Full Moon Ladder Vinyasa: A 40-Minute Flow for Letting Go

Cat Meffan's 40-minute full moon ladder vinyasa is a class built around one word that yoga students say constantly and rarely practice: letting go. Rather than naming a specific full moon or handing students a checklist of things to release, Meffan asks them to notice what is already bubbling beneath the surface and to treat release as slow, repeated work. The physical structure is a ladder, a sequence assembled one rung at a time, moving from grounding and forward folds into a run of vinyasa transitions, a series of side planks and lunges, and finally a long cooldown. The result is a flow that asks for strength and fluidity at the same time, which is precisely the balance Meffan frames as the work of this phase of the moon.

What does a full moon practice actually ask of you?

Most full moon classes announce their theme and move on. Meffan does something more modest and more honest. She tells students at the start that the class "isn't going to talk about a particular full moon because I want you to be able to come back to it time and time again" (about 0:03 into the video). She is not dismissing astrological specifics. She suggests that if you feel drawn to the particular moon you are under, you look at it before practice and bring a more focused intention to the mat. But the general energy she points to is the one that carries across months: "this idea around release and letting go."

That framing matters for how the class feels. There is no dramatic clearing ritual, no chanting a list of grievances into the air. Instead, Meffan invites students to arrive in "this feeling of release" with eyes closed and breath softened, and to let whatever is present "kind of a hold" without letting it define the hour. She also gives permission for the opposite: if nothing is clearly surfacing, the practice can still begin with a quieter recognition that something in your life "maybe isn't serving us."

Why does Cat Meffan say "I let go" is harder than it sounds?

This is the emotional spine of the whole class, and it is the most useful thing Meffan says. Around the 2:30 mark she makes an observation that many yoga teachers avoid: "in yoga we throw around this phrase of I let go, I let go. But that's a lot easier said than done."

She then reframes the goal. Maybe, she suggests, today is not the day you declare release, but the day you "recognize and become aware of the need to work towards letting go." The release, in her telling, happens across "the coming days, weeks, months." Her line that "things in life don't automatically just get let go because a full moon came around" is a useful corrective for anyone who has walked out of a moon-themed class feeling lighter for an hour and heavier by Thursday.

Her image for the moon is equally practical. The moon, she says, is "here to just remind us. Remind us of the phase, remind us of the energy that we're in." The moon is not doing the letting go on your behalf. It is a mirror and a timekeeper. The practice asks you to look up at her "in her fullness, in her brightness," and let her be "a little bit of a guide and a lot of a reminder."

How does the sankalpa open the class?

Before any movement begins, Meffan brings the hands to the heart and pauses for a breath to ground into an intention, which she names as your sankalpa (about 5:38). She asks two questions: "What is it that you can offer this practice today? What can you bring into this full moon energy?" The word sankalpa comes from Sanskrit and is commonly used in yoga for a heartfelt resolve. Meffan keeps it simple. The intention is not a goal to achieve by the end of the sequence. It is a stance you take into the work.

From there the class begins with a sweep of arms and a series of lateral reaches, first to the left, then to the right, each paired with an inhale to reach and an exhale to bring the elbow into a cactus shape. The eyes stay closed. The body warms before the first shape arrives, and the rhythm of breath and movement sets the tone for everything that follows.

What is a ladder vinyasa, and how does this one build?

The word "ladder" tells you the structure. Meffan says directly, "We're going to start to build our ladder sequence now," and that is what happens. Each rung adds one new element to what came before, so students never jump straight to the hardest shape. The class moves through standing folds, then a step back into Chaturanga or the knees-down variation, then upward-facing dog or cobra, then downward-facing dog. From downward dog the sequence climbs to a lifted leg, a bent top knee, and a plank with the right knee drawn toward the nose. Each rung holds the one below it.

The sequence also alternates sides deliberately. Once the right side is established, Meffan pivots into a left side Vashishtasana, a side plank in which the lower foot and the top foot stack, and she is specific about the knee: "we're not opening up to tree pose, the knee is pointing forwards." That kind of precision matters in a ladder flow. The shape only holds if the alignment underneath it is right, and the instruction gives the hip and knee a clear job.

From side plank the class steps the foot to the outside of the hand and enters a high lunge. Here Meffan suggests Kali mudra if the hands feel good, then asks students to inhale into length through the hip and "pull the fingertips up towards the sky" as the lunge deepens. The back knee lowers into Anjaneyasana, and the whole sequence repeats on the left side, with the same breath-led transitions.

Why is cat cow an intuitive question, not a template?

Between the opening and the first full ladder, Meffan takes a few minutes on all fours to check in with the body. She says the body might do cat cow, "but maybe it's deeper, bigger, more wiggly than that." Then she adds: "There's no right or wrong. It doesn't even need to look like a cat cow. Just taking a few breaths to ask the body what is it that I need today?" (about 6:47).

That invitation is quietly significant for a class about release. Letting go in the body usually starts with noticing tension that has been held without intention. Mobilising the spine on all fours, tucking the toes under, pedalling the feet and shaking out the head is a way of asking the body what it needs before the sequence asks it to do anything. The practice becomes less about copying a shape and more about listening.

How do the lunges and side planks carry the theme?

The middle of the class is the strongest stretch. In the back half Meffan moves between wide-legged Skandasana, half moon Ardha Chandrasana (she suggests a block nearby), side planks, and high lunges, all tied together with the breath. The cues are often about control rather than depth. She asks for a "lowering down through Chaturanga" and for students to hold for counts of five, four, three, two, one. At one point she advises students not to rush: "Don't rush it. Still..." The instruction is to stay present, not to race the sequence.

This is where the flow shows its double nature. Strength is required to hold the planks and lunges. Fluidity is required to move in and out of them without losing the breath. Meffan's phrase for the full moon's energy captures both, and the class is designed so the physical challenge becomes a way of practicing the emotional one. Holding a side plank for several breaths is not so different from holding a feeling you are still trying to let go.

What does the cooldown teach about restoration?

The last third of the class winds down through folds and standing work, and the closing section, around 35 minutes in, is devoted to restoration. Meffan asks students to "notice how each part of the body is," and the tone shifts from effort to attention. Near the end she invites students to cocoon and envelop themselves in stillness (about 38:18), a phrase that carries the seasonal imagery of the moon into the body's rest.

The cooldown is worth taking seriously. A release-themed practice that ends abruptly leaves its theme hanging. Meffan's slower ending lets the work settle, which is in keeping with her point that release is not completed in a single hour. It is begun, noticed, and returned to.

Where to go from here

If you want to try this class, begin with the framing Meffan offers. Choose a single intention in your sankalpa, not a list of everything you want to release. Give the cat cow section the time it asks for, and do not feel bound to its exact shape. When the ladder begins, climb one rung at a time, and let the side planks and lunges show you where your release is actually held. Notice the moon, as she suggests, as a reminder rather than a deadline.

The full video is a useful companion to this reading because the timing and the cues are exactly what text cannot capture. Meffan teaches on her own channel, where she has more than 400 classes available for all levels, and she describes her membership app, the Soul Sanctuary, as offering over 1,000 classes with a 14-day free trial. Those details come from the video description and are hers to verify. What matters most is the practice itself: a ladder built slowly, a moon that reminds rather than demands, and a line that is easy to say and harder to live, which Meffan puts plainly in the class. Maybe today is the day you recognize the need to let go. The coming months are where the letting happens.