So in this module, we're going to be stringing a bunch of poses together. The sequence we are going to be doing is based on a protocol that was a study on pre-hypertensive conditions in African-Americans that was led by Dr. Marshall Hagan. So we interviewed him in this pathology module. You and I were both involved in this study. We're going to guide you guys through it. It's going to be some sun salutation, some standing poses, some seated poses. We're going to add in an inversion at the end with the legs up, which we did not do in the study, and we're also going to do the finishing poses which you've learned so far. It'll take about 20 minutes to do, modify anything how you need to, and I guess we should also say that the study showed some success. Yes. The sequence was able to lower the systolic blood pressure in a significant amount of the participants. We've also used a very similar protocol with high school students to show over a 40-week period that they could improve their grade point average, which was another protocol that was led by Marshall Hagan as well, with very similar types of postures. Yes. Which just goes to show you that we have so many intertwined physiological systems that by just doing some basic things, we can begin to re-balance the things in our system that need to be re-balanced, and homeostasis basically knows what to do when it's supported properly. Yes. This is also a similar practice that I've been teaching and I've taught in the past to people that suffer from PTSD. So the formula that we're using here is really able to be used for a wide spread of pathologies, and those of you that just want a healthier overall physiology. Okay. Here we go. So we begin standing in samasthiti and attention. Without doing anything, movement yet, inhale a nice comfortable breath and feel the body get a little longer, and exhale, feel how the chest goes back down. So this is a downward movement on the exhale. You feel the chest go down and upward movement on the inhale as the chest rises. Through the whole practice, we follow that up and down pattern. So let's begin now with the first sun salutation; inhale the arms out and up. Exhale bending forward and coming down. Inhale lifting the chest, exhale stepping and jumping back and lowering down. Inhale and do upward facing dog. Exhale into downward facing dog. Breath five times; one, two, three, four, five. You need to neither jump a step forward up to your hands then up. Exhale to head back down towards your legs. Inhale, stepping up, reach the arms over the head and exhale to samasthiti. Second time, inhale with arms up, exhale bending down, inhale chest up. Exhale step or jump back, lower down. Inhale upward facing dog. Exhale downward facing dog and breath. One, with your hips back a little, two, three, four, five. Bend the knees and look forward, either step or jump forward. Lift the chest, keep your fingers on floor. Exhale the head down. Inhale leading with chest come all the way up, and exhale the arms down. Holding on to the big toe pose next, padangusthasana and jump your feet apart. Bend forward and catch hold of your big toes, inhale lengthening your chest forward, exhale the head down keeping the elbows back towards your legs, and breath. Doesn't matter how far forward you go. One, two, three, four, five. Inhale, lengthen your chest forward, stay here and exhale, and then step on your hands not all the way up to the wrist, just up to the fleshy part of the thumb. Lift the chest as you inhale, exhale bending down. Now your hands can come up to the side. One, two, three, four, five. Inhale extend the chest forward, stay here and exhale. Let go of your hands, stand up and hop your feet together. Trikonasana, the triangle pose. Step or jump out to the right. Turn the right toe to the side. Lean to the right and put your hand down on your shin while reach to hold onto your big toe. Look up towards your left hand pushing your left hip a forward and breath; one, two, three, four, tighten your legs a little, five. Inhale, come up on the strength of the legs, turn the feet. The left toe points out, exhale, bend to the side hold onto the shin or onto your big toe. Reach the right arm up, gaze at the thumb and breath. If you feel any neck discomfort, look down towards your foot, and again, your hand is just below your knee at this position here, that's absolutely fine too. One, two, your right hip rolls a little forward as if your hip is reaching towards your left heel, three, four, five. Tighten your legs a little, inhale. Stand up, turn your foot parallel. Now, we're going to jump to the front of the mat, samasthiti, side angle pause. Bend your knees, hop out to the side either feet spread a little wider apart, before they were about three feet or one meter, now they're a little wider. Turn right toe away from you. As you exhale bend your knee, either place your elbow down on your knee and stretch your left arm over ear or place your right hand on the floor, right by the foot and stretch your arm over the ear. Open the chest, lengthen through both sides to the rib cage. One, two, three, four, five. Inhale coming all the way up, turn your feet. Exhale, bend your knee over your foot, your left-hand goes down, and the arm over the ear. Remember the alternative is to put your elbow up on the leg. One, two, three, four, looking at your side. If you have neck discomfort look towards your armpit. Five inhale come all the way up, turn your parallel, jump to the front. Next, the wide foot spread pause, hands on the waist. Inhale, jump to the side. Tuck your hips slightly under, inhale breath. Exhale, bend forward, and put your hands on the floor in-between your feet if possible or a little forward from your feet if you need to. As you exhale bend the head down towards the floor in-between the hands. Any hand position is okay just don't lose the balance. One, two, three, four, five. Inhale, lift the chest up. Stay here and exhale. Inhale, come up holding on to your waist, and again exhale. Inhale, extend the arms. Exhale, hold onto your waist. Inhale a breath, tuck the hips slightly under. Exhale, pull your hips back. Reach out from the hips, lengthening the chest, and then reach the top of the head towards the floor in between your feet, breath. One, tighten your legs a little, two, three, three, four, five. On the strength of the legs, reach your chest forward, inhale all the way up and exhale. Third type inhale the arms out. Exhale, hold your hands behind your back interlacing the fingers. Inhale, lift the chest. Exhale and bend forward pulling your hips back behind you, the arm stretch out over your head. The top of the head reaches towards the floor, and breath. One, two. Three, four, five. Tighten your waist, tighten your legs, inhale, come all the way up. Keep your hands behind you as you exhale. Inhale, hold on to your waist. Exhale, bend forward, and hold on to your big toes with your two fingers. Inhale with your chest, exhale and bend the head down, pull in the head in-between the feet if possible, otherwise let the head come in front of the feet. If your head doesn't touch the floor, that's okay. Keep your legs engaged one, two, three come up towards your nose if that's comfortable. Four, five. Inhale and lift the head up, straighten the arms and exhale here. Then catch hold of your waist, and inhale. Come up, bring your feet a little closer together, and then hop to the front of your mat. Next, the side intense stretch. Bend the knees and hop to the side so that the feet are about one meter apart. Bring your hands behind your back to either hold onto your elbows, or put your hands together in a prayer position, in-between your shoulder blades. Turn the right leg the side, turn to face your leg, and then exhale, bend forward over the leg. Now I'm going to to demonstrate with a bent knee, bending forward over the leg and lifting the hip down. Then after I come forward with the bent knee, I straight my leg a little, just as much as comfortable. Leg goes all the way straight, that's fine. If you want to keep you need bent for this duration of this process it's okay too. That's about three, four and five. Inhale come all the way up. Turn you feet, inhale a breath again here, exhale. If you're bending the knee bend the knee and lift your chest forward over the leg, press downward the leg and breath. One, two, three, four, five. Your knees then, bend it a little more against the chest, come all the way up straighten the leg turn your feet parallel, and jump to the front of your mat. Next we're going to do the Tree Pose. Turn your right foot out to the side, pop the hill up on your ankle, and then draw your foot up your leg. Either keep it just a little bit up the leg, or if you'd like you can draw it all the way up. Hands together in front of the chest and prayer, breathe here. An alternate to this position is to interlace your fingers. Press the palms up towards the sky, three, four and exhale the hands back down to the chest, release the leg. Left side turn left foot out, pop the heel on the ankle, either coming to a mini tree with your toes touching to keep your balance, or draw the foot all the way up to the thigh. One, oops! One, two, if you press your palms up on the other side you can do it again on this side. When the palms go up, keep the chin a little bit up too, just a little. Three, four, staring at one point on the floor, or on the wall in front of you for balance, bring the hands back down and release the foot. Now we're going to do a nice balance pose and to strengthen one for the legs too it's called Figure Four. So you are going to bend the knees a little. You're going to cross your right ankle on top of your left knee, hands together in prayer and then just squat down a little bit. One, two, keep the chest open, three, four and five. Straightened up and release the foot. Left side, bend your knees a little, cross your left foot on top of your right knee, hands in prayer, and squat down. Remember if you have trouble with balance, find one spot on the floor in front of you and gaze at that spot to help you keep your balance. Three, four, five, inhale come straight, release the foot. Now we're going to move to some seated positions. Inhale the arms up over the head, exhale bend down. Inhale chest up, exhale step or jump back, and lower down. Inhale upward dog or a small cobra, exhale downward dog. Now we're going to jump through movement, either you can step one foot forward, and then other and then sit down on the floor, straighten your legs out in front or you can jump all the way through. Keep your legs out in front of you, hands by your sides, and breath. One, lift the chest, straighten through your heels, two, three, four, five. Catch hold of your big toes, inhale the chest up, exhale bend the head down towards the legs. If you want to use a pillow to prop your chest up you can. You can keep your knees bent if you need to as well. One, two, three, four, five, inhale the chest up, stay here and exhale. Again, this is to strengthen the core muscles. Then move on the sides of the feet, or interlace your hands in front of the feet, again inhale, exhale, bend the head down. One, two, three, four, five, inhale the chest up, and exhale. Now, we're going to do Table Top. Sit up bring the hands behind you, bend the knees so the feet are flat on the floor, lift your chest and as you inhale push the hips up and breath. One, two, three, four, and five, exhale come down. So now you're feet, your knees are already bent, just cross your ankles, bring your hands in front of the feet and your name manner that you remember from the jump back video, throw you legs back behind you. Exhale come down. Inhale into your back arch, exhale push back. Again, we're going to bend the knees and jump through in any manner, that is comfortable for you. Now will do the Trikonasana. Bend your right knee, bring your foot flat against your thigh. Reach forward to hold onto your front foot, inhale the chest up, exhale bending down. One, two, three. Four. Five. Inhale. Chest up. Exhale and release. Change legs. Right leg straight, left leg bends. Hold on to the front foot. Inhale. Exhale. Go down. So again, if you can't go all the way down, you just hold onto the top of your toes or rest some pillows here, and lie forward over to the pillows. Otherwise, you can hold on to the sides of the foot or your wrist in front of the foot. Three. Four. Five. Inhale. Chest up. Exhale. Sit up. So I'll do a lift and jump back. Can you do other jump back? Yeah. Okay. So for those of you who want to challenge yourselves a little more, you can lift yourself up off the ground and try to throw the legs back. Come down and have upward dog and downward dog. Now, we'll do a modified twist of [inaudible]. Bend the knees. Inhale, jump through. Bend your right knee. So Ali will do a full version coming into the whole twist, bringing her arm around behind her back. I will do a modified version holding onto my knee with my elbow and bringing one hand on the floor behind me. One. Two. Extend through your left foot. Three. Lift the chest a little. Four and five. Release. Come back to center. Straighten out the right leg. Then the left leg. Again, I'm doing the modified by wrapping my knee into the crook of my elbow. I'm bringing my left hand on the floor behind me. Just the fingertips rotating. Extend through the right foot and breathe. One. Two. Mindful awareness moving through the whole body and mindful awareness on the breath. Three. Four. Five. Release the center. Do the same thing on the jump backs on the lift up and exhale, throw your legs back. Inhale. Exhale. Push back. Okay. Now we're going to do another asana just one time. Bend the knees and bring your feet through the hands, either jumping or stepping. We have some choices for the both pose [inaudible]. First choice is to bring these together. Bring your heels to the floor. Lift your chest and reach your arms out in front of you. Second choice is to bring one leg up at a time. You will do both of those together and then the right. Then the next choice or the next thing we'll try rather is to bring both feet up. Lean a little bit back. The full pose is to straighten your legs up. Lift the chest. Three. Four. Let's jump back. Throw your legs back behind you. Lower down as you exhale. Inhale. Upward dog. Exhale. Downward dog. Now a jump through, lie down and do a bridge pose. Bend the knees. Inhale jump though. Exhale lay down. Bend the knees so the feet are flat on the floor. Hip width apart and the hands flat down by your feet. We'll do two pelvic tilts and tucks. Flatten the lower back as you exhale. Inhale and let your lower back come into an arch. Exhale flatten back. Inhale come into a tilt. Stay in the tilt. Exhale your breath and then inhale lift your hips up. One. Two. Three. Four. Exhale slowly come down along vertebrae turn. Tucking your hips under as you lower. Let your back come into a small arch so you are in a pelvic tilt. Exhale here. Inhale come up. Breathe. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Slowly come down. One vertebrae a time. Slowly, slowly, slowly slowly, slowly. Then we will do up an asana, upgrading the knees and towards the chest and placing your hands on the kneecaps. As you exhale, bend the knees towards you. As you inhale let the arms come straight. Exhale the knees in. Inhale straight. Exhale in. Inhale straight. Exhale pull the knees in. Stay here keep the knees in. Tighten your lower body to keep them there. Place your palms flat on the floor. Now you can either keep your palms here or tuck your hands right under the small of your hips. Then straighten your legs up in the air. This will be our inverted pose. Let the fluid drain from the legs. Remain in a restful position here breathing. This can also be done with a block or a pillow under the hips. Stay here for five breaths. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Bend the knees in towards the chest, let the ankles cross. Take the hands out from your lower back, that's where they were. Rest here for a minute holding onto the knees. While holding out your hands around your legs Then we're going to rock back and forth on the spine, two times and then we're going to roll up to a seated position. So roll forward, roll back, roll forward, roll back and roll all the way up to seat, cross the ankles. For the finishing poses, either put your hands on the floor in front of you, or hold the wrist behind the back. Exhale slowly, come down and, breathe. One, two, three, four, five. Inhale, come all the way back up. Hands on floor behind you, fingertips are okay here too. Lift the chest. The head goes back, or keep the chin towards the collarbones and breathe. One, two, three, four, five. Come all the way back up to sit. Now, we're coming to the twist. Your right-hand comes behind your back, and left-hand tucks under your leg or holds onto the knee. Lean a little towards the hand, and breathe. Ali will look over her right shoulder and I'll look towards the center of the room over my left. One, two, three, four, five. Release, come back to center, bring your left hand behind your back. The right-hand under the knee or holding onto the knee. Twist. Choose your shoulder that you're going to look over and breathe. One, two, three, four. Lift the chest a little. Five. Tighten belly slightly, come back to center. Hands on the knees for long deep breathing. Again, you can draw the breath high up into the nasal cavity, as you inhale and exhale. Slightly tighten the throat. So you're making a hissing sound, as you breathe. One, two, the eyes can be open or closed, three. The eyes are open, you're looking either at the tip of the nose or one point on the floor in front of you. Four, five. Place your hands on the floor by your thighs, and do one new pose free now. You cross the ankles, lift your hips up, and breathe five times. One, two, three, keep the chest up, four, and five. Stretch the legs out in front of you, lie down on your back and rest for two minutes. Be relaxed. Feel how long you lie down, maybe the breath is a little longer and deeper, as respiration and blood pressure adjust to lying down. Then begin to slow down the breathing just a little. Slightly lengthening your exhale. Gently lengthening the exhale only by a fraction of a second. It's not a long lengthening of the exhale, it's a slight fraction of a second. We go to fingers and tendons. Rotate the wrists, and the ankles. Stretch the arms over the head and stretch your leg like you're taking a long stretch waking up in the morning, and exhale with ease. Okay, when you're ready, you can come up to sit in any comfortable way. So that is the full practice. Yes. We did a little bit of everything. A little bit of everything. So hopefully you guys enjoyed that at home, and you can see how we can integrate a lot of the different postures that we've been doing throughout all of the modules into a practice that you can integrate into your daily life. Yeah, it's a holistic practice. Remember we have, the way we exercise, the way we breathe, the way we pay attention, how we interact with people, the food that we eat, how much and when we sleep. Yes. All of these things are important because these are all connected to our physiological systems. So when we think of yoga, we have to remember it's not just doing posture. Set doesn't make a holistic system. It's all of these different facets. So every single system we've discussed in these modules has something which is going to affect it. Yeah. All of the different yoga practices as well, fit into one of those levels. Definitely. So think about it as a holistic practice for your life and definitely you can begin to heal or transform the things that you need to change.
