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Alright, back bends. Back bends are a big deal. A lot of times people do not know how
to back bend safely and effectively. This is what we're going to explore today using
three gentle back bends, well, graduated back bends that you find in almost every yoga class.
Again, cobra, updog and seal pose - these are very similar poses. What the heck is the
difference, and which one do I choose? I'm going to tell you. Cobra is a very gentle
back bend. The thing about cobra is that you're going to use the muscles of your back to lift
the heart. So here in cobra I'm not pressing down with my hands at all; all I'm doing is
lifting the heart, letting the crown of the head float, keeping my legs long and the toes
pressing down, reaching out behind me. So once I'm really comfortable with cobra I'm
going to come up into updog. Here's the thing about updog: I'm engaging my thighs so that
my knees are off the floor. The reason that we do this is to protect the lower back because
what we don't want is to sink into the lower back and compress the vertebrae. If you try
and do too deep of a back bend before you're ready you can cause serious damage to your
spine. So in updog, we're resting on the palms of the hands, which are under the shoulders,
and we're resting on the tops of the feet, engaging the quads, engaging the knees, engaging
the belly. Once you're comfortable here and you're ready to do some deeper back bending,
you release those quads and you allow yourself to press even deeper into the spine. Again,
you inhale to create lots of space in the spine and exhale as you deepen your back bend.
The reason that we do that is because we don't want to come at a back bend from a place of
no space. When you inhale, you bring a little bit of space in between those vertebrae so
that when you bend, they can slide past each other. That way you increase your flexibility
in your back safely and effectively. If you don't pull those vertebrae apart before you
bend, they just crash right into each other. You get a lot of pain and eventually you get
an injury. So when you're doing your back bends, when you're choosing what back bend
to do in yoga class, make sure you keep those things in mind. Do it safely and effectively.