Balance and Shoulder Release

Thanks for joining me on the Vinyasa flow journey today. Today you are going to fly, so get ready. We will have the opportunity to do a little hand standing, so if you have space at home and you usually practice against the wall, you might want to move something really quick, whether you walk the wall or kick up to the wall, or you can just play with me at the center of the mat and we will do some preparations for handstands. Also, give yourself a moment to thank yourself for showing up to the mat today. As we settle in, we are going to connect with the rise and fall of our breath. You can take your hands and interlace them and place them in your lap just for a second, and take a nice deep inhale through the nose. Let something out as you exhale. Nice deep inhale, let it out. One more, clear and purify the mind. Inhale, move the tension out as you exhale. Bring the interlace hands right on top of your heart, connecting with your heart center. And from here, we are going to extend the arms on the next inhale. So exhale it out. Inhale the palms straight forward, the height of your heart. Exhale, back in. Inhale, extend it forward, living and loving from the heart space. Pull it right back in. One more. Inhaling, extending, exhaling. A little higher with your palms, the height of your throat. Inhale, Vishuddha chakra. Exhale, bring it back to the heart. Inhale, lifting it up. Exhale, bring it back home. One more. Inhale, the height of your throat. Exhale. Now we're taking it to the height of our brow. So inhale on your chakra, bring it back home to the heart. Inhale, send it up. Exhale. One more. Inhale. Exhale, all the way up to the crown of the head. Inhale, stretch through the side body. Exhale, back to the heart. Inhale. Exhale, back to the heart. One more round. Inhale. Keep the arms up and then just take a little pulse from side to side. Inhale, back to center. Exhale to your left. Inhale, back to center. Exhale to the right. One more round. Inhale, back to center. Exhale to the left. Inhale, back to center. Bring your palms right back to the heart. Switch the interlace. One more round. Full series. Inhale, send it away. Exhale, bring it in. Inhale, send it away. Exhale, bring it in. One more at the heart. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, height of your throat. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. You're getting a nice rhythm. One more. Inhale. Exhale, height of the brow. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Last round of the brow. Crown of the head. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Squeeze the palms to the sky. Exhale. Last round. Keep the palms up there and then we'll take some soft circles with the torso. You can start really slowly exploring these soft circles or if it feels okay you can move a little deeper into your circles. Feeling that connection between the torso and the limbs and then switch the direction. If this is too much for your lower back, bring your hands to your knees and just take circles with your hands at your knees. Last one. Good. Release the arms. Bring the hands right on top of the knees. Give yourself a soft twist. Lift the sternum. Lift the chest. Exhale. A little rotation. Maybe walk the fingertips back. Tall spine. Little rotation. And then drape the left hand behind your back. Inhale the right palm to the sky and we'll take a little side stretch to the right. A little trapezius stretch. Release and tension in the neck. Enjoy the breath. Go back to the breath. Good. And we'll switch up the cross of the legs. This could change your whole week just crossing the legs the opposite way. Bring your hands on top of your knees. Walk the right fingertips behind you. Tall spine. Exhale. Rotate. Inhale. Lengthen and lift. Exhale. Rotate. One more round. Nice release for the spine. And when you come back to center with your torso, drape the right hand around your waist. Inhale the left palm to the sky. Left ear drops towards the left bicep. Roll the right shoulder down. You can curl up the sides of your mouth if this feels good. One more round of breath. And then slide your hands to your knees. Just a couple of cow and cat tilts of the spine. Rounding the spine. As you exhale, pull the navel up and back. Inhale, lift the heart, chin and chest. Two more rounding of the spines. And two more cow tilts of the spine.

Last one. Good. From here we're going to swing our legs around for table pose. Slide your palms right underneath the shoulders. Guide your knees right underneath the hips. Let the belly drop and then guide the heart forward. Look forward and up as you inhale. Start the tilt at the sacrum, then the core. Then push down and the head's the last expression of your cat tilt. Same thing as you move forward. The head's the last thing to move as you move into your cow tilt. Good. One more round. Great. Come to a neutral spine. We're going to play with some variations of these cat and cow tilts. As you inhale, lift the heart. And as you exhale, round the spine, push forward with the palms, back up your seat in the cat tilt of the spine.

As you inhale, guide the heart forward. Lift the drishti. As you exhale, push, round, contract. You got two more. The farther back you sit on your heels, the more you'll feel. Last one. Come to a neutral spine. Walk your hands off the mat to the left or towards the left corner of your mat. Guide your hips to the right. If you want to feel more, you can swing your toes around to the left to exaggerate that side stretch. Breathe slower and fuller and deeper into the right side body. Great. We'll come back to our table pose. And then we'll walk the hands over to the left side of the mat. Guide your seat towards your left heel and either stay here or swing the right toes around to the right to exaggerate the side stretch on the left side body and really breathe into the lats, intercostals, the muscles along the side body, creating a little bit more space for your breath. Enjoy the inhales. Lengthen the inhales out. Great, guys. Come on back to your table pose. So we're going to do those same variations. You can keep the knees on the floor or you can play with a variation with the knees off the floor, hovering the knees the height of your heels. Cow tilting as you inhale, rounding the spine, pushing forward, backing up the seat as you exhale, gauging the core muscles, leaning forward, cow tilting the spine. Exhale, cat tilting, pressing back. Give yourself two more rounds. Remember, you can do this with your knees on the floor if it's too much, but this is a great way to fire up the core, create some heat for the flow today. Last one. Neutral table. Inhale the right palm to the sky. Give yourself a little stretch and thread it under, across, and through.

Stay here for a softer spinal twist or push the floor away with your left palm. Enjoy the exhale. Soften into the exhales. The inhales are the active part of the breath for the spinal twists. The exhale is just a nice release. Push down with your left hand, inhale the right palm up, and then bring it back to the floor. Same thing on the other side. Inhale the left palm up, thread it under, across, and through. Soft your twist or use the right hand to push the floor away. Nice thoracic twist of the spine. Lengthening the breath with the inhale, really softening into the exhale. Really surrender into your exhale with the twist. Don't force it. Journey slowly back, right palm presses, left hand to the sky. Just a breath and then lower your palms to the floor. Walk your hands of palm print forward. Spiral the biceps forward, push forward and down to index and thumb. Tuck your toes under and lift your seat to the sky. First down dog. Feel free to pedal it out nice and slow. Don't forget the foundation, the palms pressing forward and down. Make sure you're really active in the palms, active in the fingers so you're not sinking into the wrists. Enjoy that down dog being very active in your palms, drawing the navel up to the spine, chest towards the thighs. Then we'll come forward to our first plank pose. Always the option of lowering the knees to the floor if you need to. Lengthen forward as you bend the elbows and lower down. Setting up for our first back bend, a softer experience, sphinx pose. Elbows right underneath the shoulders. Guide your shoulders back and energetically move your ribs forward.

Stretch the front body, pull the navel up and back. This keeps the lower back nice and safe. It actually strengthens the lower back when we move the ribs forward and engage the front body. This can be your spot for the next three breaths. If you want and you're itching to come up into cobra, up dog, feel free. I'm going to start mine with the first cobra, keeping the elbows bent, moving the heart back. Good. Press through your table, tuck your toes under, press back to your down dog. Any intuitive movements that feel right for you in this second one, maybe it's a shoulder shrug or maybe you're moving the hips from side to side. Giving yourself a chance to feel a little bit more comfort in this foundational pose. Great. So from your down dog, we're going to walk the hands back just a little bit so that we're near the back of the mat with our heels. That way we can take this nice variation in shalambhasana, so lengthen the spine, come forward and lower all the way down. This way you've got a little cushioning for your forehead on your mat. And then once your forehead comes to the mat, you can slide your palms one at a time underneath your quads. And then if the forehead doesn't feel good and you're comfortable lifting the head off the floor, that might be a better option. We're just going to inhale and lift the left leg off the floor and exhale, lower it down. Inhale the right. So we're starting to tone up the quads, the glutes, the lower back. As you're inhaling, see if you can start to turn your inner thigh inward instead of turning your toes outward. So you're kind of drawing your foot towards the midline instead of externally rotating. Give yourself two more on each side. These are nice stabilizers for the lower back. Strengthening the lower back. One more. And then we'll go back either to Sphinx pose or we can bring the palms next to the ribs and keep that engagement of the quads, engagement of the glutes as you move your heart forward to either cobra or up. Moving the ribs forward to the shoulder blades back. Great. Send it back to your down dog. From your down dog, go ahead and bend your right leg and we'll slide the right leg in front of them and across the left. So we get a little IT band stretch as you press back to your dog.

And if you don't feel anything here, slide your shoulders forward so you're moving into plank. And let that right foot slide forward. Seven, eight, nine o'clock. And then press back and tell you, oh, that's where I feel. So find that spot where you're feeling the pose, outer glute, IT band. Then we're going to turn this into a side plank. So pivot your left heel to the right, push forward into your right hand and inhale the left palm to the sky. This is a great spot to stay right here. If you want to lift the right leg off the floor, push forward and down to lift the right leg off the floor. We're going to take the side plank to the left now. So draw the right knee into your chest, press the left palm to the floor, pivot the left foot, step back, go back to home base where you started right hand, slide the leg across foot to the floor or keep the foot off the floor. You got a couple more in you, step it back. Last one. One plank pose, lower all the way down. Cobra up dog. And then you've got one more round. Those lower back strengtheners. You can keep the arms by the side or slide them underneath. We did one leg at a time last time. Stay with that or see what it feels like to lift both legs up at the same time. Inhale lift, exhale lower.

Inhale lift, exhale lower. You feel how the legs are engaged as you're lifting. See if you can keep the legs engaged, lower them and then lift your chest. Cobra up dog. So the lower part of the body is very active in your posture. Send it back to your down dog. I-T band stretch on the second side. Bend your left leg, slide the left foot in front of and across. If you're not feeling anything here, outer glute I-T band piriformis area, slide your left foot forward and then back up again until you feel. A little resistance there. Good resistance. Pivoting that right foot over to our left. Pushing straight down into that left palm forward and down. Moving into this variation of Vashisthasan with the foot on. Or if you're lifting off, press forward and down strongly. Right hand to the floor, left knee into the chest.

Keep the left leg bent. Pivot your right foot the other way. Step it back. Left hand back to the floor, left knee across. Pivot the foot. Right hand to the sky. One last round. That right hand's pushing forward and down the whole time so we don't sink into the wrist. We're very active with the palm. Good. Lower it down. Cobra or up dog.

Send it back to your down dog. Walk your hands to the back of the mat. We're going to take a little wrist stretch with our knees bent as if we're going to sit and chair. We slide the palms underneath the feet. Keep your knees bent the whole time for this one. So think of chair pose and then add a cat tilt to the spine so that it starts to pull those arms really straight and that connection between your palm and your wrist gets a nice little stretch there. Go ahead and release. Enjoy a soft forward fold either with the palms on the shins before or grab onto your elbows and give yourself a little hang time.

Go ahead and lengthen the spine. Bring your palms to the shins. Bend the legs here so you're sitting into chair pose. Slide your palms just on top of your quads. Lift your heart. Press down. Lift your heart, chin, and chest. And then once again, round the spine. Cat tilting the spine. Here's about two more rounds of these cat and cow tilts from chair pose.

The next time you take your cow tilt, stay right here. Lengthen forward lower so that your shoulders are the same height as your hips. Interlace your hands behind the back. Move your wrists away from the seat. Lengthening the spine and just straighten your left leg. Invite the wrist to move over to the right. Get along with the inhale and then you can rotate deeper with each exhale. Lengthening with the inhale. Enjoy the breath and exhale it out. Good. Bending the knees back to your chair with the interlace. Switch the index finger that's on top. The weird finger. Straighten the right. Move the wrists away from the seat. Lengthen the spine and then opportunity to rotate a little bit deeper. Last round. Lengthen as you inhale. Rotate as you exhale. Soft fold. Round. Engage your core. Roll it on up. Inhale your palms to the sky. Exhale your palms right to the heart center. Once again, check back in with your breath. Make sure the breath is leading you into each posture. The breath is the anchor.

The postures are just an extension of the breath. Good. So as you come back, we're going to take that right leg and slide it behind the left. We're going to bend the left leg going back into that IT band stretch. Follow the line of your right ankle all the way up your right hip. Side bending over to your left. So the right arm comes over the head. This might be a great spot to hang out or you can take a different arm variation. Left hand pulls the right wrist or you can even bring the hand behind the head. Lean the head back. Really trying to stretch the right side body slower, fuller, deeper breaths here. Breathe into the right side body. Try to expand that area that you habitually want to breathe shallowly in during a side stretch. Good. Keep the legs just as they are. Tall spine, release the arms, swan dive forward, engage in your core and bring your left hand to your sacrum and your right hand somewhere to your left shin. Lengthen the spine, get long through the spine, rotate and twist. One more round, lengthen and then go ahead and rotate and twist. Soft bend of the knees. Bring your fingertips to the floor and let your right knee rest on top of your left calf. Start with your right toes on the floor, just behind the left heel and squeeze everything to the midline to help you rise up to this wobbly chair pose. You can keep the hands at the hips for balance or you can send them forward into traditional chair. If you decide to lift that right leg off the floor, make sure you keep your drishti forward and down for this wobbly chair variation. Good. Bring the palms up, bring the palms into prayer with the right foot on or off the floor and then lengthen forward warrior three. Extend the right leg back, squeeze the inner thighs towards the midline. You can always use a block on the floor if you need your block. Lower your palms to the floor and from here we're going to play. Remember I told you you had that opportunity to go into your handstand. Feel free to use the wall space. If you need your wall space you can step up the wall with your right foot from down dog or kick up to the wall. If you'd like to play with just the preparation, you rise to the tops of the toes, lean forward with the left leg standing leg straight and then you bend the leg. Rise and lean forward, more weight into your palms, press forward and down and bend. Maybe play with a little hop as you lower.

Finding a little hang time or just playing with those movements forward and backward. When you're done, walk your hands back, move into your easy side stretch. Right leg swings around one more time, same spot. Then we move into our forward fold, bring your hands to your hips, rise all the way up. Step that right leg over, shake the left leg out. How'd that work for you?

Good thing we have two sides, right? All right, right leg is the standing leg, left leg swinging around, right leg bending, left leg nice and straight, ankle line all the way up and over. So full side stretch through the left side body. Make sure you breathe slower, fuller, deeper into that left rib cage. Taking a different arm variation if you did that on the other side and keeping the legs just as they are. Squeezing to the midline, adducting, swan dive a fort. Left hand, right shin, right hand to the sacrum, get long through the spine, flat back before you rotate to your right. Always the opportunity of using your block here if you need it. Bringing the hands to the floor, bending the knees and sliding that left knee right behind on top of the right calf. Left toes to the floor lining up right behind the heel and then squeeze to the midline, a big adduction of the thighs to help you get up to your wobbly chair. And if you're not wobbling in your chair, you're not doing the pose right. Actually you're doing the pose really well if you're not wobbling at all. Squeezing to the midline, hands can stay at the hips or drishti forward. And then if you're lifting the left foot off the floor, you got to hug those knees tight together. Whether the left toes are on or off the floor, bring the palms into prayer. Lengthen forward as you extend the left leg back. Imagine you're still hugging the left leg towards the midline. Breathe into this. Right, the hands can be on the block in front of you. One more round of breath, lower the palms down. Good. I told you we were going to fly today.

From here, rise to the tops of the toes, lean forward, press down, bend the right leg. Right. Remember if you're playing with your walking of the wall for hands down prep, go to the wall, walk the wall. If you're playing with kicking up to the wall, set yourself up. As you lean forward, lift the left leg to the sky and pulse down. Looking for a little hang time. So we got to spiral the biceps forward, be really strong. And keep breathing.

Good. Forward fold. Slide the left leg back. Walk your hands forward. Last little twist. Left hand right thigh or to the floor. Twist it out. Hinge at your hips. Rise all the way up and step the left foot right next to the right. Right. Hands back to the heart. Reconnect. So go ahead and open the eyes. We're going to work our way to the front of the mat.

I won't know if you cheat and walk all the way there. You can do it if you want to, otherwise we'll take a nice full reverse sun salutation. Inhale the palms to the sky. Exhale. Forward fold. Inhale. Lengthen the spine. Walk forward to your down dog. Enjoy that hamstring stretch. And then in one hop or two hops or a nice slow walk, work your way to the front of the mat. Lengthening the spine. Soft fold. Heel toe your feet together and come into chair pose. Squeeze inner thighs and lift your arms the height of your shoulders. If this balance is wobbly for you, take your feet hip distance. Slide the right arm on top of the left. Eagle the arms. Move the palms away from you. Engage your core. Lift the elbows and then take four core crunches. Inhale. Cow tilting. Exhale. Cat tilting. Last two. Last one.

And then when you come up, go ahead and slowly rise all the way up. Straighten the legs. Reach the arms up and then lower the elbows the height of the shoulders. Take your palms to the right and the left ear to the left so you get your trapezius stretch. Good. Release the arms. Arms forward the height of your shoulders. Bend the knees. Left arm on top. Right arm on bottom. Move the elbows and palms away from your face.

Cow tilt the spine as you inhale. Engage your core. Pull up and back as you round the spine. Exhale. Lift and lengthen as you inhale. Round the spine as you exhale. Give yourself three more. Eagle core crunches. Last one. As you come up, slowly straighten the legs. Lift the elbows up. Give yourself a nice back bend and then lower the elbows the height of your shoulders.

Drop your palms to the left this time. Let your right ear drop to the right. Good. Release your arms. Palms the height of your shoulders. Bend the knees. Utkatasana. Chair pose and then from here you can either lower your hands to the floor or if you're feeling okay coming into the low squat, lift your heels off the floor. Maybe lower the hands down. Come all the way down to Navasana. Boat pose. Palms on the floor. Lift your sternum and chest. Knees can stay the same height as your heels or you can lose the arms. Draw the shoulder blades back. Finale. Extending your legs. Invite the breath to be slower, fuller, and deeper. One more round of breath. Cross your legs. Hug them into the chest. Pull the heels in. Move your palms forward for the rock and roll vinyasa or swing the legs around. From cobra, decide whether you're staying nice and low or we've opened up a little bit. Maybe moving into that first up dog. Pressing back to your down dog.

Lengthen out the breath. Inhale the right leg to the sky. Exhale. Bend the right knee. Step all the way forward to your low lunge and lower the left knee to the floor. Bring the palm on top of your quad. Left hand to your sacrum. Invite the tailbone to go straight down. Lift your sternum. Lift your chest. Stay right here or extend the palms to the sky. Rolling the shoulder blades down as you lift the heart. Right hand to your right quad. Left hand to the floor. Invite the right knee forward and then use that right quad. Push forward and down to help you lift and rotate. Easy side twist or move deeper and lift the left leg off the floor. Lower the right hand down. Lower your left knee down and then straighten the right leg. Pointing and flexing the foot. Really feel that planter and Dorothy flexion.

Bend your right leg. Notice where your left knee is. Place your left foot right where your left knee is. Tuck your toes under. Slide the foot forward for pyramid pose. If you need your block, set yourself up with your block. Otherwise, bring your hands to the shins or fingertips to the floor. Energetically squeeze the thighs towards each other and lengthen. If you want to take the hands forward or backward to go deeper into the posture, sometimes it's nice to explore the opportunities. Take a little bend in your standing leg, your right leg. Bring your hands to the hips and rise all the way up. Straighten your right leg. Invite that left back quad to internally rotate so your hips are drawing towards the front of your mat and from here we'll reach the palms to the sky. Roll the shoulder blades down. Take a little bend in your right leg. Keep that little bend. Shift your weight back into the left leg. Lift your heart, your sternum, your chest. Little bend into the right leg. If you're getting deep and you're not feeling anything, you might have to back up the back foot just a little bit to feel more depth in your warrior one. Good. Bring your right hand to the top of your right thigh. Left hand to the floor.

We're going to slide our left palm forward for a half moon twist. You may want to use your block here. It gives you just a little bit more balance. Lengthen forward. Bring your hands to your sacrum. Hips should be the same height. Draw the ribs forward and then move into your twist. Each inhale is the opportunity to lengthen from the waist to the crown. In each exhale, you can reach back with your heel and rotate. Great. Step your left leg all the way back. Give yourself a little space between your feet, hip distance, high lunge. We're going to take the eagle arms in our high lunge, bringing it all together.

Wrap the right arm on the bottom, left arm on top, and then press the elbows away. Sink into that right thigh. Good. Drop your elbows a second so that you can see in front of you. Step your left foot forward to meet the right. We're going to take this eagle nice and slow. So tippy toe the left foot. Come up to the tippy toes of your left foot and bend your right leg like you're sitting in chair. Take the tippy toe all the way around. You can also use the block right underneath your left foot to help you prepare for your eagle.

Place the toes on the block outside of your right foot and then bend deeply into your chair pose. Find your drishti. Find your focus. The deeper you bend, the easier it is for you to wrap, so you can stay on the toes or you can squeeze the inner thighs together and find your bind. Fly, eagle, fly. Give yourself one more round of breath and then go ahead and shake it out. Woo. Move your block off the mat. Keep it handy and close by. Palms into prayer. Take an inhale. Take an exhale. Let it go. Inhale your palms to the sky. Lift heart, chin, and chest.

Exhale, forward fold. Inhale, lengthen the spine. Exhale, walk or float back to your plank. Walk all the way down to your chaturanga. Guide your heart forward, cobra, up dog. Send it back to your down dog. Inhale, the left leg to the sky. Exhale, round the spine. Draw the knee into the chest. Step the left foot to the front of your mat. Lower the right knee to the floor, left hand to your quad, right hand to your sacrum. As you invite that left knee forward, you're opening the back hip. I invite that tailbone to draw straight towards the floor, lifting your sternum, counterbalancing. Staying there with the hands or reaching them to the sky.

Rolling the shoulder blades down as you lift the ribs and lift the heart. From here, bring the left hand to the left quad, right hand to the floor. Guide the left knee forward and then you can lift the left rib cage up and over the quad. Staying here with the hands, lengthening as you inhale and twist, we're sending that left palm to the sky. If you're going deeper, you always have the opportunity of lifting the back leg off the floor for a deeper expression of the twist. Lower the palm to the floor, lower the right knee to the floor, and we're going to flex and point the left leg. So exploring that connection at the ankle, how the calf is involved, while we pull the toes back. Good. Notice where your right knee is. That's where our right foot is going to go. Bend into your left leg, replace your right knee with your right foot, pyramid pose. Turn the back toes in on the right foot a quarter or a half step. The pyramid pose is our base for warrior one. Bring your hands to the hips and rise all the way up. From here, internally rotate the back right quad so your hips are drawing towards the front of your mat. Inhale the palms to the sky and each time you exhale, bend into that left leg. As you inhale, lift the ribs and chest, exhale, bend into your left leg. If you're noticing the knee going over the ankle and you can go deeper, just back up the right foot a little bit so you can find a deeper expression of your warrior one. Be kind to your lower back here.

Great. Bring your left hand on top of your quad, grab your block. We're going to fly once again in our half moon pose. Slide the block in front of your left foot, right underneath your shoulder, guide your weight forward, left hand to the sacrum, make sure that the glutes are equal, and then get along with your spine as you open up. Each opportunity you have to length with the inhale gives you more space to open and rotate with your exhale. Last round, step back to your high lunge so you can slide that foot back a little bit farther. And then once you get set up for your high lunge, we're going to recall in our eagle, our powerful friend, getting ready to fly on the wings of our eagle. Left arm on the bottom, right arm on top, guide your elbows away, lift your elbows, sink into your high lunge, breathe into that space. Such a great shoulder stretch. Good. Drop the elbow so you can see where you're moving, step your right foot forward. Good. From here you're going to have to lose your eagle, set up your block. Don't worry, you're coming back to your eagle. Left arm on the bottom, right arm on top. Once again, then we'll go tippy toe with the right leg. So bend into the standing leg, your left leg, tippy toes with the right leg and start to walk it all the way over to the top of your block. Bend into that standing leg and then just start to adduct and squeeze your inner thighs together.

Make sure you've got a focal spot to stare at or you're not going to stay in this pose very long. Stay on the block or keep the squeeze happening and wrap the right foot around. Fly eagle, fly. Good. And then slowly come out, shake out the legs. Did you do it? If you fell, don't worry. It's good for our ego and it's good to laugh at our ego because ultimately we want to crush the ego. So making an ass of yourself is a good thing. Move the block out of the way. Good. Palms together in prayer. Close the eyes for a moment and check back in.

So we have one last vinyasa together. Inhale your palms to the sky, lift your heart, chin and chest. Exhale, hinge with the hips, lengthen forward. Let the arms fall wherever they fall. Inhale, lengthen the spine. Bend the knees, walk or float back to your plank pose. Lower down. You guide your heart forward, your back bend. And then take your knees a little wider than hips distance. And after all that flying, you get a nice little break in child's pose. Reconnect with the rise and fall of your breath.

From your child's pose, recalibrate. Let's come back to table. Knees are right underneath the hips and keep the knees underneath the hips. We're going to take a nice little shoulder stretch, walking the hands forward. Try not to move the hips. Keep them right over the knees. And as you walk forward, maybe this is your spot. Maybe the forehead is coming to the floor or maybe you're opening up a little deeper and the chest or the chin is coming down for puppy pose. Giving yourself some time to open up the shoulders, preparing for some yummy backbends. Keep your elbows on the floor, guide your heart forward, lower all the way down. And we're going to take our quad stretch with the left hand. So keep the right hand where it is, bend your left leg, draw your left heel down towards the seat. And you might notice a little resistance there. If you want to feel this, see if you can instead of pushing down with your hand, push the foot into your hand, resist it for three, two, one. And then as you relax it, the heel might get a little closer to your seat. Try that again, resist it and then relax.

If you get lower, you might have to take a deeper interlace, press the foot up into your hand for three, two, one and relax. Good. From here, we're going to open up the chest, release that left leg, lower all the way down, take your right arm straight out to the side like a wing, the same height as your shoulder. And from here, we're going to slowly roll to our right, opening up the front of the chest, pec major, pec minor, relax the muscles of the face and the jaw. If you want to go deeper, once again, you can take that left leg, open up, draw the heel towards the seat or kick the heel away from the seat in the direction of your right hand, opening up the front body, opening up the quad and that's so as we did a lot of strengthening postures, this is a nice way to counterbalance some of that strengthening stuff that we did. Great. Come on back to center, release the leg, come back to your sphinx pose and we'll go straight back to that left leg again. This time, instead of drawing the heel in, we're kicking the heel away. I like to grab the big toe side of the foot because it opens up the shoulder more, but if that's hard for you, grab the pinky toe side, press the heel away, draw the ribs forward. Variation of dhanurasana, walk the fingertips forward, lower down, stay on your fingertips, kick the heel away from you and then drag your ribs forward towards your fingers. This is a great spot to hang out or you can lift the palm off the floor, kicking the heels away. Two more breaths, lower down. Let's try the other side. So back to our sphinx pose, the quad stretch for the right leg, bending that right leg, drawing the heel in towards the seat.

If you want to play with the resistance release technique again, push the foot into the hands, hold it for three, two, one, and then let the foot drop to its new set point. Keep it at the new set point, push the foot into the hand, three, two, one, lower it. Oh, it's touching now. You might find that it helps you create a new set point for that quad stretch. Push again and then release. Great. Release your right leg, left arm out to the side like a wing, same height as your shoulder. If this is okay for your shoulder, roll to your left. The more you roll, the more you open up pectoral muscles in the front of the chest. If you are grabbing the ankle on the other side, drawing the heel in for the quad stretch or kicking the heel away from you. It's like a reclining version of dancer pose.

This sets you up really nicely for a variation of dhanurasana. Lower arm back down, back to your sphinx pose, guide your ribs and your heart forward, reach back with your right hand this time, pinky toe side or big toe side of the foot, kicking the heel away, giving yourself a deeper back bend, opening up the front of the body. This is a great spot to hang out right here. Or if you're going for that second variation, walk your fingertips forward, kick the heel away and then drag your ribs, your heart forward towards your fingertips as you kick the heels away. This is a great spot to stay or lift it up. And this is where it's challenging to breathe. Let's go back to the breath, especially the inhales. Good. Side two is done. Maybe you move into cobra pose and then child's pose, or maybe you finish off the dhanurasana by grabbing both legs, move your ribs and heart forward, keep the legs, keep the core lifted and active, move the heart forward, kick the heels away from you. Keep connecting with your breath. If you're in child's pose, we'll meet you there in a second. Good. Lower back down, press back and meet some child's pose. A nice neutral spot for our spine. From your child's pose, go ahead and walk your palms back and go ahead and draw your knees together. Give yourself a little seat right here. We're going to tuck our toes under and sit on our heels. If this doesn't work for you, feel free to skip it and come into malasana.

Take your feet a little wider than your hips and turn the hips out. Otherwise, tuck your toes under. This one isn't for everybody. And then start to lean your weight back until you're on your heels. Keeping your fingertips by the side is a nice opportunity here or we can play with a little balancing posture right here. It's a nice way to slow the mind down. If you want to feel more, just extend your spine. From here, we're going to turn the knees out to 10 and 2 o'clock and we'll walk our fingertips forward. And as we walk the fingertips forward, start to drop your heels a little bit or a lot. You'll start to notice you get a nice stretch for the lower back. So we're releasing slowly after our back bends. A nice counterbalancing posture and we can come all the way back onto our God-given padding here on our seat for Baddha Konasana. I'm going to slide forward a little bit. Actually, this would be nice. Let's come into a little diamond-shaped Baddha Konasana first. Easier on the seat, easier on the hips. Move the padding away, bring your palms to your shin's length and the spine and take a very soft forward fold. Think about the qualities of the cow and cat tilts that we've been working with today. Each time you inhale, you can guide the heart forward and each time you exhale, you can soften into that new spot. By extending, we can move safely forward into flexion so that we're not putting any pressure on the lower back. But listen to how your lower back is feeling, especially after we did some back bends. Move slowly into these variations. If you get all the way down, you have a little resting spot for your forehead. As you come up and out, you can either draw your heels towards your seat or you can move your seat towards your heels. We'll keep the left leg bent and we'll slide the right leg forward, setting up for Janu Shashasana. The closer the heel is to the groin, the more you feel, drawing the right toes back. And then from here, before we go any deeper, let's bring our hands to the floor and we'll lengthen first and go into our twist. So we're turning the torso right over the straight leg. You can bring the hands on either side of the leg and the same qualities that we were working on as we were folding forward for that diamond shape, lengthening, and folding. This is such a great posture for the spine because we get all the movements of the spine. We get the extension of the spine, we get the rotation, and as we move deeper, we get the side flexion and of course the forward fold. So you get all four in one posture. You can always use a strap or a hand towel here. Just move forward slowly. Instead of thinking about bringing your forehead to the shin, imagine the crown of the head is moving towards the foot.

Nice restorative posture that's still quite active in its movement, setting you up really nicely as a finishing pose, a counterbalancing pose. Good. And then as we come up, we're going to take a soft little twist to our right. Good. Shake out the left leg. Bring your right leg setting up for Janu. Move the abundance out of the way and then tall spine. Keep your left leg really active. Start to turn your torso to the left over your left leg. Sometimes even a nice little twist helps you get that rotation going. And the same quality is lengthening forward, extending with the inhale, folding, flexing with the exhale, lengthening and folding. Long with the inhale, crown of the head moving towards the foot, folding with the exhale. You can take your shavasana here if you want. Just fall asleep right on your, don't do it. You'll be lopsided. Good. And as you rise up, you can walk the hands back, lengthen the spine, and we'll take a soft twist to our left, a little counter twist. If you want, you can invite the right knee to the floor. Great. We're getting ready for our shavasana. Thanks for flying with me today. You guys did great. So any last little movements that you need to do before shavasana, feel free to shake it out, move it around. I like to squeeze my shoulder blades together and flip my palms to the sky. Let one leg go at a time.

We're really trying to let go of our attachment to the physical body. Good, bad, neutral. Let it all go. Thank you, body, for this journey that you just took us on. Thank you, breath, for being the anchor, for being the guide along the way. And thank you, mind, for navigating on this journey, but let the mind be free of any doing. Instead of checking out and letting the mind wander, check in. Notice the thought patterns and see if you can let them pass by or dissolve without attaching to them.

Thank you. You can start to bring some intuitive movements back to the body, whatever feels right for you right now. As we awake from our shavasana. Whenever you're ready, you can draw the knees into the chest. Maybe a little rock side to side or any other movements that feel right for you, bringing your awareness back to the breath, slower, fuller, deeper inhales, rolling to the right, giving yourself a moment to hang out in your fetal pose. And back to the mind of clarity, back to the mind of innocence. And use your left hand to help you up to your seat.

Keep your eyes closed just for a second. Check back in to the area around your heart. And maybe bring your hands to your heart, just like you started your journey today. May we live in love from this space and may we share this energy with everyone that we meet. Slowly open the eyes. Thank you for sharing your good energy with me today. Thank you for flying. Keep your feet on the ground, but keep your spirit flying. Namaste.