15 min Gentle Yoga for Hip Flexibility - HIPS DEEP STRETCH

Transcript

Hi everyone. Thank you for joining me. My name is Cassandra and I'm going to take you through this short and sweet hip release practice. So, this is all about stretching out our hips, increasing the flexibility in our lower body, and doing it all in a short amount of time. Great for all levels. No props are required. And we're going to start seated. Just sit up cross-legged with your right shin stacked slightly in front of your left one. and sitting up so that you have both sitbones anchored on the mat. Lift up tall through your spine and rotate a little bit over towards your left leg and left knee. Start to crawl and reach your fingertips out towards that left diagonal and extend through that right arm and through the right fingertips. And you might not be folding all the way down. This really just depends on your range of motion. But we're looking to target right away into that right hip and right glute. You might get a nice stretch through the right side of your waist at the same time. And even though we're folding and kind of leaning to one side, think of pushing down even more into that right sitbone so it doesn't lift off of the [Music] mat. And get one more deep breath. See if you can crawl the fingertips out further forward. and just walk your hands back inch by inch slowly lifting up. Uncross your legs out in front of you. Straighten out. Find your staff pose. So feet are hipwidth distance apart. Flex the foot firmly, palms by your sides. Really press the backs of your knees into the mat as you lengthen and reach the crown of your head up. Toning the navl back. And we'll take a seated pigeon variation. So you can cross your right ankle over the top of that left knee. Walk your hands back behind you for support. And then you choose how deep you go in this pose based on how close you bring that leg in towards you. So the more you bend that left knee in, the deeper you'll feel this. And I like to just kind of come up onto my knuckles or onto my fingertips here. Instead of rounding and contracting, think of lifting your chest up. And you can kind of just let that weight shift from side to side. [Music] breathing in and out through your nose and sending that breath all the way down to your lower belly. Don't feel like you need to take this option if this is already enough sensation, but if you'd like to intensify this, you can grab a hold of that shin, interlacing your hands, and straighten that left leg. So, I'm just holding that leg in place. The right foot is in the crease of my elbow and my right knee is in my right elbow crease. Just rocking it in. And regardless of which option you were doing, we're all going to now straighten that left leg. And we're going to place the right foot to the inside of that left thigh. And now open up your legs a little bit wider. So you're not squared to the front of the mat. You're more so angled on a diagonal. Take a side body stretch first. So reach your right arm up and over. You'll start to feel a little bit of a hamstring stretch. I'm actively flexing my left foot for this first variation. Lean that right shoulder back. Stretch out nice and long. And then come all the way up. Baby wild thing. Right hand places down behind you. Press and lift your hips up. Reach that left arm up and over. So really give yourself that big hip stretch as you push those hips forward. and point through your left toes. Carefully, we set our hips back down to the mat. And now, turning and rotating our chest and our upper body towards that left leg. We're going to point through the toes and find a passive forward fold. So, let your spine naturally round. I'm not even grabbing a hold of my leg here. I'm turning my palms facing up so that I'm not tempted to push and pull. Especially just cuz this is one of the first few poses, but just get that hamstring [Music] stretch and walking the hands in. Let's lift up and release. We'll go do those poses to the second side. It might feel good just to drop the knees in a windshield wiper motion. We're going to sit cross-legged. This time your left shin will be staggered slightly in front of the right one. Lifting up tall, rotate your chest over towards your right knee and right thigh and start to walk those hands out. Really reaching especially through that left hand and at the same time pushing down into that left sitbone. [Music] Find even more space here. Reaching in opposition and we'll walk the hands in. Come up finding seated pigeon pose. You can straighten your leg. Transition into staff first. So really just straighten the legs. Push the palms into the ground. Lengthen through the crown of your head. And this time your left ankle will cross over the top of your right knee. You can bring your hands back a little bit and bend into that right knee. Rocking a little bit side to side, sliding your shoulder blades down your back. Even though this is a lower body focused class, we don't want to neglect or compromise through the upper body. [Music] And you might stay in this first variation or if you had the hands clasped the first time, you can do that again here. Interlacing your hands at the shin and just cradling that leg into your [Music] arms. Transitioning into a head to knee variation. We're all going to have our right leg straight and we're going to place the left foot to the inside of the right thigh. Instead of staying squared to the top of the mat, go ahead and widen your stance. So, open the knee. Flex through that right foot. Reach your left arm up and over. Find a side bend first. So, I'm not leaning forward here. In fact, I'm almost imagining I could lean a little bit further back. [Music] Pressing the back of that right knee into the floor. Come all the way up. Baby wild thing. Left hand is down for support. Reach your right arm up and over and stretch [Music] out. Really pushing those hips forward, pointing through your right [Music] toes and setting the hips back down. Let's find head to knee from here. So, keep those right toes pointed. Rotate yourself over towards that right leg and fold on down. I'm really mostly letting gravity do this forward fold for me. Not pushing, not forcing it. I'm not even really going to my full end range of [Music] motion. Big breath in and out. and walking the hands in. Let's bend into the knees. We're going to find our downward-facing dog. So, crossing at the ankles, palms are shoulderwidth distance apart, feet are hipwidth distance apart as you lift your hips up and back. First downward dog. Bend your knees as much as you would like here. Keep reaching your chest towards your thighs and shifting your weight a little bit more into your left leg. Go ahead and reach your right leg up towards the sky. Bend your right knee and open up your hip. Try to close the gap between your heel and your seat as if you're trying to bring your calf and your hamstrings together to touch and see if that can help to lift your knee up even higher. From here, let's step our right foot to the outer edge of our right hand. So, you might need to move your palms a little bit here. And we can drop that back knee down to the mat. So, I have a wider variation of a lunge. My knee is directly stacked over the top of the ankle, creating some space here, lengthening out. And now, if you'd like, you can curl the right toes up and roll to the outer edge, the blade side of that foot for an external hip rotation. And maybe you hold here. You can also add a quad stretch, circling your right arm up and back. Maybe just holding your twist or adding that quad stretch by bending into that left knee and pulling that heel in towards the [Music] seat. So, there is a big twist in this variation of the pose. You don't need to be in this one. You can just stay in that first option in that wider variation of a lunge. Take one more big deep breath. Carefully releasing the hold of that back foot. We circle the arm all the way back. Let's tuck the back toes under so we can lift the back knee off the mat. We're coming back into our three-legged dog. Right leg extends up. Give it a big stretch. And right foot comes down. Second side. Left leg extends up. Bend your left knee. Open up your hip. Really squeeze that heel in towards your seat. Close the gap between your thigh and your calf. Lift the knee up higher and step that left foot forward to the outer edge of your left hand. Drop the back knee down to the mat. So this is option one. Don't feel like you need to go any further than this. There's already a lot going on. But if you did it on the first side, then you can curl the left toes up and externally rotate through that left hip, letting the knee drop down. Maybe add your twist here. Left arm reaches all the way up and back. And then maybe adding that quad stretch. Keep pressing your shoulders away from your ears. Can you sink your hips down a little bit more? Let's release the hold of that foot. Circle the arm all the way back. We're coming back to our three-legged dog. So, left toes point forward. Tuck the back toes under. Lift the knee up and reach that left leg to the sky. Back into our downward-facing dog. We're setting ourselves up for pigeon pose. Right leg extends up. And then bring your right knee behind your right wrist. Extend that left leg further back behind you. Try to even out your weight so you're not leaning on one hip more than the other. Find a little bit of a back bend here as you stretch and extend. And then exhale. We fold down. And maybe you're just going to hang out here up onto your forearms or up onto your palms. Only going as is appropriate to you. We'll take five slow, steady breaths in our pigeon pose. Try to sink your hips down a little more. Letting gravity pull you into this stretch. And we can walk our hands in. We slowly transition out back into our downward-facing dog. Take your time to get there. Tucking the back toes under. And the right foot steps back to meet the left. Hipwidth distance apart. And we'll go to the second side. So left leg rises. Inhale. And exhale. Bring your left knee behind your left wrist. Squaring off the hips. So we're not leaning again here on one side more than the other. Find the alignment that feels the best to you. Find a little back bend first and then maintain this length even as you walk out and stretch out. Maybe coming down or staying up on your forearms, whatever feels the best. Totally normal for one side to feel different than the other. If you find it hard to breathe deeply, it's usually a pretty good indication that you're going too far into a pose and need to ease your way out. Sometimes it just means that you're distracted and need to come back to the present moment, to the experience you're having right now in your body. We'll start to lift ourselves up. This will be your last downward-facing dog. So, make any little movements and adjustments here that feel good. stretching it all out. And let's come down. Swing your legs out in front of you just so you can lower onto your back. Pulling your knees in towards your belly. Coming into anab balasana. So you can either just widen your knees towards your shoulders if this is enough sensation. Maybe rocking a little bit side to side or nandabalasa your happy baby pose. You can grab a hold of the big toes or the ankles, stacking them over the knees and keep your tailbone anchored on the mat here. Just rocking a little bit to massage the lower back. And let's release. Take up some space. We'll do just a short shavasana because this was a short practice. But I want you to feel this length and the space that we've created through those hip sockets and into our lower body. So, taking 10 deep breaths here, feeling the effects of your practice, noticing what has changed and shifted. Giving yourself a little bit of time to process and integrate this work. [Music] [Music] And we can extend our arms up overhead. Take a big stretch as if you're just waking up in the morning and turn over to one side. Let's lift up. Come to take a seat. You can sit any way that is comfortable here. Hands coming together at the front of the heart. Closing your eyes. Let's close by chanting Om together one time. Inhale to chant. Breathe in deep. [Music] Oh, thank you so much everyone for doing this short hip flexibility flow. Leave me a comment before you go. and hopefully we'll practice again together very soon.