Trauma Informed Full Body Chair Yoga

Join me in this trauma informed full body chair yoga practice. This is a perfect practice for anyone who wants to do yoga but has difficulty getting up and down off the floor. All yoga shapes can be done from any comfortable seat or chair.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to this seated yoga practice. This is a great practice if getting down and up from the ground is difficult for you. So you can find any chair in your home or even your couch to do this practice. So find that comfortable chair, Settle into the moment. This will be a full body practice. First we'll start with one shoulder shrug at a time. Bring one shoulder up. And back down. And the other side, Just moving gently, Doing a little bit of rolling, Perhaps backwards with the shoulders one at a time. And a little bit of rolling forward. Getting some movement here. Maybe getting both at once, Forwards and backwards. And then bringing movement in through the body with some seated cat cows. You can keep your hands down on your knees or you could lift them in the air, Whatever feels more comfortable for you. On an inhale, You're gonna arch the back, Bring that chest forward. If you want the arms up, Bring them up. Exhale, Rounding the other way. You can have the arms forward and rounded or resting on your knees. Inhale, Chest up. Exhale, Round forward. One more time each way. Nice movement throughout the spine, The neck, The chest, Whole body. If your arms are up, I invite you to take them down. Moving through some pelvic tilt rocks here. These can be great for the low back and that SI joint. We're just going to bring one knee a little more forward than the other. Your pelvis is going to tilt slightly. And then you're going to bring the other knee more forward, Pelvis tilt slightly. And just rock back and forth. Gentle movement here through that low back. Through the SI. And if anything doesn't feel good for your body, You can always take a break. Okay, When you feel like you've had enough of those rocks side to side, I invite you to take your feet a little bit wider. So bring those knees out, Bring those feet out. We're sitting in a wide stance here. And moving into a stretch on the back and the hips, You can take that left arm, Place it on the left leg. An option to keep that right arm down or lift it overhead to get more of a stretch through the side body here through the right low back. Taking a few breaths where you are. Moving back to center, Repeating on the other side, That right arm goes down, That left arm can stay down, Or you can reach overhead. And moving back to center. This time reaching down through the middle, So getting a nice stretch through that low back, Reaching all the way down as far as feels comfortable. If you have osteoporosis, I would not be going too far. We don't want to do too much flexion. On an exhale, Slowly making your way back up to sitting, Centering yourself, Taking a moment We'll be taking a nice breath in and out through the nose. Hmm. Moving through some arm and upper body stretches here. You can take your arms above your head. Gently lean over to the left. On an exhale, Come back to center, Lean over to the right. Exhale, Back to center. You can move through a few more of these. Go at your own speed. If your arms get tired, You can always bring them down. And then do a little bit more swaying movements. Let those arms sway back and forth. Maybe the elbows bend a little more. Maybe bring them in front of you and just have them sway. Getting some full body movement. And then allow them to rest. Moving through a twist here on an exhale, Turning over to the left as far as feels comfortable. Once again, If you have osteoporosis, Don't hold this too much. Don't go too far. And back to center. Repeating the other way, Turning to the right. And back to center. Finding some final movements anything that feels good for you. If there's anywhere you feel like you didn't stretch maybe some neck Movement side to side, Maybe more shoulder shrugs. Maybe some more hips. And then settle into the present, Into the breath. Feel those feet supporting you. Your body supporting you on the chair. Unclench that jaw. And tune into the breath. As you exhale, See if you can release any tension in the body, Relax any muscles. We'll take one nice breath in and out together here. Inhale. And exhale. Thank you so much for joining me in this seated practice. I hope that you enjoyed it. I'll see you next time.