How To Do The Cow Face Pose Video

Stretch hips, ankles, shoulders, and chest with the Cow Face Pose. Learn how to do the Cow Face Pose in this yoga video clip.

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Sit with knees together & legs crossed
Reach one hand over back
Reach other hand around side
Breathe properly

About this Author

Cindy Mastry has practiced yoga since the age of eight, and also has a background in Jazz and Ballet. Active in the fitness industry for nearly twenty years, she teaches aerobics, kickboxing, and yoga at many fitness centers in the Tampa Bay area. Cindy trained with 84 year-old Master Yogi Monk, Baba Hari Dass at the Mt. Madonna Center in California and owns/operates "Yoga Etc Studio" in St. Petersburg, Florida. Cindy teaches yoga to people of all ages and experience levels and at very competitive rates.

CINDY MASTRY: Namaste. My name is Cindy Mastry, and in this clip Faith is going to help me demonstrate the cow face pose. So, cow face pose is a hip opener. It works so many parts of you body--we'll go over it as she does it--but we're going to have Faith take her left leg, knee over her right knee. Now you want to try to come knee to knee, so that both knees come on top of each other. Now, you may find that you're not like that. You may find that one leg is up. That's perfectly fine. It all depends on how open your hips are. Also, your heels might be next to your hips or you might be able to bring them further out. It's a little bit more of a hip stretch. Squeeze your inner thighs together. So this is working the hips and it's working the thighs. This is also for working your shoulders. So Faith is going to reach her right arm up to the sky. Good. She's going to internally rotate that arm and take the palm of her hand and give herself a little pat on the back right in between her shoulder blades. Good. Her left arm is going to then go out to the side, rotating and bring her hand around and see if she can't come into a bind. Now, if you can come into a bind, fine. If not, you could use a towel or a strap, and this serves to open your shoulders. So, she's going to move this elbow closer to her body and open her chest, pull this elbow up and open. So as you can see, she's opening and strengthening her shoulder. She's opening and strengthening her hips all at the same time. Inhale and lengthen up through the crown of the head, and as she exhales, we're going to have her take her chest way out forward, like she's going to place her chest way out on the mat and in front of her to lengthen out. Now, you want to make sure that you don't pull the elbows in when you do this because then you'll lose the opening in the chest and you'll lose the shoulder stretch. She's going to inhale, lengthen out, exhale, sink forward just a little bit more, and the further you sink forward, the more you're going to be able to feel this through the hips. So this is cow face pose. It's a shoulder and a hip opener. Remember to honor your body. Only go to the point that works for you and use your breath.

How to Do the Cow Face Pose Video

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