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
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
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
Bring your buttocks towards the mat
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
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
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
This pelvic movement
Draw a big smile on your spine
The gaze comes up
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
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
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
Pure expansion
In contraction
Return to the center
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
Towards the side
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
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
To the sky
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
take momentum and as if climbing with the spine aligned, stretch the legs, a slight extension of the column
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
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
they go up to heaven stretching their legs
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
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
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:
Subtitles:
Dhanurâsana or bow pose
Open diaphragm 1
Vinyasa Flow
Cyclical nature of life-death-life
Session 3: Standing Series
What is Ying Yang Yoga?
Mindful relaxation session - Yoga Nidra
Ayurvedic nutrition
Emotional openness
Class 3: Salutation to the sun and standing postures I
