30 Minutes That Changed My Body: Bon Yoga in Remote Nepal

Welcome to Phaksundo Lake here in Nepal. We are ready for our yoga reboot. This is focusing on sore muscles and recovery, tight hips, tight shoulders, tight neck. I'm so happy for you to join me here. We're at the Bön Monastery right here on the lake, branch of Buddhism, and Phaksundo National Park in Nepal is just a magical land. We're over 12,000 feet up and what a great peaceful time right now here on the lake to do a recovery yoga. Yoga flow. So I'm so grateful to join me, Tommy Kassan, on the Outdoor Body. We are actually going to stand, start with standing postures, and the purpose of this specific yoga flow is to really open up and lengthen the muscles connecting breath and movement. So go deep into postures and we will get started. So have your mat ready We start in a standing position and bring your hands to the side, feet rooted into the earth. It's a start in Mountain Pose, grounding ourselves before the practice. Hands zip to the side, feet tight to the ground, shoulders back, neck relaxed. Deep inhale through the nose, come Close your eyes. Exhale out. Deep inhale in. Exhale out. Deep inhale through the nose. Exhale out. And open up your eyes. You can have your posture slightly shoulder-width apart. We're going to start with side bends. So hands overhead, grabbing the left wrist with the right hand, opening up. We're going to side bend to the right, opening up the left side body. Deep inhale through the nose, deep exhale. Try to sink a little bit deeper on every exhale. Trying to, throughout this practice, seal your lips and breathing, inhaling, exhaling out of the nose to control the nervous system. Deep inhale, exhale out. One more time, arms straight, relax the shoulders. Deep inhale, deep exhale. Inhale up, back to neutral, and we switch sides. Left hand grabs the right wrist. Deep inhale, side bend to the left. Exhale out, trying to keep the elbows right around the ears, arms straight, opening up the right side body. Deep inhale. Exhale a little bit deeper. Deep inhale and exhale. Inhale, coming back up to neutral. Arms coming down. Roll out the shoulders a little bit. So we're going to bring our arms up into cactus, 90 degrees right here, and we're going to bend back here. Cactus pose, not from the hips but top of the body, shoulders, top of the back, slight bend, opening up the chest. You're not folding neck all the way back. More of a top upper body, top bend. And coming back to neutral right here, we're gonna hug the left arm over the right. So it'll look like this and come over. We're gonna be switching, so it doesn't matter. You're gonna grab your shoulders and you're going to Bend forward for a ragdoll, just like so. Pedal out the legs a little bit, or you can strengthen. So what we're doing is really grabbing the shoulders, rocking side to side, opening up. Let the spine and the head hang heavy. Deep inhale, deep exhale. One more time, deep inhale, deep exhale. Rolling back up, opening back up the cactus, stretching out the chest, shoulders, and switching sides. Sides, left over right or over left, whichever one you did. So trying to grip the shoulders, and we forward fold, bending at the hips, ragdoll down. Let the head hang heavy, let the spine drain all the way down to the top of the head. Pedal out the legs. Relax the body. Deep inhale, deep exhale. One more time, deep inhale, deep exhale. Slowly roll up vertebra by vertebra. And opening up the arms, just rolling out the shoulders. So we're gonna go right into a forward fold, bringing our hands under our feet. So hands up high, bringing them down, forward fold, hinging at the hips. You can bend the knees and bringing the hands underneath the front of the feet. And what we're doing here is pedaling out the feet. This may be difficult for you. That's too much, just grab the ankles and pedal out. Try to have a neutral spine, tailbone to the top of the head. A few breaths here. Deep inhale, deep exhale. Deep inhale, pedal out the feet, pedal out the legs. All those sore, tense muscles. And inhale, coming up to your shins right here for a bent forward fold. What we're gonna be doing is actually a standing cat-cow. So right here, hands on the shins, and Inhale, bend up for cow as much as you can. Nice and easy, not too much tension. Try to roll the shoulders. Exhale, round the spine. Cow. Two more. Inhale. You feel a lot of tension in your glutes, your hamstrings. Exhale out, round the spine for Cat. Inhale up, exhale down. Coming back to neutral spine, we're just going to bring our hands straight down, coming into our Tabletop. So just here, we're gonna roll out the hips side to side, nice and easy, bringing in some circulation, some pranic energy into the hips, opening up. Try to get them to hit your heels in the back, really big circles. Love this movement. Switch if you haven't done so already. Now let's warm up the wrist, coming to neutral spine. So let's point our fingers out horizontally. We're just going to rock side to side nice and easy. Our wrists are really tense. Lots of time we use them quite a bit if we forget to give them some love and energy. And then one at a time, right wrist or left wrist, I want you to circle around a couple times, 3 or 4 really big deep circles. Other side, right or left, whatever one you do. Go big circles, planting the hands down, shoulders directly above the wrists. We take a few cat-cows now in our tabletop. So inhale, rolling back bend, neck back, shoulders back. Exhale, round the spine. Try to get your chin to hit your chest. Exhaling out. Inhale for cow, rolling up. Roll the tailbone up, shoulders back. Exhale out, round the back. One more time, inhale and exhale out. Now bringing our feet a little bit back, and we're going into our puppy pose. So keep this at a 90-degree angle. And all we're doing is stretching our hands out as much as possible. Our goal is to keep our elbows off the mat, and you can place your forehead or chin on the mat. We stay here for 3 breaths in puppy pose. Really extend the shoulders out, take tension out of the neck. Deep inhale. Deep exhale. Deep inhale through the nose and exhale. One more time, deep inhale, deep exhale. Inhale, rolling up through into Sphinx pose. In the Sphinx pose, we're just like so. Hit this rock back, and all we're doing is placing our hands flat on the mat, 90-degree angle, with a slight backbend, bringing our shoulders rolled back, chin up. And hold this position. You'll feel a lot of tension in the hips opening up, in the lower back, and holding right here. Roll the shoulders and back down. Bring the chin slightly up and just stay in this position. You'll feel a lot of tension release here. That's a good sign. Deep inhale. Exhale. Out. Deep inhale. Exhale out. Remember, connecting breath with each posture is the most important— circulation. One more deep inhale. Exhale out. Plant the hands flat on the mat. Come up and curl your toes. We're coming right into a down dog position. Let's just pedal out the legs a little bit. Strong arms, strong legs, deep breathing. And we're going to Inhale, bring the right leg forward, lower the left knee, and we're gonna be in a low lunge. So for the first breath, let's just bring our hands on our right knee, leaning forward. Gonna be opening up the hips, getting a little bit into the psoas. Inhale and exhale like so. Inhale, hands up. Let's get a little deeper in our stretch. Bring our shoulders down, don't tense them up. Deep inhale and exhale. One more time, deep inhale and exhale. Straighten out the right leg and we are going to fold over as much as possible, so You'll feel a lot of tension in the hamstring here. All we're trying to do at the hips, hinge forward and grab as much as possible. You can grab your toes. The goal is feeling tension in that right hamstring, in the hips, and bending forward. Just a few breaths here. Deep inhale and exhale out. Deep inhale, exhale out. One more time, deep inhale and exhale out. Bending that right knee, we're coming forward into our lizard position. The left knee stays on the ground, and what we're doing is this opening up this right side. So give a little bit of pressure with your elbow or your hand, bringing some openness to those inner hips right here. Deep inhale and exhale. Love this stretch. One more time, deep inhale and and exhale. Now we're going to go to some openers. Some call this the greatest stretch in the world. So open up the right arm to the heavens and then try to bring the right forearm to the ground, leaving the knee— left knee on the ground. Tap and come all the way up, opening up. Great for the hips and the shoulders. 2 more times. Tap and come up. One more time. Tap and come up. Beautiful. Plant the hand, tuck the back toe, coming into high plank, straight into down dog. Dog. Close your eyes. Deep breath in, exhale out. Deep breath in, exhale out. Deep breath in and exhale out. Bringing the left leg forward into our low lunge. Untuck the back toe right here. Deep stretch, hands on the left knee, bringing and opening up the tension in the hips. Inhale and exhale. Inhale, hands up. Exhale out. One more time, deep inhale and exhale. A little bit deeper. And bringing the hips back, straightening out the left leg, right knee stays underground, and we're going to forward fold over the the left leg, bringing some air circulation into those— into the left glute and hamstring. Try to keep your hips straight. Deep inhale and exhale, fold a little deeper. Deep inhale, exhale, fold a little deeper. And inhale, coming up into our lizard. So right knee stays on the ground, left arm brings a little bit of pressure into the inner left thigh to open up that hip a little bit more. Long deep breathing. And one more few of our greatest stretch. So opening up the left arm to the sky, bringing it down, exhaling elbow to mat if you can. Inhale all the way up, exhale down. Inhale up, exhale down. And inhale, plant both hands on the mat, coming back into high plank and down dog. Closing your eyes, take a moment here. Deep inhale through the nose. Exhale out the mouth. Deep inhale through the nose. Exhale out the mouth. Deep inhale, coming straight into our high plank. We hold here for one breath. Lower down, chaturanga. Up Dog. This is too much, you can keep your knees on the ground. And Cobra backbend. Stay here for 2 breaths. And tuck the toes, coming into Down Dog. Right leg high. Inhale, coming forward into Half King Pigeon. And we're not going to be folding, we're just going to be staying up more for a hip opener. So just planting our hands on the ground or the hips, standing up straight, spine erect. Our focus is opening up the hips here. Stay here for 2 more breaths. A little bit of a backbend. Love this one. I have really tight hips, and if you do too, this is a tough posture. So this, just remaining upright, will really help open the hips up. Plant the hands, tuck the back toe. Right leg up and down. And inhale, left leg up, bringing it forward, knee to wrist. Half King Pigeon on the left. We remain standing. You can do hands at the hips or on the ground, and just focusing on spine erect with a little slight backbend in the hips to open up and sink a little bit deeper in the posture. One more deep inhale and exhale. So sitting on your left butt cheek, we're going to come across here. I'm on a little bit of slant, so I'm going to grab my bolster, which is this big rock here, for our next position. So coming into a straddle like so. And we're just going to be opening up the legs. And slowly inhale, spine erect, bend the hips, forward fold. You can put your arms in front of you. I like to grab my calves and just slightly tilt forward. You're gonna feel feel obviously pressure in the inner thighs, in the hips. Coming down, deep inhale, deep exhale. One more time, deep inhale, deep exhale. Inhale, grabbing our right toe, we're just gonna side bend to the right for 2 breaths. Nice and long, stretching out that left side body. Deep inhale, deep exhale. One more time, deep inhale, deep exhale. Inhale, come back to neutral. And coming right to our left side, try to grab your big left toe. Right hand overhead, right side body opens up. Deep inhale, deep exhale. One more time, deep inhale and deep exhale. Coming back to neutral, bringing our feet together. Into Baddha Konasana and forward fold. We can have our elbows bring down our inner thighs to get a little deeper in the stretch. A little bit deeper, sink. Inhale, exhale. Inhale up. And we come to our lying position here, bringing the knees in, giving ourselves a nice big squeeze. Forehead touches the knees, squeeze as tight as possible. Inhale. Exhale everything out. Our resting position, shavasana. Palms facing up, feet open up. Just relax your body. Let the pranic energy circulate throughout. Feel the flow of energy circulate as your body melts into the earth and just rest here. Imagine being in Nepal, Phoksundo Lake, right at this beautiful Buddhist monastery, feeling the energy of the sun, the earth radiating on your body, keeping your eyes closed and just relax. And bring some awareness to your wrists and your ankles. Roll them about. Bring the knees in, and you can lie on the right or the left, pushing yourself up into a nice easy pose. And Just closing your eyes, being thankful for that nice yoga flow to open up the body for recovery. Bringing the hands together, namaste. Thank you for joining me here in Paksundo National Park at the lake at the Buddhist monastery. Just fitting to have recovery for your body and give yourself that time and attention. And you can probably even hear the Buddhist monks chanting in the background a little bit during the practice, honoring the land and the spirit. And it's just amazing here in Nepal. So hopefully you come visit sometime. Come to Phaksundo National Park and the lake. It's absolutely stunning. And I will see you next time. For outdoor body practice. Namaste.