Flexibility for Beginners - Yin Yoga NO PROPS

I must welcome everyone .

My name is Cassandra and I'm gonna take you through this beginner , Yin yoga sequence .

This is a full body stretch and suitable for all levels .

No props are required .

I always say though , if you have a couple blocks at home , you might as well just have them within grabbing distance just in case they help make certain poses more comfortable and accessible to you .

But if you don't have any , don't worry , it's not needed .

So let's begin in a wide leg .

A child's pose , I'm beginning first by stretching through our inner thighs and inner groin , you can bring your big toes together to touch and widen your knees as much as is appropriate to you .

If you know you have tightness here , keep your knees fairly close or maybe just like hi , what distance apart or a little bit wider .

Otherwise , if the range is there , you can go a little bit further out .

We're trying to reach our hips towards our heels and then lengthen and stretch out of the lower back as we walk our hands forward and fold down .

So once you have made your way with your forehead either down on the floor or you can always stack one hand over the other .

You might notice that it's just too much for your inner thighs .

You can always bring your knees closer in towards one another .

Remember that we're in poses for 3 to 4 minutes .

So it really is important not to go too intense right off the bat .

When you come into a pose , it's much more beneficial to ease off to just find that first point of intensity .

And then over the next three or four minutes , you will feel your body relax and open and soften into it and maybe you will be able to go a little bit deeper .

That's a much safer way to go into a Yin Yoga practice versus trying to get into the most intense variation of the pose and then really kind of suffering through it .

So less is more and I'm not really gonna talk much throughout the poses .

So just focus on your breath and on your own internal dialogue , relax your shoulders away from your ears and just settle in the pose .

We'll be making our way into Sphinx pose , which requires us to lay on our belly .

Please transition slowly and mindfully keep breathing in and out .

As you just shift forward and bring your knees back , your toes point back behind you so that you're about hip with distance apart and then you can just walk your hands out in order to find a lift through your chest .

Think of pushing your pubic bone into the floor a little bit to lengthen out of your lower back and roll your shoulders down and away from your ears .

It's almost as if you're trying to drag your heart forward .

Don't worry about how deep this back bent is .

This is really a great pose to counteract all of the rounding that we do throughout the day , either by sitting at a desk or driving .

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We're going to move into open wing , which is a great way to stretch into our shoulder and down into the arm .

I'll start with the left side first because it's easier to demonstrate and to show you what I'm doing .

So you're just going to lay down , extend your left arm right out to the side palm , facing down to the mat .

You might have it lifted up maybe an inch or two higher than your shoulder .

And then all we're gonna do is roll onto our left hip , left shoulder and left ear .

I find this easier .

If I bend my knees and your shoulder is kind of wanna gonna want to collapse to the floor and roll in , think of rolling and pressing your shoulder blades down your back , you can use your right hand to push into the floor a little bit .

If you'd like to intensify this stretch , you can bring your right hand towards your low back and you can also step your right foot back behind .

You just make sure this is not too much .

Remember , less is more in Yin .

We are not trying to push as hard as physically possible .

We're just targeting the connective tissues with a steady intensity that is easy to hold deep breaths here .

If you had your right hand behind your lower back , bring it out in front of you again .

Let your right knee come back down to the floor and we're gonna slowly transition to the other side .

Go ahead and straighten your legs back , rolling onto your stomach , then you're going to straighten your right leg or sorry , your right arm out to the side with your palm flat to the floor and then roll onto your right hip , right shoulder , right ear , press your right shoulder down and away from you .

You can push into your left hand , maybe with your knees bent .

You can also bring your left hand to your lower back or step your left foot and back behind you .

Very normal for one side to be more intense than the other .

For example , on this side , it just doesn't work for me to step my foot back .

I have a lot more tightness here .

So don't be super hard on yourself if things are different and asymmetrical it's very , very , very normal .

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If it was behind your lower back , ease onto your belly again and slide your right hand back .

We're gonna press back into table top , holes on hands and knees , setting ourselves up here for melting heart .

So one last pose for our upper body before we focus on our legs , our hips , our hamstrings .

So keep your hips over your knees and walk your hands out and you're gonna melt your heart and your forehead down to the floor .

I like to also relax my arms a little so my elbows can stay supported on the mat as the pose is called melting heart .

This is really what I want you to envision here .

Every time you inhale .

Can you feel your rib cage expand and broaden around your heart ?

And every time you exhale , can you feel your chest get a little closer towards the mat ?

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You can lift your head up and just walk your hands in before we do anything .

You might just feel good to sit on your heels and take a few breaths here , stacking your shoulders over your hips , relax your arms down , take a few deep breaths to notice how those previous poses have affected and changed things in your body where it's landed .

Now , we'll bring the emphasis a little bit more on our hips and on our hamstrings .

I'm gonna turn to face towards you and I'll give you a few options for this one .

We're gonna start with our right leg out to the side , left foot to the inside of your thigh .

I'm just going to fold straight forward to the center here .

If you like to intensify things and also get in your spine , you can fold over towards your right shin instead .

So whichever option that feels the best to you try to keep your knee and your toes rolling .

So they're pointing up and not rolling and pointing down to the floor and you're sitting on both sit bones evenly and then lengthening out of your lower back as you walk your hands out .

And you might choose to just keep your hands and your palms on the floor , staying on your elbows .

Another option that can be nice is to just use your hands as you bend your elbows to support your forehead and support yourself in this one .

Of course , if it's too intense , bring your right leg in , don't open quite as wide and you can also just stack and make some fists to support your head , whatever works here , deep breaths as you feel that big stretch down along the right leg and right hip .

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Try to get mostly your arms to do the work for you of lifting and walking your palms in coming all the way up and we will be switching , moving to the other side .

So you might need to help your right knee bend as you straighten your left leg out .

Noticing here what that left hip is tempted to do , think of rolling that left knee and left toes out .

So they're pointing up to the sky and you might just fold that same way directly down or you can make it a little more intense by folding down towards your left thigh and left knee .

So choose the option .

Remember one side is probably not the same as the other .

This is super normal .

Then you might stay up propped up or you can lower all the way down to the mat .

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It might feel good before we do this just to bring your feet flat to the floor and take a little windshield by promotion , dropping knees and thighs down side to side and let's lower all the way down , come into sleeping swan or reclined pigeon pose .

You're going to cross your right ankle over the top of your right knee and you're pressing your thigh away from you .

If you're already feeling a stretch in your right hip , you might choose to stay here or you can go further by pulling your left knee in towards your chest and notice if you're rolling over onto your right hip .

This is common , try to keep your weight pressing down into the left .

So both shoulder blades evenly distributing your upper body weight and both hips evenly distributing the lower body weight .

Only using a little bit of arm strength .

Try not to curl head and shoulders off the mat .

Keep it relaxed on the floor , close your eyes and with every breath , feel into that right hip and right glute inviting it to open and release a little more .

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It might feel good just to straighten your right leg out in front of you .

Feeling the effects of that pose , preparing for the other side , step that right foot back in and you're gonna cross your left ankle over the top of your right knee .

Feel that thigh , knee press away from you and then reach through in this figure four shape to pull your right thigh towards your chest .

Again , we're not rolling on one side more than the other and try to keep head and shoulders heavy on the floor just using enough arm strength to hold your legs in the shape no more than that .

Let's release and maybe extend your left leg straight out in front of you , feeling the release from that left hip and left glute .

We'll actually just be going into Shava and our final resting pose from here .

So you can straighten both legs , take up space with your arms , palms , facing up to the sky , roll your shoulders back and you can close your eyes .

And this pose is truly just as important as all of the other ones .

Please try not to rush out of this .

Give yourself full permission to do less to do nothing .

Even though physically all you're doing is laying down .

There really is a lot more happening on a more subtle level .

This is how we get to process and integrate all of the work that we did in previous poses .

So enjoy these last few minutes and breathe in any way that is comfortable to you .

And I'll let you know when it's time to come out and we'll close our practice together .

Breathe a little deeper , move fingers and toes and turn your head side to side .

Reenergize by extending your arms up overhead , big stretch here and roll to one side , push your hands into the floor and come on up it in any way that is comfortable for you here and we'll bring our hands together at our hearts , anchoring and grounding .

And we'll close this class with one chant of inhaled to chant , breathing in .

I must stay .

Thank you so much for doing this Yin yoga practice with me .

I would love to know how it went for you .

Please do leave me a comment down below and you can hit the subscribe button as a way to just support free yoga on the internet .

Just clicking that red subscribe button that you see there .

Thank you so much .

If you want to stay a little longer on your mat , I would follow this practice up with this meditation right here .

Thank you all so much .

Must stay .