practice session 40 min

10.4. Practice Session: 40 min — Transcript (English)

Summary:

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Transcript

So we’re going to be starting here by bringing the feet a little bit wider than the hips with the part again.

The feet can be outsiders, the feet can be parallel to each other, or a little bit toes pointed away.

Interlock the fingers, hinge into the hips, bend into the knees, take a deep inhalation into the chest.

Exhale, pressing the palms forward, flex the upper spine with the knees stay bent here.

And on the inhalation, straighten through the arms, straighten through the legs, stretch up nice and high, and exhale forward and down.

Keep the knees bent if you need to here on the forward bend.

Bending the right knee and the inhalation, extending through the left leg, extend the arms up.

Bending the left knee, exhale down to the right side with that right leg straight.

On the inhalation, bending the left knee again, extending the arms out to the right side and up, and exhaling down to the left side.

Back to center, inhaling, stretch forward and up.

And if you’d like, you can come to the tiptoes here.

If you can balance, otherwise just stay flat to the heels, stretch up nice and high on the inhalation.

And then with the exhalation, release the arms and slowly lower the arms out and down to the side.

You coordinate the movement of the heels lowering down here at the same time if you’re on your toes.

When the arms get down, just let everything, that there’s a feeling like everything is just dropping downwards.

You come to neutral position, you let all tension go in between.

And also at the end, we’ll explore this a bit more.

This is neutral.

Interlock fingers opposite from before now.

Try to remember, bend the knees again here.

Take a deep inhalation into the chest, hinge into the hips, press forward on the exhalation.

Now, inhaling, press the arms forward and up, straighten through the knees here.

Stretch up nice and high.

On the exhalation, press forward and down.

Again, bend the knees if needed.

As we inhale, bend the left leg, arms extend out to the right, and circle up.

And on the exhalation, bend the right knee, left leg, left arms come down to the left.

And then bend the right knee inhaling, stretch up high, and bend the left knee exhaling down to center.

Now with the next inhalation, press the arms forward and up.

And again, choose your variation here, tiptoes or not.

Continue to inhale here if you can.

Make elongate the inhalation, Stretching up nice and high.

And as you start to exhale, slowly release the arms out and down to the side again, coordinating the movements of the heels dropping with the arms if you’re onto the toes.

Very slow movements here, actively lowering the arms out and down to the side.

Now once the arms get down here, you really want to let all residual tension go.

And if you feel comfortable, you can go ahead and even close the eyes here if you’d like to.

If you want to, you can keep the eyes open just a gradual gaze like down to the floor in front of you.

Pick a spot and don’t move the eyes from that spot.

We’re just trying to keep the contemplator part of this very internal.

So there’s not a necessity for a lot of analytical stuff going on here.

You just let everything go.

So these transitions here are about just letting any kind of energy dissipate.

And this also would have informed you on how you should maybe approach the practice as we go in now.

So again, take into consideration how you felt during the ignition and as we go in practice according to how you felt.

I know that maybe sounds ambiguous it’s different for everybody but this is our opportunity to just let things go and to tune into what is going to be most appropriate for you.

Now we’re going to bring the feet again hips width apart.

Outside edges of the feet are paralleled to each other again to start as usual looking down.

Shoulders draw down spread through the fingers first.

Back of the neck extends upward.

So there’s an opposition from the neck extending upward through to the soles of the feet, the slight force of the soles of the feet pressing downward as the fingers extend and press down too with the shoulders drawing down and with the neck extended.

You can even grip the heels slightly towards each other here to make it a little bit more active.

Slowly hinging to the knees.

Lift the weight over to the left leg with a left knee bent.

Step the right foot back.

Now turn the left foot in, facing to the side now.

Outside edges of the feet should be parallel to each other.

Your feet are wider than hips width apart.

Thinking how wide they are depends on your hip mobility.

Extend the arms up to the side, spread through the fingers.

Activate the fingers.

Draw the shoulders down.

Now activate the legs away from each other here.

And again, this distance of the legs is also important for the activation of the legs away from each other.

If it feels uncomfortable to do so, you might want to bring them closer together.

Drop that right heel back, turn the left foot forward.

The upper torso comes naturally with that movement forward.

The right hip also draws slightly in.

It’s all just on the position of the feet moving, all on the reality of the feet moving, I should say.

Activate the legs away from each other. hinge at the hips.

It’s almost as if you’re drawing that left hip down a bit and trying to keep the arms extended in a straight line.

And the left arm can maybe come in line with that knee or not or leg or not either way.

Activate the legs, bring it back up to center.

Outside edges of the feet now come parallel to each other again.

Lower the arms down. the left foot forward, stepping the right foot forward, hinging to the hips, both knees bent first as you straighten, again wiggle through the neck, draw the shoulders down, spread through the fingers, try to calibrate where there might have been any kind of tension or something that felt stuck before we go to the next side and then right knee bends, left leg steps back.

And as we do that, outside edges of the feet come parallel to each other again, gauge the distance of the legs.

We start by actively pressing the legs away from each other, then reach the arms up to the side, spread through the fingertips, draw the shoulders down.

The neck is neutral here.

Keep the legs active, keep the shoulders drawing down. keep the fingertips spreading and the back of the neck is extending.

Now turn the right foot forward, the left heel drops back.

So that position the hips naturally move forward and the upper torso with the arms naturally move forward.

So we’re not separating these movements and as we hinge you can almost think a little bit more of a hinge into that right hip.

Activate the legs as we lower down.

The arms stay straight.

Depending on one’s level of flexibility and mobility here, that right arm may be in line with that right leg.

Activate the legs as you come up.

Turn the right foot forward again, both feet pointing forward.

Activate the legs away from each other first.

Draw the shoulders down, spread through the fingers, and then lower the arms down.

Turn the right foot forward, stepping the left foot forward.

Again, feet come parallel to each other.

Straighten through the knees, draw the shoulders down, spread through the fingers.

Back of the neck extends upward.

Again, you can move the neck a bit here.

You can even grip the heels a little bit in towards each other here if you want to add something into the form to keep everything feeling active.

Now we’re going to take the feet a little bit wider than hips width apart again here and the feet can be a little bit pointing away from each other.

Just consider that parallel, we can work toward it, but if it feels better for you, point the toes slightly away from each other.

Now extend the arms forward as you hinge into the hips.

Counter the weight as you start to sink.

So we’re sinking, the hips go back you can see the arms are countering the movement of the hips and then we start to hinge.

As we hinge we come down, elbows connect to the insides of the knees.

The knees press into the outsides of the elbows and arms and the arms resist that as you draw the shoulders back and down.

The spine stays straight here no matter what, extend through the back of the neck.

Now if you have the mobility here you would do what Satakos is doing and drop the hips down and come into a deeper squat.

Otherwise you’re keeping the hips up as Ash is doing here.

It’s all about keeping the spine straight and the legs and arms actively opposing each other.

Continue to draw the shoulders down at the same time here the neck extends.

So all these combination of movements are keeping you quite active but at the same time no over activation.

The over activation will probably make you tired.

It’s already going to be challenging enough.

So we try to be mindful of that.

Slowly lowering the hips down.

If you can, just slowly lowering down.

You’d have to take your hands down, you could.

Slowly lowering the forearms down into our reclining transition.

Again, chest up, chin draws in.

We know the drill here.

Shoulders draw down.

Chest moves upward.

Balls of the feet extended, ankles extended, chin slightly in, and then bend the knees.

Soles of the feet come to the ground.

Right arm reaches forward, cups the right knee, left cups the left knee, hang back now.

So get that feeling of hanging first to stabilize.

And then tilt back and then you’re hanging in a tilt.

Still comfortable here.

Release the arms.

Leading from the shoulder here, we’re going to press the right palm forward and then the less palm forward continue to draw the shoulders down at that same time.

Next day’s neutral.

Now if you can you extend the knees all the way up, extend through the ankles, balls of the feet pressing forward and up.

Otherwise you keep your knees bent and you do the variation.

The most important thing here is that you feel like you can hold it and continue to work on all the other activities.

Shoulders, neck, micro movements, ankle extension, and so on.

Slowly now, lower down to the floor.

Arms come to the side of the body, knees can bend in towards the chest for a moment.

You can wiggle around from side to side onto the lower back.

If you feel like there might have been any tension to the lower back, you can give yourself a little bit of a massage there into the floor.

Now extend the legs up toward the ceiling.

Draw the shoulders continually down towards the hips, balls to the feet, pressing upward, ankles extended upward, spread through the fingers.

The arms should also be away from the side of the body here, not right beside the body, but sort of in a V shape away from the body. as you slowly lower the legs here, you want to lift back up.

Now you’re not going too far down here, so slowly and as you lower them, you continue to keep the legs active and then press forward and up.

So it’s not just lowering, I should say it’s press up, forward and down, actively shoulders drying down.

And legs press forward, up and back.

And they’re always active.

Bending the knees, just a few leg raises there.

And again, wiggle from side to side.

You want to sort of release up any kind of whatever, anything that felt stuck in the back if there anything was stuck.

Chin comes in towards the chest.

Now press both palms forward again, leading from the shoulders.

And then we’re allowing for the leg movement here actively as it comes forward.

You’re gonna see there’s a bit of a teeter-totter that goes on there and allows for the upper torso to come up naturally.

We’re trying not to use momentum here, but you have to give yourself a little bit of a swing.

It’s okay.

We’re working towards releasing that swing though and only coming up with a movement of the distribution of weight.

Balls of the feet extend and press forward, shoulders drawing down.

Now lift the sternum and chest directly upward.

Press the palms into the floor.

Shoulders draw down.

Squeeze the elbows to the sides of the body.

Extend the legs forward.

Sternum goes directly upward.

Back of the neck extends upward.

Even the calves can be slightly pressing into the ground here as you press the balls of the feet forward.

Some people with long arms may have to reach the hands back a little bit more or slightly forward and bend the elbows a bit, but you can adjust.

Now release that activity, cross the right leg over the left, roll forward, and come on to all fours.

Palms stack right underneath the shoulders, knees right underneath the hips, tiptoes down, pressing the palms forward and down, the tiptoes grip down and back.

The neck hanging just stays neutral here.

So the tip toes grip backward, the palms press forward, then you flex the upper spine.

The spinal flexion, the head just drops naturally.

But keep the activity of the hands and the tip toes actively pressing away from each other, and the shoulders continually draw back down towards the hips.

Getting a lot going on there, but just don’t let any of those things go throughout each form and then come back to neutral.

Knees together, sit onto the heels.

And now for some people here, you may want to, you may decide to have a towel wrapped up and to put underneath your ankles there. that you can also work with these oppositions.

The extended feet press to the floor and activate the ankle.

So the muscles are nice and active here.

And as we tilt back, keep those ankles nice and active.

It’s never passively just sitting onto the heels.

That’s what prevents the pain from coming to the ankles eventually as we strengthen those muscles.

Hanging back in our flexion first to start.

We’re going to cross the left arm under the right arm, and we’re moving the arms as far away from each other as possible in the opposite directions before we interlock.

And as we interlock, we pull the arms away from each other.

So where the arms are interlocked around the elbows, we’re trying to pull them apart now as we directly lift the sternum vertically upward.

And again, if the ankles start to feel a bit sore, continually flex the ankles.

You’re pressing the tops of the feet down to the floor as you pull the arms away from each other.

You can even bounce up a bit like Asha is doing there, just to continue to remind yourself that it shouldn’t just be a passive sitting onto the heels where the ankle is extended.

If you keep working that flexion, the ankle muscles will get stronger.

Actively pulling the arms away from each other and then try to move the elbows forward up a little bit more and then release flex the spine elbows come in towards the chest now move the arms away from each other first before you release and then leading out with the left hand or sorry with the right hand first sweep in a sweeping motion push the palms away from each other to the sides so again that movement is also originated from the shoulders as we release forward now left arm goes over right same thing as move them as far away from each other towards each other as possible, then interlock.

We’re still flexed here as we interlock initially.

I remember everything I was saying about the ankles before, I’ll just stop talking about that right now.

Now the arms pull away from each other here.

As the arms pull away from each other, let’s focus a little bit more on the arm and spine movement here.

The sternum is lifting upward, but as the arms pull away the shoulders do not hike to the ears.

The shoulders continue to draw down, but you’re trying to get the elbows higher.

And with that, if you want, you can even extend the elbows a little bit more forward to understand the feeling of the elbows lifting and the shoulders staying down.

At the same time, we’re trying to continually pull the arms away from each other.

Flex back now to release.

Elbows come in towards the chest first.

Now we’re gonna move the arms toward each other game first before we release.

We wanna make sure that they don’t just snap out And then we’re sweeping forward with one hand at a time.

Left in this case starts and then the right.

Out to the side.

And that sweeping motion again comes from the shoulder.

I’m releasing the hands down to the floor now.

Now we’re gonna come up onto the tiptoes now to counter.

So where some of you were allowing for a lot of pressure to go to the tops of the ankles, This is where we would counter any kind of discomfort or pressure.

I know this one kind of sucks for a lot of people, but you really do get used to it over time.

The more you get used to using the ankle flexion, the stronger the ankles become, and then it becomes more manageable to sit on the extended ankles for a while.

Plus it’s just also good for your ankles.

Now, tiptoes, from tiptoe position, we’re walking back.

And again, you’re taking your variation here.

Your knees are either gonna be bent with the heels off the floor, or the heels would be closer to the floor.

The main thing here is that the spine is straight and aligned with the arms.

And you’re continually pressing the palms of those hands forward.

The tiptoes and/or soles of the feet press backward.

The neck is completely neutral.

You’re not flaring the chest here.

You know, are you rounding the spine?

So if you feel your spine rounded, you need to bend the knees.

You need to bring the heels off the floor.

It means that you’re lacking in the mobility of flexibility.

And that’s not a bad thing.

We’re not focusing on that here.

We’re trying to get you just to get into the straight spine with control of the opposition of force between the hands and the legs and the feet.

Next day’s neutral.

No matter what version you’re in here, you can constant micro movement with the neck and even micro movement through the chest as well, through the fingers.

Now walk the legs back.

Palms stay directly underneath the shoulders.

Pressing the palms forward, tiptoes press back.

Again, this is a little bit of a tough one here.

And back.

Hips up, knees bent, tiptoe heels and/or flat and then down to the knees.

Now extend both legs back, lay flat onto the floor.

Both arms come to the side of the body and move a little bit away from your hips.

So again, this is kind of like a V shape.

The arms are not tugging in toward the side of the body, rather they’re extended out a little bit away from the body.

Now, as we start to lift the chest and sternum forward, press the balls of the feet back, draw the shoulders down as the chest and sternum move forward and then try to move from side to side.

And you can slowly start to bring the shoulder blades a little bit closer together.

Rather than thinking about the arms going up only, try to bring the shoulder blades together.

And as you undulate from side to side, you start to feel your abdominal wall stretch forward.

And the hips also extend and stretch back.

Keep the legs active, keep the ankles flexed, balls of the feet extending, move from side to side.

At the same time, you’re moving the sternum forward and up.

So you think the movement does originate from the sternum.

And then slowly as we lower, You’re still drawing that feeling of the arms pressing back, the balls of the feet pressing back as you lower.

You never just snap out and let it go.

Everything becomes active as you lower again.

And as you lower, you can move the hips from side to side a little bit here if you need to, if you felt there was any kind of tension or stress into lower back.

Now we’re gonna roll to the right side and we’re gonna slowly bring our legs forward, extend the legs forward, balls of the feet press forward, slowly lowering back down to the ground.

Chin stays in towards the chest as we do that.

Now we’re gonna extend that right foot, pressing ball the right foot forward presses up.

Leg comes straight up.

Take that right hand to the inside of that leg, right leg and the left hand goes to the top of that left hip.

It’s just to sort of understand that you should keep that left hip down.

Now offer an opposition here The left extended football presses forward.

Even though that right leg is lowering down, the hand is pressing into the leg.

At the same time, the leg is pressing up into the hand.

Even though it’s lowering down, you’re opposing that force.

And then lift back up to center.

Interlock the fingers behind the thigh or to the sides of the thigh.

Ball of the feet extends up.

Now lift the chest up and you can bend the elbows here.

And again, you don’t have to interlock behind the thigh if you can’t do it.

Or you can also reach up higher toward the calf.

Flex the upper spine as the ball of the foot presses up.

There’s no need to force this here.

The left extended leg also stays very active, pressing forward.

And don’t lift that left hip off the ground, whatever you do.

So you’re trying to gauge what’s more appropriate for you in terms of mobility, flexibility, strength, slowing, lowering down again.

Keep that right leg extended, the left leg extended.

The hands interlocked and then activate the ball that left foot.

One more time, we’re gonna flex up.

And then slowly release the arms out to the side, lower the head down.

Left leg comes up, balls to the feet, extend upward.

Now the right foot extends forward and down, extending nice and straight and down. those hips are nice and flat to the floor.

The outside of that left hand comes to the inside of that left thigh or knee, and the right hand comes onto the top of the right hip.

Now, opposing the movement, leg and arm oppose each other as the leg goes down to the side.

But don’t let the leg go so far down that the right hip lifts off the ground.

You have to be careful about that.

If you feel the right hip lifting, then it doesn’t go so far to the left side.

You don’t have to do what Asha and Satak are doing here.

It can only be just a bit.

Come back up to center, interlock again behind the legs, or just take the thighs on both sides.

You don’t have to interlock.

Right ball, the foot extends forward as you’re holding onto your leg.

You flex up.

Don’t think about pulling the back of the leg as much as it is flexing up toward the leg, and the hands are there just to keep it cupped and stable.

Chin stays in towards the chest, ball the left foot is extended upward, then we slowly lowering down once.

Keep that right leg extended, the left leg extended.

Legs stay active.

Shoulders draw down.

Flex again, come up.

Now release in the flexion.

Both legs come up.

Slowly lowering the legs forward, finding that tipping point if you can without tilting up with momentum into a balance, suspended.

Now our reclining transition, slowly lower the forearms down, balls of the feet extend, chest and sternum press upward, shoulders draw down, chin draws in towards the chest. the legs out wider than hips width apart again.

Not too wide here mind you.

Extend the balls of the feet forward and slowly lowering the legs down.

Legs stay active here shoulders continually drawing down.

Now press the right palm forward the left palm forward again the motion again originates from the shoulders, chin stays in towards the chest.

Flex now.

As you flex the arms come comfortably beside the body with the legs away from each other Now you’re going to extend the balls of the feet forward.

Now you might come deeper into a forward bend.

You may stay more upright.

The most important thing here is to keep the flexion dialed in, in the spine, and the legs active.

We’re not trying to go into a deep forward bend here.

We’re trying to keep the legs active as we flex to extend and control that movement so that it’s quite graceful and agile, the movement from flexion to extension, as we just did here. the shoulders continually draw down, the fingers stay lightly cupped, the back of the neck stays extended.

It’s all really controlled.

You should feel quite smooth throughout every part of the transition from one form to the next.

And this is where we have to work on gauging the intensity so that it works for you.

Legs stay active here, shoulders continually drawing down, fingertips also stay lightly cupped.

Back of the neck extends.

So as we know, everything’s constantly active.

Chin draw slightly to the chest as we flex the spine.

And then the movement is very considerate, slow here.

As you start to go back beyond the tipping point, activate the legs more so that they’re working more on the payroll for the movement.

And then slowly lower the forearms down, chest presses up, chin draws in towards the chest.

Now the knees go out away from each other here.

The soles of the feet come together in a kind of a diamond shape.

And then we allow for the outside edges of the feet to slowly lower down to the floor.

And the feet, the ankles are actually quite far from the pelvis here.

Again, one arm, the other, right arm comes forward, left arm comes forward, palms press forward again, movement originating from the shoulders.

Upper spine stays flexed initially. stays drawing slightly in.

Now the outside edges of the feet are pressing to the ground and forward here.

At the same time we’re going to flex the spine again.

The outside edges of the feet now pressing downward and forward continually as we flex forward and down.

Now again spine flexion and the activity of the feet is the most important thing here.

We don’t have to think about going so deep into the forward bend.

Keep the spine flexed, keep Keep the shoulders drawing down towards the chest, keep the back of the neck extended.

Outside as you defeat, continually push forward.

The fingertips just lightly onto the ground and then we go from our flexion to extension, graceful like the levering of that sternum forward and up.

It becomes a smooth straight line with the spine.

There’s no tension to the lower back and we continually press our feet into the floor and forward in this movement. continually draw back and down irrespective of where your hands are.

Keep those legs active.

It’s constantly working the hips here when we do that too.

You’ll feel that in the hips as you press the feet down to the floor and all the different positions that we do press the feet down to the floor.

They’ll have an effect on the hip joint complex in a big way.

Now draw the chin in towards the chest.

We’re going to flex the spine again.

We’re going to roll back.

Again, as we roll back, don’t tilt back too far.

Find that tipping spot, the tipping point, where you can naturally just suspend with the soles of the feet together, balls of the feet extend, lower to the forearms, extend through the knees, lift the sternum up, cross right leg over left.

Come to the knees or sit comfortably.

So go ahead and close the eyes here.

Recommended would be to close the eyes.

Turn the attention inward.

And we’re going to just start again to check out what happened with the body.

Let’s scan through.

We’re going to start again at the crown of the head, particularly noting tension.

Moving from the crown of the head through into the forehead.

There’s any tension there, release it.

Relax through the eyebrows, the eyelids, the eyes right through to the back of the eyes.

Relax through the cheeks, the mouth, the tongue, and the jaw.

Chill out the neck.

Make sure that that’s quite soft.

Move into the shoulder girdles.

Let the shoulder girdle area relax.

Again, chest area too, feels like there’s no tension there.

Particularly the area around the abdominal wall.

Check in to see where there might be some tension there.

And try to let the belly go completely soft.

And then moving down through the hips and through both legs, right through down to the tips of the toes.

And of course, there may always be some residual tension here, but as much as possible, we’re utilizing this time in the practice to tune into where there might be some tension and see if we can release it or at least start the process of that tension releasing.

Breathing now deeply into the chest, expand through the rib cage, feel the chest and collarbone move upward and outward.

And then exhale, long out through the mouth here, slow, long, deep exhalation out, emptying the lungs completely.

Another deep, long inhalation to the chest.

Yeah, kind of upward lift here.

And then slow, long exhalation out through the mouth, the bottom of the exhalation, you can feel the rib cage slightly contract pushing the last little a little bit of air out of the lungs, a slow deep inhalation to the chest again, slow, long exhalation out through the mouth, the hollow sound in the throat here as you exhale all the air out of the lungs, and another deep inhalation to the chest again, that hollow sound in the throat is still there, and exhale long out through the mouth, Emptying the lungs completely.

Another deep inhalation into the chest.

And exhale once more, long out through the mouth.

Emptying the lungs completely.

Another deep inhalation to the chest, make it a little bit softer this time. and exhale to relaxed breathing.

You wanna tune in here now to where there might have been some more tension came up in the duration of that little breathing practice and make sure to let all that tension go.

So we need to adjust or shuffle a bit, you can.

And what we’re trying to do is find the most still position to sit here now for the next couple of minutes, particularly noting tension that might come up through facial muscles, the brow, maybe through the abdominal wall as well.

Let everything go soft.

Slowly opening the eyes here.

And allow yourself to shuffle over to the side.

And we’re going to lie back.

Extend the arms out in front of you first as we’ve been doing throughout the session. ourselves to fall backward with weight of the arms countering that balance, slowly lowering to the floor, very slowly.

Balls of the feet, press forward, extending forward, bring the legs a little bit wider than your hips width apart and start to move from the base of the hips and the base of the shoulders, undulating a little bit, moving through the spine so that you can really traction the spine and get the pelvis nice and anchored to the floor.

Once you feel that everything’s nice and flat, turn your palms to face up and move the arms slightly away from the side of the body.

Keep the chin tucked into the chest as you lower the head slowly toward the ground.

Now what you wanna do is you wanna feel the upper part of the spine really extended as the chin stays to the chest and lower the back part of the head down to the ground.

Now you wanna feel a little bit of weight here to the back of the heels.

Back of the calves, back of the pelvis, back of the shoulders and shoulder blades, the elbows, forearms and back of the hands, and back of the head.

That weight with the eyes closed, ideally, could feel that weight of the body at those points just listed as if it kind of dissolves into the surface below you.

Eyes closed, breath calm, no tension in the body.

Slowly bring awareness back to the body.

Move your fingers and toes, ankles and wrists, extending the arms over top of the head with the deep inhalation in.

Extend through the legs, arms, upper torso and with the exhalation, let all tension go.

With the next inhalation, bend the knees up in towards the chest and allow on the exhalation for the whole body to roll over to the side, curled into a ball here.

And again, you want to feel that the weight of the body is connected to the surface below you.

It’s a very heavy, comfortable feeling.

Slowly, you can take both hands, press into the floor, and roll up sideways.

That concludes the session.