- Hi everyone, 
my name is Adriene,

and welcome to 
Yoga With Adriene.

Ding!

Today we're going 
to learn Tadasana,

one of my favorite poses.

A very basic pose but 
it has a lot going on,

a more than meets 
the eye kind of pose.

So Mountain Pose, or Tadasana,
is great for sciatica,

it's great for stress, 
it's just an overall great,

grounding pose.

Definitely can help 
you improve your posture,

and it's a great 
little container for

tapping into the breath.

So let's hop on the 
mat and learn Tadasana.

(upbeat music)

Okay, so to begin we're going

to be standing on our feet.

I'm gonna take my feet,
and I can do this,

typically in a yoga class
this is a basic foundational

pose that you often do 
at the front of your mat,

but stand anywhere on your
mat or if you don't have a mat

and you're on the floor, great.

Stand anywhere in 
your house that you like.

Or in your office, 
or wherever you are.

And let's bring the feet 
hip-width apart to start.

And because I have been 
practicing building my poses

from the ground up, I'm going
to immediately think about

my foundation, that 
which is touching the earth,

and look down at my feet.

I'm going to lift my toes...

I got distracted by 
my own toes there, sorry,

'cause I realized you're all
going to see my bling toe,

which there's a great 
story behind my big toe art.

It's a new thing for me

and I will write 
that story on my blog.

So if you're curious you can
read that story on the blog.

Let's stay focused together.

Tadasana, the Mountain Pose.

Starting at the feet, 
I'm going to lift my toes,

and right away I'm gonna 
see if I can connect

all four corners 
of my feet, okay?

So that's the ball joint of
the big toe, the ball joint

of the pinky toe, and the
back two corners of the heels.

So I'm going to turn to the
side here just so you can see

that when I lift my feet 
I can really tell if I've been

sitting in the 
front part of my feet,

or if I tend to hang 
out on the back part,

by lifting the toes 'cause
then it requires me to go

through all four 
corners of the feet.

We also call this in yoga,
in Hatha Yoga,

four part standing.

So that's where 
that comes from is

ball joint of the big toe,
ball joint of the pinky toe,

and the back two 
corners of the heels.

So I'm going to 
spread my toes wide,

and then I'll relax my 
toes back down once I have

more of an awareness or 
consciousness of my footing,

or where I distribute my weight.

That alone is worth the price
of your time in this video.

Just understanding 
where we carry our weight.

And you'll notice the 
more you start to practice this

four part equal standing,

the more comfortable 
we become in our bodies.

The posture improves 
naturally and we just gain

more awareness of 
how we stand regularly.

And it makes sense, 
because if we're hanging out

here all the time, with a child,

or just carrying things 
all the time, then we need

to take the time, consciously,
to counteract that.

Even in line, paying bills
at HEB, sometimes I'm like,

"Oh my god, this person cut me!

"Who cuts people anymore?!"

And then I'll just 
take a deep breath,

and come to my 
four part standing,

just building a little 
bit more awareness in the body

and becoming a happier person.

But back to the pose.

So I'm going to lift the toes,
then I'll relax them down.

And, let's see, we're 
at feet hip-width apart.

Then I'm going to 
travel up from my foundation,

drawing energy up 
from the arches of the feet

all the way up through 
the legs, engaging the legs,

all the way up through 
the groin, the pelvis area,

and then of course, traveling 
up the spine through, up the

crown of the head, fingertips
relaxing down at my sides.

So Mountain Pose, or Tadasana,

it's as if the tip of my head
is the top of the mountain,

and then my 
fingertips grazing the sides.

You can turn your palms 
open or keep them parallel.

This is a good moment to
give a shout-out to my family

and friends in Colorado.

Mountains. The Rocky Mountains.

And now for some action points.

So the great 
thing about Tadasana is,

and this is great for sciatica,
by the way, great posture pose.

I want to notice right away,
and I'll turn to the side here,

I want to notice if my heart
is beginning to collapse in

and I'm finding this 
roundness in the spine.

And so of course I'll 
want to loop the shoulders open

and find that 
natural lift in the heart,

that lift in the sternum.

This is going to allow 
me to draw my navel in,

supporting the belly 
and toning the belly,

so we can get beach body ready,

as my friend Dustin likes to say.

And as I loop the shoulders,
draw the navel in,

open my heart, 
I have what I kind of call

"Adriene getting carried away"

which is like, I'm like "Oh yes. 
Feels so good. Yoga!"

And then I start to feel 
this pressure and pain in my

lower back, and I'm 
like "I feel so open!"

And then, pain.

So I'll take that awareness,
that check-in, and I'll scoot

my tailbone in to support 
this openness that I have.

So I'll literally, I'm gonna
exaggerate for a second,

so I'm going from here,
like Titanic...

Titanic. I love Titanic.

So I'm going to go from here
to scooping my tailbone in

to meet the pubic bone,
or the pelvis,

which also tones my belly 
naturally without having to

hold any tension,
but engages it.

So navel draws in as 
the tailbone scoops in,

I've opened my 
shoulders and my heart.

And now you're starting to see
that I'm not forward or back,

but I'm centered, 
head over the heart,

heart over the pelvis.

And then it's like, okay, well
boring, Mountain Pose, Tadasana.

In kids' yoga we 
go "Tada!...sana"

But actually 
it's all but boring.

It's a very conscious place,
where I'm present with

the breath and there's a 
lot of activity going on,

where I'm actually engaged 
from the crown of the head

all the way down to my heels.

I'm drawing energy 
up from the earth,

and the tops of the 
thighs have this really sweet

inner rotation.

They're rotating 
in towards each other,

out towards the wall behind
you, or the windows behind me.

Right? And then same thing,
just to show you a little

exaggerated version is 
I have this engaging quality

in the legs, where the 
tops of the thighs, the quads,

are rotating in and 
out towards the back wall.

And a great way 
to feel this, actually,

is if you have a block, 
or you can just, I don't know,

put your smartphone 
in-between your legs?

Don't do that. 
But you can put

anything substantial or square

between the legs. 
How about a yoga block?

And this is just a great 
place for me to feel

that engaging quality.

So here I'm kind of 
standing with my pelvis forward.

A lot of us stand 
like this naturally,

putting a lot of 
pressure on the lower back.

But with the block there 
I feel this intense squeezing

sensation, and when 
I rotate my thighs towards

each other and 
towards the wall behind me,

it's almost like 
a Pez dispenser,

I really feel that action.

And now my legs are like,
"whoo," working like mad.

So I'll just come 
into alignment here,

just so we can 
experience the full thing.

Navel drawing back, 
heart lifted, shoulder blades,

shoulder blades are 
coming together,

melting down towards the tail,

and the tail is scooping 
in to meet the pelvis.

I would invest in a block,
it's awesome.

If I had tons of 
money I would say

"Send me an email and 
I'll send you a block."

Maybe one day, but not today.

Someday it will happen. 
Blocks for everyone!

Another great way to...

I shouldn't make 
promises I can't keep.

Another great way 
to practice this pose,

particularly for beginners, 
is to back it up against a wall.

And use the wall 
to really check in

with that alignment
of the head over the heart,

the heart over the pelvis.

Then once I'm here in Tadasana,

tops of the thighs 
rolling in together,

tailbone scooping under 
to meet the pelvis bone,

heart open, shoulders open,

let your armpit chest 
breathe sometimes.

Long neck, lengthening 
through the crown of the head.

Of course, I'll begin 
to tap into my breath.

What good is doing the asana,
or the pose,

without marrying 
it to the breath?

And then from here 
I can close my eyes,

and if you close your 
eyes you may start to feel

a little drunk, a little wobbly.

So that's okay.

Just hold onto your foundation,
spread the toes,

stay rooted in all 
four corners of the feet.

And if you still start 
to feel a little unbalanced

or dizzy, or like 
"I don't know if this is safe,"

just part the eyes open,
and find a Drishti,

or a focal point on the 
earth to kind of hold onto.

A great tip for balancing poses
to talk about another day.

But holding onto a 
little piece of lint or a little

heart-shaped piece of grass
or dirt or dust or whatever

on the earth.

Holding onto that 
as we lift and lengthen

and engage the full body.

Often we'll bring the 
palms together here in Tadasana,

lifting the 
sternum to the thumbs,

lengthening through 
the crown of the head.

And another option that's super
yummy just while we're here

is we can take the fingertips,

bring them up behind 
the tailbone here,

still checking in with 
the lower body, going through

all my checkpoints of 
Mountain Pose, or Tadasana,

but this time I'll 
interlace the fingertips,

draw them down past the 
tailbone towards the heels,

navel to spine, 
as I open up the shoulders,

open up the chest.

If I can bring the 
palms together here, I will.

Otherwise I'll just keep 
the wrists nice and square.

Shoulder blades drawing together
and down, creating space.

Counteracting all those 
hours at the computer

or anything that we do 
with the shoulders rounded,

which is almost 
everything. Heyo!

And fingertips drawing down,

allowing the shoulders

to rotate away from 
the ears, heart lifted.

Yummy. Open chest. 
Open heart.

Mountain Pose.

We can also do this 
with the feet flush together,

but I say as a beginning point
it's nice to go hip-width apart

the bones stacked,
heels underneath the hips

just for balance and stability.

Tadasana.

Okie-doke, so that was 
Mountain Pose, or Tadasana.

Or Tada!...sana.

The great thing about 
Tadasana is you can do it

anywhere, everywhere. 
Anywhere and everywhere.

Not everywhere.
(chuckles)

I'm thinking 
about liability here.

Not everywhere, but 
you get what I'm saying.

It's great pose to check in
with your posture, with your

alignment, great container
for breath as I've said before.

You can do it in 
the grocery store or

you can do it at the bar,
you can do it on the mat.

Anywhere and everywhere.

Leave comments! 
Read the blog

if you want to talk about
my bling big toe, let's chat.

I'll tell you the story.

Subscribe to the 
channel if you haven't already,

and see you next time.
Thank you so much.

Namaste.

(upbeat music)