Sun salutations stimulate and warm up your body in many yoga classes, but moon salutations have a cooling, calming effect. Known as chandra namaskar in Sanskrit, moon salutations open your hips, improve circulation, increase flexibility and help you unwind. Like sun salutations, moon salutations flow from one pose to another, matching breath and movement and begin in mountain pose with hands in prayer. The relaxing moon salutation sequence, though, connects you with your feminine side.
Owning Your Power
From mountain pose, many moon salutations, such as the one taught in the Yin Yoga style, begin by reaching the arms overhead with interlaced fingers -- index fingers pointing upward -- and bending to the right and then the left for a healthy stretch in the obliques while remaining totally rooted in both feet. Next, the goddess -- a powerful pose done in a wide squat with your arms out to your sides, elbows bent and palms facing forward -- works your quadriceps and gluteal muscles.
Strengthening Your Stance
Goddess pose flows naturally through star pose -- with straight legs and arms stretched out to the sides -- and then into triangle pose, a gentle twist that strengthens your legs and core as it massages your organs. To do triangle pose, widen your feet, turning your left toes out 90 degrees to the left and your right heel out 45 degrees to the right, and reach your left hand to the floor -- or a yoga block -- and your right hand directly overhead. Next, pyramid pose, with your torso stretched directly over your front leg and your hands reaching to the floor, improves balance and circulation.
Celebrating Your Hips
Lunges and squats stretch and open the back and hips. From pyramid pose, bend your left leg into a lunge, lower your right knee to the floor and stretch your arms overhead. Place your hands on the inside of your left foot and turn your torso so you're in a half-squat with your left leg now extended straight out to your side. Switch legs by bending your right leg and straightening your left leg.
Reversing the Flow
The whole sequence reverses when you turn to a lunge on your right and continue through pyramid, triangle, star, goddess, side stretches and mountain pose with your hands in prayer. Turn your fingers downward for a wrist stretch. Then, start again by side-stretching to the left and doing the subsequent poses on your right side, eventually ending, once again, in the grounding and centering mountain pose with your hands in prayer.
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