Rock Your Day

(waves crashing) Hey, how's it going? This is Robert, welcome to Yoga Anytime. This is going to be a challenging sequence, I'm just gonna say that upfront. So, hopefully you're ready for it. Hopefully you're signed on for it.

It will challenge you, I'm sure it's going to challenge me, I'm probably gonna be out of breath a little bit while I'm talking to you and talking you through it. But, I'm here, I'm going to offer it, and it's going to feel amazing the whole way through, well, maybe during moments, it might not feel that awesome, but afterwards you're gonna feel like a million dollars. So, for starters, while I'm maybe chitchatting, take the arms up overhead, do a little side stretch, start to kind of get into your body. Take a few deep breaths while your doing so. So, some nice little lateral bending, try to move the spine in a few different ways during the movements we're about to embark on, this 30 minute journey.

Take the arms down, take your feet about as wide as your hips and then add, like, a foot, bend the knees and let the arms kind of swing from side-to-side. So, this is going to be a combination, this class, of Yoga, some functional movement, functional strength, which includes some push-ups, some planks, some squats, and then the fun part will be a good solid five minutes of what's called HIT, High Intensity Interval training. All right? And that is meant to boost your heart rate. So that boosts your metabolism so that 36 hours later, you're sitting on the couch, you're still burning calories, losing weight if that's one of your goals.

All right? So, it's a combination of those things, the yoga is the priority, so commitment to the breath, commitment to the feeling and experience of what's going on, this isn't a mindless boot camp class. So, I'll try to remind you to pay attention to your breath and to move with awareness and skill. So, I promise you right away, you're gonna get through it, it's gonna be amazing, you're gonna feel awesome in 30 minutes. So, come to the front of your mat, if you need to do some more movements, warm-up, oh, that's the other thing, I'm assuming that you're going to do a little warm-up beforehand.

So, whatever you need to do, little blood flow into the knees, whatever. Front of the mat, let's get started. We'll start semi-slow. Oh, I also have this blanket here, blanket that we will use, and I'll show you a really cool movement about midway or three quarters of the way through. Here we go.

(breathes deeply) Take a moment, feet hip width, stand tall in Tadasana Mountain Pose. (inhales) Take a few deep breaths. (exhales) Remind yourself of whatever intention you may have brought into the mat today, It's like, I'm gonna work through and burst beyond my comfort zone. I'm going to, I don't know what it is for you. Today while I practice, my intentions is going to be that I'm going to pay close attention to my breath every single step of the way.

That's my intention for the next 30 minutes, and then hopefully we'll carry that out throughout the rest of my day. Inhale, the arms up, big stretch, exhale, come on down. Forward bend. Inhale, half-forward bend, exhale, Plank Pose. Pause here, inhale, exhale, lower down all the way.

(exhales) Point your toes back, slide yourself up into cobra, that's the breath in, take a child's pose on the breath out. Keep in mind that this is always available to you. (inhales) (exhales) Hips back, arms nice and long, spread your fingers wide, Tabletop. Knees hip width, cat-cow five rounds, inhale. (inhales) Exhale, round it out.

(exhales) Inhale, Cow, belly down, arch back, look up, or look forward, exhale, round. That's two. Inhale. (inhales) And exhale. (exhales) Two more.

Breathe in. (inhales) And breathe out. (exhales) One more time. Breathe in. (inhales) And breathe out.

(exhales) Inhale, back into neutral, curl the toes, lift your knees six inches, flat back, belly nice and tight, breath in, breath out. (inhales) (exhales) Send the seat back on the inhale, and exhale downward dog. Lift your right leg nice and high, inhale and exhale, tap the inside of your right arm in Plank Pose. Knee to the inside of your right arm, don't bring it way out. The tendency here is to do this, right?

I want you to bring it right down the mid-line here. Five, inhale, exhale. (exhales) Inhale. (inhales) Exhale. Breathe in, breathe out.

Two more. (inhales) (exhales) (inhales) (exhales) Keep it there, look to your right thumb, step the right foot to your right thumb, separate your feet about hip width, and rise up, inhale, High Crescent Lunge. Five breaths, but in these breaths, we're gonna bring the arms like so, field goal, flatten it out, reach forward, inhale, and exhale. Pull back, strengthening the back. There's a lot of pressing in this practice.

We wanna pull as well, strengthening the back body. Inhale. This will help to kind of stretch it out. And exhale. (exhales) Breathe in.

(inhales) (exhales) Inhale. (inhales) And exhale. (exhales) Breathe in, reach up, exhale, hands down, step back into plank pose, one awesome push-up. So, come to your toes, lower down halfway, inhale, and exhale, press back up. Now, pause here, inhale, exhale, lower down.

Point your toes back, cobra, inhale. Tabletop, exhale. (exhales) Curl the toes under, inhale, exhale, downward dog. Inhale, your left leg high, exhale, knee to the inside of that left arm, pull your belly way up and in, strong core. Inhale.

(inhales) Exhale. (exhales) Breathe in. (inhales) Breathe out. (exhales) Inhale, exhale, strong, strong, strong. Good, two more.

Inhale. (inhales) Exhale. (exhales) One more time. (inhales) (exhales) And step. Feet hip width, ground, rise up.

(inhales) Field goal post, flatten it out, inhale, get a little round, kind of like you would in Cat Pose. And then exhale, pull the elbows back, good strong back, if you really commit to this, you will feel it in your back tomorrow, it feels great. Good, three more. Breathe in. And, strong, exhale.

Inhale. (inhales) (exhales) Exhale. One more time. Breathe in. (inhales) (exhales) Inhale, (inhales), exhale, (exhales) Step back, Plank Pose, one push-up, nice and strong.

Breathe in, breathe out. Pause here, inhale, exhale, lower down halfway this time. Chaturanga Dandasana, inhale, Up Dog. (inhales) Exhale, Down Dog. (exhales) Take three breaths here, notice the difference.

Already, right? How different you possibly feel if you've worked up to a mound with me. (inhales) (exhales) Look to the front of your mat and step, float, hop, skip, whatever you'd like, I prefer stepping. Inhale, Half-Forward Bend. (inhales) Exhale.

(exhales) Forward Bend, nice little hip, back movement, strong functional chair, all the way up, inhale. (inhales) And exhale, dive down. (exhales) Inhale, half-forward bend. (inhales) Exhale, Plank Pose, lower down. (exhales) Inhale, Up Dog.

(inhales) Exhale, Down Dog. (exhales) Right leg lifts, inhale. (inhales) Step it up. (exhales) High Lunge. Inhale, those arms up nice and long, index fingers long, cross those fingers like interlace, index fingers long, cross the thumbs, and draw your arms up as tall as you can.

(exhales) (inhales) (exhales) (inhales) (exhales) Warrior Two, open it up, spread your stance nice and wide. Palms up, pull the shoulder blades toward one another, palms back down. (inhales) (exhales) Reverse Warrior, inhale, and exhale. Windmill the arms down, lift the back heel, pause for a moment, let's get a little twist, so take the right hand onto the body and begin to twist the body over toward the right, releasing the right arm nice and high. (inhales) (exhales) On your exhale, right arm down, step back into Plank Pose, 30 full seconds.

So, right, left, just get into a little bit of a rhythm here, and remember breath, body, breath and body relationship. (inhales) (exhales) If you'd like to run it out a little bit faster, run it out. (inhales) (exhales) (inhales) (exhales) (inhales) (exhales) Stay with it, stay with it, stay with it, keep moving for five, four, three, two, Full Plank, inhale. (inhale) And exhale with control. (exhales) Inhale, Upward Dog.

Exhale, Downward Dog. (inhales) (exhales) Take a couple of those. (inhales) Inhale through the nose and then a nice, long exhale out of the mouth. (exhales) (inhales) (exhales) Left leg high, inhale. (inhales) Step it up.

(exhales) Get the lunge. Get your balance, come on up. Interlace the fingers, keep the index finger long, and... Arms up nice and high. Steady gaze.

(inhales) (exhales) Gonna open up into Warrior Two. (inhales) (exhales) (inhales) Check in with how you feel for another breath or two. Reverse Warrior, inhale. So it's inhale, exhale, windmill the arms down, pause, lift the back heel, grab hold of the body and twist the chunk of your body open. (inhales) (exhales) Left arm down, step back into Plank Pose.

Five push-ups. Inhale, exhale. (inhales) (exhales) (inhales) (exhales) (inhales) (exhales) Forearm Plank, come on down, press the heels back, brace your core, breathe. (inhales) (exhales) (inhales) (exhales) Keep working. Stay committed, stay committed to this 30 minute practice, you're probably about half way there.

Come back up onto your hands. Full Plank, breathe in, and breathe out, Down Dog. (exhales) (inhales) (exhales) Look to the front of the mat. If you led with your right foot, lead with your left this time. So, lift up, inhale, exhale, step.

(exhales) Step, inhale, flat back. Exhale, stretch your legs long, forward bend, sit back into the chair, strong, rise all the way up, inhale. (inhales) And exhale. (exhales) Take about three full inhalation, exhalation. (inhales) (exhales) As you're doing this for another full breath cycle, can you feel your heartbeat?

Can you feel how alive you are, feel the heat, your body working? (inhales) (exhales) One more deep breath in, circle the arms up. (inhales) Exhale, fold. (exhales) Inhale, Half-forward Bend. (inhales) Exhale, Plank Pose.

Lower down, inhale. (inhales) And exhale. (exhales) Right leg, inhale. Step it, High Lunge, inhale. (inhales) Warrior Two, exhale.

(exhales) Reverse, inhale. (inhales) Exhale, windmill it down, step back into Plank Pose and run it out again. Little bit of a rhythm here. (inhales) (exhales) As much as your muscles, your biceps, your triceps, your quads, your core, what about your heart, what about your heart? Work your heart a little bit harder here for 15, 14, 13.

(inhales) (exhales) 10, nine... Seven, six, five, four, three, two, and pause. Plank, inhale, stay strong, stay with me. Exhale. (exhales) Inhale.

(inhales) Exhale, Down Dog. (exhales) Left leg, inhale, step it up. Lunge, high, high, High Lunge. Warrior Two, exhale. (exhales) Inhale.

(inhales) And exhale. (exhales) Step back, another transition, lower, upward. And exhale, downward. (inhales) (exhales) (inhales) Step the right foot to the right pinky. Come up onto your finger tips, lift your chest, get a little deep lunge here for a moment.

Step the left foot to the left pinky. Sit low, Malasana Squat Pose. Inhale, rise up. Exhale, palms to the chest. (exhales) (inhales) Stand for a few moments, gather yourself.

(exhales) A few deep breaths. Inhale, belly expands. Try not to breath through the mouth and up in the chest. Stay with the breath in through the nose, stomach expanding, using your diaphragm, and exhale, contracting. This will help to kind of calm the nervous system a little bit.

(inhales) (exhales) Okay. So, this is a portion of this 30 minutes. You're probably feeling pretty warm, I am. It's like a Tabata. If you're familiar with Tabata, it's HIIT, H-I-I-T, High Intensity Interval Training.

So, we're gonna go 20 seconds on, roughly, 10 seconds you can just sort of stand at the front of the mat, get your breath, keep the body moving. Another 20 seconds, so it's 20, 10, 20, 10, six times. Follow me. Just so you know, at the end, what I will do after we do this, I'll show you this option that we have with the blanket, it's really cool, but you have to have hard wood floor, some kind of slippery surface. All right?

So, this is a combination between like, a burpee, made more yoga style. You've probably done it before. We didn't reinvent the wheel with this, but it's a nice addition to this practice right now. So, front of the mat. (inhales) (exhales) Remember, it's 20 seconds without stopping, 10 seconds active recovery.

All right? And I'll be counting it out, and it will be rough, but we'll do our best. So, this is the movement. We'll start with the most basic, and we can build onto it. Take those arms up, bend down into a squat, step back, step up, bring it all the way up.

Down, step back, step up, and up. Down, up, Okay? Good. Another one there, and that will be our first 20 seconds. So, for some of you that might be enough.

Good, 10 seconds. The next one I do, I'll build on that. If it doesn't feel right, go back to the first one I just did. So, another three seconds. (inhales) All right, here we go.

This is going to involve a jump back, jump up, rise. Land softly. (inhales) Keep the breath alive. (exhales) (inhales) (exhales) Let's say one more. And, 10 second rest.

So, for some it really is helpful. Hands on the waist, keep moving side to side, keep the blood flowing. The third one, I'll add a push-up to it. So, as I progress you decide. Here we go, up, down, lower, press, rise.

Down, lower, press, rise. Say one more your way. (exhales) 10 second rest. You can see my heart rate definitely is up, so monitor yourself. It's good to have it rise, but be careful.

Make sure you can actually lower it as well. So, here we go. Three more rounds, you choose between one, two, and three we just did. Here we go. (inhales) (exhales) (inhales) (exhales) (inhales) (exhales) With control, with as much control as you can, one more.

10 seconds. Couple of deep breaths through the nose. Five more seconds. The rest seems like this much, but 20 seconds feels like forever. Here we go, two more rounds, so stay with me, it definitely makes a difference, so two more rounds.

Here we go. Up. (exhales) (inhales) (exhales) (inhales) With control. Two more. And...

One more. Sweaty. Feels good though, doesn't it? Anything worth striving for, usually you're looking for those goals, it takes a little bit of work, a little bit of effort, and that's what you're doing right now, remind yourself. It takes work, it takes effort.

Last one, go big, 20 seconds, here we go. (inhales) (exhales) (inhales) You can jump at the end as long as there's a little control. (exhales) (exhales) (exhales) And, hahhhhh. Good job. So, keep the body moving.

This, for whatever reason, works for me, so what is it that works for you? Couple of deep breaths, maybe keep the hands up overhead. (inhales) (exhales) All right. In front of your mat, we'll continue to move a little bit, here we go. I'm gonna leave the blanket out for this one.

(exhales) Inhale. Now we'll start to slow it down. Exhale. (inhales) Inhale, half-forward bend, exhale, step back into low lunge. (exhales) (inhales) (exhales) (inhales) Take the arms up, a little side bend here, reach up, but tip to the left.

(inhales) (exhales) Good, hands come down. Come up onto your finger tips, curl the back toes, and exhale, straighten your front leg a little bit. (exhales) Pause here, inhale. (inhales) Exhale. (exhales) Lunge.

Inhale, and exhale. (exhales) Fold. Inhale. (inhales) Exhale, lunge. (exhales) One more time, breathe in, and exhale.

You can untuck the back toes. Pause for couple breaths here. (exhales) (inhales) (exhales) Good, come back into the lunge. Curl the back toes, lift that back knee, step the right foot to the front of the mat. Inhale, Half-Forward Bend.

(inhales) Exhale, Forward Bend. (exhales) Step the left foot back. Good. See how much I'm sweating? If you're sweating, you're supposed to be.

The other thing is, it's a good reminder for all of us, especially when you're sort of, maybe you're new to this a little bit, but it's supposed to be really difficult, so if you find it difficult, it's designed for that, it's designed to be difficult and challenging so that it can create some changes in your body. You're probably practicing this because you either want to lose weight, you wanna get stronger, more flexible, it's doing all of that, but it takes work. All right? So, get that little sequence here. Exhale, fold over the right leg, stretch the hammies out a little bit, pause here, inhale.

(inhales) Exhale. (exhales) And into the lunge. Inhale, exhale. Stretch. Inhale.

(inhales) Exhale. (exhales) Breathe in. (inhales) And exhale. (exhales) Inhale. (inhale) Exhale.

(exhales) Inhale, and pause for a few breaths here. (inhales) (exhales) You can try pressing the ball of the right foot down. You can try lifting, rolling the toes around, the ankles. Any and all movement is always welcome as long as it feels like it might be safe or appropriate. All right, so, back into the lunge, step back, Tabletop, let's get into just a couple cat-cows to reset the spine.

So, inhale. (inhales) Exhale. (exhales) Inhale. (inhales) Exhale. And I say reset the spine, not like we've really done that much to throw it out, but this does help to add that nice sense of extension, which I'm in right now, that lengthen extension, with the flexion into Cat Pose.

(exhales) Working in that nice straight line. One more time. Inhale. (inhales) And exhale. (exhales) Then back into a Tabletop.

Take yourself into a Child's Pose to really kind of settle in, relax. Find a comfortable place to place your head, your hands. A few deep breaths, and those deep breaths, if they're to communicate anything, the breath would be saying, like, you did it, you're done, you can rest and enjoy this moment in Child's Pose. (exhales) If Child's Pose isn't that comfortable for you for whatever reason, pick a pose that is better, maybe it feels better for you to come forward onto your knees, bring your forearms down, maybe your chest toward the floor, chin. It's less compression on the knees.

Okay, stay there as long as you'd like. Wooo, sweaty. Good job. So, the idea of that type of practice is to get it done, get it done in 30 minutes, it works flexibility, mobility, strength, gets the heart rate up, gives you a good sweat, makes you feel a little bit more alive. It's straightforward, the idea, I understand it, it's straightforward, we're not moving in all these different planes, it's a pretty, like, Sagittal movement, and that's meant to be like so, so it's a little bit more accessible, safe for the spine, et cetera.

I also teach a lot of what feels good for me. I'm a 44-year-old guy, I'm not getting any younger and I wanna do whatever I can to stay fit and healthy, and most of all, just feel good. So I hope that felt good for you. Until next time. Have an awesome day, and I don't know what time you're watching this, so if you're going to bed, you might not be able to fall asleep for a little while, if you're waking up, I think it might kind of propel you into a pretty amazing day.

So, I'll see you next time. Peace, namaste, later.