by Whitney Gee
Short on time or space? This simple chair and standing yoga flow helps you stretch, move, and reset your body anywhere. Perfect for travel, work breaks, or those moments when you want to move but only have a few minutes. No mat required.
Meet your Teacher
Madison, WI, USA
Transcript
Welcome to your yoga flow. Today's practice is going to be predominantly standing and the second portion is going to be done from a chair. So if you are on the go at a hotel room or you're just a little bit short on time and you don't have a yoga mat, Then this is going to be the perfect practice for you. So let's go ahead and get started. We're going to go ahead and have our feet out about hip distance apart. We're just going to start with some nice gentle hip rotations. Warming up the body. And then let's go ahead and switch opposite directions. This always brings me back to my hula days. Such a fun way to get started and just welcoming a little bit of dynamic movement into your body. We're going to go ahead and shorten the distance here. So our feet are just about hip distance or a little bit less and we're going to find a little bit of knee rotations. So you might notice that my hands are not on the knee joint, But they're just slightly above. A lot of us jump right into our day before really warming up and that's when we can be prone to injuries. So it's very important before we start with a lot of movement when we're in those cold days that we incorporate a little movement. Let's go ahead and switch opposite direction. So knee joints, Hip joints, Ankle joints, All of these things. Perform really important functions for us and doing these little motions are giving ourselves a little bit of lubrication for those joints, Warming them up. Wonderful. Let's go ahead and move to the shoulder sockets here. So finding our feet right underneath us, We're going to raise up with one arm and then switch the other. I'm going to turn sideways so you can see what this looks like. I'm cupping my hands so it's pointed towards the sky. And then as one arm comes up, The other lowers. And you might notice here, I'm not coming out like one of those fun dance moves here. I'm engaging the core here, Tucking the tailbone to the earth, I have a nice little micro bend at the knee here so I'm not hyper extending the leg. And then breathing nice and deep. And I invite you to create a little bit of energy in those arms. Flexing those muscles a bit. We're gonna have those nice beautiful toned arms, Right? So go ahead and just find that movement. Breathing nice and deep. And what I love about kind of this movement through meditation is it really gives us this opportunity to focus on one thing. And this helps us with what they call in yoga philosophy, Our monkey mind, Which our monkey mind is hopping all over, Having a thousand different thoughts at once. So by doing simple movement and combining that with the practice of focus on the breath and presence of mind on the mat, Exhale. Because we are fully present in this moment. So if you feel yourself starting to wander down that monkey path, Just pull yourself back to this task at hand. And last one. Beautiful. We're gonna go ahead and find our chair here. And we're going to sit down and we're just going to start having some gentle kicks. Extending one foot and then the other. You might notice here that I'm bending at the knee and then extending. Just gonna make it a little less intense. And I'm sending the energy through my toes. That's going to give myself a nice stretch on those back of the hamstrings. And I'm sitting up nice, Tall and proud. I'm not crunched over. Using that core and those posterior muscles to hold myself up. We're going to have that nice, Beautiful yogic posture throughout our day. This is what it takes. Continual practice. I start feeling a little bit of heat building in the legs i know i do i'm right here with you Let's keep on pushing. Wonderful last one okay we're gonna find a little bit of quick twinkle toes we call them and this is really great for agility so go ahead and just twinkle toe your way around the mat here pointing with your toe and moving around nice and quick You might feel a little bit of tightness here in the hips as we are working the leg. And just moving around you see a lot of football players soccer players all the sports people working on this kind of quick toe quick footwork and it just really helps us have that strong body mind connection And it's always good to kind of think on our toes, Right? Okay, Now I want you to go ahead and give me a little bit fast feet. So fast feet, Fast feet, Fast feet. And hold onto your chair for a little bit of stability here. And having some fast feet. You might feel a little bit of thermodynamic warm up in that body happening. It feels so good to be alive to moving our body. And finding stillness. Placing your hands onto the tops of your quads, Feeling that golden cord pulling up from the crown of our head, Closing the eyes. And I invite you in this moment just to feel that juxtaposition between movement and stillness. Feeling the energy and the kinetic movement that you created and how it's reverberating through your body. Feeling that energy kind of pulsating up the legs and creating that mind-body connection. Reminding yourself that you are in control. Beautiful when you're ready opening your eyes inhaling both arms up overhead Exhale, We're gonna go ahead and have our left hand come to the outside of our right leg. As we elongate the spine here, We're gonna slowly look over our right shoulder for a gentle spinal twist. And release. I invite you to go ahead and try it on the other side. Inhale, The arms up overhead, Right comes to the outside of our left leg. Inhale to elongate, Twisting behind. Beautiful. And release, Coming back into a seated position. We're going to go ahead and stand up for this next part. You can move your chair to the side a little bit if you'd like. We're going to open up our legs nice and wide into a horse stance here. So I'm going to give a nice little bend at those knees. And I'm just going to push across my body with my right foot coming over to my left side. So it's pushing across, Building up a little bit of heat, Warming up and engaging the core. And I just invite you to imagine that you're pushing away anything no longer serving you today. Anything that you're ready to just release. Push it away and remember that you have full sovereignty over what you allow into your environment. That no is a whole complete sentence. Just remember that these postures put you into the seat of empowerment in your mindset and in your body, Which is so powerful. And three. And two. And one. Beautiful. Bringing those legs up nice and gentle here. Go ahead and shake it out for me. And we're gonna go ahead and find a little bit of motion here where we're gonna inhale the arms up and we're gonna lower them down, Finding your own degree here. This could be a full forward motion or it can just be a nice micro bend at the knee. I'm gonna turn sideways so you can kind of see a little bit more. Bending down, Releasing the arms. Inhale up. Arms to the sky but again your degree might be here today and that's okay finding what feels right for you moving at your own pace Some of us can get a little bit dizzy with our head going down to the earth, So maybe it just feels right for you to hold a static pose. Or maybe it feels right to go nice and slow. We are in control. Just imagining again that we're kind of taking anything no longer serving us and we're washing it away. Clearing it out, Paving the way. For new energy. New vitality A whole new you. Beautiful. Last one. Inhale, Keeping those arms up to the sky for a moment, Lowering down those shoulders, Engaging the tailbone, Sending it down into the earth, Feeling the strength in this posture. And as we exhale holding down here for a moment see if we can get to a flat back Nice bend at the knee. And we're going to go ahead and concave the back here and rolling up slowly but surely. Head is going to be the last to join us. Turning and facing our chair here. We're going to go ahead and find a modified downward dog. We're going to take the base of the chair and we're going to go ahead and walk our feet out as much of distance as it feels right for us. We're going to send our tailbone to the opposite direction of the room and we're going to give a nice little micro bend at the knee so we're not hyperextending and then allowing our chest to come through our shoulders. And have this nice beautiful stretch. I invite you to find a little playful movement here, Perhaps walking the dog. Perhaps wiggling the tail. And just recalibrating into the body When you're ready, Slowly walking your way up. We're going to sit down onto our chair on the edge of our seat so we can have a nice, Beautiful, Elongated position. One hand on the tummy, One hand on the heart. And I invite you. Bye. Just kind of taking a moment to settle into the body. Settle. The speed of the heart, The cadence of the breath. Rev back down into that downshifting gear into the parasympathetic rest and digest state. I invite you just to find a moment of gratitude for having a body that can move, That has this gift of access to things like technology, To be able to connect with. This yogic wisdom that has been around for hundreds and thousands of years to be able to connect with. What it means to be in our happiest and healthiest selves. And what a truly amazing gift this is that you are giving yourself each and every time you come to your practice. When you're ready, Slowly open your eyes. Give me a nice stretch overhead. All right, Beauty. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you had an amazing practice and I look forward to seeing you next time. Have a beautiful day.
