Day 16: Roaring Flow

(waves crashing) Hey, welcome back to Yoga Anytime. This is day number 16. Here we go, child's pose, come on down. So, it's up to you, wide leg, narrow, I like a little wide to begin my practice. So I'm gonna set this hips back.

Ahhh, take a couple breaths. Bring your palms together. Bring your forehead to your thumbs, maybe rest on your elbows. (inhaling) Take a few breaths, just gonna ground together, you and I, practicing together once again. Number 16, 30 days of showing up.

Okay, take one more breath. (inhaling) Exhale. (exhaling) Good, let's come up onto tabletop. Continue the flow of breath. In tabletop, walk your left hand forward a little bit to create some space for thread the needle.

Reach the right arm out, weave it underneath. Reach it as far as you can, and then set the right shoulder down, your head down. Situate your left hand in a position that allows you to find some comfort. Draw the left hip back, squaring off the hips. (inhaling) Sometimes I don't even really put my head down.

I make a little bit more of an active pose, so you know, it's up to you. Okay, opening up the side body, shoulder, getting a little bit of a twist here. Now slowly come back out. You know, feel free in tabletop to get curious, also. There's like little wavy side bendy things you can do.

Draw the right arm out, take the left arm, reach it out, and sweep it under. And land, land the shoulder down, the arm down, square off the hips, and then figure it out. Move around, roam around. Don't allow yourself to get stuck in any one position and feel like you just have to suffer through it until I say, "move on." Okay, once that's made enough sense, you've explored it, come back out. Nicely done.

Okay, back into tabletop. Let the head roll once or twice in each direction. Okay, now place the hands down below the shoulders, walk them out just a little bit, curl the toes, downward dog. One of my favorite, favorite postures, we come into it quite a bit during the practice. You'll find it, if you're not a person who goes out to a lot of different classes or you haven't practiced much, this is a pose you can always come back to.

It's like a when in doubt, go to downward dog. It feels good. And if it doesn't feel good right now, over time, with practice, it will start to feel better. Okay, walk up to the front of the mat. Once you land here, come up about halfway, get into that half forward bend, breathe in, exhale, come on down, forward bend.

Stretch the right leg as long as you can, keep the left leg bent, come up high on the left fingertips, and open that right arm high. Breathe in. Good, bring the right arm down. Switch, bend the right, straighten the left, open up. Good, bring that left arm down.

Soft knees, really soft, draw your tailbone down, round it out a little bit, and then roll up. (deep breathing) Take the arms up on the breath in. Palms to the chest, breath out. (deep breathing) Arms all the way out, thumbs facing down, reach back behind you, interlace, I'll turn around so you can see. Can you interlace all fingers, or if that's really tight for you, take the right hand and grab hold of the index finger and middle finger, or the wrists.

So here's the option: you can just leave it like this and fold, right, or interlace your fingers. The idea is to get a little bit of a shoulder stretch and a forward bend. So take your feet about as wide as the mat, find that hand-hold, and you could stay right here if you're like, nah, forward bend doesn't work for me right now with this position. Stay here and open up the chest, especially if you've been sitting for any length of time. For me, this one feels the best.

Forward bend, soft knees and downtown. Back of the neck is long, a little movement side to side. Bring the arms to your low back, and all the way down, just heavy, relaxed noodle arms. Tuck the tailbone, roll back up. Good, bring the feet back to hip width.

Breath in, standing tall, maintain that height, breath out. Inhale the arms high, exhale forward bend. (exhaling) Inhale lift halfway, step the right foot back into a lunge, come up high on those fingertips of the right hand. Situate the shape, right, get that house built, and now, take that left arm and begin to kind of like roll it across your chest, opening and twisting first and foremost, get the twist, rise up, open. Good, bring that left arm down.

Bend the right knee a little bit, make sure your feet are on like railroad tracks, hip width, and then rise up, high lunge. (inhaling deeply) Okay, take your right arm and sweep it underneath the left, eagle arms. Good job. Lifting the elbows, dropping the elbows, where can you find a little bit of freedom here? Steady gaze.

Now try this, I'm gonna be facing the opposite, right? But what we're gonna do is you're gonna straighten the front leg, begin to bring both feet pointing the same way. Mine will be back toward here, but keep this nice, wide stance and hold eagle arms, soft little bend in the knees, and then exhale fold. You might feel a little bit more of the intensity in the upper back and shoulders. So you're in a wide-leg forward bend, gripping, gripping deliberately through your feet, staying strong, strong in the legs.

(deep breathing) Okay, bend the knees. Use your core muscles and legs, your leg strength and core muscles, to rise up. Good, release the arms. (breathing deeply) Come back into that lunge position, so take the left foot forward, square off the hips. Inhale the arms high, and now exhale, bring both hands down to the mat.

Step back into plank pose, push-up position. Breathe in, using your knees or opting not to, lower all the way to the mat. Finish the exhale, push the toes all the way back, pull your elbows toward your heels. Hug your elbows also into your side body. Now press firmly into your feet, lifting your kneecaps, pushing your hips down into the mat, to lift your chest for cobra, breathe in.

And now from here, curl your toes. Use, like take a moment here. When you're coming up, I want you to squeeze your thighs and really brace your core muscles, your belly as you do so. So you're using those main muscle groups to come into downward dog. So breathe in, cobra, breathe out, push strong all the way up and back.

Breath in, and breath out. Walk back up to the front of the mat. It's not always pretty, but it gets better over time. Inhale, come up halfway, exhale, fold. (exhaling) Good, this time we'll come up through chairs.

So reach the seat back, way back, and as you do so, lift the chest, lengthen the spine, pull the arms back. Arms up alongside your ears, strong chair pose. Pull the feet away from one another like you're ripping newspaper apart, and now keep that connection as you come all the way up, deep breath in, and palms to the chest, breath out. (exhaling) Inhale, circle the arms high, exhale, forward bend. (exhaling) Inhaling, lifting halfway, exhaling, left foot back.

Long lunge, tent the fingers, maybe sit on the knuckles, roll the chest open, keep the shape of the lunge happening. Open up, take one big breath here. Exhale the right arm down. Pause, exhale, bend that left knee, rise up, high lunge. Feet on that railroad track, hip width, sweep the left arm underneath the right, find your eagle arm posture.

(deep breathing) Okay, straighten the front leg. I'll face you this time. Point both sets of toes forward, wide stance, but make sure you've got that good grip, good grip in your feet, strong legs. Push the hips back, hinge forward and down. If the arms don't feel great like this, leave it out.

Let your arms just kind of hang. For me, it feels like I'm getting a really nice stretch in my upper back; my shoulder blades; my shoulders, especially the right one here. Let the arms come down, undo the arms. Let them hang. Now, little bend, lift the chest, hands at the hips, strong back, strong core, rise up.

Yeah, hi. Okay, so keep the feet like this, right? Open your toes out wide. So this is a wider squat, like a horse stance. So what I want you to do is draw the tailbone down.

And you can maybe see from this position, if I draw my hips forward, this kind of like, blip. What I want is not that; I want, there we go. I'm alive here, safe and long in my low back. Now we lower down. As if my back is sliding down a wall, right?

Knees out. (deep breathing) Hands on the thighs, a little support there, a little bounce, and now there's something, there's this cool breath called lion's breath. You may or may not have ever done it, I don't know. But, we're gonna do it right now. So what it consists of is making your face look really funny, but like, letting a lot of breath out and letting it really get distorted, okay?

So, if you're at your office and you're watching this and you're doing lion's breath, it might seem a little awkward, but who cares, it's just breath. But if you're at home, let it fly. So it looks a little like this: you breathe in, and then you're gonna stick the tongue out and just haaaaaagggh! Eyes wide open, face just like aggh! How was that, aggh! Ahh. (laughing) I don't know, I think it works. I feel already like my spirit is lifted.

Right, okay, so let's try it again. Breathe in, tongue out, eyes open, haaaghh! I don't know, I think it's right, sounds about right. Inhale the arms high, palms to the chest, ahh, squat down, horse stance, breathe in, arms forward, strong arms, exhale back. (deep breathing) One more time, breathe in, breathe out, squat, squat, horse stance. Inhale, reach out, exhale.

(exhaling) Good job, breathe in. Lift, stand, and palms to the chest. (deep breathing) Well done. So, we're gonna end up on our butts, right? So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna step to the front of the mat, and in no particular way, kinda lower down like so.

Okay, so here we are. Now, I'm gonna open up into this reverse tabletop, hands back, point the fingers back, feet, well, ideally when you lift up, your knees are stacked up over your feet, okay? Pull the chest open. Right here, this could be your reverse tabletop. So if you lift up and you're like, "Nah, not really for me," come back to this place.

Here we go, ready and lift. Shoulders open, you can let your head drop back or keep it a little bit more active. You can play around with bringing your feet a little closer together, shooting a leg out, Other leg out. Good, lower down. Come back up just that way, or maybe lean over to the right, take the left arm out in front of you, push through the feet, lift, and reach back.

Good, lower down. Switch arms, make sure that left arm is secure, right? Hand is below the shoulder, feet below the knees, joint stacking, up, up, and away. Nice, come on down. (exhaling) Okay, now a few practicesago, I feel good, I feel open here.

That feels nice, I gotta do that more often. So a few practices ago, we did this kind of position where we're up like so, and we're doing this kind of thing, back and forth, right, back and forth. This will loosen up the hips, meet on the left side, fold your stomach over your inner thigh for a yin-like a relaxed version of pigeon. Just two breaths, breathe in. (Inhaling) Breathe out.

(Exhaling) Breathe in, breathe out. Push on up, come on over to the other side. Let's take two breaths. So hinge over, get your positioning, and fold over the inner right thigh, two breaths, support your head. Breathe in, breathe out.

Breathe in, (inhaling) breathe out. (exhaling) Good, push on up. Swivel around, lower down to your back, good, place the bottoms of your feet together, or stretch your legs out. Let your arms come down by your side. Take a few very conscious breaths.

Very deliberately like grounding breaths, breathing in. (inhaling) Breathing out. (exhaling) Breathing in, I am, breathing out, rested. Relaxed. Breathing in, breathing out, peaceful and relaxed.

(mellow breathing) Soft in the eyes, soft in the mind, kind of hold yourself in a very relaxed way. Roll over to your right side, bending your knees, rest your head on your right arm, supported and relaxed. Good, join me by pushing up, up to a seated position. Press the palms together. Take a moment, a little silent acknowledgement, thank yourself for showing up again.

Thank yourself for showing up. Namaste.