Kneeling Positions in Prenatal Yoga

Keeping the spine long, we’re going top release the head forward, so just the back of your neck releases and becomes longer as your chin comes down towards your breast bone. And still breathing gently and smoothly in your own comfortable rhythm, I’d like you to softly roll your head towards one shoulder, let’s say the right shoulder. And then let your head roll all the way back keeping your jaw nice and loose and relax. So open your mouth slightly, keep your jaw really, really relaxed. And then roll your head towards your left shoulder and then a forward, so you’re making very big wide circle, keep going. Softly let go of the head let go of the neck. Imagine yourself having a very soft neck and a soft, heavy round head, really letting go keeping the shoulders very really relaxed. And then come back to the center, pause, open your mouth really wide, stretch out the jaw. Have a yawn if you could find one and then release the jaw and this time we’re going to roll the head the other way so going to the left and round, an round, toward the other shoulder and then just let go of the head completely as your chin brushes past the breast bone. And do two more circles like that, easy breathing. When you're finished, come to the center, you relax. And very slowly, lift your head so that your neck grows long and tall and your upper back lengthens. Good, that’s really lovely and inhaling that the arms come up and then exhaling let the arms come down. And as the arms come down keep that length that you’ve just created in you chest so inhaling, arms come up, up, up, up, up, exhaling, release. Now with the next we’re going to take the just the left arms up so, inhaling raise the left arm and then bend the elbow and let your hand come down pass your neck, so your fingers are resting at the top of your spine. And then inhale and take the right arm up and see if you can just gently catch hold of your elbow and encourage your elbow towards the ceiling. Now don’t pull on the elbow at all, just relax into your breathing. Let your tailbone sink down into the cushions so you're really sitting deeply in the pelvis. Avoid arching your lower back, easy breathing and then when you’re ready, undo. Good, and takes the arms down. Great! Give the shoulders lovely big roll so I'm massaging underneath the shoulder blades. Lovely, let all of your arm go into the movement, lovely rolls of the shoulders backwards. Good okay then relax the arms and these time we’re going to take the right arm up in an in breathe and bend it. Place the palm at the back of your neck, reaching the fingertips a little bit down on your spine then inhale and take the left arm up and catch hold of the elbow and gently encourage that elbow towards the ceiling. Now watch for what's happening in your lower back. You don’t want to arch in your lower back, just relax down into your pelvis let your tailbone drop and let this movement happens in the shoulder through your breathing rather than pulling or pushing on the shoulder. Good, and undo. Good okay and then we’re going to open the arm south as if your opening your arms up to welcome a little toddler running towards you which you will be in a couple of years or in a year. So opening the arms out and then we’re going to cross the arms left arm on top of the right like this. This is called eagle arms, and wrap the hands around each other, forearms around each other and place the fingers towards each other. So hands looked like a flame of a candle, lovely, and then raise your elbows slightly away from your chest and you're going to feel this opening your upper back between the shoulder blades. So just stay with it and breathe for a moment and then undo and relax. Okay and again, open the arms, right arm over the left this time, wrapping the forearms around each other, placing the hands palm to palm, fingers to palm and slightly raise the elbows. And again, relax into your breathing, let your lower back sink down with towards the cushions, heavy pelvis and undo the arms and relax. Just try and do prayer position at the back. For some people this might be quite difficult so if you find it difficult, instead just hold your arms like this behind you, okay. But don’t struggle, it’s not worth it so if you can do it easily then, take your hands around behind your back and then in the lower back, touch your fingertips together and bring your hands up round about the bra strap. Now if you’re finding that hard you just hold onto around the elbows, that’s great. And what this position does it, its very nice for opening front of the chest so fell your self open across the front of the chest okay. And again watch for your lower back keep it relax, keep the tailbone nice and long and undo the hands and get them a shake. You know end up with one lost thing, link the fingers, reverse the palms and stretch out. It is nice for your hands and your fingers but sometimes you know get caught puffy so this is good thing to do and undo and relax the hands into your lap. Now look down for a moment and let your attention go through your breathing and to your baby. And we’re going to try one more thing holding onto the belt so you got a belt next to you, if you’d like to fold the belt in half and hold the belt in the middle at your left hand—in your left hand and we’re going to inhale, take the left arm up and drop the belt down your back. Okay we’re going to take the right hand around the back and see if you can find the bottom of the belt and just hold on to the belt, walking the hands as close together as you comfortably can. Now if you can link your fingers without the belt, then you don’t need the belt and you can drop it. Most of us need the belt and undo and we’ll do the same on the other side so relax around the shoulders and take the belt in your right hand. This time inhaling take the belt up, exhaling drop it down your back and then reach around with the left hand catch hold of the belt a comfortable distance and pause and breathe. It’s time to get out of this position and come to all force and just kick away your cushions with your one leg. And we’re just going to stretch out the legs of the sitting. Now that’s to stretch out your—so we’re just going to stretch out the legs off the sitting mat so just stretch the left leg, tuck the toe under and extend the heel and then change, and lovely stretch with the back of the leg and then change to the other side, stretching through the left leg, tucking the toes under and change again to the right. Great! Now I’d like you stay on all forth and what we’re going to do is roll the hips in a big circle and this time I'm going to ask you to make some sounds as you're rolling round with the exhalation. I just want you to make any kind of vowel sound like a, o, u, as you roll round, okay. And the reason I'm asking you to do is that when you're in very strong labor you probably will want to make a quite a bit of noise and release sound as you go through the contractions and this is a wonderful natural way for pain relief. So I want as all to get use to making a noise, okay, a nice gentle deep noise that moves downwards okay through the body into the ground. Okay so rolling your hips let go of your head, let go of your neck, and let go of all your inhibitions and off we go. [Demonstration] Relax the breathing and continue. [Demonstration] Imagine these breasts making a great circle into the ground and taking the pain away with it and keep going. [Demonstration] And come to the center and come up slowly. Good! Fantastic. Okay so now take your knees a little bit apart and come forward into child pose. So if you feel you’d love to use a bolster or some support for coming forward, then the main thing is you want to keep your back nice and free and long. So it’s a good idea if you need to, to use some form of low stool or bolster cushion so that coming forward feels good and your pelvis can open comfortably. Does that feel okay? Lovely, lovely long back resting your head to one side so your neck feels long and relaxed as one shoulder is open and a little wider, yeah that’s beautiful, okay. I think actually you are too far forward. Can you just take a couple of cushions in front? Yeah that’s good and the shoulders are a little wider because everything is a little bit more spacious. Great, that looks lovely, you comfortable? Yeah! good okay.