Category Archives: Upper Body Strength

Hold on to your flow- strength tonight with arm balances. Tues

Hip Openers, Shoulder Openers, Toe Stretch, Upper Body Strength,

Time to check in again with the arms and give them some work. Tonight we will be looking closely at arm balances.

Pranayama:  Standing Sahaja, Dirgha, Sun Breath.

Salutations with twists and 1/2 Hanumanasana in.  Opening up the arms and shoulders with Dolphin and variations of Dolphin.  Fun times are here   🙂 Arm balances:  Crow with option to hop back to plank.   Hopping forward to Firefly,  Tolasana.

Moving from standing to squat using blocks then to hand balance again.

Release the shoulders with Prone shoulder opener.   Forward folds and twists to settle the mind and body before Savasana.

Aromatherapy is Anxiety Ease tonight thank you Susan.   😀   Savasana wtih Rock the Clock

Aromatherapy is made by Yoga Flow Oils

Chandra’s suggestion– Salutations & variations Mon

Hip Openers, Spinal Flows, Upper Body Strength

Pranayama: Sahaja, Dirgha, Kapalabhati with holds

Chandra suggested we do one of her favorites which is a series of Salutations with lots of options. So we are going to flow through these tonight.  Ending with supine hip openers and twists.

Aromatherapy tonight is Anxiety Ease Blend thank you Susan.

Aromatherapy is from Yoga Flow Oils. 8)

Strengthening the arms & moving the spine. Thurs

Hip Openers, Spinal Flows, Standing Strength, Upper Body Strength

Prananyama:  Supine in Bridge prep moving with the breath to slowly fill the lungs while also waking the spine with bridge rolls.

Supta Tadasana using different arm movements to lengthen the side body and open the shoulders. Rolling like a ball to warm the spine.  Reverse table to build strength and openness in the upper body as well as balance & strength in the legs.  Cross squat to cat and cat rolls.  From cat moving to opposite arm and leg balance.  Hip circles. Thread the needle for the  shoulders as well as half dog.

Downward facing dog, pigeon,  swan rolls for hips and spine. Chair with Chair twist and balance.

Warrior 1, Revolved Triangle, Pyramid.  Eagle balance, wide leg forward fold, Skanda, forearm plank, forearm dog, side plank with many options.  Face down shoulder opener.

Dandasana, seated forward fold, Navasana, seated wide leg forward fold. Janu Sirsasana with twist, mermaid stretch, cobbler, cobbler/star forward fold.  Aromatherapy and Savasana.

Aromatherapy tonight will be Dharma blend from Yoga Flow Oils thank you Susan 8)

Moving and grooving to yoga flows. Fri

Hip Openers, Spinal Flows, Upper Body Strength

Pranayama: Dirgha, Nadi Shodhana

Opening the feet right away along with the shoulders, mind and heart.  😛

10 churnings, Sun Salutation with dolphin planks added in to strengthen the upper body, side planks with twists. Balance standing padangusthasana 2 times holding the foot if possible.

Warrior 1 to Warrior 3  moving to Revolved Triangle, Revolved 1/2 moon, Pyramid posture interal leg work as well as twists.

Cobra work for the back and abs this also help the shoulders from rolling forward. Re-balances the body. Facedown shoulder stretch.  Double pigeon and 1/2 cow face to finish the open hips

Aromatherapy: Shanti Blend from Yoga Flow Oils thank you Susan

Savasana

Stirring up the body with 10 churnings and more Thurs

Hip Openers, Standing Strength, Toe Stretch, Upper Body Strength

Pranayama  Dirgha, Sun breath 😀

Sun Salutations with Swan, Hip openers, Warrior 1 with breath and twist.

Balance: Shiva dance

Standing strength tonight will have some balance in it with 1/2 moon. The we will do the upper body strengthener from a squat to extended leg stretch.  Hand balance.

Double pigeon and a few twists and forward folds

Aromatherapy tonight Relaxing Blend from Yoga Flow oils thank you Susan.

TIYENGAR what is that? TriYoga & Iyengar mixed Mon

Heart Openers, Hip Openers, Spinal Flows, Standing Strength, Upper Body Strength

Pranayama: Dirgha worked with Doug Keller’s Dirgha breath for complete breath work. Bringing much more awareness to the mid-lung breath. I encourage everyone to try this at home to see if it brings peace to the breath work. Slow Kapalabhati breath with inhale holds.

Bringing two of my favorite styles of yoga together with TriYoga- meditation in motion- and Iyengar- detailed work with holds to open the body for movement and meditation.

cat rolls to open the spine, few jump out to pyramid and back to toe balance. Karin Stephan’s wall work then to TriYoga’s wall work to open the side body, heart, back and legs. Yum!! Spent time with this as everyone really needed the side body work.

On to standing strength and flowing with the breath.

To supine to stretch the hips and twist the body to release any toxin that were in there. Slowly moved through these postures with assists and adjustments so everyone felt yummy.

Aromatherapy will be Shanti from Yoga Flow Oils thank you Susan.

Savasana

King & Queen of the postures with a Jack or 2 tossed in Mon

Heart Openers, Hip Openers, Upper Body Strength

Teaching Wanda’s advanced class tonight.

Going more into Headstand and Shoulderstand tonight.  If headstand is not in your practice then I will be assisting any that want to get up into handstand.

Pranayama practice to open the heart and lungs.  Navasana work.  Feeling froggy we will see how Bekasana feels for everyone tonight.

Camel  to see how the body is opening.  Next I will share what I have been doing in the gym with external hip openers WOW  it really works.

Wall work with more side body opening to prepare for Headstand and Shoulderstand. LIttle more abdominal work then Headstand & detailed set up for Shoulderstand.  While those that have Headstand practice is up those who would like to try Handstand I will assist to get up.

After Shoulderstand drape the upper body over blankets to release neck.

Twists and some forward folds.

Aromatherapy will be Ananda Blend from Yoga Flow Oils thanks Susan

Savasana   Nadi Shodhana before going home to calm and center the mind.

Everyone did really well with going into headstand staying awhile then coming down for a few breaths in child then going back up.  Shoulderstand went so well that I added in some variations.  Good practice for all.  Headstanders you are ready to move away from the wall.  Give your yoga a future.  The practice of headstand & shoulderstand was over 30 minutes for just these two postures.

What were the Jacks?  well they were the ab work as well as the hip openers.  🙂

Kaliji Tri Yoga Flow class Thurs

Hamstrings, Hip Openers, Spinal Flows, Standing Strength, Upper Body Strength

Subbing Sandi’s Tri Yoga class so in keeping with the feel of Kaliji this class will be  very much a  flow class.

From the Tri Yoga Flow Manual the class will be a new version that Chandra shared for the Earth 108 series.

The only changes will be in the winter section where we will be on the floor instead of the wall.

I may add in Iyengar work in the standing postures so share with our northern yogi’s before they leave.

Legs & arms strength & stretch Tues

Hamstrings, Hip Openers, Standing Strength, Upper Body Strength

Opening the chest with pranayama over blocks.  With all the pollen in the air we need to really open the chest for full lung cleaning.

Warming up the legs and toes. Onto some hand balancing work with arm strength added in.

Sun Salutations with leg stretches added including inner leg work. Standing strength postures. Keeping the new hip rotators stretch for a few weeks to go from just dating the pose to really loving it.

Some spinal strengthening.  Twists and Forward folds. 

Savasana with aromatherapy.

Aromatherapy tonight is Shanti thank you Susan with Yoga Flow Oils.

Working toward headstand Mon assist Wanda

Upper Body Strength, Yoga Moves

Wanda is back to working on headstand or working toward headstand on Mondays through April. So if you have wanted to learn how to do a safe headstand or what needs to be done to work towards headstand then don’t miss these Mondays.

After a few postures Wanda noticed many tight shoulders in the class so she went through some shoulder openers as well as Anatasana warm up that she loves, it does work well.

There were choices tonight between headstand work standing on the feet and using the wall for the shoulder/upper arm work and working the legs or L shape on the wall either in handstand hands or headstand hands feet on the wall.  For those that practice headstand they went up. Some worked on moving away from the wall and moving more into a free headstand away from the comfort zone of the wall.

Twists using the wall then Savasana.  Well done everyone.