Day 1: Spinal Wake-Up

Hey there, welcome to another 30 day challenge. I'm so excited for this. So we're going to start with our spinal wake-up opening. That starts in child's pose. Let's do it.

So child's pose, knees about as wide as the mat. Take them more narrow if you'd like. Push the hips back and stretch the arms out. And to just feel, what does that feel like? That's the whole thing here, is be in the practice.

What does it feel like? Where am I? Listen, pay attention, breathe. So in this case, you push the hips back. Where's the sensation?

Where's the purpose, the stretch? Let's move a little bit. So if you've got the arms reaching out, hinge up into tabletop on the breath in. And then on the exhale, push the hips back to wherever that is for you. The heels, that's the direction.

You may get there, you may not, it doesn't matter. Inhale, come back into the table pose. And exhale, push the hips back. So generally, keep going. Generally, we're using our exhale to enter the tension or the place of most resistance.

So that's, for a lot of people, including myself, that's the push the hips back to the heels while exhaling. Good. So let's change it up. You come back into tabletop, walk the hands over to the left. And really, let's bring the right hand on top of the left and either stay here and push the hips over to the right or push the hips to the right and back toward child's pose.

And what you can do is just sort of like come in and out and explore, right? The focal point in this situation would be like the right side of your body. So your hip, your waist, up through the rib cage. Let's try the other side, walk the hands over to the right. And this may feel totally different for you, right?

Left hand stacks on the right, how's your breath, right? So where are you sending the breath or how is the breath moving? So just be conscious about those moments where, you know, you meet that tension and you end up holding your breath. So that's a big, big part of the practice, right? Is having that awareness of stress in the body, holding of the breath.

Okay. Let's come back over to center, come into tabletop, bring the knees a little bit more hip width. So this is all about like extending and lengthening the spine. Walk the hands forward, start by bringing the elbows down and the forehead toward the mat. So the points of sort of direction would be the chin or the forehead on the mat, maybe the chest just kind of reaching toward the mat and the hips stay up over the knees.

So there's this extending sloping kind of sensation or feel in the spine. The elbows can stay down or for a deeper shoulder stretch, you can lift the elbows up. Definitely breathe, right? Two more breaths, breathe in, kind of lift out of the pose a little bit and exhale, sink back down. Nice.

Now come forward onto the forearms and elbows and distinct pose, walk your knees back a bit, point the toes back. You can start with the elbows underneath the shoulders but if that kind of like props you up too much and kind of bums out the low back, you can bring your elbows a little wider or even farther forward so it minimizes that compression in your low back. But the idea is to have some gentle compression with some length through the upper spine opening through the chest. You can stay here another breath, breathe in, kind of get that length, breathe out, soften some areas of the body you might be holding and lower all the way down. This is one of my favorite stretches for the shoulders.

If you bring the left arm all the way out to the left, the right hand is propped underneath your right shoulder and use that right hand to push yourself over onto the left shoulder and the left arm. The right foot is behind the left knee or the right leg is stacked on top of the right. It really doesn't really matter so much with the legs. Keep walking the left hand out so you get more of the front of the shoulder. Head can come down, place it on a pillow if you'd like.

We're not going to spend too much time here. It's more like let's get into this space, let's open it up, bring some attention there, let's roll back out and you can kind of just like slide and glide right over to the other side. You reach and stretch the right arm out. Left hand helps to push yourself over onto that right hip and you see how like the left foot, it's a little passive hip opener here. Left foot behind the right knee or stacked.

Grab a little taste of that shoulder stretch, right? Maybe take a breath here. It's like one full breath. And you slowly come back out. Both hands in that cobra-like position.

Feet are active, legs are active. Lift up for cobra, breathe in. And on the breath out, push back into tabletop. Joint stacking, hands below the shoulders, knees below the hips. Inhale, lift the chest, lift the sitting bones, drop the belly like lazy belly.

Exhale, cat pose. Draw the tailbone down, spread your shoulder blades wide and hug up through the low belly. One more time, breathe in, cow pose. Breathe out, cat pose. Inhale back into a flat back.

Curl the toes under as you breathe in once again. And exhale, dog pose. Keep a soft little bend in the knees to get that adjustment in the spine first, right? Meaning a little bend in the knees will free up that low back. Send the sit bones high, lengthen through the low back.

Spread the fingers wide. Now keep your left leg bent and push the right heel down as you straighten out that right leg. Feel that like, it's almost like heat and that big stretch up through the right. Now switch, bend the right, stretch long through the left. Good, now a little soft bend in both.

And on the exhale, let's bring the knees down for a moment. So why don't you grab your blocks, place them where your hands would be for downward dog, up on the high, not the super high, but the medium high. And we're going to move now into the dynamic go-to flow. I say dynamic go-to because it's one of my go-to favorite little sequences, all right? So hands up on the blocks, curl the toes under and exhale your way into dog pose.

Make whatever adjustments you need to make for your downward dog. Grab a breath or two here. You might notice immediately you've got more space. Come back into the rhythm of the breath. The conscious breath in, breath out.

Now bring your left foot left center of the mat. Take the right leg, lift it up but not super high. Just straight up, maybe about hip height. And on the exhale, begin to pull the low belly up and in, kind of supporting through the core. Knee toward the right elbow and step the right foot out beyond the block on the right.

Good. Walk your left foot back over to the edge of the mat so you've got this nice wide stance. Use the blocks here to keep yourself propped up. So take the right foot, open it 45 degrees, okay? Now what we're going to do is you're going to lift the hips up, breathe in, almost straightening out that right leg, and exhale.

Let the hips come down, down, down as you lift the chest. Good. Inhale, lift the hips, straighten out the right leg as much as you can, and exhale, drop the hips down. Good. Two more.

Breathe in, lift up, and breathe out. Sink down through the hips. Even let that right knee open a little bit. Good. One more time.

Breathe in, lift up, get a little hamstring love there, and then exhale, you bend that right leg, really drop into it. Good. Now lift the hips back up into a kind of neutral lunge. So we're in the wide lunge. Now we're going to take the right hand behind the head, and you're going to open that right elbow out and up as high as it will go.

Grab the twist, right? So you're in a lunge twist. Now on the exhale, bring the right elbow in the direction of your left forearm while pulling the low belly up and in to support through the core. Inhale, bring the right elbow out and up. Find that rotation in the thoracic spine, and exhale, elbow toward the forearm.

Let's try it one more. Breathe in, rotate open. Feel free to bring the left knee down for some support, and exhale the elbow toward the forearm. Nice. Bring it right back up on the inhalation, and on the exhale, bring the right hand back down to the block.

With control, without dragging your right foot, step back into downward dog. Good. So realign yourself with your breath, the alignment of downward dog, right foot, right center of the mat, left foot lifts up hip height, and on the exhale, step it up and out wide. Good. With as much control as you can.

And now the focal point, hips hamstring, okay? So here, if you take the left foot and you open up 45 degrees or so, prop yourself safely up on the blocks. Lift the hips on the inhale so much that you do begin to straighten out that left leg, and on the exhale, send the hips down, and as you drop into the hips, you might lift the chest, right? Inhale, lift the hips, straighten out a little bit, maybe round out. You got like a combo cat pose here.

Exhale, lower the hips, extend the spine. One more time. Lift up, breathe in. You can also do this with reversed breath. We'll do it next time.

Exhale, next time meaning next day, maybe tomorrow. Good. Come back up into the neutral lunge. Right hand stacked below the shoulder, left hand behind the head. Inhale, open up, right?

Exhale, pull the belly in, left elbow toward the right forearm. Similar to a cat pose. Inhale, rotate open. Exhale, elbow toward the forearm. One more time, breathe in.

Awesome. Breathe out, elbow toward the forearm. Inhale, send it up. On the exhale, back to neutral, left hand on the block, right hand on the block. So straighten out the left leg a little bit, bend the right, maybe even come up onto the fingertips, and step the right foot up to the outer edge of the mat for a squat.

Open up the feet, keep the heels on the mat, toes off, and sink down into your squat. Press the elbows into the inner thighs, lift the chest. Good. On the inhale, push down through the heels and rise all the way up, sweeping the arms up overhead on the inhale. Exhale, come back down into squat.

Place the hands on the blocks, step back into plank pose. We're eliminating any lowering down for now. You're going to rock right back up into downward dog. Lift the right leg up on the inhale. Exhale, step it up and out wide with control.

Breathe in, and on the exhale, step the left foot up and out wide, coordinating the exhale with the squat. Inhale, rise all the way up. Exhale one more time, down into the squat, hands onto the blocks, step back into downward dog. Inhale, the left leg lifts. Exhale, with control, step it to the outside of the mat.

Breathe in, lift the chest, breathe out, squat. Inhale, rise all the way up, get a big stretch. Exhale, palms to the chest. All right, let's begin to transition into the relax and release. So through a squat, you can draw the arms out, sit down, grab the blocks, let's get those out of the way for now, and bring yourself all the way down to your seat.

So let's roll down to our back from this position. Draw the knees into the chest. You can bring them out wide or narrow. Bring the feet down below the knees for bridge pose. Set up for bridge pose, arms alongside your body, 90 degrees.

Try that. Arms are 90 degrees, fingertips reaching straight up. Push through the feet to lift the hips first to begin to feel the stretch in the opening through the hip flexors. Press through the upper arms that are grounding into the mat to walk your shoulder blades a little closer to one another just to kind of like heighten that sensation across the chest. You can rest your hands on your ribcage or your belly.

And now, you know, once you build the shape, then or as you are building the shape, it's where's the breath. So you're always wanting to find and breathe in a way that feels supportive in the given shape or portion of the practice. Spread the shoulder blades out wide and slowly lower all the way down. When you land, take one breath. Draw the right knee into the chest.

You can keep the left leg bent if you know right away your low back doesn't like that leg extended. Or extend the left leg out, push through the ball of the left foot. Good. Now extend the right leg out as you draw the left knee in. So single leg knee to chest pose.

And we can start to build a little bit of core into this shape. So lift the chest up off of the mat. You need to feel the low belly working to support. And as you inhale, you shoot the right leg out. And then exhale, bring the left knee in and reach the chest up, up, up toward that left thigh.

And then find that breath cycle again, focusing primarily on the exhalation drawing the knee in. Okay? Good. Just do three on each side. So there's one.

Exhale, one. Exhale, two. Beautiful. Exhale, two. Exhale, three.

Exhale, three. Well done. Nice. Now bring both knees in. Bring the feet down to the mat.

Slide your hips over to the right. So ultimately you'll be on your left tip as you extend your left leg out. So supine twist. Spread your back out. Left hand on the right thigh.

Right arm reaching out wide. And then on your exhale, go ahead and twist it out. So then kind of like releasing, reducing stress in the low back, tension, any snap, crackle, pop that may occur. Always feels kind of nice. Good.

Bring it back out. So the idea is to bring it back out. Bring yourself back to center. Pause. Take a breath.

Slide the hips to the left. Extend the right leg out. Lengthen the neck. Shoulder blades out wide. Little right hand on the left thigh.

Left arm reaching all the way out to the left. And on the exhale, little hugging of the belly in and a rotating to the right. Do what you can to keep that left shoulder down and grounded. I like to keep my gaze straight up. If you feel like turning to the left, turn to the left with your gaze.

Nice. Let's bring it back over. Realign yourself onto the center of the mat. And one last time, draw the knees into the chest. Bring the feet back down to the mat.

Let's slide the right leg out and the left leg out. Arms alongside the body. Make sure you set the shape up, right? Let's take one last breath together. So a full breath in and a nice, long, relaxing, calming exhale out.

Breathe in and slowly breathe out. Begin to feel your body begin to genuinely relax, minimizing the effort, the facial muscles, the shoulders, the legs. Feel free to relax a little longer. When you do come up, roll over onto your right side. Push up to sit.

We can close out together. That was our first practice of this 30-day adventure. I like to think of it as an adventure, a journey. So thank you. I'm super excited to see you tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next day.

Namaste.