yoga workout video for beginners

- what's up, everyone? welcome to yoga with adriene. i'm adriene, and this isbenji who's joining me on set today. we have a yoga forbeginners practice for you. this is really great forpeople who are brand new to yoga or wanting toget into yoga in a way that feels supportive. we're gonna break down some of the basics.
we're gonna talk about alignment, and ultimately help you, guide you, to finding what feels good. so hop into something comfy, and let's get started. (upbeat music) all right, let's begin in a nice seat. now as a beginner, and this is just everybody, we're so used to sitting in chairs,
and on toilets and stuff like that, kind of lost thisconnection to getting down nice and low and beingable to sit up tall, so i just wanna say right off the bat, if you cannot sit in a cross legged seat, you are not alone. and in time will be able to do that. even me, i grew up dancing,it was really hard for me to sit cross leggedfor any amount of time,
in the beginning and i rememberthat being a real struggle so if that's you, i got your back. we're gonna start in acomfortable seat on the ground but if you are already thinkingthat that's not available to you and your body,you can start in a chair, you can start standing. we're just gonna take a second to tune in. this is part of thefoundations of our practice. taking a second to just letthe day thus far melt away
and put the future on hold, and really dig into the present moment so that we can the mostout of our practice, and so that we can really alignwith where we're at today, so we focus on alignmentas like, you know, aligning the bones, but alsothere's this other aspect to aligning with just what is today. and i think it's a reallygreat practice for you know, loving yourself and beingthe best version of yourself.
that practice. so if you wanna trygetting down nice and low, i recommend sitting on something. now you might not havea yoga block available, so you can pause the videoand grab a couple towels folded up, or a blanketor maybe a couch pillow that's nice and firm. maybe a couple blocks, or maybe just give it a go on the ground.
what's nice about lifting the hips up is that you can find length with more ease in the spine because theknees are dropping down below the hip sockets,just making it a little bit more easier for you to kind of root down. and rise up through the spine. so just take a second to get settled in. and when you arrive in your seat, i'd love for you to flip the palms
and lift your heart. so again, nice and easy,we're flipping the palms and we're lifting the heart. now we won't spend too much time here 'cause i know time is precious and we wannaget through our practice, but this might just bethe most important moment of this video where we close our tries, so trust the video,trust me, trust yourself. close your eyes andtake the deepest breath
you've taken in all day. and as you exhale, relax your shoulders. on your next inhale, see if youcan grow a little bit taller and then again on an exhalerelax your shoulders. and one more time just like that, inhale, see if you cangrow a little bit taller. lengthening all the wayup through the spine, the neck, the crown of the head. and on an exhale, relax your shoulders.
and we'll take a secondhere to draw a couple circles with the nose, sothis can be really refreshing for the neck, the shoulders, it's a very simple move you can do anytime,anywhere, drawing big circles with the nose, one way. and then the other, reverse it. so gently working out any kinks. i'd like to invite you togently deepen your breath here. just take a couple ofnice refreshing breaths in
and out through the nose. and then just notice ifyou're starting to collapse in the spine here, the chest, see if you can remain aware all the way up through the crown. find that gentle lift in the heart. cool, then we're gonna inhale, spread the fingertips super wide and reach the arms all the way up. inhale, stretch, see if youcan lift and lengthen all
four sides of the torso, so don't worry about any shape here, just focus on the sensation. we'll get to the shapes in just a moment. but just kind of embracing this sensation. getting in the habit offocusing our awareness on the sensation, rather than the shape, so take a big stretch, lift through the front body, the back body, the side bodies.
and then on an exhale rain it down. this time palms face down. loop the shoulders, lift the heart even more. inhaling deeply. and exhale completely. close your eyes, and ifyou like just set a little intention, something you wanna work on. something you wanna intend,something you want to do in this time, and it couldjust be to get through
the whole video. and when you feel like you have something, anything, just to focus your awareness on, take one more deep breath in. and then exhale out through the mouth. sweet, thriller arms. we take the fingertipsforward, and then down. we start to feel a reallynice stretch through the forearm here, andthen this strong action
as you pull the shouldersback into socket, so really reach out asif you're trying to reach for something, gimme, gimme, gimme. and then fingertips down,and plug the shoulders back so you can really feel that. the shoulder blades are coming together and then lift your heart. and then big stretch here, so if you work, well if you have a phone, this is great.
okay, and so the main actionhere that i'd like you to remember is pullingthat shoulder into socket, and really feeling thisawareness, this broadening too, through the upper back body. and if you're like, i don't know what that means, no prob, take what worksfor you, leave what doesn't. we'll flip the script here now, flipping the hands, justfeeling a stretch through the fingertips really wide, solots of awareness through
every fingertip and if youwant a little bit more, you can take one hand to the fingers, and stretch here, and then the other. and then some circles. and you might notice, oh my god, i'm so out of shape, my armsare starting to get tired. you know this is what happenswhen we start to really work with awareness and focus on getting in alignment with where we are today.
this is the good stuff. cool, and then shake it out. all right, we're gonna comeforward onto all fours. take your time, one reallygreat thing as a beginner to consider in yoga, and this is for people who have been doing yoga a long time, too, they need this reminder is to kinda relish and stay present inthe transitions, right? a lot of people they don'tget injured in yoga poses
but in the transition becausethe mindfulness kind of goes away, there's a disconnect. so, just a little foodfor thought as you move, whoa, sorry buddy. from your seat, to all fours. take your time. come to a tabletop position. wrists underneath the shoulders. knees directly underneath the hips.
press away from your yoga mat. and then really see if youcan spread the fingertips super wide and then justnotice if the toes are coming in or splaying out. we start to really payattention to detail here. yeah, benji's doing his yoga, too. so pressing into the tops of the feet. and then after you take amoment to look at the video, and look down, look atthe video, look down,
take a second to pressaway from your yoga mat, and lengthen through the crown of the head and close your eyes and seeif you can feel this straight line from the crown to the tail, so one of the things thathappens a lot here is we collapse through the shoulder blades, and we collapse throughthe lower back body. so step one, try to lift upbetween the two shoulder blades. so almost as if you werelifting your heart space
up through the center of your back. so again you can look at thevideo, it looks like this. here i am collapsed, and thenhere i am broadening through the upper back. same thing with the lower back. you might have a little sway back here, which feels really good sometimes, but for this tabletop, we wanna find thisconnection to our center,
and to the midline,which is gonna support us in a lot of our standing postures. so lengthen the tailbonetowards the back of your mat and then again, pressaway from your yoga mat, to find this expansion, this length. the navel draws up to the spine, and so you can imagineplacing a little tea cup on the back of the neckand on the lower back body, and it would not fall,it would be balanced.
again, tabletop position. you may start to shake here,or you might start to sweat here and think oh no, i'm so out of shape, or oh my god, no you'reperfectly in shape, and this is what itfeels like to really work with this integrity, this awareness in the body. take one more breath here. and then cat cow's nevergonna feel as good as it does after really awakeningthis line of the spine,
so drop the belly whenever you're ready. we release that line, and we inhale as we look up. and then reverse it, exhale,curl the tailbone under. navel draws up, again,it's an exhale as you round chin to chest. notice if the hands andfeet have changed here, lots of mindfulness throughevery toe through every finger as you inhale,drop the belly, look up. press away from your yogamat, and not collapsed.
and then exhale, curlingthe tail, rounding through. this is on the exhale. let's do one more on your own, big inhale. and big exhale. awesome, bring the knees together, curl the toes under. we come off the hands,give the hands a break as we give the feet some love. so you'll flip the palms face up,
for a lot of folks thisis gonna send off an alarm bells right away. so i'd like for you to alignyour head over your heart, your heart over your pelvis. and then rather than justdumping all the way into your feet, as if you were,you know, at story time as a kid, really sweet and relaxed and not very heavy. see if you can lightenyour load, by lifting up.
we call this mula bandha,but more on that later. just drawing energy up,engaging the muscles of the pelvic floor, to just find a lightness. a support from within. take one more deepbreath here, you got it. it's a big stretch for the feet. and then exhale come back to all fours. walk the knees underneath the hip points, recenter underneath theshoulders once again.
beautiful, now this time,we're gonna test this line from the crown to the tail,we call this the danda. sanskrit for the stick or the staff, so you can literally draw aline from the crown to the tail. we're gonna test this by inhaling in and exhaling, pressingaway from the yoga mat and lifting in the kneesjust about a half inch above the ground to awakenyour core, your center. so we're gonna walk the hands out now,
and i'm going to really payattention to my hands here as i prep for downward dog, so, pressing into all 10 fingerprints. i'm gonna draw theshoulders away from the ears just like i did with thriller arms. curl the toes under, inhale, look forward, drop the belly, and then exhale rounding through, and then sending it all the way up.
so we're gonna start witha little bit of a rounding. then inhale and again,lift the heels, and exhale, drop the heels, melt your heart back. press into all 10 fingerprints, and then bend your knees generously, drawing the shoulders away from the ears, pressing really, really,rooting into that index finger and thumb, my friends. now breathe deep here,again, bend the knees.
you can peddle the legs a littlebit here if it feels good. and again, i'm trying to,let's go ahead and shine our biceps towards eachother, so turn your biceps to face each other here. and then notice if you'reholding in the head in the neck. great, take deep breaths, inhale in. and then exhale all theway back down to all fours. awesome work. take a break if you need to, child's pose.
or you can always comeback on to the feet here. and take a rest. we're gonna head into a lunge,so whenever you're ready, you'll meet me withthe right foot forward, and the left foot back. take your time gettingthere, nice and slow. we're just gonna bringthe right foot forward, so if you're like, oh i'mso clumsy, i can't do yoga. this home practice opportunityis the most wonderful
way to get into yourbody and start to explore the tools of yoga. so when you arrive there, we're gonna really work oneverything from the ground up. the front toes are gonnabe pointing forward, go ahead and lower that backknee, if you haven't already. and then i'm gonna makesure that my front knee is over the front ankle, so a lot of times this front knee will go over the toes,
and in its essence it's notgonna hurt you on the first try but over time, that'sreally gonna be not good for the knee, so we wantfront knee over front ankle, and you'll come into this alignment a lot, you know, a lot of your standing postures, so it's a great placeto start, nice down low. lower the back knee if it's not already, so that you can really startto find some spaciousness through the front body, sochances are, we're rounding here
because natural normal humanmodern day culture tightness so in time, we'll keepthat back knee lowered, so in time we can slowly begin to come up onto the fingertips. still keeping front knee over front ankle and slowly begin to kind ofcome out of our turtle shell. draw the shoulder blades downthe back body, and lift the heart, just like we did atthe beginning of practice. now again, this seems likereally easy yoga move,
but if you're sweatin' shaking here, yes! because we're working in our alignment, in a way in which we are active and aware. and so it's gonna wakeup parts of the body that you just haven't maybe felt in awhile. even me, here i'm like,woo, i can feel it. so now, rather than dumpingall my weight into the legs, i'm gonna try to find thisenergy up through my midline
again, almost a scissoreffect, as if i were drawing a front edge of my mat, mack, and the back edge of my mat together. so you'll feel it out. and then last but not least,you might lift the back knee or you might keep it nice and low today, and lift the back knee on another day because you're gonna returnto this video, right? so that you can see howthings are progressing
and growing and evolving on your journey. so you might stay nice and low, or you might lift the back knee. i'm gonna really spike theleft heel towards the back edge of my yoga mat and thenagain that scissor effect so i'm pulling my right hip crease back. i'm not on a tight rope, i have two parallel lines here. wherever you are, take one deep breath in. and then exhale, plant the palms,
slowly lower the back knee down. followed by the front knee and then again, take a rest,so it could be child's pose for you, or it could be just coming back to kneeling. so in this moment, closeyour eyes and just observe your breath and notice how you feel. you're doing awesome. and then when you're readywe're gonna check out that
same low lunge on the other side. so take it nice and slow. remember what i said about transitions. this time the left foot'sgonna come forward. left toe is really pointing forward and right knee back. when you arrive, take yourtime to really pay attention to what's going on, so that'sanother beautiful thing about the home practiceis you don't have to move
at the same pace as 30 otherpeople in the yoga room. and you really kind of make it your own. front knee over frontankle, check that out. then back knee's lowered. and see if you can lift upthrough the center channel and once again, we try tocome out of our turtle shell here so the spine willbe rounding forward. we're gonna remember our cat cow, we're gonna open up through the chest.
feel that long lengthstretching through the belly. and then just check itout, breathing deep. maybe we curl the back toes under. and maybe we lift the back knee up. now if you can, try tokeep the chest open. the heart reaching forwardjust energetically, right? this will help us, ourintention of moving forward so that we can keep length in the spine. big breath in.
and big breath out, plant the palms. awesome work, come back to all fours. take a rest either child's pose or kneeling. close your eyes. just notice how you feel. awesome work, going backto that downward facing dog whenever you're ready. take your time, practicemoving nice and slow,
in and out of transitions. listening to your body, and enjoying even whenit feels challenging or you feel like you have two left feet, or whatever it is. try to enjoy the process. downward facing dog. so the index finger and thumbare rooting down strong. the hands are spread wide,fingertips spread wide, rather.
and we're creatingbasically an upside down v. tops of the shoulders, rollaway, externally rotate away from the ears, againtry to have your two biceps looking towards each other. then turn your two big toes in. let the sitting bones shineleft to right as you do that 'cause we're movingthe hip socket here should feel really good. then bend your knees slightly,take a deep breath in.
and a long breath out. shake the head a little yes, a little no. keep rooting strongthrough that index finger and thumb, you got this. then inhale, look forward nice and slow. gentle on the neck, andnice and slow we're gonna step the feet up asmany steps as you need. all the way up to thefront edge of the mat. feet are hip width apart,so you don't need to come
tightly bound here, it's really nice, especially for the firstforward fold of any practice to bend the knees generously and stretch the lower back body. ease into your hamstring stretches. and find release inthe head and neck, so clasp the elbows. root down through allfour corners of the feet so that's the ball joint of the big toe.
the ball joint of thatpinky toe, and then the back two corners of your heels. continue to breath here. nice and loose in the head and the neck. take one more big breath in, then exhale release thefingertips to the ground. root down through thefeet, tuck your chin into your chest, and slowlyroll it up to standing. nice and slow.
so roll up nice and slow,resist the urge to rush here. and as you lift yourheart, really root to rise, as we say in the practice,and the idea is really feeling that pressing down throughthe feet and the rising up through this centerchannel of your spine. peace, benji. so yeah, give yourself some space. just notice if you're kindof tightly bound here. and this opening and the
asana is really offer an opportunity for you to senda new signal to your body than maybe your habitual,i mean to your brain, then your habitual self. so your habitual self (mumbles), right? for many, many, many, many, many reasons. some of them are out of your control. so yeah, all that to say,see if you can play with opening up here in a big,big, beautiful tadasana,
and know that this is sendinga signal to your brain going, okay, i'm available, i'm open. just that. and take a deep breath in. and then exhale, see if youcan imagine your shoulder blades melting down your back body. and then this is a bigbig alignment thing. make sure that the toesare still pointing forward. i'm going to lift upthrough the front body.
and then i'm gonna groundthrough the back body. then engaging the inner thighs a little bit. find a lift from the pelvic floor. and tops of the thigh bonesare gonna have just a slight inner rotation, and again, if this is too much right now, just take one thing at atime, one day at a time. you know, take what works. leave what doesn't. and take one more deep breath in here.
smile a little bit. and then exhale, relax your shoulders. beautiful, inhale, spread the fingertips, reach the arms all the way up, nice big full body stretch here. take the pinkies forward,and the thumbs back and imagine you're holding abig beach ball over your head. now make sure you'renot clenching here. so we're creating lots of space.
again, finding thatrotation in the shoulder. think about those thrillerarms when plugged in. big breaths here, andthen last but not least, i have my long puppybelly here, i'm just gonna draw the navel in slightly,connect to my center. whatever that means to you. inhale in, exhale releaseleft hand to the waistline. i'm gonna take my rightfingertips behind nice and slow and justdraw big circles in space.
try to keep breathing. and enjoy this time for yourself. then reverse it, soft in the fingers. big breaths. and then right hand tothe waistline, same thing, left fingertips go back. doing a little bit of thebackstroke here. opening up through the chest, starting to wake upthese muscles, pectorals.
the lats of the back body. and then reverse it. i'm gotta get missyelliot on this yoga show. ♫ dreams can come true ♫ hands come to the waistline. okay, so now we're gonna practice bringing the feet together. some masithethe four part equalstanding is what we call it. and the idea is that, more or less,
we're creating this post. this big, basically taking our two feet and creating one foot, one solid base. so squeezing our arches together. squeezing our thighs and knees together. press in to all four corners of the feet and then once again, i'd love for you to find this upward current, this liftup through the front body and this grounding through the back body.
so rather than thinking oftucking the pelvis super hard, just think about lengtheningyour tailbone down. just play. the inner thighs are gonna squeeze in, and think about this rotationof the top of the thigh going inward and out towardsthe back edge of your mat. more on that another day,but just playing with that maybe a little bit here. so the idea is you're wantingto find a nice, strong base.
then once again, whenever you're ready, drop the fingertips down,open the palms and inhale. reach the fingertips up and over head. fingertips kiss and then exhale. bend your knees andtake it all the way down into a forward fold. so, bend your knees asgenerously as you need to here. and if you have a block orsomething to lift the earth up to you, that's kindof helpful sometimes
so you can start tocreate space mindfully. now if you're a superbeginner, keep your eyes open, and maybe focused on one point, so that you have stability,a little bit of balance. then check it out. on your next inhale, release the arms and slide the palms all theway past the tops of the feet. up past the shins, the knees,all the way to the tops of your thighs.
then loop your shoulders, bend your knees, pull the elbows back andtry to create length from the crown to the tail. flat back position here. just like we did in tabletop,lift the space between your two shoulder blades. draw the navel up. hug the elbows in the sidebody, take a deep breath in. when you hear halfwaylift in a flow practice,
it's to find this length here. on an exhale release. press into your foundation. your feet, spread thefingertips, open the palms and inhale, rise up. root to rise, press into your foundation. big stretch here, reach, reach, reach. and then exhale, hands to the waist. awesome work, okay.
soft knees, we're just gonnaslide the left foot back. so we have right foot forward. left foot back, i'm gonnapivot on my back foot, warrior one,is where i'm headed. so just breaking it down. left toes are pointingtowards the front left corner of your yoga mat. right toes are pointing forward. and i'm actually gonna usemy hands to slowly guide
my belly forward. traditionally the hips are square, but for a lot of beginnersi find that it's kinda like we're kinda skipping, if we'rejust moving into this shape we're kind of missingall the good stuff that's supposed to help us feelgrounded and joyful, so in the posture, so front knee bends. front knee over front ankle. and for now, don't worry aboutgetting those hips square.
worry about the sensationof your foundation. so press into the outeredge of the back foot. take your left hand toyour left inner thigh and just give it a littleslap to engage that muscle, so then this leg startsto become really strong and really rooted. hands on the waistline. lift up through the front body. ground through the back body.
all these things we've been working on, and then take the palmsgently at your sides. keep this rotation in the shoulder as you inhale rise up,warrior one. virabhadrasana one. find the scissor effect, so we're not just dumping into this shape,but we're drawing energy up through the midline. we take one more deep breath here.
and then on an exhalei'm gonna send my left fingertips back, rightfingertips forward, warrior two. you might widen your stance here. you might bring your right heel in, so that it's in alignmentwith your left arch. now, front knee over front ankle. here take a look down,make sure you can see your front big toe. now lengthen the tailbone down.
head over heart,heart over pelvis. there's a tendency here to reach forward, think about drawing yourcenter right underneath your heart space andhugging those lower ribs in. breathing deep. inhale in, exhale, relax the shoulders down. great, now we're gonnachallenge ourselves here. by dropping the leftfingertips down, nice and slow. move with me, and as i move my center forward,
i'm gonna lift my back heel,and come into a high lunge for one big breath. inhale lift up through the front body. and then exhale rain hands to waistline. step the back foot up to meet the front. take as many steps asyou need to come back to your mountain pose. inhale in. exhale let it go.
awesome, slide the right foot back. pivot on the back foot. right toes are pointing towards the front right corner of your yoga mat, or the front rightcorner of your room. then take a second to reallystart with your feet always. left toes pointing forward, front knee over front ankle. focus one the sensation over the shape.
we're definitely shiftingthe world of yoga now to understand that ah yes, if we're all gonna learn yoga, then we all need tolearn it in our bodies. not try to do what someoneelse is doing in their body. so lengthen the tailbone down. press into the outer edgeof that back foot strong, and then lift through theright inner arch, inner leg. take your right hand, to your right inner thigh, give it a little slapjust to wake up that leg.
and then you'll start to feel it, right? engage. we call this action, sowe work on the alignment and then the action of huggingthe muscle to the bone. we lift up through the center channel. that's up through the spine. head over heart, heart over pelvis. make sure you can see your front big toe. and then when you're ready,
fingertips are gonna come down. palms open, and weinhale reach for the sky. warrior one. big breaths here. lifting up from the pelvic floor, so we're not just dumping here, but really feeling thisrooting to rise quality in our warrior virabhadrasana one. take a deep breath in.
and then exhale, right fingertips go back. left fingertips go forward. we might walk that leftheel in line with the arch of the right foot. and then again, just noticeare we reaching forward here? can we draw the navel in? tailbone down. virabhadrasana two. warrior two.
big breaths here, inhale,lengthen through the crown, so nice and long in the neck. a great way to test theshoulders here is to open the palms, and thenkeep that external rotation that we've been workingon in the shoulders and then just flip the palms down. yes, awesome work. deep breath in, rightfingertips are gonna draw down. here we go challenging our balance here.
navel draws in, stayconnected to your core. your center, i pivot on the back foot. big stretch in the front ofthe right hip crease here. inhale front knee bends high lunge. keep the back heel lifted. you got this, inhale,spread the fingertips. open your heart. and then exhale, hands are gonnacome down to the waistline. and with control, with grace, even we try,
stepping the back footup to meet the front. mountain pose, deep breath in. awesome work, all right,let's take it down, cool it off and then you're home free. here we go, inhale reach for the sky. exhale forward fold. great work, inhale halfwaylift, palms to the tops of the thighs, find that length. and exhale, fold.
plant the palms, you're gonnastep the right toes back. followed by the left. five seconds in plank,lift up between the space between your shoulder blades. draw your navel up towards the sky. send a fireball shootingout through the crown of your head and reach your heels back. press away from your yogamat, one more breath. and release to the knees.
awesome work, child's pose. knees together, we swim thefingertips all the way around towards the heels, and we relax the shoulders. take a deep breathe in. and a long exhale out. and exhale release. awesome work, slowlyreach the fingertips up towards the front edge. we'll come through all fours.
and just nice and easyswing legs to one side and come to a seat once again. this time with the legsextended out in front. and you can actually bendthe knees from the start here so we'll kind of digthe heels into the earth. move the fleshy part of thebuttocks aside so you can really feel your sits bones connect. and then sit up nice and tall and again, if you need to sit up ona blanket or block here
to find length in the spine,we're working on that, so try not to get frustrated if the spine is super rounded here. that's why we're here, i got you. so, in time we'll beable to find this lift and this lengthen bendingthe knees certainly helps. and if you're already at aplace where you feel like, ah, i think i can extendmy legs out long and still keep this posture up, then play with that.
okay, we'll bring thefingertips to the sides or you can press into the palms dandasana. inhale lift and lengthen. exhale relax your shoulders down. take one more deep breath in. deep breath out. sweet, now keep the left leg extended. bring the right kneeall the way up and in. so options here, i can take theleft hand to the right knee.
swim the right fingertips around. i'm working to try to keep that length, so the tendency hereis that like a magnet. the navel draws back and the spine rounds. so try to keep that length. that's what we're working on. if you want to go a little deeper, you can take the leftelbow to the right knee. benji, everybody!
and start to lift and lengthen. up through the spine, so we're here, or we're here, we're twisting. we're working on ourposture slowly but surely. inhale, lift and lengthen. exhale relax your shoulders. one more time, inhale liftup through your heart. and exhale relax your shoulders. okay, great, release (laughing).
leave it to benji to keep it real, okay. extend the right leg out long. left leg comes up. we're almost done here. you can kind of smile, benji'sactually a good reminder of just like practicing at home. there's distractions,there's so much going on, but you rock, way to takethis time for yourself. so right hand comes to the knee,
left fingertips come behind. 'sup? we inhale, lift and lengthen. exhale twist. you can also hug the elbow in here. see. we'll just keep it,we'll just roll with it. inhale lift your heart. exhale release.
inhale lift your heart,exhale relax your shoulders. okay, we're just neutralizingthrough the spine and also, (bone banging on the floor) we're working on growing on that posture that you desire, so know this video is great for beginners because noworries if you feel like, oh i'm never gonna get there. we're gonna get there, we're gonna get there together. all right, enough of that, release.
benji's like, finish up,it's time to play, my yoga. we're gonna come slowlyonto the back again. super mindful, so takethe hands to the backs of the thighs as you roll down, yeah. and then hug the knees into the chest and feel supported by theearth, this should feel awesome. squeeze the knees into the chest. if this is too much for you, you can do one knee at a time, baby.
no prob. and find what feels good. give a little massage on the back body. you might draw somecircles with the knees. and then eventually we'regonna come to happy baby pose. and then you'll be a true yogiafter this pose (chuckles). so there's some great actionpoints though that you don't always here abouthappy baby that i'm gonna share with you, so firstof all we'll just do
one leg at a time and i'mgonna take my right hand to the outer edge of my right foot. lift the sole of the rightfoot up towards the sky. maybe i just do one leg at a time, if the hips are super tight. otherwise, i'm gonna take the left foot, and i'm working to get myfeet up towards the sky. and then here we go, big action point. lengthen tailbone towardsthe front edge of your mat.
tuck the chin into the chest. breath deep, open yourchest, open your heart. and then exhale, release, awesome. extend one leg, and then the other. we're coming to our final and most precious posture,savasana. there is a tendency, especially in the beginningto kinda skip this guy. i don't know why youwould because all day long
i dream, all day i dream of savasana. but, you know, we're busy. we get very busy. we only have so muchtime, it's really hard to take time for ourselves,especially when we have people in our life that need us. but by golly, you've earned it, take it. we're not gonna be here long. take the heels as wide as your yoga mat
and just allow the toesto windshield wiper out a little bit here, left and right. then press into yourhead, lift your chest, snuggle your shoulder bladesunderneath your heart space. open the chest, and thenallow your arms to come out at your sides and then remember, what are we telling our brain here? what signals are we sending? are we really tight here, orcan we open up and soften?
kind of calm and cool the nervous system and say, it's okay to let go, to restore, and close youreyes and we're just gonna take three breaths here, so here we go. big breath in through the nose. and exhale out throughthe nose or the mouth. and big exhale to let it go. and last one, you got it. stay here as long as timeallows, or if you have to boogie
make sure you take a momentto give thanks and praise for your body and takingthis time for yourself. mind and body. i'm gonna bring my hands together, and we usually seal ourpractice by just kind of... saying a salutation or a... prayer that acknowledgeshow awesome we are and how awesome everyone is.
so, we say namaste to bow to the light and ultimately the divine orthe ideas the best version of ourselves. we bow to that within, andthen we also acknowledge it in one another. so wherever you are you canbring the hands together or you can just take aquiet moment to yourself to feel that, feel and acknowledge your truest awesome self.
and then remember andrecognize that we all got that mojo, we all got it going on. so the beauty of yoga and the end of this ritual is that we just take onemoment to acknowledge that. so that's what we do. we take a deep breath in. and we bow tothe teacher within, to the awesome within, andthen we acknowledge that with a bow to one another.
thanks again for sharing your time. and your practice, i'll see you on the mat. questions, comments, welcomed below. namaste. (heavy breathing)