yoga with elliot

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Unlock Your Inner Zen – Daoist Yoga with Elliot

Enjoy this 30 minute Daoist yoga sessions for your major muscles and nerves.

Flow with your breath through the sequence and release into your mind.

Practice yoga with Elliot!

Yoga with Elliot | Episode 3:

Beginner/Intermediate Yoga Class

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yoga with elliot: Episode 3 Daoist Symbol | by Dall-E

Postures (asanas) for weight loss and mental health.

You can tell I am a little bit chunky in this video and I like to gain weight during the winter to stay warmer. I’ll get back into really really good shape later; eating a lot during the winter is a favorite past-time of mine.

This video is for people who are interested in yoga, but haven’t really experienced it yet. Anyone that is in a high stress environment, or that has to drive a lot or sit at a desk during the day. It is very general and focuses on major muscles groups, such as hamstrings, quadradus lumborum, shoulders, hips, glutes, lower spinal erectors, quadriceps and inner thigh muscles.

Yoga is Healthy, practice a lot to cultivate Santosha, happiness.

Most will find this to help release some of the cortisol from the major muscle groups in the body; but I would imagine that military professionals, police officers, firefighters, doctors, and nurses, as well as other people in high-stress environments can benefit a lot from yoga’s ability to process stress[1]. Cortisol is stress hormone and it is stored in the blood stream in muscles. With focused and meditative breathing holding postures and flowing through sun salutations can greatly improve sleep quality, relieve cortisol from the blood stream, enhanced coping, self-efficacy and positive mood[2]. Further, on evaluating the published studies, it is concluded that sleep and cognitive functions are optimized by yoga practice, which brings about changes in autonomic function, structural changes, changes in metabolism, neurochemistry and improved functional brain network connectivity in key regions of the brain.[3] Yoga practices can increase multiple neurotransmitters and hormones such as GABA, serotonin, and dopamine—all natural anti-depressants. [4] The practice of Yoga improves sleep architecture and mental well-being in young and middle-aged adults. [4]

“Yoga also boosts the innate antiviral response and brain health by enhancing natural defense genes and microRNA-29c expression. Notably, it activates telomerase, linked with cellular longevity, and promotes nitric oxide synthetase and neuroprotective gene expression, implying benefits for ocular health. In addition, yoga fosters DNA repair and cellular integrity maintenance by increasing oxoguanine glycosylase one protein and p53 gene expression.”[5]

What this means is that yoga helps your body to repair itself neurologically; in the brain neurological complexes that are required for sleep and the immune response and the body’s response to invasive micro-organisms. Eyes are generally thought of as a part of the brain; it is very interesting to see that this somewhat vulnerable area of the human body is augmented with inversions such as downward dog.

This 30 minute yoga class will get you relaxed and focused. The sequence is very balanced, in my opinion. Hold poses for longer! Experiment with your bodies endurance! And also be gentle and take it easy when you feel like you should.

Asanas and descriptions, some modifications

the yoga I practice is purely physical. Sometimes I end a class with a reading or something I am thinking, but I try to keep my teaching neutral.

  1. Tadasana – standing with intention in the feet
  2. Step back lunge
  3. Lizard Low Lunge
  4. Plank
  5. Chaturanga – specifics about alignment
  6. Half Lift – more alignment
  7. Forward Fold – release your neck and jaw and head
  8. Chair Pose – stabilize
  9. Warrior 3
  10. Lunging
  11. Pyrmaid Pose
  12. Triangle Pose
  13. Dragonfly Twist (make sure you get this on the second side!!)
  14. Standing splits
  15. Goddess Pose
  16. Meditation
  17. Savasana

References:

  1. Science Direct – Yogic meditation improves objective and subjective sleep quality of healthcare professionals
  2. De Gruyter – Using the Biopsychosocial Model to Understand the Health Benefits of Yoga
  3. National Library of Medicine – Sleep, Cognition, and Yoga
  4. MDPI – (Medical Yoga Therapy – read this!!!)
  5. International Journal of Yoga – Beyond the Mat: Exploring the Potential Clinical Benefits of Yoga on Epigenetics and Gene Expression

Unlock Your Inner Zen – Daoist Yoga with Elliot Read More »

Yoga with Elliot | Episode 2

Triangle Pose and Hamstrings – Intermediate 30 minute Sequence

Overcoming Technical Difficulties for a longer video

This past week was a very long week of dealing with HUGE file sizes. I finally found a much more efficient way of producing videos with Adobe Media Encoder, where I don’t have 50 Gigabit files that I have to move between my phone and computer. I think I spent over 20 hours waiting for my computer to try to process the video, only to fail because of lack of hard drive space. I eventually uninstalled almost all of my applications and made space for the large file and I learned how to create much smaller video files using the Media Encoder.

A Longer Intermediate Sequence

I want to enable people to practice yoga on their own whenever they have an internet connection. This sequence is a great foundational sequence for working into the backs of the legs. It is also efficient, 30 minutes and a couple of those minutes are just resting on the ground.

I did my best on the audio quality, but I don’t have a sound proof room or studio. Just doing the best I can with that I got.

List of Postures

  • Standing meditation
  • 2x Standing back bend
  • Forward fold
  • 2x Half-lift
  • 5x Chaturanga on knees
  • Cobra pose
  • Down dog
  • 2x Sun salutations
  • Chair pose
  • Standing splits, right leg in front
  • Low lunge
  • Dragonfly twist 3 breaths
  • Runners lunge
  • 10 breathes Triangle pose
  • 3 legged down dog 5breaths
  • Tippie toe to forward fold
  • Halfway lift
  • Sun A moves
  • Standing splits
  • left leg in front
  • low lunge
  • twisted lunge
  • runners lunge
  • triangle
  • 3 legged dog
  • Downward dog 5 breaths
  • Chair pose
  • Twisted chair
  • Floating leg twisted chair
  • High lunge 5 breaths
  • 3 legged downward dog
  • Knee to forehead x 10
  • High lunge 5 breaths
  • Pyramid pose 5 breaths
  • Revolved triangle pose
  • Hanumanasana
  • 3 legged down dog
  • Sun a
  • Chair pose
  • Twisted Chair
  • Floating leg
  • lunge
  • 10x forehead to knee
  • lunge
  • pyramid
  • revolved triangle
  • hanumanasana
  • Jump through to meditation
  • Forward fold 10 breaths
  • Spinal twist
  • Happy baby
  • Savasana

Yoga with Elliot | Episode 2 Read More »

Elliot has started a new Youtube Yoga Channel!

Episode 1: Chaturanga Dandasana and the Obliques

I am so so so so so super happy to present you with my latest work of art: Yoga with Elliot, a YOUTUBE series. I have been working towards this for a long time and am stoked to see where it goes. Sometimes its hard to believe that I’ve been teaching for 7 years now.

I am looking for yogis and yoga instructors to collaborate with, so send me an email or leave a comment if you wanna do an episode with me!

Check out Episode 1 below:

Here’s a good description of Episode 1 sequence:

Beginner oriented warm-up sequence – this one is geared towards beginners, or people coming back to their yoga practice. We are going to hone in on chaturanga form.

~88 breaths – Oblique, lower back and neck tightness focus

10 minute duration, beginner’s difficulty level

(don’t forget to breath through your nose and rest)

  1. Mountain pose breathing mediation 5 breaths into standing back-bend
  2. Forward fold- Half lift 5 breath repetitions
  3. Plank pose 3 breaths
  4. Modified Chaturanga on 5 breath repetitions
  5. Cobra pose 3 breaths
  6. Child’s pose 5 breaths
  7. Downward dog 5 breaths
  8. Forward fold 3 breaths
  9. Half lift
  10. Standing back bend x2
  11. Forward fold
  12. Half lift
  13. Plank
  14. Chaturanga
  15. Upward dog
  16. Downward dog 5 breaths
  17. modified side plank 5 breaths x2
  18. Forward fold
  19. Half lift
  20. Standing back bendx2
  21. Chair pose 5 breaths
  22. Plank
  23. Chaturanga
  24. Upward dog
  25. Downward dog 5 breaths
  26. Child’s pose 5 breaths
  27. Virasana 5 breaths

*bolded poses are Oblique-centric

I hope you enjoy the sequence, please take your time to practice yoga, there is no need to rush through any of this. Subscribe to my youtube channel to get updated when I post new episodes.

Elliot has started a new Youtube Yoga Channel! Read More »

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