Side Plank Pose

Greetings tribe, welcome. This practice is going to be exploring Vashisthasana II, which is a really wonderful, empowering arm balance, and it can be helpful to practice near a wall today. We'll be using it for a little bit of support when we get to our peak pose. We will be flowing through a bit of vinyasa to warm up the body and prep for the pose, but we will be getting to it directly. Let's begin.

Please come to the top of your mat and draw your hands together at your heart. Shoulders come down the back and take a very deep breath in and just feel some lightness here as you inhale, and on the exhale, release your hands. We'll move into Surya Namaskarsi, so let's inhale to circulate out and up. And as you exhale, draw through the midline into your forward fold, releasing through your head and neck. Step your left foot back and come to a high lunge as you inhale and really radiate forward through your heart, through your gaze.

As you exhale, press back to downward facing dog. Inhale, shift forward to plank, and on an exhale, lower the knees followed by chest and hips all the way down to the mat. Inhale, rising through cobra, maybe all the way to upward facing dog, and then exhale back to downward facing dog. Set the left foot forward between the hands and reach the heart and the gaze forward. Exhale, forward fold, top of the mat.

Inhale, rise with a strong flat back, palms touch. Exhale, hands to the heart, and that was half of one cycle. Inhale, circulate out and up. And as you exhale, just moving with a sense of purpose and direction. Moving the right foot back and inhale, the heart reaches forward.

Exhale, downward facing dog. Shifting forward to plank on an inhale, as you exhale, lower the knees, chest and hips. Inhale through cobra, into upward facing dog. Exhale, downward facing dog. Step the right foot forward and inhale to lift your heart.

Exhale, forward fold. Inhaling to rise with strength. Exhale, hands to your heart. Take one more full round, circulating out and up, deep breath in. Exhale, diving down into the river.

Step the left foot back and inhale, the heart reaches forward. Exhale, downward facing dog. Moving forward on your inhale to plank, exhale, lower the knees, chest and hips. Inhale through cobra, into upward dog. Exhale, downward facing dog.

Left foot steps forward, inhale to the high lunge. Exhale, forward fold. Inhaling to rise with a flat back. Exhale, hands to heart. Take one last half of the cycle.

Circulate out and up. Exhale, forward fold, rooting down. Step the right foot back and reach your heart forward. Feel the strength in the legs. Exhale, downward facing dog.

Shifting forward on the inhale, and as you exhale, lower the knees, chest and hips. All the way down. Inhale through cobra, to upward facing dog. Exhale, downward facing dog. Step the right foot forward and inhale.

Exhale, forward fold. Inhale to rise. Exhale, hands to your heart. Circulate out and up, full breath in. Exhale, forward fold.

This time as you inhale, come up halfway to Ardha Uttanasana. As you exhale, just step back to downward facing dog. Separate your feet about hips width apart. We're going to work with an alternative vinyasa for a moment or two. Just exploring the edges of the feet, you can lift up onto the tippy toes and roll your heels over to the left.

Then lift back up through the center and roll the heels over to the right. Start to explore the outer edge of one foot, the inner edge of the opposite foot as you shift from side to side. Our feet were made to move and dance and walk upon the earth. So just kind of feel that articulation that you have in the different arches of the feet. This becomes a really important part of when we set up our Vashisthasana II.

So now let's actually take our heels over to the right and allow your hips to drop forward and down. Roll across the tops of the feet through your upward dog. Take your heels to the left and then come back to downward dog. Let's just take that to the opposite side. Heels to the left, lower the hips forward and down, rotate through the tops of the feet.

Feeling that articulation as you shift once more right and then left through this circular vinyasa. If you think of your body or the lines of your mat as a riverbed and the riverbed holds the flow of the water but never controls the flow of the water. It just supports it. And so you can feel how your body shifts beyond and through, underneath and around those edges. Coming back to downward facing dog and let's hold here for a moment or two.

So let's progress into one more simple Namaskar as you inhale, right leg reaches up and back and exhale, step all the way through to warrior one. This is a dancing warrior Namaskar that I learned from my teacher Shiva Ray. So let's inhale up through warrior one and as you exhale open up into warrior two and just keep a steady flow of movement and breath as you inhale, reverse your warrior. Exhale to Parsvakonasana, elbow to knee, top arm sweeps forward and down and then let that bring you back up to the surface of warrior two and exhale, hands to the mat, step back to downward dog and let's take that circular vinyasa to the right. So allow the hips to roll forward and down, really feel the edges of the feet as you press back and then take it one time to the left and just articulating and opening up through the intelligence of the feet.

Let's take the left leg to the sky on an inhale, exhale, step all the way through to warrior one base, inhale rise to Virabhadrasana one, exhale open up to warrior two, inhale reaching up and back to open the side waist, exhale, elbow to knee, top arm circulates forward down through the water, back up to the surface on an inhale, exhale downward facing dog. Let's take the circular vinyasa to the left, really feeling the edges of the feet, the roll of the hips, the freedom and the strength through the side waist as you go to the right and then back to downward dog. From here inhale to your toes, bend the knees, look forward, step or hop to the top of your mat, lift your heart halfway, exhale, forward, fold, separate your feet, hips width apart and let's take Padagusthasana here, so wrap your peace fingers around the inside edges of your big toes, look forward on an inhale and then as you exhale, bend your elbows and draw yourself down deep and this is the same hand hold that we'll use when we go into our Vashisthasana too, so just kind of feel that relationship of hands to feet and the thumb wrapping on the outside edge creates this nice little lock here. Two very deep breaths and then inhale to lift your heart, release your toes, exhale, bring the feet together, forward, fold, come all the way up to standing on an inhale, circulate out and up and as you exhale, hands to your heart, so center your weight over the right foot and circulate your arms out and up on an inhale, exhale, draw your hands back to the heart and draw the left knee to the chest and just come into a standing balance here for a moment and then bring your hands to your hips but keep the knee hovering and as you exhale, start to thread your left leg back into warrior three, so let the pelvis just tilt right on top of the femur bone, keep the standing leg bent as you come into your warrior three and then start to open your hips towards half moon as you straighten your leg and you can drop your right hand down, you're welcome to use a block or place your fingertips on the floor but just feel the opening through the hips as you reach the top arm to the sky, bottom foot stays pointed straight ahead, breath is full and deep and as you exhale, bend the standing leg, keep the back leg nice and high and step back into warrior two, reverse your warrior on an inhale and as you exhale, come up and over the horizon into trikonasana and there's so many different ways that all of these asanas are practiced but for today, if it's possible for you, slide your hand down and take your big toe in your trikonasana, so again we start to just become very familiar with this connection because this is essentially the same shape when we're in vashtasana two, take a full breath in as you expand up through the heart, through the fingertips and then exhale, draw your left hand to the mat, spin on the ball of the back foot and lower your knee, if your knee is sensitive, you're welcome to take a blanket or a folded towel and place it underneath your knee and we'll just work with kind of the ascent or the approach into vashtasana two from here, so you can pad your knee up and then come back to where we were with a toe lock on the right big toe, you can also use a strap to wrap it around your foot if you'd like, so from here just shift your hips back, bring the weight out of the front foot and start to lift your right leg just up to parallel to the floor and then bring it forward and down once again and just shift into a lunge, shift the hips back, take the weight off the foot, lift it up and we're just allowing our body a little kinetic grooving, a little kinetic memory, so we start to feel that how to climb a tree and how to get back down from the tree and just take that one more time, shift the hips back, take the weight out of the front foot, lift your leg, open it up the gates and let's keep it lifted here, release your foot and come into kneeling vashtasana, we'll add a little quadricep opener just as a counter moment here, let the front of the quad and the hips, the heart breathe, either looking down or turning your gaze to look up at the sky, take a full breath in and then exhale, release and from here come back to plank and back into downward facing dog, leave our blanket here for the second side, inhale to your toes, bend your knees step or lightly float to the top of the mat, lift the heart halfway, exhale forward fold, circulate out and up on an inhale and as you draw your hands to your heart, shift your weight to the left foot and draw the right knee to the chest and just start to get really steady in your gaze and rooted through your base, bringing your hands to your hips, soften the standing leg, thread your right foot back into warrior three, keeping the hips even for now and really take your time with these transitions, sometimes we rush from one pose to the next and find ourselves trying to go into asana on a Hail Mary but allow it to be really steady and slow as you start to straighten your leg, open the hips and the left hand can drop down to a block or the floor and just arriving calmly and with purpose and there's always in any balance postures there's that sense of wobbling right but think of it more as the river running through the riverbed and it might be a little wild and a little free but there's always that gentle bit of guiding, bend your standing leg and step back to your warrior two and then inhale, reverse your warrior and as you exhale come up and over the horizon and let's come into trikonasana with a toe lock, top arm reaches to the sky, spreading out in all directions and as you exhale bringing your hand down to the mat, spin on the ball of the back foot and lower your knee, maybe shift your foot forward a little bit and then we just start to work with this approach, shifting the hips back, lifting the left leg so it's parallel to the floor and then bringing it forward and down and just letting yourself kind of feel that shift of weight and transition from lunge to the hips to the sideways and taking that two more times, opening up the gate through the hamstring and inner thigh and once more, shifting back, picking up the toes, lift the leg, this time we'll stay here, release the foot, come into your kneeling vashisthasana and then let's add a little quadricep opener here to balance the body, bring a little bit of a back bend into the practice, pressing your foot into your hand, opening through the heart, full breath in and exhale, release, come back through plank and back into downward facing dog. From downward dog, inhale to your toes, bend your knees, step or float to the top of the mat, lift the heart halfway on and inhale, exhale forward fold, inhale come all the way up to standing, rising through the surface of the water, exhale hand to your heart, shift your weight to the left foot and draw the right knee to the chest and then this time we'll go ahead and work with a similar pattern but we'll take it to the next level or the next step on the progression so you can reach down and take a toe lock as we come into padagusthasana A and B or if you'd like to work with a strap, sometimes we just need a little bit of an arm extender and so you can take your strap and loop it around your right foot and when you lift your knee, draw the strap up so the right hand reaches down and holds close to your foot, that way you can just let the strap slide through your hand as you come into your padagusthasana A. Feeling the shoulders over the hips and as you open up your leg out to the side, you might find that you get a little more freedom through the inner thigh, through the hamstring and you can lift the leg up a little higher and then slowly come back to the center, release your right foot down, come down into a forward fold and we just exchange the weight from right foot to left as you take the left leg to the sky into a standing split From here, lift your heart and start to open your hips into your half moon and we have a little bit of a change here in our half moon, typically we place our hand underneath our shoulder but start to walk your hand back towards your standing leg foot and again, just feel that relationship of hand to foot and we're in the vashisthasana two shape but a different relationship to gravity From here, step back to your warrior two, same pattern, inhale, reverse your warrior, exhale reach up and over into your trikonasana.

Take a very deep breath in as you expand and then exhale hands to the mat. Now before we go into vashisthasana two, let's feel, let's workshop out the foot position in our vashisthasana first, so we're going to actually release our foot and step back to plank and then roll just like we did in our circular vinyasa, roll to the outer edge of your left foot and stack your right foot on top but what I'd love for you to do is take the ball of your right foot and try to press the arch of your left foot flat towards the mat. A lot of times when we go into side arm balance, our bottom ankle is buckled, our hips are heavy and it's too much work on the shoulder but when we activate the outer ankle and the hips then it becomes really light and easy on the shoulder so just feel that work in your foot, stack the right foot on top, keep the hips high and then reach your top arm to the sky. Take a deep inhale here and then as you exhale come back to center into downward dog and if you'd like to let your river roll to the edges of the banks, through your circular vinyasa, through the eddies and back again, feel a little bit of freedom there through the sideways as you take that right to left. Inhale to the toes, bend your knees, step or float to the top of the mat, up and over the blanket, it's kind of fun, lift your heart, exhale, forward fold, inhale come all the way up to stand and then exhale, draw your hands back to the heart, let's take the left side.

So draw the left knee to the chest with your strap or without, grab onto your big toe or the arch of the foot and then start to stretch forward into padagusthasana A. Shoulders right on top of the hips and when we open up the gate we can lift it a little bit to feel that nice expanse through our base and up through the crown of the head. Coming back to center on an inhale, squaring it off and then exhale, release your foot, come into your forward fold, release your head. We'll transition the weight to the left foot, right leg reaches to the sky, standing split. Standing your heart, breathing your way into half moon, so we bring the left hand in to the midline a bit, start to open up into your Ardha Shandrasana and just a little bit different here, walking your hand back towards the standing leg foot, making that connection and feeling that little bit of wobbliness but inside the stability of your focus. Coming back into your warrior two base, inhale, reverse your warrior, reach up and back and then exhale into your Trikonasana, triangle pose.

Deep breath in, exhale, releasing down, let's step back into Arvashisthasana, just working with the feet, go up and over your blanket, roll to the outer edge of your right foot and then use your left foot to see if you can stretch the inner arch down, so eventually your foot is flat rather than buckled. This is a really important part of the support of your Vashisthasana, stack the left foot on top and then reach, left arm to the sky. Again if it feels a little bit of wobbly, that's okay, just feel yourself in the river, let that movement be part of it and just keep trying to come back to center. One more deep breath here and then slowly come back into downward facing dog, maybe taking the heels to the left and circulating forward and through your circular vinyasa, some freedom in the hips and the side waist to the other side and pressing back. So from here we'll walk our hands back to our feet, going up and over the blanket and come into your forward fold at the back of your mat.

Inhale to lift your heart and exhale, release, bend your knees, roll up your spine nice and easy, come on up to standing and hopefully your props have magically moved off your mat and then you can turn your mat towards the length of the wall because we'll use the wall for a little bit of a support, a little bit of a riverbank as we go into our Vashisthasana too. Okay, so let's go into our downward facing dog from here and you want to set yourself up a few inches away from the wall. Just inhale the left leg to the sky, exhale, step it all the way through to your runner's lunge and then here we are, if you take your left toe here, we're in that same exit that we were passing through in our standing sequences. So we're ready to go into our Vashisthasana too. Last time we were here we had the knee down and we were working with kind of just lifting and lowering, transitioning the weight from the front of the mat or from our hands towards our hips and our foot.

So it's the same thing only this time we'll pick up the back knee and I like to shorten the stance a little bit. So if I'm in a long runner's lunge you can slightly shorten your stance and then roll to the outer edge of the back foot. So shorten the stance a little bit and then roll to the outer edge of your foot but just leave a little space between your hips and the wall. As you start to transition back and lift up your foot it almost feels like you're passing through a tree pose and you can allow your hips to rest against the wall. Notice the position of the bottom foot, try to place it flat and from here you can start to extend your leg towards the sky in your Vashisthasana too.

Eventually we do the center floor without the support of the wall but it's kind of nice just to have a little support, a little bank of a riverbed. And then from there releasing into your Vashisthasana, notice if you tend to roll back towards the wall and try to just keep that top hip rolling forward and then exhale back into downward facing to up. Come down to the knees, relax the tops of the feet flat and just take a moment here palms face up, closing your eyes and just noticing what that particular posture gives you back internally. Deep breath into the chest and exhale release, open your eyes and let's pivot to downward facing dog on the second side so you can just step through a Prasarita for a moment. Take a little wide leg forward fold, inhale to lift the chest and then exhale walk your hands towards the opposite end of the mat and step back to downward dog, it's my favorite view.

Let's take the right leg to the sky on an inhale, exhale step it all the way through to your runner's lunge, you can take your toe lock here and once again slightly shorten up the stance, roll to the outer edge of your back foot and give yourself plenty of space for your hips and start to lift up through the tree pose shape and then all the way up into your Vasisthasana too, stacking the shoulder over the wrist, working the outer or the inner edge of the bottom foot down and smiling because that changes the pose. Take a very deep breath in and slowly release your foot coming down through Vasisthasana and through plank, back to downward dog and then down to your knees and sitting back in Virasana. Taking a very deep breath in here maybe circulating your head in a semi-circle or a full circle as you exhale and then changing directions. So let's bring our mats back to center now and let's just pass through the progression just one more time without the wall, take the training wheels off the bike. So come back into your downward facing dog and let's inhale the right leg to the sky, exhale step it all the way through to your runner's lunge, take the big toe with the right hand, shorten up the stance and roll to the outer edge of the back foot and as you start to lift into your Vasisthasana too you can feel that alignment of the imaginary wall behind you, that gentle line of the riverbed and the wobbliness is part of it so just embrace it and slowly release through Vasisthasana and back into plank, back into your downward dog maybe we go off-road and take one or two circular vinyasas before we take the second side just because it feels kind of good and then from your downward facing dog take the left leg to the sky, step it all the way through and just allow it to be a little bit playful here as you plant your right palm, shorten up the stance, roll to the outer edge of your foot and as you start to lift your leg let the hips hug into the midline, opening up through the heart, releasing your foot through your Vasisthasana, back through plank into downward dog and let's roll the heels over to one side, circulate down into the water back up through downward dog and then over to the other side, inhaling to your toes and then setting the knees down sit back on your heels coming into Virasana and if it's not comfortable for you to sit with your knees like this sometimes if we've had knee surgeries or any kind of history in the knees it's just not comfortable to sit here like this for too long so you're welcome to come into any comfortable seated position you like maybe cross legged or seated on a bolster or block blanket but get comfortable and we'll just take a moment here as we close out our practice to sit quietly so allow your eyes to close and let your inner eyes stream down into the heart and you feel the rhythm of your heartbeat the rhythm of your breath and just watching internally how your energy flows inside the body how water flows through a riverbed sometimes there's these calm stretches of flat water and then turbulence and rapids and waterfalls it's always a metaphor for life of course see if you can just allow the breath and the focus of your mind to start to transition into flat water to an eddy to a calm place I'm taking five slow deep breaths here counting your way back from five deep inhale receive your inhale to your heart and exhaling to four another deep breath in exhaling to three relaxing the shoulders and fuller breath in as you sit tall exhaling to two one more very deep breath in here exhaling to one slowly lowering the chin towards the heart the frontal brain towards the heart and then walking your hands forward any amount either in your cross-legged position or on your knees coming into child's pose either one works and just releasing down bowing in and feel your breath wash over you wash over the back body if you happen to be in a seated cross-legged position just walk in and change the crossing of your legs you have a little balance in your hips and walk it forward I'm taking two or three more deep breaths here walking your hands in back towards your knees coming up to a nice tall upright spine and bringing the hands together at the heart center dropping the chin into the chest just taking one or two final moments here to fill your breath as it moves through you like its own river there's a wonderful quote by author one of my favorite authors mark neepo he talks about the river of life is constantly moving through us shaping us shaping the life of our feelings of our emotions how we cannot stop it we cannot seize it but we can hold it and embrace it deep breath into your heart as you exhale gently open your eyes thank you very much for sharing your practice and your presence with me today namaste have a wonderful day.