Finding Stability and Balance

Hi so welcome and we're going to do a class today where we're going to pretty much do a lot with the standing poses really get to understand the relationship between the earth and how we stand on it and then we're also going to need a few props so you might want to use a bolster if you have one and we have a belt here very handy for if your hamstrings sometimes kind of talk to you a lot and then we have some blocks here too and we might use them in the poses and again it really doesn't matter whether or not you have these props at home you can do this sequence without any props also or a chair or a friend who wants to hold you so anyway just remember anything that I tell you is not really the law you're supposed to find your own yoga so with this sequence I'm just suggesting a bunch of things that you can do to find your relationship to the earth through your feet so here we go we're gonna start really really easy so we're gonna take a bolster and you're gonna put it lengthwise along the mat and if you don't have a bolster we're simply gonna lie down so we're going to shimmy the hips towards the end of the bolster you're gonna get your feet together so the outside edges of your feet they're gonna touch and you're gonna find a comfortable distance as to where you want your feet in relationship to your pelvis so whatever feels good for you and you'll notice that for some people you might have your knees really high or you might have them flat to the floor it really doesn't matter so we're gonna walk the fingertips back we might lift the hips and kind of try to get the pelvis to feel more even before landing the seat bones sit bones before landing your sit bones back onto the mat and then just gently whether you're on a bolster on the mat we're just going to get the spine to unfurl onto the bolster and then taking your hands we're gonna place the hands onto your belly and allowing the eyes to just softly fall closed you might want a gentle engagement of your heels against each other or if that is a lot for you today you can simply let that go also and simply assume the shape so we're just gonna breathe in here and we're just going to notice the rise and fall of the belly and as your hands connect to your belly just feel how gorgeous and awesome it is to have your belly completely relaxed and your breath is just simply dancing in and out of the body rising and falling so finding the cadence of your breath in this posture will later be taking your natural breath cadence into our yoga sequence if you're feeling quite comfortable here I invite you to get your hands maybe to go a little higher up onto your ribs and again simply breathing so one of the things that is not talked about enough maybe is that a lot of the yoga that we do is to return us to this beautifully balanced original state that we came in with so we're simply trying to undo as many of the trappings that we have the dust that we have accumulated on us from the outside so that our shiny selves can emerge and again allowing yourself to feel the hips dropping feel the knees gently yielding through the shoulders also softening and really feel that gorgeous feeling of the ribcage just expanding and then slowly just drawing in and just notice now if you feel any different than when you first started very good if this is quite comfortable for you you can bring your arms back and just have them overhead or interlace the hands and place the knuckles to its the top of your head along the elbows just to draw out and down so we're just staying here for a few more breaths just really allowing the entire posture to marinate in the body to prepare us for what's coming next beautiful and then just returning the arms next to the hips taking your time we're just going to bring the knees towards each other and roll towards the right side of the mat so we put our our bolster and now we're just gonna come on to our force we're in table pose and in table pose you just want to track to make sure that you have your shoulders above your wrists and your hips above your knees if it's a little bit more like this or like that you tend to be putting a lot more weight than you want onto your wrists so in all fours we're going to transition into cat and cow which is a really really lovely pose we're gonna try to find a rhythm so that when we're breathing in the collar bones are expanding the chest is lifting and the tailbone is lifting and then when we're breathing out exhaling we're gonna let the upper back curl up towards the sky and the tailbone draw down towards the earth so breathing in lifting up through the heart and the tailbone breathing out allowing the tailbone to drop down even the head is completely relaxed upper back gently drawing up towards the sky and continuing with that for a few more breaths breathing in breathing out and I invite you to really find your own rhythm in this so that it feels like your breath and your spine is just like liquid gold so it's just flowing and flexing with each in and out breath very nice and then coming back to the table now we're just gonna take a look to it's our left hip and then we're gonna bring our hips to the right so we're gonna do swishy cat and cow for the other side we're gonna look to it's our right and bring our hips to the left so I think you get the feeling here again we're trying to go for that swishy flexi liquid feeling but moving the spine now laterally so just allowing yourself to flow from side to side and remember it's not really about trying to make your shape look a certain way it's about that feeling inside and following that momentum of your breath nice and then from here we're gonna bring it into a bit more of a rock and roll cat and cow so you're gonna kind of shift your hips around shift your shoulders around let your head go and then we're just gonna roll through the joints so rolling through your shoulders and your knees one way and then another way so really finding lots of rhythm and in a way what we're trying to do is we're bringing in the cat and cow and a swishy cat and cow and just adding a little bit of rock and roll to it beautiful and now that we're created such a nice sense of fluidity in our body gently bring that back to stillness and we're coming back to table so from here we're just going to come into one of the very useful basic poses in yoga we're gonna take the knees a little further apart we're gonna take the big toes together you're gonna bring your hips back and this is the beginning of child's pose with the hips drawing back we're gonna take the fingertips and walk the fingertips forward with the fingertips lengthening forward the shoulders are gonna soften and relax and then the hips are gonna keep drawing back with that you feel your forehead naturally want to draw to its the mat so we're gonna let it do that you're just gonna slowly flow down to its the mat and just allow yourself to breathe here so I'm just gonna come up a little so that I can still talk to you so in this posture it doesn't really matter whether your hips can be onto your heels or not it really just depends on the state of your body that day so as long as you're lengthening through the spine and allowing weight to drop from your tush down towards your heels you're in a good place and this is a really good pose to just breathe and relax in and anytime during any of the sequences that we do if you feel like taking a little bit of time out remember you always have the right to do that so take your child's pose great so from our child's pose we're just going to walk back forward again coming back into table and from table we're gonna come into downward dog so downward dog is one of the I guess favorite poses of yoga it would probably win an award for being the most done yoga pose ever ever so really spread your hands and press down through your thumbs and your index fingers just take a look at your arms just make sure they're not too far ahead and that again there's still your wrists are right under your shoulders when you inhale you're gonna lift up through your hips keep your knees still slightly bent and then we're gonna bring the sit bones as high as we can towards the sky and with that we're just gonna let the heels drop down towards the mat so pushing away with the arms drawing away with your outer hips and drawing down with your heels you're gonna let your head go completely so your head is just gonna relax the neck and the shoulders too and see if you can find your shoulder blades we're gonna squeeze the shoulder blades a little bit towards each other and towards the sit bones and just breathing into this see if you can get your legs to work a little harder than your arms are so we're going to just engage your quadriceps a little bit more your inner heels are gonna draw down towards the mat and you're just gonna keep checking in on your breath beautiful and then from here we're just gonna look for it between the hands and we're gonna bring the right foot forward between your two hands so for a lot of us when we're first beginning yoga this swinging your right foot forward is gonna look more like this and all you have to do is to take your ankle and just bring it forward so drawing your fingertips onto the mat allow the chest to lengthen forward and then if it feels nicer today we're just gonna keep that left knee onto the mat take your hands onto the front leg allow the chest to gently rise roll the shoulders back allow the shoulder blades to relax down and we're just gonna take a breath here nice and if you like gently bring the arms up looking up towards the fingertips and again allow the shoulders to soften from here we're just gonna take the arms back and if you find that it's okay we're gonna interlace the fingers keep your elbows bent in the beginning so that we don't just kind of force the shoulders to open for us so we're just gonna gently keep the elbows bent and then we're gonna play a little bit with the feeling of whether we can draw the knuckles back so pressing down through your right foot that's really gonna help you with your balance and we're just gonna gently draw back with the arms maybe they come too straight maybe they just remain a little bit bent here just breathing into this and then inhaling gently looking up exhaling the hands are going to float back and we're gonna step back into downward dog so drawing up through the inner thighs dropping down through your heels rolling your outer armpits back to its your legs and then allowing your heels to drop down to its the mat so again it really doesn't matter if your heels ever really touch the mat we're just going to allow ourselves to play a little bit in our downward dog so you're gonna bend one knee and then the other knee and when you're bending one knee you're gonna look out through the other shoulder just allowing yourself to also give your spine a nice little twist as you're playing through your downward dog nice and then from here we're just gonna bring the left foot forward between the two hands drawing your fingertips on the mat lengthen up through your chest and again if you like the back knee can be down or the back knee can be up it depends on how you're feeling today and then the hands are just gonna come on to the left knee relaxing the shoulders to show the blades and just for a moment again finding ourselves to be as stable as we can by pressing down through the front foot nice and then if you feel good here again inhale bring the fingertips up gently looking up and then slowly bring the arms back you can interlace your fingers the other way now so again keeping the elbows nice and soft just so you're not abruptly kind of trying to make your shoulders feel a certain way and then gently breath by breath we're just gonna draw your arms back and as you do that you can keep your heart lifted if it's not too much you can also try to open back a little bit more nice and then exhaling release bringing the arms back up and then exhale we're gonna step back into another playful downward dog so we're gonna already spread through the hands again we're gonna pulse through the legs just allowing ourselves to find that little bit of freedom and movement in a downward dog taking your spine to its your left and to its your right as you extend the back heel nice so looking forward between your hands just step your feet forward and we're going to come into Uttanasana so your fingertips will be drawing on the mat and you'll be lengthening your chest forward and then keeping the knees softly bent we're just gonna allow the belly to drop onto the knees and holding opposite elbows letting the elbows draw down to the mat and the crown of your head also draw down to its the mat now for some of us this pose might be just a little bit too much to just hang out in so in that case we're just going to grab a block and taking your block coming back to the same position so you're coming out of downward dog you're gonna come forward you're gonna grab your block and holding onto your block you're gonna inhale and lengthen your chest and then exhaling you're just gonna let that block support you and again your knees can be softly bent whatever works for you and then just breathing into your Uttanasana you're standing forward bend again see if you can press your feet fully into the mat and just allow your spine to draw forward in whatever fashion feels most comfortable very nice and then from here pressing into the feet we're gonna inhale and bring the arms all the way up palms together palms to the heart and we're just gonna flow through a few breaths here so inhaling drawing up exhaling hands to your heart center and again inhale flowing up exhale drawing your palms towards your heart and inhale exhale couple more times inhaling exhaling and on this exhale we're gonna bend our knees and again come into Uttanasana flowing all the way forward and then inhaling just lengthening the spine forward and exhale we're gonna step back into downward dog just take a breath here in downward dog and from there we're just going to take the right foot forward dropping your left heel take your left hand onto your left hip and the right hand can just come onto your right thigh and slowly coming on up so we're just going to gently lunge through the right leg and just take a look at the feet so you're gonna see that your right knee it might be a lot ahead of your right ankle and if it's like that we want to shift back so as much as possible you want your right knee to be right on top of your right ankle or maybe a little bit back so again whatever feels comfortable for your body then we're gonna gently maybe take your left hip a little higher just taking turning it so that your whole body is just facing forward and from there we're just gonna straighten the right leg so we're gonna draw the right thigh up and that means you're just tensing your right quadricep a little bit and inhaling we're gonna extend through both the arms and exhaling extending through your right arm get your right hand onto your right shin and your left fingertips to open up to touch the sky so breathing into this we're gonna open up through the chest and again in this posture if you feel like going this way feels better with a block you can again take a block and just have your fingertips on the block so it can be a very comfortable triangle and breathing into this just allow yourself to feel that sense of your shoulders being aligned through both fingertips both the feet are pressing down and in fact we're gonna draw the toes up towards ourselves and as we draw both the toes up and away from the ground you're gonna feel the balls of your feet pressing into the mat so just kind of feel into that and see if you can press both the outer edges of your feet into the mat you're gonna draw your right hip back a little bit more and open up through the chest a little bit more beautiful and then from here we're just gonna slowly bring it back down coming back into downward dog so really grounding down through your hands spreading through the hands drawing up through the thighs and dropping down through the heels inhale we're gonna look forward step the left foot forward and drop the right heel down so again you're going to come on up and just like we did earlier so I'm just gonna turn this way so it's easier for you to see me so we're just gonna do like we did earlier just take a look and make sure that your front knee is right behind or on top of your front heel and then take your hand onto the back hip and slowly roll that open pressing down through your feet nice and then we're gonna extend and straighten that front leg from there we're just gonna take your top arm extending it over the top leg and exhaling again the hand rest them wherever it's comfortable on the shin and opening up with the other arm breathing into this feel as though both your feet are the very foundation of your posture if you like grab your block and again have your block behind your shin and just be in triangle we want to track into the legs so with standing postures the legs are actually really the key feature here so you want to get your quadriceps to have that contraction but without over squeezing so just gently contract draw that front hip back and as you draw the front hip back you notice it gives you kind of more of a leverage for opening through your chest beautiful and then slowly we're just gonna come on back down into downward dog walk through your hips walk through your playful downward dog let go of everything that you just did in the last post so in yoga it kind of always doesn't matter once you're done you're done with whatever that just happened and then you just move right along into the present moment very nice and then from here we're just gonna look forward and walking the feet forward again fingertips drawing on the mat or on your shins or onto a block and exhaling that beautiful surrendering and folding forward hands holding opposite elbows very nice pressing into your feet take the hands onto the hips and slowly come on up beautiful inhale bring your arms all the way up exhale take your hands to your heart really nice and now I'm just gonna come back to the front of my mat and we're gonna take our blocks of us so standing in the front of our mat again coming into a tadasana let's find our tadasana so we want to make sure that the hips are right on top of your heels and for some of us having your feet together might really just never feel that comfortable so let's just take the feet apart so experiment for yourself what feels like a better way to be balanced and taking your hands onto the hips roll forward and back and just feel that juiciness of finding your weight distributed evenly so it's actually really important the feet when you have a car and one of the tires are flat you kind of get a lot of misalignment and it's the same with the feet so once you are quite comfortable and you feel that both feet have the weight quite evenly distributed still with the toes curling up take your hands onto the front of your hips and then let the toes slowly rest down very nice now we're just gonna play a little bit with feeling the pelvis rocking forward and back so you're gonna find that the fingertips that are feeling this pelvis basin front handles if you go forward it's going to get your get your lower back to create this little dip so you're kind of arching front and back and once we're used to this movement and it looks a little funny but once we get used to this movement we're gonna be able to access a lot of their yoga poses a lot more easily so we're gonna come into three posts and for that we kind of want the tailbone to draw down so we want the handles of the front of the pelvis to draw up so standing in Tadasana both your feet evenly place having the arms just open forward shoulders rolled back and show the blades down we're just gonna take your foot to the side and then wherever it feels comfortable for you so for some of us it might be lower here and then for some people they might want to move their feet a little higher and you're gonna press your heel into your other leg and your other leg is gonna press back against the heel this is actually one of the kind of keys to remaining quite balanced in this pose and now for some of you this might be your first time ever doing tree posts and you might be like wow my trees moving which is totally fine okay so we're gonna play with that we're gonna bring the arms up and then we're gonna play with that feeling of my tree moving whoa and then you might find that even in the instability there is a little bit of stability and then if your leg comes out like me right now just put it back it doesn't really matter whoo oh I might never find my balance in this pose though so let's just come back to our tree pose very nice just take one more breath here opening through the arms however you like nice and then releasing coming back to earth and then now that we've experienced instability let's roll forward and back again and then come to stillness and feel what that's really like so we're just getting our body again to become really familiar with the sense of being stable versus less stable unstable then taking your other leg out to the side we're just going to take the heel press it into the other leg again wherever you put your foot is really fine and then hands onto the hips playing with that pelvis handle thing draw the pelvis handles gently up tailbone is gonna draw down pressing into your inner foot of the standing leg inhale bring the arms up nice let the shoulders relax let the shoulder blades relax and then again whoo just play and then maybe even fall out of the pose I mean some of you might want to do this more elegantly but it really doesn't matter let's just play with moving in the pose so we get used to the idea of yoga being static but also moving very good and then slowly release coming back to your Tadasana so from here I'm just gonna turn back to the top of the mat so we'll all come to the front of our mats and we're just gonna flow through a couple more standing poses so coming back into a Tadasana again bringing what you have already felt and known through the body pelvis is gonna gently be having the handles rocking up tailbone down fingertips drawing down and then inhaling we're gonna lift and lengthen exhaling we're gonna bend through the knees and we're gonna slowly flow forward inhaling we're gonna lengthen through the spine and exhaling stepping into downward dog so from this downward dog we're gonna take the right foot forward and we're gonna drop the left heel down and then hands onto your left hip slowly coming on back up so now that we're already familiar with the feeling of the feet being grounded let's bring the toes back up really press through the outer edges of the feet and then rest the toes and then the hands onto the pelvis just gently encouraging the pelvis to rise so that your tailbone would drop we're gonna lunge this time through the right leg so through the front leg we're gonna lengthen through the front thigh so that the direction is going forward and at the same time we're gonna encourage our bodies to come back to center then from here we're just gonna bring the arms up lengthening through the arms feel as though your underside of your arms are also drawing in to its the arm bone and then maybe gently look forward so press into both your feet and again we're gonna play with stability in instability so inhaling we're gonna roll back exhaling we're gonna flow forward and inhaling exhaling and inhaling exhaling very nice and then coming back to center pressing through your feet we're going to extend through the front leg you're gonna extend forward coming into triangle pose so you're gonna open through the chest and from triangle pose we're actually gonna come into half-moon pose so for this pose we're going to be taking the right hand forward onto the mat and drawing the left leg in and then we're gonna press down into the floor and maybe get that left leg to open up so this might be possible but if at this point again the instability is coming in then what we want to do is to grab our yoga block so you have your yoga block you're gonna put it outside your front foot so outside and ahead of your front foot and then again from your triangle you're gonna bend that front leg and then bring the back foot in and slowly come on up and again you're gonna feel as though you're flying and even though you're flying you're also gonna be playing with stability and instability so here your breath is actually very important see if you can feel that you're breathing all the way from the top of your palate all the way down to the base of your tailbone and then exhaling we're gonna slowly release back into downward dog and just pressing back we're gonna come into downward dog and then from downward dog we're gonna step the right leg forward and we're gonna turn both the big toes forward and in take your hands on your hips lift and lengthen through your heart and then exhaling slowly coming forward holding opposite elbows then we're just gonna let the head go here we're gonna let the spine just simply draw forward and if you're finding again like Uttanasana standing forward band that this is a pose that feels better if you use a block then you should listen to your body so you could take your block you could either be holding on to your block and still engaging through the thighs pressing down through the feet and just doing your prasarita padottanasana like this or for some of you you might be able to rest your head onto the block you can do that too so we're just staying here for a couple more breaths nice and then taking your time we're just going to turn back towards the front of the mat step back into downward dog and take a breath and then we're just gonna step our other foot forward dropping the back heel and again hands on the hips coming back up so again it's easier for you to see me I'm just gonna turn this way so we're gonna press down through that front foot again check to make sure that your knee is on top of your heel or behind press down through the outer back foot and then we're gonna inhale and lift and lengthen through the arms into our warrior two and from warrior two we're gonna play with flowing so we're gonna flow back and forward and back and forward and back just feeling the breath filling the sides of the body and then coming back into warrior two press into your feet and we're gonna lengthen into that front leg and again those of you who might want to use the block for your half moon pose either Trandrasana you can grab the block so inhaling we're gonna lift through the chest exhaling we're gonna extend forward coming into our triangle pose from here we're gonna look forward and we're gonna take that right foot towards the front foot and slowly coming on up to other Trandrasana on this side so staying in other Trandrasana and for those of us who are using the block again just using it to put it a little ahead of your small toe of your front foot open through your chest breathing into this see if again we can get that breath to feel like it's going all the way from the top of your palate down to your tailbone so feel the breath traveling from the very top of your palate all the way down and then flowing back up beautiful and an exhale slowly release we're gonna press the hands back onto the mat come into downward dog drop through your sit bones press down through your heels and then exhaling we're going to open through the knees get the big toes together and come down for child's pose beautiful so just taking a couple more breaths in child's pose just really allowing everything to drop now into the earth and then on your next inhalation taking your time slowly walking your hands back to it's yourself very nice and then we're just going to come back to the front of our mat and we might want one of our props handy so the block and the belt you want it handy and we're gonna come into Dandasana staff posts so we're gonna take the fingertips and draw the fingertips back also keeping your elbows slightly bent so your elbows are gonna want to draw towards each other pressing forward through your feet so just like everything that we've been doing with our feet pressing down through the balls of the feet pressing down through the outer edges of the feet rolling those toes back towards yourself doing the same thing as you would do if you were standing we're gonna draw the kneecaps up and then also kind of gently get the thighs to encourage them to draw down towards the earth once you have all of your lower gear in place you notice that your upper body just has spring so you're gonna find yourself really lifting up through the chest really nice couple more breath and then from here we're going to come into Janu Shri Sasana so Janu Shri Sasana we're gonna take the right foot so again this is like three posts you're gonna press your right foot into your left leg you're gonna let that right knee drop out so for some of us again the hamstrings might feel kind of restrictive at this point and that's no problem all you have to do is to grab your block and then we're gonna sit onto the block so that's gonna give you a lot more leverage for tilting your pelvis forward to come forward so this is a choice it's up to you but if you really find that your lower back tends to go like this when you're trying to do a forward bend and your breathing really doesn't feel that good there anyway so might as well get a block very nice and then inhaling you're gonna lift and lengthen through your heart and exhaling you're going to roll your belly button forward to your front leg so you might be holding on to your front foot and then with every inhalation letting your chest draw towards your toes and with every exhalation just gently melting in a little bit more or you might want to use a belt so the belt are great the belts are great extensor arms so we're just gonna take the belt put it around the ball of your foot and then wherever it feels the most comfortable to hold on the belt so if you're holding quite close to the foot and you're feeling again all that scrunching in you want to kind of pull it back and just relax find something more relaxing to do after all we're doing yoga so inhale lift and lengthen and exhale gently bend the elbows forward and just stay where it feels good some of you might be creeping the hands forward that might feel good so again it's up to you overall you want to feel this action of turning your belly button towards your front leg and you really notice that sense of lengthening in your right kidney in your right lower back so just breathing into this you can even just close your eyes beautiful and then from here just slowly releasing coming on back up take your right foot and just place your right foot onto the mat your right heel is in line with your right hip bone we're gonna keep this nice and easy so you might be on the block or not and inhaling you're gonna keep your left arm up exhale you're gonna turn to your right you're gonna wrap your left arm around your right knee and then with both arms wrapped around the knee you're just gonna inhale and make your spine nice and long and as you exhale you're gonna twist so just breathing into this see if you can get your right sit bone to draw down towards the mat a little more and then slowly release and we're just coming back to Dandasana keeping the chest lifted the feet pressing forward and I'll show this other side without the block so we're again coming into the Dandasana pressing the feet forward rolling the shoulders back you're gonna take your fingertips behind you and with the fingertips lightly pressing onto the mat get the chest to be nice and lifted then we're just gonna press the left foot into the right side and again both feet are still active then inhaling lifting and lengthening equally through both sides and exhaling we're just gonna flow forward so it's your own choice again use your bow or just hold on to your foot with every inhalation we're aiming for the chest to lift and extend forward and with every exhalation we're just looking for that relaxation and that release gently down so it really doesn't matter if your head touches your foot couple more breaths here and then just allowing yourself to gently come back up place your left heel again in line with your left sit bone and then take your hands onto your chin inhale lift and lengthen draw up through your right arm and exhale wrap the arm around the leg lift through the chest as you inhale and as you exhale gently just allow your spine to roll gently back so it's almost as if you can feel each further bridge is gently finding a momentum turning breath by breath in breaths are really great for keeping the length and exhalations are really great for just allowing whatever releases to happen to happen beautiful and then exhale releasing pressing forward coming back into Dandasana then we're just going to take ourselves kind of on the horizontal end of our mat okay so we're just going to take ourselves to turn and to open up to the legs for Upavishta Konasana and again we want to use a block if the hamstrings feel really really tight and if they feel okay then you're in a good place you don't have to worry about it you might want to take a bolster and have the bolster in front of you and if you're very luxurious you could even put blocks under your bolster so again whatever you have at home if you don't have anything it's fine too you can just kind of rest for it like this so inhaling we're gonna lift and lengthen and exhaling keeping the feet active keeping the legs gently active we're just gonna come forward so you're just gonna rest your forehead wherever it feels comfortable or you're just going to use your elbows and just relax forward so breathing into this same thing yoga is so simple it's kind of always about finding that space within yourself so you want to keep that lift through your heart and as you keep the lift through your heart you want to ground down through the legs and then you just find so much more spring like seasons within you very good so coming up we're gonna inhale and then exhaling we're just gonna gently flow as we did with our silly tree let's just flow to that's your left side you're gonna lengthen through the body so when I first started yoga I loved using a belt so what the belt does is instead of leaving me hanging like this without a belt I could use the belt and help use it to help me to feel that sense of alignment and to kind of open my body with a bit more support so for instance if you're up here with your arm no problem use the belt to connect your hand to the foot just lean over and then really get your breath into where it's supposed to go so along the side of your body into the ribs so you just take a few more breaths here and then use the belt to help you feel that connection and use that connection to turn through your upper chest beautiful and then again just take your time make your way over to the other side so it's always wise to use props if they make the poses feel great for you or better at least so again just turning and breathing into that side body you notice that a lot of the poses when you're first doing them your neck and your shoulders they all want to take part and everybody's kind of like you know squeezing really hard so instead we're gonna try to find that place where you do as little as possible so you do as little as possible and you try to hang out in the suggested shape but you make it your own shape so just a few more moments in here really feeling the breath creeping into all those areas where things might be feeling a little sticky really nice and then we're just going to remove the belt and take your hands under your knees and bring your legs back together so now we're coming to one of the sweetest parts of yoga we're pre shavasana we're just gonna come down to lying down onto the mat so take your hands and kind of rest on your elbows get your hips to feel as aligned as possible and then we're just going to line our spine down to the mat and before we close out we're just going to have the arms about shoulder height and then inhaling you're gonna take the knees into its your chest exhaling knees to the left just gently looking towards the right so you might some of us with the hips that are quite tight a bolster is really lovely so you might want to release into your twist with your knees onto the bolster and just gently looking towards the right so a few breaths here I happen to be one of the special tight yogis so you can see my right shoulder is really quite high off the mat so what we want to do is to just gently encourage the shoulder to draw closer to its the mat as we allow the knees to stay together and to drop to the left side very good and then inhaling we're gonna bring it back to the center and exhaling we're gonna drop the knees to its the right it's up to you whether you use props again but in this case since I did on one side so just taking the prop dropping the knees down and then gently turning your head to the other side just smooth deep breath beautiful and then just allowing ourselves to return to the center of the mat if you have a bolster we're gonna take the bolster under the knees and just have that support there or you can take any pillow in your house or any cushion then again get the hips to be nice and comfortable roll the shoulders back extend the fingertips down and once you have found your most comfortable shape now's the time to just really drink in all the benefits of your practice so let the eyes softly close let the jaw get nice and relaxed she's almost feel like your body is melting chocolate and you're just slowly allowing yourself to kind of melt onto the mat and that's one of the most amazing things about Shavasana again you're not really having to do very much here but you're actually really integrating quite a bit here so for those of you who can stay a little longer I encourage you to continue resting here and then for the rest of you if you would like we're just going to take some smooth deep breaths here you're gonna feel the breath filling up the body again you're feeling the prana traveling throughout the body and just allowing yourself several more moments to really sense this beautiful feeling of being relaxed and being perfect just as you are and whenever you're ready we're just going to take the right arm up and just slowly rolling on to your right hand side and taking yourself gently back to a seated position keep your eyes still softly closed and have your palms together at your heart so I just want to congratulate you for taking the time to yoga for yourself and if it's your first time doing yoga I hope you have fun and through our practice we're just gonna have many more adventures together namaste