Cat and Cow is very simple exercise but its very beneficial for all of us. We are seated all the time and our spine needs some attention. Its a great way to start the class before doing other yoga poses or pilates exercises, physiotherapists recommend it too especially to the ones with back pain.
But do we really know how to practice it correctly? What I see in most classes is that teachers and practitioners either skip it or do it robotically without paying extra attention to it. Hence we need to understand the anatomy of our spine to be able to practice and teach it correctly.
Our spine is made up of 3 segments: cervical (neck area), thoracic (middle back) and lumbar spine (lower back). It is composed of 33 vertebrates: cervical has 7, thoracic has 12 and lumbar has 5 vertebrates. There are 5 vertebrates in the sacral and 4 in the coccygeal region as well.
Practitioners are more connected to their lower back rather than their middle back and that causes some problems. You need to bring some life to your cervical and thoracic spine because if you want to improve your posture and balance and learn the intermediate back bending yoga poses you need to first understand how to practice cat and cow.
Here is a short video for you. Try it and let me know if you have any questions.