1 hour Yin Yoga MELT & STRETCH - Hips, Thighs, Hamstrings

Transcript

hi everyone thank you for joining me my name is Cassandra and I'm going to take you through this Yin Yoga practice focusing specifically on hips and thighs so this is very much a lower body focused flow I am going to recommend that you have one block we're going to use it for the pose at the end if you have more props at home you might want to have them somewhere close by in case you want extra support in some of the other poses that we'll be doing but one block is really the essential that we want to have and we're going to begin in butterfly pose so targeting through the inner thighs soles of the feet together knees apart and you can choose how close you want to have your heels towards your seat if you're new to Yin we hold the poses in a passive way meaning there's no muscular engagement you can let your spine around walk your hands out in front of you let your head relax and we hold anywhere from two to 5 minutes so it's really important that you get into a space where you don't feel like you have to struggle against the pose and you don't have to work too hard or trying to let gravity just kind of do its job and the longer you stay in the pose the more you'll feel yourself just slowly and gradually relax down and you can always have your props and your block under your forehead if you'd like and in my Yin classes I really don't talk a lot so just stay with your breath focus inwards on your own experience just keep breathing in and out through your [Music] nose [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] and you can start to push your hands into to the ground go slowly lifting your spine back up keep breathing even as you do this and before we go into our next pose it might feel good to either do a windshield wiper motion with the knees or to stretch your legs out in front of you just whatever little counter pose and counter stretch feels nice for your low back and for your hips we'll be setting ourselves up up for dear pose next working on the left leg first so you're going to bring your left leg back behind you until you have your knee in line with your hip and forming a 90° angle with that left leg with that left knee and you can find another 90° angle here with that front right leg we're going to work on pressing and rolling that left hip back and walking our hands behind us so I'm not walking back towards the back of the mat I'm more so almost like at a 45° angle until you get some nice stretch and sensation through that left hip some people feel it more towards the inner thigh for me I feel it more little bit towards that outer glute and outer hip you can really let yourself sink into this pose [Music] working on finding your Edge so that there isn't too much intensity we're trying to find just enough [Music] sensation without letting it impact our ability to breathe deeply or to stay present the Mantra really for Yin is less is more [Music] [Music] [Music] all [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] let's walk our hands back in towards the seat to lift ourselves up and rather than going into this pose on the second side we're going to transition into pigeon so you can choose to keep your front leg as it is if there's a more limited range of motion you might bring your heel a little closer in towards you but we're just going to straighten that back leg behind us trying to evenly distribute our body weight through both hips so that we're not leaning on one side more than the other and we will be folding forward and coming down but see if you can take about 10 or so deep breaths here staying lifted and just finding a little back bend really opening through the front of our left thigh into the hip flexors as you melt your hips down relax your shoulders away from your [Music] [Music] ears and with this length that you've created through your spine and this back bend try to maintain it as you stretch out of your hips out of your lower back to initiate the fold and maybe you bring some props underneath you you can always support yourself staying up on your forearms or grabbing the block underneath your forehead or you can simply melt on down spending a few minutes in this pose [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] take 10 more deep breaths here in the [Music] pose melting a little more [Music] tension notice if you're gripping with your fingers or tensing through your [Music] jaw [Music] and very slowly inch yourself up so pushing into your [Music] hands and now rolling over onto your right hip we're going to come into cowface pose also called knee pile pose or gasana so you're going to wrap your left leg over the right one trying to stack and align your left knee on top of your right so that both sit bones are anchored and grounded find a nice lift through your chest and maybe you choose to just hold the pose from here if there's already enough sensation you can also sit on your block if this is a little bit too much elevating the hips will make the pose a lot more comfortable otherwise if you'd like you can fold forward and this is one where the block can be really nice to have just to support your [Music] head you can play around with the height a little [Music] bit the thing with the in is that as we facilitate this melting away of physical tension in our bodies you might notice emotional or mental tension come up through the surface there's this really popular saying in yoga you know we say emotions are stored in the hips but it's really the entire body so as we learn to relax and stretch and let go it's very normal if you notice certain thoughts or emotions come up if this does happen to you try not to get too overly caught up in the story but rather allow it to flow through you so it's nothing we need to fix it's nothing we need to control we can make space for it and we can use our practice as a way to help us heal and move through difficult emotions or any thoughts that come up for us as we hold these poses so just be aware of that here as we [Music] [Music] hold [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] rising up and out of this fold so now we will be restarting our sequence to the second side beginning with dear pose but before we do this again just notice what kind of counter stretch your body is craving whether that's just dropping the legs side to side or stretching them out in front of you giving yourself a few moments just to reset and to feel the effects of your prce [Music] practice and for dear pose this time we're going to bring our right leg back so that we have our right knee in line with our hip and a 90° angle Bend in that right knee and then I'm also just bending my left knee I'm going to walk my hands back at around a 45° angle working on pressing my right hip and my right thigh down towards the mat and you really don't need to be walking super far back here however is appropriate to you and you can close your [Music] eyes you might notice that this feels different one side from the other make any modifications that you need so that you can comfortably hold the pose for about 3 to 4 minutes or [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] e [Music] about 10 more breaths [Music] here [Music] [Music] and we can start to lift ourselves up we're going to come into our pigeon pose so you can keep your left leg out in front of you maybe need to readjust the bend and the angle stretch your right leg back out behind behind you and try to evenly distribute your body weight through both hips and we're going to find just a little back bend first for about 10 breaths or so so you can push down into the ground and lift your heart up and a nice stretch through the front of your right hip and through those hip flexors and with this length maintain it as you stretch forward and down maybe using a block under your head or under your chest you can also stay up on your forearms if that feels more [Music] appropriate trying to let gravity do most of the work for you [Music] [Music] see if you can relax your shoulders and your upper back a little more and really use the power of your breath to help support you in this pose which can certainly be quite intense so remember not to go past your Edge we're not intentionally trying to make this any more Sensational than it needs to [Music] [Music] be [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] very slowly start to push your hands into the ground lift yourself up inch by inch we'll be moving into that cowface pose or knee pile variation you can rock on over onto your left hip and bring your right leg out in front of you until you can stack your right knee over your left one and you might choose to stay up tall as you are maybe sitting up on a block to provide more support elevating the hips or you can fold forward walking your hands out in front of you and again finding that stretch and that lift out of the lower back even as you anchor your hips down and maybe you bring a block to support your head if that feels a little bit better for [Music] [Music] you [Music] [Music] for [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] let's unwind from this pose lifting up and before we finish we're going to do just reclining pose to work more at the front of the thighs and you'll want to have your blocks for this and we're going to lay all the way down on our backs we'll be using the block underneath our hips to elevate them a little you can either do this on the first level of the block which is a little bit more accessible if you want more sensation you can lift it up on the second height and we're going to stretch our left leg out in front of us really reach out through your left heel pushing it down into the mat and then you're going to draw your right knee in and already you'll notice if it's too much for you to have this on the second level if it doesn't feel comfortable just lower it down and if you really needed to modify this pose you could even do it flat on the ground with no block at all but try to relax Head and Shoulders using minimal arm [Music] strength feel yourself sink down a little deeper into the ground every time you exhale [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] that [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] and we'll release the pose on this side you can slide slide your left foot back in and release the hold of your right knee notice if the block has shifted a little bit this time our right leg will straighten out in front of us and we'll draw the left thigh in towards the [Music] chest make any little adjustments that help to make this pose more comfortable for you [Music] just looking for a gentle opening through the front of our right hip down the right thigh again using minimal effort as we hold the pose here [Music] and let's slide that right leg back in release the hold of your left leg and just bring your block on its lowest level if it wasn't there already and straighten your legs up towards the sky just for a few breaths here maybe rolling your ankles flexing and pointing through your feet just whatever feels really good to you [Music] here and we'll be making our way shavasana our final resting pose so you can move the block completely off to the side we won't be needing it and just notice what you need right now maybe to draw your knees and towards your chest or to do a little windshield wiper motion with your knees really anything [Music] else and when you're ready let's find this last pose together opening up the legs and the arms Palms face up towards the sky close your eyes and really feel all of the tension in your body Melt Away so even through your jaw and the facial muscles relax your shoulders a little more let your legs be heavy taking this opportunity for a sacred pause to really feel the effects of our practice not only on our body on our hips and our thighs but also just in general how we [Music] feel a few minutes right [Music] [Music] here [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] let's reawaken from this deep rest with the power of our breath and small little movements in our body might feel good to extend your arms up and we'll roll to one side so we can come up to take a seat roll your shoulders away from your ears close your eyes to focus in the hands at the heart just a silent little prayer of gratitude for yourself and we close to chant M inhaling to chant breathe deeply oh [Music] oh thank you so much everyone for doing this Yin Yoga practice for hips and thighs I would love to know how this went for you what you thought of this sequence please do leave me a comment below if you don't already and hopefully we'll be practicing again together in the very near future