• On Jul, 16, 2016
•  Jayne Hembruff
•  Uncategorized

Try this simple summer yoga routine to relax your body and mind.

1. Feel the Breath.

Place one hand on your heart, the other hand on your belly.

Breathe in through your nose. Filling up the lower lobes of your lungs. Feel your belly hand rise. Then keep filling up the lungs until you fill right up to the top of the lungs…feeling your heart hand rise. ?After your lungs are completely filled. Breathe out through the nose slowly letting all the oxygen leave the body. Repeat six times.

2. Clearing the Mind

On?your next breath in, ?fill your mind up with healing oxygen.

With your next breath our, give yourself permission to let go of all the business of the mind. Giving yourself permission to be in this moment. Knowing anything important, you will remember at the end of your yoga practice.

Repeat six times.

3. Relaxing the Body

On your next breath in, fill your body?up with healing oxygen.

With your next breath our, give yourself permission to let go of all the aches, pains, discomfort in the body.?Giving yourself permission to completely relax.

Repeat six times.

4. Mountain?Rainbow

Mountain: Making your way onto your feet. Place your feet directly below your hips. Standing nice and tall in Mountain pose. Ensure your feet are directly below your hips. Once they are placed correctly, firmly plant your feet with equal wight under the three points – under the ball of your foot at the big toe and baby toe and your heel. Now allow your spine to dance up to the clouds. Creating space between all the vertebrae.

Rainbow: On your next inhale, sweep your arms up to the sky making a beautiful big rainbow arch. ?Exhale, and bring your hands to your heart into Namaste.?Repeat rainbow six times.

5. Open your?hips, bum and low back.

This pose is easiest if done seated on floor or in chair or my personal favourite is to lay on the floor.

On your next exhale, place?the right foot on top of the??left knee. Ensure the left knee is lined up with the left shoulder. Do you feel an opening in the right bum? If so, stay here. If not, hing forward from the hips, allowing the belly button to lead; keeping the back flat.Hold for six complete breathes.

Repeat on the other side. Place the left?foot on top of the right?knee. Hold for six complete breathes.

6.?Mountain?to Tree pose

Now that we have opened up the hips we are ready to test them out in tree pose. But first we need to prepare by going into mountain pose

Mountain: ?Making your way onto your feet. Place your feet directly below your hips.?Standing nice and tall in Mountain pose. Ensure your feet are directly below your hips. Once they are placed correctly,??firmly plant your feet with equal wight under the three points – under the ball of your foot at the big toe and baby toe and your heel. Now allow your spine to dance up to the clouds. Creating space between all the vertebrae.

Tree: Release your right heel. Rotate your knee to the right. Place your heel on your left leg. If you like, you can also try placing your foot on your mid calf or mid thigh or to the base of your body. Just please never place the foot on the knee (Your knee is a hing joint. Not build for pushing it to the side)

This is a balance pose as well as a core strengthener, so be sure to engage the core (back and stomach muscles) to keep your body upright. Continuously trying to let your head float up to the clouds.

If it is safe, and you do not need hold on to a chair,?you can add your arms into branches.

Begin with hands into namaste (palms together at the heart), then grow your branches up, releasing your hands to make a “Y”. Relaxing your neck and shoulders.

Hold the pose; ?not the breath. Remember to breath in for four and out for four (this is one complete breathe). Hold the pose for six complete breathes.

Return to mountain pose.

Repeat Tree on the other side – Release your left?heel. Rotate your knee to the left. Place your heel on your right?leg.

Tree Pose

 

See how just ten minutes of yoga helps

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/health/wellness/i-did-10-minutes-of-yoga-every-day-for-a-month-and-this-is-what-happened/ar-AAgW9tY?li=AAggV0S&ocid=SL5GDHP

 

I especially liked this ladies comment?” Real live instruction is worth it.
The other thing I learned from that instructor? I probably shouldn’t have started with videos. Obviously it would have been nearly impossible to find the time to go to a yoga class every day, but attending one showed me that trying to get the basics of yoga from a series of videos probably wasn’t the best introduction. The instructor came over to me several times to make small adjustments to my form, and I learned that I’d been doing a few poses wrong the whole time. Doing yoga by video also requires you to constantly look up to see what the instructor is doing next, while an in-person instructor can walk around the room and give specific instructions like “lift your left leg to your shin” if she sees anyone who looks confused.”