Careful Core Strength

Namaste and welcome. Our practice here will be focused on core strength, which is absolutely necessary to be able to enter into the deeper poses safely and confidently. We're going to start on our back for some rolling bridges. We'll lie down, knees bent, feet about hip width apart, and just rest your arms alongside your body. Our first step will be to roll the tailbone up, followed by the lower back, middle back, and we'll come up to the shoulder blades and then reverse on the way back down. So this will be a little bit different from a classic sachibhandasana, bridge pose in yoga, in that we'll only come up to roughly a flat spine, in other words a straight line from the shoulders to the knees. And that will help bring a little bit more contact to the abdominal muscles. To dive a little deeper in the cueing, when the tailbone comes up, we're going to hold the ribcage down for as long as possible and that will bring that abdominal connection and holding that connection up to our peak and then back down. We'll do three more like that, rolling the tailbone up, holding the ribcage down for just a moment, feel the abdominals turn on, and then the ribcage down which helps firm the abdomen even more, and we relax at the bottom. Two to go, tailbone, holding the ribs to the last second, and then ribcage down, and one more. Rolling the tailbone up, feeling the abdominal connection, supporting the spine, and back down. Let's take it a step further now, we'll roll up into our bridge, again about a straight line from shoulders to the hips to the knees, and we're going to do a slight lift of the right leg. So I stabilize the hips, keep the chest nice and steady, and bring the right foot a few inches off the ground. Holding for five, four, three, two, and back down. We'll organize the lift of the bridge for just a minute, and we'll go with the left leg, holding this pelvis steady, and a gentle lift of the left foot for a few inches, five, four, three, two, set that foot down, let the bridge down. Let's do it again, bringing the hips up, nice strong steady spine, and we'll keep the pelvis level, peel up the heel of the right foot, and then the toes, and we're holding, five, four, three, two, and foot down. We'll stay in the bridge, a little lift, and now we're going to the left foot, so we'll peel the heel off first, nice strong steady spine and pelvis, and now holding the left foot off for five, four, three, two, and one. Bring everything down, knees to chest, give yourself a nice hug, release the low back muscles, and our next pose will be thunderbolt pose, a wonderful pose I learned from Eric Schiffman, who happens to be a really wonderful instructor here as well. We'll start with the left foot, and you can either grab the big toe or hold the outside of the foot. Second leg will stretch straight up, inhale and exhale, bring your head off the ground, and begin to reach down the right leg toward the floor. So the right foot is about a foot to foot and a half off the floor, and that helps us hold very strong and steady in the abdominal muscles. And then bring the leg in, rest your head down. We'll switch legs, holding onto either the big toe or the outside of the foot, you can choose there, and drawing the knee down to the floor, we'll take a big breath in as we raise up, exhaling as we take it down, I pull the right knee down to the floor as the left leg lengthens. And then bringing it back in. One more time each, choose your grasping spot, draw the left knee down toward the floor, right leg up, inhale and exhaling into the pose. And so the position of the left leg holds the pelvis in position that gives us the strong abdominal connection. We'll bring it down, final side, I grab hold, raising the left leg up, inhale, exhale, I pull the right knee down to lock the pelvis in place, and I curl up to chase the left foot. Four, three, two, bring it in, again another nice hug as you pause. We'll stretch the arms out into a T shape, palms up, knees and legs together and close to the chest. Take a nice deep breath in, on your exhale, we're going to turn the pelvis and legs over to the right side. Hovering the legs off the ground, take a deep breath in and we're going to turn the left chest down toward the floor, exhale, turn the abdomen to the right, towards the legs, and bring it back to center. Second side, a breath in, exhaling, legs over to the left, turn the pelvis, we hover the legs off the ground. In this position, take a breath in, turn the right chest down, on the exhale, turn the abdomen around to the left and then come back to center. We'll do one more time each side. Breath in to get ready, exhale, turning the legs over to the right side, inhale, left chest presses down to the floor, exhale, abdomen turns to the right. Come on back and we go to the left side, breath in, exhale, legs to the left, inhale, right chest presses down, exhaling, abdomen turns a little further to the left. Come to center, we'll set the feet on the ground and just take a pause to recover and then we'll add a little bit extra on this one. Same exercise with a little bit more. Knees into chest, this time we'll take the left leg straight up into the air, connect the inner legs together. Big breath in, exhale, once again, we're sending the legs over to the right side as though we were going to set the left foot into the right hand. We're pausing. Breath in, work that left chest down to the mat, exhale, abdomen turns to the right and then bring it out. Let's rest the feet on the ground and recover. Second side, knees into the chest, last one, right leg up, big breath in, exhale, taking the legs over as though you're going to set your right foot in that opposite hand. It's a big turn. We take a breath in, anchor the right chest down, exhale, turn the abdomen more to the left and then return to center, rest the legs on the floor and we'll pause to recover. From here, we'll draw the knees into the chest, get into the knees and just start an easy rolling. When you're ready, roll up to sitting.

From sitting, we'll take it into cat and cow position with a little variation on our old friend cat and cow and we'll start with the left hand resting on the back of the hip. This is going to bring a lot more abdominal work into this particular pose. Take a breath in, on your exhale spine goes up, inhale spine down, exhale spine up, inhale down. Two more. Last one. We'll switch hands. Right hand behind, exhale spine goes up, pushing the floor with that left hand, inhale down, exhale, inhaling, exhaling, push the floor with the left hand, feel that abdominal connection and we'll get one more. From here, downward facing dog, place the hands about shoulder width, curl the toes under and lift the knees, pressing the hips up and back. From here, let's add a little core and mobility. We'll raise the right leg up, take a big breath in, exhale, bring the knee into your chest and shoulders over the wrists. Draw in and up with the abdominals. Inhale, stretch back, exhale, pull in. Inhale, open and lengthen your body. Exhale, pull in. Two more. Inhale, exhale. As the knee comes in, spine and ribcage lift up. One more and exhale in. Set the right foot down, lower your knees, come off your hands for a second, give yourself a little pause and we'll go again. In your dog pose, this time left leg, raise up nice and high, get that length out of the body. Inhale, exhale, knee to chest, lift the abdomen and ribs. Inhale, go back. Inhale, come in. Inhale for three, exhale, ribs and abdomen up, four and last one. Drawing in, building that deep core strength. We'll rest in dog pose and then come down to the knees. Next we'll challenge chaturanga dandasana from the knees position so we can really work on the arm strength without worrying too much about holding the core up. We're going to start with the knees together and feet off the ground. This is going to help us really access our core strength that we'll need for the full pose later. We'll start by taking an inhale and bringing the hips down so we make a straight line from knees to shoulders. Big breath in, exhale, pull the elbows near to your ribs and we'll come down and hold for five, four, three, two, and press back and pause. You might take a little child's pose rest each time. We'll do five of these. Come forward, feet up and hips forward. Big breath in, elbows pointing straight back as we pinch the side ribs with the elbows for five, four, three, two, and one. A quick rest. Coming forward again, knees up. Inhale, exhale, coming down. Hold those arms into the side ribs. And coming back, last two. Come forward, hips forward, feet high. Inhale, elbows pull straight backwards. Straight backwards. That makes sure we can hold the body with the strength of the arms. And then we have one more to do. And we come forward and bending in. Five, four, three, two, and one. Pressing back, you can come off with the hands. Take a little rest. And for our next pose jumpings, we can use the blocks for a little bit of help and assistance to get our height out of the pose.

Taking the blocks on the mat about mat width, hands on the blocks and you can have your fingers curl right over the top. We're going to find a downward facing dog and work on doing little hops from dog pose towards Uttanasana. So I'll raise my heels, bend my knees, look forward and we'll start with a little bunny hop. And then jumping back into more of a dog pose. Not a plank, but a dog pose. Just there. And our destination here is to try to get a little bit of hang time as we jump and hang just for a second and jump back. And again, jump, holding from the core and jump back. And we'll do one more. Jump and hold for a moment and then pause. Put the blocks off to the side for just a moment. Feet together, bend the knees, fingertips to the floor. Uttanasana. And we're going to hold for 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and come all the way up. Let the legs rest for just a moment and we'll take this now into chair pose with a twist. We'll once again come down nice and deeply. We'll start by taking the right arm across the left elbow. We're going to take a few breaths to get into the pose deeply. Take an inhale, lift your trunk a little bit. Exhale, push with the right elbow and turn a little bit more. Inhale, lift. Exhale, when you turn, roll the back of your body toward the floor. One more. Inhale. Back of the body rolls down. Palm to palm. Building up the heat in those legs. Now a little breath work. Inhale into the ribs. Exhale, abdominal turn toward the ceiling.

Inhale ribs. Exhale, abdominal turn toward the ceiling. And come to center. Hands on the knees. Pause for just a moment. And we'll come up to standing. Shake out the legs. Second side. We'll come down. Left elbow is going to come across to the outside of the right leg. Take a few breaths to get in. So we'll inhale, lift the body a little bit. Exhale, turn the back of the body down toward the floor. Inhale, lift. Exhale, turn. Inhale, lift. And we're deep into the pose. Palm on palm. Then a little breath work. Inhale into the ribs. Exhale, abdominal turns up. Inhale, ribs. Exhale, abdominal turn. One more. Inhale, exhale, abdominal turn. And unwind. Hands on the knees. Let the body recover. And come on up and shake out the legs. We'll take the next pose with the feet a little bit wider than hips. Stretching up, we'll grab hold of the left wrist. Take a big breath in. Exhale, the hips can go a little bit out to the left as we go off to the right. So I want to use my right arm to pull length into these arms. Four, three, two, and come out. Take a moment to recover. And the second side. Left hand grabs right wrist. Take a breath in. Exhale, ribs to the right, body to the left. Three, two, and come out. Take the hands onto the knees. Let's do a few cat and cow. Inhale, spine down. Exhale, round spine. Let's take the challenge a little further. Feet together this time. Two arms up, right hand's going to grab the left wrist. I pull up with the arms for length in the body. Big breath in. Exhale, hips to the left, body to the right. Breath one. Two. Final breath. And come out. Relax your arms. Shake out the legs. Final side. Arms come up. Grab hold. Big breath in. Hips to the right, body to the left. Inhale. See if there's more depth. Inhale. Final depth. And come out. Separate the legs, little hands on knees. And again, cat and cow. And coming up. Let's take this strength now into an arm balance, known as bhakasana or crane pose. We're going to start by bringing the hands to the floor about shoulder width. And then the feet together. We'll take this in stages. Raise the heels up as high as they'll go and bend the elbows a little and see if you can just make contact. Knees to the backs of the tricep will come away. And again, knees to the backs of the tricep. And each time we're going to walk the hands back a little and see if we can get the knees all the way up to the armpits. Way, way, way up there. And then rest the heels. Come on up. Take a little break. So each stage you find out where you feel comfortable and confident. If you want to move further, you keep going or work on the stage we just had. Once again, hands on the floor. Heels up nice and high. Roll the elbows to point straight back. Back past the legs. Bend the elbows and touch in those knees. Our next step is going to be to tilt the body forward and begin to feel the body weight resting on the knees. Come back. Knees up a little higher if they'll go. And again, body weight forward. Come back one more time. Bring the body weight up into the backs of the knees. Sorry, the backs of the arms. And come out. Let's take a rest. We've got two more stages. Here we go. Coming down, place the hands. Raise the knees. Elbows bend. And touch in. Bring the body weight forward until the feet become slightly less heavy on the floor. And we'll start with the left foot first. Can you take just the left foot off? Press into your left knee into the back of the arm. Bring it down. Ready? Right foot. We're going to bring it up and push energy through that right knee into the back of the arm. Touch down. Come up and shake it out. We'll try for the full pose. Bakasana. Crane pose. Then coming down with the hands. Lift up the feet. Walk the hands back a little. And engage the knees to the backs of the arms.

The next stage we tilted forward. We practice taking a foot off and pressing the knee. We can practice taking the second foot off. Then the full pose. I push the knees into the backs of the arms to lift the core. For three, two, and rest down. Come on up and let the blood flow in the body. We'll bend the knees and take a ragdoll pose. Relax your body. Relax your mind. Let it ease into that quiet stillness after that work. And we'll find our way into the dog pose. If you need a child's pose after that challenging bakasana, please do take it. And then coming down to the knees. Our next pose will be side plank with a little bit of support. We'll start with the right leg straight, the left leg bent with a foot behind. Here we'll roll open the chest. I want you to push down a lot with that left leg to help your body up. And we're holding here. We can take the arm up. And then coming down. We'll do the other side. And I'm going to bring your attention to the straight leg foot. That's this one right here. Once again, start with rolling open your chest. That shoulder blade action that we've been working on. Back leg pushes on the floor to give us a lift. Now how about that straight leg foot? Challenge yourself to roll the sole of that foot down into the ground. That's what really brings the strength and power into the hips and core in this pose. We'll complete it with a full arm. And come down and rest. First side. Now what you've been learning, we're going to take into full side plank. Vasisthasana, if you're ready or stay with the bent knee, we'll start by using the assistance of the back leg and challenge yourself to turn the soul of that right foot down. Then if you're ready for it, we'll try to balance both legs. We've got it. Top arm up. And then coming down. Inside starting with the assisted pose. Roll open the chest. Use the help of the right leg to come up and then rolling the soul of the left foot down. What that does, it draws the hip up in the pose and you can lock in your side plank. Then we'll bring the top leg fully in. All right. If you're ready, you can take the top arm up for three, two, and one. Let's come down. Take a little pause. Our next pose is Tolasana. We're going to use two props, a strap, and some blocks. Let's start with the strap. If you can take full lotus pose, you don't really need the strap. But for myself, I can't really get into lotus pose, so we use a little bit of help from this tool here. I start out with the tail of the strap so that I can give myself a nice, strong, tight bind. You'll see that the strap is underneath the outsides of the feet and around the knees. I squeeze it in. Then the blocks. All right. I'm ready. The blocks are just to the sides of the center of the thigh. I'm going to start by pushing down on the blocks, inhaling and exhaling and bringing the pubic bone up toward the navel. And now here's the goods with the strap. I'm going to push my feet down into the floor and pull the legs up and hold for three, two, and one. So helpful to have that strap there because we can really get the benefit of this pose that if we can't do lotus pose. Once again, fingers over. I'm going to press down with my arms and bring the pubic bone up toward the navel. That's a little curl of the pelvis. Then I push my feet into the floor and raise the legs at the same time for three, two, and one. We'll get one more time. When you practice this practice, a number of times you can change the leg interlock, other leg forward, to get that balance in the nervous system. One more time, we'll push down with the arms. Exhale, roll that pubic bone up and then pressing the feet into the floor as you draw the legs up for three, two, and one. We did it. We can put the blocks off to the side and we won't need the strap anymore.

Let's lie down on the floor and take just a brief rest. Let the body recover. You can even let the legs down for just a second. Then we'll bend the knees, draw the legs into the chest and like we did before, nose to knees and just start a little bit of momentum and we'll come all the way up into a sitting position. Our next challenge is Navasana, foot pose. We're going to start with the hands forward and lean a long spine back. Find that balancing point where you really feel the core engage and we'll draw the two feet off the ground and this is our first exploration of the pose. We'll hold for ten count and then down, arms back, give yourself some support to rest. The next challenge will be working with the legs. Arms come forward, leaning back, drag the feet back and lift the knees. We'll start with the left leg, keeping the body long and tall. Left leg straightens up and bends. Up and bends. We'll go ten times. Three, four, five, six. Strong core works. Eight, nine and ten. Feet down, arms back and rest. Open up the abdomen. Third time. Draw the feet back, long spine. Toes off the ground. This time right leg ten times. One, two, three. Feel that heat working in the abdomen. Six, seven, eight, nine and last one, ten. Come down. Now if you're feeling fatigued, you can lie down for a little rest or we're going to challenge it with both legs. We can do it. Lean back, feet come off the ground and here we go. Ten times. Both legs. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten. Navasana. Boat pose. Relax. Let the abdomen go. From here we're going to challenge Ardha Navasana. Half boat pose. So we'll come down to elbows. And the first thing to work with, I'm going to push my forearms towards my feet, which helps to roll the pelvis back toward me. I let that go. One more time. As though I were sliding the forearms towards my feet, helps to turn the pelvis and draw the front ribs down. Then in that position I'll bring one and two legs up. We'll start by taking both legs up to the ceiling and then the left leg will start by lengthening down. Five times. One, two. I keep that elbow action so I continue to pull the pelvis my direction and the front ribs down. And one more time. And bend the knees. Rest your feet on the ground. One more time. We'll push the forearms to help draw the pelvis and the front ribs down. Legs up. All the way up. Five on the right leg. One. Two. Breathing. Four. Holding the pelvis. And five. Resting. You guessed it. Both legs. Let's see what we can do. Knees. Come all the way up both legs. And we're just going to do one time for a 10 count. You go down to the depth that you can maintain. We're going to push the forearms to hold the pelvis and ribs in place. And we are set. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. Awesome job. Feet down.

Let's take a rest. Lie down in your back. Let your abdomen relax. Even the legs can go down. It's like a pre-shavasana, shavasana. And a little bit more opening for the abdomen is you draw the legs into bada konasana. This helps pull the pelvis in the opposite direction we were just doing and gets a little length here in the abdomen. And then we'll go knees together. Turn to your side. Come on up to sitting. We'll take a few recovery poses. Adjust yourself so that your right shin is facing in front of you and your left leg is pulled back. If your left leg doesn't like to turn like that, you could extend the leg straight forward. But I'll show from here in the full pose. We're going to take a turn off to the right side. And then undo it a little and redo it again. Take some time to revolve around. You don't have to do it all in one time and let all of these abdominal muscles get their full length after the hard work we've been doing. And then we'll stay in the pose and add a right arm lift. Right arm comes up and we deepen the twist just a little bit. And then rest. Let's take it to the other side. Right leg tucked back, left shin in front. We'll turn around. And I'm going to take a few attempts at this to help the muscles unwind slowly. And then the fourth will stay. And just to make mention, this right hip in this case is definitely coming around. That's what gives me access to the pull and openness of the abdominal muscles. We'll add the left arm. It comes up and I help to deepen the twist. And then release. Let's turn onto the hips. Cross legs. Hands behind. Another recovery pose. I'll lift the hips and stretch the knees toward the floor. And rest. Uncross the legs. Cross the other way. And lift. Come down. One more time each side. Uncross, re-cross. And last time. Helping to unwind as we're aiming towards the chalasana. And then we'll come over for one final recovery pose. And that is upward facing dog. We'll come forward with the hips and gently and slowly walk the hips a little closer to the hands. For this we'll keep the toes well curled under and then lift the thighs. Let's take some breaths. And then lower down and find a child's pose. Let's have the arms extended to make sure we can open up the abdomen as we begin to rest and calm the body down. And then we'll make our way into chalasana. And I recommend that you bring a blanket in play again for the back of the head and neck. You can lengthen your way down onto the ground.

Adjust your blanket so it is behind the neck and head. Gently tuck the shoulders underneath behind and the shoulder blades behind. Unfurl the arms. And one leg at a time. You can lengthen the legs down. And then release their energy. Take a moment to let your body settle into the floor. Let gravity have you. And we'll start at the legs, letting the energy there relax and recede towards the center. Muscles around the hips are nice and soft. Let the abdomen relax and settle down towards the floor. Arms and shoulders completely soft. Holding your attention to your heart. Holding your attention toward your heart. Can you let your heart settle back toward the floor? Release the muscles between the shoulder blades or any muscles that would hold the ribs up away from the floor. Kind of like you're clearing away for the heart to settle and rest very softly against the ground. You can imagine the heart resting in a pool of warm water. And go on letting the heart settle back into the floor, into that pool. And as it touches there, relax the heart into that pool. Each chance you get is as though you're relaxing more and more space for the heart to settle back into. Any tension around the heart. You're relaxing, widening, softening. And we'll let the heart softening be our primary focus as we settle into Shavasana. Ok, welcome. Thank you.

I invite you to stay for as long as you'd like. If you are ready to come up, we'll rest the hands just over that soft heart that we've been releasing and relaxing. One by one, bend up the knees and we'll turn softly onto the right side and rest there for just a few moments. Please support your head there. You can let the eyes begin to flutter open and turn a little further toward the ground before you press up and we'll make our way to sitting.

If you like, you can use the blanket that you're using for a pillow to give yourself a little support and take a pause there. Rest your hands on your thighs. You can draw your attention again into that soft, open heart and from my heart to yours. Namaste. Thank you so much for being here with me.

We'll see you soon.