Day 25: Receptive Exploration

Hey there. Welcome back to Yoga Anytime. We're gonna get started here on number 25. Yeah! 25, 24 we did a little bit of twisting, right? We're wringing things outs.

25, we're gonna go back to some heart-opening, chest-opening action. Start in child's pose. But... As we've always been doing, right? We're gonna press the palms together.

I'll face you, close your eyes. Take a breathe in. (inhales deeply) And exhale. (exhales deeply) Perfect, my favorite part. Child's pose.

Get the hands down, knees down. Go wide. And pause here for a second. Take a breath in. And as you exhale, send the hips back toward the heels.

(exhales deeply) Let's do that two or three more times. Breathe in. Come up all almost all the way to table top. And breathe out. (exhaling deeply) Child's pose.

Good, one more time. Breathe in. (inhales deeply) And let the exhale take you back to child's pose, relaxing. (exhales deeply) Moving your hips side to side. Taking a little bit of time here before we begin number 25.

(exhales deeply) Maybe you're in the habit now, in the practice now of like setting an intention. Feel free, if you've got a personal one. (exhales deeply) Good. Stretch the arms out. Reach for the front of the mat.

Good. Come up into table top. Bring your knees now below the hips. Cat cow, three four rounds so let the belly drop down. Sit bones rise.

Shoulders back. Chest forward. Look forward gently right. You don't have to look up. Exhale from the core.

Pull the belly up and in. Round the upper back. Tucking the tail bone a little bit there. Good. Two more.

Breathe in. Cow pose. Arched back. Fluidity, right? We want freedom in the back body, in the spine.

Exhale cat pose. (sighs deeply) Good, one more time. Breathe in. (inhale deeply) And breathe out. Pull the belly up.

Tuck the tail bone, spread the shoulder blades wide. Nice. Come back into a flat back. Do a little moderate cow pose so there's a little bit of an extension. Little bit of a gentle arch okay?

So you start with the extended long spine. Curl the toes under, breathe in. Exhale, lift the knees. Keep the spine long. Close the gap between the hips.

Belly toward the thigh. And then go ahead and rise up straightening one leg. And straightening the other as you bend the opposite. It's kind of moving side to side. I don't know about for you but my first downward dog of the day usually feels, well it feels pretty good because I just began to kind of stretch and lengthen the calves.

Hamstrings. Let the head go a little bit. We'll come into a plank pose on the breath in. So a strong plank. And for the first one, on the exhale set the knees down and exhale that low push up.

Come all the way down. Put the toes back. Point those toes back and press into the feet. Cobra pose as you breathe in. Table top, breathe out.

(exhales deeply) Curl the toes under, breathe in. And exhale, long spine, downward dog. Let's do two more. We'll just approach these little movements as if you're warming up, right? So if the knees feel better to bring the knees down in that low push up, do that, okay?

So plank pose on the breath in. Breathe out, lower down about half way. Pull yourself through for upward facing dog or cobra if you're not ready. Shoulders back, chest forward, long spine. And now from your thighs and your core, pull all the way up through plank downward facing dog, exhale.

Good job. (exhales deeply) Breathe in, plank pose. Breathe out, halfway down. (exhales deeply) Inhale, upward facing dog. Shoulders back, strong arms.

Now, strong core and thighs taking you all the way up into downward facing dog. Finishing it off with an exhale. (exhales deeply) Good. Let's actually do one more here. So come into plank pose.

Go a little slower this time though. Exhale, lower down. Inhale, pull yourself forward and through. Good. Exhale, downward facing dog.

(exhaling deeply) Set the knees down. Right on, keep your toes curled and come to sit all the way up. Take the arms back, all the way back down so reach them up, out to the sides. So like so, right? So you're reaching them up, out the sides, thumbs down, reach back behind you and get that camel pose.

We're gonna come right into a pretty gentle camel pose. So your thumbs point toward one another. Hands wrap around the waist. Pull the shoulders back. (deeply exhaling) Stay here if it's like too early for you to bend backward.

Or join me right, join me with a little tucking of the tail bone, lengthening up through the thighs. Pulling the elbows toward one another. Pushing the hips forward, chest up. And you take the gaze up... Breathing.

(exhaling deeply) Okay good, back to a neutral position. Let the arms come down for now. For three breaths, take the arms out, reach back behind you, interlace your fingers, pulling the shoulders back, chest forward. Tuck the tail bone. And now try this, if it's too much stay with the hands on the waist.

Gotta use your core here to stabilize. Push the tail bone down, long thighs, long hip flexers. And now the knuckles kind of hang free back here as you push your chest up. (exhales deeply) Nice, one more time. Chest forward and up, really opening up the heart center there.

Bring it on back to neutral. (exhaling deeply) I love that one but when I don't have the support, the body starts to tremble a little bit which is nice, that kind of shows me I'm... you know, pushing my edges. Okay, so I've got two different options so far. Now the third is gonna be, holding on to those ankles or heels actually.

So arms out, reach back. Take hold of one heel, take hold of the other heel. Square yourself up. Push the tail bone down to lengthen the low back. Pull up as opposed to pushing down on the heels.

Pull up, push the chest up. Roll the shoulders back. More important, right, than any thing else, is the breath. Well equal to that is making sure you're safe. How bout that?

Tie for first. Hips forward, chest up. Take one more big breath here. Exhale, engage the core. (exhales deeply) To come back to neutral.

Nice and safe. Good. Now let's kinda neutralize it a little bit. Neutralize it meaning the low back. Come back into child's pose.

Fold over onto your thighs. (exhales deeply) So as you know by now, every time we come into a big back bend like that, we want to counter that with child's pose or some sort of forward flection. So if you're feeling this nice long stretch in your low back, mid to low back, that's, that's what we're shooting for. (exhales deeply) Okay, we're gonna transition onto our back. So go ahead and come on up.

We're gonna flirt now. We're gonna keep building here, right? We're gonna now build into bridge pose and then eventually into wheel, alright? Use a little bit of your core muscles to lower down. (exhales deeply) When you land, take a moment to pause.

(exhales deeply) Like that nice long, it's one of my favorite parts about this practice is, knowing that if I take a nice large inhale, what follows is (exhales deeply) that opportunity to just completely let go and release. So we'll practice that with bridge and wheel. So we can gauge, right? So set it up. We've been here before.

You are a master. Push into your feet. Lift your hips and walk those shoulder blades toward one another. Still opening the chest, the heart. Rest your hands on your belly, your ribs.

Maybe for the next three breaths, you choose. It's either hands or here, on the body or interlaced. That might warm up your shoulders a little bit more for wheel to come. (exhaling deeply) Practice. That's all it is.

And show up, see what happens. (exhales deeply) Finding a sense of comfort and pleasure in the experience. It doesn't always have to be based on results and so much effort, right? Slide the shoulder blades out. Lift the heels, reach the arms up.

And then slowly roll down. (exhaling deeply) Here's that opportunity. Nice breath in. (inhaling deeply) Exhale everything out. (exhaling deeply) Just feel the effects of letting the entire exhale go and your body responds.

It will release. (exhales deeply) Good. So if you know you're not a wheeler, stay with bridge. If you're a wheeler or an aspiring wheeler, let's see what happens okay? So breath and good feelings in the body, meaning like no funky, funk injuries okay?

And you know what that means in your body. Okay, hands underneath the shoulders. Point fingers pointing toward your heels. So set up the base. Feet are similar to bridge, right?

Okay, I like to come up. But then I put a little rest on my head. I'm talking like 30% pressure, max. So when you're ready, go ahead and launch up. Some little pressure on the head.

I get a little like, foundation set right? Pull my elbows in and when I'm ready, when you're ready, go ahead and push through the hands and the arms. Opening up the entire front side of your body. (exhales deeply) Breathe. Pushing the chest, back or forward.

I actually don't know what queue to use there for you. Push it toward the wall maybe. If you've got a wall. Good. (exhales deeply) Lift your heels.

Bring the head down a little bit. Back of the neck, nice and gently right? Gently. Keep engaging where you need to engage to exit safely. And with your heels lifted, you can lower down just like we've been doing in...

(exhales deeply) Bridge pose. Nice exhale, takes you all the way down. Take a moment to feel the after effects. (exhales deeply) Okay. We're going to explore now another version, right?

Another heart opener. So just let everything open. Like crack the chest wide open, heart wide open, expose yourself okay? Give it a shot. So, legs are long.

Hands underneath your seat. Stacking your hands on one another. Walking the elbows toward one another. So that, right? That might feel pretty good.

Staying like so. Feel that. (exhales deeply) Right, elbows providing a little support there. Chest up. If you'd like to build it a little bit higher, push into the elbows.

Reach your chest and touch the ceiling with your chest. Let your head fall back comfortably. Resting gently on the head. (exhaling deeply) Good, play around with pointing your toes forward. Push your heels forward.

Always in this sort of like state of exploration. (exhales deeply) You may possibly be at that point in your practice where that's accessible. Where in the beginning you may have been a little overwhelmed. What might be more accessible is just... that pleasure, that moment, right?

Just you and your body. Your breath. Good. Elbows, push, lift. And lower.

(exhales deeply) (inhales deeply) (exhales deeply) Take a few moments. (exhales deeply) Draw both knees into your chest. (exhales deeply) Get a lot of back bending. So now, this is that, exactly the same effect as child's pose, right? So now we're pulling the knees in, stretching the back out.

Especially that low part. Lumbar, sacrum. (exhales deeply) We'll come up to sit. So bring the feet down. Roll over to your side.

Make it a nice relaxed kind of adventure up, alright? So roll over to your side. Push on up. Good job. Let's do a twist, both sides.

Fold, rest. So, tip back a little bit. Take the right foot over the left thigh. Get both sit bones down. This was hard for me in the beginning but I think I can get it these days.

So both sit bones down. The sides-- The side benefit here is the stretch up the right thigh. That feels pretty nice so you can wrap around. We've done this before. Wrap around, hook.

Reach the right arm back. And now twist. So the hook can be happening. The hook here or even just the hold. But we're primarily going for the twist.

(exhales deeply) And don't feel like, you know, fire works need to go off every time you come into poses, right? Sometimes, like 60 to 80% is nice. Come back out. Little side kind of counter. Perfect.

Come back, switch-a-roo. Left foot. Left sit rounded. Up right, nice and long in the torso. Spine long, breathe in.

And now exhale, find your twist. Hook if you'd like. I like that because I also get this stretch up through the upper right side of my back. Call those the lats. (laughing) Good, twist.

Rotation. Your spine is meant to move in this direction. How far? That's up to you. (exhales deeply) Shoulders relaxed.

Nice long spine. Perfect. Good job. Come out to center. A little counter twist.

Upright first. Twisting, twisting, twisting. And maybe a little dip. Right on. Okay.

Closing it out before rest, cross your legs and we'll get that one more sensation, that folding sensation. So see if you can fold forward. Bring your arms out in front of you. (exhales deeply) Make any adjustments in your knees, your feet. Prop yourself up on a blanket if that feels better.

(exhales deeply) Take another three breaths here. So breathing in and using the exhale... (exhales deeply) to soften. Two breaths, breathe in. (inhales deeply) (exhales deeply) Good, one more time.

Breathe in. And exhale. (exhales deeply) Push up. Roll down to your back. (exhales deeply) Lie down comfortably.

We'll take a short relaxation. (exhales deeply) Relax all the muscles in your body. Let the bones feel heavy. Facial muscles relaxed. Your neck.

(exhales deeply) Release all the trying, all the effort. (exhales deeply) So join me as we close out and you're welcome to come back down and lie down for as long as you'd like. But let's make a little, a little contact, you and I. So, sit up tall. (exhales deeply) 25.

(loudly rubbing) Good job. Wow. It's crazy, so many. Ah, maybe you can, on the other side of the camera there, right? Big smile, pat yourself on the back.

Effort. The effort in showing up is huge. So, I acknowledge that. I see that. Namaste.

Have a beautiful, beautiful day, night. Wherever you are. Thank you.