Most heart-opening yoga asks you to do one thing: lift the chest, open the front of the body, and let the breath reach the places that tend to close up over a day of sitting. Cindy Bartz's 27-minute practice, titled "Love Yourself, Love Your Body," does that work through a single repeated gesture rather than a parade of poses. You inhale and raise your arms, you exhale and send that energy down into the center of the chest, and you repeat it until the whole session has become a loop of breath and intention. The practice can be done seated in a chair or standing, it moves through cow and cat, twists, arm sweeps, forward folds, a wide stance, and a warrior-style reach, and it keeps returning to a short mantra about the heart. For a reader who has never rolled out a mat, it is a useful model of how a heart-focused class can be built without strain. For a reader who already practices, it is a clear example of how breath can carry a sequence.
The practice does not open on the floor or in a standing pose. It opens with the body settled: "let's sit comfortably in a chair," Bartz says at the start, asking the practitioner to come to the front of the seat, let the feet be firmly planted, and place the hands in the lap or palms down on the thighs, "whatever is comfortable for you" (0:26). That instruction sets a principle the rest of the class will keep: the posture is whatever your body can actually do that day.
Three slow breaths follow, a deep inhale through the nose and a release through an open mouth, before she asks the practitioner to stop controlling the breath and let it become natural. This is a common opening move in breath-led yoga, and it matters here because the whole session depends on the breath being steady enough to follow. She then introduces the mantra for the day, "my heart sings with new inspiration and enthusiasm," which the practitioner repeats three times (1:56). The words are spoken as an intention, not a belief to be defended. The class follows the breath as it moves into the lungs and then into the heart center.
Before any movement begins, she asks for one thing to be grateful for. "One thing that puts joy in your heart and a smile on your face," she says (2:57). It is a small, practical prompt, and it gives the session a reason to feel warm before the body is asked to do anything.
The core of the practice is a simple cycle. Standing with the feet pressed into the floor and the crown of the head lifted, you inhale and raise the arms overhead. As you exhale, you draw that energy down into the heart center and let the hands return to your sides. She describes gathering energy in the palms as the arms rise, then sending it into the chest on the way down, and asks the practitioner to visualize the energy in the mind's eye (3:53 onward). The cycle repeats several times, and each repetition is a small rehearsal of the same idea: move up, gather, come down, and place.
The repetition is what makes this sequence work as a heart-focused practice rather than a generic stretch. A movement done three or four times with breath and visualization begins to feel like a ritual, and the body learns the rhythm. For a student who finds long holds uncomfortable, this kind of short, repeated gesture can be a gentler entry point to the same chest-opening territory.
From the standing setup, the practice moves into the chest-opening work. Hands go behind the back, either interlaced or, if seated, holding onto the back of the chair. On an inhale, the chest lifts toward the ceiling and the shoulder blades draw together. She asks for a couple of deep breaths in that position, "the opening in your chest," before releasing (4:30 region of the class).
The sun salutations that follow are adapted for seated or standing practice. Inhale, raise the arms. Exhale, fold forward. Inhale into cow, exhale into cat, then return to a flat back. The rhythm is slow and each movement is tied to a breath. Cow and cat move the spine through gentle flexion and extension, and the cycle is repeated three times before the practitioner moves on.
Then come the twists. Interlacing the fingers and pressing the palms toward the ceiling, the arms extend, the body turns left, comes back through center, turns right, and comes back again. Each turn is anchored to the breath: the inhale brings you through center, the exhale carries you into the turn.
The middle of the practice is the most visual section, and it is built on arm movements she describes with images rather than anatomy. Palms come together so they face the body, "think of deer antlers here." The palms then slide outward, and the hands move "like windshield wipers" while the fingers open. The arms come out into a T shape with the shoulders kept away from the ears and the thumbs turned down toward the ground. From there, the arms move behind the body, the palms turn in, and the practitioner scoops the energy up and brings it back to the chest (8:00 to 9:30 in the video).
She repeats the sequence three times, each time using the same cues. The repetition is the teaching. Each pass refines the same shape: open the arms, open the chest behind, scoop, and return. For a reader thinking about posture, the shoulder cues are the ones worth noticing. The arms stay in a line that keeps the shoulders from crowding the neck.
"No struggling, no forcing. Think of opening the whole front side of your body." (Bartz, in the video, around 11:27)
That line matters more than it might seem. For a practitioner who is working toward flexibility or who has spent years in a body that resists, the instruction to avoid effort is the difference between a session that builds comfort and one that builds injury. The channel's description frames its work around baby boomers and "reversing osteoporosis," and the cues throughout this class read the same way: keep the spine aligned, work with the body that shows up, and let the breath set the pace.
The practice includes a forward fold that is handled with particular care. From the chest opening, the hands come to the thighs just above the knees, and the practitioner exhales into a forward fold. The head, neck, and shoulders are relaxed. On the inhale, the abdomen and lower back expand. On the exhale, the body releases and returns the head and neck into alignment with the spine before the inhale brings you up with a flat back.
A second fold, done with the hands at the lower back, comes with an instruction to stay within what is appropriate: "only come as far as what's appropriate for you" (12:49 region). This is the kind of permission a class built for mixed ages and abilities needs to give. A forward fold is a place where many practitioners push past comfort, and the cue removes the pressure to go deeper than the day allows.
After the folds, the practice returns to the breath with cleansing breaths. Hands go to the sides, the arms rise on an inhale, and the energy is drawn into the heart on the exhale. Then the arms rise with the palms facing each other, "as if you're hugging a pillar of light" (14:06). The image is the most sustained visualization in the class: the practitioner presses the palms outward and sends the energy into the universe, then draws it back in, moving through rounded arms out to the sides and up toward the heavens.
Standing with feet wide, the practice moves into a side-reaching warrior-style position. The arms form a T, the body leans into the bend, and the breath guides the reach. The class ends standing, grounded with both feet planted, and the final visualization is of light surrounding the body: peace all around, love flowing in, and the heart healing with each exhale (around 22:00 to 24:00 in the video). She ends where she started, returning to the mantra, "my heart sings with new inspiration and enthusiasm," and asking for one deep breath that carries that love out into the universe (25:49).
The sequence is built for flexibility and comfort rather than intensity. Its strongest feature is that every position has a seated alternative, every stretch is paired with a breath, and the cues repeatedly give permission to stop. The structure is also easy to repeat at home: the same breath-to-heart gesture recurs through the session, so a practitioner can learn the rhythm once and use it as a short daily practice. Those who want to go further can use the description's links to the channel's other material on qigong and bone health, but the heart-opening session stands on its own.
If you want to try this sequence, start seated. Keep the mantra simple, and use the gratitude prompt before you move. Do the arms-up, breath-to-heart cycle three times, and pay attention to where the chest feels open and where it feels stuck. Follow the cues on the forward fold and stop where the body says stop. If you want more structure, the full 27-minute video by Cindy Bartz is the source for this walkthrough, and the channel's description points to additional guides on flexibility, qigong, and bone health. The practice is short enough to fit into a morning or a lunch break, and it asks for only one thing at the start: a comfortable chair and the willingness to breathe.
