Silence and heart

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Hatha Yoga and organic movement During this Yoga session we will focus on toning and making the body in general more flexible, and in particular the rib cage, the spine and opening the space of the heart, favoring the deep listening of our bodies and the encounter with the corners of silence that reside within us. From the yogic map, the heart belongs to the fourth energy center of our body (chakra). Its name is Anahata in Sanskrit, which means intact, unpercussed sound. It is the center of union between the three lowest chakras, connected with the material plane, and the three superior ones, representatives of the spiritual plane. The practice consists of a series of asanas (yoga postures), static and dynamic, and a final deep relaxation.

Namaste

My name is Marta Tena and it is an honor for me, be here today, to share this yoga session with you

In such a special place as it is Cape of Trafalgar, such a beautiful place

Today's session is dedicated to making the body more flexible in general, but specifically, we are going to focus in the heart zone

In the rib cage and in the thoracic spine

Let's see if we tune the listening inward a little and we can hear the silence

inside

I hope you enjoy this practice

In today's session, we are going to start in Sukhasana, what we call an easy pose

That sometimes for some bodies especially, when we are starting in yoga, it is not an easy position and requires some supports or help, that encourage us to grow in the posture with minimal tension

For that we are going to cross our legs, or one in front of the other, or by the ankles

We are going to try that the knees are not above the hips, for that we need to place something under the pelvis such as a blanket, or a cushion

We place it to be able to align the column

If the pelvis goes up, the spine can be aligned by the articulation of the pelvis and it is easier for the spine, to be able to hold a balanced posture

in the different curves that compose it

Let's close our eyes and take a first contact with the body, here and now

With the air that enters and leaves your body in a natural and spontaneous way without trying to change it, just watching the air come in your body, how it involves certain areas

How there are other parts that are in a greatest stillness

Also observing how the air comes out

How deep is the air in your body

The temperature

On your next exhalation, holding the pose try to release, to relax the tensions that may be in your body

Those tensions that you do not need to maintain posture internally towards Earth

And complementary to the force of gravity that is driving the body and these tensions towards the Earth

We have a rebound force, like an energy, a vital force that from the Earth returns us towards the sky

Helps us align the spine, helps us maintain the posture in a more comfortable way

We will try to find the balance between these two forces

The force of gravity, the rebound force and the dialogue that they maintain in our body

The dialogue of these forces, also with the breath

In your next inhalation, bring both hands together with the base of the thumbs resting in the center of the heart

Try to grow a little more from the sacrum to the chaplet as if you opened space between your vertebrae

And in this pose, we are going to take three full breaths filling the whole body in three parts from the belly or the intercostal space and finally the clavicle space

And when exhaling, emptying the belly and firstly the space between the ribs and third place the clavicular space

And so at your own pace take these three breaths, inhaling and exhaling as deeply as you can

Trying to empty completely the air in your body and also fill it completely

And on your next exhalation relax your hands on your knees, observe your body from within bringing particular attention to the center of the heart

Let's start doing small circles, imagining a spiral growing from the center of your chest outward, radiating from the center to the outside growing in circles

Growing and growing

On your next exhalation change the meaning

We are going to introduce a breathing pattern

Inhaling, when the chest opens the front

Exhaling, when the thoracic spine is rounded behind

And little by little, we are going to introduce in this chest movement, movement

of the pelvis, making it circular also in this spiral dynamic, maintaining the breathing pattern

Inhaling, when the chest opens in front

Exhaling, when the spine rounded behind

Look at your arms, see if they hold tension that you don't need right now

See also what does your neck do

Try to keep it in alignment with the rest of the spine, with the necessary tension, to maintain it in alignment

without forcing

And on your next exhalation, change the direction

Inhaling, forward

Breathing out

rounding up your spine

You can also find in movement a way to undo the tensions that your body does not need in this moment

And little by little

We are going to close the spiral, returning it towards the center

Making the circles smaller and smaller until they become invisible to the eye

Although the movement continues inside, in an infinite spiral inwards

On your next inhalation, raise your arms towards the sky

Exhaling, twist your torso towards the left knee

Lower your arms, placing the right one on the left knee

The left as the base of your spine to grow, help you

to go a little deeper into the twist at the end of the exhalation

Inhaling, put up your arms to exhale twisting your spine to the other side, also placing the hands as a base and as a support to help the torsion

Inhaling towards the sky, exhaling towards the Earth

And on your next inhalation at your own pace, without accelerating it, bring your arms to the sky and exhaling they go down the sides, caressing, feeling the space around you

When they come to the Earth trying to check if there are tensions in your body that you don't need right now, Twist your torso, gently towards the right knee

On your next exhalation

Open your chest, chin, gaze

to go down from the hip, flexing your torso

On the inhalation, vertebra to vertebra, it is placed, aligning the column

Exhaling from the hip, let's go descending with open chest, open gaze

The last thing that descends, is the forehead in the direction of the knee

The torso

Look straight ahead and turning, toward the left knee

It is not the same movement

Flexing your torso forward, open the chest, the glance

The last thing that goes down, the forehead towards the knee

They go up round, opening well your chest on the inhalation

And on the exhalation, delivering your torso towards the thigh

In your next inhalation, turn your torso forward, opening your chest, gaze

On the exhalation relaxing the forehead in the direction towards the Earth

Going up in round

vertebra to vertebra aligning the spine

Breathing out, flex your torso forward, relaxing the head completely at the end of the exhalation

Inhaling

Recomposing the alignment of your spine

Arms as they are comfortable for you

You can place them backward when you flex the torso you can place them on the knees, to impulse your chest towards the sky

And in your next exhalation rest for a complete breath with the forehead towards the Earth

Placing the hands next to the knees, use them as support to grow up vertebra to vertebra

Looking inward, eyes closed

Now, observe your breath

Observe the changes that have occurred in your body

Inhaling, bring your arms back to the sky, opening like a fan on the sides of your body, Interlocking the fingers, joining the tips of the thumbs, the hands are above the head, shoulders away from ears

On your next exhalation Gently rotate the torso toward the side

The arms help us to open in the armpit area

It is a small lateral flexion of the dorsal area, trying to keep the lower back aligned and supporting

And so on the inhalation the spine is aligned in the center, exhaling on the sides

Look at your shoulders

See if there is tension that you don't need right now

And on your next exhalation, let your arms go to the front rounding the chest also in the dorsal area

Inhaling in the other side, completing the inhalation in the center and bringing the arms comfortably and without forcing as far back as you can

On the exhalation we flex dorsally, to one side, to the front, inhaling

to the other side and up

And let's keep building a circular movement, continuous

On your next inhalation change the direction

Inhaling, turn the palms of your hands towards the sky, stretching the arms and moving away the shoulders of the ears, pulling your spine a little more towards the sky

On your next exhalation, release your hands in the direction to the ground, placing them on the knees

Observe if there are tensions in your body that at this moment you do not need, how is breathing

And again, we pay attention in if there are tensions that we do not need

Helping with your hands, we are going to stretch the legs

If you need to help the body with physical contact, do not hesitate to do so

To maintain the posture it usually helps to open the buttocks slightly to the sides to feel the sitting bones firmly rooted in the Earth

We are going to keep the legs stretched, open the width from the hips

The pelvis tilted

If you see that it is rounded a lot or you feel a lot of tension in the calf and hamstring area, you can place a blanket, a cushion

to raise your body a little and help to maintain the posture and to enter the posture that we're going to do now

Reaching the hands to the sky try to grow a little more

Breathing out, go down the sides

Inhaling, raise your arms again

Let's flex the torso forward, keeping the spine aligned without flexing it yet

A bending from the hip

Inhaling, raise your arms again

Exhaling, a bending from the hip

Inhaling, raise your arms

And on the next exhalation, when you top your hip, it does flex also your spine placing your hands wherever they arrive, on your feet, ankles

In the legs

Growing

A little more to get into the position

And so with each inhalation, taking air, filling your body

As you exhale, trying to go a little bit deeper within posture

On your next inhalation, put your feet on tip, bringing the hands by the legs

Round your spine

The hands go up the torso, chest, neck

The whole column grows towards the sky

And exhaling, we go back to the clamp

Inhaling

The feet are pointed, they caress the hands

The body goes all the way

Exhaling

On the clamp

And so, we go little by little, creating a wave movement, like the sea that accompanies us today but inside your body

Next time

That you exhale

Hold the posture

Observing the breath, it is more difficult to breathe in some areas of your body and the air is going to fill others

And on the exhalation

Try to go a little bit deeper

In the flex

Inhaling, stretch your arms to the front and go up from the hip

Exhaling, lower your hands from behind, and they are placed with the tips facing the front

Feet also pointed and your pelvis rises as if you pulled a thread from the sky

The whole body aligned, the arms firmly and if you feel confident and you haven't cervical problems, you can let the head rest back

On your next exhalation

Bring your buttocks towards the mat

Inhaling

Arms to the sky

Exhaling, towards the clamp, Paschimottanasana

On your next inhalation, bring your arms up in front

Exhaling, place them behind, feet pointed, raise the pelvis, head relaxed

And so, to the rhythm of your breathing, we are going to link these two postures

Breathing out

Pincer pose

Keep

The posture with a few breaths

Breathing in

Fill your body well with air, with prana, nourishing it

Breathing out, try to go a little deeper into the pose

On your next inhalation, stretching your arms straight forward

Rising

Exhaling

Lower your hands, gaze inwards, observe your body, your breathing

On your next inhalation, cross your legs in front of you, to take a little push, to place yourself in the Quadruped posture, four legs

With the knees placed under the hips also open the width of the hips and the hands placed below the shoulders, all fingers wide open

The middle finger looks forward, the arms

A little

A little turn inwards, what makes that the fold of the elbow is facing forward and like this, we have two large pillars

On your next inhalation, swing your pelvis, bring the navel towards the ground, rounding your spine well

The gaze, that rises high up on your exhalation

Again, from a movement, hip tilt, round the spine vertebra to vertebra up to the crown, the head that relaxes completely between the arms

Inhaling

This pelvic movement

Draw a big smile on your spine

The gaze comes up

Exhaling

Round your spine until the head can relax completely between your arms

Extend your spine, gaze open to the sky

Exhaling, round your spine

Look at your arms

That they don't bend, that they stay firm holding the posture just like the legs, active

On your next exhalation, turn your hands inward with the tips of the fingers facing each other, the spine is rounded as we had been doing in the previous Vinyasa

On your inhalation, open your chest, put your chin in the direction of the ground, to the mat

Exhaling, stretch your arms, round your spine, relax your head between your arms

Inhaling

Open your chin, chest, towards to the ground bending your elbows

On the exhalation

They stretch rounding your spine well, from the sacrum to the crown

On your next exhalation, turn your hands back to the front

Completing

The posture

Inhaling bring

The buttocks towards the heels, bringing your knees together, aligning the spine

Hands on thighs and gaze inward

On your next inhalation

Bring your chest forward, opening as if they were pulling of a cord forward

Exhaling

The spine is rounded back

It would be like the same movement we did before, in the posture of Cat-cow, but with another support

Exhaling, the spine is rounded

Inhaling, the chest opens forward

Dynamic spinal flexes attached to the breathing

And on your next inhalation, raise your arms to the sky, as if they were an extension of the center of your heart

They go down the sides

And exhaling, the backs of the hands come together, approaching towards the face, chest, the pubis, the legs

Rise on the inhalation, opening and spreading completely arms from the center of the heart

Inhaling

Pure expansion

Exhaling

In contraction

Return to the center

And on your next exhalation, change the direction

Inhaling, arms raise from behind above

Exhaling, the backs comes together up the legs, the chest and from the forehead they open on the sides, like drawing two infinities

Relaxing your hands, continue

doing the spinal push-ups, opening the chest forward, rounding the spine, but now with a movement a little smaller

A little more dynamic

A movement that is getting smaller and smaller, returning to the center

Until the movement stops in the alignment of your spine

Opening your legs

Put both hands near the base of your body, like joining the scapulae, opening the chest to the front

The legs are straight and the feet in flexion, with the tips towards the sky

We make a slight change

Of weight, from one hand to the other hand

And bringing your hands to the legs, we continue

With the movement, but you are doing a push-up

To the side

Dynamic

Exhaling

Towards the side

Inhaling

One inhalation

Aligning the spine

Exhaling, on the sides

Inhaling in the center

And the arm that is free goes up the side, opening space in the chest

And on your next exhalation, let the arm continues making a great arc with the elbow open back, the shoulder also

On the inhalation, while the spine lines up, raise your arm to the sky

Exhaling

Towards the side

On your next inhalation, bring both arms towards the sky, turning the torso in the direction of one of the legs

On next exhalation, flex the trunk from the hip

Flex second, the spine towards the leg that is straight

Grabbing with your hand wherever your arms reach, on the foot, the ankle, the leg

Inhaling, stretch your arms forward, go up the way you came, bringing the torso to the front and turning it towards the other leg

On the exhalation, flex your body from the hip

Flex too the spine

Maintain the posture

Keeping

One of the hands on the foot bring the trunk forward, grasping feet with both hands

On your next inhalation, point your feet, raise your hands by both legs

The column is lining up

Go up in round

You finish the inhale, growing

And on the exhale, the torso leans forward

We are going to do a dynamic posture

Inhaling

To the sky

Exhaling

Towards the ground

On your next exhalation, bring your hands

To the legs, the gaze inwards

See if there are tensions that you can relax, release

Tensions you don't need right now, what adjustments can you make in the posture for a greater comfort

Taking

With the hands, the knees underneath, Put together

The legs, hugging them, bringing the chest towards the thighs

Trying

To relax the body internally, in the position of helping you, of movement, of breathing to be able to release tensions that may have remained

On your body for the posture

Opening your legs a little in front of you, going up with your arms, go closer your chest to the space between your legs, introducing the arms in between

If you see that you can't have a complete sole of the foot support, you can introduce a blanket or some other support on the heels, because it's important in the posture, that the sole of the foot is resting and that the body can be relaxed

We put our hands together in the mudra of prayer

Arms help us as support to open the hip

Try to grow a little more from the sacrum to the chaplet

The body is active in posture, growing during all time

On your next exhalation, turn your palms with the tips looking down at Earth

Inhaling

take momentum and as if climbing with the spine aligned, stretch the legs, a slight extension of the column

Breathing out

go down with your hands in the mudra of prayer

With the spine aligned, back in the posture of the Raven

Exhaling, lower your hands

Inhaling

take momentum, go up with the column aligned

Follow the rhythm of your breathing

Breathing out towards Earth

Inhaling towards the sky

One more time

Open a little more your legs with the tips of the toes facing the diagonals

Let's fold the knees, always in the direction of the tips of the toes

Lower spine aligned like if you sit on your pelvis, trying to avoid it is tilting out

We tilt inwards, not much, neutral

Arms are crossed in front

Inhaling

they go up to heaven stretching their legs

Breathing out

and inhaling

Let's do a little modification in the arms

And the movement a little more dynamic

Observe your knees, that they do not exceed the tips of the feet and that they are always directed in that direction, so they will be protected

The next time you exhale, hold the pose in this wide squat

Stretching

the legs gently, look at your body from inside

Then, starting from this position in the wide squat, we will carry the momentum of the body

First, towards one of the feet

The bounce force brings us back to the center and we gain momentum to the other side

Inhaling

Breathing out

The arms accompany, opening

sideways like two great wings, starting from the center of the heart

Little by little, we will go carrying the torso towards the sides

And to introduce a little jump

We are going to do the movement smaller, until we return to the center

On your next inhalation, raise your arms to the sky interlocking the fingers of your hands, with the thumbs together, as we did at beginning of the session

On your next exhalation, slightly bending your knees or slightly closing your legs, take your torso to the side and from there, forward, to one side and to the other, drawing a wide circle with your spine

On the exhalation, the knees bend opening space in your torso, as if you were hugging, welcoming

something in your arms

Little by little, we are going to let go hands, but keeping this feeling that they are united, that they are hugging something

It can be a great beach ball, It could be the Earth

Let's give it a movement

on the exhalation

And one more time

On your next inhalation, change your direction

And making a smaller movement, re-entwine the fingers of your hands, joining the tips of the thumbs

Inhaling, turn palms to the sky, stretch your arms, put the shoulders away of the ears

Breathing out

release

your hands, relax your arms

Closing a little more your legs, an opening about the width of the hips, try to firmly root the soles of your feet, to feel that they connect with the depths of the Earth to give you sustenance, nutrition, to boost your body skyward

When you feel this firmness, take one of the feet close of the ankle or on the knee or in the groin

And hands together at the center of the heart with the base of the thumbs calling this center

Take your hands together towards the sky

You can also observe how your center of gravity changes your center of balance, also varies

Carrying again hands to the center of the heart and keeping them here, bring the knee to the front

Without touching the ground yet, stretch your leg with the pointed foot towards the front, keeping the pelvis aligned

Releasing

the hands and the hip

Let go of your leg still keeping balance from the groin

Supporting the foot, rooting it firmly in the ground

When you feel it is firm, it is nourishing and sustaining, from below take the other foot either the ankle, or the knee, or the heel in the groin

Hands in prayer mudra to the center of the heart

Joining both hands towards the sky, observe the internal changes that happened

Do it again

Hands to the center of the heart, bring the knee to the front, stretching the leg well, keeping the pelvis aligned

Bringing your hands to your hips, releasing your leg, make a movement

Again, supporting the foot, we will have both feet rooted firmly held

Being able to attract this awareness of which we spoke at the beginning, To feel

the force of gravity in your body

How it drives it propel your body towards the Earth, and as a vital force arises from the Earth, that propels you to the sky

Based on solidity that sustains you on the Earth, oberve if there is any impulse in your body

If there is any necessity for movement

If your body

asks you move somehow, I invite you to open up the space, to allow it

Not trying to do anything pretty but do something authentic, something that is born at this moment in your body from the deepest part of you

Feeling

Even more the force of gravity, putting a little more impetus

Increasing it

Let's imagine that our body becomes heavy

And that the Earth calls our body to rest on it

And so, little by little, looking for a way to Earth , to lay down your body

To give you a moment of relaxation

A meeting with yourself, If you want to try in the traditional yoga pasture in Savasana, spread your legs a little beyond the width of your hips letting your feet drop down the sides, the arms on either side of the body, palms facing the sky

Let the weight of your body falls towards the Earth

So that the Earth can hugged you

And so with each exhalation you can go falling a little deeper

into the Earth, into yourself

Audio and subtitles

Audio:

  • English

Subtitles:

  • Spanish
  • English

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