Sanskrit: Purvottanasana
purr-vo-tahn-AHS-ah-nuh
Benefits
Strengthens your arms, wrists, and legs
Stretches shoulders, chest, and front ankles.
Standard Cues
From Staff posture with the arms behind your hips and the fingers pointed either towards or away from your body, begin to lean back into the palms.
Inhale and press down into the palms to lift the hips up toward the ceiling. As the hips lift, engage the legs by pulling up the knee caps and squeezing the thighs.
Press the bottoms of the feet flat down into the floor, gently squeeze the buttocks and engage Mula Bandha. Draw the shoulder blades together to lift up through the sternum.
To release: slowly exhale the hips back to the floor.
Short Cues and options
Align the body from the toes to the shoulders in one straight line.
If it feels safe you can carefully drop the head back.
Precautionary Warnings
Avoid if you have injury to the neck, back or shoulders.