Day 2: Breathe Into It

(ocean waves) Hey, welcome back! Number two, you showed up again. That's huge, right? And I won't ever diminish that value. Showing up, number two, alright? So to start off with, today, we're gonna do a little bit of Ujjayi.

It's a breathing technique, or breathing pattern that adds a little bit of heat to the body, it's audible, so number one it kinda reminds you whether you're breathing or not, and it helps you to kinda manage your breath, okay? I find great value in it. It sounds a little bit like the ocean tides and some people also refer to it as the Darth Vader breath. So the way I like to teach it is as if you were fogging your glasses to clean your glasses. You open your mouth and you go like so.

(exhales loudly) Feels a little more awkward on the inhalation but do it on the inhalation as well. (inhales loudly) (exhales loudly) (inhales loudly) (exhales loudly) Okay? If you did that over and over, you'd probably get lightheaded and pass out. We don't wanna do that, so what you're gonna do to that is keep that same exact breath, but gently close the lips. So, (inhales loudly) (exhales through nose) So you're breathing in and out of the nose now consistently, but it feels like there's a breath happening in the throat.

So there's a slight restriction in the back of the throat. So let's see if you can kinda get this, play with it, continue to work with it as we go. And give it a shot. So breathe in, (inhales) (exhales) And keep in mind as we move through this, a good set, you're gonna find your own numbers, but three seconds on the inhalation, four to five seconds on the exhalation. Try to work with that.

So from here, I'll start here. Bring your palms to your chest. Gonna try to bring this into action. Palms to the chest, palms to your heart. Breathe in, pause right here.

As you breathe out, press your palms to the earth. Inhale, circle the arms up. Exhale, palms to the chest. Perfect, good. One more time.

Breathe in. Breathe out, palms to the chest, or palms pressed down. Breathe in, arms up. Breathe out, palms to the chest. I find that to be a very valuable technique to kinda bring me to like a centered, grounded, I'm ready to practice breath.

Okay, so I'm gonna come up to the front of the mat. Do that any time of the day when you also wanna totally shift your perspective, things are tough, stressful, boom, right there. Right back to your heart, right? Okay. (exhales loudly) Couple half salutes to start off with.

Breathe in, reach up, breathe out, forward bend. Breathe in, half lift, breathe out, forward bend. Breathe in, arms up overhead, stretch, stand tall. Palms to the chest, breath out. Breathe in, arms up overhead, palms pressing, exhale, right down the midline, knees bent, forward bend.

Inhale, lift halfway, exhale, fold. Inhale rise up, exhale, palms to the chest. One more time breathe in, exhale forward bend. Inhale lift halfway, exhale forward bend. Inhale, rise up, exhale palms to the chest.

We'll build on that salute, adding some good stuff. Inhalation arms up, exhalation forward bend. Inhale half lift, exhale fold, right foot back, knee down. Inhale lift, arms up overhead. Feel that, come into the posture, get the stretch that feels appropriate for you, and then on the exhale, hands come down, step back into table top.

From table top, breathe in, exhale child's pose. Hips come back as far as you can, reaching toward the front of the mat. Inhale, table. Curl the toes under. Exhale, downward dog.

So remember, those knees bent, good strong foundation in the hands, long arms, long spine. Grab a couple breaths here in downward dog. Good job. Now on the exhale, bring the knees down, pause. So you're gonna take the right foot and step it up to where the right thumb is, somewhere around there.

So we took the right foot back for the lunge, we'll get the right foot up to get the other side. So from here, take that right knee, lift it up off the mat, pull the thigh up into the body. You can lean a little bit to the left, and step the right foot up. Good. Get the placement, rise up.

Grab the stretch, grab the feeling, grab the experience while breathing. Breathe in here and now exhale the hands come down. Step the left foot up to meet your right. Exhale. Inhale lift.

Exhale fold. Still in that roll up pattern. Bend the knees, tuck the tailbone back a little bit, and roll up on the inhalation, and palms to the heart on the exhalation. Good. Inhale, arms up.

Exhale, fold. Inhale, lift halfway. Left foot back, exhaling. Knees down, or left knee down. Inhale, grab the lunge, experience it.

Good, bring the hands down, step back into table. Pause, breathe in. Exhale, untuck the toes, and rock back into your child's pose. Finish the exhale, inhale up to table. And exhale downward dog.

I find also that the wider I put my feet on the mat, the more my legs kinda open up. So I grab a little bit more freedom in the hamstrings with wider legs. You can play around with that. On your exhale, bring the knees to the mat for table, pause, breathe in, and as you exhale, lift the left knee, left foot, and step. Good.

Finish the exhale there, inhale, come up for the lunge, and then on the exhale, hands come down, step the right foot up to meet your left, finish off the exhale, maybe really empty everything out here. No need to rush. Bend the knees, come up halfway, breathe in. Exhale, fold. Bend the knees, roll up, breathe in, arms up, press the palms together, and palms to the chest, palms to the heart, exhale.

Good job, good job. So now bring the feet, so we've got the feet here, hip-width. Take them a little bit wider. So I'm a huge fan of squatting. Not squatting with like millions of pounds obviously, but body squat, body weight squat.

So this is going to be a shape kinda like a traditional yoga squat, also known as sumo squat. So the feet open up. Open them up out wide, about 45 degrees or so. And then the move is to push the hips back, keep the chest up, hips back, knees wide. Bring the palms either at the chest or out in front of you.

Help give you a little counterbalance. Reach back with the hips, keep the knees wide, lower down, lower down, lower down. Wherever that is for you. Chest up, tailbone down, core braced. Now on the exhale, push through the heels and pull the elbows in, almost like you've got you're really, genuinely pulling weight in and flex a little bit, use the muscles in your body.

Opening the chest, that's the exhale. Strong legs, strong glutes. Breathe in, lower down, we're gonna do five. This is number two. Breathe out.

Good. Breathe in, breathe out. And you can utilize the Ujjayi breath, breathing in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. I think that's either four or five, but we'll do one more for good measure.

Lower down, lower down, pause. Remember, drive through the heels. (exhales loudly) Palms to the chest, step back to more of a hip-width position. Build tree pose on the left side. We did it in practice number one.

You choose. If you felt better with the heel just above the ankle, rock that out. If you'd like to slide that heel up below the knee, or even if you know right away, you're like a tree expert, bring the heel all the way up to inner thigh. You find your range. Just not on the knee.

Okay, pause, take a breath. Set it. Take the arms up if you'd like. Nice, on the exhale. Clear it off with one breath in, palms to the chest, exhale.

Nice. Okay, feet back open again. We'll do five more. Open the feet out, good. This is great for strength, mobility, breath awareness, everything, a little bit of stamina, endurance.

Breathe in, lower down. Get a little bouncy if you'd like and then draw. It's important, press through the bones of your feet. Crazy through the bones of your feet, long spine, belly in, and (exhales sharply) add a little sharp exhale opening your mouth now. So it's a breath in through the nose.

Exhale. (exhales sharply) Strong, it's like let go. Breathe in. (exhales sharply) (exhales sharply) Two more. (exhales sharply) One more time.

(exhales sharply) Nice, palms back to the chest. Feet hip-width, inhale. Exhale. Nice, alright. Bend the right open build for tree.

So stable left leg, left foot, left leg, all the way up. Either the toes are helping you out or the foot is planted into the leg. Leg into the foot. Boom, tree pose. Oof.

(exhales) So sometimes with the focus, we're focusing and trying so hard with some of the balance postures. Don't let that focus or intensity turn into tension and just funk and I'm trying so hard. Find some sense of ease and relaxation with all of the effort. Breathe in, and breathe out. Nicely done.

Okay, moving on. Front of the mat. Bring the palms back to the heart, back to the chest. Let's do one heart, earth, sky, heart breath. Pause, alright this is just that clearing.

That grounding. So pause here. Breathe in. Breathe out, press the palms down to the earth. When you do that, really press and strong arms all the way down.

Inhale, circle the arms all the way up, and exhale, palms to the chest, nice. Inhale, circle the arms up, exhale bring it on down. Inhale lift halfway, exhale tabletop. Tabletop, what I'd like to work on right now is really focusing on the abdominal region, okay. I call it like abdominal lift.

So if you hold tabletop in a position like so, we don't move the arms, we don't get into cat cow, nothing like that. What we do is isolate this region using our diaphragm and abdominals. So let the belly be as lazy and sloppy, like you never do this at the beach ever. You let the belly just go down. Sloppy belly.

It's good, it's kinda fun, like just let it go. But we're gonna work against that now. So sloppy belly, lazy belly to skinny belly. So navel, your belly, pull it up as far toward your back body as you can on the exhale. Keep pulling, pulling, pulling from your low waist, side waist, under the low ribs.

Now inhale, lazy belly. Exhale, tight, toned, skinny belly. Hold it there, don't release the tension. Take a breath in, exhale, pull it up even more. It's uncomfortable.

If it feels uncomfortable, it's okay. It's kind of like you're doing it right So what I want you to do is go with a couple more on your own and the idea is to drop the belly, so lazily, inhalation there, and then exhale. Really pull it up as far as you can. Pull it up, low ribs, muscles under the low ribs. Obliques, sides, low abdominals, everything is kinda like pulling up and in and churning around.

Good, one more time. Breathe in, lower. Breathe out, pull it up. Now let the belly drop, move into cow pose. Using your belly, using that same breath, now lead the movement into cat pose with that.

So exhale, pull the stomach up and in, and round it out. Full exhale. Let's just do two more. Breathe in, lazy belly, arched back. Exhale.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale into a table. Brace, but not as intense, but brace. Get used to bracing this region here, and exhale, braced belly, down dog.

Stretch it up, five breaths. So now's a good time to really incorporate if you have lost it for any reason, it's totally normal, Ujjayi. So you either hold like a static position, hold that like sweet spot in down dog. Like you're kinda like savoring the experience. This is an opportunity, you've built the shape, you have the structure, the stability.

You're showing up fully like you're really engaged in the experience. You have the breath, that Ujjayi kinda to support that. Okay, nice. Let's bring the knees down and transition onto our seat. So we bring the knees on down and in no specific way, come on down to the bottom.

Cross your legs in some sort of comfortable seated position, pull up the flesh from the seat, sit on the sit bones. Lengthen up through the spine quite a bit. Take the right hand to your left thigh, left hand back behind you, maintain tall spine, and belly in, twist to the left. Just like a nice little way to rinse and clean out what you've done possibly. Good, look forward, maintain the long spine, and cruise on over to the right side.

Left hand on the right thigh, right hand back behind you. Good, look forward, release, sit tall. Now bring the palms to the chest. We'll close out together, you and I here, I highly encourage you, because it feels so good. When I'm done here, lie down.

Take one minute. Take five minutes before you get back into your hectic, crazy day, to rest. Zero muscular effort whatsoever. Rest, rest, rest, but for now, that wraps up number two. Good job, I'm so happy that we're doing this.

This is so awesome. Thank you so much. Have a beautiful day, namaste.