How To Do Basic Yoga Inversions

Ready to take your yoga practice to the next level? Inversions are a powerful way to build core strength, tone your arms and shoulders, and improve circulation. They also aid digestion, relieve back pain, and enhance flexibility—helping you feel strong and energized. Join me for a 42-minute yoga class focused on inversionsand experience the confidence boost that comes with flipping your perspective! Grab your yoga mat, take a deep breath, and let’s move together.

Transcript

You for joining today we're going to focus on inversions getting our head below our heart which is great great to stimulate a lot of things digestion being one circulation metabolism plus we'll get length through our spine and feel some easing in our low back and hips so those are my goals for us today let's see what we can do as we combine our breath with our movement Close your eyes. And just start to feel your breath coming in and out just through your nose. It's okay to breathe out the mouth if you need to. It is winter time. Sometimes we get congested. But what we want to feel is a full expanse of our of our torso our lungs our diaphragm And if you can keep your mouth closed, There's a hum that we can hear right in our throat as we push the air up through the nose. And that hum, That sound, Can help you to stay focused in this moment. It's easy to let our mind wander to all the things that we have to do today. So you might be able to keep with the intention of our practice if you can listen and bring your mind and body back to that breath. Let's open our eyes. Take your arms by your sides. Nice deep breath together. Inhale, Lift up. And exhale, Release. Good. Come on to all fours. And let's move into a cat and cow so we can start to warm up our spine I said we'd be bringing our head down and lengthening our back so this is our first kind of movement through our back drop your belly down shoulders roll back inhale send the gaze up to the sky Exhale, Round through the spine where we tuck our chin, Lift the mid-back, Feel our hips guide in. Inhale, Arch, Belly drops down, Send the gaze up. Exhale round through the spine really tuck and pull up and in Inhale, Arch, Belly drops, Send the gaze up. Exhale, Round pull and lift. Come back to neutral and reach your arms forward. Let's keep our hips lifted and just drop our shoulders down. Your shoulders may not press the mat. You can see I'm hovering over, But I can bring my forehead to the mat. Maybe you can too. And just feel that stretch through the upper shoulders and upper back. Sides of the body Good. And then let's lift up, Pull your hands back just a little bit. Come into our first inversion, Downward dog. Drop those heels down toward the mat. Feel yourself press back through your shoulders and into the hips. Now, You may not have felt that this is an inversion, But it is because your head is lower than your heart. So already we're starting to feel that benefit. You might notice a little extra blood flow into the head. That's really great to stimulate our sinuses, Wake up our senses, Our smell, Our eyes, Our ears. Good. Then walk yourself up to your hands. Let's keep bent here. Keep folded and let ourselves just hang down in Uttanasana. So this is a forward bend. You might soften your knees. You might straighten your knees. You might loosen your neck. Whatever you choose to do, You're upside down. Our head is lower than our heart. Let's roll up through our spine. We're going to keep our head heavy and lift it last because there's going to be a little bit of a head rush. As we come up, You can feel that head rush. The blood flow goes all the way back down again. That's what's really nice for circulation and metabolism. And we're ready to begin warming ourselves with Sera Namaskara A. Let's go. Inhale reach your arms up to the sky Exhale swan dive all the way down back down into a forward bend again up and we're in an inversion Inhale, Look up halfway lift. Your hands may stay on the ground or they might lift to your shins. Exhale bring your hands down to the mat and step back to a plank Here you can stay lifted on your knees or you can drop your knees. I'll show this first time. Chaturanga. We'll squeeze our elbows by our ribcage and just let ourselves hover right over the mat there. Inhale, Press into the floor. Lift up to Urva Mukha Svanasana, Upward facing dog. And exhale, Roll back through your knees or your toes as I'm showing, And into downward facing dog once again. Good. Here we just keep focusing on breath. There was a lot to think about in that sequence. So bring your attention back to your breath again. Very nice we're going to try it once more Step or hop your feet forward toward your hands. I'm just going to step up today. And fold down into your legs. We've been here before. We're starting to really feel those hamstrings back there. Inhale, Reverse swan dive, Reach all the way up to the sky. And exhale, Release your arms, Bring them down by your sides. Very nice. Let's try it once more, For now anyway. Inhale, Lift all the way up. Exhale, Swan dive forward all the way down. Feel your head go below the heart there. Inhale, Look up halfway, Lift. Hands to the shins maybe or stay on the floor. Exhale, Hands down. Step back to your plank. Feel free to drop to your knees or you can stay lifted. Chaturanga. This time I'm showing you lifted. Inhale, Urva Mukha Svanasana, Upward Facing Dog. Exhale, Shift back to Atta Mukha Svanasana, Downward Facing Dog. Here we are again. Very nice. Good. Now let's move on. Bend your knees. Look forward. Inhale. Stepper hop up to the hands. Exhale fold down into your legs. Inhale reverse swan dive reach all the way up to the sky Exhale, Arms by your side. Samasthiti. Very nice. Good. Let's open up to a wide position. I'll be facing you. You face whatever direction works on your mat. Just get nice and wide and see if you can turn your toes in just slightly, A slight pigeon toe. Let's take our hands to our waist, To our hips here. Inhale, Look up. Exhale fold forward and bring your hands down to the mat Now here's where a block might be helpful if it's hard to reach the mat and keep your knees straight You can just grab a block and place it right between your legs Let's start to lengthen our body. The block is too high for me, So I'm going to move it as we walk our hands back between our feet. So we are, Again, Upside down. Our head is lower than our heart. And we're feeling all this release through our back and right in between our hips here. That's called the sacrum. It can get really tight and strained, So this is a beautiful way to release our entire spine. Plus, You can feel your hamstrings maybe if you tend to get tight back there. They're being stretched too. Press into the floor. Inhale, Look up and lengthen your spine. Exhale, Bring your hands to your waist. Inhale lift up take your hands and just slide them back so our elbows are going to stay bent it's almost like we're trying to squeeze our shoulder blades together Look up, Inhale. Exhale fold forward. This one as we squeeze our arms toward each other you'll feel some engagement in your upper back. So there's a little more work going on right in between those shoulders there. Very nice. Good. Inhale lift all the way up Great job. Take your hands behind you. Class them together. If you're very tight in your shoulders or chest, You might benefit from the use of a strap where you would bring the strap behind your back and you can have a little more space in the arms for a little added mobility. Choose your way. Press into the strap or your hands, Whatever you're going to do today. Look up. Inhale. Exhale fold forward and here goes our arms up and overhead So now we're stretching out those shoulders. Even as we're upside down, Plus we've still got the low back length, The hips, That whole sacrum area. Keep your neck nice and loose. Good. Inhale, Lift all the way up. Nice work. Exhale, Release your strap. I know your feet might be feeling it. We've got one more. Hang with me. Extend your arms. Inhale. Exhale, Fold down. And just let your hands guide down your legs. Grab onto your ankles, Your shins. If you can reach your toes, Wrap your index finger and thumb around those toes. Press into the toes. Lengthen your spine. Inhale. Exhale pull yourself down using your biceps to pull forward We're feeling it in our legs. This is our last one. It might be the deepest that you've come so far. We can really feel the length in our spine because we've been upside down for almost 20 breaths. Throughout this sequence here. Good. Inhale, Lengthen your spine. We're done. We're coming up nice and slow. Exhale, Bring your hands to your waist. Inhale lift up great work exhale step our feet together we need a break with our legs beautiful beautiful i'm going to put this block back over here Turn yourself so that you are facing this side of your mat. We will lead forward with our right leg. Grab that block and just put it down by the arch of your right foot. Good. Little back bend. Take your hands just back to your hips. We were in this position earlier, And we're just going to look up to the sky. If you want to add a little bit of arms, You can reach your right arm up and drop your left arm down. Since we are spending so much time folding forward today, We will balance it out with a couple of back bends sprinkled in. Now lift both arms to the sky if they're not already. Inhale, Reach up. Exhale fold forward and take your hands down. You've got a block there. You might adjust the block any height that you want high medium low If you don't have a block, Your hands can land on your leg. The most important thing is probably to keep that right leg straight so that you can feel the hamstring and you can feel your hip. Now keep your gaze, Send it back toward this left toe here. So that your neck is relaxed. We are in an inversion. Our head is lower than our heart. Most of the time we probably think of this as a forward bend. But for our purposes today, We're going to call it an inversion. Plus we're stretching out our legs so nicely. Good. Take one more breath right here. Inhale. Exhale. Nice job. Bring some relief to your right leg. Bend your left knee. Inhale, Reach your arms up to the sky. I'm sorry, It's your right knee that's bending. Sorry. Right leg bent, Arms up to the sky. We're in warrior one. Feel strong through both legs, Nice foundation. Inhale. Exhale open up to warrior two so you still have that right leg bent I always have to slide my feet a little further apart because we want to make sure that the knee and the ankle stay stacked aligned right on top of each other so we're not putting too much pressure into the knee Very good. Nice. Now take your hands behind you, Clasp them together, Or grab that strap again for a little more mobility. You decide. Let's press into our fingers and look up. Inhale. Exhale fold forward going down let right toward that right leg and see if you can pull your arms away from the back again So this time we're putting lots of good pressure into the right hip. And we're pulling our arms away from our back. So there's our shoulders. And we're upside down. We're in another inversion. Or a forward bend. Whatever you want to call it. Good. Inhale lift all the way up nice work exhale release those hands good job straighten up your legs turn your feet so that we now end up On our left leg bent into the warrior two. Good. We'll do everything on the other side, Just this time in reverse. So starting here with this warrior two. Feel how strong your legs are. We're making them work today, Giving them something to challenge them. Take your hands behind you. Maybe grab that strap again. Clasp your hands or grab the strap underneath. Perfect press into the strap or your fingers look up inhale Exhale fold forward. We're leaning toward that left leg and trying to pull our hands away from our back We can feel that left hip. Ooh, It's working hard. Our whole body is engaged. Mmm, Very nice. Good. Lift up. Inhale. So strong. Exhale. Release the hands. You can drop that strap down. Let's take our hands to our hips just so we can adjust our feet. Turn your feet. Turn your hips so that you're now square. Yes. Very nice. Good. Reach up to warrior one. Here we are, Left foot is leading. Whatever direction you're facing on your mat. Nice job. Good. Now let's straighten our legs so both legs stay straight. And we'll just drop our right arm down and do that little back bend. Left arm's in the air. And we've got our gaze up to the sky. Little bit of chest opener. Pressing the front of the hips forward. So a pelvic tilt. Good. Inhale lift up both arms Exhale come forward grab that block. Hopefully it's close by you put it down by your left arch of your foot And let yourself fold into this pyramid fold, Pyramid bend. Good. We're taking our gaze back behind us to that right foot there, And we're keeping our left leg as straight as we can. Just use your block. Adjust it as needed for your flexibility and quality of stretch. Good. Take one more breath right here. We don't rush this one. Inhale. Exhale. Good job. Soften your left knee just to lift up without straining your back. I'm going to move that block out of the way. Step your feet together. Very nice. Let's take a vinyasa. Bring ourselves down to the floor so we can do some deep stretching. Reach your arms up. Inhale. Exhale swan dive forward all the way down forward bend. Does this feel easier now than it did at the beginning? Just notice Look up, Inhale, Halfway lift. Exhale, Hands down. Step back to plank. Feel free to drop to your knees if you need that adjustment. Chaturanga. Inhale, Urva Mukha Svanasana, Upward Facing Dog. Exhale, Atamaka Svanasana, Downward Facing Dog. Nice job. Take a deep breath through your nose. Inhale. Exhale sigh it out the mouth One more inhale here. Exhale drop down onto your knees. Let yourself lower to a child's pose. Good. Feel your head rest on the mat. Feel that opening between your hips. And into the low back. Nice job. Good. Let's lift up. Have a seat. We'll swing our legs around. I'll continue to face this way so that you can see me on the profile. Sometimes it's easier to tell what I'm doing. You face whatever direction is best for you to see the camera. We'll utilize our strap as we bend forward. So take your strap around both feet. And hold it with both hands. Sit nice and tall. Inhale. Exhale walk your way forward toward your toes along that strap you may not reach your toes I have very long arms and a short torso so don't judge take a deep breath inhale Exhale, Fold down. And we've been working with this motion all day. The difference here is that now we're on the floor and our stomach, We're laying right on our stomach, Yes? So we have to lift our center and pull up through the middle to try to get more length in our low back. That's called engaging the Uddiyana Bandha. You might feel deeper depth. In any case, We're all working on our flexibility. And squeezing the center of our body does wonders for our digestion. Good. Inhale lift up very nice set your strap close by just off to the side Take your hands behind you the fingertips face the hips Point your toes. And just start by pressing into the floor and pulling your shoulder blades toward each other. So a little chest opener, Yeah, You can let your head fall back. If this feels great, Maybe you decide you just want to stay right here. If you feel like you could go a little deeper try lifting the hips off the mat. Quite a bit deeper. Do your best. This is our balance for having folded forward. Now we're bending back, Lifting our, You know, Using our low back muscles, Our hips and our glutes to stretch the front of the body. Take one more breath here in any position. Inhale. Exhale, Come on down. Very nice good lower back down flex the feet again And let's bend our left knee. So you've got your left knee bent, Your right leg straight. Extend your right arm inhale exhale hook it onto that knee Take the left hand to the floor and press into that twist. So we're sending our gaze behind us. And feeling that spine just lengthen all the way up from the base of the spine all the way up to our neck. Twists are also really great for digestion. And they just feel nice. Good. Inhale, Come forward. Exhale release that left leg open it up And let's take the strap. Around the right foot Good. Nice job. Sit tall. Inhale. Exhale. Walk our way forward. This is Janusir Sasana A. You might be able to reach further in this one because we only have one leg, Not two. But just do your best. Take another deep breath. Pull up the middle of the body. Feel that Uddiyana Bandha engage. And then exhale, Fold down deeper. Nice deep breath, Feeling that spine. We might feel this in three different areas primarily. Hamstring, The left hip. And the low back. One of my favorites. Good. Inhale, Lift up. Exhale release your strap extend your left leg And let's bend our right knee and have the knee pointed toward the sky. Twist on the other side so left arm lifts to the sky inhale exhale hook it on or hug your leg right hand to the floor press against the ground pull that shoulder back feel that deep squeeze throughout your entire center And all the way up the spine. Really nice spinal mobility today with all of these bends and twists. Should really help to energize your body today Very nice. Now come forward. Very good. Release that knee open onto the ground. So now we have the right knee bent on the floor. The left leg is forward. And we'll take the strap around that left foot. Sit tall. Pull and engage your center. Inhale. Exhale. Walk your way forward toward that foot. Take a deep breath, Pull up in the middle of the body, And then exhale. Maybe we can fold deeper. And we can feel that hamstring. The outer hip And our low back. One of those areas may be calling to you today. We usually have one that is more intense than any of the others. For me, It's my hamstring today. One more breath right here. Inhale. Exhale. Nice. Inhale, Lift up. Set that strap aside. And we're going to grab one of our blocks. Keep it close to you. Let's start moving into an inversion on our back. We'll go through phases and you decide when you want to stop. So the first step might be laying on the floor and then taking the block on the lowest height under your hips. Don't try to go high with this one because it won't help you as you go up. So just start nice and low on your hips. And then extend the legs up to the sky. It should feel fairly comfortable. You might have to wiggle around a little bit to find that spot that feels like your legs are just kind of weightless. So this will be step one. If you are very tight in your hamstrings and you feel like your legs are just wanting to creep down and it's really engaging your abdominals too much, Grab your strap, Put it around your feet, And lift it up. That's going to take a lot of pressure off of the abdominals and off of the low back. So this may be your happy place on the block with the strap. If this feels great, Then you're just going to hang out here. It's wonderful for circulation, Wonderful for metabolism. Our head is lower than our heart. We're doing some great work here. If you know that you're able to go a little deeper, Then you might release your strap. Press off the block and up into shoulder stand. So this is much deeper as far as engaging your upper body. Do what you know you can do. Both options are great. They're just different, Right? There's no right or wrong. That's just different for our body's needs. In either case, We're going to hang out here and we're going to keep breathing. If you're in shoulder stand, Try to keep your gaze up to the sky so that you don't strain your neck. Very nice. Let's take one more breath. Inhale. And exhale if you're in shoulder stand, Start to come down. Remember that there is a block underneath you. So you're going to run into that block. There it is. And those of us who have straps around our feet, Let's release them. And we're all going to lower our heels down to the floor. So the block is staying, But the strap is going. And we're going to drop those heels down. Now we've tilted our pelvis. So our pelvis is lifted higher than our legs. Higher than our head. This will just give us, Again, That reversal of, You know, We bent so much. Now we're straightening. We're lengthening those hip flexors. You might even kind of shake your legs around if that feels okay. I've got a really sturdy block, So it doesn't feel great to me. I'm just going to hold still. You do what feels good to you. We'll just let this length come. Just for a little bit Go ahead, Take one more breath. Inhale. Exhale. Nice job. Bend your knees so that we can remove the block. You can set it off to the side we won't need it again. And let's bring our knees into our chest and press that curve of the spine to the floor. Now you might rock back and forth really adjusting those hips, Pulling the length of the spine. Or you might just hold still and enjoy how that feels. There's no right or wrong. Good. Now let's let go of the right leg. So we're just going to be holding the left knee. Guide it across your body with your right arm. And extend that left arm out and turn your head over to the left side. Give yourself one last deep squeeze. We might feel this through the shoulder and the chest. We might feel this into the low back and the outer left hip. Lots of good release across the spine one last time. Try to let your body relax. It might still be holding on. Try to let it go now. We're moving toward our relaxation. Good. Bring your leg back to the center and let's release that left knee. Pull your right knee into the chest. Guide it across the body to that left side of the mat. And extend out your right arm. Now feeling that balance and again, The twist in the low back, The outer hip. Across. The chest. And shoulder. And if you still feel like there's energy holding on in any particular place, Try to let it go. Try to feel like you're heavy into the floor. Our breath quality changes here We can feel the breath start to relax a little. Good. Just come back to the center. We're going to finish with one last inversion, Really gentle. Grab your block once more. Bend both knees. Take the block underneath your hips. This time I'm going to go to the middle height. But you can go to whichever height you want. You can go to the highest height. You can go to the lowest height. Just find somewhere. Somewhere that feels good. And just one last chance to stretch out the front of the body here. So we're lengthening the front. We're lifting our hips a little bit higher. Our head is down lower than our heart. Just really gentle, Very supported. You can give all your weight to the floor and to your block. Good. From this position, We're just going to stretch out our quadriceps. We did a lot of hamstring, So one more balance for the quadriceps. Take your right knee in your hand. Then slide your right hand down until you can grab your toes. Pull them down and press them on the mat. See the top of your foot is pressing into the mat and you can feel the hip flexor and the quadriceps. That right leg Good. Just a little bit of balance for all of that work that we did with our hamstrings today. Let's take one more breath here. Inhale. Exhale. Unhook your foot. And place it down. Very nice. Let's try our left leg. Lift up. Grab onto your left knee. And slide your hand down your shin until you can grab your foot. Pull it underneath. Or at least the top of the foot as best as you can on the floor. Even just the toes. Then you can hopefully feel the quadricep and hip flexor and some of us might also be feeling the top of our foot too. That is an area that gets tight and it's hard to stretch. This one's great for the shins as well. If you suffer from shin splints you might find a little relief here. One more breath. Inhale. Exhale. Nice work. Use your hand to unhook that foot. Lift your hips. Pull that block out of there. We are done with that. And let's reach down. Grab either your knees or the arches of your feet. A nice wide-legged happy baby. Press that curve of the spine to the floor. Press your hips down. Feel that open space right in the hips, Right between at the sacrum. And when you feel like you've rocked out all the tight spots, Just let your legs float down. I like to bring one leg to each edge of my mat for Shavasana. You may have a different version that you enjoy. The idea is to be relaxed and to be able to take in all of the good work that we've done today. I'm going to leave you here to rest just for a few moments in stillness and quiet. I will wake you up with the sound of a chime. And then we'll return to our day. So just enjoy. The release and the rest. Start to wake yourself up. Rotate through your wrists your ankles Point and flex your feet. Stretch your arms overhead to lengthen through your entire body. And roll over to one side in fetal pose Gently press up to a comfortable seated position. Bring your hands to heart center. And I will leave you today with this quote by Napoleon Hill. Whatever the mind can conceive, And believe the mind can achieve. Thank you so much for your practice today. Namaste.