Sebastian Brosche · 25 min · 2,076 words
A props-supported yin class to undo slouching and deeply release tension. Hold long, let go, and reset your posture.
Hi and welcome. So for today's class it can be nice if you have some props. So if you haven't invested in a bolster and a couple of blocks you have to kind of design your own bolster and block. It can be a couple of pillows that you take a towel around, tie up with your belt, just be creative, have something firm and a little bit longer than a small pillow and find something that resembles blocks.
I totally recommend having something like that for your practice. We're going to balance out a lot of the curling up that we do in Jiu-Jitsu, especially guard and inverted guard. So we are doing a more yin approach today where we just do passive holds and we allow the body to really be in the pose for a longer period of time to release all tension in muscles and hopefully some stress in our minds too. So we are going to lay down on our belly for the first pose and just be on our forearms.
So it's called Sphinx pose. You can either have your palms towards you you can also have if you have a block you can have a block in front of you, rest the forehead on the block or you can just drop your head down. You're not pushing the floor away like we would do in a more active type of class, you're actually resting down. So allow yourself to just drop into the floor and then just release your hips down, relax your feet, relax your thighs, relax your face, relax your belly.
Don't even try to control your breath, just allow the breath to enter the body, to leave the body and you can just observe trying to disturb so much. And as the time goes you might feel restless when you are just kind of resting in a pose not trying to achieve something. So observe that too. Notice how the body is just resting in a pose, not trying to achieve something.
So observe that too. Notice how little time we need to start to get distracted like we want to have our phones or we want to start thinking about something happening tomorrow or later. So just pay attention to your own mind and how it wants to take you away from this moment. And if you feel fine here, like there's no pain in the low back or no pinching anywhere, you can bend your knees but if that brings tension to any parts of your body and you start to tense up, just drop it, just allow the legs to be on the floor.
But if it feels good, it's just a little deeper variation. Notice your face, is your jaw clenched or can you relax your jaw? Can your cheeks be soft? Your forehead?
Your fingers, can they stay relaxed? And then take three more deep breaths. Now you can guide the breath all the way down into your belly, all the way down into your low back. And open your mouth and release the breath out two more times, all the way down into your belly, into your back.
And release through your mouth. One more. And if the knees are bent, bring the feet down. Make a pillow with your hands, so forearms on top of each other, just resting the forehead onto your arms.
Maybe you want to wiggle the hips from side to side. And then moving slowly into child's pose. You can have the torso resting on your thighs or you can open the knees slightly and just rest the upper body on your legs. You can have a pillow in front of you if you want to rest your head on a pillow.
Just try to relax your hips down. And again, not trying to activate anything, just dropping all of your weight down. Relaxing the belly. Relaxing the chest.
Relaxing the low back. Relaxing the whole back. Heavy hips. Heavy head.
Soft face. And soft hands. And then one deep breath through the nose. Out through the mouth.
And slowly coming back up. And we're building up with our blocks and bolsters now. So you want to take what's your blocks or what's similar to blocks and place them on the middle of your mat. You want to place the pillows on top of the blocks.
And you want to sit in the middle of what you created. So not in the front, not in the back, just the middle. Take your knees together and just start to walk your hands back. So you can drop the back of the shoulders down.
And you want to have a little bit more than half of your back on the pillow. So just move around, wiggle around a little bit so you feel like you have support from the shoulder blades and down to your hips. So the top of your shoulders are on the floor, the back of your head is on the floor, and the arms can rest out to the side or down by your side. You can, if you have issues with your low back and it's already a lot, you can stay with your knees together.
Just walk the feet out. If you feel okay and you want also the stretch to take, to move to the front of your hips and hip flexors, you can release the heels down and allow the toes to just drape out to the side. Again, if this is a lot for your low back, just bend the knees, bring the knees together. So if your body is used to being curled up into a ball, this might be a lot in the beginning, but it's very good just to balance out all that rounding of the spine, all that pulling in for the hip flexors.
So just relax your hips, relax your legs, and relax your belly, relax your chest, relax your arms, relax your feet, relax your hands, relax your head, relax your face, relax your back, relax your back. Notice if you're trying to grip with any parts of the body and then just release. Pretend you're like a bag of sand just on the floor. And just breathing into any tension.
And we're not just trying to balance out the physical body that is being curled up into a ball most of the day. We're also trying to allow the head to rest. So not being distracted by our phone or computer. Just allowing the thoughts to wander around and you're just observing.
So allowing yourself to just be still and be okay with not trying so hard to accomplish anything right now. So and then take three more deep breaths in. We fill up through the nose and you open your mouth and you release. And then filling up through the nose all the way down to your belly.
Open the mouth, release. One last time, inhale and exhale. And then move slowly. Your muscles are probably pretty relaxed right now.
So just slowly bringing your feet to the floor if they were stretched out. Take a moment, just rest the knees together. Then just roll onto your right side. You can make a pillow with your right upper arm and just rest the head on the arm.
Take a moment to stay relaxed. And slowly getting up to seated and we're moving into our last pose. So again using our props, you can use the blocks or what you have that is similar to a block too. You choose the height.
For some people they might want to lay on the floor just straight. But for a lot of people it can be a lot. So that's why we use the props. So the high side up, the mid side or the low side, you just kind of work with what you have and you put the pillows on top of the more solid parts you have if it's a block or books or whatever.
And you're going to place yourself in front of the pillow. So big toes together and open the knees out to the side. And you don't want to go straight back. Most people feel it in their low back.
We want to have front of hip and front of the torso and front of the thighs. So you engage your glutes, lift the hips and you reach the tailbone forward. And then keep that engagement as you start to lower your hips down and your low back down. You might want to repeat that a couple of times so you find length in your low back.
And when you are ready you lay all the way back. And if you don't feel anything you just lower your pillows down or you maybe want to lie like this on the floor. Just make sure you're not curving your low back and kind of swaying and just popping your chest out. You want to feel like you can be heavy, ribs down, hips down and just relax back.
You don't want to feel too much sensation when we do these poses because if you are at your max stretch you probably are tensing up. You want to find that sweet spot where you get a nice stretch and opening but not trying to fight yourself in the pose by holding and tensing your muscles. And trying to protect yourself from the stretch. If you want to make your body feel like, I can relax here, it's okay.
And then maybe after a minute you can go deeper and stay relaxed. So time is your best friend. And you can do that by just relaxing. And then you can go deeper and stay relaxed.
So time is your best friend in this practice. So you're just allowing everything to become heavy. And trying to relax the legs. Relax the hips.
Relax the belly. Relax the chest. Relax the low back. Relax the mid back.
Relax your neck. Relax your shoulders. Relax your upper arms. Relax your forearms.
Relax your hands. Relax your head. And soften your face. Allow the whole body to become heavy.
Allow the whole body to feel relaxed. And just follow your breath in. And follow your breath out. Just see if you can be still.
Without fidgeting, without feeling tired. Just feel relaxed. And just follow your breath out. And just follow your breath in.
And just follow your breath out. Without fidgeting, without distracting yourself. Just observe. And then 3 deep breaths.
Inhale through the nose. All the way down. And just keep that breath. And then just follow your breath out.
And just follow your breath in. And then 3 deep breaths. Inhale through the nose. All the way down.
And just follow your breath. And just follow your breath in. All the way down to your belly. Exhale through the mouth.
Release. 2 more. Inhale through the nose. Exhale through the mouth.
Last one. Inhale. Exhale. And then take your time.
Just moving slowly. Pushing into your hands. And slowly leaning forward. Just taking your time to maybe stretch out a leg.
Stretch out the other leg. And then moving through the mouth. And then into our resting pose with a slight lift in the chest today. Just spending our time in Savasana with the pillow or something similar.
You can also just roll up your mat if you want to have something that fits nicely underneath your shoulders. Just use what you have. And then when you are ready, lay down. Make sure your head and neck is long.
You have something underneath your shoulder or underneath your chest. So your chest is slightly lifted. But your low back is long and your hips are on the floor. You can have your knees together or you can release the legs out.
And then inhale through the nose. Try to fill the whole body up. Sip in a little bit more. And exhale.
Release. And you can stay here in your resting pose. If you have two minutes, that's fine. But if you maybe have five to ten minutes, that's great.
Just allow yourself to feel really, really heavy. Drop all the weight of the body down. And just be a witness of yourself resting on the floor here in Savasana.
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