How to Sit in Meditation - Open Your Hips!

Transcript

If you practice meditation, yoga breathing, or 
seated mindfulness practices, and the sitting,   meaning sitting on the floor, is really 
uncomfortable and you're wondering if a lotus   pose is going to be a magical unlock for you, 
this video is for you. Hey, my name is Lucas.   I'm a yoga teacher, I'm a teacher trainer. I did 
my first long meditation retreat when I was 23   years old. I did a vipassana, an SN Goenka style 
vipassana retreat, for 10 days in silence, in New   Jersey of all places. And I went into it thinking 
I was going to struggle with my monkey mind   only for 10 days, and I certainly did that, but 
at least half the time I was struggling with my   body. Maybe you've had this happen before. My 
knees hurt, my hips hurt, my lower back hurt,   by the end of it even my shoulders and my neck 
were really, really sore, and that was a surprise   to me. It was a silent retreat, but at the end we 
started talking and I came to find out, and I've   since learned in the years that have passed, 
that most people really struggle physically,   and when you open up your body and you 
learn how to sit better on the floor it   makes a big difference. Now the physical 
discomfort never goes away completely,   but it can be greatly diminished. At least for me 
it's helped me to enjoy my practice a lot more. In   this video we'll look at a few different postures 
you can experiment with on the floor. Lastly,   we'll look at some exercises you can do to improve 
your seated position, some stretching exercises.   When we'll look at these exercises we'll be 
talking about sitting in the middle of the room.   You can definitely meditate sitting in a chair, 
you can definitely meditate sitting against the   wall, you can even meditate lying down in bed. 
I don't want to be precious about postures, but   since you're watching this video I'll assume, like 
me, you prefer to practice in the middle of the   room because of the forced mindfulness that comes 
about when you do that. With that in mind, let me   show you some of the best postures I've found for 
sitting on the floor. The first and most obvious   is simply school style. You cross your shins 
and you sit. The problem here is my knees are   too high, so I would use a block to get my knees 
in line with my hips, this is the first thing.   The second thing I would make sure to do is place 
my hands on top of my knees or my shins and relax.   The third thing is my chin parallel to the floor. 
And then the fourth thing is I would stack my   bones and then soften. This would be school style. 
This works. It's not the best posture long term,   but it's pretty OK. The next pose that I'll 
show you is what I call flat school style.   This is my preferred posture. Here's how 
it looks. I'll flex one knee completely,   flex my second knee completely, I try to squish 
everything in close, which means no space between   my calves and my hamstrings. My shins are on the 
floor, the tops of my feet are on the floor, like   before my knees are in line with my hips, or i'll 
prop up, my hands around my legs, and from here,   chin parallel to the floor, I'll stack my bones 
and then soften. This is a really great posture,   flat school style. The next posture is called 
stacked school style. It's the same thing but   I'll pull this foot in a little closer and, like 
Legos, I'll click my one foot on top of the other   and everything will be really tight. This pose 
requires a great deal of hip mobility and very   often we need that block or prop so that my 
knees can be either in line or lower than   my hips, hands on my legs, chin parallel to the 
floor, I stack and soften, and here we go. The   last variations are probably the ones that you 
tuned in for, which are the lotus variations.   I have found that most advanced meditators, most 
experienced meditators, even though they can   do a full lotus, they don't. Let me show 
you why. A half lotus pose looks like this,   one foot tucked into your hip crease, one foot 
under. The problem here is I'm asymmetrical,   so I need some kind of block or prop underneath 
my knee. A full lotus looks like this,   and while this looks symmetrical, it still is 
lopsided, but more importantly I just have a lot   of leverage on my knees and a lot of leverage on 
my ankles, which usually isn't the best long term.   Can I sit like this for an hour? Yes. Do I? Not 
usually. I like that flat school style position.   Whatever pose variation you choose, always come 
back to these four things: knees in line with your   hips, hands on your legs relaxed, chin parallel to 
the floor, stack and then relax your spine. When   you're doing any kind of meditation you also need 
to be aware of numbness and tingling, or dead leg.   This is a normal part of practice. Sometimes it's 
your mind trying to get you to do anything except   sit still. The way to know if you've pushed too 
far is to utilize something we call the 30 second   rule. If you're seated like this for 20 minutes 
or 30 minutes and your legs start to fall asleep,   you finish your practice, when you come out of 
the pose punch out your leg and if all those   numbness and tingling sensations pass within 
30 seconds all is good. If it lingers longer   you know you've pushed too far. What's the risk of 
pushing too far? There's a condition that's known   as meditator's leg and you'll see meditation 
instructors and leaders they limp around. In   many cases my theory is they've actually done 
some nerve damage and their legs don't respond   as well now. For people like you and me, casual 
meditators, it's very unlikely that we're going   to get meditator's leg, but I'd still encourage 
you to utilize the 30 second rule to make sure   that you don't push too far. When you are learning 
to sit on the floor, of course simply sitting more   will help you to gain mobility, but when you use 
targeted stretching exercises you can accelerate   your progress. Let's take a look at some poses 
that will work on lateral rotation of your hips,   hip flexion, and lastly, often overlooked, 
plantar flexion of your ankles. These three   ranges of motion are very, very helpful, for a 
more comfortable seated practice. This first pose   is called the seated pigeon pose. From a seated 
position with my ankles underneath my knees,   I'll lift my right leg up and I'll stack 
my ankle on top of my knee. If possible,   click where your ankle bone meets your heel, right 
into the top of your knee like a Lego piece, and   rest one hand on your knee and one hand on your 
ankle. You stay where you are, let me start our   timer, we'll spend two minutes here. Now, if this 
pose is not accessible for you, the modification   is to straighten your legs, straighten your legs, 
straighten your legs, to find a place where you   can balance. If need be, you could always put 
one hand behind your back, that's also perfectly   fine. If your knee is way up here, that's also 
perfectly fine. If you feel comfortable you might   drift forward and place your elbow on your ankle, 
and your elbow on your knee, and drop your head.   This seated pigeon pose is one that 
you can sneak in throughout your day,   meaning taking a break from work or even 
continuing with your work and getting   in a really great lateral hip-opening 
stretch. When we're seated on the floor,   whether we're taking a school style variation or 
a lotus pose variation, this lateral rotation hip   movement is really crucial. It involves 
our adductors on the insides of our legs   and this is a really great pose to develop that. 
You don't need to push or anything like that,   just relax into the pose. But it is helpful, if 
you can, to incorporate some relaxing breathing.   We call it breathe to relax and here's how it 
works: you inhale through your nose for four, and then exhale through your 
mouth with a ha sound for eight. We'll set a timer for two minutes per side, and 
the most important thing you remember when you're   doing these poses to improve your seated 
practice is to clock at least two minutes.   What we're looking to do here is accelerate our 
mobility gains. As I mentioned before, sitting on   the floor is a great way to improve your gains, 
but these extra stretches will accelerate your   progress provided that you use a timer. This will 
help you to make breakthroughs at a quicker pace. Good. We're at two minutes. We'll release this leg 
and you can punch out the stretch. We'll switch   sides promptly. Same thing as before, take your 
ankle bone and click it right on top of your knee.   I have my left leg, my right leg again if I'm here 
that's fine, if I'm here that's OK. If I need to   straighten my leg, also OK. But if you can, one 
hand on your ankle, one hand on your knee, and   if it's comfortable you could slide, slide, slide 
forward, don't press but just relax over your leg. When we're working on flexibility training 
we apply three principles to practice   and this is for actually changing your body and 
creating more space. The first principle is called   wet noodle. What this principle states is that my 
muscles will stretch fast when they're relaxed, so   I do my best just to let it go in the pose, rather 
than push or strain. Number two, we looked at on   the right side, is we use this breathe to relax 
pattern to tell our nervous system that it doesn't   need to fight the stretch, that we're OK. We do 
that with an inhale through the nose for four, and an exhale through your mouth for eight. Then the third principle is that timer down 
there. We hold poses for at least two minutes   when we're trying to actually create more space 
in our bodies. When you start working on this,   the natural doubt that comes up is "Can I 
actually do this? Will I ever be able to sit   on the floor with my knees in line with my hips? 
Will I ever be able to sit in a full lotus pose,   cross my legs comfortably?" and the answer is 
yes, for sure. If you've spent time in ashrams   or meditation centers, the people who've been 
there for years, they can all sit on the floor.   Now if you don't want it to take years, which 
sometimes it will, it's very helpful if you do   these supplemental practices and you can get there 
a lot quicker. How quick is really individual,   but usually somewhere between three and 
twelve months you can achieve a really   comfortable seated position on the floor. We're 
at two minutes on the left side, let's release.   We'll switch our setup for the next pose. The next 
pose we'll do is a passive squat. Take a yoga mat   rolled up like this, step your feet about as wide 
as the mat, so it's always wider than you think,   turn your feet out just a little bit and we'll 
squat down, down, with your elbows on the inside   all the way down, weight into your heels. Timer 
for two minutes and relax here. Turn the palms   of your hands up, let your head drop, and just 
breathe. Hip flexion, knee towards your chest,   Initially when you look at it it doesn't look 
like a range of motion that's so important for   a seated meditation position, but if you're 
seated in meditation and you feel your spine   curling up, meaning when you sit down, very often 
that's because of a lack of ability to flex your   hips. This pose will really, really help to open 
you up. In fact, a passive squat like this can   be a great way to prepare for a seated meditation 
practice. If you take two fingers and poke around   underneath your bum here you might feel a stretch 
in your hamstrings, you might feel a stretch in   your glutes, you might even feel a little bit 
of a stretch in your deep six lateral rotators.   All of these areas can really help to free up your 
hip flexion range of motion. Now some of you say   "I don't feel anything except my ankles". 
I'm feeling that dorsiflexion of my ankles,   not so relevant for meditation, but it's an extra 
bonus stretch that you're getting along the way.   Like with all of our poses let's relax our hands, 
relax your head, and breathe here in for four, and out for eight. In for four and out for eight. One more time. Good. And then slowly making your way up, 
take a seat down on your mat and punch out   that stretch. We've got one more. For this final 
pose we'll work on plantar flexion of our ankle.   Many people don't realize this, but for all our 
seated positions it's really important that we   have great range of motion here in our ankles. 
Let me show you the best pose to develop it.   On your knees, with your knees together and your 
feet apart, knees together, feet apart, I'll   sit down on a couple of blocks to start off with, 
place my hands on my knees, drop my head and neck,   start my timer and then I'll talk you 
through exactly what's happening here.   When you point your toes like this we're 
stretching our ankles, which is really, really   important for all of our cross-legged seated 
positions. If this pose is not intense enough   you can drop down a little bit lower. If 
it's not intense enough you could drop down   even lower. If it's too intense, prop up more. And 
one more variation that can be helpful is if it's   too intense, the pressure and the intensity, try 
practicing on top of your bed. When you're on top   of a mattress oftentimes it can be very, very 
forgiving, and allow you to get a better point   in your toes. Here in this pose, of course you'll 
feel a big stretch in your quads as well, which is   also important. Let's place our hands down, relax 
your head, and we'll breathe together. In for four and out for   eight. So all three of these poses that we've looked at 
you could do them in sequence like we just did.   You could also integrate them into your day. You 
could do that seated pigeon while you're at your   desk, you could do this hero pose for example 
while you're answering messages on your phone.   You could break up the poses. Any way you can 
slip them into your day can be really helpful.   If possible, if you're able to do each of 
these stretches for two minutes each day,   you'll see progress within a couple of weeks, 
within a month. Within about three months,   most people have seen really, really significant 
gains, that should translate into your seated   meditation practice. Just remember to come 
back to these three principles. Number one,   wet noodle, so I relax my body as much as 
possible. Number two, breathe to relax. In   for four, out for eight. And number three is I 
use time under passive tension. I'm using two   minute timers, which is a great place to start. 
I hope you found that helpful and I hope these   stretching exercises give you more freedom and 
a little bit more comfort in your meditation   practice. If you have questions or comments 
please feel free to drop them down below.   If you'd like more science-based yoga videos, 
hit down below. There's also a PDF   of these poses in the description down 
below. And lastly, to find my teaching   calendar please go to yogabody.com. Thanks 
for watching, we'll see you in the next video.