Original subtitles

A common way to start a yoga session is with Salute to the Sun, a series of easy

poses to stretch and warm up your body.

A slower, less strenuous version of Salute to the Sun can be done if you let

your knees touch the ground during the backbends.

Sue was a bit lethargic when she was at the beach, but generally she's full of

energy.

This dance features a pose called the half moon, which we'll see in more

detail later.

Olya also takes an energetic approach to yoga.

Salute to the Sun is a modular series of poses which you can modify or continue

as long as you like.

The V-shaped posture in Salute to the Sun is called Down Face Dog.

It can serve as the start for many more challenging postures.

In yoga, it is good to follow a stretch with an opposite stretch.

This leg stretch is an opposite of down face dog.

Willow enjoys exercising naked in public.

She does a series of exercises, which are good warm-up stretches for yoga.

Indeed, in the peace and serenity of their movements, the exercises seem a

kind of yoga in their own right.

Yoga has many varieties and many schools.

When we were in Ibiza making adventures in Freedom One, Shannon showed me her

own stretching exercises, which feature several postures of yoga.

Shannon also does stretching exercises which feature aspects both of yoga and

of ballet.

After the warm-up exercises, it is common to do several standing postures,

such as the triangle and the arrow.

As with all yoga postures that have a left and right side, the left and right

versions are done one after the other to preserve the balance of the body.

Many standing poses require balance as much as strength and flexibility.

The table is a particularly difficult pose.

It requires strong back muscles and excellent balance as well.

Shannon makes yoga look easy, but for most of us it isn't.

It helps a lot that she's a dancer and so stretches and exercises regularly.

Okay, Katrina.

Katrina is also young and flexible, but her

efforts show us how challenging yoga poses can be.

Don't be discouraged if you join a yoga class and find it tough going.

No matter what your level of skills, you can benefit from yoga.

Remember, too, that yoga is not a competitive sport.

The point is to work as well as you can and strive to improve.

Yoga will serve you as an aid to health and as a path to tranquility, no matter

whether you are an expert or a complete beginner.

Okay

Shannon also taught Katrina one of the most popular yoga poses, the wheel.

After the wheel, they did the lotus, the world's most famous meditation pose.

And also that very difficult pose, the table.

Okay, down.

In the Czech Republic, where she went to make adventures in Freedom 2 and 3,

Shannon continued leading other people into yoga.

She showed Ronnie how to do the tree pose.

Even though it's the easiest of the standing postures, Ronnie found it

somewhat challenging.

Shannon also showed the tree to Harriet, who found it even more difficult.

Next, Shannon showed them the arrow pose.

Harriet turned out to be a natural on this one.

Notice that Ronnie does not have the cap of her bent leg straight up and down, as

it should be.

This makes the pose much less stable.

There that's better

Okay

Okay

down

Here's a seated posture called a cow, presumably because the feet on either

side look like the ears of a cow.

The trick here is to get your knees down, which can be difficult if your

legs are strong.

Ronnie

gets

those strong leg muscles from being a good athlete.

which makes her great at skipping rope.

Go.

But even a good athlete can profit from yoga, for the increased flexibility you

get from yoga can help avoid sprains, pulled muscles, and other injuries.

If I could, but I don't know.

I wanted to try it all at once.

From the standing poses we turn to the sitting and lying ones.

A good introductory pose, which is simple and yet challenging, is the

sleeping warrior.

And up.

Once again, it's good to counteract this stretch with an opposite stretch.

In this case, the pose of a child.

The sleeping warrior puts a lot of strain on your knees.

Katrina found she needed the support of a couple of pillows.

This is very common for people just starting out in yoga.

A pose which is somewhat similar to the sleeping warrior.

is the reclining lotus.

Another variety of the lotus, which is challenging to get into, is the toe

-holding lotus.

Got it.

Got that one.

Okay. Namaste.

Go ahead.

The sitting extension, or bum stand, is an especially difficult pose because it

requires a strong leg stretch as well as excellent balance.

Perfect.

That's the spirit.

You got it?

Yeah, that's good.

The relaxation effect of yoga comes partly from deep breathing.

If you listen carefully as Lydia does the wheel, you can hear the deep breaths

she takes.

Lydia is capable of doing some of the hardest yoga poses, such as this one,

the rooster.

The rooster leads to this remarkable stretch.

For a final demonstration of her remarkable ability at yoga, Lydia did a

perfect shoulder stand.

Then she lowered her legs to go into the plow, and after that, the inverted

lotus.

Daniel Relier, like Lydia, is an expert at yoga, and it's a pleasure to watch

the perfection which he gives to some of the most demanding postures.

Danielle's demonstration of yoga showed the two inverted postures, the headstand

and the shoulder stand.

Shannon had a go with the headstand.

The important thing to remember with the headstand is to support the weight of

your body with your arms and not with your neck.

You should also not attempt it alone, unless you're experienced, because of

the risk of toppling over.

The challenge with the shoulder stand is to keep your back straight up and down

as you move your legs through many different postures.

Bella, who starred with Shannon in the Adventures in Freedom videos, had a go

at the shoulder stand too.

Then Bella tried the lotus posture.

Efforts like this show us that yoga requires considerable practice.

For most of us, it's not as easy as Shannon and others make it look.

But then Bella tried the headstand and managed to achieve very good balance.

She did very well with the forward bend too.

Her arrow pose too was very well done.

Yoga has many levels and there are postures for beginners.

as well as other postures even experts find difficult.

Ronnie and Eva are flexible enough to do leg extensions with only minor

difficulties.

Ronnie in fact is capable of doing the splits

The wheel, however, gave her the giggles.

But she was able to do it okay with Eva.

The shoulder stand also gave Ronnie the giggles.

Once again, we asked Eva to show Ronnie the way.

Eva does the shoulder stand really well, keeping her back straight up and down.

try again okay

It must do it.

I decided it was time to finish off with a strenuous and earnest pose, the table.

Ronnie did this one very well.

For their session of yoga together, Cordelia and Melo went to the beach.

Since it was a beautiful day, they left their clothes in the car so they could

walk naked down the path.

The girls had agreed to try partner yoga, which is a special branch of yoga

in which the postures are done in pairs.

One of the things I like about a naked walk among trees like this is the way

the sun casts shadow patterns on the naked backs of the girls.

On the beach, Cordelia was happy to run into an old friend of hers, Simon, and

his dog, Lucha.

We were having such a pleasant time at the beach that we were a bit slow about

getting around to yoga.

The girls wanted to continue their fun and go exploring further.

I don't want to.

This tiny cove looked like a fun place to try partner yoga.

This first pose is called the portal.

And after doing that both ways, the girls tried the double warrior.

Well, maybe it was better to try it on the main beach.

But first the girls had to get there.

Mela decided the best thing to do was to walk back across the rock.

So eventually we arrived and started again on partner yoga.

The first pose was the double down-faced dog.

You may remember the single down-faced dog that Lydia did as part of her salute

to the sun.

After that, the girls did the down-faced dog backpack.

Next, the girls did the chair and the standing backpack.

Oh, God.

Well,

our beach idle was nearly over.

We decided to do a few reflection shots and head for home.

With the beauty of the beach and the pleasant sound of the waves, it was a

tranquil day that perfectly reflected the peace that comes with yoga.

Oh, yeah. What about the shot of Shannon on the cover of the DVD box?

Here she is, doing the cosmic dancer on the rocks and on the beach.

Okay, go to it.