Unwind from Work

Hello and welcome back. We get to let go of your day. We'll be doing some vinyasa, some great yin juicy releases, and also some breath exercises to really get rid of some stress. Shall we begin? You're going to find your two pillows and place them towards the front of your mat. They're lengthwise and one will be a little bit in front of the other as you see here and that should make a nice tilted recliner for you. Then turn around and lie down. Make sure that your head is supported. You can even curl this upper pillow up if that works where you're at. I'm going to keep my feet down. You can lengthen your legs if you want. We're going to take a big stretch. Even if you're not pregnant, hold the breath at the tip top. Make fists at the hands. Hold, hold, hold. And then cannonball your breath out and let those arms relax. Maybe adding the legs this time. Inhale, inhale, inhale. Hold the breath. Make fists tense up the abs. Sigh it out, letting your arms go. Last time. Inhale, hold. Cannonball your breath out. Let the limbs come where they want to be. Letting go. Feel the support of the pillows. Imagine tension melting down into the earth.

And we'll allow ourselves to rest. Calming down the breath. Calming down the body. Calming down the body. If you need to rest a little longer, trust that impulse. If you're ready to move, begin to bend your knees and place your feet again on the mat. Roll to your right side. Help yourself up and move the pillows to the side of the mat. Slow flow. Find your hands and knees and take a few circles just to wake up the wrists and hands. Prepare them to bear our body weight and circle the other way as well. Begin that breath of victory. Finding center and next inhale, take a cow pose. Sway in the back and looking forward with your heart and eyes. Exhale, round in angry cat. Puff up the upper back. Inhale, cow. Exhale, cat. Now the right leg extends out behind you. Exhale, bring the knee to the nose as you round in to angry cat. Inhale, extend the leg. Exhale, bring the knee in. Inhale, extend the leg. Exhale, bring it in. Inhale, extend the leg. Last time, longest time and step your right foot outside your right hand for a pretty wide lunge. Tuck your back set of toes and extend that back knee. On the inhale, lengthen the right leg as best you can and exhale, bend. Inhale, lengthen. Exhale, bend. Inhale, lengthen. Exhale, bend, tapping your back knee all the way down to the mat. Walk your hands to your thighs. Draw your low belly in. Inhale, bring your hands up and behind. Lace your hands behind your head. Let your head press into the hands as you lean back and open up across the chest. If you've been sitting all day, you do want to feel that length across the front of your left hip. Breathing in and on breath out, lower your hands down to the ground. Tucking the back toes, lifting the back knee and one or several steps, walk your left foot to the front of the mat. Inhale to a flat back and then exhale, fold and please bring your big toes together. On the inhale, take chair pose. Bring the arms up as the seat goes down. Exhale, make prayer with your hands and then bring it down to the earth. Prayer revolutions, inhale, sitting back in your chair as you reach with the prayer of the hands. Exhale, the prayer comes down through the middle and even skims the ground. Inhale, hands come up. Exhale, hands come down. Inhale, hands come up. Stand up. Look up. Wing those arms back, back stroking and lace your fingers behind the low back, separating the feet about hips distance. Inhale, open up your chest and then exhale, forward fold. Keep a gentle play in the knees, just a little bend. Breathing in, breathing out, breathing in and then lower your hands down to the low back and all the way down to the ground. Stepping both feet to the back of the mat and placing your knees down right away. Next inhale is cow pose. And the exhale is an angry cat. Inhale, extend your left leg out behind you. Exhale, bring the knee to the nose. Inhale, extend. Exhale, knee in. Inhale, extend. Exhale, knee in.

Last time leg extends, slowly kick the air behind you. And then exhale, step the left foot outside the left hand, speaking for a broad stance. We'll rise to the fingertips and tuck the back toes, lifting the back knee. Next inhale, lengthen your front leg. And exhale, bend. Inhale, lengthen. Exhale, bend. Inhale, lengthen. Exhale, bend and tap your back knee down to the mat. Walking your hands onto that front thigh, the left thigh. Drawing your low belly in. Back, stroke your arms back, way back, and lace your hands behind your head. Lift your head, looking up, allowing the head to move into the hands. Breathing in and breathing out. Breathing in, slowly hands down to the earth. Lift the back knee again and in one or several steps, walk that right foot to the front of the mat. Inhale, flat back, look forward. And exhale, forward fold. Walk those big toes together and sit down towards chair. On the inhale, wing your arms all the way up. Prayer the hands and bring it down through the midline. Stay in the chair as you inhale, lift the prayer. Exhale, take it down through the middle. Inhale, lift and look. Exhale, low belly in. Last time, lift the prayer, straighten those legs to stand, even back extend. Then exhale, wing your hands back, lace the fingers, perhaps the left thumb is on top. Taking the feet a little wider, right? Hips distance and slider shoulder blades on your back. Exhale, softly bend the knees and forward fold, allowing the head to hang. Breathing in and breathing out. Breathing in, hands to low back, and then all the way down to the earth. Bend your knees, start to roll up, drop your tailbone and hug in the low belly. You might even sway a little bit as you come up. Or pause when you feel a place that needs that stretch and breath. Once you're up, roll your shoulder blades down the back, step your feet together and bring the prayer to the third eye point. Observing any difference in the way you feel than from when we started this practice. Can you feel your feet on the earth? Can you feel the breath move through the body? Lowering the hands and taking a step out with your left foot, facing the side of the mat and creating a goddess pose. The toes will be out about 45 degrees and our knees are going to bend and come right over the ankles. Try not to list them in, but move them back. Jaw release. Place your hands together. Allow your jaw to be relaxed. We're going to shake the jaw and make a little noise. Let yourself be entirely ridiculous, okay? Watch me and then join in when you feel ready. Take a big breath in. Good. Straighten your legs momentarily. Shaking out the tension. Bend those knees. Big breath in. Good. Once more. Add the arms. Make a big X. Bring the hands down again. And then let it out, guys. Make some noise. Inhale. Big X. And then bring your hands down on the inside of the thighs and tilt your upper body this way. Begin to twist and dip those shoulders. Working on any tension, the sides, the shoulders, maybe the head drops or wants to nod. Breathing in. Breathing out. Breathing in. Breathing out. Bring your hands down to the ground and then lengthen your legs and turn your toes, kicking out your heels until your feet are parallel. You might want to put eyes on them and make sure that they're all pointing those toes in the same direction. And then begin to bend one knee and swing your weight over towards that foot. This allows for a nice length in the inner yin line of the leg. And then in your own time, please figure out what's going on on the other side. And feel free to move at any pace that isn't rushed. Taking time to breathe into the inner leg as if there were a lung there. When you're done, I'll meet you in the middle. Lace your hands behind your head again. No force. Just contributing the weight of the hands to the tractioning of the head. And if you're all the way down to the earth, that's lovely. It means you're more flexible. You can walk your feet in a little closer and allow that spine to traction long. Sliding your hands through your hair, you might even mess it up and drop your hands to the earth. Walk the hands forward and find a flat back. I symmetrically squeeze the feet towards each other and bring your hands to your hips super slow. No head rush. Make your way up to stand to the front of the mat now. Step forward and take a little time to bring your feet as wide as the mat. It's okay to turn your toes out of smidge if you need to. We're going to do a few squat lifts, letting go of a little bit more energy. Okay. On the inhale, bring your arms up. Exhale, prayer through the middle, knees pointing in the same direction as the toes come halfway down. Inhale, lift up. Exhale, come halfway down or even lower if you need to blow out more steam. Inhale, lift and open.

Exhale, bend those knees towards half squat. Inhale, lift. Exhale, bend. Hold for three. Inhale two. Inhale for one and then fold. Hands go down to the mat. Please step it back to plank. Look a little bit in front of your mat and we're going to hold this again. You can always lower the knees to your mat. Inhale. That was breath of three. Inhale, breath of four. Inhale and on the exhale of five, lower all the way down to the mat. From there, flatten your feet out. Come to the tops of the feet and walk your hands forward for sphinx pose. There's a little bit of length here, drawing the low ribs forward in space. It's as if I'm drawing this floor back towards my waist. We're moving through a forearm plank flow, another time to blow off a little bit of steam. Tucking the toes, take a big breath in and on the exhale, press into your forearms, lift your hips, look down at your toes and curl that low belly in. On the inhale, slow-mo belly flop back into the sphinx. Exhale, tuck the toes, curl the low belly in and look back at your toes. Two more guys. Inhale, lower, pulling forward. Exhale, tuck the toes, get a low belly in. Inhale, belly flop, slow-mo down and then stay. Walk your hands just a little forward in space. Now you might pull with your hands and lift your elbows for a deeper stretch or perhaps you like to dip your shoulders again and look over the other shoulder. All choices are perfect. We're just here to let go of that stress, right? Get out the day. I'm in through center and now please move your hands to the left and right side of your mat, flare your ribs and lift your chest a little higher. Take a flowing cobra, moving how you wish. All through the day you might have done what other people asked of you that has its value. But the word here is that you get to move like yourself as my teacher says. Let it be messy, artistic, personal. Yours. Next time you settle down, bring your hands close to your low ribs and we're pressing our way to hands and knees and then to a brief child pose. I'm going to stack my hands under my forehead so I know that I'm really letting what's below me hold me, trying to let go of the effort, moving into the release. Taking a breath in and walking your hands back so you can sit back on your heels. Let's set up for a pigeon pose. Find your pillows again and bring one pillow in front of you lengthwise. The other one can come over here towards your left side and from there come to hands and knees and we're bringing the left knee forward in a perfect world. It's just outside the left wrist. So it's starting to initiate a 45 degree angle in that front hip. Drawing the pillow underneath the seat, you can double up this pillow as much as you need to. You can even flip on your back and do a figure four stretch again if you start to hear from either one of your knees. That's a day just to make it even more delicious. Crawl that pillow underneath your belly and come down to rest. Turn your head to the side that's most organic and as you wrap the hands around the pillow, think more of the pillow holding you. So it might be you don't need to hold the pillow at all. It's really doing the work. I want to leave you to your rest. You might imagine the breath moving into the tight spots. This is my house. ñ ñ ñ ñ ñ ñ Taking a nice indulgent sigh, as I did.

And then begin to walk your hands closer to the knees. Open your eyes in a lazy way and take in the light. Tucking the front pillow forward just a smidge and tucking the back toes and stepping back to downward facing dog. You lift that left leg up, open it up, shake the leg or move however you see fit. When you're done, sneak that left foot alongside the right and give the right side its due.

Allow the right side to open up here too. Then lower down your knees and come to stand on your knees. We'll find that pillowy left to the left side and move it on over to the right. And this time from hands and knees, the right knee comes forward just outside the line of the right wrist. You can eyeball that right thigh and see that it's coming out just a little ways from the hip.

I'm inching my way back in space and then when I can't go any further the pillow is there to assist me and to support me. Drawing that second pillow in nice and snug under the belly is delicious. And then come on down. Try to turn your head the other way if you can. And instead of holding onto the pillow, see if the pillow can support you.

I'll leave you to your rest. Allow the body to become heavier with every exhale. There we go. Finishing off with a nice deep sigh and start to walk your hands back towards your chest bear some weight and lift your upper body away from the pillow take a moment to acclimate let a little more light in then slide your pillows over to the side just for a moment swing that back leg around and place your hands behind you the feet come on the mat in front of you and you can just move them a little bit left and right then dig down into those heels and lift up to an ultra pose you can engage the sides of the glutes and if the body is okay with it perhaps let the head go perhaps even gently sway opening up the chest and shoulders follow your intuition listening to what the body prefers eventually now lowering down the hips and I'm going to spin around and come down onto my back please join me once you're on your back draw your shoulder blades underneath you just a little bit and then bring your legs into your chest lengthen your legs to a comfortable length right a comfortable straightness and begin to walk your hands up your shins even pull on your shins a little bit and your seat will come off the mat which is just what we want you might rock a little further back and here you're going to balance somewhere on your back I kind of like balancing on the middle of my back but you might like to be a little higher or a little lower than me as you rock bring your breath into your back as well let the hips be heavy and as the hips start to roll down you're once again tractioning the spine bringing it into a nice fold releasing any tension across the low back rocking side to side can be really delicious be sure to hang out in the place that feels best but then eventually we'll bring our entire spine down onto the mat allow your legs to stack over the hips and feel the sacral area plugging down into the air very nice guys begin to bend your knees and then place your feet down reach to your side and find your pillows take one pillow and put it to the outside of your right leg bring your pillow about equal with your waist or your hip somewhere in there and your other pillow can be near your head up here by the upper left shoulder slide your right leg down and hug your left knee in and then start to roll to your side and let that leg be entirely supported by your pillow that means your knee also your shin and your foot are on your pillow open up your left arm for a moment the pillows there if you want extra support and chill nice exhale roll to your right side and keep that left leg on your pillow turn as if you're turning in your sleep and slide that lower arm underneath you're going to be on your belly now check me out if you're unsure and the left leg is still on the pillow that second pillow is there for you hugging in however you see fit and enjoy there's nothing to do here nothing to see I'll be leaving you some silence to allow your body to melt across the support below you as you let go so