Full Moon Bridge at Garvan Gardens is the backdrop for Karen Watson Reeves to demonstrate Bridge Pose.
By Karen Watson Reeves
The location of the photo shoot for this month’s pose should not be a mystery to anyone who is a lover of the beautiful outdoors in the Hot Springs area. It has been on my “yoga pose list” to do bridge pose at the Full Moon Bridge at Garvan Woodland Gardens for a while, and I was fortunate to get to visit the gardens just before its closing due to Covid 19.
Since mid-March when so many places temporarily shut down, work diminished, and social gatherings became a thing of the past, my yoga practice became more important than ever. Bridge Pose has many benefits, as most every yoga pose does, but the fact that it helps calm the body and alleviate stress and mild depression has made it a good one to put into the sequence during the past weeks.
To be able to get the full benefit of calming, it helps to hold the pose for several minutes. A glance at the photo may indicate a certain amount of unreasonableness in holding the pose for more than a couple of breaths. Strength is required to hold this pose, and Bridge Pose is definitely a strength builder, particularly the hamstrings and hip adductors (which we more often focus on stretching), as well as the back, glutes and ankles.
To enable the practitioner to stay in the pose for the calming aspect, a yoga block under the hips to prop on helps to experience the cooling, grounding, releasing of anxiety benefit that the pose can bring. It can be practiced with the legs bent or straight, which in turn opens and stretches the front hip flexors.
Many of us sit for extended periods of time, causing an excessive tightening of the hip flexors and extreme lengthening of the muscles in the lower back. Over time this can lead to imbalances in the skeletal structure and likely pain.
Whether using the yoga block or not, other benefits of Bridge Pose include opening the chest, stretching the neck, shoulders, and spine, and stimulating the organs of the abdomen, lungs, and thyroid. Like several of the yoga poses, Bridge Pose can be modified to make it more challenging. Squeezing the shoulder blades together enables one to lift higher into the bridge, stretching the anterior deltoids and providing a deeper stretch to the entire front of the body. After a time of practicing Bridge Pose, yogis may be ready to lift up into Wheel/Upward Facing Bow Pose. But. . . that is a pose for another day.
Karen Watson Reeves has called Hot Springs home since 2006. She became a registered yoga teacher and a registered children’s yoga teacher in 2011. She has taught children and family yoga in many settings, and would welcome an opportunity to help your family stay physically active during this time of quarantine. She owns The Yoga Place, is on the Hot Springs YMCA teaching staff, is an adjunct instructor at National Park College, as well as teaching in several other fabulous venues. www.TheYogaPlaceHS.com.
