Fly Like a Bird

(waves splashing) Hello and welcome to your practice. Let's come to lie down, feet on the floor, hands behind your head. Take a breath in, and as you exhale, bring your elbows up, knees up, and coil in, descending your belly. Inhale, feet down, elbows wide. Exhale, abdomen descends, elbows to the knees.

Keep going, inhaling as you lower and exhaling as you lift up. And the practice that we're embarking on is about birds and taking flight. So as you're here, imagine your upper arms kinda like wings flapping. Next time you're up, stay up, and then bring your left elbow over towards your right knee and extend your left leg. And then with an exhalation, switch to the other side.

Inhale, exhale, descend the belly, switch to the other side. Inhale, and exhale. So continue, only moving on the exhalations. When we do move into arm balancing, some lift and strength of the core is essential, so we're starting with this core work to waken up the deep muscles of the body so that we can be lighter when it comes time to fly, but that's enough, release down. And then number four.

With the legs cross your right ankle over your left knee and hold on behind your left thigh. Lengthen both sitting bones, especially the right sitting bone, away from where your head is, and as you exhale, perhaps you draw the left thigh in a little bit more, just getting an openness in the big muscles of the right outer hip. Let your breath come in and permeate all the way down into the belly, into the pelvis, and widen out into the sensation of the hips. And then from here with an exhalation, put your left foot onto the ground, shift your pelvis about four inches over to the right. You're gonna keep your legs in the shape that they're in but simply turn at the waist so that your right sole of the foot comes to the ground and the left outer thigh's onto the ground.

Use your left hand to press the right thigh away from you. And then take a few breaths, just noticing what you feel here, whether it's profound or subtle, it can be either, either one of those. Let go of any unnecessary tension, especially in the neck or the throat or the jaw. And then a regular reclined twist, stacking your right leg over your left leg, anchoring your legs with your left hand, and expand through your right arm. Just a couple of breaths here, letting gravity work to unwind the spine and the organs.

And then with your next exhalation, come back to the center. Align yourself and pull your left ankle over your right thigh. Hold on behind the right knee, and as you begin to draw the right thigh in, try not to take the sitting bones up with you. Keep the sitting bones lengthening away from where your head is. And then with each exhalation, the left thigh can move a little bit further away from the left shoulder.

If this is too intense on your hips, you can also do it with your right foot just still on the ground. So take advantage of lying on the ground. Let your back soften into the ground. And then release your right foot to the floor. Shift your pelvis a bit over to the left, and just take this shape and roll it over.

Use your right hand to press the top of the left thigh away from you so you got some length through the side of your body, maybe down into the low belly. And again, remember you're on the floor. We're not gonna be on the floor for much longer, so take advantage of dropping into that support. And then stacking the left leg over the right leg, right hand roots, helps anchors those legs. I like to widen my right shoulder blade a little bit over to the right.

And then release the left shoulder down towards the ground. Every inhale, letting the breath drop down and in, and every exhale, sinking a little bit further down, releasing, softening. Okay, from here, roll all the way over onto your right side and then come up onto your hands and your knees. Place your wrists right underneath your shoulders, your knees right underneath your hips. As you inhale, lift your head, lift your tail, come into cow pose.

And as you exhale, round your spine, coming into cat. Again, inhale into cow pose, and exhale into cat. Last time like that, with freedom in the spine. Inhale (breathes deeply) and exhale. And now stay here in the round spine and keep your belly and the low part of the body in this cat pose, lifting the abdomen towards the spine, but see if you can widen your collarbones and try to take your chest a little bit through your arms, so we're trying to do a little bit of cow.

It's tricky, a little cow in the upper body as you maintain cat in the lower body. This is actually the position that the spine attempts to be in in the arm balances, so half cat and half cow, I call this cowt, combination of cat and cow. So lengthen your spine, thread your right arm underneath your left, getting this twist, this opening, I love this feeling in the kidneys and the back body and then your little adrenal glands, they're about the size of walnuts, they sit on top of the kidneys and they get a big spread here, especially on the right side. Come to the center and second side, maybe taking the left arm a little further through than what you normally do, just to get a bit more spread there through the left kidney, adrenal, the back of the ribs, back of the diaphragm, back of the heart. Keep both hips pulling back.

Good and then release. Place your hands clearly onto the mat, tuck your toes, pull back, downward facing dog. Feel free to bend your knees, wiggle around, do whatever you need to do to reacquaint yourself with your dog pose. I always think of the shirt that I once saw that said "New day, new dog." It's always a fresh feeling to the pose, for better or for worse. And then from here, inhale forward to plank position.

And as you exhale, take your elbows straight back, wide across your collarbones, lower down. Point the feet, inhale, lift your chest, and pull back into downward facing dog. Bring your feet together, and walk your hands all the way back to your feet, so you're in uttanasana at the back of your mat with your feet together. And then bend your knees, coming into malasana. Keep your feet together but let your knees separate, and then allow the rib cage just fall down in between your two thighs, malasana.

Press down through the ball of the big toe, and then squeeze your knees into your shoulders, but broaden your shoulders into your knees at the same time, so it's very active in the legs. From here, drop your head, lift your tail, uttanasana. Toe heel your feet again, down dog distance apart. I like to think of the big toes right beneath my ears, about that distance. Shift the weight back into your heels, keep your heels on the ground as long as possible rooted down as you come forward into your dog pose.

Inhale again, plank position. Exhale, lower down. The collarbones like two wings of a bird, wide to the sides like a hawk, soften down. Press up and back, downward facing dog. Breathe in, and then step or jump to the outside of your hands, and come down into a squat now with the feet apart and the hands together into prayer position.

So feel the collarbones wide and lift your chest any amount. The collarbones on a, if you've ever seen a wishbone, the collarbones are the wishbone on a bird. Feel them wide. And then again, like we did from the other squat, pelvis up, tailbone up, brain down. And then bend your knees a bit, lift your spine, put your hands onto your legs, and just feel this position of a squat with the arms straight, and then stand up.

We're gonna do three rounds of uddiyana bandha, so that's a really uddiyana bandha kriya, where we pull the abdomen very strongly in and up to create a lightness in those organs. If you're pregnant, this would not be a good idea. You can just sit down and take some nice voluminous breaths. So we take a deep inhalation, and then exhale completely (exhales deeply), straight arms, and the belly pulls in and up, and we retain the breath, so. Release, take a big breath in, bring your arms up.

Exhale, hands in front of the heart. The big breath after uddiyana bandha is always a good time. Breathe in, fast exhale (breaths deeply). Keep empty, arms straighten. (breathes deeply) One more time, deep breath in.

Exhale (breathes deeply). And please step to the front of your mat. Couple rounds of sun salutation. Inhale, reach up. Exhale, dive forward.

Inhale, lengthen your spine. Step into plank position and pause. Recommit to the broadening of the collarbones. You're welcome to bring your knees to the ground or keep your legs straight. Keep the deep core muscles active and send your elbows straight back, keeping the collarbones wide, chaturanga.

And then pointing the feet coming into upward dog, you can always come into cobra, cobra's when the pelvis is on the ground, and legs on the ground, pull back, downward facing dog. So birds have hollow bones. That makes them light so they can fly. You can just notice in your own body how dense or light your bones feel. Some heavier, some lighter.

And then at the end of the exhalation, bend your knees, find a little lift of the pelvic floor and the belly to maybe jump forward very lightly, like a bird landing. Inhale, lengthen, exhale, fold. Inhale, reach down to come up. Like the wings of a bird, exhale, fold all the way back over your legs. Inhale to lengthen.

Exhale, step back, lower, chaturanga. Wide collarbones, low belly engaged. Inhale into your backbend. Exhale, downward facing dog. Again, just settle here, feeling your roots, and from the roots, the spaciousness within your body.

At the end of the next exhalation, bend your knees, try to find some lightness from your little engagement of the pelvic floor, low belly. Inhale, lengthen, exhale, fold. Inhale, come up, exhale, hands in front of the heart. Widen your arms to the side, and then swing your right arm underneath your left arm, coming into eagle arms. Bend your knees.

Crossing high at the tops of the thighs, wrap your right leg over your left leg, and then in order to get the right foot to hook behind the left shin, it's often helpful to turn a little bit towards the right side so you can hook the foot, and then turn back, pulling the right hip back. Garudasana, eagle pose. Eagles have those incredible eyes that can see so far. Let your eyes be soft so that they can see with ease. Unwind, tadasana.

Second side, garudasana, inhale, reach your arms out to the side, left arm underneath the right arm, bend your knees, cross high at the tops of the thighs, single wrap or see if maybe you can turn, angle the foot such that it hooks the back of the right thigh, and then pull yourself back to the center. Proportionally if our eyes were as big as a bird's eyes, they'd be about the size of baseballs. Birds' eyes take a tremendous amount of space in their heads. Unwind. One time through, surya namaskar B.

Bend your knees, touch the floor, inhale, reach up. Exhale, fold forward (breathes deeply). Inhale, lengthen. Exhale, step or jump back lightly, chaturanga. Inhale into your backbend, cobra's fine, up dog's fine, exhale, downward facing dog.

Anchor your left foot, step your right foot forward. Inhale, virabhadrasana one. Exhale, hands down, step back, elbows straight back, chest wide, chaturanga. Up dog, spread your baby toe to the side. Downward dog.

Right foot anchors, left foot steps forward. Inhale, virabhadrasana one. Exhale, hands down, chaturanga. Inhale, urdhva mukha svanasana. Exhale, downward dog.

Just a couple of breaths here. Bend your knees, lightly forward. Inhale, lengthen, exhale, fold. Chair pose, big inhale. Tadasana.

Okay, and now we're gonna do tree pose with the eagle arms. I call it eagle in a tree. So right foot up into tree. Take your arms out to the side, and then swing your right arm underneath your left arm. Press your right foot firmly into your left leg, your left leg right back into that right foot, and lift your elbows.

From here, bring your right knee forward, step back into a lunge, keeping your eagle arms, take a breath in here. Exhale, open into warrior two. Inhale, reverse warrior. And then exhale right into triangle pose. And your arms can feel perhaps hollow like the bird bones expanding, opening.

Inhale, come up. Bring your hands to your hips, turn your left toes to face the same direction as your right toes. Bring your hands down, and jump your feet together. Come into a squat. Now separate the knees, let the upper body hang down, like malasana, like what we did before, and then take your like chaturanga arms, slide your elbows back so they're very firmly pushing into your shins, and then rise onto the balls of your feet.

Broaden your collarbones. Okay, remember cowt, the low belly's gonna lift, half cat, half cow, lift your low belly, broaden your chest, and then just begin to play with rolling up towards the tips of your toes. Maybe at a certain point, if your weight shifts forward enough, collarbones broad, the feet may come up off the ground. If your feet come up off the ground, see if you can keep the inner edge of the foot together. Spread the baby toes.

Uttanasana, urdhva hastasana, tadasana. For the second side we're gonna need a block for a little extra cherry on top, so we'll put it there at the ready, and we start with a bird, eagle in a tree. Left leg up, arms out to the side, and swing your left underneath your right arm. And then bring your left knee forward, anchor into the earth with your right leg, step back into a high lunge, keeping your eagle arms. Inhale here, exhale, open into warrior two.

Inhale, reverse warrior. And then push into the earth with your right foot to straighten your right leg, and come up and around right into trikonasana. It's a nice opportunity when your yoga teacher is quiet for a moment for you to just have your own experience. Inhale, come up. Turn your right toes forward.

Fold forward, we're gonna pull the block onto the mat. Okay, and then from here, we're gonna bend the knees, this is a little precision driving, you're gonna see if you can jump boop right up onto the block. So from here, the feet are already up off the ground, so bakasana is not such a journey, and even if you rise to the balls of your feet, it's bakasana, your feet are up into the air. So low belly lifts, collarbones broaden, arms hug in, cowt, collarbones open. Look forward, you don't wanna drop your head or you'll probably fall on it.

Look forward, shift forward, lift your belly. We want the high point of bakasana, crane pose, sometimes crow pose or crane pose, it actually is, to be the mid back. So really dome up like a little jellyfish, tip forward, activate your fingertips, and fly. Or don't fly. And whether you're flying or don't fly, see if you can feel content, like I don't get a feeling that birds feel happier when they're flying than when they're on the ground.

Don't gauge your contentment based on whether or not you do a certain yoga pose in a certain way. Okay, uttanasana. Take your block to the side, come up. Hands to the heart. Step to the front of the mat, take a breath.

Release your arms. So inhale, reach up. Exhale, fold forward. Inhale, lengthen. Exhale, step or jump back, chaturanga.

Inhale, open the chest into your backbend, exhale, downward dog. Inhale, lift your right leg up. Exhale, step your right foot to the outside of your right hand, sink your pelvis, lower your left knee down to the ground. Come to your fingertips. Take two breaths.

Let the pelvis sink down 98%, but 2% holds some strength into your flexibility. Root your hands, straighten the back leg. Inhale, lift the leg up. Exhale, step forward to a lunge. Come up to a high lunge.

Slide your hands together in front of your heart, take a breath in, and as you exhale, hook your left elbow to the outside of the right knee. Pull the right hip back. With each exhalation, let your left lung fall a little bit more underneath your right lung. With your next exhalation, release your hands down. Inhale, lift your right leg up, and as you exhale, come forward into pigeon pose.

Come onto your fingertips. Lift your chest. And as you exhale, rippling forward through the spine, come to fold forward and rest for a couple of breaths. And then slide your hands underneath your shoulders, press down to come up, tuck your back toes, straighten your back leg, step into plank position, and then lift up, downward dog. Inhale, the left leg rises, exhale, step your left foot to the outside of your left hand.

Come up onto your fingertips. Sink the pelvis as you lighten your heart and chest. And connecting into the breath, root your hands, inhale, left leg up and back. Exhale, step your left foot forward, and then root to widen your wings. Come up high lunge.

Breathe in, exhale, hands to your heart. Breathe in, and as you exhale, twist, hooking your right elbow to the outside of the left thigh. Lengthen your whole spine. And with each exhalation, just see if maybe the spine somewhere along the way wants to offer a little bit more freedom or turn. And then with your next exhalation, release hands down, inhale one more time, downward dog split, exhale, shift left leg forward, pigeon.

Inhale, come up onto the fingertips, and as you exhale, lengthen through the low belly, through the mid body, through the upper body, and fold. And release through your pelvis and release through your brain. And then slide your hands back, tuck your back toes under, come up, plank, and downward facing dog. Okay, we're gonna bring the right leg forward again into pigeon. This time take your left forearm parallel to the front of the mat, wrap your left hand like a little claw over your right knee, put your fingertips onto the floor beside you, and turn, and you can try bending the back knee and finding your left foot.

If that happens, there's a tendency to pull it over to your midline, so push your left baby toe over into your hand, and let that action of the left shin pressing to the left help to open the collarbones and turn the spine a little bit more. Again, you don't wanna just completely sink in to the flexibility of your pelvis. Have a little energy drawing the thigh bones in towards each other, and that energy can fuel up through the whole spine. And then release that leg. Roll over to your right hip and swing your left leg forward.

We're gonna take the right ankle and put it right over the left thigh. Open your chest, try to draw your low back in a bit and open your chest, and then reach your arms forward. You might have to scooch your left foot a little bit further forward to reach your arms forwards, see what you can find here. Turn your palms to face down, flex at the wrist, bend your elbows, and put your upper arms right onto your right shin. And then push your shin into your arms and your arms into your shin, and then again, the feeling of half cat, half cow, the abdomen draws slightly back, but lift and open your chest.

So we're gonna turn this in a moment into an arm balance. Navasana, boat, you can have your knees bent or straight. And then (exhales) whoop, through malasana up to tadasana. Okay, so right ankle over the left knee, hands in front of the heart. Left leg does chair pose.

Bend forward, forearms rest onto the right shin. You can pause anywhere along the way. From here maybe the elbows slide to where they just were when we were sitting, and this right foot hooks like a bird right onto the branch of the left upper arm. From here if you can't reach the floor, you could put your hands onto blocks or the floor. And again, the belly has to lift so that you're light.

Look forward, open your chest, begin to shift your weight forward. Maybe the left foot floats up, and maybe the left leg extends like a pigeon pose. From here, step back, dog pose. Left shin forward for twisted pigeon. The right forearm comes parallel to the front of the mat, right hand hooks on the left knee.

First claw hands, lengthen and turn. And then this takes a fair amount of quadricep and psoas flexibility to reach back, and long arms help too. Reach back and find the back foot, and again, kick your right foot a little bit to the right to help open the chest. Unwind, roll over to your left hip, swing the right leg around, and come into this number four like position that we were doing. Left foot flexes, and try to draw a bit up onto your sitting bones so you get that hip opening of sitting here.

And then reach your arms forward. Flex at the wrist, bend your elbows, kick your shin into your arms, you arms down into your shins. There's a really firm connection there. Open your chest, draw the contents of the belly back a little bit. Navasana, and get a little momentum, shew, stand up.

So second side, eka pada galavasana, this is called, flying crow. Left leg crosses and the right leg comes into chair. Hands at the heart. Forearms to the shin. Upper arms slide around.

You're welcome to stay anywhere along the way. Again, if your hands don't come to the ground, feel free to put them onto blocks. It would look like this. And then you can just play with the idea of coming forward. So you wanna really lift the belly.

I always think of, I'm a little sister, and I remember when my brother used to pick me up. I could make myself heavy or I could make myself light depending on what my mood was, so we have the ability to make ourselves light, which is what you want in the arm balances. Maybe the leg comes up. If you extend it back, you wanna push the left foot firmly in to the legs, excuse me, the left shin firmly into your arms, and carry the leg back. Dog pose.

Take a moment in child's pose. Okay, come on up. We're gonna do a really fun way to get into side crow from marichyasana number three, so start by sitting in dandasana, and you're welcome to sit up on a little blanket if the pelvis feels like it's rolled back. It's important that you have your pelvis upright and you're right up onto your sitting bones. So we're gonna start by, I like to baby my knees (laughs), to hold onto your knee, pull the knee up.

Put your foot onto the floor about a fist distance away from your left foot. And then as you inhale, reach your left arm way up towards the ceiling. Use your right hand to press the right thigh into the midline as you turn your belly from left to right and hook over into marichyasana number three. It's a big ole twist opening the back body, squeezing all the organs. Okay, if your wrists are bothering you, or if you've kinda done with arm balances, you're welcome to stay here and just enjoy a nice long soak in the twist.

If you wanna try this version, a side crow, put your hands to the floor, and then you just kinda swivel up onto the ball of your foot and swivel your pelvis, your belly down towards the ground. From here like we've done in the other poses, you go forward first, lift your left leg, so that part is really easy to do, the left leg can just lift up without any problem, and then lift your belly, find that cowt position, and then maybe the right leg also comes up off of the ground. Chaturanga arms, wide collarbones. Perhaps a little smoothness to the breath, and then you come right back into marichyasana three, as if nothing ever happened. When you unwind, stay tall and extend the right leg, dandasana.

Second side, left knee bends, inhale your right arm up, get really long, and then exhale, really wrap the right side around. Hook the elbow, lift your heart. Find your breath. And then hands to the floor. I kinda rise up onto the ball of my left foot, place my hands like chaturanga, and then look in the direction that I'm going, like an airplane, you don't want the nose to be pointing down on an airplane.

You want it to go up and take off, so you look up where you're going, and then begin to shift your weight forward. Right leg lifts, belly lifts, so that the left leg can come off. From here, shoop, sit back down, marichyasana. And unwind. So we've done a lot of bird poses already.

There's just one more that I'd like to practice with you today, which is pincha mayurasana, which means the tail of the peacock. We'll do a little prep by opening the chest. Let's do like this. Let's keep the legs straight, put a block right behind the heart, 'cause this area we wanna have open when we do the backbends, when we do the inversion, I mean. And let your head rest as well.

If this feels too high, you can turn the blocks down, but I did want to have kind of a dramatic opening here after all of those bird poses, which are kinda closed in the chest, now this big opening across the chest. You could also do this with your legs in virasana. So just rest and let any sort of gripping or tension that happened in the pectoral muscles and the collarbones, those clavicular bones, let it just melt over the blocks. And it's especially with the exhalations that the melting happens. You can take your arms up overhead.

You could hold onto your elbows. And then let your arms come down. Coming out of this I always wish I had a trapdoor that the blocks could just dissolve down into. It's not such an elegant way to come out. It's a little far to roll to the side.

I'm just gonna press into the floor and come up. So now that I have this area open, I'm ready for my pincha mayurasana. Please move to a wall if you're unsure about your balance in this pose. So block down, the hands surround the block, elbows right underneath the shoulders, and then press down into your forearms, straighten your legs. Look at the space right in between the forearms with that feeling as if the block is right behind your heart.

So lift one leg, bring it down. Lift the other leg. Keep pressing firmly into your forearms, bring it down. Come down, a moment in child's pose with your forehead onto the block. And then either repeat that, or if you wanna kick up into pincha mayurasana, either with or without a wall, you're welcome to do that.

In pincha mayurasana, there's a big arc in the chest. The belly draws in, the tailbone lifts up, and the legs slightly behind the pelvis. A little arc to the pose, but not too much, and it's not in the mid body. Back into child's pose. If it feels good, head on a block.

And then come up. And let's just lie down and kind of unwind for a moment before shavasana, allowing the knees to go from side to side, just very mellow after all that work of the legs, of the core, of the arms, and just feeling the ground support you. And then after you're even right and left, come to the center, let's hug the knees in. You can ask yourself if there's anything else you'd like to do. I would recommend that if you do anything else in this practice, it's something that's very soothing to you.

And then release your feet to the ground, extend your legs for shavasana, and just like we take a lot of time to set up the other poses, you might wanna lift your head, look down your body, and see that your nose, the center of your chest, your belly button, pubic synthesis, the center of the pelvis, and the space in between the two heels is all aligned, and then kinda lengthen, and use your hands to pull your hair in the back of the head to lengthen the back of the neck. And walk your shoulders down. And rest with your palms facing up. In shavasana, there's nothing left to do. Give yourself complete and utter permission to let every cell release.

And then imagining that your bones are hollow like those of a bird, begin to breathe into the space of your bones. If the breathing into your bones inspires you to move in any way, feel free to listen to that. (breathes deeply) And we'll bend the knees, feel your feet meet the mat, and roll over to your side. And press into the floor and make your way up to sit. Place one hand onto your heart and one hand onto your belly.

Take a moment of gratitude for the strength, the openness of your body. And I invite you to take flight off of your mat and take some of the strength or courage that comes with a practice like this into other aspects of your life. Take very good care of yourself. Thank you, namaste.