Day 19: Dynamic Stretch

Hey there, welcome back to yoga anytime. I can't believe it, but it is day 19. So let's get started right away. We're going to start with child's flow. We're going to move into full body stretch and then rest and relax.

You've done them all, so now it's really time to take action and explore, explore, given what I'm giving you, right? Go beyond that sometimes. Feel it out. Here we go. And as always, thanks for joining me.

Okay, so we start with child's pose. Push the hips back, stretch the arms out. Let's get started with a couple of breaths. Belly expands, your waistline expands, and even expands into your low back body as you breathe in and breathe out. Let's come up into tabletop on the breath in.

On the breath out, we sort of glide down. So you're on your knees and you come to the upper thigh, mid thigh, and right when it starts to get a little intense in the low back, bend the arms and roll all the way down. Good. As you land, facing forward, inhale, lift up through a little mellow cobra. When you start to straighten the arms, that's when you push the hips back in the direction of your heels as you exhale.

Inhale, come forward, slide or slither or glide or articulate through the spine all the way down. So when I say explore, here's where it might be interesting to roll the shoulders a little bit and turn the head or neck from side to side before we square back up and lift up through cobra and all the way back. Maybe this child's pose, you cannot push all the way back. It's like a combination of child's pose and cat pose. Let's do one more.

Come forward into table, slowly slither down. Try to create the shapes and the movements to a point that you actually enjoy it. It's pleasurable. It doesn't have to always be intense or painful. Come up through the cobra pose on the inhale and exhale, push on back into child's.

Feel free to roll through that a few more times or join me in tabletop for a couple of wrist stretch. We're going to take the left hand, turn it over so you're on the top of your hand with your fingertips pointing towards your left thigh. While maintaining the shape of tabletop, keep that, maybe push the hips back a tiny bit. You can do two at a time, so both the right and the left. You choose the intensity, okay, just enough.

Just enough awareness and stretch to that area, good. Turn it around so wrists are forward, palms are flat, fingers pointing back toward the thighs, towards your knees, lean back a little bit, arms are as straight as you can keep them. As always, I'm a big fan of don't just hang out in it waiting for me to cue you out. Keep moving in and out using your breath to inhale away and exhale, come back in, nice. Bring it out, palms facing forward, maybe come to sit on the heels for a moment and roll through the wrists a couple of times and then meet back into tabletop, curl your toes under and take it up into dog pose.

Just downward dog, I want to have you get the sensation of working both strength slash stability and flexibility. So what you're going to do is I want you to bend the knees a little bit and then start to straighten the legs out as you lift your seat, right? Now squeeze your thighs quite a bit like you're flexing your thighs or your quads. From here, keep them engaged but exhale, push, push, push through the heels down, down, down. So on the front part of the leg, each leg is active and strength is being applied, right?

But the back side of the leg is stretching, there's flexibility working there, let's try that again. Inhale lift the heels, squeeze the quads, keep them engaged as you exhale the heels down toward the mat, nice. From here, let's take a walk up to the front of the mat, preparing to move into the full body stretch, one of my favorites. Forward bend on the exhale, let me place the hands on the back of the neck, stretch out the back of the neck for a moment, let's come up halfway, inhale, lengthen the spine and exhale, fold, bring the hands back to the back of the head, just to apply a little bit of weight to lengthen through the neck. Let's take one breath here, breathe in fully and exhale everything out, nice, good.

Let's roll up today, bend the knees, draw the tailbone down and roll slowly up to stand as you roll all the way up, shoulders up to the ears, back and down, the head lands up top, sweep the arms up overhead as you breathe in and exhale the palms to the heart, standing in mountain pose, inhale, sweep the arms out and all the way up, interlace your fingers, cross your thumbs, index fingers long, lateral bend or stretch over to the left, think about the right side of the body stretching and lengthening, let's bring it back up to center and exhale over to the right and just remembering this is called full body stretch, we're looking to kind of touch on all the major joints and muscles, just kind of moving through breath by breath, let's reach up and tip back a little bit, draw the tailbone down, hips forward, gentle back bend, exhale, take it all the way down, stretch long through the legs, good inhale, bend those knees, plant the palms, the heels of your palms and the hip creases, lift your chest to lengthen the spine, roll the shoulders back, good, pull the belly up and in, secure the core and then as you fold forward, push the hips back and the body folds over the thighs, that's the exhale, inhale, slide the hands up the shins this time, lengthen the spine, breathe in and exhale, fold, I'd like to add one thing for you here, take your feet a little bit wider, maybe to the edge of the mat, bend the knees, come up halfway, maybe even like the body's 45 degrees, take the right arm, place the left or the right hand on the left knee or left thigh, right elbow stacks on top of the right thigh, now left hand to the right side of your ribcage, begin to turn the torso to the left for a spinal twist, right, so your hips are not moving, so rotate to the left, rotate to the left and once you find that maximum range of motion, let that left arm fly high, nice, bring the left arm, basically lift the right, switch it, left elbow on the left thigh, left hand wraps around the outer right knee or right thigh, pause, rotate the trunk of the body with a long spine, hips are level, not moving at all, keep rotating, rotating, pull the belly in a little bit and then reach that right arm high, nice, bring the right arm back down, fold over the legs, straighten out the legs a little bit, keep the feet wide, open the feet up off, keep the heels on the mat, open the feet out wide, come down into a squat pose, lean to the left, lean to the right, don't stay here too long, lift the seat, point the toes forward and coordinate the exhale into a forward bend and then you can breathe in, lift the chest, lengthen the spine, exhale, open the feet, sink back down into the squat, breathe in here, exhale, up into the wide forward bend, point the toes forward, inhale, lengthen the spine, exhale, squat back down, good work, let's take the right foot back, good, bring the right knee down, so this is where I'll start to integrate the blanket for you, okay, so if you've got a blanket kicking by, kicking around, grab it and place it on the middle of the mat, okay, this is for your knee, the right knee in this case, so come back into the shape, left foot forward, out wide in that squat tight position, right knee back, okay, so this really looking to get into the hips on the right side and if you feel like it, come on to the outer edge of the left foot, guiding that left knee open, right, and using that right arm to hold yourself up, stabilize you, so as that left knee is opening, your body begins to rotate a little bit, maybe dip your right hip a little bit further, there's a little something in there, option could be to bend that right foot, reach back with the left hand on the outer edge of that foot just to grab a little stretch to the top of your right thigh, I haven't been cueing the breath too much, right, so obviously make sure you're breathing, feeling, exploring, good, let's push the right foot back, take another breath here, nice, let's curl the back toes, plant the palms down, step the right foot up into that squat pose again, so feet are wide, sink the hips down, this time press the elbows into the thighs, lift the chest, lengthen the spine, take a little neck stretch from side to side, good, hands back down, lift the butt, step the left foot back, you've got that blanket for some support, start to build into your lunge, so before you even open that right knee, maybe just a little side movement, sort of like earning, I've talked about this before, but earning your way into these deeper spaces without forcing, now untuck the back toes, make sure your outer blade of the right foot is comfortable, lean to the left hand or left arm, right hand on the inner right thigh, now guide that hip open as you lift the body up and maybe even twist a little bit to the right, keep the left arm straight but let your left hip kind of dip down, bend your left leg as an option, reach back, take hold of it, good, make sure the left knee is comfortable, exhale, kind of move away from that intensity, exhale, move back in, one more time, out, and in, good work, let's extend the left leg back, both hands come down, let's step the right foot back, come into a table top position, push the hips back, so we got into our hips, our hamstrings, our shoulders, now we're gonna move through the spine a little bit, breathe in, this is very similar to our opening child's flow, just one time, exhale, roll all the way down, inhale, come back up, cobra, maybe a bigger upward dog by now, rolling the shoulders back, good, push back into child's pose, table top, take the right arm out as you breathe in and exhale, weave the right arm underneath, good, get that little rotation similar to the standing twist we did, inhale, bring the right arm high, exhale, sweep it under, good, inhale, extend it all the way out and up, and bring the right hand down, pause, left arm, reach out and up, and exhale, sweep it under, inhale, bring it high, and exhale, sweep that arm underneath, maybe land the left shoulder, the head for one brief moment and then exit all the way back up and left hand down to join the right, curl the back toes, inhale, and exhale, downward facing dog, pedal it out, one heel at a time, get a little groovy with it, maybe practicing that engage the thighs practice, right, so working strength and flexibility at the same time, good work, let's bring our knees down to the mat, move the blanket out of the way unless there's something you find it useful for moving forward, push back into a child's pose and let's take a little moment here before we move into our rest and relax. When you feel like it's the right time, come on up, let's make our way onto our back, rest and relax, right, so for me, I'm going to encourage you to begin that process, let's rest and relax, so come on down to your back, hug the knees in, that little sigh of relief breath, let's take another one of those, breathe in and exhale, kind of sigh it out a little bit, let go of anything that's kind of bothering you maybe, bring the feet underneath the knees, bridge roll ups, lift the hips, bring the arms up overhead, stretch through the front body, through the shoulders and on the exhale roll slowly all the way down, two more, push through the feet, lift the hips, stretch through the thigh bones, reach the arms up and overhead, palms facing up and exhale, lower down, one more time, lift the hips, reach the arms up overhead, stretch, stretch, stretch and exhale all the way down, palms are flat, draw the right knee into your body, extend your left leg out, get that nice, very familiar, nothing new here, but what's new is maybe how on day 19 your body feels, same shape, potentially different experience based on all of the movement, I know I personally feel different, so check in with that, how do these quite familiar shapes feel for you now after you've been doing this for several several days, okay, now with that right knee in begin to lift the chest up like we do right, get a little engaged in the core and then switch it out, extend that right leg out, draw the left knee in, pull a little strength in through the belly that mid to lower core, good, extend the right leg out, we'll go five on each side starting right here, so here's one, exhale left, one, you can do this hands free or even bicycle it, so here's two, good, two, remember that pushing through the extended leg, push through the ball of the foot, keep that extended leg strong, where we at, three, good, three, four, keep the chest up, four, good, five, five and bonus one, bonus one, good, all the way down, release the belly, release all that core work, as always the encouragement for you to either do a little less or always do more if you'd like, let's take the right ankle over the left thigh, we'll build that figure four recline pigeon shape, lift the left foot up off the mat, reach up to the left shin or hamstring, I prefer the shin, not because it's harder or better but that's just where my reach is and where I can get a good stretch, so find your hand placement, pull the legs in towards you, release down, take a little one breath or two breaths, spinal twist to the left, one more breath here, exhale it all out, nice, come back up with control, shift yourself over to the center, switch legs, recline pigeon over here, grab your hold, good, get that pigeon stretch to that outer left hip or glute, personalize it, explore, explore, explore, take action, beautiful, let's take the twist, bring your right foot down, shift your hips to the left, a little twist for a breath or two, rinse out the low back, one more breath, bring it all back up, drop both knees into your beautiful body and roll up one time and roll all the way down, good, squeeze the knees in nice and tight, draw the legs all the way out, take a full breath in and a big breath out as you exhale everything, breathe in and breathe out, finding ways to make this relaxation, even if it's short, pleasurable, take one more breath together like just a full big breath, sweep the arms up overhead and exhale it all out, draw the knees into your chest and roll up to sit, yes, well done, 19, yeah, I'm looking forward to day 20 so I'll see you at day 20, namaste, have a beautiful day as always.