So coming onto your back now for the counter pose flow. You can have both knees bent, heels right under your knees. Feel a deep inhale, and go ahead and exhale and just relax your whole body towards the earth.
Now in a flow, as you inhale, draw your right knee towards you, and you can just gently hold it with your hands, and feel your spine elongate, tail bone elongating, and exhale, bring the foot back down.
Changing inhale, left knee in. As the knee draws towards you, try not to compress your hip. Keep elongating the base of your spine along the earth, and take the foot back down. Good!
Now inhale, drive your knee into your chest. You are going to take your right foot with your left hand, and slowly guide the foot across your left thigh, so you have kind of like a number four, upside down number four. From here, lift your left knee off the ground. There is two options here. You can either hug underneath and clasp underneath your thigh and knee, or you can reach through the hole and clasp on top of your knee.
Take the thigh away from you to go deeper into that outer hip release, and let's bring flow into this. As you exhale, draw in your knee closer towards you, still rotating your opposite knee away. Inhale; release your left knee away. Exhale, hug your knee towards you, and inhale slightly away. One more time, exhale. Good!
Now slowly release your arms, and take your right foot towards the sky, holding at your calves, sometimes at the knee. If you have a strap or a towel, you can put it over the arch of your foot.
Now bend your knee slightly. The left knee is going to stay bent. Exhale, bend your right knee, pull in slightly. As you exhale, press your calf against your hand and radiate out through your heel. Exhale, bend your right knee. Inhale; press the calf against your hands. Completely relaxed. Let the body open by its own accord, bending the knee, and slowly straightening your leg.
Now from here, slowly release the leg down, and we will change sides. So right knee bends. Take the left knee with both hands and gently guide the foot across your right thigh. You can flex the foot slightly, totally relax your upper body, feel free to sigh at anytime.
Now guide your left arm through that hole. Hold underneath your leg or on top of the knee. Rotating your left thigh away, exhale, draw the knee towards you. It can be a millimeter of movement. Inhale, extend away. Exhale, going deeper. Inhale. Exhale, moving closer to yourself. Inhale. Exhale.
Now as you are ready, slowly release, and now take the foot with both hands, holding behind the calf, radiating through your heel. Inhale, and exhale. Take your toes towards the crown of your head, bending your knee slightly. Inhale, expand. Exhale, bend your knee. Inhale, expand. Exhale, bend your knee. Inhale, open. Exhale, for the last time. Inhale. Radiate completely, having utter patience as you open all aspects of your being. Now slowly release the leg down. Feel the elongation through your body.
Now hug your knees into your chest, and rock from side to side. Now we are going to open the knees to the side and you will hold your inner ankles by reaching your arms through. Now let your chin flow to one side and then the other, just letting the hips gently open with gravity.
Now if this is the first time that you will do the swing, hip opener, you might need to see me. But once you know, you can stay down here. Just relax your hands to the side.
Now keeping your legs just as they are, draw your right knee towards your shoulder, the left knee descends, and exhale, swinging to the other side, left knee towards your shoulder, right knee down. Now allow your hips to open, if you like. Let the neck oscillate, very slowly from side to side.
As you are ready, slowly draw your knees into your chest. Hug the knees in. Then slowly, rolling off to the side, as you come up to sitting, you are going to take a wide bounding pose or Baddha Konasana, with the wave of the spine.
Now slowly extending forward, feel the heart open from your base. As you inhale, rounding back, and then exhale, drawing the heart through. Inhale, melting back. With every exhale, allow your chest to get closer to the earth.
Now, I am not actually showing my full range of flexibility, because I want you to be comfortable with where your body is as a beginner. Be patient, let the body open slowly over time. Your knees may be slightly away from the earth, but slowly they will open. Eventually you can bring your feet all the way together and the inner thighs releasing to the earth. Feel free as you come back to this program to begin to gradually move towards full Baddha Konasana.
But for now, let's cross our feet. We will bring our hands to our heart, and then to our forehead, and then to our third eye, and feeling that balance and integration of consciousness, heart, embodiment, in the flow.
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