Chair Yoga

Hi. My name is Monica. Welcome to chair yoga. I'll be your instructor for the next couple of minutes. Today, we're gonna focus on your breath and what feels good for you, what you're capable of offering in this moment. Focusing on gentle movements, listening to your body, avoiding any movements that cause any discomfort or pain, and making sure that you are safe in your environment and safe where you are. 

What you'll need today is a sturdy chair, a water bottle, or a book, or something that you can use to prop yourself up with, and just yourself and where you are currently. So let's just take a moment to settle into our chairs, on our couches, wherever you might be in your desk chair. Plant your feet firmly on the ground, hands on your thighs. And let's just breathe. Breathe wherever you are. Take a breath in and let that breath out. And just settle in. If you'd like to close your eyes in this moment, if that feels safe for you, feel free to do so. And just tune in. Beautiful.

We're gonna start with a seated mountain pose. So go ahead and, likeI said, replant those feet into the ground.

Settle in. Spine straight up. Pretend like someone's pulling you through the top. Straightening out that spine.

If you need to, take a breath in, bringing those shoulders up towards your ears. And as you let that breath out, settle those shoulders back, opening up that chest, bringing some space here. Beautiful. And you can just stay here and take your breaths in and out wherever you're at, nice and slowly, being intentional, feeling your breath fill those spaces within your body that might feel tense. Beautiful. Keep breathing in and out.

One more big breath in and out.

Beautiful. Go ahead and bring your hands to the side if that feels accessible for you. Really go ahead and close your eyes too in this space. Really tuning into any space that might feel any discomfort, any tension.

And just breathe your breath into those spaces, allowing yourself to settle into this practice. Remember, this is your practice, your movement. There is no right or wrong. There is only this moment and what you have to offer. Take another breath in. And exhale, bringing your hands to your thigh, opening up those eyes and just kind of settling back into this space. Wonderful job, everyone. We're gonna come into a seated side stretch. There's a couple of ways we can do this. So again, do what feels best for you. We're gonna take our right hand, bring it to the base of our chair or to the back of our chair. Or if we're on a couch, just place it next to you nice and gently. We're gonna go ahead and bring that left arm up over our heads. We're gonna take a deep breath in. And as we exhale, we're gonna do a slight bend towards the right, feeling that stretch right on our left side. And just take a few breaths here on your own. Whatever you have to offer today is perfect for you.

Take a deep breath in. And exhale. Nice job, everyone. Nice work. Take a few more breaths. If you want to deepen that stretch, if that feels good for you just to go a little bit further towards the right, feel free to do so. Again, listening to your body, making sure you feel safe and you feel comfortable. Perfect, take another breath in. As you exhale gently bring yourself back into a seated position. Arms to your side. And just settle in. Nice job. We're gonna do the same thing on our left. So go ahead and take your left hand. Bring it to the side of your chair or to the back or to the side on the couch. Again, wherever you are. Bring that right arm up over your head. Take a deep breath in and exhale towards the left. Again, following that stretch along the right side of your body and just settling in wherever is comfortable. Taking your breath in and out at whatever pace feels comfortable, whatever you have to offer today is just perfect. Beautiful. 

Take another deep breath in. On your exhale, go ahead and stretch just a little further if that feels comfortable for you. Nice job. Hold for a few breaths. On that next exhale, go ahead and come back into a seated position and settle in. Nice job. We're gonna move into one of my favorite poses, our seated cat cows. So go ahead and bring your hands to your thighs. Make sure those feet are firmly planted here. And I'll show you the movement. I want you to do whatever feels comfortable for you going at whatever pace. If you wanna follow me, that's great. If you wanna take it slower or faster, that is up to you. So as we breathe in, we're gonna expand forward bringing our chin towards the ceiling, head back. And as we exhale, we're gonna come in towards our chest and settling here.

Inhale, back, chest expanding, chin up, and exhale. Beautiful. Go ahead and take about 3 more here on your own, nice and slowly. Whatever feels comfortable for you. This is your practice. I'll do a few more with you. 

Take a deep breath in and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Beautiful work, everyone. Come back to center. Straighten that spine. Maybe take a breath in bringing those shoulders up towards your ears, and then down and back, releasing any tension we might have created here. We're gonna do some seated spinal twists here. So again, keep your feet firmly rooted into the ground. Hands, we're going to bring our right hand back behind our chair or behind us wherever we are seated. Find whatever feels comfortable for you. We're gonna take our left hand and bring it to our right thigh. And it's important to keep our spine straight so we can allow for that breath to move within our body, Whatever feels comfortable for you. So go ahead and straighten out that spine. Take a deep breath in. And as you exhale, go ahead and twist towards the right. We're just gonna sit here for a few moments. 

Taking a few breaths in and out, in through your nose and out through your mouth. And just settle into this twist. You should feel it along your spine. Go as far as feels comfortable for you. There is no right or wrong. Whatever feels good for your body. And just continue to breathe in and out at your own pace. Beautiful. Take a breath in. And as you exhale, go ahead and deepen that stretch if that feels comfortable for you. Moving that hand behind your chair just a little further, maybe bringing that left hand a little higher up on your thigh, and just breathe into that space. Beautiful job. Nice and slow. Nice work. Go ahead and take a deep breath in, and exhale gently coming back to center nice and slowly. There is no rush. We're gonna do the same thing on the left side. Let's go ahead and take your left hand, bring it behind you on your chair, on your couch, wherever you're at. Take your right hand, bring it to your left thigh. Take a deep breath in. And exhale, twisting towards the left. Beautiful. Go ahead and take a few breaths here on your own. Just settling into this space, making sure that spine is straight. And if it's not, you can always come back to center, reposition, and then move with each breath.

Beautiful. Take 2 more breaths here.

Inhale. And exhale, deepening that stretch, that twist. Maybe bringing your head to look over your left shoulder.

Just take 2 more breaths here on your own, filling that space in your body. Beautiful. Inhale and exhale back to center nice and slowly. Wonderful job, everyone. We're gonna come into our final pose here. So what we are gonna need is our prop. So I'm gonna go ahead and grab my book. If you have a water bottle, that works. If you have a stool, whatever feels comfortable for you, whatever is accessible to you, go ahead and bring that into your hands. We're gonna bring our feet just a little bit further than hips distance apart. If that doesn't feel comfortable for you, that's totally okay. You can keep them here. I'll show you a few variations so that you can figure out what feels best for your body. So the first variation is we can keep our feet firmly planted on the ground. We're gonna bring our hands to our hips. We're gonna gently lean forward as far as feels comfortable for you. And we're just gonna let our head and our neck just relax. So they might kind of hang a little loosely. So just take your time. Listen to your body. Whatever feels good for you. And if you wanna try it with the prop, we're going to bring our feet just a little bit further. We're going to bring our hands to our prop. Take a deep breath in.

And exhale hinging at the hips and allowing ourselves to just rest our neck and our head between our legs.

Just take a few deep breaths here in through your nose and out through your mouth, again listening to your body, doing what's best for you. Take a few more breaths here. Beautiful. Go ahead and inhale and exhale,

And then inhale, gently bringing yourself back up, rolling back, bringing that spine back into alignment,

and exhale, settling back into your chair. I wanted to thank you for joining me in today's practice. And

if there's any point during the week where you're feeling like you just need a little bit of stretching, maybe your lower back or you're just feeling a little tense that day, feel free to tune into any of these stretches, doing these on your own, and just breathing through the movements as best as you can, doing what feels good for your body. Remember, you are strong, resilient, and the small moments matter. Thank you so much.