12 Min Spring / Wood Element Yin Yoga

This 12-minute Spring Yin Yoga practice is your slow and purposeful reset for the season, simple and immediately felt. We work with the Wood element, holding long, soft shapes to release and stimulate the Liver and Gallbladder meridians, their muscles and organs, inviting in the clarity and vision that spring is asking you to step into.

All levels. No experience needed. Just bring yourself, 2 blocks/or books and you’ll require a wall for this practice.

Love,
Heather

Transcript

Welcome everyone, Heather here. Let's begin. Make sure that you do have a wall space beside you. We're going to place our soles of the feet together in butterfly. You can have support if you need it underneath a cushion or some blocks and lie back. Clasp your hands together behind your head. And here we're creating the infinity sign. We're going to breathe through this shape. I invite you to begin on the right leg. Imagine now breathing up the right foot and leg all the way up the leg across the body over to the left arm. Up the left arm to the hands. Then down the right arm. As you exhale all the way across the body again over to the left leg and round. Back to the feet and go again. So breathing in up the right leg all the way up to the top of the left arm. Exhale down the right arm and down the left leg and keep going with this breath awareness and healing loop of infinity. If you need to start again, If you've lost your way, Rise ourselves up. Take a deeper breath. Bring the thighs back together. Use the support of your hands to do so. And let's now move towards the wall. Allow the legs to lie up the wall and then we're going to slide the feet, The soles of the feet down. Lift our hips up. Cross the right leg over the top of the left thigh. Bring the hips down. You may put a support if you need it under the hips. Otherwise you can slide the leg, The left leg up or down, Adjusting where feels comfortable. That 80% intensity. We're going to now look for and find the liver three point. So we grab the foot, Slide our finger down between the big toe and the second toe and press into liver three. Give it a good stimulation. Then I invite you to take your arms behind your head when you're ready. Breathing in, Breathing out. Again, Invite slow breaths in, Perhaps for a count of four in your mind. And then as you exhale, Make the exhale longer as you surrender into this posture. Wall shoelace is very good for accessing the side body and the hip, Right where the gallbladder meridian runs. Slowly and gently take a deeper breath, Support your legs, Release and rise the legs back up the wall. We're going to move to the other side. So we lift the hips up, Cross the left over the right thigh. Again, Blocks if you need, Or adjust the leg up and down the wall, The supporting leg on the wall. Down is a little bit more challenging, Up makes a release. Let's find our liver three point, The webbing between the big toe and second toe. Give it a good stimulation. This is very good for releasing any stagnancy in our liver channel and chi. And when you're ready, Place your arms behind your back. And let's find that 80% intensity so we can feel the body is opening on the side, The left side. Again, Let's connect back to surrendering, Letting go and allowing the body to do what it needs to do. To open, To grow, To release and spread. Gently and slowly start to take a deeper breath. Let's move out of this posture. Let the legs lie up the wall and just allow a moment to pause, Feel the energy rushing up the legs. Breathing in, Breathing out. Okay, Now I invite you to split the legs. We're moving into our wall dragonfly. You can put supports under the hips if you need, So under the thighs. Otherwise, Take the arms behind your head and allow the surrender here. Feeling the sense of the inner thighs yielding, The liver meridian runs here. Let's see if you can soften the whole body as we allow the body to be felt. If you wanted to do a little eye trataka, Then I invite you to just gently gaze at the tip of your nose with your eyes until they water and then close them. And surrendering, Melting into the shape. Slowly and gently start to release, Bring the legs back together. This might make you feel a nice relief. Just notice we're going to bend the knees, Roll onto our side, Any side, And take a moment in that fetal position. Just allow yourself to rest. Integrating what has been going on here. Okay, As this is a short practice, I invite you to sit up nice and tall, Cross your legs, Rise up through the spine to the crown of your head. We're just going to take a moment here to breathe and feel. And with that, We have finished our practice. Bring your hands together, Center of the chest, Take a little bow. Namaste. Thank you for joining me.