Grounding Through the Feet

Hey, everyone. Welcome to this class where we're going to bring some attention to our feet and our calves, our ankles, basically our whole lower legs. I really love to do this class when I'm feeling ungrounded, or I need to feel a little bit more connected down into the earth, maybe out of my head. For the props today, you can grab a couple of blocks and a blanket. And you might wanna start sitting on the blanket.

I'm gonna do that now. And we'll just take a moment to get a visualization happening so you can set comfortably, place your hands wherever. And you might even take your hands on your low belly, below your belly button. You can close your eyes and you know, those snow globes that you shake up and they settle. Can you imagine that happening in your whole body from your head down into your legs? And you could even imagine that snow is, like, sand, and it's really is settling into the earth, settling into your base, into your feet, even. Yeah. Okay.

So then you can stay on your blanket if you're having it, let your left leg come out, let your right leg plant, and lean back if you want to leaning into your hands, and we'll start by working with this inversion of our foot where it's like you're turning the sole of your foot towards the midline and then eversion of your foot where you turn the sole of your foot away from the midline. And you can really work the muscles and the mobility from your ankle down. The rest of your leg might be getting involved, but really initiate this movement from your toes, from your arch, and explore what you get there. Now when you go into this, inversion where your sole of your foot is pointing in, you can follow that movement all the way into an external rotation of your hip and look at your foot and then reach it all the way back out. And then you can flip your foot the other direction so the soul of the foot points away and then draw it in. And it's okay if you lean a little away from your hip to take it into an internal rotation, maybe even your hip is floating, wherever you get, and then bring it back out.

Let's try that a couple of times. Soul of the foot to the midline. You can look at your foot and lean a bit forward to get your spine into it. And then as you reach out, sole of the foot away from you into eversion and then knee in internal rotation, and you can even try to look at the sole of your foot and do a little side bend and get curious about that. One more time, you could do it with your breath.

And you might feel like you wanna initiate the movement from your hip or knee try to do it from this movement of your foot. So really articulating that foot movement, ankle movement, and then letting it follow all the way up. And you can let that go. And switch sides. So we'll take our left foot to plant our right foot out, and you can lean back or, of course, you could be more upright if you want without the use of your hands. Laning back will give you a little more space in your hip.

So at your own pace with your own breath rhythm, you can invert the foot and then evert. And maybe you're working with really isolating from your ankle down or maybe you're working with, that's a little more movement through the leg and hip. Explore it. Get curious. And this next solo of the foot towards the midline, can you draw it in and get your spine into it.

Take a good look at your foot. Your feet take you so many places. So much gratitude for that. And then Evert. And you might lean to the side. Use your hands if you need to.

Maybe you try to peek at your foot. Little side bend. Whatever you get. Doesn't have to be a big movement. Couple more times like that.

And notice if you want to make this movement happen from your foot. So a lot of somatics were recognizing where we initiate, where we start the movement from, and it's different in our muscles. Couple more times, maybe with your breath, leading with your feet, going from the periphery to the center here. Okay. I'll let that go. And let's shift towards the front of our mat.

You can come onto your hands and your knees. And you might have seen this shape before. Sometimes affectionately called the broken toe. You can tuck your toes back. And if it's difficult for you to take your upper and lower leg together, you can put a little buffer there with your blanket.

Now you might try to push from your hands back into your feet and push back and take a breath there stretching the soul of your foot, the arch of your foot, the toes, potentially for some of you, you could come a little bit more up and sit on your heels. You might even interlock your hands here. And this posture is called parvatasana taking your interlocked palms towards the ceiling frame in your face. And then you can switch the inner lock and keep your pinky finger webbing tight, maybe even bounce a bit. Let your exhale tumble out of your mouth or nose if you need it.

And you can slow motion come forwards, and you're welcome to pitter powder your feet there. And then you are invited to come into a kneeling virasana shape on top of your heels. Again, you could use the blanket in between to give a little buffer and stay a little. Get the stretch through the top of your ankle. You might wanna lean left here, cup your right knee, and then draw it up maybe a little.

You can kind of twist towards that knee, maybe a lot, and you might even get a little toe crack when you do that. Little rice krispies in your top of your foot or your toes. If you like, this is an option, and that wasn't too spicy for you. You could lean back and then lift your knees a little. You could bounce into this.

Some of you might even really go for the tow crack and come on up and then come on down. And you can walk forwards there again. Wiggle out your toes, rotate out your ankles, and pitter patter if you like. So good. I'm gonna turn this way so that you can see this next thing. Again, if you need that buffer, put a blanket in between your lower and upper leg, widen your knees a little, and the right top of your foot can go into the left arch of your foot. And then you can lean back onto it.

So same as we did before, you might press back like a child's pose, you might come up and then, really let the weight come down and you could do a little sort of hip wiggle side to side. And so you can feel that in the arch of your foot. Do this to wherever it feels like that sweet pain or that pleasurable intensity for you. Right? And then we can come on out of that. And your lower right leg, your front of your shin, can you flip that so it lies perpendicular to your Achilles and your calf? So your knee goes out to the side.

And then you can, again, kind of find a child's form there. And then you can knead through belly of your calf, top of the Achilles towards your ankle. Now some folks might sit a bit back into it. You might come up. For me, that's pretty intense.

It feels like the music got turned up really loud. But play with it, see what you get, how you wanna feel. This is your practice. So go through that side. Right. And in between sides, take your time with it.

I'm gonna invite you to come into a downward facing dog, stretching your heels down. You might even close your eyes. Let your head hang. And what do you notice side to side? Land and locate take that magic moment where you get to observe and record the data. Okay.

Let's switch our sides. So this time, we are taking the left, knees a little wide, left foot in the right arch to shift back, and maybe you get a little hip wiggle. In there, you can have your hands to support you. Or come on up working into the tender inner arch of your foot. You could imagine that snow globe of sand from your jaw down to your hips.

And you can come on forwards, and then it's, switching. So your left knee goes way out to the side and you can use your shin to knead out to massage your lower right leg. Now feel free to get into it in a any way you want. Maybe you come up a little bit. Balance a bit. Notice the after effect.

Take your time with it. When you're ready, you can try that downward facing dog or maybe even a forearm dog up to you. Back and feel into your Achilles, the arches of your feet, your lower legs, land, and locate. Dilating the backs of your knees. Okay.

And then from here, bend your knees and take your right leg halfway forwards. And you can take your left knee to the floor. And I'm gonna give you an option to let's first start with a blanket. You can take your blanket in between your lower and your upper leg on tippy toes on your front leg. And now you can shift forwards and maybe you get a bit of a massage here. You might stretch your back leg back.

You might even bring that back leg into a toe squat and shift side to side. Like, that's some continuing this pressure work, through the back of the knee. And then the knee thing about this is it's actually creating a little more space in the back of your right knee joint. So play with it a little side to side motions. Or back and forwards. Now if you want a bit more sensation and you have a block, you can do that with the block.

And It's a little more space, you know, probably the texture of the block is a little bit more sensation for you there. And you can come into the Toast squat, right, sink back, explore it. Little shifts. And then we'll switch sides. Feel free to strike it back into downward dog. And again, check it out.

Check out the differences. Two sides. And then the left foot halfway forwards, you get to choose this time. Is it the blanket or the block that you'd like or both want to warm up You might find a tow squad. Some of you might even come into a Molassana squat there.

Play with it the blank. It might be interesting for you or the block. And when you are finished with that slide, you're invited to come back into your downward facing dog or even your forearm dog. And Take that magic moment of noticing side to side before and after. Your mind loves to compare.

So you get to drop into that space. Okay. You can come on down there. Take your hands a little closer in towards you. Circle out and around your wrists.

If it makes sense for your hands, turn one hand all the way around and circle out through that wrist. And then maybe both or one at a time. You can always switch or do both. Shake out your hands and will come into our downward facing dog. You could take your blocks and put them at the front of your mat so that they're there for you for the sequence.

Come back into your downward facing dog. And in your downward facing dog, let's begin with our right foot point your right toes so that your toenail side of your foot is on the ground. And you can bend both of your knees and press a bit more back into your hips. Maybe a little bend in your right knee. And then untuck that set of toes and your right toes come up onto tippy toe, bending your right knee.

Feel that. You could take your left leg up like that. And take your left knee right on top of your belly of your right calf and then knee into it a little bit. Rest there for a a bit with a new perch of your left leg. And then take your left foot. Forwards halfway up your mat.

Take your right foot back. So it's like you're in a pyramid. You might come up onto your blocks here. Bend your back leg straighten your front leg a little. So a lot of weight is surfing into your back foot and then come all the way up to stand.

You could have your arms up and over your head, reach up. Nice. You can keep your arms up or take them by your sides. This next movement will come up onto tippy toes, engage our inner ankles into the midline, and then lower down towards your heels. You can do that a couple of times, come up onto tippy toes, feel some steadiness there, and lower down. Option to keep your arms up or even hold your forearms or your outer elbows. For some added flexion work with your shoulders.

Are your ankles wobbly here? Or as you do this a little more, can you imagine you're sort of squeezing into the midline with your inner ankles? Now when you come up onto tippy toes, this next one, you could explore bending your knees a little, kind of holding the downward movement coming back up and then shifting into your heels. And you might even lift your left toes right up off of the floor. You do that a couple times if you like coming up. Getting curious in that bend on tippy toes.

Holding the bottom, coming up, and then maybe lifting your front set of toes. Let's come on forwards. Halfway and then find the floor or your blocks for a pyramid. And you can take a breath lengthen and forward fold here any amount. We're gonna come up again.

So sinking into your back foot, maybe even bending your back knee, and you can come all the way up. And then your left your back right foot, excuse me, can come forwards and into your form of tree. So you could take your knee out to the side toe tap. You could lean forward and bring your foot up along your inner left leg. And your hands could come to your low belly below your belly button. And in your tree form, Can you feel that sand really sinking into your bottom foot? Maybe you feel some of the work we've done in the lower leg here.

Totally welcome to let your hands come up. Make it yours. And you get to shift yourself towards a warrior 3. So perhaps your hands go out to the sides. Your back leg comes back.

Take a breath. And then you can find your blocks or not. Take your back foot all the way back so you're in a low lunge with your blocks. Here, you can take your right knee down. And if you wanna have a blanket underneath your knee, pad it, make it more comfortable for yourself.

And I'm gonna put my blocks on the high level to show you this first bit. So from your low lunge, sync back toes up of your left foot and then shift forwards. And you can do that a couple of times. Sync back toes up and shift forwards. Maybe with your breath.

Okay. This time when you sync back, stay back. I'm gonna lower my blocks onto the low level. Now remember the movement we did with our foot starting with the foot, can you invert the foot? Soul of the foot towards the inner and see what you feel there when you sink back and what about everting the foot? You can come closer or stay a little higher up. Maybe you sink into those 2 movements and notice what you feel around your hip, around the muscles of your legs, You could be a little more forwards with your front foot here too. Now this next one, when you evert the foot so the sole of the foot goes away from midline, you might walk both of your hands to the outside of your foot.

Maybe keep going, kind of keep spiraling around, and then you could explore kind of inverting the foot as well. And that's a lot on my lateral leg and it band, but I like it. So you can explore that. Yeah. And then if you're all the way over to the side, walk it forwards. Shift forwards. It's gonna take my blocks to frame the front there and let yourself come back into a downward facing dog.

Let's take a couple breaths before that whole sequence on the other side. Land and locate again. So our left toes, they go toenail side down, and you can bend both of your knees and pulse back into your hips. Explore what you get there. Maybe a little toe grab.

And then we take the foot a little forwards and tuck the toes, and you can really bend your left knee, shift your hips back, and you might stay there. Or you might take your right knee right up and behind your left knee on the belly of your calf and sink in and bring your weight into your right knee. And then it's your right foot coming forwards, halfway forwards here, and you can come up onto your blocks. Take your back foot on an angle bend your back knee so you're surfing your weight there into your back foot and come all the way up. And you can keep your arms up, or you can take them down to explore this tippy toe movement, ankles, steady, and then lowering down.

And again, you might even clasp your forearms or your elbows here. To get some work into your shoulders, some space into your upper back as you tippy toe and come back down. Now you might tippy toe and start to bend into your legs and hold it wherever is comfortable for you, hold the bottom, and then push back up, steady inner ankles. And as you lower down, you could lift up your right set of toes. Might do this with your breath. Right? Maybe the right set of toes goes up.

One more. Okay. And your arms could be four words, As you shift forwards, find that halfway point of your pyramid shape. And then all the way down, your hands could find your blocks or the floor. You could lengthen your belly and forward fold. Can you feel the dome of the arch of your foot?

And it's like you're pulling up sap into your hips through your leg bones through that arch. Okay. Again, we'll sink into that back foot, bend the back knee, and come all the way up and shifting towards your tree. So you could take your left toes to tap, your left knee out to the side. You could bend forwards and put your foot somewhere along your inner leg. And such a beautiful shape to settle in.

Maybe your hands come to your low belly and you feel that settling sand or snow globe You might even open your peripheral vision or take your arms out. Really connecting down to your bottom foot. And then it's a warrior 3 option, and you could bend your right knee and catch it. Your arms could be like wings. Or out to the sides.

In slow motion. Use your blocks or not. Let your back foot come down so that you're in that long low lunge and your right knee can come down. Now if you need the support, the blanket can go under your knee, and you can start to shift back, right toes up, and forwards into your low lunge. With your breath, if you like, make it yours.

And this time as you go back, I'm gonna walk my blocks back a bit. You can get the right distance of your leg forwards, and you can try the eversion, sole of the foot away, and the inversion of your foot. And maybe you come kind of bob up and down in this, and your hips might even go side to side like you're kind of wagging your tail. Notice what you get in there. And then this next time when you go evert the sole of the foot away from midline, you might walk your blocks over to the side and kinda keep going as much as you like. Your hips might even go over to the left. Right?

And, of course, you could try inverting and in diverting and seeing what you get. And then we'll walk it all the way around to the front. And you can put your blocks away and your blanket away and settle back into your downward facing dog, 3 breaths, locating any differences landing into your feet. Alright. Let's come on down to our knees.

And we'll come back towards our seat. So full circle towards where we began. You might sit up on a blanket, especially if that internal rotation of your leg asked for more space. This time, our left leg will go long and we'll so both legs long. And you can lean back or not, and then we can do the same movement. So we're really gonna put our mind, our brain, into our foot.

And when we invert the foot, we're gonna start with the foot to bring it all the way into a Genu Shrashasana. And then you can lean over your long left leg. So wherever you'd like to put your hands, let's take a few breaths. Can you feel any settling of your lower body? Okay. Wanna roll back up.

Lydia from your foot, reach it out, and then we're everting. And you might lean way left to get that internal rotation to happen. So as we age, we sort of lose internal rotation. You can Explore it wherever you get, you might even wanna put a block underneath your knee to give it a bit more support. And then if you like, you can forward fold over your left leg here.

And we'll crawl on back up. Reach out through that leg and switch sides. So starting with the foot these micro movements, you could get curious of as you're looking at your leg, can you see a lot of activity in your leg, lower and upper leg bones, or can you sort of isolate from the ankle down and spread your footballs and see if you can get a lot of action in your foot. And then with that soul of the foot towards the midline, draw it in to your Genu Shashasana and walk forwards. Let's take a few breaths there. Maybe you even imagine from your wasted down, you're covered in sand.

At the beach. Really settled into cool, dark sand. You can come on up and then we switch it out, slide out through your leg. Evert the foot from the foot. You can come way onto your right foot. You can give it some support You might be even leaned way over, and that's where you stay to give your hip a bit more space. You might fold over your right leg.

If you have the block, it's actually quite lovely to practice pressing into it. So it's a bit more active or pressing into the floor. So good. Okay. You can come on back up, lean back, release it out and we'll come into our lying down position. So as you're ready, we can roll on down. And now those exact same movements we did with our legs, we're gonna explore doing that from our waist down in a in a supine position.

So sole of the foot towards the midline of your right leg, draw it up into a, like, almost like a lying down tree and see how far your knee, your externally rotated knee can get to the floor. And then slide it back out. It's just another way of flipping this in gravity and feeling it differently. And then roll your foot away, and then you might roll a little left to bring your leg into internal rotation. It might be floating a little higher.

You you might reach it a little closer to the floor, pressing down through your inner knee just to where it feels safe for you. And then sliding it back out. And let's try that on our left side. So working from the foot into the periphery into the midline, lying down tree. Left knee grounded so you might feel a nice engagement of your left outer hip and slide it back out.

And then you could lean to the right to evert the foot and bring the heel quite high up and internally rotate. Wiggle around into it. Explore. Of course, you could be a bit tipped if you need that space. You're grounding exhales.

And slide it back out. Alright. So from here, I'm gonna invite you to take your feet into constructive rest, and feel free to put a blanket underneath your hips or if it feels okay, one leg and then the other into the air. But instead of going towards straightening, can you let your legs get a little bent? So it feels like your legs are heavy and really plugging into your pelvis. And, a blanket can help this so that it doesn't feel effortful under your hips. And then you can put your hands again on your low belly.

And now that snow globe or sand globe is in your pelvis and really letting It's subtle. You could close your eyes, unhinge your jaw, and you might even bend your knees even more. Like, your legs are sort of melting towards the floor and more and more weight coming into your back of your pelvis, back of your chest, back of your head. If your legs feel like they're efforting, you could even hold your legs with your hands, with your elbows out to the sides, like a little kickstand for support. Just let yourself plummet towards the core of the earth. And then it's your Shavasana. If you have time, stretch your legs out, We'll find a position that works for you right now.

And I'm gonna invite you to take 5 breaths in silence. 5 counts in. 5 counts out. Some of Riti Pranayama. Beginning now. Okay, friends. So you might have some time to stay.

Sometimes when you're feeling extra grounded, you can't even get up, or you might feel like coming up to a seat with me so you could stretch. Taking the view, roll it aside. Roll on up. And your hands could be on your body, or together. And you could take a moment to acknowledge that you made choices today to support you. Peace, Shawnee.