Day 9: Connect to Your Center

Welcome to day nine of Trust the Connection. Today, I'm going to be echoing a lot of what was already shared in the last few classes with Wade and Arturo and Alana around we begin our connection by connecting to ourselves. We explored some of this through being in the belly and being in the heart and being in our midlines and our centers. Notice what it's like in this moment to sit down on your sitting bones, your sits bones. So let yourself rock a little bit forward and back. And if it feels really difficult to rock, then you'll want to come up on a little bit more height so that you have more freedom for movement, a little more support. So as you're rocking forward and back, feel your sits bones and you might find a roundness there and they are part of these two pelvic halves. So you can bring your hands up by your hips. That's part of the same bone. You could bring your hands to your pubic bones and that is part of the same bone. And now if you rock far back, you'll land on your sacrum. And if you're slouching like I am here, then you might feel like you're sitting on your spine because you are, you're sitting on your sacrum. And notice what that is doing to your heart. In my body, it feels like it's being pulled down and compressed. And now I'm going to roll slightly forward so that I arrive once again on my sitting bones. And notice what that feels like in your heart and in your lungs. Like when I released from that, I wanted to take a big inhale. Bring your hands together in front of you so that your thumb is touching and your pointer finger is touching. Now the space between your hands is making a shape that is similar to your pelvic floor. So where your pointer fingers are touching, that could be like your pubic bones. And where your thumbs are touching, that could be like where your tailbone is. And then where are these two little J shape indentations between your thumb and finger, that could be like where your sitting bones are. So take a moment just to become familiar with this shape of the pelvic floor and we call it a floor which makes it sound flat, but it's not flat. It's very round. A band of muscles like a diaphragm that is at the base of the pelvis. And now bring your hands down so that they're about the height of the pubic bones and facing down towards the floor. And as you do that, find a nice big inhale. And as you inhale, let the belly expand like we did with Arturo and let the whole pelvic floor expand. As you exhale, let your hands float up to about the height of the nostrils. And we'll do that several times. So as you inhale, allow your hands to float down and follow an expansion through the belly and all the way down to the base of the pelvis. As you exhale, allow your hands to float up. So this is like the upward movement, up and out of the nose. Inhale, allow your hands to float down to fill. Feel the belly expand, the pelvic floor expand. As you exhale, allow your hands to float up about the height of the nostrils. So we're going to keep doing that. Continue at your own rhythm. As you inhale, feel into you, your unique way of being here, expanding into yourself. As you exhale, the upward movement and feel into space. Inhaling, coming down to fill pelvic floor, expanding, feeling you, your unique way of being here. Exhale, the hands float up and we connect to space. Keep going, feeling inside and outside. Inhale, hands float down, finding the expanse of belly and pelvic floor. Exhale, belly and pelvic floor condense and hands float up. Couple more times. What would it be like if your breath was moving you? Last time. As you inhale, hands float down, being with the expanse of the belly and the pelvic floor. And as we exhale, the hands float up and we resonate to be with space. Now allow your hands to just turn upwards towards the sky and look at your hands and notice how your hands also have this roundness to them. Like diaphragms, like the bottom of the pelvic floor, roundness. Come into downward facing dog and we're going to feel into how the roundness of the hands can relate to the roundness of the pelvic floor. So come to all fours and a moment here to shift your weight side to side like your hands are greeting the floor, greeting the mat. Entering, entering touch. Then as you're ready, you'll bring your hands down, root through both hands, lift your hips up high and come into downward facing dog. And now shift your weight more to your right hand. So there's more weight in your right hand than there is in your left and push through your right hand. And you might notice that the right side of your pelvis and the right side of your pelvic floor goes up. And now shift your weight into your left hand and push through your left hand. The right hand is light on the floor. Push through your left hand and you might find, oh, the left side of my pelvic floor is going up and back. The left side of my pelvis is going up and back. And now find center. Find both hands on the floor through the right side and the left side equally. Push through both hands and let both sides of the pelvic floor go up and back and let your pelvis go up and back. Find a few breaths here. Can your inner hand and your outer hand both meet the floor? Can your finger pads meet the floor? And can that inspire the lift and rise of the pelvis?

Bring your attention to your breath again. And can your belly and pelvic floor still move as you breathe? Make your way towards a standing forward fold. You can walk your hands back or your feet forward or a little bit of both. Once you're standing forward folding, release the weight of your head. Bend your knees, drop your tail and slowly begin to roll up your spine until you are all the way up to vertical. Shift your weight into your right foot. Your feet are also very round. Three main arches. Push down into your right foot. And can you feel a connection from your right foot all the way up to the right side of your pelvic floor and right hip? And now shift your weight into your left foot. Root down to your left foot. So more weight in the left foot. Root down and you might find, it's like a connection, an upward movement through the left side of my hips and left side of my pelvic floor. And now come through center. Equal standing. So I'm equally standing between the right foot and the left foot. Push down through both feet and notice if that does anything to the lift of the pelvic floor or not. Pelvis. And now lift your right arm up to the sky. Root down through your right foot and feel the wholeness of the whole right side body up to the hand. So we're feeling connection. Connection from the earth to the sky. Connection from the foot to the hand. And release your right hand down. Lift your left hand up. Root down through your left foot a little bit more dynamically. So more weight in the left foot and be with a stream that connects your left foot up through the pelvic floor, up through the thoracic diaphragm, up through the left hand. And travel through center. Push through both feet. Lift both arms up towards the sky. Rooting through both feet and can both feet know your hands. And now let your arms go out wide to the side. So because we have sides, we have a right side and a left side, that means we have a midline. So where do those two sides know each other? Where do they touch? Where do they meet? Begin to bring your hands together in front of your heart. Slowly take your time. So it's like your right side and your left side are finding where they touch. The midline. And once your hands touch, feel them touch. Let them meet. And let your hands touching connect you to your own midline. The center of you, which Wade was talking about the center of the heart, our connection to heart. And Arturo brought us into the belly, center of our bodies. Find a brief moment here to set an intention for your practice. What are you wanting to be in conversation with? And release your arms down. Reach your arms up towards the sky, rooting through both feet. Lift your arms skyward and bring your right knee into your chest. Bring your hands to hold on to your right shin. Now stand down through the left foot. And can your left foot feel the left side of the pelvis and the left side of the pelvic floor? And now begin to reach your right leg back to come into a warrior one. So wiggling yourself so that your feet are wide enough and long enough that your pelvis can feel earthy and buoyant. It's like what's in between. So now it's a little bit more challenging, I think, when we're in asymmetrical posture. But can both of my feet still root down to still feel some buoyancy in life in the pelvic floor? To rise all the way up to feel my hands. So my right side knows my right side, my left side knows my left side. And now find your midline and explore a little back bend, letting the crown of the head go up and back reaching through each fingertip. Come slightly forward on a diagonal and feel that whole right side of the body on a diagonal. Push down through the right foot to find a very chill warrior three. So you're going to bring all of your weight to your left foot. Find this diagonal line and can with this asymmetry, can you still feel left foot to left hand, right foot to right hand. Bring your right foot down to meet your left foot for Urdhva Hastasana, upward hands pose. Both feet are rooting, arms are rising. Bend both knees Utkatasana. Root down through your feet, extend your legs, reach your arms up and back. Fold forward Uttanasana. Pause, release the weight of your head, you can shake it out a little bit.

Bend both knees, drop your tail, roll up your spine, lift both arms up towards the sky again, finding the right foot connecting to the right hip, to the right arm, left foot streaming all the way up to find the left hand. Bring your hands together in front of your heart, shift your weight into your right foot, hug your left knee into your chest. This is a place where it's very interesting for me to find my midline. So I press through my inner foot to feel the center of my pelvic floor all the way up through the crown of my head. Very grounding. Let's bring the left foot back for warrior one. Organizing yourself so that your hips feel earthy, grounded, and also buoyant. So there's some room to move up and down. Eventually your arms will lift. And now I'm connecting to my feet on the ground and feeling the connection from my legs up through my pelvis, up through my arms. Exploring a little bit of a back bend here, reaching back through each fingertip. And then come slightly forward to center, finding that diagonal line.

And then push through the bottom of the back foot to move your weight to the front foot for a very gentle variation of warrior three. You're on a diagonal. Can your right foot still root down to feel buoyancy through the pelvis? Lift through the arms. Bring your left foot to meet your right foot. Upward hands pose, arms skyward. Bend both knees, utkatasana. Root down through both feet, extend your legs, reach your arms back, little back bend, and fold forward, uttanasana. Lengthen halfway art at uttanasana, and step back to a downward facing dog. So coming back to feeling the contact of the floor with hands and feet. And one more time we'll shift more weight into the right hand. Push through the right hand to notice what that does to your right hip, the right side of your pelvic floor. And shift more weight to the left hand. Push into your left hand a little bit more. Notice what that does to the left hip, the left side of your pelvis.

And now travel through center. Push through both hands equally. What does that do to your hips, your pelvic floor? And now please come forward to plank. Take your time, transition down to your belly. Bring the tops of your feet to the floor, and rise up into a low cobra. Notice your legs lengthening back, lengthening the whole front of the spine. Lower down, lower down. Come back up to plank. You can choose to keep your knees down for that transition, and then back to a downward facing dog. Lift your right leg up towards the sky. And now bring more weight into your right hand.

And notice that stream, that current that lifts the right leg. So right hand connecting to right hip, right side of the pelvic floor, up to the right foot. And push through the left hand, and find that same quality through the left, even though it's very, it's less of a straight shot. It has a bend in the river. Step your right foot forward between your hands, and lower your back knee down. I always like to lower my knee down to a little bit of padding. This feels kind. We'll find some cat cow lunges here. You might want hands on blocks, or you can keep your hands on the floor. We'll inhale, start to lift up through the top of the sternum, finding a little bit of buoyancy. Maybe the hands float. And on an exhale, you'll bring both hands down and begin to extend your front leg, letting the hips come back. As you inhale, bend your front knee. Again, lifting the top of the sternum, maybe floating the hands. As you exhale, hands root down, right foot roots, and the hips go back. Half Hanumanasana. Inhale, your front knee will bend. We're in a low lunge. The top of the sternum can lift. As you exhale, press down into your front foot. Let your hips come back, lengthening the front leg. One more time. Inhale, bend your front knee, let your hands float. Exhale, hands come down and lengthen your front leg. Bend your front knee, tuck your back toes, lift your back knee up off the ground and step your back foot forward to meet your front foot, standing forward fold. Lengthen halfway, Ard Utenasana, and fold forward. Bend your knees, drop your tail, and slowly roll up your spine one vertebra at a time until you're standing. And find a little bounce and shake that out.

A little bounce, dropping weight down into the feet. And then push down into your feet to then extend your legs. And one more time like that. So we go down, down, down, down, down. Bounce, bounce, bounce. A little gentle shake. And push down into your feet to then extend your legs. So I'm feeling how the down helps make that up. The down helps with the up. Lift both arms up, again finding the right side and the left side equally. And fold forward, Utenasana. Make your way towards a downward facing dog.

Push through both hands. Both hands finding the pelvic floor. Both feet finding the pelvic floor. Lift your left leg up towards the sky. And now it's like you're really finding how the left hand and the left foot are part of the same river. They're connected. So as you root through your left hand, can you rise up through your left leg? And then find the same thing on the right side.

Step your left foot forward between your hands. And again, we'll lower the back knee down, maybe to some padding. Begin to lift the sternum up, maybe float the hands. As you exhale, bring your hands down and begin to lengthen the front leg. Inhale, bend your front knee. We're in a low lunge. Lift the sternum, lift the chest. You're welcome to hover your hands. As you exhale, your hands come down, the hips go back. We're lengthening the front leg. Keep going like that a few more times. And move slow enough that you can savor the movement. It's like slowing down enough so that you can taste your food. As you inhale, the front knee will bend and we'll find the low lunge. The hands might hover. As you exhale, your hands will come down. We'll let the hips go back and extend the front leg, savoring the movement. One more time. Front knee bends, hands hover. Exhaling, hands come down, push into the front foot to extend the front leg. Bend your front knee, tuck your hands down. Bend your front knee, tuck your back toes, lift your back knee up off the ground.

And if you were using a blanket, slide it to the side to step your back foot forward between your hands. Lengthen halfway for Ard Utenasana. Fold. Release the weight of your head. Bend your knees, drop your tail, roll up if that feels okay for your spine. Lift both arms up to the sky, Urdva Hastasana. Pausing to once again, check in, shift your weight into your right foot. Can you push through the right foot to feel the upward movement to the right hand through the pelvic floor? And then come back to center, shift your weight into your left foot, feel the left side, whole left side of the body. And bring your hands together in front of your heart. So feel into your own midline, that place where the right side and the left side touch, where they know each other. Release your hands. Inhale, arms rise. Exhale, fold forward. Inhale, breath length and partway, and find your downward facing dog. Come forward to plank. Transition to your belly.

Rise into a low cobra. What if your legs started at the height of the belly? Can you feel your legs extending down, pressing the tops of the feet into the earth from like the height of the belly button? And now experiment with floating your legs up off the floor, shalabhasana, and reach your arms back. And then again, what if your legs started at the height of the belly, like from the Hara that Arturo is speaking to, lengthening from the belly to the legs, reach your arms back, lengthen the whole front of the spine, and fold forward. Bring your hands underneath your shoulders. Find a child's pose. Rise into celebration pose. So you'll rise up onto your shins, bring your hips right up over your knees, and reach your arms up to the sky.

Come forward to all fours, and begin to move through your spine in any way that feels good. So it could be cat cows, could be some side to side movements or some circles. And again, let's touch this place where we savor the movement. We go so slow enough that we can taste it. Find some enjoyment here. Move your spine and find places that are delicious.

And let's head on back to a downward facing dog. Lift your right leg up towards the sky again. Again, finding feet to hands, hands to feet. Step your right foot forward between your hands. Rise up into a high crescent lunge. So now we're in asymmetry. Can you still feel feet to pelvic floor or pelvic floor to hands? Now come slightly forward on the diagonal. Push down through the ball of the back foot to once again come into a warrior three. So you're shifting your way to your front foot.

You're welcome to stay on the diagonal again or maybe lift your back foot up a little bit and come a little bit more parallel to the floor. Continue to tend to your feet, pelvic floor, and hands. Bring your left foot to meet your right foot, standing tall, Urvahastasana, and fold forward, Uttanasana. Lengthen halfway art, Uttanasana, and step back to downward facing dog. Feel free to stay here in downward facing dog. If you would like to explore another cobra or upward facing dog, feel free to explore that now. Now from a downward facing dog, we'll lift the left leg up towards the sky, rooting through both hands, tending to the hands, connecting to the pelvis, connecting to the pelvic floor, connecting to the legs. Step your left foot forward between your hands. Rise up for high crescent lunge.

Now asymmetry. Can we still feel both feet rooting, connecting them to the buoyancy and the connection of the pelvic floor up through the hands? Come slightly forward in the diagonal. Again, warrior three, we push through the ball of the back foot to bring more weight into the front foot. This is a great place to feel the midline, so how the two sides of the body touch. Where's your center, the core of you? What's it like here if your legs can really reach from your belly? Bring your right foot to meet your left foot, standing tall, arms up, fold forward, uttanasana. Lengthen, Ardh uttanasana, and fold.

Bend both knees, drop your tail, and roll up your spine. And once you've rolled up, find again a little bounce. Little bounce, bend your knees, a little shake of the body, dropping down, down into the earth. Feeling the support of gravity, being with gravity. Gravity reminds us that we belong. We're already belonging to gravity. And now push down into your feet to rise. So we go down to go up. Bring your weight into your left foot, hug your right knee into your chest. Again, standing down through the left foot, and we'll bring the right leg back for a warrior two.

Taking a moment to get organized. So if my legs are so long, which is a cool way to practice sometimes, but I'll feel so earthy, like I'm just going down. And if I bring my legs too close together, it'll feel like I'm going all the way up, just up. So part of also equal standing is how can I be equal between earth and space? It's like how can I expand here in the pelvic floor, be my unique self, tend to myself, connect to myself, and how can I be here with all of you in the world, with my family and friends and the environment? So standing down in warrior two. I'd really like to play today with being a warrior. So eyes open, being here inside your body, in your own experience, showing up for everything that's arising on your inner world. And here, here, stepping down, seeing the world, engaging, being in conversation with. And there is this reaching out through the arms and through each fingertip describing our willingness to meet, our willingness to meet what is here. Push down into your front foot, extend your front leg, right into the second side. So we'll turn the left toes in and the right toes out, release your arms for a moment just to shake them out. And then again, arms reaching, eyes open, bend your right knee, warrior two, second side. Stepping down, both feet, knowing the sides of the pelvic floor, both arms knowing the feet. So we're reaching from the ground, we're reaching from the support of the ground. Stepping down inside your experience in that willingness to connect to all that lives here, all that lives in the belly, all that lives in the heart, all that lives in the outer world, adding your willingness to touch and be touched, to connect. Push down to your right foot, extend your right leg, and we'll bring both legs to parallel, release your arms, bring your heels in, you might want to wiggle your feet in a little bit closer so we can find goddess. We'll have the legs in external rotation, the toes are turning slightly out, and then bend your knees.

Shift your weight a little bit side to side, and feel how there's a push that goes down that moves us through space. So I'm pushing through the left foot, which connects to my pelvic floor, which connects to my spine, pushing through the right foot, and that push is what moves me, moves my weight from side to side. And I'm connecting my feet to my whole body, feeling my wholeness. And now find center, let your arms go out wide to the side, and if this is okay with your shoulders, you'll let your arms swing down, and then they'll swing up. And when they swing up, extend your legs. And again, bend your knees, so arms swing down, a little bounce, and they swing out. A few more times like that, knees bend, arms swing down, and then out.

Swing down, and out. And down, feel the down, and let the down bring you up. Go down, let the down bring you up. Pause, be in your expanse. From your belly, reach down into your legs. From your belly, reach up into your hands, feel your wholeness, spreading into your edges from the center of you. Let your arms go out wide to the side, and forward. If it seems reasonable, come into eagle arms with your right arm underneath. If that's a no-go today, you can experiment with bringing your forearms together. Bend your knees nice and deep. You might remember this from Alana's practice. Today we're going to round the spine, elbows towards the belly. Keep your arms interlaced or bound like this, and feel the weight of your arms. Feel the space at the back of your heart. And now push into your feet, extend your legs, keep rooting down to come up, and explore a little bit of a back bend, reaching back through the crown of your head and your fingertips. Bend your knees and round the spine, elbows towards belly. And we're coming back up, feet rooting, fingertips and crown of the head going up and back. And again, elbows coming into the belly, rounding spine, knees bend.

And we'll come up, release your arms, come back to reaching your arms to the high diagonal, a moment to unwind. You might find more flow, a sense of flow from the heart to the hands. Second side, arms go forward. If you are with me, then left arm underneath. Knees can bend here. As you're ready, elbows towards belly, round your spine. Push down into your feet, come back up, extend your legs, play with a little bit of a back bend. Now, as you're going up and back, really root down through your feet and bend your knees, bring your elbows towards your belly, round your spine. Root down into your feet to come up.

Fingertips and crown of the head go up and back. A few more times like this. And again, move slow enough that you can find some enjoyment here. Slow enough that you can savor the movement. Find a rhythm that is suitable for you today. Bending knees, curling in, elbows towards belly, round, breathe into the back body. Push through the feet, extend your legs with your fingertips and crown of head up and back, little back bend. And we'll release the arms. Open the arms, apply to the side, then a little bit up to the diagonal. Feel from the belly down to the legs, from your belly up towards your hands, feeling yourself all in one piece and connecting to the sides of you. For a moment, really taking up space. So from your core, you're gesturing into space, a creative gesture. Bring your hands to your hips and bring your feet to parallel. Root down through both feet and then lengthen the whole front of the spine and begin to fold forward. Bring your hands to the floor underneath your shoulders, and lengthen your spine. Lengthening the whole front of the spine. Fold forward, Prasarita Padottanasana.

So this is a place for many where there's a lot of attention through the outer feet and the outer hips. So I'm going to root down through my feet and see if I can once again connect to my pelvic floor. And then there's a midline of the pelvic floor. And I'm seeing if I can also feel that or imagine that. That there's a relationship between my feet and the bottom of my pelvis. And now shift your weights far enough forward on the balls of your feet that you can release your spine, release the weight of your head. Maybe find a sigh. Lengthen your spine forward, turn your toes out again, heels in and rock yourself a little side to side. So again, we're shifting our weight to the left foot and then shifting more weight to the right foot. And as I do that, I'm feeling into push. So I'm pushing one foot down and that moves my weight. Push the foot down, that talks to the pelvis, talks to the spine, my weight moves. Shifting weight side to side, coming, letting the movement come from your feet, pushing in the ground. And then when you're ready, you'll come back to whatever your front is and take a quarter turn to find your downward facing dog. So whatever the front of your mat is. Tuning back into your hands, your hands rising up to talk to your pelvis so that it's like your inner river and your hands are at one part of the river and your pelvic floor is at the other part of the river, but they know that they're part of the same river. And come forward to plank. Lower down to your belly. And once again, find shalabhasana. So let the legs lift and now experiment with what if your legs started up by your belly. I oftentimes can get a lot more length at the top of my quads when I include that. I'm lengthening through the whole front of the spine, feeling my midline.

And lower all the way down. Make a little pillow with your hands, rest your forehead on your hands in a moment here to let the front side of your body touch and be touched by this ground. And be with the hug of gravity. Gravity reminding us that we belong here. We are connected to this ground. Bring your hands underneath your shoulders and press back to a child's pose.

And folding into yourself. Rise up for celebration pose. Down to your shins. Reach your arms up. A little back bend. Come forward to all fours and then one more time to move through your spine however you wish. However you like. Could be cat cows, could be some playful creative movements side to side in circles. And again, moving in a way where you can enjoy what's here. Again, like slowing down to taste your food. Taste the movement. And we'll find some steadiness.

From all fours find a neutral spine. Reach the ball of your right foot back. Bring your right heel down, left hand to the side and reach your right arm up towards the sky. And now can your right foot still root down? And when I do that I feel buoyancy in my pelvis and lifting my pelvic floor. And now I'm going to reach the right arm up and over. Feel into the length of the whole right side body. Fill up the right side body. Make an arcing, an arcing shape almost like you're making a rainbow with your body. So much length between your right hand and your right foot. And release your right hand down. Release your right shin down. Coming back to all fours. Right into the second side. Bring the left ball of the foot back. Bring your left heel down and your right shin to the side for Vasisthasana. Side plank, left arm rises. Push down through your left foot and then reach your left arm up and over your ear. Notice the length between your left foot and your left hand. And then really reach and grow into that length. Fill up your left side body. Breathing. And come back to all fours. One more time with downward facing dog. Connecting to your wholeness. Connecting to your right side and your left side.

Connecting to your midline. One more time with the standing forward fold. Bend both knees. Drop your tail and slowly roll up your spine. And once you're standing, one more time, little bounce. Dropping in, in, in, in to your body and into the earth.

And we'll push down through both feet to then extend the legs. Bring your hands to your low belly. And just as we begin, as you inhale, be with the expanse of the low belly and the expanse of the bottom of the pelvis, the pelvic floor. And as you exhale, be with the upward movement out the nose. A few more times like that. So as you inhale, feeling the expanse, your unique way of being here. And as you exhale, as you exhale, opening up to be with everything that surrounds you. Inhaling, being with the expanse of the pelvic floor, the low belly. And exhale, feeling that upward movement out the nose. One more time. Release your arms down. Lift your arms up. And can you lift your arms while still connecting to the earth?

So arms are lifting and the feet are still long and the feet are still wide. Bend both knees for your Utkatasana. And then let your hands come forward and bend your knees even more. And now it's possible here that you could come all the way down to bring your seat to the floor. Feel free, of course, to use your hands, whatever you need, so that you can make your way to the ground. And once seated, we'll find what I call spider legs. So you'll come back, let your hands come back behind you, and then you'll open your legs up towards the diagonals. But the knees are bent and the feet on the floor. And now begin to rock your knees a little bit to the right and a little bit to the left. Kind of looks like windshield wipers. And notice your feet. And feel the shifting of weight on your feet. And your feet here, it's like they could initiate the movement of the legs. Now the next time your knees go to the right, continue to let the knees fall to the right, which will then lift your left sitting bone up off the floor, spiral through your spine, let your left arm go back behind you. Little spiral. And now come back to center, let your feet come down, knees up, and send your left hand behind you. Rock your knees to the left, let your right sitting bone leave the floor. And now we're twisting, reach your right arm back behind you. Come back through center, both feet down, knees up, right hand comes back, finds the floor, knees head to the right, left arm reaches back behind. And we're coming back one more time, knees to the left. Keep letting them fall and then right arm reaches. And we'll travel through center. Bring your legs together again and shift just slightly back on your sitting bones so that you can find your Navasana. So it's possible here for Navasana that you'll keep your feet on the floor and extend your arms forward and lean just slightly back so you're on the back edge of your sitting bones. It's also possible that you'll want to lift your legs. And now I'm finding the horizontal muscle fibers of my belly, my transverse abs, which connect me to my midline, the core of me, my center. Noticing the belly strength required to be here. A few more breaths. Easy face, easy shoulders.

And gently bend your knees and bring your hands back behind you. Bring the soles of your feet together and let your knees open up wide. And now tip your weight forward to the front edge of your sitting bones. So again, we're sitting on the pelvis. You're welcome to sit up on a blanket, any amount of support that's needed, so that when you shift your weight forward, your chest will start to rise and you might feel a little more buoyancy in your heart. Easy breath in your lungs. And gently walk your hands forward and release. Bring your knees together, hug your legs in towards your body. Slowly begin to roll down your spine, rocking back to feel the roundness of your low spine, your mid spine, your upper spine, and then eventually you can let your head rest to be a neutral spine. Push down through your right foot. And this is a great place to notice when your right foot pushes down, something happens to the right hip. You might even feel something happens to the whole right side of the body. Makes me want to turn my head.

And then you'll come back to center and just relax that. And now push through your left foot and notice what that does to the left side of the pelvic floor. You might feel a lift to the left side of your whole pelvis. Just what do you find? And now come back to center and we'll prepare ourselves here for Setu Vondasana, our bridge pose. And we're going to lead from our feet. So you'll push down through your feet to then explore some lift through the backs of the legs, the hamstrings, the lower glutes, and then that will lift the hips. Any arm variation is fine. I'm going to bring my hands right alongside my hips and push down through my hands gently. As I root down through my feet, I'm also rooting down through my inner legs, my big toe mound, so that I can once again find my midline. Again, that place where the right side of my body and the left side of my body where there's a meeting place, the center. And gently lower down back to constructive rest and pause for a moment.

Breathing. So it's possible that you'll want to do that again. I'm going to explore a couple of rounds of Urdva Danyarasana wheel because the hands, feet, pelvic floor, it kind of is like magic for me in this shape. It's super supportive. Although we haven't done a ton of work here to open the quads. So, you know, just feel into it. See if you're ready for that. Feel free to come back into bridge again. Or if you're moving with me, then you'll bring your hands alongside of your ears and your fingers will face forward the same direction as your toes. And now before you're even going anywhere, simply press into your hands and feet and kind of like downward facing dog, can you feel a movement in the pelvis? It's like, oh, yep. When I push down, my pelvis is wanting to go up. I'm connecting to my midline. And then if you feel ready, you'll push down through hands and feet to then take a ride. Let your pelvis go up and then connecting to the midline, connecting to the inner legs and the inner hands, letting the whole spine find the back bend, every part of the spine participating in a back bend. And when you're ready, you can come down and rest back to constructive rest. Bring your hands to your low belly, pause and listen to this movement, the rise and fall of the belly.

And then one more time, back bend of your choice could be wheel, could be bridge. Again, letting it come from the feet or the hands, whatever's touching the earth. So I'm rooting down, I'm noticing what that does to my pelvic floor. And then when I feel inspired coming up into the back bend, being with the midline, feeling the right side of the body and the left side of the body and how the sides know center. And then we'll come down and we'll rest back to constructive rest.

Bring your hands to your low belly. Imagine that there's a balloon inside your pelvis. And when you inhale, the balloon expands, which pushes against the low belly and opens the bottom of the pelvic floor. And when you exhale, the balloon condenses, condensing, releasing. As you inhale, the balloon expands, pushing on the wall, the inner walls of the pelvis expanding. And as you exhale, there's a release. A few more breaths like that. And as you exhale, release that and meet the ground. A brief moment here to demand nothing of yourself.

Letting go into the support of gravity. Gently bring your knees into your chest. Let your forehead come up towards your knees round, round, round your spine. If it seems okay with your neck, you're going to release your hands, reach your fingertips forward, lift your shoulder blades up off the floor. And lower back down. Send your knees over to the right for a supine twist. Hmm. Again, softening into, oh, I'm not demanding anything of myself.

Simply falling into the support of gravity, the hug of gravity. And gently come back to center. Find your other side, sending your legs over to the left. Again, dropping into the savoring, the enjoying of your miraculous body. And being supported by the miraculous world. And gently come back to center. Hug your knees into your chest.

Bring the soles of your feet together, bring your hands through to hold on to your ankles or your shins, and let the legs move into external rotation. Your arms can be straight here, the weight of your legs can fall into your arms gently. And you might find that you get some length to the sides of your neck and the sides of your shoulders. And then bring your knees back into your chest, send your legs out, preparing yourself here for Shavasana. So here the final posture we explore is Shavasana, corpse pose, which is a practice of death. So here we let go of everything we think we know so that we can rest in the mystery. And it's called a mystery because we can't know it. So letting go of whatever you think you know about this moment, about your body, about your identity. Connecting to your willingness to be with the mystery of present time. And bring some attention to the inhales, feel into that expansion, your unique way of being here. As you exhale, follow the movement out your nose, connecting to space. As you inhale, feel into the fullness of you. And as you exhale, connect to space.

Start to find some movement, movement that feels unique to you. Again, following what feels nice. And eventually you can bring your knees in and transition up to your seat. Once seated, sitting up on the sitting bones, up on the pelvis, reach your arms out wide to the side. To once again, feel into the right side of your body, feel into the left side of your body, feel into the ground and the sky. And now slowly bend your elbows, bring your hands together like your two sides are starting to feel where center is. Where does the right side and the left side meet? Eventually your hands will come together and when they do, feel your two hands touch. Press your hands in together just a bit and see if you can connect to the center of you, your midline, your heart, your belly. Find a big round of breath here. Ah, thank you so much for your practice today. We'll close with a bow.