This is another Late Summer “EARTH” pose that is excellent for building energy from the big toe upwards through the SPLEEN meridian while opening the HEART and extending the greater part of the STOMACH meridian.
STEP BY STEP
- You start in a CLASSIC BRIDGE POSE with both feet on the ground, hip width apart and quite close to your buttocks.
- Keep your lower back long & your coccyx reaching away from you.
- Keep one foot firmly planted, pulling upwards through the inner arch with the knee of your supporting leg in line.
- Then raise the other foot/leg to the vertical with your toe pointed.
- Inhale and drop the pelvis slightly.
- As you exhale, push up from the grounded big toe through the inner foot arch, ankle and leg so that you lift the pelvis and extend upwards through the pointed toes of the raised leg.
- Repeat over perhaps 10 times, think of it as a pulse, and then do the other leg.
ADD A DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY
You can make this exercise more demanding by adding an extra sequence of three steps between #4 & #5 above.
Let’s call them 4A, 4B & 4C
- 4A Inhale and drop the pelvis so that it almost touches the floor
- 4B As you exhale, push up from the grounded big toe through the inner foot arch, ankle and leg so that you lift the pelvis as high as it will go and extend upwards through the pointed toes of the raised leg
- 4C Repeat over perhaps 10 times, think of it as a full pelvic lift.
NOTE: Before you do the other leg, do the pulses (outlined above) x10.
Do this every day for a week,
one version or the other,
& I guarantee that you will feel the difference when you walk.
