Yoga for Strength, Beginner Arm Balances with Kino

Hey , everyone .

It's Tina here .

Thanks for joining me with these sessions .

We get to practice with me .

Today's session is gonna be a viewer request .

So thanks for requesting beginner yoga arm balances .

When you're ready to begin , come to a comfortable state of position , hands in prayer to initiate our space .

When inhalation , oh , an exhale .

Let your hands strapped down when you begin to work on strength .

Remember that every yoga pose is really a mirror for the inner journey .

So when you begin to work on strength poses , you're actually cultivating almost like a spiritual fortitude , kind of like a spiritual strength .

And this allows you to be in control of your mind and in control of your emotions .

So in other words , you get to be a brighter and stronger person with humility and more love in your heart .

Each time that you do the practice , it never matters how deeply you go into the poses or how much you lift up or how high you lift up .

But instead how strong your heart and your spirit are becoming .

When you begin to practice , when they first started , the practice arm balances were really hard for me .

So I'm happy to share these easy tips and tricks to help you work on those arm balances .

When you're first starting , we're gonna build up into a plank post to start to come to your hands and knees .

And with some movement through the shoulders , start to push from the shoulders as you widen the scapula gripping with your fingertips and will hold this for a couple of breaths round your back and feel like you're pulling your chest away from your hands .

Gaze it right between your hands .

Keep the shoulders broad and avoid shrugging the shoulders too .

Three , with each breath slowly start to move your shoulders more over the palms .

Four and five , sink back down , resting your butt on your heels for a moment and then look between the hands , grip the fingertips on , come on up , pressing through the fingertips again and with each breath just move the shoulders forward as you begin to cultivate strength in the shoulders .

There's always sort of a half , half movement where you're half pushing from the shoulders and half pulling up from the core .

So think about the lower ribs spiraling in the low belly , sucking deep into the inner body , sitting bones drawing together in the pelvic floor , pulling up and inside , then slowly curl the toes under and really push from the shoulders and inhale .

Come up to plank , gazing down between your hands .

Let's hold this for 51 , 23 .

Nice and steady .

Didn't really push from the shoulders .

Four and five .

Place your knees down and exhale , push back the child's pose .

Head down for a moment .

Nice inhalation , nice exhalation .

And come on up .

We'll do it again .

Grip your fingertips , curl those toes under and move the shoulders a little more forward , letting the wrists warm up and give a big push from the shoulders and inhale with a calm and equanimous mind Come up to plank one , two , nice and steady .

34 .

Keep pushing from the shoulders .

And now we're gonna see if we can take it up just a notch .

Move it a little forward .

So you move the shoulders a little more forward , pull up from the core a little bit and go all the way up onto your toes .

One make sure you're not craning the neck .

Just look down between the hands too .

Three , four , you're doing great almost there and back down to plank knees down , exhale child's boots , nice inhalation , nice exhalation and inhale .

Come back up , press through the fingers , curl the toes and come on up to plank again .

Inhale , exhale this time all the way down to the ground for an easy chatter and get up almost like a push up except you're using the floor for support .

Then inhale , roll up to upward , facing dog , nice deep breath , exhale downward , facing dog , press back , rolling over your shoulders .

Take a moment and settle into the pose five breaths here to create the emptiness inside of the pelvis .

One , two , three , four , one more breath and gently come down onto your knees .

Hold it here on your knees for a moment .

Now , we're going to build up the core in coordination with the shoulders to make sure that you're able to really get into your arm , pressing from the shoulders round the back , drop your head a little bit down and then inhale , bring your knee to your forehead .

One two , 34 and knee down .

Left side .

Bring it up .

Well , 234 almost there and down again , right side .

One two , lift it from your core , nice and stable three sitting bones towards each other .

Remember your pelvic floor four and five left side .

Take it all the way up .

12 , round your back .

Three , put the knee between the arms four and five down .

Hold it here for a moment .

Curl the toes under , inhale , exhale chatter and , and you can keep it off the floor if you want or you can use the floor for a little support .

Release the back with a nice easy upward facing dog exhale , downward facing , settle in downward , facing again for a moment .

Deep inhalation , deep exhalation .

Now just switch your gaze forward and inhale , come forward to plank .

All right , your shoulders should start to feel like they're getting worked .

Ok .

Here we go .

Inhale , bring your right knee forward and pick it up .

Into your chest , drop your head to the knee 1234 and step it back , left knee forward .

Pick it up into the chest drop in the head one two 34 , step it back .

Exhale chatter .

You can always use the floor if you want a little break .

Inhale upward facing , release the back , exhale downward , facing .

Now , hold here for a few more moments .

Deep inhalation , deep exhalation , gazing all the way towards the belly button .

If you can let the mind rest , cultivating , calm and equanimity and switch the gaze forward , come back onto your knees .

Now , we're gonna actually practice lifting the whole body onto the arms .

The pose that we're working on now is called in a position .

This is the crane pose .

We're going to take it into a few different levels .

So even if you've never tried before , you'll feel like the pose begins to be accessible .

Now that your shoulders and your core muscles are really warmed up , curl the toes under , right underneath you .

And it comes with position .

If your is not so good , like you can't take your feet wider apart and you may want to perch on the balls of your feet to get your pelvis closer to the ground .

The deeper you can sit into the hip joints , the easier the baca is gonna be for you .

Now , the knees onto the outer edges of the shoulders and hands in prayer one and we're stabilizing the shoulder curdle from here .

So start to feel like your body is lifting itself from here .

Three , four and hands down , the shoulders are real nice and stable .

The shoulders are firm and lean it forward .

Start to push the knees into the arm pits , hold it here and make sure you don't gaze up , but that's gonna crunch the neck .

So instead just look right between the hands start to move forward and now 1 ft off the ground , one , two , get a little bend in the elbows and keep pushing from the shoulders .

Three , four , take that right foot down , left foot up .

12 , three , keep breathing .

Four , keep using abdominal muscles and five and get back down hands in prayer .

Ok ?

Now , let's see if it's possible with both feet off the ground , can't let both feet just stay with 1 ft off the ground for now .

And slowly , slowly as you push more from the shoulders and pull up more from the core , then you'll be able to find both of those legs eventually coming off the ground .

So here we go , hands to the ground , squeeze the knees and then inhale as you lean forward into the shoulders , lean forward , around your back , move more forward , forward , forward and start to feel like there's weight pouring into the hands , then push with the shoulders and pull those feet up .

One nice and easy two , three , squeeze your elbows towards each other .

Four , lean more forward with your shoulders and five , touch your toes down , rest for a moment .

Nice , inhale , nice , exhale , hands in prayer .

Next one , we're going to see if it's possible to jump back .

Right .

When we jump back from into , you're going to feel that your body catches .

You have to really feel stable in both the crane pose and the push up cos if you don't feel stable and out of those two poses , just go ahead and step back when it's time to jump back .

So really take your time and you can repeat this class as often as you want to really build up that strength and in your body and your mind in your whole life .

Really .

Now we'll do this together .

Hands , move forward , just take it nice and easy .

Don't try too hard .

Remember you do it , you don't do it .

You're still a good person .

Don't stress , right ?

Don't assign your value , your self worth to the pose .

Your value comes from the purity of the inner being right now .

Move the knees into the shoulders and just easy .

Keep the elbows a little bent , right ?

And then slowly pull it up one .

Eventually you're gonna pop it up to straighter arms .

But don't worry about that for now .

Three , four and when you exhale , I want you to push with your shoulders and think legs and shoot your legs back .

Inhale , exhale legs .

If you need a rest , you remember chest on the ground , inhale upward facing , exhale , downward facing , pause and downward , facing again and come on down to your knees and now coming down onto your knees , we're gonna work on one more pose today to begin to work on our arm balances and really develop that upper body strength in a really accessible way .

We're gonna work on the tripod head stand .

So one of those headstands that's really accessible for everyone .

So there's so many different levels that we can do .

First , we'll stabilize the shoulder girl .

Ok .

So round your back under and the those in pull the ribs into your chest .

Inhale , exhale top of the head down , inhale , pop it up .

We do that five times .

Exhale down , lift your toes as you go forward , inhale up , look at the knees , exhale down , inhale , take it up three more .

Exhale down , squeeze those elbows in , inhale up , exhale down , inhale , take it up .

I'll ask , let's just do two more just for fun .

Exhale down , inhale up one more exhale down .

Ok ?

Keep it down .

Now , avoid pressing with the neck , but instead just let the top of the head kind of rest there and squeeze those elbows in , grip with your fingertips a little stand the legs up , walk in , walk in , hold it here , one , two , three , four really press your elbows in towards each other and keep the shoulders pulling back away from the ears , bend your left knee , stack it on to the left upper arm , one two , three , four .

And let's put down right onto the shelf of the right upper arm , one , two , three , four and nine guys .

This is called a tripod egg and it's like an egg stand , right .

So it's kind of safe , you know , but you don't want to topple over just like you don't want to crack an egg .

So , I mean , unless you're baking a cake or something , but we're not going to bake a cake with our body today .

We're going to be a nice little tripod egg forward out of your eyes onto your mat and slowly pull in from the core a little bit and now you're really balancing on your arms , you're balancing in your core .

All right , let's come down right foot on the left foot and knees down child's poles there , the rest hands back .

Nice .

Inhale .

Nice .

Exhale again .

Inhale , exhale .

All right .

Let's do that one more time .

Come on to the top of the head .

Squeeze those elbows in , stand your legs up , walk in and let's become the tripod egg again .

So the left knee and the right knee make yourself into a little egg .

And if you feel that your egg is precariously balanced , I want you to hold on to it right here .

But if you're good , then squeeze the core in and lift your knees off .

I'm gonna hold it there .

One , two , three , squeeze those elbows in four eventually , slowly , I'll straighten the legs .

Here's a preview of where you're going .

Don't do that too soon .

Really ?

Feel the core muscles pulling in and slowly bend the knees , stack yourself back where you came from 1 ft , the other foot .

Instead of child's pose , you're gonna step it back .

So try to run it and inhale , upper facing , exhale downward , facing , look forward , cross your feet slowly slide down and it'll close your eye .

And as you're lying here that your whole body rests , notice any sort of activity in the muscles of the body .

Like if you feel some activity in the shoulders , like you feel a little burning fire , sensations in the shoulders , the thighs or the core and just recognize that that that sort of the intention of working on arm balances is to simulate that inner fire to kind of get the juices flowing .

So you did exactly the work that you wanted to then gently move the fingers and toes , bend the knees and the elbows , pull the knees into your chest , get a little hug all over on to the right side .

Come on back up to see it and take a moment and recognize that the journey of yoga is a journey .

It's not a destination .

So you're never judged by how , you know you do the poses , but the quality of the inner effort .

So if you find yourself struggling and feeling bad or defeated by the yoga pose , remember that yoga will never defeat you .

It'll always build you up .

It will always make you feel or it should always make you feel more complete and more whole .

So as you begin to work on these arm bounds , remember that if you feel insecurities arising , like you feel like your body is the wrong shape or you're not able to do the poses , just , you know , watch those insecurities and don't give them any attention .

Instead , focus on the breath and focus on the pose with a full recognition that you're doing exactly what you need to do .

You're exactly where you need to be and you're experiencing the truth of who you are in this perfect moment in time .

And as you tune more into that way of thinking and you train yourself to be strong and be steady in the body and the mind , then a whole world of joy and happiness opens up to you and that's the real benefit of the yoga practice hands .

Move into prayer .

Oh , thank you for letting me be your guide on the inner tradition of yoga .

No , thanks .