Sunflower

Sunflower often follows directly after Moon Flow.  Sunflower also warms up all of our large muscle groups and our back when standing and warms our upper body and back when practiced in a seated position in a chair.

When practicing in a chair, an armless chair that allows free movement with our arms works best.

We begin with our feet a little wider than hip width apart, as in Moon Flow, our toes pointed outward at a 45 degree angle. 

Let’s bring our hands and arms to prayer position, our head reaching toward the sky, our shoulders back and down, and our feet pressing down into the ground. 

On our inhale, let’s drop our hands and arms downward from prayer position and then circle them up and over our head, reaching our fingertips toward the sky, reaching and stretching through our arms, sides and spine. We extend our gaze and chest upward as we extend our legs and push downward through our feet.

On our exhale, let’s bend our knees, being careful to keep our knees directly over our ankles as we gently roll our back forward and downward, circling our arms in front of our body. 

On the inhale, we roll our back up to standing, circling our arms out and around, to meet once again above our head. We extend our arms, and chest upward while pushing downward through the ground with our legs and feet.

This is a gentle rolling motion, warming our backs and our large muscle groups and we extend up and roll downward.

Repeat 5 to 10 times . . . inhaling reaching and extending upward, exhaling with control bending our knees and rolling our backs downward, gently and with control, dropping our heads downward toward the floor. 

If we are using a chair, gently roll our tummy down our thighs, dropping our head between our legs.