Get Your Juices Flowing

(water rushing onto shore) Hi, welcome to your practice. Today we're gonna work our way up to Sirsasana II, or tripod headstand, and some fun variations and transitions from that shape. We'll start on our backs, do to some ab work, so come on down all the way. And then bend into the knees and plant the feet on the ground here, and just take a few seconds to ground and connect and welcome yourself to your practice, to your mat. And checking in with the body, seeing how you're feeling physically.

How are you doing in your head and in your heart? Just taking a few moments here. I like to say my own name, and be like, "Jessica, welcome, come on in." And ask yourself, "How are you doing?" Taking space to listen, too. And from here, we'll draw the knees in towards the chest and give them a nice little squeeze. Then we'll rock side to side and massage out the lower back.

And then, taking 90 degrees at the hips and at the knees, here's our nice, squared shape at both joints. You'll take your hands to the bottoms of the thighs, top of the knees, the palms pressing in. So if you push really hard, you're pushing your legs off of you, right, and if you push really hard with the knees, you're drawing them in towards your chest. And I want you to push with both, so you're pushing with your legs and pushing with your hands, right? And it's like a perfect tie, no one's winning, perfectly in the middle.

And what happens here, is the tendency at least for me, is to pop open in my belly, and then you'll take the belly button and draw it down, and it should be hard. And breathing, and then softening, relaxing. It looks like nothing, but it feels like a lot. And we'll do that two more times. So you're pressing hands into knees, knees into hands, really engaged through both, and then remember the belly drawing it in.

A breath or two here, and then again release, and you can do, really, whatever you want for your legs on the release, a few breaths and then last time. Hands and knees pressed together, draw belly in. And then relax. Release it out, find a few breaths. And we'll prop ourselves up after a nice, long stretch, and we'll come onto our elbows here, and you take a block and place it between your ankles.

So, extending the legs out nice and long here, pointing through the toes, and drawing the feet in together. You'll inhale, lift the legs up, exhale, lower them down. Don't wanna touch the ground. Inhale, lift them up, exhale, lower them down. Inhale, lift up, exhale lower down.

And then here, we'll draw the knees in and out. In and out. In and out. In and out. Pause here, sometimes your head likes to get involved, so you can always release it back.

And then on the out, little hovers, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. Let the block go, release yourself back down onto your back. (exhales loudly) Big exhale out, and that's like preview Shavasana, which is, like, nice. (laughing) The reward at the end is coming, right? Let me move the block out of the way.

From here, start to draw the knees back in towards your chest, give it a nice little squeeze. And then some mixture of momentum and faith, and belly strength, you start to rock yourself head to toe here, so you're gonna gain a little momentum, until you come up, and take a moment, and Vasa elbow pose. And definitely have the knees bent, and a breath here. And then again, we roll back. A little bit of momentum.

And this first time through, we'll just cross ankles and come up and over. I'm gonna flip around so that you can see me a little bit better. We land in all fours. So hands underneath the shoulders, knees underneath the hips, take a moment here, and this is just your freedom cat cow, right? And it can look like you're arching, rounding, or you can add side-to-side movement.

I like to say that all poses are legal, like there's no alignment, we're just trying to feel into the body here, feel into our spine. And all of this stuff, that we're always queued to not do, do it. See what it feels like, find out, maybe for you it feels really good in that moment, and there's some necessity in that range of motion. You know, again, totally legal. So this is your own moment.

I like to do this at home, and close my eyes, it's like when you're a little kid and you go under the blanket and the scary monster's not there. So you just close your eyes, and no one can see you, it's just you and your breath, all right, moving and feeling. OK, eventually we will be done with that silliness, and we'll come down onto our belly. And you'll bring the hands out and the elbows underneath you, so the tendency is maybe to go forward, shouldn't go too far back, so just looking, you know, elbows more or less underneath. And again, we take our feet a little bit wider so we can really engage here through the leg line.

And pressing the tops of the feet to the ground, pressing down through the forearms, through the elbows and the gaze comes up, a little front-wheel drive with the fingertips, the Sphinx pose. Breathing here. You can stay just like this, you can press into the hands and start to lift the elbows, and again, some tendency to let the shoulders go up towards the ears, so just remind yourself to bring it down. And then can you engage through the leg-line, and even engage through the glutes a little bit, and let the gaze come up. So, big back bend.

Exhale, lower down. Take the hands at the shoulders, lift yourself up, and we'll come into downward dog. Take a few breaths here, and this is similar to the cat cow motion, feel free to explore this from this shape, you know, it's like freedom, movement, wagging the tail, bending the knees, doing weird things, shifting to the side. So I like to lift a leg here, get the feeling to the back of my leg-line and my hip. And on the other side, but anything that feels good.

I'm just allowing a little bit of exploration. Even bending the knees a lot, turning the toes in, or turning the toes out. All that good stuff. And next I'm gonna shift forward, plank pose. And again, this is one of those things that doesn't look like much, and you can always lower your knees down.

Here, if the plank pose is too intense with the knees lifted. But you're gonna try your best to just move the pelvis. So a little pelvis tilt, tilting the pelvis forward. And then back, and then forward, and then back. And again, it doesn't look like much, but this is different than this, moving the whole thing.

Really subtle, a few more times. Like the tiniest of baby little sit-ups. And lower down to a child's pose. Big full inhale, long exhale. And we'll lift back up downward facing dog, then start to step the feet towards the hands, coming to a forward fold here, soft bend into the knees, shaking the head out.

And then there'll be a slow, rounding, rolling all the way up to upward salute. Arms will come up overhead. And exhale, hands come to the heart. So we'll take our Surya Namaskara here, A or A modified. Inhale, arms come on up.

Exhale, all the way down through center line. Inhale, extension through the spine. Exhale, hands ground, so here you can step back, you can take plank pose, or you're hopping back, Chaturanga, bending into the elbows. If you didn't hop into Chaturanga, you lower down with your exhale. Your inhale, you take a back bend, it can be upward facing dog, it can also be cobra.

Then we all meet downward facing dog. And a few breaths there. It's a place to just reconnect, re-collect your breath. Knees comes forward on the inhale, exhale, you bend into the knees, you can step, walk, or hop. Inhale when you get there, exhale full.

Inhale to rise on up, upward salute. Exhale, hands to the heart. We'll do that one more time. Inhale, arms come on up. Exhale, all the way down.

Inhale, there's extension through the spine, exhale again, plank, or Chaturanga. Inhale, upward facing dog, exhale, downward facing dog. A few breaths here, re-collecting. Any of those wiggling out, sensing into your body, seeing how it's feeling. Changing, opening, and then you can step or hop, inhale looks forward, exhale, you bend your knees.

Moving forward, exhale to fold. Rising on up, upward salute. Exhale, hands come to the heart. Pause here, plug the thumbs into the sternum, ground through the feet, rise up tall through the crown of the head. Nice big full inhales, long exhales.

You might even close the eyes. Again, check in. Next inhale, arms are gonna come on up overhead, and here interlace the fingers, let the palms turn up, take your feet together if they're not already, and then press down strong through the toes. Draw the belly in, squeeze into that midline, and then it's a slow elevator all the way on down to a little high-heeled squat. You know, always take the hands to the heart on the ride down, otherwise we all meet there, hands at heart.

So from here, you'll start to reach the hands forward to give a little counterbalance to your booty. And then, reach, reach, reach, reach, reach, reach, reach, reach, reach, maybe the heels will just kiss the ground. And then the booty comes down, and the legs come up, and you're back in a Vasana. Breath here. And then we start to go back again, and this is where you're gonna choose.

When we rock back and forth, all right, you can cross ankles and roll over, can ground the feet and step back. You can ground the feet, ground the hands, Chaturanga back. Right, so you start to rock, and you're like, "I can do it, it's gonna happen." "I swear, boom, boom, boom." All right, upward facing dog, and then downward facing dog. (exhales sharply) And a big sigh of successful relief. So you land in your downward dog, you can take a nice big, full inhale.

A long exhale, sweet success. From here we'll take our right leg nice and high for the inhale, exhale you're gonna step through Bhujapidasana one warrior one. And rise on up, take a breath here. Then we'll come down, bring the hands down towards the ground, turn those front toes out, press the leg away and take a little twist. Keep the front toes turned out, ground your back heel, and walk the fingertips over towards the left.

And then let the hips sink back here, surrender warrior. Release the head. Mmm, yummy. When you come back out of this, the hands come forward and around towards the left, and then you might have to adjust your feet to set them up so they're parallel. Inhale, extend the spine, exhale full down Prasarita.

Shaking the head out here, yes and no. We'll take the hands out underneath the shoulders. Press down on your fingertips, it can also be palms, get a little height into the toes, and then hop the feet together. Shift back, knees go wide, big toes are together, heels are together, and then you'll start to lower the belly on down, gonna walk the fingertips forward, release the head, Malasana. If you'd like, you can reach one, and then two hands back for the heels, ankles, and so it's super-rounded.

We'll take our first arm balance from here. So staying nice and round, the knees are gonna come up towards the upper parts of the shoulders, then spread the fingertips out nice and wide. And you're gonna press strong into the toes so that the heels lift and you get the height there lifting the feet. Squeeze in through the knees, and this may be where you stay, all right, this is a lot of work. Gaze is forward, not at your toes.

All right, toes means somersault, right? So forward, and you just start to lean in, maybe it's one, maybe it's two. Squeezing with the knees, breathing here. Put the feet back down, collect into the fingertips, hop the feet out wide, and then re-fold, for again, just some sweet release. Sighs of success.

Hands come out underneath the shoulders, we'll walk around towards the front of our mat, so towards the right. The right knee bends here, ground through the hands, draw your right knee in towards your chest, and then out underneath the left arm, ground the bottom heel, and lift up that left arm, nice and big. A little drunken triangle. We'll slowly lower the hips all the way down to the ground, and then take your back leg, your left leg, and swing it around so it meets the right. Press down nice and strong, right?

It can be fingertips here, hands Dandasana, feet engaged. And this work here is for the belly, so the tendency here is to like, just sit. All right, see if you can be nice and tall. Engage through the leg-line, engage through the arms. And then we come back, the way we came in.

So our hands come over, the legs split again, but the right leg's forward, and then start to press down through your right hand, lift that left arm up, the back foot grounds. Both hands come down, draw that right knee in towards the chest, and then back. Three legged Vinyasa here if you want. And then all the way back, downward facing dog. Shift forward, lower the knees down, sit back on the heels, take your hands behind, lift the hips.

Release the seat, hands are forward. I wanna try that on the other side. So left leg comes high, step through, Bhujapidasana one, warrior one, arms come on up, and breath here. And take our hands down to the ground, walk that front foot out, right hand's down, left hand presses away, a little twisted lizard here. It's like my favorite pose.

If I was only gonna do one yoga pose, it'd be this one. And so more or less, that front foot stays as it is, and we ground through the back heel, but the front toes turn out as you walk your hands over towards the right, and the hips go back and the head goes forward. Ooh, and it's like, drop the pelvis down, think about the top hip moving down. It's like, "Hello, how's it going in there?" And then we walk fingertips over towards the right to find our Prasarita, you might have to adjust the feet a little bit. OK, extend through the spine, find an inhale, and then exhale to fold.

And then again, any arm variations that are feeling like something you're interested in playing with, you take the peace fingers around the toes, OK, or opposite elbows, even interlace fingers behind you. Maybe you make something up. All good things to play here with. Again our hands will come out underneath the shoulders, we'll hop the feet together, we'll find our Malasana. And take a few moments here in the fold, releasing the head, again, you can take hands back.

A few breaths here. Right, so this idea is that we get really rounded and low so the knees are towards the upper parts of the arms, and then we use the feet to come high. Gaze is forward, one, maybe two. Squeezing in. Put the feet back down, find your Malasana for a moment.

And then hands are forward to hop the feet out wide again. We walk around back to the front of our mat. Hands collect, draw that left knee in towards the chest, out underneath the right, collect into your left hand, right arm goes high as the back heel grounds, a little drunken triangle. And then lowering the hips all the way down. Swinging back leg to meet front, Dandasana.

And again, pressing down long through the spine, the hands towards the ground, long through the legs. Then we come out how we came in, so that top leg shoots back, left arm grounds. Press down to lift. Both hands find the floor, three-legged dog. Inhale to lower, taking your Vinyasa.

And downward facing dog. Shift forward to lower the knees, take a child's pose. Full breath here. Then we walk the hands back behind us, again, lift the hips, little Ustrasana prep. Release the hips on down, and then downward facing dog.

OK. Take your right, and then your left foot forward, find Uttanasana forward fold. Release the head, and then rise on up, upward salute. Exhale, hands come to the heart. OK, feet come back together again, inhale, arms come on up.

Interlace the fingers, palms turn up. Press into the toes, lift on them, slow elevator all the way on down. Hands come to the heart. Cultivate a little bit of energy into your belly. Lower the knees down, bink.

Cultivate a little bit of energy into your belly, it's like 50/50 chance. (laughing) Knees come back up. OK, so here's our opportunity to play with Sirsasana II for the first time. And this is just like, prepping for it. So, we move our feet a little bit back and come down onto our knees, we look at our mat and we find a visual of what a triangle the sacred geometry of a triangle, head, hands, right?

So now I'm making a straight line, and not making one of those weird triangles that I don't remember what their names are called. But all sides equal, is nice and stable, and we wanna find the crown of our heads. If hands are gonna be here, my head's gonna be more or less there. Elbows are drawing in, and it might just be like this, which is like, tripod headstand downward dog. It might just be one knee at a time.

And if you're shaking a lot, that's like a signal, that's your stopping point, or you might start to bring the knees up to the backs of the arms. And so we can stay just like this, right? Or we draw the knees up off the arms, and we stay just like this without going up. And then we'll put one and the other foot down, and take you to rock pose, which is sitting on the heels, or child's pose. Let the eyes close wherever you are.

And allow some of that blood to come back, any dizziness that might have happened to go away before you move on. I'm just taking a moment noticing this strong, chakra, this place that we connected with, really put pressure on. And how it changes. And then we'll come into downward facing dog. And take your right leg nice and high, step all the way outside that right hand, lower the back knee down, release the back toe.

Left hand turns away and a little bit off the mat, right hand presses away. And then from here we reach up and back, and we find that back foot. This beautiful all-in-one shape. And stay just like this, and come down onto the forearm, and we spin a little bit more. And then again, your surrender warrior, so that front toe turns out, back hell grounds, fingertips walk over slightly towards the left, like toward the corner.

And the hips go back. Walk all the way around towards the left both toes turn out, your left knee is gonna bend all the way and that left heel's allowed to lift. Left hand is down, right arm comes high. And then we take it towards the back of the mat here left leg starts to straighten, you can step your back foot in, fold on over Parsvottanasana. Pyramid pose, release the head.

Walk back around towards the right, right toes turn out, triangle pose, Trikonasana. The left arm comes on up, open and out. And this can turn straight into side angle. I like using my elbow, my legs are longer than my arms, proportionately, so this feels so much more grounded for me, also lower it lower. And breath here.

And then a big peaceful warrior, rise back up to a low lunge, and we step back, downward facing dog. Shift forward to plank low with the knees, downshift back, child's pose. Tuck the chin around, roll it forward, and then keep the arms straight, this is somewhere between upward facing dog and cobra, and it's not quite either. Come into this back bend, and then back, downward facing dog. You do that whole thing on the left side, so left leg comes high, step all the way outside the hands, let the toes turn out, back knee comes down, right hand turns out, left hand to the knee, we pause here.

OK, and then thumb up, reaching back and you find the pinky edge. Then again, you can stay... Ooh, hi, left side, you're so much fun. Glad you could join the party. OK, you stay like that or you're like, "Oh, I'll explore you too down here "on the forearm, and see what's happening." We release, this just turns into our surrender warrior, so again, the toes turn out, tuck the back toes, drop that back heel, walk your fingertips over to the right corner, soften the head, hips go back.

And then all the way around to Skanda on the right knee, right knee bends, right hand's down, left arm's high. Facing the back of your mat, your Parsvottanasana pyramid, right leg straightens, you can step the back foot in slightly. Inhale, and then exhale to fold. I mean, all of these places are places where you have freedom, where it doesn't have to be this stagnant thing. You can feel free to wag the tail, shake your head.

What does it feel like when I press through that inner line? What's it feel like when I press through the outer line? What happens when I do both. OK, and allowing yourself to explore the answers here for yourself, that's what we're doing here, connecting. And then, hands will go inside, around towards the left, we'll find Trikonasana on the left side, left leg straightens, right arm comes on up.

And breath here. This is one of my favorite shapes too. Straight into side angle. To rise on up, peaceful warrior, and all the way on down, low lunge, step on back. Downward facing dog, another rolling vinyasa to shift forward, child's pose.

And we're just giving our arms a little bit of a break because they're gonna work really hard. And again, you can always bend the elbows and let this be lower, but I'm just into doing things that aren't your regular yoga poses. Just like allow the pelvis to be down. What does that feel like? Then we meet back, downward facing dog.

So, here's my second attempt into Sirsasana II. We're gonna come all the way up, which is tripod headstand, we're gonna come all the way up on your legs, and then it's stopping points at any point. So really be mindful if you're shaking, if you're feeling like, "Oh my God, I'm gonna fall over," these would all be signals that it's time to come down. Right, you're feeling steady and strong, you can continue on. So we come in, same set up, thinking about our triangle, head comes down, hands are here.

All right, and we come into downward facing dog, we walk our feet nice and tight in. And again, you can start here, all right, and here. And then we start to come up, unfolding at the hips. Reaching through the toes. Then come down from here, otherwise we're gonna continue on, we take Dandasana, just like we did when we were sitting down.

Feet start to reach back, hips go back, drawing belly in. Breathing, breathing, breathing, when you can start to see your toes, imagine Chaturanga, shoot the feet back and lift your head. Upward facing dog happens, right? And then child's pose happens, ohh. Sweet, sweet child's pose.

And again, you're like, big exhale, yay success. And come into our downward facing dog. We start to step our feet forward, we can just come to the middle of the mat here, and we'll start to bend the knees and come into our high-heeled squat, and then bring the hands to the heart, and we pause here. So, there is yet now another variation we're gonna work. So, we are practicing our crow pose, and so this is what we're gonna do.

Again, you stop where you need to stop, and if you're just working on crow poses, just getting steady there, that's a place for you to stay, you don't need to continue on. Otherwise, we may play with crow pose, Sirsasana II, crow pose, Chaturanga. The biggest key here is that deep drawing in of the belly. That squeezing the knees in, which is what we were playing with in crow pose the first time. So, we get down into our little squat, and we spread the fingers to foundation wide, lift through the toes, squeeze in, nice and strong.

And then, we start to lift our feet up off the ground. Keep squeezing knees in, start to bend the elbows even more and then put the head on the ground. Like, "Just put the head on the ground, totally great." (chuckles) All right, again, we come up, maybe into our egg, maybe all the way up. And then when we come down, here's the important part. So we start to move the knees back in, and then the knees go wide and out.

A deep rounding of the belly, and then it's sort of awkward, getting the knees up the arms. Activate the toes, squeeze knees in. And then what may happen, I don't even know. What may happen is you just land the feet. Start to lift and squeeze at the same time.

Life and squeeze, and pray to Shiva to help you in your pose. And then you find it and you go, "Om Namah Shivaya!" Ooh, Chaturanga, right? And then instead of child's, you just lay down, because that was really hard. (laughing) And you're like, "That was fun, just did like three tripod "headstands, no biggie, no biggie at all." All right, and then we come back, child's pose. And we're so happy we're here.

When you're ready, you'll start to walk your finger tips on up towards your knees here, coming into rock pose, bring the hands to the heart, again, let the eyes close just for a few breaths, breathing here. Full inhale, long exhale. And the next inhale, rise on up onto the knees, reach the arms on up overhead, celebration. And then exhale, come in and give yourself a big hug, 'cause you did such a good job. And then inhale, and then cross the arms the other way.

Inhale, here's two more. And hug yourself like you mean it. Oh, I mean it. (laughing) and then we release here, with the hands. So I like to take Ustrasana with my knees a little bit wide, it creates for me, more freedom in my pelvis.

And also with the toes tucked. We'll bring our hands to the ankles, the thumbs on the inside. And when you're ready, you start to push down, there's this push down, and that's what helps to lift up. So you're pressing the hands into the feet to lift your heart. Lift your hips, and then you can release the head back, and again, when you get there, push, so you can get the fuller expression.

So good, feels so good. And then we can come back, release the toes. Then we're gonna make our way onto our backs. And you'll need a block here eventually, not quite yet, just warning you so you can grab it. As you come on down, you wanna draw the knees in towards the chest, you're gonna give a nice little squeeze, rock side to side, oh, that's so nice.

Then we plant our feet on the floor. Take your right leg over on top, like fancy dinner here, right? And maybe you hood the bottom foot like eagle feet, otherwise it can also be free, arms come out to the side. And so lift the hips slightly, so right on... Lift the hips slightly over to the right, and then let the knees fall to the left.

Left elbow bends, presses into the ground and the gaze can go over towards the right. You breathe here. Another full inhale, long exhale. Release the twist, center the hips, uncross the legs and then other side, fancy dinner again, you can hook the foot if that's useful for you, you can also leave it unhooked. Hips move slightly to the left, left leg's on top, hips go to the right, then right elbow bends, press down just spin the heart just a little bit more, and then the gaze can go away.

Full inhale, long exhale. Nice, sweet breaths here. Come back through center again, lifting the knees, centering the pelvis, releasing the legs, and here's where you'll need your block. So you'll grab ahold of it, and sometimes the low setting is nice, sometimes the medium setting is nice, and it just kinda depends on how you're all put together and what's feeling good. So feel free to explore it, and instead of putting it on the ridge of the skull, which is one place you can put it, we're gonna move it down a little bit, so that it actually gets into some of the good juiciness of the neck.

And there'll be this sweet spot, it's like the spot where you want your honey to give you a massage. OK and tense, right? So then from here you'll just let the back of the head release, and then slowly start to turn the gaze to the right, and you let the edge of the block do the massage work, so it's gravity and block meeting each other in this sweet massage. And if there's something of interest in there, and you're like, "Oh, that spot," all right, you just stay, and you let it do its work. And then you turn the gaze slowly.

So it's gonna be as slow or as quick as you need it to be, the gaze is going back and forth. If you're like, "I'm not really feeling anything," feel free to play, I've also seen some people kind of tilt it a little bit on the edge here... because they want a little bit more, so use that freedom again of exploration. A few times back and forth, and again, if there's something of interest, a little bit of a sweet spot, and you just stay and you let the block and gravity do all the hard work releasing. And you can continue this as long as you need, this can take as long as you want.

Feel free to pause and really explore. When you're ready, we'll come through center, and we just take a few breaths and you extend the legs out long, and this is the gentlest of gentle shoulder stands. 'Cause we're just sort of letting the back of the neck open. There's a little bit of traction here. And a few breaths.

And then, when you're ready, same thing, take as long as you need, but when you're ready, you move the block out of the way, and we come into a Shavasana. So I like to get the fidgets out, itch your nose, adjust your outfit, make sure that you're comfortable so that when you dive in to the shape, that you commit to the practice of stillness. So this posture is the practice, staying still is the practice. There's not anything left to do except practicing that stillness with the body so that maybe it starts to translate to the mind. And then with stillness of the mind, here we are in yoga.

The ability to see through, the mind often clouds. As there's a few more exhales, you'll start to sink in, you're gonna let the eyes close, soft gaze. Notice if there's any tension there, and then you can send your energy to that part of the body asking it to soften. And we ask kindly and sweetly, "Oh, sweet arm, will you release, "let go and allow me to relax?" And sometimes they do. And surrender over to a few moments of silence here.

Always feeling free to be here as long as you need. And so again, you are enjoying your sweet Shavasana, and would like more time, just stay, just as you are. And if you're ready to journey on out, we'll start with bigger inhales, let the belly get round, big like the Buddha. Your chest fills, let those deeper inhales and exhales be the movements, the first movements of your body. (exhales) And there's some physical movement of the body, toes, fingers.

A nice good morning stretch, pointing through the toes, reach your arms overhead, then we roll on over to our right side and pause here, again, keeping the gaze soft or the eyes closed, letting the transition be nice and slow. Your knees are bent, your head can rest on your arm. When you're a three year old, this is the night-night pose, we practice all the time, every night. (chuckles) When you're ready, you start to press down into the ground, lift yourself all the way up, you can come back to your mat, to your seat, to your life. And take a few breaths in a seated pose, whatever's comfortable, hands can come to the heart.

You can let the head bow on in. Just acknowledging your effort and your discipline, taking a second, greeting that. Giving gratitude to your body and its amazing abilities. It's a vessel in which these practices are manifested in reverence to the heart. Thank you for joining me today, namaste.