favorite pose of the week! Drop Backs

hello from Mexico,

I have been working on dropping back into wheel for some time now, but for some reason I have been too scared to try it completely alone. I usually ask for an assist when in mysore class, which is amazing because the mysore teachers give fantastic adjustments! Even if you can do it alone, sometimes a good adjustment makes it feel even better. If you have never had David G drop you back into wheel, its worth the trip to his class, its awesome!  http://davidgyoga.com/

Its much easier on the beach because there is a slight slope, which means your hands end up a couple inches higher than your feet, and its nice and soft. The beach takes away the fear of landing on a hard surface, which is sometimes all you need. The first steps to take are working on backbends and full wheel all the time. David G taught me a little trick in one of his backbending workshops called full wheel pushups. You set yourself up for wheel but you place 2 blocks in the places where you hands will go (approx. beside your ears).

Here is how you do the full wheel pushups...

• You set yourself up as usual and place your hands on the blocks, transition to the crown of the head, re-loop your shoulders so there is lots of space around your neck and ears and from here you push into the hands and feet and lift right up. 
• Its good to do 4-5 pushups, bend the elbows and lower briefly to the crown of the head, draw the inner elbows in so the don't splay out to the sides, at the same time loop the shoulders and draw them down the back again. 
• When you press up into wheel, press into the feet a bit more to press the chest toward the back of your mat, this starts to open up the upper back big time which is important for dropping back.

Thats how you get started, this exercise helped me a lot! Once you have mastered simpler backbends then dropping back is  really fun and accessible. Another trick that helped me a lot was dropping back onto some stairs. This way you don't have as far to go, which makes it a bit easier to get back up.

Give it a try, let me know how it works...

<3 <3 kby