Heart Opening Flow

This is the official welcome. Welcome to Dynamic Flow. This is our seventh practice together. My name is Robert Sedoti. I am right here in my home. This has been so awesome. This is two seasons so far of Dynamic Flow from my home. It's been so great to be able to teach from this place and to have you here, along with me live, or if you're watching it pre-recorded. Either way, it's all good. This is going to be an hour-long practice as usual, unless you extend it longer. Today, I thought we would invite in some new characters, some new movements. Movements that really help to open up the chest, heart, strengthen the back, chest, shoulder. Think heart-opening. Think back-bending, but super safe and repeatable. Reasonable, repeatable, and sustainable. Think about that. Some of the things we do will be similar. In fact, the beginning will be similar to maybe even last week, but we'll build and add to that. Without further rambling on, I'll just, one more time, thank you for being here. It's so cool to be able to do this. Wherever you are in the world, I know some of you are pretty far away from where I am. That's so cool that we're all pulled close together in this moment. We're going to start in the tabletop child's pose type position. I'm going to keep the block nearby because I'm going to use it as a little tool later. Don't worry if you don't have one. It's not going to ruin the practice. With your knees wide or somewhat close together, we're going to push back and work toward wherever that comfortable place is for you. If child's pose isn't comfortable for you, I apologize for the assumption that it can be. Come forward into puppy pose. Walk the arms out in front of you, the chest and the chin down toward the mat. Keep your butt up high. This is a great way to open up the shoulders and the chest and the back. Pick between child's pose or puppy pose or maybe somewhere in between. Find a place. I'm actually going to use my block to rest your forehead, whether it's stacked fists, palms, the ground, a block, a pillow, somewhere where you can take a few breaths and begin to ground yourself to become very present. It may take a one breath for you. It may take, you know, until half the practice before you really land. Just be patient with yourself. Let's breathe together here so we can define that breathing in through the nose and out through the nose unless it feels better for you to breathe out of the mouth. But make sure as long as your nasal passages are clear to breathe through your nose as much as possible. Okay. We will come back here. Plenty of times to child's pose, maybe not for as long, but come forward into table. Let's get a little cat cow movement. All right. So get the full flexion in the spine, round out the back, curl your toes or flat feet up to you. Inhale through to your cow pose, that really nice arching and extending of the spine into the exhale cat pose. Spread your fingers out nice and wide. Stack your shoulders over your elbows, over your wrists. Inhale back into your cow pose. Get some free flow going on here. Take a couple rounds on your own as you're beginning to simply move your back, your hips. Feel the pressure on the wrist. So if you need any kind of early on wrist stretching, maybe turn your fingers back towards your knees, lean forward and back a couple of times. And you can do this cat cow series with this hand position, or maybe it's too intense for you to do both at the same time. And you maybe do one. Right? So inhale, cow, exhale, cat. So kind of finding our way through that series. Inhale, cow. Good. Exhale, cat pose at full rounding and flexion of the spine. Puff out the upper back, stretch the arms. Good. Come back to a neutral position, meaning like tabletop. We'll add, push the hips back. This is that little series I like to do. So we're pushing back into child's pose. You're inhaling, coming forward, dropping the hips, pulling the shoulders back. Arms are straight. Then you start to bend the arms and you roll down and you get that good healthy mobility in the spine. Breathe in, lift up, pop, pop, pop, maybe the arms straightened. So you work those arms a bit and all the way back into your child's pose. Breathe in all the way through table, past table, past that exit and come into that little upward dog, that back bend, bend the elbows, come on down. Okay. We're going to add a little something here. Take your left arm out to the side. Take your right leg, lift it up and over. It's that little scorpion, hip opener, shoulder stretch. So you're keeping that right arm bent and pushing through the right palm and stepping the right foot back behind your left leg and opening the chest and shoulders. Good. And you come back over to the right side. Do the same thing. Slide that right arm over, lift the left leg up. It's like that scorpion move, right? Boom. Left foot down behind the right, push the left hand into the mat and gently start to stretch that right shoulder out, loosen up the neck tension, continuing to cultivate good mindfulness and awareness around the breathing. Okay. We will revisit this character. Come back to neutral.

Very nice. Lift up through that cobra, maybe straighten the arms, get some work in those arms. That's it. All the way back to your child's pose from child's pose, lift all the way up onto your shins, curl the toes under. Okay. First and foremost, we're going to revisit the camel pose, but several different kind of back bendy type positions. So it requires some glute activation. So if you squeeze your butt a little bit and draw, it'll kind of like draw the tailbone down and the pubic bone up, moving your pelvis into more of a neutral, even slightly tucked position. This will really help to get out of the low back. Okay. To protect your back, use your core and your glutes and your thighs rather than your back. Now take the left hand, leave it on your left thigh, but reach the right arm up and circle it back, reaching back to the right heel. Then take the left arm and reach it up. So it's like a half version of camel. And then you do the second side. So swivel, bring the left hand down, right arm up, open up the chest. Perfect. And then you bring the right arm back down to the right heel, left arm up. So we're looking for this like sense of liberation and freedom and opening across the shoulders and chest. One more over to the other side. Now when you're here, I want you to really squeeze those glutes, thrust your hips forward and get lengthened out of your back. Reach the right arm high, tip back just a bit. Super nice. We'll revisit this. Undo the toes, push back into child's pose. You might feel an immediate like low back recovery stretch. Good job. Come forward into your table, but remember pass that exit and lower the hips. Good. Upward position, bend the arms, lower yourself down, take the left arm out to the side, roll up and over that scorpion tail, opening the hips, twisting your low back a little bit and stretching through the shoulder and chest of that left side. Then you roll back over to the other side, stretch out through that right shoulder first, then the left foot as the tail. Oh yes. There we go. Figure it out. Find your spots. Continue to breathe well. Come back over to center. Good job. Hands alongside your rib cage, lift your chest, start to straighten those arms, pull the shoulders back. Good. Back into your child's pose. Slide all the way up. Curl the toes, reach the right arm up and circle it back to the right heel. Left arm reaches up. Glutes are active. Tailbone extended down, thighs working, core working to make this a really safe expression here. And then you switch sides. Left arm comes back, right arm reaches up. Super lifted and open back to neutral. Take both arms out wide. Reach back to your heels. Good. Right hand to the right heel, left hand to left heel. You might have to lean back a little bit for that. Then tuck that tailbone a bit, squeeze those glutes, engage the core, and then pull up on the heels. Open the chest, open those shoulders up, loosen up the tension around the neck. Breathe into that belly. Strong, strong legs here to support and protect your back. Nice. Now take your left hand to your low back, right hand to your low back, up to center, untuck the toes, tuck into a little child's pose, get the relief in the back. Perfect. Fly through table, pass it by. Say no table for me right now. Drop the hips, open up the chest, bend the arms, lower down.

One more out to the left, roll over, scorpion tail that over, open in the hips, twist a little through the back, rock and roll over to the other side. Right arm extends out, get the shoulder stretch, open up the chest, open up the hips. There's a lot going on here. Good. Back over to center. Now, new little transition here. Lift the chest, start to straighten the arms, curl the toes, plank pose. Boom. There you go. Similar position in the pelvis. So use those glutes of yours to extend the tailbone back toward the heels, pull up through the low belly. Now get cat pose in the shoulder blades. So puff out the back, upper back by pushing the earth away from you. Good. Firm up those thighs. Hold. Start to build a little heat here, right? If it, if it's like necessary for you to bring your knees down, bring your knees down. Otherwise, stay here for five. Good. Firm up those belly muscles. Four, three, two, soft bend in the knees, push your hips way up in your chest back toward your knees, straighten your arms. Although they were already straight. Downward dog. There we go. Good. So let's pedal it out. Let's get all those downward dog sensations. You can throw your heels over to the left and throw your heels over to the right. Get some good breathing going on here and just feel like happy to be able to do what you can do, right? And work on the things that are difficult for you. Take the time to heal the areas of the body that, you know, maybe a little bit broken or injured. So patience, contentment, gratitude, all wrapped up in one package. And you just move from moment to moment, posture to posture. We're still moving in downward dog. Good job. Okay. Bring the knees back down, extend the left leg back, slide your right foot over quite a bit. So you have a kickstand there. We've been here before you and I, we've been here. I know we have, it's a side plank with the side stretch, right? We're going to add onto that. So first, what I want you to do is make sure you've got your balance, all the necessary grounding points, slide the left foot back way back behind you. Maybe you're just up on your left toes and then reach through the left arm. So you get that lovely side bend, side stretch, continuing to stay open across the chest, right? And that's one of the themes. So that's why Cobra upward dog this position. Okay. Now we got to work a little bit here and we're trying to access glutes. Okay. Left hand to the left hip area. Okay. Extend your left leg out all the way out. Now lift the left leg high and point through your toes like a Pilates practice or a dancer would. Okay. Rotate your left hip inward just a little bit. Now lower your left toes down to the mat and lift as high as you can. 10 times lower and lift, lower and lift. Now I sound like one of those like, you know, Jane Fonda awesome exercise, but a little lower and lift, lower and lift, but the stuff works good on the exhale, brace the core to lift so you can access glutes, your hips and build some necessary strength. Some good foundational strength. Good. Three, two, and one lift it. Grab hold of that left foot. A little relief for you here. Possibly grab hold of the foot and draw the heel toward the seat. Now pull the left shoulder open the chest open. So with all the effort, where's that like lovely sensation of openness and stretching. Push the left foot into the hand and open up the chest. Super nice. Extend the left leg all the way out. Now you're going to swivel the left leg all the way up to the front of the mat, swivel or step, whatever you'd like to call it. Good. Bend and straighten that left leg a few times. Let's get into the hamstrings. Let's bend into the hips, that ankle mobility in and out. Also take whatever recovery you need with your right arm. So your right hand.

So maybe turn your, your hand over, make a fist. Good body starting to warm up a little bit in and out. Okay. Now you can stay here or curl the back toes and lift that right knee. Situate your right hand in a way where your wrist feels okay. Left hand behind the head. Now it's a combination here. You're going to bring the left elbow down toward the ground. Pull up through your belly. Strong core. Inhale up and open. So it's a spinal twist, a rotation here. As you're pulling your left elbow back, you feel the strength across your back ignite. Good. Now exhale the left elbow down toward the ground, toward your right forearm. Get the puffiness of the upper back happening. And then two, five. Exhale down. Inhale up. Activate all the necessary muscles. Up. Exhale down. Inhale up. Now left arm reaches up and you get open here. Super nice. Left hand down to the ground. Now step the right foot up. Out. So left foot is out wide. Right foot is out wide. Turn your toes off the mat and drop down into a little squat pose. Good. A little lean to the right, a little lean to the left. Good job. Now bring the arms out in front of you and press all the way up to stand. Squeeze the buttocks up top. Let's add in just a couple squats here. 10 squats. Inhale, lower down. Try to keep your body as upright as you can. Pelvis neutral right there. Drive through your heels and two. Exhale, three. What's nice about this little portion here is you're not on your arms, you're not on your wrist, but we are working on good mobility and strength through the lower body, through your core. Good. That's four. Exhale, five. And what you can do to support our kind of like overall physical intention is when you come up, squeeze the glutes, your core, but like open up the body quite a bit here. And then it's work time here and open. Let's do four more. Good. Last one. Nice. Keep the feet where they are. Bring the arms overhead, big stretch. Exhale down to a gentle little squat. Hands to the mat. Walk back into your downward dog. Land here for a moment. Nicely done. Nicely done. Come to plank pose. Breathe in. On your exhale, core yourself down. Point your toes back. Lift your chest. Cobra. Upward dog, somewhere in between. All the way back to child's pose. Slide up. Another opportunity. Curl the back toes so your heels are a little higher and more accessible. Take the tailbone. Get those glutes engaged. Okay. This is so, so, so important. The position of your pelvis, the activation of your thighs, your butt, your core. Right hand to the right heel. Left arm reaches up. Stretch. Oh, good. Left hand to the left heel. Reach the right arm up. Stretch and open yourself here. Right hand down. Left arm high. Keep working, right? So the way I look at it is almost all of these poses to the left side that give you the sensation of freedom, of liberation, of stretch, have got to have a supporting cast, right? And that's this whole scene right here. Both hands to the heels. If that works for you, if not, keep going with the singles. Reach back. Adjust the pelvis. Glutes, quads, core. Push the hips forward and pull up on your heels. Lift the chest. Open the throat. Good. Pause here. Make sure you can breathe with control. Come back up. Boom. Child's pose to get the recovery in the back round out the back. So good. Stretch the arms out. Beautiful. Come forward into the table. Let's shoot the right leg back. So you've come in first to that little side plank we do. Slide the left foot over, ground the right foot, but maybe bring that right foot back behind you more than you would normally for the side plank. So you get the stretch, the stretchiness. Reach the right arm and plug that into the right toes or the entire right foot. Open up your chest so we can get that back bend kind of shoulder opening sensation.

Your breath is a huge factor in like feeling awesome in the practice. So make sure you just keep checking in with that. Okay. Right hand to the right hip. Now get a little bit more like right foot is on the right or is in the center of the mat. Keep sliding the left foot over those. So you have some balance. Okay. Lift the right leg up. Point your right toes. This is all to access the quad, the glute and your hip. Point your right hip down just a little bit. Lower the right toes down and exhale lift. And we're exhaling. Lifting exhale, lift, exhale, lift. So you exhale on the exertion on the effort and see if you can target the glutes. Good job. Six, five, four, three, two, one. Keep it lifted. Point through the toes. Now bend that right leg. Grab hold of the foot. Draw your right heel toward your seat. As you're doing so, you're pushing your hips forward and pulling the right shoulder back and hopefully your left wrist is okay. You got to take care of that if it's not open up the chest. Good. Push the right foot into the right hand. So you get a little more leg strength action there. Okay, good. Release the right foot back out. Keep it lifted and then step the right foot all the way up to the right side of the mat. Take a wrist recovery. Turn the hand over or turn it the other way or roll it or come onto your fist. Okay. Got to take care of the hands, the wrists, and then the same thing. So what we're going to do is keep the left hand down, right hand on the thigh. Just kind of dynamically, dynamic flow, come in and out just to kind of juice up the hamstring, your right knee, your ankle. You can drop your hip from left to right, right to left. Good. Spacious in the breath. Curl the back toes. Lift that left knee. Okay. A little bit of work here, but work that's so valuable in your upper back, your core. Okay. So the right hand behind the head. Let's all start. Let's start by bringing the right elbow up first and rotate. This is a place for you to stay for a few moments to feel your shoulder blades are drawn toward one another. There's scapula or upper back stability here. Now you're going to do the opposite. Bring the right elbow down toward the ground and over towards your left forearm. And now you get rounded in the back like cat. That's the exhale.

Up and open strong. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Let's do two more. That's five or six. If it's six bonus up and open, bring the right arm, bring it up high, make it a little more glorious. Reach the right hand back, open up the chest, that beautiful combination of strength and stretch both hands to the mat, maybe up on the fingertips, step the left foot up to meet the right little squat action again. So drop on down. Look forward, chest up, push through the heels and remember like this is 10, 10 squats. But every time you come up, squeeze the glutes, quads, glutes, core engaged and open up. So it might look like something like this. Lower. Inhale. Lower. Inhale. Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Good. Walk the feet back toward hip width. Same kind of activation you've got in your glutes. The position of your pelvis is slightly tucked, but more neutral. Okay. That way you're just not kind of like forward tilted like this, right? Low back is going to kill you over time. Boom, out of the low back into your core. Now reach the arms up overhead, breathe in, breathe out all the way down into your forward fold. Half lift, stay here. Straighten the right leg, bend the left, twist and rotate open to the right. I'd be cheating you and myself if I didn't add these rotations every single time. Bend the right, straighten the left wedge that right arm into the right leg, lengthen your spine to twist and rotate. Good. Back down one more time to the right. So bend the left, straighten the right, wedge the left arm in, lift and lengthen the chest and spine and rotate. Bring it back down, switch sides. Bring it on down. Good. All the way down into a forward fold back into downward facing dog. Beautiful. Okay. We're going to add a couple standing poses, some balance as well. But before we do that, bring the knees down one more time. Okay. This is that scorpion tabletop maneuver. So you're going to lift with your right leg, bend, lift it like you're trying to push your right heel up to the sky. And then you're going to reach that right foot back behind you. And as you're doing so, you're opening the right hip and you're coming up onto your right fingertips and then eventually leaving the right fingertips and stretching. It's similar to our side stretch that we went to, but it's another way to access it. Good. Right hand down, right knee down, lift the left leg up and open and kind of like just step it back behind you and reach the left arm up. So this supports our intention to open up this space. Here's what I'm getting at. Back down into your table, into your downward facing dog. Little effort here. Plank pose, breathe in on the breath out, push into downward dog and stabilize downward dog with just the left arm as you reach your right fingertips back toward your left toes. Plank pose, get that strength and stability working. Left fingertips to right toes, strength and stability and support through that right arm. Good job. Back through plank. Exhale, right fingertips to left toes. Inhale plank. Exhale, left fingertips to right toes. Stretch strength. Good. Back into downward dog. Lift your right leg up. Keep it bent to open that hip up. Open the right hip I mean. Come up onto your right fingertips and splay open that right side a little bit more. Okay, this is going to be similar theme to where we were before. It's that wild thing. So as an option, stay here or bring that right foot back behind you. Shoot the left leg out long and strong. Safe in the left arm and left shoulder and reach up through the hips and through that right arm. Lower the hips down. Swivel back over to your downward dog with the right leg high. One time need a nose. Inhale high and then step the right foot through. Spin the back heel down. Warrior one. Good. Root to rise. I've heard that a zillion times but it just makes sense, right? Root down through the feet. Strong through the legs. Adjust it in the palm. You know, give you that reminder. Straighten the front leg. This reduces the pressure in the pelvis. Extend your tailbone down. That's going to get that long stretch through the left side. You can even stay right there and go, oh, left arm high. You didn't say that, but I'm going to try that because that feels nice. You can bend the right leg.

So there's your warrior one with a little side stretch. Take both arms high. Maybe even interlace your fingers. Index finger stays long. Reach the arms high but soften the shoulders down into your back. Open up the chest. Reach the arms out nice and wide. Palms facing forward. Let's get this whole upper body just like open. Back to neutral. Straighten the front leg. Shorten your stance a tiny bit. Turn your left toes forward. Put a little mellow bend in your right leg. Push your hips back. Lead with your chest forward and we'll take a little pyramid pose. Hands down to the shin, the thigh, the shin, the ankle, or a block over the floor as you deliberately stretch the right leg. Okay. Bend back into your right leg. Use your legs and core to rise back up. Okay. Now the transition here is to come up to balance on that right leg. Lifting the left knee nice and high. So focus. Perfect. Take the left ankle over your right thigh, right around where your knee is. Standing kind of flying pigeon kind of action, right? Pigeon chair. Point your left toes forward. Strengthen that left knee. Then as you are interested, if you can, push your hips back. Reach your arms forward. Keep the core engaged. And you might even drop your pelvis forward more to encourage more stretch in that left hip. So notice if you can, with all the things you've got to focus on right now, if you went to tuck your tailbone, it would minimize the stretch. If you go to send your tailbone up and back, it definitely increases the stretch.

Bring the hands to heart. Breathe. Oh, thank you, window door. Okay. Now with control, come back up. Lift that left knee nice and high and step it down. Take the arms overhead. Breathe in. Put a closure to that side. Done. That's it. That side is done. So time to move on, right? No holding on unless you felt really good about yourself and take a breath there and say, yay. Exhale, forward down, forward and down, forward, forward. Breath in, half lift. Breath out. Walk yourself back into plank pose. Set up the best possible alignment for you to lower down. I'm going to pull up through upward dog. Good. You can go through cobra if you'd like. Open up the chest. Let's bring the knees down. Push back into child's pose. Slide up into that camel position. Again, curl the toes, reach both arms overhead, but reach the right hand back. Grab hold of that right heel. Lift the left arm nice and high. Keep drawing that tailbone down. Work the necessary muscles. Switch sides. Right arm reaching up, lightly grazing the left heel or pulling up on the heel. Good. Back to neutral. At the palms, table, downward dog. Okay. Similar routine on this side. You're going to ground that right foot, lift the left leg, bend it to open up the hip. Good. You can come up on the left fingertips if you'd like to access more space. Loosen up the neck. Same thing. Stay here because it feels like enough, right? So make that choice. Bend the right leg a little bit. Step the left foot back behind you. Shoot that right leg straight out. And then wild thing. Get all wild here. Push up through the hips, reach the left arm up and back behind you. And again, this supports the, let's open the upper body up, the heart, loosen up the neck, open the shoulders and strengthen the shoulders and back. I like to lower the hips a little bit. Slide the right foot back over, lift the left leg up.

Good. Exhale. Knee toward the nose one time. Get a good, powerful exhale there. Inhale back up and exhale. Step the left foot through back foot down. Warrior one rising. Still fully committed to the practice here. So do a little quick check-in, right? How's your breath? Okay. Get that back into flow. And then once you have your breathing right, situate your feet in a way that feel grounded, rooted, strong. Straighten that front leg, adjust the pelvis, pubic bone lifts, tailbone draws down. You start to feel that right side, right hip open. Maybe you take that right arm, reach it up. Stay there or bend the left leg. Now you have a warrior one with a little side stretch, side bend, and then back up to neutral both hands overhead, interlace your fingers, index fingers long. And you've got this beautiful, powerful pose here. Still working that tailbone down, grounding through the feet, lengthening through your spine, bracing through the core. Reach up, open up the chest. Take those arms out as an option. Open, open, open. Palms facing forward. Look up if you'd like. And then hands to the heart, straighten your front leg, shorten your stance a little bit. You're pointing both sets of toes forward because where your toes point, your hips will point. We want our hips to point forward like two headlights in a car. On the exhale, push down, walk down through those feet, hinge at the hips so your back stays strong and straight and you fold forward and down to your level. Meaning level, not meaning like on beginner or on expert, it's more like to your degree of stretch to the degree in which you can still maintain breath and good alignment. Bend that left leg, come back up. We're going to move into that standing balancing pose. Okay. So left leg is getting a little cooked, but let's see what we can do. Find your focal point, your breath, lift off of that right leg, lift the right knee nice and high. Put a bend in that left knee. Take your right ankle over your left knee thigh area, point through the right toes to protect your right knee. Stay here and just play around with like pushing the hip open or take those arms out in front of your hands to your heart and push the hips back. Remember maybe sending your tailbone, pitching your pelvis forward to exaggerate or get deeper stretch in that pigeon side, that right side. Nice. So a lot going on here, right? Some like mobility, flexibility, balance, lot of good things. Okay. Let's exit back up, try to exit nice and smooth, right knee high and right knee or right foot down. Shake out the legs for a moment. Let's take a couple of side bends together. Okay. We're going to come into another balancing pose, but it might feel nice just to slide the left hand down your left leg and reach the right arm high and then the right arm down the left arm high. Nicely done. Back up to center. I'll rejoin the front of my mat front ish. We're going to go for a dancer pose. Okay. So if you know that this pose right here, something we're going to build into this, if you know, that's not for you, you have two things. You can come into tree pose or you can take that left heel, grab hold of the foot, take the heel toward the seat. You're still balancing and you're getting a lovely stretch through the left quad and hip. Okay. Relax Rob. It's going to be okay. Sometimes you just feel like you're like going and going and going, talking, talking, talking. So here we go. Let's ground, find your focal point. Balance is important. Let's work on it. So bend the left leg, take hold of first start off with taking the outside of the left foot, pull the left heel toward your left seat. Try to draw the knees in line with one another and you're going to want to draw the tailbone down for this part. Okay. Now again, a lot going on here, right? Huge bend in the left leg, uh, balance. Now, if you want to go further into like, you know, the dancer approach, turn the hand on the inside of that left foot. That way your left shoulder opens a little bit. Oops. Okay. Bend your right leg a little bit and then take the right fingertips at the center of your chest, just to keep that lift in the chest as you lean forward and push the left foot into the left hand. Good, good, good. Try to keep the hips relatively square. And then once you feel like you've got that, reach the right arm forward, kick into the hand as much as you can and reach out through that right arm. Beautiful. And down. Good job. Reach the arms overhead. Breathe in and exhale clear. That side is done. Okay. Same option. Grab hold of the right foot on the outside. Hold the right heel toward the seat. Get that stretch through the quad and wherever else you might feel it. Start to really focus. Get your intention, right? Your, your drishti, that steady focal point and then turn the right hand on the inside of that foot. That way your right arm opens into the shoulder a little bit more. Okay. Stay there because that just might feel like enough or put a little bend in your left leg and kick into that right foot, right foot into the right hand, left hand to the chest to stay lifted, extended in the spine, and then maybe reach that left arm out. Good. Keep challenging yourself safely and release. Good. So I'll face you. I'm going to take my feet kind of wide ish, right? Not hip width and not super wide hands on the tops of the thighs. And I feel like this one, whenever I get a little bendy and twisty, this is helpful to bring it back. So take the right shoulder, keep the right arm straight, right shoulder forward and look over your left shoulder and push, push, push your right kind of thigh away from you and then switch sides. Now you'll bend your right leg or right arm straight in the left arm and draw the left shoulder down in the direction of your right toes and look over that right shoulder. Let's try it on the other side and try it on the other side. Back up to center and okay. Back to the front of the mat. Let's continue here. Bring the arms overhead. Inhale, exhale all the way down into your forward fold. Stretch. Get a half lift here. Breathe in and then hold a forward fold for a few breaths. Pull the belly up and in, soft bend in the knees, pitch the pelvis forward, grab hold of opposite elbows, loosen up the neck, the hands that are holding onto the elbows kind of just add some weight to pull the shoulders out of the back a little bit. Okay. Bring the arms down, lock your feet back into downward facing dog pose and we'll do a final down dog here.

Notice how your body might feel right about now. You just kind of bend your knees and throw your hips from side to side and continue that investigation of downward facing dog and bring the knees back on down to the mat. Take a cat cow, inhale cow pose, exhale into your cat. Okay. Back into a flat back. Come on down to your seat like so. Okay. So more of this. Okay. Let's see if we can continue this. The right hand comes down back behind you. Okay. Fingertips pointing back, feet about as wide as the mat or a slightly more narrow than that up to you. Then what you're going to do is make sure number one, your right shoulder feels okay, but you're going to lift your hips up and reach the left arm up and back behind you. So when you're ready, lift the hips, press the hips to the ceiling and lift that left arm up and back behind you. A lot of work in that right arm. I get it. Again, this gives you that openness in the shoulders, the chest. Over to the other side, left hand back behind you, fingertips pointing back. You're going to thrust those hips up and reach the right arm up and back behind you. Great for the hips. And you're still kind of working, not kind of, but totally working the tailbone. Shoot it through the knees. Engage those glutes. Use your quads and your core so you can have a successful experience here. Nice. And bring it down. Same position in the legs, both hands back behind you now. Fingertips pointing back. Let's see what it feels like now to lift the hips and lower. Turn the fingers forward so you have a sense of, you know, the completely different sensation between fingers forward and back. Open the shoulders first. That might be enough for you. Lift the hips. This one's harder for me for sure. Lift the hips, open those shoulders and bring her down. Okay. Roll down to your back. It's a lot of work, right? It's a lot of work. What we've done so far. So as you land on your back, it's the first time we've really been here and we've done a lot of back and spine movement. Let yourself kind of chill here for a few moments and windshield wiper your knees from side to side. When you bring your legs over to the right, reach your left arm up and back behind you. When you bring your legs bent wide, get that hip mobility over to the left, reach your right arm up and back behind you. Good. Back over to center. Bring the feet underneath your knees, palms facing down or up, maybe up here. Lift your hips and walk your shoulder blades under, but don't interlace your fingers. Okay. So walking your shoulders and shoulder blades closer, you get again, oh, upper body open space, but let's work a little bit in our hamstrings and our glutes. Walk your feet forward a few inches, six inches or so, and then just come onto the heels only. Okay. So you're maintaining this upper stretch in the upper body. You're going to lower your butt down a little bit and then push through the heels to lift the hips up. So squeeze the butt. Ten. Exhale. Nine. So as you're lifting up, you're driving through the heels, squeezing the butt and extending your hips. Eight. Exhale. Seven. Six. Good. Five. Get a little tone in the booty. Four. Good job. Three. Two. And one. Stay right there and hold. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Draw that tailbone through same position as you would be in that camel pose. And then undo the shoulder blades and shoulders and roll down to your back. Land. Take your right ankle over your left thigh. Push your right hip open gently and then flirt with lifting your left foot up, grabbing hold of your left hamstring area behind your knee or yeah, behind your, uh, your left calf, or grab hold of the shin, whatever's more available and keeps your head and shoulders down or allows your head and shoulders come down and then pull a little bit so we get a little pigeon, pigeon stretch. Maybe it'll assist in any low back tenderness. So see how your right leg is bent like this. What I want to explore here is if you take hold of your left foot, the outside of your left foot with your left hand, right hand on the right thigh knee area, then extend your left leg out, keep this angle. But now maybe you have a little bit more of an ability to keep the head and shoulders down, but actually like get more stretch in that outer right hip. And then if you try to bring your knee in line with like the center of your body a little bit, you may even feel more stretch.

And with that left hand on that right foot, you can really keep that foot flex to protect that right knee. Beautiful. Now see what it feels like to either keep the hand on the right knee and open it out until like a half happy baby hip opener or take the right hand up on the outside of the right foot for more of, you know, that typical hand placement for happy babies. Now you're accessing more inside the hip. How is your breath? How's your day going? Okay. Safely kind of undo that position. Maybe give it one little squeeze in and then bring both feet back down. Take your left ankle over your right thigh. Good. Lift the right foot. Maybe take that left hand first on that inner left thigh, right? Open the hip. Work on just that alone can be really nice, especially if you have super tight hips. Exhale, push the hip open. Next option, right foot lifts, hold to the hamstring of the right leg or the right shin right below the knee, and then gently pull the legs in towards you. Place the head back down and the shoulders ish, but just make sure your spine is pretty grounded. Bring the right foot down. Notice the angle you have here with that leg. That's the pigeon angle, right? So left hand on the left knee thigh, right hand on the left foot. Point your left toes up. Protect that knee. Extend your right leg out and then pull that leg shape in toward the body. If you want a different sensation in that outer left hip glute, pull that left knee more toward the middle and then in. I will stretch more glute. Good. Stay here or rotate that hip open, holding onto the shin right below the knee or grabbing hold of the outside of the left foot, tracking that foot up over the knee. This is just kind of just another place to hold it. Make sure you can take those full breaths, not forcing the breath, but there's space. So if you wanted to breathe fully and evenly, you can because the pose isn't preventing you from doing that. Bring it back over towards center. Hug the left leg in nice and tight to the body. Hug the right leg in nice and tight to the body. Take the knees over to the right, releasing the low back. Left arm reaches out wide, palm facing up. You come back to center and see if you can get some release in the left side.

And the right arm out to counter pose. This one still, right? We still have this upper area that we're continuing to make space for. If you sit for long periods of time, your shoulders round, neck gets tight. So even a pose like this is really helpful in resetting that. You come back over to center, bring the feet down to the mat, draw the bottoms of your feet together, let your knees open up out wide, kind of passively for a few moments. Place your hands on your belly right below your ribs where you can feel the action of that diaphragm. So when you breathe in, you feel the belly press into the hands and when you breathe out through the nose, that area relaxes. Breathe in through the nose, expand. Breathe out, relax. Breathe in, expand. Breathe out, relax. Breathe in, expand. Breathe out, let go and relax. Stretch your legs out. Make sure you're comfortable. You can keep that lovely breath awareness going where you breathe in, you push the belly gently into the hands. When you breathe out, the belly relaxes away from the hands and you gradually soften through the breathing, gradually let go and allow your body to relax and kind of undo some of the work we've done. Some of the tight muscles that were needed to engage and hold the shapes together. Trust that they got their work done and now they can relax. You can relax. I'm not sure where you are. I'm practicing right now or what the day has in store for you, but if there's anything while you're relaxing, anything worth contemplating, a certain quality you want to move into the rest of the day with, finish the day, start the day, use this quiet time for that or just let the mind float, your body relax. Please don't feel obligated to come up to sit, but there is a closing that has to happen to honor the 60 minutes for you most importantly. So if you want to join me, you can come up to sit, close the eyes nice and tall. And maybe if you do join me in a seat after we close, you can stay here and kind of like pull from your bag of tricks of different poses that would feel nice for you. Or maybe you're really primed and ready for a meditation, right? Just sit and breathe and acknowledge your surroundings. Just one moment at a time. Otherwise, take a deep breath, reach the arms overhead, pull all that gratitude, patience, contentment right here and pull it right back into the center of you. Namaste, peace, blessings. Have a beautiful day. It's been my pleasure, you know, offering this. So thank you.