Hips Yin Yoga 60-Min: Deep Stretch Recovery

It's not that one is better than the other. It is just that they're different. Finding your deep breath. Inhaling into wherever it feels tight, where you feel tension.

Exhale to consciously release that tension. Last deep breath. Last deep breath. Last deep breath.

Keeping the legs exactly where they are. Release the hands. Left hand goes on the ankle. And whether your foot is your left foot on the ground or not, it doesn't matter.

You'll still follow these directions. Left hand is on the right ankle and roll towards the left side so the foot comes to the left. And then you're going to go into the right ankle. And then you're going to go into the left ankle.

And then you're going to go into the right ankle. And then you're going to roll towards the left side so the foot comes to the ground. Revolve figure four. From here, reach the right hand up and behind you.

If this is too intense to hold the right ankle, you can release. Or if it's nice to keep it, go ahead and keep it. And don't worry about this posture being really tight, perfectly aligned, grasping the ankle. Allow it to be more loose.

So I have a gentle hold on the ankle. If you have a hold on the ankle. What's most important is you feel the stretch through the right outer half. If you feel that, you got it.

Nice spinal twist. And a gentle opening through the front of the right shoulder. Coming back to your deep breaths. Inhale into where you feel tension.

Exhale to consciously release. Exhale to consciously release. Using the breath for intentional work. Last deep breath.

Use the inhale to come to center. Both feet on the floor. Do what you need to do to re-center the spine. Hands beside the hips, palms up.

Close the eyes. And take a moment. Take a moment to let that work settle. Let that stretch settle.

And notice the difference between the right and left side. Gathering both knees into the chest. Gently rock side to side. Keeping the left knee in.

Place the right foot on the ground. Interlock the fingers, placing them on the shin underneath the kneecap, right below the kneecap. Pulling the left knee towards the left armpit. Slowly bringing the left ankle to the right quad.

Making sure it's more the ankle and the foot, not the shin. Figure four stretch. If you decide to stay here, if this is enough, take the left hand and gently push the knee out. Or if you'd like a different variation, take the hands, reach them through the thighs, interlocking them behind the leg.

And relax. And don't expect the right side to be the same as the left. Both sides are usually different, and that's why we do our yoga to bring them back to balance. Not just from left and right side, but balance of life from training.

So finding your deep breaths, finding your intentional breaths. Inhaling, deep inhale into where it feels tight. Exhale to release. Exhale to release.

Last deep breath. Keeping the legs exactly where they are. Release the hands, right hand on the ankle and lower roll towards the right side until the foot is on the floor until the left foot is on the floor. Reaching the left arm up, then behind you.

And again, it does not matter if how tight you're holding that ankle. Doesn't matter if you're holding the ankle at all. Just find a variation that works for you. And the variation doesn't have to be tight.

You can allow it to be loose. You can allow the legs to move to where you're comfortable. All I care about is we feel a stretch through that outer hip. And it can be intense.

And if it is, that's okay. We will use time to release it. So don't keep the stretch at 100% intensity. Allow it to be at 70.

So adjust accordingly. And commonly, to make the stretch less intense, you can release the ankle. If the stretch is still intense, it just means you really need this. Use your intentional breath.

Deep inhale. Inhale to find the tension. Exhale to release. The tension will work is very important because it allows us to talk to our nervous system.

So our nervous system knows where to focus and where to release. It's not just the muscles. Close the eyes if you like. Find your deep breaths.

Inhale to release. Exhale to release. Inhale to release. Exhale to release.

Inhale to release. Inhale to release. Inhale to release. Inhale to release.

Inhale to release. Inhale to release. Inhale to release. Inhale to release.

Inhale to release. Inhale to release. Inhale to release. Inhale to release.

Inhale to release. Inhale to release. Inhale to release. Inhale to release.

Inhale to release. Inhale to release. Inhale to release. Inhale to release.

Inhale to release. Last deep breath. Use the inhale to slowly come to center. Feet on the floor.

Re-center the spine. Hands beside the hips. Palms up. Knees up.

Hips, palms up. And take a moment, take a moment to allow all that work to integrate and notice how you feel. Notice how the hips feel. Both knees into the chest, rock side to side.

Slowly rolling to your favorite side, use the hands, push yourself up to a sit. From the sit, we'll move into what's called a butterfly. So I'm sitting, so feet together, feet together, spine long, and lower, allow the torso to lower forward. So it's basically a forward fold, but with the legs in butterfly.

And see what variation you would like. See if you would like the feet further away from the hips, or see if you would like them closer to the hips. So this allows the hips and back to release, even if the hamstrings are too far away. It gives us a bit of a work around.

So once you have found where you're comfortable in the posture, the feet further away or closer, further away from the hips or closer to the hips. Once you've found that, hands can either be on the ground in front of you, or you can use the hands to frame the feet, whatever is comfortable. Head can hang. And I want you to stay here and relax here.

You have an option if you have a bolster or blanket or pillow. Sometimes it's nice to put it right here, just basically on the feet to rest your head on, but it's not necessary. Sometimes I even like not having it because then as my body releases, I can sink lower and lower. So I feel this in my back and in my hips.

You might feel it somewhere a little different where you feel tense. So staying here, we will stay here for longer because it is such an amazing posture that we can stay for longer. Allow the head to hang. Find your deep breaths.

You can stay for longer. Allow the head to hang. Find your deep breaths. So we're about two minutes into this posture.

And every now and then I might see something so you know the screen isn't frozen. Everything's still working great, including the stretch. And I want to spend about about four minutes here. Sometimes in some of my classes, we would hold it for a little bit longer.

Sometimes in some of my classes, we would hold it for 10. It really lets everything release. But about two, three, four minutes is really nice amount of time too, especially if you're really tight. If you find four minutes is a little bit too long, you can always skip ahead.

That's the advantage of online. We have two more minutes. The last minute. Last deep breath.

Slowly coming out of the posture. We never want to rush out of something that we spent so much time in. So slowly coming out, pushing yourself up, using your hands. Eventually the hands will find their way behind you to prop to prop yourself up and push the chest forward.

This allows a gentle back bend of the spine. After we had it forward for so long. If the back is tight, especially lower back, that will affect the hips because it affects the pelvis and pelvis, of course, affects the hips. So they're attached.

Both feet on the floor, moving slowly, a little bit further than the hips and gently move the knees side to side for windshield wipers. Now, knees probably won't go all the way to the ground and I don't even want them to. All I want is to simply bring some movement back into the bodies after such a nice, slow stretch. The whole time, making sure to push the chest forward.

Now, bring your knees to one side. So for me, I brought both knees to the right side, allowing my left knee, allow your knees to almost be on the ground or even to be on the ground. Now it doesn't matter if they are or aren't, but you'll feel a nice release through the legs. So wherever the legs are comfortable, hold them to one side now.

And when you need to, whenever you're ready, knees to center, lower them to the other side. And you can adjust your hands if you need to. You may find the knees go to the ground on one side, not the other. You may find they don't go to the ground at all.

You may find, if you're not comfortable, you may find that they don't go to the ground at all. You may find they don't go to the ground at all. Or maybe a little bit, but again, it doesn't matter. All that matters is we get that release through the hips.

So either hold the posture or really slowly now move them side to side, knees all the way to the ground. And again, adjust your hands if you need to. So basically, I've created a framework for you and I want you to do what you need to do in the posture. So, coming to center, find your way to a sit, then onto the hands and the knees for cat-cow.

Your hands and knees really gently arching the spine towards the ground and then towards the ceiling. And then, again, attempting to use the entire spine from the lower back, middle back, upper back, all the way from the tailbone to the neck. And continue with the traditional cat-cow up and down or create circles with the spine. So three big circles one way and three big circles the other way.

Moving into freestyle cat-cow if you like. If you're doing circles, go the other way. And coming to neutral, walk the hands forward to lower the entire body to the ground for Sphinx Pose. Elbows under the shoulders, palms on the ground, engage through the legs.

So pushing all 10 toenails into the ground, engaging the quads until the kneecaps lift, pulling the belly button towards the spine just to protect the lower back. And we're engaging the quads and the legs so we don't dump into the lower back. We want to protect it. And even if you do dump a little bit, it's not a big deal.

It'll be okay. So engaging through the quads, pulling the belly button to the spine, and using the elbows under the shoulders, that frame, palms on the ground, fingers on the ground, and use the fingers and elbows and shoulders to pull your torso up and forward. We've created a back bend through the spine with the movement of traction, the torso pulling up and forward to make the spine long. And this is incredibly good for the spine, especially because we live in a world where we're so forward.

Computers, books, reading, working, everything. This is really important for spinal health. And if you find this is too much with elbows under the shoulders, move the elbows forward a little. This will de-intensify the stretch or maybe you simply like this variation more, right?

Both are correct. So find whichever one you like. I actually like this one, so I'm going to stay in it for our first round. And some days one variation will feel better, other days another variation will feel better.

So it really depends on what your body needs that day. You need to respect that and honor that and do what your body needs, not what you think you should do, but what your body actually needs. That's how we get the most out of our practice. To release, hands under the shoulders, moving into child's pose.

Knees wide, feet together, hips to heels as much as you can. And arms can either be reaching out in front of you or I like to place the palms on the ground, my head on the back of the hands. Or you can rest the forehead on the ground, hands beside the legs, palms facing up. So whatever variation you found, deep breaths.

Release the tits down. Sit down, complete in 9. Start trusting into each other and then into every, for every single step. Bite that, ok?

Great. Now thumbs slightly behind your head. Bonsai, socks, Moving through this again, come to tabletop on the hands and knees, walk the hands forward to lower the entire front side body to the ground, elbows under the shoulders, sphinx pose, pushing all ten toenails into the ground, engaging through the quads, using the hands to pull the torso up and forward and either stay with the elbows directly under the shoulders or walk the elbows there in front. Sit up underneath the shoulders in front a little and see if you like this variation.

So for me this round, elbows under the shoulders feels good. Whatever variation you've chosen, stay in here for just a minute, almost a minute, and breathe. So more of an active engagement through this stretch, but it's worth it, really important for that spinal health. Two transition.

Hands under the shoulders, moving into child's pose, knees wide, find where you would like the Once you've found your variation of the posture, deep breaths. Last breath. Coming to tabletop and all the way under your hips for a sit. Hands behind you, windshield wipers with the feet.

We'll use this as a transitional posture, really important to counter the work that we did. This is simply to loosen up more of the back this time. Back and the hips, so really push off the hands to lift the chest. From here, straighten the left leg, bring the right leg over top of the left, and it doesn't matter if the knee is perfectly stacked.

It's nice if it is, but if you can't quite get there, that's okay. Now we have a hamstring stretch. Some weight on the left leg for a hamstring stretch, and maybe a bit of an outer hip stretch on the right side. Folding over, looking at the toes, maybe reaching for the toes, and you have the option to stay here.

This is called half shoelace. Stay here, or see if you would like to take the left foot, bend the leg, bring the left foot close to the right hip. See if you would like this variation, and this way we're targeting outside of the both hips. It may be different depending on your day.

It might be different what you need, you'd like to do. For me, I am going to stay in the half shoelace. Only two minutes here, not crazy long. Sometimes it seems like it's crazy long.

See if you can fold over that front leg, an option to reach for the toes or not. It's up to you. Allow the head to hang and find your deep breaths. Now, as the time goes on, you may find your body releasing, so you can slowly walk your hands forward.

Inhaling into where you feel the tension, exhale, release. Last deep breath. Posting the hands behind you, gently bring both feet to the floor. Windshield wipe the knees left and right, really gently.

Posting the hands to lift the chest. I want a gentle back bend. After that forward bend, a gentle back bend. I almost shouldn't even call us windshield wipers with the knees.

We're just moving the knees left and right. You think windshield wipers, you think to go deeper, but we're really gentle with those knees, those hips. Coming to center, transition onto your hands and knees, all fours. Step the right foot to the outside of the right hand and the right toes pointed out on the 45 degree angle.

Go ahead, even a heel toe your foot to the edge of the mat. Create some space in that front hip. With the back hip, use the toes to pull the back knee further back a little more. Push through the hands.

Use the arms as frames to hold the rest of the body up and allow the legs to relax. If the right leg, it's called lizard, so if your right leg that's forward, the knee starts to fall out a little to the outer edge of the right foot, that's okay. You probably feel that stretch in the inner thigh on the right side and the left leg, you'll feel that stretch to the front of the hip. You have the option to stay posted on the hands or you can come down to the elbows if that's available to you.

If it's too much, then don't come down to the elbows. We've been in here for a minute. One more minute. Yes, this one feels quite intense.

It can feel quite intense. That's okay. It's an intense stretch and it means that we need it and it'll feel so good when we're done. Slowly coming to the hands, if you were on your elbows, tabletop hands and knees to the ground.

Tuck the toes to lift the hips, finding your dog. In your dog, walk it out. Bring movement to your dog. Bend one leg, bend the other leg.

Allow the hips to move. Shake the head. Shake any tension out of the head. Any movements that feel good in your dog.

Slowly lowering the knees to the ground. Come to a sit. This time, doing our shoelace on the other side. So left, right, right leg is straight.

Left leg over top. The goal is to line the knees up, but if they don't line up, that's okay. Turn yourself to face your toes, your right toes. Gently walk forward.

Walk the hands forward and see if this is enough. See if this is good or if you'd like a different variation. You can take the right foot and bend the leg, bringing the foot closer to the hip and fold forward. So this may feel good for you.

Outer hip stretch. For me today, I like that right leg straight. So once you found your posture, we have another minute and a half here. Allow the head to hang.

Find your deep breaths. You can gently walk the hands forward, feeling the back as you feel the body release, the back release, the hips release, the legs release. Slowly and gently walk the hands forward. Last deep breath.

Using the hands to walk yourself up right, post the hands behind you, both feet on the floor. Gently windshield wipe the legs left and right. This should be gentle. It should feel really good.

Making sure to push through the hands, lift the chest, a small back bend. Finding your way onto the hands and knees for tabletop. This time, step the left foot to the outside of the left hand. Toes pointed out on the 40 degree angle and heel toe your foot out a little more, perhaps even to the edge of the mat, creating space for that front hip.

Walk the back knee back a little more. Hands under the shoulders, using them as a strong post so that everything else can relax. Last deep breath. Slowly come back to tabletop and tuck the toes, lift the hips for dog.

Bring in movement into your dog. Bend one leg, bend the other leg, shake the head. Knees to the ground, moving through our hip stretch. So this will really be for the front of the hips.

Two variations. If you don't have access to the wall, to a wall, sit on the right leg, left foot on the floor, left leg bent. Walk the hands behind you for support. And basically we've been doing the whole class.

Lift the chest, small back bend of the hip, engage the right glute. So engage the right butt. We'll push your hip forward and you'll feel a nice stretch through the front of the hip. So either stay here and you can always, if you need more, you can always go to your elbows.

Or if you have access to a wall, you can even do this with a couch, right? If you're near a couch or chair, left foot stays on the floor, right foot behind you, knee as close to the wall or chair or couch as you can. And have the right heel, you can basically be sitting on it or have it just to the outside of the hip, snuggy in there. It's my technical term, snuggy.

And from here, either stay like this with hands on the ground or both hands can go to the left knee as you lift your torso. I'm off screen a little bit, but you know, I'm here. So this is also a really nice stretch for the front of the hip. So we're going to call it wall stretch.

Technically, I think it's called couch stretch or this stretch or the stretch on the ground. So from there, we've used our time. You can always pause it, a video for a moment, go back, but post both feet on the floor, a few gentle windshield wipers. I just didn't want to leave my people on the ground there for too long.

And moving into our other side. So find your variation, right foot on the floor, can tuck that left leg in, almost sitting, basically sitting on the leg, but it's okay if you can see your heel, but heel has to be snuggled up against the hip really close. Post the hands behind you and lift the chest or try the variation on the wall. So walk you through the wall and we will do this one more time.

So you can really choose your variation of the posture and utilize it. So my left knee is against the wall or couch or whatever, post on the right knee. You can either stay here with your knees down or post both hands on that right leg. This can be really intense.

Okay. So now that you've tried both or tried one and found you really like it, let's do it one more time. Today I'm liking the one on the ground more. So stretching the right quad, got my right knee in, left foot on the floor, hands posted behind me, lift the chest.

If you decide your couch or wall variation, go ahead and take that. Last breath. Slowly prop yourself up onto your hands and switch sides, right foot on the ground, left leg tucked in. Use the hands to push the torso up and forward.

You can either stay on the hands or lower down your elbows. If you're on the couch or wall variation, go ahead and set that up and make sure to breathe. Last breath. Slowly finding your way to a sit, then transitioning onto your back.

From the back, pull both knees into the chest, rock side to side. And create circles with the knees. So three or four circles one way. Switch directions.

Coming to center, stacking the knees above the hips, lower the knees to the right side, left arm up and behind you. You can either allow the head to look up or to look behind you. So breath. Last deep breath.

Use your inhale to come to center, feet to the ground, recenter the spine. Take a breath. Lift the knees into the chest, hands on the knees, a few circles with the knees. Both three to four circles one way, three to four the other way.

Switch directions. Come to center and slowly lower the knees to the left side, reach the right arm up and behind you. You can either leave the head to face up or towards the right. So taking your last breath.

Slowly come to center, recenter the spine. Take a moment. Any last movement or postures before we settle into Shavasana. And a reminder of how this posture is just as important as all the other postures in class.

This is where we allow the work that we did to integrate and the body to process it. So closing the eyes and allowing yourself to just be. This is it. If you're able to stay longer, then I really encourage you to stay longer here.