30 Min Yin Yoga | Full Body Stretch & Deep Relax

Hey, hey, friends, this is a yin yoga class for full body flexibility. I'm Kate, and this is one of my favorite type of classes. Typically in yin yoga, you hold the poses for anywhere from two to seven minutes. Now we are going to hold them for two to three minutes in this class. And the benefit of doing that is that it allows your nervous system to calm down and your body to sink into the posture more. Now, these are passive postures, so we'll be laying and relaxing in them and really focusing on our breath and really surrendering and letting go in these postures. So you are going to leave your mat feeling open and more flexible, but also very relaxed. You could have a pillow or a bolster for one of the poses towards the back end of class so you can be nice and comfy. That's always helpful to let you drop in a little bit easier. But when you're ready, let's get started. Let's go ahead and arrive on our mat in child's pose with the knees wide, our big toes coming to kiss and then slowly walk your hands forward until your forehead finds the mat or find somewhere near to the mat. Release your hips back onto your heels and palm your hands forward so you're finding length in the spine, length in the neck. Start to tap into your breath. Find intentional breath. Find inhale through the nose and exhales out of the mouth. Inhale through the nose and exhale out of the mouth. Inhale through the nose a little bit bigger. So you feel it in the back of your rib cage and exhale. Inhale, seal the lips and exhale through the nose, constricting the back of your throat. So you elongate your breath. Keep a gentle face. Keep the eyebrows down. Relax the space around the eyes. Relax the jaw. Then we'll come into our first yin posture by clicking the knees to hips distance, walking the hands forward until your knees are at a 90 degree angle and melting your heart towards the mat. Your chin can come to the mat or your forehead can come to the mat. Puppy pose. There are three levels to your yin posture. The first one is physical, settling into the physical asana. So find comfort. Find a position where you can hold for a while, where it's not too strenuous. If you're feeling like you can't breathe easy or your muscles are tensing up and restricting, then back off a little bit. So that's the first part is settling in. And once you've settled, click your awareness one click further onto your breath, following your inhales and how they flow into your exhales. And once you have a calm rhythm with your breath, you can almost release it and just start to meditate, not trying too hard, just with ease. And if your mind starts to wander, come back to your breath and start over. If it gets too intense, you can always back off a little bit. Just a few more breaths here and slowly walk your hands towards your body. Take a moment, move nice and slow after a long hold like that. We'll tuck our toes and come into a transition pose. Lift your hips and send them back into downward dog. Just a moment here. If you'd like to pedal it out to feel comfort, then go ahead and do so. Then inhale, lift your right leg into the air. In the exhale, bring your right knee to your right wrist and set up for pigeon. Take a glance behind you. Make sure your left leg is straight back. It has a tendency to splay off to the side. Your right foot can be closer to your body or it can be further towards the top of the mat for a deeper expression. Now you can have two options here. One where you stay upright and work into your left psoas, that front of the left hip and opening through the front chain of the body. Or you can take humble pigeon where I offer you to needle your right arm under your left arm for a twist. Now find what you need here. Settle in and focus on your breath. If you are in reclined pigeon, then slowly bring your right arm out and start to walk your body up. Move very slowly. We're not in a rush. Then lean over all the way onto your right side. We're gonna swing with control our left leg all the way around and then stack as best we can our knees on top of each other, coming into cow face legs. So more important than stacking the knees directly on top of each other is going to be getting both sit bones firmly on the ground. So if you can get both sit bones on the ground and come to a tall spine and you feel the sensation in your glute medius and your glute maximus and your little piriformis muscle right here, then you're doing good. If you'd like a little bit more, you can crawl your hands forward and lean over. Remember the three phases. To settle in, find physical comfort. Once you have that, focus on the breath. And after a while, the awareness of the breath drops away and you can just be. You have the option to turn your palms skyward in an act of receiving a gentle reminder to not force or grip, but to be gentle with it. Slowly start to walk your hands back towards your body if you were leaned forward. Undo your legs by taking your top leg, bringing it onto the side of you. Come in through your tabletop position and press back into your downward dog. Well done. You can get your little wiggles out in your downward dog and then inhale your left leg up and exhale. Set your left knee by your left wrist and your left foot by your right hand or more towards your body. Take a peek over your right shoulder. Look back at your right leg. Make sure it's right behind you and make any adjustments you need for your pigeon on the left. Again, you have two options. One is to stay upright and work into this right psoas. Try to wrap your right hip down and pull your left hip back or you can needle your left arm under your right arm and take a twist. See where you can soften. Your face, your shoulders, your hips. With your next exhale, release the tension, relax and the next exhale, release. If you're in a twisted pigeon, then slowly, slowly walk your hands back towards your body until you're upright. Lean over to the left side and bring your right leg around, stacking the right knee on top of the left knee. Finding both sit bones firmly on the ground, coming up to a long spine and maybe this is enough of a stretch today or maybe we fold forward. If you fold forward, face your palms skyward, bringing in a little gentleness. Slowly start to walk your hands back to your body. If you were folded, uncross your legs by bringing your right leg out and off to the side and come down onto your tummy. We'll get into our chest now and our shoulders by reaching our right arm out like the letter T. Rolling over onto our right side. So our right arm is behind us now. You can move your hips forward on your mat so they're all in one line and I like to bring my left leg up like a kickstand and place it right behind my right knee. So my left knee is up at the sky. To deepen, you can reach your left arm back in space. Bring your left hand back to the mat and slowly come onto your stomach. Bring your right arm under your shoulder. Take a moment here. We are in no rush. Let your body recalibrate and then reach your left arm out like a T and roll over onto your left side. You might need to move your hips up in space so they're in line with your body and then bring your right leg up like a kickstand. Slowly start to come back to center. Take a moment by releasing both arms down by your side. Maybe you bring your right or left cheek to the mat and when you're ready, put your hands under your shoulders, press up through your tabletop and we'll get ready for one of our final postures. If you have a bolster or a pillow, now's the time that we're gonna get real comfy. We're gonna set up for frog pose. So come onto your knees. Walk your knees wide. Bring your ankles wider than your knees and flex your feet. You might have to make these adjustments to get comfy with it and then you can come down to forearms or stay on hands or whatever is comfortable to you but make sure that your hips are in line with your knees so you're not too forward. You're sending your hips back. Beautiful. Sometimes it takes a second to settle into this pose. That's perfectly fine. Once you find a good spot for you, just melt in a few more breaths here. Now, if you love frog pose and could just stay in this all day, then please do linger here. If not, then bring both ankles in first and then slowly with many steps, bring your knees together. You can put your bolster or your pillow off to the side and we'll roll all the way down onto our backs. Bring your feet as wide as the mat and then bring your knees together. A nice little comforting counter pose. If it feels good to bring your arms out wide, do so or you can bring one hand to your navel, the other hand to your heart and feel your breath here. Feel free to stay in this shavasana as long as you would like. You can come up to an easy seat. Bring your prayer hands to your third eye, a slight tuck of the chin and a namaste, sweet friends. I hope you feel very relaxed after that class. You did a great job. It's a very mental practice to calm and regulate yourself when certain poses are getting really intense and I hope that that skill that we just put into practice here translates off the mat and into your daily life. When things might get a little challenging, you can always bring in that sense of self, that sense of regulation, the breath and come back to a place of equanimity. I have tons more yin classes on my channel if you'd like to practice again and I hope to see you on the mat very soon.