Start Your Day Flow

Hey there, welcome to Yoga Anytime, my name is Robert. This practice here, this practice here is designed for like the everyday get out of bed, move your body for, you know, 10, 15, 20 minutes, get the day started, all right? So let's get going with it. You can call it a morning practice, a daily practice, just something that addresses, you know, the sticky kind of funky feelings you may have in the morning. So we're going to push back into a child's pose to begin.

And you can spend a few moments here, just kind of wandering around. Where are those spots for you? Take a couple deep breaths, maybe a really like, just beautiful mantra or positive affirmation, you know, it's going to be a beautiful day today. It's already beautiful because I woke up, right, I woke up and got out of bed, maybe sipping on your coffee, take a side stretch. So walk your hands over to the left.

So the emphasis is reaching through the right hand and maybe pulling that right hip back. It's almost like you're playing a little tug of war between those two end points. Over to the right. So you kind of crawl forward, push your hips back, and then reach out through that left hand, stacking hand over hand possibly. I also love this type of practice as it kind of like it's a conscious, intentional way to start the day rather than kind of falling out of bed late, stumbling into the day, feeling like forgetful or grumpy or cranky.

Move into tabletop cat cow, always a good one. So let's breathe in arch the back, stretch the belly out and exhale round round round out the back. And here's where you can get kind of personalized and groovy with it. You know, you've got your cat cow, there's your cow pose and you exhale into your cat. But then maybe like, push the hips back and stretch the toes out almost like a another child's pose but with your toes curled under, maybe add, we can do it together like really nice big generous hip circle one way, hip circle the other way.

Kind of hone in and fine tune your listening your feeling skills, wrist stretching both fingers sets of fingers pointing back and you roll around the wrist some circles one way circles the other way. I don't know how old you are personally. But I'm 52 now and the big joke with the 40s and 50s is let's turn the hands upside down maybe one at a time is like you know, you wake up and it's like how I went to bed feeling fine and I woke up injured like all of a sudden like how the heck can I not walk right now? Try the other hand. So you know, it's nice to just sort of like address whatever stiffness you've got.

Take a few deep breaths and have some gratitude. Take your right leg shoot it out to the side, all the way out from your right hip as far out to the side as you can so you're going to feel that stretch on the inner thigh hamstrings a little bit and then push back toward child's pose with your left toes curled under or flat up to you maybe a combo of both stretch the arm maybe walk the right arm over to the left get that side bend again. You can also like I have my whole foot grounded toes pointed forward. If you turn and rotate the toes upward then you get a little bit more hammy style. Hammer time.

Good. Okay, now come forward and step the right foot up. Now it's into the hip a little bit different, right? So we have a low lunge lizard. So why don't you bring the right foot to the outside of the mat, maybe just right to the edge and lean the left hip forward.

So like drop in move around with that right knee fade out to the side. Take the right arm reach it up and open up. Put my sunshine shirt on you for you today. So you know morning time. So if the sun isn't shining outside, just just join me here and we'll just pretend for a moment fake it till we make it sunshine.

Okay, let's get the full low lunge walk the right foot more towards Center drop those hips forward and bring the arms up overhead. Grab a little side bend to the right. Maybe one of my favorites. I have a lot of favorites top five will call it top five. Okay, now back into tabletop chillin child just for another like, let's see what that feels like now.

Now forward again and table shoot the left leg out. Let's see what that feels like toes of the right foot curled under just for that that toe stretch sensation. Point your left toes up toward the ceiling for that more hammer time hamstring stretch. Okay, come forward. Take your left foot step it forward out wide more like that lizard position.

So the right hand you got to work a little bit in that right arm drop the right hip down. Let the left knee fade out to the side good. You can also really err on the side of like come to the outside of that right foot and drop the hip. I didn't do it on the other side. So feel free to kind of like if you like this try it on the other side as well.

First open take the left arm reach it open. Bring the left hand back down walk the left foot toward center send those hips forward arms rise up tip and lean and stretch to the left. Now you can see here you probably feel it yourself but from your right knee all the way up it's that nice big opening. So so good okay bring it down downward dog. Okay here we are downward dog another one of my favorites send your hips to the left like pivot your feet when they're about like actually bring your feet together bend the knees a little bit and then pivot the heels over to the left your hips will follow then again side stretch right side drive that right heel down and then try it on the other side pivot the heels to the right drive the left heel down push push push push push back to dog pose.

Now here if you push really hard into the right hand and the left foot so kind of like a cross lateral so you're bending the right leg and softening the left hand really not even using it and then switch push as hard as you can into the left hand push the right heel down bend the left leg just like this nice counter cross lateral different feel we'll call it. Let's walk the feet forward into a forward fold half lift breathe in breathe out fold forward and down again inhale half lift and fold forward and down walk the feet out toward the edge of the mat angle the feet heels on the mat toes off possibly and drop into malasana might be a little tight if it's like early on in the morning so forward fold walk the feet back toward hip width fold good inhale half lift and exhale downward dog bring the knees down come to your seat from the seated position okay lean back just a little bit keep the right foot sort of hovering underneath your left upper leg take your left foot across the right thigh okay there's a two-part yummy yumminess feeling take your right arm around the front shin knee area and pull that leg in towards you so you'll feel like a little pigeon style stretch through the left side and you can stay there and feel that out and you can turn it into a twist by taking your right elbow on top of the left thigh left hand back behind you and then drive into that twist bringing out any like morning funk or midday or afternoon or evening wherever you are right now undo that counter twist so bring both hands over to the right lean into it sort of gets that low back lean back switch it up left foot under right foot across and down try to level out and ground through both sitting bones left arm hook it pull in be like this is my leg outer right hip stretch now left elbow across the right thigh long spine right hand back behind you drive through that elbow push through the right foot get tall twist rotate do walk both hands over to the left get a little counter twist perfect cross the legs and whatever fashion works for you side bend to the left with your right arm maybe bring the left forearm down see if you can get a big bend over by keeping the right hip down by the other side it's either the hand or the entire forearm as you lift the left arm up and stretch over so nice lateral side bend then you can kind of like walk the hands forward into a over the lap forward fold stretch over to the other side move into that little groovy little forward fold side stretch it's your body right do what feels best for you yes so now situate yourself on the mat like so lower down onto your low back mid back bend your legs 90 degrees perfect arms straight up on your exhale press up to your ceiling or sky and draw the knees in toward the elbows and then lower down inhale exhale so let's just touch into the core for a few moments so you know it's there as you move into your day so you're curling the low back up drawing the knees toward the elbows and you're drawing your shoulders up off the ground as much as you can perfect exhale two more exhale stay there hands behind your head shoulders lift lift lift extend your left leg out left elbow toward the right knee 10 times on each side good there's 1-1-2-2-3-3-4-4-5-5-6-6-7 good 7-8-8-9-9-10-10 good feet below the knees press into the arms and the heels press up for bridge pose this one's nice because let's say it is the beginning of the day right and bridge you really open up the chest you open up the heart and so it's a really nice like opportunity to remind yourself to sort of like move into the day leading with heart love with like openness lower down upper back mid back low back super good now we'll take a couple double knee twists to give some respect to the low back so you can let those knees come all the way over shift your hips to the center of the mat take both knees to the right twist twist twist okay up to center twist to the left sometimes that low back can get a little cranky overnight right so you just sort of reset it maybe get a little snap crackle pop back up to center keep the legs bent for now arms alongside your body and let's just take five breaths together this will be our rest this will be our closing part of the practice so take a deep breath in open the mouth and exhale everything out make the exhale much longer than the inhale inhale exhale release anything that would hold you back from having an awesome day breathe in breathe out let it go two more breathe in exhale all the weight just leaving the body one more time inhale and exhale perfect move our way up to sit one more breath here with the arms overhead breathe in breathe in breathe in exhale have an awesome day namaste