Move and Feel Better with Melina

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Let's Feel Better. I'm excited to share with you some of the things that I do on a regular basis actually feel better in my body and mind. We're gonna start standing for our practice today, and I wanna invite you to have your feet underneath your hips, a place where you feel stable, and then a little slight bend of your knees, so the legs aren't locked. I often start with a few deep breaths and do a little shoulder roll action, myself, a little massage here, to start to get ready for some movements.

Let's see if you can find that rhythm and pace that feels good for you. After a few little shoulder rolls, getting rid of a little bit of tension there. Let's rotate the spine and I invite you to bend one arm in front and one arm behind and just start to turn through the joints of the spine. I often find it goes a little bit better if my belly is relaxed as I'm doing my twisting. Keeping a nice, long, tall spine.

And those have the arms stay down at your side as you do a little check-in with your hips and make some of those hula hoop like circles going one direction and then a couple of the opposite direction. Just in case you've been sitting or doing some exercise just to release the joints of the lower back. Alright. Now let's keep your feet more or less under your hips and take a big breath as you sweep your arms up. If it feels good look up, and then exhale hands towards the chest. Inhale, there's a big sweeping action up, hands towards the chest. One more inhale up, hands towards the chest. Okay.

Let's keep the arms up next time and grab your left wrist. And do a little arch over to your right side as you ground your feet. Come up through your center, grab that right wrist, and exhale over to your left side. And come up to center arms down one more time. Arms go all the way up. Let's catch your left wrist and a big exhale to your right sides. Come up to center, grab that right wrist, and exhale to your left.

Alright. Let's come up to the center and arms down. I'm gonna turn sideways real quick. It's easier to see now as we send the arms up into the air, come into your chair legs. And then the big exhales, you swing your arms back and then come back up to standing arms overhead, exhale all the breath out big swinging action come up, exhale completely arms back, come up, and find your rhythm, kinda give me a little bounce in the legs, movement and shoulders opportunity to take that big, full exhale, maybe a little playful action as you go back and forth. Let's do one more cycle up and down.

Stay up. Arms down at your sides. I hope you're already starting to feel better. If not, let's go for some more moves where we separate the feet a little bit wider apart. Come into our kind of straddle position here. And as you inhale, let's go deeper into the leg squat with your arms in front of you so you keep a nice long back and then squeeze those elbows in towards your ribs, make those fist and pull back, and then reach out again, maintain your balance, and then exhale come up, squeeze between shoulder blades.

Reach out and exhale pull in. Reaching out. Nice long back. Excel squeeze in. So just a couple more. In that way, going down, coming up, reach out, get your squat on, squeeze between shoulder blades, 2 more, find that rhythm that works for you.

Now let's say here in that squat position and tip forward and as you touch the ground now, let your feet get a little bit wider apart, turn your toes to face the long side of your mat, and see if you might walk your fingertips forward. Bend your knees and give yourself permission when your knees are bent to swing your hips a little bit more back away from your shoulders. Head down as you take another breath here and just finding a little more space in your shoulders, torso, and maybe even eventually legs, if your legs get a little bit straighter. Take one more moment here. It's letting the head dangle down.

Tapping into maybe some of those calming benefits of that partial inversion. Just walk your hands back in towards your yoga mat and start to slide your feet slowly closer and closer together So you might maneuver into what will be your squats with your toes maybe turned out. Your hips might be high or your hips might come down low as you adjust your feet. And then maybe some of you, as you go side to side, might get your hands for a moment up towards your chest. And stretching a little more deeper into your hips and definitely getting a little bit more into your ankles.

Let's put one hand down and transfer yourself to the floor and bring your feet out in front of you. Alright. When your legs are together, let hold that opposite elbow and do a little rotation to your left and your right. Kind of feel how you're moving from the waist as you go side to sides, who a little more challenged, lean a little bit back as you're rotating side to side. I love this just to get little more connected to the center of my body, some deeper core muscles. Maybe one more side to side.

Alright. Now put your hands down and go ahead and start to slide on back to the floor, and we might just kinda roll on back and come down and meets the ground. Now as soon as you get here, let's tip your left knee in towards your chest and stretch your right leg all the way down to the floor. My favorite things to do every day, and then have that right arm if your shoulder allows all the way back by your ear. And maybe that left knee tips a tiny bit over to the left. Back body sinking towards the earth.

Let's go ahead and switch. Grab your right knee and stretch your left leg to the floor. That right femur in a good spot. And then take your left arm, if that's alright for your shoulder back towards your ear. And we try to sink our back towards the floor, as that right knee might tip a little bit to the right. Come back to center with that leg.

And as you hold both knees with your hands, circle your legs around a little bit and we'll kind of massage that lower back. And then from here, go the opposite direction with your circles. Keep your knees now over your hips, stretch your legs up in the air, the famous upside down, downward dog, your legs up. Let your arms for a moment. Stay back by your ears. And then spin the legs and curl into a little ball back into your upside down, downward dog.

Curl into your ball, upside down, downward dog, curl into your ball, upside down, downward dog. And then go ahead. Just hold your knees for a moment right over your belly area. Take a pause. Let's open your arms now out to your side and perhaps remove the knees a little bit forward to your knees or more over your hips. Let's go ahead and drop your legs over to your right side and turn your gaze towards the left.

Back to center look up. And a comfortable exhale legs going to the left as you look to the right back to center look up. Again, legs to the right, look to the left, back to center, legs to your left, and maybe nose and eyes looking to the right. Try a couple more and that rhythm that works for you, again, moving through all those different joints in your spine. Including those joints all the way up towards the neck.

K. Let's visit each side one more time. Alright. Now let's slide the hands under the back of the head. And finishing again, going a little bit more into core work as we draw the head and shoulders up, stretch that left leg forward, and a little twist to the right. Back to center. So we get that one leg to stretch long, right leg forward, twist towards the left, back to center, left leg forward twist to the right, center, right leg forward twist to the left, and kinda move at your own rhythm a call or more to each sides, having this be an opportunity. They take a really nice long exhale. And finish one more to each side.

And then hug the knees in one more time. And this time, as I hold them, they separate them and circle the legs independently. It's gonna freeen up any tension in the ball and socket joints. And perhaps go the opposite direction with the legs. And then keeping the knees squeezed together and then send your knees forwards, you can have your feet on the ground, maybe about as wide as your hips or as wide as the yoga mat. And for a moment here, let your arms be out to the side.

Palms facing up. Think another big inhale here and a big exhale just letting your body sink into the ground. And hopefully, you're noticing again even over this 10 minutes that we've moved our body in a way where we start to actually feel better. Just grab the legs, whatever way feels good for you, and let's start to get ourselves all the way back up. And then hopefully taking this feeling better into your day as you come up to sits, align yourself in a way where you've got nice good posture, Thanks so much for joining me here.

Have a wonderful day.