Wring out Your Day

Hello, welcome back to your mat. For this practice, we're going to be wringing out the spine with a good deal of twist. We also want to engage the mind to bring it into our practice, back to the body, and away from our everyday stressors so that we're really prepared to rest. Let's begin. We have two pillows, hopefully you do ideally.

I'm sitting on one to begin and the other one's nearby. For our first breath exercise, firework breath. If you're pregnant, please abstain from holding the breath. You can take the gestures with us and practice slow, deep breathing instead. Everybody exhale.

Then on the inhale, bring your arms up and clasp your hands. Hold the breath at the tip top. Hold, hold, hold, imagine you're drawing in your tensions and then as if bursting like a firework, let the air escape, let the hands float down. You might close your eyes. You might imagine embers falling and extinguishing.

Again with a twist, big inhale, gather up your issues, gather up your cares. Twist to the right, clasp your hands. Hold your breath. If you're not pregnant, hold in that tension. Turning to center, hands floating like dying embers, letting go.

Last time to the left, inhale, inhale, inhale, inhale, turn, clasp those hands. Hold your tension. Observe your thoughts, hold the breath and then explode it. Imagining that warm light, extinguishing as you settle the hands down to the earth. For wrist warm ups, please clasp your hands together, gazing at the hands.

This can be soft for this practice. Begin to circle your hands counterclockwise. Imagine that you're unwinding from your day, one hand helping the other around and then the other way. Keep moving the breath. Watch those hands with fascination.

Very nice. Let's make our way off our seat and turning to the front of the mat, your hands behind you and begin to flop your legs left and right. At first, just let them go wherever they want to go. At some point, they might become more uniform like windshield wipers. And we'll turn all the way to the right, dropping those knees to the right.

Turn away from me and towards the back of your mat, walking your hands that way for a long spinal twist. Take a breath in, sigh it out, breathing in. Breathing out and starting your way back towards the front of your mat. The knees are going to flip and flop to the left. Keep walking that direction.

Turn towards the back of the mat, breathing in, big sigh, breathing in and out. Looking towards the front of the mat and sitting there with your legs out in front of you. You're going to pick up your right knee as if it were really your long lost friend and bring that right foot on the outside of the knee. We're turning towards that knee and really hugging it into the belly, getting some nice pressure here in the lower right gut. Again I'm turning towards that right knee and I'm hugging in so much that when I inhale and lift up, the right hip probably will come off the mat.

And then from there just rocking. Breath is so deep that you can feel that gentle pressure of the thigh against the low belly. Placing the foot down, hands behind you, now the straight leg, that's your left, is going to bend. Placing the left foot on the mat and capturing gently this right shin into what's a figure four stretch. In here we're going to rock a little bit again, hips love rocking.

Lovely guys. For alter pose today, please notice your hands. I ask that you turn the left fingertips to the left and the right fingertips to the right. That way on the inhale you can slide your shoulder blades on the back and open the chest. Just exhale, kick down into that left heel and lift up towards the variation of alter pose.

Now you might stay, you might tap your hips down and take a rest, or it's quite interesting to inhale and lift up and exhale, flow it on down, inhale, exhale, seat comes down, inhale, seat comes up, exhale, seat down. Second side, lengthening that right leg and bringing the left knee in, crossing the left foot outside the knee and turning towards your left knee. Give it a good hug, this is your long lost friend. Now as you come in and sit up right, allow the left seat to come off the mat a little bit. And as you rock, the seat can get a little heavier and you might find over time you can keep this knee just as close, but the seat can come down to the earth.

Breathing in and breathing out, breathing in, breathing out, release that knee, placing the hands behind you, fingertips spun out to their sides, slide the right heel onto the mat and then slide your shoulder blades on the back as if presenting your heart. Play with it, exhale, pressing down into the hips and lifting your seat towards an alter pose and then exhale with me the first time, bring those hips back down, option to flow on the inhale we will lift. Put on the exhale, come down, inhale and lift, exhale, tap down the seat, inhale and lift, exhale, place it down, uncross the legs and swing your legs around now. Coming to hands and knees, any shakes you need of the wrists or the legs are good here. A little bit of cat cowing, on the inhale you will sway the back, look forward with the chest as well as the eyes and then exhale angry cat, those sides are so valuable in this practice, inhale cow pose, exhale angry cat, inhale, last time.

Find your right arm and slide it through, threading the needle, for a spinal twist the right shoulder wants to come down and you will find the right side of your head can likely come down too. When you feel secure place your top hand into the right hand and gently nudge that lower hand along, you can rock a little bit here. Hands are welcome then placing the hands down, left arm sliding through to the other side, finding your stability, placing right hand on left, right hand is helping that lower hand, gently nudging it away and grounding your hands to the earth, no tasks to do here, just being with the body and breath. Now slowly walking your hands back to hands and knees, tucking the toes, sending the seat back, lifting the knees for downward facing dog, it's an easy down dog, maybe walking it out, as if your dog were pawing the earth, then please lift your right leg up and step your right foot to your right thumb, I'll show in several steps with my right hand helping the foot. Once you're there one time inhale lengthen that right leg and exhale bend, one more inhale and exhale bend, inhale bring the right arm up and exhale draw the low belly away from the right thigh, inhale reach your right arm over your ear and take a full unwinding circle, back knee can be down if you want for these arm circles, but follow the hand with your gaze, start to self hypnotize, last one hand comes inside the right foot and turn with me to a straddle pose, I spun my right toes in and now all ten toes are facing the long side of the mat, put some eyes on those feet and make sure they're nice and parallel and then begin to bend one knee and the other in your own time, swaying your weight left and right and enjoy a little pause with one leg long, see if you can find the length on the inside of the leg, this is a yin line, great for relaxing, let's easily find the other side, I like to visualize the breath moving down into that inner leg line, then lengthening both legs, a little bend in the knees is fine, bring your hands behind your low back and lace your fingers together, begin to lengthen the arms, feeling that openness in your shoulders, head is nice and heavy so that the spine contraction, I'm even nodding my head, letting the weight of the head contribute to the length of the spine, any time you're done with this, allow the hands to come back to the mat, inhale flat back and keep turning to the back of the mat, spin off your back heel, your left toes will be pointing to the back of the mat and you place the hands on either side of the left foot, inhale lengthen the left leg, exhale bend, inhale lengthen, exhale bend, inhale left arm comes up, when you're ready start your arm circles, back knee up or down, doesn't matter at all, slow breathing, watching the left hand take that journey around, the next time you reach forward place the hand on the inside of the foot and walk your way to our straddle again, keep the left fingertips down and find a low back and then a long back, excuse me, and then exhale bring your right arm up to the sky, take a big inhale, option to stay open, place the right hand on the sacrum and steady it or even make your way into a twist if that feels good, a bind, bringing that hand to the left side of your t-shirt or even the left thigh in some practices, take a big breath in, sigh it out, one more time inhale and then ragdoll over your legs, bending the knees as much as you want, second side will inhale to a flat back and either right fingertips down or planted hand, exhale to lift the left arm up, option to stay open or hand on sacrum, I'm going to range my low back here, another option is that bind in the twist, exhale, be sure to inhale too and then surrender those arms down to the ground, drop your head and roll the shoulders, sometimes the arms feel much longer here than when we began, next inhale walk your hands underneath your shoulders, open your eyes a little bit and spin back to the front of your mat, back heel comes off the mat and we'll step the foot forward, inhale nice flat back and then exhale forward fold, bend your knees and find your left leg and begin to bring your left leg up, walk your fingertips forward and you'll be in a kind of supported warrior three, legs can be as long as they can get and then exhale bend both knees, begin to cross the left knee behind the right shin as if you're curtsying and on the inhale take the leg up as far as you want, as straight as you want and on the exhale curl a little deeper, knee behind the right shin, use that right leg, inhale lift the left leg up, exhale getting so deep now that the left knee crosses behind the right shin, the back foot, the left foot comes down, use your hands to bring the left knee down and use your hands to come to sit on your seat, go ahead join us here any way you like, you'll notice for seated spinal twist that my right knee is up, that'll help us get a little deeper now, inhale bring your right arm up and place the hand behind you, left arm will lift holding the knee like before or elbow outside the knee, bringing deep into the gut, breathing in and breathing out, breathing in, big sigh out, unwinding now over to the other side and for our next shape unwind that and bring your feet together and then scoot your feet over to the left, your right knee will come down, what we do here is we split the legs, I'll show, top leg goes back and my knee is still on the soft mat so very sweet and kind to both knees, this is easy pigeon, we're going to turn between the legs as if we're folding straight over the right heel and walk the hands out, breathing in and breathing out, you can even use a pillow here, stay as high as I am, go as low as the body says is possible, my head wants to just chill, the prayer makes a great little kickstand for the forehead, breathing in, breathing out, breathing in and breathing out, walk your way back upright and now pick up that back knee, the left knee and bring your feet together, bada canasana, bring your hands behind you first and puff out the chest, let the pubic bone drop down to the earth so that your hips are starting to tilt forward, follow that tilt by bringing your hands forward and eventually surrendering the upper body down, keep your breath slow and deep, the body will tell you where the breath needs to go, if you listen, the body has a way of speaking to us, next inhale walk your way upright and bring your knees together, feel free to move them a little bit of left and right giving some ease to the hips and then let's spin around back to hands and knees, from there tuck your toes and visit a short little down dog, just walking to the front of the mat and once you're there find flat back, big loud sigh as you forward fold, the right leg now comes up to our supported warrior three and on the exhale bend both knees and hide that right knee behind the left shin, inhale right leg comes up as much as you want, exhale bend both knees and coil, inhale leg up as much as you want, exhale bend, keep bending, bend both knees back foot down, use your hands, you come down and the seat finds the floor, join me here for the arthamatsyasana, the seated spinal twist, notice that my left knee is up for this one, left hand behind, inhale reach your right arm up, exhale hold on to the knee or hook that elbow, breathing in, breathing out, breathing in, breathing out, unwind, gentle counter twist to the right and then opening the legs in a straddle pose, your pillows are nearby, if it's hard to lengthen the legs, pillows work quite well under the knees, I'm going to bring my hands behind me and start to tilt my pelvis forward and then in a perfect world the whole body can follow, finding a place you can be supported today, no force in this shape, I'm using my elbows, another option prayer to head again or perhaps the whole body down to pillow or to earth, next inhale start your journey out, please pick up the legs, bend in the knees and move your knees a little left and right, one sweet little forward fold, hold your shins in and just round, very nice, moving to our even more relaxing practice of spinal twists and a side rest, find your first pillow and looking at the front of the mat, we want this guy on an angle in the front right corner of the mat, it's going to go underneath our head, probably our shoulder and arm too, the second pillow is going to go down alongside the mat then flipping onto your back, align this lower pillow around the line of your hip, your head is on the edge of this pillow that's at the top of your mat and you're going to find your left leg, slide your right leg down long and hug your left knee in a minute, then cheat your hips over to the left and allow this knee to drop all the way over to the support of the pillow, we want the entire foot, shin and knee supported, then open up your left arm, let it rest on your pillow, any wiggles or squiggles you need to be comfy here, you can even bend the left elbow and place the hand on your ribs, as you rest, allow the body to get heavier, letting go, let go, let go, let go, let go, let go, let go, let go, let go, let go, let go, let go, let go.

You might stay here, enjoying that twist. So join me in rolling to the right side, keeping the left leg completely supported, adjust your pillow so that it supports your head and neck and then before you place the top hand in the lower hand, making a little cradle for your hands, nothing to see, allowing the eyelids to become heavy, perhaps close entirely, nothing to do, allowing the body to become heavier and to sift down into the earth a little deeper with every exhale. There we go.