Yoga for Beginners _ 20 Minute Class with Annie Clarke _ lululemon

Hi , I'm Annie and I'm here with my friends Charlie and Sancia and we're going to be taking you through a 20 minute yoga practice .

So it doesn't matter if this is the first time you've come to the mat , we're going to be guiding you every step of the way , but we'll begin nice and easy coming to a comfortable seat .

However , that is for you , maybe you're sitting cross legged , maybe you're on a block or perhaps there's an alternative seat that is more comfortable and then begin to close your eyes and just take these first couple of moments to relax the body to just maybe notice if the mind is really busy , just beginning to observe what your reality is today , how it feels to be you seated on the mat , how your body feels , what is going on for you ?

How are you today ?

Maybe the first thing that you notice is the temperature of your skin , the temperature of the air against your skin .

Maybe you notice the depth of your breath or maybe all you can think of is something completely different .

And if the mind is being carried somewhere else away from the video away from this yoga practice .

Just see if you can bring yourself to notice your next inhale .

Are you breathing in through the nose or through the mouth ?

Noticing the next exhale and perhaps with that exhale , you can soften the jaw a little bit more , soften the shoulders and then slowly begin to focus the thoughts on the breath as it moves in and out of the body .

And if you can , maybe now you close the mouth and breathe just purely through the nose .

If that's comfortable and notice if the breath is easy or if perhaps it feels a little bit sticky in parts and then take your next inhale in through the nose , opening the mouth and have a big sigh .

Let it go .

And maybe two more of those , if it felt good , take a breath in , ah , no more time in hell .

Gather the hands at the center of the chest .

Maybe here .

Just think about somebody or something that you love and let this practice of yoga mean something much more than whether or not you can touch your toes and then take another breath in another breath out and , and then gently blink the eyes open , release the hands onto the floor and we're going to make our way into a table top position .

So the shoulders above the wrists and the hips above the knees , and you probably want to come in the same direction that Charlie is here .

But she is just gonna come sideways on to demonstrate one of our poses .

So as you take an inhale , you lengthen the chest forward and send your tail bone back .

And then as you exhale , rounding through the spine , taking your gaze to your navel .

As you inhale lengthen the spine , shoulder blades draw down the back of the rib cage and exhale rounding through the spine looking to the navel .

So continuing with these cat cow movements lengthening forwards and rounding to look towards your belly button for a couple more breaths .

I good and then come back to center with your next breath , gonna take your right leg and extend it out to the right side .

Then walk your left hand down to the outside of your left knee , turning your fingertips in the opposite opposite direction to your right foot , then reach your right arm over your head , coming into gate pose , getting this nice long stretch through the side of the body , take an inhale in , then place the hands back down onto the mat , bring your right knee to the floor .

Let's take another cat cow .

So inhale to lengthen the chest forward , tail bone back and exhale round through the spine , looking to the navel , then come back to center on your next breath and we'll take the left leg out to the side this time , walk the right hand down to the outside of the right knee , turning your fingers in the opposite direction to the left foot and lengthening the left arm over your head .

Beautiful feeling this lengthening of the body , use your breath , make it really full , take another inhale and then slowly lower back down to all four and take a cat cow inhaling to lengthen forwards , exhaling to round through the spine .

Last time , draw your lower belly in , then come back to neutral , tuck your toes and gently lift the hips up and back , arriving in a downward facing dog .

So we're looking for kind of an inverted V shape , but rather than trying to force your heels to the floor , maybe soften your knees a little bit more by softening the knees .

You allow yourself to lift your bum a little bit higher and lengthen the spine , your hands are connecting to the ground , but without gripping .

So the whole of the base of the hand is on the floor and maybe you're bending one knee , then the other having a little kind of walk out of the legs from side to side and the feet are around hip width apart , but they can be a little bit wider if it's more comfortable .

Nice , take an inhale and start to travel forwards to a high plank .

Pose your shoulders , come over your wrist and you push through your heels , then lower your knees to the ground , untuck your toes and send your hips to your heels .

Take a child's pose .

Nice big breath in through the nose and open your mouth .

Let it go big sigh and then press into the palms , tuck your toes and come back up to a downward facing dock .

This time , we're going to walk the feet in as many steps as feels comfortable all the way to the top of the mat and let the knees be soft , let the head hang heavy as the hands and feet come together at the top of the mat , taking a rag doll , just folding the body forwards , letting the weight come into the front of the feet and you can catch hold of opposite elbows , sway from side to side , softening the knees to help release into the lower back .

Yeah .

Have a good shake around .

Just notice how it feels to be within your body .

There's no right or wrong way to do any of this .

As long as it feels good , you're in the right place .

Maybe you take a breath in through the nose and flutter the lips as you exhale , softening the jaw and then release the elbows , push through your feet , but slowly roll all the way up to standing , stacking bone by bone until you come to stand tall .

Beautiful .

Let the crown of the head reach up and the soles of the feet reach down .

So we have this lengthening of the whole of the body as the shoulders soften away from the ears and then take the arms over your head , reach up tall , folding forwards , hinging at the hips .

Beautiful look up halfway lengthen the sides of the waist , then plant the palms and step back to a downward facing dog .

Take your right leg to the sky , lifting it up behind you , then bend your knee and open up your hips .

So taking the right foot over towards the left side , squaring the shoulders , then take the leg straight up behind you again , you're gonna place the shin at the top of the mat .

So the knee comes to the right wrist , the ankle to the left wrist for pigeon posts , walk the leg back .

And if this isn't accessible , you can always take another variation coming onto the back of the body , placing the right foot on the left thigh and reaching through to take hold of the shin to stretch into the outer hip on the right side , take another couple of breaths and then place your hands onto the mat , tuck your back toes and come back to a downward facing dog giving the right leg a good shake behind you on the way out and then place the foot back down to the floor .

Let's swap to the other side .

So lifting the left leg high , bending the knee , keeping shoulders square , but opening up the hip and breathing into the side of the body , take an inhale and lengthen the leg straight up behind you then carry the shin to the top of the map for pigeon poses .

And of course , you can take the other side on the back of the body if that's better for you today .

So using any props or blocks that you need and just noticing one side might be completely different to the other and just take what you need on this side of the body , gently lowering yourself down towards the mat , if there's space to do so , otherwise you can keep using your hands for support and just breathe here slowly walking the hands up .

When you're ready and tuck the toes behind you , taking your left leg up and back , you can take little steps on the way if you need to , then the leg reaches up and you give it a good shake out before placing it back down to the floor .

Nice .

Take a nice big breath in through the nose , open the mouth , big sigh .

Let it go , gonna walk through to seated .

So start stepping your feet to the top of the mat .

And when you arrive , you can bend the knees and gently lower your seat to the floor , using the hands for support , lengthen both legs out in front of you .

So if you have a belt or a strap , you might want to grab it to help with this pose .

It makes it a little bit more accessible , gonna flex both feet towards you and the feet are together or perhaps there's a little bit of a space between them but you're keeping the spine straight and lifting your chest forward .

So as we fold , we're not worrying about taking our head towards our knees .

We're thinking much more about sending the chest forward as if you're trying to place it between the toes .

So root through the seat lengthen your spine and then start to hinge at the hips as you reach towards defeat , keeping conscious that you're not rounding through the upper back , Nice and just folding as deep as feels comfortable without straining .

Noticing if the job starts to tense a little bit and see if you can bring a bit more softness here .

Nice .

Let's take one more breath and then beginning to unwind , release the feet or the strap and make your way to lie down on the mat .

You can bend your knees and use your hands .

If it helps you to get there safely , then take the soles of the feet together and let your knees drop out to the sides .

So this is a really relaxing posture , this reclined butterfly pose , but it can be pretty intense on the hips .

So you can always place blocks underneath the knees to release a little bit of the intensity and then your hands can rest wherever feels comfortable .

Maybe you place them on the belly or maybe you take them over your head to catch hold of opposite elbows , whatever feels good here , do that , let your shoulders soften , let the face relax and just allow yourself to be here experiencing whatever it is that you can feel .

And if the mind is really busy , just come back to that thread of breath moves in and out of the body , this continuous flow movement that still exists while we're here in stillness .

And you can stay here as long as you like if it feels good .

But whenever you're ready , you can take the hands to the outside edges of the knees and use the support of the hands to guide your legs back together , then draw your knees into your chest and give them a squeeze .

Perhaps you rock the body from side to side and then lower the legs down onto the floor , extending them all the way out in front of you .

But leaving a little bit of a gap between the feet , turning the palms to face up and then one last breath in through the nose had a big sight to let it go .

We arrive in our final post corpse pose or where we find stillness in the body and just allow ourselves to be here with nowhere else that we need to go .

Nothing else that we need to do .

Just absorb all of the effort of our practice in stillness .

Any thoughts that come into the mind , just acknowledge them and let them go without running away , trying to solve for a reason and begin to bring some movement to the fingers and to the toes .

Stretching out the body , maybe reaching the arms over the head , take a full body stretch , bring your knees into your chest .

Squeeze them in tight , have a little rock from side to side .

And when you're ready just falling onto the right side of your body .

Taking a moment that a pause , keeping the eyes closed .

If you can gently press your way up to seat , it just ending the practice in the same way that we began finding a comfortable seat and gathering the hands to touch at the center of the chest .

Taking a moment to acknowledge the intention that you set at the beginning of the practice , thinking of that person or that thing that you love and offering the efforts of your practice to them .

Take a breath in through the nose , Messiah to let it go and then we'll close with the word Namaste , an offering of mutual respect between each of us , students and teachers alike .

Yes .