Hi everyone, welcome to the Melissa West YouTube Yoga Channel.
As you can probably tell, I am not Melissa West, but I am here today to present you with
a Yin Yoga class for beginners.
My name is Cassandra Reinhart and I run the Yoga with Cassandra YouTube channel and I
do specialize in Yin Yoga.
So me and Melissa decided to collaborate and do a video for each other's channel.
If you enjoy today's practice and want to do more Yin Yoga with me, I encourage you
to come subscribe over to my channel and while you're here also definitely subscribe to Melissa's
Yoga Channel.
We are going to need one block and one strap for today's yoga practice.
If you don't happen to own these props, it's not a big deal.
So a great replacement for a strap is a belt.
So just like a regular belt for your pants, that'll work really well.
And if you don't happen to own a block, you can get some really thick or dense cushions
or you can even grab a really large book.
Some people who might have a little bit more flexibility might not even need to use any
props for this practice, but it's always good to have a couple options around you just in
case.
So if you are unfamiliar with the practice of Yin Yoga, it's quite different from other
styles such as Hatha or Vinyasa or Power Yoga.
So instead of focusing on our muscles in Yin Yoga, most of the focus is on our joints and
on our connective tissues.
So we do not warm up before practicing Yin Yoga, which I know a lot of people think is
kind of strange, but by not warming up, we're able to send the stress and send the benefits
of the poses to our connective tissues and to our joints as opposed to our muscles.
And in Yin Yoga, we are holding poses for an extended period of time, so it can be anywhere
from two to eight minutes depending on what we're doing.
So we always want to make sure that we're not pushing ourselves too far.
Yin Yoga is an amazing way to gain some flexibility and increase your range of motion in your
joints.
But because we are in the poses for such a long time, the student has to be very mindful
and very respectful of their own body's limitations and any injuries that you might be working
with.
I always like to tell people if you're looking at a scale of one to 10 for intensity, where
10 is really painful in Yin Yoga, you want to stay at about a four or a five.
So just enough so that you are feeling a stretch, but not so much so that it's really hard for
you to hold the pose or you feel other areas of your body starting to tighten up and contract.
This is a beginner friendly Yin Yoga sequence and we're actually just going to start sitting
up in a comfortable position.
It can be cross-legged like I am or up on a block if that works a little better for you.
And we're just going to open up the neck.
So one of my favorite things to do, sitting up nice and tall, drop the shoulders down
and away from the ears and you want your chin parallel to the ground, you're just going
to drop your right ear towards your right shoulder.
So the chin is still slightly elevated here and you should start to feel this a little
bit towards the left side of your neck.
If you'd like to make this a little bit more intense, a little juicier, you can reach your
left fingertips out to the side and you can even bring your right hand to rest over the
top of the head.
So instead of applying a downward pressure on your neck, think instead of pulling the
ear a little bit further away from the shoulder so you're increasing that space there.
So find your intensity, that 4 or 5 on a scale of 1 to 10, just enough so that you feel sensation
but it's not painful in any kind of way.
And once you find yourself in your version of the pose, you can let the eyes close or
the gaze soften.
You can slow down your breath, inhaling and exhaling through the nose.
This is a deeply meditative and introspective practice, it gives us an opportunity to drop
in and really just see what's going on, physically, emotionally, energetically.
And notice where your mind tends to go, if you get distracted easily, just bring the
focus back to your breathing.
That's it.
So if you had your right hand over the top of the head, you can bring it underneath your
head and just use arm strength, lift all the way back up to center and release the palms,
back onto the knees.
Just close the eyes and take a breath or two here.
Notice the difference from one side to the other and we'll go and move over to the other
side.
So this time left ear toward your left shoulder.
Stay here or right fingertips can reach out to the side, maybe the left hand goes to the
top of the head just to really stretch the ear further away from the top of the shoulder.
Nothing changes in the spine, you're still lifted up tall, grounding down through the
sit bones and breathing all the way down to the belly.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
You
This time left hand under the head slowly lift all the way back up hands on the knees take a few breaths
Just to observe the effects of this pose
I'm blinking the eyes open. Let's move into our butterfly fold
So the soles of the feet will come together to touch knees fall open
So you're welcome to put a block underneath the knees or underneath the hips if you feel like you're rolling and falling backwards
Elevating the hips will make it a little bit easier for you to tilt forward and you can play with the distance that you have
Between the heels and the groin so the closer you have your heels in towards you
The more you'll start to feel this towards the inner thighs and inner groin and the further away
They are the more you'll probably feel this towards the outer edges of your legs
So find the positioning that works for you and feels the best for your hips and we're going to walk our pumps forward
So this is not a half a yoga class. So we are not trying to maintain a flat back in yin yoga
Gravity is doing the work for us and we want to relax the muscles all
Muscles as much as possible so that we can get into our joints as opposed to working the muscular body
So walking the palms forward
I like to turn my palms to face up to resist the temptation to push and pull
So there is none of that going on and when you find your edge, you can let the spine naturally round and the head hang
heavy if you're somewhere close towards the floor
having a prop and
Placing it underneath the forehead or underneath the chest can make the pose a lot more comfortable
Or you might prefer to just let yourself hang heavy
And because we are here for a few minutes take your time to really get settled and find the positioning that works the best for you
So that once you are in the pose, you won't need to fidget or move
And you can just enjoy the sensations
So we're stretching all down the spine and deep into the hips
You
You
You
You
You
Soften the shoulders and the chest and the neck
Let go a little bit more with every exhale
You
You
You
Bring some energy back into your arms. We need to go really slowly here
Be mindful of your lower back
Just walk the hands in inch by inch and keep your breath going as you lift out of the pose no rush
So once your shoulders are back up in line with the hips
You can bring your knees back in before we go to our next sauna. You can bring the feet flat to the floor
And just let your knees drop from side to side and a windshield wiper motion
We'll be making our way into a wide like a child's pose
So from your hands and knees
You'll bring the big toes together to touch and the knees will really go as wide as you would like them to go
So the wider they are the deeper the stretch will be towards the hips low back and inner groin
But if it feels like too much just bring your knees a little bit closer towards one another
Otherwise they can move towards the edges of the mat
And then you're walking your hands forward and melting the heart and the forehead either down to the floor
Or you can always put a block underneath the forehead if the mat is a little bit too far away
And again just find your edge
There's no need to push or pull or force your way into any kind of shape
And
It's important that once you are in the pose that you resolve to be still
By being still you resist the urge to contract your muscles and engage them
And then the joints can really get the benefits of the pose
You
You
You
You
You
You
Notice if any tension has started to creep up into your neck
If any part of your body is trying to overcompensate for the stretch that you feel in the lower body
We're staying for one final minute really try to let go
You
You
You
You
You
So from this pose we're actually just going to slide onto our bellies to come into Sphinx
So do this really slowly and just straighten the legs and slide forward
Toes are pointing back tops of the feet to the ground and slide your forms out in front of you
This is a back bending pose
You can modify this you can decrease or increase the sensation that you feel through the low back and sacrum
So to go deeper into the pose you bring your elbows closer to the shoulders and to decrease the sensation
You bring your elbows and your palms further out in front of you so that you're a little bit closer towards the ground
Just choosing whichever one works for you
Hands and elbows are about shoulder width distance apart. Maybe even a little bit wider
Tailbone is reaching towards the heels feel a nice lift through the chest
And you're pressing the shoulders back so that you're not rounding or contracting forward
Closing the eyes
Imagine you can send your breath directly down into your tailbone into your low back and right at the front of the heart
You
You
Get the length of your inhale to be just as long as the exhale
You
And let's release the lie on our belly
Give yourself a few breaths just to stack the palms and rest the forehead down
So our next pose will focus a little bit more on the knees and on the thighs you may or may not need a strap here
So this is a laying quad stretch bending into your right knee
You're either going to hold on to the foot and pull it in towards you or you can loop a strap around that foot
Nope and pull it in this way and we're gonna let our forehead relax on the left arm
So hold on to whatever is accessible to you and try to keep your knees about hip width distance apart
And you're not pulling the foot to the outer edge of your knee
But you're really just trying to keep it directly aligned. So you're bringing it more towards the glute
So there's a little bit of arm strength required here, but we don't want to engage the legs too much
So if you were to engage the muscles here
You would feel this mostly in your quads and at the front of the thigh
But by relaxing those muscles, you should feel it a little bit more into the knee joint
And by applying this kind of stress we are actually able to strengthen our joints
And also improve the range of motion
You
You
You
And let's release the right foot really slowly just extend that leg back down to the floor
And we're going to switch sides so you can bring your right forearm underneath your forehead and
Either with or without a strap you're bending the left knee
Catching the foot or the ankle wherever is accessible and again
Don't open that leg out to the side try to keep it in line with the glute and in line with the femur
And you're pulling the heel in towards you
Relaxing the legs relaxing the chest and breathing deeply
You
You
You
You
You
You
And gently release the hold of your left foot and left leg
We're just going to roll onto our backs. So anyway, you need to get there
I'm just gonna flip over and you can get rid of the strap. That's something that you had been using
I'm getting settled here
Let's finish with a lying spinal twist before moving into shavasana
So you'll need to reach your arms out to the side so the shoulders stay grounded to the floor arms out into a T
And you can lift your hips and shift them a couple inches over towards the right
Before letting both knees drop down over to the left either with one leg stacked over the other or you can twist a little bit
Deeper by crossing your right thigh over your left
You can also modify this by placing a block either in between the thighs or underneath the knees for more support
As much as possible try to keep your right shoulder blade pressing and anchored to the floor
So the collar bones face up and this twist is really just coming from the low or mid to low back and down into the hips
Send your breath all the way down into your low back and into the outer edge of your right hip
You
You
You
You
You
Take your last ten or so deep breaths here
Notice the softening that occurs on the exhale
Letting yourself melt down into the floor underneath you
If you had your legs crossed like I do gently uncross them and we're gonna float the knees back up one at a time
Coming back to center
And then we'll move over to the other side so this time you'll need to lift your hips and shift them to the left
Before letting both knees drop over to the right
Either with one knee stacked over the other or wrapping the left leg over
Remember you can always place a block underneath your legs
Try to keep your left shoulder blade towards the ground so you're facing straight up
Just notice if any part of you is still trying to work hard here
Yin is a practice of allowing and of non-resistance
Which can be quite challenging
You
You
You
You
You
You Your last few breaths on the side
You
And I'm crossing the legs
Just floating the knees back up one at a time will be coming into Shavasana. So if there are any other little movements or adjustments
That feel good to you. You can either pull the knees into the chest or just let the knees drop from side to side
And when you are ready to come into Corpse Pose into Shavasana
You can extend your legs and extend the arms palms facing up
The low back feels sensitive in any way you can put a block under each knee or just keep your feet flat on the floor and your knees bent
And really come to a place of total relaxation
So even the muscles in the forehead and the eyes and the cheeks
Relax and drop
Shoulders and the arms heavy in the floor as are the hips and the legs and the feet
Coming back to whatever breath is natural to you
You
You
You
You
You
Start to breathe a little bit deeper re-energizing yourself
Wiggling fingers and toes turning the head from side to side
You can reach the arms up overhead take a big stretch as if you were just waking up in the morning
And we'll roll all over to one side
Use your arms to help yourself come up and take a seat
Letting the eyes close hands can wrestle the knees
Sit up tall and just take a moment to observe how you feel now as opposed to when you first stepped onto your mat
Let's bring our hands together Anjali mudra at the front of the heart
Closing our practice with one chant of Om you're welcome to just listen or join in so we'll inhale to chant inhale
Oh
Namaste
Thank you so very much for doing this beginner in yoga class with me
I do hope you enjoyed it. Please make sure to subscribe to Melissa's YouTube channel if you don't already and if you enjoyed this class
Please head over to my yoga with Cassandra YouTube channel and you can subscribe there as well
I have a new video every Thursday. Thank you so very much. Have a wonderful day
Melissa would love to hear your questions and thoughts. Please leave your comments below the video
Thank you for your reviews on iTunes and YouTube
Your reviews help us to share yoga and a yoga lifestyle with others around the world
If you have a question for Melissa, you can leave a voice message at Melissa West calm and Melissa may answer it in an upcoming blog. Thank you
