Day 8: Practice Positive

(waves crashing) Hey, welcome back. So glad you made if for day eight. I'm pretty stoked to be here, although, I am a tiny bit sore. But I love that feeling. I dunno how you're feeling, I hope you're feeling some healthy soreness in different areas of your body.

Hamstrings, hip flexors, maybe shoulders, core, I dunno, but let's keep going with this. Number eight. All right. The one thing I wanna mention, right, as we come into this, positive. Absolutely, like your mindset, everything about you is just (makes poof noise) positive, all right?

So if you hit a spot where you're a little frustrated, turn it around, positivity, all right? Just give it a shot, I think it works, it helps me. So I'm gonna start up here at the front of the mat, grab your blocks, put them on the medium height, and we shall begin standing as we've done all the way up to this point. We'll start to shift that up soon, but. Okay.

So, feet hip width, ready to breathe, ready to move, ready to feel, all right? That's what we're doing here. Okay, let's take, you and I together, we'll take, just one solid I'm here breath. Palms together at the chest, close your eyes, breathing in. And breathing out.

Perfect. Inhale, circle the arms high. Press those palms together, get tall, get long, and exhale, forward bend. Stretch out those hamstrings, stretch out the back a little bit, slide the hands up to the shins just below the knees, lift, half way up, pull the belly in, take a breath in here. As you exhale, go ahead and step back with the right foot.

We'll begin right away with a little bit of movement, so find the lunge first, tense your fingers up on those blocks, get some nice height, you can also option to bring the blocks up a little higher if you'd like. What we're gonna do to begin, is just kinda cycle back and forth, we've done with before. So we're going come into the straight legs, take a long pyramid pose and come back into the lunge. Approach this as if you're warming your body up, basically, or maybe you've just gone out to the car to start the car, and you're warming up the car. Same thing, right?

You're just kinda getting into it, get some blood flowing, get the breath flowing. No specific, real, you know, guidance. It's a little bit more like, all right, that feels good, that feels pretty good. I lift my chest, lengthen my spine, take a deep breath. That feels good also.

All right, go ahead and step the right foot up to meet your left. Fold with an exhale. So find that forward bend. Inhale, come up half way. And step back with the left.

Same thing, nice, long lunge. So first, find the feet hip width, get the structure of the pose, and then maybe you can try to close your eyes. We'll do this for about three to five breaths. Close your eyes and begin to straighten the right leg, and really tune in to the sensations, the feelings that that posture brings up. Maybe use the exhale to draw back into the lunge and lift your chest a little bit, warming up.

Exhaling, straightening, maybe folding a little bit deeper, and lengthen out some of the tight muscles in the backs of the leg. Good, come back into the lunge. All right. Straighten out one more time, take a nice deep breath. Make sure when you do this your kinda pulling your right hip back, looking to always square those hips here.

Good. Step the left foot up to meet your right. Fold on the exhale. Inhale, lift, come up half way. Get long in the spine, every time we do this we wanna think about and feel your spine lengthening and tractioning out. Exhale, fold.

Send your seat back, lift your chest, take your arms forward and then power from here all the way up. Take a breath in as you do so, and palms rest at your heart on the exhale. Inhale, bring the arms out, and all the way up. Exhale down, forward bend. Good job.

Bend the knees a little bit, half lift on the breath in, traction, lengthen. Right foot back on the exhale. Okay, nice. Now really make sure that those feet are hip width. Make sure the right hand is grounded on the block, just below the shoulder.

Okay. Left knee, maybe it's 90 degrees, maybe you have a slight less of an angle on there. Take your left hand... Behind the head. I want you to really focus now on lengthening your spine, okay?

Now take that left elbow down in the direction of the mat. As you breathe in, open up. So the inhalation takes that elbow up and you find the little rotation here. Rotation through the spine, through the midsection of your body. Inhale, bring it down.

Exhale, twist open and up. Keep your hips steady, strong right leg. Good, three more. Breathe in, and breathe out. You can do it either way, right?

So, sometimes it feels good to inhale down, exhale, open. You could, on the exhale, bring it down. And inhale open. Last one, stay open, stay open. Nice.

Release. Square left hand down to the left block, step the right foot up to meet your left. And exhale. Inhale, lift. Exhale, left foot back.

Lunge. Steady on the block with that left hand, right hand either at your temple, right? On the right side. Or, behind the head. As you inhale, open up with that nice rotation. Feel like you're genuinely twisting and rotating the trunk of your body.

Lets go about four more. So you can inhale as you come down, and exhale, lift and open up. Or you can do it opposite: exhale, lower down, and inhale, lift up, reach the elbow up, rotate, rotate, good. Two more. Breathe in. And exhale, open.

Or the opposite breath. Good, last one. Nice. Open up, open up, hold it for a breath. Experience the actual posture here.

Beautiful. Bring it on down, square the hips, set yourself up here. Take a breath in and as you exhale, step the left foot up to meet your right, finish the exhale. Inhale, lift, half way. Exhale, fold. Bend the knees, reach the seat way back so the belly is kind of resting on the thighs for a moment, but then you lift the belly up, arms forward, brace your core, and then powerfully reach up, and palms rest back to the heart.

Good. Step your right foot back. Pyramid pose, okay? So what I like to do here is send both sets of toes, or both feet, directly forward. Moderate distance in the stance, maybe two and a half feet from the right toes to the left heel.

Hips square. Put the blocks up on the highest level, just as an option. All right. Now, from here, pull that left hip back, keep your chest up, long spine. Deep stretch down the left leg is what we're looking for, that's the primary focal point.

Breathing in, breathing out, as usual, and begin to hinge forward like you're reaching your chest out beyond your mat. Put a slight little bend in the left leg, and keep grounding down through your feet. So strong foundation, right? Little bend, or a big bend, you choose in that left leg. And right when you meet that area in the posture, you know, that left hamstring starts to scream a little bit, pause right there and that's when the work begins.

That's when you begin to send very kind, positive exhalations to that space. Or, you do it the other way and you get frustrated, like, why is it doing this? Right? Why does it feel this way? You choose. I choose the positive approach, sending kindness and positivity through the breath, and I can choose to come a little farther.

The deal is, if you hit that space with like, anxiety and tension, the space will just sorta seize up on you a little bit more. So, be free, with the breath especially. Good, come back up with your core massively engaged. Come all the way up. Nice.

Press the palms together at the chest, put a little bend in the left knee. This is where we begin to explore warrior three again, right? So, my left leg's definitely feeling it. It's gonna be somewhat taxing, but we'll see how that goes. Bend the right, and then just a little soft launch up.

Right there. Perfect. Warrior three. I'm breathing, I'm balancing. My hips are square, but I'm gonna explore a little bit farther down. Hinging, left leg is slightly bent.

Body's long, spine's long, right leg is long. Good. Exit out with a soft bend in the left, land softly with the right. Take a breath in, reach up, maybe tip back just a tiny bit. And palms to the chest, exhale.

Step the right foot up, shake out the left leg a little bit. Good job. Step the left foot back. All right, left foot back, pyramid pose. So, put a tiny little bend in the right, ground down through the feet.

So, strong foundation, point your fingertips into the creases there as you push the hips back, you reach your chest out, pull the stomach in, brace that whole core region, begin that positive relationship with that potentially tender hamstring. Good. That ujjayi breath, if you've been practicing that, bring that into play. Keep exploring what's going on in the feet, the muscles and bones in the feet spreading wide. You can put a little bend in that right knee, fold a little deeper.

Good, one more breath. Okay. Very supported, right? Hands up on the hips, braced core, strong legs, come all the way back up. Good.

Palms to the chest, bend that right knee a little bit, lean forward and when you're ready just tip, tip, tip, tip, tip right on into warrior three. Warrior three. You wanna lift that left tip, but try to bring it down. I know it wants to come up. Good, strong right leg, strong left leg, long spine, happy breath.

A little wobble is all right. Put a bend in that right knee. Step gently back into that pyramid posture, reach up, breathe in. And exhale, palms to the chest, stepping the left foot up to meet your right. Right on, good.

We're gonna move the blocks over to the side. You don't need them any longer for this little sequence. But do come back to stand hip width. Inhale the arms up, exhale, come on down, fold, fold, fold. Let's take one breath in, lift half way.

Take a full exhale into a nice long, forward bend. Reach down as far as you can, reach down, stretch. Nice. Now bend those knees and walk back into downward dog from here, and stretch it out. Bend the knees, lift the seat.

We'll take three breaths here. Pressing one heel, pressing the other. Working the arms, right? So always pressing into the fingers evenly, the index fingers, evenly. Turning the shoulders out away from the head so you can really feel freedom in the head.

One more breath, breathe in. And breathe out. Nice. Now, come forward into a push-up position, plank pose, and set the knees down. We're going to get into like a forearm side plank, with maybe some dips. So what I want you to do is, we'll take a moment to set this up, take your right forearm, bring it down.

Stack the elbow underneath the shoulder and then bring yourself all the way, you can either stack, stagger your feet, or stack the feet, okay? So here, see how I've got this framing? Elbow below the shoulder, left arm reaches up. I'm focusing mostly on this right side of my body, obliques, side core, let's call it. You can stay right here for the duration, or maybe even lower the hips a little bit.

Breathe in. And as you exhale lift the hips and reach up over your head. Good, we'll do five. Breathe in, lower. And breathe out.

Breathe in. Good job. Breathe out. Strong. Breathe in.

And breathe out. One more time. Inhalation. Exhalation. Strong and long, nice.

Now, I'm gonna turn my back to you, and we're gonna come back into forearm plank, sweep that left arm around and set it up. You might even have a better view over here. Left elbow underneath the shoulder, strong and supportive. Low left waist helping to stabilize, reach the right arm high, inhale lower, exhale, lift and reach up over your head. Big side stretch here.

Good, inhale. Exhale. Three more: breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. Last one, inhale, lower those hips a little bit, exhale, lift. Lengthen.

Nice. Forearm plank, pause. Walk up onto your hands. Here we go, 10 on each side, so find a strong plank, none of this, none of this. Look at yourself in the mirror, make sure this is not happening.

Lift the hips, extend the tailbone back. The back body almost feels like a tabletop with an angle through the legs. Okay, here we go. Right knee to the right elbow. Left. We'll do 10 on each side.

Two, two, three, three, four, four. Don't lift, don't lower the hips. Five, six, six, seven, seven, eight, eight, nine, nine, 10, 10. Nice. Set the knees down, take a breath. And exhale lower down.

Keep the elbows over the wrists, arms hugging the body gently. Good, point the feet back, lift the palms, cobra pose. Inhale. Good, reach the arms back, palms facing down, thumbs reaching up. If the legs lift a little bit, cool, if not, let them rest.

Lift. Now take the arms up overhead. Lower down, breathe in. Exhale for five. Pull the elbows back, strong back. Inhale, exhale.

Four. Inhale. Exhale. Three. Inhale. Exhale. Two.

Breathe in. Exhale. One. Hands come down, stay lifted, breathe in. Exhale, child's pose. Take a deep breath in into child's pose.

Good. Come up on to your hands and knees, circle around onto your back. When you roll down, hug your knees in, right? We've done this before. This, usually, for me, feels like, ahhhh, I've done a lot of the work, now it's time to kinda stretch it out, warm down.

Good. Bring your feet down to the mat. Feet underneath the knees. Arms alongside the body. Press into the feet. Lift and walk your shoulder blades toward one another, really opening up the front of your body as much as you can.

Okay, take a breath here, really breathe across the entire front side of your body, stretching, opening, and then let those shoulder blades pull away from one another. I like to lift my heels, reach my arms up, and slowly roll down one... Vertebrae at a time. Nice. When you lower down, draw the knees in, maybe even take a moment to reach your arms underneath, behind the knees.

Take hold of an opposite wrist. Fingers, forearm or even elbows, and take a nice few breaths here as you rock gently side to side. You're welcome to stay here, as usual, and find a few moments, a minute, two minutes, five minutes to lie on your back and rest. Kind of enjoy some rest after the work you've done. Day eight.

No big deal, right? Or you can come up and we can close out together. You can rock up, grab a comfortable seat. Sit up tall, acknowledge your efforts. So, positivity.

Positivity throughout the rest of your day. Just give it a shot. Those moments when you catch yourself being negative, or old patterned responses, just see if you can catch it and go, is there another way I can look at this? Is there another way that I can let that go and look at it with a little bit more of an open mind, open heart. Just try it. I guarantee you, it works.

Thank you, namaste. Have a beautiful day.