Quick Restorative Yin | Gentle Yoga Practice

Transcript

(upbeat music) - Hello there, and welcome. Let's get started on the ground. This is a low to the
ground quick restore. If you brought a blanket,
we're gonna go ahead and turn it into a bit of a
bolster by rolling it up tight. So yours does not
have to match mine, but you just want to
create a nice even roll (chuckles) if you can. Alright. And then we're
gonna place it here. It's gonna go just
underneath the shoulder blades as we lay down here,
it looks like I might end up with an extra bolster here,
a little breathing bolster which is pretty awesome for me. We'll see if it works out. You gotta work real hard
to get those these days, and we're gonna bring the
blanket or the towel underneath just underneath
the scapulas here, and then you'll
begin to lay back. Arms are gonna come into cactus
arms or football goalpost arms. And I'm gonna just gently
ask Benji to share the space with me, okay. Thanks bud. And we're gonna
extend the legs out long. And I'm just gonna be kind
of soft in the feet here. So you can point and
flex the feet a bit. And so you can
begin to relax starting at the
soles of the feet, travel up through
the shins, the knees, let the quads get heavy,
hips and glutes, pelvis heavy. Take a deep breath in
and fill the belly with air. Really feel that breath
travel into your sweet belly. And then exhale, you're gonna
relax through the ribcage, the torso,
the back and shoulders. And then relax your
arms as we settle in here, soften through the fingertips, and when you're ready to
go ahead and close your eyes as you begin to
relax through the neck, and allow the jaw to soften. Skin of the forehead to relax. As you bring your
attention inward, just notice how you feel. And if your low back
feels a little fussy here you can bend both knees,
bring the feet to the outer edge of your mat, and then
allow the knees to gently fold inward towards each other,
so you're not holding your legs. So legs are extended, or you can bend the knees,
let them fall together. Now again, let's inhale,
breathing in together the deepest breath
you've taken all day. And a slow exhale
landing here in the moment, capturing just
a bit of stillness, restoring the equilibrium, the mind and the body
and the heart space too. Now continue to
breathe nice and easy here with the eyes closed, letting
your eyelids just be heavy. Jaw to be soft. Body relaxed. Bring your awareness to
the quality of air in the room or wherever you're
practicing today, your setting. Feel the temperature
of the air on your skin. And embrace
any sounds of that setting, of your environment. Embrace them as your
soundtrack for today. Allowing you
both the opportunity to take in the sound of a dove or rain outside the window. But also the opportunity to practice finding
stillness in chaos, finding peace,
inner peace, when it's noisy. Letting everything go here, feeling the weight of your body get a bit heavier
with every exhale. Now let your next cycle
of breath be a big wave. So a nice deep inhale in. A big rise and a big fall with the exhale. Good, if the knees
are not already bent, go ahead and bend one
knee and then the other, grounding your
feet onto the earth. You're gonna turn
onto one side, any side. Keep the blanket where it's at. We're going to slowly
flip on to our bellies so that the elbows are hugging
the blanket or the towel. We're coming into the
little Sphinx Pose here. You're just gonna
take a breath to inhale, press into the pelvis,
kind of hug the outer hips, the abductors in, feel
the glutes kind of turn on. Draw the
shoulder blades together. Beautiful, then
curl the toes under. We're gonna come up to
our knees and we're gonna come into an Extended Child's Pose
here with the knees wide. And we're gonna allow
the arms to rest gently here on the makeshift bolster. So start with maybe
your elbows on the blanket and then you can shift
to whether you want it a little further
down towards your wrist or a little further up. So start with the elbows. Then you can play. Based on how open or rather
how tight your shoulders are. I'm allowing my head to
come all the way down to rest on the yoga mat and
my fingertips stay softly kissing the earth here. Take a second to find a
version of this posture that feels restorative,
that feels supportive. And when you finally land in a shape that feels right
for today, close your eyes. Bring your awareness nice and easy
back to your breath. Again, relaxing through the jaw. If the forehead is
pressing on the earth, you might find some
soft easy movement here massaging the brow. And then when you're ready, invite that wave back in. Inhaling to create a rise. And exhaling for the fall. Notice the thoughts
that come up here. No judgment, no worries,
acknowledging them and then bringing your awareness,
your attention back to that soft, easy rise
and fall of the breath. Each time you inhale, there's
an opportunity to send breath to all four sides of the torso. Creating that rise by
thinking about a wide breath. Nice lateral breath,
really filling up the front, the sides, and the back body. And with the fall,
the weight of the ribcage kind of softens too,
so you can begin to, with practice and awareness, create a little
wave in the spine, a slight undulation. Now gently press into
the tops of the feet. Gently press
into the fingertips, draw your low ribs and your navel up to your
spine to activate your core so that you feel
supported as you slowly slide all the way up. We'll come to all fours. And we're just gonna
take this bolster here and we're gonna turn
it hotdog style (chuckles) onto the mat and then we're
gonna flip over one more time. We're gonna pull
the bottom of this right up to the
base of the spine. And we're gonna lay
back down on this bolster, and you can play around here. You can allow the
head to spill off, supporting the low back. Maybe you keep it on,
your head on the blanket. Just find what feels good here. And then we're going to
start with internal rotation of the hips with the
feet as wide as the mat and the knees forward. Arms can rest
gently at your sides, palms face up, option one. Option two, palms, the warmth
of the palm on your belly. Reminding your belly
how much you love it and how grateful you are
for everything that it does for you and everything
that it truly represents. Love falling in
love with my belly. It was one of the
most life-changing kind of a-ha moments. And of course, it's a practice. Okay, that's option two.
Option three, cactus arms. Make a choice. We're not
holding in the legs here. The knees are together. So I'm allowing the
whole body to relax and come into a
place of rest here, and close your eyes,
part the lips. Then just allow your breath
this time to be very natural, easy, nothing forced,
just the natural rhythm, the natural rise and fall. Relax the weight of your arms. Relax the skin of
the forehead again. Relax your tongue in your mouth. If you're slipping into bliss, you can stay right here. Or if you like, we'll
make a little adjustment, opening the hips up by
bringing the soles of the feet together nice and slow,
opening the knees wide. Then resting in a
Reclined Cobbler's Pose. Feel the support on your spine. And just practice
existing in a space here where you can
truly just be yourself. Just be, no masks, no doing. You're just here. Now nice and slow we're
gonna turn to one side and we're gonna
come into a fetal position. So you'll take one leg,
bring it up and over to close the other. You're
gonna fall off your blanket, you can scooch it to the side. You're just gonna come
into a little fetal position. Of course, you can use your
blanket as a pillow if you like. And as much as
it feels comfortable, you're gonna hug
the knees up into the chest. You can use your
arms as a pillow here, your bottom arm,
or again, the blanket. Take a deep breath
in and as you exhale kind of sigh it out,
just relaxing everything. Giving thanks, and kind
of leaning into gratitude for this last bit for yourself,
for this practice, and the opportunity
to reset and restore. And just like that, can slowly open your eyes. Thank you so much for sharing
this quick practice with me. I think it's important that
we take time for these types of practices or these moments as we continue to move fast in our modern day world. The quality of time you
spend with yourself influences the quality of
relationship that you have with everyone else,
so thank you so much. I love you. Take good care.
(blows kiss) Namaste. (upbeat music)