Flow to Bird of Paradise

Greetings tribe, good to see you. This practice will be exploring Bird of Paradise and also Bound Half Moon and we'll be using the wall a little bit for this practice and we will be moving in a bit of a mandala namaskar to prep and warm the body. So let's begin. Come to the front of the mat and take your feet wide apart the width of the mat. As you inhale, circulate your arms forward and up and as you exhale, let your hands cascade down the midline, softening the knees, inhale, circulate forward and up and allow your breath to move like a wave up and over your body, your mind, calming your nervous system and just opening up to the potential of your practice and your experience.

Let's take that twice more, just like that, inhale to circulate and exhale, come down through the midline. This time as you come up, turn your toes out and inhale, circulate forward and up. As you exhale, draw the hands through the midline and bend your knees and come all the way down to malasana. Once again reaching forward and up, charging down through the legs, up through the heart and exhale down through the midline, easing into your hips and your lower back. Inhale, circulating, feeling that root to rise and exhale, softening down.

Just hang out here for a moment or two and just kind of snuggle your shoulders inside your knees and as you press your hands together, lift up through the heart center, opening up through the front of the throat as you inhale and exhale, bow the chin into the chest. Pressing the knees open with the elbows, lift the heart and let's slide the right shoulder down inside of the right knee and open up your arms like you're opening up for a hug. Big inhale here, exhale, come back through the midline and just some gentle movements that are related to where we're going in our peak pose, opening up through the chest and then exhale back to the heart center. Press your hands down to the earth, lift your hips up to the sky and inhale, arda uttanasan, exhale uttanasan. Step your feet back to downward facing dog and we're about to move into a simple mandala nama scar and we'll actually lead with the left leg first in this practice, so let's inhale the left leg to the sky and as you exhale, step all the way through to a warrior to base.

Bring your elbow to your knee and sweep the right arm back up and alongside your ear. As you exhale, sweep forward and down, pivot your feet to parallel and bend into the right knee. Straighten the legs, plant your right palm and inhale, left arm to the sky, exhale, release to a runner's lunge to the back of the mat and step back to plank. Lower down to chaturanga, inhale, upward facing dog and exhale, downward facing dog and let's do that same side once again, inhaling the left leg to the sky, exhale, step all the way through to a warrior to base, set your elbow on your knee and sweep the right arm back up and alongside the ear as you inhale, exhale, reach forward and down, pivot the feet and bend into your right knee, stretch the legs long and open the left arm, left side of the heart towards the sky as you inhale, exhale, walk your hands back to the right and step to plank, lowering down, chaturanga, inhale, upward dog, exhale, downward dog. Right leg rises on an inhale, exhale, step forward, warrior to base, elbow to the knee, sweep the left arm up and over as you inhale, exhale, reach forward and down, pivot the feet and bend your left knee.

Plant the left palm flat, inhale, right arm to the sky, exhale, release, runner's lunge to the back of the mat, stepping back to plank and lowering down, inhale, open the heart, exhale, folding it back, right leg to the sky, inhaling, exhale, step it all the way through, warrior to base, inhale, sweep your left arm up and over, exhale, reach forward and down, pivot the feet and bend your left knee, straighten the legs, open the right side of the chest and then exhale back towards the front of the mat, stepping back to plank, lowering down, let's inhale, open the heart, exhale, folding it back and holding downward facing dog for a couple of breaths. Inhaling to your toes, bend your knees, look forward and hop your feet around your hands, coming back into malasana yogic squat, press the knees open, lift up through the heart, take a deep inhale as you lift the chin, exhale, forward fold, turning the feet straight, let's reach back behind the back and lace the fingers or take a strap, send your knuckles up and over into prasarita badottanasana C variation and while you're here, can turn the shoulders and chest a little bit, side to side, maybe bend one knee to open the chest in the opposite direction, just find a little bit of freedom, a little bit of openness through the sideways, through the rib cage, through the shoulders, coming back down through the center, release your hands, inhale to lift your heart and once again let's turn the toes open and sink down into our malasana yogic squat, sliding your right shoulder down inside your knee, open up your arms just like we did in the very beginning of our practice but this time let's internally rotate the shoulders and just start to reach around the front of your shin for a clasp, a little bit of a bind and start to turn the left side of the chest and shoulders open, feel if you can press a little equal weight into the feet particularly the outer edges of the feet as you open your chest and then slowly release your hands, come back to your forward fold, turning the feet straight, inhale lift your heart and exhale release, slowly roll up your spine, circle the arms out and up, just coming up to your full length before diving back down into your malasana and taking the left shoulder inside the knee, open up for an embrace, embracing your own shin, your own knee, your own hip, reaching behind your back and just shift a little bit here to find that equal balance and weight between the left and the right foot as you turn your right side of the chest open, very deep breath in, stay for the exhale and then slowly releasing back into your forward fold, releasing your head and neck, inhale to lift the heart halfway, exhale step back to downward facing dog, let's pass through one more short sequence of preparation before we take our bird of paradise to the wall, let's take the left leg to the sky on an inhale, exhale step it all the way through into your warrior two base and this time come on up through your warrior two, reverse your warrior reaching up and back and as you exhale bring your elbow, your shoulder down inside of the front foot into partial konasana, top arm reaches alongside the ear and we'll go ahead and move into the wrap, so reaching behind your back and underneath your thigh and this is the same position that we're in when we come into our bird of paradise, so just start to feel that relationship of your bottom hip tucking in underneath you and opening up across the chest, very deep breath in here, as you exhale release, walk your feet to the right and bend your right knee into skandasana, so we were here before in our opening namaskar and this time we'll just take it a little deeper we can turn the toes out, draw the heels in and start to sink down, so the hips come down to the earth and bring your left hand across to your right ankle and go ahead and just take a little rest here for a moment on your left leg and turn your chest open towards the sky, this is a really wonderful variation of pose, gate pose called parigasana, you can reach the top hand long and slowly press down through the bottom elbow in your hand to come on up, walk it back towards the front of the mat, runner's lunge and step back to plank, lowering down, chaturanga, inhale opening up through your heart, exhale downward facing dog, taking the right leg to the sky on an inhale, exhale step all the way through warrior two base, come up through your warrior two to your reverse warrior on an inhale and then exhale come down into your parigasana and just connecting the dots gracefully without forcefulness as you reach behind your back and underneath your right thigh, if you bow forward you want to just try to realign, feel the bottom hip tucking in underneath you to open up across the chest, let's enjoy a nice deep breath here and as you exhale release turning your feet to parallel coming into your skandhasana but we turn the toes out and slowly lower the hips all the way down to the mat, reaching the right hand across to the left ankle and then just taking a little rest here in our parigasana, there it is, gate pose, you can press the top knee open, turn your chest towards the sky and just enjoy a little a little moment here and as you're ready slowly release, come back up and make your way to runner's lunge facing the front of your mat, stepping back to plank lowering down chaturanga, inhaling upward dog or cobra and exhaling downward dog, from here walk your hands all the way back to your feet and lifting the heart halfway on an inhale, exhale forward fold, bend your knees and roll up slow and easy drawing the navel in, unfurling your spine, standing tall, reach your arms up to the sky and exhale hands to your heart. So let's take our bird of paradise to the wall here and just stand with the right side of your body facing the wall and let's give ourselves a little bit of space from the wall so that we can kind of lean into it and use it for support and you can take your right foot up on the wall and bend your knee and we don't want to have our foot on the 180 to the rest of our body but slightly forward so we can lean into it with the bent knee. Bring your right elbow inside your knee, your left hand to your hip and turn your chest open away from the wall and you'll feel that if we were to change the relationship of your body to the floor you're actually in partial konosana. So it's the same posture, it's just a different relationship to gravity as we reach behind the back and if you're bowing forward, many of us we have a little tightness in the shoulders and hips so we need to bow forward to make the wrap, we just want to try to re-upright the spine, bring the chest up and the shoulders back so that you feel that sense of tadasana in the body. Now from here you're in bird of paradise with the support of the wall so you can enjoy the hip opening and the shoulder opening, maybe even start to kind of crawl your foot up the wall like the itsy bitsy spider or if you'd like to add the balance component to it, heel toe the bottom foot a little closer in underneath you and then you can start to press off the wall gently with the ball of the foot with the toes until you find your balance and if you lose your balance then you just come back to the wall. So there's a nice little opportunity there to just work with that transition point maybe starting to even walk the foot up the wall and practice straightening your leg. If you're in bird of paradise and you're straightening your leg and you're bowing forward you do yourself a little bit of a disservice so you want to try to be upright before you straighten your leg out. So let's go ahead and bend the knee release the mind and then release your leg and shake it out a little bit because that was some work and we'll take the second side. So turning and bringing the left side of your body towards the wall giving yourself a little bit of space and take your left foot to the wall elbow inside the knee hand to your hip and turn your chest open so you find that rotation in the spine. Nice deep breath in here reaching into that partial konasana shape and then starting to make your way into the wrap reaching behind your back underneath your thigh and feeling for the wrap here and just kind of noticing how it feels for you what comes up when we get into these kind of bound up wrapped positions if they cause you to start like tightening your jaw or your hips just maybe a strap would help you a little bit here or coming into a half wrap. Just finding that sensation of a little bit of spaciousness in the body and start to work with adjusting your bottom foot and maybe pushing off the wall to start to find your balance. You can push back and forth off the wall a few times just to start to get familiar and then maybe starting to walk your foot up the wall towards a fuller expression of the bird of paradise taking a very deep breath in leaning into the wall the wall is your friend and then to come out of it bend your knee release your arms first release your foot second and maybe a little bit of spontaneous movement to bring yourself back to neutral let's do it one more time but this time we'll work with stepping down from bird of paradise to bound half moon so take your right foot to the wall once again moving through those same steps but just a little more fluidly with your breath and try not to get too tied up with any of these steps along the way just kind of feel it is one long expression and experience of the pose maybe finding whoa your balance for a moment sometimes we overshoot the balance that's okay and then from here we'll take this next transition a little bit easier we're going to release the bind for a moment bring the right foot down to the mat bend your knees come into the bind on the same side so we're binding the same hip and this time we'll transition our weight into the right foot and start to take the left foot back to the wall feeling our way there for a bound half moon and you can start to stretch the standing leg and turn your chest open towards the sky it feels so fantastic and so just allow yourself to literally hang out the spine is very close to the standing leg and the heart open full body breath in and as you exhale to come out of it definitely take your time try not to slingshot out of it but slowly release and maybe come on down and take a load off because there's a little bit of work so you reach up over our head and we take a bit of a counter pose deep breath in exhale let's stay in that flow that particular vinyasana go ahead and unwind and make your way back into a forward fold facing the wall inhale to lift your heart continuing to connect each asana each breath to the next exhale forward fold and roll up your spine and just allow it to be one long expression of movement and breath reaching up exhale pull a little prana back into the heart and let's take the left side taking the left foot to the wall and finding those little points along the way where we can inhale and expand into a shape and exhale to drop in to a different expression of a shape opening up feeling our way watch out for your battery pack into your balance just for a moment or two and then allowing that to travel down releasing into your forward fold wrapping the same hip and then just starting to slowly feel your way back towards the wall and we definitely have to approximate the spacing from the wall and you can obviously shift and move around as you need to but sensing your way so that the top foot is hip height and then starting to just straighten the standing leg any amount hips hug into the midline and you can gently start to turn your chest and turn your gaze and breathe and hang out here enjoy this mellow inversion with a hip opener and a shoulder opener and when you're ready to come out soften the standing leg slowly release dropping down coming up easily and organically trying not to slingshot out of the pose and feel a little bit of freeform movement here to make your way I was a very deep pose but it gives us so much back so much opening in the shoulders and the hips let's go ahead and come back to the front of the mat and as you inhale reach your arms out and up to the sky full body breath in as you exhale easy forward fold releasing to the back of the neck lifting your heart halfway exhaling to bend your knees and sinking all the way down to your hips bringing your hips to the floor and just wrap your forms around your legs and as you inhale lift up through the chest and as you exhale just sinking back down feeling this very subtle movement through the rib cage the spine as you hug your spine into the back of the heart and exhale softening in and out literally massaging your heart from the outside in from the inside out exhale soften once more inhale lifting up feeling the heart rise the back body engage and exhale softening in bowing down inhale to sit tall and let's prepare to come down onto our backs you can just swing the legs around and slowly roll down onto your spine knees bent feet flat on the mat and if you have any any hairdo at the back of the head just moving it out of the way let's prepare for bridge pose to open up the front of the hips and the front of the body to bring a little balance back in before we come into our shavasana so from here reach your arms over your head on an inhale as you exhale tuck the tailbone under slowly lift the hips up into your bridge pose and lace your fingers behind your back or take a strap with your palms facing up start to walk the outer shoulders in underneath you to puff up through the chest and just press down through the feet to lift up through the hips and heart feel a little freedom and expansiveness through the chest through the rib cage especially through the front of the hips and taking three deep breaths here last breath a little more expansive and then as you exhale separate your shoulders separate your hands and roll down the spine nice and slow draw the knees into the chest open up your arms and allow your knees to drop over to one side of your mat to a comfortable easy twist and then let's take our right hand and bring it down past the hips rolling towards the side and then inhale to reach up and over and we'll just take a couple of circulations here to bring back that natural circumduction and freedom in the shoulder thoracic spine and your brain so literally letting this particular movement be more than just a shoulder opener but maybe a clearing that mental windshield wiper as you reach up and back and it's a little clearing out of whatever might be hanging out in the frontal brain and in the back of your mind once more this time as you open up go ahead and just take the knees all the way over to the other side of your mat and continuing with the left arm allow your spine and your heart even your eyes to follow the pathway of your hand and taking up a lot of space here creating this really large arc around you one more cycle reaching forward clearing out cleaning out and opening up coming back to the center and then allow your knees to open allow the soles of the feet to come together into a simple restorative Supta Baddha Konasana and we'll take left hand to the heart right hand to the navel center very deep breath in here exhaling through the mouth and resting here for your Shavasana if you prefer a more classic Shavasana you're welcome to stretch the legs long and release your arms but if this feels comfortable to you just hang out here for several long moments and Slowly start to bring your awareness back into your body. Send a little bit of movement to your fingers and your toes. Taking your hands to your outer knees, draw them into the midline. Stretch the legs long, reach your arms over your head, stretching out to your full length, re-awakening.

As you exhale, soften the knees into your chest. Rolling over to one side and just hang out there for a moment before you come up to seated. Just feel the support of the ground beneath you. This really wonderful place of being finished but not quite yet complete. As you press down into the ground, rebound a little energy, a lot of energy up into your heart. Make your way up to comfortable seated position with your new hips and your new shoulders. Just bring the hands back together at the heart and take that same circulation we began with. As you inhale, just feel that wonderful wave of energy that is your breath, that is your prana. Exhaling, cascading inside, outside of you. Inhale and exhale. On this final round, just add the sound of om to our final exhale together. Deepest breath in. Om. Thank you so much for sharing your presence and your practice with me today. Namaste. Have a wonderful day.