Stable Heart Opening Flow

Here we go. This is live now. Unless you are watching this prerecorded, either way, I welcome you here with me in my home here on Martha's Vineyard. I see you. And we're going to do a practice today that incorporates like back bending, heart opening, back bending, right? And you can really look at this as like a real physical endeavor, right? Because it is, right? It's a lot of work to open up. It feels really good, or it can feel really good to get that chest open, the shoulders open, the breath, filling that space, right? Great for your posture, so your alignment, your body. The other beautiful aspect of it, and this is absolutely optional, you can offer it to yourself as an intention for today, is it's a heart opener. It even gets me a little emotional just like saying that. So any blockages you may have, any grief, any heartache, any like fear and anxiety that makes you literally go like this, insecure, a little bit like I can't put myself out there like that again, because I'm just going to get let down or hurt or whatever, right? So you've got the two aspects, you can blend them together, the real physical opening and the more sort of emotional release aspect of it. And you can just play with play with it and see what see what unfolds. So it's really about moving your spine quite a bit and understanding your pelvis. So I'd like to move deliberately, slowly and give you some cues and get you safely through the practice. Okay? So do what feels right for your back, your low back, your mid back, your upper back, your neck, and your entire body. So again, I hope you're healthy, happy, enjoying your day, your life. Thank you for being here. So for the first few moments after that long intro, let's take a couple of breaths, close your eyes and arrive like here I am. Breathe in nice and full and breathe out that long exhale I'm encouraging constantly. Breathe in nice and full through the nose. Exhale everything out. One more time. Breathe in through the nose. Breathe out open your mouth. How to release man. It's the release and the ground that feels so nice to like here. Okay, so try to keep a good rhythmic breath today, nice and full and spacious. And we'll start with some seated cat cow. So hands on the knees and the back bending is an extension.

It's a spinal extension. So this here as you're sending your chest forward, pulling the shoulders back and gently looking up. So there's an arch in the back. This is the back then we're looking for. Breathe in here. And as you exhale, pull the navel in round your shoulders a bit. Breathe in. Breathe out. I like to breathe out of the mouth and that that rounding breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Keep going five more inhale. Two more. Big breath in. Exhale neutral spine. Rotational movements now hands up on the like cup the heads of your shoulders with your fingertips. This is warming the spine really good stuff. Inhale with a long spine to the left. Exhale almost like you're shushing somebody to the right. Inhale, left, exhale, right. Inhale, left, exhale, right. About 30 more seconds. 15. Keep the spine neutral. Spine neutral core braced. Five seconds. And nice. Back to neutral. Take a pause. Sit up nice and tall. Chest proud. Shoulders back. Good posture.

And breathe out. Try this with me real quick so you know the difference. Round your shoulders. Round your back. This is something we want to get away from. You find yourself at work. Maybe it's that emotional sort of rounding. A little insecure. And try to take a deep breath like this, right? You can do it, but it's really tight. So we want to really open up today. So breathe in. Lift. Lengthen. Look at all that space already. Feel the space that you have. Breathe from your diaphragm. Expand your ribs and bring the breath all the way up into the chest, across your collarbones. So with me, breathe in. And breathe out. Inhale, the arms high. And exhale the hands to the heart. Full commitment. That's it right there. Now come on to hands and knees. Okay. Push back into child's pose for a moment. Stretch through the hips and walk the hands out. So I'm going to focus quite a bit on moving the spine in all of its ranges of motion. So it's got five, right? It's neutral, which is like downward dog. Side bending. So lateral flexing. Forward folding. Extending. That's all the back bending will do. And then the twisting and rotate. Okay. So let's get some good movement here in the spine. So breathe in, come into table, breathe out, drop the hips. You start to feel it in your low back a little bit. Bend your arms and roll down. This is one of my favorite moves. Inhale, lift the chest, start to straighten your arms. But as you're straightening your arms, if your low back says, dude, what are you doing? Stop there. Exhale all the way back. All right. So listen, it's a listening practice. Breathe in, table, breathe out, hips down, hold those shoulders back nice and strong and spacious in the heart.

And exhale, lower yourself down through those bent arms. Inhale, lift, press straight through the arms. If you can, if not, again, it's bent arms. No big deal. Exhale, come back. Inhale table. Exhale, lower, low back starts to speak to you. Listen, lower down. Let's stay in a moderate little up dog or cobra for a few breaths. So this is back bend kind of back bend number one, hold the shoulders back, chest alive, and then drop your left hip down and your right hip down. And typically upward dog is, is cute as knees, thighs and hips lifted. But right now it's kind of early on, you know, lazy version, lazy in the best possible way. Okay. All the way back into child's pose. Get that stretch in the low back. And if I say all the way back and you're only able to go about halfway, that's what I mean all the way for you. Okay. Some, we'll call it back, bend number two, come back into your, your table, walk your hands forward and keep your hips right up over your knees. This is puppy pose. Let's drop safely or release the heart toward the floor. Chin touches forehead touches one or one or the other. Elbows can drop down for a little more safety in the shoulders. So here take about five breaths. Maybe you can, you know, breathe toward, think toward, feel toward an intention, something that is blocking your heart from just being wide open and available to life. It doesn't have to be to a person, right? But just to life to the beauty of life, not to sound cliched or silly, but it's really like, it's what's what I'm feeling. So open the hearts. You can be more available. Send the chest down. Just one more breath there. Nice. Come forward onto your forearms. Sphinx poses. All right. Soften the low back, point your toes back, stack your shoulders over your elbows, and then let that chest and heart pull through and you can drop the chin down and stretch the back of the neck and almost do like a couple of cat cow movements for the net. Your cervical spine as you're sitting in the pose, right? Your low back kind of opening a bit.

If it's too much, right? Sphinx pose can be too much. You can always take the elbows out a little further and farther forward. This releases the compression low back. Something for everybody. Lower all the way down. Slide the hands back into cobra up dog position. Hold those shoulders back. Lift the chest, cobra, little up dog, and push all the way to downward dog. Okay. Nice. Just moving and grooving today. Get the fingers spread out nice and wide. Keep your arms nice and engaged. So there's a beautiful cue. It's used by lots of teachers. I did not create it, but if you bring, bring yourself back down, it's important as we move into some of the other poses, bring your knees back down. It's like a pickle jar, right? Your hands spread your fingers out as wide as you can. And then what you're going to do is with the right hand is imagine there's a pickle jar that you're trying to open and you're trying to open it to the right. And this will rotate your right arm, your forearm, your biceps, and connect to the shoulder. Shoulder connects to your back. Do the same with the left. Then this is going to be like for planks, side plank, downward dog, wheel pose, like you name it. Really important for stability, safety, all of those things. Okay. Back into downward dog with those arms. So I apologize in advance if this is cue heavy, but I think it's important and it's a little shift from the usual dynamic flow we do, right? It might be really helpful for you. Okay. Soft knees, send the sit bones nice and high, right? Those butt bones, your pelvis tips forward, but high, long spine, neutral there. Breathe. Nice. Try this. Come up onto your fingertips, build some strength in those fingers. Walk like tip toe your feet forward. And every step you take, keep pushing your fingers into the mat to lift the hips and step. Push one foot down, get a long stretch through like say the right leg and step the left foot forward a bit. Stretch out that left leg, step the right foot forward, stretch out the right leg. And then ultimately there you are. Front of the mat, feet hip width, fold, exhale, pull the belly up and in, lengthen your spine.

Breathe in halfway up. Breathe out forward and down for that leg stretch. Now rotations, lift halfway, straighten and power through that whole right leg. Bend the left to get some release, turn and twist through the upper body and reach that right arm nice and high. So this is the rotation your spine is designed to move toward. Okay. Beautiful. Stretch and straighten the left leg, bend the right, lift the heart, right? You want to lift the heart to lengthen the spine to rotate. Nicely done. Good. Open up. Feel it out. Oh man. Bring it on back down. Roll up to stand, mindful of your back as you're rolling up. This is it, right? Yes. Take the arms up overhead. Take a big breath in. This will be a standing back bend. So draw the tailbone down, kind of thrust the hips forward. Keep those glutes and legs really strong. A little gentle standing back bend. Take the arms, bend them in that field goal shape. You're going to tremble a little bit, or at least I am, but this is it, right? Hello world. Wide open, heart wide open. I'm available. And back to hands to heart. And when I say it throughout the practice, hello world, I'm available. I'm saying I'm available to all of its experiences, all of its opportunities, not like yo world, I'm available. Inhale, bring the arms up overhead and exhale forward and down. Inhale to a good long spine. Breathe in, breathe out. Walk back into plank pose. Lower yourself down. Your choice. Up dog. Inhale, knees up, thighs up, arms, strong pickle, jar those arms or those hands, pickle jar. Now pull the shoulders back, heart open, strong core takes you to downward dog. Beautiful. Nice. Now inhale into plank and as you exhale, push back into downward dog, pickle jar the left hand in. You've got to really understand that for a safe arm and reach your right hand back towards your left calf or ankle and then look underneath that left arm, a little twist. Nice. What's up? Okay, good. Now undo, come back, pickle jar both hands, downward dog, pickle jar that right now, strong, stable left hand, reaches back to that right calf, pull on the calf a little bit to get that twist, that rotation, gaze underneath your right arm. Make sure you're breathing well. Good. Back to full plank, pause, inhale, exhale, lower down again. Keep those arms strong. Breath in, pull the heart through shoulders back. Good, healthy, strong spine and back downward dog. Keep the pickle jar. Keep the pickle jar. Take your right foot, step it up to the front of the mat, bring your back knee down, come into a neutral 90 degree front leg, 90 degree back leg. This allows you to actually manipulate your pelvis a bit here. So below your navel is a pubic bone, right? Pull it up, drop the tailbone down toward the floor, right? So a little pelvic tilt here. And when you do that, you're going to feel up the left quadricep muscles into the hip flexors. Keep that action, curl the back toes or point your back toes back. So the top of the foot is grounded. Either way works well.

Keep the pelvis in that position. Take your left arm, reach it up and take a little side bend. So now stretch comes all the way up that side body, right hand rests on the right thigh. Good. Okay. Open up that left channel a bit. Take both arms overhead. Keep working the tailbone down. Draw the hips safely forward, right? By working the tailbone down, you're out of your low back. Okay. Nice. The back bend is not in the low back. Now take the arms, reach them up. Up. Big, intense stretch up the left side. Then take those arms down, palms facing forward and pull the shoulders back. I'm going to curl my back toes, getting a little cramp there. There we go. Palms forward, hips forward, low back is like, thank you. Yes.

It's the lift in the chest, the gaze upward and again, heart wide open. Can you breathe through your diaphragm, your ribs, your chest, everything, just bring the arms high, breathe in, breathe out, hands to the mat. Nice. Curl the back toes, lift the left knee, come up high in your fingertips. Now I want you to really lift through the chest to lengthen the spine, left fingertips, fist or palm, and rotate open to the right with the right arm. So we just came from deep extension in the spine to some rotation. Now bring the right hand back down to the mat. Step back into downward dog. Give yourself a little recovery moment here. Send your hips from side to side. Some good, satisfying breaths. Shake out the head. Give yourself to this entire practice as best you can. Give it for the big, deep stretch and opening to help with your posture and give it to the potential sort of the potential rewards on the emotional side. Come back into your plank pose. So we're just going to kind of mix things up today. Okay. Pickle jar, the right hand, the right arm, send your right knee to the mat, slide your right foot over, ground the left foot and move into side plank like so. Okay. Pickle jar, pickle jar. I like pickles.

Pickles are good. Left arm reaches up. Now here, what I want you to do is slide your left foot back even more. Make sure that right foot is really used for balance. Thrust the hips forward. Then that left arm reaches up and back behind you. So there's some heart space open, right? Reaching the left arm as far overhead as you can, ground the entire left foot, stretch the middle of the body and then bring that left hand back down. Your left knee back down. Pause and puppy pose. Hips over the knees, walk the hands forward. A generous exhale out as you drop the chest and shin towards the floor. A little surrender, right? A little trust. Maybe one back bend today will feel a little interesting, a little different. Maybe there's some release. Maybe there's some opening. Back into your sphinx pose, elbows down. Back might be warming up a little bit. You can stay here or take your hands out to the side. I like to push the palms down, fingers point out, and then screw in through the hands, pull the shoulders and shoulder blades back and lift. Good. And what you can do instead of just hanging in the tension, which is fine, is you can lower down, bend the arms, belly down, chest, forehead. Screw those hands in and lift up. So it's like a little baby up dog sphinx pose, seal pose, push up. So you get a little bit of arm strength there, a little bit of shoulder strength, and you're just flirting with the back, giving it its well-deserved attention. Lower down, reach the arms all the way back behind you, clasp your hands however you can, and pull back towards your heels, lifting your shoulders and your chest. So again, more spine extension.

Drop, push the, you want to thrust the hips down into the mat, get the glutes activated, and open up the chest and breathe. More than important, like just breathe up into the heart. Oh, so nice. Release, bring the hands down into cobra area. Inhale, cobra, up dog, all the way back to downward dog, neutral spine. All right. Clearing breath. Take the left leg, lift it and step it into lunge on this side. So it's a low crescent lunge. Start first with what's really doable and what's where you might end up staying. Pelvis, it's not forward and it's not tucked, it's neutral.

A tailbone, draw your tailbone down and pull that pubic bone up. And as soon as you do that, you're going to thrust the hips a little forward. You're going to feel that long stretch up the right side now. But what you've done more importantly, two parts is you've engaged your core and you've released the tension in your low back, hopefully, depending on your low back. Okay. Back toes curled or uncurled. Keep working through that neutral pelvis, slightly tucked, draw the left knee forward, left knee forward, hips down and go, okay, there it is. That's the spot. Don't really want to go much further than that. But then the right arm reaches and you take a little side bend here. So now it takes the stretch all the way up and out through the right fingertips. See if you can really drop into this. Take the left arm up. Now you're neutral, lift the chest, field goal, post arms, cactus pose, whatever you'd like to call it. And then the arms down. My favorite right now, palms open, heart. So make sure you can actually be in the threshold is not like fire, right? Get out fire. It's like warm. It's cozy. It's inviting. And you are able to really like breathe up into the heart of the chest, have a little faith, have a little trust, bring the arms up, breathe in and breathe out the hands back to the mat. Curl the back toes, lift the right knee, spaced out in the feet, left foot, left hip, right foot, right hip, right fingertips, ground, fist or palm, lift the chest, open the heart and twist. Keep that left knee stack right over the ankle and rotate. And it's also important to keep pushing through that right heel and get those quadricep muscles on that right leg. So many things to think about, but in time it becomes automatic. Automatic in the best sense. Nice you guys, you guys, or you. Good. Left hand back down, walk it back into downward dog again. Take a nice full complete breath. Bring the left knee down. My back will be to you, but that might be helpful. Slide the left foot over, ground the right foot and slide it over. So it's on like the back left corner of the mat. Pickle jar the left hand in. So your whole left arm rotates, your right arm high, got all the joints stacked, all the necessary muscles opening and stretching.

Then right turn the chest open, cross the hips forward, open the heart, add to that. Yeah. Shoulders opening, reach that right arm to like the front of your mat and beyond. Reach long, navigate or manage the breath. Beautiful. Right hand back down. Right knee down. Cat cow five rounds. Inhale, lift the chest. There's your extension. Exhale, round it out into cat pose. Tuck the tailbone, round out that back, pull the belly up.

Four more. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Three more. Inhale, all for the back. Two more. Exhale. One more time. Exhale. Okay. What you're going to do is come back through a flat back, neutral, slightly into cow pose, lift the knees and push back into downward dog with that good extended spine. Okay. So downward dog, cat cow. Those are all the poses that help bring you back to this neutral position. So understanding good alignment for your back. All right. So the back's pretty warmed up. We're going to move into a camel pose. We might enter it a little bit later also. Okay. So come onto the knees, keep the back toes curled and lift on up. So now you're sitting up. The back toes are definitely curled. That means your heels are higher. And if you reach back, it's just a little more accessible. Okay. First and foremost, right? Well, first and foremost is your breath.

Second up there with the first tailbone. So you see the difference, right? I'm not here and trying to reach back. It's all low back. So tailbone down and you get the glutes engaged, right? Your butt muscles and send your hips forward. Low back is neutral. Totally safe now. Okay. Now, if you know it's a little difficult for you, maybe just stay here and take your arms out and hold and you're not holding onto anything and it's building your core or take your hands to your low back. Fingertips reaching down toward the bum and pull the elbows toward one another and push the hips through, right? There you go. Look at that. Wide open, wide open. If you feel like you have it and it's accessible and safe for you, reach the right hand to the right heel, left hand to the left heel. I've dipped back a little bit, but I never change the position of my pelvis. In fact, I'm going to draw that tailbone down, squeeze those glutes a bit, get my thighs working, and then pull up on the heels. Up on the heels. Open that heart of yours. Open. Like breathe all the way up into the heart. This is the pose that it wants you to like, it's so difficult. It wants you to stop breathing, but don't. Like keep opening, even though you're told not to, right? One more time, pull up on the heels, thrust the hips forward, back out, hands to the mat, little gentle cat cow, right?

So this is the pose right here. If you're with me in cat, this is the immediate counter pose. You're in flexion. The spine is rounded and you move back to cow and you feel that back opening. Oh nice. Exhale round, back into table, cow pose, inhale. One more time, cat. Stay here and cat with me. Come up on your fingertips, push the ground away and pull your low belly up and in. When you breathe out, squeeze up a little bit more. Like you're trying to get rid of everything, all the contents of your belly, your air. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. And release back to neutral. Downward dog. A little in between core work here, right? So downward dog into plank, knee to elbow. So exhale, bring and firm the abs.

Inhale back to downward dog. Exhale, left side. Exhale, right. Exhale, left. Exhale, right. Keep going. And I just want to give you some cues. So you're breathing. You've got that. Every time you come into plank, I want you to almost pause with that knee in and push the ground away and pickle jar those hands. Yeah. Nice. This has more value than you might realize. This is if you're building into like bigger poses down the road in your yoga career, this upper body strength and core awareness is more valuable than it may appear. Good. One more to the right. One more to the left. Downward dog. Lift the right leg up, breathe in and step it up to the front of the mat as you breathe out. Okay. Back heel comes down. Warrior one push down, push down through the feet, strong in the legs to rise up. Okay. So straight in the front leg. This, what this does is unlocks your pelvis so that you can actually draw that tail bone down. Same cue I've been giving you tailbone down. When you do that, you're going to feel this stretch up through the left side. Once you get that taken care of, draw the right knee bent again, keep pushing through the bones of that right foot, drawing safely your left hip forward, right? And then the arms up. Good. So what we've done, cause I'm going to ask you to tip back a little bit is I've got you hopefully out of your low back. So you're not just sitting in the low back the whole time. Okay. So reach up through the arms, extend long through the spine. And once again, those arms that I'm in favor of right now, palms facing forward, thumbs pulling back. And then there's this like, I'm right here. I'm available. I'm open and I'm doing the work to kind of like remove the blockages that keep me from really like living that like fulfilled, awesome, intentional life. Or you're just going with the feeling and it's like, yes, stretch open. Now bring those arms back up, breathe in and breathe out the hands back to the mat. Step back into plank, pickle jar, strong arms, healthy shoulders halfway down.

Inhale back, bend, pause here for a couple of breaths, rolling the shoulders back, pickle, drawing those hands and your back might feel a little more available now. Maybe I don't want to assume you may be working with something that I have no idea about. Push up and back into downward facing dog and nice. Give yourself the gift of that big exhale as much as you can. Release is more than we're aware of. Left leg lifts up for your one on the other side. So knee in step, wiggle around, right foot to the mat, get your alignment, assemble, right? Assemble from the ground up. Sound effects work every time. Straighten the right leg, tailbone down. When you do that, you feel the stretch in that right side now. Okay. Once this is adjusted, bend back into the left leg. Don't compromise that adjustment. Now I didn't say it on the other side, but if you are really working with some pretty angry, uh, low back stuff, don't lift up from here. Just work maybe out of the back, like lean forward a little bit. And you can see if you look up at me, my back is long and extended. It's not even working toward back bending and compressing. So hopefully that's not too late for you, but it doesn't mean that you can't open here, right?

Okay. Palms open, chest open, shoulders back. Still, it's just like, here I am. It's almost like I'm about to jump and I trust everything's going to be all right. Open heart, open and available. Those of you who are here, stay here. Those of you who want to rise up, take the arms up, lengthen the spine, lengthen the spine, stay steady in the pelvis, the core, the leg muscles and all over the chest. Keep pressing through that back foot. It's going to give you the stability you need. Now reach the arms up, breathe in, breathe out, hands to the mat. Ooh, plank pose. Beautiful. Pickle jar, strong, committed through the abdominals and legs. Lower yourself down. Inhale upward, rotate, shoulders back, chest forward, downward facing dog. Knees down, puppy pose, little rest, and a little more deliberate work for the upper back. Take notes, take internal notes like you're, you know, investigating. You've got some notes to take. How do you feel now? How does your back feel? Is it more open? Are your shoulders a little more open? Do you feel, you know, worse? Soften the heart toward the floor. Push back up onto your hands. Okay. You just really were in like a pretty good open extension there. Push back up on to your knees and shins. Round two of camel pose. Let's see.

Let's see how it feels now. Okay. Now remember the goal of this, the goal of this practice was back bending and open heart, like heart opener. So hopefully that's where we're going with this. Um, so heels lifting or down, if that's more available or, uh, doable for you. Okay. Tailbone down, glutes firing this whole area right here. I'm pointing to my core, my thighs, my glutes. That's their support system to protect your back. Okay. Tailbone down. Everything's kind of locked, but in a good way. Thrust the hips forward, lift through the chest. You can even take your thumbs, like to the outside of your pecs toward your armpits, and then pull up. That's a nice little option as well. If you feel you want a little bit more, reach back, take the right heel, take the left heel. Don't compromise the pelvis.

Pull up on the, on the heels. Open up. More importantly, breathe. Take one more breath and make sure you're breathing and filling the rib cage. Oh, back up to neutral. Push the hips back, hands down, child's pose, stretch the arms out. So this might feel, hopefully feel like a good relief for the low back. Soften the forehead to the mat, stack your hands, use your block, whatever, you know, is available for your forehead to land on. Quiet through the breath.

Okay, back into your tabletop. Curl the back toes, downward dog again. So we're just kind of moving around. Let's try a side plank this time without the knee, unless the knee is absolutely necessary for you, for whatever the reason. Plank, pickle, draw the right arm, right hand into the right arm, heels over to the right, left arm nice and high. Now what you can do here is you can take your left foot back behind the right, bend it, lower the hips a little bit, and then shoot the hips up. And here's like a little back bend side plank variation that might feel nice. Pickle, draw a right hand, don't lose it. It's not your shoulders, like deserves all the support it can get. Team effort, right? Okay, let's try the other side. Lower, shoot that left leg back, find the plank. Heck, let's throw push up in all the way to the other side. Pickle, draw our left hand, rotate left arm, take the right foot back behind the left. So it's a nice little bent right leg, straight left leg, lower the hips, and then blast off hips high, reach the right arm up.

So you're thrusting the hips up, you're opening the chest, take that right arm back behind you a little bit. There's some vulnerability here that you have to be willing to be vulnerable to be this open. And lower back over to downward dog, pedal it out a little bit. Plank Asana all the way down. Okay, do a couple things on our front, then we'll move to our back. So the first one is left arm comes out, palm facing down. Okay, right hand is in like a cobra position. And I want you to use that right hand to roll safely onto that left arm. Okay, now about halfway, you're going to realize like I could probably slide that left hand a little bit further to get more flush onto the shoulder onto the left hip with that right foot possibly placed right behind the left knee. So your left knee or right knee is up toward the ceiling. Then you've got a little passive hip opener. I'm not going to put my head down because I have this little mic thing on. But I'm still getting that awesome stretch. And I hope you are too through that left side. Now, if you're able to balance here and feel more stable, you can take, I have no idea how bendy you are. I am not. If you have it, you can reach that right hand back to meet the left. Yeah, right for me, but that's okay. I'm still a good person.

And you are too if you can't make it. So don't worry about that. That's not like the peak posture here. It's just an option. The right hand can rest on the right thigh or the back of your right hand can rest at your back. Yeah, nice. This pose actually is probably even better early on to get that shoulders open. All those tight muscles up through the shoulders and up the chest. So, so, so good. Okay. Release back over to center. I'm shifting on my mat just for my own personal reasons. I've got my own personal reasons. Okay. Now you're going to come over onto that right side. Okay. So remember as you're pushing onto that right arm, say halfway over, slide the right hand a little bit further. So you're on the chest and that shoulder a little more flush left foot behind your right knee. And then, oh yeah, left hand meets the right, or maybe the back of your left hand to your low back. Okay. So the reason I'm doing that is because, right, you may even feel it. You don't need the answer, but that shoulder open, chest open. Okay. That's pretty well balanced. Come back out. Oh, nice. Okay. Okay. Back to the prone position. Take your arms. I like to, you know, think of this as like a flying, uh, you've jumped out of a plane, which I've never done, uh, bow pose. So you're not actually reaching back and taking hold of your feet, but you are bending your legs, bend the arms, field goal cactus, lift the knees, lift the chest, lift the arms, and you take flight for a few moments. Good. You could take the arms back a little bit more. You could even reach the arms back like you're flirting with touching the feet. Oh, take the thumbs forward and up and breathe. Yeah, we're flying and lower down. Okay. So you may have felt that in low back, but let's take it through a cobra pose all the way back to child's pose. And we'll do a little reset. We're going to move back onto our back sides and throw down a couple more postures to help open up that space. Thank you for your patience. All right. All right. All right. All right. Come up onto your seat and let's actually lower onto our back. Okay. So on your back, you can still see there. Okay. Feet below the knees, arms alongside your body, palms facing up. So what you're going to work on is that same position in the pelvis, right? So why don't you go ahead and push through your feet, the heels and the big toe mound and lift the butt up just enough for you to like try to send your tailbone up through the space between your knees. Okay. Now push through the shoulders and the shoulder blades, like push into the ground and push through the feet through the shoulders to lift and then shimmy the left shoulder and shoulder blade and the right shoulder and shoulder blade underneath your body. Keep pushing through your feet. Maybe even try to push through the big toe mound, the heels. Good. So hips are high, low back is safe. Chest, the heart opening, shoulder opening. You can clasp your fingers if you'd like to add just a little more stretch through the shoulders and chest.

I honestly just kind of prefer the shoulders or the hands out wide and still get as much value. But what you can also try is lift your heels, come up onto the balls of your feet, push up a little bit higher and then take your hands, like your thumbs at your low back right above your waistline. Let's see what that feels like. Use your arms as like little shelves to hold yourself up. Okay. Release that and roll down one vertebra at a time. Land. Okay. Okay. The next one is a bridge or a wheel. So I'll try to talk you through a wheel. For a long time, I kind of bailed on wheel, not because of any injury or anything. I just sort of like didn't do it. And I've been reentering back into it. And I got to tell you when you get it right, quote unquote, feels pretty amazing. It's kind of like the biggest type of things, the biggest heart opener back then you can get. Let's see how it feels. All right. So same move with the pelvis, right? So get that locked in. Sorry. Tuck the tailbone a bit, draw the tailbone up through the knees in that direction. It's okay to have a natural curve in your low back. Now here's the tough thing. If your wrists are funky, it's going to be a little difficult and you still want to apply the pickle jar effect here. So you're going to bring your right hand down on the mat right behind your right shoulder, and then the left hand right in line with your left shoulder. So your hands and ultimately your elbows are shoulder width. So see what that feels like for a few moments. And then push through your feet to lift your hips, push through your pickle jarred hands to push up to land on your head gently.

Okay. Once you're on your head, you can pickle jar the hands and draw your elbows toward one another. Make sure your feet stay kind of hip width. I like to lift my heels and then push through the arms and then push the chest back behind me. Keep working that position in the pelvis as much as you can. Pickle jar those arms, those hands, make sure you're breathing and slowly back of the head, shoulders, upper back right there. That's the lowering and lower all the way down and just take a total pause. Feet out wide, knees toward one another. Generous breath fills the body and releases. So whether it's bridge or wheel, we're going to do one more together. Okay. And I will say that, you know, almost every one of these postures, you know, we're here for an hour. You could do a whole day clinic on all of these. So hopefully you're finding your way through some of my cues and taking good care of yourself. Okay. Cause that matters to me a lot. So feet below the knees, kick your heels out slightly. Just a little bit. If you're doing wheel, you're doing bridge, go for it. Wheel plant the hands back behind the shoulders, start to push into the arms, lift the hips up onto the head gently. Okay. This is where you can kind of reset. I like to lift the heels, gives me more space in the back and then push through the arms. Push, push, push. Keep that pickle jar effect. Keep pulling those elbows toward one another. Push the chest back and through. Find that moderate yet fulfilling big stretch and slowly, safely.

Oh, sometimes that's the best part of the pose that release. Okay. Okay. Align yourself on your mat. Make sure you're good to go. Okay. So we had a couple minute little break there. So I'm going to add just a few minutes on, but we'll start with a spinal twist. So draw your, let's say your left leg in first, draw the left end, shift your hips to the left and let's take a little spinal rotation. So your left leg is crossing over toward the right and the left arm is reaching out. Anything you may be of, you know, you may have built up in your low back as far as tension or compression, you can use this time to hopefully release it a bit. Nice. Mindful. After all that back bending stuff, just take your time in the transition out of the twist, set yourself up for the other side. So you draw the right leg in, you shift your hips over to the right. Okay. And twist, take that right leg across, spread across your back. This also, you know, it's a twist, but you're open, spacious and available across the heart. It wouldn't be a back bend necessarily, but it's a, hey, here I am. I'm making some choices.

Put myself out there a little bit more. Makes a big difference, right? Right. When you ground the confidence, lack of sort of self-esteem, I'm not saying it's easy. It's like, not like one yoga class is going to, you know, save that or change that, shift that, but it's a start. It can be a big start. Back out, transition, pay attention. Nice. Okay. Draw those knees in tight to the body. You can hold onto the shins or you can reach up and grab hold of opposite wrists and give yourself a nice, generous, low back stretch. It's like dessert, stretch, hopefully. Again, you have to be careful sometimes as a teacher, you know, it's like, like dessert and you might be like, I don't know, that doesn't actually feel that good to me. So it has the potential of feeling like dessert, but if it doesn't feel like that for you, you know, there's a way to get that dessert feeling. Maybe you back away from it a little bit or you take your knees wider. Okay, go ahead and come out of that. Bring the bottoms of your feet together for a moment. They'll actually give you two options. Bottoms of the feet together, knees out wide or check in with it, feet out wide with the legs bent, knees drawn toward one another. Sometimes the knees drawn toward one another will open up the sacrum, the low back. Go ahead and lie down. Let your back feel comfortable. Maybe even take your arms just like this generous opening through the arms and upper body. Like you're confident and like you're okay with this kind of like vulnerable shape. You can take your arm or your legs now and stretch them all the way out. Take a deep breath. Exhale, open your mouth.

Two more together, breathe in. Breathe out, breathe in, and breathe out. Allow your entire body to relax. Allow all the work you've done on your back, your spine to completely relax. Take your right hand to your belly, left hand up on your chest, your heart, and maybe as we close, soon reconnect to the heart space, to your intention. I don't need to tell you this. You're probably a grown person with, you know, plenty of knowledge about it, but there's a big, vast, gorgeous world out there. It's quite compromised right now, but even just the big, vast world within our communities and all the options and things to do. And the more we can really open up and lose some of the old stories and old conditioning and things that really like have bound us tight and we can start to free that space up and just, it might feel like a more sort of rich, fulfilled, easier, more pleasant life, maybe. That's my thought, and that's what I choose to share with you today. So you can continue to lie down and take your time eventually to roll out. I will come up and do an official little closing. There we are. I apologize for any malfunction that happened, but here we are. I think we're able to still get through the practice. So my heart to yours. Namaste.

Have a beautiful day. Message me if you have any questions more than available. I'm available as well. Namaste, my friends.