Core Vinyasa

Hey there, how you doing? Welcome or welcome back if you've done this video before. If this is the first time meeting me, nice to meet you. So happy that you're here. So this is a core focused practice, okay?

Core why? Three reasons that I feel are important. We work on the core to stabilize the spine, to help keep the spine safe, okay? Second would be to build core strength and awareness because it is used to transfer force throughout the body, through the limbs, right, in whatever movement, daily movement or sport activity. The next one would be there are lots of studies about how an efficient core, right, optimized core will help to reduce injury, okay?

Or if you do have injuries, there are a lot of injuries that can be tracked back to a deficient core. I'm not talking about six pack, right? That might be nice to have but we're looking about a good healthy core for back, for strength and for overall health, good? Ready to rock and roll? Okay, so to start, we're going to start with a little warm up in the back and the core with some seated cat-cow movements, okay?

So let's take a deep breath together. Big breath in and breath out. Okay, grab hold of the knees or the thighs and lift the chest. Take a breath in as you lift the chest, maybe lift the chin and pull the shoulders back. Exhale, round out the back, chin toward the chest and start to engage the core a little bit, drawing the navel inward, inhale, cow pose, we'll just do about five, six, just like this, exhale, cat, inhale, cow pose, good arch in the back and exhale, brace the core around the back, cat pose.

Two more, breathe in and breathe out. In through the nose, out through the nose or the mouth, okay? Now what we're going to do is actually do about 20, a little more fast paced, okay? So figure out the pace for you or stay with me. So in three, two, one, inhale, exhale, still like a forceful exhale, inhale, exhale, in.

10 more. Three, two, good, back up to center, probably already feel a little bit different. Hands up on the shoulders, elbows out wide, very similar to what we just did in the breath but we're going to rotate now, stabilize through the low core, inhale to the left, exhale to the right, inhale left, exhale right, inhale left, exhale right. So get that down and then I'll just kind of breathe along with you but maybe take like three or four more kind of warming up the spine, inhale, exhale right, inhale, exhale right, inhale left, exhale right, good. Now bring it back to center, let's do about 20 together but a little more on the forceful on the exhale, alright?

So when you exhale forcefully there's a bracing, right? You feel this whole area of the core solid, right? Makes sense? Right, lengthen spine, inhale left, exhale, 10, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10, 9, 10, 10, 5, last one, good, back to center, arms come down, one last cat cow, inhale and exhale brace the core around the back, good job, back to neutral and if for any reason you did get a little lightheaded, totally happens, that's why we stay low to the ground when we do it. It's normal, if it happened just regroup.

Okay, so let's come back to, let's come to our seat, undo the legs, so the feet are on the ground, legs bent, you're gonna keep the torso neutral but upright and bent back maybe like 45 degrees so you're kind of like having to brace through that core again, alright? Both arms out in front of you will do 10 reach backs or rotations on each side, okay? So what you're gonna wanna do is reach the left arm forward, right hand back, touch lightly down on the mat, gaze toward the right shoulder, okay? Back to center with an inhale, exhale left arm back, inhale, exhale right, that's 2, exhale 2, exhale 3, exhale 3. So you're getting the rotation while stabilizing through the core, it's not all about crunches, right?

Where can we stabilize? Create good habits in stabilizing the core, nice. Let's do about 4 more on each side, there's 4, 4, good work, 3, 3, 2, 2, exhale 1, exhale 1, good job. Now roll down to your back, good job so far, right? Keep the feet down on the floor for this one, we're gonna do 10 what might feel like or look like crunches but not a big fan of that word, all we're looking to do is sort of contract and shorten the abdominal muscles, okay?

So elbows out wide, try not to pull on the head too much at all really, the hands are just there to support the neck, it's more about as you exhale, lift the head, lift the shoulders and the chest toward the ceiling, so when you're ready, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in lower, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, inhale, exhale 4, inhale exhale 5, inhale exhale 6, inhale exhale 7, inhale exhale 8, inhale 9, inhale 10, good work. What's really nice about that is you're with the feet down is you're not using your hip flexors, you're isolating to the midsection but this one here we're going to lift the legs up, you can point the toes forward or point them straight up, hands behind the head, knees stacked up over the hips, same motion here, on the exhale elbows out wide, chest and chin lift to the ceiling for 10, exhale 9, exhale 8, exhale 7, exhale 6, big smile on your face, 5, exhale 4, exhale 3, exhale 2 and exhale 1, stay up, stay engaged, grab that right knee, extend the left leg out, point the toes forward, kind of lift the shoulders up a little bit more, keep the chin up, you don't want to round too much in the neck, okay now exhale left knee in, right leg straight out, so you get the stretch and core combo here, right leg in, left leg extends out, good, 2, so that's 2, 2, now we're on to 3 with the right leg, 3, 4, exhale 4, you can continue to use your hands or hands along side the hips, so you isolate, you can also take your hands behind the head and support and it's kind of like you're riding a bike but keep those shoulders lifted as you're extending and bending the legs, let's do 4 more on each side, so there's 4, 4, 3, 3, got to lift to the shoulders, 2, 2, 1, 1, very good, sometimes it doesn't feel great but if you can switch your attitude around it or your association with that sensation to like wow I'm doing such good work, when I get that feeling in that belly or the core right, that just means I'm doing good stuff for the body, again it's, anyway, I was going to go on a whole tangent but I'm not, let's get to work, so hands underneath your seat, this is going to help support your back, a little lift in the low back is fine, lift the shoulders and head up off of the mat so we get that core engagement, now with legs straight or bent, your choice, if they're bent all you're going to do is lower the legs down, heels toward the floor and lift back up, if they're straight, same action, lower the legs down as far as you can and exhale them back up for 10, exhale 9, so you want to exhale, brace the core, 8, keep those toes pointed forward so you've got the leg muscles working, exhale 7, stay with me, 6, 5, be strong, strong in the mind, strong in the body, where are we at, 4, 3, 2 and 1, good, now stay with the work, last little hit here, legs are bent 90 degrees, arms are straight up toward the ceiling, from here you're going to, it's going to get harder, lift the head, lift the shoulders, okay, so again stabilizing, grounding through the back, stabilizing through the core, arms straight up, maybe now straighten the legs and lower them a little bit or a lot, if you want a little more intensity take the arms overhead, lift the shoulders, point the toes for 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and relax, if you don't feel that, don't even tell me, okay, feet below the knees, press through the feet to lift the hips, alright, bridge pose, you can interlace your hands if you'd like underneath, I'm going to not interlace my hands but sometimes I feel like that feels better for my neck, so I keep my arms open, palms up, I just shimmy the shoulder blades toward one another and right away what this is giving me and hopefully giving you, my good friend, is a nice big opening in the front side of the body to compliment the work we've done. This sequence, this class can be done every single day, right, because we don't kill it too much, right, we just bring attention to the area so that we can do this every single day to add and compliment everything else we do, bring the low back down, very nice. Now with control, take hold of the hamstrings, we'll see what you got going on here, so what I want you to do is draw the knees in and then forward, rock like you're coming up to sit but then what we're going to do is like five times nice and controlled, core sort of focused, is roll back, legs up and back a little bit and then almost like you're trying to come up into a boat pose every single time. Roll back with control, stick the landing, nice, roll back, stick the landing, it's all down deep in the core, three more, good, two more.

Boat pose with legs bent, thumbs up, you can also straighten your legs, last one and we'll hold, good, shoulders back, neutral spine but you're in this 45 degree position, legs are bent, maybe straightening those legs, arms reaching out, alright we'll do one more, come up, you want to use your hands, you can use your hands out in front of your hips, you can also bring your hands behind your hamstrings, flirt with straightening the legs, make sure you've got a good focal point because it is kind of a little bit of balance, very good, cross the legs and move on to your hands and knees, take one good breath and push it back into a child's pose for one breath, alright, up into tabletop, so tabletop stack the hands under the shoulders, knees below the hips and begin now to stretch that right leg out or step the right leg back, heel up, okay, once you find your balance here and feel good and sturdy with the leg pressing back and down for now, extend the left arm straight out so you have alternate limbs extending from the body, now brace through the center line, midline, you might want to also work toward drawing that tailbone back in the direction of your right heel, this will help to adjust the pelvis and naturally turn that core on a little bit, now if you feel good here you can lift the right toes up, push through that right heel and squeeze that right glute, your butt on the right side, okay, the left toes can be curled or uncurled, now five times knee toward the elbow toward the center line of the body, exhale as you're doing this and kind of bracing and pulling up through the mid belly, now the elbow isn't crossing to touch the elbow, the knee is drawing in toward the center and the elbow is drawing in toward the center, so they're sort of crossing paths, now inhale, extend out, exhale, it's almost like cat-cow with the extended limbs, extend out so you have cow pose, exhale, engage, turn the core on, knee toward the elbow or inside, extend, contract, extend, contract, beautiful, one last time and now extend all the way out, bring your left hand back down, right toes to the floor, now to help with your balance slide your left foot over, six inches or so, it's like a kickstand on a bike, bring the right heel down, I'm still with you, I'm just turning my back to you, alright, now the left hand behind or below the shoulder and you come up into this nice little knee down side plank, so we'll hang here for a few moments and it might feel nice for you to roll and circle through that right shoulder, ground into the outer edge of the back foot, we've got a couple options we can play with here, first one would be keep the right arm high, lift the left foot so your leg is parallel with the floor, now push through the heel of the right foot like you're trying to stomp on something and feel that right side, the whole right leg basically ignite and turn on, you want to add a stretch to it, bend the right leg, grab hold of the right foot, drawing the heel toward the seat, opening the right shoulder up a little bit, make sure you're breathing all along, it's hard for me to always remind you to breathe, so just assume that I'm always telling you to breathe in and breathe out while cueing you, okay, now extend that leg back out, the right leg, bring the right foot back down, now one last added little something here you can play with and that's going to be lifting the left knee and left foot up off of the floor, left knee tracks toward the left elbow and you can feel the core saying hello, nice and the left knee comes back down, open up, take a big fresh breath and the right hand comes down, right knee, cat cow, always a good option, back into neutral spine, even in table top, right, you've got to keep, in fact let's do this in between, what I want you to do is point your toes back, press the tops of the feet down into the mat, don't really change much but pushing the tops of the feet into the mat and lifting your knees like six inches or three inches, try not to get that big arch in the back, so draw the tailbone back, neutral pelvis here, core nice and braced and you're going to feel how you have to kind of like get those shoulders on, shoulders are lit up, thighs are lit up, your glutes, so those are all muscles that can be called core as well, okay, bring the knees down, good work, turn the left leg out, and once you get the left leg out, get the spine situated, get all stabilized, extend the right arm, the thumb is up and open, back toes are curled or uncurled, I haven't decided which one I'm going with yet, left leg up, push through the heel, make sure the belly isn't kind of flopping out, right, so pull it up and in, nice and strong and committed to the midsection. Now exhale, knee in, elbow in, extend out, inhale, exhale, and when you extend the back leg out, push through the heel, lift the heel toward the ceiling and get that left side, that left butt talks, nice and engaged, contracted, exhale, let's do two more, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, okay, extend all the way back out, right hand down, left toes down, left heel down, now slide the right foot over for the kickstand, make sure you're nice and aligned here, so ideally you've got your right hand, your right knee and your left heel kind of all lined up, okay, so you've got the points of contact, make sure they feel nice, and the left arm rises, just like we did on the other side, some circles, some kind of stretchy moments for the left shoulder, side bend, okay, you can add the left leg lifting, parallel with the floor, drive through the heel, point the toes, drive through the heel, take hold of the left foot as an option, okay, but make sure that left shoulder doesn't rotate inward, pull the right shoulder open, open the chest up a little bit, pull the heel toward the seat and get that what may feel like a nice quad stretch, okay, extend that left leg back out, foot down, and here's that fun one, okay, so the left arm reaches up, make sure your right shoulder is good here, okay, so make sure it's stacked up, plumb up, good and strong, now pushing into the back foot, right hand, lift the right knee, draw the right knee toward the right arm, open the chest, breathe, smile, hi, good work, good work, you're doing great, and bring it down, exit, okay, let's swirl around a little bit in a tabletop, so just create maybe like two or three circular motions, work out any kinks you've got in the arms or shoulders, maybe push back into a momentary child's pose, this is a core focused class, we don't need too much rest here, right, okay, back into your table and curl your toes under and downward facing dog, walk it out a little bit, spread your fingers, at the base of each finger you have a significant knuckle pad, push very specifically into those knuckle pads, this helps to alleviate some wrist pressure, come into plank pose as you inhale, bring your knees down if you'd like or we just go right through a chaturanga low push-up, so that's about halfway down, elbows plumb up over the wrists, inhale upward facing dog, roll the shoulders back, lift the heart, the chest, exhale downward facing, good, one more time, breathe in plank, nice and strong in plank, exhale lower, inhale upward, exhale downward facing, nice, bring the knees down, puppy pose, don't get too cozy though, this is momentary, temporary. So what we do here, friend, is we find a position in puppy pose, preferably with the forearms and elbows down, this is where we're going to revisit after each forearm segment, we're doing four different forearm moves, okay, forearm planks, so you'll get the hang of it very shortly, so come into, so from puppy pose, this is your rest, come forward, shoulders up over the elbows, curl the toes, lift your knees, for the first one we hold standard forearm plank, push the palms, forearms, elbows down and pull them towards your toes as you track your toes forward, so everything pulls into the midline, to the center and it creates a little trembling, pull the shoulders back, lengthen the head, the neck, now here's your recovery, knees down, puppy pose, two, three breaths, if you're super feeling so strong and you want to eliminate your puppy pose today, you can continue to hold your forearm plank and come into what our next one would be, you can flow right into a side plank, so come forward, take the right forearm parallel with the front of the mat, lift the knees and the heels to the right, I like to stagger my feet, you can stack them, lift your hips, make sure your right shoulder's up over the elbow, left arm nice and high, and we stay here for five, four, three, two, good work, one, bring it over to the left side, to the left, to the left, I think that's a little song, right arm reaches up, strong back, strong core, feet are pressing down, anytime you can get those feet ignited, three, two, one, back to forearm plank, knees come down, there's your rest, puppy pose, so you bring those shoulders back, so they're not getting the work anymore, next one's going to be dolphin, so come forward, forearm plank, now from forearm plank, palms down, elbows about shoulder width, you can take them a tiny bit wider, walk the toes forward, bend the knees a little bit, grab the chest back, chest back towards your toes, breathe for five, keep the core nice and braced, four, three, two, back into forearm plank, slide or step it back, hold, feel your strength if you're getting tired, you know, it's normal, it's totally normal, I'm tired here, but I got a job to do, I got to continue, okay, knees down, puppy pose, so what I find helpful is when I'm doing challenging practices in general, as I just kind of fortify my mind, like it's a fortress and it's filled with positivity, words that have to do with strength, right, like nothing but like I can do this, I can do this, and of course if I need to rest because of if I just need to rest and I take the rest, but stay strong, right, come forward into last one, forearm plank, now lift your butt up a little higher than you may have been doing the last few times, this will just create some space for us to draw the right knee toward the right arm, right foot back, left in, that's five, five, exhale four, exhale four, exhale three, exhale three, exhale two, exhale two, exhale one, exhale one, forearm plank, breathe in and puppy pose, that's it, good job, really nice, so situate yourself on your mat to come forward into Sphinx pose, drop all the way down, get a little relaxed back bend here for a moment, for the guys out there adjust if you need to adjust, okay, now it's important that we not only work our core on the front side but we actually think about our core as our backside as well, okay, so we'll do that right now, lower down, slide the hands alongside the ribs, thumbs kind of below the chest line there, point the toes back, keep the head in line with your spine, lift the palms up, elbows want to reach up to the ceiling and back toward your heels, so this naturally right here without even really lifting is going to turn on, light up and engage your back muscles, okay, now if you want to add, squeeze the butt, press the feet down and lift your chest and hold, extra little squeeze like you're trying to pull those elbows to your heels, up to the sky and toward one another and relax, we're going to do three of those, head to the palms, stack palms, if it bothers your low back don't lift the body, keep the body down, just get the arm movement, remember stabilize your spine, reduce injuries, the risk of injury, body optimization basically and to transfer force to your limbs in all activities, that's what we're doing right now, so hands down, legs strong, glutes fired, neutral pelvis, palms lifting, head in line with the spine, none of this, this does no good for you right now, not what we're working, elbows up and back and toward one another, lift the chest, strong what they call the posterior chain, everything, your calves, your hamstrings, your glutes, your back, all of these things actually support your back for the most part, got a little cramp on my left foot and relax, you're doing great, when you can find that threshold and intensity and you feel strong right, mentally, physically, you can feel so empowering, so do what you can to find the threshold that works for you, don't get down on yourself if you feel like you should be somewhere else, here you are doing the work right now, let's get this last one in nice, feet down, calves, hamstrings, glutes, back, palms up, everything is working, breathing, you can even take the arms back and we can transfer into locust pose, so now it's a little less muscular and we add a little stretch, you can let the legs lift a little bit, open the chest and shoulders for three, you can look forward gently to and relax, push back into child's pose, tabletop, stay in the work, downward dog, all right, from downward dog, we might pick up the pace just a tiny bit but still obviously work at your own pace, right leg lifts, inhale, exhale, right knee toward the right elbow or a little higher, cheetah, inhale up, toward the nose now, right down the midline, gaze toward the knee, inhale up, now it's called fallen angel, what you're going to do is draw that right knee toward the left elbow, spin the back heel down, shoot the right leg out and then lift the hips and oh yes, so it's like a side plank, right, so that right arm's got to be engaged, okay, now lower the hips, engage the core, lift the right foot, sweep it back up into three-legged dog and then you're going to open up that hip on the right side and if it feels like the right thing to do for you, flip it over, straighten out your left leg, push through the right heel to lift the right arm up and back, left arm working, good job, lower the hips, brace the core and step it right back up, three-legged dog, step the right foot through the knee to nose, action to the front of the mat, okay, here's where you got to work the lower part of your body here, okay, so up on your fingertips, feet are hip width, lift your body up about 45 degrees so there's no belly on your thigh, right leg strong, take the arms, reach them straight up alongside your ears, try not to get into a back bend here so draw those low ribs in, core focused movement here, okay, now simultaneously what you're going to do is put a little bend in the left knee and you're going to come up to stand lifting your left knee high, so it's right, pull the elbows in, strong, so we've added a little balance to this, with control step back into what's called that lunge rocket move, right, step back, very nice, back up, last time, step back, get the rocket action, core focused, up, knee up, very nice, warrior three, so bend the right leg a little bit, pitch the hips forward as you extend your left leg back, upper body stays nice and long and strong, I like to press the palms not the center of the chest but you can also reach those arms straight, ah straight out, lock it in, standing split, if you have a block or blocks go ahead and grab them if you'd like, I'm choosing opting not to, push the ground away to lift that left leg up a little higher, I like to lift my hip open, the left hip open just a little bit, bend the right leg, left foot to the floor, exhale, forward bend, half lift, inhale, exhale, downward dog, very nice, we'll come through one denyasa, inhale plank, lock it in, lower down, inhale upward and exhale, from the core back into downward dog, lift your left leg up, breathe in, knee to left elbow as you breathe out, inhale high, knee toward the nose, point the toes back, inhale up, cross it over, fall in, angel boom, lift the hips, right arm reaches to the high, breath is alive, now you want to lower the hips a little bit, engage the core, lift the left foot up, bring it back into like the three or the knee to nose action but you're going to send it straight up, open the hip, bend the left leg, left foot back behind you, straighten the right leg and then boom lift the hips, flipping the dog, good work, lower, engage, back up into three-legged dog, step the left foot through to the front of the mat, land it, catch your breath or shall I say let me catch my breath for a moment, okay, upon the fingertips, body lifts so you've got to engage the core, okay, arms reaching up alongside your ears, drive heavily through the left heel, left side working strong here, now you're going to come up into the knee high lift, inhale back into the lunge, exhale, lift the knee, that's it, pull the arms in, get that forceful feeling, step it back into that rocket lunge, one more time, feel everything turned on, boom, knee high, good and strong, warrior three, shoot the right leg back, upper body extends forward, so from your right heel all the way out through the crown of your head, one long line, standing split, hands toward the floor to the floor, push the floor away, right leg lifts, relax the back of the head, good, bend the right leg, bring the right foot down, forward bend, half lift, inhale, and exhale, fold, straighten the right leg, bend the left, lift the chest, rotate, reach the right arm high, good, just to kind of rinse out the back a little bit, right hand down, left leg straight, right leg bent, lift the chest, the heart and rotate, bring it back down, we'll walk it back into downward facing dog, three good satisfying breaths here as you're beginning to close your practice out, good work today, let's take another breath together, breathe in and breathe out, let it all go, bring the knees down, child's pose, one breath, inhale, exhale, okay, so you can stay here if you'd like or join me in shavasana, we're going to roll right on to our back, if there's anything else you need to do that is going to help you to feel good and ready for your relaxation, by all means press pause on this and resume when you're ready. If you're ready for relaxation, stretch the legs out, reach the arms out wide from the body, palms facing up and this is that opportunity now to just let go of all of the attention to engaging the effort right, complement all of the work you've done with zero muscular effort, we've got to have that balance right, the balance of the work you do, the effort, the strength with rest, if ever I'm impatient with rest I want to shorten it, I remind myself because I feel like rest is strength, rest equals strength and power and you know you feel revitalized and ready to you know get it done, whatever that might be for you, so as best you can embrace the rest, the letting go, the chill out, great opportunity here to let all of the thoughts in your mind be just nothing but supportive, like your cheerleaders in your mind, like good job, you showed up again, you did the work and I'd say 99.9% of the time you always feel better afterwards, so hopefully you're feeling good. Let the breath relax, the core relax.

Start to move your head from side to side, nice and relaxed, and loosen up the neck, shoulders, and your fingers around, just come back into your body in a relaxed kind of way, toes, ankles, wrists, stretch the arms overhead, arch the back a little bit, stretch the legs out, so good, we'll meet right here, right where we began, so if this is the first time you've ever done it, welcome, I really hope this is beneficial for you, right, and if you've done this over and over again, welcome back, and we'll close out with huge gratitude for our health, for our breath, our bodies, right, our life, and namaste, have a great day.