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Enjoy the movement!

Foundational āsanas and breath awareness form the base of practice. Begin with Pavanamuktāsana to release the lower back, pressing the knee to the chest with the breath. Move into Daṇḍāsana, keeping the spinal column straight. Practice head movements initiated from the lower neck, coordinating with breath to avoid strain. Sarvahitā Āsanas teach correct movement patterns for all further practice. Engage muscles by imagining lifting a weight to build strength for postures like Viparīta Karanī Mudrā. Always be aware of breathing during āsana; conscious breathing activates the brain's cortex, calming the emotional limbic system. Complete yogic breathing combines abdominal, thoracic, and clavicular movement for full purification. Prāṇāyāma, like Nāḍī Śodhana, purifies the energy channels through all five layers of being.

"Always be aware of your breathing. When you breathe with awareness—without changing the rhythm—we activate a center in the cortex of the brain."

"Seventy percent of the body's purification comes through our breathing. That is why our breathing, especially complete yogic breathing, is so important."

Filming location: Strilky, Czech Republic

First, we will do Pavanamuktāsana, and after that, we will sit in Daṇḍāsana. Begin with Pavanamuktāsana on the right leg. Inhale slowly, then exhale and press your knee to the chest. Feel your lower back pressing into the floor. Inhale, place your head on the floor. Exhale and stretch your leg. Now the left side: inhale, exhale. Inhale, and exhale. One very important point: when you press your right leg and your left leg lifts up, it indicates that your psoas muscle is too short. Inhale on the right, exhale, keeping your shoulder blades on the floor. Inhale, head on the floor, and exhale. Continue: inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Once more. Inhale, exhale, inhale, and exhale. Now, feel your body. Feel especially this lower back. Whenever you have tension in the low back, simply practice Pavanamuktāsana. You will feel relaxation in that lower area. Now, take a deep inhale, exhale, and slowly sit up into Daṇḍāsana with the help of your hands, or roll to one side. We will practice Sarvahitā Āsanas from Yoga in Daily Life. This first part, Sarvahitā Āsana, is the most important practice because it is the base. From these movements, we learn how to practice further āsanas. In Daṇḍāsana, try to keep your spinal column straight. Je to daṇḍa—it is the staff. We will begin with head movements. Stretch up. Vytiahneme sa za temenom—pull up from the crown—but do not lift your chin. Try to keep your jaw parallel to the floor. Inhale here, and slowly bring your right ear toward your right shoulder. Inhale and exhale, and inhale. Try to move from the ear, not the chin. Inhale. Two nice rounds. Inhale, exhale. This is also excellent for focus. Inhale, exhale, and three. Inhale and exhale, returning to the middle. Now we will take the head back, but always be aware that this part of your neck remains straight. The movement originates from the lower part. Imagine you are wearing a collar, like one used after a car accident. Practicing with this awareness removes fear from the practice. Now, slowly go back. Inhale. And exhale, bringing the chin down toward the chest. Slowly inhale. Exhale. The movement should be precise. Our hand is to the side like this. Inhale. Come more, more, more. Yes, thank you. And exhale. In the middle position, remember what we learn from Viśvagurujī: know why we are doing this. Usually, people want to do it with the hand beside the body, which locks the shoulders. Second, the fingers should not point toward the feet, as that position allows us to bend and stretch in the thoracic area while keeping the upper back stable. Your legs should be at a 90-degree angle, like this, not like that. A little more here. Now we will rotate the head. In physical culture at school, people often do this and experience dizziness and cracking sounds afterward. We do not want to make movements from the atlas vertebra. What we do is initiate from the lower part: chin to the chest on an inhale; ear to the shoulder, then back; and exhale, ear to the other shoulder, and chin back to the chest. Nice. We will go slowly together, coordinating with the breath. First, relax your head. On the right side, inhale. And exhale. Two. And a small third. Exhale. A little relaxation. Now to the other side. Inhale. Stretch up the entire time, and exhale. Two. Exhale. And third, inhale and exhale. Now, bring the head to the middle. If practiced correctly, you will feel a nice, pleasant, warm feeling in your neck, as if your head is levitating. Now, interlock your fingers behind you, elbows going back. Always try to stretch this area. A nice stretch immediately makes you feel your back. When you practice, try to have the same enjoyable feeling as when you wake up in the morning, enjoying every movement and stretch. Now to the right side, exhale, but keep stretching your body up. Stretch from the thoracic area, inhale. Exhale. Try not to rotate; imagine a wall behind you as you slowly go down. Feel the stretching. Be aware of that stretching. Inhale. Two. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. And third. Exhale. More, more, more. Inhale. And exhale. Inhale, and place your palms on your knees, but remain in this upright position. One more āsana, and then we will relax. Imagine a rope here. We want to lift a 50-kilo weight from this collar up to, say, the fourth floor. Do not bend your arms. The second toe is the big toe; the thumb is in a fist. When you pull down with force, as if lifting 50 kilos, you will feel all these muscles, including the shoulder blades and shoulders. This is good against vāta, or bad wind, which usually affects those over 50. Second, why is this important? Because when we practice Viparīta Karanī Mudrā, we need these muscles. They will create something like a pillow, allowing you to stay in Viparīta Karanī Mudrā without pain. This is the beauty of Yoga in Daily Life, the Sarvahitāsaṅs. If you understand this, it becomes Svādhyāya. I have been practicing for a long time, but I am starting again from the first level. You will understand why these foundational movements are so important. How does it look? Inhale here, and also observe with your eyes. Slow down. Stretch the arms. Activate all these muscles slowly. Inhale, exhale, fifty kilos. More. Three, exhale. Four, exhale. Five, exhale. Six, exhale. Slowly. Eight, exhale. Nine, exhale. And ten, exhale. And relax into Ānandāsana. Just for a few moments. Na chvílku. You do not need to cover your body, nor make too much movement, as excessive movement makes the mind restless. Just a few inhalations and exhalations. Be aware now of the area of your neck and shoulders. Be aware of your breathing, especially trying to be aware of abdominal breathing. Why is it so important to always be aware of your breathing in āsanas, Yog-Nidrā, and meditation? Always be aware of your breathing. When you breathe automatically, that is breathing governed by an older part of the brain. When we breathe with awareness—without changing the rhythm—we activate a center in the cortex of the brain, which is excellent for calming down the limbic system, our emotions. Now, slowly sit up. In Daṇḍāsana again, one very important thing: it is good for our hip joints. It is excellent for our core muscles, or the Maṇipūra Chakra. This also involves the psoas muscle and is beneficial for the lower back. There will be a grinding sensation. Not too much. Only five times on each side. But try not to let the movements look like this, just using the hands. Imagine in the moment that somebody is pulling you, and then constantly pulling you, while you are squeezing your body. Now you will feel all these diagonal muscles; one leg may seem longer, the other shorter, engaging the hip joints. Then go back to the other side. As you go down, all these muscles will be activated, and you will feel a nice, warm feeling in your abdomen on the right side. Inhale slowly back to the other side, and exhale down. Two, back, exhale. If possible, let your abdomen touch your thigh muscles. If you can, try to lean forward so your buttock touches the wall. Three, exhale. Four, three. Exhale. Exhale. And five, exhale. Literally, relax in the middle. Feel your abdomen. Do you feel a nice, warm feeling? If not, now try the other side. One, inhale, back, rotate, and down. Excellent, yes. Two. Three. Four, exhale. And once more, exhale, relax. Relax in Ānandāsana. Try to feel the heaviness of your body. Take one deep inhale, exhale, and try to relax. Now, be aware of the previous āsana. Try to feel your low back. If you have some tension, you may bend your legs or do one round of Pavanamuktāsana. You will immediately feel relaxation of the lower back muscles. But you do not need to be in fear, because everything we feel, we often think is pain. Rationalize, and you will see that something is strengthening the muscles; you are feeling your muscles. Realize this. We think, "Oh, it’s pain," but the third type is real pain. Now, feel your abdomen—a nice warm feeling in the abdomen—and also try to feel the pelvic diaphragm. This is the area of the anus, perineum. Remember everything that is in the book Hidden Power of Human. Which āsana is for Mūlādhāra and Svādhiṣṭhāna? Last time we mentioned we are not practicing only with the physical body, but with all five kośas. Now, take a deep inhale and exhale. Slowly sit in Vajrāsana. Vajrāsana is a very important āsana. The only problem is if we have pain in the knee. In that case, do not sit for long. But it is excellent for the Vajra Nāḍī, balancing all three nāḍīs: Iḍā, Piṅgalā, and Suṣumṇā. The Vajra Nāḍī harmonizes Iḍā, Piṅgalā, and Suṣumṇā, and is also excellent for digestion. Now we will practice Marjārī. When we practice Marjārī, try, when we go up, not to go... and also, on the way down... If you have a problem with your knees, it's okay, but only if you have a real problem, not just a little pain. Try to go up nicely. Inhale. And also slowly go down. Practicing this way will strengthen the thigh and calf muscles over time, having a good impact on our knees. We will try to go up and down only once. Inhale, up. Slowly, and slowly down. You know, practicing with Vṛṣava Gurujī, you remain in this position, breathe normally, and feel all this mass. But we will go down, and now we will do Marjārī. It is excellent for the spinal column and for activating complete yogic breathing. But try not to practice in this way—that is just choreography. Try instead to have two fixed points: the hip joints and the elbows. Exhale, and inhale, but not in this way. Try to push the floor down and go up that way. Inhale with the abdomen's middle part. If you are in this correct position, you are not able to inhale with the clavicular area alone, and you will not make sufficient correction in the thoracic area. Because if your head is stretched and your neck is stretched between your shoulders, you will not be able to breathe into the throat, and we will not be able to activate the whole thoracic spine. But remember what we practiced in the beginning. Now, put this into Marjārī. One, up. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. And slowly, sit down on ten. Sometimes people say they have pain in the knee in this position. That is because you press your kneecap. Anatomically, your knee looks like this. If you put a pillow and place your knee on it, you will have the same problem. If you have such an issue where your kneecap presses on the floor and causes pain—which is not good—you may do something like this. Have just a little of the knee off your mat. In this position, your kneecap is a millimeter or two above the floor, and you will not have pain. Once more. Inhale. Two. Exhale. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. And slowly, sit. Ten. Feel your whole body. It is always important before an āsana to take only a few seconds to be aware of your whole body—how you feel. After that, perform the āsana. Again, be in the position and be aware of the influence of the āsana. Be aware of what happens with your body. In this way, we will maintain focus all the time. Now, Śaśāṅkāsana. It will be good if we can move from the hip joints. What does that mean? Inhale, stretch up. Just look once. Stretch up, up, and imagine that somebody is pulling you. In that way, you go down from your low back, from the hip joints. And relax. When we go up, a little stretch and up. And down on an exhale. All the time, under control. Usually, when we look at a yoga class, people are trying to practice all these movements. If you have pain in the lower back, it’s okay. Now slowly up, inhale. Stretch up, stretch. And with exhalation, slowly go down. And relax. Of course, during pregnancy, you may separate your knees a little. Also after too much eating, okay? But we know we should practice two to three hours after eating. The best time for practice is before eating, as we learn from Viśvagurujī. First practice, then eat, because we will never forget to eat. If you feel some pressure in the head, or some sound, come back slowly. If you have very high blood pressure—but all of you are young and healthy, we practice Yoga in Daily Life and we don’t have such problems. Now slowly come up, inhale, and exhale. Nice, relax. Palms on your knees. Elbows relaxed. Shoulders relaxed. Jaw parallel to the floor. Be aware. How do you feel? Śaśāṅkāsana is excellent against depression and nervousness. Also for refreshing, because fresh blood comes to your brain. Before Prāṇāyāma, we will just practice a few exercises for breathing. Slowly stand up. Nice, relaxed. Enjoy this position. It is always very important to enjoy the practice, to enjoy the movements. First, relax your abdomen. But correct your pelvis. Not too far back. If you go too far back, you will have tension in the lower back. I always joke that at one Kumbh Melā, we practiced with Viśva Gurujī. He told me, "Why is your stomach so big?" In that moment, I thought it was because I am fat. But afterward, I felt tension and pain in the lower back and realized my posture involved too much pelvic tilt and protruding stomach. We need to correct the position of the pelvis. We learned from Harriet to imagine you have a zipper here and a little zipper here. Relax your abdomen and breathe with your abdomen. Inhale, and the navel moves back on exhalation. But relax. Place the palms here on the chest. We are breathing only with the abdomen, not with the chest area. Now we will not place hands here, because if we put them on the front, we feel from the front, not from the side. Now breathe into your sides, left and right, not the front. Your abdomen is not moving. That is the breathing with the middle part. Also, with this breathing, you are correcting your spinal column. Now, place hands here on the clavicular area. Feel that your décolleté is going up and down. That is the breathing of stress, and we know also from our book that if you breathe too long with this clavicular area, very soon we can go into depression. Therefore, we will not breathe too long in this area. Put the hands down. Now we will combine all three: inhale into the abdomen, middle part, and clavicular area. The movements will cause you to exhale because you relax the upper part, middle part, and abdomen. Slowly continue in your rhythm. But try to let the movement make the air go in, and the movement make the air go out. This is how to begin complete yogic breathing. I remember that all the time in daily life, I was in a state resembling depression. But I don't have depression, and I realized that daily, because of pollution, I was breathing only with the clavicular area. Akú má Viśva Gurujī pravdu. Uvoľníme sa. It is easy to recognize a person's condition. How is the face color? According to what color the face has. Half butterfly. If you are not breathing well and have some problem with your lungs, you have the color of a dirty wall. Because if you have problems, for example with your lungs, then the color of your skin is like a dirty wall. That is why ladies put on makeup, or as we know, it’s called nacre. People use makeup to mask it because it is fake, showing "I’m healthy, I’m healthy." When you have some other disease, you immediately have another color to your face. They say 70% of the body's purification comes through our breathing. That is why our breathing, especially complete yogic breathing, is so important. Three times down, inhale, but go down from the hip joints. Try to imagine somebody is pulling you. Inhale also, all the time pulling. Three. Výdych—exhale. Inhale. Nádych—inhale. And once more. Inhale. Nádych. And exhale down. Now change your leg. We will change our legs. Also, when we feel cold all the time, it means we don’t have enough energy. When we begin to breathe properly, we will immediately feel that our palms, face, and feet become nice and warm. Three times down. Exhale. S výdychom—with the exhale. Inhale. Nádych. Two. Dva. Inhale. Nádych. And once more, inhale and exhale. Now we will sit in the position for Prāṇāyāma. You may take Sukhāsana, which means the pleasant position, or sit in Padmāsana, or you may sit in Vajrāsana. If you have problems, sit on a chair. In the Sarvahitā Āsana of the first level, we practice Nāḍī Śodhana first. Nāḍī is not a nerve, but a channel. Nāḍī to su dráhy. Śodhana means purification. This works not only through the physical body, Annamāyā Kośa, but through all five kośas. For Nāḍī Śodhana: first, bend your right hand into Prāṇāyāma Mudrā (using the thumb and the second and third fingers). Place the thumb on your right nostril. Nicely and gently, inhale and exhale 20 times through the left nostril. After that, close the left nostril and inhale and exhale 20 times through the right. Try not to be in this position, but in this position, nice in the middle. Imagine there is also a stick here—not up, not down. Also try not to change the hand position; it is very short without the help of the other hand. We need to be a little tough. Endure. If you have an injury, that's a different case... But we are not trying to endure pain. Usually, the question is: why do we practice this way and not that way? Nicely, Viśvagurujī explained that in this position you have an influence on your Ājñā Chakra. You also have a little support for your head, so the back of the head and neck are relaxed. Nicely, air flows here. In Yoga in Daily Life, we practice in this way. Before practice, first we will relax. Then we will chant Oṁ. After that, we will start with the Prāṇāyāma. Relax. Inhale. And relax. Be aware of your breathing. Be aware of the movements of your navel, knowing that you will practice Prāṇāyāma. Slowly bend your right arm into Prāṇāyāma Mudrā and slowly start. Just inhale and exhale through your left nostril. Try to keep your posture straight, as this allows for complete yogic breathing. Just continue, be relaxed. When you finish, you may relax, repeat your mantra, or be aware that you inhale "so" and exhale "hum." Try to sit without movement, but be relaxed. Now, slowly, we will finish Prāṇāyāma. Once we will chant Oṁ. Inhale. Oṁ. Vipā. Tachi. Shanti. Release the hand position. Relax your fingers. Relax your shoulders. Rub your palms together, place them on your face muscles, warm your face muscles and eyelids, and slowly bow down. Greet your Gurudev, and slowly, slowly come back. Hari Oṁ. Carry on. Carry on.

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:

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