Work with this sequence until you are familiar and comfortable with the practice. While I recommend that one develop a daily practice, you should at least aspire to doing it two to three times a week. But let go of any goal- or attainment-minded grasping, and realize that the practice of asana includes the moving into and out of each posture.
1. Corpse Pose
3-5 MINUTES
Begin in CORPSE POSE, with your legs about 12-18 inches apart and your toes turned out to the side. Your arms are at your sides, at least a few inches from the torso with your palms turned upward.
First, just let your awareness rest wherever in your body you experience the breath. Forget for now all you think you know about your breath or what you’ve been taught about the proper way to breathe and simply notice how the breath is coming and going. Remember, let go of the tendency to control or manipulate and just see for yourself what is happening now.
Some may feel the breath as the rising and falling of the abdomen. Others may feel the breath more in the chest rising and falling or the ribs expanding and contracting. Still others may feel the sensations of the breath at the tips of the nostrils or at the back of the throat. Wherever you feel it, rest your attention there.
Stay with the sensations of the breath, the subtle increase of tension as you inhale, and then the release of the exhalation. See how the physical sensations condition the mind. This is the “feeling tone” that includes the physical and mental aspects of experience. After a while, let your awareness expand to include your whole body. Let yourself open to and embrace all the sensations that may arise as you lie here. Look to see if the feeling is pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. And right from the beginning of your practice, notice any tendency to hold on to pleasant experience, reject what may be unpleasant, or “zone out” in the absence of any particularly strong sensations.
2. Knee-to-Chest Pose
45-60 SECONDS EACH SIDE
From observing the breath and the feelings of the body at rest, we begin to observe whatever arises during movement. Now, slowly slide the right heel along the floor, bending the knee toward the ceiling as you slide the foot into the buttock. Pay attention to the feeling tone of the leg and the whole body as you do this. Can you feel any changes in your weight distribution or the center of gravity in your pelvis as the foot moves into the buttock? Once there, slowly lift the foot off the floor and bring the knee into your chest while holding it with both hands.
After 6-8 breaths, slowly lower the foot to the floor near the buttock and then slide it out to straight. Notice the discrete point where you know you can fully release the weight of the leg to the earth, and when you do, notice any changes in the breath and the feeling tone throughout the body. Have you been holding the breath or holding tension in the body?
Repeat with the other leg. If the sensations are different from one leg to the other, see if you can just notice, without adding any commentary.
3. Lotus Preparation
45-60 SECONDS EACH SIDE
Bring both feet in near the buttocks, hip-width apart. Cross your left leg over your right, placing the outer left shin just above the ankle onto your right thigh. Then bring your right knee into your chest. Reach between your legs with your left hand and around the outside of your right thigh with your right arm and clasp your hands either just below your right knee or behind the knee, whichever feels more comfortable for your shoulders and neck.
Depending on your degree of openness in the hips, you may feel intense stretching sensations in the outer left hip. Keep breathing and notice any tendency to tense your muscles around the sensation of the stretch. See if you can release the tension and breathe into the sensations. Do not force yourself to go deeper, but rather simply let go of the resistance. Notice if the sensations change as you stay here.
Repeat on the other side, and again notice any difference you experience from one side to another. Most of us are not symmetrical and will find imbalances from one side of the body to the other. See if you can just see what is happening without making the more flexible or comfortable side “better” than the other one.
4. Cat/Cow Pose
6-10 REPETITIONS WITH YOUR BREATH
Position your hands straight down from your shoulders and your knees straight down from your hips. On the exhalation, round your back like an angry cat, tilting the pelvis backward and tucking the tailbone between your legs. Let your head hang down as you gaze back toward your pelvis. On the inhalation, tilt your pelvis forward, dropping your belly toward the floor as the crown of your head and your sitting bones reach up toward the ceiling, your back moving into a soft backbend. Here your back has a gentle backbend, as it takes the line of a cow’s back.
Let your natural breath determine the duration and rhythm of your movement. Begin the movement with the tilting of your pelvis, and let the movement generated by this action flow up your back like a wave moving through water. Pay attention to the body of the breath as well as all that arises as you move from one position to the other. Do you find yourself enjoying one aspect of this movement more than another? How does this condition your experience of the posture? Or perhaps you may find yourself going on “automatic pilot” as you repeat the movement. Stay present throughout the entire movement.
5. Downward-Facing Dog
15-30 BREATHS
From COW POSE, tuck your toes under and, reaching your sitting bones up and back, straighten your legs into DOWNWARD FACING DOG. Keep the sitting bones lifting and let go of the notion that you need to have your heels come to the floor, yet do keep them moving toward the floor, but not at the expense of the elongation of your back.
As you breathe in the posture, shift your weight from limb to limb slowly enough to sense the changes in the body’s tension and relaxation. How does the added effort of supporting yourself through one limb over the others affect the breath? Then begin to shift your body weight more and more into center, and notice how the breath again grows more even and easy. As you stay in the posture, stay alert to any changes in the sensations that arise. More importantly, see if you can stay alert to any reactivity towards or away from the changing sensations.
Modification:
With tight hamstrings, the lower back will round and compress. Simply bend your knees until you can feel the back lengthen and the lower back regains its natural (inward moving) lumbar curve. If the backs of your legs are really tight, besides bending your knees, you may want to experiment with stepping your feet a bit wider than hip width.
*6. Lunge into Standing Lunge (Warrior One Variation)
10-20 BREATHS EACH SIDE
From DOWNWARD-FACING DOG, step your right foot forward between your hands, keeping the back leg straight and extending out through your back heel. Make sure the bent knee is not coming forward of your toes. The front knee should be bent at a 90-degree angle with the shin perpendicular and the thigh parallel to the floor. Come up onto your fingertips and roll the shoulders down your back while opening the heart as you gaze forward.
Without straining or becoming rigid, can you keep making the effort to lengthen out through the back heel while keeping the chest lifted? Let the breath move freely through the body. From here, come up into the STANDING LUNGE, which is a variant form of WARRIOR ONE. Keep actively reaching out through your back foot and let your tailbone descend away from your lower back as your arms reach up toward the ceiling. Keep the shoulders from creeping up to your ears and stretch up from the side body.
As you breathe here, notice the sensations that arise. Notice how the longer you stay here and the sensations grow more intense, the resistance to the sensations also grows. Notice how the mind may want to “lean forward” away from the posture. Keep connecting with your breath and see if you can smile to the sensations.
Come out of the STANDING LUNGE back into DOWNWARD-FACING DOG. If you are alert, you may catch yourself grasping for the sensation of relief, but after one or two breaths in DOWNWARD-FACING DOG step forward with the left foot
and repeat the LUNGE and STANDING LUNGE on that side. Again, notice all that arises as you stand in the LUNGE.
And when you release back into DOWNWARD-FACING DOG again, see if that grasping for relief arises again. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the relief, but what would happen if we now stayed in DOWNWARD-FACING DOG for 20 breaths? You’d probably look forward to getting out of that experience, even if it meant going back into the STANDING LUNGE! This is the apparently endless cycle of “push-me, pull-me” we put ourselves through. But staying with the sensations, we can begin to see the conditioning and begin to release it. From DOWNWARD FACING DOG, step forward into HANGING FORWARD BEND.
Modification:
If it’s too challenging presently to raise your arms over your head, keep your hands gently pressing into the thigh of the front leg to help roll the shoulders back and lift and open the chest.
7. Hanging Forward Bend
8-15 BREATHS
Have your feet about a fist’s (hip width) width apart and lift your sitting bones up as you drape your torso over your legs. If there is tension felt in the lower back, soften and bend the knees. Cross your arms, interlocking them at the elbows, and just hang.
Become aware of any sense of relief you may experience. Enjoy the opportunity to rest here a moment, but see if you can keep yourself from getting overly attached or zoning out.
Modification:
Those with tight hamstrings will find that they will round in the lower back, eventually causing tension there. Bend your knees to release the back tension and let your torso be supported by your thighs. This action stabilizes the lower back and sacrum and allows you to bend from your hip joint rather than from the back. Keep the sitting bones lifting, while simultaneously pressing down through your feet.
8. Spinal Roll
20-45 SECONDS
Release your arms and let them dangle freely. Don’t try to hold them in any particular place. With your knees softly bent, draw your navel back toward your spine and roll up one vertebra at a time. See how little or how much of your spine you can actually experience as you do this. Let the breath be natural.
Keep your eyes open, and if you see your arms coming in toward your legs, or reaching out away from you, see if you can consciously let go and surrender them to gravity. As you slowly rise up into MOUNTAIN, notice where in your body feelings predominate. How do they shift and change as you slowly rise up?
Modification:
If there is pain in the lower back, even with bent knees, then use your hands on your thighs for added support.
9. Mountain/Balanced Standing Pose
2-5 MINUTES
Stand with your feet hip-width apart and parallel along the midline of the foot (roughly straight back from the second toe). Your big toes will be slightly closer to each other than your heels when lined up along the midline of the foot. Feel the weight of your body descend down through your legs and into the earth just in front of your heels. Let your spine rise up out of the basin of your pelvis, upper chest lifted, and shoulders relaxed and slightly back.
See if you can feel the natural curves of your spine. Avoid collapsing into the lower back. Keep the front ribs soft. With your eyes closed, as we did in Sequence One, try keeping the body straight and lean forward as far as you can without falling on your face. Notice all the sensations in your body that arise as you tense your muscles in order to keep from falling. What is the quality of your breath and your mind as you teeter here? Here is a wonderful example of why the feelings are called body and mind “conditioners.” Intense feelings of contracted tension can immediately be observed to cause tight and constricted breath and mind.
Lean forward and back, lessening the arc of movement until you can feel the breath grow a bit deeper and more spacious. Notice how you can release all the major muscles in the back and shoulders and be buoyantly straight. Again, let the breath guide you, and let the feeling tone of the body be your teacher. You do not need a mirror if you allow the ease and stability of your breath and body to guide you. If the breath and the body feel at ease and stable, you must be in alignment. Once balanced and centered, stand awhile and notice how the feelings change.
10. Triangle Pose
5-15 BREATHS EACH SIDE
Reach out to the sides with your arms parallel to the floor and then step your feet out so that they are directly under your fingertips. Turn your left foot in slightly and your right foot out completely (90 degrees from facing front). Pressing down strongly into both legs, extend upward from the base of your spine.
Fold your uppper body over your front leg while continuing to move your weight more onto the back leg. Your bottom arm is pressing into the floor, a block, or your shin, while you elongate your spine and open your chest, reaching your top arm toward the ceiling.
Breathing here, keep scanning your body smoothly and evenly, remaining aware of all sensations that arise and letting go of resistance or grasping. As you stay in the posture, different areas of the body will come into your awareness. Notice how your reactivity varies depending on where the sensations arise and what qualities predominate.
When you are ready to come up, press even more into the back leg and lift up through the top arm.
Repeat on the other side. Stay alert to any comparisons the mind leaps to make between one side and the other. This is a clue that you are not fully paying attention to what is happening now. Come back to the breath and the present sensations.
*11. Extended Side Angle Stretch
5-15 BREATHS EACH SIDE
Beginning as you did in TRIANGLE, reach out to the sides with your arms parallel to the floor and then step your feet out so that they are directly under your fingertips. Turn your left foot in slightly and your right foot out completely (90 degrees from facing front). Pressing down strongly into both legs, extend upward from the base of your spine.
Now, bend your front leg to a 90-degree angle with your bent knee directly above your ankle. Your shin should be perpendicular to the ground and your thigh is moving toward parallel. Next, reach your right fingertips to the ground on the outside of your right foot and take your left arm alongside your left ear, extending fully.
As you stay in the posture, keep rolling your knees away from each other in an external rotation. Press your hand into the ground beside your right foot and spiral your torso as if you were going to turn your chest toward the sky. Continue to stay with your experience, not shutting down on any aspect of what you are feeling. See if you can soften and relax your tongue and let the corners of your mouth turn slightly upward.
When you come out from this posture, again press down into the back leg and foot, reach up and back with the top arm, and straighten the front leg.
Repeat on the other side.
Modification:
With tight hips, taking your hand to the floor can create energy congestion. To free your hips and allow integration between your legs and spine, place your elbow on your thigh just above the knee, or use a block.
Please do not let ego determine the posture. If taking your hand to the floor creates a bending at the hip or through the spine, do this modification so that you can experience the direction of movement from your strongly rooted feet up through your spine and out through the upper arm.
12. Warrior One
5-15 BREATHS EACH SIDE
Extending your arms out to the side, take a wide stance as you did in EXTENDED SIDE ANGLE STRETCH. Then inhale, reaching your arms up over your head and grounding down through both legs.
Then, turn your left foot in about 45 degrees and turn your right foot out to 90 degrees. Turn your pelvis and chest to the right so that you are facing in the direction of your right leg. Keep the left hip moving forward as your right hip goes back.
Now bend your right leg, letting the knee go toward a 90-degree bend. Go no farther than having your bent knee directly over your ankle. Avoid compressing into your lower back by letting your tailbone drop lightly down toward the ground, but do not t
uck and clench your buttocks.
Notice the sensations in your body and let them teach you to find the balance between effort and surrender. Avoid thinking of “holding” the posture, but instead see that the posture is created moment by moment as you continue to press down into the floor with both legs, reaching up through your arms and staying aware of the breath and all sensations.
Mindfulness Yoga Page 17