Namaste! Welcome to the yoga class. We start with sitting into a comfortable position grounding the buttocks growing from the crown of the head elongating the spine and gently closing our eyes releasing and relaxing the facial muscles softening the jaw we let space open under the soft palate and we start inhaling a little bit deeper and longer little bit deeper and longer and bring all our attention into the room on the mat observing the contact of the body with the floor. Inhale, focus on the waist of the body on the floor. Inhale, from the pelvic floor up to the top of the head. Let the chest open, ribcage expand to all sides. And exhale from the top of the head along the spine down to the pelvic floor. And we release, relax and let go of everything what we don't need for this session inhale we bring the attention to the tip of the nose and we notice the coolness of the breath coming in and the warmth of the breath going out we breathe only through the nose the tip of the nose is the center of our world is the center of our world fully focusing on the sensations arising at the edge of the nostrils and inside the nostrils we keep prolongating and extending the inhalation we can place the right hand on our belly and the left hand on the chest on the chest and breathing into the right hand letting the abdomen fully expand then breathing into the chest rising the left hand and exhale we release relax and let go of any tension inhale into the right hand then into the left and then we exhale down to the pelvic floor like a wave inhale into the right hand then into the left exhale down to the pelvic floor two more inhale let the abdomen expand inhale let the ribcage expand to all sides exhale grounding the buttocks inhale up to the top of the lungs and exhale down to the pelvic floor and at the end of the exhalation we retract the lower abdomen gently in and up and we keep it like this and we keep breathing now with lower abdomen engaged and observe how the dynamics of the breath is changing and how the dynamics of the opening of the upper body is changing we can also place our hands on the sides of the ribcage and breathe into the hands lower abdomen is stable, core is strong lips are soft Exhale and we release. Now what you're hearing, this soundful breath is the so-called Ujjayi breath or soundful breath. You can practice it either when sitting, engaging the lower abdomen and just breathing with soundful breath or you can practice it during your asana practice, connecting each movement with an inhalation and the next movement with an exhalation. It's very helpful when, especially when you practice asana, it builds a lot of heat in the body and it also keeps your keeps your mind focused because you listen to the sound of the breath and it brings a meditative element in your asana practice so it goes like this it's very simple it happens when the glottis and the epiglottis in your throat are closing if you want to close them you just have to inhale and exhale with inhale once more inhale Inhale. Once more, inhale. Inhale. And now exhale with HA, but with the mouth closed. Now I'm exaggerating a little bit the sound so that you can hear it, but it doesn't have to be a loud sound. It should be as loud as you can hear it but it doesn't have to be a loud sound it should be as loud as you can hear it and it immediately has an impact on your brain with calming the nervous system down Now you always try to have your jaw relaxed. Just relax it as if you want to yawn. And when you want to yawn, it's also opening space under your soft palate. This is also very relaxing. And then when you breathe with soundful breath, it also has a different quality. If you want to keep your upper palate with space under, you can just touch it with the tip of your tongue. And you can always stay like this when you breathe, as far as it's comfortable. This is also called Kechari Mudra, with the tongue curled back and up, touching the soft palate from Hatha yoga. back and up touching the soft palate from hatha yoga and it's very beneficial if you can practice it when you breathe and even when you in our asana practice is having your our lower abdomen engaged because this protects the lower back on one hand and on the other hand we are practicing Uddiyana bandha. Uddiyana bandha is also very useful when you want to have your breathing only extending the ribcage to all sides and also the downer part of the lungs pressing into the diaphragm and kind of squeezing the inner organs and your digestive system in. This is very good for detoxifying it and for relaxing it and for also firing up the digestive fire, let's say. up the digestifier let's say so there are lots of benefits from practicing Uddiyana bandha lower abdomen slightly in and up this shouldn't bring stress into your practice it should bring stability it should feel like you are stable and you are grounded from the core so that you can take your power from the core for the whole practice so after practicing a couple of breathing exercises we can extend our feet to the front and go for cat and cow stretches so what is important in the cat and cow stretches is that you have your wrists under the shoulders knees under the hips and we can play here with releasing the abdomen when we go for cow and now retracting the abdomen when we go for cat and push yourself away from the mat again to cow release exhale to cat push yourself away from the mat inhale open the chest look up and exhale to downward facing dog we can walk the dog a bit grounding the palms spreading the fingers to the sides opening the chest towards the thighs and now we take the chance to release and relax the neck feeling the weight of the head expand extending the spine completely releasing and relaxing the neck and we keep breathing with soundful breath lower abdomen is naturally retracted we can come back down now what's very important when you want to have your hands stable as a stable foundation you press into these two roots of the thumb and of the first finger mainly on these two roots and then you open the other fingers to the sides the wrists are usually at the width of your shoulders and this is already a very stable foundation opening the whole surface of the palms and from here we can very comfortably extend the back grow from the sacrum to the sky and go for a downward facing dog you can always have the knees slightly bent and come to the front and sit now what's very important for the forward bends is that you always you know we we are usually doing this Now that's not very helpful because your pelvis is tilted to the back and it has to get tilted to the front, at least neutral or to the front. And we always bend from this position you can have the knee slightly bent of course inhale and exhale we open the chest we bring the abdomen over the thighs open the chest to the front you can even try it like this and see how far you can go if this is everything if this is how far you can go today that's perfectly fine and we stay here rolling the shoulders back we have lots of space between the shoulders and the ears and we can have the knees slightly bent or if it's easy to extend them we extend them now when it comes to the position of the feet you can always push with the heel to the front if you want to have an intense stretch of the back side of the body, of the legs, sorry. But if you have a little bit of pain or it's too tight, you can relax the feet and either be here or grab them or interlace the fingers behind regarding the position of the neck we can ideally we can gaze to the toes but if that's that creates tension in your neck you You can always relax the neck and gaze to the tip of the nose.