Yin Yoga · Hips · Nervous-system · Hips-lower-back
The floor positions we all had once, held long enough to get them back
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Katie teaches kindergarten when she isn’t teaching yoga, and she noticed that the children in her class never sit the way adults sit. They drop to the floor straight into shapes we’ve all quietly lost: folded forward over crossed legs, soles of the feet together with the knees wide, sitting back between their own feet as if it were nothing.
So this class is those positions, held long enough to start getting them back.
Child’s Pose for three minutes opens it, with a small aside worth staying for: balasana is usually translated as child’s pose, but it’s closer to embryo pose — so you’re going back further than childhood.
Butterfly for three minutes, nothing forced down, then wipers to release it. Saddle is the one that stings adult pride — the sitting-between-the-feet position five-year-olds hold for an hour — and it’s built up on blocks or cushions, or done one leg at a time.
Happy Baby comes with explicit permission to rock side to side rather than hold still, and a reclined twist for two minutes each way brings things level again.
It ends curled on your side in the fetal position rather than flat in Corpse. If you’d rather have Corpse, Katie says take Corpse.
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Katie teaches kindergarten when she isn't teaching yoga, and noticed the children sit on the floor in shapes adults have mostly lost — folded over, soles together, knees out to the sides, or sitting back between their feet. The sequence is those positions, held long enough to start getting them back.
Balasana is usually translated as child's pose, but Katie's point in the class is that it's closer to embryo pose — so the shape is less about your inner child and more about going further back than that. Whether or not the translation settles it, it changes how the three minutes feel.
Build up the height underneath you — a block, two blocks, a cushion, a folded blanket — until your hips land somewhere your knees don't complain. If it's still too much, straighten one leg out in front and do one side at a time; Katie calls the halfway point so you can swap.
It fits the class, and it's offered rather than imposed — Katie says outright that if you love Corpse, do Corpse. Rolling onto your side with the knees drawn up is a deeply settled way to end, and cushions are welcome.
Both, honestly. The shapes are hip and lower-back shapes and they're held three minutes, so there's real opening in it. But the tone is the point — carefree is the word Katie keeps coming back to, and nothing in it asks you to achieve anything.
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