This morning I had the opportunity to teach a restorative yoga class, and I thought I would share what I taught. It was an appropriate time considering my body is still recovering from my attempted climb of Middle Sister. Restorative yoga is a great thing to do at home; a yoga studio has a lot of advantages, but some of these you can replicate at home if you work at it. Make sure to keep distractions away, set the temperature to something you find comfortable, and make sure to have plenty of props handy. Most of these poses could be done quickly, but that's (of course) not the point; the goal is to let them soak in. Our muscles have a mechanism for autonomic inhibition; in plain English, that means that when we put them in the right places and leave them alone for a while, they will do the right thing on their own. So, without further ado, in a 50 minute class, here's what we did:
Start with a brief meditation, cross-legged, to set the scene
Supta Badda Konasana - seated pose with feet together, lying on bolsters
Side lying twist - hip next to the bolster, turn the upper body and lay across the bolster
Once each side
Viparita Karani - legs up the wall
Supported bridge
Supine - lying face down with the face supported in a cradle, like on a massage table
Savasana
As you can see, this is not a lot to "accomplish", but again, that's kind of the point. I call this a "spinal 360" because you get to most of the major spinal positions.