admin Tittibhasana, also known as Insect or Firefly Pose, is a strength-building arm balance. This asana challenges hip and hamstring flexibility while opening the chest, grounding you in your upper body, and asking you to find balance on nothing but your hands.
In order to achieve this posture, it is important to incorporate movements into your yoga classes that prepare the body to the depth needed. You can also include these poses at the end of your workouts to prepare for Firefly. Let’s get started!
Warm-up
It is important to do this for any pose that involves deep stretching. This includes your pelvis. This particular pose requires deep concentration and a lot of activation of the small muscles and tendons.
Warm up your muscles with fast-paced vinyasa and Sun Salutations to prepare for deeper stretches.
Use deep activation to learn how to open your chest and pull the shoulders away from you while also opening the front of your pelvis. Hold Chaturanga as well for several breaths to engage your triceps and shoulders.
Wake up the Shoulders
Firefly requires that you pull your shoulders back while keeping them relaxed, away from your ears, and pulling them through the collarbone…all the while your legs are on them! We’ll have to wake up the shoulders before we start.
Start with a few transitions between Plank and Dynamic Dolphin. Begin in Dolphin (as shown above), then glide your nose slowly toward your thumbs and back to the starting position. It also works your hamstrings harder, which is important for success with Firefly Pose.
Hamstrings: Increase Flexibility
To get into Firefly, you must be able to place your chest between your legs in a forward-fold position. You can increase your hamstrings’ flexibility in a few ways. But it would help if you only did this when your large muscles are warmed up from previous physical activities or yoga.
Try Backfold by wrapping your forearms around the inside of your calves or your opposite elbows around your Hamstrings. Try to imagine your spine as being a straight line. Instead of bending the backbone to get consecutive legs, you can pull the tailbone to the ceiling.
You can achieve this by tilting your pelvis, and therefore your spine straight line, towards the ground. This will allow you to find real flexibility in your hamstrings while not stressing your lower back. In positions such as this, keep your heels parallel with your hip sockets and your feet similar to avoid stressing the hip joint.
Open your Hips
Firefly is a pose that requires rotation of the hip joint and lots of gluteal power. To maintain hip flexibility while building the strength needed for Firefly, you can incorporate hip openings in a class sequence such as Frog.
Keep your ankles behind your knees and your toes at a 90-degree angle with your shins. Then, gently move your upper body back and forth to find where your flexibility is the most difficult. Breathe there for some time.
In this position, try to bring your chest to the floor, turn your head so that your ear is on the ground, and switch sides to equalize the stretch in your neck.
Strengthen your upper body.
It is best to work on these arm balances in sequence. Start with Crow Pose before Firefly. This will help you get used to the idea of balancing your entire body weight on your arms.
Before flying full Firefly, you can also do a shoulder push with or without blocks. Place a small block at the lowest level on each side of the mat (not outside, but inside the edges). Place your hand on the blocks and lift your bottom using your upper body.
Start by keeping the heels of your feet on the mat. Then, keep your leg straight. Slowly engage your core and lift one leg, then both. This is an excellent way to mimic the demand on the shoulders at different levels.
You’re ready for Firefly once you’ve developed your hip and hamstring flexibility and upper body strength.
Start with a deep fold forward. Keep in mind the other alignment cues of #3 and tilt your pelvis. Take your stance slightly wider than your hips, and move your shoulders slowly as far underneath your lower body as you can, wiggling your shoulder and triceps.
As you bring your tailbone towards the mat, slowly and with the strength and control of your upper body, shift the weight from your feet to your hands. Bend your elbows and knees as you do this. Lift your toes off the mat when you are ready!
Place a block under your glutes if you want to start with a little more support. Spread a blanket on your mat to help you fall gently when first trying this pose.
Have you tried Firefly before? Did these exercises help you to get better? Please let us know what you think in the comments section below. Happy flying!
