Shifting Face Yoga Exercise

Video Transcript

"Welcome to the segment of facial Yoga called the shifting face. What we're first going to do is just rubbed the fingers together. I'm borrowing this part of the exercise from theater training. We're thinking that the face is many times called the mask. As we rub the hands together we then put them on top of each other and as we move in the direction up and down we're going to change all of the muscles in the face. So take it nice and slow and easy. We first think of just taking a nice breath, relaxing the face completely. As best as possible, nothing going on, there's no expression. And then we're going to change the expression to a downward face. So gently we feel that the eyebrows start to draw down. The face, the eyes look down, the jaw, the cheeks, the lips, everything looking downward. See if you can draw all of the energy down. If someone walks by to see you they might laugh at you but that's alright. Stay with this feeling of really drawing the energy down. And then, hold it for as long as you're comfortable. Release slowly the chin, the face, the lips, the jaw, the cheekbone and then again you're returning to neutral. Next we're going to take the hands from the right. We're going to slide the face to the left. Again it looks like you're just making funny faces. However, you can deepen this by recognizing what we're really seeing in ourselves is our own naturalness. We're exploring just like we do in the body; how does the face stretch? And we're just simply going to take the lines of energy all the way to the side. So its as if there is a fast wind or something drawing all the energy including the eyes to the side. Really holding all of the energy in the lower jaw. That looks most strange, the forehead even and then gently come back to neutral..relax. Probably the most awareness happens when you let go."