Cat/Cow
Cat/Cow. Two poses used together to warm up the spine. I find that with every class I teach, regardless of style, 95% of the time Cat/Cow is in my sequence, typically within the first 15 minutes of class. Even when I teach Restorative, I will have it follow a seated meditation, before we nestle into our first restorative pose so we can work the “kinks” out, allowing us to find stillness. After sitting all day at a desk, I find I crave this movement.
Cat/Cow is considered a basic pose. Often, little thought is applied to the movement. We just move in a way that feels best or try to get through it with no thought at all just to prepare for the harder poses. Sometimes when teaching, I allow a free for all. Do what you need to do to warm up your spine.
Or I will cue breath to bring some awareness to your movement.
However, Cat/Cow is much more than just “warming up”. Cat/Cow, if cued differently, has the potential to form core strength and build mind body awareness but only if you approach it with intention. By accessing the whole part of your body, instead of just the shoulders and hips, Cat/Cow becomes a powerful postural flow.
I see students focusing on a tail tuck to initiate hip movement, and a dumping or rolling of the shoulders to engage the upper part of the body. All of this causes instability creating a sway forwards and backwards or side to side. Again, nothing wrong with that but to create stability our action should be initiated from our center and move OUT towards our extremities. How do we do this? It is all about the Solar Plexus.
Your Solar Plexus, which looks like a cluster of nerves, sits just behind your stomach and the diaphragm, the muscle below the lungs. It is in front of the aorta—the largest blood vessel in your body. If you put your hand on your upper belly, right where the ribs start to flare out under the breast bone, that is Solar Plexus area
The Solar Plexus consists of both parasympathetic and sympathetic nerves. Consequently, many of your body's abdominal organs—including the liver, gallbladder, stomach, pancreas, spleen, kidneys, small bowel, and the first two-thirds of the large bowel—receive their supply of nerves and impulses (or autonomic innervation) from the Solar Plexus.
The Solar Plexus is where our effort begins for Cat/Cow, sending energy out in both directions to the ends of the spine, with our arms and legs playing a supporting role, grounding us to the Earth. Every joint in the spine should receive the same amount of movement energy, not just the most flexible points. You may hear teachers say, “move each vertebrae”, or “articulate each vertebrae in the spine”, but that is physically impossible. That being said, the idea is a good one: you are being asked to move slowly through each segment of the spine (sacral, lumbar, thoracic and cervical) instead of just engaging the areas that have more fluid movement.
To achieve this you need to be active in both the front and back body, bringing some control to the fluidity in those easy to access areas using muscular engagement, mindful of not locking down or clenching.
Below are the mechanics of Cat/Cow from a healthy spine perspective that can be used in all forms of yoga: Hatha, Vinyasa, Restorative, etc.
CAT
Begin in Tabletop Pose (all 4s).
Take your hands wide enough to accommodate the full width of your shoulders. If too narrow you might over engage your chest muscles, throwing you off balance.
Make sure the front of your shoulder is just behind the crease in the wrist take pressure out of the wrist joints.
Push away the ground using the palm, underneath the knuckles, fingertips, and top of untucked feet.
Gather belly deep toward spine to lift the spine towards the sky as well as pulling the organs up and in from all sides. This action becomes a powerful stabilizer vs. using skeletal muscles on their own. This action also helps release the most volume of air during exhalation.
Wrap your shoulder blades around to the side ribs and armpits, creating space in between the shoulder blades on the back body.
Dangle your head, keeping the back of the neck relaxed. Jaw and face soft.
Hips remain soft as the tail moves naturally vs. a clenching or over-tucking action.
COW
Start from Cat or Tabletop Pose.
Elbows bend and wrap toward ribs, pointing back toward your thighs.
With hands rooted to the mat, pull your upper arm bones back in space.
Shoulder blades draw in towards the spine/back of heart on the back body.
Your chest spreads out open and long toward the front of the room without shifting the body forward to try to achieve a longer spine. Stay planted in between your hands and knees.
Your low belly has subtle engagement, supporting the bend in low back vs. dumping in the low back
Hips are soft. Tailbone draws toward the back body/back of the heart.
Watch your neck! Often I see students throwing their heads back, thinking this will deepen the back bend of this pose. It doesn’t. Find a gentle gaze forward or to an upward angle, pulling your vocal cords gently back into the cervical spine (neck) to maintain a natural, supported curve.
Cat/Cow
The movement of this pose is flowing between the two unique poses. Everything I described above is subtle movement that creates powerful engagement. Don’t rush through each pose as you flow. Find your breath. Slow down the breath. Allow the breath to initiate the movement.