Yoga Sess 09.20.24

The speaker guides the listener through a yoga practice, starting in a cross-legged position with hands on the knees. They emphasize the importance of taking time for oneself and being aware of the body's movements. The practice includes various poses and stretches, such as child's pose, wrist rotations, cat and cow poses, downward dog, and warrior one. There is a focus on breathing and finding balance and alignment in the body. The practice ends with a camel pose and a butterfly position. I invite you to start in a cross-legged position and have your hands gently resting on top of your knees. You can take a long inhale in and a gentle exhale out. Even if your eyes are closed or your gaze is gently looking down, bringing in an awareness of the space you're practicing in, the space behind you, in front of you, to your side. Recognizing how valuable it is to take even 20 minutes out of your day to reconnect to ourselves, to our physical bodies and our physicality. Recognizing how each inhale invites movement in parts of the body and each exhale invites movement maybe in a different part of the body. We can begin by gently opening those eyes, blinking a couple times, lifting those arms up overhead, and exhale, press those palms in the middle, two more times, deep breath in, and exhale as if you had leaped the base of those wrists, and then one more. I welcome you to set a dedication or sankalpa for our practice today into someone or something that may benefit from the energy we create together. And once you complete that thought, you can let it float away like a little sailboat in the horizon of an ocean, and we're going to interlace those fingers and take some wrist rotations one way, and then the other way. Sometimes one side is different than the other. And let's do something a little funky, lifting one elbow than the other, and then go the other way, just warming up those joints, so lifting the elbow, the wrist, and when you're ready, we're going to transition first into a child's pose, spreading those knees as wide as the mat, sending those fingertips to the front edge, and I invite you to find a sense of both length from the tip of your crown of your head to the tip of your tailbone, but also in your ribs. So imagining your breath almost expanding through your main low back. Now, walk those hands underneath those wrists. You can straighten out those legs into a parallel position, and we are going to take some gentle circles over those wrists to the left and to the right. And then send those circles more towards those knees, so hips are now rotating to the left over those knees, and then some circles to the right over those knees. And let's stretch that left arm in front of us, take a long breath in, and gently lift that right leg up in the air, and on our next exhale, let's bring the elbow to meet the knee, curving that spine, and lengthen out the breath in, and curve, exhale, and then two more. Long exhale, and one more. And let's restart for a second. Send that nose to the sky and to your toes, exhale to touch, and release. Lengthen that right arm, long exhale, and when you're ready, lifting that opposite leg, deep breath in, and let's curve everything in, contract, and extend the long fingers, sending energy past that heel. And one more time. Three more. What if you make this movement feel as good as you can? And last one. And as you're here, coming back to all fours, walk those hands out in front, and we'll meet in our puppy posture. So send that chin towards the earth, stretching the front part of the chest. We'll stay here for three cycles of breath. Nice, and when you're ready, whenever you finish, you're going to pull yourself through your arms, and we're going to meet in a face posture for a moment, so elbows underneath those shoulders, maybe close your eyes for a second. Sensing how the lower belly, top of the legs, connect to the mat, to the earth. And then on your next exhale, you can flip those eyelids open, and you're going to transition into downward dog. Hope your breath feels good to you. Nice, and bend the right knee, bend the left. And come to stillness as you take three collective breaths here, sending that belly button to spine. Gentle breath in. Lengthen the back of your neck as you exhale. Deep breath in. Expand the back of your ribs, exhale. Sweet breath in. And send those heels towards the earth, exhale. Nice. When you're ready, we're going to stretch that left arm out in front. If you haven't done this in a while, we're going to take a twist, so send that left arm to the opposite leg. Maybe you can hold your shin, maybe you hold your thigh. Just make sure to not hold the back of your knee. And maybe you can look underneath the right arm. Underneath the right arm, into that window. And release. Let's actually bend those knees. We're going to take a reset with one cat and cow, you'll see. Releasing the weight that might be in the heels and the wrists. And touch those toes. We'll meet in downward dog, and extend that right arm out. Cross it to touch that left leg. Long breath in. Long breath out. Nice. And come back to downward dog. Spreading those toes. Spreading those fingers. And we're going to do one more cat and cow, okay? And curve that spine. Drop the weight ahead. Nice. And we'll press back up into downward dog, lifting into three-legged dog. Good. Tall. High up in the sky. And let's bring that knee to top. Left elbow. Back up. Exhale, reach that knee now into the left armpit. Nice. And come back, three-legged dog. And now let's try right elbow. Three-legged dog. And right armpit. See if you can keep that twist. Nice. Last time, three-legged dog. And knee to nose. As you transition into a warrior one, rotate on that back heel. Swing those arms up overhead. Connecting to that breath. One collective inhale. One collective exhale. Taking a little deep breath. Nice. Let's take a rotation here. So send that left... So face that front leg. Send that left arm towards your back. Right arm towards the front. Rotate, if it's possible, on that back leg. Deepen that twist. If you lift the corners of your mouth. Nice. Place that right palm on the earth. Take a twist with that right hand on the earth. Left fingertips reaching towards the side. And when you're ready, frame that front leg. Send it back into plank, and we're going to take three collective breaths. Three collective breaths here. Breathing in. And exhale. Gentle breath in. Long breath out. A grateful breath in. And a grateful breath out. When you're ready, we're going to bend those elbows. Bend those elbows. Come into our first triangle. Into upward facing dog. However feels good for you today. And we meet back in downward dog. Shake that head no. Really shake it no. And nod that head yes. Beautiful. When you're ready, lift that right leg up. Three-legged dog. Send that heel towards the sun. Up, up, up. And we're going to take that right knee to right elbow. Three-legged dog. Right knee to right armpit as high as you can. Three-legged dog. Right knee to left elbow. Strong palms. And connecting breath. As you curve knee to opposite armpit. Last time. Three-legged dog. And send that knee to nose. As you transition into warrior one. Right foot in front. Join those arms up overhead. Deep breath in. And out. Taking a moment to check in with your shoulder blades. Your scapula. Just finding awareness of where you're imagining today. Maybe you can feel how the support of the earth. That's those shoulders. Just drop a centimeter. And when you're ready, we're going to take that twist. So now we're sending that left hand across. Right hand behind us. We're going to look towards the back. Twist as you keep the crown towards the sky. And we flex the palms of the earth. Right fingers just up towards the sky. Drop to frame. Now twist. Drop to frame. Now twist. We come to plank. We're going to go straight in. To chaturanga. Open the fists and dog. And downward dog. Great work. Let's bend that left knee. Bend that right knee. And let's come onto our knees. You can stay right where you are. And I want you to be careful. Send those arms up in front as if you're ready to hold something that you care about in front of you. And we're going to send the fists towards one side. Arms in the opposite direction. And lift. We'll do this a couple times. Staying as gentle as we can. Finding strength and mobility. Just pumping our hips. And that's posture. And two more. Last one. Beautiful. So, we are going to first swing those arms up a little bit. We're going to first swing those arms up overhead. Pass them through prayer. Gentle breath in. Gentle breath out. And we're going to send the right hand towards the right heel. Coming into a half-expression of camel. Lifting the opposite arm up towards the sky. And again, we're inviting length in the back. In our back. So, we're sending those hips up as much as we're sending them front. And just come back, hands to prayer. Just tuck those toes. Stretch the soles of the feet, sitting on our heels. Spreading those toes. Maybe noticing a sound in your environment. You can hear the wind outside the window. And continuing. Toss the feet all over the mat. Twist, rotate, left hand towards your left heel. Lifting the opposite arm towards the sky. Sending the hips up and front. Nice. And coming back, hands to prayer. Just take that stretch one more time, tucking those toes. Nice. And now, we're going to come back up. Exploring the full expression of this posture. So, if the last two stretches were intense for you, please keep those toes tucked so the heels are closer to your arms to grab. Otherwise, you can keep those tops of the feet on the mat and we're going to send one arm towards one of our heels, the other arm to the other heel, and press away from those feet. Pressing those hips forward and up. Taking a deep stretch of our front line. One more time. One more time. Just one more single breath. When you're ready, walk those hands to your lower back. And we're going to come back into a butterfly position of the gluteus system, those toes of the feet. Baddha Konasana together. And if it feels comfortable to you, bring them close. But if it feels better to keep them a little further, find what feels good. And we are going to send one arm up overhead and see-saw towards that side, taking a side stretch. So, you can place only the palm on the mat. You can reach the elbows over that. Really extending the opposite foot bone magnetically towards the earth. And come back. Just one cycle of breath here. Long breath in. Long breath out. Lift the opposite arm up and we're going to take a crazy see-saw towards the other side. Again, you can only reach maybe with the fingers or you can come to rest the elbows on the mat. Extending through the opposite hip. Releasing the weight of the opposite knee towards the earth. And one breath in. One breath out in our neutral position. If it feels good, we're going to take that stretch forward. So, just walk those hands out in front of you as far as you wish to go. Drop the weight of the head. Maybe you take a swallow if you're feeling like you need it or you don't. Shake that head now. Not that heady yet. And when you're ready, walk back up to neutral position. If you have the time in your day, you can lay on your back and take a full resting posture. Otherwise, you can keep those legs crossed or straight out in front. I'm feeling cold to extend my legs. So, just listen to your body today. Your hands can be resting on the knees, can be facing up. And even though it's a moment of stillness, we can still begin to connect to the infinite movement that happens as we're breathing. You can feel the blood pumping through your body. Maybe noticing how your body feels a little different than when we started. How your mind feels a little different than when we started. Bringing back the intention that we started with. So, we're going to take a deep breath in. And we're going to take a deep breath out. And we're going to take a deep breath in. And we're going to take a deep breath out. And we're going to take a deep breath in. And we're going to take a deep breath out. And we're going to take a deep breath in. And we're going to take a deep breath out. Bringing back the intention that we set in the beginning of this class. Envisioning it as complete. Being hopeful about its outcome. And we can bring those arms up overhead. Pass through the middle. Two more. Wiggle those fingertips. And last one. Bring those hands, those fingertips to touch the forehead. And the lips. And the heart. I'd like to thank you guys for joining today.