Yoga with Somatic Awareness

Transcript

occasionally drop some of those in so just come to standing with your feet hip width apart lift and roll your shoulders and just this time start by lifting your toes and just seeing how that affects your balance and then place each toe down with intention so that you might find you're spreading your toes out imagine someone's got um a ribbon tied to the end of your shoulders your clavicle and at the end of the ribbon is a balloon a helium balloon and just imagine that if you don't have your shoulders open your helium blue would come forward so you really want to imagine the helium of the ribbon going upwards in the helium balloon coming upwards which kind of encourages you to lift your shoulders and open to keep that lift there and once you do that you instantly might feel space in the center there and then again with your um hi patsy again with regard to your shoulders imagine that you've got a pair of eyes peeping out from underneath your shoulder blades if your shoulders are drooping your eyes will close but if they're lifted and opened then your eyes are open and again that lifts your collarbones it lifts you up at the shoulders and opens you and it just frees off any compression so it's giving space for all your organs but it's freeing off and part of your lung area as well and then another aspect of the lungs if you open your arms turn your palms up and even around a bit more so that your little fingers are more prominent just feel how limited or otherwise you are on that movement and then turn your palms down and aim your thumbs the other way and then just drop lift and roll your shoulders and starting with something very freely raise your hands clasp reverse press your feet down hands up really feel that you're stretching head comes is not forward but it's not looking up breathing out go to one side and feel that your head is midway balance between your two arms breathing in come upwards and breathing out your head goes the other way to get that balance you might need to tap your chin into your chest breathing in come to the top breathing out just turn slightly come to the center breathing out turn to the other side and come to the center testing your balance just lift your heels and breathing out lower your heels lower your hands to shoulder height turn your head to look beyond the left hand doesn't matter if you've gone the other way come to the center and turn to look beyond the fingers of your right hand again it doesn't matter if you've gone the other way come back to the center and just lower your hands back down alongside you lift and roll your shoulders just lifting and rolling your shoulders is constantly setting your pose but it's also opening the energy gateways to allow energy to travel up into the head quite often as they get older this can be blocked raise your right hand and just circle your wrists it's a coordination movement and then circle your wrists in the other direction stretch your fingers out and release lower your right arm reset your shoulders by lifting and rolling again and raise your left arm circle your wrists and then reverse your circle stretch your fingers and just release lift and roll your shoulders for all of you who have been working closely this is for not arthritis but just to free your fingers just with one hand doesn't matter which just lightly pull your thumb second finger third fourth and little finger and shake that hand out and then just again pull your thumb second third fourth and little finger and shake that out so with your eyes just your eyes move your eyes to the right now move your head to the right now move your torso to the right just your eyes bring your eyes back to the center now bring your head back to the center and now bring your torso back to the center and the same on the other side keeping your head still just move your eyes to the left then move your head to the left and then move your torso to the left keeping everything still just bring your eyes back to the center then your head and then your torso and just pause for a moment to reflect on if that's any different from how you might normally move where you put in a layer of awareness that we might not otherwise do breathing in breathing out hands together breathing in raising your hands up stretch your fingers you can either look up or you can look straight ahead breathing out bend your knees bend your elbows and lower to the ground breathing in lengthen from your tailbone to the top of the head breathing out soften your knees and soften your elbows breathing in press your feet into the ground as you roll up vertebra by vertebrate standing stretching your fingers up thumbs towards your little fingers away and breathing out lower your hands inhale exhale hands together pressing the palms together which will again lift your chest up circle your hands up looking either up or straight ahead breathing out lower by bending your knees and elbows you can rest your hands on your shins or you can come further to rest your fingers on the floor once you're there breathe in slightly straighten your legs and lengthen along your spine from the tailbone to the top of the head breathe out bend your knees and bend your elbows as you curl in breathing lengthen along your spine again and breathe out as you stay here breathing in press your feet down and roll up vertebrae by vertebra to standing palms up stretch and breathing out and again bringing your hands together at the heart center when you press your palms together you're also activating those arms not that they get flabby but it tends your arms up breathing in raise your hands up stretch your fingers bring your hands together at the heart center and come through as you roll down vertebrae by vertebra inhaling lengthening along your spine breathing out soften in by bending your elbows and your knees breathing as you lengthen stay here as you breathe out and breathing in press your feet down and roll up vertebrae by vertebra to standing stretch your hands up and breathing out lower so this next exercise we've done before but it works on the liver and gallbladder meridians for working on frustration and any irritations that one might have breathing in hands up breathing out behind breathing in cross behind up back across the other way but don't worry behind up back cross one way behind up back across the other way behind up down cross up down cross up down cross up down across this is working on the liver and gallbladder really is getting rid of any tension and frustration you're giving yourself a little bit of self-love on your hugs coming up to valentine's day not that any of us are excited by that prospect but anyway the birds are they're cheering away they're having a lovely time and then just just swing your arms and then you might want to set your feet a little bit further apart and just sway from side to side i talk about this movement balancing all the energies and it does it also balances the pelvis which forms part of our foundational walking and standing posture we're often not balanced and so this swaying from side to side even though you're lifting your heels goes some weights transferring weight from one side to the other and it's very helpful for balancing as i said the pelvis and then just slow down and this next movement is a very soft and gentle tai chi movement you might like to just readjust your feet imagine the ball and breathing out go to the left swirl your ball up around the other way and come back through the center to the right turn to the left and turn to the right so you're going through all kinds of brain aspects here as well as a subtle rebalancing you're balancing the left and the right sides you're turning from side to side and just noticing as you slow this movement down if one side is stiffer than the other and [Music] come to the center hold your ball and then just hold it here and release lifting and rolling your shoulders clasping your hands behind you knuckles aim to the ground and lift your wrists away from you a little bit turn to the left as you breathe out come to the center and turn to the right and come to the center release your hands again lift and roll your shoulders and then we're going to do a sleep to the sun to come down to the mat so hands together circle your hands up looking up or straight ahead breathing out roll down inhale step your right foot back right knee goes off the ground left foot back so now you're in cat or if you're a tabletop just swing the bottom from side to side and then cow so cat dipping your back looking up cow rounding your back chin to chest tuck your toes tummy in maybe move your hands your fingers are spread come into your soft dog and feel that you can adjust your feet by making them wider or closer to your hands if you need to walk the dog by bending one knee and then the other and you can still include your sway in this and then bending both knees to come back to the ground hands to the left and your right foot comes up hands and either side of your right foot and just come into your right hip come make sure that your right leg is at 90 degrees to support your weight tuck your left toes tummy in lift your lift up your left leg and then step your left foot to your right foot hands go on your shins lengthening along your spine breathe out soften your legs soften in and then breathing in press your feet down and roll up vertebrae by vertigo to standing hands up and breathing out lowering alongside you lift and roll your shoulders clasp behind you knuckles towards the ground separate your hands and run your hands as you bend your knees down the backs of your legs all the way to the floor step back your left foot stretch it and then lower the left knee to the ground come back with your right you're in cat with your tabletop swaying your bottom from side to side try swaying your bottom out to the left and your head almost there's the i'm trying to work out what i'm doing so left my hip goes to my left and almost my head turns to the left as well and then my hips go to the right and my head turns to the right says i've got an s curve as i'm swaying from side to side you can evolve your shoulders as well in this you almost look like a cat slinking along or like a fish when it swims in the water it just wiggles from side to side to get its motion breathing in dipping your back cat breathing out grounding chin to chest cow tuck your toes tummy in come to your soft downward dog walk the dog feel that you can adjust your feet one foot and then the other foot swaying from side to side stretch both legs back and then bend your knees both of them come back to the ground and your hands go to the right to allow your left foot to come up hands either side of your left foot you can go beyond the 90 degrees of your left knee if you want to but in order to come up bring your left knee back to a 90 degree angle that means that it's perfectly positioned to support your weight tummy in tuck your right toes lift up your right knee and step your right foot to your left foot inhaling lengthen by hands on the shins along your spine breathing out bending bending your elbows and then bringing in press your feet down and roll up vertically by vertical standing hands up hold your thumbs and just sway from side to side so for those of you who are brilliant with your balance and who like the dancers pose that's what we're going to be doing but for others including myself who isn't so brilliant lower your hands you'll help you hold on so i'm going to hold on with my left hand lift up my right foot and just stretch my um foot behind me i'm feeling the stretch here top of the thighs just check that you're not splaying your leg out too much and then just release your foot if you want to do the dancers pose you would lift your left arm which i'm not sure i could do and just lift your left arm and come forward not very good at that and then as when you're ready you can come to the other side so i'm holding on with my right hand bending my left foot reason for doing all this is that it is a fatal movement and is very good for boosting um the white blood cells which are made in the bone marrow particularly in the thigh area i've managed to get up but tilting forward might be a step too far for me and then just release and then just lifting all your shoulders again breathing in turn your head to the left breathing out to the right into the left out to the right into the left as you turn your head out to the right into the left and out to the right come back to the center lift and roll your left shoulder lift and roll your right shoulder and again left right you're releasing the shoulders and that involves the neck as well it's at the joints of the shoulders and the hips where we can run into problems with aging and where stiffness can occur they're both rotational joints of sorts and we don't necessarily in everyday life move the joints to their full rotational value but we can often have problems there lift both shoulders and roll them back set them away and then bring your hands together and we're going to come to the mat in a seated position with your legs out in a v if you need a cushion or something to sit on then please take that and just start by classically you should have your fingers pointing forwards but this is non-classical work with with just therapy so you can just go to wherever you want and just bounce your knees on the ground so setting up a vibration either rub your legs or pack them whichever again suits you people seem to have different preferences but just rather it's boosting the circulation all the way down over the tops of the feet around the ankles around the knees the backs of the knees thighs the outside the hips and then come back to your hands on the ground toes up and then toes away from you the movement is it's quite cold today so just make sure you don't get cramped in stretching your toes away toes up and toes away so if you feel you're going to get cramped just do it less toes up and toes away and then circle your ankles in one direction and then very gently circle your ankles in the other direction and then stretch your toes out and relax and release them stretch your toes out and relax and release and then both big toes go to the left both big toes go to the right so it becomes an event and invert movement moving your ankle joint in a slightly different way and now just come to seated just hands down the side of you hug your right knee into your chest in order to make this easier you can make your right foot slightly out to give yourself more space again it depends on where you're where you feel comfortable and just hold on to your knee to sit up take your left hand and just keep hold of your right knee with your left hand and with your right hand just drop your right hand behind you breathing in lifting up and breathing out turn to look over your right shoulder a little bit or a lot just stay here as you breathe in and out come back to the center open the right knee out to the side you can have support underneath here and you can slide your right foot further lengthways towards your foot if that's not great for your knee just be comfortable just open your left leg out slightly to the left touch your hands either side of you turn towards your outstretched left leg and then walk your hands either down your left shin or hands either side of your left leg and feel that you can adjust your right foot further in or further away from you so this is a very gentle something called janus disaster head to knee pose the head coming towards me is calming for the nervous system the turn is a rotation which realigns the back and you're opening up your inner groin which connects into some of your lymph nodes just stay here for an in and an out breath tummy in as you walk your hands up just hug your right knee into your chest and then just straighten out your right leg along the floor and just bounce your legs again and then hug your left knee into your chest feel you can move your left foot out a little bit if that's easy for you keep your right hand hugging in the left knee and turn to the left your left hand goes behind you breathing in length from your spine and breathing out turn to look towards the left as little or as much as you would like stay here for an in and out breath and then tummy in as you come back open your left knee to the side again just find a comfortable position and you might like to take your right leg out slightly to the right hands either side of your spine again to lengthen you turn towards your right leg and walk your hands either down your right leg towards your right shin or you can have your hands either side of your shin just a very soft chinese disaster and then very gently sliding your hand or hands up your right leg coming to hug your left knee into your chest again and stretching the left leg out along the ground come to your legs being in the v and just very gently extend both heels and slide your hands down the inside of your legs to hold either your ankles above your ankles or even hold your big toes depends on your flexibility wherever you are just feel the back of the neck here is long it's not crunching up at all and then tummy as you slide your hands up come very briefly to a cross-legged position but again if your knees are dodgy and that's not available to you just just stay comfortable where you are and breathing in just hold either your knees or below your knees sitting up breathing out chin to chest so this becomes a seated cat cow snaking your way up lifting at the chest snaking or curling in the chin to the chest action activates the vagus nerve and the vagus nerve has many complicated actions within the body but for the purposes here it's anti-inflammatory and calm into the nervous system sitting up and then curling down come to neutral tense your perineum it might include your bottom and then just release tense everything up internally and release it to internal tone fire tense and release and then just circle holding your knees or just below your knees in one way they could be little circles or they can be big circles and then gently circle in the other direction and then take your hands underneath your thighs stretch your legs out bounce your knees again cross your right leg over your left your right ankle over your left touch your hands to the ground and take your left hand to the outside of your right thigh right hand behind you and just gently lengthen your spine as you turn towards the right it's a subtly different sensation from the last turn that we made come back to the center unravel your crossover and then cross your left leg over your right ankle hands to the ground to lengthen your spine your right hand comes to the outside of your left thigh and your left hand goes behind as you breathe in lengthen just pressing your fingers your hand down and breathing out just turns and look towards the left and then very gently come back unravel that's your legs and unusually we're going to come to lying on our tummy so this might not be a favorite thing to do but it does have the advantage of um just helping any excess um fat on the tongue not that anybody has that so they're going to come into sync suppose so the elbows are on the ground you're looking down and you can adjust your um elbows towards you or away from you depending on how you want the end of your back you might like to press your elbows into the ground and pull yourself forward because this opens you up at the hip level and then just release and relax tuck your right toes underneath keeping your right toes on the floor lift your right leg and just extend your right heel away from you and you'll feel this opening up in the front of your right hip release the entire right leg to the ground and tap the right foot and just wobble your bottom from side to side tuck your left toes under extend your left heel away from you so an entire left leg lifts fractionally off the ground you'll feel the opening in the front of your left hip release your left leg down let your heels flop out to the side and just model from side to side it's called jelly wobble and it's very helpful for people with lower back problems and particularly sciatic nerve as well and now just come to bend your elbows hands one on top of the other and just rest your forehead on your backs of your hands make your just make you might feel comfortable to have your knees slightly further apart but feel that you can adjust throughout just keeping your knees on the ground bend your um acne so as a result of your feet of the ceiling and then just sway the windscreen wiper action from side to side you can sway a lot or you can sway a little bit and again you'll feel this somewhere in your center and finish my lower back and just opening and releasing you can turn your head to the side if you don't like looking straight down and then come to the center and tend to head the other side it's whatever you feel comfortable with so you can stay with the suede or you can bring your legs upright as you've got from your soles and feet to the ceiling reach back with your left hand and hold your left ankle and just bring your left foot towards your left buttock if that doesn't work then just don't worry just keep to the windscreen my direction bring your left elb on that and then you can bring your right arm out and just lift in your right leg again stretching it bringing your right heel towards your bottom and then release and then again just head on your hands or elbows and just sway from side to side again and then lower your feet to the ground bring your hands back towards your chest your elbows slightly in because they're not splayed out and come to kneeling tabletop position again and just swaying from side to side slide your right leg back tuck your right toes under cross your right toes over your left and turn to look over your left shoulder at your right foot and then come back to the center unraveling your legs swaying once more from side to side and then extend your left toes back tucking under your expanding your under your red toes join the foot cross your left foot over your right turn swoop over your right shoulder and you might even look at your left foot over your right shoulder and then slide your hands to your knees as you kneel up and you might just want to touch the ground i'm going to open up my right leg alongside the mat and breathing in just raise my left arm up and over it's called gate pose you can slide your hand down tummy in coming up lower your hands bring your knees back you might need to touch your hand to the other side to support you to lift out your left leg kneel up left hand inside the left leg raise your right arm and then just come over it's very satisfying stretch i don't know why that should be so but anyway just stretching you're stretching all the way down the flank your intercostal muscles stretching out of your hips above your hips lowering your hand coming back and then coming to your bottom and we're going to spend just a few seconds with legs up in the air so if you want to have a support under your bottom then please do but otherwise i'm going to just come to lying on my back hugging my knees into my chest and just rocking from side to side you can circle your knees in one direction just opening the knees away from one another in a little b and circling and then you could circle your knees in another direction and then knees are still in hands palms down on the mat beside you i quite like to bring my hand really close to my bottom almost says that i roll my bottom on top of my thumb either side but that's optional it just slowly lifts your bottom off the ground and then one foot up and then the other you could be raising your legs up over it you can be supported underneath by cushion and then just gently wave your legs from side to side some people like to cross over the ankles some people like to keep their feet apart or cross over the other ankle it's a seaweed type of action it's an inversion if you feel that this is a bit of a strain on your tummy then hold your hands on your backs of your thighs that might support you a little bit more it's very much an individual thing and you can just rock from side to side as well and then bending your knees and placing your feet on the ground hip width apart hands can be either palms down or back to your abdomen and this again is a very gentle awareness so you're focusing on where your lower back touches the ground at the base of your spine so just tilt your pelvis imagine that you're there's a clock there tilt your pelvis towards ground on your 12 o'clock come back to the center and tilt your pelvis as you're going towards your lower back to six o'clock so your knees slightly come towards come back to the center and just subtly go a few millimeters to the left to your nine o'clock come to the center and then subtly go a few millimeters to your three o'clock and come to the center going to 12 o'clock it says that there's an arch in the lower back and then just go around the clock from 12 to quarter past stand half past and then your knees will probably join in as well going to nine o'clock and then going back up to the top again and just do that circle clockwise circle again going around the plot you're always going around the 50 pence piece if it were at the base of your spine you're going like all the nerves and the blood stands at your lower spine and then reverse your circle so at 12 o'clock then you go anti-clockwise through to nine o'clock back to six optical to past and then up to the o'clock and you might like to try that anti-clockwise circle again just noticing if one side feels the same as the other there's no right or wrong it's just an observation and then just very gently sway your knees from side to side and this is another somatic observation are you when you sway your knees from side to side initiating the sway from your feet your knees or your hips so try consciously now to press your feet down and initiate the swaying from side to side your hips can lift as well initiate this sway from your feet by pressing your feet down so your feet press down and your knees almost lift up and now try to initiate the movement from the knees it can be easy to swing from side to side and now you can try to think about initiating the movement from your hips so pressing your hips down to make the movement and if that makes a difference so these are all observational patterns that we may um have had since we were born or it's just if there's a difference and the underlying principle of somatics is that whatever patterns have developed by awareness it is possible quite easy in fact to change those patterns and that the body has a certain amount of plasticity about it in the same way that the brain does and that the idea that we sustain damage and we can't alter that is actually not the case and that we have every possibility open to us just by awareness so just have both these into the chest again rocking very gently from side to side and then you might want to take circles it's a freestyle movement however you'd like to have your knees into your chest and then just bring your feet to the ground bring one hand it doesn't matter which to your forehead the center of your forehead or third eye and just very gently make circles in one direction if you wanted to be very ayurvedic about this you would make your circle anticlockwise to release negative energy and then you would then change direction and make it clockwise to imbue positivity but whatever games whatever you feel comfortable with and then release the hands just very gently tense your feet without giving yourself cramp and then stretch them out tense your calves and release tense your knees and release tense your legs tops of the legs backs of the legs tense your bottom and then release and then tense your hands and your shoulders just and then release lift your chest a few millimeters from the ground and then just release it back just very gently move your head from side to side and now take a color that resonates with you today light cotton wool and wrap yourself in your cotton wool of color protecting you for uh for only receiving positive things in nothing and just making sure anything that you don't want can leave but just keeping positivity in you can have a thought for the day at this point setting your intention for the day mentally think that yourself a couple of times and then just wherever you are bring your hands together above your head and just drop your thumbs to your forehead your elbows lift slightly taking a mental band for yourself to have a very lovely day ahead