Steady Standing Sequence

(swooshing water) Hi, I want to thank you so much for showing up here. This is the standing sequence. And let's get started together. So let's come up to standing, Samastitihi. Top of the mat, spread your toes, root down the full circumference of your heel.

Soften your knees a little bit so your lower back is relaxed. Let your hands come together at your heart. Press your fingertips a little bit together so that you can feel a widening across your collar bones. Relax your lower belly. And activate the Ujjayi Pranayama.

Smooth breaths. Soften your eyes and let's begin. Exhale your hands down by your sides. Inhale, slide them up. Look up.

Exhale, take them back down by your sides. Let's do one more like that. Just linking the movement and the breath. Inhale, take your arms up. Look up a little bit.

Without arching your back, exhale, come back to center. Surya Namaskara A. Inhale the arms up. Exhale, hinge at the hips full forwards. Inhale, lengthen your spine.

Start by exhaling, planting your hands. Step hop or float back to downward facing dog. Feet together. Next inhale, roll yourself towards the plank pose. Shift into your toe pads.

Elbows in, Chaturanga Dandasana. Take your knees to the floor, take the tops of your feet to the floor and then come into a knee upward dog unrolling the spine. Look down the nose tip, exhale. Pull the hips back around your spine. Bring your hands a little closer.

Separate your feet, lean into your fingers, lean into your toes, downward dog. And breathe. Shift the weight a little into the left side. Little into the right side. Just notice how your structure feels side-to-side.

If you can pull your weight into your hands and your feet. Lengthen your spine by strengthening your limbs. Bend your knees, exhaling. Then step hop or float to the top of the mat. Inhale then and exhale fold.

Inhale, come all the way up. And exhale back to standing. Samastitihi even weight. Utkatasa Surya Namaskara B. Sink back the hips.

Exhale fold forwards. Inhale lengthen the spine. Exhale downward dog. Feet together, inhale roll towards the plank pose. Slide the shoulder blades a little bit away from the back or from the ears, sorry.

Keep the elbows in, Chaturanga Dandasana. Roll over the toes this time, or you can use that last variation that I showed taking the knees down. Upward dog. And pull the navel back, lift the hips, roll over the toes, downward facing dog. Feet together at the back of the mat.

Inhale your right leg back and up. Exhale, bring it in for Virabhadrasana one. Plant the back foot on an angle and on the inhale, come up. The tailbone drops, the frontal hip bones squeeze towards each other. The feet are grounded, exhale.

All the way back into Chaturanga Dandasana. Inhale upward dog. Exhale downward dog. Inhale, the left leg floats. Exhale, curl the body to make space for the left foot to come forward.

Plant the back foot down, inhale Virabhadrasana one. The long back. Open back the diaphragm, exhale. Chaturanga Dandasana. Inhale upward facing dog.

And exhale downward facing dog. And you can play here with bringing your feet together in upward facing dog, or having them apart. And notice how it feels in the back of the pelvis for you. Bring the notch in between your front ribs into the body so you can lengthen your thorax. Take a full inhalation on your exhale.

Find the lower belly ice cream scooping kind of back to the spine, bend your knees. Step, hop, or float forwards. Inhale, lengthen, exhale, fold. Bend your knees Utkatasana. See if you can shift your weight into your heels using the outer glutes.

Exhale into standing. Step your feet hip distance apart. Inhale, slide the arms up. Without arching your back, neutral quiet back. Soften your knees a little bit.

Come up and over your hip joints. Take your big toes. Inhale, lengthen, exhale, fold. Let your head hang. You can soften your needs as much as you need to, but start to feel like you're drawing up long stockings of the muscles of your legs, right up into the hip joints.

As you root your feet down, there's a lifting sensation that eventually becomes more of a straightening. Inhale, come up. Exhale, release your arms. Inhale, come all the way up to standing. Exhale, Samastitihi.

Slide the arms up, inhale. Exhale, fold. Padahastasana, see if you can take your weight into your heels and slip your hands underneath at the same time. Inhale. Make space in the pieces of your spine and exhale, fold.

Feel like your traps are really mushy and soft around the base of your neck. And as you pull your elbows wide, you make tons of space for a clear channel from your head to your spine. Inhale, come up a bit. Exhale, release your hands. Press into your feet to come all the way up.

Exhale, as you take your hands down, bring your feet right together, Uttanasana. Inhale, slide the arms up. Exhale, fold forwards over your legs. Take your hands behind your calves or make a prayer position behind your calves, all your fingertips touch. And fold.

This is a little tighter variation of the forward fold. You might feel it in your outer hips a little bit more. Inhale, come all the way up. Exhale. Shift your weight into your left foot.

Take your right foot into tree pose. Foot and thigh meet each other, hands come together. Inhale, bring your arms up. Without arching your spine or tucking your tailbone, or really doing any strong movement around your spinal cord, just relax your spine, strengthen a little bit your arms and your legs. Exhale, take your hands down by your sides.

See if it's possible to take a hold of your ankle, rotate from your hip joint, and take this foot into Ardha Padmasana, half a lotus posture. If it feels tricky to do that on your knee or your hip, place the ankle on top of the knee joint. Try not to take the knee over your second toe and sink down. If you're in the Ardha Padmasana, align your hips and slide your arms up without arching your back. Wide quiet back muscles, exhale your hands down by your sides.

Bend you left knee a little bit. Take your right leg over top of your left and if you can't hook behind the ankle, let the left arm come over top of the right. The hands might find each other. Sink a little bit down into this. Garudasana.

Might slide the elbows up a little bit. Feel the back muscles wrapping around from your spine to your front. And then come up and exhale, release. Left foot tree pose. Find center line, inhale, slide the arms up.

Make space in the outer armpits. Exhale, hands come down. Either this variation or Ardha Pada Padmasana in standing. Align your hips. Spin the lotus leg internally a little bit.

Inhale, the arms up. Tailbone is heavy. Space around the base of the neck is wide. Exhale, release. Soften that right knee.

Left leg comes over top, maybe hook. Left arm comes over the right this time or right arm comes over the left, excuse me. And sink down as the elbows rise. Breathe into your back muscles. And soften your eyes.

Then unwind. As soon as the right foot grounds, take the left foot back. Turn the right hip in a little bit, clip the left hip back to its socket. Both sides of the waist long. Trikonasana.

Slide the left shoulder blade down the back. Lift the heart away from the bottom hand. And the right hip can roll down as the left lung rolls up. Take your right hand down. Soften into your left knee.

Look forwards. Take your fingertips to the floor. You might use a block at home if you want a little bit more space in your hip joint. Let your right leg rise. Some people like to rise it really high, I like it in line with the hip.

'Cause I feel like it gets into my hip flexors a little bit more. Roll the left lung under the right. Let the right arm float. You might even bring the right knee into the chest here, clasp a hold of the ankle. And without arching the back too much, explore a quadricep opening here.

Unwind. So both hips are equidistance from the floor. Switch your hands, right hand finds the fingertips on the floor, left hand finds the back of the pelvis. Spiral the belly, spiral the chest and you might take the left arm up. From your skull to your toes, elongate.

Possible maybe to curl into a little seed. Clasp the top of the ankle. And without over arching your back muscles, with a feeling of hollowing your belly, clasping the foot, with a twist. Exhale, come down. Right foot finds the floor.

Spinning inwards. Inhale, just come up a little bit and exhale, take your hand on the inside or the outside of the foot. Parivrtta Trikonasana. Clip the left hip back. Make space around the base of the neck by descending the inner shoulder blade.

Inhale, come all the way up. Reach the arms forwards, turn the palms away from you, take the hands behind, a reverse prayer. Clasp the wrists, or the forearms, or the elbows. Create a little bit of a back bend, inhale. Exhale, pubic bone goes back, forward fold.

Think long instead of head to knee. Head to shin. Feel the floor coming up to support you here. Shift forwards. Engage the hamstring of the standing leg to come up.

Fair Bhadrasana three and then just teeter totter yourself forwards. Ekapada Uttanasana. Release that leg, forward fold. Inhale, come all the way up. Exhale.

Feel that energy in that leg. We're gonna switch sides. Left foot comes back. Roll the hip in, clip the right hip back. Trikonasana, triangle pose.

Spin the right lung under the left. Shift the weight into the right foot. The hand can go in front and slightly out to the side. Find the two frontal hip bones squeezing together. And let the arm rise up.

You can look down here if it's challenging to balance or maybe up. You might even find that variation of lengthening the front line of the body a little bit more. And unwind. Left hand comes down. Parivrtta Urdhva Dandasana.

See if you can keep your shoulders a little bit soft and wide. So that there's space around your neck. Let your left leg come down, inhale, just come up a little bit. And in the twist, pubic bone goes back, left kidney comes around towards the inner right thigh. Parivrtta Trikonasana revolve triangle.

In any of the twist you might want to look down. Try not to lock your knees. Exhale. Inhale, come up. Sweep your hands behind you, palms face behind you.

Reverse Namaste. Back bend, tailbone down, sacrum in and up. Exhale, pubic bone goes behind you. Pubic bone and tailbone actually try to find each other. They extend away from your heart space and curl in towards each other to find a little bit of strength in the pelvic floor.

Shift forward into the front foot. Virabhadrasana. If this is too difficult, you can take your fingertips to the floor and lock your arms. Teeter totter forwards. Exhale, get out of there.

Release your arms. Release the posture. Inhale, come up. Exhale. Left foot grounds, right foot comes back.

See if you can do that soundlessly. Sink you hips and tailbone down, inhale Virabhadrasana one. There's a feeling of the right hip spinning around to the left. The internal rotation of that back leg. Exhale, hands to the heart.

Shift forwards into the front leg. Lengthen your spine, slide the back leg a little bit in. Big toe down and up through Bhadrasana three. Keep a micro bend in your bottom leg. Breathe into your back muscles.

And either open your arms out to the sides, or sweep them forwards, without arching your lower spine. Exhale, come in a little bit. Sweep that leg all the way through. Catch a hold of the big toe with the knee out to the side. Or you can always hold the knee or hold underneath the knee.

Left hand on the left hip. If it feels possible, start to roll the knee in line with the hip. And extend the leg forwards. There's always no need to be perfectly straight. So maybe there's a little bit of a bend.

There's this feeling of the right shoulder wanting to come forwards a little bit, so draw that back into its socket. Let's externally rotate this leg and slide it out to the side. Without collapsing out to the side and the left hip. So hug it in through your outer glutes here. Ground in your standing leg.

Light in your skull. Inhale into the center. An exhale, slow motion, release. As soon as the foot touches, let your left leg come back. Soundlessly Virabhadrasana one.

Left hip bone rolls forwards, tailbone siks down. You don't have to look up. But if you can, let your gaze move down your nose tip towards your hands, towards the ceiling. Exhale, hands to the heart. Shift the weight into the front foot.

Maybe two steps, maybe one big one, find a connection of your right heel down to come into Virabhadrasana three. Feel a steadiness through all four sides of your knee joint on the standing leg. Either take your hands out to the sides, or sweep them forwards. Breathe. Come through.

Catch a hold of your toe or your knee, or under your hamstring. Maybe start to align the knee in line with the hip joint. Extending the leg. There's a tendency to lean back in this one. Find the hollowing of the low belly and come upright.

Externally rotate, take the leg out to the side. Look over your right shoulder if it's possible or look straight forwards. Inhale into the center, leg comes into the center. And exhale, slow motion release. As soon as the foot touches, let your right leg come back.

Open up into Virabhadrasana two. Let your arms come out to the sides. Soften your shoulder blades. Breathe and allow your organs to have space here. Think about all your organs being spacious.

Even in the back, the kidneys. Hinge your left hip back together, your elbow to your knee. Or your hand to the outside of the foot. And sweep your right arm in front of your face and up. Look down at your navel to feel an openness in your back.

And then look up, without changing the shape of your lower back. This top arm spins. Use the top arm to help you come out of the posture. Heel toe in and internally rotate that leg and the whole body so your right arm comes forwards and the right kidney squeezes towards the inner left thigh. Take the elbow over the outer knee and hands in prayer, twisting.

Parivrtta Parsvakonasana. You can take this hand down if you like, if it's possible, and there's not too much torque in the shoulders. Keeping soft shoulders, left arm comes over. The left arm spins. It's like you're throwing a ball.

Over your head, which I got from Richard Freeman. Unwinding here. Shift into the back foot, come all the way up. Turn to the right foot. Virabhadrasana two.

You probably know this posture, but enter it with curiosity in how your mind is settling into the shape. And how your breath is. And how are you. Clip your right hip back, elbow to knee, hand to the outside of the foot. Sweep the arm over.

Look at your navel. Open up your low back and then look up. Without changing the shape, without disturbing the low back. Use the top arm to help bring you out of the posture. Heel toe, spin the leg inwardly, kind of smudging the foot so that the heel moves away.

Reach forwards, elbow to the outside of the knee. Arm to the outside of the outer shin. Soft shoulders, spin the arm. Tailbone is heavy. There's still breath.

Come on out of the posture. Toes in, heels out. Align yourself on the mat. Hands to the waist, exhale. Find your legs, inhale, reach your arms out wide.

Exhale, fold halfway down, spinning your hip bones wide. And hover. Inhale here. Exhale, take the outer ankles. Let the head come to the earth.

And maybe it's floating, which is actually even nicer because there is more space for the cervical spine to extend. And breathe. Notice your shoulders. Do your shoulders feel like they're doing something different? Inhale, come up, find that hover point.

It's like someone's poking you below the belly button. And you want to lift away from that. Press into the feet, tailbone down, come all the way up. Exhale, take your hands behind you, interlock your fingers. Keep a bit of space in the wrists.

Lift the back of the diaphragm, inhale, exhale, fold forwards over your legs. Sometimes I like to tuck my chin here. Slide the shoulder blades up the back and then allow the arms to come back behind me. I actually need a little more hang through my neck. So if you need that, and you want to just feel your hair hovering above the grounds, you have that space for your spine to elongate, bring your feet a little closer towards each other.

Unwind here. Unravel your hands. Step all the way to the front of the mat. Exhale downward dog. Bend your knees, step, hop or float towards the top of the mat.

And if you can bring your hips high enough, see if you can find a position where you almost feel like you can hover with the alignment of your hips over your shoulders. Exhale, fold. Inhale, come all the way up. Exhale. Adho Mukha Vrksasana, or handstand.

You may want to go to a wall for this one. So the wall would be at the short edge of your mat. I recommend playing with it, maybe falling over a little bit. Inhale taking your arms up, slide them up. Exhale, fold forwards.

Try this inhale, take your hands down, shift on to your tippy, tippy toes. Feel like you can bring the front ribs into the body. Straighten the arms. Shift the weight into your finger pads. Then come back into downward facing dog.

Inhale around towards the plank pose. Exhale, Chaturanga. Inhale upward dog. Exhale downward dog. So to enter in the handstand take one leg forward, it's the most comfortable leg and start to think about this leg coming up and really reaching up into the air with the inner line of the leg.

When you come up, try not to take your hips over your shoulders, but more of your, kind of your mid back so instead of really arching like that to come up, we can try it a couple of times. Think about really filling up the space in between your shoulder blades and taking that over your hands. So that there's a little more fullness in your upper back. Find all the little counter balance movements. See if you can land lightly.

Downward dog. Release that. Step or hop forwards, maybe you find a hover point. Exhale fold. Inhale, come all the way up.

Exhale. Pincha Mayurasana. Inhale the arms up. Exhale fold. Inhale lengthen.

Downward dog. Maybe, just maybe, float back. Really land in your legs. From your legs roll forwards. Chaturanga.

Upward dog. Sacrum moves in and up. Tailbone moves away from the sacrum. Exhale downward dog. Come on down to your forearms aligning the center of your forearms with your middle finger.

And just start by sliding back, sliding forwards and pinning down your outer elbow. In fact, if you move your elbow a little bit in, and then you move, almost catch the skin and then slide it out, move the elbow a little in, catch the skin and slide it out, you'll feel a really strong kind of frictiony outer elbow press. And from that place, let your head go. Fill up the space in between your shoulder blades. Shoulder blades a little bit down the back.

So you feel there's a bit of strength here. Downward dog. So either play with just being here. Bend knees letting the head go. Ribs containing towards the low belly.

Or walk a little closer, closer, closer. So there's more weight in your arms. And when it feels like there's a lot of weight and you need to kind of lean down strongly so that you don't collapse, let one leg lift up. Look down in between your wrists and maybe there's that little hop or a shift. There's a strong and soft quality in your inner legs.

So just dare to be strong and soft at the same time. It's also nice to let your head go. Child's pose. Good job. You can feel happy because or you may feel happy because you learned a lot about yourself in a very short amount of time.

Shavasana. So make your way on to your back or put your legs up the wall. Really, any shape where you feel like you can let go fully. Sometimes I like to press into my skull if you're in this position. Lift the ribs up a little bit and slide the shoulder blades, just a little bit down away from the ears.

But then to stop from maybe a jamming down and an over lengthening of the traps, just kind of slide your shoulders a little bit up away from the down of your shoulder blades. If that makes sense. And then it feels like your upper arm bone can totally relax to the floor and there's a sort of like a surrendering across the front of the chest. And it's almost like the back of your body is like a nice, wide, relaxing hammock. That the front of your body can let go into.

The front of your body often being what interfaces with the world. Soften that. Relax it. Let all your senses seep into the earth. And even a few short moments can have incredible effect on recharging.

Enjoy your miracle. And start to come back to your senses. And hear the sounds in the room. Notice if there's any smells and really softly open your eyes and adjust to the light. Wiggling your fingers and your toes.

And stretch your arms over your head. Take your time to roll over onto one side. And find me in seated. Let's close the practice with one sound of om together. Hands come together.

Brighten across the collar bones. Inhale deeply. Exhale everything. Inhale for om. (long humming om) Namaste.