Groovy Moon Salutations

Hey there, welcome to Yoga Anytime. My name is Robert and I have a lovely practice for you, just for you, from me to you. So this is like a, it involves a moon salutation, which is different than sun salutation. Sun is like energy and fire and just that. Moon would be more of a cooling, grounding practice, still very effective, and it might be exactly what you're hoping for right now.

So we want to focus on our breathing. There will be postures that are relatively demanding and involve strength and stability, but we want to really ride through those postures with that sense of cool, calm, and collected. Breathing well, everything's kind of balanced, but we're still getting good work done, okay? So we'll start seated. If you have a bolster or a pillow or something that gives you some lift, we're going to use it in the beginning and at the very end, all right?

It's not mandatory though, so don't feel like you have to stress about it. So comfortable seat, ankles, knees, hips, spine, shoulders, neck, head, smile, breath. I want to even bring one hand toward the upper chest, heart area, the other hand to the belly, and you can close your eyes with me and just begin to connect pretty intimately to your breath pattern. This is a great practice. It's not, again, it's not mandatory at night, but it can be really nice as an evening practice.

Breathe in through your nose, breathe out of the nose or the mouth. Breathing in, breathing out. Feel that gentle sense of expansion on the breath in and release on the breath out. Just take a couple more, breathe in. One more time.

Breathe in nice and easy. Breathe out, let it all go, good. We could just do that for the next 30 minutes, but we'll move around a little bit, but let's see if you can maintain with me that sense of quality. So we'll start with a twist. Go to the left first.

It doesn't matter. You don't have to do it perfect. It's just turning the body to the left, involve your head, your neck. So find a gentle twist, move your head around a little bit and see if, you know, I'll remind you as much as I can just see if you can maintain that chilled out, balanced breathing. Slowly return to center and move over toward the right.

Place your hands wherever it allows you to kind of stabilize the twist and then move the head a little bit. Just almost like you're just so, so, so interested in all of those different sensations. The slow pace. You can come back to center, but draw the chin down toward the chest. Sort of stretch out the back of the neck, let your spine fold forward a little bit, kind of rounding like you would cat pose.

And inhale, get open in the chest. Look up, take the hands back behind you, press the chest up, open up those shoulders. Nice side bend, right hand down, left arm up. Some of your standards, but the standards work. They're standards for a reason, right?

We keep coming back to them because they work. Back over to center, reach the right arm up and bend to the left. So hopefully if I'm doing my job right in this class, this sequence is we're holding long enough in each pose to breathe as we were in the beginning, you know, we'll grab at least two or three of those breaths with each posture. Good. Back to center, let's remove the bolster.

Keep it nearby as promised. We will revisit this friend of ours, come on to tabletop or into tabletop. Move back toward child's pose, from child's pose, two or three breaths. It's almost as if you like breathe as if you had all day, right? So that breath in is like you savor the breath, you might even like pause and hold the breath at the top and exhale slowly out.

While you're in the postures, you might be moving a little bit here and there, right? It's kind of, I use the word a lot like wandering, you're kind of wandering around seeking, exploring, navigating tabletop cat cow. Breathe in, chest forward, seat up, breathe out, round the back. Exhale cow pose, exhale cat, inhale cow, exhale cat. Good lean back a little bit and walk or all the way to side bend.

Side bend to the right and to the left. Back to center, downward dog, curl the toes, lift the knees and just like, I don't know if the word juicy, right? Like a juicy, watery, not rigid downward dog is something that just feels kind of groovy. How about groovy instead of juicy? So even the arms can be a little bent, loosen up the neck.

And this is nice also because you know, we've all been to the classes which you know, it's not a bad class. It's not a bad teaching has nothing to do with that. It's just maybe your breath, you want to go a little slower, right, but you feel like you've got to keep up because it's a faster paced class. This one is a little slower. So hopefully you can really kind of tune in with that for yourself, not for me.

Step the right foot up to the right pinky up and out wide, just kind of like a wide lunge. We're going to be doing some lunging and some standing poses. So it's just nice to kind of prep. This is all just prep for the moon salutation. Prep for the body prep for the mind and sort of flow of the breath.

Step back downward dog. Step left foot, left pinky, drop into the hips, wander around. You can keep your left foot where it is, turn it out to a slight angle prepping for like a little Malasana squat pose. Step the right foot out wide. Drop in.

You can take as much of an angle as you'd like. You can lift your heels if you'd like. Forward fold, so start by lifting the seat and walking the straight legs toward one another, kind of heel toeing your feet. Inhale to a half lift. Fold exhale.

Just kind of drape your body over, hold on to opposite elbows and just like you would downward dog, pedal it out, involve your hips and take your hands behind your head, maybe behind your neck and kind of like add some weight there, stretching the neck a bit. If you kind of come up halfway again, take the left arm and wedge it inside the left leg. Take the left leg that's bent, straighten the right leg and just kind of turn open and twist. Add a little forward fold rotation. Exhale exit, bend the right leg, wedge the right arm into that bent right leg, straighten the left, lengthen the spine, twist to the left.

Make space in the pose to breathe, exhale, bring it on down, fold, bend the knees, roll up to stand, let the arms kind of float all the way up as you breathe in and exhale the hands to your heart and then let them come down by your side for mountain pose. Okay, so I'll turn toward you, so what we're going to do is kind of move through the salutation through the length of the mat one way and the length of the mat the other way. So start on one side of your mat, I'm starting on the left side, okay close your eyes just for a moment stand tall in mountain pose and see if we can kind of touch in with the quality we touched in with in the beginning while sitting. But now you're a little more active, right? You're rooting in through your feet, standing up tall, eyes are softly closed.

The breath is calm and relaxed on the way in through the nose and the breath just kind of falls away on the breath out. Cooling practice. Breathe in, breathe out. Perfect, inhale the arms overhead, you can press the palms together, interlace them if you'd like and take a side bend to the left, reach up and out of the body like you're trying to separate your rib cage from the body, right? Get long and then bend to the left, then you'll inhale up to center and exhale to the right, up to center.

We'll add something and what I do with these little moon salutations, I add a couple little like personalized touches, let's say, open the shoulders, clasping the hands, draw the knuckles down and press the chest upward, maybe gaze upward. Perfect, back to center. Step the right foot toward the middle of the mat, turn the toes open, we'll start by building goddess pose but bring the hands to the knees, push the seat back and just to kind of like flirt with the knee joints and the body, you start kind of like this, right? Then take the right shoulder and draw it forward and to the left and look over the left shoulder and then left shoulder forward and toward the right, kind of getting a little twist and rotation. Back to center, now you'll lift the upper body upright, draw the tailbone down so one unit kind of shifts, knees over the ankles, arms in that goddess pose.

So you see, right, now immediately we're in this demanding grounding pose but it is that, it's grounding and it can be calming if you close your eyes, pull the elbows back, engage the upper back muscles, keep the core muscles engaged. Breathe in, breathe out, straighten the legs, turn the toes forward for now, bring the arms up overhead, five-pointed star, so this like just really beautifully like strong open posture, palms facing one another, breath, calm and relaxed. Arms out wide, turn your right foot forward, maybe even extend the stance a tiny bit, triangle pose, so reach toward the right foot, draw the right hip back, right fingertips toward the right ankle or block, left arm high, triangle, gaze upward if your neck allows, breathe. Now use your legs and your core to rise back up, now we want to kind of square the hips a little bit, shorten the stance just a tiny bit, breathe in, reach the arms overhead, breathe out, pyramid pose, folding over your right leg, forward folds tend to be calming and cooling. That is if you find the right temperature of stretch let's say, and now bend the right leg, bring the back knee down, get a nice long low lunge, untuck the back toes, drop the hips forward, reach the arms overhead, you can take the hands behind your head if you'd like, bring your hands on the inside of that right foot, you want to maybe extend your stance a little bit, turn your right foot to a bit of an angle, lift your left knee and then throw the hips or your seat back behind that right heel a bit.

So side lunge, skandhasana, you can go as deep as you'd like or you can kind of stay a little bit more moderate up tall, use your hands or maybe you're like here holding palms to heart, it's a bit of a strength pose but if you can maintain the breath that we've been working on you can find that balance. Transitioning to malasana, squat, so straighten the legs, heel toe the feet to your desired width for malasana, exhale, drop into malasana, perfect. Side lunge to the left leg so now you kind of come out of the pose a little bit, extend that right leg. So the first side I didn't bend as much into, wanted to give you that option, this one you can lift the heel, bend a little deeper into the knee, right toes can go up or down, okay good. So I'm out of that and kind of swivel and pivot to the low lunge on the back side or the left side, inhale, reach up, take those hands back behind your head maybe or clasp pyramid pose, hands down, curl the back toes, lift the right knee, shorten the stance enough so that you can bring that right foot down, now come up halfway get a little adjustment in the spine, breathe in, breathe out, fold, good.

Bend the left leg, use your core to rise up, triangle pose and I extend that stance up a little bit more, right, open the hips, put a little bend in the left knee, extend the left arm, left hand down to your desired spot, right arm high, nice, gaze up, gaze to the side, say hello, gaze down, calm, relaxed, it's a good practice to be calm and relaxed within the tension, within the stress or work that you're doing, okay, rise up, turn both feet forward, you can keep the width, bring both arms overhead, take that nice big, it's like a glorious, proud, alive stance, five-pointed star, one, two, three, four, five, goddess pose, turn your feet open, bend the arms 90 degrees, drop down, I like to add here, hands behind the head and a little side bend, elbow, it's like core side bend, elbow to knee, right elbow toward the knee, so stable and strong through the legs, the core and you get to move that beautiful spine of yours, one more to the right, back to centre, straighten the legs, good now step the left foot to the right, we meet on this side, okay, now we'll reverse it and meet back over there, so arms up overhead, breathe in, side bend to the right, back up to centre, inhale, side bend to the left, inhale, exhale the arms back behind you, clasp your fingers, open the chest while we're kind of rinsing through the shoulders, good, arms down by the side, step toward the middle of the mat, right into your goddess again, option, stay right here or lateral flexion through the spine, which is one of my favourite moves, just side to side, breathing, chilling, straighten the legs, point the toes forward, arms reach up, five-pointed star, arms out wide, triangle pose, left foot points forward, a little angle on the right, lean, lengthen left side, right on, good, rise back up, shorten the stance a little bit, turn the right foot forward, inhale the arms overhead, exhale fold, one more time, breathe in, step back a little bit with the right foot, right knee down, low lunge, breathe in, gentle backbend opening up the chest, hands down, side lunge on the left side, so pin that left right heel down, bend into the left leg, you can go hands free if you'd like, squat pose, middle of the mat, so you kind of just transition there however you'd like, you can lift your heels, keep the heels down, you can wander a little side to side, side lunge over to the right, so maybe come out of it a little bit, extend the stance, low lunge to the right side, meaning right foot forward, lift the arms overhead, gentle backbend, backbend really just meaning like opening the upper body, nice, bring the hands down, curl the back toes, lift the left knee, step up a little bit with the left foot, just enough for that back heel to come down, half lift, inhale, fold exhale, rise up, really nice triangle pose, reach through the right arm, extend the right side of the body, right fingertips down lightly on the surface it's landing on, left arm rising, remember to ground evenly through your feet, expand gently through the ribs, the stomach, the back with every breath, exit triangle pose into that, let's just take a wide, that five-pointed star, wide stance, arms rise up, whatever time of day this practice is for you, just take it all in, like think of all the opportunities, the gifts, the hardships, goddess pose, turn those heels in, sit nice and low and powerful, close your eyes, bend the arms 90 degrees, kind of pull the elbows back to recruit those back muscles, so you have all this work you're doing but everything is so like, calming, cooling, straighten the legs, step the right foot to meet the left, one more side bend, so take the arms overhead, side bend to the left, side bend to the right, up to center, turn toward the front of the mat, keep your arms overhead, breathe in, breathe out, forward fold, half lift, inhale, exhale, plant the palms, tabletop, our little friend, our buddy, our support, so restorative child's pose, so bring that tube, pillow, cushion, whatever you've got, and this is what we're going to basically land our body onto, knees pretty wide, so you can take your arms and place them wherever you'd like, wherever is most comfortable, think shavasana here, so everything kind of melting, you can take your right cheek to the bolster, your left cheek, your forehead or stack your hands, calm, soothing, relaxing breath, in and out. Breathing in and out. The inhalation falls in just so naturally and easily, even if it's a short inhalation, that's the exhalation we're looking for, to nurture the nervous system, to release stress, if you're feeling like you're in a real groove and this is just too hard to leave, I don't blame you, stay here for as long as you'd like, I'm going to move up to where I began, which is on the bolster, kind of facing you, if you're still there, just stay there, you don't need to do anything, okay, so right back where we began, even if you're still in child's pose, eyes closed, three breaths together, inhale slowly, exhale let it go, let the exhale really drag out, like forever exhale and then the inhale is nice and sweet, not too full, exhale let it go, that's the medicine, the exhale, promise, inhale, exhale, there it is, just, hands to heart, unless you're still in the pose, little smile on your face, namaste.