Namaste everyone.
Peace and blessing to you.
I am Opinia.
Today's class I hope is going to support anyone of you who identify yourself as an inflexible person.
I hope this class will make you feel different.
It will make you feel empowered and make you feel realize that you actually can do something about your very stiff muscles.
However,
I hope you come to the class with at least a strap,
Two blocks,
And I will do my best to help you out.
Well,
Let's go.
All right,
Are you ready?
I would love you to come down onto your mat and start by lying down onto your back,
Please.
When your back touch the mat,
Extend your arms over your head and extend your leg to the opposite side.
See that if you can't interleave the fingers and press the palms away from you with the feeling comfortable at your shoulders or not.
If that is not happening,
Then release that finger cross and just have your arms alongside the ears.
You can have your palm facing up and take a deep breath in and exhale.
Just kind of push your arms away from you and pull your toes away from you.
Lengthen out.
Inhale,
Relax.
Once again,
Length,
Opposite direction,
Arms and legs.
One more.
Deep breath,
Exhale,
Length.
Point your toes and then start to stretch to the left,
Stretch to the right.
If you want to give like holding your wrist a try,
See if that works.
Keep moving.
If not,
Don't worry.
I want your shoulder to feel safe,
That it has enough space to rest on the floor.
Do one more on each side,
Please.
Lengthen and lengthen.
And then you come back to stop.
Open your arms out like wing palms facing up and start rocking your hips side to side.
Inhale nice and deep.
Exhale,
Let it go and keep rocking your hips side to side right here.
Exhale once again deeply.
And stop rocking your hips.
Bring your arms and the legs up towards the sky with your elbows and your knees bent.
After that,
Shake.
Shake,
Shake,
Shake.
This one is called bug pose.
Have you ever put the bug turned upside down?
You see like the arm,
The leg kind of swimming in the air.
That's what you are doing.
Just shake the muscle,
Shake the wrist and ankles.
And you are going to hold the little toe side edge of your feet.
I actually should not even go there.
Grab,
Change my mind,
A strap.
And then place a strap at the ball of your feet.
Open your feet wider than your trunk,
Bend your knees and make sure that your knees can go toward the floor and on the sides of your torso while your feet are up toward the ceiling.
Kick into the strap slightly and pull your knee toward the floor a little bit more.
Feel that your legs muscles are engaged but not too engaged.
Just enough and then rock your hips side to side.
Check with your jaw often.
You will be surprised how easy it is for you to tighten your jaw and also shorten your breath.
We need to do the opposite which means that you have to relax your jaw and breathe deeply and fully.
One more breath right here and exhales fully.
Awesome.
Then take away the strap and bring your feet toward the floor and let them meet.
Your arms go out like wing palms facing up once again and start to open your knees out to the side and have the soles of your feet to touch.
Your knee will stop somewhere.
It depends on how tight you are in your adductor muscles and then when you have that and just start rocking your hips again side to side.
You're gonna feel that your knees move up and down toward the floor and away from the floor.
A couple more breaths right here please.
Exhale.
Let it go.
One more inhale.
One more exhale.
Stop rocking your hips.
Draw your knees up and toward one another.
You have to heel to your feet out slightly as well.
Then from here,
Hug your knees toward your chest.
Keep your shoulder on the floor.
If you cannot keep your shoulder on the floor,
What do you do?
Grab a strap and hug your knee with the strap instead.
Your shoulder should not lift because when you do that you will tense up your neck and your shoulder.
I don't want you to have to do that.
When you have that,
Just rock side to side.
Next time when your knees go to the right,
Go all the way to the right.
Go as far as you can.
Extend your left arms out.
Make your left shoulder on the floor.
There are a couple things here.
Once again though,
Make sure that your left shoulder can be on the ground.
If that means your legs have to come off from the floor,
You may have to do that.
However,
You can grab a block.
Put it right on the bottom knee so you bring the floor closer to you.
And you have it there.
Then your left shoulder is on the floor and your knee has a support.
Or maybe you can try to put the block between the thigh and hug it instead.
Sometimes it's the top leg that feels uncomfortable and needs support.
You put the block,
Go as deep into your groin as much as you can and let it rest on the block.
Deal?
See which one works better right now.
And when you have it,
You just stay there and breathe.
Get also to the left shoulder and I want you to close your eyes.
Come back to the breath.
Inhale nice and deep.
Exhale,
Let it go.
Two more breaths,
Please.
Inhale deeply.
Exhale deeply.
And one last breath.
Inhale nice and deep.
And exhale.
Let your bones and your muscles to become heavy.
Then carefully take the block away from your leg wherever it is and bring your legs up center and carefully drop off both of your knees to the left and have your right shoulder on the ground.
Your job is making sure that your right shoulder can be on the floor and if you have to put the block on the floor so your left knee on it or put it between your thigh and hug the leg and your right leg is supported.
You do that.
I like the hugging from my body.
It feels so good.
And then you can use the exhale to really sink the body downward toward the earth.
Allow your neck to kind of go to the right and just stop wherever it is.
And you breathe.
Three more breaths,
Please.
Now you are going to keep your leg where they are but you can take the blocks away from them.
And slowly just turn your body toward that direction with the bottom hand supporting your head.
Bring yourself up and away from the floor,
Okay.
And you can do the same with the other side.
You are going to find your way to a seated position with your legs wide apart,
Okay.
Take your time to get there.
Even go to your inner thighs muscle and roll your inner thigh in back and out as much as you can that your legs when you look at them your knee and your toes can point straight up toward the ceiling.
And many of you,
Trust me,
You're going to sit way back there and your leg is kind of rolled backward and you are going to help yourself.
Your stretch might start right here is to have your hand back behind you and you're going to push your chest up toward the sky and you start to roll your inner thigh in and back,
Okay.
You're going to do your best to get that leg roll inward enough that your knees and your toes point straight up toward the ceiling and you just be happy of that action,
All right.
The hand back behind you,
You might have to use a lot of strength in order to really fight your adductor muscles to be stretched,
Okay.
So you push in the back and chest grow tall and up and your neck is grow tall and up and your inner thigh roll in and back and you breathe.
Take a deep breath in and exhale is when you push into your hand,
Try to get your spine extending upward and forward the best you can.
Two more breaths right here,
No tension on your neck and your jaw please.
One more breath.
And then you kind of relax and roll back just a tad and bend your knee carefully and you are going to extend your legs in front of you and hands back behind you,
High on your fingertips or you can actually make a fist.
I actually even have my fist on the blanket,
I will feel more comfortable.
Seriously some of you are rolling back so much and you know why?
Because your legs muscles are so so strong and they really pull you kind of downward and forward and you are going to kind of help yourself to not go downward but go upward and hands are needed right now,
Right.
So you're going to push and lift and try to go okay inner thigh one leg at a time rolling in back and out and in back and out and make sure that your knee,
Your knees and your toe point straight up toward the sky,
Hand back behind you,
Push into the mat,
Extend your chest up,
Shoulder blade together on your back,
Throat open and breathe.
This is actually more like a Dandasana but if this is where your hamstring can be stretched you stay right here.
However keep breathing,
Your job is that when your hamstrings are loosening up you are going to go a little bit more upward and forward.
Three more breaths please.
Now if you wonder where do you go from you know back to the front,
Now if you can start going forward,
Grab a strap,
Place it at the ball with your knees bent of your feet and then extend it out.
Now you are going to hold yourself back up with your hands in front of you and the help of that kicking of the legs.
Use that in your advantage to really get the spine upright.
All right and then your arms are straight,
Chest is grow up toward the ceiling,
You see that and then breathe.
If you can do a little bit more you can start to go forward and toward the floor.
Just make sure that when you do that your arms are straight,
Okay.
Let's relax slightly,
Hand back behind you,
Shake the legs.
You know what I am thinking,
I am going to repeat these two,
My leg is kind of sliding,
To stretch one last time and I am going to end the class today because it's actually a lot if you are super stiff.
Go back to sitting with your legs apart,
Okay.
You will be surprised,
Stretch it two or three times,
It will give you the ability to feel the flexibility of the muscles,
Okay.
Legs wide apart,
Roll your inner thigh in back and out,
Sit on one leg,
Bend one knee,
Roll your inner thigh in back and out.
First and foremost,
Feel the stretch and bring your chest upright,
Shoulder blades onto your back.
What each and everyone need to do is that you need to take yourself,
When you are doing this pose,
You have to take yourself into where the max is,
Like where you meet that stiffness and then from there you ask for more with breath safely.
Now in this pose,
If you meet this pose a little bit more forward,
So where do you go from here,
Is to go to the floor,
Okay.
So if you are back here,
So it's the same thing,
You're gonna go,
We kind of do this pendulum here,
We go from the back,
Upright and forward and to the ground.
But wherever you are in this spectrum is yours and I want you to be happy with that.
Deal?
So here we are,
Five breaths,
Okay.
Take a deep breath in and exhale,
Go forward and to the floor.
Now I'm gonna acting like I can go forward a little bit,
So I can show you,
Four more breaths,
What to be mindful of.
Each exhale,
Try to go forward and to the floor.
Now when you come to the front and start to go to the floor now,
Three more breaths,
What you need to be mindful of is that you want to extend your chest away from your belly,
Okay.
And that is going to stop you fast.
Two more breaths,
Spread your toes,
That is going to help you to keep your spine elongated.
Broaden your arms as much as your shoulders are happy.
Last breath,
Relax your jaw and then exhale.
See how deep can you get out from these muscles and then inhale,
Help yourself to come up and away from the stretch.
Get out from the stretch completely until your muscle is,
You know,
Taut and then move it back into legs in front of you.
Check it a little bit,
No problem,
That might be better.
And then we go into this seated forward fall or Shimotanasana.
First thing first,
Roll on one leg and just roll your inner thigh in back and out.
Then repeat that on the other leg.
Let's acting,
Now if you are way back there,
Use your hands.
If you kind of able to be upright,
Then you go forward and you use a strap.
Same idea,
You want to make sure that you want to go forward and to the floor without rounding your back,
Without rounding your shoulder.
We're going to go forward with the back extension and with the opening of the heart,
That's what I mean.
So your shoulder blades right here has to be able to move backward,
Not forward.
Alright,
And in order to do that,
You keep your arms straight.
Let's do five breaths.
Take a deep breath in and then exhale.
Let's say if you can go forward,
What I want you to do is that.
As you can see,
It's so easy to do the bending elbow.
Don't do that.
Shorten,
Use your hand,
Use your finger,
Shorten your strap and make your arms straight always.
Yeah,
Four more breaths and exhale.
See,
Can you go a little deeper?
Sometimes you're just like,
Okay,
Nope,
Nope,
Not that opinion.
Now,
Don't round your back,
Okay?
This is my max,
So stay here and breathe,
Exhale.
Inhale,
You kind of move away from the stretch a little bit and exhale,
Go into the stretch.
Last two breaths.
Exhale,
Go into the stretch.
And last one,
Please.
And exhale,
Go into the stretch.
Then inhale,
Come up and away from that.
Put your hand back behind you,
Shake the legs.
How about that?
Now,
Find a comfortable seated position,
Please.
You can sit on block.
You know what?
Some of you,
When you're tight,
You might actually have to come up standing.
I want to kind of recap what you just did with your body.
I take you to the floor and lengthen because when you go through your day,
The compression,
The gravity,
It's kind of push what's on top of our body down onto what's on the bottom of the body.
So you feel like your spine and everything kind of shorten.
So lengthening is give them room,
Give them more mobility,
Right?
And then I stretch you sideways.
I work on your hip opening.
I work on your twisting that gives your back muscles some loosening up.
Then we come up to standing with the legs wide open.
I stretch your adductor muscles.
Adductor muscle stretch,
Hamstring stretch,
All of the hip stretch.
If we can loosen them up well enough,
Our back muscle finally will have a chance to relax a little bit.
Take good care of yourself.
See you next time.
Namaste.
