Feel Supported

Today we're going to do a grounding practice to allow our bodies to truly land on the support that is actually underneath us. We're going to begin in Tadasana today, so come join me at the front of your mat. I'm going to stand facing you, but you can stand at the head of your mat if you wish. And we'll begin with our feet in a natural walking distance apart, just underneath the hips. Take a moment to spread through your entire footprint as we come to mountain pose, Tadasana.

Bringing your hands at ease by your side, letting your arms dangle from your shoulders at your side. So spend a few moments coming down from our head, through our bodies, onto the ground. Begin by taking three long, deep breaths, a little bit longer than natural, allowing your breath to come to you and then stretching it a little on the inhale, exhaling out your mouth, all the way to the end of your breath. Two more like that, and one more time, all the way to the end of your exhale, allow your weight to begin to drain down. And we'll add a little imagery and let your breath be more natural.

And imagine the way a sand timer, an hourglass, when it's turned upside down, drains from the top half into the bottom. And visualizing you, with your eyes opened or closed, on each exhale for the next three exhales, the sand draining down from your crown to your shoulders, from your shoulders down to your breastbone, maybe your belly, and from your belly, let all the heaviness, the weight, the sand in you go into your lower half and onto the ground. Like a sand bag might spread, when you place it on the ground, imagine the sand spreading into your feet, your feet spreading across your mouth. Just one more breath, let all your weight be on the solid ground that is underneath you. Pause and allow yourself to land.

We'll add some breath and movement with our arms as we stay grounded. On your next inhale, allow your arms to sweep up. And on your exhale, your hands come back to your side. At the pace of your breath, as you discover it, use the inhale to sweep up. Only exhale to return down.

Let's do three more, guided by the length of your breath. Staying grounded in your feet, even as we add movement and awareness on the breath. Long exhale. To get a sense of the ground even more while we're breathing, we're going to add chair. So on your inhale, sweep up.

And on your exhale, sit down into an imaginary chair, hands by your side. Push off the ground to rise up. Exhale, sit down. Confirm your thighs, spread your feet. Push off the support to rise up.

Using your whole inhale, the exhale, return to the ground. We'll do three more again at the pace of your breath. Inhale, let your strong lower half carry your light upper half. Two more. Last one.

Practice feeling the ground under you. Push off it, rise up. Bringing your hands to prayer in front of the heart to pause. Three breaths here, again allow your sand to drain from your crown to your shoulders, releasing your arms down by your side. Let all the sand drain again, you're in your imaginary hourglass down toward your belly.

One long breath, allow your weight to land on the ground. Stay grounded as you sweep again both arms up. Take hold of your left wrist, spread into the outline of your feet. We'll just pause here, it's not quite a side lean just yet, we're elongating the whole left side body from your foot to your wrist. Just imagining your breath spreading into your left rib cage.

If you wish, take a little more length up and over, but think more where the wall and ceiling meet rather than the side wall, so you're going up rather than over. Imagine you can breathe through your left armpit, just imagine a nostril on your armpit and take the breath in, let it spread through your whole left rib cage. If you wish, excel out the mouth on this one. One more time, getting longer between ankle and wrist, the breath spreads your left side body, gather your belly on your exhale and inhale neutral. Exhale prayer, pause, feel your body land, inhale the arms up, holding the right wrist on your exhale, stretch to the side, spread through your feet, let your breath stretch your right ribs.

Imagine you can breathe through your right armpit. One more breath here, move every right rib with your breath, exhale and gather your belly and inhale rise up, exhale to prayer, feel the sand drain down. You'll turn to face your side mat if you're not there already, bringing your hands to your pelvis and stepping your feet wide. If it feels okay to you to have the ankles right underneath the wrist, that's a nice range but if you need them a little closer for more stability, that's a good choice too. Begin by turning your left foot in the direction of your left fingertips and bend your knee so it stacks over your ankle.

This is a little bit of a shorter warrior too if you want to go down further to separate your legs a little wider and the strongest part of the pose is underneath the back of your thighs. Squeeze that instead of squeezing your gut or your groin. Squeeze the back of your seat, squeeze the back of your legs for strength and press your feet into the earth. So strong lower body, light upper body, the hourglass, all the heaviness close to the earth, the shoulder is light and we'll add three breaths of movement. On your inhale push off the earth, stretch up, exhale to lower, you can even turn your head as you do this, inhale bringing your head with your arms center, exhale to lower down.

One more just like that. Exhale to lower, pause, bring your hands to your pelvis and straighten your legs, turning them parallel, we'll do the other side. Bending your knee deeply so it's right over your ankle, your legs could be longer or shorter apart, whatever allows you to use the back of your legs the most strongly rather than your groin or your belly. You want to keep your rib cage being moved by the breath so any tightness, any restriction, any over effort around the ribs will minimize your breath which won't allow you to feel as calm. So as you move on your inhale sweep up, let your ribs be moved by your breath and as you exhale squeeze the back of your legs for strength as your ribs stay at ease, inhale sweep up, exhale to lower, just one more time, inhale sweep up and exhale to lower.

Pause for breath, spread your feet into their outline, your shoulders can release down from your ears, bringing your hands to your pelvis, push into the ground to straighten your leg, bringing your feet parallel and pause here. If you wish you can gather your blocks so they can be right underneath you, I'm going to gather mine for a moment. As we fold forward from this wide angle stance, placing the blocks underneath the collarbone armpit area so that as you bend your knees you can elongate from your crown to your tail, from your tail to your crown and your back is parallel to the floor. It can be high on your fingertips or you can press your palms down whatever you prefer. Take a breath to get a little bit longer, natural cervical curve.

And if you wish you can stay here or bend your left leg bringing yourself inside the knee to get a nice long stretch through the inner leg and take it to the other side. Long exhale spreading the footprints on your mat, one more on each side. And last time. From here as we pivot towards a lunge with our right foot you're going to bring your blocks along with you and place them on either side of your mat. I'm going to move mine but you keep yours here just so you can see my feet and my hands better.

From this lunge we'll step back to downward dog so you're bringing your front foot to meet your back foot, hands shoulder distance apart, feet hip distance apart. You could bend your knees at first if you wish and press your belly towards your thighs. And we're going to spend just about five breaths here lengthening from your heart to your hands. From your heart to your hands. And then stretching again into the footprints.

Let your feet expand beyond their outline. One more breath. And then moving between down dog and plank, we'll do this three times on your inhale open to plank pose. And gather your belly like a reverse sit up. Let your belly muscles pull you back to down dog.

You can be on your tippy toes if you wish. Inhale open to plank. Soft jaw, soft eyes, exhale downward dog. One more time let your inhale open you in both directions. Your exhale gather belly to sky.

And pause here for just a breath. Stretch into again the footprints and the handprints. So from downward dog you're going to gather your belly up so much that it lifts your heels up. Come onto the balls of your feet and spread your toes. And to center ourselves and just gather a little bit more core.

Keep the belly way up as you let your knees land like feathers. Keep the belly up, up, up. Knees land like feathers. And then open forward to come down onto your belly into cobra. We'll pause here and lengthen the legs back one at a time.

Feel your belly on the ground and actually we're going to take the fingertips off the mat onto the wood. Elbows towards the sky so that you can get wide from your heart to your elbows. The back of the neck is at ease, the base of the skull is at ease. And energizing through ten toes equally leaving your belly on the ground. And your inhale let your pelvis press down so your head and chest can float up.

And on your exhale get longer as you lower. So two more on your breath. Press the pelvis down to float up. Release down. So practice partnering with the ground.

Don't worry about how high you come up. Ground down to float up. I'll lengthen. And from here bring your hands back underneath your shoulders. Gather your belly again and press to all fours.

We'll come into a low lunge with your blocks available for your hands. Stepping your right foot between your hands. I like my blocks on the highest height to start right underneath my armpits and the ball of the back foot into the ground. Then to stretch into the hip flexors and the psoas, press the ball of your back foot down more than your knee. So it's as if only 50% of your potential weight is in your knee.

Instead, make your footprints deeper than your knee print. Press deeper than your knee print and let your ribs be moved by your breath. Just three breaths here. Jaw dangles, base of the skull, soft. One more breath, deeper footprints, lighter knee print.

And a long exhale to come back to all fours. You'll bring your left foot between your hands. Spread your front footprint, the blocks right under your armpits, the ball of your back foot into the ground. Press the feet deeply into your mat so there's no pressure on your knee. And the blocks are just there for security and placement, not to push into.

So that you can find a position of your arms where your chest can be most wide from your heart to your shoulders. Two more breaths. The ribs are moved by your breath. And exhaling, feel your feet press down. So just allow your breath to come to you.

Your inhale will fill you. Get out of the way of your exhale. Taking a moment to transition your blocks down again will come to child's pose. You can keep your blocks as they are or perhaps you want one block underneath your third eye point, your forehead. So just spend five breaths here allowing the weight of your head to be held up by your block or the ground and to allow your breath to stretch the skin on your back.

Allow your breath to move the skin of your back. One more deep breath, gently exaggerating this inhale. Exhaling completely. To begin your transition from child's pose, gather your belly and slowly roll up to sit on your heels and pause for a moment. Let all the weight drain down again, all the sand of the hourglass.

And we'll make a transition to our back so you can clear your mat of your props as we come to our back for constructive rest to finish. Bring your knees to bend. Your feet are hip distance apart. Gather your belly as you slowly come to your elbows and then come all the way down to flat. Take a moment with your feet a little bit wider than your hips and allow your knees to rest on each other.

You can imagine your legs like the hourglass and the sand draining from your knees down to your feet and from your knees down to your pelvis. One more big exhale, let the sand in your seat spread on your mat, the sand in your upper back, your head. Take a very gentle movement here, windshield wiper, which is a soft twist, bringing your right leg out to the right and allowing it to fall to the side. The left knee will follow, just keeping your feet as wide as they were. If you wish, you can bring your arms over your head and allow your breath to be deep, especially growing aware of the whole left side body and your left ribs being moved by your breath.

On each exhale, allow your whole body to land on the ground. One more breath here. Gathering your belly before you bring your knees back through center, your feet on the floor. Allow your left knee to drop left, your right knee to follow. It will probably land somewhere towards your left inner foot, windshield wiper.

Allow your breath to be particularly deep on the whole right side body, moving your entire right rib cage with your breath. Draw dangles, the tongue rest in the floor of your mouth. Gather your belly to return to center, mindfully. And again, let the knees rest on each other. You can leave your hands over your head if you wish, but I do recommend foreclosing you bring your hands to rest on your belly, your elbows to rest on the ground.

As you exhale, feel your footprints spread into their outline. Feel the print of your feet dropping into the earth. Feel your seat spreading on the ground. Let your belly soften and fall into your back. Imagine you can breathe in through your chest, and as you exhale, you breathe out through your back, allowing your back to spread more on the ground.

One more breath like that. Breathe in through the nostrils on your chest. Breathe out through the nostrils on your back. Your whole back spreads. And then allow the weight of your head to be carried by the earth.

Offer the weight of your head to the ground. Draw unhinged eyes resting in the back of your head. Allow your body to land on the ground that is actually supporting you. You can continue just like this for several more breaths on each exhale, simply allowing the earth to hold you more. When you're ready to come out, you can join me by slowly rolling to your side, bringing both knees over, making a pillow out of your bottom arm under your head, and pausing on your side body for a few breaths.

You'll mindfully bring your hand in front of your chest and move how you want to feel. So if you want to feel grounded, move in relationship to the ground, push down. You don't need to pull yourself up. Moving to a finishing seat, pausing for one more breath. Let the hourglass drain.

Let all the weight go down from your head and land on the earth. Bring your hands to Anjali Mudra and soften your head to your heart. Thank you so much for practicing with me, make you feel a little bit more grounded and open. Namaste.