Hi and Welcome to your Journey into Yoga! I’m Avery Rich and am so happy to have you along for the ride!  Teaching yoga has been an amazing journey and experience for me - I am constantly learning and finding new ways to make yoga poses more accessible to all bodies.  There are so many ways to modify poses so that each and every person can access them, even ones that may be challenging for different reasons. 

 Something that I have come to learn is the importance of props in yoga - props of all kinds.  I think there is a common misconception about yoga props which I would like to take the time to dispel  …See if it may sound or seem familiar to you

{MATT TO VOICE }- The other day I went to a yoga class for the very first time.  I started to settle in on my mat and I noticed many other students gathering items from a shelf in the back of the room - square blocks made of cork, thinner foam blocks - some are even gathering rectangular pillows and blankets…I was curious.  I noticed that during the class, many of these gatherers used  the items to support their poses in various ways.  Some used the blocks to sit on;  some used these items to rest their hands onto in standing postures.  I didn’t take any props because I can do the poses without them, although I must admit they did look helpful.  Must be a beginner thing…

Unfortunately this is common thinking;  that if you use an ‘assist’ for a posture that means that you are in some way unable to do the pose properly - that you are deficient in some way, if you will…Im not sure why this is;  perhaps because we tend to think of a prop as a crutch? Only to be used when our bodies cannot support themselves?  In reality, nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to props. 

Props help support us in yoga postures so that we can find more ease and comfort - tightness in the body can sometime prevent access to certain poses and props can help to provide better access.   My advice to all of my students is to use props when they can be helpful:  tight hamstrings? use blocks under the hands in standing poses! tight hips? use a support under your butt for seated poses.  I love props and use them all the time!

There are some postures in yoga that require the use of a prop to even do, so lets turn our attention to one such pose - wall stretch

The wall is often overlooked as a yoga prop, but it is one of the most used props there is, and also maybe one of the easiest ones to find.

Wall stretch, sometimes called wall push, is one of the first yoga poses that I personally learned.  It seemed so simple, but then I realized there is actually a lot to it.  This posture not only stretches the back of the legs, the shoulders and the back, but it can also expose a lot of our postural habits along the way.  For example, the pose can help us to see ways that we hold our bodies that may not help in encouraging a healthy spine.   Shortly we will examine all of this, but for now, just know that yoga can really help to bring to light certain postural habits that we have, such as the way we stand, hold ourselves, and much much more. 

Before we begin, you will need a wall space to explore our pose today - it doesn’t have to be a giant wall, so long as you have enough space to take your hands shoulder width apart on it.

This leads me to an interesting side note about the pose - as a yoga instructor, I always find it curious how wide people think their shoulders are, so to get this part right, lets find this distance together.  Begin by standing right in front of your wall space.  Now facing the wall, take your hands up to your shoulders, palms facing the wall - trying to keep this spacing, direct your palms to the wall…now you have found approximately shoulder distance apart.  With your palms now pressing into the wall,  step your feet back until your arms straighten;  your feet should be about hip distance apart (so closer together than your hands).  Let’s check in with your back body - our aim is to have our back body resemble more of a table top then a ski slope, so to the best of your ability try to re-create that table top shape.  Sometimes simply sliding your hands more down the wall can help - and as usual don’t worry about anything being exact.  Think of trying to balance your coffee cup on your back.  Now that you have arrived in wall stretch or wall push, take a moment to notice if your back body is arching or rounding - sometimes we tend to do one or there other of these - once you have noticed which shape you are leaning into more, see if you can lean into the other shape a little bit.   For example if you are arching try to flex a bit and if you are flexing try and arch a bit…this adjustment will help lead you down the road to more of a neutral spine. 

Last but not least we want to try and keep our heads aligned with our arms looking in a downward direction, and let’s hold for 8 breaths.  Remember, wall stretch asks us to have active arms - so imagine you are trying to push the wall away from you as you hold the pose.

To release from the pose simply raise your head looking towards the wall and then walk the feet towards the wall.  Once you are standing in front of the wall you are welcome to rest the forehead into the wall or simply stand for a few breaths.  We let our bodies settle after a forward fold by just sitting upright.  Is a shavasana calling your name?  Move into one and allow yourself to seal your practice.  Otherwise, thank you for including me on your yoga journey and I will leave you with this reminder:  wherever there is a wall there is an opportunity to do a wall stretch!

Until next time