Hello,
My name is Aaron and welcome to this gentle morning yoga practice.
We're going to start in a child's pose.
To do that bring your big toes together towards the back of the mat Knees as wide as the mat,
Sit back towards your heels and stretch your arms out in front.
Your forehead can rest down onto the mat.
And just take a few breaths here to arrive into your practice.
Drawing out the inhales and drawing out the exhales.
Keeping the breath long,
Slow and deep through the nose with a slight constriction in the back of the throat.
And you can make this a more active child's pose here.
As you exhale,
Press your tailbone back towards your heels.
And as you inhale,
Extend the fingers a little bit more forwards with every breath.
Breathing through the hips and elongating the spine on each inhale.
Slow,
Steady breath.
And with the next inhale you can start to walk both hands off the left side of the mat.
If you want to stretch a little deeper you can even cross your right hand over your left.
Elongating the whole right side body.
Make sure your hips stay connected to your heels.
Breathe through the right side of the body,
Feeling the stretch all the way from the right pinky finger to the right hip.
One more breath here.
And with the next inhale,
Bring it all the way back through center.
Out towards the right side this time.
You can cross the left hand over the right if you want to deepen the stretch and breathe through the left side body.
Forehead can stay connected to the mat.
And keep the sit bones connected to the heels or as close as possible.
Try to keep the shoulders level.
In line with the floor.
Last breath here.
And with the next inhale,
Walk it back through center.
And walk your hands back up towards yourself.
And we can bring both knees a little bit closer in line with the hips.
And straighten up through the spine.
With the next inhale,
We're going to stretch the crown of the head up towards the ceiling.
And as we exhale,
Bring the left hand behind our back,
Right hand to the left knee,
And twist from here.
Look out over your left shoulder towards the back of the room.
With every inhale,
You can elongate a little further through the spine.
Every exhale,
Twist a little deeper.
Taking another two breaths here.
You can imagine like you're wringing out your spine like a wet towel.
And with the next inhale,
Come all the way back through center and across to the other side.
Left hand to the right knee,
Right hand behind the back.
Inhale to lengthen.
Exhale to deepen.
Last breath here.
Inhaling to create space in the spine and as we exhale twist from the lowest part of the spine.
Inhale to take yourself back through center.
And we're going to walk our hands forward,
Set up with our hands directly under our shoulders,
Our knees directly under our hips in this tabletop position and we're going to start to warm up the spine a little bit more here with some cat cows.
So as we inhale,
We drop the belly,
Arch the spine.
Draw a line with the nose to look up towards the sky.
And as we exhale,
Curl through the spine,
Bring the chin towards the chest,
Tuck the tailbone forwards and down around the entire spine.
And as you inhale,
The wave starts at the bottom of the spine.
Move vertebra by vertebra.
Unraveling and locking up.
Towards the ceiling or the sky.
And as you exhale.
Round all the way back.
This time the wave moves from the top to the bottom of the spine.
And start to move back and forth between these two positions at your own pace,
With your own breath here.
For another few breaths.
Just really feeling into the spine,
Trying to move vertebra by vertebra if you can.
And then if you like,
You can also break the linear pattern of this movement.
And start to introduce some more organic,
Natural,
Intuitive movements here.
So you don't have to just.
Go straight up and down in the same line.
You can also move a little side to side.
You can take some figure eights with the hips,
Some circles over the shoulders.
And whatever feels good.
You can even close down your eyes here.
And just allow your spine to move you rather than the other way around.
Just moving with the natural.
Energy patterns,
The natural spiral.
And your own movement for another few breaths.
Take one last breath like this.
And then with the next exhale,
Let's meet back in a neutral tabletop position.
With the next inhale,
Turn your left thumb up towards the ceiling,
Stretch your left hand towards the front.
And at the same time stretch your right toes towards the back of the room.
Try to create as much space as you can between your left fingertips and your right toes.
Inhale to stretch a little further.
And then as you exhale,
Curl it in.
Bring the left elbow towards the right knee.
Inhale to stretch,
Elongate.
Exhale to curl.
One more of these.
Inhale to stretch as far as you can.
And exhale,
We curl it in.
And from here,
Let's lower our left hand back down to the mat.
And with this right knee,
We're going to take three big circles.
Forwards,
And then three big circles backwards.
Try to use the full range of motion.
Of this right hip here.
Three forwards.
And then take three towards the back.
And once you've done three both sides,
We're going to bring this knee close towards our chest.
And then step our right foot in between our hands.
So we come into this runner's lunge position.
And if you like,
The first option is just to stay here with your right knee over your right ankle and the spine straight.
If you want to take it a little bit deeper,
You can take your hand up to your waist.
Press the hips forward and down,
And open through the chest.
Breathe through your left hip flexor here.
Gaze looks towards the front or if you like you can look towards the ceiling to open the chest a little further if there's no problems in the neck And then with the next exhale,
We're going to straighten out the spine.
This right foot.
Point the right toes back towards the face.
Bring fingers towards the floor if possible,
If not you can keep the fingers here or the hands here on your waist.
And from here,
Take an inhale to lengthen through the spine,
Open the chest.
And as you exhale you can just gently fold forwards and down.
Over this right leg.
So think moving forward with the chest.
Rather than the chin.
This can make our spine round a little bit more,
But we want to keep our spine as straight as possible here.
Two more rats like this.
And then with the next inhale,
We're going to walk our hands back and forth.
Up beside us,
Start to balance a little bit on this left knee if possible.
You can bring your hands out to the sides and we're going to start to warm up our balance a little bit here.
Just play around with this one.
So as you inhale,
Lift The right photo.
Look towards the toes or look towards a point on the floor.
And see if you can just balance for another breath or two on the left shin,
Waking up these deep abdominal muscles which we use to balance ourselves.
And with the next exhale,
You can bring this right knee back to meet the left and we come back to our all fours tabletop position.
Take a breath here to steady yourself.
And then with the next inhale,
We're going to extend the right hand forward,
Thumb up towards the sky,
And at the same time extend the left foot backwards.
Left toes pointing towards the back of the room and inhale to stretch a little further between the right fingers and the left toes.
Exhale to bring the left knee towards the right elbow.
Inhale to lengthen.
Exhale to curl it in.
One more of these.
And lengthen it out.
Exhale,
Curl it in.
Then you can bring your right hand down underneath the right shoulder and start to take in.
Some big hip circles with this left hip this time.
Try to draw as big a circle as you can with your left knee.
Three big circles forwards.
And three big circles backwards.
Opening up this left hip.
And with the next inhale,
Pull the left knee up towards the chest and step the left foot in between your hands here.
Now same again,
You set up the left knee directly over the left ankle.
You can be here on your fingertips with the spine straight.
Looking towards the floor.
Or if you want to take it one step deeper,
With the next inhale you can bring your hands up towards your waist.
Open through the chest,
Gaze looks forward.
Or if you want to open up the throat,
You can look up.
Two more breaths wherever you are.
And then with the next exhale,
Straightening out this left leg.
Point the left toes back up towards the face.
And same again,
You can keep your hands here on your waist if you like.
Or you can bring the fingertips to either side of this left leg.
Toes pointing back towards the chest.
Inhale to lengthen through the chest.
And exhale to fold forwards and down.
Again,
Try to lead with the chest as much as possible.
Keep the spine straight if you can.
Two more breaths here.
And with the next inhale,
Walk.
The hands back towards the knees,
Straighten yourself up.
Hands to either side again.
This time we're going to try to balance on the right shin.
So point through the left toes with the next inhale.
Lift the left foot.
And see if you can just play around with your balance here for a few breaths if you fall out.
Just give yourself a smile and bring it back.
It's all very fun.
And then with the next.
Exhale.
We're going to bring the left knee back to meet the right.
Come back to our tabletop position.
We're going to bring our knees back as wide as the mat and sit back towards our heels again.
For another child's pose.
Just relaxing the forehead down to the mat.
Breathing into 360 degrees of the lungs.
We also breathe into the back and the sides,
Not just the front.
And with the next inhale we're gonna look up between our hands.
We tuck our toes underneath at the back.
And we lift our hips up towards downward facing dog.
Adho Mukha Svanasana.
So here we want to have our hands as wide as our shoulders,
Our feet as wide as our hips.
We press evenly in.
To the hands and the feet,
Balancing the weight between both.
We want to spread our fingers wide,
Pressing into the tips of the fingers.
This protects our wrists.
The arms are fully extended,
Shoulders away from the ears.
We lift our tailbone up towards the sky as much as we can.
Heels can be lifted,
Knees can be slightly bent.
Or we eventually work towards straightening out the knees and bringing the heels down.
Take two more breaths.
And with the next inhale,
We're going to look up between our hands and take little baby steps.
From the back of the mask.
All the way to the top.
Once your toes reach between your hands,
We're just gonna catch.
Opposite elbows and just let our weight hang down here for a few breaths.
No pressure nothing to do just allowing it all to hang down If we pull our lower belly in and up.
And try to bring our chest closer towards our thighs.
This is the direction we want to move in.
You can take a gentle bounce here.
You can sway side to side if that feels good.
Just allowing your lower back and the backs of your legs a few breaths to warm up here.
Taking two more breaths here.
Steady and slow breaths.
And with the next exhale,
We're going to lower our hands back down to the earth.
You can bend your knees as much as you need.
Then we're going to turn our toes out,
Heel to our feet a little bit wider than our hips.
And we sink ourselves down into malasana or yogi squat.
For this we're going to bring our elbows inside our knees,
Hands come together.
In Namaskar Mudra,
Prayer position,
Try to straighten through the spine,
Open through the chest,
And look towards the floor or the wall in front.
Breathing through the hips here.
And with the next exhale,
We're going to bring our left shoulder inside our left knee,
Straighten out the left arm,
And draw the right arm up across the body.
Look up towards the fingertips of the right hand.
Take a little twist here.
If it feels good you can also externally rotate the bottom arm,
Externally rotate the top and see if you can catch a bind behind your back.
Last breath here.
Inhale to come back through center.
Give the hands and knees another little squeeze.
And then we go to the other side.
So bring the right shoulder inside the right knee.
Right arm extends and left arm draws upward.
And across the body.
Look up towards the left fingertips if you can.
And if you're comfortable here,
You can externally rotate the bottom arm,
Externally rotate the top,
And catch a bind behind your back.
Take a last breath here,
Turning the chest up towards the ceiling.
And exhale to come back through center.
From this position you can use your hands if you need or you can just sit there.
Then onto your sit bones and lay down onto your back.
Using your elbows if you need.
And we're just going to pull both of our knees in towards our chest.
We can just hold on to our knees like this,
Or we can catch.
Onto our wrists or our hands.
Try to bring the knees towards the chest if possible.
And try to keep your tailbone flat.
On the floor.
It's a beautiful way to release the spine.
It's a nice gentle way you can release the spine in the mornings and the evenings.
Even something you can do when you're just starting out.
Waking up in the morning,
Still in bed.
Or before you go to sleep in the evening.
And then we're gonna finish our practice with a gentle happy baby so for this We're gonna bring our hands inside our knees,
Catch the outside edges of our feet.
Keeping our feet level towards the ceiling,
Our knees are coming down towards our armpits.
And we pull the knees as close towards our armpits as we can.
Keep the tailbone rooted down towards the floor,
Looking up towards the ceiling,
Breath slow and steady.
Two more breaths.
And with the next exhale,
You can release the feet,
Slowly lower them down towards the earth.
Stretch the left leg out,
Stretch the right leg out for our final resting pose.
Shavasana.
So we want to let our feet just fall open naturally here.
Our palms face up towards the ceiling.
Our spine is aligned,
Chin tucked slightly towards the chest.
And we want to just fully release into this Shavasana.
I'm going to leave you here.
Feel free to stay here as long as you want.
Be generous with the time.
Give yourself 5 or 10 minutes in this position.
Imagine yourself like a block of ice melting into water.
Thank you for joining.
