Rooted Tree Pose

Hello, and welcome. I'm Maeve. I'm so happy you're here with me today. Let's get rolling. We're gonna start seated. And you can sit cross legged if it feels good.

If something else is better for you, I'm I'm great with that. And we're just gonna start with some spine circles here. I want you to notice which direction you're going because we're gonna switch this. And I didn't give you any direction in which way to go. I just wanted you to fall in I just wanted you to follow what felt best to you. Let's start to feel the breath feeding this movement.

Pausing in the center. Let's just cross the other way. And we're gonna move the other way. Because you noticed which way you were going. Correct? Excellent. When in doubt, just move.

And our breath starts to really coordinate with what we're doing. And as we're in this moment, just noticing what you bring on your mat today, how you feel mentally, physically, emotionally, and just know that might change. It does. We are very transient there. One more round, and we'll just pause in the center. What your eyes off and take a breath in.

Release it out. Good. You're gonna bring your hands behind you. We're gonna cross ankle to knee, lift your heart up, and then we're just gonna switch it. We're gonna do this side to side a few times. And you can have as much space between you and your thighs as you need And if you want it to be a little deeper, you can move in a little closer.

More than anything. I want this practice to feel really accessible, doable, and leaving you really confident in your body. Let's just do one more. Really nice. Release your legs. Again, Just take a moment to pause here and breathe. Really nice. Alright.

Let's move into downward facing dog. In down dog, you have a few breaths To move around, you can kind of sway side to side if that feels good. You can bend one knee, drop the other heel. You can also just to stillness. And then finding a sense of equal energy throughout your body.

So your hands, your feet are working equally, your arms, your legs, equal strength, and energy allowing the crown of the head to lengthen toward your thumbs. One more inhale here. With your exhale step, your right foot outside of your right hand. Put your back knee down. And then just pull the heart forward.

Little engagement in your back glute, your left glute, you can take this right foot as wide as you want it to go. You whatever direction the foot is going, I'm just gonna request that your knee is going the same way. And then find a little bit of cobra, updog, and the heart. Now I'm gonna keep my foot minding exactly where it is right now. It's a little wide.

If you feel better with your foot more central, you are welcome to move it there. Start to straighten the front leg and you're welcome to use blocks here if it makes it more accessible. I'm a big fan of using prop to make poses feel good, lengthen the spine, breath, even, and steady. I'm gonna have you dig this right heel in a little bit, and imagine you could shorten from your heel to your sitting bone. So just activating that hamstring a little bit.

Next inhale. Come forward. We're gonna rise up with the arms. And then exhale hands down and straighten the leg. Inhale. Rise up.

Exhale back. One more time. Inhale. And exhale. Bend the front knee inhales. Step back to plank.

Now little pause here. The safest way for you to get to your belly is gonna be knees down, bend the elbows, lower the hips. If you're comfortable lowering one straight line, fantastic. Point the toes back, hug the elbows in, inhale, draw the thumbs toward each other, drag the hands back energetically. Nice, easy cobra, and downward facing dog. Pause, reset.

So this is never a resting pose, but I love this as a home based check-in with your breath to check-in with your body. Inhale. Excel left foot wide outside your left hand, right knee down. Little engagement in this right hip. Strong arms, heart draws through.

Blocks are great here. Energetically front foot presses down and gently draws back, back knee, back foot energetically press down and gently draw forward. So we've got a little scissoring action in the legs. One more inhale here. And the exhale straight in the front leg.

So same thing applies on this side. If you prefer taking this foot in center, go for it. I like a little whiteness here a little bit of an external rotation in this front leg, but I'm gonna leave that up to you. Dig the heel down, activate the back of this left leg, draw the heart forward. And when we're gonna move with this, Inhale. Come forward. Rise up and exhale hands down the street.

Inhale, and exhale. Inhale, and straight and exhale. Rebound the front leg, step back to plank, breathe in. We're gonna lower down again. Inhale cobra and downward facing dog.

And bring your feet to your hands. Inhale length and halfway, bow forward with your exhale. Push the floor away and he'll rise, reach to the sky. Enhance your heart. Exhale. Moving meditation.

Just moving with your breath. Inhale. Rise up. Exhale. Bow forward.

Inhale halfway, exhale plank, pause in plank, inhale, your choice, either halfway down Chaturanga Dandasana or the floor. Inhale, updog, or cobra, And downward facing dog, exhale. Inhale, lift your heels, exhale, bend your knees. Look at your hands. Bring your feet to your hands.

Inhale halfway. Bow exhale. Rise, inhale, and start exhale. Inhale, rise. Exhale forward fold.

Inhale. Half forward fold. Chaturanga exhale. Now, if your preference is to lower down, wonderful. Inhale your backbend up dog or cobra, down dog exhale. Rise to your toes, inhale.

Bend your knees. Look where you're going. Walk a step or jump. Feet to hands. Halfway inhale, fold exhale, rise inhale, Hands hard, exhale.

One more round. Inhale. Forward fold exhale. Follow the breath. Inhale halfway. Chaturanga or planklowering.

Rise your backbend. And down dog exhale. Heels high. Spend your knees with your exhale. Float feet to hands.

Halfway. Inhale. Bow, exhale. Inhale rise. And hands to hard exhale.

Feel your feet under you. Root down. I'm gonna inhale, reach the right knee up. Just take a little pause here. Good.

So feeling your center, feeling real strong here. We're just gonna take this right knee out to the right. Okay. So two ways you can enter here. You can either reach down, take your foot put it anywhere on your leg, or you can just turn the knee open and place your foot without using your hand. So I'm gonna let you decide that.

Sometimes we bobble in it. It's okay. That's kind of part of the practice. And Part of this posture is in fact finding your roots and finding the strength without being rigid, being subtle, without being floppy, strong, without being rigid. Work the standing leg nice and strong.

Your foot can be anywhere you want in your leg as long as it feels good. If it's nice, take the arms up overhead. Yeah. And you're just going to feel Again, an equal amount of energy and effort throughout your body. So you're using your standing foot, but you're using your lifted foot as well.

And you don't need to crank this knee open. Instead, think about lengthening inner thigh to inner knee. Steady your gaze, steady your breath, however much pressure, your lifted leg, your foot, is giving your standing leg. You're gonna meet that with the standing leg. So equanimity in the post. One more inhale.

Hands to heart with your exhale. Turn the knee forward. Place your right foot down. And you're welcome. I love a block in this pose.

Right foot's coming down. Left leg is lifted half moon, Arda Chandracena. And be expansive here. I love this pose for many reasons, but one of my favorite things about this pose is the sense of being very big, every limb is lengthening. Your spine is lengthening.

Strict this. Bend your standing leg. Lean forward. And then slowly stretch that left foot back and you can kind of spot it back reverse warrior. And you don't have to, like, stick the landing. You can adjust your feet when you get there.

And a nice big expansion on this right side Generist bend in the front knee, powerful back leg, So similar legs here as in tree. So this would be the foot, the leg that would be lifted, this would be the strong standing leg, with an inhale, straight in the front leg, pick up your back, heal, your left heel, turn it in, and then sync to the back of your mat, Skandasana. Now many, many ways to be here. You can be high, you can be low, It does not matter if your heel touches the ground or not. So it's up to you where you feel good in this. Dig this right heel down, activate the back of that right leg, lift the spine.

One more inhale. Turn to the back of your mat, right hand comes down, square your left toes to the back of the mat, and you're up on those right toes. Nice, gentle twist open. Now press your feet down energetically draw them toward each other. So there's a little scissoring here.

I see scissoring. It's like squeezing the legs together. The 2 I don't know what you call those if it's legs of a scissor, but that's what we're doing. Gonna shift your weight into this right hand pinky side of the right foot. We're coming into Vashi Stasana.

If you can, let's see if you can pick this left knee up. Many, many ways to be here. Yeah. And maybe just tap big toe to leg, and then foot comes behind, wild thing. Now listen carefully.

Come up, sit down, probably gonna have to scoot yourself a little to the right. I know I do have to, and unless that's gonna come to your inner right thigh with an inhale rise up, And exhale, come forward, Janu Sureshassana. Now we're just creating the same shape in the legs that you have in tree pose. So while it's not gonna feel the same because of our body position and our relationship to gravity, you can still give that left foot a nice sense of pressure into the right leg, and the right leg meets that. And how rise up? Bring your hands behind, toes just tap down, find your center, legs lift, you can keep your hands here, you can reach the arms forward, legs can stay bent, or you can straighten them.

I've got some options coming your way. So you're gonna bend your knees. You can either rock onto your back and rock up into chair, or you can just simply press and rise. Inhale, rise up, and exhale hands to your heart. Just take a moment, regroup, settle, and left knee is gonna lift up.

Now we're doing the same thing that we did on the first side. So just drawing up, feeling the strength here, take the knee out to the side, And then if you want, use your hand, draw in. If you wanna just place your foot, that's wonderful. With an inhale. If it's good, take the arms overhead, steady your gaze, steady your breath, be a tree, strong, supple, This is the one pose I feel like if you said to anyone on the street, what what's yoga? And they'd be like, tree? I know that one. Right? So we've seen it a lot. What do you find that's new today in this posture, there's always something new to find, whether it's your breath, a sense of equal effort, Maybe freedom. Maybe ease. That's what practice affords us.

One more inhale. Hands to your heart, bring the knee forward. You're gonna place your left foot down, stand on the left leg, and Arda Chandrarasena. All things, all limbs, all parts of your body, working equally, taking up space, this is like a goal tending pose. Like, if you had to be goal tender in a soccer game, you're like, nope, nope, not getting by me, take up as much room as you possibly can. Mhmm.

Yeah. Well done. Soft on the front knee. You can kind of spot this right foot back reverse warrior. Yes. Now I'm gonna draw that analogy again. This is a lot like your lifted leg in tree pose.

This is a lot like you're standing leg in Tripose. Inhale straighten the front leg. Pick up your back heel, your right heel. Whoo. And sink down, Skandasana. Keep this leg active.

Keep it strong. Your hands can be anywhere that feel good to you. And the more you kind of dig this left heel down and activate the back of the leg, we're gonna have a hamstring to do some work in his length and position, and that is a good thing, my friends. One more inhale. Exhale.

Turn to the back of your mat. Square off your right toes. Come on to the left toes, and then a nice, easy twist to your right. Press the feet down and energetically draw them toward each other. It's almost like you wanna bunch your mat up in the middle but it's like only like a 10% effort, maybe 20.

So there's subtlety to it. It's an energy that you can sustain. Gonna pivot to the pinky side of your left foot. We're setting up for Vashi Stasana. Maybe lift this right knee up.

Let me just tap on the thigh so the shape of tree and then wild thing. And of course, this is optional. You can simply stay in Vashi Stasana if you prefer. Carefully reach up, start to sink the hips down. I'm gonna scoot myself back over toward the left, right, foot comes to your in our left thigh.

Inhale. Lengthen. Every inhale gets a little longer. Exhale to soften. You don't need to force this ever.

You could be as high as you need it to be to feel good. Like, we're looking to feel good. Maybe challenged, but good. With an inhale rise up and bring your hands behind. Bring the feet back to center, reset. Make sure you feel nice and balanced here.

Hug the elbows back, open up the chest, and, again, bent leg, straight leg, you decide. You can keep your hands down, or you can reach forward. At least for a moment. For a moment, you can keep them behind. And then from here, we're gonna lower into low boat If you need to bend your knees on this transition, please do so. I'm gonna roll back.

Oh, and then pause. Good. Hollow out. Reach the toes away from the hips. And then shorten the trunk a little.

So think of, like, this nice little, it's kinda like a canoe shape here. One more breath in and release down. Okay. So we're gonna take our tree pose and we're gonna move it to the ground. I'm just gonna scoot down a little here. And In my opinion, this is significantly harder than when we're standing.

So I just want you to know that going into it. I also know all the cheat. So I'm gonna ask you to be truthful here with yourself and try not to do the cheats unless you absolutely have to, and I will address the cheats as they come up. So you're gonna bend the right knee. You're gonna slide it up your leg.

We're gonna put this right foot on the inside, and you can use your hand So on the inside of the left leg, you're not going to cross the leg on top, you're not gonna rest the foot on the floor, Those are, you know, I don't even like the word cheats. Those are workarounds, and and they're fine if you absolutely need them, but I'm going to beseech thee to put your foot on the inner leg where you actually have to work to hold the leg here. Try not to let the left hip lift up root down and then take the arms up overhead. Make your, like, I was about to say standing leg, but your straight leg which would be your standing leg. Make it really strong.

Push the heel down. Wake up the ankle. And then take the arms overhead without resting the hands down. Reach, reach, reach, So we're just creating this beautiful fallen tree. That's not the technical name, by the way. I just made that up.

I'm sure I'm the first person that ever said that, connect to the front of your body, ribs, Draw in. Belly draws back. Just a few more breaths here. Bring the hands back into prayer, stretch that right leg, and then curling up low boat again. Less inhale. And then with control, really sit down.

So draw the left leg up. I like to use my own strength to get it as high as I can. And then if you want a little assistant, reach down. Same thing on this side. So don't let the foot rest on the floor. Try not to cross the foot on top.

Do your best. Work the standing leg. I'm gonna call this our standing leg as strong as you can. And then if it's okay, arms overhead without resting the hands on the floor. Really work the arms strong. So our relationship to this pose, it's the same shape we did standing, But our relationship with gravity really changes where the work kicks in.

And can we still find the same sense of ease, balancing work and effort, your breath, Last inhale. Bring your hands to your heart. Turn that knee up. Release the leg out. Really nice.

Bring your arms at your sides, bend both of your knees, press your arms down, press your shoulders down, rise up bridge post, set to Bandasana. And if it's okay, start to kind of draw the shoulders under, maybe you'll lace your hands. It's really not important. Lengthen the arms. And then a sense of equal opening, the length of your spine.

So not just the low back, not just the thoracic, the upper back, whole spine opening. One more inhale in. Your exhale brings you down. Little pause. Just drop the knees into each other.

Take the feet wide. Hands on your belly. Feel your breath. Feel the work you've done. Know that it's enough.

You've done enough. From here, releasing the legs out, we'll take a moment in Shavasana. Allow the arms to move away from the body. If it's okay, palms up. Now we let go.

Welcoming in a sense of surrender is quiet. You are welcome to stay here for as long as you want. And if you don't have the luxury of time on your side, you're gonna start to exit with me here. So just bring your attention back to your breath, to your body, Bend your knees, maybe reach your arms overhead, roll to your right side, And from your side, rise to sitting. When you're seated, bring your hands in prayer at your heart, and just gently bow your mind to your heart.

Honor, acknowledge yourself for giving yourself this time on your mat, this time together, but mostly this time for yourself, with an inhale rise. Allow your eyes to open gently. I thank you for your practice.