Yogasana - Tadasana (Mountain pose)

It is the root posture, the mother from which all other postures in your day to day life arise. The instructions for building tadasana correctly can (and should ) apply throughout your yoga practice.

It also constitutes the art of standing:

Tadasana is the present and continuous action unfolding in stillness.

Steps:

1. Stand with your feet together

2. Fan out your toes and let them spread over the ground

3. Distribute the body weight over the entire sole of the foot

4. Activate legs, without tension and without excessive muscle strength

5. Lengthen the spine column.

6. Keep shoulders gently back and shoulder blades toward the ground

7. The chest expands and the abdomen lengthens.

8. Elongate the back of the neck allowing the crown to float towards the ceiling. Keep your throat relaxed

9. Keep active arms next to the body and fingers of the hands directed to the ground

10. As you breathe, increase the stillness by feeling the subtle internal movement of the breath.

Benefits:

• Reveals our vices and postural imbalances and helps us to correct them.

• Improves posture by learning to evenly distribute body weight on the soles of the feet

• Reduces lumbar pressure

• According to yogacharya B.K.S. Iyengar “provides lightness to the body and agility to the mind"

• Activate our somatic intelligence

• It also calms the mind

Yogasana - Urdhva hastasana in retroflexion

Urdhva hastasana is a variant of tadasana, it helps us become aware of the movement of the shoulder girdle without causing alterations in the placement of the legs and the center (abdomen) of tadasana. Here, you tend to keep your body in retroflexion or you bend back. This is one of the key step in surya namaskara or the sun salutation.

Steps:

1. Build or maintain tadasana with all your prompts

2. Raise your arms in front of the body to a vertical position.

3. keep your arms active and elbows outstretched

4. Free up neck space by moving shoulders away from ears

5. Hold your legs, activate buttocks and keep your abdomen long and active

6. Make a small retroflexion backwards lengthening the lats and trying not to break the lower back

Benefits:

• Awakens the somatic intelligence of the shoulder girdle.

• Expands chest and rib cage so that our respiratory capacity is expanded

• It teaches the basic mechanics of standing retroflections.

Yogasanas for kids and teenagers to grow taller

Due to various reasons, lot of kids don’t grow in height on par with their age. For some, this problem is also hereditary. There is a solution for this in yoga. One should practice the below yoga asanas along with suryanamaskara daily. For fruitful results, this should be particularly practiced by people in the age group 12-16.

Halasana

The name comes from sanskrit word Hala meaning plough, a large farming implement used to cut furrows for planting seeds.

First, lie on the floor on your back. Slowly, lift your legs and keep them at 90 degrees without bending your knees. Then start lifting your hip and buttocks by slowly moving your legs over the head and place them behind your head as shown in the picture. You can keep your hands in a direction opposite to your legs or you can keep your hands on your hip as a support. Stay in this posture for 3 minutes. Then slowly lift your legs and come back to your original position. Then be in shavasana and breathe in and breathe out 5 times slowly.

Note: Don't be in a hurry to do the asanas. Do them slowly. You should not speak, move, laugh or move your head side ways when you are in this halasana posture.

Benefits: This asana will help on the elongation of the backbone. This will heal any body posture defects and make them look taller.

Vrikshasana

The name comes from sanskrit word Vriksha meaning tree.

From Tadasana weight is shifted onto one leg. Stand on your feet keeping your legs together. Now bend the right knee and place the right foot on the left inner thigh or in half lotus position. Your hips should be open and your knees should be facing right side and not forward. Toes of your right foot should be facing down. Now slowly raise your hands above your head pointing upwards clasped together in anjali mudra. You should stretch your hips, shoulders upwards while clasping your hands. Stay in this position for 1 minute and slowly come back to original stance. Repeat the same asana with your left leg.

Benefits: By doing this asana, growth and concentration will improve in kids. Bones in your legs will stretch and you can see faster growth in them too.

Sarvangasana

This asana is discussed in greater detail in one of my previous post which you can access here

Benefits: This asana will stimulate thyroid gland in kids which helps in faster growth in height