Monday Night Gentle

Sat Nam. Tonight we had two requests: moving toward pigeon and opening the chest. Here is our sequence: 1. nadi sodhaana and sitali, 3-5 minutes each 2. The Lighthouse. This is an exercise I learned off a youtube video by James Knight. It's quite detailed and really must be seen to get correctly, so please look him up. Otherwise begin with wide leg child's pose, and a more open leg position in bharadvajasana 1. 3. Big reclining twist: This is like doing an open legged bharadvajasana 1. Sit with feet to the left, move left shin back to face wall behind you, move right shin over to face wall to the left of you, twist your body straight ahead; from this starting point twist further to the right and lie down at a diagonal, resting your forehead on your right forearm and stretch your left arm straight out. The asana is a huge side stretch. In between sides we did down dog for 5 breaths. 4. Lie on back with feet on floor. This is a Rodney Yee exercise which I have modified. Inhale and cross right ankle over left knee, exhale down. Repeat for a total of 6 repetitions. Take reverse pigeon on the last round. Switch sides. Next, inhale and cross ankle over knee, then hold ankle and exhale move foot down toward top of the opposite thigh into half lotus, inhale return ankle to knee, exhale down, for 6 repetitions, and on the last repetition straighten the bottom leg to reclining tree. Switch sides. 5. anantasana: side lying leg stretch; start with bottom leg bent and raise top leg, resting your head on the bottom arm; straighten bottom leg; hold top foot with hand of your bottom arm. Cross top leg to floor in front of you and bend bottom leg behind you to take hold of the foot for quadriceps stretch, and from here you can roll open into twist. 6. chakravakasana 7. pigeon, spending time with chest open, then on forearms, then all the way down; child's pose 8. reverse t-block backbend - legs straight or in supta baddha konasana 9. t-block backbend 10. t-block bridge with 1 block across upper back and the other lengthwise along the sacrum 11. supta baddha konasana without blocks 12. savasana These backbends were held from 3-5 minutes. Pigeons were held for about 3 minutes each side. Everything else was a minute or 2. 8.