hi everyone thank you for joining me my name is cassandra and i'm going to be taking you through a 10-minute beginner-friendly yoga sequence so if you're new to yoga or maybe just feel a little bit out of practice or even if you felt intimidated by starting a yoga practice this is just going to be a very simple sequence that is still effective and still introduces you to essential poses and movements without being too complicated or too challenging so a little bit of strength a little bit of flexibility and a little bit of balance and this
here is maggie and she likes to steal the show whenever i turn the camera on okay with that being said let's begin in a tabletop pose for cat and cow so we do this to prepare our spine this is a mix of extension and flexion so you want to align your palms under your shoulders your knees underneath your hips and i want you to really spread your fingertips wide and claw down into the mat with your fingertips and knuckles as you inhale you're going to drop your belly down squeeze your shoulder blades behind you lift
your tailbone up to the sky and lift your gaze up so get a nice stretch here keep your elbows straight as you exhale reverse this motion so lengthening along your spine drop your tailbone drop your head spread your shoulder blades further apart and keep going through these two poses pairing it with your breath so inhale get a little back bend here open through your heart and exhale round and contract try to pull your lower belly in hugging towards the low back and just keep going here breathing in and out through your nose exhale pushing the
floor away from you being gentle to your wrists last time here inhale and exhale and now come back into a neutral tabletop pose so you want to firm up and engage through your lower abdominals and we're gonna pull and see if you can hover and touch your thigh towards your chest keep your elbows straight and then kick that right leg out behind you roll that hip down notice where your weight is being distributed here squeeze through your glutes and through your hamstrings to lift that leg up even higher without swaying through your lower back and
now let's step that right foot in between our hands to the top of the mat for anja niyasana your low lunge my right knee is over the top of my ankle i'm pushing my feet into the floor in order to lift my upper body and my arms up so here i'm lengthening my tailbone down i'm pulling up and engaging through my abdominals to get a little bit more lift and stretch through the upper body and you can find a nice little lift as well through your heart top of the ribcage maybe shifting your gaze up
if this makes you lose your balance leave this out it's a very small little back bend now join your hands together at the front of the heart and we're just going to twist very simply here i want you to push your hands in towards one another and then rotate your chest over towards the right keep your chest lifted so i'm still staying up nice and tall just adding a spinal rotation come all the way back through to center and now bring your hands down to the floor we're going to straighten that right leg getting into
the hamstrings flex that front foot you can absolutely keep a bend a little bit here in your right knee if you're a little tight slow steady breaths and now bend through your right knee again you're going to tuck the back toes under to lift your back knee off the mat plant your palms we're going to find our first downward facing dog so you want your hands to be shoulder width distance apart and your feet are hip with distance apart please bend your knees as much as you want here especially if you feel tightness through your
lower back i never want you to feel any kind of pain in that area or really any part of your body as you practice think of lifting your seat up as high as it can go pressing your chest towards your thighs and don't worry about whether or not your heels are touching the mat it truly does not matter let's come forward into our plank pose and it's up to you if you want to keep your knees on or off the mat since this is a beginner flow i'm gonna drop my knees down to give myself
support this is lucy she also likes the attention of the camera and you're gonna lower all the way to your belly keep your elbows hugging into the sides as you lower point your toes back push your feet into the floor roll your shoulders back lift up get a nice little backbend boujangasana your cobra pose exhale to lower find table top once more so lifting up on to hands and knees starting to work a little bit of strength here now find this firm foundation flat back and you're just going to hover and see how close you
can get your knee towards your chest without rounding here i'm trying to keep my spine straight and then i'm going to straighten my left leg back behind me without opening up the hip to the side keep it rotating down draw your lower belly in and really push your hands into the floor i like to flex my left foot as if i'm kicking against the wall behind me and let's find our low lunge on janie asana so your left foot steps to the top of the mat your knee is on top of your ankle you're going
to push into the floor to find a nice lifting here and what we don't want is to collapse into our lower back think of lifting yourself up a little bit draw your lower belly in and then lengthen through the sides of your waist to get a little lift and we are still pressing the hips forward and down stretching through our hip flexors down the thighs you can add a tiny little back bend by opening through your heart shifting your gaze up and bring your hands together at the front of your chest this is anjali mudra
push your palms together and you're just going to rotate over towards the left keep reaching the crown of your head up nice and high facing forward again hands to the mat straighten your left leg this is arda hanumanasana your half splits pose nice little hamstring stretch flexing through that front foot and we'll come back into downward facing dog auto mukashvanasana bend into your front knee plant your palms you're going to tuck the back toes under lift your back knee off the floor and step your left foot back to meet the right keeping them about hip
width distance apart and notice now maybe you find you have a little bit more space or a little bit more ease in this pose [Music] let's come forward into our plank pose again shoulders over your wrists your knees can come down and we lower all the way to our belly instead of pointing the elbows out keep them hugging in and pointing back bujangasana cobra open through your heart your elbows are bent exhale to release and let's press back into balasana a child's pose big toes together knees as wide as you would like them to be
the wider they are the deeper stretch you will feel and lower your forehead down to the mat relax a little here [Music] just a few deep breaths and go ahead and lift on up you can swing your legs out in front of you we're going to lower down onto our backs and with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor you're just going to pull your right knee in towards your chest and then straighten your right leg any amount and you can hold on to the back of your thigh or up towards your
shin your ankle your foot whatever is accessible and you can absolutely have a bend in that right knee try to relax head and shoulders to the mat and let's cross our right ankle over the top of that left knee flexing your foot you're going to pull your left thigh in towards your belly again head and shoulders are relaxing down only using a little bit of arm strength and release from this pose bring both feet flat to the floor again before we repeat this on the other side we'll find our bridge pose setu banda sarvangasana so
you want to have your heels pretty close in towards your hips roll your shoulders down and away from your ears push your feet into the floor and then see if you can lift and press your seat up push into your big toes hug through your inner thighs again notice the tendency for the thighs and the knees to widen big breath in here strengthening through your legs and slowly roll down inch by inch pull your left thigh in towards your belly and go ahead and straighten that left leg any amount grabbing a hold of wherever is
most appropriate to you trying to increase flexibility through our lower body let's cross the left ankle over the top of our right knee keep that knee moving away from you and you're going to pull and draw right thigh in towards your belly give it a big squeeze and let's release and let that go feet flat to the floor your bridge pose again palms face up arms alongside your body push your feet into the floor lift your seat up and exhale release roll back down and you can just either roll to one side or come up
we're all joining by taking a seat in any way that is comfortable for your hips and for your lower back so cross-legged kneeling maybe sitting up on a pillow or a blanket shrug your shoulders away from your ears lengthen up tall through your spine close your eyes let's take that same hand gesture on julie mudra so hands together at the front of the heart and take a moment to really connect with yourself to show yourself some gratitude for carving out time out of your busy day to do just a little bit of yoga which can
still have really great profound effects and together we chant om to close this class let's inhale to chant breathe in [Music] thank you so very much for doing this 10 minute beginner yoga practice with me i would love to know how this went for you i have many more beginner practices on my channel as well as inside my mobile app i'll leave links to that in the description if you want to check it out hopefully you'll practice again with me very soon have a wonderful rest of your day
