30 Min Lower Body Focused Yin

This 30-minute class focuses on your lower body... hips, ankles, toes, and low back. The parts that we all overuse and ignore. Take a few moments to offer some deep, slow stretching to the areas that help support your upper body. Grab a few yoga blocks, a blanket, or pillows and get ready to slow down.

Transcript

Hello and welcome. Today we're going to be playing around with a 30 minute yin practice. This practice is going to focus on the outer hips, Back of the hips, Low spine, And then the quads. So kind of the top leg hip area in general. And we're also going to dig a little bit into the feet and the ankles because those affect everything that's going up. So to get started, Go ahead and find yourself a nice comfortable seat. I like to sit on a blanket. If that works for you, Go for it. Otherwise a yoga block pillow or bolster is super useful or if just sitting up feels good to you, Go ahead and sit up. You can also always use a wall and lengthen your spine up against that wall. Let the back of the pelvis touch the wall and the head so you have a lot of nice space. Go ahead and take a moment, Little rocks side to side, Some shoulder rolls feel nice usually. Gentle movement in the neck. To start to notice what you brought on to your mat and into the space. And then let all of that movement settle. Palms face down on your legs, Your knees, Your thighs, Whatever feels good if you want to ground. Palms will flip up towards the sky if you want to borrow a little energy from the room and the space around you. Eyes closed if that feels comfy to you. If not, Just a soft gaze down works really well. And then notice all of the extra. Sometimes when we dive in a little deeper, The body gets excited and starts to move, The mind gets really busy. Just take a nice big breath in, Fill up your whole body, Sit up a little bit taller. Open your mouth, Big sigh. Let's do one more like that. Big full breath in, Nice tall seat. Big sigh out. Let your lips seal. If it's available to you, Breath comes in through your nose, Big and wide. Breath out through your nose, Smooth and soft. Good, Let everything start to slow down, Start to ease into your own breath, Pace breath in. And out. Keep your breath moving at your pace. And just notice. Can you get more breath down into the belly so the belly expands as you breathe in? Softens as you breathe out. You draw the skull back in space so the back of the neck gets longer. Let your shoulders slide out of your ears. A few more rounds here just to slow the mind down. Set up just a little bit taller, One more full deep breath in here. Ooh, Your nose, Breath out. Good. A little more grounded. Go ahead and flutter your eyes open if they close. Give yourself a moment if you need some movement. Again, Unwind your legs, Especially if those knees were bent. Let them go. And our first pose will be a seated butterfly shape. If you are sitting on a prop and it feels good to you, You're welcome to keep it. I'm going to go ahead and shift mine out of the way. Now that I'm a little bit more open in the head. For a seated butterfly, You'll draw the soles of your feet to touch and your knees will open. Handy for this practice would be one or two yoga blocks or any sort of prop that has a little bit of softness to it, But also some density. So nice thick pillows, Bolster, Rolled up blankets. So even this blanket that I use, If I had two of them, If I roll it up a few times, It's going to offer some height there and I can slide that under my knees. That might really work well. So if you have two props the same height, You can use them underneath your knees, But not necessarily. Necessary. If you do have two props they can also move in front of your shins and they would catch the body as it rounds. Otherwise a singular prop, Again a block, Can go on the feet. Or inside of the legs. And same thing with those blankets, Pillows, You can stack them up any amount and use them to offer you a little bit of height. You can get really creative. Sitting upright might be plenty for most of us. Let's get on the clock here. Palms would just flip up. You sit up tall. Play around with how close your feet are to you or how far forward, Whatever offers the most space. That's where you want to be. We take a nice big breath in. Exhale, Settle your chin to your chest. Let your head get heavy and fall towards your feet. So you're making a C curve or kind of a wave cresting over the body. Arms can just drape long if there are no props or you don't want to use props. Otherwise, Props, Again, You can use them in front of the shins, On the feet, Or in the legs. And you wanna let the body just sink and release. So you're using the floor to support the bones, The muscles of the body, The props are also there to help. And you want to let go of any work anywhere. So pretty early on, We're already diving into those outer hips. Some of you might be experiencing sensation around the hip creases, The outer hips or the outer glutes into the low spine. If the spine is particularly rounded, You might be feeling sensation up one or both sides of the spine. If the head is hanging, Maybe through the shoulder blades, The neck, The jaw, All of that is normal. For some of us, Having the head hang after a while kind of irritates the neck. So know that just moving your chin away from your chest and supporting your head a little bit is going to offer space for the neck. You can also always use your hands in any capacity to hold that heavy head. Remember, Your head is 10-ish to 12-ish, 13 pounds. That's pretty heavy. So if you can offer it some place to land, That might feel better for you. And then just dive in, You're already on the clock. Soft jaw, Soft shoulders, Just breathe. Good, You're about halfway through into this first shape. Just notice what's going on in the mind and the body as everything starts to slow and still. Can your shoulders relax? Often the body turns on to try to support you. Can you relax any tension, Maybe a rock of the chin, An open and closed of the jaw? Maybe the eyes can blink closed if they're open. And notice if the arms or the legs are pushing or muscling to hold you up. Can you let all of that go? Let yourself melt in just a little bit more. Relax your jaw, Last few rounds of breath here, A little deeper, A little smoother. Go ahead and take a full breath in here. Big soft sigh out. And slowly, Slowly ease yourself up to a nice tall seat. Shift your props out of the way. Use your hands to help you soften your knees towards each other and then right away take the feet wide and let them just drop one knee to one side, One knee to the other side. So soft windshield wipers side to side. Good, And then take a moment, Let the legs extend. They bend, They unbend. Maybe lift the heart up, Especially if you were round. Little movement in the neck. Again, These in-betweens are anything that goes that feels good to you. You want that to happen. Perfect. And then we'll come to our knees in all fours. So if you have more sensitive knees, We will be on our knees for a little bit. You might want to put a blanket or if you have a knee pillow or a knee cushion underneath the knees, That would work really well. And then if you have a prop or two that's on the denser side, You want to take that with you. So if you're using a blanket for underneath the knees, You'll just slide it on your prop, Knees go on that blanket. One or two more dense props are going to go up towards the top. So it's starting in all fours shape here. I'm going to get rid of my blanket. I don't need it, But you do what you need. And also, If you don't have a blanket, Super sneaky trick works for everybody. You can roll your mat up in towards the knees or roll it forward towards you or backwards towards you. A couple rolls gives you a little bit more cushion, Depending on how dense your mat is. That might be all the cushion that you need. So you can try that as well. Perfect. When you come to all fours, We're going to draw our inner knees, Inner ankle bones together to touch as close as feels comfortable to you. Good. You're going to flip your toe pads down. So this is called a toe squat. We're going to get into the top. Of the bottom of the feet, Not the top. We'll get there to that soon. But the top of the toe creases, Rather, We're definitely going to be in. So you want to spread your toes out as wide as you can. You might have to reach down. If you have short toes like me, Spread them out nice and wide. Good. And then, Just like I have, You're going to sink back towards your heels. So for most of us, This is where a heavier or a more dense prop comes in handy, So we don't have to reach all the way down to the ground. It's going to lift you up a little bit. You're gonna take a moment just to notice. Most of us have a preference to either roll towards the pinky toes and the heels point out, Or roll into the big toes and the ankle bones and heels knock together. See if you can split the difference and find those middle three toes. Usually they're ones we never think about, So it's kind of hard for us to feel them here, Especially because we can't see them. If this is enough, And for a lot of us it is, You can drop down to your forearms, Either on your prop or on the earth. You can let your head hang and your jaw soften. For those of you that feel pretty good where you are, It's manageable, Maybe a little uncomfortable, But breathable and manageable. You're gonna crawl yourself all the way up to a seat on your heels. Very natural, The belly's gonna drop forward and the butt's gonna sway back. So let's protect that low back. Pull your belly into your spine. Good, Give your inner thighs a little bit of a squeeze. Rest your palms down on your thighs. You're already halfway through. And just breathe. Wherever you are, Eyes can close, Jaw can soften. Props can always come with you wherever you are. You can add a little pressure into the hands to take some pressure off of the feet, And you can always move forward for less sensation. You're almost there, You've got this. This one's pretty intense for most of us. We don't stretch our feet like this very often. So just keep your breath moving. Great little exercise to learn where the mind goes when you feel uncomfortable and vulnerable. Where the tension goes in the body, Can you let it soften? Go back to the sound of your breath. You're almost there. Good full breath in. Big sigh out. Slower than you want to. You'll replace your hands on those props. Crawl your hands forward like they're little stilts. Let's get off of the legs. Release the toes for me. I like to pat, Pat, Pat them on the ground. Get some blood going there. It might feel nice to extend one leg behind you and then the other. Just keep those toe joints moving. The more they're moving, The better they'll feel. Open and close. If they feel really stiff, Just keep them moving. I promise they'll start to feel good once that blood gets in there. One side and then the other side. Good. Perfect. Then we're going to head into an embryo pose. So now we've opened up the bottoms of the feet. We're going to find more of a kneeling position here. Again, Knees, Inner knees and inner ankle bones are going to touch. For an embryo pose, You might want to have one prop handy. Traditionally, The forehead would melt all the way down to the mat and your arms would slide back behind. Some of us, It's a little too compressed. So an option, Right? For some of us, The head's just floating, Depending on how much soft tissue we have or how much availability we have. The head just doesn't get down there. You can always slide a prop at any height underneath it. You can also just use your palms. Or your forearms. To support the head. And for some of us, It'll feel nicer to have the arms framing the face a little closer. Post shape, So then the head can release and the shoulders are soft as well. So you can play around with any variation. And then let that belly just melt into your thighs. Feel a little pinching in the hip creases. We're going for a really big spread and release in the low back. Jaw nice and soft, Just breathe. You can play around with how tucked or untucked the chin is to support the neck. Because you're nearly half way through now. So take a moment. If things are feeling good as they are, I want you to just leave them here as they are. That's perfectly fine. For some of us, We find this much compression challenging to breathe, It's hard to focus. We're offering tension to the body and the shoulders and the jaw. So for you, You can slide your hands underneath your shoulders, Draw your knees apart just lightly, And then draw the ankle bones apart just lightly, Making more room for the belly to melt in between the thighs, And then resettle yourself down. And you can play like that, Opening the legs a little wider and trying to keep them parallel rather than that V that we usually have in a child's pose, Making more space, For the abdomen, For the organs, For the breath and the lungs. And all the breath you're trying to put in the front of your body, See if you can move it to the back of your body. So the shoulder blades spread, The ribs spread, The lungs spread, The low back spreads. You breathe out and all of that just releases. Last few rounds here really deep really rich really full Good, Last breath in. Expand the whole body as you breathe in. Let all of that go as you breathe out. Good. Slide your hands under your shoulders if they aren't already. Press your chest up. Go ahead and walk yourself forward. Back to that all fours. Let those legs release. So stretch them back behind you. Little shifts and little rocks might feel really nice. Good, And this is a place I'm gonna offer an option for a really soft downward facing dog if that's in your practice. So really spongy knees, Hips lift high. You can walk that dog, Rock your chin, Bend one knee, Bend the other knee. Again, If this doesn't feel like strain or too much muscular work, A down dog might feel nice. Good, And then ease your knees back down to the ground. Perfect. We'll have one more posture where we're on our knees. So again, If you need that knee padding, Go ahead and place your blanket back down anywhere you want. I'll face you, But you can face any way you want. For this one, Our knees and our ankle bones are going to go hip bone width distance, And we are going to be kneeling. So again, Blanket underneath the knees might work nicely. And a denser prop is going to feel nice in between your ankle bones. You want to sit your butt bones down on that prop. So if you're someone that's sitting on your heels, No problem for you at all. You might not need a prop. For a lot of us, Though, Sitting on our heels can get pretty intense after a moment or two. So that's where the prop comes in handy. And the more props, The less strain. Or sensation you get in the knees. So even higher for some of you might be better. Also an idea to take your blanket, Roll it up nice and thin, Wedge it into your knee creases. So as you sit down, The knees can't bend quite as deeply as they can, And you get a little more space in the joints. So play around until you find a place that feels manageable. I'm going to drop down to one of my blocks to start. For here, We're looking to be on the tops of the feet. Our toes are pointed straight back behind us. Some of us have availability in our ankles that pulls our feet wide. And then the toes point out, Our ankles don't naturally bend like this. So we don't want to encourage that. So let your feet tuck in. Good, Some of you might be getting sensation in the quads or the outer knees, A nice little stretch right away. For some of us, We're gonna feel it in the tops of the feet. We're gonna feel it in the ankles and the shins, Right? So those are the stiffer joints, So that's where your work is there. Everyone relax your toes, Slide your shoulders down your back and sit up a little bit taller and just breathe. We want happy knees, So you might be feeling a little stretch, But we don't want anything sharp or shooting, Anything unmanageable or unbreathable. Back out, Add more props underneath your butt bones to give yourself more space. Good. You're already about a minute in. If this is plenty where you are, I want you to stay where you are. Perfect. Just live there. For those of us that are on a prop and we're feeling okay, We've kind of lost sensation in any of the major joints and it just sort of feels nice where we are. You can reach down and move your prop out of the way. You'll spread your knees and feet a little bit wider and draw yourself to sit in between your ankle bones. So that's a big drop depending on how high your props were. So if you're on multiple props, You start by moving one prop at a time, Lowering down, Give yourself a couple of breaths. Maybe you will lower all the way down to the ground. If you got there and it's too much, I want you to Let that go. Use your hands to lift you up. Prop goes underneath the butt bones. Again, We're listening to the knees here. We never want to sacrifice our knees for anything. We don't want to buy new knees. They're expensive. They don't work as well. You want your knees. Good. Again, Making sure the feet are pointing straight back in space. Jaw soft, Shoulders soft, Lots of breath. Wrapping the inner thighs in. I know it looks funny, But this is a natural movement for your legs. This is an inward rotation. The whole inner thigh is rolling in. The knees are joining happily as well. Give your toes another wiggle. Keep breathing. Hands can lightly press into the earth for support. Props can go under the hands. Where can you get rid of the tension? Where can you allow more space to just continue to breathe? This shape does have several other layers for a little more depth, But today we'll just stay right here, Upright, And enjoy the sensation through the feet, The ankles, And the hips. You're almost there, Last few rounds. Really nice work, Big full breath in. Gentle soft breath out. Good. Lightly crawl your hands in front of you. You're going to press down to lift up off of your legs. Move your prop out of the way. Again, You stay facing where you are. I'll turn sideways so you can see. You'll move forward into all fours and those same releases of the legs we did before. So you're going to extend that leg behind you. You can pat the feet. You can find that really soft down dog, Anything that felt good in that area. That's where we want to be. Good, And then we're gonna head down onto our back just to neutralize our spine before we close out our practice. So go ahead and ease yourself down onto your back. Draw your knees in towards your belly, Little rock side to side. Good, And to let go of the low back, We'll find some really soft twists here. So arms T out to the side, Take a full breath in. Exhale, Knees just soften over towards the right. Often when the knees drop, The left shoulder blade lifts up, Which is normal, But see if you can nudge your right shoulder blade farther to the right, Lay your left shoulder blade down, And for the moment, Just drop your chin towards the right. Check in with your knees, Your legs. You can unbend them any amount, And the bottom leg might wanna straighten even more, And that's fine. We're not looking for a perfect shape here. We're just looking for space in the side body, The front of the hips. So that left hip bone's gonna draw down away from the face. Breathe into the left ribcage. Take a full breath in. Take a full breath out. Good, Inhale. The same as you exhale, Let your chin soften over to the left and then breathe here full and deep in. Full and deep out. Last one, Breath in. Breath out. Good, Inhale both knees into your belly, Little rock, Side to side. Exhale, Both knees over to the left. Start with your chin facing to the left. Adjust or readjust. For me, The right side tends to be tighter, So it takes a little more negotiation. Then you send your breath into the right ribcage here. Breath in. Breath out. Good, Inhale. Exhale, You settle your chin over to the right. Stay here, Breathe in nice and wide. Big, Soft breath out. Good, Gently send both knees back into your belly. Give those knees a little squeeze just to settle the low back down. Take one more full inhale. Exhale, Melt your legs long, Spread your arms wide. Pentacle pose to seal out our practice. And as always, If your low back is tender, You find a broken bridge. So feet wide, Knees knock in, Low back spreads. Palms face up wherever you have landed, Eyes blink closed. Take a moment to press into your skull, Slide your shoulders out of your ears, And just land your body. Just breathe in. And just breathe out. Let go of any of those last little bits of work that you're doing mentally, Physically. Let go of any tugging on the breath and just float. I will guide you out when it is time. Depending on where you are, You might want to look at that. If it's hot, It's bad. You Okay. I've done it up. As always, If you need a little more time just to be here to rest and receive, There's absolutely no rush. Stay exactly as you are. If you're ready to move back into your day or night, Soft movement in the fingers and toes. Maybe a nice big stretch like you just woke up. Allow the body to peel apart and expand. Exhale your knees into your belly, Soft, Gentle rock side to side. Settle yourself into a fetal position on either side. Let your free arm slide under like a little pillow for your head. Let yourself rest. You take a moment, Breathe in anything you want to seal in from your practice. Breathe out and let go of anything that got in the way of that practice. Let your free hand draw you up to a nice tall seat. Good. Legs crossed into Sukhasana, Easy pose if that feels good to you. Readjust the body, Sit up nice and tall, Let the head flow. So here we are right where we started class, Maybe eyes closed or soft gaze down. Maybe palms rest on the legs to ground now after your practice or palms face up. And we go back to that soft, Smooth, Rhythmic breath. Full deep breath in. Full, Soft breath out. Lip seal if it's available. More breath into the belly. Breath in. Breath out. Let the skull move back in space, The neck gets longer, The jaw gets softer. On your next inhale, Slowly ease your arms up above your head. Nice big stretch through the whole body. Maybe even gaze up towards the sky. Breath in. Exhale, Your palms touch, Hands come to your heart space. Breathe in fully, Deeply. Open mouth sigh out. Settle your chin into your chest in an action of gratitude for your practice, For all of the work you did, The effort, The energy, The courage it took for you to step on your mat. To slow down, To be patient and listen is no easy task. And is always a moment of gratitude for you. For who you are, For all you do, And for where you are on your journey. You trust that it is enough. Because you yourself are enough. Namaste. Thank you all so much. If you are still resting, Continue to rest. There's no rush. And everyone else, I will see you soon. Bye.