Restorative Baby and Me

Welcome back to Akro Yoga Family. I am here with Sarah, and we're going to start by breathing in together and taking three alms. Here we go. Aum. Two more just like that.

Aum. Aum. And we'll start today with a song that we have sung before, and we're going to sign more and together if you want to work on those two. Here we go. The more we get together, together, together, the more we get together, the happier we'll be.

For your friends are my friends and my friends are your friends. The more we get together, the happier we'll be. Let's sing that one more time together. Here we go. The more we get together, together, together, the more we get together, the happier we'll be.

For your friends are my friends and my friends are your friends. The more we get together, the happier we'll be. So as long as your kids at home are safe, we're okay that they might decide they want to sit on your lap like little monkey here, or they may walk around and explore. This beginning stretch, you can come to face your partner or your child, whoever you are working with today, and we'll take across the body right forearm to right forearm, and then walk your other arm in. Yeah.

You want to come in? Sit. And then look over your shoulder and we'll lean away from your partner for a gentle twist. You can also reach your other hand back and behind you and look up at the sky. Inhale back through center.

We'll take that on the other side. Breathing over your shoulder, breathing in together, exhaling, leaning and stretching away. Inhale back to center and this time take both forearms and we're going to take a little stir right here. So we're warming up the muscles in the lower part of the body and we're beginning to synchronize not only our own breath and movement, but the breath and movement with our partner. And let's switch directions.

And you might find as you get a little warmed up that you want to lean back, uh-huh. Very nice. Ta-da. Yeah. We're helping.

Are you helping us stretch? Just checking in. And then we'll come back forearm to forearm. And now we'll both lean back for a moment and then we'll round our spines looking towards our belly buttons in a little cat position. Breathing through cow, exhaling, rounding your spine back through a seated cat.

Once more, just like that, inhaling, looking up, exhaling, rounding in. And then pull in, come back to center and give your partner a namaste. Do you want to come fly? Ooh, here we go. We're going to take baby into a little restorative flight.

This is something you can do both with your child and with another adult. So Sarah picks him up and places her feet. There we go. So this is our little baby folded leaf, a really sweet and first inversion. And I'm standing here to spot, although these two have done it many times.

All done. We're all done. And that means we come down. Sometimes you might need to bribe your flyer with strawberries and that's okay. You want to hold the monkey?

Do you want to hold the monkey? And then you can take your friend into flight. Sarah places her feet below my hip bones. I place my hands on her shins and you might be feeding the third person in the room and they might end up crawling all over you. I lean forward and she places her hands on my shoulders.

I take my feet together. My feet are heavy towards the ground. I sweep my hands back and behind for lifted bada konasana. We'll take a few breath cycles right here. Notice how Sarah's legs are directly above her hips and her hands are above her shoulders so that my weight can pour through her bones into the ground with very little effort.

So my job as a flyer is to relax as much as possible and if we feel really stable here, the base can bend one leg to give a gentle twist. And then we'll come back through center. They can take the other leg into a gentle bend. And this is also a great place for the base to check in with the flyer. I feel wonderful.

Thank you. And to come down, the base will bend their legs as the flyer places hands on shins to press up. This is a really nice place to take those heels, step back, lean away. So I'm not trying to pull my base towards me on the mat. I'm just giving a gentle traction of the spine as I also get a little back bend.

From here, I take a wide goddess stance. We can go from side to side through a little lunge. I place my forearms on the tops of my legs and give a windshield wiper in and out a gentle run. I place my feet back down on the floor and then we take three brushes. And that helps release the low back, the hip flexors, all those stabilizing muscles.

And then, if we'd like to, we can switch or maybe go get more strawberries. Help your partner up, hagasana. So you can pause here and change roles or we'll take a quick closing namaste. So breathing in together, breathing out together, breathing into one om. Let's take two more, breathing in.

Thank you so much for joining us today, namaste.