Earlier this year we hosted a FREE “7 Days of Yin” week online, celebrating the start of our new Saturday Yin classes at Womanhood Studio in Delft. For your convenience, I put all days together for you, so you can continue with your home practice 🙂
And you can start right now: All you need are 10 minutes and a clean, quiet space on the floor. Take this time to check in with your body, your breath and find reap the benefits of the practice.
If you are on Instagram, make sure you check out @womanhoodstudio and @yogaevita. We’d love to follow you too, so make sure you tag us in your posts and use the #7daysofyin hashtag.
❤️ Thirsty for more? Join us for Yin yoga at the Womanhood studio
Every Wednesday 9pm
Every 2nd Saturday 11am
Day 1 // Dangling
SOFTEN LIKE THE WATER 💦
🧘🏼♀️For DANGLING, our first pose, we are going to start standing with the feet hip distance apart. Bend your knees generously and let your spine drape over your thighs, as if it was a waterfall. You can release the hands towards the ground and let them gently dangle in the air. Or you may reach for your elbows with the opposite hand.
🕐 We‘ll hold this pose for 1 to 2 minutes to begin with. This can already be quite a wake-up call to your system, so be kind with yourself. Focus on long and soft breaths and relaxing all the muscle groups you don‘t need to keep you upright, especially around the shoulders and the jaws 😉
❤️ This is a wonderful stretch for the lower spine and warm up for the thighs. I do this whenever I feel my shoulders up to my ears 🙂 Immediate stress relief, you can do this instead of a coffee break, while standing in your kitchen and watching your soup simmer. Also a great pain relief during that „time of the month“.
🚦Be careful with blood pressure problems, always come out slowly from the pose. Either by rolling up or you can also continue bringing the hips towards the ground and come into a squat. Bending the knees a lot is important if you have a bad back. We want to give the spine the space to be as straight or rather elongated as possible.
Day 2 // Dragonfly
EXPAND LIKE WOOD 🌳
🧘♂️Say hello to DRAGONFLY, our second yin pose 🙂 From seated, gently start widening your legs until you‘ve reached your personal edge. If your hips want to tilt backwards, you may sit up on a cushion. From here you have the option to bend sideways over one leg, releasing the arm that is closer to the ground. To intensify the stretch on the open side, you may bring the top hand towards the back of your head, creating a little hammock.
🕐 Hold the pose for 3 to 4 minutes on each side, again letting the breath guide you here. If you are very stiff in the legs or knees, make sure to bend them generously (👉 SWIPE PICTURE for VARIATION). If your lower back doesn‘t like the (side)bending, keep your spine straight and enjoy the stretch for your legs. 🙏
❤️ Dragonfly is a great teacher when it comes to finding your „edge“, the point where you start to feel just slightly out of your comfort zone in a pose. This is where we usually take a first stop in our yin practice. Once we have found this point we bring our focus inward, syncing up with the breath and releasing a little more tension every time we breathe out. Then we may go deeper into the pose, find maybe a little more space in the legs to straighten out or the spine to bend.
🔔 As mindfully as we get into the pose, we come out again. Supporting yourself with your hands, guide your chest to upright, lean back on your hands and bring the legs together. And then: Happy shaking it out 😊
Day 3 // Melting Heart
RADIATE LIKE FIRE 🔥
Happy New Week! I hope you had time to be out in nature and fill up your cup this weekend 🙂 Today it‘s all about feeling warm, softening our heart and surrendering to LOVE!
🧘♂️ Today‘s MELTING HEART (or Anahatasana) is a delicious one. From hands an knees, walk your hands forward, take a lovely breath in, smile at the world 🙂 and then on a deep breath out release your chest toward the floor. The hips stay above the knees or you can move the sitting bones a little more towards the heels, depending on how deep you want to go into your backbend. The forehead may come to the ground or you can rest it on a cushion or block. Relax from the hands, through the arms into your shoulders and the neck.
🕐 Try to stay in this pose for 3 to 5 minutes. If you feel pain or pinching in the shoulders or the hands and fingers, move the arms wider apart. You can also bend the elbows and bring the hands together under your forehead as a pillow.
❤️ I love, love, love this pose anytime of the day or season! It is a great way to warm up the spine and open up the shoulders. Try it out in the morning, you don‘t even have to leave the bed 😘 Combine it with a round of playful Cat/Cow movement and see how your body likes it. Kids love it as well! And apart from the physical benefits, it literally softens our heart and connects us deeply with the energy of the Earth, a humble way to say thank you for all we have 🙏
🔔 Ending today‘s practice, either spend a few moments in Child‘s Pose, or – also one of my favorites – slide forward onto your belly, bring the hands underneath you, palms facing up and breath deep into your hands. Feel the residue of the pose waving through your body.
I‘ll leave you with this warm and nice feeling for today 😊 Hope you‘ll keep a big smile with you!
Day 4 // Baby Dragon
CENTER LIKE THE EARTH 🌍
🧘♂️ Today we practice BABY DRAGON 🐉 to grow our roots into the ground. From hands and knees invite one foot forward between your hands. Adjust the front foot until the knee is above the heel. Tuck the toes under and slide the back knee further back to create a deeper stretch. The hands rest on either side of the front foot. You can also use blocks under the hands to support yourself.
🕐 We aim to hold the pose for 3 to 5 minutes and then change to the other side (take a Down Dog or Child‘s Pose in between). If the back knee or ankle is uncomfortable, place a blanket under the knee, rest the shin on a pillow. This is a rather YANG pose, because we do need to engage the muscles of our legs to keep us stable. So remember to soften through all other body parts, the glutes, the back, the shoulder, the neck and the jaws.
❤️ I like to do a small set of dragons when I have been sitting too long and feel cold or stiff in my legs and hips. I like to keep the first few breaths more dynamic, adding circles with the hips or letting the front knee wing out to the side, to feel into where my body needs opening today.
🔔 After the second side slowly bring your hands back down to meet the ground, move the back knee forward a bit, tuck the toes under and step into a Down Dog. Feel the grounding energy in both feet.
Day 5 // Deer Pose
SHINE LIKE METAL ✳️
🧘♂️ For today’s DEER POSE we start seated, both knees bent and falling out towards the side (Butterfly), then swing the left leg back behind, bringing the left foot behind the hip. Find the right position for your front right foot by moving it away from the body. Try to make a right angle with the front knee. Now start to move the back foot away from the hip until you feel you are tipping away from that foot.
Both sitting bones should stay firmly rooted on the ground. If that is difficult or if the knees are complaining, try moving the feet again more towards your body.
To find some opening in the chest and shoulder you may turn your torso over the front leg, resting the left hand on the right knee and reaching back with your right hand.
🕐 Try to hold the pose for at 3 to 4 minutes on each side. You can windshield wiper the legs to loosen up between sides.
❤️ This pose is again a beautiful way to balance the hips, using both inner and outer rotation at the same time. Yet I like to think also about my torso here, the chest and the lungs. Try closing your eyes and finding more openness and grace in your upper body. My favorite image is that of a mermaid sitting on a big rock, her long fishtail shimmering in the sunlight.
🔔 To come out of the pose, gently lean away from the front foot and bring that foot forward, back to Butterfly pose. After the second side take a resting pose of your choice 😉
Day 6 // Toe Squat
OPEN UP 🚪
🧘🏼♀️ For our TOE SQUAT today, we will come to sit on the heels with the feet together. For this one, you do want to have at least a mat and or a cushion underneath 😉 Tuck the toes under and try to come on the balls of the feet, not the tippy-toes. You can reach for your little toes and help them to flex. Aaa, do you feel it already? If your knees still don’t like it here, you may place a cushion between the hips and heels or roll up a towel behind the knees.
Try making funny faces or a loud Lion’s Breath to relax into the pose 😜
🕐 Take it very easy here! To begin with you can try staying in Toe Squat for up to 1 minute, then taking a rest in Child’s Pose and then doing another 1 minute. Our ankles and toe joints can be very tight, so listen to the voice of your body.
❤️ If you have been up all day, running, dancing, keeping your feet crammed into shoes – this one will be a revelation to you 🙂 Sitting in this position makes me humble and thankful for the ground I walk upon and the feet that carry all that weight.
🔔 When it’s time to come out, do so very slowly. Leaning forward onto the palms of the hand, lift your hips and release the feet. Oh, yes, helloooo toes! Point the feet backwards and lean back again, bringing the hands behind you, for a short ankle stretch.
Day 7 // Savasana
SURRENDER 🙏
Congratulations, you have made it to the final leg of our #7daysofyin journey! And with the weekend in sight, we invite you to relax today. So if you can, try to do this practice in the mid-afternoon (when you usually would have another coffee 😉) or when you get home from work and have left the week behind you. And then: Enjoy!
🧘🏼♀️ For our SAVASANA we‘ll try to find a comfortable position lying on the floor. You might want to use a mat here or a thick blanket to lie on and another blanket to cover yourself warm. If lying flat on your back is not possible or comfortable for you, try keeping the knees bent, bring the soles of the feet to the ground, take the feet out a little wider than hip distance apart and let the knees fall into each other. Tuck the chin in slightly and feel the back of your head touching the ground. The hands can rest next to the body, palms facing up, or you may put your hands on your torso, left hand over your heart space and right hand on the belly.
🌬️ Getting into the pose is just the first part of Savasana. With no effort to keep ourselves up, with no tension to anchor our mind on, all that is left is to find the breath and to completely surrender into it. Take two or three more long and deep breaths, let your ribs and your belly expand like a big balloon and with every exhale release some weight, sighing out. And then letting the breath go completely to flutter away like a
butterfly on light wings.
💡 Savasana does not equal sleep. We stay alert, yet relaxed and aware of our body relaxing. If you are new to this practice, no worries if you fell asleep 😉 Your body probably needed you to. In time you will learn how to keep your awareness awake and actually be able to observe your physical body relaxing and the energy flowing through it.
🕐 There is no time limit for staying in Savasana. As part of a longer practice it is nice to have at least 5 to 10 minutes of Savasana to finish. If you do a stand-alone relaxation mid-day, maybe try to set a timer for 15 or 20 min like a power nap 😉
🔔 Come out slowly, start by finding your breath and then little movements in your body, circle the tongue in your mouth, wiggle the fingertips and the toes. Stretch yourself out like a cat in the morning and then roll into a ball, come lying on one side of your body and from there up to seated again. There you are, shiny and new 😍
♥️ When I first started doing yoga, staying in Savasana for a few minutes was the hardest part of me. As soon as I lay down on the ground without moving my body, all the to-do lists, my agenda for the rest of the day, came right back in. It took me a very long time to realize how important it is, to take this time, to integrate the motion, the stirring of energy and the learnings from the practice through this „just“ lying on the floor. I also realized that I had a hard time allowing myself to be lazy, to just BE, lying on the floor with no goal, no checkbox I could tick off. If this resonates with you, then you should definitely try to have a little „lie down“ more often. Even on your living room floor 🙂 Sometimes now when we come home from a long day of work and school, lying down on my back is one of the first things I do 😀 My children know this little ritual of mine by now and are not surprised to find mum passed out on the floor 😉 They know that if I take just the 5 or 10 minutes to BE, I‘ll be a better, happier and lighter version of the mum that they love. ❤️🙏❤️
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And this is it. #7daysofyin in the books! Thank you for following along on our little one-week getaway from the business of life. We hope you enjoyed it ♥️ If you have questions, doubts, need more modifications – please let us know. We want to make Yin Yoga accessible for more people, also outside of yoga studios. So if this encouraged you to try it out at home as well, that makes us all the happier!
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