Manifesting: Water Solutions

Namaste. Welcome to practice. This next practice will be for my water signs, cancer, scorpio, pisces. One of my teachers used to always say we have to learn how to control our emotions so that our emotions don't control us. So hopefully this practice will help us feel in touch with our emotions that we can access them without letting them get the best of us.

This practice was designed to help us feel inspired focused and sharp. So we'll start off in a seat. Two blocks would be helpful for practice if you've got them, and let's rub the palms together. Get a little heat going. Take your hands to your chest in Angeli Mudra.

Eyes can close. And give yourself this moment. Separate it as best you can. From what came before and what will come after. One of the best ways to do that is to call ourselves into awareness with the sound of ohm, breathing in.

And then you can open up your eyes if they're closed. Move whatever you're sitting on off to the side. Blocks can stay close by, and we'll tuck the toes and lift the hips and push back right into a downward facing dog. And once you're in your downward facing dog, spread through the fingers, spread through the toes, Sharpen the crease of the hips by taking the tailbone up and reaching the heels down, drop your head, and steady your gaze right between your big toes. Use the drifty. Alright.

So just accessing the sense of sight here and utilizing that to tap into some of that fire of the third chakra to balance out our beautiful water. Full breath in. Full breath out. From here, roll your way out long into a plank pose and drop your knees hips to heels child's pose. Slide your left arm underneath your right coming into a thread, the needle shape onto the tips of the fingers of your right hand, walk your right hand forward as far over to the left as possible.

From there, press into the outer left arm, twist yourself. Twist yourself pressing into the fingertips of the right hand, tugging the hips back. Take a full breath in. Twisting a little deeper with your breath out. From here, eagle wrap, left arm underneath the right and rise up to stand on both knees.

Step your right foot forward and bring your hands down right away on either side of your right foot. Tuck the toes of your left foot under straight, now your left leg open up your right arm and your inner twist. And the gaze can turn up towards the right hand here, winding around from the waist, full breath in, and full breath out. Bring your right hand back down, step back plank pose. Lift your head and look forward and lower all the way down.

Stretch back through the tops of the feet. Lift up into baby cobra and maybe lift the hands just slightly off the ground, encouraging that use of strength in the upper back. From here, hands come back down, tuck the toes, plank pose, drop your knees, hips to heels child's pose. Flip your right arm underneath your left, thread the needle. Coming on to the tips of the fingers of your left hand.

Walk them forward and then a bit further over to the right. And then utilize your breath here to create space. Right? So full breath in. And on the breath out twisting a little deeper, pulling the left hip away from the fingertips of the left hand breathe in, twisting with your breath out. Eagle wrap, right arm underneath the left this time, and rise up to stand on your knees.

Step your left foot forward and bring your hands down on either side of your left foot tuck the back to his under straighten out your back leg, opening up your left arm, lunge twist. Gazing up towards the left hand, take a full breath in, sharpen the legs pulling back through the right heel, breath out. Bringing the left hand back down, step back, plank pose, lift your head, look forward, and lower all the way down. Baby cobra with the breath in, Try lifting up the hands, engage the abdominals just to help support the lower back. Push the palms down, tuck the toes, plank posts to downward facing dog.

And right away, walk your feet towards the front of your space, bringing big toes together, outer edges of the feet parallel with the outer edges of your mat, you're hanging over in your uttanasana, just a breath here, big inhale. And exhale. Take your hands onto your shins, extend your chest forward, lengthen your spine. Hands to hips, elbows pull back, press into your feet, come up to stand, let your arms land by your sides, Tadasana, and let's move into our surya Namaskar variations, inhale reach your arms up. And on the exhale folding forward, coming down over your legs.

Step your right foot back into a lunge. Right into plank pose, lift your head look forward, lower chaturanga, press back up to plank. Push back downward facing dog. Take your right leg up, Step it between your hands, coming into your lunge, bring the left foot forward to meet the right foot, and fold forward into your legs. Coming back up with your breath in, keep it flowing, folding forward breath out.

Step your left foot back into a lunge, plank pose, lift your head. Keep the head lifted as you lower chaturanga. Press back up to plank. Pushing back downward facing dog, take your left leg up, step it between your hands, bring the right foot forward to meet it and fold forward into your legs. All the way back up, push the feet down, lift the arms look up, exhaling right back down, building some heat, right leg steps back, plank pose, Chad arunga back up to plank, push back downward facing dog. Reach the right leg up, stepping between your hands, bring the left foot to meet it, bowing into the legs. Back up with the breath in, folding through you bowing on the breath out, last time, left leg back, right into plank, lower chaturanga, Press back up to plank, downward facing dog, inhale left leg high, exhale stepping forward, bring the right foot to meet it, and fold forward into your legs.

Coming back up with the breath in, arms by your sides, breath out. Utkatasana, bend the knees, reaching up through the arms. Right away, hands come down, and then straighten out the legs. Coming up onto the fingertips look forward, plant the palms hop or step, chaturanga dandasana, rise up, up dog, push yourself back and up downward facing dog. From here, just like the beginning of practice, roll out to plank, and drop your knees hips to heels, child's pose.

Thread the left arm underneath. You've been here before. You know this part. Come up onto the fingertips of your right hand, walk the right hand forward and a bit further over to the left, full breath in, twisting, pressing into the back of the left arm with the breath out. Coming through center eagle wrap, left arm underneath the right, rise up to stand on the knees.

Little different this time. Step your right foot forward. Now go ahead, top the toes of the left foot under and push off standing up, eagle, garudasana, left leg comes up and around. You can single or double wrap your left leg and then start to round forward. Remember that eagle, Garuudasana, it's one of the few poses in our practice that's a truly rounded spine.

So let the back body widen Open up the space behind the waist. From here, we're unraveling into warrior three. Doesn't need to happen all at once, undo your arms, undo your left leg, stretch the arms back, reaching the crown of the head forward. Level off the hips. Slide back warrior one.

Let it land. Find your feet. Reaching up through your arms. From here, straightening out your right leg with the breath in. Would the breath out drop your right arm right by your side?

Get a little longer through your left arm. Alright? Reaching up. We're setting up for rotated triangle, so find your feet. And then come forward with a long spine, reaching forward, reaching forward, reaching forward. Left hand comes down to the ground or a block on the inside of the outside of your right foot, and then go ahead and lift your right arm up. Taking your twist, Pavruta Chikonasana.

Gays can turn up towards the right hand, press the feet down, extend the chest forward. Full breath in. Full breath out. From here, bringing your hands down on either side of your right foot, soften your right knee, push off your left foot, standing split. Lifting the left leg, crawling the hands, back hands can be on blocks here or fingertips on the ground dropping your head.

And just because the sanskrit is so fun on this one. Right? It's Erva Prasari de Eca Padasana. Try to say that fast. Erva for sorry to echo Padasana. One foot. Way up.

Breathing in. Breathe it out. From here, crawl your hands out in front of you. Little tricky transition. Bend both knees and slide your left leg all the way through. Have a seat.

Let yourself land. Left leg is straight. Right knee is bent. Hug the right knee into the chest. Hug the right knee into the chest, and then lower yourself all the way down onto your back, keeping the right knee in towards your chest, give it a good squeeze.

From here, take your arms out in a big tee. Poms are gonna turn upward. Kick your right leg up towards the ceiling. Now the leg may go straight. It may not. Doesn't matter.

Just kick the leg up towards the ceiling. Now keep the arms exactly where they are. Only the right leg is gonna move. Take your right foot and try to put it in your left hand. Just try. So it's a big twist. Right? And maybe you catch the big toe of the right foot or the shin or the thigh, but then work that pose. Right? So do I mean by that?

Take the right arm further out to the right, the right leg further to the left, see if you can stretch the left foot forward, the crown of the head back, and then feel into it. And this is your IT van that runs down the out side of the leg, right, gets into the hamstring, and it's a good twist for the lower back. Full breath in. Full breath out. Bring the right knee back in towards center, bending the knees squeeze it in towards your chest.

Keep the knee in towards the chest. Take a full breath in and on the breath out, lift your head and your chest, bring your nose towards your knee. And you guessed it interlace the fingers behind your head. Lift your left leg up a little left elbow right knee. M and switch. M and switch.

And switch. And you can stay with that pace or take it a little faster for eight and seven and six and five and four and three and two. And one. Coming back into center, both knees into your chest rock your way up to sit, take your hands back behind you, soles of the feet, come down to the ground, hands back behind you, shoulder width apart, fingers can turn out to the sides, dig in with your heels, lift your hips up. Open up the front body again.

Take a full breath in at the top. Open your mouth. And that's a nice release of emotion if you need it. Breathe in. Open up the mouth.

Release your sit bones back down. Cross your right ankle in front of your left and have a seat sitting cross legged. From here, you know, I'm gonna slip this in a little kundalini moment, taking the hands right up onto the shoulders, elbows wide out to the sides, inhale and twist to the left, exhale twist right. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, and stay with that inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale twisting, twisting, and the elbows can stay as high as the shoulders. And use the swinging of the arms to get you into the twist a little bit deeper for ten and nine, eight and seven, and six and five and four and three. And two, and one.

Come back into center. Turn your palms upward on your thighs. Give yourself a moment there. Feel all the things. And sometimes, I know for myself, sometimes I'm moving too fast even to acknowledge what we're feeling.

So perhaps just take this moment See what comes up. Give it space. And then in classic water fashion, Understand that it will flow through. Breathing and definitely breathe out. And then you can roll right over your hands and your knees and step back into a plank pose.

Drop your knees hips to heels child's pose. Thread your right arm underneath. Here we go. Again, come up onto the tips of the fingers, walk the left hand forward a bit over the right full breath in, twisting with your breath out. One more breath in, twisting with your breath out. Come back through center, eagle wrap, right arm underneath the left, rise up to stand on your knees.

Step your left foot forward, tuck the toes of your right foot under and push off eagle right leg up and around. Single double wrap, and if you need more stability here, just put the toes of the ball of the right foot on the ground, right outside of the left foot. That's a way to access it as well. Breathen. Folding with your breath out, rounding the spine, breathe in. Front body gets narrow, back body widens, breathe it out.

And then slowly, let this evolve into vera three. Right? The arms reach back, the chest reaches forward, kicking through the right heel, and let it keep growing, right, the shapes, even when we hang out in them, they're still dynamic. Warrior one, arms reach up, pushing into the outer right foot on the inhale straighten out your left leg on the exhale, release your left arm down. Press down into the feet, lift up through the right arm, get long. Coming forward into pavertta trikonasana right hand comes down to the ground or a block inside or outside of your left leg, lifting through the left arm. And then see if you can push the feet down.

Extend the tailbone back crown of the head forward. Go for the length in the twist. Full breath in. Full breath out. Bringing both hands down, Erdva Prasari to echo Padasana's standing split, push off, and lift the right leg up, drop the head.

Hands on blocks of the ground. We walk them back, folding in towards the left leg. And it's tempting here to open up the right hip. To try to get the leg a little higher. And See if you can stay with that evenness across the hips, evenness across the sacrum.

And then walk the hands forward, bemany, shoot the right leg through and have a seat right leg is straight, left knee hugging into the chest, sit up tall, full breath in, and on the breath out lowering down onto your back, keeping the left knee in towards your chest. Take your arms out wide to the sides, shoulder height, and a big tee, palms upward, kick your left leg up towards the ceiling. Full breath in. On the breath out, drop off the left foot right into the right hand, if possible. You can reach for the big toe, the outside of the left shin, the left thigh, and then breathe there.

Even working on pinning the left shoulder blade down as much as possible. And there can be a lot of sensation in this one, so breathe into it. If you need some extra emphasis on the letting go, you'll exhale. If you need some extra emphasis on the containment, you'll emphasize the inhale. Honor your breath, honor the balance that can be created through your breath.

Coming back onto your back, hugging the left knee in towards your chest again, full breath in. On the breath out, lift the head and chest, nose towards your knee, right leg comes up just slightly interlace your fingers behind your head again, right elbow left knee. And then we switch and switch. And switch. And just a few more like that staying with your own piece, a little faster, a little slower, whatever feel feels right for you today.

Let's call this last three, two, and one, both knees into the chest, catch your shins rock your way up to sit, hands back behind you soles of the feet to the ground. Pushing up reverse tabletop, dig in with your heels, lift your hamstrings, looking up, breathing, open your mouth. Yeah. And you can make a sound. If you need to, breathe in, Open up your mouth. Let it go. Let it go.

Release your sit bones back down. Cross your left ankle in front of your right so you're sitting cross legged. Take your hands back up onto your shoulders. This time, inhale right, exhale left, inhale right, exhale left, and then stay with that inhale exhale inhale exhale. And we'll call this ten and nine and eight and seven, six and five and four and three and two and one coming back into center, turn the palms upward on your thighs.

Just let yourself be there, breathing in. I'm breathing out. And letting any of that swirl settle. And almost like when you, shake up a snow globe, and then everything just starts to settle down to the bottom. And from that place of clarity, we will work on a more complex pose.

So we're gonna work on side crow. And if this is a pose that you're super familiar with, of course, you can just come right into it. We're gonna do both sides. If side crow happens to be newer for you, no worries. You've already done it on your back. Now we're just gonna take that same information and put it in an arm balance.

So let's get started. Coming on to the balls of the feet, with the knees together and the feet together. Once you've got that, try this. Take your hands to your chest in Anjali Mudra and think of moving the thigh bones forward and the torso back so you get a bit more upright. That's going to be helpful.

Now bring back into your mind the feeling of rotated triangle where we were looking for all of that length. Translate that here. That will be helpful. Take a big twist over to your right. From here, hands come down.

You're working to line up your left pinky with your right pinky toe. Left pinky right pinky toe. Hands come shoulder width apart. I'm squeezing my legs together, and then I reach my chest forward, elbows straight back. From here, you might find the lightness through the feet.

If you're working on extending the legs out, we have to shift even more weight forward. Right? Otherwise, the legs are gonna pull us down. And then bringing the knees back into each other and come back into center. Give yourself a moment there, shake out the wrists if you need it, give yourself a reset, feet together, knees together, hands to the center of your chest, sit as upright as possible. Take a full breath in.

Take a full breath out. And then we twist over to the left, bringing the hands down. This time, it's the right pinky in line with the left pinky toe. It's a deep twist. Right? You're really getting in there. And you'll separate the hands about shoulder width apart, spread out through the fingers, reach the chin forward gazing out in front of you to lift the feet up. If you'd like to open up the legs, again, the weight comes even further forward.

You did this on your back. Right? And now you're doing it with Chaturanga in a Chaturanga. Same feeling. Bring the knees back into center and let yourself come back to center. Take a seat and shake out your wrists.

So in the same way, I think that emotions can sometimes feel overwhelming when they come all at once. Sometimes the more advanced poses can feel the same way. Yeah? Like, it it just feels over we look at the finished product and it and it feels overwhelming and If we break it down, what? We we did the twist in Parverta Triconasana with working on the length. We did the feeling on the back of trying to keep the shoulders open We worked on lengthening. We did you've done a million chatarungas. They know you have. Right? So put all of those elements together and then it doesn't feel quite so overwhelming.

And then, as I always say, the magic is that there is no magic. It's just the practice over and over and over and over again. Alright. Let's get a nice stretch across the chest to finish up our practice. You can come to stand up on your knees. I'm gonna encourage you to use blocks, at least for this first one.

We're setting up for a Neustrasana. But blocks are going right outside of the ankles just like that. And then you'll push the shins down, take the hands to the lower back, elbows come in, pressing down through the triceps, lift the chest, squeeze the shoulder blades together, and just hands on blocks for this first one. Right? We haven't really done a bunch of back bending. We've done more of the twisting. Right? So so let the belly open here.

Press the fingertips into your blocks. Lift the chest. Look up. Take some big open breaths there. And then pushing down into the feet, inhale your way up, exhale.

Having a seat, you can sit on your heels or sit on your block and just breathe for a moment. And then we'll take one more. And you're welcome to use the blocks. If you're liking the blocks, otherwise we come up to stand on the knees without the blocks, hands come to the lower back, elbows pull in. Triiceps press down, anchor the tailbone, lift the chest, start to lean back.

You'll catch your ankles or your heels, and then we're going in four directions. Right? The shins down, the chest up, pelvis forward, head back, ustrasana, breathe in. Breathe out. Again, breathe in. Breathe out.

Squeeze in to come up out of it. Have a seat on your heels or on a block and breathe. And then let's lower down onto the back and come into Shavasana, stretch the legs out long, turn the palms upward. Eyes can close. Just give yourself a couple of moments to allow your body, your nervous system to sort itself out as needed.

That element of water. Moving the prana where it's needed. Remembering that emotions, just like poses, they're not fixed. And sure if it feels overwhelming, in this moment. Give space for that.

I always say that cliches become cliches for a reason. And this too shall pass. You're welcome to stay on your back a bit longer if you need. Otherwise, stepping the feet to the ground. Rolling to the right side, press into the hands, coming up to sit. Hands to heart.

Thank you so much for sharing your practice. Namaste.