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I am very happy to welcome you. Please inhale deeply and allow yourself to exhale with a soft sigh. The journey commences from today, and it is going to be extremely beautiful and transformational—our 4 Week Chair Yoga Challenge. The duration of the next four weeks will be spent moving and reconnecting with the body, while breathing, all with the support of a chair. One does not have to master the most intricate of poses to bring about a significant change: one only needs to be willing to show up for oneself.
Chair yoga is an incredibly accessible practice and gently meets you where you are. If you are sitting at a desk all day, have mobility concerns, or need or want to reintroduce movement into your life gently and mindfully, this is for you. Yoga is not about bending into a pretzel. It is about caring for one’s body, and this week, is all about foundation to flow reset. This week, we will work towards building deep awareness and purposeful breathing, in addition to the breath rhythm and stability all movement can arise from.
First of all, you will need a proper chair that is sturdy and does not have wheels, as well as loose-fitting clothing that will allow the full range of bending and stretching. Still, the most important requirement is an open heart. If you have a yoga strap, or even a towel, it might be useful, but you can easily manage without. To enhance this experience, you may wish to take a look at the Pagoda Yoga App, which offers guided breathing and soothing music to accompany your practice. Now, it’s time to embark on this chair yoga reset together.
The Framework for Week 1: Foundational to Flowing
At the commencement of the reset, I have balanced each of the 8 days for this week to be manageable. My aim is to support you with gradual instruction. Each day is meant to woven together to create an emerging tapestry of balance and purposeful motion. We will begin at the base—our grounding within the earth—and gradually ascend to a full, flowing sequence. This is an opportunity to pause, witness and respect the innate intelligence of your body.
Day 1 — Grounding and Connecting to the Hips and Lower Body Parts
Let’s begin with the connection to the earth. Sit in a comfortable position in the chair, lightly placing your feet sculpting the earth beneath you. Feel the surface beneath you supporting your body. Let’s begin with slowly and mindfully circling the hips as if you are tracing delicate circles on the surface of the seat. Allow soft and liquid movements, working to let go of any tightness in the pelvis. From there, slowly move into gentle seated forward folds. On an exhale, let your spine round easily over your legs, and your head hang without restrictions. There is no aim, only surrender. With gentle knee lifts, awaking is the lower body, feeling the strength of the core, and finishing with ankle flexes which sends fresh energy all the way to the toes.
- Focus: Emphasizing your connection, how is it to be and to feel completely embodied, supported, and strong? From this deep rootedness is where your true strength begins.
- Takeaway: The strong base leads to a free mind. Feel the difference of your hips and the gentle, grounding energy that now fills your legs.
🧘♀️ To watch the video from Day 1, click below:
🎥 Click here to watch on YouTube
🌿 You can find other exclusive Series and challenges on the PagodaYoga App
Day 2: Calm and Controlled Breathing with Slow Awakening Flows
From the serene support of the ground, we now shift our awareness to the breath and the very center of our practice. Sit in a comfortable position, and if you would like, you may close your eyes. Place your right hand on your soft abdomen and your left on your gentle heart. Fill the abdomen like a soft balloon and then gently release the full diaphragm. While doing this, pay attention to the gentle rise and fall of your chest. In this moment of awareness, we begin to link this breath with very simple movements, nurturing the delicate connection of breath with the body. Inhale and lift the arms, and with an exhale, lower the arms slowly. How is the rhythm? Feel the pulse of your body.
- Focus: Feel the breath and experience gentle, deep unwavering breath awareness. You, breath is your anchor and guide to the present moment and you have been with me every step of the way.
- Takeaway: Your breath signifies the most effective and most easily-accessible instrument you’ll ever possess. Let it guide every action and every moment of rest you will ever do.
🧘♀️ Please see the Day-2 video in the link below.
🌿 You can find other exclusive Series and challenges on the PagodaYoga App.
Day 3: Softening Spinal Holds
Today, we will focus on the spine as the main part of our body. Consider it as the central pathway for the circulating energy. It is a stream of energy present within you. Today, we will focus on the spine as we practice the gentle and loving yoga. We will practice gentle cat and cow poses where we will sit. Breathe in and slowly arch your back while drawing your heart forward and lifting the chin. Breathe out and round your spine, tucking your chin and pulling forward while stretching the space between your shoulder blades. Imagine that every vertebrae is separate. We will do gentle spinal twists on the chair to release the built up negative energy and tension in the body. We will end the practice with gentle neck rolls.
We will focus on the fluid movement in the back and the relaxation of the other appendages.
- Focus: “To extend the relief, fluidity, and nourishment that have been sorely absent from one’s very center”.
- Takeaway: A supple, unencumbered backbone fosters an energetic life. Observe the space and freedom that you have created in your back and torso.
🧘♀️ Please see the Day-3 video:
🌿 For additional, free videos and series, see our Pagoda Yoga App.
Day 4 – Opening the Side Body
We usually move backward or forward. How often then do we recognize space that is to the side? The side body is home to our ribs and lungs. Unlocking this area enables us to experience a breath that is deeper and more fulfilling. Today, we’ll do a yoga sequence with poses that sit, side bends, and as you are reaching down through your sitting bones, feel like you are rooting down and opening up through one arm up and over. You feel that stretch from your hip to the tips of your fingers. We breathe down the rib cage imagining it expanding, and not just forward and back, but also out to the sides like wings. This is a great method to add onto your chair yoga for mobility.
- Focus: Expanding flexible of breath and more room for breathe.
- Takeaway: Breathing sides has the breath easy tension but during that tension, it increases the lung capacity, lightens, and expands the body.
🧘♀️ Check out the video for day 4:
🌿 As a bonus, you can find other exclusive series and challenges on the PagodaYoga App.
The Pagoda Yoga App offers renewed support and headspace to practice around the gentle mobility, flexibility, and breath-body connection together with renewed chair yoga video guidance added every week.
Day 5 — Releasing of the Chest and Shoulders
Additional tension caused by driving, typing and stressing contract the upper body. For today, we will graciously welcome its release. Starting with the shoulders, we do simple, slow rolls and visualize tightness melting away. Next, we move to the chest and do chest openers, interlacing the hands and bringing the shoulders away from the ears to shine the heart forward. Breathe into that feeling of openness. For more complex variations, we will do seated eagle arms and cow face arms to release the tension intertwined around the shoulder blades. I also encourage you to check the Pagoda Yoga App. You will find the 8-day series Foundation to Flow. It is guided step by step for your convenience.
- Focus: With this practice, you have the chance to address the issues of slumped posture due to stress, increase the spacing around the heart, and improve posture.
- Takeaway: Opening the chest = Opening the heart. Experience the joy of liberating yourself from the burdens you’ve been carrying.
🧘♀️Watch the video of Day-5 below:
🎥Link
🌿 For an additional, exclusive chair yoga with weights series and challenges on the PagodaYoga App.
Day 6 — Energizing the Extremities
Today’s objective is to direct the flowing of vital energy to all the parts of the body, including the arms and legs. In today’s practice, we will go to the furthest points of the body and place our attention there. Gentle stretches of the fingers and wrists, which are gentle exercises suitable for those who are required to use their fingers and wrists for prolonged periods. Notice the warmth. So, too, we direct the body down to the feet through rhythmic finger taps, points, and flexes, ending with gentle ankle circles. Gentle chair yoga for begins also is ideal gentle yoga for seniors, safely supporting the circulation.
- Focus: Reconnect smaller, more frequently ignored joints with the body. We are waking the body from its center to its outermost points.
- Takeaway: Complete body mindfulness means every part is considered. Appreciating your hands and feet assists in feeling whole and fully embodied.
🧘♀️ Please proceed to the Day-6 video below:
🌿 For more premium and free videos and series, check our app:
Day 7 - Full-Body Strength Integration
Yoga involves equilibrium of softness and strength, as well as flexibility and stillness. For today, we will utilize the chair to help us explore the construction of functional power. We will do chair squats while the chair helps us to lower and lift in a controlled and safe manner. We will practice hover poses, trying to lift an inch or two off the seat so we can activate our core and legs to ignite our inner strength. After, we will proceed to do standing warrior poses, but seated and having our arms fully out while in motion, instilling the feeling of our self and resilience to power. These guided videos on chair yoga will teach you all of the above.
- Focus: Integrate strength in an aligned, and anatomical manner. Feel your muscles awaken and engage, and notice your confidence rising on each movement.
- Takeaway: The chair is not a crutch, but rather a device from which you learn about the great power that you already possess from within; which is, you are much stronger than what you think.
🧘♀️ Please view the Day-7 video below.
🌿 Also, refer to our Pagoda Yoga App for other videos and series that are premium and free.
Day 8 - Moving Meditation Flow
Today marks the day we conclude our chair yoga week 1 journey. This final session is a moving meditation. There is nothing to perfect, only to experience. We have built a graceful and fluid structure through which we will intuitively and effortlessly move for the duration of the session. Every movement practiced in the session will be intricately connected to our breath and will be anchored to the gentle rhythm of the inhale and exhale. The sequence will feel like a gentle dance of effort and ease as well as strength and surrender.
We conclude our session with a few moments of seated meditation, where we strategically place the body to witness the profound calm in the mind and the symphony of sensations that permeate the body.
- Focus: Here you would practice genuine yoga differently, keen on immersion and mindfulness, not simply on the physical, and not just on broken poses.
- Takeaway: When there is integration, and movement happens along with breath, the mind is quiet. This inner silence, and stillness, is the focus of real and authentic yoga practice.
🧘♀️ Please view the video for Day 8 below.
🌿 You can also refer to the official app to access additional videos and series paid and unpaid.
Reflection for the week and mindful journaling
Think about this week and give yourself some credit. Every week has the beginning and end of a module. Think about everything that has happened. All this while, I have said that the reflection is a very important part of the practice, and in this case, it is to help in reconciling the teachings from the mat into everyday life. This is to articulate the foundational principles of yoga. It is time to write in the journal and try to jot down a few ideas. Use these ideas if you want to. There is no correct nor incorrect. You only owe your experience in its most authentic form.
- What are some of the changes in the week? New sensations of space, ease, and strength in some parts of your body?
- In what ways did your breath direct your attention? Was there any instance when you actually felt the connection to the breath and its rhythm?
- What emotions or feelings came up during the practice of movement in a conscious manner? Did you observe any changes to your mood or your overall energy before and after the practice?
- Which posture or practice during the course of the week felt the most nourishing to you and why?
Think about the reflections at your own pace. It’s perfectly fine to let each event, emotion, and realization come to the surface on its own. Unlike a multiple relational test, there are no wrong or right answers; only the careful and soft interest of your own experiences.
With every mindful practice, the app Pagoda Yoga provides for every user an exclusive journal space meant for recording and reflecting on your thoughts.
Congratulations! You have Finished Week 1
Take a final breath and make it deep and satisfying. Breathe out completely and focus on self-congratulation. You came. You engaged in movement, breath, and resting. Most importantly, you reaffirmed your existence. You have described the first week of the 4 Week Chair Yoga Challenge and have set in place a powerful and firm basis for what you are yet to encounter.
It is possible that you have already witnessed some of the more subtle, yet beautiful, changes to your body and mind; for instance, a reduction in the stiffness in your back, breath that is both deeper and more conscious, and a calm that is newfound and very much appreciated. These are the very beginnings of metamorphosis. You have taken the time to nurture and plant the right conditions, and now we have the time to observe as the changes occur.
We have only just begun. The focus and the inner strength you’ve developed over the past week will be your foundation moving ahead. Please continue your 4 week journey on the Pagoda Yoga App and through the additional classes to track your progress. We’ll be seeing you soon.
Next session, we will continue our exploration of practicing “Strength & Balance”, which is an empowering complement to the previous week’s lesson focus, and expand upon our growing foundation of knowledge.
The Pagoda Yoga app is the ideal platform to record and expand upon your efforts during Pagoda Yoga as well as gain access to additional multimedia resources to further enhance your practice.
