Hatha-Based Movement Practice (Short)

This is a 15-minute guided Hatha yoga movement practice. It's designed for MBSR participants but is suitable for any beginner and established meditation practitioners alike. It's a great way to practice meditation if you have a mind that finds sitting still too agitating.

Transcript

Welcome to the movement practice.

Lying down on the floor with your arms beside you and feeling the sense of the body against the floor.

Just all the sensations you can feel in your body as it makes contact with the floor.

And becoming aware of the sense of gravity,

The sense of being held by the floor.

And then becoming aware of the body breathing,

Just however your body breathes.

Maybe it's the expanse and the contraction of your stomach.

Or the rise and fall of the chest.

Or how you feel air coming in and out of your mouth and nostrils.

Just however breathing is for you right now.

Now slowly we're going to lift our arms up so they travel through a long slow arc and come to rest above our heads.

And then allowing your body to stretch.

Just a simple stretch with your arms going in one direction and your feet going in the other.

Just letting your body stretch however it wants to.

And now you're becoming aware of what it feels like to stretch.

What it feels like in your legs,

In your back,

In your shoulders,

In your arms.

All the way through to the tips of your fingers and the tips of your toes.

And now letting go of the stretch and just letting your arms lie there above your head.

Just becoming aware of what that feels like after a stretch to lie still.

And now bringing the arms back so slowly through the same arc until they're lying by your sides once again.

Now we're going to repeat that same arc but we're going to go much slower if it feels right for you.

So gently lifting your arms up and noticing all the effort it takes.

All the muscles that have to kick in to get the arm to start to move up.

Noticing how the shoulder feels,

How the arms feel as it travels up.

You might notice how it becomes easier as your arm reaches the top of the arc.

How it has to do less work.

In that moment where it's almost doing nothing at all at the very top of the arc.

Before muscles have to kick back in again and support it as it travels above your head towards the floor.

Maybe noticing how it becomes heavier and heavier until it touches the ground.

And then noticing what it's like to go from tension into non-tension as your arm touches the floor.

And then coming back the same way.

Lifting the arm up,

Noticing all the muscles that have to work as the arm starts to move very slowly.

Noticing again when it gets to the top of the arc how it takes less work.

And then again noticing what it's like as it comes over the top of the arc and gravity kicks back in.

As you lower your arm back down towards the ground.

And then taking particular care of what it feels like once the arm touches the ground.

Noticing that sense of release.

And now bringing the knees up so your feet are on the floor and your knees pointed towards the ceiling.

And then gently pushing down with the feet so the small of your back pushes into the floor.

And then tilting your pelvis forward so you get more of an arc in the lower back.

And just rocking back and forth with your hips.

Tilting up towards the ceiling and then pushing down into the floor.

And just noticing all the muscles that have to work.

The muscles in the leg,

The stomach.

And then coming back to stillness.

And now taking your knees in your hands and gently pulling your knees towards your chest.

Tucking up into a ball.

And gently making little circles with your knees.

So you can feel the pressure of your back touching the floor and how that pressure changes as you make little circles.

And then bringing the knees back so they're pointing up to the ceiling and your feet are back on the ground.

And now extending the left leg,

We're going to take hold of our right knee and pull our right knee into our chest.

And if it feels ok for you,

You can try lifting your head up and your shoulders up to meet your chest.

And again noticing the sensations in this position.

The muscles that have to work in your stomach,

In your leg,

In your arm.

And then lying back down and stretching the right leg out.

And then bringing the left leg up and repeating on this side.

So taking hold of the left knee and if it feels ok then bringing your head up and your chest up to meet your knee.

And again just becoming aware of the sensations in your body as you do this.

In your stomach,

In your hip,

In your leg,

In your arms.

In your neck.

And then coming back down.

And now rolling over so you come up on your hands and knees.

With your arms under your shoulders and your knees under your hips.

And in this position we're just going to do a very gentle cat and cow move.

So the cat is where we push down with our shoulders and we make an arch with our back.

And then we drop our stomach down with our shoulders and lift our head up in the opposite way.

Then oscillate between those two positions in your own time.

Arching up and then coming back the other way.

And just noticing what it feels like in the body.

And then just coming back into stillness.

Now extending the right leg out behind you and if it feels ok extending the left arm out in front of you.

Maybe looking along your left arm to your fingertips.

And just noticing what the body is like in this position.

The sense of stability,

The sense of instability.

Just however it feels right now.

And then coming back to all fours and then extending the left leg.

And the right arm out in front of you looking down along your fingertips.

Maybe noticing if one side was easier than the other.

Just noticing if the body is still or if it's a bit shaky.

Just noticing.

And then coming back to all fours.

And now moving back onto your back.

Taking a full rest on your back with your arms by your sides.

And now bringing your knees back up so they're pointing towards the ceiling and your feet are on the floor.

And similar to the move we did before we're going to push down with our feet and tilt our pelvis up.

But this time we're going to push up with our feet.

So we make an arch,

A bridge as we come off the floor.

And again we're going to notice all the muscles that have to work to do this.

Maybe our legs,

Our buttocks and our stomachs.

And noticing how there's tension in parts of the body while in other parts of the body there isn't tension.

Like maybe your face doesn't have to work here.

Noticing how your shoulders don't have to work here.

And then coming back down.

And now pushing up once more into the same position.

Into the bridge position.

Maybe this time as you get to the top of the bridge,

Moving your arms so they arc back once again over your head and lie behind you.

Noticing all the work in the legs and how there's no work in the arms.

And then coming back down and bringing your arm back.

And then stretching out so you're lying fully on the floor once again with your arms beside you.

Just taking a few moments to notice gravity.

Notice the body lying on the floor,

The points of contact.

Maybe noticing any sounds you can hear in the room,

The sound of my voice.

Noticing the body breathing where you feel breathing.

And just coming into stillness.

As we bring the practice to a close.

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Reviews

Gentle poses but also engaging. Brings awareness to muscle engagement in each posture. A good wind down from tensing, to release and then relaxing.

Perfect .. this is now my daily practice. Namaste. 💖

Really nice Daniel. Gentle movements for a launch back in to Yoga.

Found this incredibly calming. The slow movements really made me focus on how the body internally was working. Delivered with a calm soothing voice. Normally being too caught up in the movement for exercise not movement for mindfulness. Thank you for this insight.

Perfect for a short session 🌚

Just what I needed. Thank you.