15 min Morning Yin Yoga Stretch for Beginners - NO PROPS (with Cleo!)

I must welcome to my channel .

My name is Cassandra .

That's my cat Cleo .

Welcome to my new yoga with Cassandra Home studio .

So this morning , I'm gonna take you through a really yummy morning yin yoga practice .

So in order for a practice to be considered , yin , each pose needs to be held for a minimum of 90 seconds .

And because we don't have a lot of time in the morning , I'm gonna be holding each pose for 90 seconds to two minutes or so .

So , really delicious .

Yummy stretches to open up your hips , open up your shoulders , getting into the spine as well .

And I'm not using any props .

However , I always encourage you to grab your blocks if you have them at home just in case you need them .

So you're going to start lying down in reclined butterfly pose , soles of the feet together , needs falling apart and just let yourself lower down .

So , beginning with this hip opener , you might choose to let your hands rest on your belly like what I'm doing or you can always also extend your arms up overhead to start opening into your shoulders and into your upper back .

And these morning practices are a wonderful opportunity for us to take a moment to pause , setting our intention for the day , taking some time for ourselves before we start getting too busy and kind of going on autopilot .

I know that's certainly what tends to happen to me .

So as we hold this pose for about two minutes or so , try to relax your body fully , let gravity do the work for you and just breathe slow and steady all the way down into your belly .

Take five more slow , steady breaths here in the pose .

See if you can relax a little bit more , no tension in your hips or in your shoulders and go ahead and straighten your legs .

You can reach your arms up overhead , big extension here from your fingers down into your toes and you can bring your right knee in towards your belly , holding on maybe to the front of your shin or the back of your thigh and just sway that thigh a little bit side to side , maintain length through your left leg .

And we'll carry this over into a twist .

So cross your right knee over your body towards the left and you can use your left hand to kind of guide it along , reach your right arm out to the side .

Really emphasize rolling the shoulder down towards the floor .

And this is your first option .

If you'd like to stretch a little deeper , you can always straighten your right leg and slide your left hand further down towards your thigh , towards your calf , or maybe even reaching for the ankle .

So emphasizing the spinal twist , first collarbones facing up and then maybe adding that hamstring stretch , an it band stretch .

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If you had your leg straight and you can roll onto your back a little bit releasing from this twist before setting ourselves up for the second side .

And before we go to the other side , it might feel good just to widen your feet and let your knees fall in towards one another , taking a breath or two here , coming back to center and again , really setting the tone for your day , maybe starting to think of one word that captures how you want to feel today .

And we'll set up for a twist on the other side , draw your left knee in towards you and just sway that knee and your thigh a little bit side to side , staying long through your right leg and we'll cross this over .

So left thigh crosses over towards the right side of your mat , extend out long through your left arm .

Really draw your shoulder blade down towards the mat and you might stay here or you might also straighten your left leg , sliding your right hand further down , finding the edge in the pose that is appropriate for you to hold .

So we're not trying to over exert ourselves to push or pull or strain in any way .

Make this a practice of ease as much as possible .

Begin to bend into your left knee coming all the way back to center .

And one last time , feet wide , knees falling in towards one another , leveling out the hips and we'll be making our way into a wide legged child's pose .

So you can roll onto one side , pushing your hands into the floor to lift up big toes together , knees as wide as you would like them to be the further apart .

They are the more intense this will feel and walk your hands out in front of you .

Folding down .

Definitely my favorite morning yoga pose as much as possible .

We want to try and relax our hips towards our heels .

If this feels too intense , you might have your knees just too far apart and bring them back in a little bit , especially if you're feeling a pull in your low back and see if you can melt your heart towards the floor , still rolling your shoulder blades down your back .

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You can slide onto your belly coming into your Sphinx pose , stretching your legs out behind you think of opening and lifting up through your heart rolling your shoulders back , reaching along through your legs .

I'm trying to minimize any kind of rounding here .

So , really pushing those shoulders back and the closer you have your elbows in towards your chest , the deeper this pose will feel , especially if you'll be sitting for long periods today .

This is a great pose to do on a regular basis .

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Let's just press back so that we're sitting on our heels .

This is not really a Yin yoga movement , but it should feel really good just to reach your right arm all the way up and over a big side body stretch and you can even roll down all the way forward , stretch the arms out in front of you and lifting up .

Let's go to the other side .

Left arm rises all the way up and over .

Relax your head , relax your neck and round it out , crawl fingertips out kind of doming through your upper back table top poses .

Just take a few cat and cows .

Yeah .

Wow .

And coming to take a seat in any way that is comfortable to you here , cross legged or kneeling , rolling your shoulders back , draw your hands together at the front of your heart , setting your intention for the day ahead .

Maybe choosing one word that really captures the essence of how you want this day to go and give yourself this moment of gratitude .

For making time for yourself .

Putting yourself first , beginning your day with purpose .

We'll close with the breath and a chant of take an inhale through the nose and exhale to chant , breathe in .

And I must say thank you so much for doing this morning .

Yin yoga practice with me .

I don't have very many short Yin yoga practices on my channel .

But if this is something you would like to see more of , please leave me a comment below and let me know morning .

Yin can be really yummy and a great way to start the day .

I would also love to know what word you've chosen , what your intention for this day is .

And if you'd like to stay a little longer on your mat to really get grounded and anchored , this meditation here is a really wonderful one .

It's only five minutes long .

Thank you so much for practicing with me and maybe you'll even make this a habit by practicing with me every single morning .

Thank you all so much .

Must stay .