Day 17: Spine & Shoulder Love

Hey, welcome back to Yoga Anytime 30 Day Challenge Day 17, all right? So are you beginning to get a sense of where we're coming from with this? We've got these openings, middles, and closings. Are you becoming familiar with them, able to adjust, refine, make your own, right? That's where we're going with this, and I hope you're getting that.

All right, so spinal wake up, followed by lunge salutations, cozy seat. We've only done cozy seat once before. So I am looking forward to this practice, Day 17, child's pose. Stretch it out. See how your little back feels, your hips, your knees, ankles.

This really is kind of like the all-purpose pose. Stretch it out, and let's go right into the side bending. So side bending, walk the left hand over, walk the right hand over, reach through the outer right, kind of pinky of the right hand. Good, pull back through the right hip. Very nice, other side.

So in the very first one or two times we did this shape, we did it also from tabletop. So maybe you're able to explore that somewhere in between, child's pose and tabletop. Take the time to check it out. Good, come back over to center. Get really long here.

Let's come up into puppy pose, tabletop. Walk the hands out, maybe bring the forearms and elbows down first, and then slowly walk them forward, your chin down, maybe your forehead, and let your belly and core sort of dissolve and relax. That slope in the spine. So we're really, we've got a lot of extension in the spine here. Hopefully that feels appropriate for you.

We're going to stay with the extension in the spine, the little back bend as we come forward into Sphinx pose. Make the adjustment in the arms, elbows slide forward or wider. You can even straighten your arms for a little deeper expression of the pose. Okay, bring it all the way down. Let's take the left arm all the way out, roll over.

So make sure when you roll over, you're continuing to walk that left hand out. So you focus a little bit more on the front side of that right shoulder, or left shoulder. Yeah. Find a placement for that right foot. Good, touch on that for a moment, roll out, slide the right over.

Nice. So use that left arm as a placement, right, a place to stabilize. Whoa, man, the right side for me today feels pretty intense. It's crazy how it's different from day to day. Nice.

Bring it back over. We're going to try a little something different today. You're going to build up into cobra without the hands. Did this yesterday. Now reach back if you can grab hold of your hands, interlace your fingers.

Feel free to lift your legs up a little bit. Good. Roll the shoulders open, lift the chest. Locust pose nice, slowly all the way down. Hands rest in cobra position.

Lift the chest on the inhalation and exhale back into tabletop. And all of this is really good for the prep of the lunge salutations because we do the hero pose and the camel pose. Take a hip circle one way, a little hip circle the other way, and then move into a cow pose, arch the back, exhale, round out the back. One more time, inhale, arch, belly drops, exhale, pull the low belly up and in. Nice, downward dog, curl the toes, stretch up, up and away.

Bend your knees. Bend both knees a lot as you breathe in and then exhale, straighten the legs out. Bend your left leg a lot as you really deliberately push through the right heel, bend the right heel, push deliberately through the left heel, nice. Walk up to the front of your mat, bent knees, half lift. Pull the belly in, pull your shoulders back, almost find like a little cobra pose here.

Inhale and then exhale, fold, let's do one more, inhale, lift, lengthen, extend through the spine, exhale, fold the belly over the thighs and pause, relax. Let's come all the way up with the breath in, sweep the arms up overhead. Let's come right into it, forward bend, exhale, beginning the sun salutation A. Inhale, lift the chest, lengthen the spine, exhale, step back into plank pose and lower down. Good, inhale, cobra, maybe even push up into a little upward dog, all the way, downward dog exhale, nice. That full body movement in these sun salutations, right?

Walk to the front of the mat, step the right foot, bend the left, forward bend, exhale, inhale, lift halfway and fold, exhale, inhale, rise all the way up and exhale, all the way down, forward bend, inhale, lift, extend the spine, exhale, step back into plank pose, lower down halfway, upward facing dog, roll the shoulders back, lift the heart and downward dog exhale. So the prior times we've been stepping back into the lunge, now you're going to lift your right leg up on the breath in, step the right foot to the right thumb, finish the exhale, bring your left knee down to the mat, rise on up for the lunge, new arm variation, right arm underneath the left, fingertips of the right hand into the left palm, so eagle wrap. Nice, okay, so you get the lunge, the benefit of the lunge, let's add the eagle arms by lifting the elbows a little bit, maybe pointing the fingers forward, add a little baby back bend, you could exaggerate the stretch in the left shoulder by adding a little twist, you can rotate over to the right. Inhale back to center and exhale, release the arms down, bring the arms up overhead on the breath in and let's make the transition, hands come down, step back into plank pose, forward down exhale, arms hug the side body, arms 90 degrees, back bend, upward dog or cobra, your choice, downward dog exhale, lift the left leg up on the breath in, exhale, step the left foot to the left thumb, bring the back knee down, inhale, low lunge, left arm underneath the right, eagle arms, okay, find a steady breath, find the lunge position, elbows lift, fingers forward, you get that, maybe add the twist to the left, how does that feel in the right shoulder, the outer edge of the right shoulder and the spine? Good, bring it back over, out, release the arms, inhale the arms up high, exhale, hands come down, step the right foot up to meet the left, forward bend exhale, inhale, rise all the way up and palms rest at the heart on the exhale, good work.

Breathe in, stretch the arms out and up and breathe out, forward bend, inhale, lift the chest, exhale, plank pose, pause, let's try one push up today, so bring the knees down, inhale lower down halfway, exhale push back up, nice, breathe in here and as you exhale lower down, back bend, cobra, upward dog, you choose, downward dog, exhale, take the right leg, lift it up, exhale, step it all the way up, bring the back knee down and we do these little cycles back and forth, straighten out the right leg, come back into the lunge on the breath in, straighten out that right leg, fold over, come back into the lunge on the inhale, one more time, good, this one here pause, point your right toes as far forward as you can, stretch long through the front side of that shin and ankle, nice, come back over, step the right foot back, sit down in hero's pose, bring the arms back behind you, draw the chest, the heart up, shoulders back, tenting high on the fingertips just to enable you to stay long in the spine, supported here, good, stay here or all the way up, curl the toes, sweep the right arm back to the right heel, left arm back to the left heel, grab hold, make the adjustment in the pelvis as always, tailbone extending down, hips draw forward, good, camel pose, supportive exit, back down onto the heels, onto the hands and table top, move through one cat cow, inhale cow pose, exhale round, let's exaggerate cat pose, draw your tailbone a lot, downward downward downward, gaze toward the thighs, inhale back into a flat back, from table curl the toes, let's lift up into dog pose, nice, from dog bend the knees and really lift long through the sit bones to try to bring the spine to a neutral lengthened position, take the left leg, lift it up on the breath in and exhale, step it up, bring the back knee down, good, and now straighten out the left leg, stretch out through that left hamstring, inhale back into the lunge, you can really let that left knee come forward to get some ankle mobility there, bring it on back, point the left toes up, fold, lengthen the hamstring, good, back into the lunge, back into the straight leg, good, point your left toes forward, fold over that left leg a little bit, make it your own, okay good, now come back into the lunge, step back, same thing, hero's pose, slide the arms back, lift the chest, this is a great pose to do several times if you sit at a desk for any long period of time, grab hold of the chair back behind you and lift the chest, good, stay here or build into camel pose, right arm sweeps up and back, left arm sweeps up and back, nice, tailbone down, hips forward, long thighs, good, stretch through the belly, make sure you're able to breathe well, good, let's exit by taking the left hand on the waist, right hand on the waist, draw the tailbone down to make sure you kind of get out of the low back, let's bring the hands down to the mat, take your knees, bring your knees pretty wide, right, so as always we want to exit after camel pose and even after the hero pose, we want to get that low back as stretched out as we can and we do that through a relatively tight compressed child's pose, you can do the same shape on your back by lying on your back and hugging your knees into the chest, okay, let's transition into our closing which is cozy seat, so cozy seat I like to use a blanket, so if you need a blanket you'd like to use a blanket whatever, grab it and place your seat on the very edge of it so that it adjusts your pelvis, okay, let's cross the legs and sit up, take a moment to connect and meet ourselves here, greet you, greet me, side bend, take the right hand out, reach the left arm up and take that left arm up and over to the right, rotate through the shoulder a little bit, bring that left arm back down but we're going to explore a little bit is some next stuff, so keep the right hand down maybe the fingertips of the right hand and take the head to the left, so your your left ear is reaching toward the left shoulder and then from there lift the chin up, roll all the way to the right down and over to the other side, when you get over to the other side again meaning the left ear toward the left shoulder, now lift the chin up, chin up and over again to the left, reverse that circle all the way up and back to neutral, left hand bring the left arm out, reach the right arm high, stretch up and over to the left, same thing get a little shoulder movement here some scapula, shoulder blade action, good, bring that right hand back down to the waist or to the floor, focusing now on the left hand, tent up on those fingertips and send now your head over to the right and then once you meet the ear toward the right shoulder circular motion all the way back over and then you lift the chin, move the jaw around a little bit, explore this is definitely one of those like explore around, figure out where that stretches for you, now come all the way over, up, back and hello you're loopy after that one, let's take a spinal twist, so move the spine left and right now let's rotate to the right, left hand reaches over to the right thigh, right hand back behind you, good, rotate right, back over to center, rotate left, good, back over to center, reach the arms out in front of you, interlace, interlace, knuckles forward, chin to the chest, pull the belly in, pull the chest in and round out like you would a cat pose, like you're trying to reach the knuckles toward the floor and then all the way up pressing the palms up, pull the shoulders back and down, a little side bend once again, release the arms all the way down, maybe some shoulder shrugs, bring the hands to your thighs, let's close out with a short little meditation, so close your eyes if you're okay with closing your eyes, keep the body upright, as you breathe in lengthen through the spine all the way up through the top of the head, get as tall as you can, maintain that height, exhale all the way back down from the top of your head through the entire spine and let the exhale sort of like splash, down through the seat and the blanket, the floor, let's do two more like that, breathe in, lengthen, breathe out, relax, breathe in, breathe out. Draw the palms together at your heart, grateful for the health you have now and your ability to show up as you are, day 17, boom, namaste.