Week 40: Whoa Baby!

I have a hard time believing that I've made it 40 weeks of practicing yoga AND writing about it each week. I feel like I'm in my infancy of learning to be a yoga teacher.

This week, appropriately, I focused on happy baby pose or otherwise known as stirrup pose (Ananda Balasana). The more I look into this pose I see its relation to the knees to chest pose (Apasana) and how it is a hip opener that I wish I started years ago.

In the book, Anatomy of Hatha Yoga, it outlines a perfect sequence of moving from knees to chest pose into happy baby pose in five simple steps. The book gently reminders its' readers to keep the low back (sacrum) on the floor by activating the low back musculature. It wasn't until I started to practice yoga on a regular basis that I realized I might have been doing the knee to chest pose somewhat wrong. My low back loved to curve off of the floor. So now it is my main focus, physically, during the pose.

I progressed through the listed poses until I reached happy baby pose. *Sigh* What a releasing pose. It just makes sense that babies hang out in this position. My hips (and low back) got a release. And based on the Anatomy of Hatha Yoga book, it is the head of the femur in the hip socket (acetabulum) that is really making the move and thus, impact on my hip range of motion.

I also tried other options to the happy baby pose such as placing my feet flat up against the wall for support. I absolutely love any wall supported poses. They are slow, calming and relaxing.

Sarah Powers also writes about happy baby pose in her book, Insight Yoga. She states that:

"[The] pose stimulates the Kidney meridian (as well as the Liver and Spleen) as it flows up your inner legs."

I'm not totally sure how the meridians work at this point but  based on how close your legs are towards your torso, it makes sense that it would have an impact on those organs. I have also heard it is a great pose to connect with oneself because your connecting your hands to your feet. Interesting, wouldn't you say?

Yoga Journal notes additional benefits of: "stretches the inner groins and the back spine and calms the brain and helps relieve stress and fatigue".

Well, who doesn't want that! 

I'm happy and still in my babyhood of teaching,
LW

Photo credit: Flickr