Episode 3 — Grounding & Opening

Namaste, welcome to Yoga & You, this is Rasika Sampat, welcome to the third class in our series Moving into Stillness. We practiced two classes already, one was focusing on Siddhasana and Sukhasana and Vajrasana. Today's class we will be looking at moving into Vajrasana, also called Hero's Pose for a good reason as well. This is a pretty challenging posture, requires a lot of flexibility in mobility in the front of your legs and strength in the backs of the legs, also requires a strong spine. So in today's class we will work on how to safely exit and enter postures which involve deep flexion, hip flexion.

Alright, so let's get into our practice, we'll start our practice in toes pose, wherein you're tucking your toes and sitting on your heels. Now before we get into the practice, I'd like you to have a couple of blocks and a blanket with you, just like we did for the other classes as well. So we begin in this posture, so you're sitting on your heels, make sure that you're squeezing the ankle bones into each other. So what you don't want is for the legs to spread apart like this, so squeeze the ankle bones in and sit on your heels. You should feel this quite intensely, the soles of your feet, but we need that. So hands on your thighs and just focus on the sensations in the soles of your feet. With every inhale feel like the area and the soles of your feet are spreading apart, and with every exhale feel for releasing some of that tension there. Breathe through that intensity, learn to direct your breath towards the sensations. We take about 25,000 breaths in a day, how many of them do we really do consciously? Use your practice to become a little more aware of every breath that you take. Let's take one more breath here.

Good, now let's come into a tabletop position. You can tap the tops of your feet down to bring back the blood circulation there. And then get into your position, your wrists under your shoulders, knees under your hips, and we'll start with cat and cow. Inhale, arch the back, look up. Exhale, push the mat away, round your spine. Inhale, arch your back. Exhale, puff up the chest. Inhale, arch. Exhale, round and curl the spine. Inhale, find a neutral back position. Exhale, tuck your toes and get into downward facing dog.

Every time we get into downward dog, I want you to be mindful of being compassionate with your body first. So if your hamstrings feel very tight, you can bend your knees. If also your lower back feels a little strained, you can bend your knees. If you're feeling fine, you can straighten the legs to the best of your ability, drive the heels down towards the mat. Take a big breath in. Big breath out.

Now inhale and shift forward into plank. Shoulders over your wrists, and exhale with as much control as you can, come down to your belly. Beautiful. Hands remain by the side of your chest. We'll take three cobras with the breath. Inhale, lift your head up, chest up. Keep the shoulders away from the ears. Exhale and down. Inhale and lift. Exhale and down. Tuck your toes and inhale as you press up into plank pose. Exhale, downward facing dog. Take a big breath in. Big breath out.

Now look forward and begin to walk the legs to the front of your mat. Inhale, find a flat back position. Bring your blocks. If you've been following the series the past two classes, we've done the same exercise in those as well, so we're going to do the same again here. Really important to strengthen the back body, especially some of these muscles that help keep us upright. Very important to strengthen those in order to be comfortable in a seated meditation posture.

Okay, so now you can take those blocks under you. Place your hands on them and find a flat back position. Stay here for a couple of breaths. And from here, if you're familiar with the practice with this exercise by now, you can grab the block and extend your hands forward by steps, by the ears. Inhale and up. Exhale, halfway down. Keep the spine straight. Inhale up. Exhale, halfway. Inhale up. Exhale, halfway. Do this a couple more times, or even more if you have the time. Maybe do about eight to ten of these if you have the time for it. Release the block, place it off to the side.

And now if you're comfortable taking a vinyasa, you can take a vinyasa. Otherwise, go straight to downward dog and meet me there. Okay, inhale, hands up. Exhale, Uttanasana, forward fold. Inhale to a flat back. Exhale, plant the palms down and step the legs back into plank. If you're taking the vinyasa, get into Chaturanga. Inhale up for a dog. Exhale, downward dog, at home. Inhale, exhale.

Step your right leg to the front of your mat, coming into a runner's lunge of sorts. Keeping the back knee up, inhale here. And exhale, straighten the right leg, coming into a modified pyramid pose. We'll do this three times. Inhale, bend the knee, lift the chest. Exhale, straighten the knee, fold forward over your shin. One more time. Inhale, bend. Exhale and straighten.

Good, now inhale, bend the knee. Drop the back knee down, the left knee down, and heel-toe that right foot towards the outside edge of the mat. Okay, plant your left hand down. Lift the right hand up as you inhale and grab the back foot. So bend that back knee and hold the outside edge of your left foot. Pull the heel in towards your butt. Feel an intense stretch in the hip flexor on the left side. All right, now what you want to be mindful of is not lifting the hips up. This tends to happen if you have a lot of tension in your hip flexors. Keep the hips going forward and down. Only then you'll feel the stretch. So even if you're somewhere here, it's fine, but make sure your hips are going down. Staying here for another three, two, one. Gently release that leg.

And from here, you're going to sit back to the inside of your left foot. Okay, so it's like a half Virasana position. So you straighten the right leg and try to sit to the inside of your left leg. Your left toes are pointing back. Now if this for whatever reason is not comfortable for you, you can use a block under your seat and sit on the block.

All right, now from here, whether using the block or not, we'll get into a movement from here. So from here, you're going to take your hands out to the side. Bend the knee, bend the right knee, so the knee is moving ahead of the ankle. Okay, you'll feel the stretch on the back of your right ankle. And then we'll come back into this half Virasana position. We'll do this three times. Inhale, lift forward and lunge forward. Exhale and sit back. Inhale forward. And for the last time, exhale, sit to the inside of your left leg.

Now from here, if you're comfortable sitting, you can come into Supta Virasana position, half Virasana of course. So adjust, make sure you have space behind you. First, take your hands back. Keep the chest lifted. See how that feels? If that's comfortable, come down to your forearms. You can stay here and you need not add anything more. If you're comfortable here, you can come all the way down. You can even place a block under your head. And we'll stay here for five, four, three, two, and one. If you're all the way down, use your elbows to press yourself up, coming all the way back to seated. Excellent.

Now, lift up. Place your hands down. Take your right knee back and we'll get back into downward facing dog. You'll feel very different in your left ankle and your right ankle. Notice these differences, all part of your practice. Take a big breath in. Big breath out.

We're gonna repeat everything on the other side. Inhale and step the left leg forward to the front of your mat, coming into this runner's lunge of sorts. Exhale, straighten the left leg coming into a modified pyramid. Three times. Inhale, bend knee. Exhale, straighten. Inhale and bend. Exhale and straighten. Good.

Now, inhale, bend the knee. Drop the back leg down, the back knee down. Plant your right hand down. Inhale and lift the left hand up. Bend the back knee and hold the outside of your right foot with your left hand. Pull the heel in towards the butt and remember to keep the hips pushing forward. Stay for five, four, three, two, and one. Gently release the back leg.

And slowly you want to start straightening that left leg and sitting to the inside of your right foot. Again, use the blocks if you did on the other side. Make sure the toes are pointing back and not to the side. This is a common mistake that people make in Virasana. You don't want to sickle the ankle. This is very bad for your ankles and it's not serving the purpose of the posture. The toes should be pointing back.

All right, from here, let's go lunge forward and come back three times. Inhale, lift the hips up and come into a lunge. Exhale, sit back. Inhale forward. Exhale, sit back. One last time, inhale, bend the knee forward. Exhale, sit back. And again, let's get into our reclined position, adjust your posture as required. And from here, whatever variation you did on the other side, do the same. If you can lie all the way down flat on the back, do so and stay for five. Four, three, two, and one. Good. Use your elbows, press yourself up. Lift your hips up and take your left knee back. Awesome.

Now, we come back into this toes pose position where we tuck our toes and sit on our heels. Come back to that. And from here, lift the hips up. We did this similar movement in the previous class as well for Vajrasana, so we'll do the same here as well, working on strengthening the quads and the hip flexors. Hands on your heart. We're going to rock back until we feel our thighs catching, and forward. Let's do five of this. Move with the breath. So, I find it easier to exhale when we go back. You can work with the breath and see what feels good for you.

Alright, once you're done with five of this, sit back on your heels. And gently see if you can lift both knees simultaneously off the mat without using your hands. From here, you're going to just take your feet slightly apart and squat down into Malasana. So, bring your heels down. If you find it difficult to bring your heels down, you can roll up the mat like this and place the heels over it, like this. If your heels are really higher, you can use a prop which is higher. Coming into Malasana, straight spine. We'll stay here for five, four, three, two, and one.

Alright, from here, bring your knees down, and we're going to work our way into Virasana, hero's pose. This is a little more intense than Vajrasana. The approach is towards Vajrasana, but it's a little more intense than that. I really like to use a blanket for this one as well. So, if you have one, just fold it and spread it out so that you have a nice big cushion to support your knees and your ankles. Alright? You will also need blocks. You can have one or two depending on how flexible you are.

So, you're going to come down. You're going to sit into Vajrasana first. I'll probably turn back and show you and then I'll turn to face you again. Okay, so you're going to sit like so in Vajrasana, and then you're going to just take the feet apart. Okay, so the heels will be close to your hips. Okay, so this is the full Virasana posture. Now, if you're not able to bring the hips all the way down, you can use one block, two blocks, however you need, and sit on it. Like I mentioned during the practice, make sure that you're not sickling the ankle by moving it off to the side. Okay, you want the toes to be pointing back. As much as possible, keep the thighs and the knees together. But I understand that all bodies are not built the same way and you might feel the need to take it out a little bit, in which case it's fine. But you want to work towards bringing the thighs and the knees together as much as possible.

Alright, so get into your position. I'm also going to use a block to sit on. Sit up nice and tall. Find a straight spine, and we'll prepare for our meditation practice. Again, settling in to your body. Noticing how the shoulders feel. Noticing if there's any tightness around them, or around your facial muscles. Release. Soften. Extend the spine up towards the sky.

In today's practice, we're going to be directing the breath and the awareness to different parts of the body, and you'll stay with the awareness on that part until you move ahead with the next part. So to start with, we'll bring our awareness to the pit of the belly. So as you inhale and exhale, feel the belly button slightly puff out and go back in. Feeling the breath in the pit of your belly. Now, also begin to notice any other sensations in this area. It could be the fabric of your clothing, brushing against the skin, around your belly button. It could be hot or cool air that you feel in this area. It could be sweat that you feel trickling down. Or you could even feel some itchiness. Whatever the sensation is, can you simply be an observer and not react to it?

Slowly moving your awareness slightly higher up to the heart space, the chest area. Feel the breath in your chest. As you inhale, feel the chest puff up, your ribs expanding. As you exhale, feel the chest depress in towards your spine again. For a few breaths, continue noticing the breath in your chest. Now begin to notice any other sensations here, again the fabric of your clothing, perhaps sweat. Perhaps you might also feel some pain sensations. Whatever it is that you're feeling around this area, just be aware of it without feeling the need to react to it.

Slowly moving the awareness higher up to the crown of your head. Now it's easier to notice sensations in parts of the body where there is movement. Your chest and your belly move with the breath. So it might be a little more challenging to notice any sensations in the crown of your head. But I invite you to become still enough to notice sensations at the crown of your head. And stay with this awareness for as long as you can before exiting your practice.

Thank you.