 Hi there, this is Emily. Thank you for joining me for some gentle yoga. So today's yoga will all be in a chair. So feel free to grab a chair of your choice. Just it's preferable that it doesn't have arms so that you can move your arms freely from the side. Also while you're seated in your chair, feel free to grab any props that you may need to make sure that your legs are at a 90 degree angle while you're sitting. For me, I scooch forward in my chair so that I can have a nice 90 degree angle. Feel free to add music of your choice. Also, I do want to restate, I can't say this enough, but everything that I say or suggest are suggestions and if it doesn't feel good for your body or you think it would be uncomfortable, feel free to modify or just completely skip the movement together. So the priority is just keeping your body comfortable, keeping your body safe and making sure it's beneficial. So let's get started. Find a comfortable and stable position in your chair, bringing your knees parallel to your shoulders, stacking your spine, your knees are at a 90 degree angle to the floor. And let's bring your attention into the room. Eyes are open, perhaps you notice the color of the walls, you linger on some artwork, let's bring our attention inwards. So if it feels comfortable, go ahead and close your eyes softly. Bring your attention to your body, your gentle scan on the top of your head all the way to the bottom of your toes. And if any thoughts come into your mind, just recognize them and then let them go and come back to your breath. Start with deepening the breaths, each inhale holding for about three seconds, pausing at the top and then exhaling for about three seconds, moving with whatever pace feels good for you, trying to equalize it, inhale and exhale. Inhaling, inhaling through the nose, exhale through the mouth, breathing with your own breath, whatever feels good for you. Attention, back to your breath, normalizing your breath is relaxing in a moment. Eyes gently flutter open with your clothes. Now let's start with a little warm-up, get into some flow, working our way into warrior pose and then we'll close each of us now. Inhaling arms up over the head, choice leaving them here or bringing them together at the top, get come down, your hands in front of your heart, inhaling, swooping arms up, exhaling, hands together at heart. Last one, inhaling and come together at the heart. Hands come onto your hips or perhaps onto the side of your chair. We're going to get started with dropping our neck and then we'll inhale, bring the chin up to one shoulder, exhale coming to middle, inhale opposite direction, exhale coming to middle. Let's do this together, inhaling through the body, trying to relax your shoulders in the center, inhale here and exhale, not in your head, yes, and keeping your gently back and forth, bringing your shoulders, well releasing your hands up there on the chair, bringing your shoulders to your ears, inhaling and exhaling through the mouth, releasing shoulders down two more times, inhaling shoulders up and down. Feel free to shake your shoulders out. So now hands can be on your lap or on the side of your chair for some hip circles. So really getting into wide circles through your body, paying attention to how everything's feeling, making sure our feet are stable on the floor and our seat is stable in the chair. Feel free to take them as little as big as you'd like. It's just really working your spine really good. You can have your hands on your lap, on your hips, on your chair, whatever feels good for you. Now let's move in the opposite direction, again as little or as big as you'd like to take it, give your hands on the chair for stability or perhaps, again to how your body feels, seeing how it feels on your spine. Let's inhale here to reset, bring your hands up and exhale, bringing your hands to your lap, a little cat cow. So really getting into a wave through our spine. So we're going to inhale, bring our hands back, opening the shoulders, shoulders come wide, arching through the middle so belly button's coming forward and on the exhale, sliding hands forward, looking to see with our body. So inhale and rolling shoulders back and open, chin can come up, exhaling, rolling and moving with your body at your own pace. As soon as you're coming to neutral position, inhaling arms come up and down, hands coming to your lap. Now let's bring our hands forward and then we're going to inhale and exhale closing, inhale opening, shake out the wrists and let's go ahead and take some wrist circles, opposite direction, I've got some kinks in there for sure. So if you snap, crackle or pop, that's perfectly normal and just might be some air pockets in your wrists. Let's inhale, exhale, bringing our hands to our lap, this is our moving down, we're going to move into our legs and go ahead and straighten one of the legs. So heels on the ground, toes are pointing up and we're going to inhale, bringing the toes up, exhale, bringing the toes down. So just moving at your own pace, stop here, toes up, heels on the ground and we'll take some ankle circles on one side and on the opposite side and let's bring our knee back together. So I'm parallel with my other knee and we'll exhale, inhale, toe comes up, exhale, pointing toes down, heels on the floor. That one too, inhaling, bring toes up, exhaling, pointing down, toes up and exhaling, let's move into ankle circles, back to your back, inhale, exhale together, sliding your knee back to match your other knee. So be our shoulder width apart, knees are 90 degree angle and let's get into a little flow. So we'll work on our sun citation, inhale, hands come up, exhaling, coming down, hands on your knees and slightly bending forward, head comes down, body's halfway down, inhaling, head comes up and exhaling, if it feels good, hinging at the hips and sliding further down, hanging your head, inhaling, sliding body up, arms come up, exhaling, coming down, inhaling, exhaling, sliding halfway down, hands coming to little ways down to your shin, head drops, inhaling, looking up, sliding down, inhaling, coming up, exhale, come down, coming down, sliding hands to your shins, dropping your head, body's halfway down, inhale, head comes up, coming down, relaxing your head, inhale, let's come up, exhale, coming down, exhale, this time we're going to take our knees, excuse me, bring our hands to our knees and put our forearms on our knees. Now I'm going to cross my arms onto each elbow. If this feels good, we can stay here. If you'd like to take a twist, I'm going to drop one arm and gently bring my opposite shoulder up. If it feels good, we're going to raise over your shoulder on your knees here. Let's bring your hand together here. So again, opposite hand goes onto the floor, inhale, and come up. It comes up to my knee, looking slightly over my shoulder. Gaze can stay here. If it feels good, bring it over the shoulder and exhale, coming down. Let's inhale, bring your hands up and then exhale, bringing your hands to your hips or to the chair. We're going to heel-toe our feet open, bring our legs out as far as what feels comfortable for you. So my knees are about at a 45-degree angle, and I want a 90-degree angle right here on my knee. Now if this feels good, go ahead and straighten one leg. Feel free to bring your body forward on your seat if you need to, and just as long as you're feeling stable. So this will be our position for Warrior II. So for Warrior II, we open up our hands, turning our body, gazing over one shoulder. Let's inhale here, bringing our hands to our heart. Face forward, exhale, extending and looking over that hand. Dropping the shoulders. I tend to hitch up when I'm dropping down. So inhale, hold it here. Now make sure that your feet are both evenly grounded into the floor that will help with your stability. Let's flow a little bit. We're inhaling, dropping my hand onto our back knee, or perhaps onto the hip or the chair, coming up, and then exhaling, coming onto our forearm. So inhaling, back hand drops the back leg, perhaps it's onto the hip, onto the chair, whatever feels comfortable for you, inhaling, coming down onto the forearm. Let's flow. Now reach your hands towards the corner of the room, checking in with your shoulders, see if you can bring some space between your ears and your shoulders. Breathing here, releasing. All right, let's bring our knees back together, heel towing them. Perhaps you want to march in place just to relax those hips. It also feels good to windshield wiper the knees back and forth, holding onto your chair. Hands can be on your hips, whichever feels good for you. Now let's go into the opposite direction. So again, bringing your seat forward if you need to, and then we'll heel, toe, our legs open to however far feels good for you, checking to see that you have a 90 degree angle here, and then let's work on our opposite leg. So perhaps we'll straighten, checking the angle, we want to see if we're at 90 degree angle, and then putting weight evenly into your feet. So again, we're going to open up, gazing over the opposite side, inhaling, coming center, inhaling, coming to center. We're going to start with another flow. So inhaling, coming back, perhaps my hand comes to my knee, to my hip, to the chair, so coming up, and then exhaling, opposite hand comes up and over, and your arm, your forearms on the knee. So let's inhale, coming back, evenly grounded, checking in with your shoulder, trying to create some space if possible. Let's inhale here, let's inhale stretch, and exhale, bringing your arm out and down. Bend my knee, and heel, toe, then back together, ooh, march out a little bit, and windshield wiper the knees back and forth. Now let's go ahead and get stable in our chair. So if you'd like to scooch back a little bit, feel free, checking in with your legs, making sure that they're parallel, shoulder width apart, or get into a nice stretch on the side. So go ahead and making either flex the foot and fold it over, or a little stretch here. If you want to take it higher and you feel that it's beneficial for your body, feel free to put your foot on your knee. And let's inhale, ooh, finding some length in our spine, and exhale here, feeling good. If you'd like to take it a little deeper, you can inhale, finding some space, and then exhale, leaning over. Now again, this is what's beneficial for your body. So if it's too much, do what feels best for you. Each inhale, imagine lengthening, and each exhale, imagine, just deepening and relaxing a little more. Let's inhale, bringing the body up, and exhale, releasing it like down, then shield wipering the legs back and forth, just trying to relax a little bit more. Opposite side, so inhale, finding some length, flexing the opposite ankle, crossing it over the opposite foot. So perhaps this is where we stay. If you'd like to take it deeper, bring your ankle up over your knee, feel free to engage your foot. If you'd like to take it deeper, inhale, finding some length, and then exhale, bringing it over the leg. While imagining some lengthening, and exhale, deepening, a little more stretch, the foot's engaged, just inhale here, and exhale, deepening, inhale, and exhale, releasing, and let's stretch our windshield wiper back and forth, so loosen the hips. We're going to take a moment to get into Shavasana. If you'd like, feel free to come onto the floor and relax on your back. You can even put your legs up the wall if that feels good, or if you'd like, get as comfortable as possible in your chair, maybe push them back so you can sit well in your chair. Hold your eyes, as they be on your side, or on your knees. If you're on the ground, palms are open, facing the sky, feeling as comfortable as possible for you. Breathing, breathing out through the mouth. Each inhale, imagine lengthening, bringing in vital energy, revitalizing energy, and each exhale, just relax and even more, being aware of your shoulders relaxing down, and belly, your legs, touch your face with your body, and then breath. For a few moments, just going to bring it back to your body, bring your toes, bring your fingers, and here on the ground, lift it a little over onto the right hand side, with the left palm in on the ground, in front of your heart, moving in, and the exhale, push that left palm into the ground, bring your body into a seated position. If your eyes are still closed, coming forward in your chair slightly, let's inhale together, exhale, hands in front of heart, and you'll be filled with joy, peace, and laughter this week.