New Year's Yoga: Out With The Old, In With The New

The New Year is always an introspective time in our lives. It's time to look inside, see what we've accomplished this past year, and move into the future fresh. This 45-minute yoga practice will help you process your emotions from this year and visualize and imagine a fresh new year.

Transcript

Welcome today to a new year, New you yoga. We're doing this practice at the end of a year and then looking forward to a new year. And yes, The year is not quite over yet, But we're getting close. So let's just close our eyes for a moment. Find ourselves seated tall here in our space. Hips on the mat, Lifted through our center, A gentle tuck in our chin, Our shoulders roll back just a little bit. And just starts to connect to your breath. Breathe in and out just through your nose. Keep your tall seat, Just start to loosen up your neck. You can let your head roll from side to side. Let it drop back. Let it fall forward. There's no right way. Just move it as much as you want or as little as you want. And let's just start to think for a moment as you move. The new year is always introspective time in our lives. It's a time to look inside. See where we've where we've accomplished things in the past year. And then maybe move into the future feeling a little bit fresh. There might be a feeling of starting anew. Perhaps you've already thought about goals that you want for your new year. May I suggest that you might choose a goal or a focus during our yoga practice together of somewhere that you want your personal yoga practice to go. In 2025. It might be just more regular time on the mat. It might be a certain physical goal that you have for your body or for your strength. It might be an emotional need that you feel like yoga, The movement of yoga, The breathing of yoga might be able to help you with. So set that intention right now and let's just seal it with a breath together. You can open your eyes or keep them closed. Take your arms by your sides. Inhale, Lift up, Feel that reach through the sides of the body. And exhale, Release the breath. Good. Let's move on to all fours. I'm going to turn toward this side here. Again, You can mirror me if you want or just do your best in your own space. Let's let our knees open a little wider than our hips and just sit back for a moment in child's pose. Just for a moment. This may feel tight to you through your hips and through your back Sometimes it's nice to try to loosen things up and then return to the pose again. So just feel how it is right at this moment. And then let's come up to all fours. We're going to go back to that in just a moment after we do a little movement through our spine with Biddle Asana, Cat and Cow. So drop your belly down, Let your elbows bend just a little bit. Inhale, Send your gaze up. Exhale, Round through the spine. Let's pull our hips in, Tuck our chin. Feel that lifting in our back. Inhale arch, Belly drops down, Send the gaze up. Exhale, Round. Feel that movement in your back. Inhale, Arch. Trying to get a full range of motion. Exhale, Round. Let's do one more. Inhale, Arch. Exhale, Round. Come back to neutral, Let your knees open a little wider and sit back again into child's pose. This time, See if it feels a little different, Even with just that simple movement. And as you're sitting here and breathing in this child's pose. Just look back over 2024. It's a long year. So you might even just look back to the past couple of weeks or months. But how did you feel in the past year in general, Maybe? Was it an exciting time for you? Did you feel anxious or frazzled a lot of the time? Was the year a struggle or did you feel overwhelmed? Maybe you felt like it was a great time of growth. Just think for a moment. About your experience with the year. Let's lift up into Downward Facing Dog. We lift onto our toes, Reach our hips high, Drop our heels down, Press back with our shoulders, And just tuck your chin a little bit toward your chest so you're lengthening the back of the neck. You can start to feel more of the physical presence of this shape or you can keep thinking inward about your year. I'll leave it to you. You're welcome to pedal your feet if it feels extra tight in the backs of the legs. Loosening whatever you can. Then let's walk our way up to our hands. Near the top of the mat. And just let ourselves hang for a moment like a rag doll. I'm going to softly bend my knees to help loosen up my back and my hamstrings. And again, Maybe loosen up the neck and the jaw. We don't want to carry stress and tension in our bodies with us into 2025. We want to try to release some of that. Let's roll up through our spine. One vertebrae at a time. Take your shoulders back. Good, As we've lifted our chest, Lifted our heart center, And we're ready to start Surya Namaskara A. If you'd like to bring your toes closer, You're welcome to do so. Big toes together, Heels slightly apart, Whatever feels comfortable. Inhale, Reach your arms up overhead. Exhale, Swan dive down. Bend your knees, Keep them straight, Whatever you feel comfortable with. You do not have to touch the floor. Inhale, Bring your hands up just a little bit, Maybe to the ankles or the shins. Exhale, Hands down. Step back to a plank. Couple of options here. You can drop to your knees. You can stay lifted. I'll show this on my knees first. Drop down, Elbows bend. Maybe come all the way to the mat this first time. Tops of the toes on the floor. Elbows roll back. Inhale, Press up. We'll leave our hips on the ground. This is just a cobra pose at this point. Nice stretch for the back. Exhale, Lower down, Lift onto our knees again since we're on the ground and then up onto our toes and we're in downward facing dog. Good, So those were a couple of modifications that you can try. Maybe that felt good in your body. The next one we'll do, We'll do it a little bit different so that you might be able to feel how you want to approach this sequence. We do it a lot, So it's good to know what your body can handle with it. Bend your knees, Look forward, Inhale, Step or hop up to your hands Exhale, Fold down into your legs. Maybe the knees stay straight this time so you get a little more of a hamstring stretch. Inhale, Reverse swan dive, Reach up to the sky. Exhale, Samasthiti, Arms by our sides. Nice job. Let's try it again. I'll add a couple things in. Inhale, Lift. Exhale, Swan dive forward. Inhale, Look up, Halfway lift. Exhale, Hands down, Step back. This time I'll stay lifted. You're welcome to drop to your knees like we did last time. Chaturanga. See if you can maybe hover. Build a little upper body strength. Inhale, Urdhva Mukha Svanasana, Upward facing dog. So opening of the chest and the throat. And exhale, Adho Mukha Svanasana. You can go through your knees, You can go through your toes. Lifting back into the position. Nice job. Each time you do this sequence, It might feel different. We do the best that we can. With what we've been given. Bend your knees, Look forward. Inhale, Step or hop up to your hands. Exhale fold down into your legs. Inhale, Reverse swan dive, Reach all the way up to the sky. Exhale, Samasthiti. Arms by your sides. Good, Good. Now bring your hands to heart center. And let's shift our weight into our heels just a little bit. So we're going to bend our knees. And sit back into a chair pose or utkatasana. Now I say to put a little weight in the heels just so that you're not falling forward onto your toes, But make sure you can see your toes. So just look down, See if you can see them. If you want a little more upper body reach, Take your arms forward. It'll add an element for sure, Make your core work just a little bit harder. Good. Building strength is always good in our bodies. Luckily with yoga, We don't hold for too long. We move on because we're going to get into our flow. So shift your weight over to your right leg. You're lifting up your left and then step it back behind you. So the right leg is in the front, The left leg is behind. Take your hands, Maybe press them together and look upward with those hands. So we're in Warrior 1, Virabhadrasana A. We should feel weight on both feet, Really strong and stable through each foot. So that's. A stiff breeze would not blow us over. We would stay strong. Inhale. Let's open up to warrior two. Exhale. So open your hips, Shift your feet just a little bit. The heel lines up with the arch of the foot. We still have that right foot kind of being the primary leg, Right leg forward. Perfect. I like to turn my gaze over this right hand. Look to where you're headed and just feel this strength building right here through the hip flexor Ear sigh. Beautiful. Now reach down for that block. If you have it close by, You can grab it and put it on the pinky toe. Nope, Let's move it to the big toe. Sorry, Big toe side of your foot. Place your hand there and then extend that left arm overhead. So we're in kind of a modified pose here. I want to move us into a different one. You can feel lots of energy, Lots of weight into that right hip. And let's start to slowly straighten out the right leg. See how that feels along the hamstring and the inner thigh. You just moved yourself to Trikonasana. And you should have felt a nice deep lengthening right through that inner thigh. Now if it's uncomfortable to have this arm in the sky, You can place it on your hip. Little ways that we can change the pose but still get really good quality. Nice, Feel that stretch on that inner thigh. Now go back to bending out that right knee again. And half your arm right up against your right knee. So I'm putting a little pressure with my arm into my leg, Not allowing this knee to fold forward, To come forward and lose some of that stretch there. So take your left arm then overhead. A little bit more extension through the side body. And we're in Parsvakonasana. If you're pretty flexible through your hips and you don't want to use the block, You can release it and just put your hand on the ground. A little bit deeper so you decide what works best for your body. And then lastly, You can turn your gaze to your hand. And feel that there. Strong. Beautiful. Good, Inhale, Lift up. Use your energy in the leg. Woo, We're feeling it, Feeling it. Turn your toes toward each other. So we're in a nice wide position here. Just facing straight on toward the camera. Take your hands to your waist. Look up, Inhale, Lift up. Exhale, Fold forward. Take your hands down. You can reach for the floor or if you've got blocks close by, Grab one and place your hands on a block. Your indicator is going to be whether or not your legs can stay straight. If you need to bend your knees to reach the floor, Please go ahead and grab a block. I'm going to put mine behind. Nice. Let's do a little bit of a chest opener here. Start by first reaching the right arm up to the sky. Nice and high. And then bring the right hand right behind your head, Kind of at the neck. Or the neck. Pull that right arm underneath the left. Almost like you're doing a little bit of a Kind of a crunch, A side crunch, I guess. Reach that right arm back up, Little chicken wing right arm. Lower it down once more. Good. And this time, As we reach that right arm up, Let's keep going up, Extending that arm to the sky. Nice job. Chest opener, Heart opener. We're open to new possibilities that might come to us in the new year. Inhale. Exhale, Place that right hand down. Nice job. Now just look up for a moment, Inhale. We don't want to get too much of a head rush. Exhale, Let your head come back down again. Let's do the left side. Lift our left arm, Inhale, Reach it up to the sky. Exhale, Take the left hand to your head right behind your neck there. Inhale, Opening. Exhale, Curl your body, Bring your elbow down toward that right arm. Inhale, Lift it up, Open the chest. Exhale, Bring the elbow toward that right arm. Inhale, Bring that left arm back up, And then keep going. Unfurl your arm, Reach it for the sky. Open to possibilities. That might come to us. In the new year. Good. Inhale. Exhale, Bring your left hand down. Walk your hands back now as far as they will go. They might line up with your feet. You might have a block here. All different options let yourself fold forward. Shift a little weight towards your toes so you can really feel the back of those legs. Engaging. Good, One more breath, Push into the floor. Inhale, Lengthen your spine. We're gonna come up slow since we've been upside down for a while. Exhale, Bring your hands to your waist. Inhale, Lift up. Nice job. Step your feet together. Let's come to this side of the mat. I'm going to move my block out of the way. Good. Step our feet together. Get your balance between your feet. Bend your knees. Inhale, Come up to that chair pose. We started here last time at heart center. If that felt good to you and you want to stay there, That's fine. If you would rather reach, That's fine too. Good, Now shift your weight to your left leg. Peel that right foot off. And put it down behind you. Keep your weight in between both feet, So find a new balance, A new center. As you reach your arms up to the sky. And that might be like our next year. Next year is a new year. Maybe you need to find a new center for your year. Find yourself in the middle of it somewhere. You might have been thinking about that. As we move on. Inhale. Exhale, Open up to Warrior II. Our left leg is going to stay in the front. We just shift our feet a little bit. Heel lined up with the arch of the foot. Good. We're starting to feel this energy building into this inner thigh. As we turn our gaze over the left hand. Lots of strength. These warrior poses are meant to build strength in our muscles. Meant to keep us nice and strong. Good, Now let's reach down for our block. Hopefully it's not too far away. Put it on the big toe side of your foot and place your hand on that block. Then reach the right arm up into the air. You can feel all this good pressing into that hip. Kind of feels nice to put a little weight into that hip. A little bit of energy. Now let's stretch out our hamstring, Slowly straighten the left leg. Shifting yourself into a Trikonasana pose. You should feel a nice pull through that inner thigh. On the left side. Give it a good stretch. And the same all together too, We're reaching our back, Stretching the sides of our body. There's all sorts of links going on. Good, Nice. Now bend that left knee again and press your arm right up against your knee. Pull the right arm overhead. So our left arm is holding our left knee back so that we can really feel that opening of the inner thigh. And then we have a beautiful reach through that right arm. If you want to release your block, You can. And just have your hand on the ground. Depends on how deep you're able to go. There's no rule. It's all just good, Beautiful body work. Very nice. One more breath, Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, Lift up. Ooh, Use that strength. We can feel that in the inner thigh. At least I can. And let's step both feet together at the middle this time. So we were wide last time. We're gonna do a little different thing right in the middle here. Rukasana, Tree pose balancing. Shift your weight to your right foot and you can take your left foot start maybe on the floor or A block. Or feel free to go higher and lifting that leg upward. Whatever is best for you. Balancing is very individual. Some days are easier than others. Let's just be honest with ourselves. And it's okay to feel that shifting around in the ankle of the right foot. If you're stable, If you're comfortable here, And you'd like to extend your arms, Feel free. It's also fine to keep your hands at heart center. Lots of deep breaths. Coming back to the breath is really good at times when we're balancing. And life is a balancing act. Maybe you have to balance a lot of hats. You wear a lot of hats. In your life. So this could be trying to find yourself in the middle somewhere. Good. Let's come back to the center with our hands. If you were up and lower, Lower that foot to the floor. I'm going to keep my block close by because this next side is tricky for me. Shift to your left and same thing. Toes can be on the floor. Toes can be on the block. You can reach your foot higher up your leg. You're going to find your perfect spot. Whatever that is for you. Have lots of lift in this left leg. This left leg, This left hip is very important. The strength there. See look at me fall all over the place. This side is hard for me for sure. An old injury that I've got on my left leg here. If you want to raise your arms up, You are welcome to do so. I'll see what I can do. Don't watch me. Find something that you can look at that's not moving around. Nicely done. Take one more breath. Inhale. Exhale. Nice job. Bring your hands back together. And gently lower it down. Good work, Good work. If you've got a block there, Set it off to the side. Let's come up to the top of our mat on this right side here. Take a vinyasa. Remind ourselves how to breathe. Sometimes we stop breathing when we do balances. So let's breathe. Inhale, Lift up. Exhale, Swan dive forward. Inhale, Look up, Halfway lift. Exhale, Hands down, Step back. Chaturanga on your knees or stay lifted, You choose. Inhale, Urdhva Mukha Svanasana, Upward Facing Dog. Exhale, Adho Mukha Svanasana, Downward Facing Dog. Pause here for just a moment. If you need to come to Child's Pose, You're welcome to. We'll stay here in this down dog for a moment and just think about how do you want things to feel in this next year? In 2025. Visualize it. Imagine it. Feel it with every breath. What you want out of this next year. Now come forward to a plank. And let's take our right hand right underneath our eyes, So right underneath our nose, And shift over to the right side of your body. So first I'll show a modification. You might drop to that right knee and have your left hand on your hip or in the air. If you're comfortable with a side plank, Vasi Stasana, You can slide that right foot to the floor and you're balancing on the pinky toe edge of that right foot. Both options are great. Both options allow us to get a little strength in our obliques. Definitely work our shoulders. We can feel that right away. Good, Take one more breath. Inhale. Exhale, Lower that left hand to the floor and let's lower all the way down onto our stomach. Tops of the feet on the floor, Bring your arms by your sides. Lift your chest first. Just pull your shoulder blades back. Maybe this is as far as you're going to go. Just keep your gaze over the bridge of your nose so you're not straining your neck. If you want more, Lift your legs. Let them hover as well. We'll engage our glutes, Our hamstrings, And our low back. Little bit of upper back as we pull our shoulders toward each other. Still keep breathing. Nice. Inhale. Exhale, Come on down. Relax your neck for just a moment. Relax those shoulders. You can just turn your head to the mat. Good. A little breath, A little rest for just a moment between sides. Then take your hands to the mat, Lift onto your knees, Lift onto your toes, Come back to Down Dog. Let's reset for the other side. Come forward to a plank. Take your left hand to the middle of the mat, So you're looking down at your left hand, And roll to the left side. So maybe you're stacking those feet, You're on the left pinky edge, Or you're dropping your knee to the mat. Whatever you did last time is just great. Feel that oblique lifting in either case. Feel that strength building through your left arm, Left shoulder. Really strong. Good. One more breath. Inhale. Exhale, Extend that right hand down to the mat. And lower all the way to the floor. All the way to the floor. This time. . . With our Salabhasana. We'll take it just a little deeper. I'll give you the option. If you're able to reach your feet, You are welcome to do so. If that is too far for you, Just try clasping your hands behind your back. You can choose if that works better for you. So I'll show my feet, You can clasp your hands. Grab on and go ahead and lift. Either way, We're going to stretch our shoulders. We're going to open up our chest, Our heart space. If you've got your feet, You have a little bit of an added hip flexor and quadriceps stretching. And all of us are working our backs. Good. Let's take one more breath. Inhale. Exhale, Come on down. Take your hands, Crisscross them in front, And just lay your forehead on your hands. Let's just wiggle our hips around. There's a lot of energy right there in my back. Let it go. And then press onto your hands once more onto those knees and up onto your toes. Taking a Down Dog one more time. This one should feel really nice. Stretching out the back. Make sure to pull up through the middle of your body so that you stretch the back, Lengthen the back. Good, It'll feel nice to do some twists after those back bends. So let's do that now. Just drop your knees down, Or you can hop your legs through to sit. It doesn't matter how you get there. Let's just come to sit. Sit together on our mat. And twist things out just a little bit because that'll help our spine to feel really nice. So I'm gonna keep my right leg on the floor and take the left foot up over the top. If this is really tight for your body, It feels uncomfortable, You are welcome to straighten out the right leg. It'll add a little more space. So you decide if that's better for you. Either way, Whatever you choose, Let's extend our right arm. Inhale, Lift it up to the sky. Exhale, Either hook it on or give it a hug. And the left hand is on the floor. To help you sit nice and tall as you pull that shoulder back and send your gaze behind you. So this is Ardha Matsyendrasana, A really good twist for the entire spine. It starts deep at the base of the spine at the tailbone and rolls all the way up to the upper back and even our neck is involved as we look behind. Feels really nice. Now come forward. And you can do a couple of different things here. If you're really flexible in your hips, You might be able to lay your legs on top of each other. So now that left leg is kind of piled on top of the right knee. That might be too tight for you. So then just take a simple crisscross, Which may not be simple. I shouldn't say that. Everybody's body is different, But the left leg is in front and the right leg is behind. So that's our other option that makes it just a little bit easier. Then grab your strap. And we'll put the strap in our right hand. Behind our back. So our right hand is high. Our left hand comes from below. Try to grab those edges of the straps there. If you're really flexible in your arms and in your chest, You might be able to grab your fingertips back there. And if you don't have a strap, Just hold on to your shirt somewhere. And then lastly, We're going to fold forward. So here's where we feel those hips. And here's where we feel the triceps and the shoulders. There's a lot going on right here. So just breathe through it. Good. Take one more breath. Inhale. Exhale. Nice job, Lift up. Beautiful. Let go of your strap. You can set it off to the side for a minute and just straighten out your legs. Let's stretch straight forward. We were twisted all up and now we're gonna let that all go. So, Maybe you need your strap again. I shouldn't have said to put it away. Put your strap around your feet. If you can easily grab your feet, Then you don't need your strap. You know your body, Do what you need to do. Take a breath, Inhale. Exhale, Fold forward, Reaching down for that strap. Pull your shoulder blades back, Let your head drop down, And take a deep breath where you pull up through the middle. Imagine there's a string at your center and you're lifting that string. See if it allows you to fold even further forward. That is called Udiana Banda. It's our navel lock. And if we can engage that lock, Sometimes our stretches become a little deeper. Good, Let's take one more breath right here. Inhale. Exhale Lift up. Nice job. Now you can set the strap off to the side. Keep it close though. And we're going to move to our other side of the twist. So simple just to take that right leg and put it over the top. If you want to involve the left leg too, You can tuck that left leg under if you did that last time. Extend your left arm, Inhale. Exhale, Hook it on or hug your leg, Right hand to the floor. Send your gaze back. Feel that release in the spine starting at the base of the spine going all the way up the neck. Every exhale releases just a little bit more tension. Let it go. Good. Come forward. Nicely done. Pile your knees on top of each other for gomukhasana. So we've got that right leg on top of the left or take crisscross the right leg in front of the left. That will allow you to get that other hip this time. Then we're going to take our strap in our left hand on the top. And from the behind, From below, We'll take our left hand. No, I'm saying it incorrectly. Left arm is on the top, Right arm is on the bottom. Grab on, Find some way to connect. And then take a breath, Inhale, Exhale, Fold forward. This is how we get that outer right hip, That space between the hips in the sacrum to open up. The low back. Sigh. Nice job. Lift up, Release your hands, Set that strap off to the side and take one last forward bend. This time we're gonna go nice and wide. We need to get a little bit more stretch into the inner thigh. We did that strengthening with our standing poses, So we want to make sure we stretch it out. Deep breath. Inhale. Exhale. Fold forward. Reach your arms down as you go. Just go as far as you can. We want to try to keep the toes to the sky. We want to try to keep our knees straight. Do the best that you can. Slow and steady breath in and out through the nose. To help you release. Little bit by little bit. One more breath here. Go as deep as you can. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, Lift up. Nice job. Bring your legs together and let's get on to our back. We'll do our final pose before Shavasana. Grab one block and your strap. Let's start out on our back with our knees bent so that we can place our strap, Our block. We're going to lift our hips and then press that block right down. You should get it so that it feels pretty comfortable across the small of your back, Across your hips. Then bring your knees into your chest and take your strap. Around your feet. And we'll extend the legs up to the sky. I have to move my block just a little bit more. You might have to shift it once you get your feet up there, Just depending on how it feels. It should feel comfortable, Not uncomfortable. We're just going to hold on to our strap. And give ourselves a little gentle stretch. So the strap is holding our legs, Allowing us to get a nice hamstring pull here. Try to keep your knees as straight as you can. And then that block is elevating our hips to take a little pressure off of the hamstrings. Just allowing you to feel that release down the backs of the legs. A little bit of weightlessness. Upside down poses like this are good for our metabolism and immunity. It just is a little bit of a stress release too. To let the blood flow move out of the feet. And down toward the rest of the body. You might even close your eyes here. Notice the breathing start to change. As we've been right winding down our breath, Gotten a little bit slower. But still deep. Still very substantial. Good, Take one more breath right here. Inhale. Exhale Bend your knees so that you can take the strap away. Put your feet down on the mat. Take this block out from under you. And then just bring your knees into your chest so that you're pressing that curve of the spine to the floor. And you might rock. Back and forth just a little bit. Across your hips. Feeling the release through that low back area where the block was holding you. Your body was arched a little bit. And when you feel like you've worked out all the kinks, Extend your leg, One leg to each edge of the mat, The arms by your side, Close your eyes, Get comfortable with blankets or pillows or anything that you want for just a couple of moments of Shavasana rest. And as you settle into this space of restfulness, Just think. How will you get where you want to in this next year? Do you need to open your heart more? Do you need to slow down? Do you need to release anything? Bridge the gap between who you were in 2024. And who you want to be. In 2025. I'll let you rest here for a few more moments. And I'll wake you up with the sound of a bell. 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 to one side in fetal pose. This is a moment of renewal. Starting over after doing a beautiful practice together. Let's bring our hands to heart center. Thank you for taking this time today to be with me as we. . . End one year. And have a new fresh look on the next year. And I wish you well as that journey unfolds. Thank you for your practice today. Namaste