20 Minute Yin Yoga

A short and sweet yin yoga practice for the days that you are short on time, but still want to get your practice in.

You will need a bolster and block, or use some large cushions or pillows instead.

Please honour your body today throughout this practice. Consult your health professional before taking up a new movement program.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to our 20 minute yin yoga practice. So normally with a yin practice it would be a little bit longer maybe 45 minutes to an hour but sometimes we don't always have the time to do a full yin practice and so this shorter practice is going to be a really beautiful one for you to squeeze in maybe if you've got a really busy day and you still want to get your practice done. So with that being said let's get straight into it. So for this practice you will need your yoga mat, If you have yoga props you will need a bolster, So I've got my bolster here and also a block. If you don't have those at home that's okay, Just grab a couple of big cushions or pillows, Something that's going to prop you up and support you throughout the practice. So we're going to do three of my favourite yin yoga poses to really set you up for your day if you're practicing in the morning or just to really bring you back to yourself if you're practicing in the evening. So let's get started. So we're starting in a comfortable seated position, Come and sit up onto your prop that's quite nice just to get your hips a little bit higher than the knees. So coming to sit up on your prop, Sitting up nice and tall through the spine, Palms facing up as the hands rest over your knees and closing down the eyes to start. Grounding those sit bones down towards the earth, Rising the crown of the head towards the sky. Taking these first few moments here to really land here in the space in your practice and in your body. Scanning through your body, Noticing how you're feeling physically and if you do come across any points of tension or pain, Can you start to invite your breath into these spaces? Inviting the breath to dissolve and welcoming in spaciousness and lightness in its place. Move your awareness now from your body to the natural rhythm of your breath. Feeling the breath moving in and out of the nostrils, Feeling the rise and fall of your chest and your belly with the breath. And see if you can start to breathe a little bit deeper now. Drawing a deep breath in through the nose, Feeling your entire torso swell. With a long smooth exhale through the nose, Feel the torso contract. Moving through that again, Deep inhale, Long smooth exhale. Keep breathing in this way for the next few rounds. As we inhale, We're drawing in prana, Life force energy. And as we exhale, We're releasing and letting go of anything that's no longer serving. Let's take three more of those big beautiful breaths here. Together. One more big breath. Exhaling. And allowing your breath to settle back into its natural rhythm now. Maintaining this connection with your breath as we move through the practice. When you feel ready, You can gently blink open the eyes coming back into the space. All right, Let's come into our first yin pose. We're coming into balasana, Which is a child's pose. So you can either do this with or without your prop. So for me, I'm going to use my bolster. So if you've got a bolster or your cushions and you would like to use a prop, Grab a hold of it now, Pop it in front of you on the mat. You want to bring your knees wide, Toes touching, Hips towards the heels, Folding forward, Draping your arms alongside the bolster or your cushions. And you can either have your head centered or you can turn your head over to the side. Now, If you choose not to use props, You can fold forward and bring the third eye down to your mat. You could also pop one forearm on top of the other and rest the third eye here. So lots of different ways we can set up for our child's pose. So set yourself up in a way that feels comfortable for you. And then once you're there, Let's close those eyes down and we will fall into stillness now. So here in your first yin pose, In your beautiful child's pose, Take this opportunity now to start to really ground and center yourself. All of those parts of your body that are in contact with your mat, Can you really have the sense and the intention of grounding? Start to soften your body here, Soften your jaw, Soften your neck and shoulders, All of the muscles in your face. Soften your belly so you can start to breathe deeply down into the belly. Breathing out into the back and the side ribs as you feel your entire torso expand and contract with the breath. Noticing your hips and your lower back starting to soften here as well. Here in our child's pose, This is a beautiful resting and restorative pose. So allow yourself to take full advantage of that now. Allow yourself to be held. Allow yourself to settle into your space, Start to connect with your own energy, Start to connect with the natural rhythm of your breath. If you do have your head turned to one side with as little disturbance as possible, Can you gently lift your head up, Turn your head over to the other side and then settle back down into your pose. See if you can soften just that little bit more. See if you can start to turn your awareness deeper and deeper and deeper within. I'm just going to leave you here now for the next few moments just to be here in your own energy. Stay present, Keep the breath flowing and I'll bring you back out of your pose very soon. Let's take another five of those big beautiful breaths here. Deep inhale through the nose, Exhaling either through the nose or the mouth. One more big breath here. As we inhale, Let's start to slowly uncoil the spine, Walking the fingertips back, Coming into a comfortable seated position. We'll take a moment to pause here before we move to our next pose. Taking a moment to integrate. Just notice and absorb the effects from your child's pose. Inhale, Blinking open the eyes, Coming back into the space. Alright, From here we are taking Supta Baddha Konasana which is our reclining butterfly pose. So let me show you some options. So if you've got some props that you're working with today, You're going to grab a hold of your bolster and maybe a block as well. I'm going to prop myself up with a block today. So you can just pop your bolster so it drapes over your block there. Now if you don't have props, Grab a hold of your cushions or your pillows and you want to pile them up as high as feels comfortable for you. And then what we're going to do is come and lay down now. So you want to come and lay down over your prop. You might just have to have a little wriggle around until you get the most comfortable position. And then you want to bring the soles of the feet together and drop the knees out wide, Arms gently resting beside you. Now the closer that your feet are to your body, The stronger the hip opening is going to feel. So if it feels a bit too strong for you, What you can do is press the feet away and make a wide diamond shape and just soften off a little bit through those hips. So play around with it here. Once you've found your perfect spot, Let's start to fall into stillness once again. So here in our butterfly pose, You can feel straight away that we are starting to open up here through those hips. So you'll predominantly feel this in the inner hip area, A little bit in the outer hips too. So just notice what's present for you here. And you want to start to direct your breath and direct your awareness down into those hips and allow that hip area to soften. Allow those knees to fall wider with the exhale. And because we're laying over our prop today, We're also getting a beautiful, Gentle heart opening. So you can feel your entire front body here is open and receptive. So you're breathing deeply still, You're breathing all the way down into the belly, You're breathing all the way down into the hips. Cultivating this beautiful prana life force energy with every breath. And those hips can tend to store a lot of emotion and we can tend to hold a lot of tension here in the hip space. So if you can sense that that's the case for you, Can you allow the hips to soften? If any emotions start to arise for you, Can you start to welcome them in? Allow that emotion, Allow that energy to begin to flow. See if you can soften those hips a little bit more. See if you can allow the knees to fall just that little bit wider. Here again, I'll just leave you here for the next couple of breaths just to be in your own energy and I'll bring you back out of your pose very soon. Let's take five more big breaths here together. One more big breath, Deep inhale through the nose. Long smooth exhale. From here, Let's bring our hands to the thighs, Start to draw the knees towards one another. Gently press through the forearms, Tuck the chin, Rolling on up on the inhale and coming to rest in your comfortable seated position. Eyes closed and once again, Take a moment to pause and breathe and integrate and observe the effects from that last pose. One more breath here. Inhale, Blinking open the eyes, Coming back into the space. All right, From here, We are coming to lay down onto the mat now. So you'll either need your bolster, Your block or your cushion or a couple of cushions and you want to come and lay down onto your back and just allowing the back of the body to settle down into the mat. Just a couple of breaths here. Now from here, We'll start to move into our supported bridge pose. So if you're using a block, You can see that there's a couple of different levels of the block depending on how much height you would like to experience in the pose. Otherwise, Grab a hold of your cushions now. So what we want to do is tuck the shoulder blades under, Press through the feet, Lift the hips up enough to slide that block or your bolster or your cushions there to rest at the sacrum at the base of the spine. And it should feel quite comfortable once you've got the prop there. So if it doesn't, You might just need to have a bit of a wriggle around until you find the correct position. Now the arms could be beside you, They could be overhead, You might clasp opposite elbows. See what you feel called to do once you're there. Eyes are closed, We're coming into stillness. And here in our beautiful bridge pose, You can feel there's a gentle massage here for the lower back as it rests against your prop. And here as we have the elevation, Slight elevation of the pelvis, We're getting all of those digestive and reproductive organs nice and stimulated, Getting some fresh, Clean energy into the space. And gently encouraging the blood to flow from this area back down towards the heart. This is a really nice pose too for your adrenals that can be quite overtaxed, Particularly in our modern world. And the adrenals sit at the top of the kidney, So when they're getting a nice little massage like this, They're giving those adrenal glands some love. This is our final yin pose for the practice today, So I'll just leave you here for the next few moments to enjoy. Keep breathing here. Let's take another five of those big, Deep breaths here together. Breathing into the chest, Ribs and belly. One more big breath here. And let's prepare to come out now. So if you do have the arms overhead, Just bring those arms back down beside you. When you feel ready, Press through the feet, Lift the hips up, Slide your prop out to the side, Slowly lower the hips down, Knocking the knees together, Taking a moment to pause here, Observing the shifts after that last pose. When you feel ready, We'll start to hug the knees in towards the chest and just take a roll around here in one direction, Feeling that beautiful massage here for the lower back. And then coming back around in the other direction. Coming back to centre, Gently release. We'll set ourselves up now for Shavasana, Which is our final resting pose. So you want to lay your body flat down onto your mat. You can grab a pillow to pop under the back of your head or a blanket to place over your body or an eye pillow, Whatever you need to do to feel comfortable and supported here. And once you're all set up, Closing the eyes down, Just making sure you're not holding onto any residual tension in the body. And if you find that you are, Can you allow this tension to begin to dissolve? This is our time to rest and integrate. I'm going to leave you here to have your own experience in Shavasana. Please stay here for at least five minutes and take longer if you do have that time. Thank you so much for practicing with me and I'll see you again soon. Namaste.