Yoga Video Lesson: 20-Minute Morning Yoga Poses for Energy & Productivity, Beginner
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Jennie T.
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Morning Yoga Lesson 2: Energise Your Morning.
Morning Yoga Lesson 3: Morning Gratitude for An Abundant Life
Evening Yoga Lesson 1: Unwind and Center
Evening Yoga Lesson 2: Calming to Destress
Evening Yoga Lesson 3: Finding Deep Rest Within for A Good Night Sleep
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Hi everyone. My name is Tana. I will be your yoga teacher today. This practice is brought to you by Warrior2, an authentic brand for yoga, accessories, and equipment. This is a three part morning yoga series to help you overcome stress and anxiety through yoga. In today’s practice, we are focusing on grounding and centering ourselves through slow, mindful movement and breath work.
1. Cross-legged seat pose
So when you’re ready, we’ll go ahead and start in a simple cross-legged seat pose, just placing one foot in front of the other, and go ahead and sit up nice and tall, lifting up through the top of your head and anchoring down into your sip bones. To begin, we’ll place our left hand to our heart center, our right hand to our belly.
Close down the eyes or soften your gaze, and then start to take a few slow deep breaths, breathing in and out through your nose, feeling the belly and the chest expand outwards to the sides as you pull the air in, and then softly deflate as you exhale.
On your next breath in, slowly reach your arms up to the sky. Exhale left hand to the earth beside you, right arm stretches up and over, and find a sense of spaciousness across the lateral line of your body. And then walk the hands all the way forwards in front of you. Take a fold of a both of your legs and allow the bones to anchor you into the earth.
And then we’ll take it towards the other side. Right hand meets the earth, stretching out through your left fingers. Breathe into the left lower ribcage, and then slowly breathe in.
Come back up to the middle, and then we’ll roll over our knees to find a tabletop position, stack your shoulders over your wrists, hips over your knees. Inhale, cow pose lifting through your heart expanding. Exhale contract. Tuck your tailbone, broaden across the upper back. Inhale, arch the spine lifting through your chest and exhale round curl inwards. Inhale, drop the belly. Lift the heart space. Exhale round. Contract, tucking your chin.
3. Puppy pose
Now find a neutral spine and then walk your hands out in front of you. We’ll find a puppy pose. Melt your armpits down to the earth. Allow your hips to feel nice and high. As you open across your heart space, across the inner lines of your arms. Take a few slow deep breaths into the sides of your waist.
4. Cobra pose
On the end of your next exhale, melts your body all the way down to the mat, lowering your chest down, hands beneath your shoulders, breathe and cobra pose lifting your chest off the earth. Exhale, soft and slowly down, and again, breeze and melts up and off the earth. Exhale to lower, breathe and draw the shoulders back, lift the chest, and exhale melts your chest to the floor.
5. Locust pose
Now reach your arms behind you, interlace your hands. We’ll find locust pose, so lift your chest off the floor. Draw the tips of your shoulder blades together as you open up across your front body. Stay quite active through the back body.
6. Child's pose
And then relax your face. Keep breathing. Exhale, soften to the earth. Release your hands and draw your bum towards your heels. Find a child’s pose. Melt your chest over your thigh bones. Reach the arms out in front of you. Soften the forehead to the mat and take a few deep breaths into the back line of your body.
Find that feeling of spaciousness of deep grounding. As your shins and the tops of the feet sink into the mat, allow a feeling of calm to wash over your whole body.
7. Downward facing dog pose
And then on your next breath in, you can slowly make your way into a downward facing dog, reaching your bum all the way up and back. Let’s begin to pedal out through the feet, bending one leg at a time, taking in nice and slow, spreading through the webbing of your fingers, the webbing of your toes, relaxing your facial features. Now find stillness in your dark.
8. Low lunge Anjaneyasana pose
And then on the next breath in, step your right foot out in front of you, finding a low lunge Anjaneyasana. Left knee sinks to the mat, arms get long. Pull your belly button in as you breathe in, and then breathing out. Right arm stretches behind you, left hand forwards, vertical twist.
Find that opening across your chest and then breathe in. Arms come back up. Exhale, hands meet the earth. Plug into both hands. Breathe in halfway. Lift left foot meets your right. Exhale fold. Bow over your thigh bones and then breathe in.
9. High mountain pose
Slowly rise to the high mountain pose. Get long through your spine. Palms connect at the top. Exhale, hands to the heart back to mountain pose.
Push the palms firmly towards one another, and then we go again. Inhale high mountain. Get long through your spine. Exhale, fold forwards. Melt your chest over your thighs. Breathing in halfway lift, broadening through your collarbone. On the exhale step, your right foot behind you, right knee sinks down to the mat.
Anjaneyasana low lunge. Get long, pull the frontal ribs in. Vertical twist, stretch your left arm behind you. Right arm stretches forwards. Inhale, center rise and exhale, low lunge.
10. Chaturanga pose
Plug your hands into the floor and we’ll step it back into a plank pose. Left foot meet your right foot. Take it nice and slow, chaturanga pose, squeeze the forearms together.
Breathing in, cobra pose pushing into the hips, lifting your heart.
Exhale to lower, and one more time. Breathe and push your heart forward and up. Exhale, melted all the way down. Tuck your toes under. We’ll meet in a downward facing dog.
11. Three-legged dog pose
And then on the next breath in, send your right leg high. Find a three-legged dog pose. Draw your heel towards your bum. Find that opening through the inner seam of your thigh. And then on the exhale, find a high lunge step the foot forwards. Get long through your spine. Bend into your left back knee a little bit. Inhale and then exhale. Vertical twist. Stretch your right arm behind you, wired across your breastplate. Inhale center, get long.
12. Warrior II pose
As you breathe out, find a warrior II pose and just check your alignment, heel arch alignment. Push into both of your feet, breathing in, reverse your warrior, creating that space across the right side.
13. Prasarita Padottanasana pose
And then as you breathe out, find a wide-legged forward fold, Prasarita Padottanasana pose side of your space. Bow straight in between your thighs, and really sink the heels and the edges of your feet into the earth.
14. Half split pose
Find a spacious breath, and then on the next breath in, come into a halfway lift. Lift the heart. Exhale, low lunge, front of your space, facing your right foot. We’ll sink the left knee down to the mat. Now half split pose working towards straightening out through this right leg. And keep your hands on either side of your right foot and find that space across the back of your leg.
15. Pigeon pose
Inhale, rock forwards and then we’ll come into pigeon pose. Ground the edge of your right foot. Walk the left knee back as far as you can, lift the ches, inhale. Exhale, fold forwards over your right shin. Okay. You might bring your forearms down to the floor. You might keep your chest a little bit lifted. Any variation works here. Just making sure that your right foot is flexed.
Find a sense of deep release as you stretch the outer seam of your thigh. Start to walk your hands back up. Curl your left toes under, and we’ll kick it back into a three-legged dog.
Stretch your right leg all the way back behind you. Exhale downward facing dog.
As you exhale, high crescent lung stepping forwards, reaching up through your fingers, pulling your belly to your spine. Inhale and exhale. Vertical twist. Sweep your left arm behind you, right arm forwards. Active through your legs, grounded through your feet. Breathe in center and then breathing out. Find your warrior II pose.
Energize through the back leg. Inhale, reverse your warrior II pose, breathing into the left side of your ribcage.
16. Wide-legged forward fold pose
As you exhale, take a wide-legged forward fold pose. You’re welcome to bend your knees here if you’re not quite ready for this straight-legged fold. Bend your knees a little bit, but really try to hinge from the hip joint, and then soften your face in the upper body and allow yourself to feel supported, to feel held by your body in the ground beneath.
On the next breath in halfway lift. Exhale, low lunch front of your space, finding half splits now, right knee meets the mat. Straighten out through your left leg, breathe into that hamstring line, and then as you breathe out rock forwards, we will find pigeon pose.
Lower your shin down to the mat. Walk your knee, your right knee back as far as you can, and then breathe in. Exhale fold forwards. Notice if you’re holding onto any tension here in the shoulders and the neck. Allow the body to feel softer as you deepen that stretch.
And on the next breath in, start to walk your hands back up. Cuing your right toes under. We’ll meet in a three-legged dog pose.
Kick your left leg all the way back. Reach into your heel. Exhale downward dog pose. Both feet meet the earth. Take an easy breath in and out through the nose.
And then on the next breath in, sink your knees all the way down to the mat. Find a child’s pose – balasana. You can lower your forearms, your elbows to the mats. Now relax your face completely. Close the eyes. Allow the whole back body to round as you draw inwards.
And really allow yourself to feel really connected to the Earth in this position. Feeling the breath as your ribcage expands into your thighs and allowing any worries and stress to seep right out of your body. Feeling safe, feeling connected.
17. Figure four position
Take a full breath in through your nose, and then as you exhale, slowly roll up through your spine. Meeting in a kneeling position. We will glide our legs over to the right side, and then stretch your legs out in front of you. You can walk your bum forward slightly to the front of your space and keep your knees bent here.
Reach the arms out in front of you and then roll down. Come to lie down on our spine. Cross our right foot over our left thigh. Now finding a figure four position, weaving your hands in between this left leg. And interlacing the hands and drawing the whole leg package into your heart space. Try to keep the lower back rounded to the floor if you can, and shoulders firming into the mat.
And let’s change the cross of our legs. Left foot over right, hands in between the right thigh or the shin. Draw the right thigh closer in towards the body.
18. Supine spinal twist pose
On the end of your exhale, uncross both of your legs and then draw your thighs together. And we will find a supine spinal twist pose taking the knees over to the left side to begin with, and you can have your arms stretched out in a capital T shape and melts your right shoulder down to the mat and find a feeling of spaciousness, of softness with each breath out, and you can slowly guide your knees back, and then over towards the other side. Melting your left shoulder down and really allowing the breath to slow down, allowing the thoughts to slow down. Really tapping into a state of calm, of deep rooting.
19. Ball pose
And pull the knees back into your heart space now, and we’ll hug ourselves into a tight little ball pose. So pull your forehead to your knees and take a full breath in, and then as you exhale, stretch your legs. And bring your hands to your lower belly just for a moment. Just a nice way to get connected to your breath.
Notice what the breath is doing, and if you have a tendency to hold onto the breath, I invite you to take a few deep breaths into your abdominal cavity where your hands are. Feel the belly expand as you breathe. And deflate as you breathe out.
20. Supine laying position
When you are ready, move to a supine laying position, you can very slowly place your hands on either side of the body, close down the eyes, relax your facial feature. Relax the shoulders, the elbows, the hands, the fingers. Relax, your hips, your thighs, your knees, relax the core muscles, the ankles, the toes, and the bottom of your feet. And allow the earth to take you in.
You can start to gently invite some movements back into the toes, back into the fingers, and slowly deepen the breath.
You’re welcome to stay here for a few moments longer. Thank you so much for practicing with me today. I hope you feel connected, rooted, and centered in your body and your mind.
You are welcome to come back to this practice any morning you like. Have a beautiful day and I will see you soon. Namaste.
Jennie T.
Jennie is a long time yogi, a vegetarian and a blogger. Her morning routine starts with a glass of lukewarm lemon water, 1-hour yoga or cardio exercise, then an organic smoothie, and a cup of green tea or milk tea. Besides yoga and blogging, she likes to meditate in the morning or at lunch break. She is a Seinfeld's fan (sorry Friends)
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