Celebrate Women: Mother's Day Yoga

Enjoy this Mother's Day Yoga Vinyasa Lesson that celebrates women! This sequence focuses on hip opening, weight bearing exercises to counteract osteoporosis, and embraces the strength of women. Celebrate the strength, grace, and abilities you have as a powerful woman!

Transcript

Welcome to our Celebrating Women's Yoga class and in tribute of Mother's Day. Let's start laying on our backs. We're going to, First of all, Rest a little bit, Stretch out the areas of the body that often get very tight. And get all rejuvenated. So let's take our feet together, Knees open to the side in a Baddha Konasana pose and lay it down for Supta Baddha Konasana. We'll let our shoulder blades just connect to the floor, Take our hands by our sides. Gentle opening up of the hips. Close your eyes here. And just start to breathe. In and out. Just through the nose. Calm and steady. Focusing your attention on your body. On what you need just at this moment. Every inhale brings a renewal. New energy. And every exhale is a release. Letting go of something that you don't need. Maybe that you're holding on to. Continue to breathe here for a few more moments. Diane Merrychild said. A woman is the full circle. Within her is the power to create. Nurture and transform. We're going to celebrate the divine feminine today. Take one more breath here. Inhale. Exhale Bring your knees into your chest. You'll notice that now the curve of the spine connects to the floor. You can gently roll around a little bit. Our previous pose was a hip opener, Our pelvis was tilted down, Now our pelvis is tilted up and we can feel that change in our back. Really nice and calm on the back. Release your right leg and just keep your left knee here into your chest, Feeling that pressing down of the curve to the spine again. And guide that left leg across the body to the right side. You can take out your left arm and extend it. If it feels uncomfortable anywhere along the hip or the low back, Take one of your blocks underneath the knee just to have something to rest upon. Maybe taking a little pressure off that side, Or you can place your block underneath your shoulder, Underneath your arm. Two areas that seem that are, You know, Sometimes tight here. And of course, We haven't done a lot of vinyasa warming yet besides just our initial breath work. So don't judge yourself if it feels tight, Just notice. And as we move, Things will change. Right now, We're trying to ease a little pressure in areas of our body that are often tight, The back, The hips. The shoulders, Even the neck as we're twisting our gaze. I'm looking at you, But you can turn your gaze toward your extended arm on that left side. Take one more breath here. Inhale. Exhale Inhale, Come back into the center and let's release that left leg down to the floor. Bring your right knee into your chest. Press that curve of the spine to the floor. Feels good to lengthen out that low back. And then guide it across to the right side. If you used your block last time, Move it. Let's take it over to that other side and we'll rest our knee on that block and extend out the right arm and turn your gaze over the right hand. We try to find a balance between each side. We've got our shoulder reaching for the floor and we've got our knee pressing toward the floor. Usually both of them won't go down to the ground. So we have to kind of pick a happy medium. Right in the middle. As we just begin this warming process that we've started here. Good. Allow yourself to keep breathing deeply. Just letting things relax, Release. Our breath will keep us in the energy that we need. To continue with our practice. Let's take one more breath here. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, Come back to the center. And just roll yourself over onto your all fours. And let's come to, Yeah, All fours, I just said that. We'll take some cat and cow tilts. Let your body drop down, Your belly drop down. Roll your shoulders back. Send your gaze up to the sky. Inhale. Exhale, Round through the spine, Pull and lift the back. And just tuck your chin right into your chest, Feeling lots of space between each vertebrae. Inhale, Arch belly drops down. Exhale, Round, Pull and lift. Inhale, Arch. Exhale round. Inhale arch Exhale, Round. Come back to neutral. Open your knees a little bit wider than your hips. Pull your toes toward each other and sit back into a child's pose. Reach your arms forward. Everybody does this pose differently. Not everyone is going to have their hips all the way down on the ground. Feel free to stay lifted just a little bit if that's more comfortable for you. Might be more like a puppy dog pose here. So this is another option. Either way, It's putting a little stimulation into our hips. Like I said, We'll do some hip work today, Make our hips feel really great. One more breath. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, Roll up onto your toes. Let's press our hips high and take our first Adho Mukha Svanasana. If you have wrist issues, You can stay on your knees. You certainly don't have to come here. But you can if you want. And maybe you're pedaling your feet a little bit. Maybe you're releasing backs of the legs, Ankles, Calves. Sometimes we need that in our first one. The idea is that we will get warmer though, So let's start our process with Sirenamaskara A. Bend your knees, Look forward, Inhale, Step up to your hands. Exhale, Fold into your legs, Maybe softening those knees. And let's roll up through our spine, Nice and slow. As we come up to the top. We'll let our shoulders roll back. The energy lifts through our torso and let's begin Sira Namaskara A, Sun Salutation. Inhale, Reach your arms up. Urbahistasana. Exhale, Fold forward. Take your hands down. You can go as far as you're able. Some of you can reach the floor, Some of you won't, And that's just fine. Inhale, Look up, Halfway lift, Ardha Uttanasana. Exhale, Hands down to the mat. Step or hop back to a plank. You can drop your knees here if you'd like. Take Chaturanga. So if I were on my knees, It would look like this. Inhale, Press up, Up dog, Urdhva Mukha Svanasana. Or if you were on your knees, You might be in a cobra pose. Both are fine. Exhale, Roll back through the knees, Through the toes, However you get there to Adho Mukha Svanasana. Now that first time I tried to show some modifications for you, Feel free to make them your own. We're going to do this flow a couple more times because we do want to build up a little body heat. So do the modifications that you know work for you. Bend your knees, Look forward, Inhale, Step or hop up to the hands. Exhale, Fold into your legs, Uttanasana. Inhale, Reverse swan dive, Reach up to the sky. Exhale Samasthiti. Good. Let's go again. Inhale, Lift. Exhale, Swan dive forward. Inhale, Look up. Halfway lift. Exhale, Hands down. Step or hop back to your plank. Drop to your knees if you want. Chaturanga. Inhale, Urdhva Mukha Svanasana or Cobra Pose. Exhale, Press back. To Adho Mukha Svanasana, Downward facing dog, Or even on your knees as we demonstrated at the beginning. So many options. Every time we come to the mat, We have to make it our own space. Our own space to play. Let's do it one more time. Bend your knees, Look forward, Inhale, Step or hop. Up to your hands. Exhale, Fold into your legs. Inhale, Reverse swan dive, Reach up to the sky. Exhale Samasthiti. Nicely done. Once more for now. Inhale, Lift. Exhale, Swan dive forward. Inhale, Look up, Halfway lift. Exhale, Hands down, Step or hop back to plank, Drop to your knees if you want, Chaturanga. Inhale, Urdhva Mukha Svanasana, Upward Facing Dog. Exhale, Atmakasvanasana. Downward facing dog. Very nice. Let's take our right leg, Inhale, Up and back behind us, Three-legged down dog. Exhale, Bring it through in between the hands and roll that left heel down through our heel to arch aligned. Raise up to Warrior One, Veerabh Andrasenaby. Crazy hair for me. As we start to settle into this hip opener. Let's remember. In this world. There is no force equal to the strength of a woman. Determined to rise. That's by W. E. B. Dubois. Good. We can get deeper into our hips with Parsvakonasana. Take a breath, Inhale. Exhale, Options, Drop the forearm to the thigh. Take your hand to the floor. You can use your block, Right hand on the block by the pinky toe side, And pull that left arm overhead. You can also take your hand directly to the floor for the full depth of the pose. Do what works best for you and feel simultaneously the hips strengthening and opening up, Stretching. We've got a good stretch through this left side of the body indeed. Take a breath. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, Lift up, Straighten through your body. So we're taking a little pressure off of that right hip for a moment. Exhale, Move into Trikonasana. Take the right hand back down again, And you can, If you're using your block, Move it to the big toe side of your foot. If you don't have a block, Hand on your leg is perfectly fine. Some of you might be able to reach and grab your big toe. Pull open this left arm. Up to the sky. Feel that reach. Open chest, Lots of space for breath. Beautiful. Inhale, Lift up, Good job. Exhale, Re-bend the right knee and move into Reverse Warrior, Dropping your left hand down your leg and pulling that right arm up and overhead. To feel that strong reach now through the right side of the body. Very nice. Inhale, Lift up, Straighten both sides, Turn your feet. I'm going to adjust my feet. I'm going to pull in just a little because I'm really wide. So if you need to pull in, Turn your toes out, Draw the pelvis under so it opens up the inner thigh and bend maybe a little bit deeper. We're in goddess pose. Good. I'm going to take this moment to. . . Fix my hair just a little here. Driving me crazy. If you feel comfortable in this pose, You can take your hands index finger to thumb. This is definitely a strengthening pose, Both opening and strengthening the hips. Excellent work. Keep it up! Don't lose your confidence in your own strength. One more breath. Inhale. Exhale. Good job. Straighten up through the body. Nicely done. Turn your toes to parallel, Both toes facing. The front of our space here, Hands to your hips. Look up. Inhale. Exhale, Fold down. Here's where we get the stretch. Prasarita Padottanasana A. Hands to the floor if they don't reach. Use a block. Take a deep breath to engage Uddiyana Bandha. Inhale, Look up. Exhale, Fold forward. Take your hands down, Walk them back between those feet and feel the backs of the legs. Hamstrings engage. This is stretching out all the areas that we just tightened, That we just strengthened. Such a good balance now to have the stretch. One more breath here. Inhale. Exhale Inhale, Look up. Exhale, Bring your hands to your waist. We do it slow so we don't get too dizzy. Inhale, Lift up. Nicely done. Step your feet a little bit closer together and let's take it deeper into our squat. Now our hips sit back as we go down into Malasana. Now for me. I like to have my toes pointed out. It helps me to get my heels to the floor. And I like my legs pretty wide. That just may be the way my hips are structured. So you might be different. You might be closer. See my heels don't quite go down. Don't be concerned if your heels don't go all the way down. You can use a block to prop yourself up. Still be in the pose, But just kind of seated. On that block. So you might try that. It might stretch out your ankles just a little bit there and then you can have the nice tall torso. We have to work with what we were given, Right? And some of our aspects of our hips are genetic. And it's just what we came with. And each time we come to the mat, We celebrate our unique body. Our unique presence in this space. Good. Take one more breath right here. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, Place your hands down on the floor for balance. Let's lift up and turn our toes again, Back to parallel. If you are bendy enough, You can reach and grab your index finger and toe. Index finger around your big toe. Or a block. Take a breath, Inhale, Look up. Exhale, Fold forward. We're in Padagustasana. Using our biceps to pull ourselves down, Giving ourselves that balance and that stretch in the backs of the legs. Take one more breath. Inhale. Exhale Inhale, Press into the floor, Look up. Exhale, Hands to the waist. I'm going to shift this out of the way. Inhale, Lift up the rest of the way. Nicely done. Let's step our feet together. We're going to take another vinyasa so we can move on to our left side. Here we go. Inhale, Lift the arms up and overhead. Exhale, Fold forward, Uttanasana. Inhale, Look up, Halfway lift, Ardha Uttanasana. Exhale, Hands down, Step or hop back. Chaturanga, Maybe you're on your knees, That's fine. Inhale, Urdhva Mukha Svanasana. Exhale, Adho Mukha Svanasana. Nicely done. Let's do our left leg. Inhale, Lift the left leg up and back behind you. Exhale, Bring it through. Roll that right heel down. Heel to arch aligned. Windmill your arms up and around to Virabhadrasana B. Good. Pelvis tilted under. Open through that inner thigh. Feel the strength. Building up in those hips. Strength and opening all at the same time. Kerry Washington said. Learn to embrace your own unique beauty. Celebrate your unique gifts with confidence. Your imperfections are actually a gift. Let's go a little bit deeper. Take the left forearm to the thigh, Option A. Option B, Oh, I left my block behind. Option B, Block on the floor. By your pinky toe side. Option C, Hand on the floor by your pinky toe side. Feel that reach through the chest. Through the whole left, Sorry, Right side of the body, Isn't it? Good, Feel that hip. Getting stronger. Inhale, Straighten up through your torso, Straighten up through the leg. Let's take Trikonasana. Exhale, Reach it down. You can move the block, If you're using it, To the big toe side. Or you can have your hand along your leg. Or you can grab your big toe. Either way, Let's try to open up this chest. If you have shoulder issues, Hand on the hip works great. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, Lift up. Exhale, Re-bend that left knee, Reverse warrior. Inhale, Tilt it back. Now feel how beautiful and lengthened that left side of the body is. I always think so much more room for breath. Really important. Inhale, Lift up. Very nice. Adjust your feet. I'm wide. I'm gonna pull in. This time we're going to move our goddess pose just a little bit so we can feel the massaging in the hips and inner thigh. Reach your arms up. Inhale. Exhale, Bend it down. Try to keep the pelvis tilted under each time. Inhale, Lift it up. Feel your calves engage. Exhale. Pull it down. Inhale, Lift it up. Exhale, Pull it down. Nice. Love those hips. One more. Inhale, Lift. Exhale. Good job. Take a breath. Inhale. Exhale. We did it. Inhale, Send your hands to your hips. Rotate your feet. Look up, Inhale. Exhale, Fold forward. Take your hands down. Find that block if you need it. Hands on the block, Hands on the floor. All good choices. Look up, Inhale. Exhale, Fold yourself down. Pull yourself forward toward those big toes. So that you can feel the hamstrings, You can feel the hips, You can feel the sacrum. Wonderful parts of our body to release. One more breath here. Inhale. Exhale Inhale, Press into the floor, Look up. Exhale, Bring your hands to your waist. Inhale, Lift up, Nicely done. Exhale, Step together just a little bit closer. We're gonna do our Malasana one more time. Bend your knees and sit down. Again, Options using the block to sit on, Rolling a blanket underneath the ankles helps. Didn't mention that last time. You can even hover here. If that seems like it's too far to go, Hover here. So many choices. Make the pose your own. Honor your unique body. Beyonce said, The most alluring thing a woman can have. Is confident. Let's have confidence in our own bodies and our own abilities. Nicely done. Take one more breath. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, Bring your hands down for balance. Exhale, Pull your feet together, Walk them together so they're about hip width distance apart. And let's stay here. If you can, Let's all bend our knees. Some of us might be able to take our hands underneath our feet. If that's too deep for you, Don't worry about it. Again, It blocks. Now, If you're able to have those hands under the feet, Maybe you're gonna stay with bent knees. That feels nice on the back. If you wanna work on the hamstrings, Then straighten the knees. That's going to get our deeper sensation. Through those hamstrings. Take one more breath here. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, Release those hands. Press into your legs, Look up, Halfway lift. Exhale, Bend your knees. Let's bring our hands down. Step back to a plank. And we're going to lower all the way down onto our stomach. Move into Sphinx pose. Place your elbows on the floor right underneath your shoulders and pull your chest back. One thing that women deal with as we age is osteoporosis. A softening of the bone density. Yoga is such a great practice for keeping bones strong. By body weight lifting all of our chaturangas that we do can really help with that. And this pose is a great example as well. We're pressing our weight into our elbows, Into our forearms and pushing up through the chest. Through the back. A static pose, But one that's very powerful. We can feel this in our back, In our shoulders. Now shift your weight over to your right arm. Let's take our left arm and our left leg. Reach for that left foot and see if you can press. I cannot get my heel to the floor. Some of you might be able to. But what I love about this is the strengthening of the right arm and shoulder, The reach back with the left shoulder. The quadriceps. On that left side and the hip flexor. On that left side. That's a backbend too, Did I say that? So many benefits. Take one more breath here. Inhale. Exhale, Release it down. Nicely done. Let's switch sides. Take your left hand to the floor. Reach back with your right hand, Right toe, Or grab the top of the foot. That's another benefit that I didn't say. It's a great stretch for the top of our foot. We don't often stretch that part of the body, So it feels nice. Quadricep, Hip flexor. Knee flexibility. We're doing like everything for the body in just one pose. Pretty cool. Take one more breath here. Inhale. Exhale, Release it down. Come down for a moment onto your belly. Let's take one more. Now options again. If you want to, If you can, You can reach back and grab both feet. If that's not an option for you, Just keep your arms by your sides. We're going to lift our chest and back and hover. So option A. Lifting up and hovering. Option B. Grabbing those feet. Let's all do it together. You choose your way. Either choice is wonderful for opening up of the chest. Working our back, Feeling those back muscles strengthen. And option B here, You get that extra quadricep and psoas stretch. One more breath, Inhale, Lift higher, Exhale. And release it down. Nicely done. Let's move into Child's pose. Changing the direction of our back here. Softening for just a moment. Let yourself breathe. Nice work. Inhale, Lift up. Let's roll onto our seat. And extend our legs in front. My very favorite pose for the hips. Also does the back, Also does the hamstrings. You might use a strap. If you've got your strap, Let's grab it now. Bend your right knee and pull to the left. Towards you so our left leg stays straight. We'll take the strap around the left leg. This is Janu Sirsasana A. Sit tall. Inhale, Lifting through the center. Exhale, Walk your way down that strap. Now if you can grab your toe, You don't need the strap. You can set it off to the side. Some of us might need it though. Once we're here, Let's take a breath. Pull in through the middle of the body, Lifting at the center. And then exhale. Fold yourself deeper. In forward bends, And especially sitting on the floor. It might be hard to recognize the success. But it's there. It just happens slowly, More subtly. Serena Williams said, Every woman's success should be an inspiration to another. We're strongest when we cheer each other on. So I'm going to cheer you on right now. You're doing great. You can give yourselves a little internal cheer, If you'd like, In your own space. Keep breathing, Keep holding and know that you're doing good things for your body. Good. Inhale, Lift up. Exhale release that hold good now let's take this left leg that's in extended and bend it in front so options again we'll do three Three options. So option A is here, Sitting crisscross with the left leg in front. Option B, If that seems too easy, Would be stacking your knees and your feet on top of each other. Imagine yourself folding forward. Option C would be to cross the knees on top of each other, Stacking them on top. This is gomukhasana if you haven't figured that out. Now let's all work on our arms. We'll take our right arm up and down the back. Our left arm comes from behind and underneath. You can grab the fingertips, Grab the shirt. Use a strap behind you, That works fine too. So let's take the bind. We've got our legs in place. Inhale. And exhale, Fold forward. So we're stretching out our shoulders again, A good weight bearing for those muscles in our back. And we can feel the outer edges of our hips as our body creeps closer toward our legs. You should particularly feel it in the left hip. Because that is the leg that's on top. It's also beautiful for the sacrum. So we really are being restorative now for our hips and back as we stretch. One more breath. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, Lift up. Nicely done. Exhale, Release your hold. Good job. Unwind your legs. Let's reset. And move back to where we started with Janusirsasana. So this time we bend our left knee. And our right leg stays straight. Take your strap. Around that right foot if you're using it. Sit tall, Inhale. Exhale, Fold yourself forward, Reach down. If you can grab your foot, You don't need the strap. Take our deep Ujjayi breath, Inhale, Pull in through the middle, Lift the center. Exhale, Fold yourself down. And relax, Keep breathing. Each time we exhale, Maybe we can creep a little bit closer. Maybe the body relaxes a little bit more. We can just work on. Letting go. Surrendering to our body. And enjoying the sensation of opening and stretching. I could stay here all day. It feels so good to me right now. Take one more breath. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, Lift up. Good job. Exhale, Bend this right knee. Take your options. A, The leg is in front. Option B, The right leg stacks on top, Knees and ankles align. Option C, Knees aligned, Right leg on top. Inhale with the left arm, Send it down your back. Exhale, Take the right arm. If you need your strap, Great. Grab your shirt, Great. Grab your fingertips, Even better. Take a breath, Inhale. Exhale, Fold forward. Press down into those hips, Let them open up. Gently. Keep breathing. Love the benefits of this pose. Triceps, Shoulders, Chest. One more breath. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale come up Nicely done. Exhale, Release. Good job. Set your straps aside. We're going to use our block one more time. As we start to bring ourselves towards Shavasana, Let's do one gentle inversion. So lay down and grab your block. And have your knees bent to start. Let's lift our hips like we're doing a bridge pose and we're going to place that block. Underneath the hips. I like it across my low back and my upper hips. And then lift the legs up to the sky. Now what this should do is take any strain off of the abdominals. I can tell my belly feels soft because my pelvis is tilted and it's taking that pressure. But if you are really tight in your hamstrings, You might still need your strap. You can just bend your knees, Take your feet around the strap, And lift it up and that will help to hold the legs in place. Because what we don't want right now is gripping through the abdominals. We want to relax. Soften our belly. And just let the gentle work of gravity bringing the blood flow down into the stomach down into the heart, Our head, Our ears, Eyes, Nose, All these vital organs. Without feeling like the body is really straining. To hold the position. So with or without the strap, Either way. Feels, Hopefully, Should feel a little weightless. We'll just take a few breaths right here. Good for circulation, Good for metabolism. Hope you're letting your breath relax like I am. Let's just take one more breath here. Inhale. Exhale. Nicely done. Gently bend your knees, Take the strap away if you were using one. Let's put our feet down first. Then lift up the hips. And set the block down. Once we've reached the bottom, Let's take our feet a little wider than our hips. And just windshield wiper back and forth, A little bit of movement to ease out any kinks that might still be there because Shavasana is next and we want our body to feel very relaxed. When you feel like you've maybe worked out all the kinks. Then just let the legs extend, One leg to each edge of the mat. Our arms by our side. I like to bring my palms to the sky. Rolls the shoulders back nicely. Just close your eyes. And let yourself drift away for a few moments. I will leave you here to rest. Have no cares, No thoughts, No worries. I'm going to wake you up with the sound of a bell. To just be there to rest and enjoy and absorb. The good practice that you have. Created today. Start to wake yourself up. Rotate through your wrists and your ankles. Point and flex your feet. Stretch your arms overhead to lengthen through your entire body. And roll yourself over onto one side, Beetle pose. Gently press up to a comfortable seated position. And bring your hands to heart center. We'll close with this quote by Michelle Obama. There is no limit to what we as women can accomplish. Thank you for practicing with me today and for celebrating women, Divine femininity. Namaste.