Cat & Cow Pose – Marjarasana

catcowFThis is excellent for getting the body ready to stretch and really energises the spine. Remember stretching your toes? Curl your toes under in tabletop. Knees are under hips and hands under shoulders. Make sure that you look down at your hands and observe that the fingers are spread at an equal distance from one another. Breathing is of course an intrical part of this pose. You can really understand the breath more as you use it to move with these poses. Keep you hands and knees planted firmly on the earth. The only area moving in this pose is your spine and hips! Take a big deep belly breath then on the exhale suck in your belly in. Press your back as high as you can and allow the head to sink toward the ground. You should feel the pelvis and tailbone tuck. Then take your next inhale slowly look up and allow your belly to sink toward the ground. Your butt wants to stick out so let it! Continue to practice controlling the breath with the movement as you go from cat (exhale) to cow (inhale) and on and on. Do it at least 10x. From this pose you can also try and move into your downward dog.

PHOTO by @amyelizabethbruce