Family Yoga

Welcome back to Acro Yoga Family. I am really inspired about this partner yoga sequence that we will share with you today. You can do this with just one other person or you might find that a whole family can partner up and have a bunch of different people in the same room doing this sequence at the same time. So we'll start together seated in a comfortable position back to back. It's nice to have a little blanket underneath the sit bones to lift you just a little bit so that you can stay here a little bit longer than you normally would. Ideally the knees are a little bit below the hips so we'll also release through the lower back while that's happening. So lean into your partner, find that comfortable seat. Take a breath right here and we'll take three centering breaths sweeping your hands up to the sky breathing in. Exhaling palms through center gazing at your own thumbs breathing out. Inhale out and up reaching to the sky. Exhale through your uniquely perfectly imperfect midline. Sweep your hands once more out and up breathing in filling up all the way to the tip top. Breathing out letting go arriving in this moment. Let your gaze fall to your own fingertips and I invite you to join us in three alms listening with your back body to the connection of your partner and their vibration. Breathing in. Did you feel the sound? Close your eyes if they're not closed already and I invite you to think of a time when you felt really really peaceful. Notice how that feels in your body and I invite you to share with your partner after our practice when you felt most peaceful recently. Sweep your arms out to the side and connect the backs of your hands with the backs of your partner's hands. So your forearms and your upper arms. Yeah just like that and if your arms are a little longer they can go to their full length and your other partner is just gonna reach as much as they reach. Sounds good. So decide who's gonna go first. Okay so you're gonna take your right hand down towards the ground and your partner's gonna follow you taking your left hand up to the sky. Nice little side bend. Yeah keep reaching the back of your hand connect wherever you connect. Right there is great and you can keep this one nice and long just like that. Yeah inhale through center. Exhale to the other side. So if one partner is a little bit longer a little bit bigger you can keep reaching up. Yeah and you just see how high you can reach up together. Perfect. However you fit is just right. Unwind back to center and now the partner who's going first is gonna take their left hand to their right leg and yep and then the other hand back and behind you to your partner's opposite leg. There you go. Here we go. Yeah this is where it gets a little twisty. This hand to this leg this hand back and behind you. Perfect. So if you're not quite sure about left and rights yet have someone help you figure out those things. It's totally fine and as we go through this flow it'll make more and more sense that we're gonna go from opposite to opposite and back and forth. So lean into your partner. Big full breath lengthening through your spine reaching the tippy top of your head to the ceiling and then you might exhale a little deeper into the twist. Inhale unwinding. Exhale rotating all the way to the twist on the opposite side. So your left hand will come to your right knee and your other hand will reach back behind you and then you can lean into your partner resting your head and your spine feeling their breath in your back body. Yeah if you ever find yourself yawning it's a good thing in this practice and it's okay. Laughing is also a sign that you are doing it right. Unwinding back to center and now one partner and we'll we'll stay with the partner who was leading. Yeah if you want to unwind your legs you can unwind your legs a little bit and then you're gonna lean forward just a little bit and your your neighbor's gonna go for a ride and then we're gonna inhale all the way up and you're gonna fold a little bit forward and you're gonna get to go for a ride and you might lift up but keep your feet where they are because we're gonna flow back and forth right now. So inhale back to center and then you can extend your legs out in front as you take a little forward fold just a little tiny one Nico or yeah Nico lie. Reach your hands on the ground and push into your hands. Yeah so that's gonna give you a little extra support. How does that feel? Put all your weight on me. Okay and actually if you're not fully supported in the back of your head you can interlace your hands right there. Yeah there you go. Okay we'll inhale through center and now you get to forward fold and you get to go for that backbend and as you backbend see how much of your back can stay connected and you might reach your arms up and over and yeah if you want to do a head massage right there thumbs up. You might also want to check in and say does this feel okay? Yeah so checking in during this practice is really really essential and I need you to not take it personally if your partner doesn't really feel good. We're learning these new things we might get frustrated we might feel a little vulnerable and if that happens come out of the pose and just try it again or maybe even leave it for another day. That's okay. Okay let's come all the way back up into seated and then I would love you to take a little tiny scoot away from each other. I'm gonna move this blanket out to the side and can you two spin around to face each other and you've got it we're gonna touch toes to toes. Alright now this gets a little tiny bit tricky so first and foremost reach your hands out in front in the middle in between your legs. One partner might fall over sometimes that happens. Help them back up so you can root down through your feet and then if your hands are on the inside of your knees this will be easier and now reach one toe to the sky and we'll place that back down and then reach your other toe to the sky and place it back down and then I'm gonna have you scoot just a little tiny bit back. There we go. Okay we're gonna try this one more. Can you hold on to him as much as he's holding on to you. There we go. Do you think we can do both legs at the same time? Okay let's go for it. Partner boat pose. You might capsize a few times before you figure it out. There's a lot of core strength happening right here and synchronicity and you might have one oh let's come down. Do you want to try it one more time? Okay so if it doesn't feel good we bring it down we build it back up. Breathing in together. Breathing out extending through your toes. Bent legs are also a-okay. How you guys feeling? Are you breathing? Breathing in together.

Breathing out together. And let's bring the feet back down to the ground and give your partner a big high ten. That was some good work right there. All right we're going to come to standing for a little flow. We're going to be in a semicircle. You could be in a full circle. A really nice way to be connected as a group. May I help you up? Yes. May I help you up? Okay we want to be a few feet apart and we can come hands to hands to test out what's going on. So if I extend my hands to the sky notice yeah you can be right there in my forearm and I might be right there on your forearm. So we all look for our most extension and it's okay if we're not touching hands to hands. Is that all right? I like that though. That sounds good too. So take your right foot up to the above or below the knee. Yeah you got it? Go below. That looks pretty good. Yeah that's pretty stable. Push into your partner's just a little bit. So what do we call a bunch of trees together? Forest pose. Yeah really nice. That feels good. From here warrior pose step your right foot back and behind you. Root down through your heel and then this time bring your palms to touch. You can extend all the way up. Bend your front leg. Lift your heart to the sky and think about all the people who fight for you and support you with lots of loving kindness. Take your hands to shoulders that aren't yours or the shoulder blades. Yeah there you go. Perfect. We're going to launch forward. This is warrior three. This is also skydiving pose. So you can make your favorite skydiving face. And then we'll come back to standing. Palms come together. Take a big breath in right here and a big breath out. Let's do the other side. Are you ready? Last big thing. Here we go. Palm to palm and then we're gonna reach our hands all the way up and I'm gonna stay right there. Perfect. Left leg to tree. Wave your branches if you're feeling very adventurous you can close your eyes in your forest pose. I feel really supported by you guys right now. It's good and it's cool if you fall you're not too far away from the earth. It's okay. And then step your left leg back and behind you. There you go. There you go. Palm to palm. Push open through your elbows. Lift your heart to the sky and think about all the people that you support and that you would fight for. All right we'll come back to center. Take hands on to shoulder blades. So a little bit behind. Yeah there you go. And then levitate forward. Once more skydiver pose. Leaning into your partners. And back bring your back leg forward. Come all the way to standing. Bring your hands together. Take a deep breath in and a deep breath out. Notice how your body feels right now after that brief practice. And I invite you to join me in three om's to seal this time together today. Breathing in. Do you remember that thing that you thought was really peaceful? You can take some time now to share that with your family. And I thank you so much for being with us today. Namaste. Namaste. Namaste. Namaste. Wishing you a beautiful day.

Thank you so much for joining us.