Slow Hip Flow

Talk

The practice is a hip opening practice, but it's not just, we're not going to just hang in the joints and, you know, flop around. There's effort involved. So it's an effort and ease movement toward our hip region. So as the hip flexors, even our glutes and everything, it's all attached. So really to say it's a hip opening focus is difficult, but that's where we're going to focus. There are a lot of poses like pigeon, a child's pose, even some warriors that open the hips. So creating space in the hips, flexibility, mobility, better circulation. You know, some of the yogic texts talk a lot about how we store a lot of negative energy, maybe some traumas. You know, if you buy into that, man, dive in. Who knows what's going to be opened up and released. Wow. Sounds amazing, Robert. Thank you so much again for being here. We're so grateful. Have a great practice. Take it away. Thanks, Kira. And thank you all. We'll get started right away.

Practice

Inhale, drop the belly, draw the chest forward, tailbone lift. So you feel that gentle little sensation in your low back, that compression. Exhale, round it out. Inhale, one more time. Good. Exhale, round, integrating slowly into the practice. Flat back, push the hips back once again in child's pose. Knees again can move wide. Favorite little way to start and I'll share it with you. You're probably familiar with it, but you're going to inhale into table. So there's a hip focus right here, child. Inhale into table and then start to drop the hips forward. This is a hip opener. You're going to feel it in the low back a little bit or a lot. Bend the arms and roll down. Focus a little more on the spine there and lift the chest. Cobra, a little gentle little up dog. Bent arms are straight. Drop the left hip to the left and the right hip to the right.

Management of your low back during these little sequences is important. So pay attention to how your low back feels. Just opening up those hip flexors a bit and on the exhale, slide back into child's pose. Nice wide knees, wide knees. Again, unless that's just terrible for you. Let's do one more. Breathe in, table. Breathe out, drop the hips, arms stay straight until your low back says no more. Then you bend to get out of it. Pull the elbows back, long neck. Come back through cobra, maybe bend, straighten those arms, feel the hips open. And again, all the way back into your child's pose. Nice. Breathe in into table, curl the toes, lift the knees, downward dog. Okay. So groovy downward dog today. All right. So we're going to try to involve our hips as much as we can. So spread the fingers out, root down through the fingers, the knuckle pads, and all that jazz. Get the arms engaged by wrapping the arm bones out away from the midline, shoulders connected to that upper back. We'll call it your lats, pedaling it out. So one heel drops down, the opposite leg bends. Okay. So there's that little move that really targets the calves and Achilles up to the hamstrings. But check this out. This might feel good. Straighten out that left leg a lot. Okay. Drive the left heel toward the mat, bend the right leg a lot. Now, slide your left heel toward the middle of the mat. So you put a little angle on that left foot and then drop your hips over to the right. Keep anchoring through that left hand, left fingers and up that left side of the body and you move around the hips. Good. And then you groove on over to the other side, right? So you put that angle on the right foot, bend the left and drop those hips over to the left. So you feel it in the hips a little bit and the waistline up to the side body, loosen up the neck and make sure when it gets difficult or strenuous, you really stay focused on the breathing. Back over to your downward facing dog, soft knees, send your tailbone high, high, high chest back toward the back of the mat. Arms might be feeling a little fatigued, totally normal. Good to build some strength and resilience there. Bring the knees down, shoot your, I'll face you for the first one. Left leg back, heel down, slide the right foot over, keep your right toes curled for, that right foot is like a balancing kickstand and that left arm flies high. So push through the hips. Now you've got the right side open, the left side open, the left arm flying high and then you reach the left hand up over the left ear. Maybe take some big circles through that left arm.

Added value for me, maybe for you, lift your left leg, left foot, grab hold of the left foot or ankle and pull that left heel toward your seat and draw that left knee back toward the back of your mat and back behind you. Big quad stretch, big hip flexor stretch, open the chest, strong right arm and maybe just stay here for a moment. Just see what that feels like and how you can adjust it and breathe into and toward those little areas, those trouble spots, those areas that just feel like they need more space, right? Now push the foot, your left foot into the left hand. Now there's more muscular effort here, right? You're working that left leg, open the chest, find that balance between that effort and ease. So good. Left foot, step it all the way up to the front of the mat. Boom, good. Now left hand rests on your left thigh, drop the hips forward. Good. Now in and out a couple times, left hand remains on the thigh as an option, right hand on the floor. Bend and straighten a few times, maybe inhale, move away from the stretch, straightening out your left leg a bit. Exhale back toward the deep lunge, right?

Okay. Stay here, but drop that right hip down a little bit more so that you might even like open that left knee out to the side. Management of your right wrist is important. So pay attention to that. And it's okay. See how my left knee is tracking out over the toes, even beyond the toes I would work toward that ankle range of motion is really important and valuable. So unless it feels bad for your knee, work on that. Come back out. Now you're in this 90 front leg, 90 degree back leg, draw the tailbone down, use your glutes, right? Some glute strengthening effort there to draw the tailbone down. You'll feel this nice lengthening and stretch up the right side. Then the left hand can remain at the left thigh, reach the right arm nice and high, and maybe even take a little side bend to the left. So you're tracing your right hand up toward the ceiling or sky and over to the left. Keep working the tailbone down because this is going to bring the pelvis into a neutral position and get that those hip flexors, maybe even your psoas, some lengthening. Nice. Bring your right hand down, left hand down, curl the back toes, step back into downward dog. Nice. Walk it out again. Take your left leg, lift it up, bend it and open up the hip a bit. We're not going to stay right here. What I want you to kind of play around with, see how much that hip is either open or it's locked up and you're like, when am I going to get out of this? But if you come out of it, like you're going to bring your knee toward the floor, right leg stays bent and push up through the left foot and open the hip. Maybe do this two or three times. So you come out of it, knee down toward the floor, right legs a little bent and then high off that right heel, hip opens on the left side. Good. One more time. Open, open, open, open, open. And then you're going to step that left foot up to the front of the mat. Boom. Right knee down again. This time, both arms rise high. You can drop the hips forward if your low back allows. But if you're dropping the hips forward and your low back feels a little funky, you can lean your body forward and come out of it. All right. More neutral back there now. Find your way by listening, right?

Now I've been playing around with this one. This feels really empowering. You're going to come back a little bit, curl the back toes of the right foot, reach back, take hold of that right heel. Now you have to continue to draw the tailbone down, right? So get out of that low back tailbone down. Fire strong through the glutes. Big stretch up through the right side. Grab hold of it. Don't dump into it. Pull on that right heel. Then the left arm, nice and high. So this is an opener, but it's a strengthener as well, which is awesome. Good. All the way back down. Beautiful downward dog. Not beautiful downward dog because I can't see your downward dog. Although I'm sure it's beautiful. I meant beautiful. Let's go to downward dog. Moving to plank pose on the breath in. On the breath out, lower yourself down, halfway or all the way, your choice. Upward facing dog, shoulders back, lengthen through the spine. Feel the hips opening, hip flexors, front side, downward facing dog. Exhale and bring the knees back down. I didn't forget about this other side. Right leg shoots back. You slide your left foot over as a kickstand for balance. Right foot to the backside of the mat, right arm nice and high.

Secure the left arm. Make sure your wrist feels good. Maybe you can come on a fist or tent the fingers. Figure out what platform feels best for you. Get the side angle position, right palm facing down. You're reaching that right arm up alongside your ear. Big circles might feel nice. You can see we're not in a race to get anywhere, so you've got time to explore and feel it out. Lift the right leg as an option. Grab hold of that right ankle. Draw the right knee safely in the direction of your seat. Keep the right shoulder peeling open, chest open, heart open. So this is like a hip opener, heart opener, chest opener, belly opener. What else do we want to open here? Push into the right foot. Now you're going to get that strength going again. Push into the right foot or push. Yeah, push the right foot into the hand like you're trying to pull your hand away.

That's it. And then open up kind of a half back bend here. Release the right foot. Good. Now step it up to the outside of the right side of the mat, right hand on the right thigh, and you lean in. Good. Drop the left hip down a little bit. Open that right knee out to the side and you kind of wander around in here and you can move back. Curl the back toes and sit on that back heel or you can hover hips over the knee. Just do this as if you're kind of like, you know, warming the joints. So that dynamic warm up quality, right? We're in and out of the posture. Back into the lunge. Okay, good. Now you're going to back away, curl the back toes just so you have some stability. Okay. Right hand on that right thigh, left arm reaching up, tailbone draws down. So here you can see, you can feel it on yourself, the quads into the hip flexors. So as is in here, big, important muscle. Reach up now, kind of exacerbate or exaggerate. Let's go with that. Exaggerate that stretch up that left side and take it over to the right a bit. Tailbone is still working downward to keep the low back neutral and to pull up a little bit to exaggerate those hip flexors lengthening. Good. Come back out of that. Downward dog. This time you'll take the right leg up, open that hip. I like to stay high off that left heel. So you keep the left heel nice and high. It will give you a little more space, I think. And then just to, it's like moving in and out of the shape. So you're going to square your hips and draw the right knee down toward the floor and then up and open. Down toward the floor might be the inhale or the exhale depending on what feels good. Up and open. One more time. Take that knee out wide and then step the right foot all the way up. Good job. Back knee down. Low lunge. Arms reach up nice and high. You can stay here or you can choose to curl the back toes. Reach the left hand back toward the left heel. Try to keep your hips square. It's difficult because I'm turning to look back, but draw that left hip forward. Really safe in the low back. Now pull up on that left heel and reach the right arm nice and high. A lot of work in the left leg here while opening. So as hip flexors, all that jazz.

Good. Come back up and all the way out. Step the left foot up to meet the right. But what we're going to do here, take the feet out toward the edge of the mat, toes off, drop down with heels lifted or grounded. We'll squat pose. Definitely some hip action here and you can lean a little to the left and to the right. You may even feel like they're more available just with the work we've done so far. Even if you're up around here and you're working, it's a good combination of some mobility, working on your mobility, little flexibility, but like, wow, a lot of strength going on. So you don't have to be what they call ass to grass in the CrossFit world. Just find where you are and make it work. Lift the hips, walk the feet back toward hip width, forward fold. Take a generous breath in as you bend the knees, slide the fingers up the shins, flat back, get a good long spine here. And the exhale folds you down into a forward fold. Now come back up again halfway, straighten the right leg, bend the left and then turn open, but make sure you're lengthening that spine, right? That's why I'm holding my left arm up higher toward my calf. The floor, I don't, I don't need to go there a little higher. So you keep the spine lengthening. Now rotate open to the right twist. Right hand can come to the low back or you can keep reaching up and open. Good. Right hand back down. As you bend your right leg straight in the left, maintain a good, healthy, long spine and some beautiful rotation through the spine there.

Bring the left arm down, half lift breath in and fold breath out all the way up. Breathe in and breathe out hands to the heart. So the next pose is important. It's called wipe your forehead pose. New England heat. Gotta love it. Opens up the body, right? Take the arms up, up, breathe in, big breath in, stretch out that entire body and take it down into a four fold. Breath in, half lift, get long, breath out, walk back into plank pose. Choose the way you'd like to lower down today. Firm plank like the whole body. If you're doing full chaturanga, lowers, inhale upward. There's spine work, hip work, downward dog exhale. A little bit of core work with rotation here. So inhale into plank just to get that firmness through the thighs and the abdominals and your shoulders. As you exhale, push back into downward dog. Make sure your left hand and arm is super secure as you reach your right hand back toward your left toes. Back into plank, breathe in, firm, breathe out, left fingertips tap the right toes back into plank. One more right hand, left foot reaching. Good. Inhale, exhale, left hand, right foot. Beautiful. Back into plank, pause here. And as you exhale, downward dog, right leg lifts, inhale, little more core here. Right knee draws into the belly, into the chest, push the ground away, draw yourself into plank, pull that right knee up, up, up, up, up, come up high on your left toe tips. The toe tips, lift, lift, lift, pull the right leg up, up, up, up, up. Now send it back up, inhale. There's a little release. Exhale the right foot to the front of the mat. Find a nice wide stance so you have good balance.

Put a soft bend in your back knee, hands up on your right thigh for a moment just for balance and stability, and then rise up. Good. Make your adjustments. Soft bend in the back knee allows for you to draw your tailbone down to get some good length up the left side once again. Okay. Once you find that position for your feet, your legs, and your pelvis, engage the core and take the arms up overhead. So the more you're in these lunges and standing poses, the more you can release like the back leg, for instance, or even the front leg. It gives you some more range and play in the pelvis. Okay. Neutral I think is always a win. You can, if you can maintain that neutral pelvis, straighten out that back leg a little bit.

Strong in the right leg. Now you've got so much going on. Push strong through that back heel. Open the chest. How's your breath? Sometimes mine's a little shaky because I'm freaking multitasking up here. So it's hard, hard to do it all. Now a little core work here. So hands to the heart, because I love you. Lean forward, pull the right hip back. You're going to hover on this one. Okay. You're not going to hook the left elbow across. So rotate through the spine through the trunk of your body and reach the left elbow across your right thigh or hover palms together, gazing at the right fingertips, possibly left fingertips because your palms are together. Good. So there's some stability being worked on here and some length up to that left side. Come back out. Right leg is fired right now. Reach up, breathe in, breathe out. Hands to the mat. Step back into downward dog. Let it be a little rest moment, a little groovy. Before we go to the other side, bring the knees down. Take child's pose, push the hips back and just not as anything other than just curiosity. How do the hips feel now? Check in. I think the first time you entered, what did that feel like versus now through just a few minutes, however long we've been doing this.

Sometimes that's all it takes. Your body, you wake up in the morning, it's stiff, it doesn't feel good. Roll the mat out and move around for 10 minutes and it's going to change everything. And it doesn't have to be the perfectly, you know, put together sequence. Back into table, curl the toes, lift up and away. So we get another strong lunge. Okay. Let's call it the strong lunge. Left leg lifts, breathe in. Before you come into plank, draw the left knee in toward the belly, up toward the chest, push the ground away. So you feel your shoulders and shoulder blades move away from one another. Then move into plank, come up high in your right fingertips or toe tips. Fire through that abdominal wall, lower, middle, upper, release attention in the neck. Do the work. Inhale back up. Same motion sends the left foot through. That's it. When you get here, find the space between your left foot and right foot, put a soft bend in your right knee and then you travel upward. How's the breathing? You can take the arms up first, but then I want you to bend that right leg, take a shorter stance possibly, pull the pubic bone below your navel up, tailbone down, big stretch up to the right side. Okay. So now fire through the left heel to get these muscles out here on the left leg working.

Okay. Arms reach up now, maybe a little side stretch over to the left. I didn't do this on the other side, but that's okay. You can work on keeping the pelvis neutral and straightening out your right leg. It doesn't have to be just an option. So you hit the side bend, the open arms. You've got whatever's on your mind, management of the mind. Wow. So important. Okay. Hands to the heart because I love you. Straighten out the right leg. And this makes it easier to do because now you're leaning forward. It's much easier. You've got the pelvis pitching forward a little bit more. You lengthen through your spine more easily, especially the lumbar low. Push strong through that right heel. Keep working, right? Keep the work going. It's a strong position to hold. Now, exhale from the belly, pull up and in and rotate that right elbow across your left thigh. Management of the breath here is important. Of course, you can use your hands as a little assist and you can bring your right knee down, right? You can hold this for three more breaths. I know you can. Two more. And in that right knee, reach the arms up. This is to take a breath in, breath out, hands to the mat. For this one, step the right foot up, forward fold. Left leg working. Half lift, inhale. Stretch that spine out. Hopefully, comfortable forward fold. And rise up, breathe in. And breathe out, hands to the heart. Let the arms come down alongside your body. Breathe in, reach the arms high.

Breathe out, soft bend in the knees, forward fold. Breathe in, half lift. Breathe out, walk back into plank. Lower yourself down. Inhale for your back bend. Good job. Exhale. Down we're dug. Right leg up, inhale. Step it up. Exhale. Back foot comes down. Look at your front heel. Line it up, give or take with your back heel or the back arch of your foot. Okay? So now, seal the feet off so you've got a genuine foundation. Plumb right knee over the ankle. Then you can take your right hand on your right thigh, reach your left arm forward and circle all the way up and back in two. Let's call this sweaty warrior two. It is for me. Right knee, track it now toward the right pinky toe. Hips. This is definitely a hip opening standing posture, warrior two. So get your alignment. You got the feet already aligned. Seal off the back foot. Hips are nice and open. Core engaged. Shoulders stacked over the hips. And you open up across the chest and get some work in the upper arms, right? Your shoulders, your back. Then take the gaze out toward the right fingertips and you hold here. To make a little adjustment, straighten the front leg. Pubic bone up, tailbone down. Neutral. Keep that as you then bend. Extend the arms. Hold and breathe. One more breath. Exhale everything out. Straighten the front leg. Take a wide leg forward fold. So hips stay up over the ankles.

Fold with soft knees forward and down. Loosen up the neck. Come up onto the fingertips. Turn with a strong long spine open to the right into a spinal twist. So this is going to really open up the groin muscles quite a bit, which I like to think of as part of the hips. No doubt. Right hand down. Strong long spine. Rotate open. Good job. Left arm reaching high, high on your right fingertips to give you that length. Now bring your right hand or left hand back down. Turn your right foot 45 degrees. You're going to use your hands quite a bit and this could be a little intense in a good way. Open up the back foot also. You're going to put your butt way back and down. Keep your knees stacked right over the ankle. Right hand can go on the other side of your right foot and the left hand is right on the inside of your right foot. Right foot, left foot. So support yourself here. A big massive stretch. It's basically like a bigger, deeper warrior too.

Make sure you're not suffering too much, right? You have to find that degree that is manageable for you. Okay. Now we're going to venture over to the other side. So what you're going to do is you're going to walk your right foot over to the right side of the mat. Okay. Now both hands on the inside of that right foot. You know, the emphasis is going to be on the left arm as you take that left heel and peel it onto the outside of your ankle and let your right foot now lift up and you drop down that left side. Can be a little intense, but again, strength and space we're trying to create here. Come back out, bring the back knee down, lizard pose. Okay. So another hip opener. This one's a little more like, okay, let's get groovy here. Not a lot of strength. Okay. Slide your back knee back. Your right foot is at the edge of the mat. What my suggestion would be is to lift the arch of your right foot up and your right knee is going to peel open a bit. That might allow you to bring your left forearm down. Maybe your right forearm. Then when you're hovering and hanging in these places for a little bit, it's the communication with your breath and the space you're working on. So that's what I was saying earlier with the big open exhalations. So the exhale is directed toward the space that is resisting or, you know, that you're putting the effort toward.

Try to relax, like even the shoulders, even the areas that you've got to use to support yourself doesn't have to be a hundred percent. So start with the face, shoulder. Okay. After that, back up on the hands and we move over toward pigeon pose. So heel toe, heel toe, the right foot across to the left side of the mat, place your right knee down on the outside of that mat. Hi, spider. How are you, buddy? Well, you could be a female, so butt it. Buddy, either way. Okay, slide the left knee back, square your hips. Okay. If you need to bring your right hip down and bend that left leg to have a little more success, go for that. If you'd rather square that left hip toward the mat, keep flexing quite a bit through that right foot. Protect your knee. Stay up on your hands. All right, buddy. Hey, there spider pose. Okay. So now you've got that outer right glute. So this is like part strength, part flexibility, left hip flexors, three or four more breaths. Maybe your forearms come to the mat and you can rest your head as you stack your fists. Really, really sharp, unnecessary pain. Your knee is not what we're looking for, so be mindful. Pigeon pose, Pigeonasana. Open your hips. Steady the breath, relax the mind, peace, calm, relaxation within what might feel like an intense situation. So what's the internal dialogue? How's your breath? Mindful of the tension around the neck. Push back up onto your hands. Oh boy. Okay. So the transition here is, okay, curl the back toes, both hands grounded. Okay. So it's like what I want you to do now is lift the left knee. There's effort. Lift the right leg, core. All right. Now send that right leg up high, three-legged dog. So that leg was just sort of really internally rotated, we'll call it.

Now you want to open it up and maybe maybe external or open it up. Good job. Right foot down, joins the left. Walk it out, downward dog for a few moments. Left leg lifts. Good. One time, knee in to the body, shoulders forward, core, core, core, high on your toes, tippy tippy toes. Inhale it back up and step it up for warrior dos. Right foot down. Okay. Left heel toward the right heel or toward the arch of your right foot. Seal off the feet like it's your job. Left foot on the left thigh, reach the right arm forward, up and back in a strong, open, spacious warrior too. Okay. So check, just take, we're going to be here for a few moments. So how's the left foot? How's the right? I already gave you the cues for it.

And straighten the front leg, draw the tailbone down. Okay. Okay. So there's the buddy. What's up? You need a name. Tailbone down. I'm referring to my spider friend. Wants to be friends with me. Left knee toward the left pinky toe. I'm going to feel strength building in the left leg and now some groin opening, hip opening on the right. Okay. Shoulders stay up over the hips and then you get those arms out. Ah, that's it. Pulling the arms back, keeping the chest open, abs engaged.

Ah, straighten the front leg, wide leg forward fold again. Take a gaze underneath my legs. This time kind of make it more of a flow. So you're going to move a little into that side lunge to the right and you're going to side lunge to the left. So you're going to bend the left leg and send your hips back towards your left heel. Use your hands to support. Point your left toes up high as you bend into the right leg. Then just kind of go back and forth. Okay. Wide leg forward fold. Shake the head out a bit. Turn your left foot open. 45 degrees. You might even open your right foot out wide and use your hands to support you to lean deeply over toward that left side. Okay. So you're going to drop the hips back behind your left heel and use your hands any way you need to just to kind of flirt around in this space. Like I said, it's not just flopping around and opening the hips. You've got a lot of work going on here. You can point your right toes up, ground the right foot, any movement you make with your foot's going to affect the stretch. Okay. Bring the right hand down. Square off your hips. Walk your left foot out toward the left side of the mat. Left hand on your right or left thigh. Then see what it feels like to drop that right heel over to the right and then drop the hips toward the right. So you're in kind of like a weird side plank almost. That right arm is probably working quite a bit. I get that. Work through it as best you can. Take a rest. Bring your right knee down for some support. Lizard pose. All right, here we go. So the right knee scoots back quite a bit. Left foot is at the edge of the mat. Keep it on the mat because what I'm going to ask you to do is come on to the outside edge of that left foot as you drop. Basically you're going to drop your right hip down and then open up that whole kind of groin scene on the left. Let's call it a groin scene. Okay. Now with like here, it's like, okay, I'm up on my hands. This is like very manageable. If I want to make it just a little more, like I want to go a little deeper, I'm going to, number one, focus on breathing. And maybe that'll bring a right forearm down.

As I descend down into different areas, it's not because, you know, it's correct. It's just another way to express yourself in the pose. So the habit to get into and mindset is, you know, what is your shape? What is your shape that you can express yourself in? It feels like you're managing it really well and you just apply satisfaction and contentment and just ride it out. Like this is where I am and this feels amazing or it doesn't feel amazing, but I'm doing the work to hopefully get it to that point where it feels a little better. Okay. Pigeon pose, left foot comes over to the right side of the mat, left knee down on the mat, hips square, slide your right knee back a little bit, safe left knee by pointing through your left toe. So your left toes point up toward the front of your mat. All this does is it like lights up all the ligaments and tendons around the knee to protect the joint. So here again, drop that left seat down if you'd like or keep it lifted, put a blanket or a pillow underneath if you're at home or a block. Okay. It's a lot of direction. So now let's see if we can land somewhere for a good five or six breaths. And maybe that resonates with you. Maybe you've heard or you've experienced that the hips hold, hold and store lots of negative energy, emotions, undelt with crap. Maybe you don't really believe it, but you're going to fake it till you make it sort of thing and see what happens. There is a certain amount of trust that goes into this practice. You know, it's like, okay, I don't really feel that happening. I don't see emotions flying out like, you know, old ghosts picture the white ghost kind of leaving the body. But there is something, there is something that these poses and breathwork and just you being with yourself, there's, there's shift and change and all kinds of things going on. And it's hard to express right now, but it's hard to express in a four hour lecture. I'm sure. Sure. So there's a certain level of trust you bring in that it's more than just you stretching in pigeon. Awesome. All good things must come to an end. This too shall pass my friends. So curl the toes, lift the right knee. Oh, some effort to lift that leg up and open into three legged dog with that hip open. We've been here. Maybe it feels different this time. Maybe not.

Nice. Bring the knees down. One last child's pose. Unless you're going to sit around all day in child's pose. And that is an awesome day. Forehead to the mat. If you can get it there, this would be like the third, like real focused child's pose. So see how, see how you feel now. And again, I'm not saying it should be any one way or the other. It's just you. Oh, wow. That's how it feels now after this practice of opening up the hips. Let's come up onto, um, our knees before we come onto our, our back. That's how we'll finish today.

Let's see what it feels like to open up into a camel pose. So camel pose is like hip flexors. So as you name it, right? Tailbone. I've said it 16 times today, tailbone down, even slightly like tucked almost. So you feel that opening here and that stability through the front of the legs and your glutes. And you can take your hands at your low back and just kind of flirt with this, pushing the hips forward, chest up, and the elbows draw toward your, uh, toward one another, or you can go right to pulling on the heels. So reach back, make sure you keep that adjustment in the pelvis, thrust the hips forward, pull up on your heels, open the shoulders. Oh man. Open the neck a little bit and come back out down into table. Now, no doubt that gets in the low back a little bit. So we'll take a couple of deliberate cat poses. So push and round out the back. Of course you got to follow cat by cow. Which is first cat or cow? Tailbone down cat pose. Nice. And now let's come around onto our seat.

And from here, come down to the back. We'll do a few different poses on our back to, uh, to close out. But we still have plenty of time. Don't let that word close. Get to you. Okay. So first off, draw the knees in toward the body, grab hold of either the hamstrings. In fact, take your arms underneath or behind your hamstrings and grab hold of a wrist. So you have a lock here and you let the calves drop over your forearms, draw the head down, try your shoulders down and a little rock from side to side. This would be a nice, could be a nice restorative on your back child's pose. Okay. Hands around your right hamstring or your right shin, extend your left leg all the way out and pull that right knee in towards your body for need a chest or wind relieving pose as I learned it.

So if you're at home or anywhere, I don't care. And you have a little wind release. This is the pose. Pull that thigh in toward the belly, ascending colon, move some, some air around possibly. You can take that right knee and open it out to the side. So it's like the very, very, very beginnings of a happy baby, half happy baby. Okay. You can circle it around, slide your hips over to the right. Keep the left leg extended out and spinal twist over to the left. So your right leg bent crosses over to the left and you reach out to the right with the right arm bent or straight. And this is like, you maybe did a couple of rotations, but this is definitely a spine Oh, twist rotation. Good. Come on down there. Draw the left leg and extend the right leg out. So while we're kind of wandering around over here, now you're on the left side, knee to chest, descending colon. So now maybe who knows what's going to, what kind of actions going to happen. Okay. So take it out wide and I don't know, circle.

So real quick, this is where I kind of like, it opened up for me. Like, wow, there's some stuff going on in the hips, teaching a long weekend workshop. All men did a hip opening class. And I said to the group, let me know how you feel tomorrow. So one guy, scientist, super guys guy, you know, claims he never cries, said he was up all night bawling. And he figured out that he was dealing with some real, take the spinal twist, some real unresolved stuff having to do with his mom, spinal to his left leg across, storing it, you know, he couldn't really put words to it except that, you know, the two and a half hour yin yoga, hip opening sesh, it exposed some stuff for him. And he was available to it. He happened to be on a weekend dedicated to health and wellness. And I didn't say anything about, you know, anything I just said, let me know how you feel tomorrow. So that was an interesting sort of reveal, I think. Come back out of the twist. Draw the legs in again. And I'm not saying that as like, I told you so it's like, you got to believe it. It's just more like, wow, that really hit me that I didn't say anything other than just let me know how you feel. Take the hands on the inside of your thighs and clasp around the shins just below your knees. So and then your arms are straight, let your knees move away from your body and outline. This would be like second phase of a happy baby. Arms are supporting the legs kind of for this passive ish sensation and your arms aren't really working, which is nice. Just using your grip. If you want more of the happy baby experience, keep the knees wide, but reach the hands up toward the the calves and shins first.

As you notice, when you start to reach up to the feet and you become a turtle shell, right? It might not be the optimal space. So find your position where it allows you to draw the head down, extend the neck, drop the shoulders, and then find that stretch, right? So your back is grounded. You're opening your legs into this shape. You're expressing yourself in happy baby in a way that allows you to breathe well, not be overwhelmed and negative thoughts and kind to yourself. And a little layer of trust that maybe who knows without expecting it or hoping for it, but who knows? Maybe there's something more going on. Okay, go ahead and release that. Bring your feet all the way down to the mat, but your legs stay bent and your feet are about as wide as the mat. Take your knees now over to the left. So it's like a windshield wiper, right? Cross your legs over to the left, reach your right arm up over your head back behind you and take your left ankle over your right thigh for a little extra added weight. So a lot of the stuff we've done today, including this, is you can call it stretching, releasing, opening, lengthening psoas and hip flexors, which, you know, psoas is connected to your spine, runs through your pelvis and hips to your femur bones. It's what is responsible and needed for you to walk and run and march and lift. And if it's out of whack, look at everything it's connected to and runs through.

It can have a negative effect on a lot of parts of your body. So come out of that. Good. Nice and patient as you roll over to the other side. He knees to the right, left arm reaching up, right foot over the left thigh. So these basic, some of these basic postures like lunging, pigeon, finding your pigeon, a lot of ways. You can do that six, seven, eight ways. We'll help to again, flexibility, release, lengthening, just bringing attention to it and not sitting all day. And if you sit all day, you know what poses to do now. Low back. You can get a lot of discomfort in the low back from a psoas, maybe a shortened psoas pulling, tugging. Okay, good. Now come back over and let's take a bridge pose. Feet below the knees, press the feet up, up, up, up, up and away. Hips up and away, knees up over your ankles.

Open up hip flexors here and then slowly lower all the way down. Stretch the legs out. Take a deep, deep, deep, big breath in. Exhale everything out. Stay right here. I'll guide you through a little relaxation, but I'll do it from a seated position. Okay, from here again, take a deep breath in and let a big breath out.

Relax your entire body. As you're closing your practice out today, if you begin, if you stop when we stop or you continue to rest, make sure you end in a nice, meaningful way for you. You know, hands at the heart, forehead to the fingertips, grateful for what you're able to do, what you have. I'm grateful for this practice and being able to share it with you. So thank you for being here. And with that said, because I think I'm at that hour mark, you continue to relax, lie down, maybe move up into a seated meditation. But with that said, I want to sign off and say peace and love and health and wellness and namaste to you, you, you. Thank you.