Powerful Flow

(waves crashing) Hey what's going on? This is Robert from YogaAnytime. Welcome back. If you've been here before or welcome if you've never been here before. I'll be leading you through a 30 minute-ish kind of dynamic powerful flow.

Go at your own pace, if you need to slow down, if you want to amp it up a little bit, do what's appropriate for you as always. Modify, adjust, tweek, alright? Make it your own. So, actually let's do this. Bring your feet about, you know, a little kind of, sort of on the wide-ish side and simply let the arms be a little relaxed and lazy.

We'll just bring a little, a little movement into the trunk of the body. Let the arms maybe slap the side body. (clears throat) So like I said, right, if I leave out something, if I leave out a cue or something that might help you and you are able to figure that out on your own, don't be afraid to try it, alright? That's going to be absolutely perfect for you. Just because I'm doing it a certain doesn't make it the way, alright?

There's so many different ways to explore these poses and postures and movements. You have to kind of, as you develop your own practice, it's like how does this actually apply to my life. Does it even make sense? Why am I doing this pose? Why am I putting my ankle behind my head?

I don't know, it might suit you. For me, doesn't quite work. So anyway, let's move. Come to the front of your mat. Feet hip width.

We'll start with some sun salutations and I'll throw in some fun stuff to build up some strength, alright? So, and now the arms up, get really tall, stretch long. Inhale and exhale, come on down. Hang here for a few breaths. Then the knees.

Sway the body side to side. Find a few breathes here, inhale, exhale. You know the routine. If you don't know the routine, you will because it's pretty much what we'll say over and over, inhale, exhale. Alright, so come up, palms into the shins, bent knees, inhales, half forward, then get long.

(inhales) Exhale, step back into downward facing dog. Inhale into a plank pose. Try it on your knees first. Exhale, lower down. Point your toes back.

Press about 50% into your hands. Pull the elbows back. Use a little bit more of your back strength, and your core strength, pull yourself forward and up. Inhale here. Exhale, tabletop.

Maybe a little child's pose for a moment. Inch the seat back. Stretch your arms forward, inhale. Table, curl the toes under with the breathe in. Try to coordinate the breathe with the movement.

Exhale, seat back, seat high, long legs, long spine. Couple of deep breathes. Inhale the right leg, nice and high. Why don't we actually lift that right leg up, bend it, and then peel the right hip open. Try to keep your arms nice and even.

Press that left heel down. Open up the side body. Then squared off, inhale and exhale, knee to the inside of your right elbow or even bicep. Pull, pull, pull belly up. Almost finding like a cat pose here.

(inhale) You inhale. A little flow, exhale. You inhale. Exhale. breathe in.

breathe out. Inhale the right leg up. Try this, right? Pause exhale. Inhale lower.

Exhale. Good. High crescent lunge. Nice and powerful, powerful way to enter the lunge. Inhale reach up and exhale.

Transition the hands down. Step back, lower all the way down. Pull yourself forward to come up for cobra. Exhale, table. Curl the toes under, inhale.

Exhale downward dog. Lift the leg, bend it, and then peel it open, see if that works. Press your right heel down. Maybe even look under your left bicep. Squared hips inhale.

Exhale. Inhale. Exhale, pull the belly in. Pull the naval up toward you spine and get a little round in here. Inhale.

Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Pause, exhale.

Inhale. Exhale. Good. Feet hip width. Hips even, arms up.

You could have your arms straight up, bend them into that cactus or field goal position. Take another breathe here. breathe in, reach up, and exhale, transition. Lift your left foot up to bring it back. breathe in.

breathe out. Upward dog this time. breathe in. And breathe out. Look forward, inhale.

And as you exhale step it up. Inhale. Exhale. Hips back. Chest up, arms forward, drive down through your heels to rise up, breathe in.

A little back bend and exhale your arms down by your side. breathe in, reach up. Exhale fold. You inhale, lengthen, half forward bend. Exhale, plank pose.

Inhale, exhale, lower down. You inhale upward dog. Exhale downward dog. Right leg lifts, breathe in. Step into your right thumb.

breathe out. Keep the back heel lifted, breathe in. Spin the back heel down, heel the heel, pretty safe. Warrior one. I kinda don't personally, don't really practice warrior one too often.

The only time I do is when I'm coming into the next pose which is humble warrior. So it's almost like an in between warrior one and a warrior two. So the left toes aren't too far forward. I'm not focusing on driving that left hip forward too far. So it can be open a little bit, find your midway.

Reach back behind you, interlace your fingers. Use a towel, use a shirt, use a strap, anything that you might need. If you've got minimal mobility in your shoulders. Alright, here we go, breathe in. Open up, make sure you've got a good solid base to work from.

This may be enough right here. Right, feels pretty good to me. But we're gonna come down further, give it a shot. Alright, breathe in and as you breathe out, bring the chest forward on the inside. Some of you will even rest your belly on your right thigh, that works.

Wanna come down. Let the head hang. Arms up, if you need to bring the hands back to your low back, that works. Make sure your knee is safe, your right knee up over your ankle. Nice long stretch for the shoulders.

Ground down to rise up. Release, shake the arms out. Open up in a warrior two. Warrior two you can get a nice long stance. Heel to heel, pretty safe.

Front heel to back arch, just to be safe I think. Alright, here we go. Right knee, (whistles) right over the ankle. If you need to pull it back a little bit, that's fine. Don't let it fade in towards the left.

Okay here we go. Take the gaze over the right middle finger and close your eyes for three breathes. Closing your eyes is helpful, it's a little more challenging. It challenges your balance. Let's go reverse warrior, left hand reaches gently on the back leg, palm up of the right hand, reach up.

You don't need to tip back, just reach up, get a nice long stretch in the side body, breathe in. Exhale, circle the arms down, step back into plank pose. Alright, so I'm a huge fan of push ups. I'm a huge of balancing strength and flexibility in a yoga practice. Okay, so we're going to do 10 push ups.

Modify using your knees if that's appropriate for you now. So, inhale lower down. Exhale. And when you come up, don't snap the arms. When you come up, keep a slight micro-bend in the arms to hint a strength, especially if you're hyper-mobile in your arms.

Don't let the eye of the elbow kind of pop forward. Alright, stay with a slight tiny bend. That was a trick for me to rest before I start. Here we go. Inhale.

Exhale. Exhale. Exhale. (breathing deeply) Three more. Pause here, breathe in.

And breathe out, lower down to your desired level. Cobra or updog on the breath in. Downward dog on the breath out. Every time you come to this place, if you're feeling at all fatigued, this downward dog, right, or child's pose can be a place where you kind of reconnect, gather your strength. Left leg, inhale.

Step it up, exhale. You're gonna come up for the lunge first, bring the back heel down. Set it up, reach back. So it's that in between warrior one and warrior two option, okay? Interlace.

Here we go, breathe in and breathe out. Ground down to rise up. And release. Okay. Transition to warrior two.

Take your left knee forward to the left. Ground into the outter edge of your right foot. Maybe you can lift all 10 toes, feel the bones of your feet. Keep your shoulders up over your hips. Arms out, palms up.

Shoulder blades drawn toward one another so your back is strong. Just open, palms down. Close your eyes like we did on the other side. You can roll your wrists. And just an FYI here right, one of my favorite moves is to take your right hand in this case, bend your left, hold on to the hand of the left hand and then press down.

This is an amazing wrist stretch. You can do it on both. Good, release back to warrior two. Inhale reverse. Exhale, windmill those arms down.

Step back. Plank pose, breathe in. Breathe out. Slow, slow, slow, inhale. Exhale.

Step the right foot all the way up. Follow it with the left. Here is just something to play with for a moment, I'll do another tutorial on this sometime but just because I wanna do it now, we'll just try okay, so from here, you got your right foot down right? So, you're gonna step your left all the way to here but you're gonna keep it lifted a ball from that. So try this, here.

There, chest up. Strong right leg, all the way up. And inhale. Exhale. So of course, if you're ever going to do that single leg step up, which is great, it creates that good balance strength from side to side, left to right.

Obviously, I'd wanna do it again, do it on the left side. Okay but that's where we're ending for now for the sun salutations, coming into malasana, squat pose. Inhale. Exhale. Draw the left fingertips down.

Lock in, reach up. Your right hand down. Lock in there, right elbow into the right knee. Bring it down. Mindful of the knees.

Bring it down, spin around. Get ready to transition on down to our back. Let's roll down like so. Take the legs toward the front of the mat. Your back feels healthy and strong, give this a shot.

Arms forward, chin in, belly in, roll down. There's gonna be a point where there's like a tipping point where you're just gonna, you know, maybe, aww, all the way down, it's okay. I may do it right now too, let's see. So chin in, core engaged. (exhales) Bend your legs.

So, generally speaking if you bring your fingertips alongside your body and touch or graze your heels, that'll bring, again, generally speaking, the feet below your knees to set up for bridge. Place your feet below your knees. Knees hip width. Start off with your arms like so in a 90 degree angle. Let's work with this one for now, okay.

So press into your heels and lift up. So here, I haven't done anything with my arms yet. Feels pretty good. I'm getting a nice stretch up through my quads and hip flexors. If I wanna enhance or grow the stretch here in my chest and shoulders what I'm going to do is maintain what I've got going on now but walk my arms, my shoulder blades toward one another.

Then keep my arms just how they are, resting on my body. You may even want to lower a little bit, extend the tailbone through, maybe even relax your seat. Don't grip your glutes too much. Draw the shins forward and knees forward. Really do whatever you can do to get a little bit more height.

You can even let the arms come down. Some of you will automatically go to the interlacing of your hands. I prefer personally this, this is not wrong if you interlace but I just personally like this one. So another breath or two. (inhaling and exhaling) The exit, which I learned a long time ago from a lovely teacher is to reach up, move the shoulder blade out, reach out with the other shoulder blade out, lift the heals, tuck the tailbone a little bit and then instead of just dropping the butt down, you actually roll down one vertebrate at a time.

When your low back lands let the heels come down, let the knees draw toward one another for a moment. Let your arms come down. Take a full breath in. Do that again. Take a deep breath in.

And a nice long exhale. So, from here, let's get a nice little bit of core going okay? So what I want you to do is bend your knees. Make sure your low back is lengthened out. Now from this position what I'd like you to do is as if, I were gonna come over and give you a little punch in the stomach, protect your stomach and this will draw the low ribs in and down.

Okay so make sure that your low back, your mid back, everything is nice and safe and secure. Your core is engaged, so the first option, and place your hands underneath your seat. This will help as well. With your knees bent, simply bring your heels down. And bring them back up.

That's an inhale lower, and bring them back up. Keep pressing, pressing, pressing your back down. To make this a little bit more difficult, you can also do some single leg action. You can keep those legs nice and straight. Boom, press, press, press down into the mat, brace your core, inhale lower down, maybe halfway, three quarters of the way.

Don't let the back arch and exhale lift back up. Inhale lower, exhale up. Notice that my back is not arching. My back feels safe, if this bothers your back at all, do not do it. Inhale lower, exhale up, do six more.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Breathe in.

Good. Three. Two. And good, bend the knees. Come up one more time for bridge.

Stretch. Slither back out the same way I taught it before. Lift the heels, roll down one vertebrate at a time. Bottoms of the feet together. Take a little mini final relaxation, we're talking like three breaths before we come up to sit and do a few more poses.

(breathing deeply) Alright, stretch your legs out. And then bend them, roll on to your right side and then push up to a seated pose. Alright cross your legs in any kind of comfortable cross legged position, prop yourself up on a pillow, a cushion, something that will help adjust your pelvis to a neutral or even semi-forward tilt. Okay. Alright.

Bring your palms together, exhale twist over to the right. Inhale back to center. You can have your eyes open or close and exhale to the left. Inhale back to center. Exhale right.

And release the hands, find a good stable place for the left hand to rest, the right hand back behind you. Lift the chest, roll the shoulders back and down and twist. Expand and stretch the belly out on the inhale and contract and pull the belly in on the exhale. Slowly exit. Sit up tall, take a moment.

(breathing deeply) Palms together, breathe in. And breathe out. And release, right hand left thigh, left hand back behind you, up and over. (breathing deeply) Slowly back out. Neutral spine, long and tall.

Take your right hand out, tent the fingers, press your palm down, put it on a cushion, whatever you need to do. Take the left arm bring it up. A little twist or not a twist but a lateral bend to the right. Back up to center. Right on up and over to the other side.

Back up to center. Both arms down and then (breathing deeply) fold forward. You can walk yourself over to the left reaching and exaggerating that reach out through the right pinkie. (breathing deeply) Move it back over to center. You can roll slowly up.

Take your hands back behind you. Press the palms down, fingers back. What we'll do here, make sure it feels okay on your legs, your knees, and begin to lift the hips, pressing the chest upwards, shoulders back, maybe the head back a little bit. Chin to the chest. Bring it back down.

Inhale. Exhale. Place your hands on your inner thighs. Chest open, eyes closed. Inhale to a count of three or four, an internal count through the nose.

Comfortably hold the breath. Open the mouth just a tiny bit and exhale double the length of your inhale. So it's like this nice cool mellow breeze coming out through that small aperture of the lips. Then close the mouth and inhale gently through the nose, three, four, five seconds. Hold the breath comfortably.

Feel whatever you feel, pay attention. A perfect attention to what's happening now. Subtle, small aperture of the mouth open and exhale super long and relaxed. As if the language around that would be calm. Repeat three more rounds.

Inhale through your nose. Hold your breath. Exhale, double the length of your inhale. Calm. Two more rounds, inhale.

Hold the breath comfortably. Exhale slowly, everything out. Relax the grip in the eyes and the jaw. One more round, inhale. Hold.

Exhale slowly. Press your palms together at your chest. I invite you to as you go forward through your day to practice that breath when you're met with anything that usually brings you to that point or that state of tight. You feel immediately, you react and your whole body tightens, everything closes off, the relationship with your partner, your child, anybody you come into contact with, whatever makes you feel that, step back for a moment, if you really relax like, kind of like putting things into perspective kind of breaths. You may not be able to do in that moment, it might seem weird (chuckles).

Maybe you do it 10 minutes later. Anyway, give it a shot. I found that it works for me, not always, but most of the time. Thanks for practicing with me today. Have a beautiful day, namaste.