Chair Yoga | Yoga With Adriene

Transcript

- Hi everyone and
welcome to Yoga with Adriene. I'm Adriene and today we have an awesome chair
yoga sequence for you. So you're gonna need a chair and preferably one with no arms. Hop into something
comfy and let's get started. (upbeat music) Alright, my friends, thank you
for choosing this practice. Let's begin. Sit up nice and tall. You wanna get to where your feet are firmly planted on the floor so your whole
foot's on the ground. And if that's not
happening for you, then you can bring some
pillows or some blankets, or just find
something, get creative, to bring the
earth up to your feet. So you can pause
the video and do that. And then if you're
leaning back in your chair, go ahead and sit up tall. We'll start to just
slowly activate the muscles that help us find
length up through the spine. So inhale,
lengthen through the crown. Imagine a little
marionette string just pulling you
up from the crown. And let your
hands just rest gently wherever is natural,
on the knees, on the thighs. Then inhale deeply
as you lift your heart, and then exhale,
relax your shoulders down your back body. So you're just
bringing more awareness and more integrity into the body but specifically to this
line of the spine, right, this plumb line,
this center channel. There is all of
these meridians of energy, or in yoga we
call them the nadis. Not naughty but nadi. And they run
through the spine, right. Sometimes we refer to
the major points as chakras. But whatever you wanna rock in your mind and in your body, we're just gonna
take some time to breathe, to slow it down and
find mobility in a way that's soft and gentle but also really
supportive and beneficial. So, when you are ready, we'll start with
the soles of the feet. Lift the toes,
press all four corners of the feet down,
then lower the toes. Lift the toes and lower the toes. Lift the toes and lower the toes. And one more time lift the toes. Spread the toes
and release, great. Lift the heels one at a time, then feel that tone,
that engagement of the quad. Lift the heels, keep
lifting, lifting, lifting. Lift your heart. Open your mind
to a new experience. And then lower the heels. Here we go. Inhale, lift the heels. Exhale lower. Good, inhale, lift the heels. Sit up nice and tall,
and exhale, lower. Inhale, lift the heels. And exhale, lower. One more time. Inhale, lift the heels. And exhale, lower. Awesome! Inhale, extend right leg
out just as much as you can, so you don't take
on the full extension unless it goes
there, then great. But just bring it
up as much as you can. We're engaging our muscles here so draw the
navel in and up a bit. And then you're just
gonna spread the toes here, flex the foot and
then point the foot. Flex and point. It's all connected,
one moving part. Flex and point. Flex and point. Two more times. Flex and point. Flex, sit up nice
and tall, and point. And now here we go,
rotating big circles here as you bring it down
one way, and then the other. Cool! Other side. Extend the left leg out. So find your extension today. Engage muscles of the core to support the back,
sit up nice and tall. Here we go. Flex and point. Flex and point. Flex and point. Flex and point. One more time. Flex and point. And then rotating
circles as you bring it down. Rotate the ankle one
way and then the other. And then your foot
comes down to the ground. Awesome! Okay, here we go. Interlace the fingertips. You're gonna grab the right knee and slowly squeeze and lift. So imagine that femur bone. We're kind of
squeezing everything in, you can use the
chair to ground down and then lift up here,
so we're not here but we're doing
our best to lift up through the armpit chest and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Okay, so everyone will be a
little bit different here. If you can't quite squeeze,
you can bring a little towel, like a dish towel
even to be extensions of your arms
here and hold it here. Squeeze. Then one more breath
here squeezing and lifting. (inhales and exhales) And then take that
right shin and you're gonna cross it over the
top of the left thigh. Then flex your right foot
here, bring your left hand to the outer edge of
your right foot if you can, and then bring your right hand to the top of your right thigh. And we create
this figure four here then sit up nice and tall. Now if you wanna deepen
this and you're practicing with me and you
want a little more, you can bring it
to the elbow crease and lift the leg up, okay? But there's really
no need to push it. Great. One more breath. Fabulous! We're coming
back to the squeeze. So interlace the fingertips
around your right knee, squeeze. Then we're gonna slowly
extend the right leg out. You're gonna slide your hands now to the hamstring,
to the back of the leg, and extend it out super
long, long, long, long, long, long, and then
bring it all the way down. Fabulous. Other side, interlace. Here we go. Left knee squeezes in and up. Couple yummy breath cycles here. So you really
gotta bring a breath, squeeze and lift. (inhales and exhales) (inhales and exhales) Just working
where you are today. Appreciating your
body and all its glory, all its beauty,
all its limitations. Be thankful for
this body that you have, it's the only one you got. So it's never too late
to instill this relationship of kindness and
love with your body. When you're ready,
we're gonna squeeze and lift, one more breath, and then we'll flex the
foot and cross it over, creating that figure
four shape on the other side. Grab your foot. And then left
hand is gonna come down to just gently guide the top of the thigh bone
there around and down. So, I've been
practicing yoga for a long time and the benefits
are really wonderful so I'm able to sit up tall here. I just wanna honor it and
recognize and let you know, if you are finding that you're
sweating a little bit here just sitting up tall,
you can one, rest in a chair, or use your breath,
inhale, breathe in your belly, and exhale, relax your
shoulders to slowly start to build more stability right
around this spinal column. So you can sit up
tall and have a posture that isn't causing pain. A conscious posture. Take one more breath
wherever you are here. Something that's sustainable,
sustainable posture. Cool, then
interlace the fingertips, come back to the squeeze. The big squeeze. Squeeze squeeze
squeeze squeeze. Then slide,
interlace fingertips behind, slide them behind
and when you are ready extend your extension,
extend the left leg as long as you can, inhale, and exhale slowly, lower down. Beautiful. Hands are gonna come back
to the tops of the thighs, re-situate, reset
with a deep breath in. Exhale out through the mouth. Beautiful. Right hand comes to
the other left thigh. And you're gonna
bring your left fingertips either to the back of the chair, or maybe you swing
it all the way around. You're just gonna find a
little gentle twist here. You can come up
onto the toes if you like for a little more
leverage, breathing deep. Imagine your inhale
really traveling down to your belly, so
we're not breathing up but we're breathing down. We're gonna come
back to center and take it to the other side nice and slow. Twist, release,
flushing the body. If you really want
the benefits of a twist, use that
directional breath, right, don't breathe up but breathe, send that breath
all the way down. Cool beans. Bring it back to center, inhale, squeeze the
shoulders up to the ears. Exhale release. Inhale, squeeze and lift. And release. One more time. And release. Awesome work. Drop the chin to the chest. Stay here breathing deep. Wrap the shoulder
blades around the back body so really firm
the shoulder blades behind your heart space. And then inhale,
lift the chin parallel to the earth again, and exhale, left ear over left shoulder. Stay here, breathe deep. Great. Inhale,
back up to center, exhale, right ear
over right shoulder. Tag a little weight
in the elbows here, my friends, breathe deep. Awesome. Inhale, come back up
to center, here we go. We're gonna slowly
bring the feet over towards the right of the chair. And then you're gonna
bring your right foot. We're going into Warrior Two,
a supported Warrior Two. Bring your right
foot firmly to the ground, front knee over front ankle. And you're gonna
use your core strength. So think up, draw the energy up, navel draws in
and up to slowly walk, and you can also use
your hand on the chair to slowly walk your foot out, turn the left toes in,
and then slide back so your hamstring
is supported here. Virabhadrasana Two
with the chair. And then just
stay here, feel it out. Really drop your center,
turn left toes in. And then you can stay
here with hands on the chair, breathing deep. Pull that right hip crease back so that squeeze move
we did here, imagine that. And then hands
can stay on the chair or maybe we're
sending the fingertips out, really working
from the ground up here, lifting the chest. Now, if this is
not available to you, then, so if you
are here, then breathe deep directional breath,
then you're just going to bring one foot forward kind
of creating a right angle, and then the
right foot to the side. So one foot forward, one
to the side, and work here. So wherever you are,
directional breath, breathing deep, inhaling deeply, exhaling completely. Inhaling deeply and exhaling completely. Think about lifting all
four sides of the torso here so the front, the back, and both side
bodies nice and long. Take one more
breath, you got this. I know the arms are
tired, you got this. And then exhale, bring
the hands to your heart and make your
way back to center. Use your feet on the
earth to come all the way back so we'll stay
connected to the ground. Great, let's try the other side. Really nice work. So release the hands. We'll walk the
feet towards the left, just check it out. Plant the left foot
firmly and then start to walk the right foot back. You can use the
chair to guide you. Turn the right
toes in, really press into the outer
edge of that back foot, and then use the
chair to really support the belly of the hamstring here. And then open up
through the hips, lift and lengthen all
four sides of the torso. Maybe you keep the hands down or maybe you send
the fingertips out. If you feel good
there stay there, or maybe you bring the foot back and this is better for you, creating this 90 degree
angle with the tops of the thigh bones
and breathing deep. Okay, inhale lots of
love in, love your body, love this life, explore space so reach way beyond
the fingertips here. Take energy way out
beyond the physical posture. Notice where you might be
gripping or holding, soften. And we'll take one more breath. Breathing really down,
down, down into the belly. And then exhaling,
hands to heart. Awesome work.
Here we go. Use the toes, feet on the
ground to come back to center. Take your time, take your time. Wonderful. Then walk
your bum just a little bit closer to the edge
than we had before. And we'll inhale,
sit up nice and tall, release the hands, and then keep this upward kern of
energy, think up and over. So actually
imagine you were holding a beach ball here at your belly. So you have a big, big ball here and you're gonna go up an over until Forward Fold. Nice and slow,
when you are ready, the spine starts to round. You can release the fingertips wherever it feels comfortable and you're gonna bring your head towards your knees. Now you might just get this far, you might stay up pretty tall. You might need
to make adjustments with where you're
sitting on the chair. But you wanna get to a
place where you can take some solid, delicious
feel-good, let-go breaths. (inhales and exhales) Then as you inhale
in here, my friends, feel the skin of
the back body stretch. Can you experiment with that? Can you feel the
rise or the fall? Let the breath move you. (inhales and exhales) (inhales and exhales) Take one more cycle of
breath, let it be full. (inhales and exhales) And then at first bring
the hands up to the thighs, then plant the feet firmly,
really feel the feet, pressing into the
earth as you tuck the chin and slowly roll it up. And then as you roll it
up feel that flush of energy. The blood flow
opposite direction. And if you need to, if
that was a big move for you, you can bring the
hands to the chair for a little more stability,
a little grounding. In case you got
a little dizzy here, a little head rush. Great. Take a deep breath in. Exhale out through the mouth. (exhales loudly) Again inhale in
through the nose, come on. (inhales) Exhale, let something go. (exhales loudly) And one more time,
let's sigh it out. Inhale. With sound. (exhales loudly) Wonderful. Open your eyes. Take a little moment to
just notice how you feel. Tap into a little
inner smile, maybe even lift the corners of
your mouth slightly, and we'll bring the
hands together at the heart to seal our practice. Thank you so much
for sharing your time and your energy with me and
the rest of the community, everyone practicing
with you through this video. Let us know how
it went down below. Questions,
comments always welcome. to the
Yoga with Adriene channel if you haven't already. Share it with your
friends and your family. And take good care. I'll see you next time. Namaste. (upbeat music)