Yoga with Ida

Little Bridge Pose 🌉

There’s a lot I could say about Bridge, but start with these three things:

🦶 Feet: Use your hands to check your placement — outer heels about as wide as your outer hips, and close enough that your fingertips can just graze the backs of your heels.

💪 Shoulders: Tuck them underneath you and slightly toward your ears, rather than pulling them down toward your hips. This helps lift and open the chest.

🦵 Knees: They love to splay out. Press firmly through your inner heels to help keep your thighs and knees parallel.

Bridge strengthens the glutes, hamstrings and back body while opening the chest, shoulders and front of the hips.

Small adjustments. Completely different pose. 🧘‍♀️

Chaturanga 💪

Keep your elbows over your wrists — which means you have to shift farther forward from plank than you probably think!

This alignment asks your triceps, chest (pectoralis major), shoulders and serratus to actually do the work. If your elbows drift way behind your wrists or flare out, you change how the load travels through the wrists, elbows and shoulders — something that matters even more when you’re repeating Chaturanga over and over.

It can be surprisingly hard to see your own alignment, so film yourself from the side or have someone check you.

Chaturanga is hard when you do it this way. That’s kind of the point. 😉

Don’t lock your elbows! 💪

Keep your arms straight, but maintain a tiny softness through the elbows. When you lock or hyperextend them, it’s easy to rely on the joint itself to support your weight. Keeping the muscles active around the elbow and shoulder helps build strength and stability while supporting and protecting the joints.

And this isn’t just for Plank — think about it anytime you’re bearing weight through your arms: Down Dog, Side Plank, Tabletop and beyond.

✨ Use your muscles, not your joints.

Half Moon is one of those poses that asks for a little bit of everything — balance, strength, mobility and focus.

Think of it almost like Triangle Pose tipped sideways onto one leg: the standing leg is strong (but doesn’t need to be locked straight), the lifted leg extends right out from the side body, and the whole pose gradually opens toward the side.

It’s fantastic for building strength through the legs, hips and core, while challenging your balance and body awareness. And like most balance poses, some days it feels effortless… and some days the floor seems to be moving. 😂

A few small alignment adjustments can make a BIG difference. My top tips are in the video. 🌙

Warrior II isn’t about throwing your weight forward—it’s about finding balance.

One of the most common things I see is people leaning over the front leg. When you keep your torso stacked over your hips instead, you create a stronger, more stable pose and get a much better stretch through the front of the back hip and inner thigh.

Sometimes the smallest adjustment makes the biggest difference.

Bakasana (Crane Pose) might look intimidating, but it’s actually one of the most approachable arm balances to learn.

It isn’t about brute strength. It’s about understanding where to place your body, creating the right points of contact, and trusting your foundation. Once those pieces come together, the pose often feels surprisingly achievable.

A great reminder that sometimes it’s less about effort, and more about alignment and awareness.

✨ Saturdays • 10–11 AM
James Bay United Church

Your abs aren’t the only muscles working here. 😉

Side plank strengthens your entire side body—from your shoulder to your hip—while building balance, stability, and core strength.

Shake a little if you need to… that’s just your muscles saying hello! 😄