Day 28: Groovy Shoulders

(waves crashing) Hey, welcome back to Yoga Anytime, this is number 28, so a lot of the practices we are on our shoulders, you know we might get sore in our shoulders, our neck, our upper back, so this practice will be a nice way to address that area and also really tune into more of the subtle body, slow movement stuff, your breath okay? So, remember we've worked on Ujjayi breath, we've also worked on the alternate nostril, so if you're working or you prefer either one of those, begin. I'll probably just guide you with the Ujjayi breathing, okay? When you sit, I've got this blanket here, if you have a yoga blanket a cushion, something that you can sit the edge of your seat on, to help with that tilt in your pelvis. It makes it a little bit more comfortable.

Let's connect, palms to the chest, palms to your heart, breathe in. Breathe out. Inhale, circle the arms high and exhale the palms to your heart. Inhale, arms high. Exhale, palms back home base, good.

One more time on your own, just feel for when we're moving through the shoulders. Upper back, chest, keep working with that creativity, right? That exploration factor. Palms to the chest, now interlace your fingers press your palms forward and then press the palms up as high as you can. Palms to the ceiling, palms to the sky, good.

Try to set your shoulder blades on your back body and then your low ribs pull in, so try not to arch too much. Good, arms come back, now side stretch. A little side bend one way, a little side bend the other way. Good, bring the arms back to center, knuckles toward me, chin to the chest like cat pose, now round it out, pull the chest in, the belly in. Maybe keep rounding, keep rounding, fingertips or the knuckles toward the floor out in front of you, stretch, good, inhale all the way back up.

Palms pressing to the ceiling, and arms down by your side. Roll the shoulders back, chest open, low ribs right here, hugged in. Right hand out, fingertips maybe, might be a good option. Left arm, reach it up, up, up and over. Good, try the other side, left arm with the right arm reaching up.

Good, bring it back to center and then the right arm comes down, with the right fingertips reaching over, left hand on that inner left thigh and let the head, the neck, drift to the left. Keep reaching out though, little counter-stretch. Let the head drift back, breathe in, breathe out, switch sides. Left hand out, right head drifts to the right, or the right head (laughs), the neck drifts to the right. Right hand on that inner right thigh, keep the hips open.

Good, now let both hands rest on the thighs, inhale, lift the chest, arch the back like you would in cow pose right? Then exhale, cat pose. Inhale. Nice, exhale. Inhale, back up to neutral. Right arm reaches up, bend the right arm so the right fingertips are reaching toward the left shoulder.

Left arm reaches up and grabs the right elbow, so we're looking for right tricep, shoulder, upper right side of the back. You can lean to the left a little bit. Center, and your arm is right there, switch it up. Right hand up there on the left and stretch up to come over to the right. You don't even have to come over too far, just pull that left elbow up as high as you can.

Okay, good, arms out, right hand underneath the left or right arm underneath the left for eagle. Right hand reaching to the thumb, the palm, maintaining your seat, now you're lifting your elbows up, pressing the elbows down, maybe even rounding a little bit. Emphasize that cat-like upper back stretch. Good, cat pose, or cow pose I'm sorry. Good, rounding, come back up to neutral, release.

Circle the arms out and up, and now the left arm underneath the right, get the hold. Same thing, now just lift the elbows up, pull the elbows forward and down. Lift the elbows, maybe tip back just a little bit. Reach the elbows out, out, out, down, down in front of you. Good, up bring the elbows way out stretching the upper back and release the arms.

Tabletop, so move the blanket out of the way, unless you love having your knees resting on your blanket, I'll move my blanket, tidy up, a little house cleaning, move it out of the way. Tabletop, think about tabletop, you've got a few moving parts, you have your pelvis, your hips, you have your spine, you have your shoulders, your shoulder blades, you have your core working. See if, in the next say, three breaths you can get a little creative with the cat/cow, you can get a little side bendy. Sometimes it feels good to just kinda draw the shoulder blades so close to one another and then round out like so. So, it's more of like a scapular pushup.

Good, thread the needle, left hand comes out right arm reaches out, sweep it all the way under, set the right shoulder down, keep the hips nice and level. Any of these, either now or in the future, that you want to kind of stew in a little bit more please, do so, that's kind of a neglected area for a lot of us, shoulders, good. Upper back, neck, bring it out, switch the left over. Under, so the left comes under, over to the right, and down. Use your right hand to help stabilize, deepen.

Good, come back out to center. Throw one cat/cow in there. Good, walk your hands out, bring your forearms down to the mat, so you see, my hips are right over the knees, what I'm looking for now is to keep the elbows down on the mat, maybe even take my hands into like a prayer-like position. Up behind my head, my forehead comes down to the mat. There's a lot going on here for the spine, my shoulders, shoulder blades, upper arms.

Okay, transition, all the way through sphinx pose, so just kind of hinge forward. This one here is kind of nice, it's something I found recently to be pretty beneficial for the shoulders. So, if I come down, take my hands out, fingertips pointing out, left that way, right out to the right, and then lift up into a sphinx pose like so. First off, you kind of have to manage your own low back, can your low back handle this? If it can't, you lower down a little bit more.

What I want you to explore is like tipping the right shoulder in, as you reach your right elbow up and back. Ujjayi breathing. This one requires a little bit of extra paying attention, meaning like, I'm giving you cues, but within these general cues, where can you access it? Okay, nice. You can stay here, come on down, reach back behind you, interlace your fingers as best you can, lift, like really start first by peeling the chest and shoulders open.

Reach the knuckles back toward the heels, and then what's been feeling nice also, this is kind of a new one for me as well, is rolling, as I'm rolling to my right I'm really reaching my right shoulder out to find more of a flat surface. Over, over, over, situate myself on my right hip. Shoulders and chest are extremely exposed and stretched out, it feels really nice. Okay, so as I roll over to my left side, if you're watching notice how I'm not letting that shoulder collapse, I'm really keeping it open, open, open, open it's still as open as I can possibly get it, and then roll to the left. A lot of the times, in these different holds you can move your head from side to side finding different neck stretches along the way.

Yes, good job, come back over to center, maybe launch up for one more little locust. Nice, roll down, make a pillow with your hands and rest your right cheek on that pillow for a moment. Turn your head over to the left now. Okay, back to center, now from here on my mat, I'm just gonna roll over onto my back and I don't know about you, you know I don't know how much you're able to move through your shoulders, but that little sequence so far for me feels really good. I tend to be really tight in the shoulders.

Good, back to the Ujjayi, the quality right? This like, solo time, you, your breath and your body connecting. Every time you drop in, you roll your mat out, it's an opportunity to connect. We're gonna do these little bridge roll-ups, good for the shoulder mobility, right? So, the palms are gonna be facing down, feet below the knees, simultaneously as you lift your hips, you're gonna reach the arms up back as far as you can.

Push the back of the hands into the mat, the arms into the mat, lifting, and then rolling down, begin the roll with like, so if you're on your neck right now, neck-ish, cervical spine, begin to roll down and then as you're rolling down, reach the arms out, and land. Good, press through the mat with your feet, lift up, we'll do five total, this is number two. Exhale takes you down. Inhale. Exhale, how bout two more.

Breathe in. One last time, inhaling, lifting, reaching up over your head with your arms, reach your fingertips back, press your arms into the mat. Use an exhale to come all the way down. Arms out, side to side, big T formation in your arms. Two times on each side, just a little windshield wiper.

Just kinda allowing for a little bit of that groovy time, that groovy feeling. Moving casually with your body, with respect, right, there's like a deepening respect that you have for this beautiful machine. Hug the knees into your chest. Take the arms behind your hamstrings, let your calves collapse on your forearms, your wrist, rock side to side. That personally is something that has resonated with me a lot over the years is this respect through the yoga practice, there's just this ...

There's more value, I feel more respect, I value what I have just a little bit more through this connection that I've made with myself. Okay, bring the feet down, slide out, see if you can soak up a few moments in final relaxation. Relaxing your shoulders, maybe you feel some relief in the shoulders and neck, maybe not. (deep breathing) We're gonna continue to relax for one minute. Relaxing your fingers, your toes, your legs, relax your arms.

Your shoulders, relax your entire body. Relax your breath, allow your breath to just arrive and depart on it's own. Falling in, and falling out. Start to move through your fingertips, your toes, maybe even wet your lips with your tongue. Let your head drift from side to side.

Bend your knees into your body and roll over to your right side, keep your knees bent as you keep your right arm long as a resting place for your head. Push up to sit. Take a moment to close your eyes, place your palms together, let your forehead draw down towards your fingertips. Once again, acknowledge your efforts, acknowledge the choice you've made to show up for this, show up for yourself. The power of the choice is huge.

Namaste.