Deep and Steady Twisting

Namaste and welcome back. Great to have you here with us. Our practice will be focused a little bit more on twists today and we have again the support of the wall to really help teach us to open up more deeply than we might be able to do without that extra support. I do want to make one note that later in the practice we'll be doing a shoulder stand at the wall and we've got a great tutorial for you to watch. If you're not familiar with that or how to use props for that pose.

We're going to get things started seated on a block and practicing the great lifting work we've been doing in the spine. So you'll bring your block on your mat, bring up the sitting bones and take cross legs. Now we're starting to adventure out away from the wall a little bit and let's see if we can bring in the previous practices to this pose here. Starting by anchoring down through your sitting bones we want to find that same upright lift that you found from the wall earlier. And the chest opening that we found.

One way to help do that is if you bring the arms out to the sides and pull the arms back a little bit you'll feel the shoulder blades press into the upper back and help lever open the chest. And keeping the chest open we slowly bring the palms a little bit together and then the length of the thumbs to the sternum to help open the chest. Just a little centering here with a nice long spine, open chest, let your eyes close. One of the things that we're working towards in these practices is the lifted spine and that opening chest and what's special about that open chest is that wide open quiet still space inside and you can invite your awareness down into that open stillness like a vacation from the talking mind and settle and drink in that stillness for one more breath. And then we'll release the hands, open the eyes and we'll start our practice with a nice twist.

Let's take the right hand behind and the left hand over and once again using the hands to lift up out of yourself and start your twist off to the right side. Let your breath be your guide so you inhale and that helps you feel where tension might be too much or even too little and you can start to adjust. And then we'll come to center changing sides, left hand behind, right hand over the knee again using your arms to lift up first opening the chest and exhale turning around, taking a few breaths to explore any unnecessary tension and then come back in. We'll change the crisscross of the legs and do one more time. Turning right side, lift up tall and turning.

This time we'll add a turn of the head toward the forward shoulder, in this case the left. And then coming back to center, second side, left hand behind, right hand across, nice big turn on an inhale and the exhale you can let your head roll towards the forward shoulder, right shoulder and then letting it go. We'll take the block away and come onto hands and knees for a bit of cat and cow to mobilize the spine before we get into the deeper poses. Remember as spine goes up, exhale, inhale, spine goes down. Work the entirety of the spine from your tailbone to the top of the head, each of the joints getting their turn, inhaling down, exhaling up.

Let's get one more. From here bring your big toes together and your knees out the width of the mat. This is one of my favorite warm up poses. Threading the needle, we'll bring the left arm through, left shoulder to the mat and left ear down to the mat. I use my right hand to gently turn and open the body in the direction of the ceiling.

Take some breaths here. If you feel like there might be a little bit more space to be had, you can try to reach for it, maybe even eventually turning your head all the way up to the ceiling. We'll slowly unwind out and we'll do the second side. Right arm threads through, we drop the right shoulder down, the right ear down, organize ourselves a little bit, start to work with that breath. Maybe threading just a slight bit further through, you might see if you can turn the head all the way up to the ceiling and then work your way out.

From here into the down dog, again using the support of the wall for that extra great lift into the pose. Heels up the wall about three or four inches, toes forward of the wall about three or four inches so the feet are angled and then we press the heels from the hips to the heels to start to get that length in the body. And then lower your knees down, take a brief pause, might move the hands and wrists just a little bit, move the spine. Let's go for one more dog pose and we'll add a special twist to this one. We'll drop the right leg first, stretch it up the wall a bit and begin to turn the pelvis open to the side, to the right side.

We'll allow that knee to bend behind and really work on lifting the hips in the direction of the wall and opening the pelvis to the right side. Two more breaths and one more breath and then we'll bring it down. Let's lower the knees for just a second to recover, again move the hands as you need, the spine and we'll do the second side. Heels come up, organize that dog pose, nice long lengthening legs. We'll take the second leg up, left leg up, turn the pelvis open to the left side and allow that left knee to bend.

We want to firmly engage the right hip muscles to help turn open the pelvis. Two more nice deep breaths and then coming back down to the knees for just a moment. Roll out those hands, move the spine and then let's make our way up to standing. Coming up for chair pose, we're going to use the wall as a marker so that we learn to stay on the heels for this pose. We'll let the arms stay at your side for a moment, take a breath in, exhale and sit back and see if you can find the wall.

I didn't quite find it on that one so I'll come up and move a little further back and take a test. I found it, there it is. So that helps me stay well anchored on my heels. Now I'll come up and we'll practice a few with the arms at the sides. Breath in, exhale, stretch back with your bottom and find that wall.

Come back up, inhale, exhale, go down. Each time you have to reach backward with your bottom to find that wall. Take a pause, we'll try it with the arms up this time. Arms go up, inhale, exhale, sitting back and come up, inhale, exhale, reach back for that wall. Arms come up, this time we'll go down and hold at a challenge pose and there we are.

Bottom just lightly touching the wall right there for five, breathing, four, three, two, and come out. That definitely gets the heat going in the thighs. We'll take that action now into a twist. We'll stretch up the arms to prepare, inhale and exhale, sit back again, find the wall. We're going to keep the hips at the wall and bring the left elbow across, right palm on top.

We'll make that prayer position. Let's take three more breaths here as we work a little further into the twist. And then slowly unwind, raise all the way up and find mountain pose. Shake it out a little bit and we'll do the second side. Arms up, big breath in, exhale, sitting back.

Find the wall, light contact with the wall so you aren't fully resting on the wall. This time, right elbow across, left hand on top. And then we're working with the breath to turn a little bit further. And then slowly release. We'll stretch the arms all the way to the top.

We'll find mountain pose and then shake out the legs. Let the blood come back into those muscles. From here, we're going to go a little bit deeper now into crescent pose. Crescent warrior will take a step forward with the right leg and still taking advantage of that heel at the wall for the support in the pose. Take the arms up nice and high, big breath in, exhale, lowering into the pose.

Let's do that one more time, coming up and then with the strength of the heel in the wall, I keep that heel well connected to the wall as I lower into the pose. And remember that gives us that nice internal organic lift in the body. Then we add to it. Take a breath in. On the exhale, sweep the arms down and back.

We call it airplane and then arms come up. We're just starting to work a little bit into the hip joints for the deeper twists that we'll be getting into. And one more time, inhale and exhale. Come back up. We'll take the foot down off the wall, bring the legs together and we'll take the second side.

Right leg to the wall, left leg forward. From the right hip to the heel, we're going to stretch that line of energy, reaching through the wall like a telescope. Stretch up the arms, inhale and we go into that crescent pose. Take a couple of breaths. Feeling the lift, that gift from your right heel.

Take a breath in. Let's do the airplane, exhale. Inhale to lift, exhale, folding at the hips. Inhale to lift, holding that energy in the right heel, all the way through your pose and then inhale, we'll pause and exhale, release the arms. Lower the back foot and bring it all the way in.

For our next pose, we're going to bring a few blocks into play for a little extra stability. The first pose is going to be warrior three. We'll start with the right foot forward, left leg back. We want the standing leg, the right leg, to be vertical, so I'm a little bit of trial and error to find that vertical position. Here we are for warrior three.

Each leg we want to reach into its foundation very strongly. Right leg into the floor, left leg into the wall, there it goes. That final instruction of the tailbone following the left heel. Let's work just this pose just like this for a few breaths. Keep the legs energized and the body lengthening and then bend your standing leg.

We'll replace the left foot where the right is and trade right into the second side. All right, mostly vertical standing leg, powerfully reach each leg into its foundation, floor or wall, and reach that sacrum and tailbone toward the lifted heel. That allows us to lengthen the spine safely. And then bring the leg down. One more time like this, we'll go up, left leg, but we get to add to it.

We get to add some strength and power. Both legs strong and active into their foundations, floor and wall, and the right leg is on the floor. That means the left arm is going to reach. Let's find our balance. Hold that power, three, two, and one.

Bring it down. We'll trade feet. This work's really going to help us in the hips to get deeper into our twisting poses. All right, powerful reach of both legs and then the opposite arm from the standing leg, right arm. Long reach, three, two, and one.

Leg down and come on up. Let's take a pausing pose. Let the body recover. Mountain pose. Feeling into your body where the heat is developed, the awareness is developed.

All right. Let's challenge a cousin of that pose that's rotated half moon. We'll take the hands onto the block again and find our first position. Here it is. Left leg down, right leg up, and we're going to be turning open to the left side.

We'll take the right block so it's just below the chest. Powerfully charge up the legs and place the left hand on your hip. Take a breath in, pushing down on your standing arm. Let's turn and open to the side breathing and then turn the chest back down. Let's bring the hands to the blocks, feet to the floor, and we'll trade the leg up.

Okay, here we go. We have a strong leg reaching into their foundations. We'll bring the right hand to the hip, take a breath in and we'll turn. Keep flowing with that breath and engaged in those legs. And then coming down, once again, let's come up.

This time, let's separate the feet just a little bit to get a relaxing forward bend. Grab hold of the elbows, let your head hang down, and we're in a little recovery pose right now. Nice easy breaths. And then hands to knees, lift your chest and head, let the blood pressure settle, and then coming all the way up to standing. Our next pose is rotated triangle pose.

We can keep the two blocks and we'll bring the left foot up the wall to start, right foot forward, about three, three and a half feet between the stance of the legs. In this pose, the left foot is pointing a little bit out to the side, it's not straight directly forward. We're going to start with the left hand against the temple. Press down through your left leg for the foundation we've been learning. Lift that left elbow, inhale, exhale, and stretch that left elbow way forward, way forward as it pulls you around toward the right block, and then we'll unfurl the hand.

Right hand on your hip, and we're turning. So the turn comes from my pressure of the left heel into the wall. Soon as I undo that pressure, my body unwinds. We'll hold for a few breaths, and then slowly releasing, and strong body comes up. I'll step forward just so I have an even stance, and then step back with the other leg and find that wall.

So remember my toes are pointing a little bit off to the side, heel up the wall. We'll start with the right hand right against the temple, and lift up that elbow, and that pulls the right side body into the twist. Big inhale to prepare, exhale, pull the right elbow forward, forward, forward to the front edge of that left block, and then we'll unfurl and find stability. Turn the body open to the left side. I'm not worried about the top arm right now because I'm just looking to get that rotation happening in the trunk first so that the shoulders learn to stack all the way on top of one another.

And then we'll come out, turn the chest down, and press the body up. We'll bring the legs together, and once again, let's find Tadasana and feel inside. Let the eyes close for just a moment so you can better experience the inner body. And then we'll open the eyes, and take the blocks away, put them off to the side. Going to go back into our Crescent Warrior.

That means left foot up the wall, right leg forward. Take a moment, nice and easy, from the hips, press that back heel through the wall. Let that inform the entire inner body to lift. Take a big breath in, and we'll go for that Crescent Warrior. Continuously stretching from hip to heel to get that inner support for all the joints.

From here we're going into a rotated side angle pose. Take another big breath in, I'll take the hand to the temple, left hand to the temple, and exhale, bring the trunk across, and hook in. I use that elbow to help revolve my trunk around, and I'll finish with palm on top of palm. So it's a challenge for sure to keep that back leg charged up, but that's what keeps us stable and safe. And inwardly opening.

All right, let's slowly come out, keep that stability if you can. Stretch up, finishing in the Warrior, and we'll come out slow and easy. Turning the feet down, we'll go to the second side. Right foot up the wall, little angle in the foot, just pause. Find that reach from your right hip through to your right heel until you feel like there's an inner lift in the body.

Stretch the arms from that lift, breath in, let's find our warrior, Crescent Warrior. So we keep the extension of the right hip to heal. Take a breath in, we'll bring the right hand to the temple, other hand to the hip, reach across the left side. I'm going to use that elbow to help revolve, turn the body, and then place the left hand on top. So I have to charge up my awareness and my reaching back leg as I hold into the twist.

Three, breathing, two, and one. Slowly unwind, straighten the leg for one last internal lift all the way to the arms, finding your Crescent again, and then come out. We'll turn the feet down, walk the legs together. Let's take a recovery downward facing dog. Coming down to your knees, hands on the mat.

Like we've been doing, let's place the heels on the wall, pressing the heels from hips to heels, lifting the thighs up and back, and lengthening the spine for the recovery. I'm going to hold the sides of the mat to really help stabilize my position so I can get the most out of this dog pose. You're welcome to join me with that, or if you're feeling nice and sticky on the mat with the hands, then stay as you are. And let's bring it down for just a quick child's pose and let the body fully recover. Walk the body back up, ready for an inversion.

So the work we've been doing with the legs is going to help inform the power and lift of our handstand. And don't worry, I've got a lot of stages to take you through, so you'll feel very safe and confident in this. The way to set up this pose is to bring the heels against the wall and the hands forward about under the shoulders. Then you walk the hands about half a handstand forward and ready for your pose. The first stop is a halfway dog.

This will be your first stage to challenge. Notice how well bent those knees are. Same for you, just working here and then coming back down. The next stage, same idea, will come up, bring one foot up a little higher than your bottom, and you have to push the leg to straight like we've been doing in the standing poses. So I'm pushing through my heels.

In fact, you can see I'm lifting my toes off the wall. That's how strongly I'm pressing with the heels. And as we've been saying, that drives the legs up and gives you the lift in your standing poses that now is translating here to your inversion. Carefully walk back down so you don't hurt the toes. Take a pause and wiggle the spine, let the blood pressure recover.

Now you can stop at any of these stages if you're feeling like that's your edge today or we'll take it one step further. We can try to lift the leg. So we'll come back into the first stop. Then stop bringing a foot just above your bottom and pressing the legs upward to straight, locking the knees and driving through the heels. We're going to bring the feet together and let's try the right leg straight up.

Now just like the standing poses, though I don't have the floor here with this top leg, I'm pushing up as though I did and the foot at the wall also stretching very strongly through the wall. That lets me internally and then walking down safe and carefully a nice rest. I've got one more to do left side. We can do it. Remember, pick the stage that works for you.

All right. Coming back to hands and knees, feet at the wall, hands just in front of the shoulders. I come up. Let's try the other leg up first, just a little bit higher than your bottom. Push the leg into the wall to make the legs go straight at the knees.

We'll bring the legs together so we can feel that midline of the body and now stretch up. Holding there, strong, straight, lifted leg. Pressing the heels through their respective foundations, the sky or the wall, and then walk down slow and carefully. And now it's time for a full recovery. Let's go into a child's pose and rest.

Let the breathing calm. Give yourself a little praise for challenging that inversion and let's press ourselves back up to a sitting position. Great job on challenging those inversions today. We're going to take this kneeling pose, turn it sideways near to the wall. And let me just suggest that if your knees don't tolerate sitting at this folded level, you might have some folded blankets between your hips and your heels or even a nice solid block underneath your bottom.

So we'll take about a six to eight inch distance from the wall and we'll bring the right arm behind, the left arm around in front for a nice twist here. We keep the legs nice and stable, but we use the arms to help inform how to twist. And we'll complete the twist with a turn of the head over the left arm or the shoulder that's closer to the knees. And then release and we'll do the second side. We'll turn it around with the body about six, eight inches from the wall.

This time we'll swipe the left arm around the back, right arm around the front. We keep the legs close together and then I use the arms to begin that twisting. For those of you who are quite mobile, there's a tendency to really push in the low and mid back here. Watch out for that tendency and have a little support from front to back in the torso so you don't over arc your back. One more nice long breath and then release and let go.

For some of our sitting poses, we're going to once again grab a block to help with our flexibility. We'll take one block and it's nice to have a strap here as well. It just allows us to get a little bit deeper into the pose. So we'll take the block and find the right distance so that when we're sitting on the block, our heels nicely touch the wall. We'll start with the left leg out and drawn back.

This is known as Janu Sirshasana. And then we'll take the strap around the bottom of the right foot. So the connection with the wall, like we've always been doing here in this session, previous session just really helps us get a chance to learn how to lift. I'll take my right leg and stretch it through to the foot and heel as I pull back with my arms. And as you can see, when I'm pulsing that, my whole body is charged up with length.

But it's length from the inside. It's organic. It's soft. It's not like a muscle hardening. And then with that length in place, take a breath in and exhale, bending your arms, draw the torso down.

You can let the strap go. And if you'd like, you can come close to the toes, the hands, sorry, the heel either way and start to pull the body forward. One more nice, long, slow breath. Still the leg is reaching for the wall and slowly up and out. We'll extend both legs and trade sides.

This time the right leg is pulled back and the sole of the foot is touching the inside of the left leg. Let's grab the strap. Okay, first move like we've been doing is to stretch the leg into the wall and then a few times I'm going to pulse this. We're going to pull the arms back towards their sockets each time we get that pulsing lift in the body. And let's hold the lift this time.

So we're becoming accustomed to that space before we just fall forward. We're learning that space, the feeling of space. Now that we're more acquainted with it, let's take that space forward. Big breath in and then bending the elbows out to the sides, elongate with the space. You can reach for the toes, the ankle, the shin, and coming forward and down.

And my elbows are up here because it draws the trunk forward. If the elbows go down, the trunk tends to round and fall and collapse. So elbows up helps to bring the trunk forward and maintains that space. And then come up and release. Let's set the strap off to the side for a minute.

Extend both legs out. Next pose is called Marichyasana. It's a twist, Marichyasana 3. We'll bend the left leg and bring the right arm around, left hand behind. We'll start with this position first and we'll see if we can take it deeper.

So I'm using this right arm to help draw the torso around. Remember right leg reaching into the wall helps us connect to this twist. Now if that feels fairly simple to you and you want to take it further, you could bring the elbow across, lift up again, and turn. And release to center. Both legs to the wall and we'll bend up the right leg.

We'll bring the left arm around, right arm behind to help lift up first, and then turn. So one thing you have a better view of this leg, we want it to roll into the twist with us. Typically when we're sitting the foot sort of lulls off, here we get that leg to roll around with so that the pelvis even learns to come around the twist. And if you'd like to take it deeper, bring the left elbow across, lift and turn. And release.

And we'll let that go. And come down off the brick, set that off to the side. Let's lie down on the back and we'll go for a quick bridge pose. We'll set ourselves up for our shoulder stand. Hold onto the sides of the mat, lift your hips, tuck the shoulders under as you're holding onto that mat.

Remember you want to hold on nice and securely and we'll take an easy bridge right now because we're going to hold it for a few breaths, and become acquainted with that space and lift inside. And then we can start to add a little power down through the feet, lifting the sacrum and tailbone vertically straight up, and also pressing the shoulders and arms flatly down into the floor through your yoga mat to help bring the middle spine a little further up as well, known as the dorsal spine. And then come down. Let's take a little knee to chest to free up the low back after the back bend. And then let it go.

We'll turn to the side and come up. And I'm excited to show you this shoulder stand technique. It's a really lovely way to start to learn how to truly lift up and out of the pose and get that upright balance that shoulder stand requires. We'll be using two blankets. If you have a third blanket, by all means you can add it into the stack.

You'll start by taking the two folded edges to the end of the mat, both folded edges. You want to make a nice clean stack with these, just like that. Then you'll take the tail of the mat and bring it right up to the edge. From here you slide this into the wall and a little bit up. And as you'll have seen in our tutorial, you'll learn how to make it your torso width.

Having a block right in here is a nice way to add a little extra boost to come up into the pose. So we come up from the side, so I'll lie down, roll on in, and snuggle my way to the wall. We'll start here like this, and it's nice to just rest in this position. It's a lot like Viparita Karani, as we've ended some of the previous sessions, but it lets the blood pressure settle, and it's nice to take this for about 30 seconds or so before you go up. The head can feel a little bit full of blood pressure, if you come up too quickly.

So we'll just settle together like this as you get yourself organized and let the body prepare for its inversion. Alright, so we start by grabbing hold at the corners of the mat, anywhere down there, just like in bridge pose. I'm going to bend my knees and raise up. You'll see that the body is still tilting toward the wall, so I need to start to help it by getting those shoulders under, just like bridge pose. I hold on and tuck the shoulders underneath, just like we would do in the bridge pose.

And press my arms into the floor, and you can see as I'm pulsing that, each time I press, you see the whole body starting to elevate. And that's the shoulder blades starting to press and lift the chest. We'll check that the feet are about level with the knees, and press the tailbone and sacrum forward and upward toward the ceiling, forward and upward. And we can hold this intermediate stage, we'll call it, and learn to go on lifting that sacrum and tailbone to the backs of the knees. We'll take one final change in the pose, which is to release the mat and bring the hands against your mid-back.

The entirety of the palms you want there. And so if your neck feels a little bit too compressed, you can always come down, add an extra blanket, so that you'll have more of a nice open angle in your neck. And so we're just holding here. One nice little addition, you can take the heels off the wall, and that helps to further lift the body up. So let's hold this pose for just a few breaths.

Arms pressing the floor, sacrum and tailbone, lifting, lifting, lifting to help take the pressure out of the shoulders and neck. We'll stay for about 30 seconds. And if you find the shoulder stand, just doesn't agree with you for whatever reason. You know now Viparita Karani, which we've done, which is a wonderful, lovely, restorative pose as well. Okay, to come down, replacing the heels on the wall, let the hands off the body, and let your body down.

We're going to take a little bit of a journey away from the wall until the shoulders and the mid-back come down onto the wall, onto the floor, excuse me, and then rest the arms, and we'll let the body recover from the inversion. And shoulder stand definitely takes a little bit of practice to get used to, the feeling that you can get, lengthen the body and taking the pressure out of the neck, but it definitely comes with some sustained practice, you'll get it. And then we'll turn to the side and come up into a sitting position for just a moment. And this will be a counter pose to your shoulder stand. Go sit with cross legs and raise the arms up.

Look at your thumbs. So we're arcing the neck back, this is anti what shoulder stand does, it's a nice way to recover. And bring the arms down, and then we'll change the finger interlock so the other fingers are on top, invert, and again, take it up. Looking up at those thumbs, and then releasing down. And we'll finish this practice with Shavasana.

So let's open up the mat. We won't need the block anymore. We'll extend out the mat. And you might have already guessed it, but we're going to use the wall for Shavasana as well. You'll only need one folded blanket, we'll take the other off to the side.

And this will be for the head and neck. They'll take a little positioning to get into, to get the right distance. So I'll lie down first with bent knees. And I start a little bit of a wiggling away from the wall until I have just the tiniest little bend in the knees, tiniest little bend in the knees so that when I straighten my legs fully, it just helps gently press my body in the direction of the head. Ah, perfect.

Just like that. And you'll feel that that pressure from the heels, just like all the standing poses, just creates this lovely lengthening of the body in the direction of the head and begins to create a settling action, an automatic calming. Let your eyes close. If that leg action is done well, it should feel like the chest is calling for your attention, that deeper space in the chest. Let your attention settle there as you watch the breath rise and fall.

And let your energy recede from the periphery toward the center. Until all that energy from the legs, from the arms, and even from the mind settle in the spacious stillness of the chest. Thank you. And then if you'd like to stay longer, please do. If you're ready to come out, you can rest your hands on your tummy.

One by one, you softly bend the knees. Let's turn to the side and rest on the side. And you can either use the blanket or add an arm. And then before you come up, turn a little further into the ground and then push your way up to sitting. And you can either choose simple cross legs, or I'm going to go into more of a badrasan.

I'm sitting and close your eyes, noticing the presence of that stillness. And from that stillness, I say namaste. Thank you so much for being here. Look forward to seeing you in the next session.