Pungent Intervention

Namaste, I'm Ali, and this is going to be your pungent intervention, so this would be a practice to do when you feel like you need a little heating, a little energizing, a little bit more of a wake up and get out the door kind of feeling. It'll be a quick practice. So we're going to start on our backs, and you're going to want to scooch pretty close to the wall, not too close, enough so that you can put your feet on the wall with your knees bent. And then just let your pelvis hang for a moment, interlace your fingers behind your head, let your elbows widen, and take a deep breath in, and on your breath out, push your feet into the wall, drop your belly down towards your spine, and crunch up, keeping the elbows kind of wide. You can gaze right in between your legs here.

And then lower down, deep breath in, on the breath out, come right back up, pushing your feet into the wall, belly button to spine. One more time like that, deep breath in, on the breath out, press the feet in, press the belly down, get some heat going, and release yourself back down. And then take your feet down to the ground, and pushing down into the heels, press up through the hips, coming into a bridge pose, and just letting the belly release and extend and the heart lift, so the pungent flavor that I was mentioning is related to third and fourth chakra, or fire and air. Release the sit bones back down, take your feet right back down onto the wall, hands behind the head, you can even change the interlacing of your fingers, push the feet in, deep breath in, on the breath out, come on up, squeeze up, and lower back down, and right back up. Strong exhalation.

And lower back down, and right back up. And lower down, step your feet back down, lift your hips up, open up the chest. And then release the hips back down, and this time you're gonna take your right ankle across your left thigh, in a figure four, press the right thigh away from you, take your right arm way out to the side, your left hand behind your head this time, again, deep breath in, on the breath out, elbow towards the knee, chest over, and lower down, right back up. So try to emphasize the lift, one more time, deep breath in, on the breath out, lift up, and lower down, step your feet down, and change sides, super simple. Left ankle across the right thigh, open up the left thigh, right hand behind the head, left arm out to the left, deep breath in, on the breath out, come on up, twisting, getting into some of those obliques, and back down, right back up, and back down, right back up, and lower down.

And then kick both arms out to your sides, and lift both legs up. So if the lower back or the hamstrings needs a little bit more space, you can soften the knees here, otherwise keeping the legs long, flex the feet, arms are out to the sides, shoulder height, palms down, and you're going to drop your legs off to the left, and take a good deep twist. Try to let the legs hover off the ground, press your right shoulder down, and then pushing down to lift back up, and then let the legs fall over towards the right hand, and you're trying to keep them at least waist level here, again, you can bend the knees if you need to, and come on back up. Let's take that one more time, drop the legs off to the left, twisting, and use the obliques to come back up, one more time, over to the right, and right back up, and then squeeze your knees into your chest, and you're going to roll over onto your side and come on up. You're going to move right into downward facing dog towards the wall, setting up for an L shaped handstand, so the down dog might be a little shorter than you're used to, walk your hands back, and then come into your down dog, and step your feet up the wall, pushing into the feet to lengthen the legs, shoulders over wrists, legs strong and straight, and go ahead and lift your right leg up, try to keep the hips very even, and then here's the interesting part, lift the abdominals to put the foot back on the wall, lift, and you get that little squeeze there, and then again, left leg up, keeping the hips even, lift and squeeze the abdominals to lower the leg down, try to keep enough juice to come down calmly, take a little child's pose, that'll get that heart rate up, roll yourself up, and this has been your pungent intervention, I hope it got you a little fiery, namaste.