Instructor: Megan Knutson
Community: Adult group, Hospital employees with health risk factors, Hospital setting
Plan Creation Date: June 1, 2013
Yoga Calm Principle/Lesson Goal: Listening
Lesson Plan:
Calm
- Pulse count – Find your pulse on your wrist, 15 second count (x4), if your heart rate and thoughts are racing from the busy work day, invite your breath to slow down, allow your mind to release its thoughts about the day, allow your breath to slow down and move with ease with our movements. How are you doing? What does your body, mind, and spirit need today?
- Volcano breath – Allow the breath to slow and pair your movement with your breath. Move at your own pace. Inhale, reach the sky, exhale stretch the arms out to either side.
- Forward fold – How does your body feel? What is it telling you right now? Do you need to bend your knees to make this more comfortable as we warm our bodies up? Do you need to remind yourself to breathe deeply? What is your body, mind, spirit telling you right now?
Activate
- Star – Ground down through both feet evenly. Stretch your arms to opposite ends of the room. Lift your neck long-let it rise to the sky. Close your eyes, ask yourself- how can I best care for myself? We all know what is best, we simply need to listen to what our bodies tell us.
- Warrior I – Bring the right knee directly over the ankle. Extend your arms overhead as you drawer your shoulder blades down your back to relax the shoulders. Lift your abdominal muscles, arms, head, and heart up as your feet press steadily into the floor.
- Star – Come back to star, check in. Relax the muscles. Activate the muscles, listen to the difference this creates in your body, when the muscles go limp and when they are activated. Keep your muscles activated and strong as we step into Warrior I with the left leg leading.
- Warrior II – Allow your shoulders to stack directly over your hips. We do not reach forward into the present, we do not lean back living in the past. We find alignment in the center, in the present. Allow your spine all the way through the crown of your head to stack above the center of your hips. (Repeat other side, moving through star)
Calm
- Forward fold – From star, you can keep your feet wide or bring the feet to be hip width apart if that feels more stable. Arms can hang to the ground or come to the small of your back or clasp to open the chest
- Lying twist – knees come higher if you experience any pain in the low back
- Final relaxation – Simply lie still for the moment, listen to your body, mind, and spirit. What message is it telling you now? Do you feel a shift from where we began? – Read quote
- Hoberman’s Sphere breathing
- Pulse count – Can compare where it was when we began to now after class when we are relaxed