Vinyasa Core Restore Flow

So welcome to Season 2 of Dynamic Flow. I'm so stoked and honored that yoga anytime invited me back to do this so I can share what I love with you. This practice here is going to be like a combination. It's like the vinyasa flow but with some like real side stretchy moves to open up the side body to get a little taller. We'll focus on the spine and you know definitely weave a little bit of core love into play and then we'll finish with some restore yin kind of chill stretchy move. So that's all in one hour. So before we begin just one little shout out. It's a big shout out to my buddy Dan Small. So I think is watching now and going to be practicing with us. He's in Ithaca, met him a few years ago at a retreat in Vermont. I was offering came good bros. It's his 50th birthday today. So happy birthday Dan. Thanks for being here. And if it's anyone else's birthday today or down the road, I wish you a happy birthday and awesome life. So let's get started. Child's pose tabletop kind of scene. Boom. Okay. Let's push back into child's pose. Take the knees wide, draw the hips back. It's been a little while since I've offered these live practices. So I've got to dial in my focus. Okay. So let's spend a few moments here, centering, grounding arriving. So make sure you're comfortable in the shape. You feel a sense of stretch, a sense of value. You're able to breathe nice and full. The immediate moment is what we're focusing on. Okay. For this practice, let's focus on the immediate moment by moment by moment, the breath, the sensation, the current thoughts, the current surroundings, outside and in. We don't even need to think about an outcome. The outcome will, will happen. You can even leave intention aside for now because intention sort of sets the mode for thinking forward.

So let's settle into now. Stretch the arms out. So crawl up on your fingertips. So you keep the elbows and upper arms lifted and begin to really crawl and crawl the fingers over to the left. So there's your first side bend. Push the right hip back. Breathe nicely into that space on the right side, loosen up the neck, crawl back to center, reach over to the right side, exaggerate through that left hand. So now you've got the left side opening up. Breathe nicely into that left side. Beautiful. Back to center up onto your hands, your knees into tabletop. Let's get some really nice cat cow movements here. So let the belly drop down, send your seat high, chest forward, arch your back, breathe in and breathe out. Pull the belly up, draw the tailbone down, round out your back and breathe out cow pose, breathe in and breathe out cat or a cat. Perfect. One more time. Breathe in cow pose. Nice and kind of straight forward, little linear movements. Exhale cat. Okay. Back into a flat back, walk your hands forward a bit, keep your hips over your knees and just like we did in child's pose, walk your hands over to the left, push your right hip back a bit and explore now a side bend from this position. Draw the chest down, maybe open the right shoulder up, draw the right shoulder down, just kind of explore around a little bit. Tend to the sensitive areas in the body. Be creative in your little movements. Come back to center and over to the right. So exaggerate that left arm reach with the left hip back and then the left armpit draws down, the left shoulder draws down, maybe look under your right bicep there and then you lift up and open and explore, just wandering around the landscape of you, getting to know the landscape. Back to center, back up onto your hands and then let's drop the hips. Slide the knees back a little bit, drop the hips, pull the shoulders back, chest forward. Okay. So you dropping your hips, you might drop them all the way down, but your back might start to bark a little bit. So if that's the case, lower down as far as you can and then maybe you have to kind of like bend the arms and lower down a little bit more. So either way, find your position here in this kind of stretchy upward dog. You let your shoulders crawl up towards your ears and you're just kind of juicing up the joints. You're sending your hips from left to right and you're not hanging anywhere where you feel like you're suffering. Okay. So you kind of have to own that piece. All right. So if you feel like you're suffering, move away from it, lower down, elbows pull back, chest comes down to the mat. We'll do a couple up and downs to warm up the back. So point your toes back. You can bring your feet together or take them out wide. Push through the hands to lift the chest up as much as your low back will allow and then lower down. I like to inhale when I lift. So inhale, lift, straighten the arms as much as you can and exhale down. When I say straighten your arms, go ahead and keep moving like this. When I say straighten your arms as much as you can, that's not like correct. Okay. That's just if you can straighten your arms, straighten them or keep them bent and be very mindful of your back. And so we're trying to like breathe and move some healthy mobility into your low to mid to upper spine. Now come all the way to child's pose and stretch that out now. Back into table. Slide the left foot back. Okay. Like you're coming into plank. Slide the right foot over with your toes curled under. Ground your left heel. So this is like a bump, bump, bump, bump. But once you get there, then you can lift the left arm high.

This is a nice little side plank here. Screw the right arm in. Right knee below the hip, left foot grounding. And I'll take that left arm, palm facing down and reach long so that the shoulder on the left side and the bicep are up near your ear. And you've got this lovely side stretch expression here. Open up the chest. Stretch long through that left arm. Loosen up the tension through the head, the neck. Let's cruise on over to the other side. So bring the left arm down and you set it up. Left knee below the hip. Slide your left toes over your right foot back. Ground your right foot. Right arm reaches up. So I like about this is that you get this lovely side bend. Reach the right palm forward, palm down, get the big opening through the rib cage. So I like that piece, but I also like how we're gently moving into some stability and strength. Okay. Stretch that right shoulder out a bit. Oh, man, to move your body and stretch it. Oh, it feels so good. Bring the right hand down tabletop, curl the toes and lift up into our first downward dog. Walk it out. Stretch out those calves. The calves, that calf stretch might move up into your hamstrings and loosen up the neck. You can see right now at this point, we're in no rush to get anywhere. Okay. We're always rushing through life trying to kind of acquire and get and achieve and check off the lists and see if you can use this practice to arrive. Let's arrive with a big clearing breath. So while you're in downward dog, doing whatever you're doing, breathe in fully, open your mouth and exhale, clear everything out. Home. In your home, in your home, but also in your body, your home, home, home, right? Walk your feet forward into a forward fold so you can take a bunch of little steps, kind of wander up there. Okay. When you get there, bend your knees and let's get that half lift, the spine, stretching, lengthening, extending and exhale, fold beautiful little gentle entry into the legs and low back half lift again, breathe in, stretch long through the spine, push back through the hips, fold, exhale, shoot the left leg all the way back. Keep the right foot up there, right center of the mat. Okay. Both hands on the inside of that right foot. Drop your hips down, drop them down, down, downtown. The left knee comes all the way down. Walk your, take your right knee and open it out wide and send the left hip toward the ground. So you go right and left. When I say right, that means you're going into that right groin space and then over to the left, more of that left hip extension space. Nice. Okay. Curl the back toes, lift the left knee, twist now, rotate and twist open to the right. Add a side bend here, right arm reaches up alongside your right ear, palm pacing down, breathe and open up that rib cage. Bring your right hand back down to the mat, back into a downward dog. Try to lift and step back, pedal it out again. More side bend access here. So if you bend both legs and then send your hips to the left, you're going to feel this opening on the right upper right portion of your back, maybe your rib cage on the right, maybe your waistline. You can really ground that right heel down, loosen up the neck, breathe as fully as you can. Check it out on the other side. So you bend the legs, send your hips over. When you're sending your hips over, you're actually kind of pivoting your feet over to the right as well. Then ground that left heel and explore the left side. Now look under the left arm, move around all those little subtle movements you can do to increase sensation. Okay, back to center. Big breath, clearing breath out.

Again, walk up to the front of the mat, forward folds along the way. Beautiful, half lift breath in, strong, healthy spine. Breath out, fold right foot steps all the way back. Both walk your left foot over to the left center. It's like more left, both hands on the inside of the foot. Right knee comes all the way down. Big extended open hips. Pull the left knee out to the side a bit. So you lift the arch of your left foot up. Now, if you lean to the left a little bit, you've got that groin space on the left side that you're moving toward. And if you move and really drop that right hip over, there's some side bend, side body stretching happening there. Find those little nuggets, man. Breathe into those spaces. You benefit. Guaranteed. Okay. Now keep the left foot out wide where it is. Turn it open a bit so it's got an angle on it. You're going to step the right foot into that same position, right on the right side. So step, oops, and squat. A little left to right. Try to keep the chest up, elbows into the thighs. If you find yourself really tight in the squat and you want to kind of hang out up here with your forearms on top of your thighs and your chest up, it's a very effective squat also, right? You can also lift your heels and play around with the squat with your heels lifted. Okay. Now come into your forward fold. Walk your feet back toward hip width, grounding your feet evenly. Half lift breath in, breath out fold. Rise and shine all the way up. Reach up. Breathe in. Exhale the hands to the center of you. That's the center, right? Now I'll face you before we get flowing a little bit. Take a nice wide stance. That's how you set up the wide stance. And then take the arms out in front of you. Clasp the hands, push the palms forward and up. Now keeping your core nice and braced, reach up, get long through the spine, long through the side body and twist or not twist, but side bend to the right. Pull up through that left arm to come over to the right. Pull the left shoulder open, chest open. Now it's key to exhale, brace the core to come up to center. That's going to feel like a core exercise actually. Lengthen up and let's cruise over to the left side now. Side body. Get tall. My son's taller than me now and I'm always like, no, you're not, but he is significantly. So I'm like doing yoga to get tall. Back up to center, arms down. Okay. While we're here, take your feet even wider, put a soft bend in your knees, pitch your pelvis forward, exhale, forward fold. Let's open up the hamstrings a little bit. Drop the head. You can bend and straighten your right and left leg a few times. So you have the hamstrings that you're working with right now in the forward fold. And if you turn your feet open just a little bit and if you bend your right leg, now you have a, like a more of a groin, inner left thigh stretch that could be kind of nice and necessary. And if you go to the left side, bend the left leg. Now you have that right leg bend or right leg stretch. And you can just kind of touch on those spaces. You can go an inch or you can go a little further. So we're just waking up the spaces in the body, moving around some energy, moving some stress out of the body. Okay. Back to the forward fold. We'll add some rotations here up on your fingertips. Lift the chest, rotate open to the right. When I say rotate, that means really like rotate the trunk of your body, twist and rotate through the rib cage, right arm high. Nice.

Right arm down and lift the chest, lengthen the spine, twist and rotate to the left. Keep your feet active, stable legs as long and straight as you can get them without forcing. Good. Bring it back down. Let's walk back over to the front of the mat. Walk back into downward dog. Good. Pedal it out. Lift your right leg up. But first, ground your left heel. It doesn't mean it has to touch the ground. It means have a grounding quality through that pressing of the left heel. So you feel some stretch through the back calf, but some strength in that left leg. Lift the right leg up, bend it and spill that right hip open a bit. Look under that right arm. Come on to the right fingertips possibly. Now you've got more side body, more waist and hip opening opportunity to breathe. Square your hips, send your right knee toward the nose or the inside of your right elbow. Fire up that core. Inhale back up. Exhale core five times. Breathe in up high. Breathe out. Breathe in up high. Breathe out. Number four. Breathe in. This time bring it in. Try to step the right foot through. Nicely done. Back heel comes down. Warrior one. Rise and shine. Open the arms a bit. Maybe take some big circles to kind of free up the tension in the shoulders. So warrior one, obviously, not obviously, but we always want to work with that back foot turning forward so we can draw the left hip forward. Nice and safe and effective and ground through your feet. Reach the arms high now. How's your breath? Current moment. Immediate current moment. Everything going on. Just let it all kind of bounce around your awareness. Conscious breathing. Open into warrior two. Maybe track the hands to the chest first. Slide or heel toe or step the left foot back. Bigger, broader stance.

Open the right knee over the ankle. Push into that back foot, left foot, and extend your arms out. Arms are out, shoulders stacked over your hips. You've got good alignment. You can feel the value, the areas in the body where you're feeling strength being kind of like cultivated and stretch and space being created. Let's straighten the right leg for a moment. Take a peaceful triangle. Reach the right arm up. Another opportunity, side body stretch. None of these postures, not one of them are throwaways or fillers. They're all meant to serve a purpose. And you'll know the purpose because you're paying attention and feeling it. Right forearm on the right thigh. Extended side angle. I like to bring the left arm high first, like high five you, but then turn the palm down and reach and get extended. Beautiful up that left side now. Be mindful of, maybe take a look at the camera for a moment. Be mindful of this. Push into the forearm and create space between your shoulder and your ear. Very nice. Still working here, still breathing. Now reverse once again, but this time, keep the right leg bent. Peaceful warrior, reverse warrior. Breathe in. Straighten the front leg. Work into triangle pose now. Reach and extend the right arm long. Right fingertips to the shin, the ankle, the floor, a block, a couch. Left arm high. Super strong and stable in your feet. That provides the ability to stay in this pose safely. Okay. Now let's get another side bend here. Now you got to really grip through the feet here. Reach your left arm into extended triangle. Stay here or right arm as well. Okay. Legs are on fire now. Core, core holds it all together. Your breath holds it all together. Your positive attitude holds it all together. Use your core to lift up. Bend the right leg a little bit. Reverse warrior. Reach up and back. Inhale, inhale, inhale. Inhale, windmill. The hands down to the mat. Plank pose. Steady and plank. Shoulders over the elbows and wrists. Heels pushing back. Thighs nice and firm. Lean forward onto your tiptoes so your shoulders come forward a little bit. Wrists will feel it. On your exhale, use your knees or lower down without knees. Back bend of choice. I'm choosing up dog.

You can go all the way down and work through cobra. Open up the chest either way. Drop a hip left, drop a hip right. Beautiful. Back into your downward facing dog. Before we hit the other side, invitation. Come on with me sort of thing. Forearm plank. From forearm plank, I'll face you for the first one. Come on to the right forearm. So position your right forearm parallel with the front of your mat. Send your heels over to the right. I like to stagger the feet. You can stack them if you'd like. Left arm high. Open the chest. More work here, right? Core stability. Left palm like we've been doing. Side angle. Reach. Left hand reaching beyond. Lift your hips so your left shoulder is up by your left ear somewhere. But spacious. Breathing, smiling, enjoying the process. Perfect. Probably felt that in that right side. Now with care, come on over to the left forearm. Care meaning like consciously moving, consciously breathing. Reach the right arm up. What does that feel like? Stagger or stack your feet. Palm, right palm facing down as you extend and open up that side body. You can bring your left knee down for a little support. Could have offered that on the other side, but I didn't. My bad. Lift those hips, reach long. Perfect. With control back into your forearm plank, back up onto your hands, into plank and into downward dog. Reset. Reset. Fresh perspective. Where am I? What am I doing? How do I feel? It's a completely new moment. It's a new opportunity. Push the right heel toward the floor. Lift your left leg up. Bend it. Open up the hip. Come up onto the left fingertips if your hand allows that. Look under the left arm, a little peekaboo to the camera. What's up? Season two, dynamic flow, side bends, a little bit of core, a little bit of restore. One hour. All for you. Okay. A little bit of work now. Square off the hips, left knee tracks in toward the inside of your left elbow. Pull your belly up, up, up, up, up and in. Inhale, left leg up. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. I think this is number four coming up. Fifth one looks the same, but you've got that step at the end. Exhale. Exhale. Exhale. And step. Good. Right foot down, warrior one. Adjust. All apparel. Okay. Roll the shoulders up and back a few times. Maybe take some big arm circles, right? Because in plank, not only, or maybe it's more your wrists, right? So a little recovery here in those areas that just kind of work to get you there. Then the arms high. Warrior one. Evenly balanced and pressing through both feet. The sensation, this breath. Hands to the heart. Walk your right foot back. Warrior two. I apologize. I am turning my back on you, but I am not.

I'm right here with you. Left knee over the left ankle. Push hard into the back foot. So where are those, those are those stability points. Arms reach up and take a gaze over the left fingers. There's a combination of balance of like total determination and motivation. And then this like, whatever happens happens, man. It's all good. Okay. We're going to come into a reverse triangle straight in the front leg. You can shorten your stance a tiny bit. Reach up and back with that left arm, side bend. Right hand is like gracefully touching that back leg or even at your low back. Open up. Extended side angle, left forearm on top of that left thigh. Chest open, left hip pulling back. Right arm high. Remember no dumping into that shoulder. Then the palm faces down toward the ground and you extend as long as you can. Feel a middle ground between your right fingertips and the outer edge of your right foot. What in between those two spots? All the way out. Bring the fingertips to the calf, to the ankle. Right arm high. This is first phase of triangle pose. Fantastic posture. Root those feet in root, root, root. Right arm can reach just like you were an extended side angle. There's that side stretch. More core and side stretch would be left arm reach. Now it's like you're holding a big beach ball there. Hold your feet are doing a lot of work. If they're not, you're putting too much stress on your joints. Maybe you're behind your knee or your hip. Oh my goodness. Up and back. Breathe in. Bend the left leg. Peaceful warrior. Reach up, reach up, reach up. Beautiful. And now exhale the hands down.

Step the right foot up to meet the left. Forward fold. Half lift, breathe in. Just the mic. Breathe out. Okay. Half lift, breathe in. Pause. Straighten your right leg. Bend your left. Wedge that left arm into your left calf or knee and twist and rotate to the right. Open up across the chest. Shoulder to shoulder. Lots of space. Bring it down. Switch sides. Left leg straight, right leg bent. Heart, chest, lifting, spine extending and twisting. Rotating. Sweet breath. Bring it in. Body deserves it. It's like a service. It's a gift. Oh man.

Left arm down. Forward fold. Hold on to opposite elbows for a few moments. Let go of the head. Feel twisting from side to side. Just kind of letting yourself sway here. Okay. Come all the way down for a moment. Meaning like down, let your arms come down. Half lift, breath in. Okay. Breath out. Fold. Then rise back up. Breathe. And hands track to the chest. Can I step back? Revisit this position again. See how things may have shifted through the side body, through the rib cage. All right. Wide-ish stance. Hands clasped. Palms overhead. Okay. Now push up. Lengthen up through the spine. Lock your hips in. So squeeze the glutes a little bit and take a bend over to the right. Okay. Feel your spot. Locate the value. There's value here with each and every position. Race your core to lift up. Over to the other side. So there's that extending up and side bending over to the left. The core center there is assisting in keeping it all together as well as your feet rooting down. Back up to center.

And relax the arms down. Take your feet a little bit wider. Soft bend in the knees. Pitch forward and then walk both hands over to your left foot. So here's where you have that little side bend again. That side bend option. Reaching through the right arm to the left foot. You can bend your legs if that's more accommodating. Over to the other side. So the right hand grabs hold of that right foot but then that left arm comes over and adds that side bend. Side body stretch. Back to center. Your feet are going to heel toe a little bit closer. Okay. Turn your toes out. Drop your seat down. Lift your upper body toward me or toward wherever you're facing. Okay. God or goddess or whatever you want to call it pose. Those knees out wide. Feet open 45 degrees. Tailbone extended down. Body straight up. Good alignment here. Okay. Knees out. Drop down. And then arms bent 90 degrees. You're welcome. All right. So a little pause here. And you can lean a little left, a little right. Squeeze up through those booties. Those booty muscles. Open across the chest. So you pull those elbows back. Now here is a really nice little move. Okay. You're going to take the arms up overhead. You're going to as you reach your body forward, push your butt back. Flat back. Good. Reach forward. Hips back. Feels almost like a little happy. So you should have pretty good setup already. A little bend in your right leg. Reach long through the right arm. Reach, reach, reach. Right fingertips down to the desired location. Left arm high. If your hands reach the floor, you're still the same person, still the same yogi.

It doesn't really change much. Maybe it's kind of put you down here in this collapsed version. Stay up, stay lifted. Okay. Left arm reaching. One more because it's fantastic. Right arm reach. Feel your feet. Root down, core stable, muscle stretching. Up to center. That's a tricky transition. So be very mindful and conscious of engaging the core so your low back doesn't do all the work. Okay. Switch the foot position. First, root down, right? Tripod. Big toe mound, pinky toe mound. Heel. Both feet. Strike. A little bend in the left leg. Triangle. Reach long. Left fingertips to the desired location. Right arm high. Breath. Work the side angle. Work the core. Hold. Breathe. Use your core. Use all of your core to come back up. I sounded that way because my core is engaged. Okay. Bring the hands all the way down. Final downward dog. Stretch it all out. Even it all out. Good. Let those hips drop from side to side. A little effort here into plank. Heels over to the right.

You can bring your right knee down. Remember we did this earlier on in the practice, right? Or keep both feet. Both legs straight. Lift those hips. Left arm high. Extended side angle side plank. Reach. Lift your hips. Look up. Breathe. You're doing great. Let's try the other side. Left arm down into plank. You can do this from your forearms if your wrists are a little wonky. Right arm high. A lot of core work here if you're really engaging. Right palm facing down. Extended side angle. Hips lift. Hips lift. Obliques on the left side fired up. Saying thank you for engaging me, including me on this process. Okay. Back down. Knees down. Child's pose. Good. Take a moment to pause. All the cues I'm mentioning, you know, the rooting and firing through the feet, creating the stability through the legs and the engagement of the core. You know, if that's not quite resonating with you right now, it'll come. Just keep listening. Keep applying. Keep working at it. And then one day it clicks and you're like, wow, that feels really nice. Okay. Until then, just enjoy the ride to get there. You know, okay. Let's come onto our seat. So here, what I'd like to do first is come down to the back and hug your knees in so we can get any kind of like low back, mid back discomfort or aggravation or just because it feels nice. Hug your knees in, stretch the back out, rock a little side to side. Okay. To start with, you're going to bend your legs 90 degrees. Okay. Feet active. So crow, palms up, arms strong. Now remember cat pose earlier. Create cat pose now. Push the arms up to the sky, to the room, to the ceiling, whatever. Lift your shoulders up. There's the first part. Now draw your knees towards your arms. Lower abdominals engaged. You're in crow pose. Ta-da. Okay. Now we're going to go for 30 seconds up and down starting now. Inhale down, back to neutral. Exhale, crow. Inhale down. Exhale, crow. Inhale down. Exhale, crow. Inhale. Exhale. 15 seconds to go. Five seconds. Last one. Hold. Crow for five, four. Keep lifting. Keep engaging. Three, two, and take a pause. So we're doing some timed. We're going to try to fit like four in, four different options, about 30, 45 seconds each. It's better than reps because it gives you the time and you can do one or you can do 3,000. Up to you. Okay. Next one. This one's fun. Okay. First step would be hands underneath the butt. Okay. This is to support the low back. It's a leg lift, right? Keep the head and shoulders down. Lower your legs up and down, right? You can also do this with bent legs. Or lift your head and shoulders, push into your elbows. This engages the core quite a bit. You can lower and lift. Okay.

Then the third would be arms free or hands behind your head. 30 seconds, leg lifts beginning now. Okay. So the inhale, you lower down. The exhale, you lift up. If you want to go with me, I'm exhaling up. Exhale. Inhale down. Exhale. Lift your shoulders up a little higher if you're in this mode. Exhale. Exhale. Exhale. Five seconds. Exhale. Good job. Exhale. Last one. Boom. Perfect. Feet down. Let's take the legs out of it. Hands behind the head. Okay. In three, in two, and one. Lift the head, lift the shoulders. Exhale. Exhale. Exhale. Exhale. Lift the chest to the ceiling. Elbows out wide. Exhale. Exhale. Exhale. Where we are with time. Exhale. Exhale. Five seconds. Four, three, two, and one. Oh yes. Boom. Take a deep breath in. Exhale. Everything out. One more time. Breathe in. And breathe out. Hands behind the head. Okay. Legs bend 90 degrees. Extend the left leg out. Right leg in. Now you have to use your thighs and your hip flexors a bit. Take the left elbow in the direction of your right leg. Okay. 30 second bicycles beginning now. What motivates you? Right? What's that internal motivation that gets you through each and every one of these with good form? You take the rest when you need it. Right? Good form over ego. Let's say that's 15 seconds. Good job. If you're feeling it in the belly, so am I. We're in it together. In it together. Five seconds. Four, three, two, one. Release. Two parts to counter this. Take your feet out wide. Knees wide. Windshield wiper from side to side. When you go to your right side, my good friends, my good friend, friends, reach the left arm up overhead. You can take your right ankle on top of your left thigh. This increases that kind of side bend stretch. Try it on the other side. So the knees hinge over to the left. You take your left ankle on top of your right thigh and your legs are windshield wiper over to the left and you reach the right arm up and back. Maybe take a little side bend. So we got the side bending in. We definitely got the core in. We got the side core, front core, little bit of back. Back to center up to neutral with your feet, hip width, knees hip width. Arms like robot. Robot arms. Fingertips to the sky. Push into the upper arms, your triceps and lift your hips and walk your shoulders, upper arm, shoulder blades, everything underneath you as much as you can. And then the feet are below the knees and you play around with the foot placement. You can clasp your hands if you'd like. I don't prefer that personally. Meaning for me, not like I don't prefer that for you. I'm not sure how that feels for you.

Next up, nice and extended through the thigh muscles into those hips, into the belly, that long line. Go ahead and lower all the way down. Okay. Take a nice big deep breath in. Feel everything out. One more time. Generous breath in and breath out. Take your right ankle over your left thigh. Okay. Lift your left foot up and begin to feel the effects of pigeon come into play. Okay. That's going to be the outer right hip area. Keep this position hands free or take hold of your left hamstring with both of your hands or maybe even your shin, but be mindful of the grab because if you can't rest your head and shoulders back down, you're going to be kind of tense and it might work against you. So find your position, whatever allows you to get that head down, neck long, and then use your arms to pull the legs in. What I've always believed in pigeon pose and I've always done it and I feel like I know the value, but I'm believing in it more and more and more as so many of my clients and people that I work with have back issues or sciatica and this pose really does help them quite a bit. So if you've ever battled with that kind of like sciatic nerve pain or even just any low back kind of area stuff, this does really make a difference this pose. It can. It's done pigeon pose so many different ways. Right foot down, left foot over left ankle over the right thigh, open that hip on the left. So externally rotate by pushing your thigh open and away from you. Checking with your breath. You've worked hard so far, right? It's not crazy hard, but you've done enough effort. This is the reward. So you kind of sit with the stretch, grab hold of the right shin hamstring or use a strap or find your position. What allows you to kind of like pull the legs toward you. Feel the benefits of pigeon. Point your left toes up toward the sky, toward the ceiling. When you do this, feel it for a moment, push the toes up like you're trying to touch your toes to your shins. Now notice all those ligaments and tendons and muscles that got activated through your ankle, foot, shin, and knee. That's what protects your knee as you put it in this big turtle here. It's going to add more tension and more frustration. Head down low back kind of grounds. And if that doesn't happen, hold a little lower shin, around your knees, still getting the same stretch. A little left, little right. Flirt was straightening your legs out a little bit, one at a time. So if you straighten out your right leg, you can draw your left heel down toward your seat and do the other one. So right leg bends, left leg straightens. Get back into happy baby. Happy baby. Your feet are generally up over your knees and your shoulders are grounded. You're breathing. You're mindful. Mindful of thoughts. Bring it back out. Let's rock up to sit for a moment. Just so I can see you. I miss you. So I'll face you. You can be the other way on your mat if you'd like. We're going to do two things. One leads to, it's a spinal rotation. We've done them before. Arms out, reach the right arm back behind you. Left arm reaches forward and you twist over to the right. That just might feel kind of nice. And then over to the other side. The back hand kind of helps you to leverage to deepen that twist and rotation. You exhale as you're doing so. So the side version looks like this. There's also a little side stretch through the side that you're going to. So I'm going to my left now and reaching through my right. So now that right side is getting that stretch really nice.

And now I'll face you again and you're going to cross your legs like so for the spinal twist, or you can lean back and take your right foot over your left thigh. Okay. Hug that right knee up toward your body. You're going to feel another pigeon stretch here. Okay. Left heel is kind of underneath your seat, but you want to anchor that right sit bone down toward the ground. So you're level and kind of grounded there. Then you can take your left elbow across your right thigh, pull your belly in right hand back behind you. And then between your right hand and your left arm, you can kind of like twist yourself to the right and you can pull that belly in. You can get some good like digestion activation going on. Like real true story, right? You kind of churn your belly around in there. Your intestines get a little, little massage. Spine gets a beautiful rotation and the gaze is soft. Really nice. Reach now, keep the shape of the legs loose. It's okay, but reach the right arm over and get that counter twist. You can reach a little further with the right arm. Okay. Back to center, lean back and take now the left foot over the right thigh. Figure out how to, you know, if for some reason that right heel doesn't sit well and your butt is lifted, you can do this with the legs stretched out in front of you. So your right leg stretched out and it's a very effective position as well. Okay. Okay. And first, like grab that, hold on here around your shin, around your knee area and kind of pull in and notice that left kind of outer glute stretch that can be felt like pigeon, lift your chest, lengthen your spine, right elbow, tricep hooks onto the left thigh. That'll give you some leverage to lift the chest to rotate and twist that left hand behind you is a little assist. You can hold peace sign, shaka bra, rock, a little deaf leopard or kiss or your choice mantra or got confused for a second. Mudra, sorry, not mantra, twist, twist, twist, twist, twist. Right. Release that. Let's take it over to the other side. Left arm reaching. Left hip is kind of lifting up off of the mat. Well done. Now I'm going to spin around this way.

We've got a few minutes here to finish straighten your legs out. We're going to move down into relaxation, but before you get to relaxation, we got to earn it. All right, let's earn it. So tuck the chin, legs straight, feet active, legs strong, roll down, arms reaching out in front of you. When you get down to your low back right there, keep your shoulders up, lift your legs, hold 30 seconds. Starting now, if this does not work for you, lower down, relax, chill out, lift your shoulder blades a little higher. You can bend your knees a little bit if you'd like. Work, work, work. What do we have? 10 seconds left. Breathe. A lot of core stability right through there everywhere you're feeling it. Five, four, three, two, one, and release. Situate yourself on your mat. Maybe throw in a little, a little bridge pose. One last bridge that opens up the abdominal and stretches out what you just sort of like packed in and engaged. And you can lower back down, draw the bottoms of your feet together, open your knees out wide, or like naturally that feels nice for me. It's a little more work, so it's probably more effective or necessary. But for me, you check in for yourself feet wide onto the outer edge of the mat and the knees kind of draw toward one another. You may feel a little like opening your low back, your sacrum area. You can lean a little, do some mini windshield wipers. I'm gonna stay here. You choose between the two offerings I gave you. You can also move into legs all the way out, body laid out, final relaxation. Soften your body, soften your back. That's enough. That's it. Rest. Close your eyes. Take this as a real gift, a real opportunity to have some stillness, some quiet times and peace. If it's helpful, if you still feel kind of revved up, you know, choose those long exhales to relax yourself. Let the mind go, or it's more helpful for you to start to cultivate craft, thoughts, intentions for the rest of your day. Because the yoga practice and a lot of other yoga practices, ask of us to be mindful of our thoughts, our actions, and our words. The offering lately for me to clients, to friends, to classes has been to bring the quality of kindness into your day, to every interaction through word, thought, action, kindness, that resonates with you. Try it on for size. It's for sure a really nice way to go, especially when you find yourself wanting to act in a not so kind way because someone triggered you. It's interesting to play with that. Let every muscle in your body relax. You can stay here longer, as long as you'd like. Transition to bed if you'd like, take a little nap, go on a walk, get back to work, go play with your kids, whatever it is you do. But we'll close officially. I'm going to move up to sit. You can come up to sit whenever, however you'd like. So thank you for joining me now or joining me in the archives. Whenever you're doing this, it means a lot to me and kindness, kindness, kindness, kindness. I'm sure you're already a beautiful and kind person. Anyway, Namaste. Have a beautiful, beautiful day. Happy birthday, Dan. Happy birthday to all of us, really. Happy 50th, my friend. Namaste.