Expand and Ignite

Thanks for joining me on this journey through heart opening and back bending. You will probably need two blocks today so you can keep them ready. We're going to start seated on our heels. So if this is challenging for you, you might want to sit on one or two blocks to start out with because you want to be comfortable while you're connecting to your breath. So find your comfortable seat, connect with your breath, bring your palms into prayer, and give yourself a moment.

Use the inhalations to cleanse and purify your mind, bringing the breath all the way down to the heart. And then as you exhale, let go of any resistance, any busyness, any challenges from your day. Try that again, inhale, purify, cleanse the mind as you breathe in, and exhale, let any resistance go. Last round, purify, clear your mind, bring in those beautiful qualities, life force and energy all the way down to the heart center, and exhale, let go of any resistance, perfect. Let's start with a little giving and receiving mudra.

Go ahead and inhale your palms to the sky. And as you exhale, draw the thumbs right down the center line of the body right to the heart. Take a big inhale here, and as you exhale, send it out, share it with the world 180 degrees in both directions, inhale, reach the palms back up. Connect with the source, whatever that means to you, draw that energy into your heart. Take a big inhale here, and exhale, press forward, send it out into the world.

Be the yogic messenger one more time, big inhale, reach it up, exhale it to the heart. Big inhale here, and send it all the way out, good. When you bring your palms back, bring your palms together, and then bring your elbows together. We'll lift the elbows a little higher than the shoulders until we start to feel a little resistance, and then keep the forearms together, let the head and neck roll back softly from side to side. Start with a nice trapezius stretch, we're going to do lots of shoulder opening today.

Rolling the neck from side to side as you keep the elbows lifted, good. Come on back to center, keep the forearms together, engage your core, cat tilt the spine to draw the elbows up and back to your core, and as you inhale, lift the elbows the height of your shoulders, separate the palms, the forearms, cactus feel, go the arms, lift the sternum and chest, make it feel good. As you exhale, round the spine, engage your core, forearms, palms together. As you inhale, lift the elbows the height of your shoulders, separate the elbows, separate the palms, squeeze your shoulder blades back, lift, lift, lift your heart, give yourself one more round, draw the elbows in, engage your core, inhale, lift. When you find yourself with those cactus feel, go arms, pause right there, reach out with your right fingertips, touch the floor, and then take a little shift to your left with your hips so you feel a nice side stretch, lifting the left arm up and over the ear.

Bend your left elbow and give yourself a little movement here, releasing some of that tension in the shoulder and exploring your range of motion here in the left shoulder. Good, we're going to increase the side stretch here, take that right hand, slide it straight forward from where it is, line it up with your right knee, shift your weight forward and extend your left leg out. Turn the toes, point them forward, inhale the left arm up and over the head, bring the left hand behind the head, cup the back of your head and then push the head back so you can open up the left side body. Find your breath, be actively pressing down with your left toes, moving the left hip forward, moving the left shoulder blade back in space, enjoy your breath all the way down to the belly. Good, one more round of breath and then as you release all the way back down to that kneeling space, slide your left hand right underneath your left shin, come back to your seat or drape it around the waist if it's easier, bring the right palm to your left ear, trapezius stretch on the opposite side.

Going back to center, cactus field goal, the arms, big inhale, lift the heart, chin and chest, exhale, round the spine, draw the navel up and back, forearms into the core. Inhale separate, lift, cactus field goal, the arms, heart lifts, shoulder blades, squeeze back, one more round, engage your core. The next time you lift your cactus field goal, reach, elbows back, pause here, reach out with your left fingertips, a good foot, foot and a half away, shift your hips to the right and explore a little rotation in your right shoulder, letting the left ear drop towards the left shoulder, creating some space here. Good, roll that right arm back, slide your left palm forward about a foot, line it up with your knees, free the right leg, press the pinky toe side of the right foot to the floor and take the right hand behind your head, cup the back of your head, now lean the head back so you start to get the shoulder opener, draw the right elbow back, move the right hip forward and then go back to your breath, slow, full, deep inhales and take your time with the exhales. One more full round of breath, take your time with the breathing, good, come on back down to your knees, this is where we're going to use our blocks, so grab your two blocks and place them on either side of your knees.

I'm going to demo this sideways so that you can see what's happening with my legs. We're going to go into Lhasana Pose, lifting the feet off the floor and the knees off the floor. We'll start with the first one with one leg at a time. So with your palms on the blocks, start to lean forward, bend into the elbows and then lift your knees off the floor. Pull the right heel up, lower it, pull the left heel up, lower it.

Three more rounds. Pull the right heel up, lower it, pull the left heel up, lower it. Two more. Are you still breathing? Pull it up, engage the core.

Last round, good. When you lower down, come back to your knees. A little counterbalance back bend, flip your blocks, lift your heart and take your hands either to the sacrum as you lift the chest or bring them to the block. Start lifted, real opening of the front of the chest. Good.

Lower back down. Round two, you have the choice of keeping both feet off the floor at the same time and crossing your ankles or going back to one leg at a time. I'm going to try to demo the one with the legs crossed. Let's see what happens. So lean forward, draw the knees up, cross the legs and pull up.

You can keep going one foot at a time. Two more breaths, maybe re-cross the legs. One more, lower down. That heats up the core nicely. Move your blocks out of the way.

Good. And then we'll back up those knees for our table pose. Let the belly drop, move the heart forward, lift your chest, exhale around the spine. Cat and cow tilts. And for this round, I want you to pause in your cow tilt, swing the hips to the right and look over your right shoulder.

Come back to center, exhale for your cat tilt, inhale, swing your hips to the left, drop the belly, move the heart forward, look over your left shoulder so you're getting a side stretch, exhale, come back to center. Inhale, cow tilt, look over the right shoulder, drop your hips to the right, one more round, cat tilt, inhale, cow tilt, look over and move your hips. Great. Come on back to your neutral table pose. From here we're going to extend the right leg, bend it, lift your heel to the sky and then inhale, look forward and up.

As you exhale, round the spine, tuck your chin towards the chest. Pulse with your breath, inhale, lift the heel, back bend, lift the heart, exhale, draw it in. We've got four more if you'd like to take those last four with the left knee off the floor, tuck the toes under, hover the left knee, lift with the inhale, round the spine with your exhale. Three more. Left leg and forward, exhale, round the spine, draw the knee in.

Last one, lift, draw the knee in. If your knee's off the floor, lower it back down and send your right leg back up. One last time, keep the right leg bent, reach back with your left hand. Grabbing the big toe side of the foot a little easier, pinky toe side a little bit more challenging, lift your knee away from the floor. This is a great spot to hang out and breathe into or let your right ear drop towards your right shoulder.

Keep the right leg up, bring the palm back to the floor, round the spine, cat tilt the spine, step the right foot all the way to the front of the mat. Bring your palms on top of your right quad. Keeping our cat and cow tilting theme, bringing that into our low lunge. So as you press down into the palms, lift your heart, lift your chin, lift your chest, cow tilt, and as you exhale, press forward with your palms, round the spine, draw the core up and back, cat tilt, pulsing with the breath, lifting with the inhale, increasing the back bend, neutralizing it with the exhale, core engaged, and lift it. Last one more, good.

The next time you round the spine, try to find a neutral spine between that extreme cow and cat tilt, let the tailbone lengthen down, invite the hip forward, interlace the hands behind the base of the head, and from here we'll do a little side flexion. So let the elbows drop over to the left, inhale back to center, let the elbows drop over to the right, inhale back to center. Give yourself two more pulses, inhale back to center, over to the right with your exhale. Good, inhale back to center, press the head back into the palms, sink into the front knee, lift the ribs, lift the chest, and invite the shoulder blades back. Your right hand is gonna stay, your left hand's gonna lower to the floor, inhale, right shoulder lifts to the sky, right elbow lifts to the sky, exhale, right elbow towards your left elbow, move into the twist, inhale, see if you can send it a little farther back, exhale, pulse it to your elbow.

We've got four more, if you'd like to tuck the toes under and lift the knee off the floor, keep a variation of our twist, keep pulsing with the breath, last two, inhale it up for the last one, and then once again, push your head back into the palm, draw the elbow behind you, push forward strongly into your left palm and back into your left heel, beautiful. Install the right palm to the sky, go ahead and frame the right hand on the other side of the right foot, lower the left knee down, good. From here we're gonna send the right leg to the sky for our one-legged down dog. So press the hip back, right heel to the sky, push forward with your palms, extend the right leg, toes pointing down, bend your standing leg, your left leg, press your chest closer to the thighs, lift the right heel a little higher, and then straighten the standing leg so you feel that calf stretch, try that again, bend the standing leg, push forward, maybe send the right heel even higher, keep it there and straighten the left leg, move forward to your plank pose. Lower down strong and slow, take your time, always the option of bringing the knees to the floor, replace your palms with your elbows, Sphinx pose, if you'd like to move deeper into the back bend, we did a little back bending already, you might be ready for Cobra pose, drawing the shoulder blades back, moving the ribs forward.

Take your time with the back bends today, we got plenty more coming, great, press back to your table, palms under the shoulders, knees underneath the hips, left leg extends this time, so lift the left leg, bend the knee, look up with the inhale and as you exhale round the spine, draw the chin towards the chest, as you inhale lift the heel, cow tilt the spine, look forward, exhale round, we're doing four more if you'd like to tuck the toes on the right foot, lift the right knee off the floor, create a little bit more heat, keep moving with your pulses, left knee into the chest as you exhale, back bend lift as you inhale, two more rounds, last one, keep the left leg lifting to the sky, the right knee's off the floor, lower it, push into your left hand, reach back with your right hand, big toe side easier to grab, pinky toe a little bit more challenging, the farther you lift the knee away from the floor, the more you'll feel, if you want the trapezius stretch, drop the left ear towards the left shoulder, keep lifting and kicking the heel away, nice psoas and quad stretch, release the leg, keep it off the floor, cat tilt the spine, draw the knee into the chest, look forward and step it to the front of your mat, palms on top of the quad, sink into the foundation of your back leg, bring the palms on top of the quad, press forward, lift the heart, lift the chin, lift the chest, cow tilt the spine, exhale round the spine, nice and slow, gauge your core, inhale lift, so as you exhale your point your left hip back just a little bit, point yourself out of that deep low lunge and then as you inhale you're inviting yourself to move a little bit deeper by lifting the ribs chest and dropping into it, last round, cat tilt the spine and then come to a neutral spine, don't go too deep, come to that neutral spine, invite the tailbone to lengthen down and lift your ribcage, reach the palms to the sky, non-habitual interlace behind the head, side flexion, let the left elbow drop to the left, big inhale as you come back to center, exhale the elbows to the right, enjoy the feeling in that left side body, that space that you're creating from these pulses, one more round to the left and one more round to the right, find a neutral spine, press the head back into the palms, drop deeper into the foundation, pull and lift the heart, maybe move the elbows back in space to get a little bit more of a back bend, your left hand is going to stay, right hand lowers to the floor, left hand stays behind the head, inhale the left elbow to the sky, setting up for the twist, exhale the left elbow towards your right elbow, keep the right arm straight, inhale lift it, open up, rotate the spine, exhale lower, option we got three more, tuck the toes under, lift the right knee off the floor, deepen the twist, the low lunge, draw the elbow in, last round, lift and lower, the next time you lift, press the head back into the palms or extend the left palm to the sky, beautiful, lower the palms to the floor, lower the right knee to the floor, left leg to the sky, one leg down dog, inhale the left leg up, point the toes down, push forward with your hands, bend the standing leg, send the left leg higher, push down with the palms, straighten the standing leg, so nice to get the hamstring and calf involved in the same pulse, bend, send it a little higher, this is where you feel the calf muscle start to straighten, one more round, bending and straightening, lengthen forward for your plank pose, option of bringing the knees to the floor as you lower all the way down, so you have the option of your sphinx pose, your cobra or maybe you're moving a little higher up towards your up dog, good, and then we'll go ahead and lower all the way down, extend your left arm out to the side the same height as your shoulder, keep the palm on the floor and roll towards the left arm, nice pectoral stretch, if you want to go deeper you can always bend the legs, the closer your right seat gets to the floor, the more you'll feel in the front of that arm, good, release, come back to center, extend your right arm out, roll it on over, find that spot where you can still breathe evenly, maybe bending one or both knees, the closer your left glute gets to the floor, the more stretch you get in the front of the body, such a great way to open up the front of the chest, help us go deeper into our back bends, come on back to the floor, back to your core, see if that worked as you press up to your version of either sphinx pose, cobra, or up dog, freedom, good, come on back to your down dog, we'll take a walk to the front of the mat or a float to the front of the mat, start your journey, get yourself into a forward fold, maybe a little rock from side to side, maybe grab the elbows and hang out, shifting your weight forward and backward, good, let those arms just drop and be wherever they are, from your forward fold, go ahead and bend your knees, bring your hands on top of your quads, lengthen your chest forward, flat back and rise up so that you're in chair pose, and find that chair, draw the navel up and back so you're not scooping the tailbone up, scoop it straight down, and then send your palms forward all the way up, we're gonna play with a couple little side bends in our chairs, so start to straighten the right leg and move to your left, and start to straighten the left leg a little bit and move your arms to the right, exploring the nice feeling in the side body while we keep a resemblance of our chair pose, so help us as we move into some of our deeper twists as we open up into this area, shifting the weight to the left, shift the weight to the right, straighten the left leg a little bit, shift the weight to the left, straighten the right leg a little bit, come on all the way up, palms into prayer, feet can remain hip distance, or you can bring your big toes together, sun salutation B, lift the heart with the inhale, exhale, bend the knees, drop the fingertips, inhale, sweep the arms, pull the navel back, exhale, chair pose, forward fold, lengthen the spine as you inhale, walk or float back to plank as you exhale, lower down, guide yourself to cobra or up dog, send it back to your down dog. Inhale the right leg to the sky, exhale, step the right foot to the front of your mat, make sure your feet are hip distance for your balance and your high lunge, reach the palms to the sky, straighten the right leg and as you exhale, bend the right leg, cactus, field goal, the arms lift your heart. As you inhale, straighten the legs, straighten the arms. Four more pulses, bend the right leg, lift the heart, power through the quads, push back through the left heel, inhale, straighten, squeeze the inner thighs towards each other. You've got two more rounds, pulse with your breath.

One more round, cactus, field goal, the arms, take your right hand, drape it around your waist and slide it down your left IT band, inhale the left arm to the sky for a variation of peaceful high lunge, sink into the right quad, extend your left arm straight forward the height of your shoulder, look over your shoulder, extend the right arm back, squeeze your inner thighs towards each other and bring the palms in together in prayer as you straighten the right leg, bend your right leg, extend your palms back. It's like a reverse warrior two, squeeze the inner thighs, bring the palms in together in prayer and the twisted warrior two, extend it back. Two more rounds of breath, squeeze, draw the palms in together, adduct the thighs, extend. One more, you should be feeling it by now, squeeze in and extend. Bring your right hand back to your hip, reach forward with your left palm.

You can use a block here for your half moon twist, walk the fingertips forward beyond your toes, lengthen forward, press off the back foot, hand at the sacrum so you can feel that both hips are equal and before you twist, lengthen, elongate the spine. Stay right here or reach the right palm to the sky. Lengthening with the inhale, twisting with the exhale, squeezing the inner thighs together to help you with the balance. One more round of breath, step the left leg all the way back, make sure the feet are hip distance. One more time, drape the right hand around the waist, high lunge, peaceful warrior.

Look the left elbow outside of the right knee, bring your palms into prayer, lengthen the spine, push down with the right hand, twist. We're going to step forward to spinal twisting chair. Step your left foot forward, beautiful. Keep the knees bent, lift and lengthen and then from here we're going to lower down to our squat. If you need to lose the hands first and bring them to the floor, make sure to do that.

Otherwise lift your heels and then slowly lower down. Great, I'm going to show you this variation facing you. So from your squat, if this is challenging, just bring your left hand between your legs for the twist. If you've got knee issues, make sure you keep the chair pose with a twist. If you're going deeper, bring the palms into prayer.

If you decide to do side crow, find your right hip, reach out about a foot and a half with your right hand. Keep the left arm bent and the left elbow hooking the outside of the right knee. Bring the left hand to the floor, lean forward. You can cheat and bring your right hip to the right elbow or the traditional way is keeping it off. I'm going to show you the elbow on the hip and then you lean forward until the feet lift.

You want to try the elbow off the hip. The elbow slides a little farther back as you lean forward. Side crow. Great one to use your crash pads on too. Go ahead and swing the legs around, come into your table pose and then we'll just take the knees a little wider than the hips.

Take a little breather in child's pose to reconnect with the breath. From your child's pose, you can either move into table to start the other side or sneaky up dog. Creep it forward, look towards your thumbs, bend the elbows out to 10 and 2 o'clock, slide forward with the exhale and then squeeze the elbows in. Inhale, cobra or up dog. Press back to your down dog.

Inhale the left leg to the sky. Exhale step the left foot to the front of the mat. Make sure the feet are hip distance, high lunge, straighten the front leg. As you exhale and bend the front leg, cactus feel, go the arms, lift the heart. Inhale, straighten, exhale, cactus feel, go bend the front leg.

Three more pulses, breathe with it. Inhale, lift, exhale, open the chest, squeeze the shoulder blades down and back. Last one, inhale, lift, open the chest, breathe into it. Reach back into the heel, forward with the left knee. Drape the left hand around the waist, slide it over to the right IT band and inhale the right palm to the sky.

Reach for the back of the room as you sink into that left leg. Peaceful variation of our high lunge. Take the right arm straight forward the height of your shoulder, lift your left ribcage, look over your left shoulder, reach back with your left hand. Sink into the left quad. Straighten the left leg, bring the palms together and prayer.

And then bend the left leg, extend the arms out, shoulder height. Straighten the leg, squeezing, adducting the thighs, bending the leg, pushing the energy out and back. Two more rounds of breath, squeezing with the inhale, press, inhaling back. Last round, reach forward with your right hand. Bring your left hand to your sacrum, block underneath the right hand if you need it.

Step the back foot forward a couple of inches and then lean into it. Your right hand should be beyond the left toes, right underneath the shoulder, lift. Bring your hands to your sacrum. Make sure that the glutes are even here and before you twist, get as long through the spine as you can to create space for the rotation. Now you can roll that left shoulder up to the sky.

Stay here or extend the arms for your revolved half moon pose. Connect with your breath. Two more rounds. Keep the inner thighs squeezing to help you with the balance. One more.

Drape your left hand around the waist, step back to your high lunge, feet are hip distance. Big inhale, lift the ribs, create space to hook the right elbow outside of the left knee. Left palm on top of the right, before you twist, lengthen the spine and then press the left palm down, push the right heel back, left knee lunges forward. Take your focus forward, step your right foot forward to meet the left. Spinal twisting chair, opportunity to go a little bit deeper, lengthening the spine and then pressing.

Coming down to the floor, feel free to release the hands first, bring your fingertips to the block or the floor or look forward, lift your heels up and then start to lower. Ah, it's good to be down. I'm going to come back to the center once again. So you had your opportunity, right elbow outside or maybe keep it inside for your twist. If you're keeping the elbow outside and you want to bring the palms into prayer, get long with the spine first and then push the left hand into the right.

From here, if you're going into the arm balance, find your left hip with your left hand, walk it out about a foot. Make sure the left hand is grounding first. The right elbow has to stay bent the whole time. The knee has to be just above the elbow to find this side curl. Keep the elbow bent, lean towards the back corner of your mat, bend into it.

You can use the left elbow, slide your hip over to the left elbow and as you lean forward, one foot can come off the floor at a time if lying in your side curl. Variation without the elbow, same setup, just don't use the elbow as your kickstand. Great. Let's come on back to a child's pose, but a little deeper variation of child's pose so we can open up the shoulders. So start in table pose.

Keep the hips right over the knees, don't back up your seat, just walk your palms forward. Head to the floor or the option of bringing your chin to the floor. Slow the breath down. Remember, take advantage of those inhales, see if you can bring them all the way down to the belly here. Slide your palms back to child's pose, grab a seat on the heels, let the forehead drop to the floor.

So start to come back up to your table pose and do some isolating dolphins so we'll stretch one shoulder at a time. Replace your right palm with your right elbow and then keep the left hand just as it is. Squeeze the left elbow to the midline, tuck your toes under for dolphin pose, but go right into bending your right leg. Push forward with your right forearm and start to sink into that left hamstring. This isolates and starts to open up just the right shoulder.

So if we have shoulder issues on one side, we get the opportunity to work on them individually. If you want to try going deeper, walk the left fingertips back, less weight on the left hand or drape it around the waist. Switching forward and down, really strengthening and releasing some of the muscles in the shoulder at the same time. Come on back to your table pose. So the right palm stays this time, we're going to do the isolating dolphin on the left side.

Where your left palm is, replace it with your elbow. Try to line up your fingers right with your elbows. Squeeze the right elbow to the midline, tuck your toes under. Go right into bending your left leg and straightening your right leg. The idea is to move the chest closer to your left thigh while simultaneously pushing strongly forward with your left arm.

Really stretching the muscles of the lats, the intercostals and strengthening them at the same time because they're really holding the weight here. Stay right here or less weight on the right hand or drape it around the waist. Push forward and down and really open up through the shoulder. Great. Come on back down.

From here, walk your feet all the way back to your mat. We'll lower down and take your left arm out to the side. We'll go back to that cactus field which seems to be our theme today and slide your left elbow away from the midline. We're going to open up through the shoulder. So slowly roll to your left.

If it feels good, you might want to bring the sole of the right foot to the floor or reach back with your right hand and kick the heel away. This helps you go deeper into the shoulder. It's like an adjustment. You're able to adjust yourself by finding a little bit more resistance with that back right leg. Great.

Come on back to center. Release the leg. Walk yourself back up under your shoulders. From here, we're going to take our quad stretch with the right leg. So keep the left hand where it is.

Bend the right leg. Draw the right heel towards your seat. Pull the heel down towards the seat. If this grip is really easy for you, you can always flip your palms. Right elbow to the sky.

Press down and then move the heart forward. Think of all the qualities of your cobra or your up dog, lengthening the heart forward, lifting the core to help you move deeper into the stretch. Great. So we're going to try to put this all together and flip our dolphin. You can do this at home.

This is safe. We're going to give you a couple of variations. So the first variation we set up for in forearm plank, we open up the left shoulder. So let's work on just the left shoulder. Pivot your heels to the left.

Step the right foot behind the left. Take the kickstand variation. So this might be plenty. Try to keep the hand lined up with the elbow. If you need to turn the hand in, go for it, but you're not going to feel the stretch in the shoulder.

This is a variation that might be perfect for you if you want. Bend the right leg like you're bending the left and then squeeze your inner thighs together. Open up the wing. The flip of the dolphin is happening. Two more breaths.

Maybe some of the arm over the head. Lift your hips, one more breath, and then come all the way back to your core. And down. So we'll go back to the cactus field alarm. Lie on your stomach, bend the right arm, slide it out.

Bring the right ear to the floor, and we'll take a slow roll to the right. Keep guiding the right elbow away from you. This could be your spot to hang. You might bend the left leg or reach back with the left hand. Kick the heel away from you.

Kicking the heel away from you will help you move deeper into the back then. Big key toe side of the foot, easier. Big toe side of the foot, a little bit more intense, opening up the front of the chest on both sides of this variation. Such a nice heart opener. Great.

Slowly roll back to center. Lie on your stomach, and then come back up to your sphinx pose. Keeping the quad stretch on the left side, right elbow right underneath the shoulder, bend the left leg, draw the heel down towards the seat. This is easy for you. You can always flip the palm so that the fingertips are moving forward and the elbow is pressing to the sky.

Remember the qualities of that Cobra Up Dog. Draw the ribs forward, lift the heart, and simultaneously press down at the same time. It's a little war between both sides, but both sides win on this one. Great, and then we'll see what happens on the dolphin on this side. We start in our forearm plank, tuck your toes under, lift the core off the floor, pivot your feet to the right, step the left foot behind, just the right hand, lift your ribs.

This could be your spot to hang out and just breathe. If you're going deeper, bend your right leg, squeeze your inner thighs towards each other, lift the hips, and either the left arm out to the side like a wing or over the head. Just keep lifting and breathing here. Good, come on back down. Press up to your version of Cobra Up Dog.

And then let's see what a normal dolphin feels like after all that work. So bring your forearms to the floor, remember you can always interlace, otherwise traditionally lining up, third finger with your elbow, and then walking the feet in, pressing the chest back for a nice shoulder release. Pushing forward with your palms and your forearms as you squeeze the shoulder blades together and down the spine. Give yourself a break in child's pose, turn the knees out, bring the toes together, slide back to your seat. From your child's pose, let's go ahead and come on back up to our table.

And we're going to swing around to our back. You might want to have a block handy for a restorative bridge pose at any point, but we've done a lot of nice openers for our back bend. So maybe take advantage of the space that you created and see where you are today. So line up your heels right underneath your knees. We can take that block, low, medium, or high, and place it underneath the sacrum.

The inner thighs are still drawing towards each other, they're not splaying out. The shoulder blades are drawing towards each other, palms facing up, press down into your feet and move your ribs and lift your heart. Nice opener, the front of the chest and the lower back. And then you can continue on. We're going to do a couple more rounds of bridge pose.

You can continue on with your bridges. If you're continuing on and you want to make variations, you can do one hip opening bridge for 10 breaths on each side. That's your option if you're staying on your block. If you're not staying on your block, go ahead and release and either set up for bridge pose supported or interlaced, or come up and use the opportunity to go deeper into your wheel pose. Flip your palms so your wrists are facing towards the front of the mat just by the ears.

Walk your heels and squeeze your elbows in towards each other. And we'll start at the crown of the head first. Once you get set up and you're ready to lift, squeeze your elbows in, push down and take an inhale to come up. Don't forget to breathe in your wheel pose. Push into your legs like you're trying to stand to encourage a deeper back bend.

Come on back down, resist drawing your knees into the chest because that takes you out of the back bend. If you want to do anything between sides, just give yourself a little rock from side to side. It still keeps that back bend in the lower back. All right, so we got our second round. Either set up for your bridge pose, second side with a leg, or set up for your wheel.

Maybe going a little bit deeper, walking the heels a little closer to your hands. Pose in, rise to the crown of the head first, squeeze your elbows towards each other, and then push down as you lift. As you lift up, you might walk your feet in just a little bit more, and then push into your hands, try to straighten the legs a little bit more as you draw the inner thighs towards each other. Start to bend your elbows and come on down nice and slow. And then without pulling the knees into the chest, if you want to do something to release little windshield wipers, they release the glutes as we tighten the glutes, they release the glutes, massaging action.

They say that you never really feel back bends until you do the third one. If you want to do this last back bend, you can stay low in your supported variation. You can bring the block underneath, you can go back to your bridge pose, or palms by the ears, squeeze the elbows in, lift to the crown of your head, keep squeezing the elbows in and press strongly into the legs, and lift. If you need to feel more, walk the legs in, and then push into your legs. When you're ready, come down slow and with control.

Let your feet walk a little wider than the mat, go back to your windshield wipers. Let your knees drop to the right, keep the knees over to the right, walk the left foot off the mat to the left so your left knee and left hip are lined up, and place your right ankle right on top of your left thigh. A little IT-bound stretch, and let's take a side stretch here to keep the side body opening, reach the arms over the head, left hand grabs the right wrist, and pull the arms over to your left. They call this pin-up girl pose. I'm not really feeling it, but I hope you are.

Going back to center, take your feet as wide as the mat, a little rock from side to side. We'll windshield wiper our knees over to the left this time, and as you drop your knees over to the left, lift the left leg, place it on top of the right IT-band, and walk your right foot off the mat to the right, so your right hip and your right knee are lining up, and then you can take the arms over the head, right hand grabs the left, give it a little pull to the right side, and enjoy the side stretch. Knees into the left side body, great, and so from here, we'll slowly unwind, take your feet about hips distance, and then when you draw the knees wider than the chest, do it really slowly, trying to keep your sacrum on the floor. This helps release the lower back without going straight into a forward fold, lifting the sacrum off the floor, keep the sacrum pressing down, and we'll release one foot at a time for happy baby pose. As you draw the knees down, keep the left leg, drawing in towards that armpit, and straighten your right leg, roll to your right, and then bend the right leg, and roll to the left.

This one really feels like a happy baby pose, doesn't it? It's like you get that little playfulness, straightening one leg at a time, nice way to release and open the hamstrings up, great. Finish off with one more round, left leg straightening as the last leg, and then you can go ahead and cross the legs, give yourself a little rock and roll all the way up to the seat. Good. So from here, come to a nice, comfortable seat, we'll bend the left leg, set up for Janu Shashasana.

But before we fold forward, let's take a little counterbalancing twist, so place the left hand on top of the left thigh, walk the right fingertips behind you, lift the sternum, lift the chest, good. And then as you turn back, take your right hand over to your left leg, and we'll take a little side bend right here, inhaling the left hand up and over the ear. This might be perfect if you'd like to go deep, slide your right elbow to the floor, or start to slide that elbow following the line of your leg. The more you lengthen with the inhale, the more space you'll get as you fold, lengthening and opening. I like this variation bringing the palm to the side of my head and pushing down so I can really open and rotate, if that works for you, great.

Otherwise, just keep rolling the left shoulder back in space as you guide the right ribcage forward. Two more rounds of breath. Such a nice way to open the hamstrings and the side body at the same time, great. As you come on back up, draw the left knee into the chest, wrap the right hand around, lift the heart, chin, and chest, and we'll take a soft twist to the left. Come on back, shake out the left leg, shake out the right leg, and we'll bend that right leg and pull it in.

Starting up for an easy side twist, so lift the sternum, lift the chest, we'll take our twist to the left. Each time you inhale, lift and lengthen before you rotate. Keep your left leg really active here. And then we'll switch hands, the left hand guides over to the right knee, lift through the sternum and chest, spinal twist with the side stretch, right palm to the sky. And then as you're bending, think about lengthening and rolling the right rib up.

If you want to bring the left elbow to the floor inside of the knee, feel free, or you can slide the palm along the line of the leg. Reaching it deeper as the breath allows you to move deeper. Maybe reaching the pinky toe side of the left foot with the right hand, guiding yourself forward and rolling the shoulder back. Maybe supporting the head and really guiding that right elbow back, helping you lengthen farther forward so that you can rotate. And slowly coming out, walking the palms back, bringing the sole of the right foot to the floor, hugging the knee in towards the midline, wrapping the left hand around, right hand behind you, tall spine for Matsyandrasana twist.

Reaching and lengthening, exhale, rotating. Good. So we're going to finish off on the back with some nice reclining hip openers. So swing around and lie onto your back. Keep the legs bent and place the right ankle on top of your left knee, figure four with the right leg.

As you draw the left knee into the chest, slide your hands behind the hamstring. This might be the perfect spot for you to hang out for this hip opener. If you'd like to go deeper, you can wrap both arms around the right leg. First start by holding the right foot with the left hand and the back of the knee with the right hand. If you want to cradle your pigeon, wrap the left arm around the foot, the right arm around the knee, keep your left leg bent so that the head easily rests on the floor.

Make sure the head's not lifting off the floor. And then to go deeper into the pose, you just keep walking the left foot away towards the back of your mat. Simply move into the posture and as you start to slow down and move into a more restorative pose, start to lengthen out the inhalations, the pauses, and the exhalations. Take your time with the breath. Feel nice release for the outer glute, the hip, a lot of contracting in our backbends and our wheels, great.

Replace that right ankle, good. And then go ahead and release the right leg and shake it out. Place your left ankle on top of your right knee, draw the right knee into the chest. Re-figure four, hang out right here, or rock your little pigeon. Cradle your pigeon.

Keep the right leg bent, head on the floor, and then you can start to slowly walk it away. Keep the head down so that you're not straining the muscles of the neck, especially after all of that nice opening work that we did for the shoulders and the back. Moving to the rise, move all of your breath, starting to draw your attention inward, preparing for your shavasana while we're in these last restorative poses, good. And then re-bend your right leg. Go ahead and release the left leg to the floor.

Any last movements, soft twists before you slide into the shavasana that feel nice for your body, maybe just shaking the legs out one at a time, letting the toes fall out to the left and the right, opening up, rolling the shoulder blades towards each other, flipping the palms to the sky, and take a nice big inhale in through the nose. Let it go with your exhale. Nice big inhale in. Let it go with your exhale. Shavasana is the art of letting go of doing, letting go of the agenda, letting go of the checklist.

Start to create a retreat space in your mind, where you lose all attachment to the physical body, where you lose the connection of guiding your breath, and where you get to practice the art of being, being fully aware and present at each moment that unfolds before you. Good boy.