Day 30: Integration 6

Welcome to Day 30. Can you believe it? What an incredible journey this has been together. And before we begin, I'd like to acknowledge you and the intent and energy that you have brought to this challenge. I don't want to say it's the end, but rather that it's the completion of a beautiful circle that opens up doors to new possibilities, new potential, and new accomplishments. At this point, you've unlocked the entire 30-day challenge. And I highly recommend going back and reviewing some of the lessons that you really loved and even some of the lessons you found really difficult. You could even go all the way back to the beginning and start again. You'll be amazed at how far you've come. All right. In the last few practices, we dove quite deeply into backbends, both the dorsal spine and the sacral spine. In this and our final lesson together, we're going to go after some twists and forward bends as a way to soothe the muscle system and dive even deeper into the theme of integration. We're going to start in child's pose. Let's go wide legs, child's pose. Feet together, knees about the width of the mat, reach the hands forward into about a half child's pose to start. And let's work on some of the things we know. We'll be lifting the inner arms lightly to make parallel lines from inner and outer arm. Settle your sitz bones down on your heels and release the head down. Let's take a moment to check in here with the support of the body, helping us to open and dive in. What are you feeling today? How easily is the breath moving in your body?

And then coming up, tuck the toes under. Let's find downward facing dog. Take a minute to pedal out the legs, reach the heels into the ground. We still have that energy in the arms helping to support the body, the torso, the shoulder blades, allowing your breathing to deepen a little. And then let's bring it into a stillness, stretching the heels down to the ground, reorganizing the arms, getting that lift of the inner arm, the reach of the inner leg up and back. Then raise the heels, look forward. We'll step the left leg forward first into a high lunge. Energize that back leg, right leg. We push the ball of the foot down, firming the knee, firm thigh, and lifting even the hip joint to level. We're looking to get that support felt all the way up into the torso. Take a few breaths here as we warm up the muscles. And then stepping back, plank pose for just a brief moment. Strong core, strong legs. Breath in and dog pose. Downward facing dog, push back. High heels, look forward. Right foot between the hands. We go for the same points. Press the ball of the left foot down. Strong left knee, lifted left thigh all the way to the hip. Feel the support into the torso. Take a few breaths. And then stepping back again, plank pose. We're holding here, building heat from the heels to the top of the head. Big breath in, exhale again. Downward facing dog. And raise the heels. Look forward. We're going to go with the left leg again, high lunge. Let's get the strength in the back leg, right leg strong. Right hand stays down. We're going to turn open to a twist on the left side. Keeping the strength in the right leg, lift your left arm. Is there more space that you could find by supporting your body and spreading out to the limbs? Release the hand down. Plank pose. We're going to take it a bit further now. Breath in, exhale, half push up. Chaturanga dandasana. Hold. Inhale with strong legs. Upward dog. Downward dog, press back. Organize your pose. Nice strong arms. Open legs. And raise the heels. Look forward. Right foot between the hands. Strong rear leg, left leg lifting, left hip lifting. Feel the support all the way into the torso. Then from that support, left hand down, turning, opening to the right side. Take a few more breaths here. Release the hand down. We'll step back to a plank. Getting ready to go a little bit deeper. Big breath in, exhale coming halfway down. Chaturanga dandasana. Hold there for just a moment and then inhale, up dog. And exhale, down dog.

Then inhale, raise up your heels and walking forward to the front edge of your mat. We'll take the feet about hip width apart. Hands could be on shins or even hands on the floor. We'll start with a little left leg bend. Right leg bend. And back and forth. Start to work into the hips. And this will begin some of the twisting work that we're doing. You can feel how this rotates the spine a little. A couple more times. And we'll straighten the legs for a moment. Half uttanasana. And then one more time, we'll go with the right leg bending, left arm turning up to complete the twist. And release down. Let's do the other side. Two straight legs to start. Left leg bending, turning the spine, right arm up. Hand down. And then you could either take half uttanasana again, half forward fold. Or if the fingertips touch the floor, can you raise your heels? Very high heels, sharp crease at the hips. And then we'll lower the heels down, bring the feet together, legs together, inhale, squat down, arms up, chair pose. Balance the weight on your heels. Feel the support underneath the legs, hamstrings, just as much as the quads are working. Balance spine as we've been talking about in previous practices. Let's hold for a few more breaths. And then coming out. Release your arms. We'll turn down the long way of the mat, wide legs. Prasarita padottanasana. Stretch down to the legs. Get that energy of connecting through the floor. And stretch your arms. Take a moment here. All four limbs, two legs, two arms spreading from the center line. Create that inner space. And take a nice breath in. We'll take the hands on the hips. And exhale, forward fold. This might be a good opportunity if you need blocks to grab those blocks to keep a nice long spine or if the hands touch the floor, we can hold onto the floor. We're going to be moving into a version of a twist here.

You can either walk the blocks over or we'll just move the hands, left hand to right foot and to turn. And then coming back down to center. Second side. Walking over to the left leg. We have right hand to the right foot and turning. One more breath. Back to center. Nice long straight spine. Reorganize the legs. Pressing the legs into the ground. Get that good support. We'll walk the hands right in between the feet, shoulder width apart. And then bending the elbows. If you have the blocks there, you can keep them out a little bit in front of the toes. Otherwise, we'll bend the elbows and aim to bring the top of the head near to or onto the floor. Shoulder bones lifting up away from the ears towards your hips. And of course, nice smooth breathing. With the theme of integration, we're looking and feeling all throughout the body. Any areas that don't feel well lifted, supported, free. And then inhale. Walk the hands forward. You can either heel toe your feet together or hands to hips, strong hips and hamstrings to come all the way up. Holding there, let's take a wide armed pose here and reintegrate into that space. And release your hands. Let's heel toe the feet all the way together. We'll step to the head of the mat. This might be a great time to grab a block to help us with rotated triangle pose. We'll start stepping the right leg back. Take the block to the outside of your left ankle. The back foot, right foot is turned about 60 degrees forward, a good distance forward so we have the ability to turn the hips. Stretch out the arms from your center. So not just reaching out from the hands or the wrists, but all the way from the center of your chest. Take a nice big breath in. Exhale, fold forward and we'll turn right hand over to the block. Left hand, let's place it on the hip for now. Work on turning your spine and turning and turning. If you feel you've revolved enough to freely take up your left arm, let's complete the pose. Rotated triangle pose. And then turning the chest toward the floor, spread both arms and come up. Bend the front leg and step forward. We'll switch the block to the other side. Left leg back. Left toes turned quite a bit forward, but not completely forward. Stretching the arms from the center. Big breath in. Exhale, folding forward over the right leg. Turn the left hand across to the block, right hand to your hip. Then turning. Rolling the back of your body here, rolling that down toward the mat. On each exhale, I try to turn. Now if you have the freedom to roll the right arm to the sky, let's do it. And then turn the chest toward the floor. Stretch out your arms. Come all the way up. Bend the front leg and step forward. We'll place the block off to the side for our next pose. We'll start with the left leg again here. I'd like you to bend the knees a little and bring the left leg up to be captured around the shin. Now, depending on your mobility, this might be the end of the pose for you today. You could also try capturing the bottom of the foot and really straightening your standing leg. So you can see this is a round back pose here. And the challenge, is it possible any amount to straighten that leg? Very powerful standing pose. And we do as we can to bring the trunk down to the leg. Bend the knee, release the foot. A little pause and mountain pose. Then second side. Again, we'll bend the knees a little to start. We'll start by bringing the right leg up and clasping around the shin.

Maybe the foot. Our back is a little round to allow for the pose. Very strong standing leg and we go what we can go today in straightening the right leg. Then challenging, bringing trunk to the leg. And bend the leg to release. Now we need a little recovery pose. We're going to work with tree pose. Bringing the elements of integration together. We'll start with the left leg first. Bringing the left leg up to the inside of the right groin. Press the foot against the leg, the leg against the foot. This creates an inner lift inside. We talked about balancing the front and back body. So if we drew a line right down our center dividing front and back, can you bring as much on the front of that line as you have on the back of that line? Arms. Lift and open your body from the twists we've just done. And then release. Second side. Right leg coming up to left. Bring the right foot up. Inner left groin. And again, press the right foot against the left leg. Left leg against the right foot. Anchor well in the ground. Find your front to back balance so that our awareness is able to spread. Then we can take up the arms. Some breathing. Will he hold it? Yes. And then release. Take a moment to stand in mountain pose. Just a little recovery and a moment to feel into your body. Great. We'll step to the front of the mat. Our next pose is going to be bhakasana. We'll start with arms up. Forward fold. Half uttanasana. We'll be working our way into that pose. Exhale, fold fully. Take a few breaths here. And inhale to half uttanasana. We'll separate the feet. One more time. Uttanasana. And then come up a little. We'll take the right hand across to the left leg for just a moment. Drawing the right side of the trunk as though to reach it into the left foot. Release. Left hand across to the right ankle. Right hand a little out to the side. Breath in. And now I'm drawing the left edge of my trunk toward the right foot. All right. Bhakasana. We'll take the hands to the floor. Walk the feet back and join them together. The first will be a prep version of bhakasana. Hands on the floor. High heels. Knees attempting to come all the way up into the armpits. Way at the top of the triceps. Take a breath in. Connect well. And bend your elbows. Again, today this could be where you pause. If you like rolling the weight more and more forward onto the hands, you could try lifting one foot. Replace that foot on the ground. Try the second foot. And release. Let's come up to standing. Give the body a minute to recover. We'll stretch the arms. And release the arms. Second time. We'll go for the full pose. Once again, feet together. Hands at the top of the mat. High heels. Then bringing knees as high up into the triceps as you can. And pushing them firmly against those triceps. Leaning a little forward. Getting the strong core connection. You can try one foot at a time. Or you can elevate those feet at the same time. Holding there. Breathing.

Three. Two. Touchdown. Plank pose. Big breath in. Exhale. Upward facing dog. And down dog. Take a moment here or perhaps in child's pose, whatever you need to recover from those strong standing poses. And then come down to your knees. Let's take a seat on the floor and grab a blanket for a little assist in our next seated poses. Nice folded blanket. You want to have the thick folded edge facing toward you. We'll sit up on top of the blanket right on top of that thick folded edge and make the adjustments we know how to make by grabbing underneath and gently turning the hamstring area out and lengthening the sits bone back. Same with the other side. A little lengthening back. This helps really get some length in the trunk. We'll start with the hands on the blanket. Push down to raise the trunk up. Dandasana. And then with that length in place, lean forward from the hips and reach for the left foot with the right hand. Now you might need a strap to do this. This would be a good time to get that and wrap the strap around the foot here. We're going to do a twist bringing the left arm up and I'm going to unlevel my feet. See how I did that? Pushing the right foot forward. And then slowly allowing the trunk perhaps a little further down toward the legs and then release. We'll balance the pose in dandasana and then second side coming forward reaching across the opposite foot left hand right foot turning and allow the feet to unlevel a little and coming into your twist. Allowing the body to come down any amount toward the legs and then release. Again we'll balance in dandasana. The next pose will bend up the knees a little. Bring the right foot across and just to the outside of your blanket. Bring the left foot across the right leg. Now if that doesn't work for you, if that's too tight of a pose, just put the left foot inside your right shin. Here we are in Ardhamatsyandrasana. We'll take the right hand across, left hand behind, lift up tall and turn. Take some time here to breathe, to feel. You want to be well connected to the floor with your bent leg and that standing foot. You can fully turn the head to complete the pose. Look for areas that could be released, lengthened, opened or even engaged a little and then release. Lengthen out the legs. We'll balance again in dandasana and second side. Left leg is pulled under to the outside edge of your blanket. Choose the right leg configuration for you. Bring the left arm around that right knee, lift up tall and you're turning. Broad shoulders, turn the head all the way around to complete your pose. And then release. Unwind the legs just for a moment in dandasana. And then release your pose. We'll send the blanket off to the side. Turn over onto your back with bent knees. We'll reach down for grabbing onto a portion of our pants to give us a good purchase for this pose. Legs together. We're going to push down with the forearms and elbows to lift the chest and then tilting the head back to the floor. So you can press the forearms and tuck a little bit more. Head towards the pelvis and a little bit more. Pressing the forearms, holding onto the pants. Lift the legs and extend the legs straight out. A few more breaths. Bend the knees. Lift the head and place the back of the head on the floor. Take a moment to do a little windshield wiper with the legs. Matsyasana. Nice pose for back bending, helping the neck. And then come to center. Turn to your side and press yourself to sitting. I thought we'd do a little seated meditation before we find shavasana. I'm going to recommend a block to sit on. And then you can choose either cross legs, virasana, or any other pose that works for you so that you can quietly go inside. Adjust your pose. Press down through your sitting bones. Raise your trunk up. Broaden your chest. We'll take the arms out. Slowly bring the palms together and the thumbs of the sternum. I gently press up into the sternum to help open the chest and then close the eyes. Allow your attention to come inside, but not to hide the attention there. You draw the attention inside so that you can become more and more aware of everything in and around. Feel the rhythm of breath, the shape of your pose, the thoughts that may be swirling, the sound of your room, the touch of the air on your skin, and all of the other sensations that make up this moment. I invite you to welcome them into your experience. Say to taste. Each moment the sensations change and you're there to receive them. Then release your hands to your thighs. Open your eyes. Just make our way into shalasana.

Lift the block out of your way. Have a blanket for the head. Lie down and find your pose. Blanket just underneath the head and neck, not the shoulders. Do a light little tuck of the shoulders and extend your legs. Release any tension in and around the legs. Allow the feet to fall side to side. Let the hands go soft, shoulders to be heavy. Allow your attention to fall away from the periphery of the body. Again, not to go into an inner seclusion, but to become more open to receive everything around you. All right. Please stay as long as you like in your Shavasana, if you'd like to come out with me, rest your hands on your tummy, bend your legs one at a time, turn softly to your right side, rest your head on your blanket, and then gently press yourself up to sitting, find a comfortable seated position. We did it. I don't want it to end, I don't really want to say it's the end, this is really the completion of a beautiful circle as I mentioned before, and it opens the doors for so many more opportunities, potential and accomplishments. Once again, thank you so much for the intent and energy you brought to this challenge. I look forward to hearing your comments and questions and connecting with you online. Signing off, namaste, have a tremendous day.