Wake and Shake

(waves crashing) Good morning. I'd like to call this one Wakey Wakey, Time to Shakey. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure that the yogis like to shake a little bit, so this is my version of it. Palms come together, hold the girls in, and just start to shake. Bounce up and down just a little bit.

You wanna feel this in your feet, you wanna feel it in the arches of the feet and in the toes, and the ankles, and your calves. And then stop and feel the quiet. And then go again. Wakey, wakey. Hopefully the sleep will fall outta your eyes, maybe a little bit, I dunno.

And then stop. (sighs) Close your eyes, feel your heart beating. Here comes the warmth in the body. Open your eyes, and let's begin. So come to the front of the mat.

Like I said before, you wanna ground the legs so that when you're creating a force downward, the earth brings it right back up to you, and you feel the power coming back up. From there you'll start to bend the legs. You know I love these. Arms float up. Interlace your hands and roll the palms out.

Take some nice, deep breaths. Can always tell if you hold your breath when you're doing the shake. And then you'll release the arms and straighten the legs. Bring yourself to a nice backbend. Back to center.

Palms come to the heart. Hold in the girls. And go ahead and bring a little sway into it. Want you to feel it in your toes, feel it in your calves, feel it in your heels. You might feel it in your booty.

And stop. Bend the legs. Extend the arms. Interlace if it feels good and roll the palms out. Feel that heartbeat.

Give yourself a moment for the body to collect. Straighten the arms. Release the palms. A little backbend. And then release the arms.

Close your eyes for just a moment. Feel the power of your heart beating. I know you already probably feel some heat come up. Everything in the whole system, your limb system, everything is just woke up. It's the best part of that.

One more time. (giggling) Here we go. Hold in the chest. Go ahead, I don't know, pretend like you're a kangaroo or something. Whatever works for you.

But feel it, feel it, feel it, all the way out. One of my students said she feels it in her ears. Feel it in your ears. And stop. Bend.

Extend the arms, interlace if it feels good. Roll those palms out. Here we go. All the way up. Little backbend.

(sighs) And release the arms. And just let yourself start to fold, fold, fold forward. Keep the toes stretching out. Here's a chance for you to catch your breath. Here's a chance for you to reconnect with the earth so you feel the power of the ground moving back up into you as you push yourself down into the ground.

Very sweet. (breathing deeply) That's about a good three breaths there. Now, in your next exhalation, I'd like for you to step your feet back. One at a time is fine, coming to downward-facing dog. And then the legs are gonna bend a little bit, so you get some buoyancy in your legs, and you walk the hands back, back, back, until you're in a nice little squat.

Now, in this squat, I want you to keep your hands on the ground and keep your heels up unless they're totally comfortable with your heels on the ground. And you're just gonna shift forward a little bit into your hands. And then shift back. And maybe you'll lower down a little bit, could be. Now, this is one of the most powerful poses that you can do.

It's so helpful to the western body, so amazing. You get the deep flexion in the hips. You get the release of the lower back. So if this is how far you get, you are good here. If you wanna play shifting into your hands a little bit, you can do that.

This ultimately becomes a balancing pose where you start to bring your body on top of the arms. And if you notice, my arms sort of become like a table. The lower arms are like the leg of the table, and the upper arms are like the top of the table. So some of you might be able to come into this nice little crow pose. If you can, I want you to squeeze the legs into the arms and draw the belly in and up.

And come back to that squat. So, the crow pose is a little bit easier than all of this business, in case you're wondering. So as you get more competent with it, and comfortable with it, you're working hard to get there. Roll yourself into a forward fold now, relaxing the spine, catching the breath. You can sway the hips a little side to side.

It's kinda nice. And back down into that squat. And again, you're just gonna play. You'll be wherever you are with it. That's kinda fun.

Maybe you're, maybe you keep one foot down. This is kinda nice. 'Cause one day it's gonna go boink! Just like that. Back to your forward fold. And really relaxing the spine here.

Back to the squat. So if you fill up with some air, as you exhale, makes it a little easier. So I inhale here, exhale. Inhale here, exhale. And maybe, maybe, maybe, you get a little baby crow outta there.

Back to your forward fold. Walking the hands out for your downward dog. And then let the legs just bend a little side to side. Go ahead and come back to center, keep the toes curled under. Stretch back into a little bit of a child's pose.

Catch your breath here. Nice inhales, nice exhales. Arms go to straight, and bring yourself back to hands and knees. So this next one, you wanna keep your breath consistent. I'm not gonna direct your breath with this one, come to downward dog, because I want you to breathe no matter where you are in it.

So it looks like this, I'm gonna bend my legs a little, I'm gonna launch myself up a couple of inches, and then I'm gonna land with my knees bending a lot. Let's do 10, and you do 'em quick, quick, quick. Or maybe, you know, maybe, maybe this morning is five, but build yourself to 10, just like this. Back to your downward dog. Walk your hands back.

Bend your legs deep. A nice warrior. Both legs bending deep in that chair position. Nice backbend. Draw the belly in and up.

Let the arms go to the side. Fold yourself forward. Three nice breaths. (breathing deeply) Walking the hands out again. Walking the dog out again.

Here we go again. 10 little lifts. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Back to your downward dog. Walk it out a little if you like.

Hands walk back to the feet. Nice inhalation as you come up with the legs bent. All the way up to standing, a little backbend. Draw the belly in and up and then all the way forward to resting. Three breaths.

(breathing deeply) Now, I know what you're thinking, you're thinking, "Well, I'll just have a little water break "with this next one." No, no, no, no. Walk the hands back out. Walk the feet into position. Walk out the dog a little bit. Here we go, 10 little hops.

I won't count 'em this time. Walk out the hips. Walk your hands back. Bend the knees, and next inhalation arms come up. All the way to straight, reach, reach, reach, and folding forward to rest.

Three breaths. (breathing deeply) Walk the hands now forward. Keep the toes curled under, lower yourself to your knees. Sink back into your heels, but keep the arms nice and strong, so I'm really using my arms to push my pelvis back. Three good breaths here.

(breathing deeply) Rolling yourself forward. Let's bring your feet along with, come to a little half plank. Draw your belly in and up, take a few breaths here. (breathing deeply) And then back into a child's pose. So this time the toes aren't curled under, and the arms come to the ground to rest.

Be in a position that you're comfortable and can breathe well, take a few breaths here. (breathing deeply) Slide your hands back now. Curl the toes under. And bring ourselves to a little squat. One last squat, or maybe you wanna take one last crow.

And then folding yourself forward. Relaxing the spine. Bending the knees. Up the arms go. All the way up.

Let's take a meditative walk to the front of the mat. Nice and quiet. Palms come together. Compress the chest, but lift the collarbones, bend at the knees. Let all of this be mostly in the feet, our last little bouts, our last little Shakey Shakey Time to Wakey.

Here we go. Stop. Feel the peace, feel the silence. Fill the body up with that last little bit of earth, moving down to the ground, the earth moving back. If you release the arms out to the side, it's like you're pushing them through a little bit of water, like you're at the bottom pushing yourself toward the sun.

And then go ahead and shake out the arms and legs. You're ready for a beautiful day, I can just feel it. See you soon, peace out. Namaste.