Grateful Warrior 2

Hi, welcome back. Thank you Megan for being here again and we also have the help of Saraswati, the goddess of wisdom and creativity and the arts, and Papa Shiffman, one of our primary teachers. We call him Papa Shiffman, you might know him as Eric Shiffman. So we're going to explore warrior 2 in this segment and also known as Virabhadrasana 2 and the question around the warrior poses is what's the purpose of a warrior posture and one of the main designs of the posture is to help increase our capacity and you know capacity to be in our, I guess one of the ways to put it is in right alignment, in cooperation with what we're being asked to do because sometimes you hear this phrase follow your heart and yet very rarely do you also hear how hard that is and very rarely do people talk about the heartbreak associated with following your heart and one of the ways to really increase our capacity is to actually practice gratitude because it's so easy to take for granted this amazing life and the practice of gratitude which is an emptying of self which is really a letting go of the continual illusion that it's up to you you know so often this temptation to feel overwhelmed with our busy lives this temptation to feel like it's too much you know that that comes from the direct illusion that we're doing it that we're engineering the whole thing and the practice of gratitude to all that's here for us frees up that smallness because while the cosmos can do many things she cannot demand love from us and we all like to be appreciated we all like to be acknowledged and so just this quality of thank you pleases her and allows you to do what you need to do so the way today's gonna work the way we'll approach warrior two is first in a moment Megan will show us what warrior two is so that we're all in similar somewhat as same page as you can ever be with another human being and then we'll look at some of the areas that will want to open you know mainly in the inner groins and the hips and then we'll move through a pretty simple sequence we'll come down supine we'll open up the hips and the hamstrings a little bit we'll sit in a gratitude meditation so we tune this and then we'll come up and we'll move through warrior two in a very simple flow and then most likely we'll make our way back towards the earth for a spinal twist and we'll probably finish in a meditation and I I say all that with some trepidation of telling you what the plan is because the main part reason to have a plan is so that you know when you're deviating and you know this is a spontaneous moment you know we're in a spontaneous moment like with you so we have no idea what's gonna happen that's what makes it fun in fact one of my teachers likes to say the mark of a genuine experience is surprise and how does Joseph Campbell put it something like nothing would be exciting if you knew what the outcome was going to be so we're in this together okay so why don't we do this let's come to standing and you can show our friends at home a basic version of warrior two and then we'll come back to see it yeah whichever foot I guess your front foot this way so Megan's gonna find her way into warrior two in the way that she feels most comfortable okay notice I just love how Megan you know wiggles she starts and then she refines it's just it's like how she does most things she gets the basic arc and then she wiggles into it ah it's so helpful when when you're working with a yogini as magnificent as Megan to show how it might look on somebody okay but you can see like a couple things one she's got this beautiful 90 degree angle here happening and she's deep down in her hip and this hip is being asked to really externally rotate okay well this hip is is also being asked to sign some sort of external rotation so she's got a strong stretch I'm gonna come between your legs is that okay okay she's got a strong stretch right in the insides of her legs while her heart is open and her arms are open and she today has chosen this beautiful Drishti over the middle finger okay so Virabhadrasana two warrior two beautiful come on out of there nice beautiful and now in whatever way pleases you I'm gonna ask you to find your way to the earth with your head this way and your feet this way okay so you to find your way to the earth now we're gonna use that was creative I like that we're gonna use a strap in this sequence mainly so that things are easier Megan's hand actually easily touches her foot and she doesn't necessarily need one but we're gonna show with one if you don't happen to have a strap at home a necktie works your your daughter's karate strap or a towel okay thanks again for being here so what we'll do is we'll start by getting a sense of the hip rotation so Megan would you bend your knees please hug your knees into your chest and wobble a little bit this just always feels good and we always forget to do this and then when you're ready you'll let your feet come down onto the earth with your knees bent and then let your right ankle come up on top of your left knee and just we'll start we often start with this little flex just to get a sense of how the hip rotation works so inhale here and as you exhale you're just going to bring this right knee towards your chest right hip and knee towards the chest internal rotation keeping this foot on the floor yep and as you exhale you're gonna let your right hip and knee move away from your chest nice about four more like that so as you inhale the right hip and knee comes towards you and as you exhale the right hip and knee moves away from you nice three more like that and what you're doing is as her hip and knee move towards her that's internal rotation and as your hip and knee moves away from you that's external rotation two more now those seem like fancy words but it's it's helpful to have a shared language okay one more internal rotation nice one more external rotation and for some of you at home this might feel deep enough if useful though what you'll do next is without your hands you'll let your left thigh draw in towards you uh-huh now this will increase the stretch in the back of the buttocks yes okay wobble a little bit so for some of you this might be enough now Megan can easily if she wants find her hands around the back of her thigh or on top of the unicorn horn or around the top of the shin okay if your hands don't quite reach there and and that could be for so many reasons do you mind I'm just gonna show some of you might choose to use a strap to help you you just you know sometimes a strap or a towel because sometimes the arms don't quite reach does that feel okay wobble a little bit nice gorgeous okay then release that let your left foot come back down to the floor now let your right leg come up to the sky and shake her out a little bit and now we'll just continue to get a little sense of the rotation of the hip so I'm gonna ask you to do is just inhale here keep this soft and bent and as you exhale you're gonna rotate your hip so your toes turn out to the side duck foot style yeah inhale internal rotation exhale external rotation inhale internal rotation okay and do that at least two or three more times like two or three more times just to kind of get a sense of how the the hip joint works in there does that make sense can you feel that because if I'm suggesting to externally rotate your hip while you're in the posture but you have no sense of what that is it's it's hard to make a connection yes nice okay nice next time you come into external rotation stay and just big deliberate inhale there and as you exhale exhale it'll happen rotate a little bit more beautiful do you really feel that external rotation what's happening you see if you notice that at home like okay nice relax that hug the knee into the chest it's a bit like flossing okay right foot comes back down on the floor pause just notice how it feels for you and then we'll take that on the other side so left ankle up on top of right thigh flex the foot a little bit nice and then inhale here and as you exhale roll the hip away from you and as you inhale rotate the hip in towards you nice and as you exhale rotate the hip away from you and as you inhale rotate the hip in towards you nice about three more and so what you're doing here is you're just you're getting a sense of action in the hip where it's still relatively easy where there's very little stress okay this is this is sort of these are the these are the idea of the bite size so to get an understanding the rotation of the hip here okay then it's easier to find it when things get more complicated it's kind of like when your mom used to make you practice manners at home okay now keep the hip rolling away and without your hands let that right thigh draw in towards your chest and this will increase the intensity in that left hip and so for some of you at home this might already be enough you might feel enough outside the that left hip wobble a little bit okay and I'll just tell you now there's no endpoint to this it's not like one day you've got enough yoga you know in the bank to just live off the rest of your interest it's just like it's just a continual process okay because it's just most likely no matter how long you've been practicing you'll always feel a little tight okay if you'd like Megan add your hands so some of you might choose to add your hands maybe it's around now at this time thank you she's showing around the shins over some of you this might feel better now it increases the intensity but the key is soft in the shoulders soft in the ears soft in the mouth and the eyes beautiful let the right foot come back down to the floor now left leg up to the sky shake her out a little bit and then bend the knee a little bit inhale here and then exhale external rotation yes and then inhale internal rotation and so what you're doing there is the temptation continue the temptation is to move from your knee or your ankle because these are the baby joints okay but the play is can you really feel it like in the deep in the hip yeah nice does that make sense so you're just trying to feel like what's involved okay there's a quote and and it's something like what we desire to do with grace and ease we must first learn to do with diligence okay next time you come into external rotation stay in external rotation big deliberate inhale exhale let a happen rotate a little bit more beautiful okay then relax that let the knee come into your chest and wobble so now we've gotten a little bit of sense of how the rotation and the hips works what we're gonna do now though is we're gonna add the action of the hamstrings into that and and the reason for that is particularly is as we saw when Megan was showing us the posture to be able to get that the opening with the rotation so what I'm gonna ask you to do now is let that right knee come into your chest and even though I know that the strap doesn't necessarily help you too much because for most of us we need it most of you are gonna find your strap and you're gonna wrap your strap around your foot okay and then the request is please extend your leg up towards your sky your personal sky let the leg go straight ish okay Megan's doing it so nice and slow and then would you like a little more line on that strap if you just like if you slide it this way you can have your shoulders can relax a little bit more you do want to make sure when you hold the strap that your shoulders are soft okay now if you will remember from our earlier sequence soften this hip pocket remember how to do that soften the outside of that and then the play here now is to kind of floss the hip a little bit so the request is for Megan to inhale here and as you exhale externally rotate the hip so your toes turn out Charlie Chaplin style duckfoot style so yes and as you inhale internally rotate the hip so now your hamstrings involve are involved can you feel the difference okay so what you're looking for continue what you're playing with is you're just using your your hip joint to create the rotation now Megan's cheating a little bit she's using her foot see you okay so you keep your foot still and you really try to do it from your hip does that make sense the difference it's a lot harder yeah it's much harder to move the things that are deeper denser hidden than the things that are surface yeah okay so experiment with that at home you keep these quiet and you really are working deep in the joints nice okay now come into the center pause and just wobble that leg a little closer towards you and most of you at home it'll feel better to keep this left knee bent because it's gentler on the back but for Megan it would probably feel okay to let that left leg draw straight this one flexing that foot yes that feel okay now the next request is please hold the strap in just your right hand you'll place your left hand down on your left hip and you'll let this right leg open out to the side and as you let that right leg open out to the side can you see how now your legs are starting to move in towards what's necessary for the warrior too and you can see how Megan's hip is wanting to come up off the earth a little bit of course it is because she's attached okay so sometimes okay there's an emphasis of playing with rooting this hip down not because there's something mystical and magical with that but if she plays yeah with rooting this hip down you'll get more of that same opening now you may or may not have a yoga buddy at home but if you have a yoga buddy at home he or she can press okay now I'm finding her her hip joint is that okay if you don't have a yoga buddy then that's what sandbags are for I guess lengthen or pets although they rarely stay there long enough let happen and now the last piece of this and this is spice are you okay is to floss in the hip here so inhale and as you exhale rotate that hip so your toes point more towards the earth yes and as you inhale you'll rotate the hip so as if your heel was gonna touch first so exhale rotate uh-huh inhale rotate now you see how Megan might you maybe you can see if she wants to use your foot the request is really use your hip yeah can you feel that now one of those directions is gonna feel really weird and one's gonna feel more natural yeah for the last few moments pick the weird one stay soften relax your face okay then as you're ready inhale bring that leg all the way back up to the center makes me done beautiful and for the last part this usually feels good walk your hands up the strap curl your forehead up towards the shim create a little abdominal so pretty little stick your tongue out now let that stay extended as your head comes back down to the earth and you'll gently remove your strap because I'm here I'm gonna help her and then shake the leg out a little bit maybe some ankle circles if it would feel good and then flex the foot and eventually let the leg lower all the way back down to the earth beautiful and pause and and when you finish this like really notice right like notice the results because if it was about accomplishment of the posture okay if that was the point then there'd be nowhere to go the play is how the technique can allow us to feel more of ourselves so just let your mind and awareness focus on the results for a few moments like don't no need to rush this yeah beautiful okay okay this is only one more side let the knees best soles of the feet on the floor left leg is gonna come up to the sky shake it out a little bit and she's gonna bend that knee into her chest and like we did before she's gonna wrap her strap around the ball of the foot now I like the ball of the foot for the strap you might have a different spot you might prefer the arch or somewhere else okay and then she's gonna extend that leg up towards the sky now notice how slowly and gently and carefully Megan extends her leg up towards the sky like she waits for it and and you can't see this but her eyes gently roll into the back of her head and she wobbles a little bit okay and and she's choosing to hold the strap like this I'm just gonna show the way I like to hold it will you extend your hands towards the strap and then let enough line out so your shoulders relaxed does that make sense so it's just a little softer it's like a nice and then once she finds a sense of where it feels good straight remember how to relax the outside of that hip remember how to soften in the inner hip pocket we explored that a little bit in the last episode and then from here now that her hamstrings are involved she's gonna floss a little bit so inhale here and as you exhale externally rotate the hip Megan so your toes turn out duckfoot nice inhale internally rotate so the toes turn in pretty about four more so she's rotating out now the coordination of breath all we're doing when you intern inhale and internally rotate all you're doing is you're you're coordinating with what is already happening what I mean by that is every time you inhale your hip actually internally rotates every time you excel she externally rotates nice so pretty has that been four more think so yeah okay so pause in the center and then pause and just wobble the leg a little closer in towards you softer and again some of you might choose to keep this knee bent but some of you will let this leg draw straight flexing that x right leg right foot excuse me extending okay from here now I'm gonna need to get out of Megan's way the request is hold the strap I think this will be a better out of your way hold the strap in your left hand and you'll let that leg open out to the left and so again watch like just like like and at home like feel like feel how your right hip wants to follow and and it's okay you let it follow a little bit because that also informs when we stand up in warrior too if it's not so easy to get the legs wide like it's we're in a very similar position here okay now because I'm her buddy and her friend I'm gonna offer my support I'm gonna find my hand is that okay right on there and and you just if you're if you're doing this for someone else you just kind of lean and it can actually support is that all right it can actually support quite a lot of weight and then once you've established and if you don't have a buddy sandbag bag of potatoes giant bag of rice from like the Chinese warehouse okay inhale here exhale externally rotate so you're rotating your hip so your toes point more towards the earth you know internally rotate so now she's just playing with rotating now she keeps wanting to use her cute little foot then you might be doing that too and you feel your hip do the work oh yes yes make sense okay come into this spot that's weird there's one spot that feels really weird stay in the weird spot and soften across the collarbones yeah nice turn this right palm up to relax you a little more yes did that help okay okey-dokey let an inhale bring that leg all the way back up nice work and then when you're ready walk your hands up the strap curl your forehead up the strap navel back to the spine let a little happen gorgeous I'm gonna strap in the face okay let the head come back down to the earth remove your strap I'm gonna remove it from Megan twirl your ankle a little bit shake her out and then when you're ready you flex that foot you let the leg come all the way back down to the earth beautiful so slow so nice pause pause here and really just let yourself like soak yeah when we rush this we are not increasing our capacity like one of the things we're increasing our capacity for is actually feeling the magnificence of all and and we continually get in our own way by thinking there's some destination like the continual hope for some magical thing in the future keeps us from noticing how magical it is right now okay okay hug your knees into your chest wobble a little bit and what we'll do next is eventually we'll rock and roll and we'll take a seat for a few moments and and just tune into the quality of gratitude nice okay we'll turn to face our friends at home okay now we're just gonna choose what's comfortable for us so what's comfortable for me is is heels in line with each other something similar is comfortable for Megan she's actually got a more advanced shape going on if you'd like to have a blanket underneath you or a brick underneath you at home then put that there and so we'll just tune to gratitude and this is something to know like gratitude already is okay so big deliberate inhale exhale everything let it happen and soften in the low belly it's often in the low belly okay now let just enough rooting happen through the sit bones that you feel the natural generosity of your heart like let your heart just naturally bloom yeah and and if if when you did that it hardened in the lower or mid back which is totally natural you just maintain the quality of brightness as you let a little happen and you soften the low back and now tune into the placement of your skull like tune into the placement where she feels expansive yeah shoulders are soft palms are like tune into the quality of your palms so if they're down that's fine but sometimes it's easier to feel your palms when they're up just like you'll know you've found the right alignment when there's it feels cooperative as if you are both willing to be held and held and now just gently tuning into the region of your heart and and when I say the heart you might interpret that as the physical heart you might interpret that more of the what where the spiritual or the energetic heart is said to sit more at the center of the breastbone or some of you might even have more of a relationship just below that just below the diaphragm where we're what our Taoist friends call the true heart sits and we usually tune into the front of the heart so it takes a little bit of effort to tune more towards the center like you are a three-dimensional being okay and then sometimes sometimes you can just open to gratitude sometimes there's just a sense of like sometimes the quality of gratitude's just right there just by softening the resistance and sometimes it helps to tune towards somebody or something or somewhere for whom or that or which you have gratitude okay so maybe it's a person maybe it's a pet maybe it's a place maybe it's an event or maybe the gratitude just is and then for the last few moments it's just tuned to the physiological feeling like how it feels in your heart and your collarbones and your hands and your face because while while the placement of the feet do matter they matter immensely the placement of the heart the alignment of the heart matters much more okay beautiful big deliberate inhale exhale everything you eventually let your eyes open and we're gonna make our way to standing you may or may not join us sometimes just a little hip opening and a little gratitude is like the perfect meal but I'm gonna ask my friend Megan to demonstrate how some of you might get up through malasana into uttanasana so squat to standing forward fold okay okay squats not for everybody it's a great one though I mean it's one of these things you know our friend Paul Greer Lee likes to point out that in societies where people squat nobody has back pain you know and so grandchildren and gardening keep you doing this okay find your way to uttanasana standing forward fold nice I like to like I like to bend my knee and kind of lean to one side and bend the other knee and lean to the other side that feels good and then you want to be slow with this so only once you feel ready the hands will come onto the legs and knees will bend and and you'll slowly slowly roll back up we're avoiding the feeling of dizziness beautiful so pretty Megan you're gonna flip that ponytail nice big delivered inhale exhale everything okay so you take a moment here because sometimes when you come up sometimes when you come up it's just easy to feel dizzy especially if you're you know over the age of 35 just down okay so what we'll do is we'll start in Tadasana we'll tune our Tadasana and then we'll move through a sequence towards warrior two so we'll do Tadasana with our friends so I'm gonna ask you to see him right here okay okay yes a costume adjustment perfect okay so Tadasana is very similar to what we experienced before because unless the warriors grounded it's hard to really feel it's hard to feel otherwise the gratitude can carry us up in a way you know so we gotta be like okay so spread the toes big deal and now that's your feet your hips are not that wide okay big delivered inhale exhale everything let a happen okay soften the knees now as she softens her knees okay so her feet get more of a chance of feeling the earth yeah relax the low belly and then again we use Tadasana as our blueprint in our in our asana practices so just like just so tenderly Megan maybe the feeling of gratitude was there so maybe you already know gratitude but maybe you start to tune to the being or the person or the place or the event for which you are grateful might be your birth okay and so as you start to tune yeah you just press enough into the feet so that you are shining the gratitude yes shoulders back and down base of the skull wide and you'll know you're really in the flow of gratitude when there's this combination of humility and awe like a sense of amazement does it make sense can you feel that okay and like this this is then this becomes the alignment so within all that we're gonna do with the arms and the legs and such all of that follows this right now I'm gonna ask you to take just kind of a slow walking meditation to the front of the mat does that make sense okay so if you also had to move you let yourself find that Tadasana again grounded generous and grateful and that natural then like just because we explored this a little bit then it's just that slightest bit of Ujjayi pranayama but from within the gratitude so that it's a it's more of an offering than a willful effort so that you're widening your breath he into your into those mid ribs yeah okay and then we're gonna flow towards this warrior too so eventually Megan and you are gonna bring your hands at the front of your chest in Anjali mudra okay press equally through the hands staying in that gratitude and as you are ready inhale and as you exhale you're gonna press your hands gently towards the earth and then you're gonna inhale your arms up over the top of your head reach yes and as you exhale forward fold swan dive forward nice inhale half arch and as you exhale you're gonna step your left foot back let your right knee bend into the shape of the lunge now pause here and tune your gratitude again because moving parts are distracting moving part suddenly we get pulled back out from the center okay and then Megan what I'm gonna ask you to do is start to walk your hands to the left so you come into prasarita paratanasana so you walk your hands to the left let your right leg draw straight as you walk your hands to the left for prasarita paratanasana yep toes are gonna turn inward yes exactly now yeah Megan is demonstrating the version of prasarita paratanasana that we do at home which is hammock pose walking your hands forward suction cupping as you pull your sit bones back yes now what feels really nice here is to lean a little bit from side to side so if you at home if you lean your hips side to side you kind of lean a little bit now Megan's sort of showing it really nicely and dramatically you may or may not have the range but by doing this when she leans this way yes you can feel it on the inside here and when she leans this way you can feel it on the inside here so what you're doing there is you're just like you're letting the body again know you're like oh hey what's happening sometimes the idea can be that you shouldn't feel anything that to feel something means you're tight true to feel something means you're alive awesome job okay then she's gonna slide her hands back underneath her shoulders she's gonna let her hands find her legs she's gonna bend her knees and round back up slow ponytail flip okay now we're gonna set up for warrior 2 so on Megan here where we're standing it's her right foot but for you at home it's gonna be your left foot so turn your left foot mm-hmm and then you angle your back foot in just enough and what we're looking for here in this stance and what I'm gonna ask Megan to do is just back out a little bit draw the leg straight and then come in a few times and what you're just what you're looking for in this stance is a couple things one as you bend your knee is it comfortable and so while Megan is showing a 90 degree angle here some of you might choose a little shorter stance will you just show you snuggle your right foot closer in towards your left for a moment so some of you might not bend your knee quite so much that might be more appropriate okay you can snow go back to your spot this back foot is just angling in enough okay and this is one of the things like yoga teachers fight about everything people always think yoga teachers are friends and should all get along and it should be peace love and harmony but it's actually the tradition of yoga to argue and to debate and to discuss things so come back straight sometimes you'll hear the alignment okay of externally rotating this hip back while you're also externally rotating sometimes you'll hear this in alignment of really opening this up but what happens often when we do that is the sacrum gets compressed can you feel that so this is kind of a play where you might just let this you are externally rotating this one but let this one be just enough so you still have room in your sacrum does that make sense does that make sense at home you don't want to compress the back body you want to just like you want to feel just enough external rotation in this hip and just enough in this hip but without munching now we're gonna do this in a warrior to dance so she's gonna inhale her arms up over the top of her head okay and you'll notice how her pelvis and maybe you're noticing at this at home the pelvis tends to kind of tip forward towards that front foot the request here yeah is let the back sit bone draw under so for you at home that's your right sit bone towards your left foot yeah let that lengthen does that make sense wiggle up through here now before we begin to dance tune back into the gratitude take a look at your back foot so for you at home that's your left foot take a look at your back foot keep your gaze here and we're gonna do warrior dance for five rounds so inhale and as you exhale open up your arms let the front knee bend keeping your gaze on your back foot nice inhale come back up exhale and open beautiful now three more inhale exhale open two more exhale open beautiful now one more inhale exhale and open now pause here now by keeping the gaze back here can you feel how that helps ground your foot okay lengthen up through the heart and some of you might choose to keep the gaze back here at the back foot but some of you will find your gaze just right over your heart so central okay squeeze your shoulders up and around your ears or exhale and relax don't I like to let the elbows bend and let the palms turn up because like there's a quality of like gratitude last few moments remember let gratitude align you so pretty let the gratitude help your heart brighten let the gratitude help you trust the sinking in nice okay inhale here and as you're ready Megan exhale rotate your hands windmill your hands down around your right foot that front foot shape of the lunge okay and from the shape of the lunge step forward back to Uttanasana half arch exhale forward form now in these sequences we're not incorporating down dog and a vinyasa obviously you can add that okay and then you'll complete your sun salutation up to the sky so as you're ready you'll eventually find an inhale circle your arms up and as you exhale hands back to the center of the heart yeah and and the whole and we'll check in with Megan the hope is that the to the gratitude help you be in the warrior more easily yeah okay you could say otherwise if it was is okay okay so that's the hope that's the hope is that you know with the gratitude we let go of that sense that we're doing it as soon as you let go that says if that you're doing it you can actually do a lot more okay so we'll find that same thing on the other side so we'll repeat that on the other side so hands at the heart you'll inhale and as you exhale you'll press your hands towards the earth and as you inhale you'll circle your arms up beautiful and as you exhale you swan dive forward avoiding the flowers hopefully you have beautiful flowers at home to inhale half arch and as you exhale so Megan's gonna be stepping her right foot back here left knee bends we go back through beautiful now you pause here and you just tune back into the feeling of gratitude the more often you can practice the easier it will be to access it's just that simple and then she's gonna find her way towards the our version of prasarita paratanasana on this side so you're gonna walk your hands to the right as you turn your toes in towards each other letting your legs draw straight yes now from here some of you might keep your hands under your shoulders okay but some of you are gonna walk your fingertips forward into the version that we often do at home called hammock pose you suction cup through your fingers and you draw your sit bones back nice I guess I'll stand here to demonstrate so then you're gonna like lean a little bit side to side and you can see as Megan leans side to side she's gonna get an opportunity of opening through the inner groin nice beautiful and notice how Megan chose to shorten her stance a little bit it's because she's smart you just like these are these postures are not final these postures are always adjusting themselves yes okay to come out of that slide your hands back under your shoulders shorten your stance a little bit so that it's easier hands find the shins and then bend your knees and round on back up perfect now in the second side it's we're lucky to have Megan's back facing you so you can see more so she's gonna turn her left foot forward and angle her back right foot in just make sure you're doing your second side so most likely this is gonna be your right so you figure out and notice again she's gonna bend and straighten the front leg a few times until she's sure that she's found the stance it's right for you you know and again you might take a shorter stance we looked at this a little bit imposing generally yoga teachers will agree on this one that generally usually letting the the knee okay be lined up over the ankle and sort of almost almost always line with the second toe there's some agreement on that nine out of ten okay now eventually let that leg draw straight like once you've found the alignment that's gonna work nice you did it already Megan adjusted will you go back to where it was so the pelvis tends to be tipped a little bit here for most of us and so it's a drawing of this bottom this back sit bone towards the front heel yeah beautiful that will allow the pelvis to be a little bit more central which then will allow for a little bit more length in the waist so now inhale your arms up to the sky lengthening and then this is the most important part come back to the gratitude tune your gaze to your back foot so by tuning your gaze to your back foot you'll ground there yes keep your gaze on your back foot inhale here exhale open up warrior to so the front knee bends and the arms come out from your shoulders so beautiful about four more like that you inhale you gather your resources okay and you exhale and you open three more like that nice two more last one so you gather your resources so pretty and you open and then once you've opened and you've landed you tune that gratitude again because that protects you and by keeping your gaze at this back foot you'll you'll help her land as you lift up a little bit through here but some of you will choose to bring your gaze right over the heart and when you let your gaze come right over the heart what you do is it helps you stay central yes okay you feel that external rotation in that front left hip by rooting through the outer pinky pad and heel yeah and feeling that rotate and you're only letting the back hip rotate as much as it feels correct uh-huh keeping that inner line and that protection of the knee so beautiful Megan and allow yourself to be this warrior of gratitude yeah gorgeous beautiful eventually you'll inhale you'll exhale you'll windmill the hands down around that front foot shape of the lunge and from the shape of the lunge step forward uttanasana half arch exhale forward fold and then when you're ready you'll complete your Sun up to standing oh pretty hands to the heart and just pause here pause in your tadasana like pause in your tadasana and just tune like not doing much else besides like relaxing the resistance and the way will transition towards the earth is will transition through a Sun okay to a down dog to child's pose making our way to a spinal twist you might stop here you might feel good and set okay you might be ready for your day here but if you'd like to stay with us as you're ready you'll inhale you'll exhale inhale arms up over the top of the head perfect and then you'll exhale forward folds one die yes you'll allow for an inhale half arch and then in the way that you've become used to for you you'll find your way back to downward facing dog maybe that's just simply stepping the legs back maybe you have a different variation lengthen you know just let yourself be in your dog is feels good for you pretty and then we'll find our way to child's pose dropping the knees down hips back to the heels and and if you keep the arms out in front of you it tends to be a little stretchier and lengthening arms alongside of you tends to be softer more easy yeah so as you're ready chin into your chest slow roll back up so now we're gonna find our way into a seated spinal twist so I'm gonna ask you to just slide onto one of your hips yeah exactly so Megan showing one version where the bottom knee is bent like this and the top knee is crossing now if this hip of this top leg doesn't quite come to the earth one thing you might try is straightening out the bottom leg will you try that no you exactly so by straightening out the bottom leg often this will feel more grounded okay so choose either like this or knee bent which do you prefer this one knee bent okay now so many of the same skills you know what why don't you just scooch a little bit here okay now so many of the same skills okay so this knee here we've been exploring this with the hip so big delivered inhale and you exhale you let this this outer hip so on Megan it's her right hip you let this outer hip relax and open does that make sense while you're pressing into the foot and drawing the knee up but you're creating remember that we've been playing with that that awkwardness of compression in space and then you're externally rotating this bottom hip so it grounds can you feel that okay so both of these hips are trying to externally rotate a little bit she lets her heart blossom back of the neck long and if you tune into gratitude like if you tune into gratitude you're not gonna overdo it okay so you wait for the sense of go okay and so Megan's gonna bring her right hand behind her and she's gonna bring her left hand around her right knee hug hug the right knee with your left elbow try that so this is a really nice way the hugging okay you keep finding spaciousness here yep opening up through here gooey in the back of the neck the hugging acts like a bit of what we call sometimes a child safety lock like it's gonna be hard to over twist with a hug as soon as you make the decision to bring your elbow across will you show as soon as you make the decision to do this now you're for most of us our arms are so much stronger than the tiny little postural muscles in the back and as soon as you've made that decision okay what you risk is tempting your can opener fades okay so the key is gratitude if you can no longer feel gratitude here then you've overdone it go back to the hug yeah nice demonstration root through the front knee easy in the back of the neck so you let the alignment of gratitude protect you Megan's choosing to let her gaze follow you just tuned to what feels right pretty she's adjusting the back arm okay so what you're what you're tuning towards is can you still feel a sense of gratitude can you feel this hip rolling open can you feel the other hip rolling open yeah gorgeous now let an inhale happen here and as you exhale let yourself unwind leading with the gaze letting the rest of your body follow pause beautiful gently switch the cross of your legs so you lean back switch hold on to that front top knee so for Megan that's her left knee and just tune some of the similar alignment cues we've tuned so you're letting both of the hips gently externally rotate while you're finding space particularly in the one that's getting munchy press into this foot to let your heart occur and then like tune into that really essential quality of gratitude like really let let yourself be held by this okay and then only as you get the internal light to go you'll find so for Megan it she'll find her left hand behind her and she'll hug her left knee with her right elbow the hug helps keep things close and it keeps you from overdoing it it gives you just enough stability to keep lifting up you get out of the way of your hand the hand roots as you blossom it's gooey in the back of the neck you'll know you're overdoing it if you're already wondering how much longer like when we jump ahead of ourselves okay when we're impatient and jump ahead of ourselves we want out fast beautiful kinder in the eyes keep feeling this gorgeous keep feeling the bloom so pretty Megan really beautiful yeah Megan's choosing to turn her head that may or may not feel right for you let's soft in the jaw kind in the mouth yes okay eventually you'll let an inhale happen and you'll exhale you'll unwind so gorgeous pause and then eventually just find a favorite forward fold so for some of you that might be bada kanasana soles of the feet together some of you it might be legs in front of you Pashimo tanasana but just let yourself move into a comfortable forward fold staying and like staying in that sauce of gratitude so Megan's chosen bada kanasana and you can see from how close her knees are towards the earth that she's quite naturally externally rotated which then makes sense of why warrior 2 is such an easy posture for her yes so whatever your forward fold is at home you're just softening hmm pretty easy in the back of the neck easy in the eyes easy in the jaw and like if letting go if feeling grateful if being awed by the magnificence of everything was easy then more of us would feel that way all the time so we have to practice okay when you feel sufficiently baked in your forward fold you'll roll back up and the way we'll finish our sequence is just in a short seated meditation so do you mind sketching over them making room for me thanks so thank you again Megan so find yourself into whatever feels comfortable so for me do that's my heels together Megan has just these wonderful ankles that rotate you might sit up in a chair up on a blanket or you might prefer shavasana okay so snuggle in big deliberate inhale exhale everything let up and and you're grounding the same way we were doing in tarasana so you're relaxing your belly you're relaxing your sit bones just enough rooting to feel your heart generous if you overdo it you'll feel hardening in the back so you let another happen and cooperate with the alignment till your skull feels like she's in the right spot and you know this sutra that we've been messing around with for a while now around here sutra 1.12 from the Shiva sutras vismayo yoga bumikaha wonderment is the basis of yoga and wonderment and gratitude are good friends so it's like you got to soften the jaw kind in the eyes and just a really simple way to finish is just maybe on the inhale hear the word thank and on the exhale hear the word you the inhale thing and on the exhale you because upon close examination like what do you really have to do with your life was this thing your idea as our teacher Ravi likes to say did you engineer your own birth few more moments here and you might stay here longer but eventually perhaps find your hands together in Anjali mudra the mudra of offering thank you for being here sweet friends thank you Megan for being here namaste