Spacious Side Body

(waves crashing gently) Hello and welcome to your practice. Come to a comfortable seat and close your eyes. And, take a moment to acknowledge the effort that it took you to get onto your mat today. There's a line from a Rumi poem that says "Do you pay regular visits to yourself?" And, the yoga is a great way to pay a visit to yourself, to nurture yourself, to take care of yourself. So, make a commitment on your time on your mat to take very, very good care of yourself, nurture yourself.

Take time to be with yourself. Feel the ground beneath you. Let your seat and your legs release down into the ground and sense the sky above your head. And, then begin to deepen your breath. Use the deepening of the breath to come away from the exterior and more and more into the interior world, taking that time to pay a visit to yourself.

Just like sitting down with an old friend connecting. This is about sitting down with yourself and connecting in. So, after your next exhalation just softly open your eyes. So, come to lie down onto your back and start by just giving yourself a big stretch, reaching your arms up overhead. So, in this class we're gonna be opening the side body to create lots of space for the entire self.

So, walk your upper body a little bit over to the right so your head and your shoulder blades can scootch to the right, so you're in a side bend in the upper body. And, then also walk your legs one at a time over to the right so your body is in a big C curve. Try to release the left side of your waist and the left ribs down a bit towards the ground. And, then to intensify, if that is in your cards for right now, you can cross your left ankle over your right ankle. It takes it a little bit deeper.

And also hold onto your left wrist and lengthen your left wrist over to the right side. In your mind's eye see the big arc from your left fingertips all the way down to your left heel and breathe into that space. And, then release and scootch yourself over to the other side kinda like a little inch worm. Head and shoulder blades go, arms reach, the legs go, pause first before crossing the ankles, and settle into the shape. Settle your body, settle your mind, settle your breath.

And, then if this is a good idea right now, if this would be nurturing to you, the right ankle crosses over the left, hold onto your right wrist and extend the whole right side of the body. Soften the front of the ribs, the front diaphragm and again in your mind's eye see the big long arc from your right fingertips to your right heel. And, breathe into all of that space. And, then work your way back into the center and hug your knees in towards your chest and just rock a little bit from side to side releasing the long muscles that go along the sides of the spine. And, then bring your feet down to the floor.

And, we're gonna do a stretch now for the outer leg, so the side of the leg. Lift your right leg up and you're gonna take your left knee a little bit towards your midline, so the left knee goes to the right. And, then the right leg is just gonna cross over the midline as well. So, the right foot goes maybe a foot to the left. Flex your foot, so you're extending through the heel.

And, just notice, this stretch brings up different things for different people. But, I'm going for this sort of iliotibial band outer leg. Like if you're wearing those old Adidas pants with the stripe along the side, (mumbles) elongate that outer side band of the leg. Bring your right thumb into the top of the right thigh. Press the top of the right thigh away from you to elongate the right side of the waist.

And, breathe into this. This is gonna be kind of intense. I've been known to break out into big tears or big laughter in this moment, so just let whatever arises for you arise. And, then with your next inhalation, pull that leg back up to the center. And, as you exhale, bend the knee, put your foot down, take a breath in.

And, as you exhale lift your left leg up. Same thing. So, the legs cross the midline. We're moving into the outer seams of the legs. If you have lots of flexibility, you might hold onto the outer edge of the foot, otherwise the hand anywhere along the outer leg is fine.

The left thumb tucks into the top of the left thigh. Press the top of the left thigh bone away from you so the waist is balanced. And, just let yourself have your own experience. Notice what it is that you feel here. I suggest that maybe there's an outer seam sensation, but the beauty of yoga is you get to feel whatever it is that you feel.

Okay, with your next inhalation, bring the leg back up, put it down onto the floor. Roll over to your side and come up to a seated position. You can sit on a blanket if that's helpful to sit upright. Or sit on the ground if you can sit upright flat onto the ground. Okay, and then we're gonna stretch the sides of the neck continuing to work with side body.

So, look straight forward and then let your right ear drop over towards your right shoulder. Feel like there's maybe water or sand just pouring out of your ear. Your head weighs a lot, like about as much as a bowling ball. So, you let the weight of the head stretch the side of the neck. The muscles are called the scalenes on the very side of the neck.

And, then roll your chin down towards your chest. Root into your sitting bones and lengthen, lift your head. Left ear drips over towards the left shoulder. There's 26 muscles that connect your head to your torso, 26 neck muscles. So, you can just notice, it's not a simple structure the neck.

You can notice again what you feel as the left ear drips over towards the left shoulder. And, as you're here, keep your jaw relaxed, the tongue relaxed. Keep breathing smoothly. And, then roll your chin down towards your chest. Root into the sitting bones, feel the sides of the body long and float your head up.

Inhale, reach your arms up. And, as you exhale, bring your right hand down to the ground and side bend. And, keep those two sitting bones very, very anchored, especially pressing down through the left sitting bone as you reach over to the right side. And we'll just again keep looking forward. Let the right ear be a little heavy.

And, the left thigh is heavy, and the left sitting bone remains heavy so you have something to move away from. And, breathe into the whole side seam of your body from your left hip to the your left fingertips. And, then as you inhale sit up, reach both arms up, take a big breath in. And, as you exhale, left hand down to the floor, side bending again, rooting deeply through your right sitting bone, like a carrot or a tuber, a vegetable growing down into the ground, keep the sitting bone rooting. And, then breathing into the right lung, the right rib, the whole side seam.

And, then with your next inhalation come up. And, as you exhale, first side again. This time we're gonna have a different anchor. Instead of the sitting bones anchoring, we're gonna drop the right elbow to the ground. So your right elbow and your right sitting bone will anchor and then let the work be re-releasing the left sitting bone any amount down towards the ground so this side bend will probably take this stretch into a lower place in the side body than the first one did.

Breathing here, feeling your experience. And then as you exhale, you're gonna begin to turn getting the left sitting bone down onto the ground, fold forward over your right thigh into a forward fold that's also a side bend. Feel the big sheaths of muscle on your back. And, now when you sit up, just stay on the diagonal. Come all the way up, but you'll be in a twist when you come up.

Left hand to right leg, right fingertips behind you. With the the two sides of your body long, inhale. And, as you exhale, let the spine revolve. Inhalation lengthens the spine, lengthens the sides of the body. Exhale, revolve.

And, with your next inhalation, come back to the center. Exhale here. Inhale, reach your arms up. And then as you exhale, we're gonna anchor again, tipping all the way to the side. Left elbow anchors, left sitting bone and then take a few breaths, letting the right side of the body expand so that the right sitting bone makes its way back down to or towards the ground.

Also releasing the right thigh. And, then from here, begin to turn, folding over your left thigh. Now again rooting through both sitting bones and reaching the right fingertips away from the rooting of the right sitting bone. Feeling that connection. You are connected there through the fascia, the connective tissue from your fingertips all the way to the hip.

And, then coming up on the diagonal. Come all the way up to upright, getting the side bodies long. And as you inhale, sit tall. As you exhale, soften a little bit and let that help you drive into the rotation. One more breath here.

As you inhale, come back to the center, get tall as you come back to the center. And, as you exhale, bring your hands together in front of your hearts. So, we'll transition onto hands and knees. And, just feel first the side body very long. And, then a couple rounds of cat and cow.

As you inhale look up, lift your sitting bones, arcing the side body. And, as you exhale, round. And, again just as a point of concentration, watch the sides of your body. So, when you come into cow pose, the sides of the body are making smiley faces. And, then as you round, the sides of the bodies are making rainbows (chuckling).

One more time, inhale cow. And, exhale into cat. And, then come to a neutral spine. Reach your left toes behind you onto the mat, spin the whole left thigh so the left foot comes to the ground. Roll your right sitting bone underneath you and reach the left arm up.

From here, turn your left palm to face forward or towards the head. And, then reach your arm up overhead and arc your body. So, the right ribs are gonna shorten. So, the left ribs can get very, very long. Breathe from the rooting of the left heel to the length of the left fingertips.

And, then reach your left hand towards the front of the mat. Turning hand to the ground, lift your heel and lift the leg. Draw the abdomen up, shift your weight onto your left hand, reach the right arm forward, just strengthening the whole body through the core. Hand down, knee down, second side. Right toes reach back.

From the top of the thigh turning, the right foot comes to the ground. The left hip comes underneath you and the right arm peels up to the ceiling. Turn your right palm towards where your head is and then reach your arm up overhead. From here go into the arc. Feel the right side expanding.

The left side contracting up into the expanse of the right side. Breathe. And, from here the right fingertips reach more towards the front of the mat which begins to turn you down, right heel lifts. Float the right leg up. Feel long from your right shoulder to your right heel and then float your left arm up, keeping the abdomen lifting to support the expanse of your body.

Hand down, knee down, walk your hands about two inches further forward, tuck your toes, press up and back downward facing dog. Nice in the first downward facing dog to listen in to your body and make any little shifts or adjustments not from habit but from a place of deep listening. And, then with your next inhalation come forward to plank position. And in plank it's always fine to put your knees on the ground if it feels too strong at any moment. But, in plank, feel the side body, starting with the outer shoulders all the way down through your ribs to the outer hips, to the outer heel.

Feel the side bodies long and strong. Take a breath in and as you exhale, let your legs pull you back in to downward facing dog. And, then a couple of times again keeping your attention on the sides of your body as you (mumbles) to inhale, you come into like a straight line in the side body. And then lift the pelvis so as you exhale, you're in an upside down V, two lines of the body. Inhale, plank.

Exhale, downward facing dog. Inhale, plank. Exhale, downward facing dog. Inhale, plank position, keeping the side body long, lower all the way down onto your belly. Point your feet.

Lift your chest, little cobra. And, then press back downward facing dog. Walk your hands back to your feet. And, then bring both hands onto your right ankle. If you have lots of range of motion you can put your left hand outer right ankle, right fingertips to the side and let your spine just fold over that leg.

Have a real sense of the spine pouring like water pouring out of a pitcher. And, then going over to the other side. Keep the right hip pulling back so you have something to move away from. And, then come back into the center. From here, bend you knees, drop your tailbone, and roll up bone by bone by bone by bone, feeling the side body stack.

All the way until your ears are stacked right over your shoulders. And, then just take a moment to get your two blocks. You may need them. Have them up at the front of your mat, off of the mat but near the front of the mat. And, then stand in tadasana.

You can have your feet together or a little bit apart, whichever is best for you. Turn you palms to face out, root your feet, inhale, reach your arms up feeling the side body long. As you exhale, here we go another side bend. Go over to the right, the right hand can rest onto the right leg. And, then come up from the abdomen turning like a steering wheel in the abdomen turning you back up.

Exhale, side bend over to the left. And, then again, the abdomen turns to bring the body up. It almost feels like a kind of sit-up to me. Lift your chest. Exhale, fold all the way over your two legs releasing the neck and the head.

Inhale, lengthen your spine, flat back. This first flat back, let's bring the hands to the tops of the thighs. Press your thighs back. Make sure you're not jamming into the backs of your knees. Keep the very top of your shin bones moving forward.

But, as you press your thighs back, feel your waist lengthen, every rib, every intercostal muscle lengthens, all the way up to the side of the neck to the ears to the crown of the head. So you remember this feeling of flat back with the thighs drawing back strongly. And, then as you exhale, release your spine back over your legs taking some of that length with you. Inhale, come all the way up to stand. Exhale, hands to your heart and down to your sides.

Just like that again. Inhale, reach up. Exhale, side bend right. Complete your exhalation. Inhale, come up.

Exhale, side bend to the left. Inhale, come up from the belly. Exhale, fold over your legs feeling the side body lengthen and fold. Breathe in to lengthen your spine, again that feeling of the thighs pulling back but this time the fingertips can keep reaching towards the Earth. Exhale, fold.

Inhale, reach your arms out to come all the way up. This time turn your palms to face away from each other. Hold onto your left wrist. Cross your left foot over your right foot like we did at the beginning of class and now we're doing the same thing standing. The pelvis shifts to the left.

The upper body shifts over to the right. Feel what you feel. Inhale, come up. Switch feet, switch wrists, breathe in, get long. And, as you exhale, side bending.

The hips shifting a bit to the right. And, as you inhale, come all the way up. Reach your fingers up, reach your feet down. Exhale, fold all the way over your legs. And, then as you inhale, step your left foot back to a lunge.

You're welcome to put your hands on blocks. When your hands are on blocks, you can get even a little longer through the sides of the body. And, here you might notice the left waist tends to get a little bit short so because of that, we wanna try to balance the sides of the waist by drawing the left thighbone back, draw the left sitting bone back. And, then blocks to the side, root your hands, step back into dog pose. And, then as you inhale, you find your nice clear line of plank.

And, as you exhale, lowering those side bodies down into the ground. Point your feet long legs, little cobra. And press back downward facing dog. As you inhale, lift your right leg up. Feeling from the right ankle to the right baby toe very long.

As you exhale, step your right foot forward. Take a breath here lengthening the sides of the body. And, as you exhale, step your back foot to meet your front foot. Inhale, come up to stand. Exhale, hands to the heart and down to your side.

Second side, inhale, reach up. Exhale, fold forward. Inhale, left foot back and pause. Fingertips work well. Fingertips are as if you have blocks but you come onto your fingertips.

Just makes you a little bit higher so you can indeed lengthen the sides of your body. Suck the right thigh, suck the right sitting bone back. Also feel from your left ankle to your left armpit very long. Breathe in. As you exhale, downward dog.

Inhale, plank. Exhale, lower down. Inhale, cobra. Exhale, downward facing dog. Inhale, left leg up.

Again, focusing left little finger to left little toe, long line. As you exhale, left foot steps forward. One breath in here opening the side body. And, as you exhale, back foot meets the front foot uttanasana. Inhale, come up.

Exhale, hands to the heart. And, then step your feet apart a little bit. Inhale, reach your arms up. Like we did that side bend before, hold onto your left wrist, get long and side bend over to the right. And this time, keep your left leg straight but lift the heel.

So, when you do that it'll tip you a little bit more over to the right. And, then re-release your left heel down to the Earth getting perhaps into some different territory of the side. Inhale, come up. Switch wrists. As you inhale, grow taller.

And as you exhale, side bend to the left. And then keeping the right leg straight, just lift the heel so it'll tip you over to the side. And, then re-release your right heel down towards the Earth. Inhale, come up. Toe heel your feet together.

Exhale, fold forward. Inhale, right foot to a lunge. Exhale, downward dog. Inhale, plank. You can repeat a lowering to the floor in cobra or if you're ready for chaturanga, chaturanga.

Over the feet long sides of the body upward or cobra. Exhale, hips pull back, downward facing dog. Inhale, the right leg rises. Exhale, step your right foot forward. Root through your feet, drop the tailbone.

Inhale, come up to a high lunge. Again the right hip sucks back. Exhale, hands down. Step forward. Inhale, lengthen your spine.

Exhale, you fold. Inhale, come up. Exhale, fold right back over your legs. Inhale, left foot to a lunge. Exhale, light pelvis, down dog.

Keep observing the side body as a point of concentration. Plank, chaturanga or to the floor. Cobra or upward dog. Downward dog. Left leg rises.

Exhale, left foot steps forward. Get your bearings before you come up, root down, rise up, long side body. Exhale, hands down, step forward. Inhale, lengthen your spine. Exhale, fold forward.

Toe heel your feet about hip distance apart, interlace your fingers behind your back. Inhale, pull your arms up towards the ceiling, drawing the shoulders away from the ears. And then let your arms come up overhead. Maybe bending the knees will help release the side body, therefore, releasing the shoulders. (inhaling) (exhaling) And bring your hands to your low back.

Brush your hands down the backs of your legs. And come all the way up to stand. Hands to the heart. Okay, and lift up your feet together and come into vrikshasana, tree pose. Right foot into the left inner thigh.

Start with the hands in prayer. And, if your balance is a little bit challenged or tricky today, you're welcome to do this with your right knee against a wall and your right hand on a wall for stability. It's a nice way to do the pose. Okay, left arm is gonna come up. The right hand is either on the wall or your can put it onto your right thigh, palm facing up.

And, then side bend over to the right. And this is a tricky balance, so let it be playful. If you fall, you get bonus points. Check to make sure you're going straight to the side not forward, which is the tendency, but really straight to the side. Inhale, come up.

And, exhale, step down. Okay, second side tree pose, vrikshasana. The left foot comes into the right inner thigh. Here again the left waist might get a little short so drop your left sitting bone so both sides of the waist are long, hands into prayer. Again if you're at the wall, it's really nice to anchor the knee into the wall and the knee will be a little bit forward of the hips so that the pelvis stays square.

Hand onto the wall or back of the left hand onto the left leg, reach your right arm up. Take a breath in. And as you exhale, that side body that we're getting quite familiar with once again gets to arc over to the side. It's kind of an elaborate dance that has to happen with the right foot and the balance of the right hip which can shift a little bit over to the right. And, I keep going to see what happens.

Oh oh oh (chuckling). The belly turns to bring me back up. And tadasana. (mumbles) and move into some standing poses that usually are done with an elongated spine, but we're gonna do them with side bends to stay in the theme of opening the side. Inhale, reach up.

You should be feeling seven feet tall or taller by now. Exhale, fold forward. Inhale, right foot to a lunge. Exhale, pelvis lifts, downward facing dog. Inhale, plank.

Exhale, chaturanga or to the floor. Inhale, your cobra or upward dog and press back downward facing dog. Inhale, the right leg lifts up. Like we did before, step forward. Organize yourself to come up to a high lunge.

From here turn your palms to face away from each other. Hold onto your left wrist, breathe in, get even longer in the left side. And as you exhale, side bend to the right. Breathing in. And, breathing out.

The front ribs soften into the back ribs. From here, look down, coil yourself around to bring your hands onto the floor onto blocks surrounding your right foot and straighten your right leg, folding over it. As you inhale, bend your front knee, super long side body, open chest. As you exhale, right thigh pulls back, fold. Two more times like that.

Breathe in. The outer right thigh pulls back to straighten the leg. (exhaling) (inhaling) Bend your front knee, step forward. Inhale, lengthen your spine. Exhale, release over.

Inhale, root to rise. Exhale, fold it right back over. Inhale, left foot back. Exhale, dog. If your shoulders get tired or you decide that chaturanga is not a great idea or lowering down, you're welcome to skip the chaturanga's upward dog.

At any point, rest in child's pose. That is a good way to take care of yourself. Don't overdo in your yoga practice. Left leg rises. Exhale, left foot steps forward.

Tailbone down, low belly lifts, high lunge. Turn your palms to face away from each other. Right wrist, lengthens and side bend. (inhaling) (exhaling) Keep the left hip pulling back, the left ear dropping down. Look down, coil yourself around.

Use blocks if you can't quite reach the floor when you straighten the front leg. Inhale, bend the chest moves forward because the side body's lengthened. Exhale, outer left thigh pulls back to straighten the leg. Inhale. Exhale.

If you observed the right side of your body, it's basically moving in to plank the right leg, and then moving back into downward facing dog. One more time, inhale, very long but the left hip keeps pulling back. Exhale. Inhale, bend, step forward. Flat back, long, long side body.

Tops of the thighs move back. Exhale, fold. Utkatasana, chair pose. Bend your knees deeply. Lengthen up.

This pose has a pretty fantastic side bend picture, like a lightning bolt. Feel from your middle finger to your outer hip, outer hip, outer knee, outer knee, outer ankle, outer ankle, baby toe. Press down, lift up. Inhale. Exhale, fold forward.

Inhale, lengthen your spine. This time you can jump through a vinyasa or just step right in to dog pose. Inhale, the right leg rises up. And, as you exhale, step your right foot forward. From the top of the left thigh, spin the heel down.

And cartwheel up and around into warrior two. So, warrior two we're trying not to have any side bends. Evenness through the sides of the waist. Sometimes the left waist gets short so check that. Try to drop the left sitting bone so both sides of the waist are even.

And, then lifting from the right half of the pelvis, reverse warrior, fantastic side bend. Straighten the front leg and come up to your neutral spine again, even in the sides. And then tipping, keeping the sides even at the beginning, for trikonasana. Again a nice place to use a belt, I mean a block. And, then from here, we're gonna move trikonasana into a side bend, which is what it's, how it's done in some practices.

It's more common these days to have the sides of the body even but we're gonna arc the left side so much that the left fingertips may reach a little towards the Earth. And, then keep that left arm circling. Bring your hand onto your hip. Bend your front knee. Scoot yourself forward.

You can use your block or fingertips. Half moon, or to chandrasana. First we're gonna have the sides of the waist relatively even. And then we're gonna move it into a side bend. So, the left arm's gonna come up overhead.

And, then the right hand may come down to the ground. And, the left leg gets a little bit heavy. Arcing the pose. From here reach your left fingers to the ground, hand down, step your left foot right behind your right foot for a cross-footed forward bend. When we have the legs crossed in a forward bend, once again it moves more into the outer legs.

From here, step back. Lunge. Dog. Optional vinasa or child's pose or rest in dog pose. If dog pose feels like a rest (chuckling).

Inhale, left leg rises up. Exhale, step your left foot forward. Right heel spins down. Warrior two, finding the even side waist. To find that for most of us a little extra drop heaviness anchor through the right sitting bone and lift up through the left half of the pelvis.

And, then from the lift of the left half of the pelvis, reach back, reverse warrior. Soften the shoulders, keep bending the left knee deeply. Inhale, straighten the front leg, still in the side bend. And then feel your spine come right up to vertical. Breathe in here.

Tip your pelvis so the side waist can stay even as you move into trikonasana. You're welcome to put your hand on a block or a shin. If it reaches the floor easily, you can put your hand onto the floor. And, then arcing trikonasana. Right arm up, left ribs have to lift into the spread of the right.

Feel your roots as you breathe into the right side. Keep your right arm circling, hand to the hip, look down, transfer your weight slowly, carefully, half moon. Right arm lifts first. And then right arm up over the ear. Left sitting bone is rolling under for stability.

And then drop the right leg a bit. Drop the right arm a bit. Oh, side bend. And, then the hand reaches forward and down. Cross-footed uttanasana.

Make sure you completely release the sides of the neck, the sides of the brain, your ears. Lunge. Adho mukha svanasana, downward dog. Take a deep breath in. As you exhale, step your right foot directly forward, lower your left knee.

And, this one I like to have a block right to the outside of my right hip. Come up, reach your arms up. Point your back toes, let your pelvis come forward. And then side bend. Right hand onto the block as you take a clear lateral side bend.

So, we're trying not to move into a forward bend or a backward bend but just straight on over to the side. If you don't need the block, you can bring your hand to the ground. And from here, look down, reach around, hands surround the right foot. Scoot your left, left knee back a little bit. And, then straighten your right leg into half hanumanasana.

So, if your left knee feels tender at all, take this opportunity to take care of yourself by sliding a blanket underneath that knee. In this pose, we're gonna walk both hands to the right side of the right leg for, guess what, a side bend (chuckling). From the left hip to the left fingertips, very, very long. (exhaling) Keep sucking the right thigh back for a little stability. And then come around and we're gonna do a gate pose.

For gate pose, I like to put my ball of my foot onto a block or a blanket because maybe your foot reaches to the ground easily, but mine does not. Walk your hands around to the front. Spin your left shin out to the side and come up. Maneuver your right heel directly to the side of your left knee. Inhale, your left arm up.

And as you exhale, side bend. Just two breaths here. Inhale. Exhale, one gate pose, parighasana, about closing the gate. The left hand moving towards the right hand, the two gate doors closing.

I've seen it done on a couple individuals not too common to have that long of a side body. Inhale, come all the way up. We're gonna do a variation on the pose that feels pretty good for most people. Left hand down, right arm reaches over to the side. From here the right arm in front of the face and gomukhasana we're gonna take the right leg just slide it right behind the left, the knees cross and sit down.

Sitting right in between your two heels. If your hips are more on the sort of flexible side, you can pull your feet further out. Try to have your heels equidistantly-spaced from your hips. Okay, in this pose, the left hip, because of a little tightness tends to lift. So, to help the left sitting bone anchor, we're gonna take a side bend.

Left hand down, reaching the right arm up and over. Soft shoulders. Notice what territory is getting excavated. And then from here, look down, roll forward, a couple breaths and a forward folded uttanasana. Great pose to widen the back into the outer hips.

In any of these poses, you're welcome to stay longer. Luckily in this format, you have a pause button. If only we always had a pause button (chuckling). Sit up, take your left leg open to the side. And widen the right knee.

Bring the right heel right into the center of the pelvis. Left hand slides to the inside of the left leg. If you have long arms or lots of flexibility, you might hold the foot with the little finger pointing up. Right arm up and over. So, the option to keep your right sitting bone rooted or lift the right sitting bone.

Of course when you lift the base, you might be able to tip a little further so you can play with those options. Look down, soft spine, roll to the center. Keep going, hands to the mat, dog pose. We'll do those poses on the second side. Breathe in.

Exhale, left foot steps forward, right knee down. Block to the outer left hip. Inhale, arms up. Exhale, left hand down. This one really gets into the psoas muscle.

Goes from the inner trochanter, the inner right thigh all the way back into the spine. Tailbone down, low belly lifts. Feel from your right baby toe all the way up to your right fingertips. And then swivel yourself down. Scoot your back knee back a little bit, shift your pelvis back, flex the left foot.

Half hanumanasana with the hands on the outside of the left foot. If this feels intense on the back of your left knee, if you have a tendency to hyper-extending, lift the bottom of the shin bone towards the ceiling a little bit. Just notice any time your joints scream in any way. Take care of yourself, play with variations to make it your own practice. Okay, from here, we're gonna walk around.

I'm gonna get my foot prepared again for a parighasana, a gate pose. Swivel on the right knee so the right knee is in line with the left heel. And then, inhale, the right arm up. Exhale, straight to the side. Shoulders soften.

There's a little feeling in the family of triangle pose here as the left thighbone nestles back into the left hip to aid in the extension. Inhale, come up. Exhale, right hand to the floor. Left arm up and over the left ear. This can just really feel like a morning stretch, just let it really be yours, extending.

And then hands down, left knee tucks right behind the right knee. Separate your feet, sit down in between your two feet for gomukhasana. Again you can just notice which sitting bone is lifted and the side bend is gonna come to help the rooting of the right sitting bone. Right hand down, left arm up and over the left ear. Keep releasing the left sitting bone, as you extend the whole left side of the body.

Look down. Fold forward a few breaths here. (exhaling) I notice the right sitting bone lifts up a little bit here so if I press into my left hand, draw a diagonal through my body can help to release that sitting bone down. And, breathe into wherever you feel the sensation. And then rooting to rise, inhale, sit up, and we'll take the right leg open to the right.

Slide your right hand down the inside of the right leg. Revolve to janu sirsasana, parivrtta janu sirsasana. Left arm up and over and again you can play with the anchoring of the two sitting bones which has one effect versus the anchoring of the hands. And then re-releasing the left sitting bone which has another opening. Okay, from here look down as this is a soft way to come out of the pose with the spine.

Rroll to the center. Come around. One more downward dog just to even everything out. From here soften your knees to the ground. Bring your big toes together.

Sit back rest, child's pose. So, bring your hands underneath your shoulders, push down, come up, and we're just gonna finish with a couple of poses to take advantage of the side length that we've created. So, take your blocks. The first one we're gonna do is a bridge pose with the feet elevated up onto blocks and the shoulders, not your head, but your shoulders onto a blanket so that it's not so intense on the neck. For this one, these poses it's best if you have a pony tail to take it out.

Okay. So, you're gonna lie down with your shoulders right on the edge of the blanket, so you might have to try to figure out where you need to have your feet on the blocks first time you might need to experiment a little bit. And, then you're gonna push down into your feet so that the pelvis lifts up. Interlace your fingers underneath you. Crawl your one shoulder under and then the other shoulder under.

Bend your elbows just a little bit so that you can have a firm pressure down into your upper arms into the blanket. Push into your feet, draw the out seams of the legs in towards the midline. And, here we are in a very different shape than what we've been in for most of this practice. But, feel the arc of the spine, most of the spine. And the big length from the armpits to the outer hips to the outer knees.

You're of course, welcome to stay longer. I'm gonna keep moving, hands release. And, the next one is restorative. I'm gonna take my two blocks, lift my pelvis. I'm gonna stack the two blocks but you can play with different configurations of one block or two blocks.

You could even stack them so one is higher, but this is just a nice, sort of, middle path, middle place for my body. (inhaling) (exhaling) Here we don't need to be so extreme about the shoulders rolling under. Just let there be a softness to the shoulders. The arms are in shavasana already. Here if you are in the mood for inverting the legs, you could lift your legs up.

And let yourself get quiet as you soften into this shape. And, then press into your feet, firm the outer hips, outer legs to lift the pelvis. And move your blocks over to the side. And lower yourself down. From here, just scoot your body so that your pelvis is on the block, I mean on the blanket.

And, we're gonna just do a twist. So, shift your pelvis to the left a bit, draw your knees in, and take your knees over to the right. You can rest your left hand onto your top leg and with gravity, let the right shoulder drop down towards the Earth, inhaling. And giving yourself over to the support of the ground as you exhale. And, then bring your left arm over to your right side just for a moment and then roll onto your back.

Second side pelvis shifts over to the right. Knees come in over to the side. And the right arm spreads to the right. You can keep your nose pointing towards the ceiling or shift your head a little bit to the left and then turn your nose, your eyes to look over the right arm, only if that's comfortable for your neck. Probably not normally what you focus on in a recline twist but see if you can notice what's happening here with the sides of your body.

And then again, to come out, just roll to your side, push into the floor, come up. And, we're gonna come into supta baddha konasana using these props so the blanket will go along the spine. You'll sit back, place your outer knees onto the blocks for some support. Because we're gonna do this for our svasana or in lieu of svasana. Have the blanket about two inches behind your pelvis so that we can go for a really long, lower back, long sideways.

Lean back a bit, lift your pelvis, lengthen your tailbone. Place yourself back down with lots of length in the low back and the sides of the waist. Lie back. Slide your shoulder blades down, let your palms face up. It's also fine if it feels better to you to keep your hands onto your body.

Take a big breath in. And, then ah (exhaling) let it out through your mouth. One more like that. Big inhalation, feeling the breath expand into the sides of the body. And, exhale, ah (exhaling) through the mouth.

Now the effort of the pose, of the practice is done. And you can let yourself drop into a surrender or a letting go. The 12th yoga sutra states that yoga is the effort and the letting go. Give yourself full permission here to drop into the support of the ground and the props. The ground can do more and you can do less.

Again, please stay for another five, 10, 15 even maybe even 20 minutes. If you have it, you could set a timer. If you are wanting to keep the practice to a shorter time, roll over to your side and press into the floor, come up and just come up to sit for a moment. And, just observe the results of many, many, many openings of the side of the body. When the side body opens, the spine lengthens, the heart has more space, the lungs have more space.

And, into that space you can invite emptiness, peace, ease, whatever it is that you need. We started with the line from Rumi, "Do you pay regular visits to yourself?" So, now that you've taken this hour on your yoga mat to pay this visit to yourself, take time with yourself, carry what you get from your practice out. Perhaps visit with somebody else with this ease or openness or emptiness that you've gotten from your practice. Thank you very much for joining me. Thank you for practicing.

Namaste.