10 min Yoga for Beginners - Gentle & Simple Yoga Stretch

Hi everyone, thank you for joining me. My name is Cassandra and I'm going to be taking you through a 10-minute beginner-friendly yoga sequence. So if you're new to yoga or maybe just feel a little bit out of practice or even if you felt intimidated by starting a yoga practice, this is just going to be a very simple sequence that is still effective and still introduces you to essential poses and movements without being too complicated or too challenging. So a little bit of strength, a little bit of flexibility, and a little bit of balance. And this here is Maggie and she likes to steal the show whenever I turn the camera on. Okay, with that being said, let's begin in a tabletop pose or cat and cow. So we do this to prepare our spine. This is a mix of extension and flexion. So you want to align your palms under your shoulders, your knees underneath your hips, and I want you to really spread your fingertips wide and claw down into the mat with your fingertips and knuckles. As you inhale, you're going to drop your belly down, squeeze your shoulder blades behind you, lift your tailbone up to the sky, and lift your gaze up. So get a nice stretch here. Keep your elbows straight as you exhale, reverse this motion. So lengthening along your spine, drop your tailbone, drop your head, spread your shoulder blades further apart, and keep going through these two poses, pairing it with your breath. So inhale, get a little back bend here, open through your heart, and exhale round and contract. Try to pull your lower belly in, hugging towards the low back, and just keep going here. Breathing in and out through your nose, exhale, pushing the floor away from you, being gentle to your wrists. Last time here, inhale and exhale. And now come back into a neutral tabletop pose. So you want to firm up and engage through your lower abdominals, and we're going to pull and see if you can hover and touch your thigh towards your chest. Keep your elbows straight and then kick that right leg out behind you. Roll that hip down. Notice where your weight is being distributed here. Squeeze through your glutes and through your hamstrings to lift that leg up even higher without swaying through your lower back. And now let's step that right foot in between our hands to the top of the mat for Anjaneyasana, your low lunge. My right knee is over the top of my ankle, I'm pushing my feet into the floor in order to lift my upper body and my arms up. So here I'm lengthening my tailbone down, I'm pulling up and engaging through my abdominals to get a little bit more lift and stretch through the upper body. And you can find a nice little lift as well through your heart, top of the rib cage, maybe shifting your gaze up. If this makes you lose your balance, leave this out. It's a very small little backbend. And now join your hands together at the front of the heart, and we're just going to twist very simply here. I want you to push your hands in towards one another and then rotate your chest over towards the right. Keep your chest lifted. So I'm still staying up nice and tall, just adding a spinal rotation. Come all the way back through to center, and now bring your hands down to the floor. We're going to straighten that right leg, heading into the hamstrings, flex that front foot. You can absolutely keep a bend a little bit here in your right knee if you're a little tight. Slow steady breaths. And now bend through your right knee again. You're going to tuck the back toes under to lift your back knee off the mat. Plant your palms. We're going to find our first downward facing dog. So you want your hands to be shoulder-width distance apart, and your feet are hip-width distance apart. Please bend your knees as much as you want here, especially if you feel tightness through your lower back. I never want you to feel any kind of pain in that area or really any part of your body as you practice. Think of lifting your seat up as high as it can go, pressing your chest towards your thighs. And don't worry about whether or not your heels are touching the mat. It truly does not matter. Let's come forward into our plank pose, and it's up to you if you want to keep your knees on or off the mat. Since this is a beginner flow, I'm going to drop my knees down to give myself support. This is Lucy. She also likes the attention of the camera. And you're going to lower all the way to your belly. Keep your elbows hugging into the sides as you lower. Point your toes back. Push your feet into the floor. Roll your shoulders back. Lift up. Get a nice little back bend. Bhujangasana, your cobra pose. Exhale to lower. Find a tabletop once more. So lifting up onto hands and knees, starting to work a little bit of strength here. Now find this firm foundation, flat back, and you're just going to hover and see how close you can get your knee towards your chest without rounding here. I'm trying to keep my spine straight, and then I'm going to straighten my left leg back behind me without opening up the hip to the side. Keep it rotating down. Draw your lower belly in and really push your hands into the floor. I like to flex my left foot as if I'm kicking against the wall behind me. And let's find our low lunge, anjaniyasana, so your left foot steps to the top of the mat. Your knee is on top of your ankle. You're going to push into the floor to find a nice lifting here, and what we don't want is to collapse into our lower back. Think of lifting yourself up a little bit. Draw your lower belly in and then lengthen through the sides of your waist to get a little lift. And we are still pressing the hips forward and down, stretching through our hip flexors, down the thighs. You can add a tiny little back bend by opening through your heart, shifting your gaze up, and bring your hands together at the front of your chest. This is anjali mudra. Push your palms together and you're just going to rotate over towards the left. Keep reaching the crown of your head up nice and high. Facing forward again, hands to the mat, straighten your left leg. This is ardha hanumanasana, your half splits pose. Nice little hamstring stretch, flexing through that front foot. And we'll come back into downward facing dog, adho mukha svanasana. Bend into your front knee, plant your palms. You're going to tuck the back toes under, lift your back knee off the floor, and step your left foot back to meet the right, keeping them about hip-width distance apart. And notice now, maybe you find you have a little bit more space or a little bit more ease in this pose. Let's come forward into our plank pose again. Shoulders over your wrists, your knees can come down, and we lower all the way to our belly. Instead of pointing the elbows out, keep them hugging in and pointing back. Open through your heart, your elbows are bent. Exhale to release, and let's press back into balasana, a child's pose. Big toes together, knees as wide as you would like them to be. The wider they are, the deeper stretch you will feel. And lower your forehead down to the mat, relax a little here. Just a few deep breaths, and go ahead and lift on up. You can swing your legs out in front of you, we're going to lower down onto our backs. And with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor, you're just going to pull your right knee in towards your chest, and then straighten your right leg any amount. And you can hold on to the back of your thigh or up towards your shin, your ankle, your foot, whatever is accessible. And you can absolutely have a bend in that right knee. Try to relax, head and shoulders to the mat. And let's cross our right ankle over the top of that left knee, flexing your foot. You're going to pull your left thigh in towards your belly. Again, head and shoulders are relaxing down, only using a little bit of arm strength. And release from this pose, bring both feet flat to the floor again. Before we repeat this on the other side, we'll find our bridge pose, Setu Bandha Sarvangasana. So you want to have your heels pretty close in towards your hips, roll your shoulders down and away from your ears, push your feet into the floor, and then see if you can lift and press your seat up. Push into your big toes, hug through your inner thighs. Again, notice the tendency for the thighs and the knees to widen. Big breath in here, strengthening through your legs, and slowly roll down inch by inch. Pull your left thigh in towards your belly and go ahead and straighten that left leg any amount. Grabbing a hold of wherever is most appropriate to you. Trying to increase flexibility through our lower body. Let's cross the left ankle over the top of our right knee. Keep that knee moving away from you, and you're going to pull and draw right thigh in towards your belly. Give it a big squeeze, and let's release and let that go. Feet flat to the floor, your bridge pose again. Palms face up, arms alongside your body, push your feet into the floor, lift your seat up, and exhale. Release, roll back down, and you can just either roll to one side or come up. We're all joining by taking a seat in any way that is comfortable for your hips and for your lower back. So cross-legged kneeling, maybe sitting up on a pillow or a blanket. Shrug your shoulders away from your ears, lengthen up tall through your spine, close your eyes. Let's take that same hand gesture, Anjali Mudra, so hands together at the front of the heart, and take a moment to really connect with yourself, to show yourself some gratitude for carving out time out of your busy day, to do just a little bit of yoga which can still have really great profound effects. Together we chant Aum to close this class. Let's inhale to chant breathe in. Thank you so very much for doing this 10-minute beginner yoga practice with me. I would love to know how this went for you. I have many more beginner practices on my channel as well as inside my mobile app. I'll leave links to that in the description if you want to check it out. Hopefully you'll practice again with me very soon. Have a wonderful rest of your day.