Enjoy this gentle yoga sequence perfect for all levels. The entire practice will feature postures or asanas that start from a "tabletop" position, or from our hands and knees. Join us for cat-cows, bird-dogs, and a special appearance by a kitty too :)
Meet your Teacher
Baltimore, MD, USA
Transcript
Hello, Hello, Happy whatever the day of the week is for you. We are going to do a short flow today, A little bit of a shorter sequence here. And all of our poses, All of our asanas are going to be on hands and knees, Actually, In our traditional tabletop. Now, In our classes, I always like to give us a few moments to breathe, Ground down, Touch base with ourselves, Our hearts set in intention. It would be weird to do it like this. If you want to do that, My friend, I'm not here to judge you, But we are going to start if it feels more comfortable for you in some sort of seat before we transition to our tabletop to our hands and knees. Now, I am using two blocks that I'm sitting underneath. If you'd like to grab any props for yourself, If you'd like to get one of our playlists started, Whatever you need to feel comfortable and easy in this practice in the sequence, My friend, Do what you need to do. And then when you're ready, Find a comfortable seat. You can sit crisscross applesauce, Or you can sit on a block, Sit on your knees, Whatever feels comfortable. But we're just going to take a few moments here to ground down before we start to move the body. So whenever you find yourself in that comfortable seat, Roll your shoulders back, Elongate the spine. Close your eyes. Come back home. Come back to yourself, Come back to your breath. Breathe in and out of the nose. Breathe into the belly. Letting the belly expand with each inhale that you take. Take your time and settle in. Any baggage that you may be bringing to the table today? No matter what happened in your life today, What happened in your relationships, No matter what might've happened at work or at home. I invite you to leave it at the door. Can you allow yourself to be fully present? During this practice today. All of that extra baggage, All of that extra stuff. And pick it up when we're done. If it feels good for you, I invite you to set an intention for our time together today. What do you want to feel? Once we're complete on our map. Let's take a big belly breath in. Bye it out. Another big belly breath in. Let your breath return to normal. If you'd like to keep your eyes closed during this practice, You know that is always welcome. I always invite a more internal practice here. You can always just follow along with my voice. But you're welcome to follow along with your eyeballs as well. I'm going to take these two blocks out from underneath me and I'm going to transition it to my tabletop to our hands and knees here. Now we're going to spend this entire practice on hands and knees. So if you have a blanket and that feels good on your knees, Please support yourself. I always want to encourage you to be comfortable. Yoga is never meant to be painful. It's just meant to stretch us out. Both physically and emotionally. Anyway, My friends, As you can see, I'm practicing on carpet, So I don't need extra padding on my knees. If you're practicing on a harder surface or hardwood floors and you've got that blanket, Go ahead and pad your knees and we'll find ourselves in this tabletop here. Now, We're going to spend the whole practice here, So it makes sense for us to set it up a little formally. I want to see our, What is this called? It's a shoulder. I want to see our shoulders directly over our wrists. Our hips directly over our knees. If you look behind your knees and you can see your feet, Hide them. It's such a weird statement. If you've been in my classes before, You've heard me say it many times. I stand by it. It's strong in the fingertips. Push the floor away. Keep a tiny little bend in your elbows, Though. We're not locking ourselves out. Right. Tiny little bend doming in the back. Pushing the floor away here. So many things to do. This is our formal tabletop. Whenever we reset, This is where we go. Now let's start moving the body here we'll find some traditional cat cows before we start to bring our hips into it. So on your next inhale tilt the tail tilt the chin look up. And on an exhale, Push the floor away from you, Dome the back. Inhale, Open yourself back up. And exhale, Come back home. Keep going. Move at your own pace. Move with your own breath. You can go as fast or as slow as you would like. More often than not, These will be gentle yoga classes, But you can always speed it up. The faster you go. The hotter you'll get. Few more breaths here. Moving with the breath in and out of the nose. And when you've had enough, Find stillness. Come back, Reset to that traditional tabletop, Hands and knees. Now from here, I want us to find some hip circles on either side. We're going to start on the right. So go ahead and flip your fingertips. So your hand is facing your right knee. Now again, We're not locking ourselves out. I wanna keep that little bend in that right elbow. Right in here, We've got that little indent. Making sure our wrists are still in line with each other here. Hold the shoulders back down. And we'll find some hip circles. Moving in a clockwise direction here. Again, Keeping a bend in our elbows. If we move in a clockwise direction here, Maybe you can imagine there's a clock behind you. Can you hit all 12 of those numbers? When you heard me say this in our traditional Cat-Cow, It doesn't matter how fast or how slow you go. It doesn't matter how big or how small your circles are. You are in charge of what your practice looks like. You are in charge of the energy that you bring to your mat. And that energy is allowed to look different from day to day, Even from the start to the end of your practice. Few more circles here. When you've had enough fine stillness. Now when we practice with our wrists turned, If this is ever too intense, We can always put them out to the side or you can just skip it all together and keep those fingers facing the top of the mat. But from here, We'll swim that right hand over. Those fingers will face the right way. We'll swim the left arm back. The fingers can face the wrong way. And then we'll find those circles in a counterclockwise position. Say hello to Jasper Gatt here. He's stretching with us as well. We'll move in a counterclockwise direction now. Maybe we can imagine that there's a baseball diamond behind us and you hit all three bases before you come back home. Take your time, Move with your breath. Few more here. Find your stillness. And then reset. Bring those left fingertips back towards the top of the mat. It's okay if you need to reset in any way. Give yourself an opportunity to do that. Maybe you shake out the hips. And here we are back. And our traditional tabletop. Hmm, Where do we want to go from here? Let's thread the needle. We'll thread the needle on either side, We'll get a nice side stretch as we do so. Let's keep the left hand down where it is. Pick up the right hand, Reach up towards the sky, And then thread the needle in between the left knee and the left wrist. You can touch down with your temple with your right shoulder. You can always put a block underneath your temple. To bring the floor closer to you if that's more comfortable. And then you can decide where the right or excuse me, The left hand goes here. It can stay where it is. You can crawl it up towards the top of your mat. You can even take a half on. Wherever you choose to go. Take a moment and breathe. If you are bound, We can unbind. We can bring that right hand back up. Bye! And place it back down underneath our faces here. We'll find that on the other side. Left hand reaches up. And we'll thread the needle through. You decide where that right hand goes, If it crawls up towards the top of the map, If you take a half bind, Or if it stays close to your face. If you are bound, Unbind. Together we can unwind. Reaching that left hand back up towards the sky. And we will place it back down. Reset. We'll find a, Well first we'll find a kitty. And then we will find a bird dog on either side, Excuse me, Good sir. Finding ourselves back in our tabletop here, Maybe we roll the shoulders back, Let's stretch the, What is that, A right leg? Let's stretch the right leg out long, Toes are tucked. Maybe we find a little movement, We can stretch out the bottom of the foot, Stretch out the calf here. Now, If you'd like to stay here, This is perfect. If you want to go farther. Pick up your right foot. Toes are dialed straight down. Chin is out. We already know what the floor looks like. We're looking up. We're looking out. Now on that left side, The toes can be tucked or untucked. You decide what feels safer for you. You can stay here or. . . You can pick up the left arm. Finding a version of Bird Dog. Bring yourself back to the center. Breathe into the belly. Now bring your left hand down. We're going to swing the right leg over to the left side of the mat. Toes touch down. We're going to look out with our chin and then look over to the right toes. They are on the left side of your mat. Finding a nice little side stretch, Finding a little stretch in the hip flexor and the groin. On an inhale, Swing that right leg over, Let the right knee come to meet the left. We'll find that on the other side. Stretch the left leg out long, Toes are tucked. Maybe we find a little movement. And then from here, You decide where you go. You can pick up. That left foot, Toes are dialed straight down. Looking out, Seeing what's ahead of us. You can stay here, Or you can start to pick up. That right hand. And find your balance, Find your center. That right hand comes down, We're gonna swing the left leg over, Toes touch down, Look out and then look over to those left toes on the right side of your mat. Let the breath travel all the way down to the belly. On an inhale, Bring yourself back to center. Reset. And we'll take a few moments here. If you'd like to open up the knees and push the hips back, We can find a child's pose. If a seat is more comfortable, That is always welcome as well. But let's just take a few moments here. Find an active rest. Come back to the breath. Come back to any intention you may have set in the beginning of class. Allow yourself to settle for just a moment. Few more breaths. Now if you took that rest in any position outside the child's pose, If it's comfortable for you, I invite you to come into child's pose. Open up the knees, Make space for the belly, Push your hips back, Hands come out in front of us. We're going to find a little twist a little stretch on either side. So our hips are going to stay where they are, Our knees are going to stay where they are, Lower body staying the same, But we're going to tense up on the fingertips like we've got a little cupcake underneath each one. And then we're gonna bring our upper body, Bring our hands over to the right side before we touch back down. Elongating the left side, Can you pull back on that left hip? Make a little more space for yourself. On an inhale, Tent back up on your fingertips, Bring yourself through center, And on an exhale, We'll move over to the left side. Before we touch down, Spiral that right shoulder back down to the ground, Pull back on that right hip, Make space. On an inhale tent back up on your finger so our fingertips bring yourself back through center. And then when you're ready put yourself back up into our tabletop. We've got a few more postures here on either side before we find our last restful posture of the sequence. So let's reset here in our tabletop hands and knees. And from here, Let's swing the right leg up. Left knee is still down, Hands are on either side of that right foot. Once we feel sturdy and once we feel stable, Let's rise up into a low lunge. Now you lost my face here, But you can see my torso. You see how my pelvis is moving forward here. I want us to be moving forward. One of my yoga teachers says it should feel like someone's kicking you in the ass. So bring your hands up and overhead. We've got that knee down, Low lunge, Pelvis is moving forward, Chin is up. Or breathing. On your next exhale, Bring your left hand down, Twist over to the right. That right hand comes up and over. Maybe your right palm faces the front of the mat. On your next exhale, Bring the right hand inside of the right foot, Bring the left hand up and over, Twisting over to the left now. On an exhale, Bring that left hand back down. Bring the right foot for just a moment, And then let yourself bring that right knee back, Take a moment, Reset. On an inhale, Swing your left foot back up. Once you're sturdy, Once you're stable, Rot. Pelvis is moving forward. On an exhale, Bring that right hand down, Left hand swims up and over, Twisting over that left knee. On your next exhale, Bring the left hand down inside of the left foot, Right hand comes up and over twisting to the right. On an exhale, Bring that right hand back down, Bring the left knee back to meet the right, Take a moment to reset. And from here, My friends, We can find a few moments of shavasana, A moment to let this integrate, To let this settle. Again, Just like in the beginning, This doesn't feel like the most restful shavasana pose. So if you'd like to push your hips back into a child's pose, If you have props or blocks that you would like to sit on, Or if you'd like to lay down long like a traditional shavasana, You are more than welcome to do so. But at this point, My friends, It is time for us to let all of that settle, Integrate and take a few moments of reflection before we move on. So I will invite you into whatever restful actively restful posture you may like. I'm going to find myself back on these blocks here and just take a few moments. And you can stay in the shavasana for as long as you would like. Once you get there, My friends, Roll your shoulders back if that's applicable. Close your eyes. There's nothing more for us to do. There's nobody else we need to be. All we need to do. Just be here.
