Power Yoga Flow

Hi guys, thanks for joining me on my journey. Today is day 8, and if you have been following the previous videos, I'm sure you would have worked a little bit on your flexibility, stamina, and strength, and I hope you've done your warm-ups and your breathing exercises, because today we're going to see the basic Surya Namaskar and something that I would call a power yoga sequence — it's a little variation from the basic Surya Namaskar, and I'm sure you'll enjoy it. Hope you're ready. Well guys, as you could see, I have a little problem with my knee, but life has to go on, so I put on a little bandage — it's not going to affect me much.

All right, so now we're going to the basic Surya Namaskar, which is something that most of us know. Surya Namaskar sequences really exercise all of your muscles, all of your nerves, so it's very good for you to continue doing this, but this is just an option I'm giving you in case you're not able to follow the power yoga that's coming up next. And if you notice, I've skipped the heart pose in between the Surya Namaskar just to make it a little more simple, and of course you do it first with your right side, and again you continue doing it with your left side, so that makes one cycle of Surya Namaskar.

So you can actually continue doing Surya Namaskar — you could start with eight times, and then every day gradually you could increase one more time, so you start day one eight times, day two nine times and ten times, and you can do this until you actually reach 108 times. Surya Namaskar is supposed to be the best thing you could do for yourself, for your body — it really enhances your strength, your flexibility, your stamina, your breathing, does wonders for your skin, and I could go on and on about how good Surya Namaskar is.

But next we're going to see the other variation, the power yoga sequence. We're going to begin with a Tadasana — you get on your toes, stretch upwards as much as possible, breathe deeply, and do the forward bend, and now try to take your right feet back, left feet forward, and do the Virasana, and slowly twist and do the twisted Virasana. Stay in this position for at least eight counts — it's a very simple and easy pose to stay in. Focus completely on your midriff and move into the plank; you stay in the plank for eight counts — three, four, five, six, seven, eight — and move into the Bhujangasana.

Now we're going to do the downward dog, the dynamic downward dog, so take a deep breath moving into the downward dog position. While it's very important to do the asanas correctly, you kick your right leg up, knee to the forehead — you inhale and exhale, make sure that you're breathing right — and you bring that right leg forward again, move into the Virasana and twist, and stay, stay for at least eight counts, and also make sure you're breathing slowly. And when you're ready, you do the forward bend and move into the Tadasana, or you could just do a backward bend and move on to the other half of the sequence.

You bring your left feet back, right feet forward, Virasana, you twist, make sure your left arm is on your right knee, and stay in this position for a good eight counts. You could kick it up a notch by actually doing the twisted Trikonasana, where you can lift your arm up — it might be a little difficult for a lot of you, but if you can do it, why not — move into the plank again, and then Bhujangasana, and we're going to do the same downward dog, the dynamic downward dog again, so take a deep breath, go back to the downward dog, and you inhale and exhale, you inhale, you exhale — you could do this four or five times, so you could slowly increase the count with every time you repeat the sequence.

Put your left leg forward and twist and stay, and stay in this position for a good eight counts. Of course, you can always stretch your arm upwards, try to push it up a little bit just to give yourself a little bit of the challenge that you need, and you come back with the forward bend and you go back to the beginning by doing the Tadasana, the upward stretch.

Now we're going to do this without breathing — you inhale and hold your breath, stretch as much as possible, hold your breath and prepare yourself, and you exhale, you go down again, try to hold your breath, and when you move into the Virasana, you inhale and you exhale as you twist and stay. Now you can breathe normally in this position, or if you can hold your breath, there is nothing like it. Now when you move on to the plank again, you could breathe normally, or if you want to make it a little more efficient, you're going to inhale and hold your breath, and you move into the Bhujangasana — you exhale and move into the Bhujangasana and stay.

And as you move on again to the downward dog, you inhale, and now we're going to the dynamic, so you exhale, you inhale again, you exhale, inhale, exhale, you inhale, exhale, and again hold your breath, and as you move into the Virasana you inhale again, deep breath, exhale, move into the twisted Virasana and hold your breath, or of course you can breathe normally — make sure that you're not straining. You again inhale, and as you go up you exhale and inhale, come back to position Virasana, exhale, and again you inhale, stretch back, twist, and like I said, you can always put your hand down and make this a twisted Trikonasana — you can breathe normally because, as a beginner, this is quite a difficult pose and it's hard to maintain your breathing, but just make sure that your breathing is not shallow.

And again you go back to the plank and you move into the Bhujangasana, try to take a deep breath and stay in this position, and exhale whenever possible, and inhale again, hold your stomach in, move into the downward dog, exhale, kick your leg up, inhale and exhale again — you continue doing this cycle at least four or five times.

And you put your left leg forward, and as you move to the Virasana you inhale, take a deep breath, and take a deep and forceful exhale, move into the twisted Trikonasana, and concentrate on your stomach, of course, and if you're doing the twisted Trikonasana, just make sure that you're breathing normally and stay in this position as much as possible. And you move on again to the forward bend, and you inhale, take a deep breath, moving into the Tadasana, the upward stretch.

And you could continue doing this — you could start with about four sequences and you can move on to eight, and progress as and when you can. So when you do this sequence on a loop and you do it the first eight times, it's going to be a little difficult — you might get confused as to what asana would come next and all of that — but you know, when you pursue it with a lot of concentration, this will automatically become a habit, and it will be easy for you to follow. In the next video, I'm going to teach you another sequence which is also somewhat like a power yoga, so you choose which one is best suitable for you, and you keep continuing to do that on a loop, and you will definitely see the difference and maybe lose some weight.

Well, let me know what you've been doing so far, let me know in the comments how this has been helping you.