Expansive Camel Pose

Hi. Today we're going to work towards Ustrasana. We're going to start on the ground. So come on down onto your back. Bending the knees, plant your feet on the floor. Just take a second and ground here. Check in with your body. Find your breath. And then when you're ready, drawing your knees in towards your chest. Starting here. So this is a great place to be. And you might stay here. We're going to focus. I'm just trying to open up the back side of our seat here. Pulling the knees in gently. And then if you want to go a little bit further, you can start to straighten out the legs here, moving towards a happy baby position. So you don't need to grab the feet. This is another great place to stop and stay. Otherwise you'll take the peace fingers around the toes. And the knees out towards the sides. Drawing the shoulders down towards the ground. Breathing here. Opening through the back side of the legs. Another few breaths. And then we'll slowly bring our knees back together. Grabbing our feet on the floor. You'll grab a strap. Take it around your right foot. Towards the lower part of the arch of the foot, closer to the heel. Take your pinky edge of your hand towards the strap. Wrap that around your knuckles. And then turn your hand in towards the strap. Have a straight arm and a straight leg. Extend the bottom leg out. So here we're working on stretching through the hamstrings. Again, just kind of clearing out any congestion back there before we backbend. Another few breaths. And then we'll switch sides. So take your left foot in. Your right foot down. A little boxer tape wrap. Straight arm, straight leg. Extend your bottom leg out. And you don't have to take this as close as you possibly can to your face. We're not necessarily working on stretching the hamstrings too much. Just kind of working on clearing that line out. Another breath or two here. And then we'll release. So we're bending into the knee. And you'll come on up to a seat. You can move your strap out of the way and grab your blanket. So we'll sit up into the blanket. Flip around this way so we can see a little bit better. Bring the bottoms of the feet together. Sometimes I use blocks behind me because proportionally my arms are shorter. If you have longer arms, you might not need the blocks. But for me, they kind of help me find a little bit more grounding. So I'll take my hands behind on my blocks. I'm focusing on my inner leg line moving out here. It's okay that the big toes separate. My spine is nice and long and my chest is already open here. I'm taking a few more breaths. And then releasing this. I'll keep my blocks with me. Bring them up to the front of the space here. Move my blanket out of the way. And come into downward facing dog. So pressing in through that first knuckle. Finding length through the side body. A slight tilt in the pelvis. And inner legs working.

Breathing here. And stay here a little bit longer if you'd like or wiggle around. I like to take a stationary downward dog these days. But sometimes it's also really nice to kind of wag the tail or lift up one leg or the other. Feeling free to kind of move through it in the way that feels best for you. And then we'll start to walk our feet towards our hands. Coming to a gentle uttanasana. Flip your blocks up to the taller setting. The hands on the blocks. Press down. Extend through the spine. Take the gaze forward. And then inhale. And then exhale. Take a little fold. It doesn't have to be very far. Again we're not focusing on the hamstrings for this session together. Inhale. Extend. Exhale. Fold. So from here we'll take our feet all the way together. Ground down through the feet. Start to bend into the knees. Draw in through the leg line. And then start to come up hands to the heart of the katasana. From here we're going to focus more on the up and the opening of the chest than the down and the legs. So bringing the arms overhead and letting the chest open. Another breath here. Taking the tailbone back behind you. Inhale we'll stand up. Exhale. Hands to the heart. Tadasana. Take a little space between the feet. Inhale. Reach your arms on up. Find that long side body gaze goes up. Tilt the pubic bone back. Reaching ground through your inner leg line. Start to tilt a little bit back. You might trace the fingertips along the ceiling. Another exhale here. Opening to that front of the body. Slowly come back. Bring the gaze. Hands come back to the heart. You'll take your left foot back. Coming into Virabhadrasana one. Strong inner thighs both legs. Soft front hip crease. Arms come on up. Pubic bone was away from the navel. Reaching.

Inhale. Exhale opening. Two more breaths here. Inhale reaching. Exhale opening. Last breath. The hands back to the heart. Step forward. Switch out other side. The left leg forward. Set up your legs. Strong inner thighs. Soft front hip crease. Pubic bone away. Draw up through side body. Inhale it lifts. Exhale we soften back. Inhale it lifts. Exhale we soften back. Last breath. Lifting and softening. Slowly bring hands back to heart here. Step forward. Find your Tadasana. So come down from here for Anjanaasana. Bring your hands down to your black. Step your right or your left foot back. Lower the back knee down. Set up the foundation first. Inner thighs grounding. Back hip opens. Tilt the pubic bone away. Take the hands behind you and release the fingers and draw them down. And then start to move the chest back. Another breath or two here. Each exhale the hands may move a little bit lower. And then we release. Tuck the back toe. Lift the back knee. Step forward. Switch legs. Lower the back knee down. Release the back toe. Inner thighs of both legs are working. Right? Soft outer hip on the back leg. Soft hip crease on the front leg. Start there. Then interlace the fingers behind you. Draw them down. Focusing on all the work of the legs. Keep opening through the chest. Inhale there's a lift. Exhale there's a softening.

Working your legs. Inner thighs. Soft hip creases. Big in the chest. Coming on up. Tuck the back toe. Lift the back knee. Step forward. Utsanasana. Forward fold. We'll come to a little squat so that we can come down onto our backs. You'll use your blocks in just a second so you'll have them to the side. So they're there when you need them. Bend your knees. Plant your feet on the floor. Again find some rooting. And then robot your arms. Press the elbows into the ground. Open through the chest. Draw the shoulders down. Press through the inner thighs and lift your hips. Breathe here. This may be where you stay. You can work this. Otherwise we're trying to get a little bit farther down. So not necessarily in but down with the elbows. And you might straighten the arms. If it feels interesting or useful, you might start to take the hands towards the heels. Breathing here. Keep working inner thighs. Pressing the big toe ball mound down. Opening through the chest. This is basically Utsanasana just upside down. We'll release this here. Draw the knees in towards the chest. And then we'll sit up. So we're going to set this up. There's two backbends. Backbend number one. You're setting up medium block, low block. This medium block will end up where this edge is at the lower tip of your shoulder blades. And that the head is sort of moving up and off. Depending on how much space that is in your body, it might be a little bit different. But the head is moving up and off and the top of the head is towards the mat. So once you get down there, you might have to adjust a couple times to really figure it out. It's a little bit lower than we usually like it to be here. So option one, legs are extended, is to stay here and have the hands rest at the ribcages. The fingertips in towards your solar plexus. And just notice, that's what we're opening here, is this space. Sometimes we do it where it's really open in the chest. Here we're getting solar plexus. So that might be enough. If you want to go a little bit further, you take the arms overhead, climb that external rotation, and then reach from your side body. Thumbs are pointed down. Find an inhale, lengthen. Exhale, you might soften. Inhale, lengthen. Exhale, you might soften. One more. Inhale, lengthen. Exhale, you might soften. And then slowly take your hands behind your head. Use your arms to help you sit up. Look towards your toes. Then bring your hands underneath you. And then sit up. The next one is set up so that we've got two blocks lined up to each other. So it's a really similar thing, except we're going to get even deeper.

And this is definitely hitting underneath the solar plexus. And the head is off. So again, you might take a second and make sure that this is set up. If this is too high, and you want to do lower setting blocks, you can always move them lower. Knees are bent this time. Feet are on the floor. Head releases back. And arms go overhead. Notice how my top of my head is towards the floor. And then I'm reaching from side body and extending. So this is about how far away I could always bend my elbows out, get my arms. But this is kind of first attempt. So I'm going to lift my hips here. And from that space, I'm going to push my shoulders into the ground. And then I'm going to go a little bit farther. And I can get a lot more space. And then with my psychic yogi powers, I'm going to try and maintain that depth I've gained, really working my side body, and slowly lowering my seat back towards the ground. And it's like a solar plexus explosion. As you lower your seat, you may not have the seat touch the ground, but it's moving in that direction. And the shoulders into the blocks, seat lowering. Again, take your hands behind your head, lift the head up so it feels supported, gazes towards the knees. Hands come underneath you, and then you're sitting up. And you might be like, whoa, after you're done. Right, because it's pretty big there. Actually, we're going to come back down onto our bellies. I want to take a knee down bridge pose. Or bow pose. So we're going to use the back bend that we just got. I want to give myself a good amount of support to be able to really root my knees strongly. Because again, this is the same thing as Ustrasana, just a different orientation. So more or less, somewhere along, hips to belly button is where you want the blanket.

And you'll find out pretty quick if it was too low or too high. If it's in the right spot, it should be relatively easy to keep your knees down. And I could tell immediately when I reached back that first time, it was still too low. So I push through my feet, but I draw my knees down to get the chest opening in the chest. And then here, with this extra support, take your pubic bone away from your navel and let the whole chi channel move up through the chest. Another breath here. One more. It's yummy. And then release. And again, this is kind of like, wow, we'll wake you up. Let me come in towards our Tadasana. So standing up here, bringing the hands to the heart. This is a check in moment. So rooting down through your feet, pausing, breathing, noticing what's happening in your body, what feels open, what feels alive. And then we'll inhale, we'll take our arms on up overhead. Reach up through the side body here. Exhale. And then take your right hand to your left wrist. Give a little bit of encouragement. You're not like ripping it off the socket. You're just giving a little bit of extra encouragement here. Inhale. Exhale, side bend on over to the side. Keep rooting down through your inner thighs. Another breath here. Rise on up, upward salute. Reaching arms on up overhead. And then switching sides. So taking the left hand around the wrist, gentle encouragement, like a sweet friend, right? Finding that length through the side body as you exhale, coming on over. Inhale, lengthening. Find your inner thighs and your legs to root you so you get a little bit more. Come back up through center.

Reach the arms up, inhale. Exhale, hands to the heart. So taking your right foot back, you'll have the heel lifted, really strong in our inner thighs. Take your left thumb to your hip crease here and reach your right arm up. Lengthen through the side body. So you're getting nice and long, just like we just did. Inhale. And then with your exhale, take the elbow outside the knee. Breathing here. Press the palms together. Using strong inner thighs, engage, re-remind your body to engage through the legs. And then pressing the whole thing together, making the twist. Keep breathing. Letting the twist come from the navel. Releasing here. Come back up, hands to the heart. Step forward. And switching sides. Taking the left foot back. Setting up your legs. Your right hand to your hip crease. Left arm goes nice and high. Reach up. Inhale. And then exhale, taking the twist. Catching the elbow on the outside. Bring your palms together. Find your legs again. Pressing the whole operation. So elbow and knee, knee into elbow. Palms together. Rotating from the navel. Don't forget about the legs. Keep breathing here. Can you locate the navel? Can you allow the twist to move from that line? Gaze comes back down. Hands to the center. Step forward. Front of your space. Inhale. Take the arms on up. Exhale. Hold on down. And then we'll step back for our downward facing dog. Shift forward. Lower the knees down. Release the toes. Sit back onto the heels. So we'll take our, I'm going to tuck my toes so I get a little bit more support. And I invite you to do the same. Take your left hand with the thumb on the inside. The fingertips on the outside. Onto your left ankle. And then your right hand to your heart. So this is a reminder to lift up here. That the pose is coming from this place. When you're ready, you'll start to press down into the ankle, reminding that chest to lift. And we'll come into a half variation. You might keep your hand on the heart. Or you might extend it over. We'll bring the hand back down. We'll contract with our abs, drawing down through the inner thighs. Lift yourself on up. Sit back down onto the heels. Find that right hand. Right heel. Thumb on the inside. Fingertips on the outside. Left hand to your heart. Encouraging that heart to lift up and back as you push down through the foot, rising up. Check in there. This might be where you stay. Giving yourself your own assist. And then maybe releasing the arm back. Coming to your half. Ustrasana.

Collect the energy in your abs. Contract. Ground through the inner thighs. Come on up. Untuck the toes here. Ground. Take a full inhale. Exhale. Okay. Now we're going for the full thing. So I already know that I need to do this with tucked toes. Personally for my back bone practice, some of you may find that you want to do this with untucked toes. I invite you to start with them tucked. And then you can always pause and try it again with them untucked if you'd like. So we'll tuck our toes and we'll come on up onto our knees. Here I'm going to find strong inner thighs and rooting down. I'm allowing my pelvis to tilt back. Right? Or that spilling forward. So I'm moving the pubic bone back. From here I bring my hands to the heart. And I allow this, this, it's like this personal assist to really let the action come from this place. Right? I keep grounding through my inner thighs and I might stay here. This is challenging. Right? Again, encouraging the action to come from the chest. When I can see the space behind me then I reach down and find my ankles. Thumbs in, fingertips out. Push down and then breathe here. Can you let the pubic bone move away and find your inner thighs and carry that chain even farther up into the chest? It's actually really nice. Another breath. And then again we're contracting through the abs. The head's the last piece that comes up. You take your time. Untuck the toes. Hands come to the heart. Breathe here. Inhale and exhale. So from here we'll move into a twist. Come down onto our seat. I like to have support of a blanket underneath my seat. It kind of helps me get my pelvis up and over. I'll extend my right leg and draw my left leg in. So this is a nice neutralizer. So we're going to actually try and get into the twist a little bit. Still starting though with a hand on the knee. Take your left hand behind. And then this action of sending this away to get depth. So we're moving around the glute. And each inhale there's a little bit more revolving from the navel. Until maybe we've got the hand. Maybe it feels interesting or useful to hook it. Maybe it's behind. But I can still get a lot just by holding the knee. And say about two more breaths here. Using your breath. And releasing through and from the navel. And come back through center. Extend the legs. And come on over to the other side. So left hand on the knee. Right hand comes behind. Give yourself support. Find an inhale. Moving away from the pelvis. From the femur. And then through and down through the glute. So they're going in opposite directions. With your breath twisting. From the navel each exhale a little bit deeper. And say about two more breaths. Last one here. We'll come into Gomukhasana. I like to have a seat, a little bit of propping underneath my seat for this. And you might grab a block to place in front of you for support. So sometimes this can be really challenging to get into. So you might want to shift forward. Otherwise you're taking your right leg underneath and the left on top. The knees don't have to perfectly line up. But they're moving in that direction. They're trying to get there. And again the feet don't have to line up either. From both femurs we're moving them away. And from both sides of the pelvis we're moving that down and back. And being upright is a perfectly, wonderful place to be. So if that's where you are and you're getting a lot of sensations staying here. If this is not accessible, propping your seat up higher. So high like with a bolster.

Two blocks. Blocks and bolsters. Make a chair. It's totally fine to do that. And then when you're ready, if it's useful, if it's not, and it creates too much sensation, don't fold forward. If it's useful you might start to come on down. And I'm going to actually bring my elbows onto, my arms onto this block to rest. As I slowly release through my seat and maybe the head adds in. Two more breaths here. And slowly coming on up. Set the block off to the side. And we'll just go directly into the other side. Actually grab my other blocks. I have a little bit more support. So nice deep flexion in the knee. Both knees are moving in the direction of each other. They don't necessarily have to meet. Right? And I know this is already like my more special side. So I just give it a little bit more attention, a little bit more time to come into the fold. And I'm really working that distance between my femur. So sending that along towards the knee and then moving back through the glute. And it's quite wonderful. And then again, if it's useful, coming on down I'm going to start on the higher setting. Let me take a few breaths here. And then maybe the head eventually goes with. And we have a few extra breaths. Slowly come on up. Take your time. Bring your blocks off to the side. Move your blanket. Then come on down for shavasana. Extending the legs long. Releasing the spine to the floor. So really having a little bit of space between the feet and space between the body and the hands is wonderful. I like to think of it as like a gingerbread cookie cut out. Yum. Right? And so we're here relaxing. Check in with your breath. Sometimes a backbend can bring a lot of heat and energy. And so slowing down here. Finding the breath in the belly. Bringing it down out of the chest and moving it lower using the diaphragm. Focusing there. You can always hit pause here. This is a great place if you want to take a nice long shavasana. Excellent for your nervous system. Highly recommend it. Otherwise we'll be here for just a moment together breathing into the deeper parts of our belly. Draw that heart opening energy back down. Notice how everything might feel lifted up towards the surface. And we're trying to settle it back into the back side of the body and back down into the ground. Again, if you'd like to stay here longer, please feel free. Otherwise we'll bend into the knees, plan our feet. Come on over to your side body. And again, pause here. Take a second. Let this be a place of transition. The space between our sleepy shavasana and the rest of our lives. And then pressing yourself on up. And come to a seat. And the hands come to the heart. Bowing the head on in. Thank you for sharing your practice with me today. Namaste.