floating to Chataranga Dandasana.

• Use Plank Pose to explore “Dandasana” (staff or stick) qualities that one wants to bring into Chataranga Dandasana: Firm legs, heels pressing back, soft buttocks, inner thighs slightly rotating up, tail bone and public bone drawing slightly back, belly lightly engaged to support the middle, shoulder blades drawing down the back with lower tips drawing lightly into against the back ribs, sternum extending forward, back of the neck long (or looking slightly forward if okay with the neck).

• Always consider the option of lowering with “knees-chest-chin” as in Surya Namaskara C as an alternative to lowering to Chataranga Dandasana.

• If lowering with “knees-chest-chin,” stay with Salabhasana B rather than Chataranga Dandasana.

• Always consider the alternative of placing the knees on the floor in Plank Pose for greater ease in lowering to Chataranga Dandasana, using this position in Chataranga Dandasana until the requisite strength is developed for lowering to and holding Chataranga Dandasana.

• Repetitive jumping from Ardha Uttanasana to Plank can cause low back strain/injury and should be discouraged.

• Rather than jumping to Plank Pose, explore the more fluid movement of floating from Ardha Uttanasana directly to Chataranga Dandasana (or to the floor). In addition to being safer for the low back, this method helps to maintain synchronization of breath to movement in the Vinyasa Flow.

• Remember that Chataranga Dandasana is an asana with all four limbs firmly rooting into the floor (hands and feet) and should be held for that brief moment of emptiness between the exhale and the inhale that initiates movement into Urdhva Mukha Svanasana.

• Explore the same actions suggested above for Plank Pose in Chataranga Dandasana.

• The initiating inhale brings you into Utkatansana from Tadasama (I like to move from Anjali Mudra – palms together at the heart). Consider the option of gazing down or toward the horizon rather than up as a way to reduce potential strain in the neck in this movement.

• New students who are unstable in Tadasana or have very tight hips can practice this movement into Utkatasana with the feet and knees hip distance apart.

• Students with tight shoulders: keep your arms parallel rather than drawing your palms together overhead in Utkatasana.

• In practicing the first Utkatasana, place your hands into the creases of the groins and push the femoral heads toward the heels while extending long through the spine while trying to find a sense of pelvic neutrality relative to the spine

• In transitioning from Adho Mukha Svanasana to Virabhadrasana I, consider first instructing Plank Pose as a way of introducing high lunge poses and offering a space in which to gently awaken the hip flexors and groin while ensuring that students understand the very important alignment principle of knee-over-heel.

• In the first Virabhadrasana I, straighten your front leg, place your hands on your hips, and feel the internal rotation of the back leg as coming from your back foot. • Explore the movement of squaring the hips toward the front and resisting the anterior tilting of the pelvis when bending the front leg into the asana.

• In extending the arms overhead in Virabhadrasana I, soften your floating ribs in as a way to help develop greater shoulder flexion and prevent compression in the low back.

• In the transition from Virabhadrasana I to Chataranga Dandasana, keep the movement simple, fluid and connected to your breath. You will observe many students, especially beginning students who have been seduced by “power yoga” techniques, keeping one foot off the floor all the way into and even through Chataranga Dandasana. This compromises the stable foundation of Chataranga Dandasana; done repetitively, it will destabilize the sacro-iliac joint and lead to potentially chronic problems in the low back. Remember: Chataranga is an asana!

• Standing with your feet together at the front of your mat, lift and spread your toes while rooting firmly into the inner edges of the balls of your feet, feeling with this action the balanced lifting of your inner arches, or “Pada Bandha.”
  
  
• Maintaining Pada Bandha while firmly rooting your feet in the Earth, feel the rebounding effect of the musculauture in your legs gathering in and up.
  
  
• Firming your thighs and lightly spiraling your inner upper thighs back, explore placing your hands on the top of your hips to find a feeling of pelvic neutrality – hips level, spine growing naturally out of your pelvis.
  
  
• Breathing smoothly and steadily, with each inhale keep rooting your feet and engaging your thigh muscles while growing taller through your spine, expanding across your heart center and extending energetically out the crown of your head.
  
  
• With relaxed engagement, try to maintain that extension and spaciousness as you slowly exhale, feeling a sense of renewed stability and ease as your breath flows out.

• With your arms down at your sides in Tadasana, try to maintain all the qualities of Tadasana as you turn your palms out and with an inhale slowly sweep your arms out and up overhead.
  
  
• With your shoulder blades rooting down and in against your back ribs, reach strongly through your arms and fingertips.
  
  
• Try to eventually bring your palms together and gaze up to your thumb

• From Urdhva Hastasana, exhaling slowing swan dive forward and down with a long spine and flat back, extending from your public bone through your sternum while your legs either straight and strong or bent to relieve strain on your hamstrings and low back.
  
  
• Try to maintain “Tadasana legs” throughout this movement.
  
  
• When doing this asana as part of a Sun Salutation, complete your exhale in Uttanasana and begin the next movement on your inhale.

• From Uttanasana,   inhaling extend your chest forward toward the horizon, maximizing the length of your spine and sense of extending your heart center toward the horizon.
  
  
• It’s okay to keep your knees bent while working toward keeping your legs straight and strong.
  
  
• You can also place your hands on your shins or come high onto your fingertips as in the picture while working toward maximum extension with your palms still rooted onto the floor as in Uttanasana.

• From Ardha Uttanasana, step back to Phalakasana (Plank Pose).
  
  
• With your shoulders above your wrists, firm legs, heels pressing back, soft buttocks, inner thighs slightly rotating up, tail bone and public bone drawing slightly back, belly lightly engaged to support the middle, shoulder blades drawing down the back with lower tips drawing lightly into against the back ribs, sternum extending forward, back of the neck long (or looking slightly forward if okay with the neck), cultivate a sense of steadiness, roots and extension.
  
  
• Try to bring all of these qualities into Chataranga Dandasana.

• In first learning this pose, start in Phalakasana and with an exhale slowing bend your elbows to lower down while trying to keep your elbows tracking directly behind your shoulders (resist the tendency for your shoulders to splay out or squeeze in)
  
  
• Consider lowering with your knees on the floor as you develop the strength in your arms, shoulders, upper back and core to lower with ease and stability.
  
  
• Lower to where your shoulders are just level with your elbows, shoulder blades drawing down your back, over time wrists aligned under your elbows.
  
  
• Keep your legs engaged, pelvis neutral, belly lightly engaged, sternum extending forward, back of your neck long.

• Release your hips to the floor, press your feet firmly down until your knee caps lift off the floor, firm your thighs while spiraling your inner things up, and draw your tailbone toward your heels.
  
  
• While maintaining the engagement of your legs, press into your hands – placed beneath your shoulders – to begin lifting your chest up while shrugging your shoulder blades down your back. The latter action will create space and ease around the neck while emphasizing the openness of the heart center and lungs.
  
  
• Finally, create a sense of trying the pull your body forward through your hands, which will gently deepen the backbend, drawing the curve up higher in the cervical spine while keeping the hips rooted, legs strong, tailbone drawing toward the heels and breath active.

• Urdhva Mukha Svanasana is an intense and powerful awakening backbending asana.
  
  
• Always consider the option of Salabasana B or “Easy Cobra” as an alternative in the following conditions: low back pain or insufficient arm, shoulder or leg strength to suspend their body on the hands and feet.
  
  
• Urdhva Mukha Svanasana is “set up” with proper alignment in Chataranga Dandasana.
  
  
• In first learning the asana, it is helpful to first learn Salabasana and/or Bhujangasana.
  
  
• Emphasize active legs. Along with alignment principles, this is the key to reducing the risk of low back strain on this asana.
  
  
• Press the tops of your feet firmly down and create a sense of extending your toes straight back.
  
  
• In rooting the feet down, the legs can become more active. Try to rotate your inner thighs up, thereby creating space in the SI joint and greater ease in drawing the tailbone toward the heels.
  
  
• Most students tend to squeeze their buttocks in this pose, which has the effect of externally rotating the thighs and compressing the low back. Let go of your buttocks!
  
  
• Rooting firmly into the knuckles of the index fingers helps to ensure balanced pressure across the hands and wrist joints, thereby reducing the likelihood of strain in the wrists. Strong and balanced rooting of the hands also leads to greater extension of the arms and lifting and spreading of the chest, which is essential in creating the length in the spine required for deepening the backbend.
  
  
• Try to consciously draw the curve of the backbend up your spine and create a sense of pulling the lower tips of your shoulder blades down and forward as if into your heart center while spreading your collarbones.
  
  
• Students with weak shoulders (specifically rhomboids, traps and serratus anterior muscles) will tend to hang in their shoulders, which tends to strain the neck, close the heart center, compromise the breath and exacerbate the tendency to dump into the low back. Encourage these students to more actively press into their hands (wrists allowing) in order to better activate the drawing of the shoulders down away from the ears, pulling their shoulder blades down and spreading their side ribs forward.

• Adho Mukha Svasanasa is a powerful, timeless teacher. It actively involves nearly every part of the body.

• It stretches the fingers, wrists, arms, shoulders, back, side, chest, hips, legs, ankles and feet.

• It strengthens most of the same parts of the body as well as the abdominals when one is cultivating ujjayi pranayama, mula bandha and uddiyana bandha.

• Press firmly into the entire span of your hands and length of your fingers, paying close attention to rooting the knuckle of the index finger as a way of balancing pressure in the wrist joint.

• Generally, the middle fingers should be parallel and in line with the shoulders. Look at see if your arms are parallel; this will indicate if your hands are in line with your shoulders.

• The alignment of the wrists with the shoulders allows the proper external rotation of the shoulders.

• Tight shoulders – especially limited shoulder flexion due to tight latisimus dorsi, pectoralis major and rhomboid muscles – and weak shoulders create specific risks to the neck, back, elbows, wrists and shoulders themselves. In either case, moderate effort in this asana develops both strength and flexibility, opening the shoulders to full flexion while developing deeper, more balanced strength.

• The shoulder blades should be rooted again the back ribs while externally rotating the shoulder joint, spreading the trapezius.

• Feet should be placed hip distance apart or wider with the outer edges of the feet parallel.

• Students with tight hips and hamstrings will find it difficult, painful and/or impossible to straighten their legs in this asana. Explore separating the feet wider apart and keeping your knees bent while moving into deepening your flexibility.

• Rooting into the balls of the feet will contribute to the lifting of the inner arches. This in turn helps to engage mula bandha (by activating the pereneus longus and tibialis posterior, which through fascial attachments help activates the hip adductors and pelvic floor muscles).

• Firming the thighs and pressing the top of the femur bones strongly back is a key action (along with rooted hands) in lengthening the spine in this asana. Resist any tendency to hyperextend your knees.

• With practice, the neck will become sufficiently strong and supple to keep the head between the upper arms. Until that strength and ease is developed, let your neck relax and head hang down.

• From Ardha Uttanasana, step your right foot back, releasing your right knee to the floor and extending your right foot back.
  
  
• In this low lunge, allow your front (left) knee to project out above your toes.
  
  
• With your hands on your hips, shift your hips back by straightening your left leg just enough to bring your pelvis level into pelvic neutrality.
  
  
• With your exhale slowly lunge more deeply while using your hands on your hips to encourage your pelvis from pitching forward.
  
  
• Play around with inhaling slightly out of the lunge, exhaling more deeply, all the while extending long through your spine and expanding across your chest.