This week we will continue to explore the first limb of yoga, yamas. Remember the yamas are one's ethical standards and sense of integrity. They are how we conduct ourselves with the world around us.
This week we will focus on the second yama, satya or truthfulness. We will learn about mantra and for our asana we will dive into standing postures where our hips face the front of the mat. Satya. All aspects of our life can benefit from applying the teachings of Satya.
And as we'll learn, it means a whole lot more than not telling lies. The word Sat literally translates as true essence or true nature. Sanskrit is a vibrational language, and so each word is so much more than a label.
It literally holds the very essence. of the word. Because of this, sat also holds the meanings unchangeable, that which has no distortion, that which is beyond distinctions of time, space, and person, and reality. Many Sanskrit words use the prefix sat such as satsang, meaning the true company, and sattva, meaning pure, which leads us to understand that sat is the same as sat.
really means more than truth. It's something that is unchanged and pure. When looking at the word truth from this perspective, it's easy to then understand how so much of our time is spent not actually seeing the truth or reality in any of our life situations. Our thoughts, emotions, and moods are extremely interchangeable, yet these are the things that create our own truth. and our whole life experience, if such means unchangeable, then this can make us aware that much of our experience of life is brought about by paying more attention to that which changes rather than the unchanging truth.
The yamas and niyamas provide ways in which we can not only build a better relationship with the world around us, but with ourselves too. And if we can't be honest with ourselves first, We cannot really be honest in any other part of our life. We often identify completely with our emotions and irrational thoughts. I'm a bad person because of this, or I'm not good enough because of that. And it is exactly these vrittis or fluctuations of the mind which we look to still through a yoga practice according to the sutras.
Practicing asana With satya in mind can be very similar to applying the first yama, ahimsa, to our physical practice. How many times have you ignored or pushed past an injury or limitation? In yoga it might be just staying in a challenging pose a few breaths more than our bodies really needed to. It's this dishonesty with ourselves that can often cause physical pain. Our yoga practice is here to serve our bodies and minds.
not harm our joints and ligaments. So each time we get on the mat, it's important to have complete honesty with what we actually need in that very moment. On a physical and emotional level, we change all the time. So fixating upon one way of practicing isn't always going to work out.
When we can get the ego mind out of the way, you know, the one that tells us we should be able to do headstand or should be able to meditate without getting distracted. This offers us a way to see past our conditioned, ever-changing, and untrue ways of thinking and uncover a more pure and beneficial way of practicing and treating ourselves on all levels. Our practice grows as we grow, and going to the edge safely in our asana practice is all about being honest with ourselves in every moment. Next we'll talk a little bit about mantra.
For thousands of years yogis have known mantra or japa, whether chanted, whispered, or silently recited, to be a powerful tool for meditation and therapy. And western science is just now catching up. Neuroscientists equipped with advanced brain imaging tools are confirming some of the health benefits of this ancient practice. such as its ability to help clear your mind and calm your nervous system. In a recent study, researchers measured activity in the default mode network region of the brain, the area that's active during self-reflection and when the mind is wandering, to determine how practicing mantra meditation affects the brain.
From a mental health perspective, an overactive default mode network can mean that the brain is distracted. Researchers behind the study asked a group of subjects to recite satnam, roughly translated as true identity, while their hands are placed over their hearts. The subjects'default mode networks were suppressed during the mantra meditation, and suppression grew as mantra training increased. Research suggests that it doesn't matter whether you recite an ancient Sanskrit mantra, such as satnam, or the Lord's Prayer. or any sound word or phrase.
As long as you repeat something with focused attention, you'll get results. Mantra is another component of yoga. The word mantra is derived from two Sanskrit words, manas, meaning mind, and tra, tool.
So mantra literally means a tool for the mind and was designed to help practitioners access their true natures and a higher power. There's so much more on the magic of vibration and resonance in Sanskrit. One of the most universally recited mantras is the sacred syllable OM, sometimes spelled O-M or A-U-M, considered to be the sound of the creation of the universe.
OM is believed to contain every vibration that has ever existed and ever will exist. It doesn't have a meaning per se. Its power is in its vibration.
It is the primal sound of creation, a vibration that is said to vibrate through all living beings. It is the energetic root of other longer mantras, such as OM Namah Shivaya, I bow to Shiva, Shiva being the inner self or true reality. These popular Hindu mantras are in Sanskrit, but mantra has deep roots in every major spiritual tradition and can be found in many languages, including Hindi, Hebrew, Latin, and English. Consistency is key, regardless of the mantra you You enliven a mantra through regular practice over a period of time, months or even years.
It's a bit like rubbing a flint against a stone to strike fire. The friction of the syllables inside your consciousness, the focus of bringing yourself back to the mantra again and again, and especially the attention you give to the felt sense of the mantra's resonance inside your awareness. will eventually open the energy in the mantra and it will stop being just words and become a living energy that you'll feel shifting your inner state most teachers recommend to begin sitting or lying down in a comfortable position and silently repeating the mantra on the inhalation and the exhalation when the thoughts or feelings enter your mind notice them and then return to silently reciting the mantra.
Advanced practitioners allegedly have their mantra on repeat in their mind at all times no matter what they're doing. Set aside a few minutes a day to practice, potentially building up to 20 minutes or even more. Several traditions suggest sticking with one mantra for at least a few months before switching to another in order to deepen your practice and to Cultivate a sense of ease, presence, and peace. You have to practice often for quite a while before a mantra really opens for you.
But experiment on your own. Your mantra can be ancient, tried and true, it can be Sanskrit or otherwise, or it can be any word or phrase in any language which you find comforting, inspiring, or grounding. I've even heard of someone using the word cornfield.
They found it especially calming and would repeat it during times of anxiety. Let's begin our asana practice. This week we will be doing samavrtti pranayama.
Remember, prana is life force or breath and yama is control or restraint. Samavrtti means equal movement. So the purpose of this pranayama exercise is to equalize the four components of the breath.
Those components being inhalation, internal retention, exhalation, and external retention. Some of the benefits this breath is said to produce is refining the breath and awareness of prana flow, calming the body, and focusing the mind, helping to remove distractions, making it easier to concentrate and to meditate. Samavritti can also be practiced without the retentions if that feels more comfortable for you. So you can just focus on equalizing the inhalation and the exhalation.
Once that feels comfortable, you might then start to include the retention. So you might inhale for a count of four, maybe just start with a retention of a count of two, exhale for a count of four, and then hold at the bottom for a count of two. And then building up from there if that feels comfortable.
Some precautions is to never strain the breath in pranayama, in this breath or any breath for that matter. If you are pregnant, practicing equalizing the inhale and the exhale and without the retentions. If you have high blood pressure, lung, heart, eye, or ear problems, it's advised not to hold the breath after the inhale. And if you have low blood pressure, it's advised not to hold the breath after the exhale. So to practice this breath, find a comfortable seated position.
position. So you might be seated up on a block or on a cushion, allowing your spine to be nice and tall, nice and upright. You can also sit in a chair if you'd like. And then rest the back of your palms on your legs or your knees, palms facing up, the tips of the index finger and thumb touching for Gyan Mudra. And then to spend a few moments here watching the natural breath without changing anything.
Observe the natural inhalation, the natural exhalation, and also those natural pauses between each breath. We'll begin with the exhale. Your next exhale, go ahead and exhale for a count of four.
Holding for a count of four. Inhaling for a count of four and then holding that inhale for a count of four. After a few rounds you can take the count up to six if you'd like or you can stay at four or if you're struggling with a breath simply lower it down to two or three until it feels easier.
So we want to try to cultivate the same quality of breath at the beginning, the middle and end of the count. The breath should not be forced or strained during pranayama. So after you do several rounds, again, inhaling for a count of four, holding for a count of four or to what it feels comfortable, exhaling for a count of four, and then holding for a count of four or what feels comfortable.
Just take a few moments after you're done to observe and to notice how your body and mind feels. I encourage you to do at least about 10 or so rounds. You might start out with a smaller number and work up. This is another wonderful pranayama that you might use in your breath awareness exercises.
For our asana practice today, we will be focusing on the standing postures where our hips are faced towards the front of our mat. You might want to grab a blanket or a towel to cushion your knees or maybe to sit up on. And I always advise having maybe two yoga blocks.
Or if you don't have yoga blocks, two large books or something equivalent. You might use two water bottles or two big cans of food. And we'll take a few moments just kind of warming up our spine. So with today's practice, we'll move a little bit faster.
through the postures, just kind of going over the actions that we are taking in them. Feel free to pause the video if you'd like to stay on a particular posture or rewind if you'd like. So begin first by finding again that tall spine.
If you've started to relax and slump, go ahead and take your hands out by your side fingertips, touching the mat or the ground beneath you. As you inhale, float the arms out and up towards the sky. Nice full inhale in. As you exhale, lower the left hand down as your right arm reaches up and over, pulling the shoulder back.
and keeping the sit bones connected to the ground so if you found that the hip came up go ahead and root it down create a little bit more space between your right ribs and that right hip and then on your next inhale go ahead and come back upright reach again with that right hand towards the ceiling as you exhale rotate from your navel so we're going to keep our pelvis facing towards the front rotate the rib cage to the left Go ahead and lower your right hand down towards your left knee or towards the thigh. Inhale lengthen up a little bit more, each inhale lengthening and then each exhale perhaps twisting a little bit further. If it feels comfortable, bring the gaze over your back shoulder.
Take one more breath here. On your next inhale release, take the arms, reach them up towards the sky. We'll do the same thing to the other side.
So as you exhale, right hand comes down. Left arm up and over, lengthening the left side of the body, allowing your gaze to come to rest somewhere. So it might be up at your arm, the ceiling, maybe it's straight in front of you or down on the floor.
On the next inhale, come back up towards center. Reach up through the left hand and then as you exhale, rotate. And then using your core as much as possible.
So we're not using our arms to... force us into this twist but actually engaging the muscles of the core to help rotate so you should be able to take your hand and kind of move it away and still stay in this twist again your gaze might come over that back shoulder release inhale back towards center take the arms float them up and then as you exhale draw the hands down towards the heart and anjali mudra Take a few moments here. Perhaps you'd like to set an intention for your practice. And then when you're ready, go ahead and make your way to tabletop position or hands and knees. So if you need to, you might grab a blanket or a towel to support your knees.
And we'll bring our hands, spread the fingertips nice and wide. Pressing into the pads of the fingers and into the top of the palm. So we're dispersing our weight throughout the full hand instead of dumping it into the heel of our palm. Knees underneath our hips are also our feet about hip distance apart.
Take an inhale here. As you exhale, round the spine, bringing your chin in towards the chest, your gaze towards your navel, pressing the mat away. and then creating as much space between the shoulder blades as possible.
Begin your inhale, lower the belly down, lift the tailbone, draw the shoulder blades together and back like you're trying to pull your heart through, lifting the chin to wherever it feels comfortable. Go ahead and continue with your breath. So as you exhale, rounding into cat pose, pressing the floor away, and then inhale, lift the tailbone, pull the heart through, lifting the chin.
Go ahead and continue with your breath and biting in any other movements. So if you want to move your hips side to side, maybe stretch the neck. We're doing some neck rolls or stretching the wrists.
You can bring the hips forward, stretching the back. Any movement that feels good. So we take this time at the beginning of almost every class just to kind of get into our bodies, to feel how our... spine is feeling how we're really showing up to the mat and then back to center we'll come into our first posture that we'll be focusing on is our low lunge on jnanasana so we'll bring our right foot forward and with our lunges We have again kind of the same action. So we want our front foot and our back knee to be about hip distance apart.
If you need a little bit more stability walking that front foot out just a bit making a wider stance will give you a little bit more support. With our lunges if if it's low or when we lift our back knee a high lunge we're doing same actions here so we want to think of scissoring our thighs towards one another we're trying to bring our legs together and you'll feel kind of this activation in the legs. So here I'm kind of just hanging out. I'm letting my hips kind of sink down. And now as I squeeze my thighs towards one another, you see it kind of come out of the lunge slightly.
But now I'm feeling the stretch in front of that left hip a little bit more. I'm definitely felt all of my muscles kind of turn on and we have a stronger foundation. So your back toes might be curled under or your toes might be pointed towards the back of the mat. See which feels best for you.
You might feel a little difference in the knee. Your front toes, go ahead and spread them nice and wide, taking up a nice foundation footprint. And then notice your pelvis.
So we want to kind of even it out if possible. My right hip's higher than the left, I'm going to go and pull it down. And then my hips are facing towards the front of the mat.
When you're scissoring your thighs together, it usually will automatically kind of do that for you. And then our ribs are over our pelvis, and then bring the arms up towards the sky. Reach out through the fingertips.
As always, if this doesn't feel comfortable, you can take a different variation with your arms. So they might be at the heart and in prayer hands. You can cactus your arms out to the side. Otherwise, go ahead and reach up towards the sky. and then find your drishti so a focal point a place where you can rest your gaze so you're not looking all around being distracted with what is around you go ahead and take two deep breaths here so full inhale in and exhale let it out one more time and then we'll release our hands down go ahead and switch sides We'll bring the left or the right foot back, left foot coming forward.
Start your foundation. So see where you want to place that front foot, moving with intention. So we call this low lunge or anjaneyasana.
So Anjani being the mother of Hanuman, the monkey god. That's what this pose is named after, after her. So scissor those thighs towards one another.
Then take the arms, reach them up. Continuing to scissors those legs together. So you'll only have to hold this usually for a few breaths. Some of us, it might be just one.
We might feel it right away. Some, we might hold it a little bit longer, but you'll start to feel kind of the hip flexors, the muscles in the front of that right hip or that back leg kind of engage here. Turning on, noticing your breath. And then from here we're going to move into our next posture. So this was low lunge again on jnanasana.
Our next posture is we're just going to straighten the front leg, lift the toes up towards the ceiling, and then bring the hands. So we're tilting our pelvis. So you can see my spine is still nice and long.
Tilting the pelvis here and then either bringing the hands down to your mat or this might be a great place to grab your blocks or whatever you're using in place of them. So drawing the toes up, straightening the leg as much as possible, but you might have a bend or a little micro bend into it. You might even have a really deep bend if your hamstrings are really tight. So straighten the legs as much as possible. Again, it doesn't have to be completely straight.
If you want less sensation walking your hands back, maybe coming up on to the fingertips if you want more sensation you walk the hands forward beginning to hinge forward a little bit more just try to hinge to fold from your pelvis instead of rounding the spine okay so we call this half split pose or arda hanumanasana so you're already halfway halfway to splits so arda means half and hanumanasana is named after again hanuman the monkey god so we can Stay in this position. If it's later on in your practice, you're really warmed up, you can move into Hanumanasana, the full, not the half split, but the full split. And I'm not going to do that right now because I'm still really tight.
But when you move into that posture, we're doing those same actions. Our hips are facing towards the front. We have a tendency as we kind of begin to straighten both of our legs to kind of open the hips to the side.
We want to try to keep that back hip facing forward. I'll come into it slightly, just a little bit to show you how if you want to work towards this pose, ways that you can support this pose. You can take a block and bring it underneath the thigh and kind of use it there to support you, to kind of give you a little bit of a support.
So hips towards the front and then your back, I like to tuck my back toes under to kind of help. keep my hips there you can have your toes pointing towards the back okay so let's go ahead and switch sides go ahead and bring the right foot forward you might start in that low lunge first and then begin to straighten the front leg lift the toes up facing towards the ceiling that brings that stretch a little bit further down into the leg into the calf muscle lower leg And then leaning forward. So you don't need to think about sticking your hips back. You can keep them right where they are over that knee. Lift the toes, hinging forward.
If it's too much sensation, maybe come up, maybe bend the knee a little bit. If you want more, go ahead and walk your hands forward. Finding your drishti.
So this might be on the mat, so it might be in front of you. And then release. Go ahead and bring your foot down onto the ground.
We're going to lift up off of the ground. So tuck your back toes under. Lift the back knee up.
We're going to step the foot forward and then lift the torso. So our stance for our next pose, Virabhadrasana. So Virabhadra is a Hindu warrior hero. And there's a kind of a whole kind of story around this set of postures. We'll go into it in our next practice for this, for our standing poses facing towards the front of the mat.
So we want to take our, we'll start with our left leg behind us. We can do heel to heel. That's kind of how we used to set up for this pose. Now for the comfort of our hips, and for most of us, it's going to feel better to have our feet about hip distance apart.
Our hips are towards the front of the mat, and our back heel is facing more towards the front also. So in yoga, we're going to think of placing our toes in the same direction as our knees. How you can tell where to place your foot is bringing your hands to the side of your hips.
And as you move, your fingertips are going to move also. So our hips are towards the front. We might be a little bit more to the side as we start to bend into this front leg, which we'll be doing.
So our foot's going to be more towards the front, maybe a little bit out to the side. Now we'll start with our feet straight. Go ahead and think of lifting up the kneecap.
So we're engaging the front of the legs and then press into kind of anchor. through that back heel. Press into the outsides of the foot.
So we're lifting up the inner arch. Then we'll begin to bend into that front leg as we keep the back leg straight. Now notice if the hips start to move. If so, try to keep them towards the front.
But if that doesn't feel comfortable, go ahead and let the hips open. We're just moving, we're directing them towards the front. Now if you feel, if it feels uncomfortable with the knee, Adjust your toes.
So you might need to bring them facing towards the front a little bit more. You might, if you want more sensation, take the foot, step it back a little bit wider. If this feels uncomfortable, you might take the foot, maybe step it forward just a bit. So we think of that knee over the ankle. If your knee is going past, I encourage you to take the foot, bring it out a little bit further.
Once we've established our foundation, We're still kind of hugging those thighs towards one another to help square our hips towards the front of the mat. And then keeping our lower ribs down, we'll go ahead and take our arms again, reach them up towards the sky. Or if you want to take another arm variation, feel free to do so.
So if you feel crunching in the lower back with these lunges, think of bringing your pelvis to a more neutral position. So kind of doing a little pelvic tuck, bringing the pubic bone forward, finding your drishti, and then letting your awareness settle on your breath. Take one more breath here and then on your exhale, release the hands down, we'll switch sides.
So bring the left foot forward. Right foot steps back. We are adjusting our foot. Anchor through the back heel.
Press into the outsides of both of your feet. Hips are towards the front. We are drawing the sides towards one another. As we bend into that front leg, that knee is going in the same direction as the toes. If it falls in or out, think of it in line with the toes.
And then bringing the arms to their place. You can also for this pose bring your palms to touch. You might interlace your fingers, pointer fingers reaching up.
And then if you want to, you can bring a back bend into it. So you might take the arms begin to bring them back as you open up the heart and then release. Bring your hands down, take your foot and step it back. Now feel free to move around to kind of loosen up your spine, maybe even doing some forward folds or some backbends in between these postures.
So Virabhadrasana 1 or Warrior 1 is a posture that I don't often include in the majority of my sequences in my classes, just because for a lot of people, it doesn't feel very comfortable on the hip. And on the knee. So oftentimes teachers will and practitioners will kind of swap it out for crescent lunge or high lunge where it's very similar. We have a little bit of a wider stance and we're on the ball of the foot for that back foot.
So we'll start at the front of our mat. We'll start with our left leg. So take the left leg, step it back. Now, instead of dropping the heel down like we did for our warrior one, we're actually going to stay on the ball of the foot.
ball of the foot. We're going to lift the heel up so the heel is more over the ball of the foot. If you do not walk around barefoot, if you wear a lot of shoes, this can feel very uncomfortable.
So when you first start this, your foot might be down here or you can't always kind of swap it out for that warrior one if that feels better for you. If it feels okay though, go ahead and keep that heel up. maybe stretch it so we're kind of pressing coming up onto the toes we want to stretch all that tissue kind of in the sole of the foot and then we're also still about hip distance apart with our feet we're still drawing the thighs towards one another and as we bend into that front knee it's in line with the toes now if your knee goes past walk that foot out a little bit so we're thinking of stacking our joints hips are towards the front Again, bring your arms to wherever it feels comfortable and go ahead and just take a few breaths here. When you're ready, go ahead and release down. Kind of notice maybe first a few moments before you switch sides, noticing if you feel a difference in the hips.
And then when you're ready, take your right foot, step it back. Our hips are towards the front, squeezing the thighs towards one another, lifting the heel up over the ball of the foot, and then bringing the arms up. Notice your breath. We usually call this, like I said, crescent lunge. In Sanskrit, it's Ashtachandrasana, Ashta 8, and Chandra is moon.
So representing the moon in this posture. And then release. So one of the reasons why I kind of break these postures down into groups, for instance, we're focusing on our hips, standing postures where our hips are towards the front, is not only because they have some of the same actions, but a lot of them can be swapped out.
For instance, if you are doing a low lunge in class, if that's what the teacher is offering, but let's say you have an injury in your knee and applying that pressure, doesn't feel comfortable. feel free to lift the knee up and do a high lunge or if this posture doesn't feel comfortable for you crescent lunge you might anchor down through the heel for warrior one so a lot of these can be kind of swapped out so you can do what's right for your body that day okay for our next one pyramid pose or uh partial tenasana so It's going to be very similar, very similar setup as our Virabhadrasana one, Warrior one. So let's start with the left leg.
We're going to take it and step it back. So both of our feet are on the ground, the full foot. That back heel is anchored down. So we'll have a shorter stance than we did for our Crescent Lunge, which is a little bit wider between our feet.
So taking that foot, maybe step it forward. You can play with the distance. Remember, go ahead and see how what feels good for your body. So shorten it if you need to. Make it a little bit further if you need to.
Front toes pointing towards the back. Back foot facing towards the front, but a little bit out to the side. Hips towards the front.
We might have our blocks nearby. And then we will start with maybe the hands on the hips. Think of inhaling, lengthening up. through the crown of the head and then as we exhale we're going to hinge from the pelvis so very much like our Ardha Hanumanasana or half split pose we want to keep that length to our spine as much as possible now notice there's usually going to be a point where it feels really kind of intense on the hamstrings and that's where you'll start to round your spine you can bring your hands to the blocks or maybe your hands make it down towards the mat Notice, though, as you're hinging what your pelvis does. Try to keep that right hip pulling back, left hip coming forward.
And this is also a pose where we tend to kind of go unbalanced. So one hip kind of goes up, the other one down. So see if you can kind of even it out. And that's why having your hands on your hips can really kind of help with this. And then bring the hands down.
Maybe relax your neck and your drishti. Your focal point might be in the back of your mat. And then allow your breath or your awareness to settle on your breath. This is Pardvottanasana or intense side stretch pose. Thinking of lengthening the spine.
And then when you're ready, hands come back to the hips. Slowly lift up. We'll do the same thing to the other side. So step the left leg forward, right leg comes back. Adjust your heel so it feels comfortable on your hips and on that knee.
Think of lifting those kneecaps up. So we're engaging the front of our legs. So when we engage the front of our body, it allows kind of the back that body part to to relax to just to lengthen so that's what we're kind of focusing on right now is to try to open up the backs of the legs here so lift up the kneecaps and then slowly move in so take your time as you move into these postures noticing the actions that your body does trying to control them adjusting as needed hands coming down to your blocks or to your mat and then you might round the spine let the muscles in the neck relax Anchoring through the back heel, pressing to the outside of the back foot.
Take a few breaths and we'll release. Hands to the hips, slowly lift yourself back up. Take your back foot, step it forward.
Again, any movement or counter pose that you'd like to do. Next, we'll go into another warrior position, Virabhadra. Virabhadrasana three. So we've already done Virabhadrasana one.
Now we're going to go into three. We'll be doing two in next week's class. So for warrior three, it's a balanced posture. We will take our here.
Let's start with the right foot. We're going to take it and kind of just step it behind us. This posture is good to have your blocks. The wall is also a wonderful prop or even a chair.
So you might have a chair kind of in front of you. So we'll start by taking the right leg, bringing it behind, and then maybe bring the hands to the hips. This is another one where we just kind of want to check in with our hips.
So we're going to line our torso up. I'll turn this direction. We're going to line our torso up with our back leg. So you can kind of think of it as a board.
And we want our hips to continue to face towards that short end of our mat, the front of the mat. So bringing your hands to your hips and then leaning forward, kind of lining up your torso with this back leg. Now this might be where you stay.
You can stay right here. This is Warrior three. Now if you'd like to kind of balance, we're going to think of spreading our toes at that foundation leg, allowing it to create as much kind of a footprint on the ground as possible.
And we think of padabandha. So we have done hastabandha, that hand lock where we engage, pressing into the fingertips, pressing into the top of the palm. Now we're going to engage our foot. Thinking of kind of bringing the ball of the foot back towards the heel, heel towards the ball of the foot. You'll kind of feel the arch of your foot, the inner arch, kind of lift up off of the ground.
Think of pressing that foot into the mat to keep this left hip strong. And then if you feel comfortable, you might start to lift the back leg as you lean forward. Tendency here is to open up the hip to the side.
We want to try to keep this right hip down. That makes us have to use these muscles in the hip and do a little bit more work here. That's okay.
Again, you can stay anywhere in between here. Toes might stay on the ground or you might find that you're able to come parallel with the fore. Your hands can stay on your hips. You can bring them to heart center. You can take your arms, extend them back or reach them forward.
They can also be... on your blocks like this using it or you might have your hands on the wall or on a chair. When you're ready go ahead and release.
Noticing how that feels. Same thing to the other side. I'm going to turn this direction so you can see.
So we'll start with the left leg coming back. Go ahead and set up your foundation first with that right foot. Keeping the hips towards the front. Remember, that's kind of the easiest thing we want. The thing we want to do the most is kind of open up slightly.
So we're going to keep this left hip down. Right hip's got to work a little bit harder in order to do so. Now, as you hinge forward, as that foot comes, think of flexing that foot. I'm going to hold onto the wall while I'm talking. So flexing this foot, wherever the toes are pointing, show us what direction our hip is pointing.
So as you can see as I hinge forward, if my hips down my toes are going to be down. If I let my hip come up, my toes are now pointing out to the side and that lets me know that I've lifted that hip back. So when I take my toes point them down, rotate down towards the floor, bringing your arms to where, whoop, wherever it feels comfortable. And if you lose your balance, if you fall out of the pose, That's okay.
It doesn't really matter about how many times you fall, but how many times you get back up. So you might continuously fall. Go ahead and come right back into it. Starting with your foundation, lifting up, bringing your arms to wherever it feels comfortable, and most importantly, continuing to breathe.
So a lot, oftentimes in some of these postures, especially our balance postures, We will hold our breath thinking that it'll be easier for us to balance. That's usually not the case. So continue to breathe. Wonderful. Our next posture, Warrior 3, is Humble Warrior.
So Bhadavira Bhadrasana. Just like our Warrior 1. So we'll start with our right leg and take it, step it back, maybe a little bit of a shorter stance, feet about hip width apart. Anchor through the back heel, press into the outside of that back foot.
And for this, we're going to take our hands and bring them behind. So we're going to interlace our fingers. If this doesn't feel comfortable, you can grab opposite elbows or take another variation.
So bada means lock. So we've already talked about hasta banda and different kind of bada. We're bringing the hands together, interlacing them behind us. And think of drawing the heel of your hand towards one another. Okay?
So we'll take that right foot, step it back, anchor through the heel. Kind of already went through all this. Draw the shoulder blades together and draw the elbows towards one another.
Once you have that, think of the knuckles coming down towards the ground, bending into that front leg. And then from here, we lean forward. So our hips are still towards the front.
We're going to hinge forward with our torso and then relaxing the neck. So our gaze comes towards the back of the mat. Now if your belly touches your front leg, you might move to the inside.
So bringing the left shoulder towards that left knee. If it feels comfortable, you might take your hands and pull them away from the torso. Gaze towards the back of the mat. And still breathing. Look at your, feel your feet.
Did you kind of come in on the back arch, inner arch? If so, press the outside of the foot. And then when you're ready, slowly release.
So lift the torso, bringing yourself back upright, and we'll switch sides. I'm going to switch back to this side. So take the left foot, step it back.
Start with your foundation, build it up from there, checking in with your pelvis, face it towards the front, go ahead and bring the hands together, pull the shoulders together, down from the ears, bring the elbows together, and you might switch your grip. Usually you can tell if you've switched it because it feels uncomfortable or more uncomfortable in one direction. And then our Bending into that front knee, just like we did for Warrior I. This is just like Warrior I. We're just hinging forward.
We're binding our hands. Again, if you touch that front leg, come to the inside, allowing yourself to go a little bit further. Relax the muscles in the neck. Maybe pull the hands away from the body. Humble Warrior.
Take a few more breaths here. And then on your next inhale, lifting the torso, releasing the hands, and go ahead and step the back foot forward. Feel free to move the wrists around. Just take a few moments in mountain pose, just noticing how you feel, and release. Our next posture is mountain pose.
heard me just say that and you may be like what is that pose so mountain pose is one of those postures that looks like we're not doing very much but we're actually doing a lot it's probably the posture that we do the most throughout and it is where we're basically standing so for mountain pose we might have our feet together or we might have them hip distance apart you can choose which feels most comfortable for you With this, we think of the outsides of our feet parallel with one another. So you're going to feel like you're slightly pigeon-toed. So if your feet are hip distance apart, they might look something like this. If you have your feet together, big toes will be touching, and you should have probably about an inch or two distance between your heels. And then think of kind of stacking your pelvis over your ankles.
and then our rib cage over the pelvis. So draw the shoulders back and then our palms are facing forward. So we oftentimes, a lot of us will kind of stand like this. Our hands, our palms might be facing towards the back.
That usually means our shoulders are coming forward. So allowing our shoulders, sometimes I'll take my shoulders, bring them forward up towards the ears and then slide them back, pull the shoulder blades together and allow your palms to face up or forward excuse me you can imagine little magnets at the end of your fingertips kind of being drawn down towards the earth think of pressing your feet into the mat as you lengthen up through the crown of the head You can think of kind of pulling your heels away from one another, rotating the thighs inward, taking a few deep breaths here. Mountain pose or Tadasana. So you can think, ta-da, arms out to the side. And this is a posture that will begin at the beginning of sun salutations.
We'll usually start in this posture before moving into a warrior position or lots of positions here. It's our kind of standing resting pose, even though there's a lot of action going on here. So our fingers are extended. We're really, our fingers are engaged. We're not just kind of standing here.
There's actually a lot going on. And when you're ready, release. So there is, we're going to do two more postures.
So we will. Our first one is a revolved triangle pose. So triangle pose, trikonasana, is a posture where we're actually opened up to the side. We'll be learning this posture next week.
But for the revolved triangle pose, our hips are towards the front. So it's very much like pyramid pose. We're just going to bring rotation into the torso. So go ahead and begin.
And this is definitely where you might want to... prop such as a yoga block or something else in its place. So we'll start with the left leg behind, right foot forward about hip distance apart.
We'll take our hands to the hips and then begin to hinge forward. Now we're not going to come all the way down. We're not going to allow our spine to fold.
We want to keep this length and that's where the block kind of comes in handy. Now if you're feeling really tight in the hamstring, you might even take your blocks, maybe stack them on top of one another, Or if you don't have blocks, maybe something that's a little bit taller. Now we can take our hand, kind of root it down into that prop.
Spine nice and straight. So our tailbones, our sit bones are kind of reaching towards the back of the mat as our crown of the head's reaching towards the front. And then slowly rotate your torso. Now when we do our twist, our hips like to follow along.
Notice if your hips start to kind of move also. Try to keep that right hip down. Siblings reaching as you rotate.
You may not be able to twist as far but that's okay. So rotating your heart towards the long edge of your mat and then you might extend your arm up towards the ceiling. I'll turn around this way so you can see. So rotating hips are towards the front.
So if you find it coming up, if you find your feet kind of adjusting, root down through the back heel, pull the right hip down, and rotate. Notice if the shoulders are kind of coming up, see if you can draw it down, thinking of creating as much space between your hands as possible. And then when you're ready, slowly release down.
Doing the same thing to the other side. So that right foot stepping back, Setting up. Now if this feels too much, ways that we can modify this is we don't need to hinge as far down.
So you might hinge maybe to right here. You can use a chair and then rotate from here, or maybe the hand comes to the thigh, rooting down through the back heel, hips towards the front, keeping this left hip down as you rotate towards the left. Now this might be very easy for you. So if you want to deepen or another variation of this pose is to bring your block to the outside of that front foot, bringing your hand to the block and then rotating, extending the arm.
So that's going to deepen that twist for you. But notice if you let those hips kind of move, we don't want to lose the integrity of the pose to go to what we think is a deeper variation of it. And our last posture that we're going to visit today is the revolved parivritta. It means revolved virabhadrasana. So a revolved warrior.
So you can, just like our warrior one, we'll take our left foot, our right foot, step it back, hip distance apart, and go ahead and come into your warrior one. So arms might reach up first, anchoring through the back heel, pressing into the outsides of your feet. Front knee in line, going that same path of the toes. And then we're going to take our left arm.
So if our left foot is in front, I'll face this direction. If our left foot is in front, we'll take our left arm, slowly start to bring it down and we're going to rotate. So we're turning towards the front leg. Arms are coming down. Now notice if the hips move, notice what that back foot is doing.
See if you can anchor down all the same actions that we've been doing in all these postures. So pressing into the outside of the back foot, anchoring through the heel, pressing the back of the knee towards the back of the room, and then release. Same thing to the other side, left leg forward, right leg coming, or excuse me, right leg forward, left leg back, establish your foundation, arms reaching up, bending into that front leg. Now we'll twist towards the right side. Right arm coming around, reaching them, extending out through the fingertips, and then beginning to revolve, keeping the hips towards the front, pressing into that front foot, really focusing that, and kind of keep that hip forward instead of going along with you, and keeping that bend in that front leg.
Now notice if your shoulders, we don't sometimes in our twists and these kind of postures, we... put extra strain on the shoulders really think of extending out so the shoulders are opening up and we're not pulling back on this arm this arm actually might be we want to kind of keep it in the same plane of our chest so extending our arms out from our heart no need to make um put that strain on it by pulling back more and release pray vrita virabhadrasana revolved warrior Notice how you feel in your body. Notice what these postures may have done for you.
I encourage you to take a Shavasana, so our resting pose. Go ahead and lay yourself maybe down on your mat. If it feels comfortable, go ahead and extend the legs out long, or you might bend your knees, bringing the soles of your feet together. Taking at least five minutes, if you have it, if you have longer, please sit here as long as you need.
This is one of the more important postures that we do. It allows our body to absorb all the efforts of our practice. You can return to your Samavritti Pranayama if you would like. I hope you enjoyed this practice.
Again, please feel free to review it as many times as you need, and I will see you next time. Thank you.