Superbly Supple Hatha Yoga Full Hour Class

Keep your spine supple and strong. Props needed: a block for sitting and a blanket to pad your knees. Please work at your own level. Participation is subject to and governed by English law and the exclusive jurisdiction of the Courts of England and Wales.

Transcript

Welcome to today's practice we're going to start laying down so let's find a nice comfortable supine position perhaps with knees bent perhaps with legs out of stretch maybe you want to take a little wiggle between shoulder blades just to get that sense of space between the shoulders and maybe tuck in chin a little towards the chest so you get that length through the back of the neck And we're going to just allow for that sense of everything to start to get a little heavier. So let's allow for the inhale. To draw in. And allow the exhale. To just gently start to leave. Inhale. Drawing in maybe a little bit of space to the body. Exhale. Allowing for any tension that we don't need at this moment in time, Just to release. We're going to stay with those breaths and with the inhale. And the exhale. Allowing it to draw in. Let me exhale. Just leave in a sense of softness, Maybe feeling a little bit more settled. With each natural breath. And then. . . Next time we exhale, Let's take our awareness down to our feet. Checking in with our feet and our ankles. Our calves and shins up to our knees. To our thighs, Our hips and pelvis. Taking that awareness to your tummy. And then to your solar plexus, Just above your belly button. And then moving the awareness around the sides of the waist to the lower back. Let's take our awareness to the tailbone, Right at the base of the spine. We're going to allow the awareness to slowly move up the spine. Each vertebrae, Each little disc in between. Moving to the lower back, That's A little triangular. Hard piece of bone there. And then moving further up, Mid spine, Maybe there's a curve there, Perhaps following that curve. Up to our upper back maybe the area between the shoulder blades all the way up to the very of your spine. And we're going to allow for awareness to come back to that upper back area. And then wrap your awareness around the sides of your waist, Following your rib cage to the front of the body. Resting the awareness to the chest. And just notice in the rise and fall. Of the chest and maybe the solar plexus and tummy as we inhale and exhale those natural breaths. Letting that awareness now move to your fingers and your hands, Your palms and the backs of your hands. Up to your wrists and forearms, To your elbows. Taking the awareness to the tops of your arms. All the way up your shoulders. Once again, That space between shoulder blades and neck. Space between collarbones and neck. And then taking the awareness up your neck. The front, The sides, The back of the neck, Up to the area. Of your skull at the base of your neck. Base of your skull. Taking the awareness around to your jaw or your lower jaw. And then moving the awareness all the way up the body, Past the back of the head, Past the way, Past the ears, Past the features of the face, All the way up that head to the very top of the head. Let's just pause here, Releasing that breath. Releasing that focus. We're going to take a couple of breaths, Just moving the breath up and down. Our spine so on the exhale allow for that awareness and breath to feel like it's moving down to the base of the spine that tailbone On the inhale, Feel like it's moving all the way up. Maybe to the very top of the neck or all the way up to the crown of the head, Treating the head like an extension. Of the spine. Exhale, Back down to tailbone. Inhale length up to the crown of the head Let's take one more breath this way. Exhale down. Inhale up and then when we're ready releasing that focus maybe allowing eyes to gently blink open Okay, Really good. So from here, Let's take a little bend into our knees if legs are outstretched. We're going to work into our neck to start off with. So we've got a bit of a spine focus today. So we're going to be moving our spine in all different ways to keep nice and supple. So let's tuck chin towards the chest a little. So we get that sensible length through the back of the neck. Shoulders just gently relax away from ears. And on the exhale, Let's allow head to roll to one side. I don't mind which side. Notice how it feels. Inhale, Come back through center, Keeping that chin tucked a little. And on the exhale, Let's take it over to the other side. Let's keep working with that breath. Inhale to centre. Exhale. So let's stay with those inhales. With those exhales. I'm going to take one more to each side so there's no hurry. So when you're ready, Exhale into that first side. Keeping those shoulders relaxed. Inhale to center, Exhale. One more time to the second side. And inhale and back. To. Center so from here we're going to keep that chin tucked a little towards the chest we're going to imagine that there is a piece of paper floating just above our nose and our nose is a pencil and we're going to draw really small little circles on that paper so you might feel that sense of a little bit of a massage happening into the back of the head as we do this and you might get really good double chin as you draw the bottom of the circle No one's looking, No one's judging. So that's absolutely fine. And then. . . When we feel ready, Let's gently change the direction of those circles, Keeping that length through the back of the neck. Allowing the hair to kind of feel heavy onto the earth so we're not put into any strain on the neck, We're just. . . Getting a little bit of movement, A little bit of massage. Then maybe you want to change direction just for a couple of movements. Then coming back. To neutral. Really nice. So from here, We're going to take a little bit of arm movement. So I'm just going to shuffle down my mat so I've got some space to take my arms overhead. So when we're ready, Let's allow for solar plexus to gently hug back. On the inhale, With the arms by the sides of the body, We're going to float them up towards the sky and overhead. One inhale. Exhale we're going to allow them to float up towards the sky and back down by the size of a body and as we do this just notice what happens into the spine on the inhale arms overhead maybe there's a little bit of an arch through that spine near the chest exhale taking them down maybe that arch goes away so we're not going to allow it be too exaggerated it's just keeping that breath flowing as we inhale And as we exhale, Arms back down towards the sides of the body. Let's go with one more of these movements. Inhale, Floating up. Really good. Exhale, Taking those arms back down, Allowing them to rest by the sides of the body once more. And from here, We're going to place those hands just onto the front of our hip bones. So just kind of resting them near the hips with knees bent. From here, We're going to work into the lower part of the spine. So we've kind of worked the head and neck a little. We can call that the top of the spine. So we're going to work that lower part. So when we're ready, Thinking about that solar plexus, That area just above our belly button, On the exhale, Let's really draw that solar plexus towards the earth. And you might find your sitting bones and your tailbone start to tilt up a little away from the floor. On the inhale, Let's allow for solar plexus to draw up to the sky, Sitting bones and tailbone tilt down towards the earth. So this is our little pelvic tilt. In with that breath exhale solar plexus draws back sitting bones Tailbone point up. Inhale solar plexus draws up you might even find a little arch in the spine as that happens So as we're working with this, I'm going to invite you to just allow for that movement to come from the solar plexus movement. We're not going to push through our feet to do this. The spine's going to stay nicely grounded. It's just a little change in the tilt that we are using. And you might notice the lower back coming to work. To do this movement also. Really good let's take another couple of these inhales and exhales. And then. . . After we've taken our next movements. In our next ear. Inhale. Just allowing spine to come to neutral. And from here, We're going to take a nice full body stretch. So let's lengthen legs out, Reaching arms overhead. Take that nice, Long, Long stretch. Maybe have a little yawn while you're there. And we're going to point our toes away, Stretching through the fronts of the feet, Find that length through the body, Pushing heels away, Stretching through the backs of the legs, And then maybe pushing the balls of the feet away and curling your toes back towards your legs, What we call Barbie foot, Just to get a different sensation. And then when we're ready, Let's allow arms to relax down by the sides of the body. From here, Let's take a little bend into our knees. We're going to draw those knees into the chest. And from here, Let's take a little spinal rock so we can hug the knees in around the shins or between calves and thighs and just allow for that breath to really draw into the body, Maybe taking the breath to the back of the body, Feeling the expansion there, Or maybe just allowing for the back of the body to feel like it's melting down towards the earth. Whatever feels best for you. So let's take another couple of these movements. It's that nice gentle rock. Really good. And then when we're ready, Let's come back to neutral. From here, We're going to take our feet down to the earth and lengthen legs out once more. We're going to take a nice lateral bend today. So we're going to get left through the side of the body. We're going to be working our spine all the ways it was designed to work. This helps to stretch and strengthen. So when we're ready, Let's allow our feet to walk over to the left, Just as far as feels good. So we're coming into kind of a banana bend here, Banana asana. Then let's allow shoulders. If it feels good to walk over to the left also now when we're here we've got a couple of choices if you feel you want a little bit more stretch let's make sure glutes are relaxed because sometimes they can really tense up you may want to allow for your right ankle to cross over your left. Let's see how that feels. And then maybe it feels good to allow for your right arm to float up and let it just rest onto the floor, Reaching over to the left, Kind of. Elbow. And the top of your arm near your ear. I'm going to invite you to maybe close your eyes here. So we're really going to think about that sense of length. So in releasing any gripping in glutes. And then maybe taking your breath from your right little toe all the way up the side of the body, All the way up to your right armpit or your right little finger, Depending on if you've got your arm outstretched. Exhale, Taking it back down the body to that little toe. So let's keep breathing this way. Inhale, Toes. To top. The body exhale down from the top of the body to the toe. One more breath here. Really nice. And then when we're ready we're going to reverse out. So let's bring our arm down first. We chose that option. If we chose to cross our foot over our ankle, Let's uncross. We're going to shuffle shoulders back to neutral, At least where we think neutral is. Let's shuffle feet back to where we think neutral is. And then let's have a little look down the body. Have we found neutral? Almost. Almost. So we're going to work exactly the same, But on the opposite side. So when we're ready. Let's allow feet to walk over to the right. Again if it feels nice let's shuffle shoulders to the right just as far as they want to go so we're into that banana shape already maybe allowing for left ankle to cross over the right and again let those glutes relax And maybe that left arm wants to come over to the right. Maybe it wants to kind of just be in line with the right ear. Whatever feels good. And we're just going to let ourselves breathe here. So again, On the inhale, Drawing that breath from our little toe all the way up to our little finger, Our armpit, If we don't have the arm up. Exhale, Let's take it down to the little toe. Taking a few more breaths and checking in with those glutes. Inhale lens. Exhale. One more breath. And then gently releasing our arm. We took the leg option. Let's uncross the leg. Walking shoulders back to neutral allowing for those feet to walk back checking we found neutral and from here we're going to allow those knees to hug into the just once more so let's bend the knees give them a hug in and once again that little rock from side to side we can go with the completely effortless melty spine you can breathe space into the back of the body if there's any areas that you feel that you'd like to do that just letting yourself kind of personalize it to you. And then. . . Let's allow for ourselves to come to neutral. Bringing those feet down to the earth. And arms are going to come up towards the sky. So from here, We're going to circle wrists. Just allowing for A little bit of movement to come to rest. Taking one direction. And then let's change direction. Lovely. Let's go once or twice the other way. And then we're going to hold the sky up. So let's push hands up towards the sky, Palms up so we get a little stretch through the front of the wrist. Nice inhale and exhale. Being like chicken licking, Thinking the sky's falling, So we're holding it up. Take another breath here you might get tingles but don't worry when we release it'll go and then let's flip hands over and hold the sky up with the backs of the hands fingers towards the toes that's it lovely nice inhale exhale And then from here, Give them a good old shake off. It's flat. Around However it feels. Okay, Lovely. So we're going to find our way into tabletop from our supine position. So you may want to roll to one side to do that. You may want to rock and roll up and down the spine to seat and then find your way into tabletop. I do not mind however you wish to get there. So if you do like to pad your knees, This is a good time to put your. . . Cushion or blanket or pillow, Whatever it is that we've found lying around for yoga props. And let's allow that to come underneath our knees okay so we're going to work into a little bit of movement now but we're not going to go straight into our cat cow so i'm going to invite you to allow for those hips to be over the knee so we're nicely aligned hands can be maybe wider than shoulders underneath the shoulders perhaps a little further forwards than the shoulders i don't mind where they are just as long as it feels comfortable in your wrists And we're going to take a little bit of just intuitive movement here. So maybe you'd like to allow your eyes to close and then just start moving. And you might make circles. You might have a little bit of cat-cow movement. You might take a figure of eight. You might draw sitting bones all the way back towards the heels. You might move forwards over the hands and the wrists. I don't mind what you do. Just move however. You feel like you want to move at this moment in time. We can soften elbows as we do this. There are no rules here. Just going with what you might feel is good in the body. Feeling. Like you want to make those movements then let's make them So quite. Kind of freedom of movement here. Let's take another couple of moments. And then when we're ready, Just allowing yourself. To come to neutral. We're going to draw back and find our version of child's pose if that feels good, Or we can come into a seated position if that feels better. Allow everything to soften down, Maybe rest in head onto stacked fists or onto the earth. Allowing those inhales and exhales. Just gently flow. And perhaps you'd like to direct your breath to anywhere in the back of the body that feels like you want a little bit more space. So perhaps breathing in that space, Perhaps feeling the expansion. If it's where the ribcage is, Maybe feeling stretch between those intercostal muscles. So you're getting a sense of really releasing. Our intercostal muscles help us to breathe. So when we find the intercostal muscles getting a big stretch, It can actually help the inhale to feel a little bit bigger. So let's take another breath here. Lovely. And then when we're ready. . . Let's find our way back to. . . Our tabletop position. If we took knees wide, Let's realign. And from here, We're going to take a little bit more lateral movement. So let's walk our hands over to one side. I don't mind which side. Keeping a little engagement in solar plexus. And we might look over the shoulder that we went towards, Maybe past the hip. And let's take a breath or two here. And just noticing that sense of length in one side of the body, But also noticing that work that's being done in the side of the waist. So all the muscles on the side of the spine that is contracting are doing work. Let's take another breath here. Lovely. Inhale, Bring in head to neutral. Let's gently walk those hands back. And on the exhale, Let's take it over to the other side. Once again, Having a look over the other shoulder. Let's breathe here. Nice little bit of engagement in solar plexus, Just so we're not dropping down in the mid-spine. Nice inhale, Exhale. Lovely. And then on the inhale, Let's gently find our way back to neutral. So from here, We're going to work a little bit of cat-cow. So let's come to our familiar movements. So just like we did when we were taking our little pelvic tilt on the inhale, Let's start to allow sitting bones to tilt up. Tummy can drop down. Head and chest are going to kind of shine forwards, Moving shoulders away from ears. Exhale. Sitting bones towards the earth, Drawing that solar plexus towards the sky. Perhaps look in between the knees or towards the belly button. So I'm going to invite you just to move with your breath. Each inhale and each exhale and again you might like to close your eyes just so that you've got that sense of Just feeling the movement rather than worrying about what it looks like or what we can see or. . . The dust underneath the sofa or whatever it is that you notice on the other floor. Talking from experience there. Let's take another few breaths. Inhales and exhales. Lovely. And you may want to really push down with those hands into the floor and with the shins and the. . . That sense of maybe increasing movements. And then when we've taken our next exhale, And there's no hole, Let's inhale to neutral. And once again, Drawing back. Allowing ourselves to find child's pose, Releasing into wrists, Or you may want to come to. A seated position, If that's better for you. So you can always give wrists a little bit of a rub while you're in child's pose. You can give them a little bit of movement if they feel that they need it. Let's take another couple of breaths. Inhales and exhales, Steady, Steady breathing. Really nice. And again. Expanding into areas where expansion is going to feel good right now. And then when we're ready Let's gently find our way up to that tabletop just once more, Realigning knees if we need to. We're going to take a little twist here. And when we twist, We're not going to come into our thread the needle, But we're going to take the movement that we may sometimes start thread the needle with. So we're going to reach up. So when we're ready, On our inhale, Let's allow for our left arm. Actually, I'm going with my right. You can go with your left. I don't mind. We're going to do it both sides. One arm to inhale, Floating up, Allow the chest to open up to that side. Really nice. Exhale. Let's bring that arm down. Side inhale floating up feel the opening exhale bringing it down one more each side inhale swapping Exhale. One more to the second slide. Inhale. Exhale lovely and then from here let's walk hands just a little further away and we're going to draw those hips back get a nice long stretch through the spine so we're into almost like a puppy dog feeling like we are really lengthening between tailbone and fingertips and then gently coming up and we might walk those hands back And from here, I'm going to invite you however you want to to find your way up to standing. So if you want to step up, If you want to come up from. . . A proposal position, Whatever feels good. So from here, Let's allow feet to root down. So we're going to start with that sense of grounding, Always coming to Tadasana, Really, To kind of get ourselves really rooted. So let's allow those feet to root down. The last few weeks we've been talking about the three points of each foot, Like the three corners of each foot. Let's allow those three corners to root down. Toes just gently laying onto the earth. And if we know that that lower back tends to get a lot of weight dumped right at the lower back area, Let's soften knees a little. It can sometimes really help. Little engagement through solar plexus. Find your focal point, Your dristy, Something that isn't moving, That you can just softly focus on. Shoulders, Relax. Keep your breath. Wants to we're going to allow that breath to move up and down the body So maybe starting from the feet on the inhale, Feel it move up the legs. So feel it move up the whole of the spine all the way up to the crown of the head. Exhale, Let it move down the spine, But keeping a sense of length down the legs into the earth, Maybe beyond. Next time that breath draws up, Maybe feeling like we are allowing each vertebrae to feel like it's growing a little further away. So those discs. Just making more space in the spine. Exhale. Bring in that breath. And awareness down to the feet into the earth. One more breath here, Inhale feeling like we're really growing tall. Exhale. Down into the earth, Keeping that sense of length. Now from here, If you chose to close your eyes, I'm going to invite you to open them. And we're going to take a little crescent moon. Lateral bend so let's allow for those arms to float up going to interlace our fingers point first finger up from here a little engagement into that solar plexus on the exhale we're going to lean over towards the left Really good. So we're going to root down through that opposite foot, That right foot. Just breathe in here. Shoulders relax. And maybe feel like you can take your breath from your little toe on that right all the way up to your little finger or your pointy finger. Exhale back down. So we're getting that sense of spaciousness. Let's take another breath here. Present moon lateral bend. Inhale up. Exhale down. Now from here, Engaging. Solar plexus nice and strongly. Let's come up to neutral. Allow arms to float down. We can have a little shake of hands if we've got a bit of pins and needles. I generally do when I take my arms up above my head for more than five seconds. So let's work the other side. So when we're ready, Inhale, Sweeping arms up. We're going to interlace the fingers. Then we're going to move them all down one, Pointing first finger up. It might feel a bit strange. To the right this time shoulders relaxed down taking a little bit of pushing through the heel on that left side so we're lengthening and once again using your breath moving the breath from the foot all the way up to the fingertips Exhale, Back down that long left side of the body. Another breath here, Feeling that length. Inhale, Exhale. And then engaging solar plexus. Inhale, Coming up to neutral. And we're going to allow arms to relax down once more. We can have a little shake out if that feels good. Lovely stuff. So from here we're going to think about taking ourselves into a little bit of a backbend. Now, Generally what happens when we backbend is. . . The lower back which is the most mobile part takes most of the bends so hopefully that can that's a little bit clear here so what we're going to do is we're going to almost immobilize that lower back area and we're going to do that by engaging glutes and engaging solar plexus and softening these so when we take engagement in glutes soft knees solar plexus when we allow for ourselves to come back what happens is it moves more into the upper back than The lower back. And that's where we're going to go with our upward salute. So the upward salute almost feels like someone is pulling up that sternum with a little bit of fishing line. Three choices of hands. We can keep them at the heart as we come up. We can take them to the third eye as we come up. We can lift the chin, But we're going to keep length through the back of the neck. We're not going to allow the head to hang back and kink it. Arms might come up just as when we were laying down and we brought arms overhead you might notice it kind of arches into that upper back a little so that's the strongest option so whichever you choose we are going to be thinking about that engagement in the lower body so let's allow for ourselves to root down once more And let's think about a little softness in the knees. This really helps to kind of keep that stability in the lower back so we don't take too much movement there. We're going to engage our glutes and engage solar plexus. Hands can come to the heart. When we're here, Let's start lifting that breastbone, That sternum, Up towards the sky. Maybe hands come to the heart. Maybe they come to the third eye. Maybe they reach up. Okay, Upward salute, Nice relaxed shoulders. Thinking about engaging those glutes so we're not taking it into the lower back. This is a real upper back bend. Let's take a couple of breaths here. Nice inhales and exhales. Checking we're not flinging that head back. So we've still got a bit of length through the back of the neck. You can always look forwards if it's uncomfortable taking the gaze up. Lovely. And then when we're ready, We're going to take hands back to the third eye center if they came up. On the inhale, Let's imagine that the fishing line is lifting us up a little and then returning us back to that neutral position. Pause in here. Hands back down to the heart. Take a moment. Oh. And then just allowing those arms to relax down. And we might have a little wiggle. Wiggle it out. Okay. Nice. Now from here, We're going to find our way into a little bit of twisting motion. So let's step our feet a bit wider than hip width apart, Making sure we're not going to hit anything. And we are going to take a kind of swing. When we swing, We're going to allow the heel to lift that we are swinging away from. So when we're ready, Let's just start gently swinging. And your arms might flap around. They might start hitting around your body. If it doesn't hurt, That's fine. Think about it as a shiatsu massage. Go with a few more of these movements. It's a really nice kind of free movement for spine. Easy movement to make. And then when we're ready, Coming back to neutral, Just let your arms. Come to their own point where they stop moving that pendulum stops and we're going to step feet a little closer together So we're going to take another twist here. Now, Generally, When we twist, We think about the top of the body moving like we just did. This time we're going to think about a twisting with the bottom of the body moving. And this one looks a bit strange. You have to bear with me. It kind of looks a bit like Greek dancing or belly dancing. So we're going to allow arms to come out soft shoulders. OK, And we're going to try to keep our shoulders and our chest at the front. Side and then shuffle over to the other side so this is where We start to play the music and maybe smash the plates. I'm not sure. So just allow for. . . That sense of movement. Okay, Lovely. And as we do this it can be quite challenging not to move shoulders it's something that It's an unusual movement. When we lay down, We tend to move the legs to come into a twist. When we're standing, We tend to move the top of the body. So this is a little counterintuitive. And these little tiny steps, Again, It's that sense of kind of balance. I don't know if you find the same thing. You bend your knees more when you're towards the middle and then come up a little bit at the end. Lovely and then when we're ready Let's take one or two more each side. And then coming back to neutral. And yes, You can float arms down. Oh, Thank goodness for that, Everybody says. Maybe have a little shake out, A little shimmy. Okay, As soon as we're doing something close to belly dancing, Shimmying seems perfectly, Perfectly fitting. So from here, We've taken some lateral bends. We've taken some back bends. We've taken some twists. Now it's time for forward bends. Now when we forward bend, A couple of things to mention. Really really a nice way to forward bend by keeping a good bend in the knees when we forward bend here is a forward bend here is a forward bend down here is a forward bend But one thing I will say to you is if you do come down this far and you think, Oh, I really should have straight legs, There's no reason to. If you want to experiment with it, You can start to straighten your legs. But if what happens, And you can see it happens to me, I straighten my legs, My body starts coming away from my thighs. And that is because hamstrings aren't quite loose enough to allow for that body to stay there. So if that happens, We're just going to keep that bend into the knees. Because there's no point. We're just going to allow ourselves to be in that forward fold. So when we're ready, Just coming down as far as feels good. Feet hip-width distance apart. Hands can come to hips to start off with. Soften them into those knees. Let's engage solar plexus. On the exhale, Let's hinge, Hinge, Hinge. Maybe hands come to thighs. Maybe you want to stop halfway for a moment. Find length between that tailbone and the top of the head. Hanging out. Maybe those hands touch the floor. And on the exhale, Can we release the effort? So again, Keeping. . . The knees nice and soft releasing the head a little shake of the head if that feels nice maybe nodding maybe Just letting the head move. And then. . . We're gonna be here for three more breaths. On the exhale, Just allowing gravity to feel like it's really encouraging the upper body to the earth. And again, Not worrying if those knees are generously bent. Oh. Amen. Taken. Another exhale. And I'm going to invite you either to come up as you came down, Powering up through using the glutes and the thighs, Or we can allow ourselves to come to a little crouch and come down, Whatever feels good. Maybe allowing for those shoulders to roll back. And if we have crouched down, Let's come to seated. If we stood up, Let's find our way to seated. Really nice so from here we're going to think about just a couple of movements into a twist So let's allow for those sitting bones to root down. I'm going to get you to feel like that spine is really long and tall, Almost like the base of the spine is attached to the earth. Now when we twist, Imagine that kind of corkscrew coming up. So when we're ready, Let's allow hands to come to the hearts. Inhale really tall, Those vertebrae, Really allowing for that space in between. On the exhale, I'm going to take a little twist over to the right, And I'm going to invite you just to allow hands to rest down. So we're going to think about that sense of length here. So on the inhale, Let's grow tall. Exhale, Shoulder soften. Really good. One more breath. Inhale, Finding that length. Exhale, Those shoulders relaxed out. Lovely. And then on the inhale, Let's come back to centre. Palms come to touch once more. Hands are hot. On the exhale, We're going to take it over to the other side. So twisting the other side, Arms relaxed down. And once again, Inhale, Finding that length all the way from the tailbone. To the top of the head. Exhale, Shoulder soften. One more breath that way, Again growing tall. Really nice. Exhale. Softening down. And on the inhale, Coming back to neutral. And if you wish, We can just take a little brief derotation to the other side. Find our way back to centre. Lovely stuff. So from here, We're going to work into a little bit of bridge pose. I'm just going to get you to stay seated so you can see how we're going to be working before we come down. So when we work with bridge, We are thinking about the movement coming from the base of the spine. So just as we did when we were doing our little kind of pelvic tilt earlier. To set up, You might want a bit of space between your shoulder blades. You might want to tuck your chin. Making sure those feet are hip distance apart because we don't want them together or too wide. And also toes pointing forwards. If toes point out, Knees come out and vice versa. So we want to kind of get them a comfortable distance. Away from our sitting bones too for us. See how it feels in your knees. We're not going to worry about arms today. We are going to just think about the spine. So on the exhale, We're going to allow for that little drawback of the solar plexus, That little tilt up of the tailbone. And as we allow for the inhale to happen, We're going to slowly peel our spine off the mat. So it just comes up, Peeling up. And on the exhale, Once again, Exhale, Solar plexus draws down. Come down gradually until that lumbar spine reaches the earth okay so we're going to work so dynamically so when you're ready just come into that supine position with knees bent and let's set up Making space between shoulders, Tucking chin towards chest a little. Just checking the position of those feet, Hip width apart, Toes pointing forwards. So we can rest arms down by the sides of the body, Palms facing down so we don't have to do anything with those. And they can act a little bit like a cantilever if we wish. So when we're ready, Let's allow for that solar plexus to hug back towards the earth on the exhale. Inhale, Let's start to peel up, Tilting the sitting bones towards the sky and then allowing the rest of the spine to follow little by little until we've brought ourselves as high as feels comfortable. And then on the exhale, Once again, Solar plexus draws back towards the earth and you might notice the top of the spine starts to come down. And as we carry on with that exhale, Let's allow the rest of the spine to follow until we are fully back onto the mat. So let's work with our breath. Exhale, Solar plexus hugs back. Inhale, Lift in, Almost like a string of pearls. Lift in from a table, Pearl by pearl. Your vertebrae lift in, Vertebra by vertebra. Exhale, Solar plexus draws back as we carry on with the exhale. Spine gently. Comes down onto the earth little by little. So I'm going to get you to take three more of these in your own time. There's no hurry. Just allowing for a sense of. . . Drawing up and laying down those vertebrae Really nice. Just a little advance notice on the third one, We are going to hold it there so we're not going to work dynamically on that third. So when you come up for the third time. Coming up as you are. When we've reached the top of that bridge, Just allow yourself to be here, Checking the knees aren't coming out to each side. I'm going to get you to inhale, Feel like you're inhaling into that area of the solar plexus. And on the exhale, Maybe feel like you can shoot the breath out through your knees towards the wall in front of you. Inhale. Exhale. One more breath. Really nice. And then on the exhale, Again, Solar plexus engages, Gently coming down little by little. Because if we're up there for a little while, It doesn't mean we have to hurry. And then we're going to pause here when all of the spine is down onto the earth. Just release in any effort. Just letting that. . . Spines settle momentarily. Lovely. And then just gently hug knees towards the chest. And. Take a little rock once more. So it's getting in that spinal rock. And again. As we did before, Maybe directing breath towards the back of the body, Maybe making space, Maybe just allowing for that melty feeling of the back of the body. Just getting that sense of ease. Really nice. Maybe noticing if we feel a little bit more subtle in the spine after working with so many different variations of spinal movements today. Then gently finding our way back to neutral we're going to bring feet down to the earth and we're going to finish with a little bit of a spinal twist so let's take arms either into a t-shape or cactus arms palms facing up shoulder height and i'm going to give you the option if you want to draw knees into the chest please do or we can keep feet down onto the earth knees into chest is a little stronger on the exhale let's take knees over to one side i don't mind which side you take if you want to shuffle a little bit to get comfortable there then just please do And just allowing those knees to rest down. Head perhaps turns in the other direction towards the knees let's breathe here And again, Releasing that effort. This is a nice passive twist. Inhales and exhales. Maybe using the breath to exhale any effort that may be happening. And then gently bringing head to neutral if we chose to turn the head. Keeping feet onto the earth as we engage solar plexus, Bringing those knees up to center. Realigning, Finding center if we did shuffle. And then we're going to take it over to the other side. So perhaps drawing knees into chest or leaving feet on the earth. On the exhale, Taking knees over to the other side. Shuffling if we feel we need to. And then maybe turning head in the opposite direction to the knees if it feels good. Let's breathe here. And again, A nice passive twist. So let's release any effort with the exhale. Really good. And then gently bring in head back to neutral. Again, Feet can stay on the earth. Let's draw those knees back to center. And from here, Realigning. I'm going to invite you to make any movement you want, Maybe a stretch, Maybe hugging knees in, Whatever feels good. And then. . . Maybe making preparations for Vasana. So perhaps you'd like to pop on some extra layers. Maybe you'd like to cover yourself over, Perhaps taking legs up against the wall maybe even. Laying on a bed, Whatever feels good. Allow yourself to. Find a comfortable position. For relaxation today. Making any adjustments you need And then just allowing for everything to start to. Rest down. So perhaps you'd like to allow eyes to close if that feels good or just defocus your gaze so you're looking at nothing in particular. And let's come to our breath. Just allowing the inhale to draw in a sense of spaciousness. And allowing the exhale to let you find that softness. And stay with those breaths. Inhale. That's space. Exhale in any residual effort that you may find still in the body. And as you allow for those breaths to draw in. And leave. Maybe letting them bring in a sense of ease to the body also. Exhaling effort, Maybe even bringing in ease to the mind. And perhaps you'd like to allow for Your breath to start to move between. Your toes. And the crown of your head as you inhale. On the exhale, From the crown of your head back down to your toes. Just allowing that breath to flow between those two. Of your body. Feeling the length of the body. Next time you draw that breath up to the crown of the head. On the exhale, Take it down to the very tip of the tailbone, The base of the spine. Inhale back to the top of the head. Exhale down the entire spine to that very base. Just allowing that breath to move between these two points. Inhales and exhales, That length of the spine. And then next time the breath comes to the crown of the head, Once more, We're going to allow it to move down to the feet, That full length of the body. Maybe allowing that breath to move between. Toes and head. Up and down. Then maybe you'd like to stay with that sense of the breath moving. Up and down your body or perhaps you'd like to just allow for Any focus on the breath to release. And letting yourself. Just be here with our efforts. Natural breath. Ease in body and mind. Letting yourself Just be. Effortless and at ease for the next few moments. And now just allowing. . . For that gentle awareness to come back to that sense of your breath. Allowing the breath to draw in. Gradually deeper with each inhale and exhale. And with that. . . Slightly deeper breath, Drawing in a sense of renewed energy. Let's start to take some movement into fingers and toes, Hands and feet. And then when you feel ready to perhaps starting to make slightly bigger movements, Maybe hugging knees in, Perhaps bending knees, Perhaps taking a stretch, Whatever feels. Like it's something that would feel good at this moment in time. Just allow that movement to happen. And when you're ready. Just nice and. . . Slowly finding your way back. To sit in. And we'll close our practice together with a nice deep breath. Let's rest as the heart. My soft shoulders. Taking our inhale as we reach up and out. Exhale as we bring our hands back up and down. It's the rest of the heart. Namaste. Thank you so much for practising with me today.

Reviews

Superbly taught class. Thank you I really appreciated this gentle spine focused class. I have a scoliosis and was able to practice all the moves, adapting the side bends easily. Really good. I will be doing this class often as at the moment I am finding live classes a bit full on for my current physical abilities. Thank you 😊 🙏