The month of May will be dedicated to Camel Pose.
Stand up on your knees, 15 cm distance inside the legs and the feet. Put your hands on your hips, thumbs outside, fingers facing down. Inhale, push hips forward, drop your head back, go back half way and stop in the middle. You need to bend your spine. In the beginning you can stay there and work on bending backwards. Once you are more comfortable and can see the floor behind you, try to grab the right heel with your right hand, left heel with your left hand, thumbs outside, fingers inside. Not just the fingertip but a full grip with your palms. Inhale and push your stomach, legs, hips, everything forward towards the mirror. Lift your chest up towards the ceiling. Relax the forehead, breathe. Imagine one day you will touch the mirror with your hips. This is the biggest backward bending in the entire series, bending with the gravity.
The benefits are immense: great pose to improve the digestion. Against constipation. You are stretching the inner organs: digestive system, reproductive organs, liver, spleen, pancrease, diaphragm, thyroid and thymus glands, everything is being stretched and after releasing the posture, fresh, oxygenated, nutrient rich blood flushes back, flushes the organs, eliminating toxins and bringing all the good stuff into the deep cell tissue. Together with rabbit and spine twist, this is the anti-aging posture. The spine is completely compressed, the chest being stretched, bronchies, connective tissue, opening up on a cellular level.
Compressing the spine improves communication between the nerves and respective organs. Blood circulation is being improved.
Fear, stress and emotions are being released. This deep backward bend might be overwhelming in the beginning, because you are opening up your chest. This is your heart chacra, where the emotions are stored. Stress hormones are being reduced, hormones balanced.
The weird feeling will vanish eventually. This is a natural intoxication posture. You feel kind of “high” afterwards. This is because during the backward bend the para-kidneys are being compressed. This is where the adrenalin is being produced. Releasing the posture, adrenalin rushes through your body and you might feel butterflies in your stomach, your heart is pounding and you see stars or fireworks. Enjoy the ride!
Yoga Animals 