Up and Over Yourself

Hi, friends. Welcome. For this class, you're going to need two blocks and a blanket. If you don't have two blocks and you want to find two books of equal height, then that could work for the exercise we're going to do at the start of the class. This class is all about tenacity, stamina, and our ability to get over ourselves. I hope we'll have some fun with it. Let's go. I'm going to start with these two blocks, hip distance apart on my mat, and I'm just going to stand on my blocks. Right away, I'm like, it's different. I'm a few inches taller. Maybe I'm happy about that. Lift my arms up. Get even taller. Occupy the space of your body with your breath. Breathe from your pelvis to your feet and from your pelvis to your fingertips and allow yourself to get a little bit taller and then start to move a little bit side to side. You can go at the pace you like. Some mornings I'll go nice and slow and then I might speed it up and almost like tick tock side to side. And I'm not trying to move into 110% of my range. I'm moving in a range that feels spacious and welcomed in my body today. Then I'm going to come up, reach a little bit taller, and the next time I come to the right, I'm going to stay on the right side. I'm going to pause and breathe into the left side of my waist and lift my right heel. My right knee is bent, my right heel is lifted, and then pressing from my left hip to my left foot, my left leg is straight. You just get a little extra magnifying glass of sensation on the left side of your body. Come up to centre, pause, take a breath, notice the difference in the two sides of your body. You might switch the hook of your thumbs and then go to the left. Once you get to the left side, as far as you're happy to go, lift your left heel, left knee bends, press from your right hip to your right heel and your right leg is straight. And stay for a moment, breathing space and dimension into your right side. And then come up into the centre, a little bit taller, and then release your arms. When you release your arms, I feel like it's like taking a backpack off after a long day or a long hike. Just notice what you notice. And we'll fold forward. Coming into our first hang of today's practice, bend your knees as much as you need to. Sometimes I even take my first hang of the day with my elbows on my knees and my hands together. And this way I can lengthen the distance from my pubic bone to my throat. And once things feel like they are breathable, maybe I release my arms and dangle, maybe you have your hands on your shins. Bend your knees enough that you can bring your thighs and your belly quite close together and breathe the sensation of your thighs and your belly touching, releasing through the crown of your head as much as is comfortable. And then lean through your feet, bend your knees a little bit more and roll your spine up. Once you come up, we will take our blocks out and see how the world looks, see how our feet feel. Take your blocks out and now standing on two feet. And just notice again, initially you can feel like you're grounded, like really grounded. Notice what you notice. Maybe lift your arms up, stretch a little taller, see the dimensions of where you are now. Feel the shape of your breath and your body and then we'll fold one more time. Folding, maybe elbows to knees for the first couple of breaths. Press your elbows into your knees. Feel the muscles of your legs hug the bones of your legs. And then let your arms dangle. Hangs are all about stamina. The ability to stay a little can cross reference to enter the center of your circumstances. So press from your left foot and feel your right hip. Then press from your right foot and feel your left hip. From your left hip, widen your right armpit and from your right hip, widen your left armpit. Then from your armpit, see what it feels like to just slightly widen the space between your ears. When you're ready, lean into your feet. Inhale, come all the way up, lengthen up through your arms. Exhale, let your arms come down. Beautiful. Standing on your left foot, we're going to bring our right foot up into tree pose. That could be inner shin, inner knee, or you could bring your foot up to your inner thigh. Pause. First feel the ground. The sensation of your body touching the ground. Then as you're comfortable, lift your arms up and we'll hook our thumbs. We're going to play with those side bends in tree pose. I like the word play because it means that falling is okay. You can move a little bit to your right, take a pause, and a little bit to, whoa, I'm going to fall out. Let myself fall. Come back to center and go the other way. It's just this reminder that balance in nature is dynamic and so are we. Balance isn't static. Like a statue, balance is alive like us. Beautiful.

Bring your arms down. We'll release our right leg, but keep it lifted. The next play is to see what it feels like to slowly fold forward. Maybe touch your fingertips to the ground and fold over your left leg. Pause. Press into your left foot, bend your left knee to come up. If you need to bring your right foot down, bring it down. Lift your arms up, reach a little taller, and then bring your right foot down. Wiggle your hips. That's a little bit of a long balance. Let your left leg come up. Inner shin, inner knee, inner thigh. You can take breaks whenever you need to. If you don't want to stay as long as I am, that's totally fine. Lift your arms up. Hook opposite thumb in front just to sort of notice those little habitual ways that we do things. Opposite thumb in front usually feels a bit weird. Take a pause. Feel the touch of your standing foot on the ground. Then go a little bit to one side. See what it feels like. A little bit to the other side. See what it feels like. Come up into the center of yourself. Get a little taller. Then when you're ready, release your arms down. Release your left leg, but keep it lifted. It's almost like a teeter totter. You move your left leg back, your spine comes forward, maybe your fingertips touch the ground. I'm not worrying right now about lifting my left leg really high. I'm just paying attention to the fold over my right leg. The sort of primary fold of the pelvis. Once you're ready, you can press into your standing leg, bend your knee a little bit to feel the connection from your pelvis to your foot. That really helps us to come up. Maybe you lift your arms up, get taller, and then release. Great job. Let's come to the front of the mat. We'll take one more hang. Inhale your arms up. Exhale to fold right in the center of your feet. In the center of your feet, press through your big toes and your outer heels. Then press through your pinky toes and your inner heels. Feel the soft tissues of your legs, hug the bones of your legs. Then lean through your feet. Inhale, come all the way up. Lengthen up through your arms. Exhale, your arms come down. Three half sun salutations. Feet go down, arms go up. Exhale, fold. You can do fingertips on the ground or hands behind your shins. Inhale to lengthen. Lengthen the distance from your pubic bone to your throat. Exhale to fold. And of your exhale, a little compactness in your belly. Press through your feet. Inhale, come all the way up. Exhale, your arms come down. Inhale, your arms come up. Exhale to fold. Inhale, lengthen from pubic bone to the back of your throat. Exhale to fold. Let your thighs move towards your belly. Inhale, come all the way up. Lengthen up through your arms. Exhale to release. Last time, press through your feet. Inhale, arms come up. Exhale to fold. Inhale, long and wide. Exhale, compact in your center. Lean through your feet. Inhale, come all the way up. Exhale, release your arms down. Press your feet down, arms come up, making our way down to the ground for some lunges. Exhale to fold. Inhale here to lengthen. Exhale, step or hop back, downward facing dog. First downward dog of our practice. Press through your feet. Press through your hands. Notice four points of contact now. Hand, hand, foot, foot. If you elevate your heels slightly, your pubic bone gets taller. Keep your pubic bone tall and just lower your heels slowly. Cross reference to orient to the center of your circumstances. So press through your left hand and your right foot. And then press through your right hand and your left foot. Notice the apex of your belly. And when you're ready from here, come forward to plank pose. Plank pose, pause. And I like to think about plank as like a little more like seaweed and less like a two by four. So seaweed is like very strong if you ever tried to break it. But it's also stable. So give your plank a little bit of movement side to side and feel that quality like you're floating in the ocean and you're strong. Okay, when you're ready from knees or toes, lower all the way down to your belly. Come up onto your elbows, press into your elbows, curl your spine in, tuck your chin, look at your pubic bone, uncurl your spine. As you uncurl your spine, widen your armpits and see if there's a little space in the back of your throat that wants to get taller. Curl your spine, press through your thighs, curl in. It's like cat cow curls on our belly. As you unfurl, think about a fern or a flower unfurling in the morning sun. Last time, curl in, touch your center with your attention, uncurl. Feel the periphery, the space around your body. Last time you might lean into your hands and get a little taller. Exhale to lower down. If you want to come through upward dog on your way to downward dog, feel free. When you're ready, roll over knees or toes, lift up into downward dog. Pause. Downward dog as you're ready, step your left leg forward into a lunge. I'm going to stay in a high lunge today and just, I have fingertips on the ground if you wanted to grab your block so you could use blocks. I'm just going to bounce up and down a little bit and sort of find the place where I can feel strong and stable but also relaxed. Then once I find that, I'm going to stay a little bit quieter so the movement is visible on the inside but not the outside. I'm just going to massage my left elbow in circles. My left armpit and chest area is getting a little bit of a massage on my left knee. It's almost like my knee fits into my armpit. Beautiful. From here, when you're ready, you can gently step back downward dog. Step your right foot forward. Pause and just bounce a little bit. Again, the bounce is just this gentle reminder to be strong but also relaxed. Let the outer movements become quiet. Beautiful. So there's this outer stillness, this inner awareness. Massage your right armpit on your right knee. So just elbow circles. You can really snug that armpit right over the kneecap. Go both directions. If you find a nice little pressure point, then enjoy it. Then bring your hand down, right hand down, lift up into downward dog. Forward to plank pose. Plank pose. Pause. Again, find that memory of seaweed in your body. The strength of the ocean. Come all the way down onto your belly. Cobra curls.

Press into your elbows. Curl your spine. Tuck your chin. Uncurl your spine. Unfurl. Look forward and look up. Curl in. Uncurl. One last time. Curl in. Uncurl. Lean into your hands. Maybe you get taller. Press through the top of your left foot. Widen your right armpit. Press through the top of your right foot. Widen your left armpit. Then again, notice the volume of space in the back of your throat. Then come all the way down. Upward dog to downward dog or roll over your knees and make your way to downward dog. From downward facing dog, make your way forward into a forward fold. Inhale and exhale to fold. Lean through your feet. Inhale, come all the way back up. Lengthen up through your arms. Exhale. Let your arms come down by your side. Next we're going to do a couple of forward folds with a blanket. I'm going to find my blanket. We're going to start on an uphill slope and then we're going to try it on a downhill slope. Then we'll find our center. I'm going to bring the mounds of my toes onto this blanket which is folded a couple of times. I'm going to start by just bringing my hands to my knees. Uphill slope, think about walking uphill. It's a little harder than a downhill slope. We tend to end up a little bit behind ourselves. Stay for a moment with your hands on your knees and see if you can move your kneecaps forward. Your kneecaps are moving in the direction that you're going. Then maybe you bring your fingertips down either to the floor or to blocks. Press through your left foot. Widen your right hip to the right. Press through your right foot and widen your left hip to the left. Then maybe you fold a little further. The amount that's comfortable to fold, sometimes I'll bring my hands a little further in front to encourage moving in the direction that I'm going so I don't get stuck behind myself on this uphill slope. Stay a few breaths. We're attempting to center ourselves inside of our circumstances even when the ground we're walking on is not perfectly flat, which is kind of like life. It's usually not perfectly flat. Take your time from your uphill slope. Come all the way up to standing. Lift your arms up. Let your arms come down. Come off the uphill slope. Stand on solid ground and just notice your view. I always like to remind myself to notice my view. Then we're going to move our blanket back. Now we're walking on a downhill slope, which is usually preferred a little bit easier. It also supports in forward folding. It supports us to find the anterior tilt. It can actually make this crease of the fold of the pelvis a little deeper. Then you can come forward. Maybe you have your elbows on your knees. Pause. Again, notice if you get stuck behind yourself, you might still feel that way. See if you can move your kneecaps forward over your toenails. Then again, find your hang. As I mentioned earlier, hangs are about stamina and tenacity. As we do a few more of these, if you start to feel your legs, then that's not a bad thing. It's something that happens as we hang out with the reality of now. Let your head release. Press into the tippy toes on your left foot and widen your right hip. Press into the tippy toes on your right foot and widen your left hip. Notice the space in the center of your pelvis. As your armpits widen, maybe there's a little space between your ears. Then lean into your feet. Inhale, come all the way up. Lengthen up through your arms. Let your arms come down and you can just step forward off of your blanket. Once again, pause long enough to notice your view on solid ground. Beautiful.

Then we'll take our blanket out to the side and make our way down towards the ground. If feet go down, inhale, arms come up. Exhale to fold. When you're ready, inhale and then exhale back downward facing dog. Downward dog forward to plank pose. Feel the ocean inside of you and all around you, that sort of memory of being in the ocean. Slowly lower. Three more cobra curls. Curl in. See your center. Un-curl. Notice your view. Curl in. Feel the touch of your body on the ground. Compact in your center. Un-curl. Wide ears, wide eyes. Last time. Curl in. Un-curl. Maybe lean into your hands. Lift up. Exhale, come all the way down. Either through upward dog to downward dog or just roll right over your knees and into downward facing dog. Notice the touch of your body on the ground, the touch of your breath on your body. From your downward facing dog, you can step your right leg forward into a lunge. From your lunge, if you wanted blocks like we had last time, you could find blocks and we'll just bounce a few times like we did last time. This time when you bounce, you're going to hop your back leg a little bit forward and eventually end up lifting your back leg. And you can always keep the back leg down if that's more appropriate for you. Lift your left knee but keep your heel close to your bum. Stay for a breath or two. So it's deep forward fold, strong in the right leg. From here, my right knee is a little bit bent, so my thigh and my belly are close. I'm going to attempt to balance on my right leg. So I'm going to hook my right hand behind my Achilles. This might be a good place to be, wide armpits, wide eyes. And if you like, you could bring your left hand, clasp it with your right hand. For stability, if you fall, you fall. It's a challenging balance but play with it as you like. Once you're there, if you pull slightly on the arms, you can widen your gaze forward so you're looking in the direction that you're going rather than looking behind yourself. Okay, release your hands if you haven't already. Bring your left foot down. Find your lunge. Step back into downward facing dog. Move your legs in the way they want to be moved. When you're ready, step your left leg forward to your lunge. On fingertips, on blocks, or fingertips on the ground, a little bouncing. And the bouncing, just giving yourself some space to be relaxed inside of strength. And then hop your back leg forward. Lift your back leg, bend your knees to your heels close to your bum. Allow the left thigh and the left side of your belly to be close. Pause for a moment. If you want to experiment with the balance, bring your left hand, hook it behind your Achilles. Center down through your left foot so you can feel from your pelvis pressing all the way down into your foot. Maybe your right hand comes to clasp behind your Achilles.

And then to create some integration in the circuit, if you pull slightly on the arms, the arms straighten, create a connection between the hands and your Achilles, and you can widen your gaze forward. And stay for a breath or two. When you're ready, release your hands. Bring your back foot down. Step back into downward dog. Downward dog. One last. Cobra play. Lowering down. Coming onto your elbows. Find the wave of the ocean inside your body. Curl in. Un-curl. Look up. Curl in. Un-curl. Find the micro-movements in between the spaces of your spine. Un-curl. Maybe lift your elbows and then come down. Upward dog to downward dog or straight to downward dog. And from your downward facing dog, lower to your knees, tops of your feet to the ground. Rest in child's pose. Okay. From child's pose, you can take your time to come up and we're going to make our way to our backs for a closing hip opener. If you'd like to integrate a little bit through your center on the way down, I'm just going to sit on my pelvis, dig my heels into the ground a little bit, and it's like I'm pulling my heels towards my bum and rolling my spine down. I'm probably going to get to some little speed bumps along the way. So just see if you can lower vertebra by vertebra. And you're going to have some parts where multiple vertebra come down together, totally normal. You can work through the little speed bumps. Once you come down onto your back, press your feet into the ground. Maybe lift your hips and center your pelvis and then bring it down. And half happy baby is going to be our closing posture. So sort of bringing your right knee and right hand to your right shin as a starting point. Pause with that. And then you could stay here if you hold behind your right hamstring and let your right shin come towards vertical.

And then from there you could either hold your shin. I like to just lift my arms without straining my shoulders. So I'm going to either hold my shin or if it's comfortable to reach for the foot and be comfortable in your shoulders, then that works too. Take a breath or two. And then from here I'm going to hover my left foot, lengthen my left foot away, keep it hovering. I might lift my chin for a moment and just look at my left big toe. And then center the left heel and lower it down. Slowly lower your skull. Take a moment, widen from your right hip to your left hip. So it's a little space, lateral space across your pelvis and then widen from your left armpit to your right armpit. And as we widen we can start to have a little more sensation through the center of ourselves because there's less constriction. You might also widen your ears, widen your eyes. To come out of this on this side I'm going to hover my left foot again. Feel as though my left leg is connected to the left side of my belly, which it is. Curl up, slowly bring your left foot in, plant your foot, release your right foot and bring your head down. Pause, left leg comes in, hold your left knee, squish it in so the left side of your belly and your left thigh are connected. Breathe the touch of your thigh on your belly, maybe hold your hamstring, lift your shin to vertical. Stay with that for a moment. You could hold your shin, you could hold your foot. And then gently hover your right foot, elongate it away from you, curl your chin up, look at your right big toe and then lower that heel down, lower your head down. As you lower your head down see if you can keep your thigh and your belly close together and breathe the contact of the left side of your waist and your left inner thigh. Come out of it the same way we did on the other side so you just gently hover your right heel, feel the connection of the right thigh to the right heel, the right thigh to the right side of your belly, curl up, bend your right knee, bring your foot down, slowly lower your head, release your left foot. To release those sort of deeper hip opening postures, a little bit of movement is nice, so just a little gentle wind show wipers side to side. I turn my feet a little bit duck footed but it's up to you, a little bit duck footed, rock your knees side to side and as you feel ready elongate your legs, turn your palms to the ceiling, give yourself permission to occupy space beyond the boundary of your mat so we don't have to be rectangular, we can expand into various dimensions with our bodies and with our minds. Then as you settle just notice the spaces between your breaths, so notice at the top of each inhale space before your exhale begins and the bottom of each exhale space before your inhale begins.

Take a couple nice sips of air as you breathe in, you can imagine sipping ice cold water from an ancient stream, hug your knees in, roll to one side, give yourself some support as you come up to seated and you take one or two breaths where you feel the air enter your nostrils, the temperature of the air, say thank you to yourself and then bring your palms to the ground as we offer the benefits of our practice to all beings, yoga mudra, do you fold and I want to say thank you so much for joining, I hope we get to practice together again soon, have a wonderful day.