Unbound Breath

My friends, hello, welcome. I'm Sudia. This is Guided by Breath. If you're a returning customer, welcome. I'm so glad you're here, truly. If you're new, welcome also. I hope everything is well where you are. Here in the Berkshires, it's raining, which is nice and poetic, but also we're sort of deep in the turning of the season. So explosion of fall colors and all the rest of it, and I've really been enjoying that. Yeah, hope things are good where you are, whether the leaves are changing colors or not. Today's class is called Unbound Breath. So my Instagram handle is Breath is a Language. Breath is a language, right? And my philosophy is that the language of breath is actually the mother tongue of the body. So we commune with breath to give the body the gift of being spoken to in its language. But I find, too, that our perception of breath can be quite reductive and simplistic. We think inhale and exhale, and that's all there is to it. But actually, there are so many ways for the breath to express itself to the body, and we're going to explore some of those ways today. So we'll start in a seated position, give you a couple of moments to arrive there if you're not there already. You can sit however you like. I happen to be choosing easy seat today. I'm not sitting on top of anything, but you're welcome to do that. Find your seat. And then once you've found a seat that's comfortable for you, that's balanced, sit well, so sitting bones rooted into the support underneath it, spine is extended, chest is lifted, head floating on top of the spine, and you can soften your eyes close. Rest your hands on your knees or your thighs. Relax your shoulders. Maybe taking a couple of audible exhales just to arrive in the physical body, arrive in the space. And the beginning of your practice is like this portal to practice, to the self. So you take your time with the arrival and it's careful, it's clear, but it's also natural, and it's a matter of stripping away, right? So the eyes close, you've taken away any visual stimuli, and now we can use the mind's eye just to do a little scan of the body, just observing from your feet to your head what's going on. There's anything you can do to find even a tiny bit more comfort in your seat, you do whatever that is. Soften your face, relax your brow and the eyes, the jaw. Soften the thighs. And then turn your attention to your breath. Just watching the inhales and watching the exhale. Breathing in and out through the nose just naturally. And letting the breath do whatever it's doing. I read somewhere that like, you know, the breath is like a, like a horse. And in order to come nearer to the horse, so you can like commune with the horse, you don't chase the horse around the field, you stand in the center of the field with an apple and the horse comes to you. For the next few cycles of breath, let's just do a little very simple three-part breathing. So as you inhale, you feel your belly expand. Feel the ribs expand. And feel the chest expand, maybe feel the clavicles rising, the collar bones. And then as you exhale, reverse. Feel the belly contract, and the ribs contract, and then the chest falls. Do that a few more times, just on your own observing. Be subtly lengthening the breath so you can really like attune to this three-part breath. And do that a couple more times. Just noticing each of the three parts as you move through those parts of the body. Noticing the pause at the top of the inhale. And then with that three-part exhale, belly contracts, ribs contract, chest falls. You feel that pause at the bottom of the exhale. And now rather than imagining, you know, that we've split the breath into three parts, allow that fullness of the three-part breath to exist, but soften transitions between these parts of the body. And then please bring your hands to your ribs. So fingertips wrapping forward, thumbs wrapping behind, soften your shoulders as you do that, and breathe, just breathe. And feel the tremendous expansion of your ribs with your breath as you breathe in, and the tremendous contraction of the ribs with the breath as you breathe out. So just a little sensory awareness with the hands on the ribs. We are reminded immediately of just how much the breath moves the body. Just how connected body is to breath. And as we observe like this, you know, we watch and we witness as the body is spoken to in its mother language of breath. Bring your hands to your body, one hand on your heart, one on your belly. Then bring your palms to prayer at the center of your chest. We're actually going to do a little tiny, little resonant, imagining that you're chanting this om for your inner refuge, for the inside of your body. So you take a nice big inhale, breathe in, and then exhale your breath. And then inhaling for your own. And feeling, experiencing the silence. Rest your hands to your thighs, open your eyes and lift your head up. Roll your shoulders back and down. Hello. Welcome again. Release your arms to your sides and start to breathe in. Just raise your arms with your breath. And then as you exhale, you release your arms. Right. So this whole series, the whole point of this being guided by breath is you are moving from a place, and please keep going, moving from a place of, you know, practice as performance to practice as reverence, reverence for what? For whatever you like. I like to revere my breath in my body, and the sort of beautiful communication that happens between them. And how, you know, they're both these vehicles that I can ride in to live life on the outside. Take another breath in. Inhale, lifting up. This time as you exhale, lower your arms just to shoulder height. Turn your palms to face up and just pause here. I love doing this. Feel. You can close your eyes for a few moments. Lift your sternum, the center of your chest up slightly. So you're doing a tiny little upper back bend. Palms are rolling up. Biceps are rolling up. And feel. Get broad across your chest. This is like a, there's a, I think she's a sociologist.

I forget her name, but she might call this a power pose. And you can feel a sense of your own power as you do this. It's like our, this is your full wingspan, right? So I'd like us to do a little experiment. So we're exploring the full range of breath language. We're going to do a little bit of what's called Kapalabhati breath today. Maybe you're familiar with it. If not, we'll simplify it. It's a forced exhale. So you're breathing in and out through your nose and it looks like this. So you take a nice big breath in and you're doing these little forest exhales in out through the nose and those inhales will arise naturally. So we don't want to overthink it. We could, we could have a little intellectual discussion, but please just keep reaching through your fingers. And I want you to take 20 rounds of Kapalabhati breath. But before you do that, if you're in Sukhasana, extend your legs and then change the crossing of your legs. Feet are flexed. So pelvis is balanced. And then let's try the breath of fire Kapalabhati breathing. So you just inhale and 20 rounds on your own as you approach 20, maybe from 17 on, you'll start to slow the breath and then we'll return to natural breathing. So you inhale and then you'll begin. You take a nice full inhale after you've ended and then let's bring hands to the body. Close your eyes for a moment and you just feel just witness. Notice the quality of your attention, quality of breath, connection between body and breath, just living inside of your experience. Release your arms and let's come to tabletop position. So coming onto all fours and pausing. So wrists underneath the shoulders, knees underneath the hips and let's walk the hands forward. One handprint tuck your toes under, hover your knees and then slowly make your way to a downward facing dot. And once you're there, bending one knee and then the other. So pedaling through your feet. And then come to stillness in your dog pose. Your dog pose can be as wide as you like. Maybe you step the feet a little wider part, hands are shoulder width or wider. My fingers are dialed a little bit outward. So middle fingers are pointing towards the front corners of the mat. Now take a few breaths here. My knees are bent pretty deeply, but you explore and you see what works for you, what allows you to have a nice spacious experience, what allows breath to move through you in a way that is supportive of your experience right now. And then as you next begin to inhale, lower your knees to the floor, release your belly, spread your collarbones, open the chest. As you exhale, child's pose. Begin to inhale, come forward to cow pose, keep your neck long. And as you exhale, downward facing dog, begin and inhale, respond by lowering the knees. We release the belly and spread the collarbones to facilitate the vastness of the breath. And the exhale comes, we bow to that breath with a child's pose. Inhale, come forward, cow. Exhale, down dog. Inhale, cow. Exhale, child's pose. This time as you inhale, please stand on your knees, lift your torso, lift your arms up, exhale to child's pose. This time we'll inhale and come forward to baby cobra. So coming forward onto your belly, lift the center of your chest, the back of your skull. Exhale, lower down, press back to child's pose. We'll do that series of movements again. So the inhale rises and we rise with the body. The exhale comes and we honor that descending quality with the child's pose. The inhale comes and we respond by coming forward to baby cobra, lifting the chest so we can take the rest of that breath in. The exhale comes, we lower down and press back to child's pose. Again like that, once more inhale rising up. Exhale, child's pose. Bowing to the breath. Inhale, sliding forward, lifting the chest up, receiving that breath in and then exhaling to child's pose and pausing for a moment. Relax the arms, relax the head and the neck. And just staying in this experience of breath-body connection. Noticing how the body and maybe even the mind are responding to the vocabulary we've been using with the breath. As you next begin to inhale, you'll stand on your knees, lift your torso up, lift your arms up. As you exhale, you'll come to a child's pose. Bring the hands behind the back. You can clasp the wrist. Inhale, stand on the knees, lift the arms up. Ooh, I hit my wall decor. Exhale, forward fold to child's pose. Inhale, standing, lifting up. Exhale, bowing to the breath, child's pose. Write a few more like that and I'll let you move with the pace of your breath. So transitioning, you know, if you haven't already, moving away from practice as performance to practice as reverence for whatever it is you revere. Maybe it's just life itself. Maybe it's the turning of the season. Maybe it's the way like a loved one calls your name or laughs. Maybe it's the sensation that's arising in you now as you just honor connection between breath and body. The next time you're in child's pose, pause there and let's actually extend the arms forward and rest the head on the floor. Relax your elbows and breathe experience witness. Crawl your hands forward and then drag yourself forward to tabletop. So returning to tabletop position. So you walk your knees a little forward, wrists are underneath the shoulders and then let's do it. So we do this a lot. Someone commented with what she thought we should call this, but you call it what you like and you let us know and maybe we'll adopt it. But you're just moving through your joints in this tabletop position, right? So we move, you know, not just in the two planes forward and backward and just side to side. There's some, there's a rotational element, right? A roundness curve of linearity to get nerdy about it, about the way the body moves. So explore that and feel that and notice how, notice how the mind responds. Notice if there's resistance. Notice if the mind is not wanting to be exploratory and can you encourage exploration. Come to center, return to center and pause and just feel. And as you inhale, cow pose, tuck your toes, release your belly, spread your collarbones, exhale, cat, inhale, cow, and then exhale, cat. And you keep going at the pace of your breath, but I'd like you now for the next few passes to try to find some, um, make the cat and the cow one movement. Can you wave the spine? Can you undulate the spine and it's challenging. Sounds easy. Just make the one movement. No big deal. Actually, it's, it's, it's a big deal, but it's a beautiful big deal. So you try to undulate the spine and I'm trying to talk and do it at the same time and I'm having difficulty. So I'll be quiet and I'll let you explore as I explore. It might be a little easier to keep the feet in one position so you can focus on just the center of your body. And then come to neutral table top position. Welcome. This time as you inhale, cow pose, so tuck the toes, release your belly, open the chest, pause here, stay here. If you can hover the knees away from the floor, really spread the collarbones, reach the heart forward, breathe in as you breathe out, untuck your toes, curve your spine, tuck your chin. If it's possible, hover your knees away from the floor and you keep moving like that. So you start to inhale and find sort of the extreme end of the spectrum between cow and cat. So hovering the knees and it's just a different, different way to explore these two shapes and not just the two shapes, but the spectrum of movement that exists between them. So a few more passes like that. And our focus now is on the ends of the spectrum and taking the movements to the very ends of the spectrum and sort of playing the edges this way. Do one more pass of extreme cow and then extreme cat. And then come to neutral table top position. Interesting, interesting work for my body. You let me know how it works for you. And then step your right foot back and lift the leg up, lift the leg up, let the toes point down to the floor. So hips are neutral, lift your inner right thigh up to the ceiling, reach your left arm forward, find balance in the torso, draw your front ribs up, broaden your back body as you inhale, lengthen. As you exhale, either elbow to knee or hand to the floor and knee to your nose. Exhale, inhale, ride the full wave of the breath to lengthen. Exhale, ride the entire wave of the exhale to contract. We'll do that. Inhaling to lengthen, exhaling to draw the knee and the elbow towards each other or hand to the floor and knee to your nose. And twice more like that. Exhale to contract. Inhale to lengthen, lengthen with a full breath and once more. Exhale, draw the knee in, perhaps the elbow. Great. Inhale, lengthen. And then hand to the floor and knee to the floor. And maybe a little, little organic movement once you've arrived, return to tabletop position. And then let's try the other side. So you step your left foot back, you lift the foot up, leading with the inner thigh. So we keep, the, the pelvis neutral. As you inhale, reach the right arm forward, lengthen. Broaden your back body as you exhale, either elbow to knee or hand to the floor and knee to your nose.

And you try, inhale, lengthen. Exhale, contract to ride the full wave. Exhale. Inhale, lengthen. Exhale, contract. Inhale, lengthen. Exhale, contract. Inhale, lengthen. And once more, exhale, contract. Inhale, lengthen. And then hand to the floor and knee to the floor. Move. Make circles with your hips. So going in one direction, circles can be as large or as small as you like. And of course using it as, you know, as a, it's a line of inquiry, these movements that we do. So moving from performance to, to reverence and curiosity. And then let's come to center, walk the hands forward, tuck your toes under, downward facing dog, lift your hips up and back, pause. And then very weirdly, as weirdly as possible, please start to walk yourself up to the top of your mat. Maybe moving your elbows, maybe the pelvis rotates a little bit, whatever you like, whatever you don't like. Soften your knees, spill the pelvis forward, release the crown of your head forward and just pausing in Uttanasana for a moment. And then with incredibly soft knees, you walk your hands up your legs, coming to Uttasana Mountain Pose. And arriving, softening your knees and actually just gently bouncing through the knees. So we deepen our connection to the floor below or the earth below. And then come to stand in, in Uttasana Mountain Pose. As you inhale, lift your arms up in a reverential way. And as you exhale, bow with that same spirit. We do that a couple more times. Inhale, lifting up. Exhale, softening the knees and folding forward. Inhale, lifting up. Exhale, folding forward and pausing. And I'll let you do that a couple more times on your own. Reverence rather than performance. The next time you inhale, the arms are lifted up. As you exhale, draw your hands down the center line of your body and pause. Bring your hands on to your body. One hand on the heart, one on the belly, and you take a few breaths there. Great. Release your arms. Shake your arms out a little bit. Shake your body up. Shake your life up. Or is it just me that's doing that? Okay. And feel that echo of the shaking afterwards. So you find a little stillness. You can feel that. Well, I'll let you feel it. I won't describe it for you. Pause. Inhale. This time, reach your arms forward and up. Exhale. Extend your arms to that power pose, right? So we're standing as we do it. Let the knees be a little bit soft. Turn your pinky sides of your hands a little more up to the ceiling. So you're doing like a little tiny upper back bend. Sternum lifts up towards your chin. You can look forward. Let's raise the arms slightly up so there may be more towards a 45 degree angle. And let's do a little bit of Kapalabhati while standing and soften your knees. So 20 rounds again. So remember, it's a forced exhale. You're breathing in and out through your nose. No overthinking. If it gets confusing or strange, you just breathe normally. So begin. Inhale. Release your arms. Pause. Hands on your body. Close your eyes. A little deep body listening. Release your arms. Even raise your arms up honoring the quality of that inhale. As you exhale, you forward fold. Inhale to a prepare pose.

You can unfurl yourself. Exhale, forward fold. Inhale, sweep the arms up. Breathe and receive the breath. As you exhale this time, hinge right back forward. Inhale, lift the center of the chest. And then exhale, hands to the floor. Step yourself back to a plank pose and pause there for a little while. You can lower your knees to the floor if you like. Palms are spreading. Spread your collar bones. Try to lengthen your spine. And whether knees are lifted or not, doesn't so much matter. Choose the expression that works for your body that allows you to breathe without obstruction. That allows the mind to soften a little bit. You take a breath in and plank pose and use your exhale to lower all the way down to the floor. Once you're there, inhale, baby cobra. Exhale, lower down. Press back to downward facing dog. Once you're there, softening the knees, pausing. Chest moves towards the thighs. You're spilling pelvis forward. And see that your stance, so distance between the feet is hip swift. And as you inhale, please extend your right leg straight back. Hip height. Toes are pointing down to the floor. Take another inhale and use an exhale to step your foot forward between your hands. So maybe it's step, step, step. Maybe it's a single step. Doesn't so much matter. But let's widen the stance a little bit so you walk the right foot a little over to the right for balance. If you've got blocks, you want to use them under the hands. You can do that. And as you inhale, lengthen your spine. Exhale, draw your right hip back. Let's balance the pelvis. As you next inhale, lift your torso up. Lift your arms up. And pause in high lunge. As you next inhale, straighten your front leg.

As you exhale, re-bend the knee. We'll do that twice more. Inhale, straighten the leg. Exhale, re-bend the knee. Inhale, straighten the leg. Exhale, re-bend the knee. Lower your torso halfway. Breathe in. Reach your fingertips back behind you. Breathe out. Bring your hands to the floor and inhale to plank pose. We're moving a little bit today. Knees to the floor if you like. Take a breath in and use your exhale to lower all the way down to the floor. You breathe in to lift the center of your chest and exhale. Press yourself back on your tongue. Right, so reverence, not performance. You pause. As you next inhale, lift your left leg up. Take another breath cycle. Use an exhale to draw your knee forward. So we did this on hands and knees. And then either step, step, or step your foot between your hands. You pause, widen the stance by walking the left foot a little bit over to the left. Take a breath cycle there. Organize the pelvis. Use an inhale to come all the way up to standing and you pause there. So articulating through the back foot. The back knee can be soft if you like, if it's helpful for your lower back to create space there. As you inhale, straighten your front leg. And as you exhale, re-bend your front knee. Again like that. Inhale, straighten. Exhale, bend. Inhale, straighten. Exhale, bend the knee. And pause. Lower your torso halfway and pause. Inhale, reach your fingertips back behind you. And then exhale your hands to the floor. Step yourself back to plank poles and breathe in. Use your breath out to lower all the way down to the floor. The full length of the breath. And then please extend your arms a little forward of your shoulders. Press the tops of your feet into the floor. And as you breathe in, lift everything. Lift your legs, lift your chest, lift your arms, breathe in. Exhale, lower. Inhale, lift up. And then exhale, lower. Inhale, lift up. Exhale, lower. Inhale, lift and stay lifted. Now take a few breaths here. Back of the neck is long. Option to keep the fingertips pressing into the floor. It's a little modification. Spin your inner thighs up to the ceiling and lengthen your tailbone. And then take a few breaths wherever you are. Just breathing in and breathing out. Feeling the support of your breath. Feeling the poles of the breath, the top of the inhale, the bottom of the exhale.

And experiencing the entire vast spectrum that exists between those two poles. Feeling as an inhale tumbles right into an exhale and as an exhale tumbles into the next inhale and so on. And take one more breath in. As you exhale, stack your hands, rest your head on top of your hands and pause and shake your hips out a little bit. And then bring your hands to your lower ribs. Wow. Bring your hands to your lower ribs and press yourself back to a child's pose for a moment. I like to turn my palms up. It's a little extra reverence and that little gesture of supplication, they say, right? Humble, humble prayer, asking for something. What am I asking for? It's a secret. Let the hips be heavy and you just soften to your experience. You allow the experience and even better than witnessing, although that may be controversial to say, but even better than witnessing is feeling your experience and letting whatever feelings are there to arise and to express. Great. Crawl your hands forward. Come forward to tabletop position. Walk your hands a little forward of your shoulders. Walk your toes under, hover your knees and pause. It's like a little that extreme cow we did, right? So you're pausing here and then please spill your pelvis forward more. So making it even more extreme. Can you turn your pelvis upside down while you're in the shape? And then can you very, very slowly lift your hips up and back to downward facing dog, to your expression of downward facing dog. And once you're there, whatever movements you like. Great. And then slowly walking your hands and your feet towards each other weirdly, as weirdly as possible. And it's challenging, actually, it's challenging to move like a human animal rather than a robot. And then bring yourself up to stand in some way that works for you. It's Halloween, so it's seasonally appropriate to be doing this. And then please face forward and shake yourself out. And then let's do this thing called wood chopper. It's a lot of fun. So you separate your feet a little wider than hips width. You're going to clasp your hands, soften your knees. And I'll demonstrate before I give the explication as you inhale, you can lift up and then you're going to exhale with a ha as you, as you chop wood. Right? So here we go. I'll show you what it looks like. Inhale. Ha. Let's keep going. Ha. We'll do it three more times. Inhale. Ha. Ha. Ha. I lost count. One more. Ha. Inhale, raise your arms up and exhale, release your arms. You can heal to your feet a little closer together and just close your eyes, relax your arms and listen to you, not me. Ha. Great. Open the eyes and let's, let's keep going. Let's separate the feet. So they're about a legs distance apart. You're going to turn your right toes over to the right. Back toes turn to your knee, press your front side down. Perhaps the knee has bent to 90 degrees or not. Extend your arms. Surprise. Warrior two pose, the warrior two pose. Turn your palms to face up, feel your chest rising. As you inhale, straighten your front leg, lift your arms up, exhale, lower your arms. You're doing little power pose inside of an already powerful pose. Again, inhale, lifting up, exhale, lowering. This time as you inhale, reverse warrior. As you exhale, modified side angle pose. Inhale, reverse. Exhale, modified side angle. Inhale, warrior two this time and pause. Turn the palms to face up and pause. Great. Bring your hands to your hips, straighten your front leg, turn your toes forward and let's heel toe the feet a little closer together. We're going to take a goddess stance or a horse stance as others call it. Draw your heels in, dial them towards each other, bend your knees, try to lengthen your tailbone. They'll naturally be a little forward tilt of the pelvis. That's okay. That's normal. And then hands can come to your knees lightly and just try to lengthen the tailbone. Do a little bit of pulsing. Extend your arms out to the side, wrap your right arm underneath the left. Backs of hands can touch or palms touch. Move the hands away from your body. Lift the elbows up to shoulder height and just breathe. Receiving the breath in and feeling the support of the exhale. Release your arms. Let's switch the crossing of the arms. Left under right. Palms touch or backs of hands touch. Sit into the posture. Commit to the posture. Great. Inhale. Release your arms. Extend your arms up and take a couple of breaths there. Take another inhale and as you exhale, release. Dial your toes in. Separate your stance. Legs distance again. Let's do a little light forward folding.

Just sweep your hands back behind you. Interlace your hands. As you inhale, lift your chest. And as you exhale, hinge forward as much or as little as you like. Trying to keep your neck long. Spine long. Entire spine long. And you hinge forward to whatever degree is useful to you. And there are two ends of the spectrum. Some days it might feel useful to do very little or to have very little intensity. Other times it might be useful to find a lot of intensity. Most days somewhere in between the poles is useful. But maybe I speak only for myself. As you inhale, soften your knees. Come all the way up to standing. Release your hands and just pause. And then hands to your hips. Other side. Left toes turn forward. Back toes turn forward. Bend your knee. Press your front thigh down. So front heel is kind of bisecting your back arch. Middle of your back foot. You extend your arms. And you find yourself in warrior two. Let's flip the palms up. Close the eyes for a moment and flip the palms down slowly. Flip the palms up very slowly and feel. Can you feel a little energetic difference between the two? As you inhale, straighten your front leg. Lift your arms up. The eyes can open now. Exhale, re-bend your knee. Inhale, straighten. Exhale, re-bend the knee. Inhale, straighten the leg. Exhale, re-bend the knee. This time as you inhale, reverse warrior. And as you exhale, modified side angle pose. Inhale, reverse warrior. Exhale, modified side angle pose. Inhale, reverse warrior. Exhale this time, warrior two. Great. Straighten your front leg. Hands to your hips. Turn your toes to face the long edge of your mat. And pause there. You can soften your knees. Great. Relax your arms. And let's heel-toe step or jump the feet together. Whatever you like. Whatever feels good for you. And then remember knowing child from a few classes back. So I told you, and if you know it, please go ahead. I told you about this Instagram, this viral Instagram video. The little child who must be about two or three years old, who's dancing exactly like this. And the expression on her face is like she knows something that we don't.

But of course, you know, children know many things that we don't. We used to know those things too. And then we went to school. No offense to anyone who's into school. So you're just moving your body softly, knowingly, like the knowing child. If you Google like child dancing calmly, I think that's the kicker of a phrase that will lead you to this magical jiff of a child dancing. Walk yourself to the top of your mat. And then arrive and pause. Hands on your body. Close your eyes. As you inhale, chair pose. Utkatasana. Sitting low. Exhale and hinge forward. Interlace your hands behind your back. Inhale, bend your knees to 90 degrees. Lift your chest as you draw your hands back. Keep the chin slightly tucked. So extending the upper spine with control without snapping the hands apart. Release them. Reach the fingertips back behind you. As you inhale, sleep the arms forward. Lift the chest up. And as you exhale, forward fold. Inhale to prepare a pose. Unfurl your spine. Up so you can breathe in. Hands to the floor. Downward facing dog. Step yourself back. Soften your knees. Enjoy. And then lower your knees to the floor. Keep your toes tucked under.

Let the feet be hips width apart. Knees same distance apart. And come to stand on your knees. Padding your knees if you're feeling a little sensitive or your mat is thin or whatever reason you have to pad your knees. Please do that. And then toes are tucked under and you try to walk the toes towards your knees. Lengthen your tailbone down towards the floor. Great. And with pause here, take a few breaths here. Just like this. And already there's work happening. Right? So trying to keep the fronts of the thighs long. Turn your palms to face forward. As you inhale, just lift your arms up. Lift your chest up. As you exhale, lower your arms and lower your seat. Inhale, lift your arms up. Exhale, lower your arms and lower your seat. It's a little hinging at the pelvis. And you keep going like that. And moving. You know, there are two shapes at either end of this vinyasa. There's the lowering down. And then there's the lifting up. And between point A and point B is this beautiful spectrum to which we should be paying as much attention as we pay the two ends of the spectrum, the two poles. Inhale, lift up and pause. Bring your hands to your lower back with your fingertips pointing down. Draw your elbows towards each other. Feel your collar bones spreading. With your hands, you can encourage your tailbone to lengthen. Take a few breaths just like this. As you're ready with an inhale, you'll begin to lift your chest up towards the ceiling with a long neck. You keep drawing your elbows back so you stay broad across the collar bones. If it's accessible to you and interesting and part of your practice or not and you're looking to experiment, you can send your hands to your heels. Try to keep the neck maybe a little tuck of the chin in this variation. A little tuck of the chin. And with every inhale, can you let the chest flower open? Can you lift your sternum actually up towards the ceiling rather than your chin? Take a breath in there. As you exhale, so the exhale will come use the power of that exhale to lift both sides of your torso up. And then lower yourself down to a seat. If it's comfortable for your body, if it's okay for your ankles, you can sit on your heels. If not, you can swing the legs out in front and sit cross-legged. Let's pause in silence for a moment. Just like abiding in that echo of the backbend. Ustrasana, that was camel pose. Slowly float your eyes open and then let's swing the legs out in front of you. I'll turn this way myself. Step your feet to the floor, reach your fingertips forward. And let's scoop that tailbone underneath, lowering first the sacrum onto the floor and then the rest of the spine. So seated upright is one end of the spectrum. The other end of the spectrum is reclined on our backs. So let's explore. Let's be deep in this transition. And going slowly is what allows us, right, to have such a full experience of the range of expression. Once you are lowered down to the floor, draw your knees into your chest. You can rock a little bit along your sacrum, your lower back. Good. And then let's extend the arms either into a T shape or into a cactus shape with elbows bent back so the hands are on the floor. As you inhale, you'll stay here.

With an exhale, you'll let your knees fall to the right and turn your head to the left. Great. And inhale will come and you'll respond by coming to center so you can breathe it. And as you exhale, you'll let the knees move in the opposite direction, head in the opposite direction. So keep going like that. A few more passes like that. Inhaling to center and exhaling to twist. And in this twist, you know, deepening still the connection between body and breath. So rather than twisting and breathing, you are twisting for your breath. The movement is happening with the support of the breath, the full support of the breath. The next time you're on one side, please pause on that side. It doesn't matter how the twist looks, just be in the twist. Soften yourself. Now take a few breaths there, just resting in your experience and experiencing your experience. As you next inhale, you'll come to center.

And as you exhale, you're twisting the opposite direction and you pause there. Inhale, return to center. Great. Find a happy baby pose so you hold the outer edges of your feet, draw your knees towards the floor, but keep your lower back on the floor. Maybe you're holding the feet. Modification is to hold your calves or hold the backs of your thighs. And let's rock from side to side. And seeing if you can, I'm playing actually a little bit. I'm not just willfully rocking from side to side. I'm like coaxing my body from one side to the other and letting gravity actually draw my legs to the floor. It's kind of cool. So maybe you try that. It's really subtle. That's another thing that's always taught not always listening fully, gravity. So good to be in active conversation with gravity. Let's take half happy baby on the right side and you pause. You extend your left leg and maybe rock a little bit more onto the right side. If you'd like to extend through your knee, you can, but not a necessity. And then let's switch sides. Coming to center, extend your right leg, draw the left knee towards the floor, maybe extending through the knee or not. Great. Come back to center. Draw your knees into your chest. Inhale, reach your legs up to the ceiling, extend your arms, and then exhale, draw your knees into your chest. Inhale, lift your legs up. Exhale, draw your knees into your chest. Inhale, extend the legs and the arms. Exhale, draw the knees in. Inhale, extend the legs and the arms and pause. Reach your arms up to the ceiling, shake your legs subtly, shake your arms subtly.

You can close the eyes as you do that so you can really listen. And you just feel, can you find just a subtle but loose and supple shaking of the limbs. Draw your knees into your chest. Apanasana, lift your head and upper back away from the floor and really curl into a ball. Feel your abdominals contract in order to make this shape happen. So exploring right one end of the spectrum, and you probably have an idea of where we're going after this, but please find the end of the spectrum. Curl yourself, curl yourself as much as you can. Curl into yourself, take a breath in and with your next exhale, with incredible slowness, lowering yourself down and being super mindful and very interested in your transition now to the other end of the spectrum, Shavasana. So extending one leg and then extending the other leg. And then once you're there, organizing your body, not organizing, that's not a great word, positioning your body so that you feel well supported and you can sustain and not even sustain. You can surrender, you can have a conversation now with gravity. So gravity talking, you respond, you participate by receiving the weight of your front body and then giving the weight of your back body to the floor. So actively participating, also passively participating in this conversation with gravity. Relax your face. And breathe. And breathe. You can continue resting for as long as you like. If you'd like to come up and have a sit with me, you can begin to deepen your breaths. Receive a little more breath in. And then start to wiggle your fingers and toes. And then extend your arms alongside your ears, giving yourself a nice long stretch from your feet to your hands. And then draw your knees into your chest and roll on to one side and pause, rest your head on your arm. And then this is point A, point B is a seated position. But let's explore, right the road from A to B. So with exquisite and incredibly curious slowness, you start to make your way up to a seated position. Let your head be heavy as you come up. And come to any seat that works for you. Rest your hands on your knees or your thighs. Let's turn the palms to face up. Let's sit well and be sure that the bottom of the pelvis is rooted into whatever you're sitting on. As the center of the body, the spine lengthens, the crown of the head lifts up, let the face soften. Let the shoulders and the arms be heavy. You're just breathing here. Rest your hands on your body, one hand on your heart, one on your abdomen, and take a few moments. Let this be a little gesture of self embrace. Feel the weight of your hands on your body. Feel with the hands the movement of the breath in your body. Bring your palms together at the center of your chest and you pause. Bow your head to your hands and let's do one more sweet resonant for you for the inside of your body. Inhale your breath. Exhale your breath. Inhaling for Aum. Resting in the silence. Then bow to yourself as I bow to you. Thank you so much for practicing with me and I hope you are forever guided by breath and may your practice remind you of the beauty of polarities, not in the poles themselves but in that beautiful landscape, that spectrum that exists in the in between. The light in me sees and honors the light that shines so brightly in you always. Namaste.