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Shadowing practice: Wind Down Yoga | 12-Minute Bedtime Yoga

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Line 1

Full transcript

  1. Hello everyone, welcome to Yoga with Adriene.0:10
  2. I'm Adriene and this is my trusty assistant, Benji.0:13
  3. And today we have an awesome 10 minute wind down yoga for you.0:16
  4. So come on down to the ground.0:20
  5. As soon as you're ready, start to breathe deep.0:22
  6. We're gonna start in all fours.0:25
  7. Thank you, Benji.0:28
  8. Just start to take a load off here with some Cat -Cow.0:30
  9. So whenever you're ready, starting to move with the breath, we'll drop the belly, open the chest, breathe in.0:34
  10. And then use your exhale to round through the spine, draw your chin into your chest and breathe out.0:43
  11. And just that simple move, again, we're gonna inhale, drop the belly, open the heart forward as...0:50
  12. You press away from the earth with your hands and then exhale.0:56
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  1. Continue to claw through the fingertips as you draw the navel up, chin to chest, rounding through the spine.1:01
  2. And go ahead and do one more on your own.1:09
  3. And then I'll meet you in a nice tabletop position, neck nice and long, nice neutral spine.1:20
  4. From here, let's together bump the hips to the left.1:28
  5. Take your gaze to look past your right shoulder.1:31
  6. Then come back through center, bump the hips to the right.1:35
  7. Take your gaze past your left shoulder.1:38
  8. Then come back to center.1:43
  9. You're gonna draw little circles with the tailbone.1:45
  10. Forward, around and back.1:49
  11. Go one way.1:53
  12. And then reverse the circle and move in the other direction.1:55
  13. Just nice, soft, easy movement.1:59
  14. Excellent.2:05
  15. Then from here, we're gonna bring the big toes to touch, bring the knees just a bit wider.2:06
  16. And we're gonna inhale to drop the belly, open the chest.2:10
  17. Exhale, round through here.2:14
  18. Chin to chest.2:16
  19. Inhale, drop the belly, open your heart.2:18
  20. Exhale, letting go of the day thus far.2:21
  21. Letting go of any stress and tension as you round through the spine.2:24
  22. Then do one more on your own.2:28
  23. Beautiful, and then send the hips all the way back.2:35
  24. Melt your heart to the earth.2:38
  25. To Child's Pose, Extended Child's Pose.2:40
  26. Take a moment here to close your eyes and listen to the sound of your breath.2:44
  27. Give the thinking mind a break as you begin to slowly invite the body to relax, the mind to relax.2:49
  28. And winding it down for the day or decompressing after any activity.3:01
  29. Or let's face it, sometimes we experience heavy stress load.3:12
  30. So it's all good, we're tending to adhere.3:19
  31. Take one more breath.3:22
  32. And then slowly begin to come back to all fours.3:26
  33. Then you're gonna from here across one, it go over the other and use your hands to guide you here as you come all the way through to a seat.3:30
  34. Benji's feeling relaxed as well.3:39
  35. And from your cross -legged seat, bring your hands together at your heart.3:43
  36. And lift the sternum up to your thumbs here.3:47
  37. Take a deep breath in.3:54
  38. And as you exhale, relax the shoulders down, away from the ears and close your eyes.3:57
  39. Find a moment of stillness here.4:02
  40. A moment of calm.4:05
  41. A peaceful moment of conscious breath.4:09
  42. Excellent, and then slowly we'll bat the eyelashes open and come all the way to our backs.4:23
  43. So nice and slow, the rest of this practice is floorwork.4:30
  44. So as you start to come down to the ground, just notice what it feels like to take this time for yourself.4:34
  45. A little goes a long way.4:41
  46. And just think the next five minutes you get to spend feeling the support of the earth on your back.4:43
  47. If you can, extend your legs out long.4:51
  48. Excuse me, Benji.4:55
  49. Sorry, bud.4:57
  50. And when you're ready, take the arms up and overhead for a nice full body stretch.4:59
  51. Use this as an opportunity to check in.5:04
  52. Where are you at?5:08
  53. How are you feeling?5:09
  54. Start to open up through the shoulders here.5:11
  55. You can wiggle the fingertips.5:14
  56. Take one more total body stretch as you breathe in.5:16
  57. And then as you breathe out, we'll slowly bring the fingertips down.5:22
  58. And nice and easy, you're gonna hug just the right knee in towards your chest.5:26
  59. Wrap your arms around your right shin and really squeeze that right knee up towards your heart space.5:30
  60. Start to slowly activate through the left leg just to create a little stability.5:37
  61. And then when you're ready, inhale in and exhale, gently peel the nose up toward the knee.5:44
  62. Keep the skin of the face soft, best you can.5:50
  63. Shoulders relaxed.5:53
  64. Take one more breath in here.5:55
  65. And then on an exhale, gently lay your head, your neck, your shoulders back down on the earth.5:57
  66. Then we'll take the right knee and guide it all the way across the body coming into a twist.6:04
  67. So right knee moves towards the left side of your mat.6:10
  68. And you can open up through your right arm, your right wing, and send your gaze past your right fingertips as you breathe deep here, listening to your heart's song6:12
  69. or the sound of your breath.6:25
  70. Notice where you might be clinching or holding softened through the skin of your forehead.6:38
  71. Try to relax your jaw.6:45
  72. And then when you're ready, gently guide it back to center.6:52
  73. And we'll send the right leg out and peel the left leg all the way up.6:56
  74. Wrap your arms or your hands around your left shin.7:04
  75. Squeeze the left knee up towards your face.7:07
  76. And when you're ready, inhale in, exhale, peel the nose up towards the left knee.7:11
  77. Feel that compression in the belly, massaging the internal organs, keeping the shoulders relaxed.7:16
  78. And then slowly release.7:26
  79. When you're ready, take the left knee across the body.7:30
  80. Su -pine twist.7:34
  81. So open up through your left arm.7:37
  82. Notice how this side is different.7:39
  83. And just take a second here to close your eyes, go inward.7:41
  84. And once again, really breathe deep and listen to the sound of your breath.7:45
  85. In order to kind of anchor any busy thoughts or monkey mind.7:49
  86. Really listen to nice, audible breath.7:55
  87. I love the image here.8:13
  88. And most twists, especially in a nice Su -pine twist of two beautiful hands ringing out a dirty rag or a sponge and just all of that excess water and8:15
  89. the things you don't need, the dirt, the grime, rinsing out and away.8:29
  90. Take one more breath here.8:40
  91. Feel that rinse in spine.8:42
  92. And then slowly guide it back to center.8:47
  93. With the left knee hugging in towards your heart, go ahead and allow the right knee to come up and meet it.8:55
  94. You're gonna take a second here to just give yourself a big hug and really feel that embrace.9:00
  95. So close your eyes and notice what it feels like.9:06
  96. And your hug doesn't have to look like mine.9:09
  97. We're here to really learn how to, or relearn, I should say how to love and honor our bodies just the way they are.9:11
  98. So you can modify, you can make do.9:19
  99. You just wanna take a moment that feels like you're really present with yourself.9:22
  100. Whatever that means to you.9:29
  101. Great, and then take a nice gentle inhale in.9:40
  102. Reaching the fingertips now towards the outer edges of the feet or the inner arches, Yogi's Choice.9:44
  103. We're gonna take a version of Happy Baby by kicking the soles of the feet up towards the sky.9:50
  104. And if this is not available to you, you can work one leg at a time holding onto your shin or pant leg.9:56
  105. So hands on the inner arches or on the outer edges of the feet.10:04
  106. We're gonna kick the legs up to the sky.10:08
  107. We're gonna ground the shoulders down to the earth and take the deepest breath you've taken all day.10:09
  108. Beautiful, then slowly release.10:20
  109. From here, hands will come to the rib cage.10:23
  110. We're gonna windshield wiper the legs left to right, back and forth.10:25
  111. Nice and easy breezy.10:30
  112. Until the legs eventually lay all the way out.10:33
  113. We come into Shavasana.10:36
  114. I'm gonna move mine so Benji can stay.10:40
  115. Just let your limbs relax here.10:44
  116. Close your eyes.10:46
  117. Take one final buoyant, beautiful inhale in through your nose.10:51
  118. And this time as you exhale, allow the weight of your body to relax completely and fully into the earth.10:59
  119. Thanks for sharing your time and your practice with me and all of the beautiful people around the world.11:17
  120. Practicing together, taking care of our mind, of our body and of our spirit too.11:24
  121. I'll see you next time.11:34
  122. Take good care.11:36
  123. Namaste.11:39

American Accent Training with a Calm Bedtime Yoga Narration

This clip is a solo narration. Adriene walks you through a wind down yoga sequence in a clear American accent, no dialogue, no second speaker, just one steady voice giving instructions to Benji and to you. It is rated A2, so the vocabulary stays simple even while the poses get specific. At 182 words per minute it moves faster than most of the catalogue, faster than 46 percent of it, so keeping up is itself part of what you train when you shadow this line.

The subject helps too. Yoga cues repeat on purpose: drop the belly, open the chest, breathe in, breathe out. Across 135 lines you hear the same short instructions phrased slightly differently, which gives you several chances at the same sounds instead of one. That makes this a workable start for american accent training even at a beginner level, since the meaning rarely depends on a word you have not already heard.

The Language in Adriene's Cues: Reductions and Soft Instructions

This is where english speaking practice on this clip pays off: noticing the small joins, not just the vocabulary. The grammar stays loose even though the level is A2.

  • "We're gonna start in all fours." The gonna is said fast, folded into one beat rather than two words instead of spelled out slowly. Say it as a single sound, that is how to pronounce english words the way she actually says them here.
  • "Just start to take a load off here with some Cat -Cow." The colloquial "take a load off" sits mid instruction, then there is a small pause before the pose name, audible as a breath rather than a comma. Copy the pause, not just the words.
  • "Give the thinking mind a break as you begin to slowly invite the body to relax, the mind to relax." One long breath with "relax" landing twice, first rising, then dropping at the end of the line. This is a good line for testing whether you can stay fluent across a full sentence without running out of air.

How to Work Through This 12 Minute Wind Down Yoga Clip

Work in the order the lines already give you, they build from movement cues into stillness.

  • Start at line 6, "We're gonna start in all fours." Repeat it five times before moving on, aim to get the gonna contraction landing as one sound each time.
  • Move to line 8, the Cat -Cow line, and match the pause where the odd gap sits. That gap is a real breath she takes, not a scripting error, so leave it in when you repeat it.
  • Skip ahead to line 38, "Take a moment here to close your eyes and listen to the sound of your breath," and slow your own delivery to match hers. This is where her pace drops well under the clip's 182 word per minute average.
  • Finish on line 39, the long relax line. Score it twice, once reading along, once from memory with your eyes closed, since that is closer to how the line is meant to be heard.
  • This clip works well for daily english conversation practice too, even though nobody replies to Adriene, because the instructions are the kind of everyday english you would use giving someone directions.
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