Everybody can do chair yoga.
If you have a body and a chair and you can breathe,
you can do chair yoga.
(indistinct chatter)
So let's start our practice in sitting mountain.
We'll come a little bit towards the front of the chair
and we'll lengthen our spine upwards,
grounding our feet down into the floor,
and having our knees hip-distance apart,
taking a breath in and out here.
Let's start with a chest opener,
bringing your arms up to a cactus and lifting the heart,
and then bringing your elbows in towards each other.
And opening out, and coming in.
And then a spinal twist,
twisting over from the ribs towards the left,
coming back to the centre, and over to the right.
Keep the spine tall and the feet grounded
as you turn side to side.
Breathing all the way and coming back to the centre,
taking a side bend over to the right, up and over.
You can take your arm over with you if you like,
or you can leave it down, if that feels better for you.
And coming back into the centre, back to sitting mountain.
Let's move into beam pose.
So keeping your right leg where it is,
take your left leg out.
Maybe keep the knee bent or extend it out.
Bring your right hand to your shoulder,
or maybe up to the sky as you lean over towards the left.
Taking a breath in and out to the side body
and then inhaling to come back to the centre.
Bring your leg back into sitting mountain
and let's do the other side, taking the right leg out,
and bringing the left hand to the shoulder, or overhead,
side bend over to the right,
and then inhale to come back to the centre.
Bring your legs back into sitting mountain
and let's do fish pose.
Bring your hands towards your hips
or onto the back of the chair and extend your legs,
if you like, out in front.
Let your sternum lift up
as your shoulder blades come towards each other,
and gaze up.
Taking a breath in to the front of the body, and out.
And then releasing your upper body,
walking your legs back in to sitting mountain.
Let's do tree pose.
Take your left ankle across the right ankle,
or maybe up onto the thigh.
Bring your hands to your heart's centre,
or maybe up overhead, taking a breath in.
And as you exhale, releasing your hands down,
unravelling your legs, coming back to sitting mountain,
and then taking your right foot across the left ankle,
or up onto the thigh.
Hands to the heart or overhead, taking a breath in.
And as you exhale, release the arms back down
to sitting mountain,
finishing your practice with a beautiful breath in and out.
The four things that I hear is: "I'm scared of yoga."
"Yoga stresses me out."
"I'm not flexible enough," or, "I'm not good enough."
And being on the chair really takes all
of that away for people.
It takes away the fear,
the fear of not being good enough,
not being flexible enough,
and it takes away fear of falling
for some people who may have that as well.
And everybody can do it in their own way.
I think people don't understand
that it's not about exercise,
but it's everything that you do in your daily life, right?
So that moment of just coming back
and sitting in sitting mountain, sitting up on your chair,
instead of sitting down,
one moment of breathing like that
can just change your whole day.
You're more productive.
You come back to that place where you can find that calm,
just that moment to yourself.
And then you can go back to everything feeling a lot better.
So yoga doesn't have to be particularly
at a certain timeframe,
because it might change every time as well,
depending on what you need.