Spacious Chapasana

Hello and welcome. I'm driving a rental car right now and the screen popped up this morning that said change oil soon. And I was thinking how convenient it would be if my body had some sort of a screen that popped up that told me what needed to be done when. It's not as simple as that, but we do have the great tool of looking inwards. So we'll start this practice sitting in Virasana, a kneeling position. I'm sitting on a block like so on the wide flat level. You can sit on two blocks. Also if you're okay sitting on the ground with the feet a little wider than the hips, you can sit in between your heels. And then take your hand, one hand underneath one knee and just pull the bottom of the knee forwards and lengthening the shin and then go back to your toes, tuck your fingers underneath your toes and going to pull the lean back, lean to the side and pull the top of the foot back so that you're lengthening the foot back a little bit. So we're as long as possible across the base and the shin bone. And then take your hands and slide your hands just underneath where there's a little space there at the base of the shin. Maybe if your arms are shorter, you might just touch the outer, outer legs. Otherwise tuck your fingers right underneath the shins and just pause for a moment, feeling the connection of hand to shin. And this is a meeting that's going to happen a bunch of times during this practice. So let the hand and the shin come together with kindness and gentleness and a sweetness as well as a great awareness. It's not every moment that your hands touch your shins. And then release that, let your arms widen to the sides and then bring your hands together right in front of the chest without narrowing it all in the chest and close your eyes. And then use this moment if you had a little like oil gauge monitor inside of you, what would it say? What do you need right now? Maybe this idea helps you to set an intention about how you'll move through your practice. Just some examples might be with more gentleness, with more kindness, with a sense of ease, precision, energy, whatever it is that you need to cultivate on this day in this moment. When setting an intention like this, I like to remember the Buddha's words, first thought, best thoughts. You don't need to grind it over in your head, just kind of check inside and believe what you see. And then shifting gears to feeling the breath and let the attention resting on the breath and the feelings of the breath help to create both clarity and ease inside. Letting the breath help you find your alignment. Letting the breath help you find this moment, untugged to the next moment or to the last, but just right here, right now, unplugged and dropping inside. Establishing right here a steadiness of breath that will carry us through the practice, perhaps even through the day. And then after your next exhalation, soften your eyes and then let the eyelids just slip up so that whatever image is in front of you, you see it, but let the image come to you. So no straining, no stress through the eyes. Maybe even there can be a feeling that the image comes to the back surface of the eye. And then look at your hands and just sweetly interlace your fingers and then press your palms forward and roll back in the pelvis. So you roll towards the back of the sitting bones and round the upper back, middle back and lower back, the whole back into a C curve. And feel here how the sitting bones down at the block are lengthening towards the backs of the knees. When the sitting bones lengthen towards the backs of the knees, it shortens the back of the legs. So the hamstrings are shortened here. And then come all the way up to vertical and go a little beyond verticals coming into a, just a gentle back bend, lifting the chest, taking the arms back, take a big breath in here. And as you exhale, let the sitting bones guiding towards the backs of the knees, bring you into your rounded spine like a cat spine. Inhale, come up, inner thighs drop down, sitting bones roll back. Exhale, rounding, sitting bones move towards the backs of the knees, the backs of the legs shorten. Inhale, this time just come right up to vertical. Bring your right hand onto the mat, take a side bend over to the right. Take a full inhale here, feeling the left side expand. As you exhale, go a little deeper perhaps to the side, seeing what's available. And then take your left arm, see if you can take it a little bit behind you, look up, and then let that bring you all the way up to sit. Second side for the side bend, left hand to the mat, left shoulder rolls back, right arm up and over the right ear, breathing in, feeling the expanse of the right side. Exhale softening a little bit more to the side. Another theme of this class is going to be finding the space behind you. So with your right arm, be aware of the space behind you as you reach back and let that bring you all the way up to the top. Bring your hands together, take a breath in. Exhale, press the palms forward, sitting bones towards the backs of the knees, spine rounds. Inhale with freedom, coming up into a bit of a back bend. Exhale sitting bones to the backs of the knees, the rest of the spine follows suit. Inhale, come all the way up. Exhale round, you don't need to stay with my breath cues if you want to go a little faster, a little slower, keep listening to your inner gauges. And next time you come up, just come right up to vertical and then right on your center line, twist to the right, bringing the left hand to the right leg. Right fingertips, if they don't reach the floor behind you, you can put your right hand onto your back. And then inhaling, feeling the central channel lift. Exhale, twisting a little deeper. Continuing to keep the eyes soft, breathe in, find a little more space and length. And exhale, twist. Inhale, come to the center, reach your arms up to remind the spine to lengthen upwards. And as you exhale, twist over to the other side, feeling the head stacked over the chest, stacked over the pelvis. Inhaling always cultivates length. And as you exhale, just see what happens in the twist, see how the breath affects the rotation of the spine. And then again reaching the left arm back behind you, bring both arms up and slide your hands together in front of the heart. Just close your eyes and once again after that short little warm up vinyasa, notice if there's been a shift in your inner screen, your inner gauge. And recommit to your intention, even if your intention has shifted a little bit. Okay, and then come up and you can move your block over to the side and come onto your hands and your knees, placing the hands clearly, placing the knees right underneath the hips. And then take your left leg, reach it back, put your toes onto the ground and spin your left heel to the ground. Roll the right hip underneath you and reach your left arm up to the sky. From here, turn the left palm to face towards the front and reach your arms up overhead, your left arm up overhead. And then come back, hand down, lift your heel and lift your left leg up. Think about lifting the left leg up from the inner thigh because it tends to rotate out to the inner thigh. And then shift the weight to your left hand and let your right arm float forward. As you do this, there can be a temptation of sagging in the abdomens and coming into the cow spines. You can lift your core and extend from there through the right hand and the left heel. And then hand down, knee down, second side, right toes reach back from the top of the right, right thigh, spin the right heel down. Draw the left hip under as the right arm reaches up. Turn the right palm and then reach your right arm up over your ear. Feel very extended from right heel to your right fingers. And then the right hand finds the mat, right heel lifts, inner thigh leads the leg up. Keep the abdomen lifting as the right inner thigh lifts. And then just shift your weight to your right hand until the left hand gets light. And then reach the left arm forward. Feel the connection from right heel through a diagonal in your torso up into the left fingertips. And then bring that hand down. And trying to keep stable in the center of the body, right hand reaches forward, left heel reaches back with an inhale. Exhale, come down, second side, left arm forward, right heel back as the inhale. Exhale, coming down and just smoothly and steadily keep going like this. And feeling your whole body connected from a little central station in the belly.

Radiating out through the center, from the center, through the extremities. Okay, next time left arm and right leg reach back. Come on to hands and knees. And then step into plank position. Wide chest, hands root, forearms draw in. And then from this plank position, once again, we're going to draw the sitting bones towards the heels and around the spine. So it's not a downward dog, it's a rounded back plank, sitting bones towards the heels. You see your toes. And then as you inhale, come back into plank position. Exhale, round, sitting bones lengthen towards the heels. Press into your hands so there's a puffiness between your shoulder blades. And then inhale, head and heels reach away from each other. A couple more times. And then from here, downward facing dog. After that deep abdominal work, downward facing dog might feel like a vacation. So hands press steadily down, energize up through your arms.

Come just about maybe five inches, four inches towards plank, just slightly forward. Widen across the shoulders, widen the collarbones, widen the shoulder blades. And then try to keep that width as you shift back, the legs pulling you back into downward dog. Fies pull back, center of the heels sink down. Remembering your intention, feel the breath and keep inviting the breath to be long and smooth. And then the hands with great awareness, walk them back to your feet. So you're in a standing forward bend at the back of your mat. From here lengthen your spine, taking the head forward. Exhale, fold over your legs, always find to bend your knees, which takes the sitting bones towards the heels. Inhale, come all the way up to stand. Palms press up overhead. Exhale, hands to your heart. And a couple of half saranamaskar with lots of freedom. Inhale, reach up. Exhale, dive forward. Breathe in, long spine. Exhale, fold over. In the spirit of freedom. Inhale, come all the way up. Exhale, hands to the heart and down to your side. And now with your intention deeply planted, inhale, reach up. Exhale, fold. Inhale, lengthen. Can you refold over your legs with your intention? Inhale, root the feet, come all the way up to stand. Exhale, hands together in front of the heart. One more time with very soft eyes. Inhale, reach up. See what you see without any strain. Exhale, fold. Maybe even that feeling of the sights coming to the back of your eyes, lengthen with an inhale. Exhale, fold. Soft eyes, feet root, come all the way up. And as you exhale, bring your hands together in front of your heart. Okay. We're going to come to the front of the mat and put two blocks there at the front of the mat. Let's put them on the lowest height. And in a bit, we're going to do some lunges with the back knee down. And for most people, having some blanket underneath the knee is helpful. If you don't find it to be at all uncomfortable, you can skip the blanket. Otherwise, have the blanket about mid-mat. And then we'll stand in between the two blocks, snuggled in. We're going to do a couple surya namaskar A with the hands on blocks, which I always find to be fun because I feel that much taller and more light and buoyant. So rooting into the feet, inhale, arms out and up. Exhale, fold forward. Feel your hands root into the block. Inhale, lengthen. And then bend your knees. Step back, plank position. Make sure you step over your blanket. If it's in the way, move it forward a bit. Breathe in here, establishing the clarity of plank. Shift forward, bend your elbows, chaturanga. Go over the tops of the feet. Lift up, upward dog. And pull back into downward facing dog. Take a couple of breaths here. And if this is not suiting you for whatever reason, you can move the blocks. You can change the updogs to little cobras. Please always make the practice your own. The end of the next exhale, bend your knees. If you do have your hands on blocks, it's a little easier to jump forward. You have that much more space. Breathe in to lengthen.

Exhale, fold. Inhale, reach out. Hands meet up overhead with sweetness. Exhale, hands to the heart and down to your sides. Soft eyes, intention placed. Inhale, reach up. Exhale, fold. Inhale, lengthen. Exhale, step back, lower, chaturanga. Don't let your shoulders go lower than your elbows. Inhale, upward dog. Feel the buoyancy from the tops of the feet up to the wide collarbones. And pull back, downward dog. So downward dog with the hands on blocks makes the arms extra long. And the weight gets to shift back therefore a little more into the legs. So the heels can really lengthen down. It doesn't matter if the heels ever touch the ground, but that's the direction that they're going. End of the next exhalation, bend your knees, get light in the pelvic floor, walk or jump forward. Breathe in to lengthen. Exhale, fold. Inhale, root to rise. Exhale, hands to the heart. One more like that. Inhale, reach up. Exhale, fold. Inhale, lengthen. Exhale, step back, chaturanga. Inhale, strong legs, lifted chest. Exhale, dog pose. Breathing in and breathing out. Again, using your breath to align you. Inhale. Exhale, the sitting bones reaching straight back on a diagonal from the rooting of the hands. And then when you're ready, walk or jump your feet forward. Breathe in to lengthen and fold. And then bend your knees. Step your left foot back to a lunge. And then I'm going to turn my blocks a little higher.

Reach back a little bit extra through the left heel. Reach back as much as you can right now through your left heel. So more than usual in a lunge. Maybe you feel that getting into the calf muscles, the Achilles tendon. And keep that reach of the heel back as you bring your left knee to the ground. So it will slow things down a little bit to have that anchor of the left heel reaching back as the left knee makes its way down onto the mats. When you get there, I like to turn the blocks up, up so the spine can come up a little bit. And then let's lift the left knee just a teeny bit up off of the mat or the blanket, just a little teeny bit. And then draw in. So the right heel pulling back, left foot pulling forwards. Lots of integration and strength in the pose. You might be shaking like me. I like the shake. It's something kind of interesting to observe. And then let your knee come down. Lift your chest with a big, bright inhale. And then step forward. With the same thing, second side. Right heel, right foot's going to go back. And then again, an unusual amount of reach back through the right heel. Feeling the calf muscles to Achilles tendon to the center of the heel reaching straight back. And then keep that heel reaching back as much as you can, as if it's kind of glued back there as the back knee journeys down to the blankets. And then again, just to ensure that we're cultivating strength and not just overly, over suppleness. We'll lift the right knee just a little bit. And then feel the left foot and the right foot gathering as if they're magnetically attracted to each other. Feel that? Breathe into it. And then let your knee come down. We'll move the blocks to the side and step back into downward facing dog. From dog pose, lift your right leg up, bend your right knee, and then open your right thigh and sink your left heel. And here I'm going to ask you to be mindful of the left hamstrings. This is an easy place as well as where we're going to overstretch the left hamstring. So you want to feel the left sitting bone actually drawing down towards the left knee instead of lifting up. If you get that action, you'll feel a little more feeling of protection or safety as you're getting the stretch of the left hamstring. And stretch the right leg. Come to a lunge. Draw in again with the feet as you come up. High lunge. And then with your arms again exploring the space behind you, let the arms open behind you. Interlace your fingers behind your back. Pull the arms down. Lift the chest up. Make sure there's no dropping into the lower back. Lift and lengthen up. And then bring your hands to the floor. Step back.

Dog pose. Deep breath in. If you feel any tension in your jaw, you can open your mouth. Toggle the jaw a bit from side to side. Make sure the mouth, eyes, ears, lips stay passive. Second side, left leg reaches up. Turns out. Bend the knee. Sink the right heel and sink the right sitting bone towards the right heel. Another result of that action will be that the right half of the pelvis, the right front of the pelvis, lifts up off of the right thigh bone. You'll also be a little bit more full in your low back. This direction is not as important for people who are tight, but those of you who are flexible might resonate with this instruction. And then stretch the leg. Draw it through parallel. Step to a lunge. Root down to come up. Feel this upper space. And then with your fingertips open, finding the space behind you. Fingers interlaced, maybe finding the opposite interlaced. The thumbs touch the right inner thigh and lift the right inner thigh up towards the thumbs. And then release. Step back, downward dog. Let's try a vinyasa without the blocks. Inhale, plank. Exhale, chaturanga, cobra or upward dog. Try to get that feeling of being higher even though that we're down on hands on the mat. And pull back, downward dog. Take a deep full inhale. Exhale, right foot steps forward. Left knee down to the blanket and then come up. Put your right hand onto your right thigh. Bend your left knee. Left hand finds the left ankle with a friendship that they met before in Virasana. So let the pelvis slide forward, but at the same time keep that feeling of energetically pulling right heel back, left knee forward. And here we're going to pivot. This is one of the main reasons I had you have the blanket. We're going to pivot on the left knee. You can bring your hands down and face the side of the mat and then walk your right leg to straight, right heel right in line with the left knee and drawing the ball, the right foot down to or towards the ground. Parigasana gate pose. Right hand slides down the right leg. Left arm reaches up and over the left ear. Breathing into this incredible expanse of the left side body. You can play with where it makes sense to put your head. Don't strain your head, your neck. And then come up. This is how I wish gate pose was designed going this way. It's a variation on the more classic pose. Just let it feel good as you expand, as you breathe, as you remember your intention. And then bring your right hand over by your left hand, pivot on the left knee facing the old back of the mat, now the front of the mat, and step back downward dog. Inhale, exhale, left foot steps forward. You can reach back through that right heel as the right knee finds its way back down onto the mat. Come up and then have awareness as you bend your right knee of the right hand with kindness, finding the right shin. And then re-square the right hip forward, right ribs forward. And feel that you can somehow lift the deep core, lift from the pubic bone to the navel like you're zipping up a pair of jeans. So lift in the belly, lift the left hip point up off of the left thigh. As the pelvis slides forward, you get a good opening through those quads. And then pivoting, either hold onto the foot or release it and pivot around to the side and align your right knee with your left heel. Reach the toes to the ground, take a breath in and exhale over into gate and gate pose. We're closing the gate, the right hand coming in the direction of the left hand. The sacrum draws in towards the body. It tends to fall back, so draw the tailbone and the sacrum forward just the right amount. Always a negotiation in this practice to figure out what that is, just the right amount. And then come up, right hand down, time reaches. This one really feels like a morning stretch to me. It's a real gooey opening.

Somehow it's not like in the official yoga books, it gives me a little more freedom to play in it. Although I do try to find that freedom in all of the poses. All right, pivot back to the old front of the mat, step back, downward dog. Inhale, plank. Exhale, round to the spine, sitting bones towards the heel, our little cat plank. Inhale back into plank. Exhale, lower down. Press back into child's pose. All right, and then just move your blanket to the side for now. We are going to use it later, so don't let anyone run off with it. And come down to lie onto your abdomen. We're going to reach the right arm forward. Turn the palm to face towards the midline. Reach back through your two legs, and inhale, come into a little shalabhasana with the right arm forward, the left hand like cobra. And then exhale, soften down, just roll over onto your right side. Do that a couple times. Roll to your belly. Inhale, lift up. Exhale, whoosh, over to the side. Inhale, lifting. And exhale, over to the side. From here, slide your forearms underneath you, elbows underneath the shoulders. Lift your belly, a moment in, forearm plank, just to reestablish the connection through the whole body. Knees down, pelvis down, chest lifts. Take a big breath in. Exhale, slide your left arm forward. Bring your right hand like cobra. Inhale, lift. Exhale, press, roll. And now lift. Exhale, press, and roll. A little abdominal massage, perhaps, as well as a big back strengthener. From here, slide back. Another moment, in forearm plank. Establishing head forward, heels back, legs strong. And then knees to the floor, pelvis to the floor.

Lift the chest. Take a big breath in. And then we take the left arm straight to the side and the right hand again like a cobra. And then roll over onto your left side. If you're a broader human being, putting a block or a blanket underneath your head might feel better on the neck. And you can maybe step your right foot behind you, like a bridge pose. I know there's all different variations of this pose. For me, it's pretty intense, so I just stay in an early carnation of the pose. This is a big example of the arm behind us. It's rare in life do we reach behind us for something. It's a good counter to all of the forward action we do with the arms. Okay, and then come onto your belly, reach your right arm straight forward. Left hand like cobra. Roll onto your right side. You're going to bend the left knee, reach back, hand finds ankle. Hello. And then the shin pulls back. And as your left shin pulls back, let the left half of the pelvis move forward little. You need something to counterbalance the left leg reaching back. And then from here, we're going to take it into Anatasana. So bring the leg and return the leg out. Hold onto the big toe and reach your left leg up. You can keep your right leg straight. I have mine bent as for a little kickstand, but you can keep yours straight if that's possible. Anatasana pose dedicated to Lord Vishnu's couch. I always get a kick out of the fact that so many dedicated a pose to a couch and then release that leg. Roll onto your belly, right arm straight out to the right and then roll onto your right side. Again, stretching the front of the right shoulder, experiencing the right arm behind the back. You can stay here. You can put a blanket or a block underneath your head. You can step your left foot onto the ground behind you and then just feel in. What is the little oil gauge inside tell you about what would be the best approach to this moment? All right. And then coming back, left arm goes forward. Right hand goes by the ribs. Roll to your left side. Bend your right knee. Right hand comes back to find the ankle and just be aware and pull the right leg back. And as you do this, just have awareness of being in this on your side. So you're seeing the side of wherever you are, side of the room, wherever you are. You're on your left side. Right arm is behind you. Right leg is pulling back. Hand and ankle are joined. It's really a bow pose feeling. So don't be shy to kick back strongly as long as it feels good in your low back and your shoulder. Kick back strongly through the right legs. Toes are spread. And then this is a parallel position of the leg. We're going to bring it forward.

Turn it out into an externally rotated position. Hold onto shin, ankle or big toe and reach up through the right leg. Right shoulder pulls down. Let your limbs and your head and your awareness radiate from your center and breathe. Let that leg go. Slowly float it down. Roll onto your front side. Press up and back into downward facing dog. Inhale, the right leg lifts up. Let it turn out so the pelvis is orienting to the side. Left sitting bone descends towards the left heel to protect the hamstrings. And then step forward to your lunge. Spin the back heel down. Reach your left arm way forward up and around into warrior two. You can adjust your feet if need be and have a nice long warrior two. You can sink the right thigh down. And then turn your right palm to face up. Reach back into reverse warrior. From here is if somebody's holding onto your fingertips, pulling them back straight in your right leg. Take an extra breath here. And as you exhale, come into triangle pose. Come in with a feeling of security and stability through your pelvis. I like that thought of having something in real life. I hate having tight things on, but when I come into yoga, I don't want to overdo it in my leg. So I keep a little feeling of being contained in the pelvis, especially if you're flexible. You don't want to just fall into your flexibility. You want to keep a feeling of pelvic floor core engaged. Maybe the left outer hip even connecting down a little bit towards the left outer heel. And then take your top arm, take it behind you, roll it in, slide it behind your back and let it either rest behind your back or if you have long arms, you might creep your fingers to the top of your right thigh. Find a place for your head that makes sense and steady breath. From here, bend your right knee, scoot your back foot in. If you need your block for a half moon, get a block. Otherwise, fingertips and reach the left leg up and then straighten the right leg and then slide your left hand back towards your left ankle and reach your left arm up overhead, half moon or at a chandrasana. Breathe in. Exhale, bend your right knee deeply as you keep reaching up through your left leg. That'll give you a little control. Go back into warrior two.

Inhale, reverse warrior. Exhale, hands down. Step back, either dog pose or through your vinyasa. Second side, left leg rises, turns out, knee bends. And then extend the left leg, step forward to your lunge, back heel spins down. Big windmill of the arms, getting all of the cells of the body awake and harmonized. In warrior two, it's good to have that feeling like I was talking about earlier in the lunge of the feet drawing in towards each other, which fires up lots of energy through the legs, into the pelvis and through the spine. Left palm turns up, reach back, reverse warrior. Again, from the reach of the left fingertips, straighten the left leg. Take a big inhale. Exhale, chikonasana with a feeling of control through the pelvis. Right arm, let it go behind you a little bit. Roll it in, slide it behind your back. You can rest on your back, you can bring your fingers to your left inner side. Let yourself go into the pose without going too far. Keep listening to your inner guide, your inner gauges. Look down, scooch the back foot in, left fingertips reach pretty far forward to the left little toe and then shift your weight onto your left leg. Right leg reaches with energy, left leg extends. It's fine also to keep your left knee a little bent. Left sitting bone roots down towards the left heel and then the right arm reaches up. Breathe, expand and then bend the leg that you're standing on as you keep reaching up through the right leg. Reach, reach, reach and then go back, virabhadrasana number two. Inhale, reverse warrior. Exhale, hands cartwheel to the ground. Step back, plank, downward dog. After facing forward and side and hands going different places, get really steady and clear here in your dog pose. Even and stable. And then bend your knees. The hands are on the ground, they're no longer on blocks. So get the elevation in your pelvis as you jump. Always find a step also forward. Breathe in to lengthen, breathe out to fold. Inhale, come up. Exhale, hands in front of your heart. I'm going to bend the right knee, reach back, hold on to the right foot. Bring your left hand onto your left waist. Feel that hand to ankle connection. And see if you can feel very, very tall on the left leg. So gravity has it that we would be sinking down. But see if you can go a little against gravity, like if you're doing this in space and feel the pelvis really lifting up from the musculature of the left leg and the outer hip. And then we're facing front. You're going to turn your pelvis over your left thigh and just turn open a little to the right. See the scenery over there. And then turn back without any dropping into the left hip. Again, turn to open and turn back. So we're turning out the left leg by rotating the pelvis over the thigh. From here, we're going to switch hands. So reach behind you, find your right ankle with your left hand, and then come back to face forward and reach your right arm up. A little variation of a pose that's sometimes done with this right leg and lotus, but now it's just snuck behind into a back lotus. Stay tall on the left leg. It's okay if the left leg is getting a little tired. It gets strong and it gets a little tired. Right hand comes back. Find the ankle. Turn the leg back to parallel. Lift your left arm up. And just do kind of a mellow version of dancer pose. Right shin kicking back. When the leg can no longer go back, let the pelvis tip over the left leg a bit. Take a big breath in and then exhale. Stand and remember how nice it is to have two legs. Second side. Left hand finds the left ankle. Right hand can just be on the right hip. And again, lift. Lift the muscles of the right leg. Lift the pelvic floor. Lift the low belly. How kind of upright can you feel? And then with that feeling of lift, no grinding down, but instead lifting up, turn to the left and come back to the center. To turn, do a little engagement to the gluteus muscle on the right side, which is an external rotating muscle. Come back. Just with breath, you inhale as you open and exhale as you come back. And this time we're going to open, reach behind, shift hands and then turn back forward and let the left arm come up. Keep tall. It's so easy to sink down in the right leg. Keep lifting up. Find that interior strength. And then let your left hand refined the left foot. Bring it to parallel.

Inhale your right arm up. Kick back. When you get to the end of that line, let the pelvis take over and tip forward just a bit. Keep the abdomen lifting. And then release. Tadasana. Now reach up. Exhale. Fold forward. Inhale. Lengthen the spine. Step back. Dog pose. And then bring your knees to the floor. And we're going to do a bow pose and side bow pose, which is very kind of childlike to me to roll to the side in bow pose and challenging now that I'm not a child. Only partial. I'm only partial child now. Okay. So I'm going to take a blanket and make it pretty wide because I want, um, I want softness underneath my shoulders and my hips. I'm going to have it wide enough. I can come to bow pose and be supported with softness. So you lie on the blanket, bend your knees, reach back, find your sweet ankles with your sweet hands. If this, if this isn't a viable option, a strap, you can use a strap around your ankles, holding onto the, holding onto the strap and the strap holds the ankles. Take a breath in. As you exhale, push back into your feet, lift the chest, come up into bow pose. And then to come to side bow, you soften down about halfway, pull on your left foot, pull your left foot over to the right and roll over to the left side. Pull the legs back. Maybe if it's okay for the neck, look up over your left shoulder and then you have to soften again, bring the legs in and whoosh, end up on your belly. Pull up, breathe in, in the center, soften down, right leg pulls and the brain says go and the right leg pulls back. Sacrum, tailbone, go in, right shin pulls back strongly, taking that right arm into the space behind you. And then again, you have to come out of the pose a little bit and roll onto the belly. Inhale, lift up, exhale soften and roll. Inhale, roll back, lift up, exhale, soften and roll. Uno mas, inhale, come up, exhale, soften and roll. To the center, lift up. Hopefully there's a playful quality. If it's hard for you to roll, you could get a friend to come and push you over to the side. You usually end up doing that with a few people in class when I'm teaching this. Inhale, come up and then hands by the ribs, press up, fold your blanket. If your back is asking for a child's pose, of course you would give yourself what you need and come back into downward dog. From here we'll lift the right leg up. We'll just keep it parallel this time. Step forward, root down, come up to a high lunge, breathe in here, exhale, open into warrior two. Inhale like we did before, reverse warrior. Straighten the front leg and then slide into your controlled trikonasana. We're going to move now into Ardachandra chapasana, which is, everything has had its inherent value, but we've been, I've been thinking about building towards this pose. So you'll notice a few themes come into play. Scoot yourself forward into your half moon. Now be really extra mindful about not blowing out your right hamstrings up at the sitting bone. Keep the right sitting bone descending down. The front of the right pelvis lifting up and then bend your left knee and take your left arm. See if you can reach it behind you. It's tempting to go forward, but see if you can reach it behind you. You have to bend your left knee a little bit more to find your ankle and then pull the shin back, letting the chest open, letting the spine bow and finding the breath. If you're in a very bold mood, you could look to the side or look up and let's bend the right knee. Look, look down. If you aren't already, bring yourself to the center coming into dancer pose. Find your right leg fine. If you fall over, come right on back, find your way up into natarajasana, some version of the pose, pulling the shin back, lifting the chest up, rolling left ribs forward and then stand mountain pose. Inhale, reach up. Exhale, fold forward. Step back, down dog. Inhale, left leg rises. Exhale, step forward. Inhale, seeing the space in front of you with softness. Exhale, remembering your intention as you open. Inhale, reverse warrior. Straighten the front leg. Exhale yourself into trikonasana. Look down, scooch forward. Already from this moment we can be mindful about connecting the back of the leg.

Sit bone down to heel. Bend your right knee, reach your right arm back. You may not find that foot back there, which is fine. You can just go in that direction. Try not to get married to some sort of final version of things. Trying to enjoy the journey here of life. Right shin pulls back, right shoulder opens. The spine bows so much like side bow. If I was just to slip my left leg out from underneath me, which I'm not going to do, and reach back for it, land on my left side, I'd be in that side bow position. Look down, reorient yourself forward. Find the strength of the left leg. Right on your midline, come up. Take a breath in. Exhale, expand into dancer natarajasana. And then release tadasana. Inhale, reach up. Exhale, fold forward. Widen your feet, mat distance apart. Hold onto your left outer ankle with both hands. There we are, hands to ankle. And then over to the other side. All that rest of class, we're kind of softening, decompressing, releasing from that exciting pose. The hands on the left ankle. Sweet joining of hand and hand and ankle. And then release. Step back into plank, and lower down. And then turn over onto your back. So from here, we will make our way into bridge if you're up for a little more back bending and also some wheel. So I was thinking, this is just to stay thematic here, we try bridge holding on to the front of the ankles. So and then the hands come down. Another thing, and this takes long arms again. So another thing you can do is have a strap, put it around the front of the ankles. It's easy to do here. And then put the feet down. It's kind of a nice way to do bridge. It gives a different kind of connection in. All right. And then push into the feet, lift the pelvis, walk the shoulders underneath. Outer thighs hug in, shins move back. Chest open. Still a kindness between hands and the ankles or wherever the hands are. And the intention still present. From here, you're welcome to come down or you can slide your hands right by your ears. Take a breath in. As you exhale, keep hugging the elbows in and come up into Urdhva Dhanurasana, full wheel pose. Few breaths here, feeling the arch of the pose, feeling the hands and the feet well rooted. The sacrum lifting, tailbone lengthening, head released. And then exhale and lower down. One hand on the heart, one hand on the belly. Take a breath in. Hands by the ears one more time. Just go up without too much rigmarole. Come up and come down. One more time. Press down to come up and come down. Knees like windshield wipers, super easy, right to left. I love that feeling of wheel pose and it's like a supernatural caffeine bolt. Try to remember that feeling when I'm having a mid-day sluggish moment. Pick up that feeling without having to do a huge one hour practice. And then come to the center and just engage the pelvic floor, low belly and pull your feet up off of the mat. Wrap your right leg over your left leg. Put your hands onto your right thigh. Press the thigh into the hands and the hands into the thigh.

Do it strongly so you get a good integration in the pelvic floor, low back abdominals. Other side, left leg on top. Really do it. Hands press, leg presses. And then release. Hold onto your ankles or your feet coming into happy baby pose. Another great release after all the backbends. Roll a little bit from side to side. And then let the soles of the feet come together. Supta Baddha Konasana. Your hands can gently rest onto your belly or your chest. And then again, look at the internal sort of gauge and see what information you get by looking inside. And then from that information, if there's any pose, not that your brain is telling you to do, but your internal guidance is telling you to do, to finish your practice, you can do that. And after that, you'd come into Shavasana. Never miss your Shavasana. It's an incredibly important pose. Knees together if you're with me here. And then the legs extend and the arms open to the side. I like to put a little blanket right over the tops of the thighs and the pelvis for warmth and for grounding. And then take any amount of time you need to shift your body. You want to really take time like we took time to build up the active poses. Take time to get very clear for this Shavasana. And then go back to the feeling of soft eyes sinking down into their sockets. Softening and dilating, widening the space in between the eyebrows, widening all the way to the sides of the head, the temple flesh. Down into the jaw. Release any tension in that small but incredibly strong muscle at the base of the jaw. Let your bottom jaw drop.

And then just check in with your tongue. Make sure that it's not pressing into the roof of the mouth, which is a common pattern of tension. Let your tongue just relax in the space of the mouth. And soften the sides of the neck, the heart and the belly. If you have time to stay longer, I encourage you to keep dropping into the stillness. There's much wisdom to be found in stillness after a practice that opens all the channels of your body. If you're ready to move on, deepen your breath. And watch the breath as it sails through your body.

And then bend your knees, feeling the feet meet the mat. Take a breath in. Exhale, roll over to your side and then use the hands to come up, keeping the back, keeping the brain, the head soft. And then find your seat. Bring your hands together in front of your heart. Give yourself a good moment of gratitude for getting to your mat, for doing this strong one hour practice. All the back bends and heart opening, mind opening, channel opening. And take that into your day. Thank you so much for joining me. Namaste.