Move With Intention

Hi Yogis, welcome back. This practice moving to meditate, our focus will be on intention. So we'll just sit comfortably. It'll be useful for you to have a blanket or two, whatever's most comfortable for you to sit on, and also one thick block for your practice, which you can put right beside your mat. So most important thing is for you to be comfortable, if cross legged doesn't work for you, you can also kneel or kick one leg out, whatever works.

And then let your hands come down on your lap, either down or up, or right underneath your belly. Drop your chin a couple degrees and you can let your eyes close if that feels right for you, or try to keep a one-pointed focus with your eyes, soft, drishti, or one-pointed focus. We'll start with a few grounding breaths. So inhale, just feel yourself here on your mat, preparing for this practice. And exhale, feel the contact of your body to the floor, the space around you, and deepen your breath.

And inhale, feel your lungs expand into the support of the space around you. And exhale, drop into your legs, drop into your seat, drop into your belly. And then recall your intention, why are you here? There's no right answer. And let your eyes open a little bit and drop your chin down towards your chest.

And as you roll your right ear towards your right shoulder, this time let your left arm reach out. If it's too intense, simply don't do it. But you can reach through that arm and reach back, floating the fingertips a little bit away from the floor. Let the arm release, let the chin drop down towards the chest. You might even round forwards here, allow yourself to slump.

Bring your spine back up to neutral, shoulders up and back, and left ear towards the left shoulder. If it feels good, right arm out to the side, and maybe even a bit back behind you. Breathing into that tension in the front of the chest. Let your arm come down, let your chin roll down towards your chest, again slump forwards. If it feels good, round your shoulders forwards.

Bring your spine up back to neutral, shoulders up back and down, and head comes up. Let's kick our left leg out in front and bring our right leg on top of our left, attempting to stack the knees as much as possible. So it might look a little bit more like this, or you might be able to let the knees stack on top of each other. Walk your sit bones back, take a nice deep breath in and start to fold forwards any amount. If you want a little bit more out of your fold, you can flex your left foot towards you and drag the heel forwards, which will give you more sensation in the calf.

Of course, if you didn't have a big belly like mine, you could hook your chin over your front knee. One more deep breath. Route your sit bones, bring yourself all the way back up. And we're going to let our right arm come out to the side, left arm up, out, and over. And you can press down through your right leg to give you a little bit more grounding through that left side.

You might even be able to bend your elbow. Let that top arm bring you all the way back up, and we'll switch sides. So right leg forwards, left leg on top, wherever it ends up, wiggle into it. Walk your sit bones back, deep inhalation, and exhale, start to come in. If you like slide your heel forwards, you could even use your hand to accentuate that.

And you can also let your head go and curl forwards. The inhale brings you up, left arm out to the side, right arm in front of the face and up, and lean over to that side, grounding down through your left leg, rooting your right sit bone. You can stay up nice and high. You could bend your elbow. You can even hold on to the back of your head if your neck is feeling a little bit weak in the pose.

And bring yourself all the way back up here. Let your legs go, give them a little shake. And we're going to transition into downward dog. So I'm going to move my blanket out of the way, walk my hands to the front of the mat, step back, and start to puddle your feet out, easing into your first downward dog. And bringing your feet together at the back of the mat, inhale your right leg up and back behind you.

You can come high up onto your left toes, maybe lift the right leg a little bit higher. And then bring the knee close in towards the chest, exhale, bring it forwards, and some people need to grab onto it and move it forwards. Come up onto your fingertips, wiggle your back leg back, and drop your knee down. If you have knee stuff, keep your toes tucked under, otherwise you can let the toenails come flat down onto the floor. And either stay here for three deep breaths, or climb up using your knee to support you, or one sweeping movement, bring your arms up.

One, let your tailbone really plummet to the earth. Two, bring your navel back, spine up. And three, exhale, hands come down, step back into your plank pose, strengthen your legs, shift forwards, and knees come to the floor. Elbows by the sides, lower, one, two, three, untuck the toes, inhale your cobra, bring your upper back through your shoulders, and exhale, you can come straight up into a plank, or shift your hips back towards your heels, downward dog, feet together at the back of the mat. Exhale your left leg up, come high up onto your right toes, exhale, knee to nose, shoulders over the wrists, bring that foot forward, wiggle your back leg back, knee down, choose to keep the toes tucked under for more support for the knee cap, or toes down, and climb up out of your low lunge there.

You can sweep the arms up, instead of taking your chest back, take your lower belly back, press strongly into your toenails if they're down, or your heel if your toes are tucked under. Two, three, exhale into your plank pose. Left forward, knees to the floor, inhale, shoulders depress away from the ears, elbows by the sides, three seconds, two, three, untuck your toes, inhale, cobra, swing your upper back through, maybe even look up, that feels good. And then exhale, back into your downward dog, beautiful. Knee together at the back of the mat, inhale your right leg up, come high up onto your left toes, this time you can bend your knee and open that hip, and get a little revolution through your upper back, and then exhale, center your chest, knee to nose, shoulders over the wrists, bring it forward, back foot snuggles back, strengthen your back leg, and inhale, sweep it up into your crescent lunge.

Let's pull our elbows out to the sides like little cactus arms or goal post arms here, and we're gonna sweep our elbow points forwards and open our chest, and then exhale and sweep our hands forwards and close the chest. And try to keep this movement, inhale, elbows forwards, hands back in the upper back, try to keep the movement in the upper back, and exhale rounding forwards, one more time like that, inhale, hands back, elbows forwards, this feels really good in the upper back, and then exhale, slumping, which also feels good, inhale, sweep it up, and exhale your hands to the floor, stay up on your fingertips, turn your back foot on a wide angle, and here you might take your block for extended side angle for your hand on the block, the block has three levels, or elbow to knee even, and sweep your left arm in front of your face and up, of course you can have your hand right on the floor, your fingertips, tailbone in, ribs in, roll your bottom lung up, look up, three deep breaths, don't forget about the strength and rootedness of your back leg, and soften your jaw, two, and three, use that top arm to help you climb out of the pose, warrior two, three deep breaths, one, beautiful strong legs, two, three, reverse your warrior, right palm up and back, you can always hold on to your head here if you have tweakiness in your neck, three deep breaths, two, three, inhale yourself all the way down, I'm going to move my block into your dog pose, and you'll probably feel that energy running through your right leg, so pedal out your feet, and then come down onto your knees here, and plant your forearms down on the floor, so your middle finger lines up with the center of your elbow crease, let your head drop, exhale, keep your outer elbows pinned down, and lean back, hips towards your heels, see if you can really stamp down your hands, your wrists, and your outer elbow, you might choose to stay there, or shift your weight forwards, tuck your toes, and come into a forearm dog, sometimes known as dolphin pose, ribs in, hips back, bend your knees if you feel like it gives you a little bit more rotation of the pelvis on top of the femur bones, three deep breaths, one, the head is off the floor unless you have a super duper long neck, two, and feel like someone's standing on your hands here, three, child's pose, I'm going to go knees wide, you can have your knees together, head down, slide your hands back, palms up, and if it's too challenging for this flexion of your knees, you can always be in prone position on your belly, turn your head to one side and take three deep breaths, continually coming back to grounding, feeling contact with your body on the floor, and then come on back for your forearm dog, or your forearm child's pose, if it's okay, tuck your toes, lean it back, bend your knees, and this time walk your feet together, and see if you can lift your right leg up, try to keep your hips symmetrical to the floor as much as you can, challenging to drop your left heel down, less challenging to lift up on your toe pads, switch legs, two, three, exhale your child's pose, or your prone position, hands back, sacrum heavy, head grounded, downward dog, spread your hands wide, cast your weight into your fingers, and step it back, feet together at the back of the mat, inhale your left leg up, can stay high up on the toes or more challenging root your heel, bend the knee, open it up, maybe even look under your left armpit, shift your chest to face forwards, bring that foot forwards, come high up onto your fingertips, and on your inhalation climb up out of your low lunge into your crescent pose, exhale pull your arms into your cactus shape, or goal pose shape, sweep elbows forwards, try to really unlock that upper back, and then exhale sweep into a slump, which sometimes can feel like a relief, inhale sort of a new pattern for lots of us in the nervous system, back bend, and then exhale and curl, one more like that, inhale open it up, exhale and curl it in, and then inhale it up, and exhale fingertips find the floor, back foot on a wide angle, so choose your hand position, maybe it's the block, elbow to knee, hand to the outside of the foot, sweep your right arm in front of the face and up, tailbone in, ribs in, look up if you can, three deep breaths, one, two, widen your upper back three, nice deep lunge with your front leg, use your top arm to help you come up, sink into warrior two, three breaths, one, two, soften the muscles at the tops of the shoulders, lift your side waist up, three, reverse your warrior, you can hold onto your head, let those shoulders creep a little bit away from the base of the neck, not to jam the shoulders, but just to ease up the base of the neck, three, sweep it up, windmill it into your downward dog, and pedal out your feet, let's come down onto the knees, back into our friend, the forearm dog, lean back into your forearm child's pose, keeping the outer elbows pinned down like there's really good crazy glue on your outer elbows, or come back into your forearm dog, two, and three, child's pose knees wide, or prone position, three deep breaths and really ground, especially if that's new for your shoulders, this is one of my favorite poses to repeat over and over again, strengthening and opening up your shoulders, so you're able to do a little bit more, so let's walk forward, look down, one more time, let's try something a little bit different, so we're gonna walk our feet, the width of your mat, maybe bend your knees, and let's see if you can shift your shoulders a little bit more over your elbows, and maybe lean into your right side and come up onto your left hand, elbow out to the side, maybe just for a second, and then back down, ease your armpits open for a moment, try it on the other side, shift forwards, easy in the neck, rooted through your left outer elbow and wrist, maybe there's like a moment, or a couple breaths, exhale it back down, open up those armpits for a moment, child's pose, or prone, grounding, easy in the face, okay, so we're gonna come on up and shift our way onto our backs, and you can use your abdominals to roll on down slowly, place your feet like you're going into bridge pose, and keep your block and arm distance away, root down through your feet, let's start by fluid bridges, so arms up, hips lift, hips up, chin lift, exhale, come on down, and if you have tender knees, lift your heels on your way down, it'll give you a little more space, one more time, inhale, lift up, you might even lift up onto your toes right here, chin lift, chest lift, hips lift, exhale, make your way down, you can do that one vertebra at a time, this last one we're gonna stay up, make the shape nice and round, drop your buttock muscles into your hamstrings, engage the buttock muscles, and I'm gonna take that block, if you have one, and place it under my hips, so there's a few different levels for the block, low level, medium level, high level, I like medium level right now, and settle into that, I'm gonna take my hands to my hips just to check in that they're not shifting too much, and we're gonna bring our right knee in towards our chest and hook our right ankle on top of the left knee, and then without shifting too much in your hips, see if you can ease that right knee away from you and down, I'm flexing my right foot here, and switch legs, just an interesting variation on your classical bridge, and nice to have the support under your hips, so knee comes in, hook the ankle on top of your right knee, and ease that left knee away and down, and you might just luxuriate in your supported bridge here, one more variation for you is to tuck your right toes under, and grab a hold of the top of your right foot with your hand, and then watch out for calf cramping here, but if you can, take the top of the foot onto the floor and keep the ankle sucked in, reach your knees away and you're gonna get a magnificent quadriceps stretch, if you want to get into the psoas a little bit more, you might reach your arms over your head, and I feel that deep into my belly, and switch sides to slide it out, and tuck toes kind of wiggle it in, see if you can reach, maybe the toes stay tucked or the top of the foot comes down onto the floor, totally optional, and I like to reach my arms if you're in this variation, allow the belly to drop deep into the back, and slide it out, so I'm gonna take my hands to my hips here, press down strongly, use some muscular action in the hip joints and the legs to lift up, maybe come up onto your toe pads, slide that block out of the way, and roll on down, and one of my favorites, happy baby, so your knees can come in, and then shins go perpendicular to the floor, hook under your knees, or you can grab your ankles or even your feet if you can reach, and pull those knees to the sides of the body, a lot of people do this posture with the hips curled right up, see if you can keep the hips down and even press the back of the pelvis down into the floor, and then draw the knees in, which is a really nice deep hip flexion to flush your hip joints, and also a really nice back traction, counter pose for what we just did, one more nice deep breath, exhale it all out, and then slowly release, and we're gonna roll over to one side and come on up for a seat, so I'm taking my blanket here, again you might stack up a couple blankets, and if you're feeling really tired you might even meditate lying down on the floor, that's also fine, generally it helps you stay more awake if you're seated, so comfortable legs, a little bit of a lift in the pelvis, soft open grounded belly, and hands somewhere on your lap, just take a couple shoulder rolls to see if you can ease up and tease out some tension that might be lingering in your neck, and drop your chin a couple degrees, a few grounding breaths here, I like to close my eyes, it's totally up to you if you'd like to keep them open, sometimes it's just nice to exhale out of your mouth, and just let that really be the biology of letting go of anything that's lingering, and keeping you from being right here right now. And then coming back to what's your intention, and maybe not just for this practice space but a little bit more wide than that, why are you here? And what are your highest values? Breathing into the body, tethering your attention to the here and now experience, and if some things come up for you, let that be motivating for you, centering for you, I often think about when I go to sleep, and I set my alarm for 6am, and I wake up at 5.59 exactly, the power of intent, last few moments here.

Bring a few deep breaths into the body, into the back of the lungs. You can let the eyes open and receive the light, the view, and if you like the gesture hands in front of the heart, thank you so much for being with me today, namaste.