10 min Morning Yoga Flexibility Flow - Yoga with Kassandra

Transcript

namaste good morning thank you so much for joining me i'm going to take you through this simple 10-minute morning yoga stretch so just a great way to begin your day with some mindfulness some movement some intention and getting rid of any aches and pains you may have accumulated over the night so let's start lying down no props are required and we're just going to draw our knees in towards our chest walk a little bit side to side try to melt your shoulders into the mat and you can stay just like this or if you want to start stretching through the inner thighs you can widen your knees and still keeping that gentle rock start to pay attention to the flow and the rhythm of your breath so you want it to move in and out through your nose [Music] feel your breath flow all the way down into your lower belly and if you had your knees wide apart you can bring them in back towards the center we're gonna straighten our left leg out in front of us and cross into a twist so just guide your right knee and thigh over your body towards the left maybe with the help of your left hand and you can reach your right arm up maybe even looking over your right shoulder so a nice laying spinal twist starting things off gently here and as you practice i'll be asking you to start thinking of one word that serves as your intention today one word that really captures how you want the day to go and how you want to feel take one more big breath in here and come all the way back through to center and we'll just switch sides twisting on the other side so right leg is straight pull your left thigh in and you can cross this over towards the right left arm reaches out and maybe look over towards your left shoulder breathe in and out through your nose [Music] notice how your body is feeling this morning [Music] and coming all the way back through to center you can straighten your legs out in front of you we're going to try to curl all the way up so reach your arms out towards your toes tuck your chin towards your chest inhale lift all the way up and just reach and extend your arms towards the sky so kind of like a staff pose here you can flex into your feet push into your heels and just another really simple twist bring your left hand to your outer right knee right fingertips behind you open and twist a little deeper think of lengthening and stretching up growing taller inhale arms reach back up twist to the other side right hand to your outer left knee left hand behind you for support try to pull your lower belly in towards your lower back sit up even taller coming back through to center let's find our butterfly fold soles of the feet come together to touch knees fall apart and just walk your hands out in front of you and instead of just folding directly forward start to walk your hands over towards the right side of your mat as you fold so we're starting to add some flexion which is just a forward fold and lateral flexion which is a side bend so trying to get all the essential spinal movements in the morning and then crawl your fingers all the way to the other side over to the left reach out through your right hand come back through to center walk your hands in to lift your chest and we're going to come into a little toe squat i'm just going to turn so i'm facing towards the other way and you can tuck your toes underneath you here just to rest your hips over your heels stretching into your ankles you might need to move and wiggle that little toe out of the way and we'll take cat and cow from this seated stance with cactus shape in our arms so bend your elbows out at a 90 degree angle in front of you as you inhale open up your heart puff your chest forward exhale round and contract bring your forearms in chin to chest a few more like this inhale and exhale really open through your upper back inhale and exhale last one breathe in and breathe out let's release tabletop pose shake out the toes you might be feeling it here and we'll come into downward facing dog aro mukashvanasana so from tabletop walk your hands a little bit further forward tuck your toes under and go ahead and lift your hips up and back start by bending your left knee a lot try to keep your right knee straight as you push down into your right heel lengthen and stretch out through your arms relax your neck asking yourself what your intention is today what is important what matters to you bend your right knee straighten your left leg push into your left heel [Music] curling tailbone up and now you can bend into both knees a little bit just as you straighten as much as possible reaching your chest a little further back and we'll come into our rag doll fold at the top of the mat walk your feet forward take as many steps as you need here and you might feel more comfortable widening your feet a little more than hip width letting your upper body drape over your thighs maybe swaying a little side to side decompress along your spine release your hands down towards the mat to bend your knees even more and push into your heels in order to lift up inch by inch once you're at the top of the mat with your feet hip width distance apart you can extend your arms up overhead just hold on to your right wrist with your left hand and take a side bend here pushing out into your right hip inhale through the center second side hold on to your left wrist push out into your left hip all the way back and let's sink into our chair pose utkatasana just creating a little bit of heat in the body as a way to wake up rock your weight back into your heels keep your knees hip width distance apart so directly over your ankles strong through your arms sink down a tiny bit lower and now bring your fingertips to the floor we're gonna step our left foot back sorry not forward step your left foot all the way back and drop your left knee down to the mat you can point those toes back just melt your hips forward and down roll your shoulders down and away from your ears big thigh stretch here this is really great to do in the morning especially if you know you're going to be sitting down a lot today and let's stretch into the back of our right leg into our hamstrings either stay up tall here as you straighten that front leg or i find it even easier to just rest on my back heel and fold any amount so don't worry if you're not going very low find the version of the pose that is the most suitable for your body this morning we're not trying to get a huge workout in or anything like that this is more about mindfulness connecting to our breath stretching everything out to start our day with intention and purpose and hopefully on a really good note lift on up you can start bending into that front knee again and just step a little to the top of the mat we'll lunge to the other side so right foot steps all the way back your left knee is over your ankle point those toes back melt your hips forward and down and you can stay on your wrists on your palms on your knuckles whatever feels good here and i'm kind of letting my chest rest on my thigh and our variation of half splits our hanumanasana push into that left heel either stay up staying stacked or letting your hips come all the way down folding forward head to knee you can absolutely bend into your left knee here the leg does not need to be perfectly straight one more big breath in through the nose and exhale lift on up we're going to step back into our downward facing dog so however you need to get there as you plant your palms and step the feet back make any little adjustments here that feel good see if you can stretch your heels towards the mat a little bit more lengthening out through your arms and come forward into your plank pose lower all the way down to your belly elbows back point the toes back as you lift through your chest roll your shoulders open your heart big back bend here and release child's pose balasana big toes together knees as wide as you would like them to be our last big stretch here opening up through the inner thighs relax your head and see if you can kind of melt the space between your shoulder blades relaxing your arms i'm taking five deep breaths right here [Music] one more inhale and let it go you can walk your hands in so for morning yoga classes i like to finish them seated rather than laying down in shavasana just in case you fall back asleep that's happened to me many times so you can sit up tall get comfortable here lengthen the crown of your head away from your tailbone i'm really anchoring and choosing your one word intention for the day notice the effects of your practice and really take a moment to really praise yourself sometimes the hardest part about yoga is just making the time to get on our mat especially in the morning when we can be very busy so be proud of yourself for starting your day with some mindful movement join your palms together at your heart and we'll close this practice and set our intention with the chant of om one time let's inhale to chant big breath in [Music] [Music] thank you so very much for doing this 10 minute morning yoga practice with me i would love to know how it went leave me a comment below let me know what your intention is today and hopefully i will practice again with you tomorrow morning and every morning after that thanks again