Rodney Yee - Meditation & Yoga

"Meditation is a time-honored practice that reduces stress and revitalizes the body, mind, and spirit," explains Rodney Yee, instructor for Yoga Journal's Yoga Practice for Meditation.

"Meditation is awareness of posture, ease of breath, and attentiveness of the mind." In this beautiful video,

Yee quietly and expertly leads you through five yoga practices that release bodily tension, improve posture, and open up breathing. The setting is grand and gorgeous Yosemite National Park, where Yee demonstrates poses in a meadow flanked by trees and cliffs, or at the edge of a lake or waterfall. The rewards of meditation are "living more calmly, more fully, with strength and grace," promises Yee.

The practice is divided into five segments: Mountain, a series that moves from pose to pose, used for making the transition from daily activities to a sitting meditation (12 minutes); Garden, gentle movements done in a chair that open the hips and stretch the back (10 minutes); Tree, four sitting poses, using props to modify the poses to your personal flexibility level (10 minutes); Wind, with the focus on the movement of breath, releasing tension, and relaxing deeply (10 minutes); Sky, a meditation focusing on posture and breath, and "inviting the mind into the present moment, time and time again" (8 minutes).