Kick Start Your Day Shortie

Hey there, welcome to Yoga Anytime. My name is Robert. Thanks for being here. I want to share with you today what I like to call a morning practice. You can do it anytime, but this type of practice is really helpful for me to do every day or as often as I can. So let's get started. We're going to start in like a child's pose position. You can have your toes curled or uncurled, your knees. Start with your knees wide. See how that feels. Push your hips back as you stretch your arms forward. As soon as you kind of meet your resistance in your hips or wherever, maybe kind of move back out toward table. Take a breath in and breath out, push back gently toward wherever that threshold is for you. So good way to kind of get into the breath as well, right? So you breathe in, you move away from the posture, you breathe out, push back gently toward the stretch. And you may feel some kind of opening with every drawback. Let's do that two more times and we'll find our personalized sweet spot. So you breathe in, you're in tabletop, breathe out, push back. Okay, one more time, breathe in and breathe out. Finding your spot. You need to place your head on your hands stacked or your fists for a little support if you have a pillow or a block, or if you can bring your forehead down to the ground, that works. Tune into your breath. Some nice deep inhalations through the nose and out of the nose. Maybe like wander from side to side in the hips, you know, just kind of feel it out, right? This would be that morning, the body's a little achy, maybe a little stiff. This is just a nice way to address those sticky spots. Take some deep breaths. Start your day with some positivity. Okay, let's come keep the arms stretched out. Come forward into table and move back just a tiny bit for you. Let's see what it feels like to drop the hips down. So like a lazy, I like to call this like a lazy up dog. So your feet can even be pretty wide, legs wide. And again, with the arms kind of straight, maybe a little bend in your elbows, you can send your hips from side to side. So if you send your hips to the left, maybe look over the right. If you send your hips to the right, look over the left. So this, this is too much for your low back, you can lower down a little bit more. And from here, bend the elbows lower all the way down and we'll open up the shoulder. So take your left arm, walk it out as far as you can to the left, and use your right hand to push yourself over gently into that scorpion pose, right? And so that means your right leg is either straight or bent stepped back behind your left leg. So first thing in the morning, I'll always feel like a little release in my low back that feels nice. Shoulder opening, and you kind of cruise on over to the other side. So stretch the right arm out to the side, palm facing down, preferably and you find your angle as well. Straight out if that works, go straight out, and then roll on over. You know, and again, like we did in child's pose, you can do that with every pose, especially in the morning, you know, where things are a little stiff, you can come all the way out, breathe in, and breathe out. And when you do that, like I said earlier, it's a great way to stay in tune with the breath and keep the breath, like participating in the experience, almost dictating the experience, come back into like a cobra setup. Inhale cobra, or maybe that lazy up dog back into tabletop. Let's thread the needle. All right, so you're gonna take your left hand, walk it out a little bit, reach the right arm up, open up, say hey, what's up? And then exhale, bring that right arm underneath the left arm, palm facing up to get the outside of the right shoulder stretched out. You can take your left hand and walk it forward more. You can even push your hips back into more of a child's pose. This is just like, the more you wander around, the more you're curious, and the more you pay attention to how things feel. You find your own shape. Let's check out the other side. So you kind of exit the way you came in, slide the left hand back to open up one more time, say hi. Bring it back down, right hand down.

The right hand walks out a little bit, left arm reaches up, you get a little rotation, and then sweep it under. Try to ground the left shoulder, walk the right hand forward a little bit. And again, where's the shoulder stretch, maybe you feel something in your spine, some kind of twist and rotation. Give yourself at least one to three really nice exhale landings. Let's exit on out. As you bring the right hand back, you sweep that left arm up again. Get that counter rotation. Bring it back to table. Let's do one more child. See if anything is kind of opened up there. A little wiggle left, a little wiggle right. Back into table. Curl the toes. Let's explore down dog. Lift the knees and push the hips up, up and away. So find your position. I like to kind of start in a plank to get my down dog position. So wherever your hands are, you know, kind of below the elbows and shoulders, feet hip width or mat width, and then that kind of gives you a generalized position for the down dog. Start off by putting a generous bend in your knees. This will allow some freedom for the pelvis. All right, send your tailbone nice and high. Push your chest back. Feel the stretch and opening in the shoulders. The blood rushing gently through the head or to the head. Then straighten one leg, maybe your left and bend your right. Start to walk it out a little bit. I truly, truly, truly believe that making this time for yourself in the morning. Man, so many values. Get your body sorted. Some energy with your breath. Bring the knees down. Cat cow. We'll move through the spine a little bit. So cat cow. Drop the belly. Lift the tailbone. Chest forward. Gaze forward gently. Let the belly sort of hang and hammock down as you create this little healthy tension in the low back or compression and using your belly muscles. Pull up and round out the back with the tabletop. Draw the tailbone down. Spread the shoulder blades wide. Gaze towards your thighs. One more time. Breathe in. Cow pose. Breathe out. Cat pose. Back to table. We'll explore puppy pose. Keep the knees about hip width or a little wider. Hips over the knees. Walk your arms forward. Drop the elbows down for this version. Walk the elbows a little farther forward. And if you can, draw the palms together. Bring the palms back behind your head as you draw your forehead or chin and chest down toward the ground. I mentioned the benefits, right? The physical body. The energy with your breath. But what also might be a nice add-on is like an intention or a reminder. And one that's been working for me lately. Super simple. Could even come off as a little cheesy, but it works for me. It's going to be a beautiful day. Just carry that through the breath, through the practice. On the mat and off the mat into your beautiful day. Sphinx pose. Palms down. Come forward.

So your elbows are below the shoulders. If that's a little too much on your low back, take your elbows a little farther forward. More of your belly down. That'll release the tension in the back. If you like a little bit more, you can press into your palms. Seagull pose I think this is called. Somewhere in between. Sphinx. A couple of deep breaths. A little smile on your face. It's like this really beautiful, special time. Not stumbling into the day, but moving in intentionally. Bring it on down and back through your Cobra or Up Dog. Back into table. Okay. From here, curl the toes and sit back for a moment. Just kind of sit this the seat back towards your heels, stretching out the bottoms of the feet, your toes. This is either really buttery and yummy for you or it's intense. Work with what you've got there. And then from here, lift all the way up into like a tall kneeling position. Draw your tailbone down. Give a little glute squeeze, some leg strength and reach the left arm up kind of with the left palm facing back. This might open up your shoulder a little bit. Right fingertips to your right heel. Now reach up as high as you can and lean back just a bit. So you're just looking for that big left side of the body stretch. And what you can do is now bring the left arm down and do the same thing with the right. Bring the right arm up. And you can exaggerate it by pushing the right hip forward a little bit. Those hip flexors involved. Let's try one more on the left. Right hand down, left arm up. Breathe in as you're expanding and extending upward. And bring it down and then the right arm reach launch extend. Gentle backbend open up that heart a little bit or a lot. Perfect. Back down, untuck the toes, kneeling just for a moment that could be intense on the knees. Again, work with what you've got always. Take one deep breath, bring the arms overhead. Breathe in, breathe in. Exhale hands to your heart. Perfect. Let's come to sit. Cross leg if you can. Maybe a blanket or a thin block underneath your seat and you can sort of sit on the edge of whatever you choose and that'll help adjust the seat to make it more comfortable for you. So we're gonna go for a couple simple twists. So take the left hand to the right knee, right hand back behind you. Lift the chest, lengthen the spine. Breathe in and breathe out. Twist a little deeper. Bring some attention to your spine. And your neck. Good. Cruise back to center. Twist to the left by bringing the right hand to the left knee, left hand back behind you. Lift the chest, lengthen the spine and twist. Back to center. You can do that as often as you'd like or more if you'd like. But we'll move into a side bend. Right hand down to the ground. Left arm reaches up, palm facing down, right? And then lengthen out of the body like from the ground. Almost like you're trying to release or lift the ribcage up, up, up and then bend over to the right. Explore some different feels and sensations. Back up to center. Left hand down. Right arm extends up. Get that extension to get the bend, to get that lateral flex. And what a great opportunity to breathe into the ribcage, right? The full expansive breath. Good. Back to center. Take the arms back behind you. Fingertips can point back. Push the heels of your palms down and press the chest upward. When you press the chest upward, take a breath in so it kind of matches the energy of the pose. So breathe in. Pause there. Breathe out. One more time. Breathe in fully. And breathe out. Back to center. Hands can rest on your thighs or your knees. Sit up nice and tall. Let's close our eyes for just a few moments. Make sure your ankles feel okay. Your knees, your hips, your spine is nice and long. Shoulders relaxed. Facial muscles all chilled out and relaxed. Breath is flowing maybe like a two to three to four second inhale through the nose. Followed by the same duration of the exhale. Inhale two, three, four. Exhale four, three, two, one. Good. Inhale two, three, four. Pause. Exhale slowly four, three, two, one. Pause and breathe in your own way. Just for another moment. Going to be a beautiful day. It really can't hurt to say that. Even with life's challenges, right? It can still be beautiful. Bring the hands to your heart.

Take the forehead down toward the fingertips. Hard not to be grateful at this moment. Thanks for showing up. Thank yourself for showing up. I thank you. Have a beautiful day. Namaste.