Shadowing Practice: Nervous System Reset | 10 minute yoga practice - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Hello my sweet friends, welcome to Yoga with Adriene.
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I'm Adriene, this is sweet Benji resting by my side.
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And welcome to your nervous system reset.
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This is a quick one, but we're gonna move slowly, steadily, mindfully.
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Let's begin in a comfortable seat.
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So you don't have to feel calm to benefit from this practice.
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Come as you are.
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Come into a chair or come on down to the ground.
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I'm seated up on a block.
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Find a comfortable position for you today and let's sit up nice and tall here, taking a deep breath in together.
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And exhaling a long breath out together.
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Inhale in together.
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And exhale out together just landing here in this moment in this room.
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So take a second now to open your eyes and just orient yourself to the space, the room that you're in,
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or maybe you're practicing this outdoors.
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Take in your physical space and then we'll bring our awareness back into this shared space,
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this shared attention by bringing the hands gently to the heart space.
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You can stack one palm on top of each other.
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Feel the warmth of your own touch here as you gently allow your heart center, your chest to rise up to meet your hands.
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So rather than your hands resting on your chest, think about your chest lifting up to kiss the hands.
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Lovely.
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Inhale slowly here.
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Exhale slowly here.
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Inhale slowly.
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Exhale nice and easy.
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Now the next time you inhale, we're gonna suck it in through pursed lips, as if you were breathing in through a straw.
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And then you'll exhale slowly, just as we did before, but with the pursed lips, as if you were going out through a straw.
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That's it, you got it.
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Give it a shot.
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Inhaling.
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Exhaling, moving the rhythm pace of your breath.
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Trying to keep the heart center, lifting gently up to the hands, spine nice and tall.
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Beautiful.
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Release that, release the arms.
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Fingertips go down to come up.
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Breathe in.
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Sunshine arms here, reaching the arms up and overhead.
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Fingertips may kiss at the top.
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And then exhale, press the palms down with energy, slowly with the exhale.
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That's it, inhale.
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Gently rising up.
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Feeling that stretch through all four sides of the torso.
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And slow and steady exhale as you gently press the palms down with energy.
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One more time, just like that.
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Inhale, reach up.
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And exhale, slow and steady.
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Bring it down.
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Nice.
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From here, if you're seated on a block or a blanket, let's go ahead and remove that and come onto our backs.
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Yay!
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Take your time getting there.
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And the second you feel your back on the earth, take a second to just imagine the earth rising up to meet your back body,
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just like our heart lifted up to meet our hands.
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Feel, if you want to, you can close your eyes, feel as though the mat is rising up to meet your back body
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and begin to relax the weight of your body on the earth
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and bend one knee and then the other so
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that your feet are firmly planted on the ground now bring your hands to your low belly
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and on your next breath in see if you can send that breath,
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that inhale to your low belly where your hands are.
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You might even feel your hands move on the inhale and fall on the exhale.
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Nice.
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Now bring your hands to your rib cage.
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You might have to bend the elbows a little bit wide.
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Breathing in to the rib cage to where your hands are placed.
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Breathing out.
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And then moving the hands very gently up to the collarbone,
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chest, sending breath now to this area of the body,
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seeing if you can feel the breath moving in your body as you inhale and softening as you exhale.
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Now release your arms gently at your sides and let's close the eyes and try to breathe together into the belly,
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into the rib cage, into the chest, and then exhale.
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Again, just like that, inhaling into the belly,
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the rib cage, the chest. And then exhale.
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One more time, belly, rib cage, chest. And exhale.
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Nice.
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Hug the knees into the chest.
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Rock gently side to side, give your low back a nice massage.
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Then take the arms and we're gonna bend the elbows to cactus arms
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so the backs of the hands are on the earth
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or maybe they don't make it just yet
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and you wanna put some blankets or pillows underneath them or even interlace the fingertips behind the head could be nice here.
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Breathe in.
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As you exhale, slow twist to the right.
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It doesn't need to be a big twist, so you can draw your toes down towards the bottom edge of your mat to protect your low back breathe
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anchor to your core muscles to come back to center
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and then take it to the other side again knees
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and toes can drop down towards the bottom edge of the mat doesn't need to be very intense here breathe Breathe.
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Anchor through your quarter, bring it back to center.
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Windshield wiper, excuse me, the legs side to side.
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And then extend the legs long.
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We'll bring the fingertips to the collarbone here for some gentle tapping.
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So we're just tapping nice and slow and steady along the collarbone.
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We can go in and out, and in and out.
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Slow, steady breath.
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And then resting the hands somewhere on your body.
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Let it all go.
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Just taking a moment to observe, to take stock, Notice how you feel.
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Allowing the awareness of your breath to anchor you.
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Nice.
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Now we'll rock the whole body by moving the toes front to back, rocking on the heels.
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We'll bring the thumbs up to the third eye, palms together in prayer.
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Keep rocking for three, for two.
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Peek at me if you need to figure this one out.
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You got it, and one, release the rocking.
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We'll take a deep breath in, thumbs to third eye, and as we exhale, let's whisper, Namaste.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 104 sentences and 1025 words to shadow. The speech runs for 9:11. The speaker talks at a steady 112 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| breathe verb | /bɹiːð/ | To draw air into (inhale), and expel air from (exhale), the lungs in order to extract oxygen and excrete waste gases. |
| gently adverb | /ˈd͡ʒɛntli/ | Without strong force or quickness: softly, lightly. |
| cage noun | /keɪd͡ʒ/ | An enclosure made of spaced bars, normally to hold animals while providing some ventilation. |
| belly noun | /ˈbɛli/ | The abdomen (especially a fat one). |
| steady adjective | /ˈstɪdi/ | Firm in standing or position; not tottering or shaking; fixed; firm. |
| palm noun | /pɑm/ | The inner and somewhat concave part of the human hand or other primate hand that extends from the wrist to the bases of the fingers. |
| knee noun | /ni/ | In humans, the joint or the region of the joint in the middle part of the leg between the thigh and the shank. |
| bend verb | /bɛnd/ | To cause (something) to change its shape into a curve, by physical force, chemical action, or any other means. |
| toe noun | /təʊ/ | Each of the five digits on the end of the human foot. |
| anchor noun | /ˈæŋ.kəː/ | A tool used to moor a vessel to the bottom of a sea or river to resist movement. |
| awareness noun | /əˈwɛɹ.nəs/ | The state or level of consciousness where sense data can be confirmed by an observer. |
| twist verb | /twɪst/ | To turn the ends of something, usually thread, rope etc., in opposite directions, often using force. |
| lip noun | /lɪp/ | Either of the two fleshy protrusions around the opening of the mouth. |
| blanket noun | /ˈblæŋ.kɪt/ | A heavy, loosely woven fabric, usually large and woollen, used for warmth while sleeping or resting. |
| thumb noun | /ˈθʌm/ | The shortest and thickest digit of the hand that for humans has the most mobility and can be made to oppose (moved to touch) all of the other fingers. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| come up verb | To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly. | |
| drop down verb | To sail, move, or row down a coast, or down a river to the sea. | |
| go ahead verb | /ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/ | To proceed with; to begin. |
| go out verb | To leave, especially a building. | |
| sit up verb | To assume a sitting position from a position lying down. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 23 contractions and reduced forms, such as we'll, we're, gonna. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: breathe /bɹiːð/, thumb /ˈθʌm/, underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/, rhythm /ˈɹɪð.əm/, warmth /wɔɹmθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: sunshine /ˈsʌnʃaɪn/, massage /məˈsɑ(d)ʒ/, windshield /wɪnˈʃiːld/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like breathe, gently, cage.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Possibility with “might / may” might/may + verb — something that is possible but not certain | may kiss · might even feel · might have |
| Past continuous was/were + -ing — an action in progress at a moment in the past | were breathing · were going |
| Obligation: must / have to / need to saying that something is necessary | have to feel · have to bend · need to be |
| Present continuous am/is/are + -ing — something happening right now or around now | you're practicing · is rising · we're just tapping |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.