If you want to strengthen your lower body, improve your balance, and your focus, then this yoga class is for you.
Hi, I'm Melissa of Yoga with Melissa. This is real yoga for real people.
Yoga you can do so you can move better, feel better, and connect with your true nature.
I put out a new one-hour yoga video every single Friday, so if you're new here, be sure to subscribe and turn on your notifications
so you don't miss a single class. Thanks to all of you who have been subscribing over the last week.
We love all our new subscribers, and thanks to all of you who have been here over the last seven and a half years.
Of course, we love all of you who have been with us for the entire journey, too.
If you liked today's video, be sure to give it a thumbs up and let me know what you like about it in the comments.
Today, I'm going to teach you some amazing things on how to improve your lower body strength, balance, and focus.
But really, we're just going to scratch the surface.
If you want the leading edge research on strength and balance and focus, then make sure you watch all the way to the end.
And I'm going to show you where you can get more support from me, our community, and the value-added content.
I have a testimonial for you today from Stephanie on YouTube.
She said, I love standing hand to big toe class.
I have to admit, I had a bit of trepidation when I saw the title, but the lead up to the pose was so perfect that I found myself enjoying the pose.
I found it grounding and challenging and strengthening. Thanks, Melissa.
So thanks to all of you who take the time to leave your comments on SpeakPipe, on my website, YouTube, Facebook, iTunes,
Instagram, and as always, the most in-depth conversations happen in my membership community.
And speaking of my membership community, today, I would recommend to my members that you do the foot connective tissue before today's class.
That class you can find, I'll leave a link in the show notes.
And also, we're doing that foot connective tissue video as part of a 30-day challenge for Fascia February as well.
Today, you're going to need some props.
You're going to need a block, a meditation cushion or a folded blanket, and a yoga strap.
So thanks to Dusky Leave for our props.
Thanks to Squeeze Yoga Clothing for my clothes.
Today, I'm wearing a Ganesh purple bamboo tank, and I'm wearing Capri gray leggings with the goddess symbol on them.
We're going to come together now as student and teacher with our peace mantra, making space with breath and a sigh.
So that mantra means protect us together, student and teacher.
May our studies nourish us together.
May we work together for the union of the good of all.
May our learning be luminous and purposeful.
May we live in harmony.
Peace, peace, peace be unto all.
So let's lie back now for our guided relaxation.
Going to lie.
You can lie with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor, particularly if you have any low back issues.
That's going to be the way that you want to lie down on the ground.
You could also lie with your legs out long.
You can lie with your palms up beside you, or you can gather your energy into your low belly.
It's up to you, whatever works best for you.
Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it fall out of your mouth.
And allow yourself to arrive here now.
Feel the support of the earth underneath you.
Draw yourself back from everywhere and all the scattered energy all around you.
Allow yourself to come back into your body and allow your body to sink into the ground.
Each time you breathe out, feel yourself supported more and more by the earth underneath you.
Feel the support of the earth underneath you.
Feel the support of the earth underneath you.
Feel the support of the earth underneath you.
Feel the heaviness of your body on the ground.
Feel your legs on the ground. Feel your glutes on the ground.
Your elbows, your ribcage, your shoulders, and your head.
So today we're going to focus, as I said, on strength and balance.
And when we gather our strength in and find balance, I think we also find courage.
And David White says, to be courageous means to seat our feelings deeply in our body and in the world.
To live up to and into the necessities of relationships that often already exist.
With things we find we already care deeply about, with a person, a future, a possibility in society,
or with an unknown that begs us on and has always begged us on.
To be courageous is to stay close to the way we are made.
So allow yourself to come deeply into your own body, to feel deeply into your own body,
and to stay close to the way that you are made.
And then set an intention for your practice.
Why are you here?
What would you like to receive from your yoga practice today?
What is it that you are trying to create, sustain, release, or rebirth in your life?
And how can your yoga practice help you to do that today?
Then from here you are going to bend your knees, place your feet flat on the floor,
and feel the parts of your body that are connecting to the ground, particularly the soles of your feet,
the skin on the bottom of your feet, place your hands down by the side of your body,
feel the skin on your arms, the palms of your hands, the skin of your hands connecting to the ground,
the skin of your shoulders, the back of your neck and your head,
and then press into your feet and press up into bridge pose.
So you are going to come up into bridge pose or say tu bandhasana.
So today we will come into our own bodies.
In order to balance and connect with our strength, we will first relate to our proprioception.
So feel your skin, your muscles, and your joints.
And here in say tu bandhasana, bridge pose, you are going to roll through your feet.
So lift your heels, come up onto the balls of your toes, right up onto your toes,
and then roll down through your toes and the balls of your feet onto your heels,
and come up onto your heels, lift your toes off the ground.
So you are going to roll up onto the balls of your feet, lift your heels,
and then roll down through your heels and lift your toes.
So you are rolling through the balls of your feet.
So one of the main components of balance is proprioception.
Our skin, muscles, and joint all contain receptors, proprioceptors, that are sensitive to stretch
or pressure in the surrounding tissues.
Your skin, muscles, and joints or proprioceptors help your brain to recognize where your body is in space,
even if your vestibular and visual systems are compromised.
And then you are going to lower your pelvis down to the ground,
and you are going to continue to be aware of your proprioceptive system.
Feel your knees into your chest, feel all your joints, your ankle joints, your knee joints, your hip joints.
Hold on behind your knees, particularly if you have knee issues here.
Feel the lengthening in your low back.
Feel the sensation of your thighs against your belly.
Feel your hands on your hamstrings.
This is all proprioception.
Feel your back against the ground.
Slowly breathing into your thighs.
And then you are going to lower your knees down, and we are going to come and feel into our proprioceptive system again.
Press into your feet into the ground, press your feet into the ground until your pelvis lifts off the ground.
Keep pressing into your feet, and then this time you are going to bend your right knee in,
and you are going to extend through your left leg.
So now you are feeling all the joints and your feeling sensation as you extend through the back of your leg,
and then we are going to feel through the joints as you extend that leg down, and then up, and down, and up, and down, and up.
So you are really feeling the joints when you lower and lift, and then your feeling sensation along the back of the leg.
And then you will bend your right leg, relift your pelvis in the center, and we will repeat this on the left side.
Fold your left leg in, extend your left leg straight up.
Feel that sensation extending through the back of your left leg.
Exhale, lengthen down, reach out through the back of your left heel, inhale, lift.
And then you are bending your knee, lowering down, awareness of all the movements through your joints, your skin, your muscles, your tissues,
and hug your knees into your chest again, any low back issues, any knee issues you are holding on behind your knees again.
Feeling that lengthening through your low back.
And then we are going to continue with proprioception here, lower your bent legs to the ground,
cross your right ankle over the top of your left thigh, open your right knee out to the side.
Feel into all your joints, your ankle joint, your knee joint, your hip joint, and then draw your left leg in towards your chest.
Reach your hands through the keyhole, feel that sensation of your palms on the back of your leg.
You are both knees bent and you are going to circle your left ankle.
So you are feeling the joint on your left leg too, the ankle joint on your left leg.
And then circle your ankle joint the other way.
So you are feeling the sensation in your ankle of the joint, but also in the muscles in the outside of your thigh and into your right glute there.
And then you are going to lower down, uncross your right leg, cross your left ankle over the top of your right thigh, open your left knee out to the side.
Again, feel your hip joint, your knee joint, your ankle joint, drawing your right knee in towards your chest.
Your right knee is fully bent, reach through, you hold on behind your right leg, relaxing your shoulders.
And again, feeling, rotating your right ankle, so proprioception happening through your right ankle,
helping to prepare you for balance coming later.
And then circling the other way.
So proprioception means your skin, muscles and joints all contain sensory receptors that are sensitive to stretch or pressure in the surrounding tissues.
So you are going to lower down here, or actually what you can do is you can take your hands behind your knees,
you are going to tuck your chin, lift your head off the ground, and you are just going to rock yourself up to seated.
And from seated position, you are going to sit in a cross-legged position.
And if you can sit comfortably with your knees relaxed, you might want to sit up on a cushion here.
So that your knees can relax on the ground.
And if your knees can't relax on the ground, then you are going to support them with blocks or a cushion underneath them.
And right here, what we are going to do is we are going to lengthen through your side body or your QLs,
which get really short from sitting.
So you are going to place your right hand on the ground and side bend to the right.
And you are actually going to just press into your right hand so that you can lengthen more through your left side.
So that feels so good, it creates so much space along your side body.
And then in this place, we are going to start to engage your vestibular system because balance depends on your vestibular system.
So you are going to turn your head down towards your right hand on the ground,
and then you are going to turn it up towards your left arm and look up the ceiling.
So, sensory information about things like motion, equilibrium, and where your body is in space.
This is all provided by something called your vestibular system.
And your vestibular system is part of your ear that includes the utricle, the saccule,
and the three semicircular canals.
The utricle and the saccule detect gravity in front to back or side to side movements.
And in contrast, the semicircular canals detect rotational movement like we are doing right now.
So keep your shoulders relaxed and try not to roll forward here.
Stay open through your chest, keep pressing into the ground.
In chair pose, you want to stay long through your side body and keep your rib cage lifted off your pelvis.
So that is why we are doing these side bends to prepare.
Okay, and then we will come up and we are going to do the same thing on the other side.
So you are going to place your left hand on the ground.
You are going to press into your left hand and notice when you press into your left hand it creates all this space along your side body.
And then you can swoop your right arm around in front and side bend.
And then we will engage your vestibular system here looking down and up, down and up.
Keep breathing.
And then you are going to come up and we are going to do another side bend.
This is really nice to release your spine as I said create a lot of space between your rib cage and your pelvis which tends to collapse together from all the chair sitting.
So for this I think it would be good to get your blanket so that you have some padding under your knees.
So you can just put some blanket underneath you and stand on your knees.
And you are going to stand on your left knee and take your right leg out to the side.
So you are going to drop your right hip bone and make sure your hips are parallel to the front of the mat.
You will take your arms straight up and overhead.
And it really helps to have done that preparation pose because now you are just going to side bend over towards your long leg.
Just don't put any weight on your knee joint.
You might want to bend your arms so you are not doing that.
Breathe into your side body here.
Lengthen down through your bent leg.
So your balance also depends on your visual system.
Your visual system contributes to your overall balance.
This is the ability of your eyes to figure out where your head and body are in space.
And also your spatial location relative to other objects.
So right here you could actually close your eyes and see what happens to your sense of space and your sense of balance.
You might feel a little bit more wobbly just here just by closing your eyes.
And then you are going to lift straight up center again.
Release that down.
We will do the whole pose on the other side.
So this time you will stand on your right knee and take your left leg straight up to the side.
Drop your left sit bone.
Make sure your hip bones, I mean your hip bones are facing the front edge of your mat.
And then we will inhale.
Take your arms straight up again.
Lengthen up and over.
Your left leg don't put any weight on your knee joint.
Breathing into your left side body.
I forgot to do eyes closed on that side.
Okay, let's come into downward facing dog.
You can put that blanket off to the side.
Spread your fingers wide.
And if you have any wrist issues you can always roll up your mat so that the heels of your hands are lifted and your fingers are off the mat.
Okay, so you are going to tuck your toes under here.
And then you are going to lift your hips up towards the ceiling.
And you are going to alternate your heels down to the ground.
So you are stretching out the backs of your legs and stretching out the necks of your toes as well.
And if this is too much for your upper body you could always do this against the wall as well.
That would be a great option.
So your arms are against the wall.
And your upper body would be parallel to the wall.
And then from here what we are going to do is take your left leg straight into the air.
Open your left hip, drop your right sit bone.
And open your left hip, bend your knee.
So here you are getting a lot of proprioceptive information coming in.
And then come back to the center.
And we can do this on the other side so you take your right leg up, open your right hip,
drop your left sit bone.
Once it is open you are going to bend your knee.
And then come back to the center again.
And in the center you are going to engage your vestibular system just by moving your head around here.
Notting yes and no, moving your head all around.
But not too much so that your necklace hits your mic and your husband gets mad at you.
And then from here you are going to walk your feet into your hands and come all the way up to standing.
Actually you are not. We are just going to do one more thing here first.
So I just want to do one more thing.
And then we will come up to standing.
So here you are going to kneel in Varasana.
We are going to do a pose that isn't going to be accessible for everybody.
Especially if you have hammer toes and knee issues.
So I will try and give some modifications along the way.
The first one is you are going to tuck your toes under.
Make sure you bring the baby toes in.
And you are going to sit back on your heels.
If you have hammer toes then what you are going to do is you are going to sit with your legs out long in front of you.
And you are just going to curl your toes forward and back and stretch your toes that way.
That is going to be your option.
You could do that if you have knee issues too.
That is what you are going to do while we do this.
So then you wouldn't be doing this full flexion of the knee.
You will just do like we do in the foot series where you curl your toes forward and back.
Sitting up with your legs out in front of you.
And then from here you are going to lift up and down.
And up and down.
So you are rolling through your feet.
Or if you are sitting with your legs out in front of you you are curling your toes forward and back.
So you are just really stretching out the necks of your toes.
And then from here we will come up to standing.
So you will drop your heels.
And roll up.
And then come to the front of your mat.
Stand at the front of your mat and you are going to take a big step back with your right foot.
Sink down through the front left sit bone.
Bring your arms up.
So David White says from the inside we can often feel confused.
Well we slowly learn what our life is about and what we really care about.
We allow our outer life to be realigned in that gravitational pull.
With the maturity that robust vulnerability comes to feel like the only necessary way forward.
With the only real invitation and the surest safest ground from which to step.
So take a step forward and then take a step back with your left foot.
Your hips face the front short edge of your mat.
Sink down through your front right sit bones.
Lift your arms straight up.
Feel the gravitational pull of the ground underneath you.
Feel the saved ground.
And feel your internal robust vulnerability.
Okay you're going to release this down.
And then we're going to do our piece de resistance.
Our chair pose.
So we're going to stand in mountain pose.
And you're going to lift and spread your toes.
And you're going to bend your knees, roll your leg bones over your leg bones.
So you come into a forward fold.
Then you're going to bend your knees deeply until your upper thighs, your leg bones are as close to parallel to the ground as you can do.
You're going to press down through the soles of your feet and lift your arms and chest forward and bring your spine as close to vertical as you can.
You're going to lift your rib cage off your pelvis.
So you're going to come down and roll back up.
And then we're going to repeat this in the balancing version.
So you stand in Tadasana again.
Bend your knees slightly.
Roll your pelvis over your leg bones.
Place your hands on the ground in front of you.
Bend your knees deeply until your upper thighs are parallel to the ground.
Press through your feet.
Lift your chest off your thighs.
Lift your arms up.
So for the person that's watching the Facebook live stream for your lupus, this is probably not a good pose.
Just take it easy right now.
And from here you're going to come up onto the balls of your feet.
There's your balancing. There's the awkward pose.
My legs are totally shaking.
I've heard myself out here. Let's try that again.
I like this building from the forward fold, parallel legs, lifting the chest, balls of the feet.
Then you're going to lower your heels, drop the crown of your head,
and come into Uttanasana, standing forward fold.
So David White says, on the inside we come to know who and what and how we love and what we can do to deepen that love.
Only from the outside and only by looking back does it look like courage.
Only by looking back on that squat pose does it look like courage, because it didn't feel like courage when I was doing it.
Okay, this is starting to feel like a squat now too, so I think we better come down to cow's face pose.
Oh my gosh.
All right. You know what, cow's face pose will probably never have felt so good.
So I'm going to recommend if you have tight hips, you've got a blanket close by to place underneath your hips.
If you need support, you're going to cross your left leg over your right leg.
And we're just going to do a few variations here.
You're going to take your hands behind you, and you're just going to lift and open your chest here,
because we did just a little forward fold there, and so we'll do a little back bend here.
And then you're going to twist to the left.
And you can, if you'd like to, try prayer pose here to the left.
And then come back to the center, twist to the right.
And then the prayer pose.
And then back to the center and hinge forward through your hips.
And then you're going to slowly come upright again. You're going to switch the legs that are on top.
So we'll start with that little back bend again.
So just take your fingers behind them, tent them behind you, and then lift and open your chest.
And then twist.
You can try the prayer pose twist.
Come center and twist to the other side.
And prayer pose twist to the other side.
And then come back to the center, sink down through your sit bones and hinge forward through your hips,
keeping weighted evenly through both butt cheeks on both sides.
And you can always fill the space with a blanket underneath or a block.
On the inside we come to know who and what and how we love and what we can do to deepen that love.
Only from the outside and only by looking back does it look like courage.
Then you're going to come upright and you're going to lie down on your back for Shavasana.
And if you have any low back issues, you're going to bend your knees and place your feet flat on the floor.
So just pay attention to whatever feels best in your body.
You're going to stay here in Shavasana and I'm going to sit up and read you some words by David White.
So this is from David White's book, Consolations, The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.
And this is the word courage.
David White says,
We courageous means to seat our feelings deeply in our body and in the world, to live up to and into the necessities of relationships that often already exist with things we find we already care deeply about.
With a person, a future, a possibility in society or with an unknown that begs us on and has always begged us on.
To be courageous is to stay close to the way we are made.
From the inside we can often feel confused while we slowly learn what our life is about and what we really care about.
We allow our outer life to be realigned in that gravitational pull with maturity that robust vulnerability comes to feel like the only necessary way forward.
The only real invitation and the surest, safest ground from which to step.
On the inside we come to know who and what and how we love and what we can do to deepen that love.
Only from the outside and only by looking back does it look like courage.
So you're going to gradually allow your breath to deepen, wiggle your fingers and your toes, roll to your right side and gradually make your way up to seated for our mudra.
And we're going to sit with the Ganesh Mudra for courage, confidence and openness to other human beings today.
You just take your left palm and turn it out and you hook your right fingers to your left palm and you just gently pull on them at the level of your heart.
And we'll sit with this for three minutes.
And we'll sit with this for three minutes.
And we'll sit with this for three minutes.
And we'll sit with this for three minutes.
And we'll sit with this for three minutes.
So you're going to release that mudra, bring your left palm up, your right palm down.
We'll gather in the fruits of our practice to ourselves first and then offer them out into the world, making space with breath and a sigh.
Loka samastha sukinobhavantu.
May all beings be happy and free and may the thoughts, words and actions of my own life contribute in some way to the happiness and freedom for all.
So if you feel stronger in your lower body, more balanced and focused at the end of this class, then please give us a thumbs up.
And if you know somebody who would like more lower body strength, more focus and more balance, then feel free to share this class with them.
I want to thank
Diane and Donna for your donations. Your donations help us to purchase things that we need to keep this show running.
Like for example, this week we bought a six terabyte hard drive to back up all our videos.
We have a lot of videos this morning. Tim got some new software to do a Facebook live stream that we're doing right now as we're filming.
So there are expenses that we have in order to make these videos available to you and to be able to back them up and loads of things like that.
So thank you so much for your donations. They help to make that all possible.
And you can donate here below or you can donate of your time by leaving the comments below.
What was most helpful for you in this class in terms of strengthening your lower body? Let me know in the comments.
And at the beginning of the yoga class, I told you I was going to tell you where you go to get more leading ed research and support for strength training and balance.
So I would highly recommend our strength series in our membership community and our brain yoga classes in our membership community.
And both of these series are a multi-day series. I think they're both seven classes long and they're both short classes.
Under 30 minutes each classes that you can do on your weekdays when you have to get to work or when you have to get the kids out to school.
So I will link to those in the show notes. If you are already a member or if you'd like to be a member, I will put the link to that below as well so you can become a member.
So where you can receive support from me, our amazing leaders, and you can join our live classes in our membership community as well.
Lots of amazing support there. So I'm sending you much love from beautiful British Columbia.
May your joy be as deep as our Pacific Ocean. May you be as rooted as the trees in our forest.
And may you be as strong as our mountains. Om Chanti Namaste.
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 MelissaWest.com and Melissa may answer it in an upcoming blog.
