Morning Routine

Hey there, what's going on? My name is Robert, welcome to Yoga Anytime. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, I'm not sure when you're watching this, but I would love to share with you. This is, you know, if you've watched my other videos, I mean, you'll find these poses in the videos as well. But, what's not special, but specific about these is that these are the first movements, or postures that I do first thing in the morning.

I roll out of bed, I make my coffee, right? I get my little warm beverage, if you drink coffee, chai tea, if you have just a glass of water, fresh juice, whatever it is, go to the bathroom, get that out of the way. Come back to your mat, you know, if your mat's in your living room, your bedroom, that special place, right? First thing, first movements, alright? So that I'm giving myself what I feel to be the best chance possible to feel good, to start positive and to kind of work out those morning kinks.

I personally am a pretty active person, so maybe that prior evening I was playing tennis or basketball or any number of things, so in the morning I'm gonna feel sore. That's just how I am, and so this is what I do first thing in the morning. So, let's give it a shot. This is start your day, first thing in the morning routine. Short and sweet.

Child's Pose. Favorite pose, just FYI. Child's Pose. I start to get into my breath a little bit. I might even come up a little bit, Tabletop.

(inhaling and exhaling) Definitely moving a lot from side to side. I'm kind of like fluid. What kind of blood flow, what kind of energy can I get into my hips, my knees, and come into a little bit of like a, kind of a lazy Upward Dog, and stretch the front of my body. Like my low belly. Then I kind of exhale back into a Child's Pose.

Move forward. I even let the shoulders get a little, kind of rounded or shlumpy, if that's even a word. Come back into Child's Pose. And then I reach the right arm out, get a little side stretch. And get in to the left side of the body.

And come up into Table, let's move through the spine, some real respect for the spine, your back body, right? So you breathe in, breathe out into Cat Pose. Then a kind of side movement in Cat Pose might feel nice. Cow Pose. And Cat Pose.

Now again, right, this is first thing in the morning. Obviously it can be done any time of the day, but first thing. Neck stretch, neck stretch, back into Cat Pose. Breathing out. And back into a nice flat back.

Let's get into the shoulders and upper back for a little Thread the Needle. Notice how I'm using my left arm to really kind of support myself, but also, by pressing into that left hand, I kind of pull my right shoulder back and get a deep stretch in that upper right portion of my back. Okay, come on out. Try the other side. Come on, out, take a Child's Pose once again.

And then come back up into, this is one of my favorites as well, is hips over the knees, bring your forearms down, then keep your hips directly over the knees and walk your elbows out, and your chest down, maybe even the chin, or the forehead. We can be a lot on the shoulders. So find that moderate stretch on the shoulders. And if you need less in the shoulders, just take the arms out a little bit wider, or further back. If it bothers the neck to have the chin down, move the forehead down.

Good, with the arm variation, right, you're gonna change it possibly, but, into Sphinx Pose. I prefer my elbows below my shoulders. This feels just fine for my back. I understand some of you might have a little bit of a lower position, lower framing. So more of your belly is down, less of an arch in your low back.

Lift your chest. We'll come on down. Slide back into Child's once again. Back into Table. Downward Facing Dog.

So you're gonna curl those toes and stretch up into that inverted V. Open up the legs, get as long as you can in your legs. Your spine. Move the head, relax. Find some sort of groove, comfortable breath pattern.

The other things, the other layer to add to this is, manifesting and creating your day. Right? The day that you have ahead of you. What do you want to happen, right? How do you want that day to play out?

What do you want to achieve or conquer or, you know, get done. So I want you to think about that. For me, sometimes I have a real challenging time with scheduling, keeping myself really organized. So, might, you know, be easy on myself, but say listen, you know, I'm gonna focus on being organized and write things down, et cetera, right? That, big one for me, honestly.

Come out of Downward Dog, come into Child's Pose once again. Couple deep breaths. And back up onto your shins. So your shins, knees, sitting on your heels. Take a moment.

Stretch your toes. So you sit up a little bit. Set your seat back down on your heels. And sit as heavy as you can on those heels. A little respect for the feet.

If at any point you want to take a sip of your beverage, your coffee, your tea, your whatever, just do that, right? Just do it, make the practice your own. Enough of that. Go ahead and spin around onto your seat. Cross your legs.

You can sit with basic, you know, criss-cross applesauce, I learned that when my son was in daycare. Or, uh, pretzel legs. Um, the other one would be sort of like a Half Lotus or Full Lotus, you know, so you can pull the left knee in, place the ankle up up on your right thigh. So left ankle on the right thigh. That might feel nice.

Or the opposite, right ankle up. So the thing I haven't really done yet is a spinal twist, right? That's, guaranteed I'll either do one in a seated position, or lying on my back. I've chosen to share with you the seated version. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna ensure that my body is nice and long and tall, and I'm going to twist.

So my right hand is going to be on the left thigh, left hand back behind me. I'm not fully in the twist, and then making the adjustment, I'm about halfway there. I get tall, and then. I'm gonna play around with the neck a little bit. How can I kind of stretch the neck?

Okay, bring yourself back to center. That goes on the other side. Quality time with yourself before that crazy day. Before you start, (checking imitation) checking off the list, right? Dropping your kids at school.

You know, making their lunches. If that's you, right? Or maybe you have to rush to work, right? Just get this time and get this 10, 15 minute little sequence in. And I guarantee you, I'd be willing to bet a lot on it, that you feel better.

Okay, reach back behind you, push your chest forward, maybe even like, let the head drop back. If you sit for any length of time, for your job, right? Do this now, but also, you know, take the time during your work. If you're sitting at your chair, right? Take the arms back behind you, wrap 'em around the upper part of the chair and chest.

Go ahead and take the arms forward, stretch forward. Now push back up to center. Remind yourself how awesome you are. And what an amazing day you're about to have. Press your palms together.

And bow to no one other than just yourself, right? Namaste is basically "I bow to you." So, bow to yourself, press your palms together. I'm gonna do my absolute best today. Namaste.