Ready to try yoga with your students? This is a simple, five minute sequence you can use at the beginning of class or any time your students need to take a break and refocus. You can even use it on your own if you need a mid-day yoga reset.
1. Mountain Pose
Stand with your feet hip width apart. Your arms should be at your sides, but not just hanging. Bring some awareness and energy to your hands by spreading your fingers. Relax your shoulders. Take a few deep, conscious breaths in this pose before moving on.
2. Cactus Arms
Maintain that same energy and awareness in your arms and hands as you inhale and reach both arms overhead. As you exhale, bend your elbows and and pull your hands down to form a goal post or cactus shape with your arms. Repeat this movement a few times, moving with your breath.
3. Side Stretch
Inhale as you reach your arms overhead, bringing your palms together. As you exhale, reach your right hand down to rest on your right outer thigh. Your left arm should come overhead as the left hand reaches to the right side of the room. Hold here for about three deep breaths.
On an inhale, bring both arms back overhead with palms touching. Then exhale and bend to the left side with the right arm reaching overhead. Hold again for about three deep breaths.
4. Forward Fold
On an inhale, reach both arms overhead again. On the exhale, keep a slight bend in your knees as you hinge from your hips. Maintain length in your spine as you fold forward bringing your chest toward your knees. You may rest your fingertips on the floor or fold your arms and hang. Hold this position for several deep breaths. Hinge from your hips again as you rise back up to mountain pose.
5. Tree Pose
With your right foot firmly planted on the ground, bring the sole of your left foot to your right inner thigh. Press your foot and inner thigh firmly against each other. Bring your palms together at your heart, or extend both arms overhead like the branches of a tree. To help with balance, find a focal point to gaze at. Your focal point should be something stationary (not another person). Try to find something small like a nail hole in the wall or a light switch.
If bringing your foot to your inner thigh is too challenging, you can also bring your left foot to your right calf or ankle (but never your knee).
Balance in tree pose for about 30 seconds before releasing the pose. Then repeat tree pose on the other side, holding again for about 30 seconds.
To close the sequence, resume mountain pose and take one or two deep breaths before returning to your seat.
The length of this sequence will vary depending on how long you hold each pose. It could easily be a three minute sequence if you are short on time, or you could experiment with stretching it out a bit longer than 5 minutes. Either way, I hope you and your students enjoy and benefit from this sequence. I’d love to hear from you. If you try this sequence, let me know how it goes. If you’d like to see more classroom sequences like this one, let me know in the comments!
