Fourth Stage: Deepening

1. Straighten yourself, but not as if you were standing at attention. Tense the thigh muscles; put your arms together on your chest and then, breathing slowly and deeply, lift them above your head so that your arms would form an arch (while doing that touch your hands to you ears). Stretch yourself as much as you can.

2. Stay this way for a few seconds having held your breath. Then extend your arms slightly (do not bend them) and slowly lean forward making an inhalation. Try to touch the ground with the whole palm at some distance from your feet.

Note: You may feel slightly dizzy at first. Never mind if you cannot touch your palms to the ground. Above all you have to try. Do not resort to the force. Do not despair if you make mistakes. The hardest thing is to not bend your legs. In time it is possible to move your hands to your feet more closely.

Note: If you have a spinal curvature, certainly you should be cautious but in it not necessary to abandon the exercise.

3. Do the series of postures 1-2 three times.

4. Take a bent position which will result from the position 2. Set your palms against the ground and put your right leg as far backward as possible. Then bend your left knee. While doing that your chest will lie on your thigh. Move your left leg as far backward as possible and raise your head.

5. Leaning upon your palms and toes pull your trunk forward. Your chest will move forward and find itself ahead of your arms; and your knees as well as your thighs and abdomen will touch the ground. Your feet will form an obtuse angle (not an acute one as before). Then your chest is coming down to the ground between your forearms.

6. From this position when your forearms, instead of being under your chest, are on both sides of it, lying with your face down make a few deep inhalations and exhalations. Then, leaning upon your palms and forearms, lift your upper trunk slowly.

7. Having your arms pulled in and your breath held, stay in that position for one second (when you start exercising; you will prolong the period later). Return to the initial position after complete exhalation.

8. Repeat the series of positions 1-7 three times. Try to do it not only with you arm strength. All your trunk should work and especially your spine. Pull your abdomen in.

9. Having rested for a couple of minutes put your hands around your head placing the fingers to the temples and upper part of your forehead. Do not tear your elbows and forearms off the ground. Then get up slowly raising the center of your trunk and leaning partially upon your forehead and elbows, and partially upon your toes. Having got up, put one leg closer to your head, then the other one, so that your body would outline an arch.

10. Bend your trunk; throw your head and shoulders backward. Simultaneously put your arms around your ankle-bones. Your head should go far backward; look at the sky or at the ceiling. The more the trunk is bent, the better the posture performance is. The angle formed by the lower and upper leg should be as large as possible.

11. Relax your legs; tense your trunk. Sit down on your heels or even between them. Lean forward; your head should be at the very ground or even touching it, so that your nose would be between your knees. Extend your arms backward and place them on the ground with the rear side. You have laid yourself together in three and relaxed. You are starting feeling pleasure. Rest for as long as you wish to.

12. Sit down on the ground, keep your trunk straight. Extend your legs as wide to the sides as you can.

13. Bend your left leg and pull your heel to the thigh with your hand so that your heel would be maximally close to the inguinal fold. Then try to hold your left knee on the ground.

Note: This is difficult. For the first time put a little pillow or a rolled-up rug under your back. With such a support it will be easier for you to hold your left knee on the ground.