Bālāsana - Child's Pose (Anterior Spine Extension)

Also known as Child’s pose

1. Kneeling sit back on your heels

2. Keeping your toes together, but not overlapping, take your knees apart so that the inner thighs are the same distance apart as your outer ribs.

3. Keep your sitting bones close to your heels by breathing into calmness and releasing tight body tissue in the legs and waist. Extend you body forwards from the hips, extending the front groins as you bring your hands to the floor in front of the body shoulder width apart (can be wider where shoulders cause tightness in the neck or the upper back).

4. Pressing into your fingertips, lift the breast bone, draw in the upper back and create further extension in the spine.

5. Try to feel that you can extend the anterior spine (front, or side closest to the floor), from the sacro-lumbar joint (where your sacrum/back pelvis meets your lower back the root of your waist) to the base of the neck.

6. As you breath, keep your focus on the tissue release and breast bone extension and allow your head to descend naturally over a few breaths. (If the anterior spine deadens as a result, begin again, but lower the head to some support/ yoga block).