All-Level Strong Flow Yoga Class Prepping King Pigeon

A woman lies on her back on a yoga mat, two blocks stacked under her head and behind her heart, while a small child moves somewhere just outside the frame. The teacher, Mathieu Boldron, speaks softly into the camera and tells the room that the next hour and a half is not about perfect shapes but about letting something move. That opening is the first thing to understand about his 89-minute class, titled "Strong flow all level" and posted to his channel on March 20, 2020. It is a dynamic sequence meant to warm and open the major joints, build strength and mobility through the hips, shoulders and spine, and prepare the body for the peak pose Eka Pada Rajakapotasana, or one-legged king pigeon. What makes it worth studying is less the sequence itself than the logic underneath it: breath as the organizing principle, variation built into every shape, and a stated intention to release what he calls stuck energy and anxiety.

What does a class like this look like from the mat?

Boldron opens by describing his setup, and the setup is the first lesson. He recommends two yoga blocks, one under the shoulder blades or head and one behind the heart, but he is quick to say there is no single correct height. "Our spine, our skeleton is completely different from one person to another," he tells students, and he invites them to move the block until it feels right. If you have no blocks, a cushion behind the back will do. The feet can come together to square the hips, or the legs can stay long with the feet resting on the floor. That flexibility in setup is the thread that runs through the entire practice: the class is labeled all level, and the teacher treats modification as the default rather than the exception.

The early work is simple on paper. Arms reach overhead on an inhale, stretch toward the floor beside the ears on the exhale, and open out to the sides, returning to center again and again. Boldron frames these movements as creating length along the side body and external rotation through the arms, and he links the amount of space you can create to the amount of control you can bring back. "The more we can expand, the more we can retract," he says in the opening stretch, which is a useful way to think about any flexibility work: range of motion is only usable if you can also return from it.

Why does surrender come before strength?

Around the four-minute mark, Boldron speaks about surrender in a way that reframes the physical work. "We surrender because we know the more open we are to receive, the more we can fill ourselves," he explains, adding that when a person is full enough, energy can flow in without restriction. Whether or not you take that language literally, it sets a clear tone. The class is designed so that effort and release alternate, and the instruction to let go of anything you do not need for this practice comes early and returns often.

This is the "balance between effort and ease" promised in the video's description, and it is worth noticing how deliberately it is built. Breath awareness comes first: a big inhale into the belly, the ribs and the chest, then a complete exhale. Students are asked to observe the movement of breath "like waves of energy" through the body before any strong work begins. Strength in this class is not presented as something separate from calm. It is something that arrives once the breath is steady.

What is the right-armpit, left-nostril idea he uses?

At about 7:29, Boldron explains why the class includes a sequence of turning onto one side and rising to a seated position. His reasoning is that pressing through the right armpit creates pressure on the axillary nerve, and that this in turn is linked to the left nostril opening. "When we press through the right armpit, we create a pressure on the axillary nerve, opening the left nostril," he says, describing left-nostril breathing as calming and stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system. He adds that this is why the class turns to the right side.

This is the kind of claim a careful reader should hold at arm's length. It is the teacher's own explanation, presented as part of his method, and it is not something this article can verify. What is useful is the practical habit it points to: pressure through one side of the body and attention to which nostril is open are things a student can notice, test and set aside if they do not help. Treat the explanation as one teacher's framing rather than settled physiology, and keep the movement itself, which is a simple side-lying transition, as the part you can judge by how it feels.

Why does the class zoom out to the solar system?

Around 8:45, the class does something unusual for a flow sequence. Students are asked to close their eyes, hear the sounds around them, and visualize the room, the building, the city, the country, the continents, the planet, and finally the solar system. "From this perspective our big problems look so small, so ridiculous," Boldron says before guiding the mind back down, one step at a time, to the mat. The move is less a pause than a reset. A practice that begins with anxiety in the world ends its inward phase by widening the frame, then returns the student to the body with that perspective intact.

The context matters here. The video was published in March 2020, and Boldron opens by naming "lots of anxiety all over the world." Whatever a viewer brings to a class like this, the decision to start with that acknowledgment and to bring it back through visualization is a deliberate one. It gives the practice a psychological arc, not only a physical one.

What is kapalabhati doing in the middle of a flow?

At about 11:00, Boldron moves the class into breathwork. He describes kapalabhati as "a wonderful way to open up the lungs to clean up the breathing system," and asks students to keep the eyes closed and lower the hands to the knees. The breath is a series of rapid, forceful exhales, and the teacher cues students to hold the breath out for a moment after each set, observing the sensation before inhaling again. "You got rid of the carbon dioxide," he notes, "so you can actually stay a little longer." Shoulders, neck and face are to stay relaxed throughout.

Because kapalabhati is intense, the teacher is explicit about who should adapt it. He says that anyone with a stomach concern, anyone who is pregnant, or anyone with a heart condition should modify, using a gentler breath and simply staying still while observing the breath. That caution is a model for how to teach breathwork and a reminder to take it seriously.

How does the class end up at the hard pose?

The sequence leading toward one-legged king pigeon is built in steps rather than leaps. The fragments of the class that are visible in the transcript show repeated forward folds, downward-facing dog, the front knee bent with the back leg extended, and extended hip and thigh work with options to lower the back knee to the floor, shorten the stance, or use the thigh or calf for support. Boldron repeatedly offers the choice to "bend a little more" or to "stay here" rather than push deeper. The message is consistent with the opening: the peak pose is a destination reached by layers of preparation, and each layer has its own honest version.

The closing segment returns to the hands. Students bring the palms together at the heart in anjali mudra, rub them until heat builds, and describe that warmth as a fire of healing. Boldron connects this gesture to ahimsa, which he calls the first yama, the first branch of yoga, a kind of kindness. He asks students to touch whichever part of the body needs more attention, especially a past injury, and to promise themselves to stay in contact with that place for the rest of the practice. The class ends not on the hardest shape but on a relationship with the body.

Who should practice this class, and how?

The description suggests the class for intermediate practitioners and beyond, but the teacher's own cues are more inclusive. He says the class is all level, that blocks and cushions are welcome, and that adjustments are expected. For a reader considering the video, the most useful approach is to take the teacher's advice at face value: find the block height that suits your skeleton, move slowly into the hip work, and stop short of the full expression of the peak pose without guilt. The aim, in his words throughout, is to honor where you are today.

Where to go from here

Watch the class with a notebook. Pause at the early setup and note the block placement that feels most supportive for your own spine. Practice the expand-and-retract movement of the arms and notice where you feel length and where you feel strain. If you try the kapalabhati section, begin gently and stop if you have any of the conditions the teacher names. Treat the solar-system visualization as a way to end the inward work with perspective, and return to your own mat slowly. The full class runs nearly ninety minutes, so it is worth returning to in pieces rather than rushing through in one sitting. Bring the same question the teacher keeps asking: what can you let go of today, and what can you receive?