Day 8: Standing Bow

Dandayamana-Dhanurasana, Standing Bow Pose

Perhaps once of the most fun postures to practice, Standing Bow is another powerful posture where you will practice all of your yoga skills - concentration, determination, patience, faith, strength, balance, and flexibility. You hear us say it all the time: this is a balancing posture, a spine twist, and can eventually be a standing split. Our best advice for this one is to slow down. We use the instruction “charge your body forward” which can be interpreted as “go quickly”. However, you should always move slowly and mindfully into and out of all of the postures. Focus your eye gaze one spot on yourself in the mirror, breathe normally, stretch your front arm forward as you simultaneously kick back and up, and slowly start to come down. You might even try smiling :-)

Benefits of Standing Bow include:

• Stimulates the cardiovascular system.

• Increases circulation to the heart and lungs.

• Opens diaphragm.

• Opens the shoulder joints.

• Helps with frozen shoulder conditions.

• Improves the elasticity of the spine.

• Improves strength and balance firming the abdominal wall and upper thighs while also tightening the upper arms, hips and booty.

• Increases the size and elasticity of the rib cage and lungs and improves the flexibility and strength of the lower spine.

• Helps to reduce abdominal fat.