Engage Your Core Yoga Class (40 Min Practice Along)

hi I'm Kathy Madeo back with another video this one a practice along yoga class incorporating how to use your core to transform your yoga practice if you haven't seen my first video on this subject stop this video go watch that video because it provides all of the foundational information for you to get the most out of today's practice for today's practice you don't need any props unless you'd like to modify with a set of blocks let's get started [Music] we'll get started on our box you can keep your knees bent heels right underneath those knees settle onto your back Close Your Eyes For a Moment we'll just take a few moments to Center and connect to our body and breath feel the floor underneath you just let your breath come in naturally your hands can be resting on your belly and with every inhale feel that your belly Rises and allow your rib cage to expand to fill your lungs with breath continue to breathe here and you might notice that your diaphragm as it fills with that breath is pushing the organs down it's one of the reasons why the belly comes out as the diaphragm fills almost like a balloon and then as you exhale the rib cage begins to draw in the front of your torso begins to come back towards the floor so just noticing how our breath moves our body here a couple more mindful breaths in this way and you can blink open your eyes you'll bring your middle finger and index finger and find the frontal hip points these are called your Asis and then just wrap your hands around your own pelvis you should feel your bones here and what I want you to do is find that your pelvis tucks under so as we bring our fingers back to the Asis and we pull the frontal hip points up towards our chest our low back flattens and our pelvis is tucked under and then as we push the frontal hip points away from our chest and tilt the pelvis forward our low back lifts upward so I want you to just continue to kind of tick-tock between these two positions and we'll be adding in what's called a pelvic tilt those are this is a pelvic tilt but we'll be adding breath with it and so what we're doing we're just taking a moment here before we begin our Asana practice to actually learn how to breathe when we move and how to engage our core so on the next time that you tuck your pelvis under and you flatten your low back I want you to start to sink that up to your exhale so you'll inhale tilt your pelvis forward the low spine draws up and then exhale continue on and when you do that exhale I want you to press your navel actively towards your back body okay just come to a neutral position we're going to find our TVA muscle so you'll bring your fingers below your navel about two to three fingers and out to the side a little bit and go under any soft tissue or anything that might be there and you'll take a deep inhale in and then when you exhale out I want you to make this sound so do that a few times on your own and you should feel a tightening there underneath your finger pads and that's your TBA now remember the TVA wraps all the way around your torso you're still doing doing this breathing exercise good and then the next time I want you to do it but keep your mouth closed so you won't make that sound and see if you can still engage your transverse abdominis so it's kind of like a bracing around the middle of your torso and this is what I mean throughout class if I say engage your core that's what I'm talking about this kind of tightening and compression here through the core so let's sync this up in a core exercise this is a classic core exercise called dead bugs so 90 degree with your legs here we'll bring the arms up and you'll notice we're in that posterior tuck our low back is flat we'll inhale lengthen your left leg and your right arm back keep the low back as flat as you can against the mat and then exhale you can even make that sound as you pull back up and we'll do this several rounds and I'm I'm just having you make this sound to train that TVA muscle you won't need to make it as you engage your core but for now just in this exercise here [Applause] to start to understand what it means to brace your core just do one more on each side [Applause] good and just release pull your right knee into your chest low back is flat here to stretch to low back we'll take a Twist here so right knee goes over to the left open up the right shoulder back of the hand rests on the mat if it can and you could turn your gaze all the way over to the right inhale come back to your starting position continue to hug your knee into your chest hover your left leg up and then pull your nose up towards your knee without straining the back of your neck you're lifting your head up through the strength of your front core muscles so if you had a tendency to yank your head up come back on down try to bring the front ribs down pubic bone up like your torso the front is shortening and that is allowing you to lift the head up and then we'll release and switch sides left knee pulls into the chest low back is flat twist over to your right so you're on your right hip left arm stretches out see if you could turn your gaze getting a nice twist just waking up our spine here releasing our low back come back to our starting position hug your left knee into your chest low back is flat against the mat hover your right heel and then again think of shortening the front core muscles your rectus abdominis muscles engaging them breathing to pull your shoulders and your head up towards your knee good and then we'll release bring both arms above you get a nice good morning stretch we'll rock and roll up to sit or roll to your right side and meet me in a seated posture as you take a cross-legged seated position make sure your low spine is lifting in and up and if not sit yourself up on a blanket from here release your hands inhale reach your arms up side body is long and then actively using those oblique muscles turn over to the right so we're not using our hands to twist and then just let your arms come on down and ground down and then we can gently press the left hand into the right leg to see if we have any more room to twist here next exhale cross your right arm in front of the left and flex your spine bring your chin into your chest you should feel your back stretch here inhale lift your arms parallel and either take Eagle arm wrap or grab opposite shoulders here with the hands we'll release the arms and just switch sides so inhale Arms Reach up side bodies long as you exhale actively turn to the left hips are staying forward and then allow the hands to release wherever they are and then we'll gently press the right hand into the left leg keep reaching the crown of your head up as you exhale cross your left arm in front and flex the spine bringing your chin in on an inhale spine is neutral arms out in front of you Eagle arm wrap or grab opposite shoulders with the hands good and then release bring your hands to the front of your knees inhale