Artha: Working for Health & Wealth

Namaste, welcome to practice. This will be our art practice And for this, we're gonna be moving into some kundalini yoga. So come along with me. Grab your blanket. Couple blocks will be really helpful. And let's get started with some first chocolate exercises.

Rub your palms together. We're gonna start with our opening kundalini mantra. It is and that means I'm calling in, and I'm bowing to infinite creative consciousness. So your hands can come into Anjali Mudra, right at your chest, If you're comfortable closing your eyes, close your eyes. If that's not cool for you, keep your eyes open and just let your gaze drop. Give yourself just a couple breaths in this international devotional symbol.

And let's begin. Dev, no. Oh, guru. Oh, no. Take a full breath in.

Exhale it away. You can open up your eyes if they're closed. And we're gonna start just hands come onto your shins, and you're gonna actually, like, grip your shins pretty tightly here so that we can begin our spinal rocks. And we're gonna do for 3 minutes. So on the inhale, you'll pull yourself forward and lift your chest.

And on the exhale, you'll yourself drop back around this spine to and to test. And then we just stay with that, and you can coordinate this with your breath. And begin as you're ready. Inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale. And just stay with us. And eyes can be open or closed for this one.

If you're somebody who likes to work with mantra, you can do the mantra internally of sat. Nam, sat. Nam set. Nom set. Nom. Okay. It means truth. I am that, and it's a mantra that used quite a bit in Quincy yoga.

So stay with this and just let the spine loosen up a bit. Feel yourself rocking back and forth on your sits bones. As we know, first chakra goes from the soles of the feed up into the base of the spine. So let can be kinda heavy here, dropping down out of the hips and initiate the movement right from the base of the spine. Letting yourself move back and forth.

It's almost like a seated cat cow. Stay with it. And I'm really trying to press the sacrum forward and then tuck the tailbone under and the navel organically moves back into the spine on your exhalation. Stay with it. And notice I'm not going super, super fast here, but we will speed up a little bit on our last twenty seconds.

If this is the pace that feels best for you or you need to go a little slower or you're raring to go and wanna go a little faster, you can absolutely do that. And the thing that that I always love about Kundellini is that it sneaks up on you. Right? Like, it starts off and you're like, oh, okay. Not too big of a deal. I'm I'm I'm with this.

And then somewhere along the way, it starts to get a little bit more intense. It's meant to get intense. It's a provocative practice. Stay with it. Stay with it. And then last 20 seconds, and if you can speed up, we'll speed up a little here.

And we'll call this 10,987, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. Just let yourself come back into center. Just feel your hands can rest on your thighs. Just see if anything started to get shaken up a bit. And then we're gonna come into a squat for our next one. So I'm gonna be, showing you both with and without block So you can move your padding off to the side and grab a block if you need it to squat.

So block can go on the medium height, on the low height, If you need to sit up a bit a bit taller, you can grab two blocks and place them on the highest height. That'll give you a bit more stability. So either with or without your blocks, we're coming into a squat. Feet can be about mat width apart if you're not using a mat slightly wider than your shoulders, toes can turn out slightly. Deep, bend of the knees.

It's a lot on the ankle's knees, hips. So again, if you need that block, you take the block. From here, our hands are gonna come into, one version of Venus Mudra. You'll interlace your fingers, extend your index fingers, and cross your thumbs. You'll extend your arms straight out in front of you.

Gaze can be right at the middle fingers, and you'll begin breath of fire. Now quick mention about breath of fire. It's a quick sniffing breath in and out through your nose similar to like a dog painting, but with your mouth closed, contraindications for breath of fire. If you're pregnant, if you're on your menstrual cycle or you just ate. If you're feeling a little overheated or anxious or you struggle with headaches or migraines or any affliction of the eyes, You still can do this exercise, but please stay with long, smooth breathing.

UJai. Okay? It extend your arms out long in front of you gazing right at your index fingers and will begin breath of fire inhale. Excel? We're going for 3 minutes. Let's do it. Here we go.

Try to stay with it. Remember, this is a provocative practice. If you need to stop with the breath of fire for a moment and stay with long smooth breathing and come back to it or skip the breath of fire for the last part and just stay with long smooth breathing, you do that. Let's see if you can stay with just being in the shape, just stay with it, study your gaze, reset yourself when you need to, and begin again. And last twenty seconds, And we'll call this 109876 54321 full breath in. Full breath out. From here, bring your hands down.

We're gonna come out of this slowly push down into your hands and begin to lengthen out your legs. You can still stay hanging forward. Turn your toes parallel stay in your wide straddle forward fold. You can catch your arms and just shake out your head there. Change the crossing of your arms. One more breath.

And then place your hands down and very carefully come on back down to sit and find your blocks. So we're gonna take the blocks for this last first chocolate exercise that we're doing We're taking the blocks on either side of us, one right by each hip. Your hands can come onto your blocks here. From here, you're gonna push into your blocks and lift your bum up and let it drop down and lift your bum. And let it drop down.

And and one thing that I've noticed with the kundalini is because it gets your energy going so much, All kinds of things might happen. You might get a little angry. You might get a little frustrated. You might get the giggles. All of that is part of it.

Let that all happen. It just means that things are freeing up in your body. Alright? So hands come on your blocks. And, you know, if your bum is a little sensitive, put a blanket underneath you. Alright? But we're gonna come into our body drops, and we'll do this for 3 minutes. And if you if this is something that you need to build up to and you start with 1 minute, you'll start with 1 minute. Otherwise, let's begin. And, again, you can coordinate that with your breath inhale to come up and exhale to drop down.

And gaze can be just out in front of you. And you can think of lowering yourself very gently. Or if you're going for it and you wanna just let yourself really drop there, you can do that. And, again, provocative exercise. Right?

So we just stay with it. This one's gonna give your arms quite a workout. I promise. But try to stay with it. And the first chakra is all about trust and letting go.

Making sure that our foundation is strong, so that we can build up out of it. And as always, if you need to pause in the middle of this, shake out your hands, shake out your legs, and come back to it, you can do that. Otherwise, you're trying to stay with it. Do what you can, and don't worry about the rest. And just stay in it. Stay in it.

Even if that means that you pause, for a few breaths in Dundasana with your hands on your blocks and just be there and then come back to it. You can also do that. And as best you can, try to keep your feet bright and open. Flexing right at the ankles, and we stay with it. And I'm starting to sweat.

Maybe you are as well. Stay with it. Alright. Last twenty seconds. If you can speed it up, we'll speed it up for 2019, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 98, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. And then just let your hands rest on your thighs.

Let your legs go soft. Just feel. I love a kundalini practice. Alright. Second, Tara. We're gonna start with pelvic tilt.

So for this one, you're gonna stand up. And you'll take your feet about shoulder width apart. Let your knees bend. Taking your hands onto your thighs. Press the thighs down.

And then it's it's quite simple here. You're gonna stick your bum out and lift your chest up and look up. And then on the exhale, tuck the tail under and round the spine. So very similar to our our first chakra exercise, but this time you're really trying to isolate and feel it more in the hips, so you're in a bit of a flexion there to start off with at the hips. And we're gonna do this one for 2 minutes. So let's begin.

Inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale. And then just stay with that. And I'm really just trying to move from my pelvis here, a little bit less concerned with having it move all the way up my spine, You know, sometimes if if, you've had a day where you've done a lot of sitting, you've been at a desk or in a car, the pelvis can get a little stiff. Right? The hips get a little stiff, lower back. So this is a really good practice for all of that kind of tension that can get created in the pelvis and the lower back. Let's move the stuff around.

Just move it around and stay with it. You can use your hands against your thighs to get a deeper range of movement by pressing into the legs. And the breath can stay real even here as you move. Last twenty seconds if you can speed it up a little and have fun with it. And if it makes you giggle, great.

Stay with it for 10. 987654. 3, 2, and 1. Come on up to stand. Just again, give yourself a breath or 2 right there. If you need to, like, shake it out, get it moving, you'll do that.

Okay. And then we're gonna come back down to sit. So coming down to sit, if you need to sit on a blanket or a block, just in Sukhasana, And our next second chakra exercise, this one's gonna feel real good. Helvic rotations. So you take the torso and you inhale forward and around.

And exhale back and around and inhale forward and around and exhale back and around. And I'm using my hands on my thighs to pull myself forward and push myself back. We're just gonna do one minute in each direction starting off clockwise. Let's begin. And let yourself rock from one sit bone to the other.

Your legs don't need to be glued into place on this one. Just let the natural movement of your body. The organic of your breath happen. Circling around eyes can be open or closed. If you'd like to let your head and your neck move with this, you can do that. Working to make the circles as smooth and full as possible. And wind your way back around into center for a breath, and we'll begin to the other direction.

Counterclockwise, forwarding around and backing around and forwarding around and backing around. And I do think this circular movement is just so good for our nervous systems, you know, us in in our life and our everyday movement, we move in a very linear way. A lot of the times, we're moving forward and back Here, we're smoothing out the edges. You know, and that element for the second chakra is water. So allow yourself to feel very watery here.

No hard edges. Smooth it out and move with your breath. And wind your way back around into center. And take a full breath in and a full breath out. And then our last second chocolate exercise, for this one, you can put your blanket back off to the side.

And remember, I said provocative, this one is I would say, extremely provocative. We're gonna be moving into what in the kundalini yoga practice we call frogs. It's a great exercise. Very interesting exercise. You're gonna come onto your, the balls of your feet and bring your heels together.

And I'm slightly externally rotating my toes. And then I come down to sit on my heels to start off with, and I'm just on my fingertips. Now I wanna offer a couple different modifications for this. You can put your hands on blocks here. If you need because what we're gonna do is we're gonna straighten out the legs, keeping the heels lifted and dropping the head.

So if it's tough for you to get your hands all the way on the ground in this forward fold position, hands on blocks is a great option. Last mention, if you're like, my knees, not for me, you do the same thing. You can stand up take your toes and slightly turn them out, bend your knees, and it might just be arch the spine look up, straighten the legs, and bow the head. Arch the spine look up, straighten the legs and bow the head just there. Okay? Otherwise, we're bringing the heels together The balls of the feet is close to each other as possible coming on to the tips of the fingers, and you'll lift the chin stick your booty out, look up, breathe in, on the breath out, keeping the heels lifted, straightening the legs, and dropping the head.

We're gonna do 54 of these, right, half of 108, which is a very sacred number in yoga. 54. And maybe you'll build up to a 108, one of these days. We'll see. Okay. Let's begin. Take a full breath in.

And a full breath out and begin. 1. 2, 3, 4, 5. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31. 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39.

40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48 49, 50, 51, 52, you can do it. 53. We can do it 54. Come off the balls of your feet. Let your heels land. Drop your head. Hang over. Breathe.

Carefully make your way back down. Taking a seat either on your heels or in Sukhasana and just give yourself a couple of breaths there. Moving into our 3rd chakra practice. We're gonna take the hands into Soria Mudra. Soria is the sun.

Elements for the 3rd chakra is fire, manipura chakra. You'll take your thumbs and press your ring fingers down into your palms with your thumbs. Coming into your mudra, arms lift up into more of a cactus like shape. Palms can face in towards the head. You'll inhale and twist to the left and exhale and twist to the right.

And that's the movement. Super simple. 3 minutes of this. And, again, if you need to work up to 3 minutes, and pause in the middle and take a breath and come back to it, you'll do that. Otherwise, breathe in. Let's begin. Breath out. And go.

And as I'm doing this, I'm working to try to keep the sides of the waist very long to sit up as tall as possible. So sit bones press down, crown of the head lifts up, ribs pulling up out of the hips as best you can. Stay with it. So that the twist is long and open, and there's room for the guts to turn around themselves. Stay with it. Stay with it.

And you might notice that as you keep doing this, your range of movement can increase a bit. Let that happen organically. Right? Nothing needs to be forced. It's a fiery exercise to begin with, but you might notice that you can turn a little bit more as time goes on. And if your pace isn't the same as mine, and you need to move a little faster or slower, you'll do that.

But try to stay with it. Try to stay with it. I mean, that's that's the practice is breathing into the parts that are uncomfortable. Inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale and stay with it. And if your shoulders are starting to burn a little bit, That can be part of it.

If you need to pause and put your arms down and pick back up, you'll do that. Stay with it. You can do it. We can do it. And last twenty seconds here, if you can speed up a little, speed it up a little, for 2019, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 98, 76, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. Find your way back into center.

Hands can rest on top of your thighs. Eyes can be open or closed. Just taking a couple of breaths. Just feel. Okay.

Alright. Blanket can move off to the side. This next one, another big kundalini exercise, it's called stretch pose. So essentially, I'm gonna offer some modifications for this one as well. Essentially, you're in ARTa. Right? So half boat pose.

Your legs can be off the ground here. I'm pressing my navel to my spine. I'm reaching my legs out in front of me. My palms are straight by my sides. I'm gazing at my big toes, and I'm and I'm gonna do breath of fire. Again, with breath of fire member, If you're pregnant, if you're on your menstrual cycle, if you just ate, feeling overheated, anxious, affliction of the eyes, migraines, headaches, you skip the breath of fire, stay with long, smooth breathing. Yeah.

Otherwise, that's where we're staying. Now if that feels like a lot on your lower back, you can lower your legs down and just keep your torso up. You might lift one leg. Might lift the other. You might alternate. Okay? And if all of that is still not feeling so great for you, come up a little higher, catch the backs of your thighs, navel to spine, soften your shoulders, steady your gaze, and you'll stay there with or without breath of fire.

Alright? Otherwise, we're doing this for 2 minutes, stretch pose, coming down, navel to spine, reach the arms out long, look right down at your toes, breath the fire begin. Last twenty seconds here. Try to stay with it. For 2019, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10,987, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. Release everything down.

Just give yourself a little mini Shavasana for a moment. Allow the belly to balloon up a spend and open big, full deep breath. Then you can step your feet down to the ground, rolling over onto your right side, come on up to sit. And our last third chakra exercise, this one is called beyond fear. So the shadow emotion for 3rd chakra is fear.

And without fear, we move into our strength and our confidence So we'll take the legs out in Dundasana. If you need to sit on a blanket here, you can sit right on the edge of the blanket stretch the legs out long, arms come out, shoulder height, fold in your fist, extend your thumbs. Yeah. If you're not using the blanket, bum is on the ground. Legs are long.

Stretch your arms out long in front of you. Shoulder height. Make a fist, extend your thumbs upward, palms are facing in towards each other. The movement is quite simple. You're gonna inhale forward, Not even too much, right, just lean forward and pull back and lean forward and pull back.

And this works on your kidneys. Let's begin. 2 minutes. Here we go. You'll inhale forward exhale back, inhale forward exhale back. And this is another place where If you like to work with a mantra, you can work with satnam.

Satnam. Sat nam. Set Nam. Set Nam. Set Nam. Set Nam.

Set nam, sat, numb, and I'm doing my best to try to keep my legs pretty stationary here. There will be some movement. But trying to isolate a little bit more from the waist, from the torso, Keeping that solid foundation of the first chakra of the legs planted. Setnam. Setnam. Setnam.

Setnam. Setnam. Set. Numb gaze is steady, straight out in front. Remember that the sense associated with the 3rd chakra is sight, clear seeing.

So put some fire in your gaze and stay with it. You're almost there. Last twenty seconds. And if you can speed it up, you'll speed it up for 2019, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 98, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. Let your hands rest on your thighs.

Give yourself a breath. And that completes our 3rd chakra exercises. Let's come right into Shavasana. Lie down on your back. Turn your palms up.

Let your feet play. Eyes can be closed here. Allow your breath to fall in. Let your next breath come in a little bit more deeply. Exhale it away.

Little movements with your fingers and toes. You might stretch the arms up. Stepping your feet down to the ground, knees are bent, rolling over onto your right side, press into your hands, and find your way back up to seated position. We did it. Rudger Farms together. We're gonna close with one sut numb, long sat short numb, hands at your heart.

Breathing in. Nam, namaste. Thank you for sharing your practice.