Big Sky Big Mind

This very gentle asana yoga flow is a great pranayama practice to bring body, mind, and breath together. It's a brief flow that helps breath freely flow. This practice about aligning with the movement of body and breath and stabilizing the mind. We begin in mountain pose.

Transcript

Let's begin.

Stand in mountain pose at the front of your mat.

Root down into your feet.

Feel the length of your body as you rise tall up through the crown of your head towards the sky.

Feel your shoulders dropping and being more at ease.

Open your chest area so that breath can freely flow.

Let's have this practice now be about aligning with movement of body,

Breath and stabilizing mind.

Let your eyes close and begin to feel your breathing.

How are you breathing right now?

How does breath feel in your body at this time?

We always remember to return to Ujjayi Pranayama.

Ujjayi Pranayama inhaling through the nose,

Count five.

Exhaling through the nose,

Count five.

Keep the mouth gently closed.

Standing in mountain,

Feel your body aligning.

Let your tailbone soften a little bit and then feel the energy rising up through your spinal column.

Let there be natural curves in your back,

Nothing forced.

Deep breathing into the lower belly.

And slowly inhale,

Reaching your arms up overhead,

Palms touch.

Exhale,

Fold forward.

Pause,

Breath out a couple more times and just feel your back body open,

Expand.

If it feels too intense to fold all the way forward,

You can just bring your hands up to your knees or thighs and go halfway as an option.

And slowly swan diving up,

Inhale,

Hands touch overhead,

Exhale,

Hands in front of heart.

So at that point we readjust the tailbone,

Bringing it in,

Securing it,

Lifting the heart,

Opening,

Breathing deep into the lower belly,

Ujjayi breathing.

Step your left foot back and move into triangle pose.

Make sure your left heel feels very grounded and stable.

And remember your leg length is what your feet distance is.

So one of your leg lengths is the distance between both feet in triangle pose.

And the stability comes first in the lower back.

So there's strength in the lower back which is going to move around into the front,

The core,

The stomach area.

Stabilize those muscles,

Keep breathing.

Breathing in and out in triangle pose,

Five full breath rounds.

So one is inhale five,

Exhale five.

Now when you rise up,

Lifting your torso up,

Make sure your lower back is strong to protect the core.

Rising up and just step your foot forward now so both feet at the front of the mat,

Inhale,

Aligning your feet and then step the other foot back and practice on the other side.

Five full breath rounds,

Being really steady.

Watch out for speed and push.

Inhale five,

Exhale five.

In triangle pose the main thing is to align the spine and extend it so it stays nice and straight.

Think about how the crown of your head reaches out toward the front of your mat,

In the center of your mat.

Your right heel and your left heel are in alignment.

And you're really opening your chest too in triangle so feel that arm coming up and back to open the chest.

Then take it down through a vinyasa so choose your best pose here either knees down from plank or a full chaturanga stick pose which is like a push up.

Lowering down,

Breathing out,

Inhale and again choosing up to cobra or upward dog.

Of course up dog more intense,

More heat.

Cobra a little more mellow,

Still doing a lot in your lower back.

If you're up in cobra,

Remember you're not going to pull your shoulders forward you're going to let them fall back so the chest is really open,

Shoulder blades down in the back.

You're reaching all the way back into your legs and feet even back through your toes in cobra.

Exhale downward facing dog.

Hands just under the shoulders in down dog,

Feet only about six or seven inches wide.

Lowering back through the heels,

Facing through exhale.

Keep the inner shoulders at ease too so there's no bunching or tightening there.

Lots of space and width across the upper shoulder area.

Breathing deep into the belly.

Ujjayi.

Change our music up here a little bit.

And when you're ready,

Bring your knees down into child's pose and just let the lower back sort of be at ease so that you can really ground into the legs,

Feet,

Ankles.

And of course breathing into your upper back area,

That upper back lung expansion area.

Let the exhale really empty so it feels like something's shifting away and out of the body.

Such a cleansing pose,

Child's poses.

So five full breath rounds in child's pose.

And then let's take it back up into downward dog inhaling.

Now reach your left leg up into the air behind,

Step forward and come into warrior two pose.

So you're coming into warrior two,

The left knee bent so that the knee falls right on top of the ankle.

Getting into position,

Make sure you're rounding your right hip open so that it sort of rounds to the point where it's moving in alignment with the right baby toe.

And then the tailbone lowers,

Crown of the head reaches up and there's a feeling of relaxation in the shoulders as opposed to tightening.

Breathing deep into the lower belly.

Now just bring your hands in front of heart and step your right foot forward,

Pause with both feet at the front,

Hands in front of heart.

Inhale,

Exhale.

Then bringing the left foot back,

Warrior on the other side.

So we're just doing a vinyasa between each standing sequence so you're not vinyassing through both sides.

In warrior two we're feeling strength where we need more strength and where your body feels already strong in warrior two,

Let those muscles relax and let the weaker ones take over.

So both legs working,

Both quadriceps in play.

Keep your back really straight and then just focus the breath so that it goes deep into the lower belly.

Deep cleansing breath.

After five breath rounds move down through your vinyasa.

Exhale,

Chaturanga.

Inhale,

Upward dog.

Remember your modifications.

Exhale,

Downward dog.

Breathing in three full breath rounds in this down dog.

And then slowly stepping forward,

Inhale,

Both feet at the front,

Gazing pose.

Back is straight,

Legs straight.

Have your hands on your shins so your heart is really open and lifted.

And then exhale,

Fold,

Let your head lower.

So you're feeling roots through the bottom feet,

Roots,

And then the head very much soft,

Very at ease.

Move your head and neck around a little bit to help it relax more.

Breathe out.

Inhale,

Swan dive.

Exhale,

Namaste.

Now,

Come into warrior three,

Which is our lovely balancing pose.

So start with your right leg rising up behind.

So your left foot is going to be very strong but at ease at the same time.

Keep your back straight,

Hips level to the ground,

Right leg lifts up as high as the level plane of your back.

Arms open to the side like airplane wings.

And let there be ease in the back of your head and neck so you can keep your gaze down.

And remember mula bandha so we lock in our roots.

Lock in the energetic field in the lower belly.

Breathing in,

Breathing out.

Just between three and five breath rounds in balance poses.

Pause.

So when you pause,

Come back up.

Align your feet again,

Relax your toes.

Breathe in and out,

Hands in front of heart.

And then practice on the other side.

Make sure you're coming into your balance poses without a big striving tone.

Just let it be more experiential to feel how your body is when it needs to balance and focus on the breathing.

The strength.

Nice and then coming back up.

Both feet down,

Hands in front of heart.

And then taking it into tree pose.

So now your right knee bends,

Opens to the side,

Left leg very sturdy.

Sliding the right foot down into the lower leg.

Make sure it's not touching the knee.

And in tree you start by drawing the tailbone in and locking it.

So you have that root lock.

And then lifting up into the chest and the rib cage is very open and spacious as is your breathing.

The shoulder blades soften.

Stay with your breathing rhythm.

Inhale five,

Exhale five.

And then switch to the other side.

There's a little tweaking you can do in your lower back as well but always start when you build tree pose with the securing of the root lock,

The tailbone coming in.

And the toes that you're balancing on,

That foot and toe energy is important because the toes want to remain at ease,

Not scrunching up or locking up.

If you can feel the arch of your foot becoming more at ease that'll be helpful in grounding.

Three to five full breath rounds.

And then hands back in front of heart.

Nice.

Inhale,

Arms reach up overhead.

Exhale,

Fold forward.

And now that you're warm,

Just really let that energy of release come through your exhale and stay in this pose for a few more long exhales.

The knees are unlocked.

If it's too intense,

You can of course slide your hands back up to your thighs or knees and not go all the way into a fold.

So now let's go move down to the ground and do some seated poses.

Just getting down into seated pose and a very simple seated twist.

So your legs are crossed in front and as you twist your torso to the right,

You'll take your left hand and place it on your right knee and your right hand will sit on the ground behind your right hip.

The crown of your head lifts up,

Your chest is very open.

Ujjayi Pranayama,

Inhale,

Exhale.

And then twisting to the other side.

Let there be a feeling of space with the twist because the twisting tends to kind of make you feel more restricted.

But the space gets created through your breathing and it's very deep cleansing breathing time now in a twist pose.

And softness in the mouth and jaw so that the breath can flow more at ease.

And then coming around back to the front twist again to the right.

You can maybe take the twist a little deeper by feeling it more in your middle back.

The more you can sort of pull that right shoulder back and open the chest,

The deeper the twist.

And breath.

And now to the other side so then the right hand moves to the left knee,

Left hand to the ground behind your left hip.

One thing about twisting is that you want to make sure your back is staying straight and the head and neck are as well.

And then moving back to center.

Now bend your knees toward your chest,

Roll onto your back and lift your feet up coming into happy baby pose.

So your back is super flat.

You're holding on to the outside of your feet,

Knees are bent at 90 degrees.

And happy baby,

We're just taking the energy down into the ground letting the whole spinal column be soft now.

Not doing any standing balancing working,

Just letting go.

Close your eyes and breathe deep into your lower belly several full breaths in and out.

Now,

Both knees back into chest.

So we're going to practice big toe pose next.

Take your right leg straight to the ground or if that's too intense,

Bend your right knee and loop your left index and middle finger around your left big toe.

Straighten the left leg up into the air with the left heel pushing up toward sky so the foot is flat and flexed.

Mainly focus on keeping your lower back soft,

Tailbone relaxed.

And as you exhale just let the feeling of openness come to the back,

Left thigh,

All that area from behind the knee all the way up to the glutes.

That's getting really stretched and open so we want to let the breathing facilitate surrender.

Focus on exhale to surrender.

And now switching to the other side.

Holding your right big toe,

Letting your lower back soften and just feeling the deep breath into your lower belly.

And then both knees coming back into the chest and just rolling side to side across your lower back.

Not in a fast way,

Letting the body really just receive this warming practice.

This is almost a 25 minute practice so this is a nice practice for a little variance if you want to now you could add more twisting or balancing or sun salutations or meditation.

Namaste.

Reviews

This was both rejuvenating and relaxing, and I love the title. Thank you, Jane 😌