Hippy Dippy

Hey, how's it going? Welcome to Yoga Anytime. My name is Robert, and this sequence is geared toward the hips and surrounding areas, alright? So main focus, hips, surrounding cities and counties, if that makes sense. Alright, so be moderate.

Don't hang too deep in the stretch, maybe think about like 75, 80% max, alright? I'll remind you of that. So let's begin, child's pose. Come on down to your hands and knees. One of my favorite places to begin.

Knees pretty wide, hips reaching back towards your heels. Okay, land where you land, begin to breathe fully and completely. So think about drawing the breath in through the nose, and as you do so, can you feel that sensation of your belly expanding? And then gently contracting on the exhalation, good. Breathe in through the nose, belly expands.

Breathe out through the nose, belly gently contracts. Breathe in, belly expands. You may even feel it up or travel up through your rib cage or side body, like the middle of your torso, and maybe even like if you take a full enough breath, you might feel it up into your chest. That could be the full inhalation, exhalation, all the way out, chest, middle of the body, full contraction through the belly. Side effects of good, conscious, full breathing in my mind, you feel good.

You feel better, a little more energy, a little more relaxed, calm, side effects, okay. Keep reaching the hips back. Reach your arms forward, stretch out as far as you can, still working with the breath. Crawl your fingers over to the left. The emphasis is through your right pinky, right.

So the left arm is reaching long as well, but really see how long you can get through the right side. Keep traveling over to the left, and at the same time, reaching through that right hip. So there's this nice long traction thing kind of happening, big stretch. Okay, back over to center, over to the right, long, long left side. Reach long through the left pinky or left hand, laterally moving over to the right while reaching back through your left hip, left low back.

And one breath here, big breath, exhale, walk back over to center. Keep this extended child's pose as you come up into tabletop on the breath in, nice. Cat-cow, old faithful cat-cow, breathe in, we'll come into cow pose, drop the belly, lift the butt, chest forward, exhale, cat, spread the upper back wide, draw your tailbone down, gaze toward your thighs, finish the exhalation here, inhale, nice mellow moderate pace for this hip sequence, exhale, cat. What's nice, keep going, what's nice about the mellow or moderate pace is it gives you more opportunity to feel, right? Feel the subtle, smaller sensations that might get ignored or bypassed through a fast practice.

Nothing wrong with a fast practice, but this one's a little slower. Come back into this flat tabletop position. So I'll see if I can explain it well, but it's a little three or four part movement. So child's pose, keep the arms out as far as you can. The inhalation, come up into tabletop, exhale, keep the arms straight, you can even let the shoulders kind of come up into the ears for a moment.

Let the thighs come down, then the hips, and there's a moment where you're going to want to bend your arms, so you're in like a lazy up dog. And then all the way down through cobra, down to the mat. Let your forehead touch for a moment, inhale, cobra. So you're just reversing it a little upward dog, but upward dog with your knees down and then hinge back. So a little, little hip love through that hinge movement.

Okay, let's do a few of these. Inhale up to table, and exhale, kind of roll down through a lazy up dog, cobra. So it's not only the hips, but we're working the spine, cobra, inhalation, exhale, work all the way back into child's. Two more. Inhale table, exhale, roll it out.

Inhale, come up, exhale, push back. One more round. So inhale table, exhale all the way down through that up dog, cobra, lying fall all the way down your belly, forehead down, reverse, cobra, lazy up dog, hips hinge back all the way to child's with your exhalation. Good, tabletop, downward dog, soft knees, long spine, take your left foot, kind of left center of the mat, grip down into your hands evenly, lift your right leg up and let's open that right hip while bending your right leg. Okay, try to keep your arms nice and centered, square, strong in the shoulders, open in that right hip, right?

Don't worry about that left heel pressing to the mat, if it's up a little bit high, that's fine. You might want to lift and lower that heel a couple of times. Look under that right arm, armpit region. It's definitely not my favorite word, armpit, just thought I'd throw that out there, square the hips, breathe in, take the right foot all the way up to the front of the mat, bring the back knee down, come up for a lunge. Okay, you can tuck around, tuck the back toes, keep the chest up, hands pressing on that right thigh, lean into the lunge.

So hip flexors, left side, your waist, you might feel that there. If keeping, by leaning into it, if keeping your body lifted and upright bothers your back, you can lean your body forward to minimize that bend in your low back. Okay, come back out into more of a moderate, you're not leaning into it so much, twist to the right, take your left hand on your right thigh. This is optional, might feel good, might have to adjust your knee a little bit, but bend your left leg, reach your right hand to your right foot or left foot, okay? I'll pause here if you need to take a look for a second.

So I'm lunging, I'm twisting, and then I'm actually going to take my right hand and hold on to the right side of my foot, the outer edge of my right foot so that I can have my palm up, shoulder open, and then depending on your flexibility, draw your left heel toward your butt. Keep your chest up, keep the spine long. See things going on here, more than anything, right? Make sure your breath is flowing. Okay, I actually want to stay here a lot longer, but we have to keep going.

So let's release that left foot, come back out of the twist, bring both hands on the inside of that right foot, scoot that left knee back, all right, now we're going to get into those hips. Walk the right foot over to the right, stay up on your hands for a moment, lift your chest. Keep your whole right foot grounded for a breath, you can keep it here, or let the foot open up out to the right, so you're on the outer edge of that right foot. There's some space, so your attention, your focus is on your breath and the body part or region where you might feel it most, let's say, and it's just that constant communication breath, body, breath and body, send the exhalations to the tight areas you're opening up, bring it back, curl the back toes and lift your left knee, you can stay here, or without moving the structure of the lunge, walk your hands forward and over to the left a little bit. So keep pressing back through your left heel, draw your right knee forward, but don't let it go beyond your foot, keep reaching through that right hand, forward and over to the left.

Nice, let's come back out of that, walk your right foot toward maybe the right center of the mat, right hand on the outside of that right foot, come up high on your fingertips, square your hips, breathe in and now exhale, work toward straightening your right leg, so we've been lunging with that right leg quite a bit, it might feel nice to put a little bit of a straightened shape on that, you can come in and out of it, little short pulses. Okay, good job, step back into tabletop, set the knees down, right tabletop, there's a knees, chest, chin lowering, so with your knees down already, lean your body forward a little bit, bend your arms, wring your chest and your chin down so your butt stays up high and there's like a little arch in your back possibly. Inhale come through cobra or maybe even upward dog as you breathe in, exhale downward dog as you breathe out. Bring a heel down, another heel down, stretch through the calves, your hamstrings, right foot right center of the mat, left leg lifts, hip opens, left hip is opening as much as you can, drive your right heel toward the mat, look under your left pits of your arm, I'll figure out how to say that in a way that feels better someday, good. Hip opening, breathing in, breathe out, square the hips and step to the front of the mat, set your back knee down, so we've got those few options here right, hands rest on the thigh, lean into it, so let that left knee drop forward, tuck or untuck your back toes.

Two more breaths, breathe in and breathe out. One more time, inhale and exhale, great, back out, curl those back toes, that might feel better for your balance, lengthen up through the spine, take your right hand to your left thigh, rotate open to the left, get the twist, good, now bend your right leg, reach your left hand to that right foot, I might have to do this, reach my right hand forward, yeah there we go, okay now I get the hold, come back up and you see if you're looking, the hand holding to the inner arch, my shoulder comes forward, but if I take the hold on the other side with my palm facing up, my shoulder has the capacity to open up a little bit more. Okay, so with my right knee being a little uncomfortable, if I were in my own practice right now, I'd probably pause and put something underneath the knee, so if that's happening for you, do so, but I'm gonna suck it up, twist, rotate, get that quad stretch on the right side, right leg, open up, really nice, okay lean forward, come out of it, walk the right knee back, left foot to the left, both hands on the inside of that left leg, pause there with your chest up, left foot firmly grounded, and now maybe even like just close you, you kind of have an idea of where we're going, so maybe you have, you're interested in closing your eyes, bring your attention to the breath, your hips start to let that left foot open up onto the outer edge of the left side of the foot, it's a lot of extra language there, but I think you get where I'm going there, right, open the hip, you can stay up on your hands or you can drop down to the forearms, you can lean that right hip toward the mat, creating space, how's your breath, okay good, come back out, lift the back knee, first curl the toes of the right foot, lift the right knee, okay long lunge, it's enough right here, if you're interested take your hands forward a little bit and then over to the right, so a little bit of like a lateral stretch, we did it in child's pose where we reached and then went to the right, so there's this tractioning right, this counter stretch through your right heel and your left knee, you may even like minimize it a little bit on the breath in, meaning like draw your left knee back a little bit, right heel toward both of them come towards center, breathe in and then exhale, right heel back, left knee forward, okay come back over to center, frame that left foot with both of your hands, squaring through the hips, breathe in and exhale, look to straighten your leg, you don't need to lock it, it doesn't need to be straight, come out of the bend, work a little into the hamstring, the left hamstring, I find it really helpful when I'm stretching into the hamstring like this to press very deliberately into the ball of that front foot, so that region just below the big toe, the left big toe, if you press firmly kind of rotate that left leg in a little bit, what it does is it just kind of brings attention to a different area of that leg, okay good, step back, full plank pose, breathe in, as you breathe out, set your knees down, chest and chin, arms hugging your side body, chin and chest down, butt up, inhale for an upward dog, slide through, slither through, roll the shoulders back, lengthen the neck, strong, super strong feet and legs, exhale, downward facing dog, good work, good patience, walk up to the front of the mat, okay, fold, exhale, inhale, lift halfway, full exhalation, forward and down, from your forward bend, come all the way up, breath in, takes you high, reach up, touch the ceiling, press your palms together, interlace your fingers, draw your index finger long, get as tall, tall, tall as you can and exhale, palms to your chest, okay, one breath here and exhale, great, now step wide on the mat, so hip width would be something like here, right, then add at least a foot on each side, so a foot, a foot, a little bit wider if you've got that space, put a soft bend in the knees, keep your spine long, push your hips back, reach the crown of your head forward, forward bend, exhale, bring the hands right below your head or hold on to the outer edges of your feet, you can take a wider stance, hold on to your big toes, pull the feet toward one another, just a little attention, right, like you're trying to slide them together, that brings a little bit more muscular effort into it, good, now walk your hands toward the right foot, walk your right toes open, so like 45 degrees and now lean into it, so a big side lunge stretch, okay, for the first one keep the back foot down like you would a warrior too, okay, inhale to center and exhale, shift the feet and now you're going to the left, so inner thighs, groin, hips and surrounding regions, good, back over to the other side, other side, left, good, to the right, now when you're here to the right, lift your toes, your left toes up off the mat, so you're on your left heel and you could if you have like, you know, you could let your seat come back a little bit more and get a little bit more into that right knee, keep the chest up, keep pressing through that right heel to stay supported, let's try the other side, shift over and you can use your hands, you see how I'm kind of just using my hands in different areas to support myself, okay, nice, come back over to like more of a neutral position, forward bend, wide leg forward bend, bend the knees, hands up on your thighs, half lift, right, long spine, core engaged, pause here, exhale, all the way up to stand, good, okay, so with this stance or maybe a little bit more narrow, open those feet and drop down to a really wide squat, you can rest your forearms on your inner thighs and lean from side to side, so hips, hips, hips, hips, hip, hip, hooray, whatever that means, might not feel like hooray for you, right, might be pretty difficult and then get that, okay, why don't we do this now, from here you can walk those feet a little bit closer, kind of like heel toe, reach back behind you, if your butt's already down then you're already where we're going, I'm going to reach back behind me, lower my seat down, okay, seated pigeon, okay, so from there take your right foot out, right, we'll start out far, right foot reaches out, draw your left knee in, take your left ankle on top of your right thigh, point your left toes up, okay, that might feel a little pigeon-y, right, you might feel a little something in the hips, or reach your hands back behind you and slide your right heel closer, keep your chest up, right, so the idea is to keep sliding that right heel closer and use your hands and arms as like strength to lift your chest and come into the posture, so you can lean left to right, right to left, try to keep that left knee open and away from you, take two or three breaths here, okay, nice, let's do the other side, so exit out, slide it out to make that sort of connection, get the connection, so yeah, okay, slide the left heel closer to your body, you know, I kind of like, you can see me, I get a little rounded here just to get the foot in, prepare and prop myself up on my hands, I don't want to stay like this, what I'm going to do now is point my right toes up and push the chest up and lean into the pose so that it's all right here and that, to me, feels like a pretty darn good stretch, so find your version, keep the chest up, shoulders back, little side Benny, right, chest opener, heart opener, shoulder stretch, okay, let's release, so you might want to slide that left foot out, release, come up high on your sit bones, take both legs out in front of you, breathe in, circle the arms high, breathe out, reach forward, forward bend, you can yogi toe lock, index finger and middle finger around each big toe, hold on to opposite or the outer edges of your feet, some of you have the bend ability to reach all the way around, find your spot, for three more breaths, good, two more, like deep, deep conscious breaths, inhale, fill the body, maybe lift the chest a little bit, exhale, fold back in, one more time, inhale, exhale, great, come back up to sit, move on to your back, roll on down, hug your knees in, so when you hug your knees in, you're holding on to your shins just below the knees and your low back is stretching, tailbone reaching forward and up, forward, forward and up, let's leave it at that, okay, extend your left leg long, hug your right knee in, good, switch legs, left knee in, one more on each side, right knee in, give it a good squeeze, hips might be somewhat open and available by now, good, left side, both into the body, big, big squeeze, breathe in, exhale, bring your feet down to the mat, bottoms of your feet touching, hips open for reclined, bound angle, take your hands behind your head, lift your head, stretch your neck out, place your head back down, arms alongside your body and then move them away from your body about a foot, make sure your back feels good, take a deep breath in and exhale, great, stretch both legs out, we'll take a short relaxation together and as always you can take a longer relaxation depending on the time of day and what your interests are, but let's take this together, begin to let go of your breathing, just trust that the inhalation and exhalation will come and go, relax, let's just focus right now on relaxing your hips, the front of your thighs, your hips, your low back, with every relaxed exhalation your body settles and sinks a little more heavily into the mat. Good, hug the knees into your body, gently roll rock and roll up to sit, meeting me, meeting one another, so some say we hold a lot in our hips, so whether you believe that or not, just pay attention to how you're moving throughout the rest of your day, see if anything comes up, who knows, we may be holding some stuff in the hips and you may have just released, we'll see. Anyway, that's about it, so thank you for joining me, as always I really appreciate it and I look forward to seeing you again soon, namaste, have a beautiful day.