Day 12: Balance 6

Welcome to day 12 of our 30-day challenge. We have done so much work together up to this point. Very strong practices in our strength theme. Coming to the end now of our balance theme. And I wanted to provide us with a much more of a restorative session today. Look what I've got here. This means good things. I've brought a bolster, a blanket, and a block for this practice because we want to let these props do most of the work. If you don't happen to have a bolster, I would love for you to get one, but until then, two blankets might work really well as an alternative.

Okay? So why don't we put everything but the blankets out of the way for now. We'll get to them in just a little bit. I'm going to start sitting cross legs on a folded blanket. We're going to be spending some time in these poses and really allowing the nervous system in mind to relax. So finding a comfortable cross-legged position, and let me just quickly mention that if cross legs, this is how your cross legs works. Sometimes legs out to the side is a great option to free up the hips. Okay? So you work the pose that works best for you.

I'm going to start in cross legs. This is how I'll demonstrate. Press your hands into the blanket. Just give yourself a little space, almost lifting the weight of the hips off of the blanket. While doing this, relax your hip joints. Relax your hip joints. So just a little bit of lift, space in the chest, and then slowly let your body weight onto your support. And we'll start by coming forward over the legs into this pose. Now let me take one more quick mention that if folding forward like that doesn't work for you, you could take a bolster if you happen to have one and rest your forehead right here like this. Such a lovely pose.

Alternative. Even further. Resting the forehead on a prop like this has a very nice calming effect to the body. As we're not working with a lot of our muscle system, you can begin to take your attention inside and observe the breath flowing through the body. And please gently press yourself up. Nice, easy movements.

I'm going to put the bolster off to the side for our next version. We're going to do an easy twist off to the left side. So I turn my torso to face down the left knee joint, slide my right arm, and revolve the right side of the trunk toward the floor. I'm using my left hand to help that twist of the spine. Nothing too deep, nothing overly working, just a little easy turn. Taking the attention inside, you're welcome to close your eyes. And when I say feel the breath move through your body, of course the actual air only moves in and out of the lungs, but you can feel your body move with respiration. This particular side, you can feel how the right ribs move much more than the left.

And come back, center yourself for just a moment to lift up through the spine and second side. This time, aiming over the right knee, slide the left hand long. That helps us turn the trunk, right hand also helping to turn the left side of the trunk down toward the floor. Release the head, release the neck. If you wanted to go a step further, you could put a block right underneath the forehead. And then coming back to center, let's unfurl the legs for just a moment. Press the hands into the mat and lift the spine. This is a little counter pose to the forward bending, pressing down through the hands and lifting up the trunk.

Here, another way of thinking of balance is the length of the front of the trunk compared to the length of the back of the trunk. If I press my back forward firmly, I'm out of balance. The back is short, the front is overly long. Can you lift both with the same speed, the same amount? Shoulders roll a little back to open the chest and then release your pose. You can lean back, grab the legs and then we'll turn to the side now for an active child's pose. Here, I'm going to be using a blanket as a forehead support. Knees the width of the mat, toes together.

Come out about halfway into a child's pose. Pause here. Using the arms, relax the thighs, relax the hip joints, relax the buttocks and tailbone down. Let those regions just settle for a moment so you take muscle work out of those areas. Low back is long and then leaving those areas down, leaving them soft, leaving them passive. You come out to your capacity until you can rest your forehead down on the support. For you, a proper support might be a bolster or a blanketed block.

Any pose that takes away strain in the shoulders, neck. Here in this pose, the arms are definitely alive. But by pushing with the arms, we move the spine back, elongating and settling those hips down. In a midline pose like this, we can feel the breath move much more evenly. Right side chest, left side chest. Keep watching the breath. And then from here, lift up off of the heels. Let's take a moment to wiggle a little back and forth.

Cat and cow at your speed, up spine, down spine. Keep that breath moving. We're moving into dog pose now and I'm keeping the blanket here as a head support in dog pose. What we're looking for is a height of blanket. So I've missed it here. The blanket is a little low. I have to come back down and I'll do one fold in the blanket so that I can rest my head down on that support.

Let me try again. I come up and perfect. You might need a little bit more height, a block plus a blanket, a bolster plus a blanket. But something that allows you to rest that head down. Active arms, press the roots of your fingers, not the tips of your fingers, but where fingers emerge from your hand. Press there into the floor. Forearms should feel lifting energy up away from the mat.

Neck is broad. Back of the neck soft. Spine long. Just a little bit longer here, watching again that breath. And then lower your knees down. Take a moment to just sit, relax the hands, roll out the wrists.

Then let's bring the bolster into play here for a really nice supported twist. I'm also going to use the blanket for this, bring it on top of the bolster. I'll start so that my legs are pointed off to the left, sweat back here behind me, and the bolster is right up next to my right hip. I take my two hands on either side of the bolster and a little lift and shift of my bottom that way so my spine is long. Then, elongating the spine even further, I'm going to come forward, trying to rest the trunk flatly down.

Allow the forearms to come down, and finally, turn the head to the right. Okay. And slowly bringing the hands underneath you, you can press up out of the twist. We'll turn our round away from the bolster to the other side, dropping the two legs off onto the mat. You can see my feet are swept back. I'm going to turn towards the bolster.

I'll do a little lift and shift of the hips to elongate the spine even further, bolster right up next to me, and then bending the elbows, elongate the trunk flatly down, right side and left side, same speed down. Drop the forearms, and this time, turning the head to the right. Relax the shoulders and shoulder blades away from the spine. Knees are soft. Low back is soft.

Here, you can feel the breath move a bit more into the backside body. The front is blocked by the props, so this is an opportunity for the back to move and take in that air. The inflow and outflow of breath. We can't have just one. We can't hold the breath indefinitely. We can't release the breath indefinitely. That balance between the two, just like everything else we do in life, active and passive. Holding for a time in these poses allows us to really feel where we're not letting go.

And then walking the hands underneath you, press up, and then find yourself a comfortable seated position. So hard to come up out of these poses. They feel so delicious. We'll take the blanket out of the way for now, bring the block into play, and we'll be sitting on the block. I'm going to keep the bolster nearby for this pose. Sitting on the block, this gives our spine a little extra space.

Janusirshasana. So we can start with two legs out straight. That helps us get into the pose properly. I'm going to bring back the left leg first. Then we're going into a forward bend, and the idea here is to be able to rest our head again on another support. I'll show you the higher support version first. Lower support possibilities.

Choose the one that works best for you. Allow the trunk to release forward over the right leg. In Janusirshasana we aim to equalize the two sides of the back. On this side, it's the left side of the trunk that we need to learn to roll down toward the floor and elongate. Upper shoulders broad, back of the neck soft.

Let's come up from there. Extend the left leg. Right leg comes back. Again, choose the support position that you need, and we'll take the second side. On this side, learning to roll the right side trunk down. Easy flow of the breath. Though the mind might try to catch your attention, can you prefer to watch the breath?

Movement of air. Then slowly coming up out of your pose, we'll put the bolster off to the side. Come down off of the block. We'll put that off to the side. And then come down onto your back. A brief twist here. We'll take the left foot on top of the right knee and roll the legs down to the floor.

Gently push the left knee away from you using your hip muscles. We won't stay here too long. This is just an easy twist. And then untwist. Two feet on the mat. Right ankle over left knee. Turn. A little push of the right knee away from you. Great hip opener. Spine twist.

And then come out of there. Let's come up to sitting to set up one of our final and one of my favorite poses. We are going to take the bolster behind us on the mat and a blanket as a little extra cushy pillow right there, just like that. Then sit just a few inches away from the bolster. Bring the bottoms of the feet together, knees out wide.

You want those heels as close as your body comfortably permits. I push down on the bolster, tuck my bottom, and then lengthen the spine down. Oh, yeah. Draw the blanket just up to the tops of the shoulders. You can lengthen the head and neck a little bit. Arms out to the sides.

You can even tuck the shoulders by pulling with the hand. Let the arms out to the sides. Close your eyes. One side note in this pose, if the inner leg muscles protest a little bit, you could place one block under each knee to support the legs. Once you've found your position, just settle in. Release the back.

Chest. This position allows us to get a little deeper into the breath. Notice how the front and side chest are opened with that inhalation. Abdomen is long, yet soft. You happen to be holding tension in the abdomen at some point in your day.

Emotional tension, perhaps. Elongating the abdomen in a nice, soft position can help calm that down. Bring you back into a level baseline. Let's be here for just a moment. To come up out of this pose, you can bring the knees up and together.

Give them a little squeeze. Turn to the right completely off the bolster. Just rest your head and your hand for a brief moment. You could tuck your knees in a little bit and press yourself up to sitting. Let's put the blanket and bolster off to the side.

You're going to choose what support you need under your hips for a comfortable sitting meditative position. I'm going to choose Virasana. It's one of my favorites and allows me to really lift the spinal. Place the block underneath my sits bones. Bring the knees together and have a seat.

If you shouldn't feel in this pose any tension in the knees, you could go cross legs, legs out to the sides, whatever works to you. Let's pause here, roll the shoulders back, and rest your hands on your thighs and close your eyes. Let's do a little breath-focused meditation. Notice the breath moving in and out of the nose. You might notice that there's a different sensation on inhale compared to exhale.

It might feel a little cooler in temperature, exhale a little warmer. You feel into what the sensations tell you. Can you feel that air come in and touch the bridge of the nose? Does it feel balanced left and right side? Is there an asymmetry there?

Could you release or relax around the right or left side to create a little bit more symmetry and balance, softening the tongue, feeling like you could depressurize or deflate behind the cheekbones, soften or relax the ears, using that feeling of air? Maybe you can feel that air come in to the back of the throat. Again, does it touch the right and left sides in an equal way? You can feel the rise and fall of the chest. Do the right and left sides move at the same speed, same volume?

Could you bring more balance to each inhale and exhale? It goes on the breath for a little bit longer. Each breath is a new opportunity to look for more and more balance. Right side, left side. Using that element of air to touch each and every corner inside the body.

If you would like to move into Shavasana and lie down and rest for a little while, it's a perfect time to do that. If you're ready to be done, you can open your eyes. I hope you feel very restful, restored. We've had an amazing journey so far through two themes, one of strength, one of balance. It's been a wonderful time sharing these practices with you.

With the balance practice, you can see that it's not just about hovering in space on one leg, it's also about an inner balance, how we use the air to feel the right side, the left side, and even how we balance in our life, active and when needed to be passive. You've done a great job. We'd love to hear from you. Have a wonderful day. Namaste.