Yoga Sess 08.02.24

The speaker guides the listener through a yoga practice, starting in a cross-legged position and focusing on breath and connecting to the body. They lead various stretches and poses, including ankle warm-ups, child's pose, cat pose, puppy posture, twists, and side plank. The practice ends with a forward fold and a backbend. Let's start off today in a cross-legged position, as comfortable as you can make it. Feet are right in front, placing the hands. I think today we can put one hand on the heart and one hand on the belly. Let's take a deep breath in and sigh it out. Long inhale in, and big sigh out. Two more, even if this feels crazy. Deep breath in, and sigh it out. One more, deep breath in, and let it go. Beautiful. Let's connect to our breath. Sensing how our hands, almost in a wave-like motion, respond to our breathing as we inhale. Exhale. And perhaps cautiously, bring your attention to... Slow your attention down and send it towards your heart. Maybe with this left hand, you can feel your heartbeat for a moment. Some people might say, wow, that's so corny and cheesy. But actually, scientifically, being able to slow our nervous system down and listen to... Some of our autonomic systems in the body allow us to calm down. Touching the nose, slightly lengthening the back of the nose. And here I might use a set of dedication for this practice. Someone or something that may benefit from the energy we create today. When you're ready, your eyes are closed. One of those eyes open. Take a deep breath in, bring the palms up overhead. Slice into the middle, and compress. Two more times, compressing. Letting each fingertips touch the other fingertips. And one more. Slightly bend the spine this time as you exhale. Let's do something a little unconventional and warm up our ankles. So let's gently grab either your right or your left leg and do something a little funny, which is interlace, if possible, your fingers in between your toes. If it's funky and weird, it's hard for you maybe. And just begin, hold your leg as hard as it's comfortable, maybe at the shin or the knee, and just begin to take some circles with the ankle. Out or in. Maybe shake it a little bit. Just warming up that ankle. However feels good. Now let's do a switch. So maybe extend that leg that you were just holding. The front or to the side, wherever feels good. Grab, for me, it's my left leg, interlacing the opposite hand's fingers in between my toes. And just take some circles. So I'm grabbing the other side of my shin with my forearm. Just circle one way and then the other. Maybe shake it side to side. Gently press back and stretch. Maybe offering a thought of gratitude to your feet, to support us. Everything good. Nice. And shake out the legs a little bit, pressing them on the floor. Let's transition briefly into an active child's pose. Extend those knees as wide as the mat, switching the pose. And by active, I mean that you're going to really stretch those fingertips to the front of the mat. Resting the forehead on the mat. Sending bellybutton to spine as you take three breaths here. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale again. Deep breath in. Nice. Walk those palms underneath the shoulders and transition onto all fours. Let's take here, this is a little different, but let's take some twists and hits. So send that hit toward that right shoulder, really stretching that left thigh for a moment. Extend the left hip toward the left shoulder, creating a little bit of a T-shape. Let's bring it into our cat's pose. Nice. And extend those knees up. Deep breath in. And exhale to cat. Deep breath in. Really stretching both the tailbone, lengthening that tailbone, lengthening the crown of the head. And exhale. Let's add four more here. And send that bellybutton to spine. Cat. Nice. Let's reach those palms forward. We're going to go into a puppy posture for a moment. Send that forehead towards the earth, pressing the tops of the legs into the earth. And walk those palms back. Let's take a gentle twist here. Send that right hand up towards the sky. Twist, twist, twist. And we're going to take some rotations here. And this is where we're going to thread the needle. Thread that arm in between the hands and the legs and lift up. Deep breath in. Exhale. Inhale up. Last one. Arm up. And now we're going to take a full expression of that. So send that right arm all the way through. Thread that needle. Stretch that left arm forward. You reach through the bun, sending that left arm on to the top of the right leg. So just reverse that. So come back. Press that left arm into the earth. All right, so we're going up. Stretch, stretch, stretch. And let's take some circles with the hips on all fours to the left. And to the right. And beautiful. We take this to the other side. And right paw into the mat. Stretching the left hip up towards the sky. Deep breath in. And exhale, just twist, taking that left arm in between the right arm and the left. And lift up. Open that body. And exhale. This is sending some intention to those little feet. So by working and serving us and twist. And last one. Can you move those fingers? And thread the needle fully. So left arm reaches all the way through, sending our body and our right arm towards the mat. So the body sending the right arm to tuck into the crease of the hip. And left leg. And let's unwind all of that. Great compression in here. Working. Walk the center across onto the mat. Touch those back toes. And we'll slowly press belly button to spine. We'll inhale together here. Exhale, belly button goes so much towards the spine as you lift those knees and reach across the mat. Deep breath in. Exhale. Release any tension in between the upper and lower jaw. Deep breath in. Release any tension on the toes of the feet. Exhale. And one more inhale. And the exhale, stretch back into downward dog. Shake that head low. Nod that head yes. And bend that left knee. Take a deep stretch on the right back of the leg. Spread those toes, spread those fingers and switch. Bend the right knee. Good. Tiptoe walk towards our palms. Grasp opposite elbows. And let's walk side to side and forward fold. Let the weight of the head lead you. Great work. And let's press into the shoes, halfway lift. And release. Palms come towards the mat. Step or walk into place. Take three collective breaths here. And as we do that, let's actually rock on those ankles forward and back. So deep breath in. And exhale. Deep breath in. One more breath. We're shaking. We're really pressing into the palms. And let's take actually a side plank here. So bring that left arm underneath the shoulder. So we're stacking wrists, elbows, shoulders, knees and toes. And lift that opposite arm. If you want, you can take an extra challenge and lift that top leg up. And here we're going to do the same twist motion that we did when we were on all fours. On all fours. So take a deep breath in. Bring that right arm in between the space of your body and the bottom arm. Do three more here. Breath in. Exhale, twist. If you need to, you can always place that bottom leg down for an assisted plank. And two more. Great work. Concealing it. Press away from the earth. One more. Great work. And let's come back to plank. Send those elbows into our first chaturanga. Maybe you want to press those knees down this time. Send those knees up through the stars. So first upward-facing dog. And press back. Downward-facing dog. Can you guys still hear me okay? And shake your head now. Now look over here. Great work. This time let's pop halfway through the mat and all the way towards those hands. Let's interlace our fingers. Place them in the base of our head. And we give ourselves a little gentle massage here in forward pose. Move your fingers. Selecting the connection point between the sole and the neck. And release that halfway leg. Fingertips on the mat. And release down. Step or hop into plank. Three breaths here. Breathing in. And exhale. Let's keep walking. Shaking those ankles today. And exhale. So I'm sending the weight towards the toes and then towards the heel. One more collective breath here. Breathing in. And exhale. Let's rotate onto the other side. So release that right hand. Side plank. Pushing away from the earth. Three breaths in. And let's take those rotations. So left arm comes into that space between the body and the right arm. Three more. Inhale. Focus on your balance here. The more you stretch beyond your extremities, the easier the balance is going to be. One more. And up. And walk back into plank. Bend those elbows. Toe to elbow. Into upward facing dog. And press back up. Down dog. Really activating through those palms. Spreading those toes on the mat. Those fingers on the mat. Pulling the tippy toes in downward dog. Inhale. Exhale. Release. All the way back down. Three more. Let's hop towards those hands. Going to forward fold. Do it one more time. Just reverse swan. I have this one leaning with the nose. So up, up, up. Hands come through prayer position. Deep breath in. Take a slight back bend. So press so much into those feet that you do a slight back bend. And let that back bend lead you. Swan back down. Hands to prayer position. If you can, hop back into plank. And bend those elbows. Turn around. Upward facing dog. And down dog. Lift that right leg up in the air. Ankle circles to the right. And switch. And stay like a dog. Let's touch knee to nose. Exhale. And stay like a dog. Few more. Exhale. Knee to nose. Last one. Knee to nose. And rest that right foot in between those palms. Let that back knee relax into the earth. Keep our hands on that front leg. Really activate the stretch on the front of that left hip. But we're still sending the belly button to the spine. So as much as I want to send my weight down, I'm also activating my deep core to protect my spine. And bring the body up. Let's take a peek here. So, if you can see on the screen, I'm sending the arms almost in like a T position. Can you see? Towards the front right side of that right leg. And maybe, almost like if you were doing a reverse warrior, just to deepen that stretch to the left side of the person. Exhale. I feel that deep stretch in between my ribs and my left hip. Nice. And we're going to go right down. Press the back toe. Let's take a full twist here. On the right lunge, pushing that back toe. Nice. And we'll meet in plank. Press into those arms. Small bend of the elbows. And look up. Hopefully it's going to keep going. And exhale. Down, look up. Send that right knee. And twist. Send that left knee. Woo. Nice. Press into that right leg. Lift the left leg. Three-legged dog. Three-legged dog. Ankle circles to the left. And ankle circles to the right. Beautiful. You're ready. Inhale. Exhale. Meet a nose. Three-legged dog. Inhale. And long breath out. Beautiful. One more. Meet a nose. And send that left leg to root it in between those calves. Great speed. Right knee on the mat. And resting right arm in front, left arm behind. On the top. Core muscles of my left leg. I'm really feeling how, as much as I'm stretching, the front part of my right hip, I'm still, I don't know, I'm just trying to compress. I know we said belly buttons are fine, but I don't know, maybe another analogy is like you have jeans on and you really want, like you're activating belly buttons is fine, but if you don't want your belly to touch the front part of the feet. Nice. Bend those arms up overhead. And twist. Tuck those arms into the T position. I'm looking towards the left side here. And if you want to take what I was calling a reverse warrior, you saw those arms taking a deep stretch on the right side body. And tuck there. Nice. And when you're ready, place that right palm on the mat. Tuck the back barrel. Do the same with the left arm. Here's the side, do that left one. Nice. When you're ready, place those palms on the mat. We need a plank. A slow chatter on the lips. Take a slow exhale. Take a deep breath in. And at the bottom of the exhale, we get to the bottom of our chatter on the lips. Deep breath in. And forward tilt. I hope that works out for all of you. Breath in, upward facing dog. And down. Take a moment of stillness here in the downward dog. Perhaps noticing how the mind feels, how the body feels. And with those knees on to the mat, we're going to take a couple more Just to really feel and focus on how deep the body might feel now, as opposed to when we started. So press into those palms, into those fingers, tops of the legs, and tip of the nose where you just got it. And exhale as we catch. And this will just feel way more warm and kind of soothing looking up. Exhale. And exhale. And look up, last time. And exhale. When you're ready, we'll meet in a seated kneeling position, right from there, from all fours. You can close those legs if it's comfortable for you to, and if it's not, you can come back into a seated cross-legged position. We'll invite you to wherever your arms, wherever your legs are, and we'll place that left hand on the heart, right hand on the belly. Close those eyes. Do you sense how the heartbeat moves a little faster as we were just moving? It's a burning effort at the bottom, and it's effort this way. And you're ready to relax. Just send a little love to the face and between those eyebrows, the lower jaw, the tongue. The skin of the face. The back of the neck. Sit. They'll refuse to stay here a little longer. If you wish, you can lay down and take a cold, relaxing posture of Shavasana. Otherwise, just take a deep breath in, arms up overhead, and pass through prayer. Two more. And last one. Keep your eyes closed. Pat those fingers in the middle of the forehead of the third eye. Pat the lips and the heart. I would like to thank each and every one of you for joining us today. If you have questions for me, feel free to reach me.