First, a disclaimer: this pose requires a great amount of patience, flexibility, strength, and openness in the body. It should not be practiced without warming up the entire body, and even then may be too intense. If it doesn’t feel accessible, skip it! You can express today’s pose as any variation of a one leg balancing pose (like tree pose).
If you’re comfortable in mermaid on the ground, and you feel pretty solid in dancer’s pose, then give this a go!
Standing Mermaid:
- Set yourself up for dancer’s pose, but instead of pulling foot into hand, draw it all the way into elbow crease. Hook your elbow around your foot and keep it there.
- Exhale and hinge forward at the hips until your hands can meet easily in a bind.
- Continue to kick your foot into the elbow crease and lift your heart towards the sky.
- Hold for five to eight breaths, then switch sides.
- Variation: Try accessing this same bind from a low lunge for a beautiful heart and hip opening hybrid!
To watch a video of how to get into this, visit us on Instagram or YouTube. Just joining the #MermaidYogis challenge? Get all the details on the blog, and make sure to post all thirty days before September 2nd to be eligible to win some awesome prizes!
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