Add On: Heart Forward Chair

Welcome to heart forward chair. I'm so happy to share this practice with you today. For today's practice, we'll be using a backless yoga chair, a yoga mat, and two blocks. We're gonna get started, seated right up on the edge of the chair. Let your feet come right under your knees.

And sit up nice and tall with your hands either on your thighs or on your kneecaps. Roll your shoulders back, lift through your chest, If it feels comfortable, close your eyes. And let's take a nice big breath in through the nose. Side it out and release. Again, inhale.

And exhale. And take a moment in this seat to really ground down through the sits bones, to feel your feet planted on the earth, and to notice any tension. Notice any tightness, any resistance in the body, and just allow your awareness to wash up and down through every corner every edge of the body and begin to invite space. So uncurl your toes if they're squeezing, Feel the backs of your knees softening the backs of the thighs. Feel the shoulders relaxing all the way down to the finger tips, and let your belly be really soft.

So that is you're ready. You can begin to draw in fuller inhales, fuller exhales. Feeling the warmth of the hands and the knees of the thighs. And let's take a few more big, full, long inhales. A nice, long, ax house.

And then if you're ready, open your eyes. Gonna bring our feet quite wide. So think heels and toes out as we would for a squat or melasana. This is a seated variation. From here, let's start to fold forward in between the legs.

And for most of us, if we have been sitting most of our day, it's gonna feel better for us to take this nice and easy to begin. So perhaps just be on your fingertips. Some of you will be on your hands, but start to settle in and allow the sits bones to really begin to press down into the chair. Allow the weight of the torso and the spine to begin to empty for it. So we start to find and feel a really nice release through the sacrum.

And through the low back. And then as we relax to the head and through the neck, just a little bit more perhaps we can begin to come down a little bit further. Maybe on the hands, some of you perhaps on your forearms, But find the breath here, which is going to feel quite compressed. Utilize that compression. To really take some deep inhales into the belly and feel and find the breath swirling around to the low back.

Relax the jaw and release any effort that may be in the face. And let every exhale empty you a little bit deeper into the fold. Take about 5 or 6 more breaths here. Now look back at the legs of the chair. With your right hand, we're gonna grab for that left leg of the chair.

So grab the left leg of the chair, and I want you to feel like you could with the right hand pull the left leg of the chair to center. It might even bend your right elbow. And then as you do that, look out in front of you, lengthen the heart forward. Keep pulling the leg of the chair to center, keep lengthening the heart forward, push your butt down and back, and then bring your left hand to your low back to your sacrum. Keep looking out in front of you, keep pulling the chair towards you, and then start to spin the right ribs up to the sky.

Finding a really nice twist here. We keep pulling the leg of the chair towards us. If you would like, you could reach the left arm up perhaps start to reach the left arm over the left ear, but keep pulling that left leg in to find the spin and the turn breathing here for 3. For 2. And for 1, bring your left hand down.

Bring your right hand down. Take a breath. Perhaps shake your head. Yes. Perhaps shake your head. No. So now take your left hand to the right leg of the chair.

Pull the right leg of the chair to center so that left elbow could bend. Keep pulling. Keep pushing the butt down. Lift the heart for it, lengthen the spine. And then reach your right hand back for your low back for your sacrum. Keep looking forward Keep reaching the spine forward.

Keep pulling the right leg of the chair in, and then start to turn open to your right. Left ribs spinning up to the sky. Maybe the right I'm reaching up. Maybe the right I'm reaching over the right ear. Now a little different.

Keep this left hand right where it is. Cross the right arm over the left arm and let the right hand get the left leg of the chair. This is quite active. Pull the legs of the chair to center. Move the heart forward.

Push the butt back. So think heart forward butt back. Legs of the chair to center. Try to reach that heart forward through the arms, breathing here for 3. Push the butt back for 2 and for 1. Release the hands down.

Take your time. Slowly roll yourself up. Roll the shoulders forward and back a few times. Keep your hands on your thighs. Just a couple of rounds of cat and cow.

So arching the back, opening the chest, exhale tuck the tail, curl and round. Again, inhaling, opening up, exhaling rounding. And then come back up. Let's come up to stand. So we're gonna take our next shape.

We're gonna turn the chair so that the seats is facing us. This is where we'll use our blocks. We're gonna take one block on the low setting close ish to the seats. One block at the high setting on top of this low block. Now, from here, We're gonna grab the top of the chair and we're gonna step into the chair carefully with the right foot and then the left foot.

You're gonna start to sit down and back onto the seat, slide the butt forward. Now, this is very important. When we come back, We want the edge of the seat to be right at the shoulder blades. So as I come back, I'm gonna keep sliding the butt for it I'm gonna lie back so that the shoulder blades are right on the edge of the seat. I'm gonna drop my head and reach back from my block sliding them forward so that the top of my head can rest on that top block.

Options from here This may be enough just to stay right here, which is perfect. You could keep your hands on the top of the chair. You could reach your arms forward and grab the legs of the chair. You could keep your feet planted. What might be nice is to start to extend your legs one at a time, keeping the balls of the feet plugging down into the earth.

You could also open the arms up nice and wide. Once you settle in, close your eyes. And just notice the sensation through the body without judging it, without critiquing it notice the experience. Come to your breath. And let your awareness to sit with the breath right in the heart space.

So he let the chair do the work of opening up the heart, opening up the lungs, Re leasing congestion through the upper back, perhaps of hours of sitting. Just let that space open up. And relax and release any tension, any effort in the face, in the hands. And it takes relatively short period of time here to start to settle into the shape. So if you feel really good here, you wanna stay stay if you'd like to go a little further.

The next option is to reach back, lift your head as you touch the edge of the block, top block. And then turn your block down to the next setting. And this will take the backbend into a new depth. Keeping the arms opened up nice and wide or the hands wherever it feels comfortable. Another variation that could be really nice is to grab opposite elbows up over your head and just allow the forms to drop down.

Breathe into the belly. Breathe into the ribs. And certainly breathe up into the chest. Fill the lungs. Let's take 10 more breaths right here.

Big inhale. Big Excel. If the arms are up over your head or you've grabbed opposite opposite elbows, bring the arms back down by your sides, reach forward and grab the chair with your hands and just pause. If the legs are long, slowly bring your feet back. Try not to slide back. Okay.

Try to keep the shoulder blades right where they are. And then from here, using the chair, you're gonna begin to press yourself up. Slide the butt back. Stay seated in the chair. You can rest your forms in the top of the chair. Really nice variation.

If you are feeling dizzy is to rest the forehead and the palms. And just take a moment. Give over to a little bit of a rounding now through the upper back. Just let that shape and all of its goodness. All of its nectar move through you.

And then bring your right hand onto the top of the chair, your left hand perhaps to the seat. Just a very simple twist to the left. Just a counter. Come back to center. Other side, counter to the right.

Come back to center. Now the hardest part just getting out of the chair. So we're gonna keep a hold of the top of the chair. Come to stand up. You're gonna push the chair down So the chair comes down on the ground.

You're gonna step the feet out of the chair. Pick the chair back up. Open it up. And we'll come back into a seat. Once you're in your seats, same position as when we began, feeder planted, Hands on the thighs.

Close your eyes. Notice sensation. Notice space, especially that sweet space across the heart. Notice sensation. Notice that space that you've opened up across the heart, across the collar bones through the lungs.

Take a really big breath in. Big breath out. One more time. Inhale. Fill up. Hold the breath.

Exhale release, bow the chin in towards the chest, and acknowledge your practice today with gratitude. Namaste.