October 2024
Boat
Paripurna Navasana
From our teaching team · Jen Villegas
From the teachings of Jason Crandell: this posture simultaneously strengthens your hip flexors, abdominals, and adductors — not to mention your resolve. If you're looking for one posture that works your entire core, strengthens your body for arm balances and inversions, and builds heat in a short period of time, you've found your match.
Practice safely
These guides are for general education and are not medical advice or a substitute for in-person instruction. Yoga is physical, and every body is different: practice at your own risk, move within your own limits, and stop if something hurts. Talk with your physician before starting any new physical practice, especially if you are pregnant, injured, or managing a health condition. The safest place to learn any of these poses is in the room with a teacher who can see you, and our teachers adjust for every level in every class.
One quick tip about Boat
Jason used to cue people to sit on the front edge of the sitting bones, but no one is actually on the front of their sitting bones in this posture. You don't want to rock too far back; more accurately, you're sitting just behind the center of your sitting bones and the front of your tailbone.
How to do Boat
- Sit on your mat with knees bent and feet on the floor. Lift your heels off the floor and press your toes down. Imagine you're trying to pull your mat toward you with your tiptoes — feel your hip flexors kick into gear.
- As your hip flexors fire up, draw your lower belly toward your spine. Lengthen up through your spine and lift your chest.
- Keeping your chest lifted and broad, raise your shins until they're parallel to the floor.
- Squeeze your inner legs together to engage your adductors. Reach your arms forward parallel to the floor. To challenge yourself, reach your arms toward the ceiling.
- Continue with knees bent and shins parallel to the floor, or intensify by straightening your legs. If possible, elevate your legs so your toes are the same height as your eyes.
Sequencing
You can sprinkle Navasana nearly anywhere in your practice. Early in the sequence it helps students warm up and connect to their center; toward the end it can create a more demanding experience. If you do several, include a few hip-flexor and quad openers afterward to re-lengthen those muscles.
The best way to learn it is in the room.
Our teachers break down poses like this in every class, at every level. First class is $8.
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