Standing Balance: Slow Flow Yoga Class (20 Min Practice Along)

hi kathy madeo here back with another class this one all about standing balances we'll do a short vinyasa flow and weave in some of the more popular standing balancing postures if you have trouble balancing on one leg i made a video just for you it explains why you might be challenged and i offer a practice along style class with specific drills and exercises to help you get more stable and secure balancing on one leg so be sure to check that out otherwise let's get started [Music] we'll begin in mountain pose at the front of your mat so stand with your feet hips distance apart palms face slightly forward bring your shoulder blades so that they're neutral on your back and reach the crown of your head up and while you're standing here close down your eyes and you might begin to feel a slight movement on the corners of your feet you're basically balancing on your feet here and while you're balancing on your feet i want you to lift and spread all ten of your toes and feel how that grounds the mounds of your toes down and perhaps you could even feel the inner arches of your feet lift here we'll take just a breath or two here now keep the toes lifted blink open your eyes look down at your toes and bring your pinky toe down the next toe down middle toe down fourth toe down and then leave your big toes up and we'll hold this and now bring your big toes down and lift all eight of your other toes up and hold place all ten toes down on an inhale big sweep of your arms up catch hold of your right wrist we'll take a side bend over to the left and just notice what happens here with your feet where do you distribute the weight we'll inhale up and exhale switch sides inhale lift your arms up you can gaze up as you exhale softly bend your knees and we'll release down into a forward fold inhale take a halfway lift exhale plant your hands step one foot back and then the other take downward facing dog settle out your feet here stretching the soles of your feet as you lift up onto your toes and come into a turbo dog so again stretching the soles of your feet here as you're up high on your tippy toes lift the sit bones up belly to your thighs shift your shoulders over your wrists and lower down into a tabletop position uncurl your toes and just pat the tops of your feet here for a moment take a few cat cows as you let your belly drop and inhale gaze up and as you exhale push your hands into the floor hollow out your chest and belly take just two more here as we warm up the spine a little bit exhale and last one here and exhale come to a neutral spine kick stand your right toes off to the right straighten your left leg and inhale up to a modified side plank here you can bring your left hand to your hip lift your left leg up keep the hip closed so you're working your glute medius here and we'll begin to lift and take some lifts of the left leg really focusing on the outer left hip muscle doing the work this is one of the muscles that will stabilize your leg and your standing balancing poses one more here take your left hand down bend your left knee and we'll take some fire hydrants so you'll take the left leg out to the side a couple more rounds really trying to externally rotate the left knee using the glute medius to do the work here one more and we will release and we'll just switch sides so left toes turn to the left inhale up to a modified side plank bring your right hand to your hip reach your right leg up so it won't go super high as we keep the hip closed and that way we're isolating it here in the outer hip muscle getting it nice and warmed up do one more we'll bend the knee as we come back to almost our starting position and take a few fire hydrants here so really working this outer hip muscle as we move the right knee out to the right and we'll place it down widen your knees big toes touch take a brief child's pose here as we stretch the back body and the hips good and then from here we'll come back into our downward facing dog from downward facing dog reach your right leg up bend your knee take a few hip circles like you're drawing big circles with your right knee and switch directions inhale right leg up and we'll set the foot down and just simply switch sides left leg lifts up bend your knee take some hip circles in one direction and hip circles in the opposite direction from here come up high into your tippy toes walk your feet all the way up towards your hands inhale halfway lift exhale fold inhale rise all the way up to stand exhale bring your hands to heart center heel toe your feet and gaze just past your nose and come up high onto your tippy toes and set your heels down and we'll lift up and down so working our calf muscles here working our lower leg muscles here as we take some tiptoe raises do one more here bring your arms out in front of you come up high into your tippy toes this time toe squat try to land your seat all the way to your heels keep your torso nice and upright palms face the ground and then we'll rise all the way up keep those heels lifted set your heels down inhale sweep your arms up as you exhale take your chair pose so sending your weight back towards your heels here we'll bring our hands into prayer shift your weight to your right foot so we have our first standing balancing really subtle as you shift the weight in notice if you're rolling to the outer edge of the foot try to ground down through the big toe mound and we'll take some pulses here as we hinge forward lift the back leg and pulse the left knee in towards the right and we'll do this a few times building strength gazing at something on the floor that's not moving keeping the leg muscles nice and strong land your left foot all the way down high crescent lunge so as your here feet or hips distance apart bend through your front leg as you reach your left heel back and we'll take some pulsing here to build strength in our standing leg so we'll push off the front foot and lift your left leg into stork pose and then we'll go back to high lunge and push off stork and back to high lunge and last one push off stork and back to high lunge meet me in stork pose keep your arms lifting up try to balance on one leg take your left arm behind you right arm crosses over the left leg for a twist hit points face forward take another breath here who will land the left foot inhale arms sweep up we're switching sides bend into your chair pose lift your sternum up weight back towards your heels bring your hands to prayer weight shifts to the left just lift the right leg up and hover the right foot and find your balance here from here hinge over the front leg as you reach the back leg back and pulsing here we'll go about three more times each time bringing the knees close in towards each other and we'll step the right foot back high crescent lunge make sure your feet are hips distance apart get a nice lunge position nice and strong and then we'll push off and come into stork and back to our lunge and push off and