Fitness with Friends: SPIRIT Gentle Yoga

REBECCA: Hello, and welcome to Spirit Gentle Yoga! This is a special, short, about fifteen-minute low-impact sequence for waking up or just stretching throughout the day. My name is Rebecca, and I’ll be leading you through this, uh, little practice. Joining me to help demonstrate in the seated—the chair version of our poses is David. Hi, David!

DAVID: Hello Rebecca! I’m so happy to demonstrate the sitting version of exercise.

REBECCA: Me too! I hope everyone’s ready to feel good! Go ahead and take a comfortable seat, we’ll do a brief grounding, breath awareness exercise. Just take a comfortable seat and move as you need to to find that straight spine.

REBECCA: Feeling grounded in the hips, feeling long in the torso; the crown of the head reaches up. Shoulders relaxed down.

REBECCA: Then tune into your breath, simply feeling the air as it moves through your body. Sensing each body part as the air moves through it, and noticing any tension, or stuttering, or just—feeling what the breath feels like. Does it feel like there’s a pit in your throat? Does it feel like your chest isn’t rising as much? Is your belly moving too? Can you open your belly and your chest up, and let things flow smoothly?

REBECCA: Breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. Getting a little ocean noise, Ujayii Pranayama. Careful not to clench the jaw; just let the breath flow in through the nose and out through the mouth.

REBECCA: Then keep up the breath as we begin our movement. Bring your hands to heart to start, in a prayer hand position. Keep breathing, and if you’d like to set an intention, a sankalpa, how you’d like to feel now, anything you would like to do. “Why are you here?” is a good prompt, and whatever your subconscious comes up with as an answer can be your intention. Please make sure it’s a loving, kind, positive statement.

REBECCA: And now let’s move. As you inhale, circle the arms out to the sides and up overhead; as you exhale, bring the hands down to your heart. If you have less arm mobility, you can do torso circles, okay, as an alternate. So breathing in, rising up, maybe do a count of four. Breathing out, slowly dropping your hands back down to your heart. Do it with the breath.

REBECCA: So, inhale, one, two, three, four – exhale, hands drop: forehead, chin, heart. Inhale, arms open. Rise, rise, rise. Touch, exhale, hands drop. Head, throat, heart. You can use any four points as a reference. Keep moving. Inhale, raise; exhale, lower. See what you can do to keep the shoulder blades from moving, so keeping it as an arm movement. However, if you do want to move the shoulders, you can, but it tends to build tension when you reach your arms up and the shoulders go with it. So if you have shoulder issues and don’t want to bother that, keep the arms down, keep the shoulders down.

REBECCA: Good. And finish up the movement. We’re moving to cat/cow next, you can do a hugging version, whether you’re seated on the floor or in a chair, which is where you open your arms, press the heart up, getting an upper back bend, kind of like someone’s pushing your shoulder blades forward. And then as you exhale, you hug, and tilt the elbows down towards your lap.

REBECCA: Or you can do the tabletop version. David will continue demonstrating this version, or you can meet me on hands and knees. Make sure the hands are right under the shoulders and the knees are under the hips, about hip-width apart. And then you’ll start dropping the belly down and thrusting the heart gently through the arms. Tucking the tailbone up for your cow; exhale, you pull the navel in, lift the back up like an angry cat. The chin comes to chest and the tailbone tucks. And you move with the breath – inhaling, back bend for cow; exhale, back round for cat.

REBECCA: Same thing if you’re seated, doing the hugging version. Exhale as you crouch– curl, inhale as you spread your arms like you’re giving the world a hug.

REBECCA: Move with the breath, and if you have any versions of cat/cow, we’re gonna get there next. Any other versions. I like to integrate a child’s pose.

REBECCA: Inhale, cow; exhale, cat.

REBECCA: All right, then pause wherever you are, finish up your movement. If you’re on the floor in tabletop, you’re gonna walk your knees back into a half-plank. If you’re seated with David, you’re gonna start in seated down-dog, which is hands to knees with a flat back, and you’re hinged forward a little bit. Imagine your hips are rooted to the chair, and you’re trying to stretch your head away from it for a long spine.

REBECCA: Same thing if you’re in puppy. Alright, we’re gonna start with just a gentle rocking, so if you’re on the floor, you’re coming forward to half-plank, and then sitting your hips back toward your heels for puppy.

REBECCA: Gentle version for chair is sliding your hands. They’ll start on the knees and then you slide them back. Maybe you squeeze the shoulders, or maybe you keep them neutral. Just slide them back, getting a subtle bend. And that movement is gonna expand. For chair version, uh, David likens this to the butterfly stroke, where you bring your arms up in front of you, overhead, and then back behind you, getting to seated locust. And then circling your arms back overhead and back to your knees, curling just like we did in cat. So finding a cat-cow spine bend as you get some shoulder mobility.

REBECCA: If you’re on the floor, you can start in plank-puppy, and if you have no back issues, no herniated discs or anything going on, you can add a cobra or an up-dog. Up-dog would be: the knees come up, cobra is knees grounded. And you just flow the same way. And back to puppy, a nice back lengthener, then flowing forward into plank. Maybe lifting, or just bringing the heart forward for a back bend. Then we’re coming back, through plank, to puppy.

REBECCA: Inhale as you come to the back bend, exhale as you do the curl. So David will be exhaling as his arms come forward, inhaling as his arms swing back.

REBECCA: Those of you who want to lift into the down-dog plank, go for it. I will meet you there. Tuck the toes, lift the hips and press them back. And if you want to keep doing that flow, do it. If you want to hold down-dog, do it. Be the down-dog, and if you’re in the seated down-dog in the chair with David, you can play however you like. Maybe you move your shoulders, maybe you move the head around.

REBECCA: Or you’re still moving, if you’re doing a powerful practice, if you try to build up strength, you can keep moving this way. It’s your fifteen-minute practice.

REBECCA: Wherever you are, pause, and we’ll move into a forward fold. Everybody walking, moving their hands toward their feet, using any props they might want. Find a nice forward fold, unless you have heart conditions, then you’re gonna wanna lift up halfway using your hands on your legs. If you have heart conditions, you wanna avoid heart below the hips.

REBECCA: Bend the knees nice and deep if you’re on the floor, we’re gonna rise to stand. Press into the floor, whoever you are. Inhale, root to rise. Press down, rise up; arms circle overhead like our prayer breath, hands meet overhead and then drop to the heart. Siddhasana.

REBECCA: Well done! Way to follow along! Let’s keep going with some twists. You can do your regular old twists; please be sure not to use momentum to twist, or you can do some nice, controlled T-arm twists. So, it’ll start– you open your arms out in T, palms facing forward. Find an extension: so shoulder blades are not up, they’re not down, they’re extending away. Then lengthen the neck; if you need to move your head, this is a good time to do it.

REBECCA: Then without moving anything yet, you’re gonna turn, keeping your T-arms to one side, seeing what your core can do without you swinging. Inhale to center, exhale other side. This can be your twist, or you can add a prayer– uh, prayer position. So as you twist, your hands are gonna come together at your heart. You’ll inhale, open the arms back to center. As you exhale, twist, and the hands come to the heart on the other side.

REBECCA: Inhale, open center; exhale, twist and pray. Inhale, twist– ugh. Inhale, open center; exhale, twist and pray.

REBECCA: Now, you can keep doing this controlled movement, or if you’re looking for more loose, uh, letting things go, you can release the arms and start going a little bit with a knee bend. If you do goddess pose, you’re gonna wanna start bending and straightening your legs, charge up the quads. Zig-zag the arms up to shoulder height, moving the twist up your spine as you move the arms. Then zig-zag your arms back towards your hips.

REBECCA: And finish up the movement. Let’s all meet in a straight posture. Next is side bends, with goddess options. So if you want to just stand here and do your side bends you can; if you wanna open your legs into goddess pose, feet are wider than the hips, toes are pointed out, take a few practice squats to make sure your knees and toes are facing the same direction when you bend. If you’re in a chair, you’ll just be sitting there; maybe you spread your legs apart, maybe you don’t, and you’ll do side bends.

REBECCA: We’re gonna start in five-pointed star, so arms are extended in a very wide V. And you can stay here for your side bends as well, just keep soft knees. Or you can add goddess pose as you tip side-to-side. You want that same extension we did in T-arm twists, maybe, unless you’re feeling strong and want to keep the arms up. It’ll be a little more intense stretch if you can get that extension, but T-arm is also valid, as long as you feel the sensation of a side stretch and adjust your stance as you need.

REBECCA: We’re moving this into a sunflower goddess, so after you get some nice side bends in, maybe you pause to hold one side at a time for a few breaths. Please hold for breaths, not counts. And then you can start– turn your palms forward, maybe you hold a goddess, maybe you pulse it, and you draw giant circles with your arms.

REBECCA: If you’re gonna do any single movement to wake up, this is one of them. Giant circles. Yep. And if you’re seated with David, you can even do circles while you do torso circles.

REBECCA: And prepare to switch to the other direction, choosing a point to pause, and then change the direction of your circles.

REBECCA: I choose, usually, to inhale as my arms rise; exhale as they circle back down. You choose yours.

REBECCA: Alright, finish up your movement. We’ll all meet in Siddhasana, or Sukhasana; easy seat. And then just let the energy settle, instead of just lying down in Shavasana. Just gonna stand here; check in with yourself, how you feel, and rest as long as you like.

REBECCA: So that was our fifteen-minute practice. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you, David, so much for demonstrating the chair versions of our poses today.

DAVID: You’re welcome!

REBECCA: And thank you all for joining us and Spirit Club for today’s yoga practice. Hope you have– enjoy the rest of your day. Goodbye!

DAVID: Goodbye!