- Hello, everyone. Welcome to Yoga With Adriene.
I'm Adriene, and Benji's over here, laying at my side,
and we have a super quick 10 minute yoga basics.
So this is perfect for the complete beginner.
This is gonna set you up to grow your practice,
and make you feel like you kind of know what you're doing,
which you do, and I'm here to help.
So hop into something comfy,
grab a blanket or a towel if you have one,
and let's get started.
(upbeat music)
Alrighty, let's begin in a cross-legged seat.
So come on down to the ground.
If you brought a blanket or a towel,
I will invite you to fold it up a couple times
to give yourself some lift.
Okay, and don't be afraid to really give yourself
some height,
because that's gonna help us sit up
taller with more ease.
It's gonna help us kind of
come into this comfortable seated position.
You hear people (chuckles) talk about in yoga,
and really when we can get the hips up above the knees,
instead of the knees really hiked up above the hips,
we can start to find length in the spine,
and that posture that we are here to explore.
So give yourself a little lift.
And when you've settled into your seat
for today's quick practice,
relax the shoulders, and just take a second here
if you feel comfortable to close your eyes,
and sit up as tall as you can.
And know that this time is already valuable.
So you don't have to nail the seated posture.
If your knees are hiked up,
if your tips are high, or your tips,
if your hips are high (chuckles),
your low back is tight, just know you are not alone,
but we have to start somewhere.
And a good 10-minute practice
is an excellent place to begin.
So close your eyes.
Accept where you are today,
and thank you so much for being here.
Take a deep breath in through your nose, nice and easy.
And a long exhale out through your nose or mouth.
You can totally choose.
Just move intuitively here with your breath,
inhaling in deeply.
And exhaling out through the nose or the mouth, your choice.
And again, deep breath in.
And long breath out.
And one more time, deepest breath you've taken all day,
deep breath.
In, and out.
Nice, now continue to breathe deeply.
You don't have to match those big inhales and big exhales,
but whatever it means to you,
you wanna just keep an awareness of your breath.
So don't let it drop back
into that unconscious breathing pattern
that we often move throughout our day in.
Best you can, allow your yoga practice
to be about conscious breath,
this constant, even if it's small,
awareness of how you're breathing.
If you keep that up, you're gonna have a beautiful practice.
Alright, so hands come together next,
palms at the chest or the heart space.
We call this Anjali Mudra,
and we'll just drop the chin to the chest here.
And there is a moment to kind of connect to
your heart space or your emotional well-being.
And if that's not really why you're here,
or that doesn't feel comfortable for you,
just enjoy this awesome stretch in the back of the neck.
Yes, and if you're like me,
I'm like, "I'll take both." (laughs)
Can just take a quiet moment here.
And then slowly lift your chest up towards your thumbs,
and just see if that allows you to sit up a little taller,
longer through the spine. If not, that's okay.
And we'll take one more quiet moment here.
Just finding stillness,
and expanding our awareness of our breath,
how we're breathing.
And you can take in any sounds that you hear around you,
and start to notice how you're feeling today.
This time on the mat,
yoga is actually not about accomplishing
kind of what you think yoga's supposed to look like,
or feel like, it really is all about you being honest
with your experience,
and taking in your surroundings.
Becoming more present with what is.
Let's take a deep breath in to transition here together,
inhale.
And exhale to open your eyes, release the hands,
and we're just gonna bring the fingertips to your sides.
So we're about to come to all fours.
So sit up nice and tall,
draw your navel in and up.
And inhale, reach the arms all the way up and overhead,
fingertips kiss together,
or they can just reach up towards the sky.
Get long, long, long through your side waist,
and think about drawing energy up
from the base of the pelvis,
just whatever that means to you,
and see if that kind of changes
the way you embody this shape.
Good, then inhale.
If it's all right with the neck, look up,
and then exhale, float the fingertips down.
We'll do that twice more, but a little faster.
Inhale, reach up, big breath, big stretch.
Long side body, engage,
lift from the pelvic floor, just play.
And then exhale, float it down.
Last time, inhale, reach, lift.
See if you can lift the muscles
of the pelvic floor a little. Reach, reach, reach,
find that support from within.
And then exhale, float it down.
Awesome, come forward.
We're gonna come to all fours.
We're gonna use that blanket or towel if you brought one
for a little padding on the knees.
Take your time transitioning.
If I'm ever moving a little faster
than your body wants to move, obviously listen to your body,
and really celebrate that relationship
that you're honing in on here with the yoga practice.
Knees come underneath the hip points,
so we're stacking the bones always from the ground up,
and wrists come underneath the shoulders, same thing.
Spread your fingertips wide.
Really feel that stretch.
And then just allow your front body,
the weight of your body to collapse down
here into the earth, just like me here.
So just let it all hang.
Now we're gonna start with the feet,
press into the tops of the feet.
Press, just imagine pressing into the shins,
and then start to lift your belly up,
and lengthen your lower back.
If you're curious as to what I'm talking about exactly,
you can peek at me. I'm gonna go from here
in this state of just kind of collapse
to engaging, bringing awareness to lengthen my low back.
Now, draw your navel up,
send your chest up towards the ceiling.
Feel your shoulder blades kind of move left to right,
broadening through the upper back.
And then the last bit is to press into the hands,
and remember that your neck is an extension of the spine.
So your neck might be hanging here like this.
You wanna lift and lengthen
through the crown of your head forward,
so that now you have this beautiful line
from the crown of the head to the tip of the tailbone.
Great, Tabletop Position.
Drop the belly now all the way.
Open the chest, look forward, Cow Pose.
Exhale, round through the spine, chin to chest, Cat.
Again, drop the belly, open the heart forward.
Exhale, round through the spine.
Twice more, nice and slow.
Moving the spine,
but starting to really work on this strong foundation,
this base that you're gonna continue to build,
and grow your practice from.
Great, come back to that Tabletop Position.
So nice neutral spine.
Then nice and slow, we're gonna send the right heel out,
straighten the right leg to just stretch
through that right leg, right foot.
Then you're gonna step the right foot all the way forward.
And it may take a couple steps to get it all the way up,
so that you're in a nice low lunge.
From here, we're gonna make sure the right knee
is over the right ankle.
Again, always looking to stack the bones from the ground up.
Then right hand comes to the top of the right thigh.
We're gonna press into the back foot firmly
as our foundation.
Find that lift from the pelvic floor
that we did in cross-legged and
reach your left fingertips up towards the sky
for a little modified low lunge.
Inhale in deeply here. You can lift the chest.
Find length through the crown of the head.
And then exhale, release.
Hands come to the ground.
We'll bring the right knee all the way back
to the mat or the blanket.
And we're gonna just do the same thing on the other side.
So send the left heel back, stretch, stretch, stretch.
Work that left foot all the way up.
Come into a nice low lunge,
front knee over front ankle, toes pointing forward.
Here we go.
Left hand to the top of the left thigh.
Inhale, reach the right fingertips forward, up and back.
We're pressing into that right foot for stability.
We're lifting up from the pelvic floor.
Inhale, big stretch.
And exhale to release.
Hands come to the mat.
We'll bring the knees back down.
We're gonna end in an Extended Child's Pose here today.
So walk the knees wide, toes come together.
Inhale to look forward, and exhale to melt the hips back.
And this is going to be your final posture
for this practice today.
So allow the weight of your head to come down to the earth.
Allow the heart to melt,
and take three deep breaths in and out.
Maybe closing your eyes.
Inhaling deeply.
And exhaling completely.
Softening the belly.
As we open the hips here, reaching the fingertips forward
as we invite the shoulders to open,
the heart to melt.
Take one last breath in.
And exhale to release.
Beautiful work.
The hardest part is showing up.
And thank you for being here today.
See you soon, Namaste.
(upbeat music)