Yoga For Release

This yoga practice will channel your body’s downward-flowing energy and send old and stagnant energy out. We begin with a centering opening sequence to create presence and mindfulness, followed by holds in forward-bending postures to help the energy flow down and out of the body. The practice ends with a full 7-minute savasana to integrate the practice and nourish the spirit.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to my yoga class. My name is Ashley and I am so grateful that you chose me to share a practice with you today. Today's practice is focusing on the theme of release. So this is a great practice to do at the start of a new season, At the start of a new cycle, Maybe a new job, Something new happening in your life, Or even at the start of a new week. We're going to be focusing on forward bending. And that will help us release anything we're holding onto that doesn't serve us anymore. So we're just going to start with a visualization, A little bit of centering. You can find a comfortable seat on your mat. I'm sitting under a blanket if you'd like a little bit more cushion. And also before we begin, I just want to point out a few props that you might want to have nearby. So today we're going to be doing balancing with a chair. So I have a chair here to help with some balance. You can also grab any chair you have or anything that's about this high that can help you hold on to while we balance today. We also have a bolster. Bolster is going to be used toward the end of class a bolster is really just a long pillow or any pillow that you have so if you have a few pillows grab them have them nearby and then I also have my blocks back here and again blocks can be Something like a book or anything that's kind of like this shape is just going to help us bring the floor closer to us in some of our poses today. And if you don't have any of these things, Don't worry. You can also just be nearby a wall instead of a chair. And we'll make it work, Okay? So let's get settled. Close down the eyes if it feels comfortable to you. Breathing naturally. Noticing your breathing. And on the theme of release today, If you practice mudras. We're going to bring our middle finger and our ring finger to our thumb on each hand. You can choose not to do this as well. This mudra is called Apana Mudra. And it signifies the downward flow of energy through the body. And it helps with our theme of release today. So if you'd like to take this mudra. You're taking the middle finger and your ring finger to your thumb. Point your finger and pinky finger extended. Palms facing up. And today with our breath. We'll try to make the exhales longer than the inhales. So inhaling perhaps for four. 3, 2, 1. And then exhale for 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Inhale for 4321. Exhale for 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Continue with this breath sequence. Perhaps you can make your exhales even longer, Seven or eight seconds. If you can't get there, No judgment. All we're looking for is the exhales to be longer than the inhale. Attempt to fully fill up with air. And fully empty with every breath cycle. One more round of breaths. And then come back to your natural breathing rhythm. Here I'd like you to visualize a downward flow of energy from your forehead all the way down to your root or your tailbone. That energy is flowing down and out through your hips. And it's a cleansing energy. Picture perhaps a white or silver light. Coming down through the head. Through the throat, Through the heart. Down through the navel, The hips and out. In our forward folds today, We will picture this energy flowing from our head out through our hips. Collectively inhale. Sigh it out. If you took your mudra, You can bring your hands face down on your knees, Swallowing your throat. Blink the eyes open. And we're ready to begin. So we're going to begin actually with our legs out straight. This pose is called Staff Pose or Dandasana. And with this pose, I'm looking for you to notice where the hips hinge. So I'm pointing right now to this area where my body comes to the floor and starts shooting forward into this pose. Put your thumbs where those hip hinge happens, Where the hip hinge happens. And just notice this area. We're going to be pushing back on this area to help us with our forward folds today. Closing the eyes perhaps, Growing tall in this pose. Pushing into the hip hinge. And if you close your eyes, Blink your eyes open. Taking our legs, We're just going to cross them. That's going to be our transition. I'm going to turn sideways so we can do a little bit of a spinal awakening sequence. If you'd like, You can put a blanket under your knees for a little extra cushion. Not required. Hands under your shoulders, Fingertips spread wide. We're going to start with cow pose. So bringing our belly button and our chest, Sink it down towards your mat. Heart rises. Shoulders down and back. And then we're going to push the floor away, Tuck the tailbone forward, Round the back. Cat pose. Once again, Sink that belly button low. Crown of the head is tall. And then push the floor away, Tuck the tailbone. Let's sink some breath here. So on the cow pose, Inhale. And on the cat pose, Exhale. Inhale to cow. Exhale to calf with the cow inhale expansion. In the cat, Exhale, Release. Two more times. Inhale, Expansion. Exhale release. And our last time, Inhale, Expand. And exhale, Release. Coming back to a neutral spine. Shift your hips side to side. This is just opening up a little bit of the hips. Like I said before, That energy is gonna be releasing out of our hips. So moving the hips. Getting them in motion. Think about that as shaking out that stagnant energy. Just going side to side here. You can stick with the side-to-side movement if you'd like to try something new. I'm going to be rotating the hips. It's like a mini cat cow. Sounding creepy. Counterclockwise if you went clockwise no worries we're just going to switch directions in a few seconds Quiet that movement. And then if you chose to do the circles, Switch directions here. If you're still going side to side, Keep up with that movement, Shake it out. Quieting the movement. Sit back on your heels, Extend the arms forward, Child's pose. Find extension through the arms. The hips are intensely hinging right now. Introducing a little bit of a side body stretch here, Taking one arm to meet the other. Opening up through the side body. Walking through center, Take the other arm to meet the other side body stretch. Hands to center. Come back up to tabletop position. And here we're going to tuck our toes. And we'll lift our hips to the sky. Slow, Steady. Downward facing dog. If you'd like to walk out your dog here, We'll be lifting the heels one at a time. Warming up those calves, The hamstrings, Giving it a good stretch. Still hinging from the hips. Notice where? Your hips transition from legs to torso. In that shape that's happening, An inverted V. Quiet the movement of your feet. And this time we're going to bend the knees and walk back towards our feet. And then roll up slowly to a standing position. At this point, If you had a blanket under your knees, I'd like you to take it out of the way. And we're going to stand at the top of your mat. I'm just going to face you on the long edge, So if your mat looks like mine, You can just copy me. Starting in Tadasana. Mountain Pose. Standing strong and steady. Starting with our feet, Rooting into the four corners of your feet. So that'll be either side of the toe mount and either side of the heels. Push into the mat, Push into those corners and find stability. Take your inner thighs, Maybe roll them back slightly. Tailbone tucks forward. Shoulders roll down and back. Wrists heavy. One inch below your belly button in and up. Notice how more stable you feel. Now that we've introduced the core. Opening through the heart, The throat. Lifting through the head. Beautiful. Notice how you feel here. Picture that visualization of the silver or white light coming from the crown of your head. Down through your forehead, Your throat, Your heart, Your core, Your hips and out. We're going to take our first pose. So if you are using a chair, I'd like you to make sure that two rungs of the chair are on the mat. That's going to keep your chair from moving around when we use it for balance. So just pull it in if it's not on the mat already. We're going to stand facing the chair with our feet hip distance apart. So depending on your anatomy, This could be closer or wider. So make sure those feet are wider than the ground. Right next to each other. We'll step back with our left leg. Feet are still hip distance apart. Heel of the back leg is at 6 o'clock and toes are at 11 o'clock. This is our stance for Warrior One. Press into the outer blade of your front foot. And also press into the outer blade in the heel of the back foot, Almost pushing the mat away with your feet. Picture a tether from your tailbone to the earth to help further ground you and one inch below the belly button comes in and up. Hands at heart center. Today with this pose, We're going to be focusing on grounding through the feet. And that downward flow of energy. Breathing, Feeling the strength of your legs. Beautiful. Next we're going to transition into warrior three. Warrior three is an intense balancing pose and that's why we have our chair here for help. You can also use a wall so if you'd like to pause right now and move toward a wall you totally can. We're going to be shifting. Forward into our front leg. So start here. This is a hip hinge, Like we practice in our warm-ups. This is the area where your body is starting to move forward. Use your hands or fingertips to grab the chair. Then start lifting the back heel up, Keeping your body hinged forward. And this can be enough. You don't even have to lift that back leg. This is a warrior three stance. But if you like to. Lift the toes a few inches off the floor. Alignment cues, Your toes are facing the earth, Your knees are rotating toward the earth too, So it's an internal rotation. Of that lifted leg in the back. Most of your weight should be placed on the front standing leg, Some weight of course on the chair. Adjust as needed. Maybe you need more weight on the chair and less weight on your front leg to hold this pose for a little while. And breathe. Generating a lot of power in the front leg. One more breath. Mmm. Step the feet together using your chair to help you and our counter pose is going to be five-pointed star so feet apart Open. Tailbone tucked forward. Think about a stacking of shoulders and hips here. Expansion. Energy moves down from our hands now into our shoulders and out through our legs. We're at Canster Heart Center. Heel toe those feet in. We're going to take the other side with our warrior one and three sequence. So again facing your chair. Decent distance, Feet apart. Stepping back now with our right leg. Heel at 6 o'clock, Toes at 1 o'clock. Pressing into the outer blade of the front leg. The outer blade of the back leg. Tether from the hips to the floor. Hands at Heart Center. Energy through the feet. Breathing. Power. One more breath. And then we'll transition into our warrior three. So starting with our hip hinge. Leaning forward. Answer the chair. Start lifting up the back heel slowly. Your toes can stay on the floor or they can lift up. Alignment cues once again, You want your toes toward the floor, Knee toward the floor, Heel toward the ceiling. Most of your weight on your front leg. Some weight on your hands on the chair. If you're shaking, That's normal. I'm shaking too, We have this. Your breath will help you focus. Your help will help you through. Your breath will help you through. All right, Feet together. This time we're going to open up with our arms down. So instead of arms pointed up, Arms are going to be pointed down. Energy floating from your head. Down your throat, Out your shoulders, Out your fingertips, And also down through your hips and out your legs. Notice how your body feels. Our legs just worked really hard to hold those poses. If you close your eyes, Blink them open. And we're going to do a little bit of a hip hinge. Sequence, I guess I could call it. So heel to your feet together. This is going to help prepare us for our first intense hip hinge of the day. So you might use your chair for this. Stepping toward your chair, We're actually going to begin in chair pose. So feet hip distance or together, It's going to be up to you really what your preference is. I like a little bit of space between my feet. Sit back as if there is another chair behind you. So noticing the shape we're making here, Sometimes people call this pose lightning bolt because of the shape of our bodies. And then if you'd like to use the chair, We're going to straighten our legs but hips come back even further. Intense hip hinge. More of an intense hemp hinge here. I'm grabbing the side rungs of my chair. We're going to bend back into chair. You can keep holding on or let go. And then right back up to standing. Beautiful. Coming back to cherry. Hips come back. Chair pose once again. Stand up straight. Let's do this. Maybe two more times. Sitting down to chair. Hips come back, Halfway lift. To chair. And standing up straight. One more time. Let's hold chair a little bit longer. Three breaths. One more leg's on fire. And release those hips back halfway. Neutral spine. Open up through the hamstrings. Releasing energy out through the hips. And then just as a transitionary move, Bend into the knees. And back up to standing. Beautiful. So that position that we just did with the hips coming back is how we're going to do our forward folds today. So you can either have your chair handy. Or you can have blocks handy. I'm going to demonstrate with blocks because I've already demonstrated with the chair how you can use it. If you decide to use blocks instead, Here's a demonstration using those. So just know, Either way you can use blocks or you can use your chair. I'm going to take my forward folds facing sideways so you can see the intense bend my hips are taking. So I'll face the other side of my mat. You can face your chair if you're using the chair. I'm going to start with my blocks in the highest position. And then like we did in the warm-up, Let's place our thumbs. On that hip crease. Feet hip distance apart to give you a good base and foundation to stay standing, Right? Taking the hips, Sit them back by pushing on your hip crease area. So creating that half hinge that we just did, Right? And now if you have your blocks handy. And they're at a good height for you. Here we are attempting to keep our back straight. In a neutral position. Especially if we're not close to the floor. Intense stretch for the hamstrings. Perhaps even lower back. If you have anything with blood pressure or with your eyes, I would highly recommend staying at this halfway point. For your forward folds. We will always come up halfway first before we stand just so that we don't have any dizziness. If you'd like to come further into your forward fold, You can adjust blocks or stay there. Everyone's flexibility is different. As you get closer to the ground, Your back might round a little bit, But we're trying not to make it excessive. Shoulders back. Shine forward with the heart in the head so that your back can stay long. Here we're picturing. Release of that energy out through the hips. Into the world around us. With every exhale, You can try to go deeper into your forward bend. We're doing a long pose here. To help intensify the release. One more breath. To come out of the pose, Bend to the knees, Blocks can come higher to create that halfway position. One full breath here. Then we'll bend the knees once again and come up safely to a standing position. Great job. Our counter pose today is going to be the opposite. So we're just going to bring arms above the head. It's almost like the morning stretch, But we're standing instead. So lots of bending, We're going to counter it with lots of extension. Coming back into a straight body. If shoulders are lifting because it's hard with the arms straight, You can always bend them and keep them further apart. And release those hands. Great job. Maybe roll it out, Shake it out. We will do one more forward fold here. I'm going to give you one more cue to maybe feel the pose a little bit differently and then we'll move on to one more intense forward bend. So standing in our same stance here. We're going to start once again pressing through our hip crease to that halfway point position we just practiced. This can be the place you stay. If you decide to go deeper. Blocks can adjust. Blocks can move out of the way. If you're touching the floor already, Back is flat, Shining forward with our chest and our head, Shoulders moving back toward our hips. Now with this pose the second time, Shift your weight Slightly more into the mound of the foot toward the toes. And notice if that changes the pose for you. Does it intensify the stretch? Does it feel the same? When we shift forward a little bit, It helps make our legs more perpendicular. Which does make the pose a little bit more difficult. If you'd like to ease out of the pose, Hips can come back a little bit more. So notice that shifting in my body, Shift in your body and give yourself the pose that you want today. Two more breaths, Picturing that energy. Flowing out of the hips. Full release. You Transition out of the pose by bending into the knees. Blocks come to their highest position, Use them for leverage to come to that halfway point. Full breath here. Bend into the knees. And gently guide the body up to the ceiling. Roll those shoulders back. Great job. Our next forward bend. Is going to use a wider stance, So I'm going to face you. You can do blocks or you can do a chair. So take this time now, You can pause me, Move the chair where my blocks would be. I'm obviously not going to move the chair because then you wouldn't see me. Wide stance means three and a half to four feet apart. If you're shorter like me, It's more like three feet. And we're going to take the same type of forward fold. So I demonstrated the way I pushed my hips back with the first forward fold we did. We'll do the same here. So taking our thumbs to our hip crease, Sitting back. This stretch will feel different because we're going to be using a different part of the legs in our stretch. Start with your blocks in the highest position. Halfway point, My back is flat. Shining forward with my heart in my head. Shoulders back. This can be the place you stay. If you'd like to go deeper. Leading with the heart, Blocks adjust. Closer to the Earth. Blocks can either move toward your feet. That brings the stretch a little bit further. And if you are going further in this pose, That means that your head is coming below your heart. So we will be coming up halfway before we fully come up to standing because that is the safe exit from this pose. In Sanskrit, This pose is called Prasarita Padottanasana. Wide leg forward fold, One of my favorite release poses. A visualization here. Picture a door. On the back of your pelvis. Picture that door opening. To the back of the room. Opening to release. More energy, That silver energy moving out. One more breath here. If you move your blocks back toward your feet, Shift them forward. Slowly come up a little bit further. Adjust the blocks to the tall position. Use the leverage to come up halfway. Full breath here. Maybe a slight bend in the knees. Use the strength of your feet to come up to standing. And for this one, The counter is just to shake it out, Because that's a lot. Lots of stillness. We're going to counter it with a little bit of shaking. And shaking also helps release energy. So when you ever feel like you need to shake it out, Please do. It's great. It feels good. Like we did two on the forward fold, We'll do two on the wide leg forward fold. So do some more shaking. When you are ready, We're going to take a wide stance once again. And this will be our last forward fold before we start our counter sequence and come into our final pose of the day. So taking our thumbs to our hip crease. Sitting back. Starting with the halfway point, Maybe adjust your feet a little bit more here. You can even try even wider of a stance this time if you'd like to. And then sinking the chest as low as you'd like. Adjusting blocks as needed. Always leading with the heart, Keeping the back neutral and straight as you can. And maybe they move back toward your feet. To intensify the stretch. Pressing through your feet to keep your body stable. Opening that door on the back of the pelvis. Breathing, Releasing with every exhale. We'll do one more breath here. To slowly transition out of the pose. Slide those blocks forward. Use them as leverage to come up a little bit higher. Change their position. So that we can push up a little bit into our halfway lift. And then if you brought your legs wider, You might bring them a little bit closer. To give you better leverage to bend into the knees and slowly use the floor to push your body up to standing. Step those feet together, Heel toe those feet together. We're going to come to the front of our mat. Just to transition down to the floor. So big breath up. Dive forward, Forward fold, Hands to the mat, Step back. Knees to the floor. And sit back to child's pose. Lengthen, Hinge from the hips. If you'd like to shift back and forth here, That's an option for you. Two more breaths here. Use this pose to cool the body. Push yourself up to a tabletop position. Doing the cat-cow sequence we did in our warm-up, Belly button sinks low. Tuck the tailbone forward round the back inhale for cow. Exhale for cat. Two more times here. And back to a neutral spine. We will transition to a seated position. You can either cross those ankles and sit back, Or you can bring your legs. Over and just find a seated position. Before. With this pose, You can choose to sit on your blanket again. You can also choose to sit on the mat. We're going to take our legs out straight to Staff Pose Dandasana. Like we did in the beginning, But this time we're going to introduce a spinal twist. So taking your left leg toward you, Right ribs are going to meet inner thigh of the left leg. Use your hands to guide your body over Twisting is another great way to release tension. Almost like a wrung towel, Releasing. Anything, Any energy that you don't need. Bodies tall, Shining forward through the heart, Back through the shoulders, Lifting through the crown of the head. Energy in that straight leg, Toes up to the ceiling. One more breath here. Gently untwist. Using your hands to help you. Leg out straight, Right leg in. Left ribs moving toward the right inner thigh using arms to help you twist, Tall through the spine, Shoulders back, Lift through the crown of your head. Picture your body like that rung towel. As the energy releases down into the earth. On your next exhale, Gently release out of that twist. And now I'm going to introduce to you a restorative pose. So I'm going to offer Three to five minutes for you to take this pose and fully embrace it. It might be a challenge if you're one of those people who has a mind that just keeps racing, But I want to challenge you to try to stay in that pose for the duration I give you. And if thoughts come by, Let them float by. Let them float by and just think about them as part of that release out of your body. No judgment if they come in because that's completely normal, But try to have them keep going instead of holding them and keeping them. So to show you the setup for this, Our leg position is going to be here. So wide, Doesn't have to be super wide. If you want to go more narrow, You can. And then blocks, Books, Anything heavy, A box, A heavier box. One in the wide position. One in a taller position right in front. And then this is where the bolster comes into play, Or the pillow. You can move. You know, You're trying to set it up so it's kind of tall enough for you to come in. Just give it a hug. See you gonna. . . Head off to the side, Hug the pillow, Use your blocks as leverage. It's not meant to be an intense pose, More as a release. So we're picturing the energy releasing down and out through the hips like we talked about all class. And we'll be holding on to this pillow and into this pose for, Like I said, About five minutes maybe. We'll see. If you find that five minutes is too long, Feel free to come out of the pose and fast forward a little bit for the finish of this class. But I invite you to keep the pose for the time I offer and see how it feels afterwards. Feel free to enter the pose. I'll go silent for a few minutes. Ambient music to help keep you centered. And I'll see you on the other side. Welcome back. Our final poses for today will be lying on our back. So transition. Onto the floor. Any props you'd like for Shavasana nearby, So your blanket or bolster for under your knees, Just have them handy. Last poses of the day. Hug your knees into your chest. Rocking side to side. Like we did in the warmup, Rocking those hips, Shaking out the last bit. Of energy left that you'd like to release. And I'll offer you one final opportunity to twist, Shifting your hips two inches over to the right, Let the knees fall. Over to the left. Breathing. One more breath here. Bring those knees up to the ceiling. Shifting the hips. Two inches in the other direction and let those knees fall to the opposite side. Fully embracing this twist, This release. Gently bring your knees up to the ceiling. Shift those hips back to the neutral position. One last knees to chest. And finally release those legs forward. To your final resting pose. Now this can be either what I'm demonstrating, So feet flat on the ground. You can use a blanket. And roll it up. And have it under your knees as a bolster. If you have that long bolster like I used in class today, That can also go under your knees. You can cover yourself with a blanket here. Whatever you do, Try to find the most comfortable position. Even if you want to find the mudra we did in the beginning of class. We're doing. Ring finger and middle finger toward the thumb. You can hold that mudra for the Shavasana. To remind your body that this is about releasing. And anything that's left will seep into the earth below you. For the next few minutes, I invite you to fully surrender. And fully rest. Like we did in our restorative pose today. I will go silent for a few minutes. And my hope is that you can stay present and find peace in our final Shravasana. I will guide you out of our final resting pose in a few minutes. You Finding our way back to the earth. Starting with our breath. Deeper inhales and exhales. To return to our bodies. Perhaps inviting small movements back into your fingertips. Your toes. Scrunch up the nose, Make some facial expressions. The movements progressively become larger through the wrists. The hips, The ankles, The knees, Your neck. Rocking the head side to side. Eventually, These movements can either land you on your favorite side in fetal position or you can come up to that seated position we began class with. If it feels comfortable, Keep your eyes closed. And bring one or both hands depending on your position. Face down with fingertips on the earth. As the last bits of energy. Release down through your fingertips, Your tailbone. Honor what you released. And look forward to the space you created for new beginnings. A new start, A new cycle. Everything we release created space for those new things to come in. Take a deep breath in. And notice how spacious you feel. Exhale it out. If you came to that fetal position, I'd like you to now push up into a comfortable seat And we're gonna take our hands in prayer at our heart center. Acknowledge yourself for the effort you made in class today, The effort it took to come to class today, Because we all know that that's more than half the battle. And think about how, Now that you have all this space available for new energy, How that's going to take place in your life off the mat. Take one deep breath through the nose, Expand. Audible exhale. Swallowing your throat. Blink your eyes open. Thank you so much for joining me today for this class. Namaste. Peace to you. And I hope to see you again really soon. Thanks again.