The next posture has 3 parts; the half moon side bend and the half moon back bend and it is combined with the hands to feet pose. The side bend is the preparation for the back bend. It requires the strength of the arms and legs in order to lift the spine and then bend it in an even lateral compression.
In doing so you tone and strengthen all major muscles in your legs, hips, arms and shoulders. You build a strong abdominal wall, which helps you build strong back muscles to alleviated most back problems. In order to create even bending off all parts of your spine requires you to open across the front of your chest and shoulders. You also stretch one side of the spine and compress the other and then when you do the other side you balance the other side. This gives you the flexibility you need to back bend and improves your blood circulation.
The back bend is an essential part to any yoga sequence and we do a very deep one early on in class to prepare you for the rest of the class. Different parts of your spine bend (any direction) more easily than other parts. For example your lower back easily bends backward while your upper back between your shoulder blades does not. By doing the back bend with proper technique you are learning how to bend the less flexible parts and how to stabilize the flexible parts, therefor improving the overall health of your spine!
Hands to feet pose is a forward bending stretch whereby the goal is to bend at the hips and stretch the entire length of the spine; creating more space between the vertebrae improving circulation, relieving lower back pain and stretching the back of the legs. Lower back pain usually stems from tight hips and back of the legs and can therefore make a forward bend actually worsen a low back problem.
So we do this one with extra care to open the hips and stretch the back of the legs in order to stretch the spine safely, by keeping the chest and belly in contact with the thighs and then slowly over time work to straighten the legs. After the 1st hands to feet pose is complete you start again to do the sequence of ½ side bend, back bend and hands to feet. This makes up the 1st of the 26 postures we do in class.