Flexibility in the Spine

Welcome. I'm so glad you're here. Our spines love to move in all directions. And this practice will increase spinal mobility and energy and hopefully offer some relief in the whole body. We'll use a bit of everything in this practice.

So you might reach for a bolster, a blanket, two blocks, and a strap, and we'll start with an expansive chest opening to help open the upper body. So bring your bolster lengthwise on your mat, and you might have a folded blanket or pillow, for your head. I'm gonna face away, bring your sacrum right up against the bolster. We'll start with the knees bent, and then we'll roll on back. You might bring that blanket right underneath your head. Just find the right amount of support for your body, and then wheel your shoulder blades down your back.

Let's start in constructive rest. So as you bend your knees, bring your feet just slightly wider than your hip and allow your knees to rest towards each other. You might draw your tailbone under, let the lower back settle. And then let's open the arms wider. So find a nice expansive opening through the shoulders.

Just allow for an inhale, a nice full exhale. Just begin to allow the weight of your body to soften and receive the support beneath it, healing this quality of opening in the front body. Creating a bit more breathing room for the lungs, the heart, organs, the diaphragm. The draw your awareness towards the breath. What is the natural quality of the breath without any strain or effort or technique?

Might feel the gentle rise in the upper body, around the upper branches of the lungs. Gentle widening and expansion through the ribcage. I was feeling the belly soft, rising, and falling. As you arrive and soften towards the support, notice where in the body you can soften. Be the jaw.

Do you need to allow the weight of the shoulders and the arms to the male towards the floor? You might keep your legs right where they are if it would feel nice to bring the soles of your feet to gather your knees wide. You might find your resting butterfly and maybe bring support under your knees, like your two blocks or blankets. You might just simply stretch your legs long and wide on the floor. For the last minute here, bring some attention towards your exhalation. It's allowing your exhalation to lengthen.

And softening the face, the jaw, heart, and belly. Neeling the gentle rise of the inhale, the buoyancy of the lungs, the heart, and an even longer exhalation. Yeah. Maybe there is a sigh. New more moments. Kneeling yourself arrive and settle in your practice, in your body, aware of breath, and sensations in the body.

You are welcome to stay in the shape for as long as you'd like. This is your practice, your time. And when you feel ready to transition, your knees are wide, you might bring your hands underneath your knees and just draw your knees back up. Might feel good to stretch your legs long and maybe stretch your arms overhead and point and flex your feet. Please circle out for your wrists and your ankles in both directions. Just allowing for any intuitive movement that would feel good.

And then when you're ready, bend your knees one at a time, and we'll just slowly roll to our side off the bolster using your arms to press yourself up. From here, we'll transition on to our back. Bringing your blanket off to the side. Option to bring your bolster overhead for the arms. We'll roll on to our back here.

If you'd like, you might have a folded blanket under your head for support. And as you arrive on your back, draw your knees into your chest, and just rock yourself for a moment side to side, And then we'll ground the feet, feet about hips width apart, reach your arms out, and we'll begin with some pelvic tilts. So keeping your pelvis on the floor begin to curl your tailbone under, keep your hips down, feel your lower back, press to the floor, navel to spine, and then roll your pelvis forward, lift your lower back, lift the lumbar spine, length in the front body. With the breath exhale curl the tailbone under back ribs find the earth, navel to spine, inhale roll your pelvis forward tilt the pubic bone down arch the lower back, length in the front body, few more rounds at your own pace. You might soften your gaze inward. You might visualize the movement of your spine from your tailbone all the way up into the neck.

So feeling that increasing freedom through your spine, finding that ease through the cervical spine, the occiput, the jaw, nice and fluid. One more inhale arching the back. XL, curl. Tail bone draws under. Pause and neutral. We're gonna add on.

So interlacing your fingers behind the head is if you're doing a sit up, and we will with with the intention of really stretching and awakening the spine. So as you interlace the fingers behind the head, We're gonna inhale together and then exhale lift your head up. Draw your elbows together as you curl the tailbone under. Lower down. Take a nice full breath elbows towards the floor, arch the back. Lift the lumbar spine. Exale, lift your head up, draw the elbows towards each other, curl the tailbone under.

Inhale, lower down. Let's find three more with your breath. Exhale, lift up. Stretching the back of the heart shoulder blades. Lower it down. Nice full breath elbows draw down arch the back.

XL, lift up, curl. Lower down. Let's find one more together inhale to arch, exhale, lift curl the tail bone under. Lower down. Take a moment to pause, release the arms, draw the knees into the chest. You might rock again side to side. Bring your hands onto your knees.

We'll move with a breath as you inhale let your knees float away for a moment. And as you exhale, draw your knees into your chest. Inhale pelvis rocks forward, knees move away, exhale, knees soften in one more, inhale knees move away, exhale, knees draw in. As you're ready, extend your legs up to the sky, waking up the hamstrings. And if you'd like, stretch your arms overhead towards your bolster.

If this feels like it's too much on your shoulders, you can just push your bolster away and let your arms reach down. Will inhale together. And then with the exhale, draw the knees into the chest. Hands might find the knees. Inhale, legs reach arms reach.

Exhale. One more inhale. Arms reach, legs reach. XL, knees, draw in. And then ground the feet to the earth in preparation for, rolling bridge.

As you're ready, we'll breathe and exhale, curl the tailbone under press through the feet, lift your pelvis up and stretch your arms overhead, lengthening, and then exhale roll your spine down and release your arms. Inhale, exhale, curl the tailbone under press through the feet, lift the hips, lift the arms. You're in the full expression and bridge, and then exhale roll down through your spine, upper back. Mid back, low back in arms, inhale press through the feet, rising up into your bridge, arms lift, hips lift, lengthening through the front body, exhale rolling down. One more, breathing in, exhale tailbone draws under press through the feet, lift up. This time, stay in the bridge as you inhale.

Stay on the bridge as you exhale everything. Heat the arms overhead as you roll down through your spine. One vertebrae at a time, navel the spine. Lowering down through the sacrum pause to heal your feet as wide as your mat, windshield wiper the leg side to side. Releasing the effort through the legs. Nice and fluid through your hips and not through your spine.

With your windshield wipers, you might let your head roll away from your knees here. Nice and fluid. A few more rounds it might feel good to lengthen through the arms, letting the side body stretch and open. And then as you're ready, draw your knees into your chest, rock. From here, we'll transition up. You might rock and roll on your spine.

You might roll to your side. Use your arms to press yourself up. We'll transition into a tabletop position. So you might bring your bolster off to the side. And as you arrive in your tabletop, spread your fingers wide, we'll move into cat cow from here.

So as you exhale let your back round and stretch, navel to spine, inhale lead with the heart moving into your extension, exhale curl round stretch your back. And inhale lead with the heart to lengthen. Few more at your own pace with the breath. And from here, it might feel nice to circle through your hips. So circling the hips in one direction encircling your hips in the other direction.

Moving up into your ribcage, circling through your ribcage, finding some barrel rolls. And in the other direction, finding any areas that feel kinda tight, sticky, you might pause and breathe in to where you feel it. Coming into neutral. And then from here, let's lower down for sphinx posts coming on to your forearms. Just allow yourself to rise up for a moment.

So we'll find an active sphinx here. Arms about shoulder width apart. As you spread your fingers, feel how you can lift out of your lower back. Feel some length for your spine using your upper body to help traction the heart forward, feeling all that space through the front body. From here, you might soften your chin down, feeling the stretch through the back of your neck rolling your right ear towards your right shoulder.

And then back to center, left, your left shoulder. Back to center, maybe one more time rolling through the neck. And then coming back to center as you feel ready slowly lower down, slide the palms underneath you, tuck your toes under press up, and then round your way back and you might find an active child as you tuck your toes under and stretch the back nice and wide as you draw your hips towards your heels. Nice. Moving towards downward dog, spread the fingers wide, tuck your toes under, and lift up. In our first downward dog, pedal out through the feet, you might bend your right knee.

And then stretch the left heel towards the earth, and then bend your left knee, stretch the right calf and heel to the earth a few times like this. Might feel good to come high up onto the balls of your feet. Bend your knees and lift your sitting bones up, feel the back of the neck release here. As you're ready from downward dog, we'll walk our hands and feet towards each other. This come into a standing forward fold.

The feet might be wider than the hips, spread the toes, uttanasana. You might sway a little bit from side to side here. Hands might find the elbows. Back, the neck releasing. Might be feeling that dull, achy stretch through the whole back of the body.

New soft then through the knees, release the hands as you're ready, slowly rounding your way up, curl the tailbone under, chin into the chest, taking your time to stack your bones, feeling your heart, feeling your shoulders, feeling your hands, allow yourself to pause as the blood goes back down into the feet. Nice. From here, spread your toes, feet just a little wider than the hips, and we'll and how reach the arms up, moving into a side stretch lower the right arm and stretch your left arm up out and over to the right. You might bring your right fingertips around your left ribs as you take a nice full breath. Find a place where your neck feels good.

Maybe it's looking down today. Inhale reach the left arm up. Sweep the right arm upside stretch over to your left. You might wrap your fingers around the right ribs. Take a full breath.

Inhale back to center one more time, inhale left arm reaches over to the right, inhale up, right arm reaches over to the left. Inhale back up. Nice. Take a few shoulder rolls. And then we'll start with our wrist. So circling out through your wrists, nice fluid movement here. Encircling in the other direction.

Nice. We'll bring it up into our shoulders. So big shoulder rolls up back and down. Nice. And then bring your fingertips towards your elbows, and we're gonna or towards your shoulders, and we're gonna circle the elbows.

My bend your knees, lift and open the chest. Bend your knees, lift and open. You might find a little cat here as you round and then open round. And then open, and then we're gonna bring the arms wide. So sweep the arms up, and then open the arms.

Bend round and open. One more, sweep the arms forward. And then open. Bye. Take a moment to pause. We'll make our way towards the top of the mat for a few half sun salutation.

Spread the toes, bring the hands together at the heart. Feeling your breath, letting the breath inspire the movement, inhale sweep your arms up. Exale soft, bend through your knees forward fold, release your head, release your arms. Inhale half arch, hand slide up the shins, lengthen your spine, exhale, bend your knees forward fold, round for your feet, inhale sweep your arms up, gather and lengthen. Exhale hands together at the heart.

Last round, inhale arms sweep up. Exhale forward fold, release the head and the arms. Inhale half arch, slide the hands up the shins, lengthen, exhale, bend the knees, forward fold, ground through your feet, bend the knees, and how sweep your arms up lengthen. Exhale hands together at the heart. Take a moment to pause.

Notice. From here, we'll grab our two blocks. And set them up for triangle posts. You might bring them right around where your heels are as you step your feet. Why? We'll start with the warrior two.

So turn your left foot in your right foot out Bring your right heel in line with the left inner arch. You might start with your hands on your hips, bend, and extend your right knee a few times. Sure. Your right foot is parallel with your mat, and then sweep your arms out. Finding your warrior two, grounding through the outer edges of the feet, lengthening out through your spine. Sweep your right arm forward, and then your left arm sweeps down.

Up and open. Down, up and open three more, finding this movement through the thoracic spine, left arm suites, sweeps down, forward, up, and open, down, forward, up, and open. We'll pause, and then move into reverse triangle pose. Bring your left hand down, press into the ball of your right foot. Reach your right arm up.

Feel all that length and space. You might wrap your left fingertips around your right ribs as you take a nice full breath. Keep all this length as you reach towards your triangle pose. Get long through the spine as you lengthen lengthen. You might place your block right on the outside of your right foot.

From here, sweep your left arm to the sky, root through the feet, length, and through the spine. See how you can revolve your heart, your lungs towards the sky, feel the energy through your top fingers, and then find a place where your neck feels good. Few more expansive breaths here. Taking up space in your triangle pose, feeling this breathing room around the lungs, the heart. Ground through the feet.

Reach with the top hand, inhale come all the way up. Bring your hands on to your hips. Turn your right foot in your left foot out, find the other side. Bend your left knee a few times easing into your warrior two foot pattern. Sweep your arms.

Stay low and strong in the legs. Rotate your left palm forward. Sweep your right arm down forward and up. Down forward. And at three more, you might follow your hand with your gaze down forward and up.

Last time, down forward up, press into the ball of your left foot, sweep your left arm up. Again, right fingertips might find the rib cage as you lengthen. And then keep that length as you reach towards triangle pose. Reach and lengthen. Bring your block to the outer left ankle, shin, sweep your right arm up. Ground through the feet lengthen through your spine.

Breathing here. You can find a place where your neck feels good. Really expansive quality of triangle posts. Ground through the feet, reach with the top arm inhale come all the way back up, bring the hands to the hips. And then we'll just heel toe our feet back underneath the hips, pause for a moment in mountain pose. Might roll the shoulders up back and down, feeling the energy through the legs, through the spine.

We're gonna work with our two blocks again, step our feet wide, and then bring your blocks at the highest setting. Be parallel, inhale arms, inhale spine lifts, exhale, fold at your hips. Bring your hands onto your blocks, inhale lengthen your spine. And then you can bring the blocks to the second side. As you move towards a hammock pose, drawing your hips back as you soften the heart down, healing that length in your spine.

You might bend your knees here, reaching your hips away, from your hands. You might walk the blocks forward, long through the neck, breathing here. Such a wonderful release for the spine, for the shoulders, for the neck. And then as you're ready, you bring the blocks back underneath your shoulders. You might bring the blocks back up to the highest setting.

We'll move into a spinal twist from here grounding for your left hand, bring your right hand to your hip and begin to revolve to your right, maybe reach your right arm up towards the sky. You might even bend your left knee a little bit as you twist and then re lengthen. Long through the spine, inhale, exhale, release your right hand, inhale lengthen your spine again. Right hand to the block, left hand to the hip, turn, revolve to your left. Maybe reach the left or not bend your right knee, and then extend as you twist. Inhale, exhale, release.

Bring your hands to your hips strong through the legs, inhale come all the way up to stand. And then bring your feet underneath you. Take a moment to pause and mountain pose. Clearing breath, inhale, and exhale. Nice work.

Let's make our way towards the top of the mat and bring your blocks off to the side. We'll transition down to the floor with a sun salutation, spreading the toes, bring the hands together at the heart as you're ready in house circle the arms up. Exhale forward fold. Inhale half arch lengthen, exhale, bend your knees, ground your hands. We're gonna step back into downward dog. Find your way there.

Spread your fingers, kinda pedal out for your legs. Take a moment to pause and your down dog, reset. Lower the knees. And we'll lower for cobra. So bending the elbows, point the toes, draw the shoulders up back and down, press through the palms inhale, draw the heart forward and up.

Exhale release. Two more, press through the palms inhale cobra, exhale lower. Last one. Press through the palms inhale cobra. Look down so your neck can lengthen. Exhale release, we'll move towards locust.

So this time, press down through the tops of the feet, press through the palms, inhale rise up cobra, and then you might lift your hands and hover. Slow, lower down, bring your forehead to the floor, return and bring one cheek and ear down. You might stay here windshield wiper the legs, if you'd like. Remove through another round of locust. This time, we'll bring the legs a little closer together, sweep the arms alongside the body, finding an internal rotation through the thigh bones, and as you feel ready, inhale, lift the chest.

Draw the back body into the spine. Let's keep the tops of the feet down, grounding through the pelvis, reaching for your fingers long through the neck, exhale lower forehead or one cheek and ear to the mat. Pausing. Last round, if you'd like to join in, locust. As you inhale lift the chest, maybe lift the arms and then lift the legs.

Feel how you can draw the back body into the spine while hung through the neck, feeling your strength here, inhale lifts you up, exhale lower down, forehead, or turn one cheek and ear to the mat. You might bend the knees and windshield wiper the legs side to side. I'm releasing the feet, slide the hands underneath the shoulders, tuck your toes, press up, and back into a wide child's pose. Kinda softening the hips towards the heels. Be allow for a little sway side to side.

Taking a nice full breath into the spine, into the back body, allowing yourself to rest here for a few moments. As long as it feels good for you. Take your time slowly rounding your way up. And will transition into a seated twist. You might bring your bolster and or blanket underneath your sitting bones.

It'll extend the legs out long. Kinda bring the flesh out from underneath you. We'll work with a strap. From here, we'll bend the left knee. And I like to bring the hands underneath the knee.

Toe heel that left foot a little wide, and then we'll bring the strap around the bottom of the right foot. And then bring the strap behind the back. And reach for the strap with your left hand. Ben your right knee a little bit. We're gonna inhale lengthen.

Wrap your right hand around the left leg. And then as you exhale, we're twisting. And you might press that right heel into the strap as you gently twist to your left. Inhale, draw the spine into your back and exhale gentle twist. Feeling the energy of your right leg.

Breathing here in the shape, inhale lengthens the spine, and exhale twisting. Stay in the shape and then slowly rotate the gaze forward. Slowly unwind through the upper body and extend through your left leg. From here, we'll bring the strap around the bottom of the left foot. You might bring your right hand underneath your right knee and toe heel your right foot a little wider.

From here, Bring the strap into your right hand. Gonna inhale lengthen exhale wrap the left hand around the right knee, lengthen the spine as you inhale and exhale twist. Well, you can soften your right shoulder down. Again, you might play with bending your left knee and then pressing the heel into the strap as you kinda deepen the twist. Continue finding length and space in your spine. And with each exhale softening the belly, relaxing the organs, Notice where you can soften and relax any tension in the body, any gripping, any effort.

Again, the side might feel different. And then slowly unwind through the neck. And then unwind through the upper body. Nice. Free the right leg. You can remove the strap, put the strap off to the side.

We're gonna transition on to our back So you might bring a blanket under your head for support, and it might feel nice to bring your bolster close in. We're gonna transition onto our back. Just allow your knees to draw into your chest for a moment as you rock from side to side. And from here, you might bring the soles of the feet together on your bolster and let your knees go wide into an elevated butterfly, baddekonasana. Hands might rest on the belly.

You might bring one hand to the belly, one hand to the heart. You might choose to stretch your arms open wide, cactus the arms. The option to keep your legs here for longer. Or stretch your legs over the bolster for supported final relaxation, Shavasana. Allow for an inhale, And exhale, relaxing all of the effort and the doing, just allowing yourself to rest in a quality of being.

Stay here as long as you'd like, giving yourself the time, the space to enjoy. When you feel ready, just slowly roll to your side, you might pause there. Using your way up. Might stood up on your bolster. Again, getting the alignment of your body just right for you.

Hands together, breathing in. XL, breathing out. Namaste. Thank you so much. Have a beautiful day.