Liquid Yin

Hello again. Welcome back to our yin practice. Today we're going to do a full body yin experience. We need a bolster. So grab your bolster and bring it on over. We will do just a few minutes of some standing joint warming and then we're going to drop it down and enjoy some nice long luscious yin holds. So starting with the major joints of the body, bring your nose straight forward and start to draw some circles with your nose. Opening up the first two vertebraes and each time I'm circling around I'm getting a little bit bigger with the circles. Opening up the atlas axis. You might feel some warming here in the sides of the neck. Do one more this side. Come back to center. Take a deep breath. Sometimes it can be a little bit dizzy, a little bit just energy. So make sure you're grounded. Other side, knee, nose towards the left. Spiraling, circles getting bigger. I like to keep my eyes closed for this so the gaze really soft. Let's do one more. Releasing tension in the neck and the head and as you come out you might want to circle the shoulders. All this energy is now opening up right in the shoulders. So just circle the shoulders. Adding a little standing undulating cat dog here will feel good. From here we'll come down to the arms and the hands. So clasp your hands and draw some circles with your wrists. Hydrating into the wrist joints. Really good for arthritis. Textures. Pressing the palms of your hands forward. Give yourself a little rock right and left. Opening up the upper back and we'll draw this rock into a roll. Drawing big, slow circles around your body. Almost oval. So I'm going a little bit further to the side. A little bit less backwards. Lengthening between your hips and your ribs. Opens up all this luscious breath in the side of your ribs. Let's give ourselves three circles the other way. Good. And coming out, circle the shoulders, circle the wrists. Coming down into the hips. Open your legs up a little bit wider. So as you draw these big circles with the hips, bringing synovial fluid into the hip joints, you got a lot of space to move. And three the other way. I'm coming a little bit further forward to open up energy in the hip flexors. And then play with it. Get a little playful. Draw some sideways figure eights. Don't think about it. Just do it. You'll feel a lot of movement here. Gluteus medius where the hip meets the leg. Feels really good. So we're going to bring a little dance, balance dance, standing on the left leg. Hands on the hips really helps. Bring your right knee into your chest and draw it open. Gathering up as many of the muscles as you can in the gluteus. And then an internal external rotation with that right knee. Just continuing to lubricate the joint. If you come out, come back in. Knee up. Circling the knee now. It's a little bit of a balance challenge. It's good to tune in another way and circle out your ankle and just give that leg a little shake. Give your whole body a shake. Other side. Hands on the hips. Left knee up. Big circles. This is warming the not only joint but it's starting to warm. I can feel my gluteal muscles warming. Good. And an internal external rotation here. Knee up. Circling around. And circle the ankle.

Shake it out. Shake your whole body out. Taking a moment in tadasana. Just notice. Good. From here, let's roll down the spine. One vertebrae at a time. And we'll meet all the way down. Come all the way down. Just one breath in uttanasana. Forward fold. Roll yourself all the way back up. Exhale. Good. Meet me down on the earth. Yeah. Legs out in front of you. Shifting gears. We're going to slow it down now and move into our yin poses starting with caterpillar. Seated forward fold. Legs are straight. Bring your hands on either side of your legs. And you start with straight legs, straight spine. Hip bones are anchored down to the earth. Lengthening out the backs of the legs and the back of the body. Take a deep breath in here. If this feels enough of a sensation for you, stay right here. If you're curious about moving a little bit deeper, just letting the crown of your head, the weight of the head and the shoulders start to traction your spine forward. Just walking your hands forward. Encouraging space and softness. Really let the shoulders go. Just do a little wiggle wobble here. No holding in the shoulders. Encouraging the weight of our bodies and gravity and our breath too deep in the pose. Let's keep softening in the back of the neck. And this is a really powerful pose to calm the mind. It has a lot of medicinal qualities. Just letting the busyness of the mind release. Resetting the nervous system. Let's take another breath or two here. Soften the jaw and walking your hands back up one vertebrae at a time. Letting your head come up last. Good. Let's meet on our backs. Just a moment of transition onto your back. Bring your knees into your chest. Rock side to side massages out the muscles that we just worked. Maybe circling. Let's move this into a twist. Cat tail. Bringing your knees so they're staying bent. Bringing your knees over to the right. Taking your bottom leg, the left leg behind you and with your left hand or the right leg behind you.

With your left hand grab onto that right foot and pull it back just a pinch. And with your right hand, nudge your left knee down. Yeah. Make sure your neck is relaxed. Make sure the grip on your foot and your knees relaxed. Let yourself settle in here. Deep cleansing twist. Opening up the front fascia lines of the body here with this bottom leg and side fascia lines, the external ringing out of the fascia. You may want to turn your head to the left side if that feels okay on your neck. Take a deep breath here. Exhale. Soft jaw. Soften the eyes. There's a natural unwinding sensation with twists. Perhaps a spiraling of your energy as it's freeing up. And swirling around your whole body as it's noticing. And softening. You can always nudge this left knee down a pinch. Reach to the left a little more to deepen this sensation. Let's take one or two more deep breaths. Slowly release that right foot. Release your left knee and come on to your back. Take a moment. Perhaps bend your knees and windshield wiper the legs a moment. Notice how you feel. And when you're ready, knees back into the chest. Let's roll over onto the left side. Taking the bottom leg, the left leg with your right hand, hold onto the top of that foot and nudge it back. Left hand holds onto the outer edge of your right knee, nudging it down. Relax the back of your neck. Adjusting this foot. There's a lot of release happening up in the side of your body perhaps. Notice the sensations. This fascia line in the side of the body comes up the side of the ribs, around the shoulders up into the side of the neck and the jaw. Let your left shoulder release. Soften the grip on your foot. Deep breaths all the way down into the low belly. Twists are so cleansing, detoxing for our organs, nourishing. Great for digestion. Let's take one more breath. As you exhale, release your bottom foot, release your top knee, come all the way onto your backs. Knees in your chest, little circles. Perhaps bicycle the legs. Notice. And then roll over onto your side. Let's come up once again. Set up for saddle pose. So grab your bolster. That one felt good. Bring the bolster back a little bit so you have a little bit of space here in your low back. Bring your big toes together. Knees apart. So this is a little spicy on the knees. Be really careful with yourself. If it feels like too much, you are welcome to explore our half heroes pose that we worked on in the last episode. Or simply stay here and notice what this brings up. If you are ready to move a little bit deeper with me, make sure this bolster is along the spine. And we're going to come straight back. So I'm lifting up, bringing the tailbone forward, coming straight back. Nudge your shoulders underneath you. Bring the arms down. Cactus feels really good for me. You might want to lift up one more time and encourage the tailbone forward. It's a deep opening in the front of the thighs. So being really gentle with yourself. This is a deep pose. Deepening your breath encourages tension to release in the body. Allow the bolster to rise up and hold you in the perfect way so that your whole body is given permission to release, soften, and release. And as you may be feeling, this is opening up the fascia lines in the front of the body, up the quadriceps, the front of the legs, along the belly, up into the chest, the heart, lungs, up into the face, across the top of the head. This is a wonderful counter pose for sitting. It releases the hip flexors, gives space for digestion, space for more breath.

Soften your eyes. Deep breaths, just staying very curious as to what sensations are being released. Sometimes they're physical, sometimes an emotion nudges up against your heart. Sometimes there's imagery, memories, just meeting yourself with curiosity and patience, lots of love. Let's take another deep breath. Side out. So coming out of this pose, be very gentle with yourself. You might want to bring your hands in front of you to come straight up. You can use a little bit of core strength to support yourself. Move your bolster off to the side and just come onto a seat here, stretch your legs out in front of you. You might want to just windshield wiper your legs a little bit. Yeah, give them a little wiggle, wobble. Beautiful. Okay. Final pose, snail pose. So if rolling over with your legs over your head feels like too much today, this is a really nice pose right here or coming into the gentle forward fold we did a few moments ago. So really tune into how your body feels and what you need. And if you're ready to move a little bit deeper, come onto your back, just bring your knees into your chest, little circle with the knees and bring your hands down alongside your hips here using the strength of your core. So pull the tummy in, press the hands down. Oh, we can stop right here if you'd like. This is a nice variation as well. This feels really good. So that's the next step. For those of you who are ready to move a little bit deeper, here we go. Bring in the legs all the way over the head. Now I like to nudge my shoulders.

Be very gentle with your neck. Don't turn your neck from side to side. Keep your neck straight and neutral. Either hands alongside the floor behind you or you might want to bring your hands, kind of giving your feet a little massage here. Bring in the knees alongside your head, bending your knees. And let your body start to soften, keeping your neck very relaxed. If this feels like too much at any point, slowly roll out using your abdominals to bring you all the way back up to a seat. This pose has a lot of medicine here. We're cleansing and resetting the nervous system that runs along the spine, calming the mind. Continuing to soften the fascia in the back body. As things release, you might want to walk your feet away from you to give the knees more space. Perhaps relax your hands. Perhaps bringing your hands back alongside the front of the mat, maybe clasping the hands for a shoulder opener and nudging your shoulders underneath. See what feels good to you today. Deep breaths. And just keep letting go. Let's take one more breath here. Exhale. I'm just going to work your legs a little bit towards straight, curling your toes under hands alongside the mat to support you as you roll down using the strength of your core, one vertebrae at a time, to bring yourself all the way back down. Knees into your chest. And setting up for shavasana, you might want to just grab your bolster. Feels really good underneath the knees after this last pose.

Settle yourself in, legs out wide, little wiggle wobble, full body, liquidy wiggle wobble. Simply inviting your whole being to settle into this liquid space that you've opened up for yourself. As our body is made up of a huge percentage of fluids, liquids, notice the flow, the internal flow. exhalations. Deepen your breath.

Take down a little bit deeper into you. Deepen your breath. Deepen your breath. Slowly, as your breath deepens, encouraging this flow to continue to inform and inspire you, soften the edges, gently nodding your head from side to side, letting the movements be an expression of very gentle breath, fluid-like energy, perhaps bringing your arms up and circle out the wrists, maybe a little wobble with the legs right and left, and if you wobble the legs, let your arms relax and you might feel your whole body receiving this fluid-like energy, slowly add the circling in the ankles, gently bringing your knees in towards your chest, a little rock side to side might feel good, circling the knees around, rolling over onto your side, take a breath here, exhale, and pressing your top hand down, rolling up the spine like a cat, coming out of a long nap, letting your head come up last, coming back to your comfortable seat once again, let's take a moment, noticing. As always, thank you for joining me, namaste.