Transcript for Yoga with Haley
Hi, my name is Haley Hoffmeister. I teach yoga three days a week on a site called mentalgroundings.com. I teach Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 6:00 PM, Pacific Standard Time. I'm going to take you through a 10-minute yoga practice.
The most important thing in a practice, whether it's seated in your chair or in a class, is to listen to your body. Or breathing, or stretching, this should feel good. Nothing should hurt. So if we do something, say we take like a little twist and it feels weird, it feels bad in your back, just carefully come back out of it. You might find a spot that feels good and you can stop right there, or if it doesn't feel good at all, you just want to come back to a neutral position and you can just join us when something does feel good.
So the first thing we're going to do is take a few deep breaths. Breathing deeply throughout the day is a great stress reliever. So we're going to exhale all the air out and then we're going to inhale for 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. We'll hold for 3, 2, 1, and we'll exhale for 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. We'll inhale and exhale naturally in through the nose and out through the mouth or the nose. We're going to do that one more time. We'll exhale all the air out and we'll inhale for 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. We'll hold for, 3, 2, 1, and we'll exhale for 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And inhale and exhale in through the nose and out through the nose or the mouth.
We'll inhale the arms up and we'll exhale them through heart center. We'll inhale the arms up and we'll exhale them through heart center. We'll inhale the arms up and we'll exhale pausing at heart center just for a moment to thank yourself for taking this time to breathe, to stretch, and to just do something good for your body, your mind, and your spirit.
We're going to exhale the arms down. We're going to roll out the neck. We hold a lot of tension in the neck, so we just want to get that out. We're going to bring our right ear over to our right shoulder. We'll bring our head back and around. And when you reach chin to chest, we're going to go over to the right one more time, back and around. Any of that crunchy cricky stuff is totally normal. When you reach chin to chest again, we're going to take the left ear over to the left shoulder. We'll go back and around, and we'll go one more time over to the left. This should feel really good. Hopefully it does. When you reach into chest you're going to float your head back up over your neck and shoulders. We're going to roll the shoulders up and back.
We're going to inhale the arms up and we're going to exhale just reaching over to the right. So we'll reach that right hand at a 45 degree angle, and we're going to bring the left arm up over the head. You also want to pay attention to your left sit bone. So if they start to hike up a little bit, you just want to bring them back down onto your chair. It's not about reaching super far over, it's just that nice stretch that you should feel in your neck, in your shoulder, and in both arms.
We'll inhale the arms up and we're going to reach over to the left side. So this time your left arm is going to be out about a 45 degree angle, your fingers reaching long. Your right arm is going to be arched over your head and you're just going to be paying attention to those rights of bone. So if they start to lift up, you want to bring them back down onto your chair.
We'll continue to breathe through all of these. We're going to inhale the arms up. We're going to take a gentle twist over to the right. So we're going to bring the left hand to the right knee. We're going to bring the right hand to the back of the right chair. At the back right corner, there. We're going to inhale getting a little bit taller, and we'll exhale seeing if we can turn a tiny bit more. Just like micro, micro little movements.
We're going to inhale the arms up and we'll take that spinal twist over to the left. So this time we're going to have your left hand on the back bottom of your chair, you're going to have your right hand on your left knee. Seeing if you can get a little bit taller with each inhale again, and seeing if you can turn a little bit more with each exhale.
We'll inhale the arms up and we'll exhale them down onto our sides. We're going to lift our heels up coming up onto our toes, and we'll hold this for 3, 2, 1. You might notice you feel a little something in your core here. So you want to pay attention to that, kind of hold on. Bring your belly back towards your spine as you lift your heels up again. So we're going to hold that for 3, 2, 1, and we'll bring the heels back down. We'll do that one more time, paying attention to the belly. We'll lift the heels and we'll hold for 3, 2, 1, and we'll exhale back down.
We're going to bring the right leg up, and we're going to cross that right ankle across the left thigh. We're going to gently rest our right hand on our right thigh, around our right knee not putting too much pressure on it, but we're going to hold on to the left foot with the left hand sitting just like this. Or if you want to just gently come forward, maybe stretching out that thigh a little bit more. Again, pay attention to your body. See where you need to stop to get a nice stretch for that thigh and for your back.
We'll inhale if you come forward. You're going to bring yourself back. We're going to inhale lifting that right leg and then placing it back on the ground. So we're going to inhale the left leg up, this time reaching that left ankle across the right thigh. You'll hold on to that right foot with hand to the left and over to the left foot with the right hand.
We're going to bring the left hand to the right side. We'll inhale, and if you'd like to come forward just a tiny bit stretching that thigh a little bit more, maybe stretching the back. And we'll inhale and carefully come back up. We're going to inhale that left leg up and we'll bring that left foot back down to the earth.
All right, we're going to do a couple of Cat-Cows. So we're going to open up the chest. We're going to bring the belly forward, and we're going to bring the tailbone back as we inhale. And we're going to exhale bringing the spine back, bringing the shoulders, the head, and the tailbone forward. We'll inhale into Cow, opening the chest, bringing the belly forward, and we'll exhale into Cat.
And one more time, we'll inhale forward curving the spine, and we'll exhale bringing the spine back into Cat. Bringing the head forward, the tailbone, rounding the shoulders, and we're going to come into a neutral spine. We'll inhale the arms up and we're going to exhale into cactus. So we're going to take another gentle back bend, bringing the arms into that W shape, just imagining the sun shining down on your face and your chest as you breathe.
We're going to inhale the arms up and we'll exhale through heart center. We'll inhale arms up and we'll exhale through heart center. We'll inhale the arms up, this time pausing at the top just to reach for whatever you need. Sometimes I need strength or courage, serenity, peace, understanding, whatever you need. Bring that into your heart center, it is yours.
Thank you guys so much for joining me. The light in me is honored by the light in each one of you. The darkness in me is honored by the darkness in you, and the gray area and me is honored by the gray area in you. Namaste.
I hope that helped you guys relax. Just remember, you can do that any time throughout the day. It's such a good stress reliever. It's so good for your body, your mind, and your spirit. Thank you guys so much. I'm Haley, have a great day.
