Kegel Exercises for Women | Level 1
Laura: Welcome everyone. My name is Laura and I’ll be guiding you through Level 1 of the Femme Flexor Yoga series. You may need a block for practice today but if you don’t have one, that’s okay. We’ll start an easy seated position on the ground, either cross-legged or you can be kneeling as well. Once you settle into this position, maybe lowering the gaze and finding yourself with a tall spine.
The best way to do this is to imagine that there’s a little thread at the top of your head pulling you up. Take a moment to tune into your body observing any sensations you may be feeling and tuning into the breath. Altogether, we’ll exhale whatever we’re holding on to. We’ll take a deep breath through the nose and as you fill up imagine your chest is expanding laterally as well as vertically, creating space in your rib cage for that breath and then slowly release it through the nose.
While we’re breathing life there is this lateral diaphragmatic breath throughout the practice, and on the exhalations one would imagine that we’re kind of pulling that Femme Flexor up, strengthening the pelvic floor, imagining almost like that thread through the head is attached to the Femme Flexor and just kind of tightening everything up. On the inhalations is when we relax. Taking another deep breath in, relaxing, feeling all the way up, and then exhale, pull up. Inhaling, relax, and exhale, pull up. I also like to imagine that my navel is drawing in and up.
Let’s keep going through this being sure to relax on the inhalations and on the exhalations engaging the pelvic floor. As you feel like a very subtle sensation, we’re not clenching underneath anything, we’re not clenching our anus, we’re not clenching the vagina, it’s a subtle kind of pulling upward of the pelvic floor. It takes a little while to become attuned to that area of the body so don’t feel discouraged if you don’t feel anything right away. Then releasing that engagement, we’re going to inhale our arms up, and then on the exhalation, we’ll bring our right hand down, left arm over. This is to find a little bit more space in our rib cage.
Then on the exhales in this position, engaging the pelvic floor again. Inhaling to come back up to center, finding length through the spine as you do so, and then exhale over the other way; stay here for a few breaths. Engaging the pelvic floor drawing that femme flexor up. Slowly return to centre, bringing the arms down. Then we’ll get out of this cross-legged position and come to Dandasana; so, bringing the legs out long front and finding a tall seat right here. We’ll bring our arms behind our head, elbows out. Take a deep inhalation and on the exhalations begin to twist slightly towards the right
Inhale, come back to the centre, exhale over to the left. Inhale back to centre, we’ll go through it a few more times. This is helping with our thoracic mobility, which is connected to the pelvic floor; it’s all connected. Then returning back to the centre, relaxing the arms down, and we’ll come to find ourselves in a supine position. Laying your back down on the ground, bringing your feet in towards you. Just so that your fingers can maybe graze your ankles, your heels then place my hands on the low belly. We’ll do just a few rounds of breath right here, engaging the pelvic floor, taking an inhalation, relaxing, and then exhale, draw it in.
We’ll take an inhale. On the next exhalation start to lift your pelvis up tilting it towards you. Then drawing up, inhale, relax the pelvis down. Exhale, tilting the pelvis, inhale, relax. Exhale, tilting the pelvis up, inhale, relaxing down. Exhale, engaging, curling the pelvis up. Inhale, dropping the pelvis down, relax. Continuing to go through this, exhaling up, engaging, inhaling down, relax.
Then dropping that for a moment, we’ll start to do some bridge rolls. Slowly start to exhale your pelvis all the way up and then take a breath at the top, exhale all the way down curling through the spine vertebra by vertebra. Inhaling at the bottom and then exhaling, lifting the hips up, rolling through the spine all the way to bridge. Inhale at the top, exhale, roll down. Inhale at the bottom, exhale, roll up. Inhale at the top and exhale, rolling down and then pausing at the bottom. From here you have an option you can stay like this on the ground or if you have a block with you, feel free to prop it underneath for a little bit of support. The block helps to align everything inside of us, it brings organs back in place; if you have prolapse it takes the pressure off of the pelvic floor.
We’ll just stay here breathing. If you don’t have a block, you can also just do your legs up like a waterfall. If you have a wall feel free to place your feet against the wall for a little bit of support, breathing through legs up the wall or with a block, taking an inhalation and relaxing, exhale, engage. Inhale, relax, exhale, engage. Inhale and exhale, drawing that femme flexor up. Inhale, be sure to relax everything on the inhalations and exhale. Feel free to do as many rounds of breath as you’d like making sure to relax on the inhalation and to engage on the exhalation. Make sure that you’re breathing laterally as well as vertically, creating more space in your rib cage will help take any pressure off your low belly, filling up the air and pushing the pelvis down. Feel free to do any of these exercises as long as you’d like to. Thank you so much for joining me for Level 1 of the Femme Flexor Yoga series. I hope to see you in Level 2.
