age no matter your physical challenges if you maybe done yoga in the past and want to reconnect if you've never tried yoga thirty eight joe god offers a safe comfortable way to just try yoga out and see how it feels like my job as your teacher is to keep you safe to help you feel comfortable and to help you enjoy the many benefits of yoga including better pastor and better balance greater flexibility greater strength these things are so important to us as we grow older to stay mobile independent yoga also helps us relieve stress and anxiety and it helps us relax more fully so yoga can help us feel are balanced each and every day no matter what kind of medical conditions were living with third age yoga what we will be doing today is a journey through your comfort zone so it should never hurt you should never feel discomfort but what i hope you will feel are some healthy stretches and strengthening they out you know you can tell by the way they feel that they're doing you some good but they feel good when you're doing them yoga is meant to be done barefoot so if you are able i want to invite you to take your shoes and socks off before we begin get your feet into the act our feet are an important part of our yoga practice what do you need well i'm going to invite you to have handy a chair without arms so whether that's a folding chair kitchen chair dining room chair you can see i have a very basic tear your beside me and a sticky yoga mat europeans are sticky in why is the out so that we can stay grounded our feet and hands stick to them so yoga mats are available around town for maybe about ten dollars if you don't have a mount today or can't get a man then i'm going to invite you to do all of our yoga poses seated except the standing ones and just do those stand up do them on your floor your carpet wherever you happen to be let us begin and where do we start by finding our tallest healthiest posture in yoga this is called mountain po we're growing like a tall mountain so i'm going to invite you to stand with your feet about hip with a part so what does that mean these are two big hip bones right here you may not be able to feel but they are they are so if i drew a line of my legs my view would be above the middle and notice i got the outsides of my feet parallel to each other so not this and not this but facing straight ahead that's how mother nature meant for us to stand as we stack our bones in their healthiest alignment so stacking her knees over angles lifting or thighs stacking our hips over our knees and now i'm going to invite you to very gently bring the tops of your thighs just slightly back and you notice when you do they are at the very bottom of your belly just lifts a little you get a little taller and this natural curve in your spine takes its natural place let us grow long through our side body lifting your chest and i'm going to invite you to bring the top of your breast bone back just a little bit so this is our breast bone is a rectangle just bringing the top back a little bit and as you do that bringing the bottoms of your shoulder blades in toward your body let me show you what that looks like from the side so just gently back as this comes forward small movement you notice when you do this your shoulders come back your chest opens up and guess what you can breathe this is not so hot for breathing this is better stacking your ears over your shoulders and looking out at the world this is not so hot this is how mother nature meant us to be last begin to move a little warm in your muscles for loosening our joints bringing your far back to center swayed to the left feeling a stretch on the right side of your body back to center let's interlace our fingers and slowly bring your hands to time bring your hands to the back of your and let the back of your head rest in your hands you can feel a nice opening in the front of your chest near your shoulders let's bring our elbows forward nice stretch in the back and back and out and elbows forward and back and out once more elbows forward back and now let's bring our hands over head and straight out at shoulder level let's wait till our fingers we can hum a little too and l rotating our wrists a few times one way a few times the other way you be the judge and now let's rotate our entire arm back like so and forward we're opening our shoulder joints and once more back and forward lets face our palms to the sky bring our arms let us come to sit in her chair for a moment if you are sitting and if you are using a may out let me give you a word of caution coming to the mat requires you to get down to the ground and back up again and for most people it's much easier to get down to the ground that it is to get back up again so if you feel any hesitation about whether you could get back up if you went down to the ground please keep yourself safe and use the chair the benefits are equal so if you're using a chair please take a seat and then i am if you are coming down to out i'm going to show you a safe and comfortable way to come down to the mat using your chair as a helper so i'm facing my chair here and i'm probably about a foot in front of my chair and i'm going to bend my knees and fold from my hip creases like so so what do i not want to do i don't want to do this it hurts my low barrack my shoulders are slumped my head is a twelve pound bowling ball in my poor me is trying to hold it up but if i fold from my yet creases everything stays comfortable and notice that my back is nice and long and straight so here i go i'm going to fold from my hip creases as i bend my knees and i'm going to find the seat of the chair and i'm going to use that for support i'm going to bring my right toes ba bring my right knee down to the ground bring my left knee down beside it and now i can find my hands and knees and i'm going to just rotate to face you but you can and come to sit with your legs straight in front of you nice and tall just like we did when we stood up our mountain pose if you'd like to have some support for your back just use your hands to support you if you are seated in a chair i'm going to just invite you to take a look at your feet and we're going to get our feet into the act now by doing some wonderful warming of our muscles and joints in our feet so let's wiggle our toes just like when we wiggle their fingers if you hear a little bit of snap crackle and pop don't worry about it curling your toes flexing your toes curling full exing it's kind of fun isn't it and rotating your ankles a few times one way and a few times the other lets point our toes strongly away from us all the way out away from us and you feel that nice stretch in the tops of your feet i do let's point our heels way away from us in our toes toward us and i think i know what you might be feeling a nice stretch in the back of your calf let's bring the soles of our feet a little closer to each other a little further away a little closer how close you get does not matter it's the movement that counts and here we go so whether you are seated in your chair or seated on your mat we're now going to rise and we're going to do a flow of standing poses for those on the mat we're going to retrace our journey to come up from a seat to a standing position on the mat so please slowly and gently along with me to begin their journey i'm just going to bend my knees and bring both my feet off to the left just like this notice that i'm supporting myself with my right paul over here and now i'm just going to swing my left palm around and now i can come up to my knees well i'm all off kilter so i'm going to walk my knees to my right until i find my hands and knees and then i'm going to walk my knees forward until once again just as i did when i came down i can find my chair i'm going to put my left foot closer to the tear come to my right toes lifting through my is bringing my right foot next to my left here i am bent and slowly slowly i'm going to stand up when ever you rise from the floor or from a chair do it slowly that gives your blood pressure a chance to equalize and you will get light headed now today we are going to do some side bending poses and they are man and they are wide legged poses so we're going to be stretching our inner thighs and our inner growing muscles and joints very important and we're also going to be opening our hips so we're going to be even longer getting the sides of our body and i think that you'll find it's a wonderful feeling so let me invite you to widen your feet how far you go is completely up to you it's not how far you go in yoga it's how you go you want to be comfortable think about how it feels and i want to invite you to turn your toes in word a little so remember not this not this protest toes a little bit and why do we do that night we're nice and stable and it's the weight of our body to the outsides of our legs and that makes us grounded and balanced i've got my hands on my waist i'm nice an upright and now i'm just going to turn my left foot out ninety degrees like soul so i've got one foot going that way one foot out that way and i'm going to bend my left knee go ahead bend your left knee stack it over your left ankle we are going to find yoga warrior to pose there are three warrior poses in yoga and of course guess what they're called warrior one warrior two in warrior three but why start with warrior one when we can start with warrior two so that's where we're starting today so left knee stacked over the left ankle take a breath as you're ready bring your arms straight out at shoulder level just like we did before take a breath and now turn your head to the left and take a look out over your left arm and re yoga warrior two feeling strong your head back to center and with your arms straight out at shoulder level go straighten your left knee and i'm going to invite you not to just shift your yups a little bit to the right see just a small movement and now gently bending to the left this is yoga triangle pose take a breath coming back to center and rising returning your hands to your waist let's go ahead turn our left toes in a little and now we're going to do a wide leg forward fold remember the part about folding from or a priest says we are going to fold like an envelope so with your hands on your waist and maybe you even like to bring the outsides of your hands to your hip creases folding forward in nice straight line back you notice i'm not going very far how far you go it's not important i know you can feel a stretch in the back of your legs take a breath and rise let us do the other side bring your right foot out ninety degrees stacking your left knee over your right knee excuse me right over to your right knee go lett feet into your carpet or floor or man at turning our head to the right having a look out over your right arm yoga warrior two you notice a little bit of a balance challenge it's a healthy challenge let's return our head to center and with our arms started out street and you're right the shift area ups a little to the left and she can't leap and here right yoga triangle pose again how far you go take that journey through your comfort zone maybe it's this far maybe it's a little further no need to go to extremes find comfort and steadiness and rise bring your hands back to your waist let's bring our rate was in once again let us do our wide legged forward fold let us fold like an envelope from our get creases don't go too far let the backs of your legs stretch and sho going to invite you now to have a seat in your chair or if you are coming down to the man we are going to come now for the final time of our practice today and we will come all the way down if you were on the man to lie on your back if you were sitting in your chair i want to invite you to just yes all right into their chair and get comfortable so you're really go if you are coming to the man like so in takes a few times of doing it to feel comfortable go slowly if something doesn't feel right just retreat and come back up or is out right now letting your feet in hand splay out closing your eyes and just taking some br this is our relaxation time nothing to do nothing to worry about just breathe just closing your eyes and breathing is very very relaxing let's relax all our muscles from the tips of our toes up through our ingalls relaxing your nee if you have any discomfort in your knee joints let it loose and letting your thighs get a i v sinking your legs into your chair let your butt i get heavy let it sink down into the mat down into your  your from the tips of your finger is up three or elbows all the way to your shoulders relaxing your face your j team your mind nothing to worry about nothing to react and just completely relaxing we will relax beginning to wiggle your fingers and toes opening your eyes if you are lying on your back bending your needs rolling to your right bringing your left arm across your body pressing yourself up to a seat with your left  let's bring our palms to touch come to our breastbone thank you so much for joining me for third age yoga today may the light in you shine in me made the light in me sh