Day 9: Find Stability

(waves crashing) Hey, welcome back, how you feeling? I'm feeling pretty good myself. How's that positivity thing working out for you? Keep practicing, keep practicing. And it's like anything else, you know?

You just do it over and over and over and it seems weird to look at anything other than like positive, right? So this is day nine. We're gonna start in child's pose. Come on down, let's do it. So try to, maybe try child's pose with the knees pretty wide on this one.

Frees up the belly, better for breath. We'll take five, eh, three to five breaths. Begin to kind of ground and settle in. You can stretch those arms out. You can walk and tent the fingers a little bit farther.

You know, get into the side body. Good, one more breath. One more breath as you reach the hips back and stretch through the fingers. Good, now create a good solid foundation and hinge up into table top. Let the stomach rest.

Back arch, cow pose. Good. As you exhale, pull the belly up and in and round it out, cat pose. We're kinda getting right to it here. Right here. (laughs) Got my Australian accent for you, folks.

Good, inhale. And exhale. (exhales) Inhale. (inhales) And roll gently. Exhale. (exhales) Cat pose, round it out. Separate the shoulder blades as much as you can. Push the ground away, extend the tailbone down.

Look toward your thighs. Good, one more round. Cow pose, belly down, arched back, butt up, shoulders back, chest forward. Good, on the exhale, cat pose, get round. Get round.

Nice. Now come back into a neutral flat back. At any moment, you can pause this and do a little wrist stretch, you know, then you kind of play it and catch back up. For now we're gonna move into bird dog. Good way to kind of build some length and also core awareness, so send that right leg all the way back, draw the right hip down.

Strong like you're in a plank pose, that right leg. Left arm, reach it out, thumb up. Get strong and long. Couple breaths. (exhales) Now, lift the right toes up, take a breath in, and on the exhale, meet the knee with the elbow, right in the midline there and kind of find that quality of cat pose here, good, four more. Breathe in, reach out with both limbs, and exhale, contract core, get strong.

Inhale. And exhale. Inhale. (inhales) Exhale. (exhales) Do your absolute best and that's enough. Good, exhale. Let's go one more time.

Get long and exhale. (exhales) Nice. Stretch it out, bring the right foot down, left hand down. Now we'll kick that left foot out a little bit and bring the right heel down, okay? Stack the joints as we've done before. Open up into side plank.

Can stay here, play around with rolling through the shoulder a little bit, you can also lift that right leg up, strong, like you're trying to kick the right heel to the wall, whatever wall or whatever's behind you, right? Strong and supported you can also bend, grab hold of the foot, then push the foot into the hand, opening the chest, stretching through your quad on the right leg. All the while, supporting yourself safely. Good, extend that right leg out. Bring the right arm up, breathe in, and now exhale, right hand down, right knee down.

Take a cat cow, breathe in. And breathe out. (exhales) Good job. Back into a neutral flat back, left leg back. And again, that left leg is strong like you're in a plank pose, okay? Now extend the right arm out.

Left toes up, knee to elbow, exhale. Boom, nice. Inhale. Exhale. (exhales) Breathe in. (inhales) Breathe out. (exhales) Breathe in. (inhales) Breathe out. (exhales) One more. (inhales) (exhales) Good, extend out, bring the left toes down, right hand down. Now slide the right toes over for support.

Left heel down. Good, so you've got four points of contact, right hand below the shoulder, knee below the hip, left foot grounded, and then your right toes as the kickstand. Now go ahead and open up. (exhales) Fill the posture with a few healthy, conscious breaths. Feel free to roam through the shoulder, right? Or lift the left leg, extend it out, keep bracing through your midsection.

Feel free to bend that left leg. Find that little sort of side plank back bend action. (exhales) Always freedom in the neck. Good, now extend that left leg out, boom. Left hand down, left knee down, throw in one more cat cow.

Breathe in. And breathe out. (exhales) Well done. Take it into downward dog from here. Curl the back toes, stretch the seat up. Lift.

It's that inverted V posture, right? So you want the arms long and strong to support you, your spine long, your core strong and where you find a little bend and freedom is in the legs. Good, on your next exhale, bring the knees down. (exhale) walk your left hand forward a little bit, reach the right arm out and with the exhale, sweep that right arm underneath the left. Walk it over as much as you can. If you need a pillow for your head, put a pillow there, a block.

I'll put mine down on the mat. Find some position with your left hand that helps support you. Now here, what wants to happen is my left hip wants to come forward. Pull the left hip back. Keep the hips square, and isolate the stretch through like the thoracic, the upper part of your back, your shoulders, your upper back muscles.

(breathing deeply) Good, come on out. (breathing deeply) Back to tabletop. (exhales) Work out any kinks. Walk the right hand forward. Left arm reaches out, sweep it under. Bring the left shoulder down, maybe the head, and you find a place for that right hand that helps support you or get you deeper in the pose.

Pull the left hip forward, right hip back. (exhales) Couple breaths. (breathing deeply) Good. Come on out. Back to tabletop. Throw in a cat cow.

It's like the neutralizer, right? Throws everything back into a balanced, neutral position. Good, so from here, this is one of my favorite poses. You know, if I don't hold it long enough, press pause and hold it. Like tune it up and just hang out in it for a little bit.

It's puppy pose. So walk your hands out pretty far. Keep the seat directly over your knees. Walk 'em out, walk 'em out. Bring the forearms down and then maybe even the chin or the forehead.

Let the belly get lazy and hang. (exhales) So there's this nice, long slope from your sit bones or your low back all the way out through the crown of your head. You can place a cheek down if that's better. (breathing deeply) Just enough effort to hold the pose. It's like you're kind of like using just enough effort to hold yourself gently in the pose. Not too much.

Good, now with your arms stretched out, hinge forward up onto your forearms, letting your thighs and hips kind of float you right into sphinx pose. We've been here before. Shoulders back, long spine. Legs active. Slowly lower down from here.

As you do, slide the hands underneath your shoulders or along the ribs, prepping for a cobra. So go ahead and come up into cobra. Breathe in, push back into child's pose. So every time I come into a cobra or a sphinx, I'm always countering it with this child's pose. Good, stretch the arms out, downward dog.

Curl the toes, up, up, and away. Now this is the first time you and I, my friends, have walked from downward dog to the front of the mat. So sometimes it can be a little choppy. Don't worry about it. Let's do it though.

I personally like to walk as far as I can, keeping my palms down and then when it starts to tighten up a little bit, I come up onto my finger tips, lift my chest a little bit, and I keep on walking. Keep on trucking. Now, when I get here, forward bend. Let's get the adjustment in the spine. Push the hips back, lift halfway, breathe in.

Exhale, fold. (exhales) Push the hips back. Get as low as you possibly can. Lift the chest, lift the arms, now powerfully, through your legs, like that lift with your legs concept, right? Push and lift up and back just a tiny bit. And exhale. (exhales) Palms to the chest.

Let's throw in a couple standing poses. Warrior two, wide forward bend, back to warrior two. So left leg and just always practicing balance, right? Let's do it with some balance. So lean to the right, lift your left foot up off the mat.

Put a little bend in the right and then step it back and if you didn't quite land in that warrior two position, find your warrior two position. Generally, the right heel to the back heel, in this case. Front heel to back heel, or back arch, or even a little wider. Okay. Go ahead and stack the right knee over that right ankle, extend the arms out.

Take the gazing point over the right middle finger. (exhales) Take a few breaths. (breathing deeply) Always feel free to straighten the leg, bend the leg. Straighten and bend, nice. Chest open.

Okay, straighten the front leg, hands on the hips. Turn both feet forward, parallel with one another, nice wide stance. Little bend in the knees, freedom in the hips. Push the hips back as you hinge so your chest is reaching out and your butt is pushing back and you start to feel the hamstrings. Stay committed to the feet.

Go ahead and exhale. (breathing deeply) Exhale. Good, and when I stay, when I say stay committed to the feet, it means like really what it means, stay committed to pressing into the bones and using muscle in your feet to stay grounded and to bring a sense of strength up through your legs. Okay, so you're supported while folding. Good, now soft little bend, hinge.

So you reverse that movement right back up. Hello. Nice, good job. Warrior two in the back side of the mat, so just go ahead and turn the left foot. Get your alignment.

Straighten the front leg, and when you're ready to bend that front leg, bend it, bring the arms out, find that really nice, strong, steady, relaxed warrior two. (breathing deeply) Always freedom to close the eyes. When I like, when I close my eyes, it gives me that opportunity to really like settle in that much more, that much deeper. And especially if you're at home, you know, sometimes you can be in the pose, you're looking around at pictures on the wall, bills on the table. Like let that stuff go, this is your practice.

(exhales) Okay, good job. Straighten the front leg. Bring the palms back to the chest. Now, here you might wanna kinda wiggle the right foot forward a little bit, but just step the right foot to the back side of the mat. And let's find a squat pose.

This is just for transition so go ahead and squat down. (exhales) Take a moment here, push the arms into the legs. Open the chest. Find at least one nice breath here. (breathing deeply) Good, reach back behind you.

Set your seat down. Arms out in front of you and then roll on down. (breathing deeply) Place your hands underneath your seat. Really like supporting your bottom, right, and your low back. Okay?

Now bend your knees and send your legs straight up. Keep the chest open. Now, it's up to you how far down you'd like to go. Breathe in as you lower down. Maybe it's right here, right here and your belly is super strong.

Or maybe you come a little lower. And then on the exhale, pull the stomach in to support, right, the legs coming up. We'll do 10. You can also lift your head and look toward your toes as you're lowering down. So there's one.

Exhale, one. (exhales) Inhale, exhale, two. Inhale, exhale, three. Exhale, four. Keep the belly tight. Exhale, five.

Exhale, six. Exhale, seven. Exhale, eight. Good job. Exhale, nine.

Exhale, 10. Good, bring the feet down. Release the hands. Open the arms up a little bit. Good.

Feet below the knees. Arms alongside your body. Breathe in. As you exhale, just push up for one full breath into bridge pose. Open up, stretch out the abdominals.

(inhales) Breathe in. And now exhale, go ahead and roll down as we've done before. (breathing deeply) Bring your feet about as wide as the mat and your arms out into this nice, big T formation. And now casually let the knees crisscross or windshield wiper from side to side. And this here, my friends, can be, the quality in which you move, can be very much like relaxation, like 90% relaxed.

Just enough muscular effort to kind of get through it, right? Everything else is beginning to soften. (breathing deeply) Soften and relax. (exhales) Bring it back up to center. Put the bottoms of the feet together. Let the outer blades of both feet come down and the knees open up as wide as you can.

If you want a little more freedom in the hips, slide the feet farther forward. Good, now take your hands behind your head. Lift your head and stretch the back of your neck long. Place the head back down. Find a good resting place for your arms, for your legs.

Take, let's take a deep breath together, you and I. Breathe in. (breathes deeply) Open the mouth and exhale everything out. (exhales) Close your eyes. Begin to relax. This is very much a part of the practice.

Consider it a significant part of the sequence. We're gonna take 30 seconds, you and I, resting completely. All the facial muscles relaxed. Your eyes are relaxed. (breathing deeply) Your shoulders. (exhales) Your hips.

Your legs. Everything is relaxed. You can stay here. If you find comfort, stay here as long as you'd like. As long as you'd like.

All you have to do is basically nothing. I'm gonna roll on up via my side body. So if you're still lying down, stay rested. If you come up to sit with me, hello, welcome. (deep breath) Day nine, wow.

We're getting there. But I'm gonna emphasize, I'm still enjoying the moment and enjoying the ride as we get there because I'm gonna be super bummed when 30 rolls around. So thank you so much. It's been a pleasure, once again, to have you with me. Have a great day, thanks, namaste.

(breathing deeply)