Embracing Stillness

Welcome to Dynamic Flow Season 2, Episode 5. My name is Robert Sidoti and I'm super, super happy, super stoked and blessed that you're here, whether it's live or whether you're watching it down the road. This practice today, you can have as many props as you'd like. You can use your couch, your table, your whatever, whatever is useful for you, blocks, straps. I'm not going to use any, not because I'm a great yoga practitioner, just because I like to keep it kind of simple, okay? Blocks and all those things can be so helpful. So with that said, this type of practice, yes, it is dynamic flow, but this is going to be a little bit more on the focusing on stretching and flexibility and breathing and not necessarily a restorative class per se, but feeling restored and maybe renewed and opened up in a lot of the areas we feel overdone and underutilized or underused. So without further ado, again, thanks for being here. It makes me smile. Come to a seat. Here we are. Cross legs or if you'd like kneeling, you can do all the things that we're about to do in a kneeling position or in a cross-legged position. And let's start with the most important aspect of breath. So make yourself comfortable. Take a few, what would be for you, kind of those deep breaths that help you to kind of loosen up and arrive and ground, preparing for your practice today. Once you've done those clearing breaths, let's get into a short groove. I'm going to cue the breath. It's almost going to feel like a breathing class, maybe. I hope so anyway. Close your eyes and let's get dialed in to the breath. So as always, breath in through the nose.

Breath out of your nose unless you're clogged up or you need a big exhale and breathing out of your mouth just feels better in that moment. But let's get primarily breath in through the nose and out through the nose. So soft eyes, soft breath, soft yet full. So it's not forced. Exhale. Think about a three second in, four second out. Breathe in and breathe out. Continue. So you might feel a cooler breeze on the inhalation through the nose and you might feel a warmer breeze on the exhale through the nose. Maybe dial in your focus and attention to the breath so much that you can sense the temperature. Is it a cool breeze on the inhale or am I just making that up? Does it feel a little warmer on the exhale? Maybe. Keep going. Breathe in and breathe out. Continue, please. And while you're continuing, you're breathing from your diaphragm in your belly and that breath is rising into the rib cage and into the chest. This gradual or altogether expansive breath in, relaxing breath out.

Let's take three more as a team, a family, a friend. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. In and breathe out. If your eyes are closed, you can open them and take your arms up overhead.

Breathe in as you do so. Breathe out, palms to the chest, to your heart, to the center of you. Bring the arms down, out and up on the breath in. In and exhale. Hands to heart. One more time. Arms down, out and up. It's sweeping like you're gathering all the air you can get.

And exhale. Bring it home. Bring it in. Hands on your knees. Lift your chest on the breath in. A little seated cat cow. When you come into cow pose here, you really pull on the knees and pull the shoulders back and your chest up as high as you can. Maybe even look up. In the exhale, you slide your hands further. Pull the belly in and try to round out the upper back as much as you can, just like you would do in the hands and knees version. You could even dip back a little bit and exaggerate this big opening across the back. And then a big inhale. Not a big, but somewhat full. And exhale. Round it out. Cat pose. Inhale. And exhale.

Inhale. Come to neutral. Bring the hands out in front of you. Clasp your fingers. Point your palms forward, maybe like me, toward the camera. On the inhale, cow pose, but reach the arms up overhead. Take a big stretch here. Inhale. Inhale. Now exhale. Point the knuckles forward and cat pose. Really reach out through the knuckles and try to stretch each arm as long as you can, rounding out the back and pulling in through the belly. Inhale. Reach up. And exhale. Inhale. Palms up. Long arms. And exhale.

One more time. Inhale. Palms to the sky to the high. And exhale. Back up. Breathe in. Release the clasp. And exhale the arms down by your side. Right palm stays down on the mat or the fingertips. Reach your left arm nice and high and take a side bend. A side bend that feels like, oh man, I need this. Oh, not badly, but it feels nice. Side body gets a little neglected sometimes for me. So you're reaching up through the left hand, reaching through the left fingertips and grounding through the left sit bone, the left hip, the left butt. Good. And you go far enough to feel this big opening and you breathe nicely into that space. Good. Back over to center.

Left hand grounds or your fingertips or up on a block. Right arm reaches up. So when you're reaching it up, you're starting to feel that side body lengthen, side body stretch, and get a little creative with where you need it. Reach up and take the side bend further and further over to your left. Breathe nicely. Breathe sweetly. Breathe fully into these spaces. You are taking your time to open. Good. Go back over to center and take your arms, palms forward toward me. Give me a big hug. Let's hug it out. Oh, no hugs these days, man. It's rough. Reach back, take your hands back behind you, push the heels of your palms down, roll the heads of your shoulders back, opening the chest now. So I'm really going to focus a lot on each and every kind of like big joint and little joint. So that, you know, just can use this practice to feel like you're getting a good service on the body. Push the chest up, shoulders back, stay here a couple breaths. This is a fantastic position to fight against the rounded shoulder syndrome. And it's simple. You just lean back and pull the shoulders back. So you do this so often to where this feels like the norm. I mean, you're not going to walk around like this, but you know what I mean? So when you're rounding your shoulders for any length of time, it's going to start to feel natural for you to just want to roll them up and back and take a deep breath. Okay, nice. Bring now your hands back together. Clasp the fingers and it's like an elephant trunk. Okay. The first part of this is to reach forward almost like cat pose. Reach forward like your knuckles are reaching down toward the ground. So you feel that opening in the upper back and then you let that trunk kind of sway a little bit side to side, but it's like a rigid trunk, right? It doesn't have a, it's not soft. You got to keep it rigid because if you're reaching over to the left, I want you to really reach through that right arm and stretch the upper part of your upper right back out and then do the same on the left. And then you sway a little bit. Good. And then come back to neutral. Keep your arms like this, but take your right arm underneath the left and we'll work into Eagle arms. You can see I'm focusing more than I typically do on the shoulders. I just feel like personally, it's a neglected area for me and maybe it is for you. And I'd like to offer some of these postures that can be really nice in opening the upper back and shoulders. So roll your shoulders a few times so you can get some mobility in there. And then with this shape, with the right arm underneath the left, as I guided you, if you push that right forearm into the left elbow and twist to the right a little bit, oh man, that upper left side, the left shoulder in your back. And then if you lean down a little bit, you may feel some extra love. You come back to center and lift your elbows up and pull the elbows toward like as far forward as you can. Oh man, now release and just feel the release for a moment. Hopefully that felt as good for you as it does for me. Okay. Now reach those arms out in front of you. Again, take your left arm underneath the upper right. Okay. Walk the left fingertips and palm toward the right palm. Find the bind. Okay. Now pull the elbows away from the body and twist a little bit to the left. And that'll exaggerate the stretch on that right shoulder and upper back, especially when you take now your elbows down toward that left leg.

So today I'm hoping that you're okay with this pace, right? We're going to do the same in the hips. We're going to do the same with the hamstrings and the back a little bit more. So probably not many chaturangas or some citations today, but some good stretching, maybe some mobility. Okay. Back to the center. Now pull the elbows away from the body and lift up. So if you're looking for more of a workout, right? It's probably not going to be a crazy workout, but hopefully you can feel like this is valuable for you. Okay. Now that we've wandered around in that space for a while, we'll take one spinal twist, left hand to the right thigh, right hand back behind you. Sit up nice and tall and rotate. So we're twisting to the right and this is a nice simple seated posture. Pull your left shoulder down and drop your head over to the right and see if that adds a little neck stretch on the left side. Move your head around a little bit. Let it kind of be loose, like swivel, like one of those like bobbly heads. They still make those. Okay. Let's try it on the other side. Your spine needs so much attention. You're back, your back, back, back body. So important. So getting these twists, these seemingly simple spinal twists involved in your daily practice is really important. Drop the right shoulder and drop the head to the left. And if you tip the head up and back and move your jaw around a little bit and start to find some little nuggets of areas that have just been calling for so long, like, help. I mean, in all seriousness. Okay, now back to center. All nice and warmed up in the upper body. Let's move on to our hands and knees. So come on on to your hands and knees. Take your knees nice and wide, big toes to touch and we'll enter child's pose. So push the hips back as far as they'll go for you. You can bring your forearms and elbows down and stack your fists. Put your forehead on top of the fist or the floor or block. Keep the breathing flowing. Use your diaphragm, use your belly, use your nose. Mouth is for eating, nose is for breathing. Okay, you can revisit this pose anytime you'd like. Let's come into tabletop.

Okay, let's move through some very deliberate cat cow. So let's start in cat pose. Push the ground away. We did a lot of this already seated, right? The back and shoulders may actually feel kind of like opened up. So if you push the ground away and stretch out that upper back so your shoulder blades move away from one another and then draw your tailbone down, pull your belly up and hang out here for a few moments. You can lean forward, you can lean to the left, lean to the right, and then you move through into cow pose. Send those sit bones up, your tailbone up, your chest forward. Typically we kind of move through these quicker, but today it's a little slower. Exhale, round out the back. It gives you more time to feel it out. If you slide your hands forward a little bit more, the next time you come into cow pose, what you can do is send the hips forward and grab a little upward dog. So I'm going to invite you to drop individually while your arms are straight and your chest is open and your shoulders are down away from your ears. Send your right hip toward the ground, like swivel over to the right a little bit and then swivel over to the left and then over to the right and be mindful of your low back. Again, stretching child's pose, push back, get a little recovery, get a little away from that low back. Nice reminder to breathe. Okay. Let's come back into a table. This is kind of a new one. I do it personally, but I don't offer it enough. So take your hands off of the mat and what we're going to do is you're going to bend the left arm enough to keep like bring your right shoulder. You might even take a slide that right hand over a little bit more. Bend the left arm to draw that right shoulder down toward the ground. So it's some effort in that left arm. Bend the right arm now and draw the left shoulder down and you kind of swivel back and forth alternate sides.

So it's a pretty intense stretch through the bicep of the extended arm into the shoulder of the extended arm. You can bring it all the way down if you'd like. So that right shoulder is down, your head is down and push through that bent arm over to the other side. Back up to center. Really nice. Now take your hands back to shoulder width, knees nice and wide and take the right arm, reach it up, up, up, up, up and away and swivel it. I'm using swivel a lot today. I'm going to overdo that one. Reach the right arm underneath the left arm as far over as it'll go, but then don't drop it down. Reach back up. Inhale, exhale underneath. One more time. Breathe in, breathe out, reach, reach, reach, reach, reach. Bring the right shoulder down, the head down. Use your left arm as some support to land and breathe. So again, some more shoulder work. Upper back. Maybe feel it in your low back. Steady with the breath. Let's come back out. Okay, nice. Let's try it on the other side. So walk that right hand forward a little bit. Knees can be kind of wide. Left arm reaches up, breathe in, breathe out, send it underneath and over to the right. It's like almost like you're just tapping the left shoulder down underneath and over to the right, left shoulder kind of taps, right arm bends. Inhale up and open and then bring it on over. Land the left shoulder, the head, place your right arm in a fashion in a way that gives you some support. Keep reaching that left arm over, breathing, stretching, paying attention, moving around in all of these poses I'm offering to see where you can find more places of interest. You know, it's like when you go on a hike somewhere, right? And you go off the path a little bit or you take this unknown path, a path you've never taken. You know, you might see new things, smells, all kinds of things. So here we're staying with the body, right? The more you get out of that main kind of form of travel, come back out. Let's get back into our tabletop. Take a cat cow, inhale cow and exhale cat because we can create lots of habits and not all good habits in these movements. So downward dog, hands are pretty wide, fingers really wide. Curl the toes, lift up and away. Good. First downward dog, stretch it out. So this again, right? We're thinking flexibility and stretching today. Not to say that you don't feel some support in the shoulders and arms, some stabilization, efforting. Stretch those calves out. And if you straighten your right leg as much as you can, pushing the right heel toward the mat, bend your left leg and shoot those hips over to the left. So whenever you're in this pose, it's the straight leg. It's the bent leg that you send the hips in the direction of. Sorry. Good. Okay. Now straighten out that left leg and just simply bend that right knee and shoot the hips over to the right. Maybe you feel it in the ankle of that left leg. Maybe feel it in the outer left calf shin area. Really nice.

Okay. Bring those knees on downtown, come forward, hips forward and down, open up into that lazy little up dog we've revisit or revisited earlier. And then the hips down, belly down, forehead down. Okay. So what you're going to do here is take your left arm out. This is like a shoulder exercise, but kind of more like these little, it's like a, the feet think of the feet as like the scorpion tail. So what I want you to do is keep your right arm in like a cobra kind of position. Okay. Keep the chest down and now lift the right leg up, bend it as if you were going to kind of tap it back behind you on that left side and you get that shoulder opener. So you have the hip, the low back and the left shoulder and you bring it back over to center, reach the right arm out left hand in that cobra position and get that scorpion tail over to the right side. Good. And then you kind of go back and forth. It's a nice little stretching and mobility drill that can feel pretty nice if you can figure out for you where the movement is. Good. Back and forth. We're going to do a couple different versions of this. So this is more of a shoulder action. Definitely going to feel it in the back. Okay. Now back over to center. Now staying on the front of your body, come onto your forearms now. Okay. Now same scorpion kind of a move. You're going to lift the right leg and look to step it back behind you. Good. Now lift the left leg and look to step it back behind you. So your legs are bent as you're doing this individually. Right leg up and back. Maybe you feel a little hip opener, a little low back. Really nice. Back and forth.

Okay. Good. Now lower yourself down, slide the hands into cobra, lift the chest up into tabletop. Okay. Now you're going to do the same movement, but with and on your hands. So lift your left leg, right leg up like you've got it in a 90 degree angle. You can curl your back toes, left toes, and then use your hip mobility now to reach up and back behind you. Good. Right knee down, left leg up. You can lift it up as much as you'd like to open the hip and nice. This is definitely more hip, but you're going to feel it in that low back as well. Lift the left leg up, rotate the hip open and like just tap your toes back behind you on the other side. So it's the opposite side. So right leg to left side. Let's try it again. Left leg up, taps back behind onto the right side. Perfect. Okay. Now shoot the left leg back, ground that left heel. This is that side plank, side stretch we do. Slide the right foot over and then come here. Let's join here for a moment. Okay. So make sure you have all the points of grounding and balance and stacking and then take that left arm and reach it up alongside your ear. Okay. Let's find that shoulder stretch, side body stretch, chest is open. So take that full breath from the belly, ribs, chest. It's opportunity. It's gift opportunity. I really hope you can look at it from that point of view. I'm sure you do because you're the one who signed up and rolled out your mat. So you're all in. You're all in. There's no convincing you.

You big circular motions now. So what I want you to do now is bring your left hand down, even bring the left forearm down, maybe even the right form and slide that left foot even farther back behind you and push your hips back. So left forearm and oboe are down on the mat and your left leg is really kind of almost behind you, working toward that right side. And it's just your ability to access more stretch may come into play. Okay. Nicely done. Back up onto your hands, slide the right foot back, ground that right foot, slide the left foot over. First, you get all the basics of foundation. Beautiful. Get the side bend, stretch that right side out, reach that right arm up and back. So you exaggerate the shoulder opener, the chest opener. You can really take some big circles here. Oh, nice.

Bring the right hand down, right forearm down. You might even be able to see it more on this side. So both forearms are down, slide the left foot over and then really exaggerate and slide that right foot over and then reach through that right elbow and right forearm. Perfect. Back to center, back up onto your hands. And for a moment here, all right, we said we're going to get all around in this bod, take your left hand. Okay. So it's, this is the horizontal part of the mat, right? Your left hand is level with that. So your thumb, index finger are lined up with the top of the mat. Then take your right palm and push into the left palm. Just want you to kind of lean forward or over to the right and over to the left a few times. Just by pushing the hand down, it kind of locks it in place and it allows you to get some genuine, genuine wrist stretching and you know, just some attention there and the wrist and lean pretty far over to one side, depending on what's available to you. Okay. It's important, right? And you're going to do this all day if your wrists hurt you. So if they don't hurt you, do this to prevent them from hurting you, right? When we have an injury, we'll do all it takes to make that pain go away so we can do the things we enjoy doing. So this is good preventative work. So now you've taken the right hand, turned it over, press into the palm of that right hand with your left and lean a little bit to the right and lean a bit to the uh, the right and the left. Sorry. Reminder to breathe. Three seconds in, four seconds out, right? We're not doing anything too strenuous here. So you can really work with that peaceful, grounding, calming breath. Okay. Now turn your palms over back to normal, but walk your fingertips, direct your fingertips towards your thighs. You may have to do this one at a time. Reach back, right? Push your hips back. And that's going to add a huge stretch to the front side of the wrist. Be patient, put in the time, put in the work to prevent your wrist, your knees, your ankles.

Right? From getting injured or just abused with all the planks and everything, right? So this is really helpful work. I do it often. Okay. Maybe take one more of those counter stretches, turn both or one over both hands. Okay. Nicely done. Palms facing down. Take another downward dog. Okay. Lock into the breath. Lock in, but that just means like bring your attention, lock in your attention, but the breath is fluid. Now see if you can reach the right hand to the outside of your left calf. Now look underneath the left arm and get a little rotational downward dog. When you've got to use some strength in that left arm, do what you can.

Okay. Bring that right hand to the mat. Left hand reaches to the outside of that right calf. Lock it in. Could be the, you know, the hamstring or lower, wherever it is for you. And then turn your chest open to the right and gaze underneath that right arm of yours. Okay. Both hands out there in that downward facing dog and step your right foot forward to the right hand. Bring the left knee down and bring both hands up on top of your right hand. Left knee down and bring both hands up on top of your right thigh to start. Okay. The hips. All right. We've worked through the shoulders, the back, the wrists, a little bit in the neck. Now let's get involved with this, this whole complex, this area here. So take the left arm, reach it up. Favorite stretch. We're going to call this Rob's favorite stretch. We're going to take that side bend over to the right.

Think about that stretch and feel that stretch up from the left thigh muscles to the hip flexors up into the ribs, the shoulder. Bring the left hand down to the mat. Good. Now here, what you might want to do is investigate two different options here. Send your left hip down toward the ground. Like, like you're rotating the outside of your left thigh. You're going to have to bend the right leg and open that right knee up a little bit to do this. So it's like the outside of your left ankle, the thigh, and like, wow, that huge stretch up that whole left side. And then, you know, because it's a lot on that left arm, come over to the right, peel onto the outer edge of the right foot. Breathe some, some fresh air into these spaces. So if you're on the outside of the right foot, that means you're really probably feeling that inside that right groin area. Right hand can come to the mat. Maybe even your left forearm and right forearm as you kind of work through a hip opening lizard style pose. Notice when the breath gets choppy or erratic. It's probably because you've entered a place that like is intense or maybe your mind got a little overwhelmed with something. Draw back to that cool, calm, smooth breath. Okay. Nicely done. So let's work now into pigeon pose. So walk that right foot over to the left side of the mat, little heel toe journey. Okay. Now bring the right knee out to the outside of the mat. Keep your right foot flexed quite a bit. So you protect that right knee. Shoot the left knee back a little bit more. Maybe prop up a pillow or block or something underneath your right butt area. Okay. Now here you are. You've got this sensation to deal with, to manage, to feel, to breathe into. You can stay up on your hands or bring yourself down to your forearms or even flattened all the way out onto the front of your body. I'm going to stay right around here, up on my hands for now.

Maybe even up on the fingertips so I can stay a little more upright in the upper body. It's just a completely different way than coming forward and down, right? You've got options in this practice. Ways to modify. In fact, if this is really intense for you, which good chance it very much is, drop onto the outside of your right hip, bend your left leg, and here you go. Now you have maybe a little more of an accessible version and you bend your body, your belly over your inner right thigh. Oh, yes. There we go. Access. Access granted. So before maybe access was denied, right? And you're like, oh man, I'm missing out on this, but you don't have to miss out. Here you go. Pigeon pose, wherever you are for another couple of breaths. Not rushing to get anywhere. This is a little like physical therapy, a little restorative, maybe even yin postures, just a chill way to address these very important areas of the body.

They are either underused or overused. Let's come back out. The exit is going to be into, let's say tabletop for this one. And then move around, take some big circles through the hips and in tabletop, maybe even like dropping the hips forward and pushing them back toward child's pose. Let's see if you can kind of loosen up this area. Yeah. Okay. Back into downward dog.

You might even bend your knees deeply for downward dog. So bend your knees, push the mat away from you and that where your hands are, push your butt back. And lift up straight in the legs and step the left foot up to where the left hand is. You'll bring the back knee down and lift up for your low lunge. You know this pose, right? You've been here before, you've done this before, but all of these yoga classes, mine included, they include this low lunge because of the value.

All right. So let's find the value with this like so as reach to the side stretch, take the right arm, reach it up, begin to access that length up the right side. That's like the best way I can say the stretch, the length, the extension of the right side. And then you can take that little bend over to the left side, keep reaching up to keep the spine lengthening and rotating. Not rotating, but kind of bending, side bending. And you can drop the hips forward a little bit more to increase that intensity.

Nice. Right hand down. You can bring, keep your left hand on your thigh or on the mat. Slide the right knee back a little bit. And we're going to get into that outside right hip. So it's a little rotation. You drop that right hip over to the right, like you're kind of like on the outside of that right leg. You've got to work in that right arm. So there's a little side plank for you. All right. Some stabilization there. And you can see here that when I'm dropping the right hip, I'm lifting the left arch, the left foot up onto the outer edge and letting that knee open. So everything kind of like goes from this closed off to.

Okay. Both hands down on the mat. Both hands down on the mat, a little lizard hip opening option here. So peel that left foot up. So you're on the outer edge of your left foot and start to feel that groin space on the left side. Start to open up. Breathe some fresh air into that area.

So one of the reasons I, you know, decided to choose this offering today, you know, is it's a compliment to everything else. You know, if you're doing this dynamic flow with me, season two, you know, a lot of it is a little more energetic, a little more strength based, not crazy, but yeah, definitely. And this is going to support, it's going to be part of a series that supports, and it could be a go-to for you to like work on your mobility, work on some stretching, slow down a little bit, take time to breathe, walk the left foot over to the right. And also just from a personal, you know, just inside scoop here, pigeon pose, is I lead a really active life. I'm always moving. It's just who I am. And so I personally past week have been doing a lot in this type of movement the past couple of days has been really useful for me. So sharing something with you that is useful to me, I know it'll be useful for you too.

Okay. That's enough dialogue there. Let's get you dialed in here. Pigeon pose. You can stay up on your fingertips and slide that right knee back a little bit, access the stretch, free up some tension with a big exhale. If you'd rather be on your forearms or laying flat out, please go for it or plop on the left side, left hip, bend that right leg and then square up and fold over that inner left thigh. Good. Just see where the right landing is for you. In through the nose, out through the nose, breathe in through the nose and breathe out.

Okay. Push back up. Let's take that right leg, wrap it around to meet the left. Ooh, yes. Lower the ground today. We haven't even come to stand, have we? Lower on down, draw the knees. That's a combination between legs and knees. Draw them knees into your body. So draw the knees, the thighs, bend your legs and hug yourself.

All right. If you can't hug too many other people, you might as well embrace yourself as much as we can. So we're hugging the knees in. We're going to get that on our back child's pose sensation and shoot the left leg out and keep that right leg in. So another opportunity here to get into those hips. So you're pulling the right knee gently in toward the body, toward the belly, toward the ribs, toward out wide. And then you can do the same with the left side. Extend that right leg out.

Good. Left leg in. So just another confirmation. This type of stuff, when I'm extremely inflamed and sore from three hours of very competitive tennis or whatever I'm doing, this kind of practice is like an ibuprofen. It's like an Advil. It just makes the inflammation go down through the breathing and through the very conscious like effort of bringing blood flow into the joints, massaging yourself. So there you go. Now draw that right leg in one more time. Lift the head and shoulders up. Uh oh. Uh oh. Little core. Why not, right? So we need the core to be sort of massaged, just like the rest of the body. So what you're doing is you're simply hugging the left leg in, extending the right. Hugging the right leg in, extending the left. And you're keeping the head and shoulders lifted up off of the mat so that we can get some good core activation here. Good. Point deliberately through your heels or your toes. Both help to create a stabilized, strong, extended leg. Good. Just snuck this in, right? You were like, I'm about to go to nappy time here. But no, we still have work to do, friend.

And friends, are we family by now? I'd like to think so. We're continuing here. Another 30 seconds. It's very doable. So for the 30 seconds, I don't usually do shout outs for films, but this one you just, my octopus teacher, your Netflix documentary. Oh man. So good. If you haven't seen it, maybe you want to check it out. Just about a dude who kind of creates a relationship with an octopus and it's really sweet. Okay. Reminds you that we're kind of all connected. Okay. Relax. My octopus teacher. Super sweet. Okay. Feet down, feet out wide. Let's take the knees over to the right side.

So more hip love. So the knees, your feet are wide. This is going to be more hip, right? If they were together, it would be maybe more spinal twist. So the feet are wide, knees are bent and over to the right. Now take your right ankle over your left thigh. The weight of that right leg on that left thigh adds a sensation and stretch down the left side. And then you take the left arm, reach it up back behind you. You get a full side stretch into the nose out through the nose. Perfect. Release the foot, cross those knees over to the left side. Take the left ankle over the right thigh.

And then right, that's enough right there, but then you take that right arm and go, yeah, bring it up, reach it up overhead. Stretch your body. Open your mind. Open the breath. Let everything flow, right? Take that concept to that phrase. Go with the flow. Take it to heart. Go with the flow. Things happen. Move through it. Come out on the other side. This pose, you get a little stuck. Take a breath. Go with the flow. Back over to center. That's that part of that Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee talks about B like water bridge pose. Okay. So palms facing up for this one. And as you're lifting your hips and feeling that beautiful extension through your hips, your hip, your waistline, you're kind of walking the shoulder blades toward one another, and then the upper arms and shoulders follow.

And you start to feel this nice big stretch across your chest, your belly, your hips, your thighs, draw your knees forward. Try not to, well, let's not say not. Let's plug each foot in deliberately. Okay. Push to the big toe mound, pinky toe mound, your heel. Breathe into that belly. Undo the arms, undo the shoulder blades, lift your heels and lower yourself down. Land your low back. Take a pause. Nice full breath in and a full breath out. Breath in through the nose. Breath out through the nose. See if you can get so quiet in the breath that you don't even hear it. It's so calm and so relaxed, but it's in through the nose quietly and out through the nose quietly.

Take a couple rounds like that. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in. When you breathe out next time, hold your breath. Just a comfortable breath retention. Breathe whenever you want. Get so slow in the breath, hold your breath, relax. Keep holding if you'd like or take a breath in. Good. Breath out. Bring your knees in, reach up towards your knees, your shins, your ankles, your outer edges of your feet. More hip love. Happy baby. Okay. Try to ground like lift your head up to extend your neck. In fact, keep your legs where they are, but take your hands behind your head and pull and stretch on the back of the neck so the chin draws in and then place that head back down with a lot of space and then resume happy baby. Maybe even take a single portion, right? Or a single version. Left leg extends out and you have that right leg in that happy baby pose. If you're super bendy in the hamstrings, which we didn't address too much of today, but that's okay. You can straighten out your right leg a little bit. Switch sides. Extend the right leg out. Open specifically the left side here.

Okay. Draw both legs in. Come up to sit. Okay. Come up to sit. Hi, how are you? Take your left foot into your inner right thigh. We'll do like a, not quick, but just a three-part move on the right side, three-part move on the left side. So fold forward toward your right foot. I said no hamstrings, but here we go. Here's a little hamstring love. Single leg forward fold for a couple of breaths. Okay. We're going to add a little side bend. So if you have an angle already on the right leg, great. Maybe you put in bigger angle. Turn your body open to the left. Reach now the right fingertips to your shin, your ankle, the big toe you choose. Okay. So that might be just a nice little position for you to stay or take the left arm and reach it high. You could even take that left arm and trace it up to the ceiling up to the sky. Like you're trying to create this like arch as you reach toward the right foot with the left hand. I'm going to cheat it a little bit and draw the left shoulder down so I can get that hold because it gives me this lovely stretch in that left side of the body. If you don't do that, you just stay up nice and high and you work with what's available. Okay. Come up. The counter pose is kind of nice. Reach your left hand back behind you. You're going to ground your right foot and lift up onto your left knee and reach up, thrust the hips up and open up the front of the body now. Right hand can go behind the head, lead with the elbow. Nice. Switch sides. Shoot the left leg out. Put the angle on it just to start.

Why not? And then reach both hands or one hand toward that left foot. Breathe in through the nose and breathe out. One more time. Inhale and exhale. Perfect. Lift up, grab whatever hold you're going to grab. Right. I'm going to grab my big toe with my index finger and middle finger. You can also grab hold of your shin. Turn your right shoulder and chest open. Reach the right arm high and then begin to find your side bend of choice. Cheated a little bit. Reach. Oh man, that right side feels good. Hamstrings still working. Back behind you, ground the right hand, left foot is grounded and then you pop up on your right knee and push your hips to the ceiling, the sky, the high. Open up. Left hand behind the head, lead with the elbow. And lower down. There we go. We got the hamstrings in. Good. Spin around or wherever you are on your mat, on your floor. Lower down to your back. Draw the bottoms of your feet together. Let your knees open up. You may feel more available in the hips. I don't know. You don't have to feel more available. Grounded in your back. You can place your hands on your inner thighs, just as an extra little weight or a different sensation. You can place the hands on your body, feel your breath. Take a little short relaxation here. You can take as long as you'd like, but you'll be here about two minutes or so. Feel free to straighten your legs. Relax as many parts of your body as you can, your entire body.

Calm and relax your breathing. Breath in through the nose, out through the nose, almost so relaxed that you're feeling like the urge to want to breathe deeper. There's no anxiety or stress around it, but it's just so calm, slow, and relaxed. Just let every single effort go. Relax deep down in your eye, sockets, all the muscles and bones around your eyes and your forehead, jaw. Relax your shoulders.

If you're going to continue to lie down, please continue to lie down. It feels good to take a rest. Otherwise, start to move around in your body a little bit toward a lot, moving your fingers, your toes, your wrists, your ankles. Just kind of checking back in with where your body is, how it feels. Take a full body stretch, reach your arms overhead, straighten out those legs. Take a full stretch and up to sit. All right, 60 minutes. Well spent in my mind. So bring the hands to your heart, to the center of you. Acknowledge your effort, you're showing up, you're rolling out the mat, you're prioritizing you, yourself, your health.

And always with gratitude, with genuine, genuine gratitude to be able to move and share this practice. I appreciate it so much. Thank you so much. Have a great day. Namaste.