Day 11: Move Forward

(waves crashing) Welcome back my friends. Day 11 is about to happen right here, right now. So, we're going to start in child's pose, but for right now, go ahead and stand there, I'll stand here. Palms together at your heart, take your forehead, bow it down toward your fingertips. This is that gesture, right, we've been doing represents you showing up, grounding.

(inhaling) (exhaling) Take a breath in (inhaling) and breath out. (exhaling) Perfect, let's start. Child's pose. Come on down. Send the hips back.

(exhaling) Come away from the pose a little bit, take a breath in and exhale. (exhaling) Do it again, breathe in (inhaling) and breathe out. (exhaling) Come on up to Tabletop. Cat Cow, three rounds. Perfect way to kinda warm up the back body, warm up the spine, your core, your shoulders.

The exhalation takes you to that full Cat pose, inhale back into Cow. (inhaling) Exhale, round it out. (exhaling) One more time, breath in (inhaling) and exhale round. (exhaling) Good, curl the toes under. Downward Facing Dog.

We're gonna approach this a little bit differently today, for day 11, one one. Instead of walking forward, we're gonna enter everything from the back, so what you're gonna to from Downward Dog here is, begin to walk your hands back in the direction of your feet. You can bend your knees as much as you'd like, come up under your fingertips, whatever you need to do, but do your best to make it worth your while, right. As apposed to just struggling through it, just for the sake of getting there. Figure out how you can make your way back.

Now from here, the first one, we'll roll up. Bend the knees, roll up to stand. When you get up top, circle the arms up. (inhaling) Breathe in, because you have it and you can and breathe out. (exhaling) Here's where it's gonna shift a little bit.

We're gonna step up into Warrior One. So, from here center yourself on the mat. Step your right foot forward. Take a leap of faith almost, you know, but we step forward all the time, so it's important that you know how to do that mindfully. Bring the back heel down.

Now, for this Warrior One, get a little wider then we did before. Take your feet almost to, the right foot to the out edge of the mat on the right, left foot almost over to the left. Creates a little bit more of like a stability feeling, right, it's stable. Right hip back, take the arms up. Now bend the arms into this field goal shape and interlace your fingers behind your head.

Push your chest up, maybe gaze up just a a little bit. Good, elbows pull back like you're trying to pull them back toward one another, Strong back. Good, reach up, breathe in and as you exhale, walk your right foot over to the left a little bit and exhale the hands down. Step back into Downward Dog. Good, and if you'd like, what I feel makes it a little bit easier and more accessible is wider stance.

Feet wide on the mat and now bend those knees as much as you'd like, fingertips get groovy on the way back. Now with the wide feet, we're gonna come into a Chair pose actually, so begin to reach the seat back, arms out in front of you, (exhaling) belly in, (inhaling) breathe stable. (exhaling) press through the feet, rise up, breath in (inhaling) and breathe out, palms to the chest. (exhaling) Good, walk the feet back towards center, just for a stable sense, right. Left foot forward, walk it to the edge.

Right foot down, put the angle on it, get your feet mounted, right. Left hip back, right hip forward. Rise up with the arms, interlace. It's almost like, whenever I put my hands behind my head in a pose, I feel like I've just landed like at the beach, right. Comfortable, comfortable and relaxed.

Steady and relaxed. (exhaling Push the head into the hands just a little bit. Push the chest up. Good, inhale the arms up, walk the left foot over a little bit and exhale. Downward Dog, lift and place.

Walk it out. Walk the hands back, feet wide on the mat, seat back, Chair pose, arms out in front of you are straight up, up along side your ears. Now powerfully through the feet, rise up on the breath in (inhaling) and palms to your heart on the breath out. Center the feet. (exhaling) Right foot forward Warrior Two, so lift step.

Get a little wide stance again, maybe heel to heel, maybe a little bit wider. Warrior Two now, Warrior One, the hips were working towards square. We're opening the hips quite a bit in Warrior Two. Draw the right knee over the pinkie, toward the pinkie, arms out. (inhaling) Three breaths.

(exhaling) Closing your eyes for that deeper, sort of like connection or if they're open, there's just this nice steady gaze. One more breath. (inhaling) Circle the arms down on the exhale. Step back into Downward Dog. Stretch it out, lengthen.

Walk it back, you can narrow your feet a little bit more. Bend the knees, send the seat back, strong Chair pose. (inhaling) (exhaling) Finish the exhale and inhale rise up. (inhaling) Good, palms to the chest, exhale. (exhaling) Step the left foot up, Warrior Two.

Step, place, ground and arrive. You can take those palms up to roll the shoulders back, pulling the shoulder blades toward one another. You can also bend that right knee a little bit, extend the tale bone down. Straighten that right leg again, turn the wrists over, gaze forward. Good, on the exhale, bring the arms down, step back into Plank pose, or Downward Dog, sorry.

Walk it back, forward bending along the way. Good, Chair, nice and strong. (exhaling) Finish the exhale, inhale rise up. (inhaling) Palms to the chest, exhale. (exhaling) Good, now we're gonna get into Warrior Three, so you don't have to step as far forward, but step the right foot up, bend the back knee, bend the front leg a little bit, palms resting at your chest, long spine, gazing point is out beyond your right foot 10 feet or so, right.

Hips square. Breathe in. Calm relaxing exhale. (exhaling) Lift off into Warrior Three. Hinging forward as much as it makes sense to you.

Grounding your thumbs at your sternum, center of your chest near your heart, focusing, belly in, ribs in. Now hinge up, try this, hinge up, bend the right knee, place your left ankle on top of your right thigh, gently guide your left hip open as much as you can. Now you can stay here in a moderate little bend in the right leg or you can deepen that bend, reach the arms out, more of a chair, single leg chair slash pigeon. Point your left toes forward to protect your left knee. Keep your back nice and long, core tight.

Try this, forearms down on the leg. Might even feel a little bit more rested. You can flirt, if you're a little more bendy, you can straighten that front leg a little bit, maybe even reach the fingertips down, that's an option. This is an option, hands on the leg, right, or forearms on your calf and ankle and then arms out in front. Now, reverse it, press through the foot, lift lift lift, square and bring it down.

That gets a little burn in the old right side. The good thing is, we can do it on the other side, get to experience that whole thing again. Take the arms up, breathe in and exhale come down, forward bend. Step back into Downward Dog. (inhaling) (exhaling) Walk your hands back.

Chair pose, send the seat back, arms out, arms long now up along side your ears and then launch up on the breath in. (inhaling) Breath out, palms to the chest. (exhaling) Center yourself on the mat. Send your left foot forward. Little soft bend, hips squared, soft bend in the left leg, hips squared.

Palms resting at your heart, gazing point is steady, when you're ready, lift. Hinge forward, balance. Stay here or begin to hinge up. Bend the left leg a little bit, place the right ankle on top of that left thigh. Gently guide that right hip open and feel free to stay just like so, right.

It's not easy, this is not an easy posture. Then begin to reach the arms out in front of you, maybe bending that left leg a little bit more. Hips back, as far as you can and then reach out with the hands out in front of you. Maybe rest your right forearm on your right calf and your left forearm on your ankle. Play around with that.

Maybe straighten the leg a little bit. Reach down toward the mat. Now let's reverse it okay, so bend that left leg if it's straight. Come up, bring some awareness to that midsection, right. All the way up to stand.

Release the foot, lift that right knee and right foot comes down to the mat. Shake out the legs a little bit, let the arms relax. Good job, that's hard. Take a breath in, circle those arms up nice and high, and exhale those palms to your heart. (exhaling) Wipe away, you're done with that portion.

Let's play around with Crow again, right. We did that before, but we only got a little taste of it. So come to the front of your mat, let's get into like a squat position, right. We've done plenty of those, so you probably know what I'm talking about. Heels on the mat, feet off, draw your seat back and down.

Elbows into the knees, keep them tracking out wide. Okay, so right here, wherever you are in the squat, begin to kinda like mentally prepare yourself to balance on your hands. Think about nothing but success. If you need a pillow or something to give you some stability or some support, security, put it out in front of you in case you do fall forward, okay. Now here, lean forward and kinda hop your feet a little closer.

Place the palms down on the mat, okay. Now use the upper arms as a little bit of a shelf. Use the upper arms as a shelf for your knees to rest on. So this right here could be the perfect place, you're like, okay, I'm happy here, I got it, my core is engaged, maybe I'm gonna lift one foot. I'll lift the other.

Maybe I hop forward just a little bit, just for a brief moment. Get that little, little lift. Maybe you lift your knees a little higher. Lift your toes. Put the toes together.

Hold, breathe. Good, bring it down. Walk your feet a little bit wider for the squat. (exhaling) Let out a big exhale. Sometimes when we're trying so hard, we end up holding our breathe and bringing in a lot of like tension, right.

It requires a lot of strength and energy so when you exit the pose, take the time to kinda like, (exhaling) it's like that sigh of relief. On your next exhale, with some support, bring your hands back behind you, bring your seat down to the mat. Situate yourself where you're on the length of your mat. Stretch your right leg out and take the left foot, your left heel to the inner thigh, inner right thigh. And just like you would for a seated fold, you wanna kinda like pull the flesh back, pull the flesh of your seat back.

What that'll do is kinda encourage the pelvis to tilt into more of an interior tilt, alright. As opposed to sitting like this and expecting to get that forward bend. So tilt it, (tongue clicking) like so, alright. So we'll get a nice little straight leg posture, feel free to bend that right leg. Inhale reach those arms up and then exhale, bring it forward.

Your hand might rest on the knee and you might just leave your chest out. You're gonna bring them forward forward forward, like I was going and kinda like land right here. This is like where I feel pretty comfortable landing. I can still manage my breath comfortably. (exhaling) Release some of the tension, in my shoulders, my back.

(inhaling) (exhaling) Good, slide up. Good, take the left knee, bend that leg, right. If you need to bring it out a little bit farther, go for it. I'm gonna hug the knee in just a little bit more and then I'm gonna rap the right arm around the top of the shin. Now here I'm little, you know, a little kinda hunched over.

I wanna pull up, lengthen, create some space, get a good hold and take my left hand back behind and get a little spinal twist. See how that feels. If for whatever reason, you're not accessing it, stick to the legs being crossed. That's fine. And rotate.

A different hand hold might feel good. Right on, come back over to center. (inhaling) Breathe. (exhaling) Okay, stretch your left leg out and bring the right heel into the inner thigh. Again, with the tilt, right.

You have your pelvis, you wanna kinda like pull the flesh back this way, so that it will (tongue clicking), kinda do that thing. Sound effects might work (tongue clicking). (laughing) Okay so, left leg out. A little bend might be helpful for you. You might want to reach up and reach out and fold.

So again, I found my spot. This spot feels manageable, it feels like I can actually gain or have a little pleasure in the experience and not feel as if I'm suffering through it, right. Okay, one more breath. (inhaling) (exhaling) Okay, slowly up, bending that right leg up into the chest, sitting up tall, wrapping the left arm around. You can wrap, get your elbow around the shin or eventually maybe just hold.

Whichever one feels better. Up tall with the spine, belly in, right hand back behind you and twist. It's the same concept of you in your car, right, and you gotta look behind you while you're in reverse. You know, some of these poses are just that practical and that functional. It's like, I wanna be able to look back behind myself while I'm driving, with some sense of comfort and ease.

Okay, back over to center, hug the knee in, get tall, nice. Spin around onto your seat, if you're not already there. Let's roll down, good, so we twisted, we stretched, let's roll down and relax. Take the left knee in, extend the right. Take the right knee in, extend the left.

Now extend both legs out. Take a full inhalation and a full exhalation and the exhalation, if it had words it would be I am finished, I've done my work, I'm going to relax. (exhaling) Let every muscle in your body completely relax. Your breath is relaxed. Mind, maybe a little relaxed.

That mind still likes to race. Good. And as I'm always encouraging you, I encourage you to stay here longer. As I move up to my seat and close out, stay here, relax. No need to go anywhere for the next minute or so, two minutes.

Give yourself that. If I didn't have to come up and close out, (tongue clicking) I'd be down there resting as well. So, If you're lying down, rested, stay there. If you're here with me right now, press your palms together and we'll close out. You showed up once again.

Once again for yourself. Namaste.