Day 9: Balance 3

Welcome in. We are in day nine of our 30-day challenge. This is the third day of our balancing theme. We're in the heart of balance. We're going to be starting out today in Virasana. We'll need a block for that, and we will need a strap later, so have that nearby. The block you can place any number of ways, flat or even higher, which is my setting for the comfort of my knees. So I'll bring that back underneath the hips, and the feet will be separated just outside the block, and I'm resting on my sitting bones. We're using the next few positions to help open up the hip muscles to get ready for the standing balances today. Starting here, we'll raise the arms up high to create a little spinal space. Take a few breaths, down through your sitting bones, and look for that internal lift and space. Then take the right arm behind you, left hand over the right leg, and we can wrap that right arm behind. You'll see those fingers right there, and turning. Here we keep the legs a little squeezed together, so we can begin to start opening the hip muscles. Release arms up, and around to the other side. Wrapping the hand around, this helps us draw that left shoulder. Remember to keep a little squeeze on the legs, sitting bones pressing down. And then release. Next pose, we finished with this pose last time. We'll start a little lower with the left leg out. Sitting up nice and tall, once again, arms up. We're turning to the left this time, and once again, we're looking to open up the posterior hip muscles with this twist. And then release. We'll bring out the right leg, draw the left back, and I should mention that if this pose does not work for you, as we've mentioned before, we've got Janus Ushasana is another option. Perfectly good. Here we go, arms up, and turning right side. Little squeeze of the legs together, take a few breaths here. And then release. Left leg out straight. Next, both knees swinging off to the right side. You can stack the right foot in the left arch, or the feet side by side is a great option as well. Here turning to the left again, keep the hips down, and we're furthering that opening of the hips to be ready for our standing balances. A few breaths. And release. Second side. Legs out front, shifting the legs off to the left. We're turning to the right side. Here we go. And then release to center. Let's put the block out of the way, hands and knees, a couple cat and cow, mobilizing the spine after those twists. Inhale, drop the spine down. Exhale, spine goes up. Inhale, spine down. Exhale, spine goes up. And last one, please, spine goes down, breathe in. Exhale, arching up. From here, walk the hands out and curl the toes under, lift the knees for your dog pose. You got a lot of poses to choose from or options to choose from in your dog pose. Please choose the one that makes the most sense for your body today. Perhaps though you could challenge just a little bit, straightening those legs and reaching the heels down. Now let's bring the feet together and we're going to start to up the energy now. We'll start with the left leg. Nice big lift of the left leg, raise your right heel up. Let's take a big breath in. Exhale, draw your knee up to your nose.

We got to shift the shoulders forward, lift your back. Here we go again. Inhale, lift right heel high. Exhale, new version of the pose. Bring your left knee to the outer left elbow. Again, inhale, press back. Challenging pose this time. We're going to bring the knee in again and then reach it across the right side of the body. Holding there, big hip opener and working into the twists that are about to come in our standing poses. Bring it out, stretch it up and set it into dog pose. Separate the feet for a minute. Take a little rest. If you need a child's pose, now's a good time. Let's meet again in dog pose. Feet together. Right leg comes up, lift that left heel, nice and high into the air. Big breath in. Exhale, shoulders forward, knee to nose. See if you can make contact. And again, leg comes up. Inhaling, exhaling. Now right knee to outer, right elbow holds. Strong work right here. Inhale up. Exhale, knee comes in, shoulders forward and across the body. Hold there. Very strong pose. Come out, raise the leg up to dog pose or child's pose if you need it. Holding there in your chosen pose for just a few breaths. And then raise the heels. Meeting in dog pose.

Step forward to the front of the mat. Feet together and find your forward bend. Could be with straight legs, could be with bent legs. And then inhale. release the arms down. Our next pose is rotated chair pose. Feet together and we'll slide down into the pose. Hands alongside the hips is fine here. First side to the left. Knees squeezed together. We're going to take the right arm across the left knee. Breath in. Exhale, turn the trunk. Slide the arm a little further. Big breath in. Lift a little, turn a little. Exhale. Hook a little further. One more time. Exhale and as far as you can hook that right arm, palms together for a moment. Prayer position. We're turning. Starting to enter into our twists and balances. Then we're going to open our pose today. Full expression of the arms. Holding there. Three. Two. Palms together. All the way up. Arms overhead. Release the arms down. Let's do our second side. This time arms up. Exhale, bend. Hands to the knees. We're turning to the right side. So we'll slide the left arm across. Big breath in. Exhale, navel turn. Again, inhale. Exhale. Turn the abdomen. One more time. Exhale. Go as far as you comfortably can with your left arm. Palm to palm. Holding here. And then the full expression. Opening the arms. One to the floor. One to the sky. Definitely feeling the heat in those legs. And then back to prayer position. Come all the way up and release your arms. We'll step to the middle of the mat. Challenge a new pose called Eagle Pose. Gaudasana. We'll start with a slight bend in the knees. Taking the left leg fully across the right. Full squeeze there. Now for you, this might be as far as the legs can go comfortably, but there is a deeper version where we hook the left foot behind the right. You take the pose that works for you today. We're just going to challenge it right here. You can rest your hands on your thighs. Working on that balance. Squeeze the legs together. So this is more inner leg work today as compared to the outer leg work of the last two sessions. And then release.

Shake out the legs for a moment. Mountain pose. Bend the knees. Hands on the legs just to kind of get a little sense of balance. This time right leg across the left. And you want to get a full cross of the legs. This is a great start position for Eagle Pose. And my challenge side always. If you can hook further, the right foot behind the left, give it a shot. Deep hip opening work here. You can rest your hands on your legs. Let's hold together a little quiet space. And then release. Shake out those legs. Hands on the knees. Now it's common for folks to get a little lightheaded when you do these poses because the blood is all going to the legs to support you. So if you feel that, you can take your hands to the knees and your body will regulate itself. Grab your strap today for a deeper version of Half Bound Lotus. We'll start with the left leg up. Bringing the left leg up, heel to opposite hip. And we'll take the strap around the foot. Now as we mentioned before, if your hips or your knees don't appreciate this kind of opening, Tree Pose is your great option. Taking the left hand around your back to grab hold of that strap. This has a very interesting result in this hip. It helps us really open up. Holding there, you can take the free arm up. Nice strong balance. And we work to bring the inner legs a little closer together in this pose. If you've ever wondered how to lengthen the IT band, this is a great pose for that. And then release. Second side. I'm going to be bringing the right leg up to the left hip. Bring the heel in. We'll bring the right hand around to catch the strap. And holding. Find the balance. Allowing that right knee to roll down. Right shoulder back. Free arm up. Just a little bit deeper than we went in our last practice. And then release. Let that go. We'll put the strap off to the side. Feet together. Take a resting pose.

Arms up. And then have a seat for a resting pose. Three, two, one. Come on out. Just holding here in Mountain Pose. Take a breath. Stretching down the legs into the floor. Find your inner lift. The more space you create, the easier it is to relax the body. Let's take a deeper look at Eagle Pose. We'll start again in Mountain Pose. Come down with the hands. We're going to be bringing the left leg over the right. Just as before. Left leg wraps around. You could pause here or attempt the full hook of the leg. We're going to add the arms this time. Stretch out the arms to the side. Take a breath in. As you exhale, left arm. Under and around the right. This is the full Eagle Pose. Take a few breaths. Definitely a balance challenge. Legs getting some good work here as well. And then unwind and release. Shake out the legs a minute. Let the blood flow. And then feet together. We're going to go for the second side. Bending the knees. Right leg comes across left. And either staying here or if more of a bind is available. There it is. Found it. Arms out. This time right under left. And there we go. Holding. Bring a little silence into the balance. And release. Again let those legs relax. We're going to pick up the strap again for our final standing balance. We'll start with the right leg. Step into the strap with the right leg. Bring the leg up. This is an extension of the standing poses we've done in the last few practices. Extend the leg out. And it will be the left hand that holds the strap. Right hand can come to your hip or stretch. Let's try it again. Leg comes up. Balancing. See this one is a challenge. Right hand to the hip or you can take the hand behind you for a full twist. Balance challenge. Come on. And release. Let it go. Alright let's try the second side. On my sturdy leg. Let's see how I do. We'll bring the leg up. Extend the left leg out.

Hold with the right hand. I'll definitely feeling stronger on this side. And turn. There we go. I get a good rotation of the chest. Again if you want to extend your left arm that's an option. So you can see the sides could be very different in quality control there. And then letting go. Great challenge. One we can work on again and again. You can put the strap away. Come to the head of your mat. Let's do a little flow. Arms up. Exhale your way into Uttanasana. Forward fold. Step back to a plank. Big breath in. Strong leg. Down core. Half push up. Chaturanga. Up dog. Inhale. Down dog. Press back. Take a few breaths here. You might need a child's pose. You might stay here. But let's go inside. Feel what's happening in the body. Let's raise the heels up. Take a nice big breath in. Exhale your left leg forward. Lower your right knee down. We are in a kneeling lunge. Bring the trunk up and be working on the crossover twist leading to rotated side angle. Let's work here by bringing the right elbow across. We'll keep it in as much 90 and 90 as possible. In other words not leaning forward. And take that right arm across. Similar to our chair pose with that rotation. Big breath in. Lift. Exhale. Abdominal turn. And I use the words abdominal turn to differentiate from cranking from the shoulders. Want to turn more of that abdominal region. Try a couple times and see how much of that right arm you can get over your knee. Then we'll go with the prayer position. Holding here and breathing. And now a new challenge in this pose. Right arm will come toward the floor. You might use a block if you're not close to the floor. Left arm up to the sky. You can turn and look up or the neck could look straight ahead. So we've settled into our pose. Bring the palms back together. Here comes a balance challenge. Curl your right toes under. Rotated side angle. Charge up that right leg. Hold. The idea here is to use the lifting of that right leg to see how it inspires a deeper rotation in the trunk. Super challenge. Ready? Right hand again.

Left arm again. Holding. And lower the knee. Release your pose. Hands on the floor. Let's just go back to the dog pose to lengthen it out. We'll get an up dog in just a minute. High heels look forward. And now we have right leg forward. Left knee to the mat. Same process. We'll point the left toes back. Bring the left elbow across. Again, keeping that 90 shape in your pose. Bringing the left elbow across on exhale. Inhale. Abdominal turn. Exhale. Hook the elbow. Inhale. Lift. Abdominal turn. Hook a little further. Palm on palm prayer. Take that awareness deep inside. And then unravel the left arm to the floor. Right arm to the sky. Return to prayer position. Curl the left toes under. Big lift to that back leg. Coming up. Hold steady. This is definitely a deep pose. One of the most challenging standing poses. Once again, if you have the stability, you can bring the left arm to the floor. Right arm to the sky. And then to prayer, release the back leg. Come out of your pose. Hands on the ground. Let's step back through a dog pose. Lengthen out the spine. Come forward to a plank. Let's make this easy. All the way down to the floor. And pause there. Point the toes back. And just a gentle baby cobra. And then release the chest down. Curl the toes under. Press to your dog pose. Now walk your feet forward. Hip width apart. Parangustasana.

We grab the big toe with the two fingers and the thumb wrap around the big toes. And we start with our long straight back. So all of this work we've been doing in the previous poses helps us to mobilize the hips for a deeper forward bend. If you can't grab the toes, hands on the shins. And even just pausing here for this pose is a great option. If you're like to go deeper, take a breath in and exhale. Bend the elbows out to the sides. Top of the head pointed toward the floor. If you feel too much strain on the lower back, hips, legs. I've mentioned a few options that you can go to. Abdomen soft. Hips coming forward toward the top of your mat. So we don't want to lean the hips back, but actually bring them forward. That's part of the balancing challenge of this pose. And then inhale, look forward. Hands to the mat for a dog pose. Let's just step it right back. Bend the knees. Easy child's pose. Just to rest the body and mind for a breath or two. And then using the hands, press yourself up. Grab your block for Gomukhasana. We'll put the block sideways and we'll start seated on the block. Legs a little out of the way. Right leg first. We're going to pull the right leg across and under so that the heel is on the outside of the block. Left leg is going to come over the top in a similar way that we did the right. So this is now a nice deep pose that we can take advantage of thanks to all the great earlier work we did in the balancing poses. You can place the hands on the feet. If you have an extra blanket or bolster, you could put it behind you to help you lift. Little squeeze of the inner leg muscles as though we're trying to line the knees up to one another. Good. And then release. We'll unwind the legs. Now it's the left leg that's going to come under and across. We try to point the knees straight ahead, two hips even on the block, right leg over the top. See, there's a little bit of work we got to do to get the legs in the position. This type of a pose is fantastic for those who sit in chairs a lot and really helps to open up the hips. But you want to be prepared for a deeper pose like this. Holding here, nice long spine and then release. To our deepest pose yet called crown chasana. We'll start with the right leg bent back like we did in the earlier pose in this practice. Left leg bent here. See how you feel in this pose. How is the knee? Do you need more support?

You could take another block underneath. That's perfectly fine. And even just staying here, we'll call this the crown chasana prep pose. If you'd like to take it a little deeper, let's try to pick up the left foot. Nice tall spine. Should still feel some weight in that right knee. Should we try for the full pose? Why not? Extend. Just holding here. Again, there should be some weight in that right knee. And then bend the knee and rest. Let's lean to the side. Bring the right leg out and we'll take the left leg in. This is quite a deep pose. Just because you see one body do it doesn't mean that every body should be able to do it. So taking your steps for your body, you have to feel, is it too much? Does my body want to do it? Can my body do it? There are certainly poses that my body does not do well. And it's just the way the structure is. You just work within your boundaries. So the prep pose, weight down on that left knee. You could challenge the possibility of straightening. A couple things to look out for. Of course, we don't want any knee discomfort and you shouldn't feel an overpinch or any pinch at all in the right hip joint. So you may need to let your leg down a little if you're feeling that. Lower back should not feel strained. That's one of the reasons we did some of the standing strength work in our earlier practices. So we've got that intrinsic strength to handle our deeper openings and then release. We'll lean to the side, take the left leg out. We won't need the block anymore. Let's put that off to the side and lying down on the back. Actually, one more for the block. As an alternative pose, we're going to lie down and you can take the block one of two ways. Either flat like this or turned up on its edge underneath your sacrum. It's a nice way to get some relief from the previous pose. And it's a good alternative for the pose that we'll be doing next, if you would like. So just starting here in a supported bridge. Then you can bring the legs up one by one, but pay attention to your abdomen as you do. We don't want it to fall and sink or round down to the floor. It should be a nice, open, soft abdomen. So you find that perfect position with your right leg so the abdomen doesn't change. Then you sneak the left up and just holding here. Abdomen nice and soft, long, little arc in the lower back toward the ceiling. And then as a deeper pose option, you could stay here or remove the block and we can take it into a version of shoulder stand. Knees toward the chest, press down on your arms and bring the hips up. Support your lower back with your hands and you can let the legs hover as you see me doing here. So this is not full shoulder stand. I prefer to have blankets under the shoulders and neck so we don't over flex the neck. You can see my trunk is leaning back away from my head a fair distance. You could extend one leg straight up and hold, release second leg and hold, release and a slow, easy descent into the mat. Time for shalasana. You can extend the legs out, arms out to the sides, tuck the shoulders, let the legs go.

Good. Thank you. If you'd like to stay longer, please do. If you're ready to come out with me, rest your hands on your tummy, bend your knees, and turn softly to your right side. Support your head for just a few breaths.

And then use your hands to push yourself up to sitting. Find yourself a comfortable seated position. Another great balance challenge. Thank you for making it to your mat today and joining me in this balance theme that we have going. We've got another set of excellent poses to challenge you with in our next practice.

I look forward to seeing you there. Have a fantastic day.