Move Your Energy

Welcome. Today's practice is a personal favorite of mine because it's a practice that's meant to help you burn off steam. So an example is when you're really irritable or you're frustrated with a certain person in your life or yourself. Basically any time where you're feeling stressed, anxious, not good. And the reason I designed this practice is because when we sit with those emotions, the inflammation that they bring about in us has a negative effect on our whole system. And the best thing that we can do is try and clear those emotions and it's much easier said than done. So I found that the best way for me to clear those emotions and for a lot of people is movement, just to move the body, move the chi. And then also doing postures that help you to focus, particularly balancing poses because your mind really can't drift off into thought. You can't think about an event that happened that triggered you. And because your mind is so focused on the posture, if you do drift off into thought, then you're going to fall. So I hope this helps you. Sitting with irritability is incredibly uncomfortable and not very helpful for hormonal balance. So let's come to the front of our mat and to Samastitihi and we'll bring our hands to prayer position and we'll start with sun salutations. Relax your shoulders down the back, lift your chest up, take deep breaths in and out through the nose. And then we'll take the arms down alongside the body. With inhalation, we'll reach the arms up overhead. With exhalation, hinge at the hips and fold forward. Inhale, lengthen and exhale, bend the knees, set the hands step or jump back and lower down. Inhale to cobra or up dog and exhale back to downward facing dog. Deep breaths and down dog in and out through the nose. If you even want to let one out through the mouth, take a deep breath in and just head out, go ahead. Press the hands, lift the hips up and back, legs nice and strong, reach the heels down. At the end of your next exhale, look forward and bring your feet to your hands, stepping or jumping. Inhale and lengthen, exhale and fold and inhale, come all the way up. We're just going to keep moving. Exhale, arms down. Inhale and arms reach. Exhale, hinge at the hips and fold. Inhale and lengthen. Exhale, step or jump back and lower down. Inhale to upward dog and exhale back to downward facing dog. Deep breaths in and out through the nose. Maybe they're kind of tense breaths in the beginning, but hopefully as we move more, they start to soften. Take one more deep breath in, exhale completely, look forward and step or jump your feet to your hands. Inhale and lengthen, exhale and fold and inhale, come all the way up, reach your arms up overhead. Exhale, samasthiti. Inhale and arms reach. Exhale and fold. Inhale and lengthen. This time exhale, we're going to step back to plank pose and hold here. Pull your belly in, press the inner hand down, lengthen your tailbone and then with your next exhale, you're going to roll onto the outer edge of your right foot, inner edge of your left for vashisthasana and we have the option to bring your right knee down to the floor and then roll over to your side. So see what version suits you best today and you can always stack your left foot on top of the right. Find a place that challenges you to focus and breathe. We don't want it to be too easy because we do need to find that single pointed focus. Deep breathing, shoulders down the back and then we'll just exhale, bring the hands down to the floor, press back to downward facing dog, take a deep breath in and out through the nose and then with your next inhale, we'll come forward again to plank and then shift onto either the left knee or the outer edge of the left foot. Stretch the right arm up to the ceiling and find your vashisthasana. One more deep breath in and exhale, release, bring the hand down to the floor and press back to downward facing dog. We'll take two breaths here in and out through the nose. One more deep breath and with the end of your exhalation, look forward and walk your feet to your hands.

Exhale and lengthen, exhale and fold and inhale, come all the way up and exhale, arms down. Let's just open up to the right and turn your right toes out, left toes angled in. We'll take trikonasana with inhalation, draw your shoulders down but reach out through the fingertips and exhalation will drop the right hip, reach out through the right side body and take your hand either to a block or to the floor outside of your foot and we'll reach the left arm up to the ceiling, pull your shoulders back, belly in and breathe. From here we're going to move into artichandrasana. So we'll take the left hand to the hip, put a slight bend in your right knee and reach your right hand forward about a foot in front of your right toes so that the thumb is lined up with your pinky and your baby toe and the hand can also be on a block. Then we'll step the left foot forward about halfway and then we'll come to balance. Start to straighten the right leg and raise the left leg up at the same time and rotate your left shoulder over your right. You can either stay looking down if that helps you focus a little better or you can challenge yourself to look up towards your left thumb. Most importantly keep breathing, be kind to yourself. If it's not happening today just stay with triangle pose. Breathe there or fall out of it and come back into it. That's fine too. And then we'll look down, bend your right knee, stumble if you need to, set your left foot down to the floor, find triangle pose for one breath and then inhale come up and exhale we'll change sides. Turn your left toes out, right toes in, take another deep breath to reach through the arms, exhale pull the left hip back as you fold out into triangle pose on your left side. And then start to rotate the chest open, reach the right arm up to the ceiling and keep firming the outer left hip in, press the big toe mound, and then through the crown of your head. And you have the option to just stay here in triangle pose or bring your right hand to your hip, look down, put a slight bend in your left knee, reach your left hand forward about a foot, stand onto your left foot and just slide your right toes in and then start to find your balance by raising your right leg up so it's parallel to the floor. Keep firming the outer left hip in and open the right hip up just a bit. Maybe stretch your right arm up and maybe turn your head to look up to you. When you're ready, look down, bend your left knee, step your right foot back into triangle pose, find that posture for one breath and then inhale come on up and exhale we'll step to the front of our mat. Bend your knees, sit your hips back and inhale into chair pose, exhale and fold forward. Straightening the legs, inhale and lengthen, exhale, set the hands, step or jump to chaturanga. Inhale to cobra or up dog and exhale to downward facing dog. From downward dog we'll take the right foot forward, keep the left heel lifted and we're going to come up into crescent pose, press down into your front heel, soften your back knee just a bit so you can lift your front hip bones up, reach the arms up overhead then maybe start to re-straighten your back leg and breathe. Deep breaths into your chest and then we'll exhale release, bring the hands to the floor, step back and lower. Inhale cobra or up dog and exhale downward dog and we'll take the left foot forward, keep the right heel lifted and inhale coming up into a cobra or into a crescent pose, lift the front hip bones, back knee can stay soft for a moment and start to reach the arms up and then start straightening the back leg. Deep breathing, can either look forward or start to tilt the head back and then we'll release, set the hands down, step back and lower. Inhale up dog, exhale to downward facing dog and do your next exhale look forward, step or jump your feet to your hands, inhale and lengthen, exhale and fold, bend your knees, set your hips back, inhale to chair and exhale stand up tall, bend your knees, inhale, exhale fold, inhale and lengthen, exhale step or jump to chaturanga, inhale cobra or up dog, exhale to downward facing dog, from downward dog we're going to step the right foot forward, pivot the left heel down and come up into a warrior one, this is going to get fun in a moment, you may want to have a couple blocks at the front of your mat, from here we'll take our hands to prayer position at the heart, lift up your back heel and then step onto your front foot and just slide your left toes in, we'll take this into warrior three, start to raise the back leg up, maybe take the arms alongside the body or keep them at prayer, you may even want to reach them out in front of you. If you have blocks you can also place your hands onto blocks on the floor, take a few more breaths here and then in a moment we're going to take this into a twisting articindrasana, which means we'll bring the left hand to the floor or a block, take the right hand to your low back and start to revolve your right shoulder up over your left, keep the left leg as straight as you can, press out through the left heel and maybe raise the right arm up. And then with an exhalation, untwist, bring your hands down to the floor or blocks, bend your front knee, step your left foot back to a warrior position, warrior one position, so planting the outer edge of the foot and the heel down and inhale, let's come up to warrior one, just one more breath and then exhale, let it go, set the hands down, step back, shift forward and lower, inhale cobra or up dog and exhale to downward facing dog. And then we'll take the left foot forward, pivot the right heel down and inhale, come up into a warrior one and from there we're going to bring the hands to prayer position at the heart, pick up your back heel, start to lean forward and step onto your left foot, sliding your right toes forward until you establish the balance in your left foot, then flex the right foot, start to raise the right leg up, maybe start to raise the left leg or straighten the left leg rather and choose your arm variation.

You always have the option of staying in warrior one or working with blocks here underneath your hands, then we'll take the right hand to the floor or a block, keep the left hand at your low back sacrum area and start to revolve to the left. And then with your next exhalation, bring your left hand down to the floor, bend your left knee, reach your right toes back and step into your warrior one stance, with one inhalation we'll come up into warrior one and exhale, bring the hands down to the floor, step back and lower, inhale cobra or up dog and exhale downward dog, take a few breaths in down dog and then from down dog we'll come down to our knees to set up for forearm plank which will lead into dolphin and potentially pinch of mayurasana if you really want to challenge your balance and you can take this to the wall as well, so just bring the wall behind you so that you don't flip over into a back bend. So set the forearms up so they're parallel and we're going to press into the inner corners of the hand, so the index finger and the thumb, press down to the floor, you can always use a block between your hands or a strap over your elbows, we'll curl the toes under lift the hips up and you can walk your toes forward and stay up high on the roots of the toes lifting the heels and for a few moments we're just going to stay with this dolphin pose and so as you do that you can just drop your head so you don't create any tension in the neck and shoulders and look back towards your feet and if this is too intense you can stay here in plank, in forearm plank, you're going to hold this for a good amount of time, press into the hands and pull the, press the shoulders back, almost like the effort that you're trying to strain your arms here, at the same time pull your front ribs in your lower belly in, three more breaths in and out through the nose, at any point you really need to go down into child's pose and then we'll rest, so we'll do that again and you always have the option to stay with dolphin pose or go into Pinta Mayarasana, so make sure your forearms are all set up, elbow shoulder distance, hands shoulder distance, we'll curl the toes under lift the hips up and you can practice just raising one leg at a time, if you want to start to approach Pinta or you can stay in dolphin or if you have a Pinta Mayarasana practice you can come up now and then we'll release when you're ready and we'll come down to child's pose, just let your forehead come to the floor and from here we'll come up and we're going to take a camel pose, so for camel's pose you can use blocks besides your shins if you'd like or you can curl your toes under and reach back for your heels, I'm going to do it with my toes pointed straight back and the tops of my feet pressing the floor and then I'll press the tops of my shins down, pull my belly in, lift the chest up, start to tip the head back and then possibly reach your hands back towards your ankles or you can also use blocks besides your feet and then from there you'll bring your hands to your hips, inhale and lift up and then exhale and just bring your hands to your thighs and sit your hips back and we'll do that one more time and when you're ready we'll press the tops of the feet, inhale, lift your hips up again, take your hands to your hips, lift your chest, pull your shoulders back and then find a place either the backs of your thighs here, hands to blocks or hands to your feet and then to come up you can always use the backs of your legs to inhale, come up and exhale, we'll sit back down onto our heels, take your arms out in front of you and let's come into another child's pose and we'll come up to seated and let's stretch the legs out in front of you, toes pointed up to the ceilings and you'll come onto your sitting bones taking like a dandasana, hands flat, lift your chest, pull your ribs in and then you can take the option of reaching the arms up overhead, with exhalation you'll hinge at the hips, reach for your big toes, inhale, lift your chest and exhale, fold. Just take long, smooth, cooling breaths in and out through the nose and then we'll inhale, straighten the arms and exhale, release and we'll come down into shavasana, so we'll lie down on our backs, straighten the legs out in front of you, turn your palms open to the ceiling, press the back of your head and bring your shoulders underneath you and just let the belly be soft, allow it to rise with the inhalation, fall with the exhalation, relax any tension in the jaw, the cheeks, the shoulders, scan your entire body and guide the breath into any places that are still holding on. So, we're going to come down into shavasana, we're going to come down into shavasana, we're going to come down into shavasana, we're going to come down into shavasana, we're going to come down into shavasana, slowly you'll stretch through your fingers and toes, maybe roll the wrists and ankles, and when you're ready you'll reach the arms up overhead, with exhalation you'll bend your knees and roll over to your right side, and from there you'll press your left hand to the floor and come up to a comfortable seated position, I'll bring the hands to prayer position at the heart, thank you for joining me today, namaste.