Chair Yoga QiYoga

QiYoga is an accessible form of movement that combines gentle yoga and mindful energy practices to support healing and restoration. Using a chair for support, it offers many of yoga’s restorative benefits while helping improve flexibility, strength, balance, and overall well-being. It is ideal for people of all ages and abilities, including those with physical limitations, mobility challenges, or anyone who prefers not to get on the floor.

Transcript

If you have a block or strap, Please make sure you have that for our class today. We're gonna need it because we are gonna work on building our legs, Strengthening our legs today. Just a heads up, You'll drink a lot of water, Have some electrolytes, You may be sore tomorrow. So it's important to just really honor your body today as we go through this practice. Um, Is there something else? I think that's it. So we're gonna start out actually by standing. If you're choosing not to stand, You can do all of this stuff sitting down. So you choose what works for you. I'm gonna stand so that I can show you in a standing posture. Again, You can do this standing, Sitting as well. All right, So your feet a little wider than your hips, Slight bend in the knees, Right? Lengthen your spine. We're gonna take three breaths, Right? You can close your eyes if you feel comfortable doing that. Do that again. One more time. Good, Take a moment to notice how does your body feel? How does your feet feel on the ground? Do you feel any type of heaviness, Lightness, Discomfort, Density, Pain, Stiffness, Tension, Anything that you're feeling, Just notice it. Great, If you're comfortable now, You can keep your eyes closed or have them gently open and you're just gonna start to shake your arms. Good, And then lift the shoulders up and let them drop. Lift the shoulders up and let them drop. Lift the shoulders up and let them drop. Good, And then just shake including the shoulders. So maybe you make circles with your arms, Circle the other way, Just starting to really lubricate our arm joints, Our tendons and our arms and shoulders, Our wrists, Flip your wrists, Open and close your fingers, Just shake those arms. Good, All right. So now just kind of bounce with the knees soft and again, You can do this sitting down, Right? Just kind of bounce, Right? And now we're gonna alternate hips here, Shaking those hips out, Good. Let the shoulders and the arms get involved in this, Right? Maybe the arms go up, Get the head to shake, Right? You can stick your booty back, Turn the hips in circles, Right, Just kind of shake it all out, Good. And if you feel good sitting down or standing still, You can go ahead and do that. But if you feel like lifting your feet and just kind of moving around and shaking, Please go ahead and do that, Right? Shaking is so good for your nervous system, It's great for your joints and your tendons, Bringing fluid, Awesome. And then just take a moment, Find stillness once again, Take a nice long, Deep breath in, Exhale it out. Again, Good. Slightly separate your feet slightly wider than your hips and knees are bent. Now we're gonna do that twisting motion that we did last week, Where you just kind of go from side to side. And again, You can be doing this sitting down as well, Just twisting the upper body. Okay, And now we're going to tap the top of our shoulders and the back of the kidney so that we're getting the lung and the kidney meridians here, Just kind of tapping and tapping to wake up the body. Good, And then we're gonna slowly soften and come back to stillness. Great, And now we're just gonna tap our arms, Just tap either with a flat palm or a gentle fist, Tap, Right, Get into the armpit, Tap the side of the body here, Over to the back of that right side of your neck, And then just stop for a moment and notice, Breathe in. Breathe in. Can you feel energy moving on that whole right side? All right, Other side. So tap up and down the arms, The shoulders, Armpit, Side of the chest, The waist, The rib cage. Good, And then again, Let's just feel that energy moving. What does that feel like? Yeah, Bring your hands to your chest and you're gonna tap the top of your chest. All right, Go for your head here, Tap your head, Back of your head, Above the ears, Just tap, Forehead, Top of the cheeks, Tap. Really, Really good for anxiety, Great for your nervous system, Great for fatigue, And then we're gonna circle the belly. All right, Gently circle the belly. Good, And now we're gonna tap back of our low back here where the kidneys are, We're just gonna tap. Good, You can always rub if tapping doesn't work for you. Right, And now we're gonna tap our buttocks. Get in there to the buttocks. Right, Good, And then bring your fist to the area where your legs and your pelvis meet and we're gonna tap right in there, That hip joint there. It's really important to tap there because we get a lot of energy stuck there from all of our sitting. Good, And then we're gonna tap the outside of our hips. Now we're gonna tap down towards our knees, Keeping our back flat, And again, Only if you can reach with a flat back down towards your ankles when you reach down. Right, So the back is flat as you're doing this. You're not rounding your back. You can do this sitting in a chair. Get the tops of your thighs all the way down. Get the inner thighs. Backs of your knees, So important here. Calves. Good, And then come to stand. Take a breath here. And just notice the energy that's moving in the body. Beautiful. All right, We're gonna do our ocean breathing, Okay? So again, This can be done sitting down, All right? First, We're gonna start with just the shifting of the body going forward and back, Right? So as I mentioned, Right, It looks like this. It's just a shift forward and back, Right? You're just shifting your weight from the toes to the heels. This is really great for working balance as well, Right? Shifting weight front and back, Right? We are not hinging. We're not leading with the chest. We're not leading with the chin, Right? We're keeping our body upright, And we're just shifting our weight front and back. Beautiful, Okay. Now, Find stillness. We're gonna do the arms, Right? So inhale, Arms go up. Exhale, They come down, Right? Inhale, Arms go up. Exhale, Arms come down. Now notice I said arms, Right? I didn't say inhale, Lift the shoulders up and bring the shoulders down, Right? We keep the shoulders where they are. Of course, They're gonna move slightly because they are connected to your arms, Right? But I want this to come from the arms. Imagining you've got these two big balloons that inflate and they lift the arms up, And as you exhale, They lift the arms down. Now, If you are going like this and flapping your arms, That means you're breathing like this. Yeah, I want it to follow your breath. So slow the breath down, Right? Exhale it down. If you were counting your breath, It would be like a four or five count breath in, Four or five count breath out, Okay? Now that you have that, We're gonna put those two pieces together. So as you inhale, Right? You're gonna lean forward and the arms are gonna go up. And as you exhale, You're gonna bring your back to the heels and arms come down, Right? So inhale, Exhale. Good. So look back from the side, Inhale and exhale. Inhale, Good, Inhale. Keeping the heels and the toes on the floor, Slowing the breath down, Imagining yourself on a beautiful ocean and a glorious water. It's clear, It's safe. You're up to your hips. And as a gentle wave comes, You move forward with the wave and then you move back. Yeah, Inhale moves you forward. Right? If you have any balance issues, You can hold on with one hand. You can alternate, Right? You don't have to move forward and back. If you have anything going on with balance, You can just move the arms and breathe. That's important. Good. And then bring your hands at the front of your belly, Navel area. See if you can feel it. Feel the energy there between the hands. Right? And then as you inhale, Open the arms out and bring them back. Good. Open the arms out and bring them back. One more time. Open the arms out and bring them back. Beautiful. All right. So now bring the palms in the front of your chest. Right? You're gonna circle around. One hand just circling. I don't care which hand it is. Stay right in front of your chest, Right? Your breast muscle right there. Right? So I don't want the arm going this way. I don't want the arm going up or too low. Just stay in the front of your chest. Right? Beautiful. Let that hand come to stillness and let's take the other arm. Right? Just circle around. Circle around. Good. Beautiful. Now let's see if we can do both at the same time. So circle. Right? We wanna move the energy around our chest and breast and upper torso. This is really good if you've got dense breasts or any fear of anything happening to your breast, Your lymphs. Right? Great. And then find stillness. Hands in the navel. Take a breath in. Slowly let it out. We're gonna expand again and bring it back. And then again, Expand again and bring it back. One more time. Inhale. Exhale. Good. Let's bring our hands to our heart. Right? Right to the center here. And then again, We're open and close. Right? So you've got this ball of energy and you're gonna open and expand it to all your koshas, All your levels here. Right? Your energetic, Your physical, Your mental, Your breath, Right? Just moving it in and expanding it. Beautiful. Now we're gonna come to the third, Which is right where your head is, And you're gonna expand the energy out. Right? With your breath, Expand the energy out. One more time. Expand the energy out. Good. And then put the hands on the forehead and slowly bring it all back down to your belly. Right? And just take a moment to notice how you're feeling. Okay, Great. Come back to your chairs. You're gonna take hold of your strap and your block. Come sit forward on your chair and you're gonna place the block in the front of your left foot. Now, If you are not using a block, That's absolutely okay. Your foot can stay on the floor. Okay? The height of the block is completely personal. Right? It can be on the highest height, The middle, The lowest, Or once again, You do not need to use a block. You can just place it on your heel on the floor. You're gonna take your left heel and you're gonna place it on the block. At whatever height is comfortable for you. Okay? You're gonna take your strap and you're gonna place the strap on the ball of your foot here. Wanna make sure that our knee is not hyperextended, That we can see all five of our toes as much as possible. And we're gonna lengthen the spine. And hinging from the hip crease, We're gonna start to walk our hands a little further down, A little further down, A little further down. We're gonna make sure that our core is engaged, Our spine is nice and long. You're gonna start to feel this in the back of that leg, The hamstring, Maybe even the calf muscle. Take a nice, Long, Deep breath in here. Exhale it out. Right? Really creating some space where there may be tightness and tension in the back of that leg. Once again, Take a breath in and out. Beautiful. Sit up nice and tall. Take the strap into your left hand. We're gonna lift the leg up off the block or the floor. We're gonna take the leg out to the side and maybe the right arm lifts up to the side as well. Bring that leg back through center. We're gonna switch the hand that's holding and the left arm comes open and maybe you bring your gaze to look at your hand. And then we're gonna come back to center. We're gonna put the heel back down on the block. Take a moment, Find your breath. Put the strap in both hands. I'm gonna do something before we do this. Remove the strap. I meant to do this in the beginning, Okay? Keeping the foot where it is, I want you to put your hand on that thigh muscle, Right on top, Okay? Now, Often I give this instruction where I say lift the thigh muscle from the kneecap up into the hip. And I've been getting this question, Like, Akka, What does that mean, Right? What does it mean to lift the thigh muscle, Right? It's actually a contraction of that muscle, Right? So if I just asked you to contract that muscle, Right, You could just contract it and feel the tightness around that thigh muscle. Can everybody feel that? Thumbs up, Okay. Now, Instead of thinking about contraction, Which usually what happens is we, This is what happens to the muscle. We contract like this, Okay? You're still doing that, But I want you to think about lifting that muscle up. So not only is it contracting, But it's also expanding and lengthening, Okay? So as you contract, You lift. Now, As soon as you do that, That hip slightly moves back and your core engages. Do you feel that, Okay? That muscle should be really, Really tight, Right? Now, Release it. We're gonna do that again, Right? So inhale, Lift the muscle as you contract it, Feel your core engage, But you gotta keep breathing. You can't hold your breath because you're holding the muscle. And then we relax and release, Okay? So now you're gonna take the strap back onto the ball of your foot. Okay, Take a breath here. Now, You're gonna contract that muscle, Right? And lift the foot. It doesn't have to go very far up off the chair. Now, The strap is helping you because you're holding onto your leg, But I want that to come from that thigh muscle, Okay? You're gonna move your heel from side to side using the thigh muscle from one edge of the block to the other edge of the block if you're using it. Great, Now you're gonna come to the center and you're gonna circle the heel as if you were circling a nickel, A nickel, A nickel. How many nickels is that? Four, Let's go the other way, Right? Let's count, How many nickels do we have now? That's eight nickels. Great, Put the heel down, Sit up nice and tall, Lean forward, And then just tap that thigh muscle or stroke it, Right? You should feel that, Right? And when we're contracting that muscle, We're bringing the muscle to the bone and that helps to support the bones of the body. It also, When we contract and release, We're creating circulation there and that gives the bones, Ooh, Let's produce more bones, Okay? All right, So now we're gonna do the same thing, But this time I'm gonna give you the option of not using your strap, Okay? So if it was challenging with using the strap, Please stay with using the strap. If you wanna try using the strap and then let it go later, That's also fine. All right, So here we go. We're gonna contract this muscle, The leg lifts, Okay? We're gonna go from side to side, Side to side, Side to side, Side to side. You can hold onto the chair if that helps. You're gonna point and flex, Point and flex, Point and flex, Point and flex. Now you got a dime, You got a dime, Circle the dime, Circle the dime. Okay, Mine looks like a quarter, But it's okay. Circle it around, Circle it around, Circle it around, Circle it around and then bend the knee and bring the thigh into the chest. Ooh, I hope you felt that, Yeah? And then put the ankle on the opposite thigh, Right? You can massage the thigh muscle out. We'll stretch that quad muscle, I promise, All right? Flex the ankle of the foot that's on top, Right? You can take the variation where you're on the floor or on a block or on the inside of your foot, All right? Sit up nice and tall, Hinge forward, Feel the stretch down that glute muscle. Breathe, Relax the shoulders and take another breath here. Good, Inhale, Rise up, Place that foot back on the floor and you're gonna move the block over to the other side, Take a hold of your strap, Place the right heel on top. Okay, Sit up nice and tall, Okay? And before we use the strap, Let's work on contracting this muscle, Right? Because we have been doing this for a long time, Two sides and one side may be different than the other, I want you to kind of get used to that contraction idea. So here we go, We're gonna contract the muscle and lift it up, Right? When I do that, My leg automatically lifts, Right? I'm not using my hip flexor to lift my leg up, I'm using my thigh muscle. So here we go, Lift and then release. One more time, Lift and then release, Great. Take the strap, Place it on the ball of your foot, Sit up nice and tall, Hinging from the hip, You're gonna come forward, Slight bend in that knee. If you wanna deepen the stretch, You can walk your hands a little further down, Find the length in the spine, Breathing in and breathing out. Take another breath here, Good. And then inhale, Rise up, Take the strap into your right hand and we're gonna open the leg out to the side. You can take the left arm up if that feels good to you, Wiggle those fingers, Turn the edges of your mouth up, Smile, Good. Take that leg back through center, Switch the hand that's holding, Take the right arm back, Feel that stretch, Good. Come back to center, Put the heel back down on the block. All right, Hands on either side, Sitting up nice and tall, We're gonna contract that thigh muscle once again. Now, As you do this, Press the other foot into the floor and see if that helps you. Okay, So here we go. Press and lift, Right? And you're gonna go from right to left, Right to left, Right to left, Right to left, Back to center, Circle it around, Circle it around. It's a nickel. So we had eight nickels on one side, We're gonna have eight nickels on the other side. How much money does that make? 80 cents maybe, Good. All right, Put the heel back down, Sit up nice and tall and lean forward. Take a stretch here, Okay? Now you have the option of removing the strap. You can put the hands on either side of your chair if that helped to give you support, Right? Again, It's about the contraction of this muscle, All right? Here we go, Inhale, Lift by contracting that muscle. We're gonna go right to left, Right to left, Right to left. Keep your core engaged, Smile, And we're gonna point and flex and point and flex and point and flex and point and flex. And we're gonna circle it around and circle it around. You're almost there. Remember we wanna make, This is dimes now. So how many dimes do we have now, Right? Four dimes and four dimes is 80 cents. And now we have another 80 cents here, So $1. 60, Look at how much money we're making. And we're gonna bend the knee and we're gonna bring it into the chest. Good, And then place the ankle on the opposite thigh, Sit up nice and tall, And hinge forward, Right? Again, Feel the stretch, Breathe through it. So most of my in-person clients told me they had to sleep and take naps after this class. So if you need that, Go ahead and take it. I'm giving you permission to nap this afternoon. Not that you need my permission. All right, Come on up and release. Open up your knees and your feet sitting forward on your chairs. And let's circle around the hips. Good, And we're gonna circle the other way. Then we're gonna come to center. We're gonna bring the belly and the chest forward. The chin is gonna lift. We're gonna lift, Lengthen the spine, Bring our chin to our chest, And do this again. Inhale, Lift, Lengthen, Exhale. One more time, And lift, Lengthen, Exhale. Good, Let's take the block, Place it between our feet in the middle, Sitting up nice and tall. Bring our hands to our heart center, Interlacing the fingers, Finding that Kali Mudra, The index fingers pointing. Inhale, We're gonna lift up through the pelvic floor. Rise up, Arms are as straight as possible. Relax the shoulders. We're gonna lean over to the right. Come back to center. We're gonna lean over to the left. Come back to center. We're gonna bend and open the arms into cactus, Squeezing the shoulder blades together. We're gonna lift our heels, Coming into our goddess pose, Keeping our elbows nice and back. Beautiful, Flatten the feet. We're gonna take the right elbow to right thigh. Again, Hand can come to your hip or your shoulder or alongside your ear, Softening the shoulders, Turning that right ribcage up. Inhale, Rise up, Left elbow on thigh, Taking the variation with your right arm that works best for your practice today. Beautiful, And then we're gonna swing that arm down, Both elbows on thighs, Hinging from your hips, Gazing at what the wall and the floor meet. Your back is flat. You're gonna put your right hand on your right thigh and you're gonna take your left arm up to the sky. And then you're gonna bring that hand to your left thigh and you're gonna take that right arm up to the sky. And then you're gonna bring that down and you're gonna press yourself up into a seated posture. And just take a moment to notice how you feel. Hands together at your heart center, Interlace, Kali Mudra, Inhale, Lift, Lengthen. Exhale, Lean to the side. Come on back with your breath. Lean to the other side. Come on back with your breath. Bend those elbows, Squeeze the shoulder blades together at the back of the body. Lift the heels, Finding your goddess pose, Pressing all 10 toes down. Flatten the feet, Left elbow this time, Finding the right arm where it needs to be for your practice today. Come on back to center, Right elbow, Left arm reaches. Beautiful, Come back to center, Both elbows on thighs. Now, If this was challenging before or was taking you to your edge, You're gonna stay right here. You're gonna do your twists, Putting your hands on your knees. Otherwise, You're gonna put your right hand on the block and take the left arm straight up. Good, And then bring the left hand on the block and take the right arm straight up. Great, And then take that right hand down, Put both hands on the block or keep them on your thigh and you're gonna reach the block as far forward as you can. Sit bones back, Feeling the support on your back, Feeling the stretch, Letting your head be in alignment with your spine or tucking your chin in if that feels good. And then inhale, Take the block into your right hand, Put your left hand on your thigh. Take the block to the inside of your right foot. Plant your fingers or your hands on the block, Take the left arm up. Again, You can place the hand on your thigh, Your shoulder or reach up. Beautiful, Take the left hand to the block, Bring that to your left inner foot and then take that right arm up for a stretch. Awesome, Come back to your center, Put the block in the middle, Both hands on your thighs, Rise up. Great, Bring your left knee in, You'll feel a stretch in that thigh. Come on back, Right knee in. Okay, Great. All right. So now we're gonna stretch our quad muscles, Those thigh muscles that you worked so hard. So the seated variation, I'm gonna show you the seated variation first, But then we're gonna stand and do it for anybody who wants to join me in standing. But for the seated variation, You're gonna come to one side. If you need the support of a block, You're gonna take it, You're gonna put your knee on the block. You're gonna hold on with your hand to the back of the chair. Okay, And then you're gonna reach back and you're gonna grab your foot. If grabbing your foot is not accessible today, Just bring the foot to the heel or you can take your strap and you can put your foot into the strap. Right, And then lift the foot towards your heel like so. And when you're doing this, Remember what I said, Lift the thigh muscle up into your hip, Okay? Now you can do that just with the foot on the floor in this position, Right? Contract that muscle, Lift it up, And you're gonna feel a whole stretch down the thigh and into that hip flexor, Right? That muscle that gets really tight from sitting. Okay, So this is the seated variation. You know what? We're gonna do a seated variation on the other side and then I will show it to you standing up and then we can repeat it because quad stretch, Repeated is a good thing. So coming to the other side, Right? And again, You don't have to pick the foot up. You can hold it with a strap. You can hold your, You know, Your pant leg or you can hold your sock, Right? There's many variations here. But the most important thing is really about keeping the hips square and lifting and engaging that muscle just as we did when we're doing those leg lifts, Right? We engage that thigh muscle. So you're engaging that thigh muscle. You're gonna feel your glute fire up as you feel the stretch in the front of that leg. Great, And then relax and let it go. All right, So now I'm gonna do this standing up. If you're not standing up with me, You're just gonna repeat one side and then the other when I ask you to do that, All right? So if you're standing up, You're gonna take your strap. You're gonna come and stand on the side of your chair. Okay, Now the leg that's on the outside, Right, Is the knee that goes to the chair. The leg that's on the outside is the knee that goes on top of the chair, Okay? You're gonna take a hold of your ankle or your foot or your sock or your pant leg or you're gonna take your strap. You're gonna put it around your leg, Your foot, And you can grab it this way as well, Right? So many variations, Whatever you are choosing, Right? Take a hold. Without taking the knee off of the chair, Just lift that muscle up and feel that stretch and then relax it. And then lift it up and then relax it, Great. Now, If that felt okay, I want you to take the knee off the chair, Look down, I wanna make sure that both knees are next to each other, Right? I don't want the knee forward or out to the side or way back here, Right? We wanna try to get the knees to be in alignment to each other and then we're gonna press down with our standing leg and we're gonna lift the muscle of that thigh up. Now you're working on your balance and you're strengthening the glute muscle on the other side as you're stretching the thighs. You're also stretching your chest muscles here. Beautiful, And then release. March it out and walk over to the other side of the chair because now we're gonna put the other knee on top. Mm-hmm. Take a hold of your foot if you're gonna do that. Knee stays on the chair and you're going to lift that muscle up and then relax it. Lift that muscle up and relax it. One more time, Lift that muscle up and relax it and then we're gonna take the knee as an option off of the chair, Holding onto the chair if you need for balance and then again, Lift the muscle up, Press the standing leg into the floor for support. If you really wanna play with balance, You could take your hands off the chair, Right? That's optional. All of this helps to build bones and now we're gonna release and we're gonna walk it out. Just walk it out, March it out. Okay, Great. Come back to your chair and find a seat. You're gonna take your block. For this next little series, You can cross at the ankle, Okay, Or place the block on the outside of your right foot, Cross at the knee and let your foot rest on top of the block, Okay? So you're crossing your knees and you're putting your foot on the block or you are crossing at the ankles, Okay? I'm gonna demo this side, Crossing at the ankles. So your left ankle is crossed or your left knee is on top of the right, Okay? Inhale, Open the arms nice and wide. Maybe you lift the chin, Lift the chest and then as you exhale, Bring the arms forward and you're gonna take your left arm on top of the right, Give yourself a nice big hug here, Okay? If this feels good, Stay just like this or if you wanna deepen the stretch, Backs of the hands come together or they touch or you intertwine the wrists. Lower the shoulders, No matter what you're doing, Lift the elbows up, Bring the hands away from your face. All right, Here comes the movement. Inhale, Lift the elbows, Lift the chest. Exhale, Bring the chin into your chest. Inhale, Lift the elbows, Lift the chest. Exhale, Bring it in. One more time, Inhale, Lift up. Exhale, Bring it in. Sit up nice and tall, Unwind, Open the arms into cactus. Take that left leg, Lift it up off the floor, Engage your core. Take that leg straight, Point, Flex, Bend the knee, Hug it in, Take a hold of your shin or your knee. Good, And then release. Shake it out. Good, Now take the block over to the other side. Again, You can cross at ankles or this time I'm gonna demo crossing knees over, Placing my foot on the block. The block doesn't have to be high, It can be low if that's what you need for your body today. Sitting up nice and tall, Inhale, Lift the arms out, Lift the chest, Exhale, Right elbow on top of left. Give yourself a hug, Hold it right here if that feels good or the backs of the hands or the intertwining here. Shoulders down, Elbows lift, Hands away from the face. Inhale, Lift the chest, Lift the elbows. Exhale, Chin and your elbows tuck into the chest. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. One more time, Inhale, Exhale. Lift the elbows, Open the arms into your cactus. Take your foot up off, Let it hover. Beautiful, Engage that thigh muscle, Stretch that leg out, Point it, Flex it, Bend the knee, And then give yourself a nice big hug right here. Good, Plant the foot and open and close. All right. Roll the shoulders. Great, Let's take our left ear to left shoulder. Bring our chin into our chest. Right ear to right shoulder. Lift up back through center, Open up the mouth. Ah, Again, Ah, Beautiful. Nice, Long, Deep breath in, Arms out. Exhale it all the way down. All right, So we're gonna do one more pose here and it's gonna be in increments like we've been doing. We haven't done this in a long time. You're gonna take your block, You're gonna place it on the side of the chair. Let's do the right side first. Okay, You're gonna take your left leg, You're gonna bring it out to the side. So the toes point forward, The knee points forward. If you need to move that other leg because you need a little bit more space, Go ahead and just, You adjust as you need to, Okay? Now, The foot that's on the floor, I want you to lift the pinky toe side up so that you're coming to the instep of the foot, Right? So it's not flat anymore, It's lifted. If this is not working for you today, Keep the foot down on the floor, Okay? Otherwise, You lift it. All right, Then you're gonna take your hand to the block. You're not gonna rest on the block, Right? It's just a gentle weight. You're gonna put your left hand on your hip, Open that left shoulder, Turning that right ribcage up. Press the inner edge of that left leg into the floor so you have this nice, Long, Straight line from the heel to the top of your head. Now, If this is going well, Take the hand to the shoulder or straight up, Coming into your variation of a side plank. Now, If you wanna make this harder, Take your hand off of your block. Engage your core, Engage that side core. Take a breath here. Inhale, Rise up, Open the arms, Swing that left arm down, Right arm up for counter-stretch. And then inhale, Come on back up to center, Plant your foot, Sit up nice and tall, Take a breath. Okay, Same side. We're gonna make this a little more challenging. I know you can do it, Okay? But you don't have to. You can just repeat what we just did, Right? So here we go. We flex the foot so that the inside of the foot is on the floor and the pinky side is lifted. We bring our hands to the block, Okay? You can put your other hand on your hip. I actually need to walk this foot in because you're gonna press the right foot into the floor as you lift the other leg up off the floor. So your left leg lifts up off the floor and then maybe the arm comes up, Maybe the other arm comes out, Coming into your side plank pose. Do you feel it? Ooh, Come on up, Put the foot down, Swing back, Feel that stretch. And then come on up and bring your leg back in. Take a breath. Why do we do side plank? We do side plank because these are your stabilizing muscles for walking and balance, Right? So it's really important to strengthen those muscles. So bring the block on the other side, Take your right leg out to the side, Toes point forward, Knee points forward, Then turn the foot so that the big toe side is on the floor and the pinky side's lifted. Option to put your hand on the block, Right hand on your hip. Now you wanna make sure that your left hand isn't like out there and you're not gonna have any balance or so far in that you can't really find your balance. It's gotta be right under your shoulder here, Okay? And then take arm up, Foot still on the floor here on this one, Right? You can also take the other hand off if you wanna really feel the muscles working on that side body, Beautiful. Inhale, Rise up, Right arm down, Left arm reaches up for a stretch. Take a breath. Okay? Good, Come back to your center and just notice how you're feeling. Okay? Once again, Turn the foot, Hand on the block, Right hand on your hip, Turning that left ribcage up, Press the left foot into the floor to lift the leg up off the floor and then take the variation that works for you. Maybe you release the hands, Maybe you don't, Maybe you hold on to the chair, That works better for you, Okay? And then you rise up, Put the foot down, Swing back and then come back to center. Bring your hands and feet together and just open and close. Great. Sit up nice and tall, Belly forward, Chest forward, Lift, Lengthen, Chin into your chest. Sit up nice and tall, Interlace the fingers, Reach the arms forward and again, Tuck your chin into your chest. Then inhale, Rise up with the arms, Exhale, Open wide, Turn the palms up, Slide the elbows back. Sit back if you need to, To find comfort here. Take a nice, Long, Deep breath in, Sigh it out. Do this again. Close your eyes if that feels comfortable for you. And let's just scan your body, Softening as you work your way up from the toes to the knees. Soften the hips and the belly. Relax your back and the shoulders. Lifting up the front body, Soften your jaw, Muscles of your face, All the way up to the crown of your head. Gently placing the tip of your tongue at the roof of the mouth or behind your teeth, Letting your jaw relax. Take a nice, Long, Deep breath in. Slowly bringing yourself back into this time and space. Start to wiggle your fingers and your toes. And then gently bring your hands to your heart center, Bowing in gratitude. Just take a moment to notice how you're feeling. And if there's a quality of this practice, You'd like to cultivate into your day, You're welcome to join me in chanting Aum to close our practice. Take a breath in with my gratitude and the light that shines within my heart to yours, I bow. Namaste. Thanks so much, Everybody.