Arriving Here and Now

Welcome, today's practice is going to be a little energizing, uplifting, gently expanding. It's for those days that you feel depleted, maybe a little bit exhausted, but you want to feel replenished. So we're going to take our time to move mindfully and slowly so we don't overstimulate to gain energy, but rather our mindfulness, our attention to our breath and our fuller range of movement on the breath will create a little bit more of an uplifted feeling. We're going to begin on two blocks in hero's pose, also known as Virasana. And if this is not comfortable for your knees or you need cushion underneath your knees, you would just add a blanket underneath your body.

You could also choose a different seat altogether if this doesn't work for you. I like to stack them width-wise so that my sitting bones go across the blocks and take a seat, bringing my knees, they don't have to touch, they can be a little bit apart. Your toes pointed back, so 10 toenails are on the ground, and draw the muscular part of your seat wide and the back of your thighs wide. We are going to spend a few minutes here centering and grounding before we begin to flow on the breath. We'll tune into our breath and really arrive in the present moment.

If you wish, close your eyes as you begin to pay attention to what's under your body, the blocks, the ground. Just taking two or three breaths to allow your weight to land on the blocks and to land on the earth. To tune into our breath, we'll place the hands over the belly, allowing the body to be heavy on the blocks and the ground, draw your attention under your hands and feel how the breath moves into your palms. The inhale fills and spreads into your hand and the exhale gently moves away from your hands. Just two more breaths, bringing all your awareness between your navel and your back in the middle of your body as your hands receive your breath.

Then moving the awareness to the midsection, wrap your right hand around your left ribs, your left hand around your right, and feel your breath widen into your palms. You're just practicing allowing the breath to fill your hands. You don't need to add any effort. You don't need to exaggerate the breath. Just let it come and spread into your palms and release on its own.

The third area we'll bring our mind to is the upper chest. Slide your hands into your armpits, thumbs to collarbones, elbows rest on the body. Feel your breath now move all the way up from the belly, the side ribs into your palms. Feel your breath ripple back down. The wave of your breath rises from your belly, side ribs to your palms.

The full range of motion releases back down. Enjoy two more waves of breath, moving through all those three points together, belly, ribs, chest. Your weight on your blocks, one more complete breath, and exhaling maybe out through your mouth on this last one. We'll let a little movement stay grounded and arriving even more on your breath in the present moment, on your prayer hands, on your inhale reach to the sky, and on your exhale allow your prayer to slide back to your heart. The length of your inhale, the prayer rises as your seat stays heavy.

This allows your ribs to expand wide with the breath and come back to calm, come back to ground on your exhale, and if you wish add a mental mantra just to pull you into the present even more to surf the breath into now, mentally I am on your inhale, here, now, as you land on the ground on your exhale. Two more like that, I am, here, now. Landing, one more time, here, now, just take a breath in stillness, and we'll slowly begin to transition into our movements on the breath, and as often as you'd like use that I am here now to keep you present and focused on the breath as we move from posture to posture. Coming off your blocks in Virasana you can place one block on either side of your mat, I'm going to move mine just so you can see me but you can leave yours there, we'll come to all fours in Cat-Cow, your hands underneath your shoulders, your knees underneath your hips, you can point your toes back or you can curl them to the ground, whatever is better for you. Pause for a moment and wait for your next inhale to move you, your heart looks between your arms.

On your exhale gather your belly up, maybe gaze towards your thighs or your navel, let your inhale initiate your movement, heart between your arms, collarbones widen, exhale gather the belly up, so just do three more, the inhale brings your heart forward, maybe try pointing your toes on the inhale, the exhale round your spine, maybe curl your toes into the ground on the exhale, so you can move between the two, two more, at the pace of your breath, if you need a little more energy keep your eyes open, if you need more calm you can close your eyes, you can add the mantra, I am here now, pausing in neutral, take a moment to set up to bring your right foot between your hands, hands to blocks, continue moving on the breath, I like to put my blocks at their higher height, curl the ball of the toes into the ground, on your inhale the heart looks forward, and on your exhale push into the ground any amount of straight of both legs, any amount of straight, towards straight, on your inhale 50% of your weight lands in your knee, so more weight in your feet than your knee, and on your exhale gather your belly, push your legs towards straight your spine parallel with the ground, add the mantra if you wish for the next three as you move on the breath, again eyes open, it's going to just help you feel a little bit more bright, a little bit more expanded, eyes close if you need to turn inward and keep calm, I am here now, one more, exhaling all the way to the end of your breath, notice the pause at the end of your breath, and to transition allow your knee to come back down to the ground, you can bring your hands to the ground back to all fours, and simply bring the other foot between your hands, hands to block any height you wish, ball of the foot in the ground, your back foot, on the inhale the heart looks forward, the neck is at ease, and on your exhale push into the ground, gather your belly up, long spine, inhale knee lands lightly, exhale push off the earth, gather the belly, the in breath follow it forward to the top of your inhale, go all the way to the bottom of the exhale and notice the pause at the end of your breath, and just two more, long exhale, feel the stillness at the end of your breath, let the inhale come to you, the inhale will move you, last exhale gather the belly even more on this one just to empty the lungs completely, pause with your knee on the ground after this one, you can move your blocks out of the way to step to downward dog, blocks on either side of the mat, hands to ground, downward dog, we'll take a moment to also stretch through the handprints and the footprints as we rock in downward dog with the breath, so on the inhale lift the heels nice and high, on the exhale stretch into your footprints, make your feet longer and wider, you can bend your knees if you need to, or if you like that inhale way up on the balls of your feet, exhale I like to bend my knees so I'm going to do that, join me if you wish, inhale way up, exhale stretch back, one more time, rolling through the whole foot, waking up the sides of your feet, take a big stretch into the handprints, the footprints and then from downward dog we're going to slowly stroll to the front of the mat, maybe up on the tippy toes or walk up as you need, you'll come to bring your feet all the way to the front of your mat and then sit into an imaginary chair so your heart looks forward and then use your legs to press all the way up to standing, to mountain and exhale hands by your side body, bringing the hands to heart, spread into your footprints and on your inhale stretch to the sky and your exhale hands to heart, we'll do two more prayer breaths, add the mantra if you wish, all the way to the top of the inhale, all the way to the pause at the end of your exhale, one more time, moving right into standing twist, take your arms up to the sky on your inhale and on your exhale left arm back, right arm forward, open up to the side, reach your elbows apart, on your inhale sweep up, get tall like a handstand on the ceiling, exhale twist to the other side so we can move a little bit more buoyantly, inhale stretch up, hands to sky, exhale gather your belly, stretch into your footprints as you open wide, inhale sweep up, exhale one more time twist, inhale to the sky, exhale interlace your fingers except for index and thumb, inhale get taller between feet and wrists and exhale side lean to the left, on your inhale back through center and side lean to the right on the exhale, one more time on each side, inhale up through center, exhale left as you make your footprints again even bigger, your thighs firm, the inhale takes you to center and the exhale stretch one more time to the right, inhale up through center and exhale your prayer to your heart, just pause let all your weight land on the ground, slowly turn to wide-legged position facing the side of the mat, you can open up your arms and place your ankles at least under your wrists as we move through peaceful warrior and right angle on the breath, lifting your left foot in the direction of your toes, step number one we're just going to sweep both arms up, so we're going to energize here for just a moment, spread through your footprints, firm your thighs, allow your arms to lengthen to the sky, bring the right arm down the back, take one full inhale to actually reach up and then on your exhale bend your front knee and bring your left forearm to your thigh, right arm over the head, on your inhale rise up, on your exhale bend the thigh, right arm over head, so we're going to do this three more times with your breath, on your inhale rise I am here now, two more times, you might find your breath pace is faster than mine or slower than mine, don't be guided by my breath pace, use your natural breath as your gauge there's no right and wrong, what's best is that you work with the breath that feels natural to you, next time you get up rise sweep up, exhale hand by your side body and then to the waist so we can transition the feet to the other side, again pause for a moment spread into your feet, lift both arms, this is an energizer while we're staying grounded so you're doing like a little handstand on the ceiling but rooting even more, allow the breath to move your ribs, left hand down the leg, then a little side lean, right angle on your exhale, strong legs, light upper body, knee inhale cartwheel up, the exhale lengthen right angle, just with your breath, your upper body is sort of watery, allow it to be not so linear or rigid, the lower body is strong, the upper body more fluid, long exhale all the way to the end of the breath, next time you get up stay up, exhale hands by your side body, hands to waist, from here bring your feet to parallel and slowly walk them together, pause in tadasana mountain pose and bring your arms by your side body, take one breath to let your weight land on the ground, then we'll begin to bring our hands behind the back and interlace the fingers for chest opener and you don't need to press the palms together in this variation, just interlace, feel the side body get long from hip to armpit and then imagine bend your elbows a little bit and imagine trying to widen your upper arm bones, don't squeeze them together, do the opposite, so maybe you could imagine trying to pull your fingers apart instead of pressing your palms together, imagine pulling your fingers apart with your upper arm bones as you take three breaths in and out through your chest, so think wide rather than pulling back, one more breath here so you don't want to feel any kind of pull in the neck or shoulders, beautiful, just bring the hands by the side body, sit into chair pose for a moment, feel again the ground under the body firming your thighs, take one sweep up to the sky and then folding your belly to your thighs, sit lower in chair till your belly comes onto your thighs, fingers to ground and we're going to meet in kneeling on the floor, bringing one leg down at a time, pausing and kneeling, take a breath here, feeling the body on the ground and we'll move into our last full body stretch to get a little bit more connected to the breath, simply reach your right arm out as you lift up onto your shins and extend your left leg long in half side plank, sliding your fingers right under your armpit, extend your left arm along your side and we'll move with the breath, on your inhale sweep up and over, on your exhale arm to side, at the length of your breath, if you'd like to use the mantra for these last few, feel free, just connecting with the flow of the breath as it's happening, synchronizing your movement, one more breath up and by your side and then last time take it up and pause, take a good full body reach, look up if you wish and slowly on your exhale bring your shins together, your knee together to come all the way back down to kneeling and we'll do the other side, left arm out, right leg long, stretch through your right foot print, on your breath, right arm sweeps on the inhale, on the exhale hand by your side, right arm up on your inhale, exhale by your side, you can move your head however it feels good where there's the least amount of strain, so you can look down or you can look out to the horizon or if you wish look up, we're gonna hold the next one over the head, I like looking down sometimes and sometimes I like looking up, so play with both, one more stretch get longer from your right wrist to your right ankle, exhale all the way back around to kneeling, pause for a moment as we transition to our finishing pose, in Virasana again heroes pose just as we started you'll stack your blocks, place them underneath your seat width wise across your sitting bones, men knees don't need to touch in this particular variation unless that's good for you, draw the muscular part of the seat wide, the back of your thighs wide, rest the hands on the belly just like we started, let your weight land in your seat, we're gonna reconnect with the ground and feel our breath now freer and more full under our hands, ejects how we turn your weight to the ground and then allow the inhale to expand into your hands, bringing your right hand around your left ribs, your left hand around your right ribs, feel the width of your breath expanding you, just imagine there's no restriction that your ribs are free to move, your breath is free to come on its own, leave on its own, sliding your hands up under your armpits, the elbows rest on your body, and we'll bring our hands to prayer with three prayer breaths just as we began the practice, if you wish at the mantra I am on your inhale as you rise up, here now, two more with your breath, all the way to the pauses at the end of your breaths, follow one more right into the present moment, long exhale here now on the ground in our body with our breath in the present moment, you feel a little bit more spacious and grounded, a little bit more energized and light, namaste.