Hello everyone, Namaste! I am Mika and I will guide you today through the moon salutation practice. It's a very stretching, relaxing and grounding practice. And you can try it out any time of the day, especially very nice in the evening. Or if you wake up and you don't feel very motivated to go out of bed, it's a very nice, easy-going morning practice also. So we start on one side of our mat. if you usually practice soundful breath you can always breathe through the nose inhaling and exhaling with that little hissing sound which you can learn from my breathing video if you don't practice this breath you just go with breathing in an easygoing way in an easy going way and focusing on the movements. So we are grounding our feet in Tadasana. And we bring our hands together. We start slowly. Inhale in the center. Exhale to the right. Inhale in the center. Exhale to the right. Inhale in the center. Exhale to the left. Inhale in the center. And with the exhalation we bring the hands up in star pose. Inhale here. Exhale to goddess pose. Inhale, back to star. And exhale, we turn our heels and our feet to the right and go for a gentle triangle. Inhale here. Exhale, we go for low lunge. Inhale to crescent moon and exhale to side lunge. lunge. Now in side lunge, if you don't feel very confident in your position, you can bring the heel up and place the hands in front of the chest. You can choose. Inhale here. Exhale to the other side. Side lunge. You can be here down or with your hands helping the body and heel up. Inhale here. Exhale to low lunge. Inhale, hands up to crescent moon, gentle backbend. Exhale, chin to the knee or forehead to the knee. If that's too deep for you, you can always stay here. Don't bend the front knee. Stay up with a straight knee. Inhale here to triangle. Exhale. Inhale to star pose. Exhale to goddess. Inhale back to star. Exhale to dalsana. Inhale. Hands up. Exhale to the left. Inhale to the center. Exhale to the right. Inhale to the center. Exhale back bend. Inhale we look to the front and exhale we release. We start at the right side of the mat and ground the feet into the floor, spread the toes so that you have stability. And bring the hands up, tilt to the right then back to the center tilt to the left back to the center and we put the hands like this but behind our lower back and from here gentle back bend open the chest then we come back to the center and step to the left comfortable with between the legs and we go for star posture And we go for star posture. Then we bring our butt down for goddess posture. Inhale. We come up. And with the exhalation, we change to triangle. From here we move to forward bend and bring the forehead towards the shin or the chin towards the shin. If this is too challenging for you, no problem. You can stay here or you can be up but don't bend the knee. but don't bend the knee. From here, we go down to low lunge. And if it's possible, to crescent moon, opening the chest for another gentle backbend. From crescent moon, we go to side lunge. Here here we are not always very stable so if you don't feel very stable you can bring your heel up and keep the hands on the floor that's totally fine if you feel more comfortable to have your toes on the floor that's also fine from here we move to the right side of the mat and stay in side lunge or we bring the hands to our chest. Then we go to low lununge and Crescent Moon and bring the forehead or the chin towards the knee inhalation we grow to triangle and then to star pose goddess pose again and we stay we come up we bring the hands up tilt to the right back to the center tilt to the left back to the center again we bring the hands behind the lower back and go for a gentle backbend inhale to the center and to the dust so these are you have one side first when you go to the center and to Tadasana. So these are, you have one side first when you go to the left and then the other side or the second part from the moon salutation when you come back to the right. We will do one more moon salutation, this time a little bit more flowy with less explanations and variations you already know them so you can use them from the first part of this video we spread the toes of our feet arriving in tadasana and bring the hands up. Then we tilt to the right. Then to the left. Then we bring our hands behind the lower back. Open in a gentle back bend. And with the next move we step in a comfortable wide leg position to the left star pose goddess pose triangle goddess pose triangle chin or forehead towards the knee or towards the shin low lunge crescent moon Crescent Moon. And then we move to Side Lunge. We change to the other side lunge. Low Lunge. Crescent moon. Chin or forehead to the knee. Open the chest. Grow with the hand in triangle. Open the chest, grow with the hand in triangle. Then we come back up in star. Goddess pose. Back to star. Tadasana. Hands up. Tilt to the right. Back to the center. Tilt to the left. Back to the center. Gentle back bend. Open the chest. back to the center and hands down. You learned the practice with this video and then you can connect each inhalation with a movement and each exhalation with a movement in your own pace. Again this is a practice which you can practice every time. After it you can do three or five or ten and really pay attention to the different body parts and how they stretch because there is a lot of side stretching then a lot of leg stretching inside of the leg front side of the leg is really beautiful and totally relaxing so you can do it in the evening you can do it during the day or even in the morning before your sun salutation actually i tried this and it works perfect first you warm up a little bit hands and feet then you do a couple of cat and cow you have them in the other video and then you just do moon salutation to say bye to the moon and sun salutation to say hi to the sun and it's really nice also in the morning after a couple of moon salutations you can just sit for a couple of breaths just bring your hands in your lap close your eyes Sit for a couple of breaths. Just bring your hands in your lap. Close your eyes. Release and relax the facial muscles. And stay here for a couple of minutes. Or you can just lie down in Shavasana, final relaxation for a couple of minutes so that your body can benefit from all these energy flows which awaken throughout it with this practice i very much recommend that you as a woman if are a woman, honor the female energy of the moon when there is a new moon day or a full moon day. And practice, especially on those days, the moon salutations. salutations even if you are not a woman but you feel like a woman no matter whatever you feel like and whatever you are you can always awaken and kind of let the female energy in your body soothe you and ground you and make you more and more sensitive to the subtle things in life thank you for sharing this practice with me namaste thank you also for practicing with the videos on my channel if you want to practice with me in person you can always find me in linds or connect with me over instagram at yoga meet mika and visit any of my classes regular classes in linds or my workshops and retreats have a lovely day or evening.