Get Down to Get Up

(waves crashing) Hello, welcome back. Let's jump right into our practice. So step to the front of your mat Tadasana. Big toes together, heels together. Gaze is steady, maybe lightly focused at the tip of the nose, that can hold your energy in.

Inhale. (inhales deeply) Exhale. (exhales deeply) Start to connect to your Ujjayi breath. Inhale. Exhale. So we'll jump right into some sun salutation variations. Okay, you're gonna hook your thumbs, reach up and arch back.

Inhale. Exhale, bend the knees. Fold forward, interlace your fingers behind your back. Inhale, hands down. Step your right foot back to a lunge.

Exhale, lower the right knee down to the floor. Inhale, hook your thumbs, reach up, arch back. Exhale, place your hands down. Step back, downward facing dog. Inhale, plank pose.

Exhale, Chaturanga. Inhale, upward facing. Exhale, downward facing dog. Inhale, plank pose. Exhale, knees, chest, chin.

Inhale, cobra. Exhale, child's pose. Downward facing dog. Inhale, right foot forward lunge. Exhale, lower left knee to the ground.

Inhale, hook your thumbs, reach up, arch back. Exhale, hands down, step your left foot forward, fold into your legs. Inhale, hook your thumbs, reach up, arch back. Exhale, bend the knees, fold forward, interlace the fingers. Inhale, hands down.

Left foot back, look forward. Exhale, left knee down. Inhale, hook thumbs, reach up, arch. Exhale, hands down, downward facing dog. Inhale, plank.

Exhale, Chaturanga. Inhale, up. Exhale, back. Inhale, plank. Exhale, knees, chest, chin.

Inhale, cobra. Exhale, child's pose. Press back, downward facing dog. Inhale, step left foot forward, look forward. Exhale, lower right knee down.

Inhale, hook the thumbs, reach up, arch back. Exhale, hands down, step your back foot forward, fold into your legs. Inhale, hook your thumbs, reach up, arch back. Exhale, arms alongside your body. Breathe.

Inhale. (inhales deeply) Exhale. (exhales deeply) Two rounds, Surya Namaskar A. Inhale, arms up. (inhales deeply) Exhale, fold down. (exhales deeply) Inhale, look up. Exhale, Chaturanga. Inhale, up. Exhale, back.

Breath, inhale, maybe three breaths. Exhale, one. Inhale. Exhale, two. Inhale.

Exhale, three. Bend the knees, step or jump. Inhale, look up. Exhale, fold. Inhale, come up.

Exhale. Inhale, reach the arms up, gaze up. Exhale, fold. Inhale, look forward. Exhale, Chaturanga.

Inhale, lift up. Exhale, roll back. Inhale. Exhale, one. Inhale.

Exhale, two. Inhale. Exhale, three. Bend the knees, step or jump. Look up, exhale, fold.

Inhale, up. Exhale, Tadasana. Breathe here, inhale. (inhales deeply) Exhale. (exhales deeply) Good, squeeze your waist with both hands. Bend your knees and step or jump your feet apart. Stick triangle pose, so right toes forward, arms out into a T shape.

Inhale, reach your hand forward. Exhale, take your pose, about five breaths. Inhale. Exhale, one. Inhale.

Exhale, two, and just breathe into the sides of the torso. Inhale. Exhale, three. Inhale. Exhale, four.

Inhale. Exhale, five. Look down. Inhale, come up. Then exhale, hands to your hips.

Turn your feet to the other side. So back toes turn in slightly. Inhale, reach your hand forward. Exhale, take your pose. Inhale.

Exhale, one. Inhale. Exhale, two. Inhale. Exhale, three.

Find that little beat at the end of the breath. Inhale. Exhale, four. Inhale. Exhale, five.

Look down. Inhale, come up. Exhale, parallel your feet. Bend your knees, hop forward. Inhale, up.

Exhale, fold. Let's take a little Vinyasa here. Inhale, look up, Chaturanga. Inhale, upward facing. Exhale, downward facing dog.

Inhale. Exhale, bend the knees. Hop, look up, and fold down. Inhale, come all the way up. Exhale, arms alongside your body.

Okay, we'll do a little balance sequence here. Now the key to balancing in yoga practice and in life, is you can't grip for it, you can't try too hard for it. So rather than struggling to get balanced, see if you can let balance hold you. We'll figure out what that means as we go into this. So you'll hug your right knee into your chest, and you wanna try to focus your eyes on one point that doesn't move.

Then interlace your fingers underneath your right thigh. Let the weight of your thigh bone just drop down into your hands, and flex your right foot. Extend the leg out in front of you. Inhale, point, and bend the knee into your chest. Exhale, flex, extend the leg out.

Inhale, point, and bend the knee into your chest. Exhale, flex, extend. Inhale, point, and bend. Exhale, flex, extend. Now you're gonna hold your leg out, point your toes.

Gaze at your front big toe, reach the arms up. Breathe for one. You've got three breaths. Inhale, try to roll that thigh in. Exhale, two.

Inhale. Exhale, three. Warrior three, take right leg back behind you. Squeeze the sits bones in towards each other. You can interlace the fingers behind your back.

Breathing deeply. Try to flex that back foot and turn your toes in. Now eagle pose, inhale. Swing right leg down, forward, and up. Hug your right knee into your chest.

Exhale, cross your right leg once or twice over the left. Sit back. Cross left elbow over the right, inhale. Stay here or exhale, pitch your weight forward. Breathe.

Inhale, come all the way up. Exhale, release. So shake it out a little bit. (laughs) And we'll move to the other side. Again, no taking it too seriously.

We'll just be light with ourselves. We wanna take our practice seriously, but ourselves not so much, right? Hug the left knee into your chest, and then interlace the fingers underneath your left thigh. Let the weight of the thigh bone drop down. So as you let the weight of the leg drop, lift the pelvic floor, lift the lower belly.

That's gonna be the key to your balance. Flex your foot, and extend the leg out in front of you. Inhale, point, and bend the knee into your chest. Exhale, flex, extend. Inhale, point, and bend.

Exhale, flex, extend. One more, point, and bend. Now exhale, flex, extend the leg out, point your toes. Reach your arms up alongside your ears. Breathe here for one.

Inhale. Exhale, two. Inhale. Exhale, three. Warrior three, left leg back behind you.

Arms can go alongside the body or interlace your fingers. Try to stay open through the chest, breathing deeply. Eagle pose, inhale, left leg down, forward and up. Exhale, cross left leg once or twice over the right. Arms out in front of you.

Right elbow over the left, press your palms together. Stay lifted with your torso or start to shift forward. Make sure whatever variation you have, you're breathing very deeply. Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, up. Exhale, release. Good, again, you can shake it out.

Okay, revolve triangle pose. So for this pose, your right foot will be forward, left foot back. Now you can go heel to arch, heel to heel, or maybe even a little bit wider. Try to keep your hips square forward. Inhale, reach the left arm up toward the ceiling, right hand on your right hip.

As you exhale, reach the left hand forward, pull the right hip back. Then place your left hand down to the floor, or a block. Inhale, reach right arm up. Exhale, breathe for one. Inhale.

Exhale, two. Inhale. Exhale, three. Good, place your hands down on either side of the right foot. Inhale, look forward.

Exhale, fold into your leg. Soften the front knee, squeeze the waist. Inhale, come all the way up. Then exhale, step your back foot forward. Other side.

Square your hips, set up your feet. Inhale, right arm reaches up. Exhale, come forward. Hold the breath out, place your hand down. Inhale, reach arm up.

Exhale, one. Inhale. Exhale, two. Inhale. Exhale, three.

Good, place your hands down. Inhale, look up. Exhale, fold. Squeeze your waist, come up. Inhale. (inhales deeply) Exhale, step your back foot forward.

Vinyasa, arms up. Exhale, so modify as much as you need to with these Vinyasas. Look up, so you can always do knees, chest, chin. Now lift, exhale, roll back. Okay, dolphin pose.

Forearms down to the ground. Now try not to do this, for this variation. Hands flat down, so your inner wrists are really grounding down, but the shoulders draw onto the back. Try as best you can to let the head, the neck, release. Relax the face.

Good, take the knees down to the ground. Child's pose. Come all the way up. Okay, let's play with Pincha Mayurasana, so forearm stand. So when we come into this pose, you know, Pincha Mayurasana is the feather of a peacock.

But sometimes when we into this pose we can feel very un-feather like. So you wanna use some support so that you can gain that sense of lightness when you come into your pose. Sometimes if we're trying too hard, or thinking so much about the legs, it can kind of pull us down and make us feel heavy. You gotta kinda use a little James Brown. You've gotta get down to get up in your pose, right?

So you push down into your inner wrist, you push down into your forearms. As you push down, that's gonna lift you up out of your elbows, that's gonna hold you in your pose. It's like this for all these inversions. Headstand, 80% of the weight is in the arm, 20% in the head. So when you come toward your forearm stand, I want you to really focus on gettin' down, okay? (laughs) Alright, so here we go.

You have a belt, you make a loop with your belt that's about the width of your shoulders. And then the belt goes just above your elbows. This is gonna keep you from doing this tragic thing. (laughs) Right? Coming up into your forearm stand like that, because we don't wanna hurt the shoulders.

So grab your belt. You're gonna use your belt to help prevent you from collapsing in your pose. You'll make a loop with your belt that's the width of your shoulders, and you measure it out like that. And then, take the loop and bring it just above your elbows. So this is gonna give you something to push out into, and as you push out, then you're gonna start to engage the upper back and the shoulders in the way that is useful.

Another helpful tool is the block in the pose. This will keep us from collapsing the hands inward, and help to ground the inner wrists. So when you use your block, try not to go right up against the block with your hands, but give a little wiggle room, a little bit of space between the pointer finger and the thumb. And then you're gonna put the block down on your mat. Hands ground down, so it's pretty engaged.

You're pretty active through the forearms. Tuck the toes under. Let's set up. Tuck the toes under. Walk your feet in a little bit.

Lift one leg up into the air, and then hop up toward Pincha Mayurasana, forearm stand. Let yourselves release. Child's pose. Okay, so take your props, place them over to the side. Downward facing dog.

You can Vinyasa if you like, maybe moving through plank, Chaturanga, up dog, down dog. Pigeon, right leg lifts up mindfully, lifting the leg, and then take your knee forward. Propping can go underneath the right sits bone and thighbone here. Make sure the center of your back knee is on the mat. Inhale, lift the chest.

Exhale, gonna go about halfway down into your pose. Take your left forearm and cross it, so it's almost parallel to your right shin, and hook your hand, cup your hand, just around that right knee. Right hand is off to the side on the fingertips. You're gonna push your knee into your hand, and your hand into your knee. And that's gonna create some resistance and length through the right side of the hip there.

Now come forward, lift the chest, and let yourselves release. Eyes can close. You had some good strong effort through the practice, so let some of that effort dissolve. Lock your hands back, lift the chest up. Shift your weight over to the right side, you can use your hand to help you.

Swing the left leg around, and we'll come toward seated spinal twist. So inhale, reach the right arm up, and then exhale, you'll twist to the left. And counter-rotation. And come forward, take the left leg back behind you, downward facing dog. Other side, reach the left leg up, inhale.

And then exhale, left knee forward. Check your back leg. Go about halfway down. So take your right hand, cup it around the left knee. You're gonna push your knee into your hand, and your hand into your knee.

Draw the outer hip back. Spin the heart open. Okay, now keep this energetically drawing back, and let yourself come forward, letting go. Walk your hands back, life the chest up. So lift your lower belly as you shift over to the left side.

Right leg comes around. Just a couple moments in the spinal twist. Inhale, arms up, and twist. And come forward, you can counter-rotate. Stretch your legs out in front of you, shake 'em out a little.

Sit up on a blanket here if you like. You can always take a belt, bring it around the tops of your heels. So do what you need to do. Inhale, lift the chest, and then exhale, fold forward. Five breaths, Paschimottanasana.

(breathes deeply) Very slowly, inhale, come all the way up, then exhale. Just turn around, lie down on your back. Take your time. Maybe soles of the feet together, knees apart, Supta Baddha Konasana. It can feel nice to put hands on the belly or the hips, or one hand to the heart, one hand to the belly.

If it feels a lot, you can place some propping underneath your knees, some blocks can go underneath your knees, or whatever you have at home. Hands to the outsides of your legs, draw the legs in, feet about hips distance apart. You'll take your block and let's do this, block underneath the sacrum. So sacrum is just below the lower back. And leave a leg stretch up.

See how that goes. Cactus arms feel pretty good. And just be nourished by your breath, by your body. Then feet down to the floor, very, very slowly. Almost exaggerate how slowly you go.

Lift your hips up, take the block out, place it to the side, roll down the spine. Maybe stay there for a moment. Stretch one leg straight, and then the other, and move toward your Shavasana. Let yourself dissolve into a sense of being held. Now you don't have to hold everything together.

You're already being held. Allow yourself to let go. And very slowly, deepen your breath, you can reach the arms up, lengthen. (breathes deeply) Roll over onto your right side. And very gently, make your way up to a seated position. It's closing your eyes.

You will take fists with the hands for this one, and push them right into the lower belly so you have that feel, inhale, lift the chest. And exhale, fold forward. May you be happy.