Lessons

Lesson Info

Nighttime Restorative

Welcome to your nighttime restorative practice. This class is simple and easel. It's full of calming postures. Port of crops in deep, full breathing to set you up for a nice sound. Night of sleep in this class will use some props. So a block a blanket of bolster we'll all be helpful again. You can use anything soft and fluffy supportive around your house that you've got handy. Grab your blanket. We're going to start this practice in child's pose. So instead of your regular child's pose right, reaching out nice and long, let everything drop down. It can be really nice to grab a blanket or a bolster. Give yourself a little extra cushion. So knees out. Lied is why it is comfortable, maybe to the mount and then big toes to touch and bring your arms out forward. You can relax your forehead all the way onto the blanket, sort of bringing the floor up to you instead of having to drop all the way down to the floor. If that still feels like too much, you can bend the elbows and rest your head on...

the top of your hands as well, cleaning as much or as little support as you need, giving yourself something to give your weight into not worrying so much about any perfect alignment or straightness in this. Really, I just want you to find some release of the muscle so you can relax the arms down by your sides. Maybe drop one year of the other two. Your bolster your blanket. Let everything just dropped down towards the Earth. It can be difficult, often times to unwind from active days, stressful family life or work situations, or really intense workout, especially if you're working out in the evenings. So part of this ability to create this balanced body and mind and psyche is this idea of being able to switch from effort teas in an instant right to be able to transition our bodies from the intensity their daily life might require to a place of quiet to a place of rest so that we can rejuvenate and restore and be back up to snuff for the next day, Right? So if we skip this session, this sort of idea of rest right, especially practice like this, sort of preparing us to transition into a quiet sleep space? What if we skip that. Oftentimes we just wake up the next day. Even more frantic, right? Even more stress, because then we didn't get a good night's sleep. So can you allow yourself to let go of whatever your day entailed, right? And just sort of give away to the comfort of your props? Give way to the tired, the sort of exhaustion that your muscles might be holding. Sometimes it feels like it's all the way deep into your bones. What can you let that relax? And instead of letting your body be pumped with adrenaline or energy, can you instead fill it with breath immensely? Start to pick yourself up from the supported child's pose. Bring some weight into the hands, lift yourself all the way up and then just hug the knees together. So you're in more revere. Awesome. You can set your props off to the side and verus it is uncomfortable. You can always roll over the toes and sit in a cost Leggett seat, right? Whatever feels good. They're starting to reach your arms, all light to the sky instead of his tall as you can. I mean, if the palms don't want to come together don't worry about it. There's no forcing. I just want you to find Link all the way through the side body, Insist, if you're sort of picking up your rib cage, lifting it a little bit higher and then sliding the sides of the waist back so you take yourself out of that back, but instead just grow good. Then take all that length, keep it drop the right hand to the mat reached the left arm overhead. So as you reach that left arm up and over, you're side bending to the right, shortening in the right side of your body and the lengthening of the left reading from here. Just drop your right year to your right shoulder, let it hang. You might get a little bonus stretch in the side of the neck. Uh, and then, instead of using all the effort to pick yourself back up, I just want you to sort of roll towards the front of your mat like you're coming into a forward, fold both hands and then crawl your way over to the second sides, the left hand, out to the left. Reach your right arm all the way up and over big stretch across the right side. This time you might be on those left fingertips, maybe the whole hand, depending on the arm length, depending on the mobility. Whatever it is, give a little weight into it and then reach and lengthen through the right side and drop the left ear to the left shoulder. Let the neck be easy. The job Be soft on the same thing. Come back through center, sleep it down and just fold all the way over the legs. This for a moment. Let the head of the neck drop down, reach the arms out, and then walk the hands back underneath You. You gonna roll over your shins and come right into tabletop. So hands and knees on the earth you can take a few rounds of cat cow, especially if you've got some stiffness of you. Saddle day stood all day in the kitchen. Whatever it is, right. Find a little mobility. A little bit of movement doesn't have to be anything in particular. Doesn't have to be pretty or symmetrical, right? Just move. And then, with your hands nice and strong, you're gonna drop your chest in your chin to the mat. so maybe a little bit in the elbows as you start lower lower lower chest chin, Sony's chest and chin. Find the earth. Breathe the heart forward on, then scoot your way all the way onto your belly. So just pull your chest through and you'll find a baby cobra so the hands are back behind you. It's almost as if you're pulling the fingernails back. Pull, pull, pull. You find that traction as you reach the hands back, Reach the collarbones forward. Press the tops, the feet into the mat. Legs, air active, resisting urged. Totally squeeze the but right. Find some activation in the glutes, but dont over clench and tighten things. Take one more breath here, lift through the chest crown of the head, reaches forward and then exhale. Let it go. Release could creep the hands up so they're in line with the shoulders a little bit wider this time and come onto the fingertips. So it's sort of like your suctioning cupping the hands lift here and then, with your inhale same thing, pressed the feed into the map and lift up into a little different variation of a baby cobra. Right, just fine space across the chest so that we can breathe really deeply as we continue to move here. This doesn't have to be some big intense back then, right? It's not a back bending practice. Just find some space to breathe and then exhale, release, and then last one, tiptoe those fingers up a little further. So they're almost off those top diagonal corners of the mat. Press the feed into the earth and then inhale lift, right. And if you notice that your shoulders are creeping up into your ears, I want you to drop the shoulder blades down, lengthen the sides of the neck, take a full breath in and then on the exhale release. Good. So you're on your bellies, so as you're prone here already, we're gonna take a prone hip opener on. You're gonna use your hands is a pillow. If they're not that soft, you could use an actual pillow or you can use an actual blanket. Whatever feels best to you, we thought gonna come right underneath your face and we're gonna start with the left leg so you can take this left leg, bend at the hips and imagine you're sort of hiking. It up like you're doing a mountain climber and allow it to open it. So this ends up being sort of like 1/2 frog post. Nothing in particular. These happen with the feet. You're just sort of looking for that 90 degree angle and finding that hip opening here. Once you've got that, roll the head and the chest back down to the earth and you can relax your head into the mat. You can drop one here or the other. Whatever feels most comfortable here, right? That's were aiming for. So you're feeling this opening through the inner left thigh, the inner groin. Right. But it's not gonna be crazy. Hopefully so, see, if you could just find a little softness, try not to hike up too far. You're going to start to get kind of wonky in the low back. Just a nice, easy, simple hip opener and then relaxed the head in the neck and find some east placing some of that breath into the left leg, the inner thigh. And I know that saying place your breath or imagine your breath. Go somewhere knows it can feel arbitrary, but all it really means is that you're devoting your attention to that. If you can imagine the expansion or the release of certain muscles, oftentimes it will cue the actual action. Right. So see if you can envision those tight hips, the groin sort of softening, dropping down towards the floor. See if you can imagine that left thigh bone sort of moving closer and closer to your mat with every exhale. And then with the next breath, you're just gonna gently slide that left leg back where it came from and switch to the second side. So right leg is going to move up, come into that sort of nine degree angle shape, Let that leg relax. So let everything sort of drop into the earth, then had neck releases. You can drop either ear, whatever feels comfortable. Just make sure that you feel nice and supported. If you've got some intensity in your quads in the top of that straight leg, let's see if you can imagine the same thing. They're both thigh bones dropping down towards the earth. This idea of heaviness is he sort of give way and let your earth you're Matt support you instead of you doing so much work to support yourself and others. I'm sorry. So just like that, right leg back in, in the hands underneath shoulders and you're gonna press your way right back to embryo pose so different than a child's pose. Keep the knees together, said the hips all the way back to the heels and just curl all the way down. Reach the arms back behind you. It's basically fetal position. Embryo pose. Absolutely. Walk your way back up right from your embryo. Well, you're gonna do is lean forward into your hands, tuck your toes, roll over the feet and then come all the way to a forward full. So no need to stand all the way up to keep. This is low to the ground, simple and easy as possible, and the knees really deep and wiggle them is Why does the hips maybe even wider so that you can almost feel your rib cage sort of dropped between the thighs, right? It's gonna be different for everyone. So don't get caught up in how wide your hips are. Any of that stuff. I just find somewhere that's comfortable and supportive, and then relax your head in your neck and grab opposite elbows ragdoll. And as he release everything down, you want to sort of feel as if your arms are lengthening out of their sockets, right? Dragging traction ing out shouldn't be a lot of effort, more just gravity doing the work. You could also interlaced the hands at the base of your school. Just sort of let the weight of your arms drag and traction out the cervical spine. You might feel some new space being created in there. Yeah, and then plant your hands, walk yourself out to a downward facing dog. Nice, solid, downward facing dog. Press the hands into the earth and the knees as much as you need to as much as feels comfortable. Seacon lengthen the spine and then drop the head on the neck. Resist the urge to hold their head up, right? Sometimes you don't even realize that we're doing it. So maybe shake it out a few times to remind yourself what relaxed actually feels like on and then slowly find your way to the top of the mat to a seat. So I would encourage you to just sort of gently make your way. There was the steerage to jump through or to impart in the intensity where it's probably not necessary. And when you find your way to a seat, we're going to set up for a long body can. Awesomeness. So this one's called TORASSA, and it's actually, instead of your body can awesome. That's nice and tight. You're gonna bring it out longer, so it's more like a diamond shaped, more like a baseball field. And this is where these nice, supportive, soft, cushy props come in So you could build yourself up as high as you need to know that you have something to relax into. I like to call this portion of the end more like creative napping, really getting ready. Teoh actually let go and settle in so set up a much as you need to. It might be block, bolster, blanket everything right, and don't worry about that. Give yourself as much as you need to truly relax. Try not to get caught up in how high up you are. So once you find a suitable place, all I want you to do it's just try to lengthen as far forward as you can and then relax down. And instead of holding on to the props, see if the arms will reach if they won't reach. Sometimes the props could be more supportive. But if they will reach, relax the arms down foot. The palm's up to encourage hands to soften, to let go of that sort of fist like nature that sometimes we live in and then let go. So as you drop your face down as you close your eyes and as you start to notice your breath a little bit more, you'll also notice that this pose may not start out as the most intense, right and stop meant to be. It's very different than regular bought a can. Awesome. Oh, are you know, Butterfly Post? Whereas do you know what you're doing right away? On with this posture, we're gonna be here quite a bit longer, so we need to have that same mindset of starting at 50 or 75% right, because as time progresses, our body will drop in that fashion. That connective tissue, especially in the low buck, will start to soften and you will notice a difference where you start at minute one versus where you went up it in it. Five. It will be very different, so just trying not to rush the process. Let the breath and the ease carry you a little bit deeper. Maybe let it carry your mind off into a bit more of an abyss. It's OK if it wanders. Does he feel the outer hips start to unravel? If you need to adjust, remove or at any props so that you can find some optimal comfort, do so shifting some of that focus down into the hips thighs, trying to encourage some release, trying to encourage some softness as you break through some of that tension, that sort of feeling of stuck that might usually live there. Let that release shift all the way up into your mind as well. Starting to shift towards a much quieter place. I'm spending the last three or four breaths here. Linda Lee start to bring yourself back to life. Go slow as you sort of Paul your way back up rates right, maintaining a little bit of strength in the belly because you're there for a long time and then shift your props one of her mountain of soft because she thinks you have off to the side and gently give yourself a little boost to bring those knees back together. Squeeze the man. You can straighten them out. She got the legs, the ankles whenever feels like maybe it has a few kinks in it from that long cold. And then the poster is gonna come right back down across your met. You're gonna set your hips up on top of it as if you were setting up for bridge posts. So with the hips on top, go ahead and just walk the feet is why does the mat arms conduce? Whatever feels natural overhead by the side. Maybe whatever requires this little effort as possible. That's where I want you to go. And then with the feet out as wide as the mat, just gonna go ahead and drop the knees over to the right. So as the knees drop over to the right, see if you can keep a little bit of a flex in that left foot so things don't sickle and go crazy and almost press that left foot into the mat. So you feel the hips turn a little bit of stretch in the left side of the body, but not too much effort. Keep it nice and gentle and just sort of let things move, create a little bit of space in there, Kevin. Then gently back to center and the needs to the left. Soles of feet to the right. Flex that right foot in just a little bit of a push with the inner edge, the inseam of the right foot. So they feel that right side, sort of activating Turn on and then back to center. You keep your hips right on this bolster and again you can do this in the middle of the room. Ah, wall can be your best friend for this. So So, if it's convenient, go ahead and sculpture, bolster all the way up to the wall and then run your feet up the wall. Right. This is ingeniously named legs up the wall post. So as you reach those legs up, just let him rest against the wall. Wouldn't be really soft arms, Congar anywhere that feels natural and close the ice. If you've got something to cover your eyes to block out the light and highly recommend it here, it helped us sort of dropped down into this very different space, and we're going to stay here and really just focus on a little bit of product. I'm on a little bit of reading, so just start by noticing those breaths. Take note of the inhales and the exhales. I just want you to start. Try to lengthen out the inhales, lengthen out the exhales. It doesn't have to be crazy just starting by taking an inhale for one or two for three and then pause and hold the breath for three to one. Exhale for one to three, so continuing with this even length of inhale for one to three, holding the breath, drawing it in for an even amount of time for three to one and then exhaling the same amount of time one to three, continuing on your own, even length of inhale holding the breath and then even length of exit even in and even out as that starts to feel like more of a rhythm were natural to you. You might start to draw it out a little bit longer, breathing in for one to three four five. It's still just holding for one to three and then exhaling for one to three four five. Good five count inhale one to three. Four. Fun three count Hold three to one five count. Exhale one to three for well there one like that in hell one to three. Four five. Hold for three to one. Exhale for 51 to three four five. Continuing these long, slow, deep breaths, even amount of time and pausing even amount of time, creating this balance in the length of your breath. Continuing focus to lengthen. Drop that attention down and inward staying here as long as you like breathing even in even out when you're ready, my transition to the side or all the way up to a seat, allowing yourself to settle in to prepare for a nice full rest nomis day.