Slow and Steady Flow

Welcome to your practice. We're going to do my favorite everyday go-to practice. We're gonna begin in child's pose. Coming onto your mat, if you need extra padding, feel free to set up a blanket. You're gonna separate the knees about hip distance apart, bring the trunk down, stretch the arms back, and rest the forehead on the ground.

Nice big, full belly breaths here. Inhaling. And exhaling. Inhaling. Beginning to explore your ujjayi pranayama, exhaling.

Letting your whole body land. Just two more breaths here together. And fully exhale. Inhaling together, we're gonna come up onto our hands and knees for cat and cow practice. We're gonna be adding lion's breath and Uddiyana Kriya into our cat cow, I'll go over it.

And so settling into the hands and the knees, stretching out all 10 toes together, inhaling, arching the chest, head skyward, exhaling, rounding and really tuck from the tail, drawing your navel to your spine for cat and cow. Inhaling, for our cow, finding that extension, and exhaling for our cat. We're gonna add our lion's breath as we inhale. Gonna extend the tongue out as you exhale. Inhaling.

And exhaling. Expelling. Any stale air. Last one. And then with our next one, we're gonna blow out all the air and hold in our Uddiyana Kriya.

So when you blow out all the air and hold, you're doing that deep belly hollow, sucking the belly up into the back. We'll do it two more times together, so a full inhale. Gonna empty out the breath and hold the breath out. Remember, when it's time to breathe in, you just wanna relax the belly, and allow the whole body to relax before breathing in again. Let's try it one more time together, inhaling.

Push and hold all the air out as you hollow the belly in. In this practice, we do our best to go for time. And bringing the knees together, we're gonna take flying table. You're gonna send the right foot back, reaching, pulling up through the abdominals, and pressing through the arms. The left arm's gonna rise, we're gonna practice holding here for a count of three breaths.

And keep lengthening the neck. You can start to lift the eyes, but we're doing our best to not crane our head back. And then we're gonna go into our donkey kick, so we're gonna flex, putting the sole of the foot straight into the sky, bending the knee, and squeeze. Inhaling, squeeze, inhaling squeeze, really clenching that right bum. Beautiful, and then exhaling, release.

And do the other side, inhaling, stretching that left leg back. Pulling up through the low belly, pressing out of the hands as you extend the right arm forward, gazing forward, giving a good squeeze and reach to both arms. And again remember, not craning the head, breathing here. And then we're gonna bend the knee, flex the foot, keep the leg strong, and squeeze from that left glut. Left glut, so your not straining from the knee, you're gonna hold the knee bent, and just squeeze from the bum.

And then exhaling, we're gonna open up into a side stretch. Stacking that left leg back and reaching the left arm up into the sky. You can begin to extend that left arm over your ear for greater stretch through the whole left side of the body and then see how it feels to stretch that right leg out from underneath you. Right out in front of the left leg. Inhaling, great big breath.

As you exhale, squeeze the inner thighs and draw in from the low belly. One more full breath. And from here, we're gonna pull that right knee back down, the left knee's gonna shoot across, and we're gonna take that left arm and thread it through for twisting child's pose. Great big breaths. Softening your arms.

Breathing deeply, you can begin to sit further back into the hips. And you could even pop up onto that left elbow, deepening the twist. And then exhale, we're gonna unwind, and move to the left side. So we're gonna be coming onto our left knee, left hand, for side stretch. Right arm up into the sky.

Pressing the top of your left foot as you reach the right arm over your head for extension through the right side, and then extending that left leg out in front of you. Using the obliques. If this is too much this morning, feel free to keep the knee on the ground, great big breaths. When you exhale, squeeze the inner thighs, if that bottom leg is lifted. Soften around the ears and the shoulders.

And then we're gonna exhale and pull that left knee back across, dropping the right leg across for a minute, and slide that right arm through. Finding that good twist around from the right side of your ribs and breathing fully into your diaphragm. Full exhalation, and you can try coming up a little bit higher onto that left arm, pressing out of it. One more full breath. And exhaling, we're gonna head into downward-facing dog now, set yourself up so your arms are forward of your shoulders as you raise the hips up into the sky, we're gonna come into our three-legged dog.

The right leg reaching into the sky, let your head hang. And we're stepping that right foot forward for high lunging, pressing through the left heel as the arms come up. And drawing in from the low belly, sink just a little bit deeper, and then exhaling, bringing the hands down, we're gonna step back through plank, Chaturanga Dandasana. Squeeze the hands, pull up through the belly as you lower, inhaling, lift the heart, squeezing the buns, exhaling for downward-facing dog. And then we're gonna come into lunging on the left side, beginning with our three-legged dog, left leg reaching up into the sky, and exhale, stepping that left foot all the way forward, rooting through the left heel, inhaling, the arms come up.

Settle down a little deeper into the hips, softening around the shoulders, inhaling fully and exhaling. Do your best to start to squeeze the inner thighs together, and exhaling as we return down to the floor, strong for plank to Chaturanga, looking forward, squeeze the hands, you're welcome to add upward-facing dog, cobra. Inhaling and then exhaling for downward-facing dog. Bottom of our exhalation, we're moving forward to standing. You can step or spring the feet to the hands.

And then lifting halfway, find that openness through the chest. Exhaling, soften fold, just let your head hang and drop for two breaths here. And then inhaling, push the feet, squeeze the buns to come all the way up to standing, exhaling the hands to the heart. Let yourself land, spreading all 10 toes, coming into your center from our warmup, as we move into deeper standing poses. So this half of yoga practice is designed to merge the lunar and solar channels together, inhaling, the arms reaching out and up, exhaling, finding that hinge, halfway lift your hear and chest, exhaling, Chaturanga Dandasana.

Cobra or upward-facing dog. Exhaling for downward-facing dog. We'll inhale the right foot all the way up between the hands, sweeping the arms up. And then exhaling, finding that twist, full rotation, you're opening up the arms. Looking back out over your right side.

And then exhaling, the left hand is coming down to the floor. Right arm up into the sky, continuing our rotation here. You can add in my favorite, the high splits variation. And exhale, that'll help get into that hamstring a little deeper, as you inhale, you pull back. Straightening that leg, and as you exhale, you return to the lunging of the right leg.

Inhaling, pull back, one more time. And exhaling. I'm gonna come up to standing, left arm sweeps up, as we come into warrior B, opening up the feet, pressing out through the feet, and then softening, letting yourself pulse away from the floor and into the floor, away from the floor and into the floor. We're gonna travel right into triangle pose. You'll draw your right leg back, reach back through your hips, rotate your left toes forward and then drop that right hand.

And don't worry about reaching too far down the shin, go ahead because we're in a longer triangle stance. Go ahead and keep it high. So that you can keep your trunk nice and extended, and just taking a few breaths here. And exhaling, sweeping that left hand down to the ground, we're gonna spin around between our feet and pause for a hang, completely releasing your head. Make sure your feet are parallel to one another here, wanna lift and draw up out of the thighs.

So we get that sense that the inner thighs are lifting up away from the ground. And then inhaling, we're gonna spin ourselves back around to that right foot and move through our vinyasa sequencing. So inhale to plank, exhaling for Chaturanga Dandasana. Inhaling for your cobra or upward-facing dog. And then exhaling for downward-facing dog.

We're gonna play with that lunging sequence on the left side now, stepping our left foot all the way up between our hands. Press through the left heel and inhaling the arms up, softening around the heads of the shoulders. And let yourself settle just a little deeper to the floor as you squeeze the right bum, nice and strong. Exhaling, we're gonna make a rotation, opening up that left arm back, fully rotating your gaze toward your left hand. Breathing deeply through the front of that right side, then we're gonna exhale and take it into our twist, the right hand comes down as we sweep that left arm up.

And you can play here with that high splits revolving variation, so we would inhale, pulling the toes back as we pull the hips back and begin to straighten that left leg, and then exhale, returning to that lunge. Inhaling, draw back. And exhaling. Inhaling. And exhaling.

One more time. Getting that good hamstring stretch. As we exhale, we're gonna sweep our left arm forward and our right arm back for Virabhadrasana B. Opening up the arms, strong, compassionate warrior as you soften toward the ground. The warrior practice is a beautiful way to come into the marriage of the masculine and feminine in ourselves.

We're gonna start to extend into triangle, pulling the hips back, and drawing out through that left arm. We're gonna take that right foot and spin it in a touch, towards your left foot, toes towards the front of the mat as you're opening up. Observing your breath. And feeling it fill your whole body. Last full breath here.

And then exhaling, we're gonna bring that right hand down to the ground, and walk around once again to Prasarita Padottanasana. Balancing our feet so that they're parallel to one another as you hang your head. You're gonna start to bend your knees, shifting from side to side. Getting nice and deep into the inner groin. And then we're gonna move into a revolving variation, so we're gonna come back to center, straightening up on our arms.

You can use a block underneath your left hand here, if you've got it at home, and you'll sweep that right arm up into the sky. A few breaths here. And then as we exhale, we're gonna take the right arm through and reach toward the outside of the left leg. Let your left arm do what feels best, you can turn the hand, rotate it, so that the shoulder feels comfortable in the movement, and then as you work the hand around the outside of the left leg, you're gonna lean back against your grasp. Getting that good stretch in the back of your right shoulder blade, ribs.

Do your best to keep settling into your heels and lifting your inner thighs up away from the ground. One more full breath and exhale, unwind, just let yourself quick spaghetti noodle hang. And then inhaling onto the hands, we'll do the revolving for the other side, so right hand plants, left arm sweeps up into the sky. It's great, so one thing you can work with here is not letting the hips twist, and you'll know that they're twisting, because the right leg's gonna feel a really deep stretch. So if we pull the right leg out of that deep stretch, we're gonna feel a more balanced action from our sacrum, and we're gonna feel more stretch coming through the lower back, quadratus lumborum, and then wrapping around the obliques, the side of the belly.

Exhale, we're gonna take that ankle grab now, the left arm's gonna sweep under, and around to the outside of the right foot, and again, remember, just let that right arm do what it needs to do so you get real comfortable here, letting your whole body hang, settling toward the heels, and then start to pull back against your grasp. One more full breath. Marrying the breath to the body. Inhaling, we're gonna unwind and spin ourselves around, moving through our vinyasa sequence. Plant your hands, setting up for your plank, drawing up through your thighs and belly, exhaling, Chaturanga Dandasana.

Inhaling. Cobra or upward-facing dog, and then exhaling for downward-facing dog. Coming into our pigeon sequence now. We'll sweep our right leg up into the sky. And drawing our right knee forward, settling into our pigeon.

Feeling good? And then just settle down into the elbows, and you can always put a blanket underneath the right hip if it's hanging out in the sky. It's nice to give that right hip something to bear against. Just close your eyes and settle in, letting your attention travel around, inside your right hip. And then we're gonna go into twisting pigeon, so twisting pigeon is a lot like threading the needle in child's pose, so we're gonna come up, pushing onto that right hand, we're gonna slide our left arm through, and roll toward our left shoulder.

If this is too far, and it's too much pull in the right hip, feel free to be more up on your elbow, and you would make a fist with that left hand wrapping the right hand around it. Breathing here. Just a couple more breaths. If it feels good you can keep settling towards the shoulder and completely relax the head. Fully completing your exhalation, we're gonna move out of this, into Chaturanga Dandasana.

Always getting nice and strong in our plank, so we lower as we exhale, like a plank of wood. Cobra or upward-facing dog as you inhale. And exhaling for downward-facing dog. Gonna bring that left leg up, and sweep it forward, pulling the knee right up into the wrist. If you set the knee right into the back of the wrist, that'll set your hips perfectly for sliding back.

Keeping the sacroiliac joints, the sacrum, nice and level from one side to the other. Then see how it feels. Again, let's say your hip is sitting up here, you could use a block or a blanket underneath it, so it has a surface to bear against. That's a really nice thing to do for ourselves. 'Cause that's what we're here for, we're taking care of our bodies.

Exhaling, softening down to the ground. Smoothing out your breath. Letting your breath be a loving expression of that care for your body. The masculine represents the structure, and it could represent the vessels, structure of the body. The feminine, the breath, the formless, the free-flowing.

They each give life to each other. We're gonna move into our twist. So we're threading, gonna plant that right hand out a little further from the knee, slide, that's your left hand, you're gonna plant your left hand further forward from your knee, and then you're gonna slide your right arm through. They look alike, don't they, the right and left? Mix 'em up sometimes.

And then remember if this is feeling too deep, you can always pop up onto your elbow. One more full breath here together, and out we come, unwinding. Moving through our vinyasa. Cobra. Exhaling, downward-facing dog.

And then we're gonna come through to sitting for Pashimottanasana. If you wanna practice your jump through, you would raise up, think Uddiyana Kriya, really hollowing from the belly and squeezing up from the pelvic floor. You would cross at the ankles, and then you just might be able to make those legs on through. And if not, no worries. Let's move our sit bones back so we can get a really good sense of our sit bones rooting down into the ground, mush 'em down into the mat there, and if you find that you're curling your tail under, put a little bend in the knees, or you could bolster yourself up on a blanket to help bring us forward.

When we come forward for Pashimottanasana, we wanna hinge deeply from the hips, rather than pulling our spine into a round. We wanna create that length of the heart and diaphragm coming forward. You can use the strap at home, and it's not important to grab the feet, so if your hands aren't quite there yet, no worries. Softening your body right where you're at and breathing deeply into the back here. We especially wanna breath into the place where the back of the thighs meet the bum.

Giving the quads, the top of the thighs, a good, muscular squeeze. And then breathing across the sacrum, where the lower back meets the bum. Great big full breaths into our pelvic floor, filling up the bowl of our pelvis. Creating that happy soup for the union of the lunar and solar channels. And we begin to merge into the central channel, moving up the spine with our breath.

And inhaling, we're gonna hold onto the feet and lift, finding a little extension, and then exhaling, releasing the hands from the feet. We're gonna draw the left leg back, so we're moving into a seated side angle, opening up the legs, so let your left knee point way out toward the rear of your mat. As you start to slide in, you're gonna do your kidney warming exercise of rubbing that left hand along the kidneys, give it a really good rub, rub, rub, rub, rub, rub, rub, rub, rub. Make your kidneys happy, happy, smiling kidneys. And then let yourself sink down a little bit deeper, see how it feels.

You can play with the grasp, or you can just leave the hand arm relaxed inside the leg, and then same thing with the other arm, your lifting arm, you can reach it up and around. And one more full breath here. Keep inhaling and exhaling, expanding fully. And then we're gonna come all the way up to seated, inhaling, and exhaling, we'll send that left leg forward and we're gonna draw the right knee back. So the right knee is pointing towards the rear of the mat, and we're gonna do our kidney warming exercise as we reach out toward that left leg.

So give it a good rub, helping to build and nourish the kidney's ying. And then relaxing that arm, your right arm, and we'll inhale, begin to sweep it up, or you're welcome to leave it relaxed around the back. Two more full breaths here. And inhaling, coming all the way back up to seated, stretching that right leg forward, and we're gonna scoot the body, the bum, up towards the heels, so you have plenty of room behind you on your mat for rock and rolls. Rounding the spine, tucking the chin, and using the lower leg to create the momentum so that the head and shoulders can be nice and relaxed all the way through.

If this is bothering your spine at all, feel free to create some extra padding by opening up a blanket. Last one, I love rocking and rolling, feels so good on my body. And we're gonna come into bridge pose. We're gonna do a supported bridge today. If you have blocks at home, you can grab them now for placing underneath the sacrum, or you could always use a couple of heavy, hard-backed books.

Inhaling, we're gonna push through the heels and slide the block right under the sacrum. So the sacrum is that big, flat conglomeration of bones at the base of the spine, makes up the backside of the pelvis. And you wanna make sure that the blocks feel really good underneath the back. So I've got two blocks, stacked on top of one another. If you just have one at home, you could use it on its flat, second, or third level, you can turn it up and explore and see what feels best for your body.

And just close the eyes. Draw the spine up into the body, drawing the shoulders back. And let's practice breathing all the way to the tippy tops of our lungs. So we're exploring the awareness of our central channel, the Sushumna. Letting your breath move up and down your spine.

You can even imagine your breath moving through your spinal cord. The word Sushumna breaks down to shu shu mana, which literally translates to good, good mind. When we marry the masculine and feminine, the lunar and solar channels of the hatha yoga practice, we create good, good mind. We're gonna move into waterfall, so you're gonna pick up one knee, and pull it right up over the hip, and stretch it up into the sky. And then the other leg, and if you're not using blocks at home you can just do this flat on your back, extending the legs up.

Relax the feet, find the ease in the legs. And once again, focus on circulating the breath, all the way up to the tippy tops of the lungs, and back down again. If you've been doing my sequences with me, you know I'm a big fan of this one. It's a great support for our immune system, helps to give support and stimulation to the thyroid gland. And then exhaling, we're gonna bend the knees, and drop one foot down and then the other.

If you're on blocks, we'll go ahead and remove the blocks now. And lowering our bodies down. We're gonna send the legs up into the sky, so we're flat on our back, we've removed the blocks, and give those legs a really good shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake. With the ankles, shaking, and shake the legs so much that you feel it come into the belly and the spine, you can even make some noise with me, inhaling together. (rhythmic exhalation) One more time together, inhaling.

Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake. Exhaling, let the sound out. And then little kick in the pants, loosening up our knees and relaxing those quad muscles. We're gonna move into Supta Padangusthasana. I'm using a strap.

You can use a strap or a belt. And if you don't have a strap or a belt at home, you can use your hands, too. So we're gonna stretch out the left leg, and pull the right knee in, and if you're using your hands, you would just clasp the hands around the back of the leg, like so. And if you're using the strap or belt, just bring it around the sole of the right foot, let your hands hang inside the strap, and kicking out through that strap, letting the hips settle. I'm a big fan of this pose, it really helps to loosen the hamstrings without aggravating the back.

And then we're gonna come into full Supta Padangusthasana twist, so we're gonna pass the strap into the left hand, open up the right arm, and let that right leg come all the way across, so you're letting your right hip stack up on top of your left hip. And then you can rotate your head out, your right fingers. Great big, full body breaths. And we'll push into the strap to bring the right foot back to center. And then we're gonna slide that left foot out, and slide it into the strap, and removing the right leg.

If you're not using a strap, just change the clasp of the hands to around the back of the knee. And start kicking real firm. Do your best to keep the leg at a right angle. Let that hamstring stretch come on slowly. And as you breathe, see if you can feel for your breath moving into the back of your ribs, full ribcage expansion.

See if you can feel the back of the ribs expanding into the mat. And then we're gonna exhale, and take the leg over into the twist, so your passing it off into the right hand, the left arm is opening out, making that full body rotation here. Letting that left hip stack right up and over onto the right hip. You can start to turn your head, looking over your left fingertips, and completely relaxing your right leg, the leg that's extended down on the mat. The left leg, we wanna keep it active here in the strap.

Breathing into the outside edge of our left hip. One more full breath. And then we'll inhale, push into the strap with your left foot and exhaling, we're gonna remove the strap, bringing both knees into the chest, giving them a good squeeze. Great big breaths. Letting the whole body settle into the ground.

And then coming back for happy baby, opening up the legs. If you prefer plow, you're welcome to add in plow here. And then exhaling, we're gonna finish with a lying twist, we'll open the arms and drop the knees to the right. You can drape that right hand over the left knee, and begin to rotate the head over the left fingertips again. Practice using your exhale to muscularly relax your whole body.

And then together we'll inhale, come back to center, and exhaling, to the other side. Opening that right arm, letting the head rotate. Draping that left hand over the right knee. Slowing down the breath as we make our way into Shavasana. So we're already preparing our mental state for final resting pose.

And then inhaling, we'll come back to center, bringing the knees in, and exhaling, stretching out your legs. You can help the body get settled here, if you're using a blanket at home, you can roll it out for behind the knees, you can use it to cover yourself, this is your time to fully relax from your practice. Just feeling that genuine, healthy pride of having chosen practice today. Go ahead and keep resting here. I'm gonna come up to seated, and sing you a little song.

Listening to the sound of your breath as you keep resting in your Shavasana. Might even notice the rising and falling of the breath in the belly. (singing in foreign language) Just gradually begining to awaken yourself out of Shavasana, wiggling the fingers and the toes, rotating the hands and the feet, or the wrists and the ankles. You can take a yanni stretch here. Then drawing the knees into the chest, and rolling off to your right side.

And that completes our Asana portion of the practice. If you'd like to sit with me for a few more minutes, we can do some seated meditation together. So you just wanna make sure that you're in a very comfortable cross-legged position, you might wanna sit on a blanket. And erecting the spine, letting yourself settle in to your good, good seat. And drawing your attention right to your nostrils.

Noticing the breath right at the tip of the nostrils. Gradually relaxing the muscles of the body more and more, any gripping in the legs, any gripping in the jaw, any gripping around the back of the skull or shoulder blades. Just letting it all slide into the earth. As your awareness is resting at the nostrils, you can begin to hold the awareness at the nostrils and the movement of the chest. Noticing the chest rising and falling.

If you find that your attention is popping back up to the surface, right when you notice that that's happening just let yourself sink back down. Know that that's perfectly normal, it happens. To complete our meditation practice today, we're gonna do some visualized alternate nostril breathing. So alternate nostril breathing is the ultimate in balancing the lunar and solar channels, the Ida and Pingala channels. And so just gonna bring your attention, and imagine that you're breathing just through your right nostril.

And then out just through your left nostril. And then in just through your left nostril. And out through your right nostril. That's one complete cycle, let's do two more cycles together. In through the right.

Out through the left. In through the left. And out through the right. In through the right. And out through the left.

And in through the left. And out through the right. Let your eyes open a tiny bit, and breathe in through both nostrils. Let your mouth drop open, as you exhale through your mouth, two more like that. Both nostrils inhaling.

And exhaling through your dropped jaw. One more time. Just gradually bringing your attention back, letting your eyes blink open. Taking in the room from your peripheral gaze. That completes seated meditation practice, well done.

It's been wonderful sharing the practice with you today. Namaste.