Athletic Practitioner

Hi, everyone. The class you're about to experience is designed for the student of yoga who is more experienced or more athletic. It will still be a bone safe class and hopefully be really great for stimulating your bones as you work through the practice. It is a good idea to review some of the shorter foundational classes so that you understand how to use the dowel for any of the poses that we'll be doing that may end up in a little bit more of a flexed posture if you're not mindful. So we wanna make sure that you are safe with the class and that you have a great time, and feel free always to stop any movement and rest if you need to.

Always honor your body. Alright. Let's get started. Let's start in our standing posture. Where we're stacking our bones from the feet, lifting the toes, place the toes back down, Move your energy up to the pelvis, stacking the pelvis on top of the hips, to the rib cage, feeling the ribs connect with the top of the pelvis. Draw the shoulders down and back, allowing the collar bones to open, keeping the relaxation of your low back extensors as you activate your core muscles to lengthen your spine, all the way out through the top of the head.

Take a breath in. And just let the air out settling into your body. Breathe in. Allow your arms to reach up. And breathe out, press the arms down. Feel free to invoke your oh, jibreath.

Now bring your attention to your left foot, shifting your weight to the left, and lift your right knee. Again, breathe in here, lifting the arms, and breathe out to lower the arms. Again, breathe in, lift the arms, and breathe out to lower the arms. Change sides, shifting the weight over that standing foot, lift the leg, and reach the arms up, maintaining your balance, maintaining my balance, and then take it up and down. Alright. Bring your feet together.

And now shift your weight to the left foot. Lift the leg. And place the foot in a low tree position. I think of this as a basic variation of the tree pose, where you can place the foot against your shin, not against your knee. Use that pressure to stabilize your legs and pelvis and then lift up and take it down. And, again, lift up.

Stay here for a breath. And place the arms and the foot down. Now shift your weight to your right leg. Lift the left leg. Place the foot against your shin.

Press the shin and the foot together and lengthen more. Take your arms up, inhale, and exhale. Inhale, and exhale. On the next one, hold here. Find length.

Bring the arms down, and place the foot down. And now we're gonna step to the front of the mat, take your hands to your heart, And we're gonna begin to focus on our sun salutation series. Reach the arms up, sit back in chair pose. Also known as lightning bolt, keep your knees apart instead of pressing them together. Lift through the upper back and imagine that the dowel is on your back.

Hold here for 3 breaths. Focus on that costal breath with the rib cage expanding. Take it back up. Circle the arms. Bring the hands to the heart.

Circle the arms back and up, lift, hinge at the hips for your bow with a neutral spine. Again, imagine the dowel is on your back. Feel free to bend your knees, if necessary. And now take your hands to the mat. See if you can maintain your spine position as you make your way to Chaturanga Dundasana.

Lower, slowly to the mat, turn your feet over, bring yourself to upward facing dog. Pull up through the low belly, turn your toes under, shift back to downward facing dog. Separate the feet, lengthen back, widen through the shoulders, spread the mat apart, Bend one knee, and feel free to walk the dog. Keep lifting the tailbone toward the ceiling. Coordinate your breath with your movements.

Take yourself back to your plank pose. Step 1 foot forward and bring yourself up. To a triangle position. You're starting in warrior 2. With a little bit more narrow stance.

Now we're gonna hinge at the hip joints. Again, imagining that I have that dowel on my back, And then allow your hand to rest not on top of your leg, but against it so that you can facilitate a backbend in this pose. You wanna work through the back and use your torso muscles to hold yourself up in space. Look up towards the ceiling. If that's accessible to your neck, or feel free to look down towards your foot.

Hold here. I'll take it up. Let's move right into warrior 2. Focus on what the back foot is doing should be turned out to about a forty five degree angle, lift through the big toe to make sure your arch is not collapsing, And then pull your rib cage over your pelvis so that you're stacking the ribs on top of the pelvis. And then deepen the pose if you can without compromising your spine.

Three breaths here. Look over that front arm, Now let's take a Vinyasa. Turning forward, place your hands on the mat, Move yourself into plank, lower down, come up into your upward facing dog, Pull up through the low belly, tuck the toes under, shift back to your downward facing dog. 3 breaths here. Span the rib cage.

Take the left foot forward. Bring yourself up. To your warrior 2 position, look over that front arm, stack the rib cage on top of the pelvis, and then straighten the front leg. So I always like to pass through warrior 2 before I go into Triangle. Find that hip hinge, place the hand wherever it tends to land.

It's not important that you put the hand on the floor or on the ankle, And here's a moment that you can use a yoga block if you'd like, but what I really want is for your torso to really work here. And strengthen your back in this pose. Lift the toes of the back foot. And then change your focus if you're able to to look toward the ceiling. And then toward the front foot.

I'll bend your front knee, bring yourself into warrior 2, stack up the ribs over top of the pelvis, Breathe in, looking over the front hand, find your UJai breath. Now let's take a Vinyasa. Take your hands to the mat, find your plank position, lower down with control, point your toes, lift up, if it's accessible to you, you can flip your toes under, lengthen back. Three breaths here. Feeling free to bend and walk the dog if you like that.

Step or hop forward and now come up in that neutral spine position lifting the hands up, inhale, exhale, bring your hands to your heart. Circle up and around, come down in a neutral spine position, take your hands to the mat, step back, come up into what I call Warrior 1.5, Some people call this high lunge or runner's lunge trying to get your front knee to a ninety degree angle, back knee straight, Keep pulling up through the low belly, holding here. Now hinge forward to really strengthen the front leg. Keep lifting through the back. Getting that strength through the bones of your back and your leg, breathing in, and breathing out.

Breathing in and breathing out. Take the hands to the mat. Take a vinyasa. Left up. Flip if you like to do that.

Hinge back. And another downward dog. Feeling your sciatic nerves and your hamstrings, getting more and more mobile. As you warm up, Now notice we started with the left leg, which I like to do sometimes, and now we're gonna go to the right leg. Take it forward, try to keep the chest lifted.

If you have stiffness in your hip, you can come around the side, and that's gonna help you keep your spine in alignment. Take it up. Press up to that Warrior 1.5 position. Keep drawing the tailbone down, pubic bone up. Three breaths here.

Keep trying to pull the rib cage back over the pelvis. Keep the abdominal wall active. Practice your costal breath. Plug those shoulders in hinge forward. Holding here. 3 breaths.

Take a Vinyasa. Lengthening back, lower down. Turn your feet to a pointed position, lifting up. Breathe out, flip the dog, and then Walk the dog if you like, watching the feet, seeing that the heel stays in alignment with the toes, lengthening through the spine, drawing those shoulders down and wide. One more breath here.

Bend the knees. That's a jump to the front of your mat or step, lifting up. Breathe in, breathe out hands to the heart. Okay. For our next pose, we'll need the yoga block. And I'd like you to put the yoga block at the top corner of your mat.

We're moving in from triangle stands into a half moon pose. Bring your hands to your heart. Breathe in. Breathe out. Reach your arms up. Step back into your triangle stance with your right leg.

Find that triangle stance. Make it strong. Bend the front knee, start to reach for your yoga block, take the leg up, flex the foot, And then start to open the pose so that your collar bones are parallel to the wall in front of you. If it's accessible to you, change your focus, looking up at your top hand or even past it. Find your drishti, that focal point Look down.

If you can release the hand from the yoga block, see if you're able to do that and maintain the pose. If you'd like to touch the floor and, you know, the flexibility, you're welcome to do that. I'll bend the front leg, place the foot down, find your triangle stance, step to the front of the mat, and let's take a Vinyasa. Hands to the mat. Step back. Left foot then right.

Lower yourself down. In that push up position. Lift. To the awkward facing dog. Feel free to flip the dog if you're able. And then shift your hips back.

Lengthening the spine, bend your left knee, and the right. Breathing in and breathing out. Lift both heels, bend the knees, stepper, walk forward. And then while you're down, change your yoga block to the other side. Touch the mat. Lift the heart.

Bring your hands up. Hands to the heart. Circle back. Take it up. And then step back into your triangle stance with the left foot back.

Both legs are straight, lifting up, then the front knee. Shift your weight to that front leg. Touch the yoga block if you need. And then flex your back foot. Really reach through the back heel, lift the top arm towards the ceiling, opening the collar bones.

And let's take a look at that gorgeous grove of oranges. Breathe in and breathe out. And breathe in. And read out. Look towards your top hand if you're able to.

And feel free to shift your hand to the floor if you have the flexibility. Then the front knee, step down, find your vertical posture, Step to the front of your mat, hands to the heart, circling the arms, inhale, Exhale. Step out wide for a standing straddle pose. Turn your feet straight ahead. Take a little bow.

This would be a great time to practice with the dow on your back. Look straight down so that your head, your mid back, and your sacrum, are all in one line. Hold here. And feel free to bend your knees, if needed, and then start to lengthen as much as possible. From the tailbone to the crown of the head, really working through the back.

Ben the knees and either step together or hop together bring the hands to the heart. Step to the front of your mat. Circle your arms up and step back with one foot, keeping the parallel alignment of the back foot. Both feet should be pointed straight ahead as if you're standing on a set of railroad tracks. Now bring your hands to your back.

And grasp your wrists, if you can, hinge at the hips for pyramid pose. And feel if you're bending or rounding your back to try to get deeper, it's actually better for your bones and your posture. The muscles of your legs and back. If you maintain that lengthened spine position, you can add more challenge by reaching the arms out or even reaching the arms forward. 3 breaths here.

Step to the front of the mat, feet together, hands to the heart, circle the arms up, step back, with the right foot, feet parallel to each other, bring the hands to your back, grasping the wrists, hinge at the hips, feeling that crease in the front of your hip. Keeping that spine in neutral position or elongated position lifting through the back of the neck. Breathe in here. For more challenge, you can take the arm out wide, really working through your back, feeling that strength that you're building in your back, in your legs, and then take the arms forward. Let's take two breaths here.

Bring the hands up, arms up, reaching, step to the front of the mat, hands to the heart. Now we'll go to the mat. You'll need your ball for working on thoracic extension. Alright? So hold the ball in your hands. Step to the top of your mat.

We're gonna make a graceful dismount to the mat. Step forward, that 36 inch stride length, length in the spine, lower yourself down to the mat, down to both knees, place the ball on the mat, roll to your side, and then to your back. Lengthening your spine here, feeling your back on the mat, stretching long to lengthen your hip flexors. Now bend the knees, feeling the difference between what it feels like now, versus after you mobilize your spine with the ball. Place the hands under the thighs, sit up really tall, lie down on the ball, placing the ball above your waistline, and below your shoulder blades.

Lengthen your back of your neck. And now arch back over the ball as you inhale. Exhale ribs to the pelvis. Inhale. Take it back. And exhale ribs to the pelvis.

Inhale to stretch back a little further if that feels good to you. Imagine wrapping your spinal bones over the ball and avoid pulling your head forward. So your eyes are looking maybe at the top of a door frame, and then towards the ceiling, and if you're mobile enough toward the wall behind you. Imagine that your breast bone is like a seesaw on top of the ball. One more time.

Breathe in. And breathe out ribs to the pelvis. Lift the hips. Move the buttocks toward the feet. Put them down. Bring your elbows forward.

Imagine you have eyes on your elbows. Keep the back of the neck lengthened, and stretch back. Feeling the mobility that you're creating in your spine, improving your posture, improving the mobility of those joints in your mid back. Breathing in to take it back, breathe out, ribs to the pelvis brings you up. One more time.

Breathe in, reach back, and breathe out to take it up. Lift the hips, move the hips toward the upper thoracic spine right below your neck, look at the ceiling, and then Keep your spine still or your thoracic spine still and move your neck and head back into alignment with your body. So the ball is keeping your upper thoracic steady. If you tend to have one of those dowager's humps in the upper back, This can really help to reduce it. Taking the head back, exhale.

And it's usually better if you keep your hips hovering, but you can put your hips down to do this if you like. One more, exhale reaching back. Place your forearm down on the mat. Roll to your side. Push yourself up to sitting, place the ball aside, and we'll need the pillow now.

So we're gonna use Goldie here. And place the mid rib cage, middle of your rib cage on the pillow. So the lowest ribs should be on the pillow. And the pubic bone would be off the pillow. And then place your hands down on the mat, stacking them up, place the forehead on your hands, and take a moment to lengthen here.

Draw the shoulders down and wide. Lyft the face away from your hands. Pressing into the pubic bone, lift the top hand to the forehead, and lift up. Two times like that. Now switch hands.

Keep the eyes on the thumb. And lift up two times. Place both hands against the forehead and lift So you're really using those back muscles to lift you up. Now take your hands to a goalpost position which is gonna focus more on the mid thoracic strengthening. Lift up. Keep your eyes on the front of your mat.

Lift your hands. Make sure the pubic bone is staying down so that your tailbone's not lifting. Lift up. Hold the hands high, lift as you exhale. It's always okay to reverse the breathing.

If you wanna inhale to lift, you can exhale to lift. Now we're gonna hold here for a moment. Take a breath in. Now place your hands in your cobra position. Draw your elbows towards your feet.

Lift your heart. Keep the lowest ribs on the pillow so that we can lift our hands up and our ribs are supporting us now. We need the cushion that we don't put too much pressure on the lower ribs. We don't wanna cause a fracture by putting our ribs on a hard surface. Now let's draw the elbows toward the mat keeping the shoulders away from the ears and see that that eases the neck.

Now lower yourself down just a little bit. Inhale to lift. Two times like that. And now come down. And now let's exhale to lift.

So we'll inhale first and exhale. So whatever breath supports the movement, gives you more strength or mobility. Use that breath. Now take the hands and see if you can clasp your hands together. Slide your hands towards your feet.

And lift and lower. Try to keep your elbows straight. Now if you notice that your mobility is challenged so you can't straighten your elbows, you can take your yoga strap and hold it right across the back of your legs and hold on to that. That gives you a little bit more ease of motion and super helpful for opening up the chest. Allowing you to strengthen your back. Hold here.

Stay lifted. Keep the tops of the feet on the floor and breathe. And breathe. And take it down. Place it to the side.

And then press your hands into your push up position or co we're gonna go up into a cobra. So Notice if your hands are really forward and you press your arms straight up into your cobra, it'll tend to put a lot of stress on your low back. So I like to bring my hands back so that they're in line with the lowest ribs, and my wrists are at a ninety degree angle. Elbows are right above my wrists. Now we're gonna lift.

And once we get to the top, I have a great support system so that my arms are vertical. And I'm lifting up and it takes some of the stress off the low back. Now hinge at the hips, sit back toward a half down dog position, stretch here, lengthening here, Take your hands to the left, stretch down the right side of your spine, feeling those trunk muscles, get a little stretch here. Breathe accentuating the stretch from within. Take it to the right, feeling the stretch down the left side of your body.

Bring it to the center. Tuck your tail under just a little bit for a safe stretch for your lumbar spine. Allow the hands to be planted on the mat. Like, their friction is limiting your movement and you're using your abdominals to try pull your hips back toward your heels, lengthen here. Breathe in. Feel the rib cage.

Stretch your back. Expand the ribs into the fascia of your back. Come forward, and let's get the yoga block. I'm gonna place the yoga block between the feet. Now if you need more lift with the camel pose, if you're familiar with it, you'll put the yoga block more vertical. If you are able to put it in a horizontal way, that might be helpful too.

So your choice. I like to get into it with one side at a time. So what we're gonna do is lengthen here and try to lift and make it more about the thoracic spine. Instead of sagging into your back. So lengthening up here and see if you can reach the yoga block.

And if you're able to reach it, then that's good news. Take this arm up and reach. Breathe in. And breathe out and breathe in and out. Breathe in and out.

Bring it up. Take the arms forward. And then if you feel like you want to put your hands down and do a little bit of a modified cat cow, You're welcome to do that by drawing the tailbone underneath, keeping the thoracic spine steady. So instead of going up here, we're lowering the tailbone, getting that link through the lumbar spine. Alright. Shift back.

Take it up. Reach back, see if you can find your yoga block, and then lift. And you can look down if that's accessible to your neck, or feel free to look straight ahead. Breathe in. Continuous pulling up of the low belly, talking of the tail will help to ease the low back.

Bring it back up. And then, again, coming into your quadru pad position, finding a lumbar stretch and forward. Exhale, tail tucks. Thoracic spine stays steady, and then hinge back at your hips. Take it up.

And then let's go with both hands reaching back. Now you're welcome to put your hands on your heels. If you have that accessibility, or use the yoga block. Bring it up, and then take it back down to all fours. And then do a little lumbar tilt here, pelvic tilt, exhale, tailbone lowers, inhale tailbone lifts, and one more time, tailbone lowers, and then tailbone lifts.

Alright. Come to your sitting posture. Move your yoga block out of the way. And your pillow. Come down onto your side, and let's take it to our back. Now after doing the thoracic mobility work, extend the legs out, and just feel how it feels to be here, Do you feel like your head is more in contact with the mat? Is your cervical spine lengthened?

Does your thoracic spine feel a little flatter? Now bend the knees. We're gonna take the yoga strap, and I'd like to do something I call sciatic nerve glides that is also a hamstring stretch. So we're gonna place the strap around the ball of the foot extend the leg toward the ceiling. So with the opposite leg bent, usually you don't feel too much of a stretch.

We're gonna slowly extend the opposite leg. Flex through the foot so that you're having energy in that bottom leg. And then we're gonna take the leg up as far as we can. Mindfulness about the shoulder position on the mat. So are your shoulder blades connected to the mat?

Your neck lengthened and relaxed pelvis in neutral position. So if you notice that your knee starts to bend, or your other leg starts to come up. That's gonna be your stopping point. Then see if you can flex your foot until you feel a possibly an aching feeling down the back of your knee. And if you do feel that, that is usually the sciatic nerve that you're feeling.

If you feel any numbness or tingling here, then that's a sign that you're flossing the sciatic nerve. So what we're doing is we're taking the nervous system from the brain to the spinal cord all the way down to the sciatic nerve, pulling the toes back, because that sciatic nerve actually ends right here at your big toe. And we flex and point. Now let's add a little dynamic quality by lifting the lower leg. And hovering it off the floor with a knee straight.

And you're gonna feel a little bit more vigorous position here And then as you do these little pulses, you might notice that you free up some of the tension in the leg. I always like to do this when you're very warm towards the end of class. And then let's take the bottom leg down. Take the straps into your opposite hand, place the right hand on the mat, and your right leg is gonna come across your body. Now this is another branch of the sciatic nerve, and you're gonna feel this here if you have tension in it. If you don't have tension, don't worry.

You've done enough yoga that you've flossed your nervous system beautifully. Now flex and circle. So when you point your toe down, we call that kind of a sickling motion of the foot that will usually stretch this part of the nerve. And the nerve doesn't actually stretch. It just flosses in the sheets that it's encased in.

And so sometimes you get some muscle myofascial tension because of scar tissue that's developed after a muscle strain. And it'll catch the nerve and What you can do is free it up by doing these kind of movements. I'll take it back to center, separate the strap into two hands, step into the strap with your other foot, place it around the ball of your foot, and release the other leg. And then bend this knee first and just straighten the lifted leg and then pull stretch here. Until you start to feel either a hamstring stretch, which would be somewhere behind the leg here, or if you feel it deep behind the knee, that's usually the sciatic nerve.

Now when you point your toe, you might notice that the stretch goes away. That is definitely a sign that the sciatic nerve is what you're feeling. Now let's straighten the leg, which is gonna change the relationship of the pelvis and the lumbar spine and put a little tension on that nerve. And then let's flex. You might feel the sensation, the achy sensation in the back of your leg.

And then when you point, it goes away. That's definitely a sign that the sciatic nerve is being affected here. And then as you do these, you wanna make sure that the pain of that nerve or the irritation in that nerve, if you have it, doesn't increase. And then Let's take the straps in your right hand. I'm gonna take it across your body.

And, again, we're gonna try to affect the outer branch of that nerve where it separates right behind the knee, and then we'll make that circling motion of the ankle. And as you point the toe down toward the floor, that's usually when you'll feel something along that pathway. So I had an ankle sprain years ago, And I always feel it right where I sprained my ankle, and it's not the ligament. It's actually where the nerve kinda got caught as the scar tissue was healing. And it's just so brilliant for reducing tension and when people are frustrated with their hamstring flexibility.

Alright. Now the pain or the sensation has gone away. I might try going up a little bit more. Maybe repeating a few more times. And then taking it back to center and then feeling much more mobility in that pathway. Now take the strap off of your foot, and let's place the strap off to the side and make your way into Shavasana.

Extend the legs out. That feels good to you. You feel free to use a pillow if you need that or something that to support your knees, if that feels good to you. And then see if you can allow the feet to display a part so you're not holding any tension. Wiggle your toes for a moment.

Let your toes relax. Feel the weight of your bones, melting into the mat, Feel the back of your legs, melting, into the earth. Imagine your pelvis, It's made of lead. It's very heavy. Strong.

Allow it to sink toward the earth. Move your attention to the back of your ribs, imagining that you're lying on a beach, and soft warm sand, and your spine is making an impression on the sand. Allow your shoulder blades to melt towards the floor, feeling the collar bones open, I invite you to turn your palms up if that feels good to you. Can also rest your hands on your pelvis, adjust your elbows, so that your arms can be heavy and relaxed. Let's find that position of ease and surrender.

Move your attention to the back of your neck, the back of your head. And let it be heavy and melting towards the earth. Take a moment to notice your breath. Feeling the transition from more of a costal or rib cage breath. To more of a diaphragmatic or belly breath where the belly is actually moving in and out.

The costal breathing is more of an active stimulating breath. That stimulates more the sympathetic nervous system. And the diaphragmatic or belly breath stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system. Calming and soothing you. Take a moment to be with that.

I feel the energy swirling around you rushing to heal your body. Bringing nutrients to your joints, your cartilage, your tissues of your body. Movement is so healing, bringing the flow. And the nutrients back to your your your body. Let's breathe in a breath of gratitude, appreciation, for our body's ability to build strength at any age.

I'll slowly open your eyes Be gentle as you let the light return, bringing your awareness back to the room. Just open your hands, wiggling your fingers, your toes, circling your ankles, and then start to roll your hips in and out. Feeling your hip joints move in the sockets. It'll take a moment to bend the knees. Placing your feet on the mat.

Remove your head from side to side. And now when you're ready, roll to your side. And stay there a moment enjoying your body. Feeling gratitude for your ability to do a vigorous practice. And now press yourself up to sitting.

And bring yourself to either a simple sitting posture or whatever posture feels good to you. Just take a moment to feel your body and feel the link that you've created. Appreciate the strength that you've built, both in your muscles and your bones. And really appreciate the journey. Thank you so much for joining me for this vigorous yoga practice.

I hope you enjoyed yourself. And you're feeling renewed and invigorated and ready for the day.