Sebastian Brosche · 7 min · 979 words
Previously titled: Section 3 - Table Top
Okay, so variations from all fours. We start in tabletop and we turn the fingers back and start to open up the wrists. So one thing that can happen here is that people have their fingers together, so have them spread their fingers, have space between each finger, and then move into every knuckle, every finger, and also the wrist and the forearms. So a couple of circles each round.
Then face the fingers forward, find neutral spine, pushing the floor away, and then right leg out behind you, left arm in front. So what tends to happen here, we've been through it before, you sag into your shoulder, you rest in your arm instead of pushing away, and then you reach the leg back and some people you lose the core engagement. So remind them to draw the ribs in, pull their navel in, and create length. Okay, so we'll do a variation of cat-cow here.
So when you inhale, keep reaching forward, but also reach the chest up and create a small back bend. Exhale, you do the rounding of the spine, just tap your hand down and the foot down. Inhale into the cow variation, exhale into the cat variation. So it's same as cat-cow, you only have one leg and one arm off the floor to make it a little bit harder, create a little bit more heat, and also connect more to your core.
So you cue it just the same as you would the cat-cow, but you only add the reaching of the arms forward and up, and the reaching of the leg up and back, and just tapping the toes, tapping the fingers. Okay, and from here we move into turtle, hips back, rest the head down, it's always nice to take a deep breath just in turtle, and then stay in turtle with your hips, just walk the arms and hand over to the left side, and breathe into the side body. This pose is also in the warm-up, so you've been through it before, walk over to the other side, take between three to five breaths. When you've done that on both sides, hands forward roll into the spinal roll, so push the floor away, and then sway on the way back into turtle.
So basically again it's through the cat pose, through the cow pose. So you do two of those, and then you tuck your toes, and you do the same thing. Roll with your toes tucked two times, and then on the third you start to lift your knees off the floor, so you're going through a down dog, and roll forward with the knees off the floor. You do those three times, and then we rest the knees back down, and sit up onto your heels.
So yoga for B2J is a type of vinyasa yoga, so it means to link the breath and the movement together. And also maybe for you it's nice to understand why we inhale some parts and why we exhale some parts. So this is really nice to help people to start the breath, and also to notice how the breath affects, and also helps the pose. So we interlace the fingers, and push the inside of the palm out.
So inhale, the arms go up, the chest go up, and you feel how you expand on your inhale, and how you make room for more breath. And on the exhale, have the palms together, make fists, and start to draw the fist down, round the back like you would in the cat pose, and you empty your lungs. So inhale, palms out, chest up, push into the floor, reach up, create space. And on the exhale, you push everything out, and you lower the arms, spread the shoulders.
And then you just have them move through that on their own, try to inhale, create as much space as they can on the in-breath. And exhale, try to push all the air out. And then you can have them notice how the breath helps the pose. And this is why we have specific places we breathe in and out.
It's not through the whole class, like some places it doesn't matter exactly where you breathe in and out. But you will notice in the sun salitations, just keep going, you will notice in the sun salitations that we breathe in, reach up, it's the same thing, and we breathe out, we close, and we fold. So this is a nice way before the sun salitations to just keep, help that breath to go into some movements. Pretty simple movements, and here you will have the time to give a little chat before we move into the flow.
And this is the end of the section. So I would do between five to ten of these. It's also nice for the shoulders. So a little recap.
Start on all fours, work into the wrists, and then we do the tabletop with a diagonal lift, cat-cow, both sides. Then we do turtle. Take a breath in normal turtle, walk to one side, three to five breaths, walk the arms to the other side, same thing here. Come back to neutral, you start to roll through your spine, two times with the flat feet, two times with toes tucked, and then you do three times with the roll from down dog all the way through your spine.
Then we lower down to our knees, sit up. Hands together inside of the palm out, stretch up on your in-breath, close on your out-breath. You have some time to talk them through this, talk them through the breathing. We will have the breathing specifically in one video, the breath we use in vinyasa yoga, so here you will have time to add that into your cueing.
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