Mandala Flow: Dynamic 47-Min Class for Full-Body Movement

Exhale letting that drop down towards your spine into the mat. Think of those big breaths. Exhale. It's always nice to bring the attention back to people, like to breath and make people think of that at tricky points in the class or those points where you're in one pose for a little while.

Just think about that breath, it's always worth coming back to that. Okay let's hug the knees in towards the chest now. Just hands in front of the knees and just some circles with the knees. Already talking circles, get everyone thinking about circles, maybe setting tension here, maybe set the pace of the class a little bit and the theme obviously being moving around in circles.

Okay change direction with those little circles. Start to make them a little wider maybe. Maybe the hips are coming off the floor as you bring your knees to your chest and over to the other side. Even bigger circles, sending the knees away so you're picking the shoulders up off the mat now, pulling the knees back in, shoulders away.

Change direction with the wide circles. And then knees are dropping down outside the shoulders, my elbows are coming from the inside of my knees. Bring the feet up towards the ceiling, either grab your ankles or the outsides of your feet. Just letting the knees drop down and then think light circles with your feet.

Just nice happy baby. Change direction with those circles. Maybe move from side to side, making those knees a little heavier. Breathing through the nose.

Okay super slow, sit yourselves up. Let's come to all fours. Check in with the wrists, so hands how you would in plank and just circles. So shoulders over to the left, maybe shoulders forwards over the fingertips, over to the right and back.

Two more of them and then we'll change directions, other direction. See what your knees are saying, see how they are. Wrists, shoulders, knees, everything here. Okay hips over knees, shoulders over wrists.

We'll do some cat cows so look up, turn the hips away. Bridging the hips towards the forehead, lift in the back, pushing that chest through the back and then look up and down. Up and down. Okay think about those cat cow motions we do from side to side.

So crunch your left shoulder, your left hips or the left hip towards each other either way. So right side opening out the left side and then crunching the left opening out the right. And then add the cat cow and these little side crunches together almost like mid sections, a tumble dryer. Just mixing that up.

Move the head as well with it naturally and change direction. Good and now super slowly just bring your front down to the mat, stand your knees, that's fine. Think about shrugging the shoulders back, lifting up and down, just waking the back up. Let's go up again and down.

Just really thinking about that light back bend and back down. Push yourself up to your knees and then just come up into down dog, first down dog. So give yourself an opportunity to wake up or open up here, lifting those hips up and breathe in. Really good.

Let's slowly walk to the top of the mat, first standing forward fold. So again give yourself an opportunity to fall into that, falling into that forward fold. Let's go for a little half lift here. Super slowly fold.

Half lift again. Back into that forward fold. Let's go one more half lift. Now on the way down, I'm going to come down to my hands, my left foot is going to step back, then I'm just going to step back into our first high lunge so we might be a little wobbly.

I'm thinking about bringing my hands up as we come up. You can have hands nice and wide if your shoulders aren't open yet, that's fine. Take a breath here. Good.

Now left hand goes back, right hand goes forward. As that back heel drops, get into warrior two here. Opening out nicely, give everyone an opportunity to feel that warrior two. Now start to straighten that front leg.

My right toes are going to turn inwards. Now I'm facing the left side of my mat. I'm going to think about the left toes opening out into warrior two, pointing to the back of the mat or the back of the room. Feel that.

Feels good. This is our first circle. Now my right hand skips down. As my hands come up into that other high lunge in the other direction, feels weird, that's fine.

Now we'll come down. Hands go down, step back to plank. Lower yourselves down. Lifting the shoulders and down.

Let's do that two more times. Feels good. Back up, down and back up. Then either push yourself up or back to knees and then up into down dog.

Feeling how that down dog is now. Maybe you're feeling a bit more open. That's really good. We're facing the back of the room now.

We've done a 180. We've done a nice transition there. Now we'll transition back. I'm going to the right of my mat or to my left in a second.

We'll walk into that forward fold again. As I said, falling into that forward fold. Let's do a half lift. Fold.

Half lift again. Fold. One more half lift. Let's fold.

We'll go left leg again. As we come back, that left leg is going back and we'll pick that nice high lunge up. I'm coming up. Nice wide arms.

Wobble around a bit. That's fine. Maybe straighten that back leg if you're not feeling too tight yet. Now left hand goes back, right hand goes forward as that back heel drops.

My right knee is nice and strong here. All my right leg. Breathing. Now I'm turning away from you so I'm turning to my left.

As I straighten that front leg, I turn. Good. Now that we're here, I open out into that warrior two. Nice and strong.

Then my right hand is scooping forward and up into a good strong high lunge. Now my hands come down. I step back. Lower yourself down.

You can go cobra or up dog here. Lifting up and then in to that down dog position. Taking a few breaths here. So we've done a full circle of the mat now.

It feels really good. We've done the left side. Now we'll do the right side. Let's step forward into a forward fold.

Again falling into that, head's hanging. Feeling good. We'll do two breaths here. Maybe recap the class on what we're going to do.

Just remind them we've gone left side. Now we're going to go right side so it's a full circle. We'll go for a half lift. Unfold.

Half lift again. Unfold. Last half lift. Tell everyone to prepare that right foot.

Come down. That right foot goes back nice and strong into that lunge. Prepare the feet. Maybe widen them a bit if you need to.

Hands come up. Nice, strong high lunge. I'm very wobbly here today but that's fine. Now we'll come back into warrior two.

Nice and strong warrior two position. Check in with everything. Where's that weight? Is it forwards back or is it just right?

Now straighten the front leg. Point in to the right side of the mat. The new front leg, the right leg, comes forward as we come into that warrior two. Breathing here.

Now my left hand drops. Comes forwards and up into the high lunge. Now we'll come down. Think of your vinyasa.

Step back. Lower. Nice strong up dog or cobra and then back into your down dog. Really good.

Let's come forwards to the front of our mat. Nice half lift. Then forward fold. I'm going to keep three here.

Feels good. And fold. Last one up. Remember as we come down it's that right leg so we're going 360 degrees around.

So that goes back and up. Nice and strong. Open out to warrior two. Straighten the front leg.

Turn over to the left side or your right of the mat. Turn, bend. Find that warrior two and then let's lift into a high lunge. And then we'll lower down.

Step back. Lower the front down. Lift up. And then we can come to child's pose to finish that part.

That nice transition. We've done left side then we've done right side. So we've kind of gone round 360 degrees in one direction and we've gone round 360 degrees in the other direction. And now you can kind of explain to the class.

We've done two full circles. Let's pick another transition and we can go. So let's come back into down dog. Good.

So let's do something else. So this time I'm going to come forwards. Right knee on the inside. Kick that through.

Feel that nice stretch on the hips here. Now we'll stay low this time. So I'm dropping my back heel down on the inside as my knee turns into skandhasana. And just feel the pose to begin with.

So maybe drop back into that front heel and just move around a little bit from here. Obviously it's the first time we've got here today. So you don't want to push too much. Start to maybe be a little heavier on that front heel.

Just tell people to move and check in here. So we'll stay low this time as I said. I'm going to use my hands to help me. Lean a bit of weight into my hands.

Coming up into the middle. Folding nicely here. Hanging down. Let's walk over to the left now.

Again, first time you've got over the left. Keep some weight in your hands. Maybe forwards. Maybe sit back.

Just be nice. All those joints. Just invite a stretch here. Doesn't have to be anything crazy.

Now we'll keep turning because we're on that full circle. So start to turn and we'll do everything the same as we did before. We're turning. Good.

Let's step back to plank. Lower. Down. Up dog.

And then lift the hips to down dog. Okay, let's go with the right leg again. So I'm coming forwards to plank. My right knee comes up.

Kicks through. Now talk about the back heel. Drop that down. Maybe some weight in your hands.

Maybe less weight in your hands than before. Just lower down. Drop your heels slightly. Or keep your weight up.

Again, this up to the individual. Just remind people. Otherwise people push. Now we'll come up into a nice fold.

Two breaths here. And then start to get over to the left. Maybe lift those toes on the on the back foot. That trailing foot over there.

And then start to turn back to the original top of the mat. Step back. Lower down. Lift up.

Back into down dog. So that's a nice transition there. All the way round. Let's go for the left side now.

So we'll come forwards to plank. Left knee comes in. Kick that through. And now we're starting to turn the other direction again.

So we'll come down. But we've obviously already done this once. So we could do something on the way here. So we could push ourselves up and into this fold.

We could do something on the way. So we could bring the hands together. Lift and open out this way. There's all kinds of things you can do on the way as you transition round.

As people get more comfortable into the class. Let's come down over to the other side. Maybe a bit more weight in the heel. Let's go back up.

Step back. Lower. Lift. Back into down dog.

Always give the option of vinyasa or just meet in down dog. Some people get a lot more tired than others. Let's come forwards. Left knee.

Step and come down into that. So people will start getting a little more comfortable in the pose the more you do it obviously. So give them the opportunity to take some weight off their hands. Start to come up using their legs into that fold.

Interlace the fingers the other way. Drive the hands up. Open the chest. Shrug the shoulders back.

Drop the head into this fold. Opening the shoulders. Good. Let's come down to the right.

Super slow. Start to turn. Opening that knee. Back to down dog.

Sorry. Back. Down to up dog. And then down dog.

Nice. Always give the opportunity for a rest or a few breaths here just to check in. We can drop to our knees. Child's pose.

Just for a couple of breaths before we do the other side. So we've done warrior two over and round and then we've done skandhasana all the way round and then back around again. And there's other things you can do within those poses. You could reverse your warrior, straighten the leg, turn all the way.

There's all kinds of things you can do within that. All kinds of little transitions you can do. Next we're going to come into a squat and we're going to go across and then round and back over the other side. So very similar to what we've been doing but just a few transitions within that and there's all kinds of things you can do to just mix it up and change that each time you go.

So this is the exercise. Okay. So this time let's come from child's pose into plank dog. Maybe walk your feet back to the top of the mat.

We'll start. Come into chair. Nice and low. Sit back.

Take an inhale. Exhale. Fold. Lift up halfway.

And fold. One more lift. And fold. Last lift.

And fold. So the left foot is going back first. Good. And let's come back up but I'm going to come up and back straight into warrior two again.

Nice and strong here but now my hands are coming into my chest and now I'm going to turn and straighten that right leg first. Turn. Now we'll come into this horse squat here. Good.

We're going to feel that nice and low squat. You can even get people to move from side to side here. This is never fun but it's a very good pose. So halfway we've changed it a bit.

Now you can come up. Start to turn and change that back into warrior two the other side. So we've done the same transition we did the first time but we've added that squat along the way which just gives you an extra variation. Let's come down.

Step back. Vinyasa. Back to down dog. And then we'll walk to the front of our mat.

Half lift. Fold. Half lift. Fold.

So it's all about giving variations. You've got so many things you can do within your practice, within their practice that makes the class feel completely different every time. Good. This time left foot goes back again and we're coming straight up into warrior two this time.

So left hand goes up and back into warrior two. Good. Now think about straightening that front leg, your right leg. Toes pointing in.

Let's come down into that horse squat. So point the feet away. Maybe move the class from side to side. Just moving around here.

Building a bit more heat. You know what intensity your class can handle. Remind them of their breath here. Let's come up.

Okay turn the left foot out. Right foot two. Bend into warrior two again. Let's come down and over and then we'll go vinyasa.

Back to down dog. And we'll step to the top of our mat again. Half lifts. Good.

On the way back let's do something different this time just to give you another variation. So my right foot is going back. Let's set up for warrior two. Nice and strong.

Right hand wiggles up and over. Okay this time we'll reverse that warrior. So front palm facing up. You can either point in the air or over.

Now I'm going to think about straightening. Good. Opening out here. We can lower down.

Let's go up and now we can start to think opening up. Coming down into a fold. Feel that fold. Now we can start to come up and over to the other side.

So now my right hand is going to start to point up and over as I open my legs out. I bend into that. Reaching up and back. Then back to warrior two.

A couple of breaths. Good. Let's straighten. Lower down and step back to plank.

Nice and easy. Up dog. Lifting up. Back into down dog.

You can either finish the circle or for a bit of a variation you can make them sit through onto their backs and end the class on our backs this way. Just end thinking about breath. Bring it back to the start. In a class like this I always like to make a full circle and bring it back to the start.

We talked a little bit about breath in the beginning. Let's talk a little bit about breath now to finish up. Drop the feet down. Knees on the inside.

Keep that theme. Keep that circle and keep talking about breath. We'll do something slightly backbendy. We'll do a little twist and then we'll bring it back to that breath.

Let's look at some backbend stuff. What we want to do is lift our hips up towards the ceiling. Tense the glutes. Lifting up.

Opening the front of the body. Keep those big breaths through the nose. Lower your hips. Let's do that again.

Think about peeling your back off the mat. First of all my hips come off as I turn my hips up towards me and then peeling the rest of my back up and off the mat. Then roll it back down so top of the back goes first. Then centre point of the back.

Lower point of the back and down. Let's come back up. This time we're going to hold a bit longer. We need to interlace your fingers.

Point them through that hole between your legs and maybe shrug your shoulders back so you're lifting your hips and your stomach off the mat even more. Breathing here. Last inhale. Last exhale.

Let go of those fingers. Bring your shoulders out and slowly roll back down. We'll do that one more time with the option of if you want to do wheel or if you want to come to the top of your head you can come to the top of your head. Let's just take two more breaths on the mat.

Let's prepare. Lifting the hips up. Peeling the back off the mat. Hips up.

My chin is on my chest. Hands go above my shoulders and I'm just going to lift up to the top of my head today and take a couple of breaths here. If you want to go to wheel you can go to wheel from here. Last inhale wherever you are.

Exhale. Start to come out the pose however you came into it. Make sure you roll that back down into the mat and really think about setting your hips down, setting your back down, getting your back nice and straight. Your neck is nice and straight with your back and breathe.

Okay let's bring the left ankle onto the right knee. Lift your right foot off the floor and just hug through your knees and breathe. Just opening out the outer hip or wherever you feel that stretch. So these mandala classes you'll find your own transitions within each pose and just really think about using the whole of the mat, the whole of the room and it's a really nice way to bring everyone together in one class and kind of just open out.

You know people are looking in different directions and it just adds a bit of variety and it's usually quite a nice way to teach using the whole of the mat instead of just having a top of the mat and a bottom of the mat and just working up and down. It's nice to work all round. Good. Drop both feet.

Undo that pose how you came into it. Now right foot up and over. Just lift and breathe in here. Let's come out of that now.

Keep your knees up though. Knees around towards the shoulders. Lift the hips. Maybe grip the ankles or the outer part of the feet but drop those hips back down so that your back is nice and flat on the mat.

And breathe in. Remind people it's all right to grab the ankles. Okay if they're they don't want to be up like this. Oh uncomfortable.

It's okay to grab the ankles and ease off. See how things are. Natural movements here if you need any. Okay drop the feet down.

Light little twist here so again back to right ankle over the left knee and now I'm just turning onto my left hand side and you can let people collapse their top knee down if they want. My left hand is on that knee. My right hand is going to point up to the ceiling as I follow my gaze with it and then I'm opening my right hand out to the side. Feel a nice little twist here.

Nothing crazy. Really good point to remind people of their breath as well. As we're cooling down out of that kind of class point and we're going into that just light breath work point of the class. Fill in that belly.

Letting go. Back in. And letting go. And let's slowly come out that how we came into it so following the gaze.

Right hand's coming up and over. Push yourselves onto your back and then switch onto the right side. Right hand on that top knee. Left hand point up and over.

Opening out as you move. Not pulling into it. We're just breathing into it. Slowly coming out of that now onto your right side and pushing onto your back.

And then just keep a nice flat back. Rest the insides of your knees together here. And now we'll think about so left hand on the belly button, right hand on the chest. Coming back to that breath.

Again if the chin is pointing up just tuck the chin nice and straight neck. Nice and straight back and breathe in here. And you can get people to cut if they want to close their eyes or cover their eyes. Obviously invite that.

I'm going to do that. Just mentioned that we're kind of doing some breath work and as always any you know any strenuous breath work or anything like that. Just remind people if they've got breathing problems or if they're pregnant or anything like that. Always talk to their doctor before doing any kind of heavy breath work.

At any point if people want to come out of that obviously they just they just come out of it. They don't need permission or anything. It's just until the point where if someone's uncomfortable they can come out of it. Okay so let's bring our attention to our breath.

Breathing through the nose. Nice and deep inhale. Nice and deep exhale. Super slow.

And try and make each exhale even longer. Now as we breathe in through the nose. Think about lifting that belly button up to the ceiling. As we breathe out let's come back down.

Back up to the ceiling. And back down. Let's do two more of them. Inhaling.

Exhaling. And keep that pace of breath going. Keep lifting that belly using the diaphragm. Using everything we need to to breathe and out.

And at any point if anything else comes into your mind just push it out your mind and think about filling your lungs, your belly, your chest, everything were there and then letting everything go. So anything that pops into your mind from before, after, anything you've got to do. You don't need to do that right now. You're where you need to be.

You're on your yoga mat. You've committed to a few more minutes of practice and that's what you're going to do. Anything outside of that is irrelevant right now. All we're thinking about is our breath.

And just clear that mind of anything else. Okay now that we've got that nice steady pace of breath I want you to count to four shortly on the inhale and then we'll hold for four and we'll count to four on the exhale and we'll hold for four. So let's go with your next exhale. Just let everything out and we'll go super slow in one two three four hold one two three four out one two three four hold one two three four in nice and slow two three four hold two three four let's go out nice and slow two three four hold two three four back in nice and slow keep that going three four hold three four slowly out three four holding there nice and calm three four back in keep that counting in your head four hold out holding back in keep that count in your mind that's all you're thinking about and breathe with that count so breathing to your own count now not mine nothing else should come to your mind and we're still here the video's still going keep that count going and you shouldn't need to think of much else so good keep that going for two or three more cycles at same pace and then wherever you are in those cycles of breath breath just come back to a natural breath without that hold so it's still breathing slowly but we're just easing off that hold so it's just inhale exhale really really slow and now try and think about slowing your breath down so much so lightly that if someone's got their head next to you and they're listening to your breath we're going that calmly with it so super light super slow just in through the nose and out through the nose you still want that belly that diaphragm everything you used to breathe keep that working in through the nose out through the nose in through the nose lifting that belly up towards the ceiling out through the nose that belly's dropping down towards your spine into the floor in through the nose out through the nose in through the nose out through the nose keep that going a few more in your own time again anything else just push it back just breathing in through the nose and now just let go of that breath and bring yourself back to a natural breath but just see what that natural breath is for you as you just adapt back to that what's your belly doing what's your chest doing are you breathing just through the top of your chest or are you using that belly still just be aware of that nice calm breath and if your eyes aren't closed already just shut your eyes and just take a few minutes to just lightly lay here just to end the class i've got a nice relaxed breath nice natural breath here just keep focusing on that just think about that natural breath and how easy it should feel to breathe naturally and hopefully how natural it feels to breathe naturally now you've got nowhere you need to be yet you're still here you're not late you're perfectly on time for where you need to be take this time you okay start to bring your attention back into the room from wherever you've gone maybe you're still thinking about your breath that's fine that's really good or maybe you've wandered a bit that's perfectly natural just bring your attention back just lightly open your eyes super slow notice where you're in the room just a couple more breaths where you are just really check in with that and then start to soak very slowly turn onto your side push yourself up into seated position cross-legged sitting up nice and straight maybe some natural movements here with the shoulders in the back and the neck good and don't stand up too quickly after this class hopefully you've enjoyed it i really recommend doing the class a couple of times just to get used to some of the some of the circle kind of transitions and then maybe take notes one or two times on the class just so that you can write that into the way you sequence and the way you do things but really use it as a way of just moving around the map using all four walls of the room and it's a really nice way especially in a quiet or a busy class it works you know your one end of the room your the other end of the room you can walk around you can cue well you know if there's things you notice that that people that people do when they're at the back of the room you can even go to them there where you might not have that opportunity to tell them or sort of you might not feel like they're comfortable telling them in front of everyone as everyone's turned you could always change a cue there here or there and it's just a really nice way to add variation to a yoga class which would just be right front of the room top and bottom of the map it's a nice way to move around so i hope you enjoyed it hope you enjoyed the breath work at the end as well it's always nice to add a little bit of breath work into the end of a class if you're going to it's always nice to kind of pre-warn people there'll be a bit of breath work at the end just so they know what to expect in the class and i like to just tell people we'll do a bit at the end maybe 10 minutes at the end or whatever and give them that opportunity and obviously always warn people but yeah hope you enjoyed it and i will see you in the next video thanks guys