Episode 2 — Balance & Release

Namaste, welcome to Yoga & You. This is the second class from the Moving Into Stillness series. We looked at Siddhasana and Sukhasana in the first class. Today's class we will be looking at Vajrasana and how to prepare the body in order to sit comfortably in Vajrasana for a long period of time. As we did in the previous class, we will end the class with a small meditation. Now, Vajrasana itself is a great posture which has a lot of health benefits, but I am not going to get into that now. For the sake of today's class, we are only focusing on how to work the muscles and work on the stability of the joints, namely the hips, the knees, and the ankles, and also strengthening the back in order to be able to sit comfortably in this posture for a long period of time. All right, so let's get started.

So for today's practice we need a couple of blocks. If you don't have blocks, you can use hardbound books, and you'll also need a blanket for your seated meditation in Vajrasana.

We'll start in child's pose, so sit on your heels, spread your knees apart slightly, extend your hands forward, and drop your forehead down to the mat. Great place to become still and set your intention for your practice. Let your intention be to focus on your breath throughout your practice today.

Take another breath in, exhale, inhale, and come up into a tabletop position. Shoulders over your wrists, exhale, tuck your toes, and get into your downward-facing dog, Adho Mukha Svanasana. So first, in down dog for this practice, you can bend your knees, get a little comfortable here, assess the state of your hamstrings, and then you can slowly begin to straighten your legs if you feel all right.

From here we're going to work on a little bit of spinal articulation. As you inhale, shift forward into plank, so you're really going to round your spine, come forward into plank. Once you get into plank, exhale, drop your knees down so you're back into the stable tabletop position. As you do that, again move your hips back and lift up for downward-facing dog, okay. So think of moving like a wave, articulating your spine — inhale to plank, exhale bring your knees down, push the hips back and lift up for downward dog. Let's do that about three more times: inhale to plank, exhale, drop the knees, push the hips back and up on your own, inhale, exhale, last one, inhale.

This time, come all the way down to your belly with as much control as you can. Go ahead and, on the mat, let's come up into Sphinx pose — bring your forearms down, your elbows right under your shoulders, and lift your chest up. Spread your collarbones apart and think of taking the shoulders towards the back, opening the front of your chest. You'll feel this in your back, especially the lower back, and you'll also feel this in the front body — it's a front-body stretch and a back-body strengthener, and we're going to continue to work on stretching out the front of our body, which is what we need for Vajrasana, right. Finish your exhalation here, and then now we'll start with Bhekasana.

So you're going to bend your right leg, bringing the heel towards your butt. Reach back with your right hand to the inner arch of your foot and pull the heel down towards your butt. Now, if you have the mobility in your shoulders, you can turn the fingers around to point towards the front of your mat, so your fingers and your toes are pointing in the same direction. We'll stay here — relax the quad, that is the top of your thigh, and push the heel further down as much as you can, stretching into the thighs, the hip flexors, the knees, the ankle, everything here. For another three, two, and one, gently release the leg.

That's one side — now bend the left knee, reach back for the inside of your left foot with your left hand, and pull the heel in towards the butt. If you're able to turn the fingers around, do so, and we'll stay here for five. Relax the quad, don't constrict it, two and one, gently release the leg.

Come all the way back down, bring your forehead to the mat. Lift up into cobra — keep the tops of your feet down, engage your glutes, and with the hands by the side of your chest, inhale, lift up, Bhujangasana. Stay here for five, four, three, two, one, exhale and down.

Shalabhasana — bring your hands by the side of your body, palms down. Inhale and lift everything up: head up, chest up, hands up, legs up. Five, four, three, two — keep the neck neutral — one, exhale and down.

Bring the hands by the side of your chest, try to press up into plank — it requires a lot of strength to do so, try to do it. Work your toes, engage your core, and lift yourself up into plank. Exhale, downward. Exhale. Inhale, exhale.

Now inhale and step the right leg to the front of your mat. Drop the back knee down, and we're going to get into a little bit of a lunge here. Now usually for lunges we are always recommended to keep the knee right over the ankle, but for today I want you to bring the knee ahead of the ankle — we're working a little bit on the mobility of the ankles here. So keep the knee ahead of your ankle, and if you can, bring your hands to your hips; you can also lift your hands up, and we'll stay here for another three, two, one — bring your hands down.

Now tuck your back toes and slowly start to straighten your right leg, so you'll come into this Ardha Hanumanasana, half-splits position. You can stay right here, or you can continue to go back and sit on your left heel. From here, inhale, lengthen your spine forward, and exhale, try to fold over your right shin. You'll feel an intense stretch in your hamstring — stay with it, breathe into it for five, four, three, two, and one. Inhale and bend your knee again, bring your hands down, exhale, take your right leg back into downward-facing dog. Notice how that feels — take a big breath in, big breath out.

We'll do the same on the other side. Inhale, step the left leg forward, drop the back knee down, and take your knee ahead of your ankle. You can stay right here, you can even use blocks under your hands, or you can bring your hands to your hips, or you can lift them up — staying for another three, two, one, exhale, bring your hands down and straighten your left leg. Coming into your Ardha Hanumanasana position, half splits, and then if you're comfortable, you can tuck your back toes and sit back on your right heel. Inhale, lengthen your spine, and exhale, fold over the left leg, staying for five, four, three, two, and one. Inhale, lengthen your spine, bend the left knee, plant your palms down, and step the left leg back into downward-facing dog. Take a big breath in, big breath out.

Now slowly let's begin to walk the legs forward — you can take baby steps all the way to the front of your mat. Flat on your back now, we're going to grab blocks. We did the same exercise in the previous class as well, where I've also explained the benefits of doing it, so you can refer to that video if you'd like to know why we're doing this posture. Okay, so you want to feel for squeezing the inner thighs together and back, feeling that space in your sacrum and your hips.

From here, take your hands out in front of you, by your ears. Now, if you've done the previous class and you're comfortable using the blocks, you can take the block and bring it all the way ahead — inhale, you'll come all the way up, exhale, halfway down, inhale up, exhale halfway down, inhale, exhale — we'll do that a few more times. Now you can do it for much more, you can do it for up to say ten times.

From here, drop the blocks down and come up to standing. We'll take a standing balance here — you're again going to stretch into the front of the leg. All right, so we'll start with the right leg coming up: shift the weight over towards the left side, fix your gaze at a steady point in front of you which is not moving, and bend your right leg, bringing the heel towards your butt. Okay, this is like a modified Natarajasana — you'll grab your right foot or your right ankle with your right hand; if this is comfortable, try to hold it with both your hands and push the heel into your butt. As you do that, your right knee will want to lift up, but don't arch your back — keep the core in and feel the stretch in your quads for five, four, three, two, one, gently release the leg.

Do the same on the other side: shift your weight to the right leg, fix your gaze, your drishti, bring the left leg up, hold with the left hand first — if you can hold with both your hands, press the heel into the butt. As the left knee begins to lift, feel the stretch in the quads and stay here for five, four — core engaged — three, two, and one, gently release the leg.

Okay, from here we're going to come down to a kneeling position, preparing for finally Vajrasana. Now inhale, shift the heels up so you're on your toes, exhale, start to bend the knees, and come all the way down sitting on your heels. Okay, from here, slowly, without banging it down, drop your knees very gently down to the mat. Okay, from here lift the hips up so that they're right over your knees, and from here we're going to take some quad-strengthening exercises. You can bring your hands to your heart, and what you're going to do is lean back towards your heels as much as you can — the minute you feel your thighs catching, you feel a contraction in your thighs, you'll come back. All right, so inhale as you go back, and you feel the thighs begin to catch, exhale and back. We'll do that five times: inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, two more times, last one, good. Now you can release — release your toes and sit on your heels; this is actually a Vajrasana position.

We'll take one final stretch for the ankles here and then we'll get into our seated meditation. So you can take your hands just slightly behind your hips and lift both knees up — so even if it just goes a few millimeters off the mat, it's fine. What you want is to feel the stretch in the front of your ankles here. You'll stay there for five — don't sink the weight down into your hands, okay, your hands are just there to support. You can even release and place the hands on your heart. Two and one, gently release.

Okay, now we can prepare for our final seated meditation in Vajrasana. I would really recommend you to have a block, even a couple of blocks, for your seated meditation; I would highly recommend a blanket or a cushion, and maybe a block or two even. What I would really like to do is cushion up my knees and the fronts of my ankles, because usually when you sit in Vajrasana for a long period of time, it's these areas that start to feel very uncomfortable. So we're going to eliminate that by sitting on a blanket, a folded-up blanket. Now, if you lack the flexibility in your thighs or your ankles and you feel like it's a lot for you, you can sit on a block.

Okay, so I'm just going to turn around and show you how to place the block. Place the block at whatever height in between your ankles, and you will sit on the block like so. Okay, if you're not using the block, you will bring the feet together and sit with the feet slightly crossed, your spine will be tall, and your hands will be on your knees. Okay, so you take the variation of your choice — please be comfortable. The whole idea of sitting in a posture for your meditation practice is that you're very comfortable in the position; that is the main priority. So make yourself as comfortable as you can.

So with the props aligned however you wanted to, hands on your knees, spine straight, let's settle in for our meditation practice. Gently close your eyes or find a soft gaze in front of you and just observe how your body is. Observe the shoulders — if you feel some tension there, just drop them down away from the ears. Notice if you are scrunching up the forehead or clenching the jaw; if so, soften the facial muscles. Lengthen the spine, so feel the sitting bones pressing down into the heels and the crown of your head reaching up towards the ceiling.

Now start to bring your attention to the breath. In today's meditation practice we're going to practice something called Anapanasati breath, which is an ancient technique but a very effective technique to bring your awareness to the present moment — this is what is commonly practiced as part of mindfulness today. So there are usually three areas in your body where you can feel the breath: one is the cool and warm air entering and exiting your nostrils, another is the rise and fall of your chest as you inhale and exhale, and the other is the contraction and expansion of your belly as you inhale and exhale.

So as part of this Anapanasati breath practice, we're going to narrow down our focus to the smallest possible area that we can focus around — our nostrils. So for this we'll start with the wider area: as you inhale, can you feel the cool air brushing against the inner lining of your nostrils; as you exhale, can you feel the warmth of the air brushing past your nostrils all the way up. Focus on this for a few breaths, just the air brushing against the inner lining of your nostrils as you inhale and exhale — be aware of the coolness of the breath as you inhale and the warmth and perhaps moistness of the air as you exhale.

Now slowly begin to narrow down the space until you can rest your focus on the bridge of the nose, so the bridge in between your nostrils. Try to sharpen your focus so that your awareness rests only on the bridge of your nose — can you feel the sensation of the breath in this area? Try to still your body and your mind so much that you're able to sharpen the awareness. Stay with this sharp focus on the bridge of your nose for as long as you can, and I'll see you in the next class, which will be a focus on Virasana. Thank you.