hey everyone and welcome to yoga with Adriene I'm Adriene and today on the pranayama series we are learning Lions breath this is supposed that I used to kind of resist and now I embrace which is why I'm sharing it with you today it's a wonderful breath or an opposed breath an opposed two-for-one here today that for me inspires requires even a little bit of silliness and just reminds you to let go of what other people think and for that reason I feel like it boosts confidence the the pranayama practice itself is great for relieving stress and boosts vitality kind of gets rid of negative emotions and stuff like that can also open up the throat chakra and relieve any stress or tension in the jaw or the neck if you suffer from TMJ anyway loads of benefits of this pose and this breath practice so let's hop on the mat and learn Lions pose all righty so to learn Lions breath today we're going to come into a seated posture on the knees so we have a couple options here you can kind of begin in Verona hero pose if this is not available to you then you're going to practice Lions breath in an easy cross-legged position today you can lift the hips on a blanket sit up on a block can't even practice this in a chair the focus of today is not on the pose but rather on the pranayama or the breath so just get comfortable I'm going to come to all fours though or rather come to my knees and I'm going to bring my two big toes together and that let the heels spread wide did a voiceover earlier this morning should be a nice and warm and articulate okay so knees are spilling out too big toes are kissing together and I'm letting the sit bones kind of that pelvic floor nestled in to the arches of my feet resisting the urge to say hail okay so pelvic floor nestling into the feet I'll bring the hands to the tops of the thighs here loop the shoulders forward up and back open the chest very important here so if you're in cross-legged just sit up nice and tall draw the shoulders away from the ears we'll take a deep breath in here and on an exhale spread the palms wide and press the palms down towards your knees so what i'm doing here is connecting palm to shoulder and really spreading the shoulder blades left to right becoming kind of active in the shoulder girdle and in the chest cool beans okay so for the breath i'm going to inhale in through the nose and for starters just exhale out through the mouth with a ha sound here we go so let's try it just like that again this time as you inhale lengthen up through the crown of the head and as you exhale really press through your fingers you can imagine these like a little lion's claws here as you press into the base of the palm ok so spread the palms wide inhale lengthen through the crown of the head exhale hah so as I'm pressing out through the palms and exhaling I'm drawing the shoulder blades down and really opening up through the chest just a little extra here so let's try that one more time inhaling and lengthen through the crown of the head and exhale out okay good so now adding a little lion I'm going to inhale in same thing this time on that exhale which is a strong ha sound as if you were fogging up a window and creating a little fog there this time I'm going to lengthen the tip of the tongue down towards the Earth keep lengthening through the crown of the head and as I send my tongue out and down I'm going to send my gaze up towards my third eye if you will so as many ways to practice this pose this is how we're going to learn it today we can kind of shift into different variations as we grow the breath practice so I inhale in and exhale practice tongue out gaze up guys we're going to keep going with this a couple of notes careful not to create any unnecessary tension in the neck and the shoulders that's why we practice by drawing the shoulders down away from the ears and broadening through the upper back body in the chest tongue again points down as you exhale gaze goes all the way up towards the third eye so this Drishti or this focus can also just be sent up towards the sky but in traditional practice and we can talk more about this Trish needs this and its relation to the Bundys or the locks on another day but for now this quick foundations and pranayama play with sending the gaze up towards the third eye here or just up towards the ceiling all right so we're going to practice five Lyons breasts in a row and just see what happens here ready here we go we inhale lengthen through the crown of the head exhale Lions breath tongue out close the eyes often through the eyelids inhale exhale spread the palms Lions breath tongue out inhale close the eyes and exhale Lions breath looking up and two more here we go last one now rest the palms on the tops of the thighs close your eyes and just notice how you feel relax your jaw then we'll bat the eyelashes open ao high on the breath okay so now adding another variation of the pose so that we can learn the breath in that we widen the knees another option here a little more Lions love for you so you can stay in cross-legged position if you already there otherwise we'll learn the second variation here bringing the knees wide and pressing the palms into the earth now I'll just take a second here to press away from the mat find that broadening through the chest then keep the chest open as you turn the fingertips inside inward in towards your body press into all ten knuckles again broadening through the upper back body just like we did before so there's a tendency to collapse here like we're chillin like villains so keep that integrity in the spine great here we go we're going to practice five lines breaths here this time pressing into the palms knees nice and wide opening through the throat okay here we go inhale lengthen through the crown the head exhale begin Lions breath tongue out close the eyes inhale and for these last two you might begin to find a little rotation in the pelvis so maybe I'll actually turn to the side here just so you can see that I wasn't really planning to teach all of this but you might as well get all the bang for your buck so to speak okay so practice with just two more broadening through the chest I'm just noticing now incorporating a little bit of tilt in the pelvis a little bit of spinal flex here as we open through the front body open through the throat chakra and find a gentle compression or massage in the back of the neck okay here you go - Lions breaths in a row and then we're done inhale in full body experience exhale Lions breath tongue out then we'll gently release palms walk forwards we walk the knees in towards Center we'll press up and out of the earth so we can curl the toes under little counter pose for the feet and then we out stretch it in front melting the heart to the air we breathe them in the soles of the feet and relax take a second here if you need to to rotate the wrists let me release okeydoke so that was Lyons pose you can incorporate this breath into your practice in any asana that feels good I invite you to you know find a little self-expression explore doing Lyons breath in downward dog explore doing Lyons breath perhaps in a Cobra or upward-facing dog or in sukhasana meditation pose check it out I mean for me again this pose is about kind of letting go what other people think it's a great way to kind of build confidence in your practice which hopefully will translate you know up off the mat as well I love you guys leave questions comments below I am incorporating a little bit of a hashtag because it's 2014 baby and with this pose if you want to get silly with me forget about what people think and just have some fun you can hashtag Lions breath ywa for yoga with Adriene and share with us your silly Lions breath face love you have a wonderful day visit us at yoga with Adriene comm for more free goodies namaste you