Soft Eyes, Open Hips with Margi

Talk

So Margie, tell us a little bit like in these times, how are you finding yourself navigating the temptation of overwhelm and anxiety and isolation? What are you doing to curb this or to solve this or to soften this? Such a good question. I've heard more than one spiritual teacher recently say, this is what we've been practicing for all of these years and hours on this yoga mat has been preparing for a moment in the world that is so utterly scary and sad and chaotic and also inspiring and interesting and weird. So I'm happy to have my practice first things first. Also, I definitely have ups and downs. I have moments where I feel like, oh, I could do this, especially if my hands are in the planting of tomato plant or connecting with my kid. There's moments that feel okay. And there's moments that feel horrendous, listening to the news and the myriad of things that to be alarmed about. I have moments when I definitely crawl underneath the covers. That's my go-to. My go-to and things feel overwhelming. I go under the covers. And I really, this is hard for me because when I feel bad, I feel like I will feel bad forever. When I feel good, I feel good forever. So I try to remember, especially when I'm not feeling good or feeling the overwhelm, I try to remember about impermanence, the great words of our friend Buddha. Remember that the lows will morph. Someone talks about life as the 10,000 joys and the 10,000 sorrows. Just to remember and to ride the waves. And I know when I mention this to people, they're like, oh yeah, me too. I think it's not, I'm not alone in having extreme ups and downs during these times. And the other thing that I'm really trying to do is one thing at a time versus feeling like I need to solve all the problems of the world and race somewhere of compiling many things. I try to, you know, it's just my practice again, leaning back on my practice. When I'm cooking, I try to be there with the cutting of the carrots when I'm, you know, I'll wash my, my masks so that when I go outside, I can cover up and protect myself and others. And of course, there's the piece of racism and I'm really trying hard to not be overwhelmed by that, but to do one thing at a time. Thank you so much for that, that, that beautiful practical suggestion of one thing at a time. And just to pick up on your mention of anti-racism, just we, I would so, and I'm sure others here would so love to hear like, what are you doing? What are you reading or listening to? Or what are your actions around this unpacking and investigation that the call has been so heightened to right now?

Yeah. So I have, I wonder if all of you have lists. So long, so long of all the possible things. And the first few days after George Floyd was killed and you know, the Black Lives Matter movement started really bubbling strongly. I did, I was overwhelmed and I did not know what to do and I had too many suggestions. And then I heeded my own advice of one thing at a time. And I've been trying to, to figure out just at least one thing a day to help me either understand racism or fight against it. And actually one really great thing happened. I have a neighbor who is a baker. He bakes bread and pizza and he came to me and he said he wanted to have a benefit and a vigil for, to raise money for Black-led, Black-owned organizations. So my husband, Michael is a fantastic drink maker. He's an exologist. So he made 200 drinks and Pete made a bunch of sandwiches and pizzas and bread. And we, we had a fundraiser and we raised a lot of money. Luckily I have a friend who also works at Apple. So we got a double matching grant and we raised money for a farm in Oakland called Black Earth Farm and also East Oakland Collective. So we wanted to go local and we wanted one thing having to do with food and it was a food oriented event. So that was, that was, I'm not a party organizer or at all. I'm a yoga teacher through and through and Pete is a bread baker through and through. Luckily we got someone across the street who, who was a little bit more technologically savvy and she was in on it too, Julie. So we had a benefit and that was great to start to just put some money towards Black-led organizations. So and I've also had taught like at one or two classes and offered my earnings to, or Black Lives Matters organizations. So that's, that's one piece of it, figuring out a way to help share the wealth. And another thing that's more personal is I'm working through a workbook called Me and White Supremacy by Leila Saeed. It's 28 days. It actually started as an Instagram challenge 28 days, a few years ago, and then it's made into a book. And it's every day is, I have a topic to really heighten my awareness about my own systemic racism and it gives, it's just very, very personal and it's a journaling exercise and I'm doing it with a group of people. It's suggested, not required, but suggested that you do it with a group of people just to nobody, none of us are teachers in this topic. We are just kind of fumbling through together a deep inquiry into where racism shows up. And I've had lots of moments when I've really had awakenings of parts of me that are racist that I would not have been, I didn't even know. I didn't even know. Of course, I've always thought I wasn't racist, but this systemic racism is no joke. It's deep inside of our beings. I was thinking about the word systemic when I first woke up this morning and I was thinking about the phrase, when you have the phrase, I want to get this out of my system. Something's kind of nagging at you. I want to get this out of my system. And I think I was thinking about that because of systemic racism and it's going to be a long haul to get this out of our collective systems. So I want to be really committed to keeping up with one thing a day, and there's so many podcasts. There's Code Switch. I love Krista Tippett's On Being podcast. She's interviewing pretty much most podcasts these days that I listen to are educating on anti-racism. So lots to listen to. So many books, most bookstores, or I bet even Amazon now has a list of anti-racism books, but my local bookstore has a whole list of books.

So yeah, supporting small businesses, trying to support black-led businesses, and educating myself and listening, listening just as a big piece of yoga. Again, how can I listen deeply to my experience of being here and trying to listen to understand this world and the things that we need to do? Oh, Margie, thank you so much. Anyway, I just really appreciate everything you just said. I also love that you kind of solved social distancing and anti-racism by bringing people together locally around food. I just really, so beautiful. So just on our, we're on our way to practice with you now. Give us a little hint of what we're going to do. I will. So you know what, first I just want to share this with you. It's a little cartoon that I have sitting here to wrap up our talking section. And it's a therapist and the client is on the couch and they say, I'm so confused. The other day I was hit by an overwhelming feeling that everything would be okay. What's wrong with me? Where do these thoughts come from? So what we're going to do today is I wanted to do like my top hits and to feel good practice. We're going to work with first of all, softening eyes, working to kind of counter the intensity that most of us are spending so much time on screens these days. So a little work with eyeballs, a little work with hips, hip sockets, kind of like an eyeball hip socket and just breathing, moving yoga. Okay. All right. Tag, you're it. I'm ready to practice with you. And I'm sure everybody's waiting to practice with you and thank you.

Practice

Pause. Feel your legs connecting to the ground, your sitting bones connecting to the ground. And then bring your hands up overhead, continuing to relax down through the base of your body. Really go up from your waist, through your ribs, through your arms. Go up, up, up as you continue to go down through the base. And then open your arms wide to the side. Really spread each finger wide. Interlace your fingers behind your back. Pull your arms behind you. Feel the chest broad and open. And then with an inhalation, sweep your arms all the way up. And we'll take a side bend over to the right, opening the top ribs and then come up to the center. Take a side bend over to the other side, freeing ribs, freeing the lung. And then come up, slide your hands together in front of your heart and take the opposite as habitual interlace. So move every finger over one position. Press the palms forward again. Feel downward energy through the legs as the rib cage and the arms, the torso rise up. Open your arms wide to the side. Take the opposite interlace behind your back. Pull your arms behind you. Take a big breath in. As you exhale, sweep your arms up and then twist to the right. Stay tall. Left hand to the right leg, right fingertips behind you. As you inhale, feel the height of your spine. And as you exhale, twist maybe a little more and let your eyes be very soft, seeing something on the horizon. And then with your next inhalation, come to the center, reach your arms up. And as you exhale, twist over to the other side.

Exhale here, feeling the height. Exhale, turning. And then inhale, come back up to the center. Reach your arms tall. Open the arms to the side. Eagle. So the right arm under the left arm. And then you bring the backs of your hands towards each other. Some of you may be able to wrap your right fingers into your left palm. And then instead of being still here with eagle arms, we're going to move around. Circling, circling the arms. Also letting that affect the upper body, upper ribs. I'm really interested in my practice in keeping very mobile and open in the ribs and in the diaphragm, especially as we're working to fight the coronavirus. We want to have our lungs as strong and mobile and open as possible. Come to the center. We'll just take the arms out to the side and then left arm underneath. Garudasana arms, second side. Single wrapping is fine. Double wrapping. And then again, moving. Breathing with the movement. So as we move through the practice, you're always welcome to rest. You're welcome to modify. Take care of yourself. This is a healing practice. Hands and knees, please. And from hands and knees, let's turn the fingers out to the side and then turn your fingers back to face towards your knees. Now, if it's too much to turn the fingers back, keep them out to the side or just turn one back at a time. Just like we worked on eye strain, working with wrists is really important too, as many of us are spending so much time at screens with typing. You have to tap into the baby and you are going to just crawl forward just a couple of little steps forward. I recommend later you crawl all over your house with your hands facing backwards. Crawl backwards. My wrists really let me know that they are part of me and in need of a little attention. From here, turn the fingers regular forward and then come down into your forearms. Interlace your fingers. Let's take the opposite as habitual interlace here. Root your hands, your wrists, your elbows. Walk your knees back until your head and your pelvis are at the same height. And then you're welcome to stay right here. This is challenging. Or you can extend back through your heels into forearm plank. Forearms really heavy. Collar bones wide. Pull your shoulder blades down your back. Pull your sitting bones towards your heels. And see if even with all this effort, the eyes can be very soft. And then bring your knees to the floor. Bring your pelvis to the floor. Lift your chest. Take a big breath in. And then lie and stick your tongue out. Lift your eyes up. Slide your hands underneath your ribs. Press up onto hands and knees. We'll do a couple of rounds of cat and cow and adding movement with the feet, which we don't always do. So tuck the toes and lift your head and your tail. That's cow pose. And then point your feet. Round your spine into cat. Lift your belly strongly. Inhale, cow pose. Head and tail lift. Sitting bones are wide here. And as you exhale, pointing the feet, dropping the head and the tail. One more time like that. Inhale to cow. And exhale, rounding into cat. Come into a neutral spine. Head and tail reaching away from each other. Step your right toes onto the mat behind you. And then lift your right leg up so it's parallel to the ground. Lift your low belly. It's tempting to be in cow pose here, but don't do that. Lift your belly. Support with your deep core muscles and then reach your left arm forward, finding a little balance. Strong with the right leg. Lift it with the belly. And then bring your left hand down. Bend your right knee and tap your right knee to the outside of your left knee and look over your left shoulder. Sculptural shape here. And then lift your right knee and bring your right knee to your right shoulder. Right knee comes up and goes to behind the left knee, looking over the left shoulder. And then lift the knee, bring it over to the right shoulder.

One more time, turning, looking over the left shoulder to see the left, the knees. And then looking over towards the right shoulder as the knee comes. Now step your right foot to the outside of the right hand. Tuck your back toes. Lift your back leg. Get a little light on your hands. You might even come up onto your fingertips, but you don't have to. And then turn, reaching your right arm up to the ceiling and look to the side. Instead of looking up or look down, look to the side. And then wiggle your right fingers and see if you can see them with your peripheral vision. So you're looking to the side, but wiggling the right fingers. And opening peripheral vision is another really good thing to do for eye strain. And then bring your hand down. Bring your left knee down. Come back to hands and knees. Second side, left toes reach back. Reach the left leg up parallel to the ground, lifting the abdomen as well. And then stay your right arm forward. This takes a lot of deep connection through the body to balance here. If you're wobbly, it's fine. You ride the waves and try to engage in the core to find any amount of stability. Right hand down, bend your left knee, tap it to the outside of your right knee and look over your right shoulder. And then lift your knee and bring it over to your left shoulder. The knee lifts, tucks behind you to the right. We look over the right shoulder and then he lifts and comes towards the left shoulder. One more time like that. Behind and around. And then we step to the outside of the left hand, tuck your back toes under, engage up through the back leg. You could come onto your fingertips or stay onto your hands, turn the belly, turn the chest, reach your arm up, look to the side, look as far as you can. And then wiggle your left fingers and see if you can see your left fingers without turning your head to look at them. You might have to move your left hand further forward. Soft eyes, open periphery. Okay, left hand down to the mat. And now lift your right leg and let your right leg pull you back into downward facing dog. And then bend your right knee just a little and push into your left hand. And then switch. Left knee bends and the right hand presses. Just go back and forth a few times, feeling these diagonals across the body. And then come into your downward facing dog. You can keep your knees bent or straighten them. If you feel when you straighten your legs, the back bends a lot like this. You probably better to bend your knees and then try to really go for length of the spine. And then everyone rise up onto the balls or the feet. And feel the pelvis picking way up, away from the hands, away from the rooting of the feet. Firm the muscles of your legs completely. And then reach your heels back and down towards the mat. With your next inhalation, come to plank position. And then as you exhale, let your legs pull you up and back into downward facing dog. Back and forth a few times, plank to dog coming deep inhalation as you come into plank. And deep exhalation as you pull back into downward facing dog. Try to be very symmetrical. So much of what we do in asana and yoga practice is asymmetrical, but this we try to be very symmetrical, not going off track. All right. And then the next time you find yourself in downward facing dog, take a little walk to the front of your yoga mat. And when you get there, hang over your legs, holding onto your elbows, letting your head drop down into the frame of your arms. In forward fold, you are welcome to keep your knees bent. If you want to go a little more for hamstring extension, you can straighten your legs, but don't over strain yourself. Not overdue, but not under do find the good middle path. Okay. And then from here, if your legs are straight, please bend them, begin to lift your forearms, come to a flat back spine parallel to the ground arms surrounding the ears, and then push into your feet, come all the way up to stand holding onto your elbow. And then as you exhale, release your arms down to your side. Mountain pose, good old mountain pose, standing on the two feet, feeling the strength of the legs, the length of the spine, and just be here without fixing or changing and letting what we've done so far register in your body. If anything is tingling, if there's some warm breath, look as far as you can away from away from where you're standing. And then turn your palms out as you inhale with soft eyes, sweep your arms out and up look up. As you exhale, soft eyes see everything along the way as you fold over your legs. Breathe in, breathe in your spine, head away from tail. Breathe out, fold into your legs. As you inhale, soft eyes come all the way up. And as you exhale, hands together in front of the heart and down to your sides. This time a little bit more awareness of breath. Deep inhale as you spread your wings, reach up. Deep exhale, fold all the way over. The inhalation lengthens, the exhalation fold, folding over those deflating lungs. And then inhale, come to stand, palms press at the top. Exhale, hands to heart and down to your side. One more time like that. Exhale, soft eyes. Inhale to lengthen. Exhale, fold, relax your head down completely. Inhale, come to stand. Exhale, hands to heart and down to your side. We'll move on, we'll step back, sun salutation. Inhale, the arms go up. Exhale, fold into your legs. Bend your knees, step your right foot back to a lunge. Root your hands, downward facing dog. As you inhale, come forward to plank. And then find your way onto your belly. You can bring your knees to the floor first or come down with straight legs, come all the way down. Point your feet, lift your chest, little cobra. And then come up through hands and knees, pull back, downward facing dog. As you inhale, lift your right leg up behind you. As you exhale, step your right foot to a lunge. Take a big inhale right here, lengthening the spine. And then as you exhale, step your left foot forward to meet your right foot. Inhale, sweep your arms out to come all the way up. And as you exhale, hands to your heart and then down to your side. Second side, inhale, reach up, lengthen up. Exhale, fold over your legs. Inhale, left foot to a lunge. Exhale, root your hands, downward facing dog. Breathe in plank, strong legs, strong arms. Exhale, lower slowly to the floor. Inhale, toes long, chest broad.

Exhale, downward facing dog. As you inhale, the left leg rises. As you exhale, step your left foot forward. Inhale here, fill your lungs, lengthen your spine. Exhale, step your back foot to meet your front foot. Inhale, feet root. Come to stand, big inhale. Exhale, hands to the heart and down to your side. Inhale, reach up. Exhale, fold forward. Bend your knees, root your hands. And then take two or three little hops back into downward dog. If that doesn't feel good to you, you can just step back. We'll meet in downward dog. Doo, doo, doo. I feel like a little reverse bunny rabbit. From here, we take the right leg up into the air, bend the right knee, and then make some circles with the right thigh and stirring that thigh bone in the hip socket. Your circles do not have to look anything like my circles. As a matter of fact, I hope they don't make your own movements of your thigh. Stirring, stirring, stirring. And then let's bring the right knee to the right wrist and come into pigeon pose. Scootch the left leg back. If your hips are high off the ground and it feels unstable, you could put a block or a pillow or a blanket or a cat underneath your right, right hip. And then take a breath and lengthen your spine. Come down. We're going to do a little twist here. So bring your left forearm parallel to the front of your mat and wrap your left fingers around your right knee. And then just put your right fingertips to the floor outside of the right knee and twist to the right. So things helping me twist my right fingertips pressing into the ground. A feeling of my hips, instead of just dropping completely into gravity, a little engagement to the outer hips. Especially if you're a flexible person, you don't want to just completely crash into your flexibility. Flexibility. You'd want to pull outer hips in. And then each exhalation, just seeing if the body might turn somewhere along the spine. The door may open. All right. And then unwind. We're going to roll over to the right hip and swing the left leg around. Put the left foot to the outside of the right thigh. If this doesn't work out for you to sit down like this, you could straighten your right leg. Also sitting up on a pillow or something might be helpful. We'll twist. Let's reach the right arm up. And then wrap your right elbow around your left knee. Sit tall. Bring your left hand behind you. Three breaths.

Exhale one, seeing with soft eyes. Inhale. Exhale two, wrapping the ribs to the left. One more inhale tall. Exhale three. Oh, twist. Feel good. Unwind. I hope they feel good to you. Lean back. Bring your feet to the floor. We're going to do boat pose. Navaasana. Arms lengthen forward. Lean onto the diagonal. You can stay here. You could also hold onto your thighs if that feels like too much. You could slide your shins up off of the ground. You could straighten your legs into the straight leg boat pose. And then wherever you are, you're going to lower down. So if your hands, your feet are on the floor, lower down a little bit. If you're somewhere up here, you can lower down, straighten your legs, bring your hands behind your head, and then come back up into your boat pose. We're going to lower and lift a few times. Let's exhale as we're coming up. Inhale as we're lowering down. Exhale as we're coming up. And keep going. As you do this, you want to feel like you're scooping the belly a bit. Like bailing out a little boat, especially a little boat, scoop, just pull that water out of the boat. And then cross your ankles. Pull your feet in towards your hips. Roll over your shins. Root your hands. Find your way back into downward facing dog. In downward facing dog, a little tread of the feet. As the right heel sinks, press the left hand. As the left heel sinks, press the right hand. Okay. Now we have the left leg going up, left knee bones, and the left thigh gets to make its circle. Exploring how your left thigh bone moves in its socket. Pigeon pose. Left knee close to the left wrist. Scooch the right leg back. Take a breath here. Lift your chest. And then come down, and your right forearm parallel to the mat, right hand wraps around the left knee, left fingertips to the floor. Outer hips hug in. Left knee presses over towards the hand. Right ribs rolling under the left wrist. Breathing in. Breathing out. And then hands back to the mat. Come up, roll over to your left hip. The right leg swings around. Right foot steps to the outside of the left leg. As you inhale, left arm comes up. And then exhale, twist.

Left arm wraps. Right arm comes back. I have my picture back there of a guy with his chakras all lined up. You want to feel that center channel of your body lined up here as you're breathing in and breathing out. Wrapping the ribs. Wrapping the belly. And then unwind. We'll lean back for just a little visit into Navasana. Ooh, boat. Cross your ankles. Pull the feet in. Roll onto your hands and knees. Press back. Downward-facing dog. Let's do a so-called vinyasa. Come forward into plank position. Lower either halfway or all the way. And then cobra or upward-facing dog. Upward dog, the knees are up off of the ground. Cobra, the legs are down onto the ground. And then lift your pelvis. Pull back. Downward-facing dog. Step your feet in that distance apart. Walk your hands back to your feet. Turn your heels in. Come into a squat for a couple of breaths. Lengthening the front of the spine. Breathing up into the heart-wide collarbones. Steady breath. And then pelvis up. Hands down. Walk back into downward-facing dog. Take the right leg up. Bend the right knee. Open the right thigh. And pull the right thigh across the midline as you hug the left outer hip in. From here, stretch the right leg up. Draw it through parallel. Right foot to the outside of the right hand. And then lower your back knee down. Circle the right arm. Forward, left, and back. You can stay right here or bend your left knee and find your left foot.

Inhale. Exhale. There's a lot of sensation here. We want to try to, just like the world right now, a lot of sensation. Can we find some ease, some steadiness, some breath right in the midst of this moment? And then release your foot. Right arm up and over. Hand to the floor. Straighten your left leg. Pull back. Downward-facing dog. Second side. Left leg rises up. Bend your knee. Open your hip. Pull the left side across the midline as you hug your right hip into the midline. And then stretch the left leg. Draw it through parallel. Step the left foot to the outside of the left hand. Lower your right knee. Circle your left arm up, around, and you can pause here. Or you can bend the back knee and find your foot. We have a shoulder opener, a hip opener, a twist, a groin opener, a psoas opener, a potential moment for peace. Right here, right now. Twisting, feeling, breathing into the intensity. Always good to go back to the soft eyes. I don't know about you, but when things get intense, my eyes kind of scrunch up. Wide eyes, soft eyes. Left arm circles up and around. Bring your hand down. Straighten the back leg. From here, we're going to step right back into a squat. So the right foot will spring to the outside of the right hand and come down. And if squatting like this doesn't work out for you, you're welcome to stay up higher like this. Press into your feet. Come all the way up to stand. And then exhale. Release your arms. Mountain pose. And again, just stand in your two feet. Settle. Notice what you feel. What's alive for you. How are the poses that we've done? How are they living in your body now? Hold on to your elbows. Bring your arms up overhead. Bend your knees like chair. And then peel your right foot up off the floor. Cross your right ankle over your left knee. If the balance is challenging here, put your toes on the floor like so. From here, we're going to draw the hip joints and the pubic bone back. Tip forward. We did this maneuver with the elbows and the spine at the beginning of the practice. And then we're going to put the right foot into the basket of the arms. So you might have to make your arm basket a little bigger by holding your hands or even your fingertips. But get the right foot hooked in. And then push into your left foot and stand. Bring that right foot with you. So it's almost like a standing pigeon. It's hard to stand up straight here. Do it the best you can. And then from here, put the right foot into tree pose. Familiar tree for most of us. And again, tree can be down here with the toes onto the ground. No problem. So I like that feeling of bringing tree pose from the top down versus pulling it from the bottom up. So outer left hip hugs in. Hands to prayer. Steady breath. Even if the pose is wobbly, can the breath have a steadiness to it? Bring your right knee forward. Step onto the ground. Hold onto your elbows. Switch the crossing of your forearms. And then bring your arms up. Left ankle over the right knee. Take a breath in. Exhale. Bend the right knee.

Pause. From here, the movement is right at the hip joint. The pubic bone, the hip joints move back. Spine moves forward. And then I'm going to get the left foot. I'm going to capture it into the basket of my arms. It can make my basket bigger if I need. I think I do need on this side a little bit of a bigger basket. And then standing, bring in the left foot with me. Tree pose. Strong right leg. Hands to prayer. Eyes quiet. Can the eyes get even softer? Like egg yolks. Bring your left knee forward. And step the left foot down. Taking care of my neighbor's chickens. So I think I had egg yolks on the mind. Okay. One more standing pose sequence. Inhale, reach up. Exhale, fold forward. Find your way into downward dog. You can jump back. You can move through your vinyasa. You can walk back. And then as you inhale, float the right leg up. As you exhale, step your right foot forward. Spin your left heel down. Pause. Get your roots. Get your practice before you go out into the world. Get your roots before you come into warrior two. And then once you feel the ground, come up virabhadrasana number two. Reaching out evenly through both arms. Let the eyes just gaze way far over the right middle finger. The steadiness of breath coming down and into your posture. Your pose. Reverse warrior. Left hand to the left leg. Lean back. Right ribs so open. Right lung. Right skin of the right body open. Straighten your right leg. Turn your right toes to face the same direction as your left toes. We're still in a side bend. Inhale here. As you exhale, bring your hands to your left leg. Slide your hands down the left leg. And then walk your hands to the center. Spine to the center. Bend one knee, bend the other knee. Shifting your weight from side to side. Next time your right knee is bent, keep it bent. Walk around to the front of your mat into a lunge. Lower your left knee. Lift your left arm. Twist. Wrapping belly. Wrapping chest. Hooking the left elbow to the outside of the right knee. You can also have your arms open like so. Otherwise, low hooks. Hands to prayer. You're welcome to stay here or straighten the back leg. Energizing the back leg. And what's it like to find the breath here as the lungs are twisted and the diaphragm is twisted? Look down. Release your hands to the mat. Lift your left leg to pull you into downward facing dog. Come to plank position. Exhale lower slowly. Inhale cobra upward facing dog. And pull back downward facing dog. Second side. Inhale left leg rises. Exhale left foot steps forward. Root your right foot. Pause. From the ground, the right arm leads the way up and around. Warrior two. Warrior two for most of us is quite a familiar pose. And one thing good for anxiety overwhelm is to do things that are familiar. Breathe into this shape. You don't need to work on it or fix it or do something different. Just breathe into your body. Reverse warrior. Straighten the left leg. Turn your left toes to face the same direction as your right toe. Take a breath in here. As you exhale, hands to the right leg. Slide your hands down to your right ankle. And then come to the center. Keep walking over to the left foot. Come into a lunge facing the short end of the mat. Lower your right knee. Left hand to the left leg. Right arm up. Breathe in. And then exhale, twist. Hands to prayer or the open arm version. Both excellent options. And then you can keep your knee on the ground. That's definitely helpful for balance or extending your leg up. I let the right half of my pelvis drop about an inch or two so that the pelvis is part of the twist. And then the belly twists, the diaphragm, each rib turns. The left lung is moving underneath the right lung. And the eyes wherever they are, they're soft. Letting image fall to them. Look down. Release your hands down. Lift your back legs. Pull back.

Downward facing dog. Bring your knees to the floor. Sit back on your heels for a moment. And then we're going to take the left knee, move it about six inches to the left. And then six inches back. Offset our child's pose a little bit. And then turn your belly to the right. Walk your hands towards the front of the mat like child's pose. But then keep your hands, walk your hands over to the right. So we're doing child's pose with a side bend with extra little cherry on top by displacing the left hip so it's further away from the fingertips. You can walk your hands any amount over to the right as you keep descending back and down through the left side of the pelvis and the left sitting bone. Walk your hands back to the center. Under the shoulders, come up. Bring the left knee back. Right knee out to the side about six inches, eight inches, back six or eight inches. Turn the belly forward. Walk the hands forward, keeping the pelvis releasing back. And then walk your hands over to the left. So many sheaths of muscles along the right side of the body. And you can notice where you feel the maximum intensity. Breathe into that maximum intensity and see if you can let it spread. The breath helps to spread the sensation. Walk back, hands under shoulders. Come up, right knee comes to the left knee. And we're going to crawl forward and come to lie down onto the belly. From here, bend your knees. Reach your hands back. Lift your chest and then bend your knees a little more and see if your hands and your feet might find each other. If they don't, that's fine. You can be here. And then just the most mellow kind of relaxed bow pose. Don't do too much in this first one. Just get used to the shape. Notice what's touching the ground. And then slowly, with breath, begin to find a little more oomph, a little more strength or effort in the pose. So the shins pull back. The shins lift up and the thighs lift up. As the shins and thighs lift up and the shins push back and the feet push back, the shoulders get an immense opening and the heart can slide through the opening of the shoulder. Soften down. Turn your head to one side. Rest. And then we'll do one more. Bend your knees. Reach back with your two hands. Lift your chest.

I'm interested in trying to get my two feet at the same time with my hands. So I'm going to bend my knees more. Reach back. See if my ankles are there. If not, get one and then the other. You might go for the unhabitual one first. And then just slowly build the pose with your breath. And you can play. I've been playing recently. I've always been taught pull the legs in, pull the legs in. But I've been playing with letting them go a little wider and then pulling them in and just for myself, seeing where my back feels the most harmonious in this pose versus something I've been told or taught. Can I really explore it for myself on this day? Exhale, come down. We'll flip over onto the back. Bend your knees. Put your feet onto the floor. Let your arms be beside you. Pause here for a moment. Just feeling the ground is the first time we're lying down in this class. Feel the ground beneath you. Feel your breath, the heart beating. And then let your feet get a little heavier with weights all of a sudden in the feet and lift your pelvis just a few inches. You can feel like a hammock from your knees to your shoulders. The belly deflates. Scooping feeling between the knees and the shoulders. And then push into your feet. Begin to lift your pelvis up higher. Feel the shin bones coming towards your shoulders. So the shins move back towards the shoulders. And then roll your shoulders under. Interlace your fingers. Push your upper arms down into the mat. If that's hard to do, bend your elbows a little bit. Bending the elbows will float the hands up. And then the upper arms get very firm to help lift the chest. Firm also, the gluteus and the top of the hamstrings to lift the pelvis. See if you can keep your feet very clearly rooted into the mat. There's a tendency for the little toe side to take over. So make sure the ball of the big toe is rooting down. Soft throat, soft eyes. And then release your arms and lower all the way down. So those of you who can bring your hands by your ears and go into full wheel, I recommend you do two or three wheels. Up and down a few times with that front spine opening. Otherwise we'll do another bridge. I'll talk you through bridge. So if you know wheel, you do your wheels. Those of you who are doing bridges, come along with me. Feet heavy. Knees move forward. Pelvis lifts. Interlace fingers. Roll your upper arms underneath you. Lift your chest. Soft throat, soft eyes. Explore for yourself now. Take a moment. Explore for yourself. What would make this pose a little bit more harmonious? Release. Come down. Let your knees go from side to side like windshield wipers. Plug your knees into your chest. Rock from side to side. Happy baby holding onto the outside edges of the feet or you could hold on behind your knees. Soft hip joints rocking from side to side. And then bring the soles of your feet together. Bring your legs down, arms to the sides. Supta Baddha Konasana. Exhale your breath out completely. Take a long, smooth inhale. And then let it out the mouth. Again, long, smooth inhalation. Let it out the mouth. One more inhale. And letting the breath out the mouth. And then bring your knees together. Extend your legs. And see it for a few moments here that you can just do nothing at all. The end of this short period of time of lying down I'm going to ring a bell. When that happens, just deepen your breath. But for now, first if there's any little movements you want to do to make yourself more comfortable, do so.

And then remember the feeling of having the heels of your hands over your eyes. And your eyes sink deeply down now with gravity. And the muscles that surround your eyes soften. And the front of your chest soften into the back of the chest. Let your back be wide. Notice the belly. The belly wide and watery like a pond. From that fluid of the belly, the legs like rivers sail towards the feet. The soles of the feet soften. The space between each toe soft. Palms of the hands empty. Each finger soft. The breath soft. And the thoughts of the body. The soles of the body. The thoughts of the body. The thoughts of the body. The thoughts of the body. The thoughts of the body. The thoughts of the body. The thoughts of the body. Feel the next breath go deeper. Gently letting the breath bring you back into the surface. Stick with me. Stick with the practice as you wiggle your fingers and your toes. Bend your knees and roll over to one side. Pause on your side. Press into your hands and come up to sit. Just as we paused a few times in mountain pose, just see how you feel. Notice the effect that your practice has had on you. Place the hands together. Feeling right hand to left hand, left to right. Take a moment in gratitude for yourself showing up, for the practice, for the lineage, for any way that this supports you. And we finish together. Thank you so much. We'll bow the head to the