Episode 1 — Gentle Flow to Stillness

Namaste, welcome to Yoga & You. I am Rasika Sampath. Today we are going to be looking at the first of our four-part series called Moving Into Stillness. Now, why are yoga asanas actually practiced? Traditionally, yoga asanas are practiced in order to prepare the body to sit still in meditation for a long period of time. So we bend and move and stretch and twist and all of that in order to be able to sit comfortably for a long period of time. So we're moving from the gross body to the subtle body, Sthula Sharira to Sukshma Sharira. That is the traditional purpose of yoga asanas.

So in these four classes we are going to be looking at four different postures, four different seated postures which are commonly used for seated meditation practices, and we will try and prepare the body, open up the joints and the muscles that are required to be able to sit in these postures for a long period of time. At the end of each of these classes we'll do a short meditation, which of course you can prolong for as long as you would like to.

So the first class that we're going to do will be approaching Siddhasana and Sukhasana. So we'll look at two seated postures which are pretty similar. For this we will be working on opening out into the hips, reducing any tightness in the hips, the ankles, and the knees — so your joints, basically — and we'll also be working on strengthening the back.

All right, so let's get started. Let's start in child's pose. Sit on your heels, extend your hands forward in front of you, and rest your full head on the mat. So we're just using this time to set an intention for our practice. Your intention could be to have your focus on your breath throughout your practice, and anytime you feel that you're lost in thought, recognize it and bring your awareness back to the breath. Let's take a couple more breaths here in child's pose. Good.

Now inhale and come up into your tabletop position. So you'll be on your hands and knees, your wrists under your shoulders, knees under your hips. We'll take about five rounds of cat and cow. Inhale, arch your back as you dip the chest down, lift your chin, lift your tailbone. Exhale, push the mat away from you, round your spine, and pull the belly in. Inhale, arch the back. Exhale, rounding the spine. Great practice to articulate the spine. Inhale, exhale, two more just like this. Inhale, exhale. Last one. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, come back to a neutral spine position.

Tuck your toes and exhale, find your way into downward facing dog. Now if this is your first downward dog for the day or for this practice, you can bend your knees so that you're not tensing the hamstrings. You can bring the chest close to your thighs, and if you feel comfortable here you can straighten your knees and drive the heels down towards the mat. Gaze in between your legs and stay here. Take a nice big breath in. Big breath out.

Now from here, inhale and lift the right leg up to the sky into a three-legged dog. Keep the hips squared, don't open the hips out just yet. Exhale, now bend the knee and now open your hips, so you're stacking the right hip over the left. Stay here for a breath. Inhale, and as you exhale, square the hips first and then bring your right ankle over the left knee. You can bend the left knee slightly if you're not comfortable doing it with straight knees. Flex your right foot so you're protecting the knee joint, and push the right knee away from you. You're in this figure-of-four-like position.

Inhale here, exhale, and bring the left knee down onto the mat. So you're still in this figure-of-four position, and from here we will take three rounds of cat and cow. Inhale, arch the back. Exhale, push away, round your spine. Inhale, arch. Exhale, round. One last time. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, find a neutral spine, and exhale, tuck your left toes and get back into this downward dog with the figure-of-four position. Slowly release your right leg. Come back to downward dog. Take a nice big breath in. Big breath out. Good.

We'll do the same on the other side now. Inhale, and lift the left leg up. Three-legged dog. Keep the hip square. Exhale, bend the knee and open the hip. This time you're stacking your left hip over the right. Take a big breath here. Inhale, exhale for square hips, and then bring the left ankle over the right knee this time. Keep pushing the left knee away from you. So you feel that opening across the hip, the left hip here. We're working on all the muscles that are required for external rotation of the hips.

Inhale, exhale, drop the right knee down, coming back to the stable, tabletop figure-of-four position. Three cats and cows here. Inhale, arch the back. Exhale, round and curl. Inhale, arch. Exhale, round. Inhale, arch. Exhale, round. Inhale, find your neutral spine. Tuck your right toes and exhale, lift up into your downward facing dog. Release your left leg down. Beautiful. Take a nice big breath in. Big breath out.

We'll work a little more on the hips now. Now on the next inhale, step your right leg to the outside of your right hand. Now if that's not happening, if your leg is not going all the way forward, if it's somewhere here, no problem — you use the same hand and bring that left leg to the outside of your right hand. Good. Now from here, you can drop your left knee down. Use your right hand and push the right knee away from you. You really feel an opening in your outer hip on the right side. Push it as much as you can till you feel that sensation. Stay for three, two, and one.

Come back to center. Heel-toe your right foot over towards the left side of the mat and drop your shin down, almost parallel to the top of your mat. Drop your hips down. This is Eka Pada Rajakapotasana, or Pigeon pose. Now if your hips don't come all the way down, which is quite likely to happen, you can slide a cushion or a blanket or something under your right hip. All right, from here we'll stay upright, so you can try to bring your hands back towards your hips so that your spine sits up nice and tall. Engage your core. Stay for five, four, three, two, and one. Beautiful.

Bring your hands in front. Slowly pick up the right leg and send it back into a three-legged dog. So you want to lift that right leg back up, and exhale, downward facing dog, Adho Mukha Svanasana. Take a big breath in. Big breath out.

Let's do the same on the other side. Inhale, and step the left leg to the outside of your left hand. Drop the right knee down. Use your left hand to push the left knee away from you. You can come onto the blade edge of your left foot, so you feel a little more of an opening on the hip. Stay for another four, three, two, and one. Come back to center. Heel-toe your left foot towards the right side of your mat and bring your shin down. See how parallel you can bring it to the top of your mat, and then slide that right leg back as you sit your hips down.

Eka Pada Rajakapotasana. Stay upright. Five, breathe deeply. Four, three — you should feel an opening in the outer hip on the left side. Two and one. Bring your hands down. Slowly pick yourself up. Take the right leg all the way back into your three-legged dog. Exhale, downward facing dog. Beautiful. Another big breath in. Big breath out.

Now inhale and shift forward into plank pose, shoulders over your wrists, and as you exhale, come down slowly with control to your belly. You can drop your knees also if you want. All the way down. Lovely. Now with your forehead down on the mat, we're going to come up into Cobra, Bhujangasana. Hands by the side of your chest. Inhale, begin to lift the head up, chest up. Then, using your hands but keeping the elbows close to your body, lift yourself up into Bhujangasana. Stay for five, four, three, two, one. Exhale and release all the way down.

Hands by the side of your body, palms facing down. We're going to do Shalabhasana. On the inhale, lift your head up, chest up, hands up, legs up — everything lifts, only your abdomen remains down. Stay here for five, four, three, two, and one. Slowly release.

Now it's very important in these backbend postures to not cramp your cervical spine. That also relates to the meditative seated posture — what is very important is the alignment of your spine. When you take these backbends, make sure that you're not cranking up — I see this a lot in a lot of my students, they crank up their neck like so — that will land up not extending the spine enough. You want to keep the neck neutral with the rest of your spine.

With the hands by the side of your chest, try to press up into plank. It's challenging, but try to do it — you can place your knees down and do it also. So you can tuck your toes, engage the core so that you draw the navel in, find that engagement, and push yourself up into plank pose. Exhale, downward facing dog, Adho Mukha Svanasana. Inhale. Exhale. Good.

Now slowly let's step the legs to the front of your mat. Inhale, find a flat-back position. Now is when you will need your blocks, so make sure — if you don't have yoga blocks, you can use hardbound books or anything that resembles blocks, anything that's stable and of equal height. So you can place your blocks in front of you at whatever height allows you to come into a flat-back position. So you want to imagine that there is a teacup placed on your back and you're not supposed to spill it. So your spine is flat, your crown of the head is reaching forward, and the sitting bones are going back. So coming to that flat-back position, from here squeeze the inner thighs together and turn them towards the back. Imagine you're pushing it against an imaginary wall at the back. As you do that, you will notice the sacrum and the hips opening up.

All right, from here what we're going to do is take your hands in front of you, biceps by the ears. Inhale and come all the way up. Exhale, come back to that half flat-back position. Inhale all the way back up. Exhale back to that flat-back position.

And then, if that was comfortable for you, we're going to use blocks. If that was a lot for you, continue with that without using the blocks. If that was reasonably comfortable, what you're going to do is take a block in between your hands, extend the block ahead in front of you, and we'll do the same thing with the block. Okay, so we'll do this about eight to ten times. Keep going.

What we're doing with this exercise is working on some very important muscles in your spine, namely the multifidus and erector spinae muscles, which help keep you upright. Along with that, we're also working on the hamstrings, the glutes — all very important muscles in order to help you sit for a long period of time. So we will do this exercise in every class in this four-part series.

All right, if you're done with your eight to ten of these, you can release the blocks, keep them off to the side. If you're familiar with vinyasa, you can take a vinyasa here, otherwise come straight to downward facing dog. All right, inhale, sweep your arms up. Exhale, forward fold, Uttanasana. Inhale to a flat-back position. Exhale, you can step back into plank and take your vinyasa here, if not go straight to downward dog. If you're taking the vinyasa from plank, exhale into Chaturanga. Inhale, Urdhva Mukha Svanasana, up dog. Exhale, Adho Mukha Svanasana, downward facing dog. Big breath in. Big breath out.

Now inhale and step the right leg forward in between your hands. Come up, windmill your hands into Warrior 2, Virabhadrasana B, bending into the right knee and looking ahead of your right middle finger. Stay, draw the navel in and up. Two, three, four, and five. Now inhale, straighten the leg and face the long side of the mat — I'm going to turn this way so that you can see me. You want to face the long side of your mat, turn your heels in, toes out.

From here we're going to get into Goddess pose. So on the exhale, bend both your knees, sitting your hips nice and low. Slide your hands down your thighs so that it reaches towards your knees, and from here we'll take a little twist. So inhale as you lengthen your spine — drive down into your hands, lengthen your spine. Exhale, bring the right shoulder to the midline as you push the right knee away from you. Inhale back to center. Exhale, switch sides. Inhale back to center. Exhale, straighten the legs, driving down through the heels.

We'll do the same on the other side. Virabhadrasana B — so we were doing the right side, now we'll do the left side. So bend the left knee, bring your right heel down into a 45-degree angle, and open the arms out wide for warrior. Spread your collarbones wide. Stay for five, four, three, two, one. Drive down through the heels. Come up, hands on your hips as you parallel both your feet. So slight internal rotation of the thighs is recommended — you want to think of drawing the thighs inwards so that you get your feet into a parallel position.

Okay, with your hands on your hips, inhale, lengthen your spine, and exhale, come down halfway. So you want to hinge from the hips and come down halfway. Now again you will need your blocks, so you can bring your block in front of you at whatever height, find this flat-back position that we did in our forward fold. And from here we will do the same action, going up and down. If you're comfortable doing it with the blocks, please take your blocks, extend it out in front of you, biceps by the ears. Inhale up, exhale down. We'll just do three of these. Inhale, exhale down. Inhale up, exhale down. Beautiful. Keep the block off to the side.

And from here, just walk your hands to the front of your mat and step the left leg back into downward facing dog. Big breath in, big breath out. Lovely. You can bring your knees down and we'll take a couple of seated postures before we move into the seated meditation.

All right, the first one will be Upavistha Konasana. So you want to spread your legs out wide into a nice wide beat, as much as it's comfortable for you. We're working on the inner thighs and the inner groin here. Make sure you have an anterior tilt of the pelvis, which means that you want to think of pushing the butt back and bringing the chest forward. All right, from here, begin to walk your hands to the front — keep walking, walking, walking. The idea is to bring the chest and the chin down and not the forehead down, so it's okay even if you're just here on your forearms, it's okay even if you're just here trying to find length. Whatever works for you, whatever gives you the sensation in your inner thighs — we're looking for sensation, not aesthetics here.

All right, so get into the posture and stay here for another three, two — breathe deeply — and one. Lovely. Slowly walk your hands back.

Now we're going to come to Janu Sirsasana. Bend the right knee, bringing the sole of your right foot against your left inner thigh. Face the left leg. Inhale, lengthen your spine, lift your hands up. Exhale, fold over your left leg, trying to bring your chin to your shin. Stay, keep the spine long. Notice any sensation that you might feel in your right side lower back. Breathe. So another three, two, one. Inhale, lift the hands up.

Exhale and release your hands down, and switch sides — so you can extend the right leg out, bend the left knee, bringing the sole of the left foot against the right inner thigh. Inhale, lift the hands, lengthen your spine. Exhale, fold over your right leg, hold the farthest part of your right leg that you can and use that to kind of pull yourself forward. Stay here for five, four, three, two, one. Inhale, lift the hands up. Exhale and release your hands. Lovely.

So now we have prepped the body for Siddhasana and Sukhasana. I will show you both the postures and then you can choose the one that is more comfortable for you for your seated meditation practice. Siddhasana and Sukhasana — I'll show you both.

Siddhasana — for Siddhasana you bend the left leg, or the right if you're more comfortable with it. Bring the heel to the groin, so ideally to the perineum, so the heel is looking up and the top of your foot is down. Then you'll bend the right leg and bring your right heel right in front of your left heel — again the top of your right foot is down. So your legs are nice and wide, you have a nice broad base to sit for meditation. I really love to use a slight height and a cushioning for all my meditation practices, in fact, but especially in this posture — Siddhasana being my favorite.

So if you have a blanket or a cushion, you can slide that under your hips so you get a little bit of an elevation. If you find your back very rounded, and if you find it difficult to sit on the floor with your spine upright, you can elevate it a little bit more — so you can use a block, maybe have a blanket, cover it so that it's a little cushiony, and sit on top of that and come into the same position. So the left leg in with the heel pointing up, and then the right leg in with the heel right in front of the left heel — so this is your Siddhasana position.

Sukhasana is where you're crossing the shins — it's your cross-legged position. So you can cross any one shin in front of the other, you can lower down — I prefer to lower down for this one, just probably using the blanket. But don't pull the heel in towards the groin, try to keep the shins a little away from your body, and this is your Sukhasana.

So choose one of the postures which is comfortable, play around with both and whichever is comfortable for you, please come into it. I'm going to take Siddhasana and take some time to find the right alignment of your spine in this position. So you want to feel for the sitting bones rooting downwards towards the mat and the crown of your head shooting up towards the sky. So you want to feel your spine nice and tall. Relax the shoulders down away from your ears. Soften the muscles in your face. Soften the jaw. You can either close your eyes or find a soft gaze in front of you. Your palms can be open, maybe in a mudra of your choice, or they can be pointing down for a more grounding feeling.

Now this first practice that we're going to do is a very simple one — we're going to use counts for our breaths. It's a very simple but very effective practice. So what we're going to do is count with our breath from one to ten. So as you inhale and puff up into the belly and the chest, count one with the voice inside your head. As you exhale, count two. Inhale, three. Exhale, four. Go on like this at your own pace until you reach ten. Once you're done with ten, start again from one.

What tends to happen here most often is that in the middle of your count you may lose your count, in which case, without any judgment, bring your awareness back to your breath and start again from one. If you count past ten again, without being harsh to yourself, start again from one. Every time you recognize and acknowledge the mind running away, it gives you an opportunity to sort of come back into this present moment and start again from one.

So this exercise is a great one to improve your present-moment awareness, and it's also a great practice to test the quality of your mind — how long can you hold a thought anchored in the breath? So continue this practice, continue this counting from one to ten and then back from one, for as long as you can, as long as you have.

I'll see you in the next class, where we will work on Vajrasana. Thank you.