Balance Meets Strength

Hello, everyone. Welcome back for another practice. I'm so happy you're here with me today. For a practice today, you'll want to put on your ankle weights. We'll need some hand weights. A blanket, a block, and a yoga strap.

So while you're getting your ankle weights on, I wanna just let you know a little bit about our practice today. We're gonna have a class to work on building some strength and increasing your range of motion as we prepare for a warrior three practice. So we're gonna begin on our back and if you'll grab a blanket and let's fold that up and put it underneath where your head's gonna go. Got your ankle weights on as we come down to the floor. And with a blanket underneath your head, just to do a little centering to start with because we know we're moving toward a bit of a balance practice.

Nice to get some support here from the ground to orient ourselves. Hands might rest on the belly. If you're okay with that, elbows on the floor. If you're someone who likes to close your eyes, let's close eyes or just soften your gaze as we start to orient a little bit more towards the center of our body. And as we orient towards the center or interior of the bodies, if you can feel your belly rise up to meet your fingertips as you're breathing in.

And as you exhale, the belly falling a little bit away from your hands as you exhale out. And maybe with a few more cycles of your breath, we all bring our focus and attention literally towards the middle of the body. And feeling that deep stretch from within as you inhale full, comfortable breath, and feeling the engagement of some of those deeper core muscle muscles as your breath is released out. One more cycle of inhale, exhale as you are here. Alright. And if you're ready now, let's have the eyes open if they were closed.

K. So I have your arms maybe a little bit out to your side, and we're just gonna bring your right knee towards your chest and start stretching that right leg up. Bend your knee, leg up, bend the knee, and a couple more times, just kicking that leg up and down to warm up that hamstring area. And then after we do that, put that foot down, and now we'll go ahead and grab ahold of your yoga strap. And now that we've formed that right leg up a tiny bit, let's add the strap around the bottom of your foot. And for a moment, now stretch your right leg up in the air straight. It might be helpful to point and flex your right foot to get the calf moving a little bit more in preparation for that straight front leg and warrior three.

And then keep your ankle flexed and work toward a straight right leg at the same time that your shoulders are releasing a little bit more back towards the floor. So hang out here for one more moment. K. Now with your foot up, we're gonna mimic the shape of the airplane version of warrior three where you slide your arms out to your sides. While you keep your right leg straight. So it's sort of like that warrior three variation maybe you're familiar with.

If you're okay putting your left leg down on the floor, go for left leg down on the floor for a moment. Notice what's different. Hold on to the ends of your strap, take your arms back towards your ears, and maybe hold on to your strap, ends with both hands and stretch your arms back towards your ears. Mimicking our warrior three right away here on your back, and maybe trying to transfer some of this ease in doing warrior three on your back to when we do our standing version. K. Rebend your left leg.

Let's hold on to the strap and slide it off your right foot. K. Put that to the side. Arms to the side for a moment as we swing your left knee towards your chest. Like up and down. Up and down a few times until that hamstring feels a little less stiff.

Okay. And then let's go ahead and grab your strap, if you're ready, and take your leg up in the air. And then do a little pointing and flexing of your ankle, and get your calf a little more ready. K. And then as we keep that leg up in the air straits, getting ready again for warrior three, which is that straight front standing leg, shoulders releasing towards the floor. He start to slide your arms out to the side and kind of feel maybe where your ends are. And depending on the length of your strap, your arms may or may not come down to the floor, but now you're kinda channeling your airplane version of warrior three on your back.

Let's see if we can stretch the right leg down to the floor straight. That's too much for you. Go back to a bent right leg if that bothers your back at all. And then take your arms back towards your ears, and let's hold on to the ends of the strap with both hands and take a big full stretch here. And now channeling your warrior three shape here on your back.

Get a feel for it. And then go ahead and bend your right leg. Let's go ahead and grab your strap, and then set that over to your sides. K? Now take your arms down to your side parallel to the long side of the mat, and we're gonna tip your knees towards your chest.

K. Now let's have your feet come back to the floor as you take both arms back towards your ears, and then tip your knees towards you arms to your side. Bring your feet down, arms towards your ears, just a little core warm up, and knees and arms down. Two more, feet tap down, arms back. Exhale come in. Last one, feet tap down, arms back, and tip your knees in.

K. Now, let's just have your feet meet the floor, open your arms out to your side, and put your right leg down, lift your left leg up. We're gonna cross over the midline as you exhale, left leg to the right, recenter. Again, exhale left leg a little bit to the right, Recenter, left leg to the right, recenter, and one more time, left leg over to the right. K. Resenter, and you could kinda feel here we're in our airplane version, on our back. Take a moment and stretch your arms back by your ears. Now you're in a version of warrior three on your back again.

And then bend your left leg, and again, take your arms out to your side. Alright. Let's stretch now your left leg to the floor and swing your right leg up towards the sky. And cross your right leg a little bit over to the left and recenter. Bring in your right leg a little bit to the left, recenter, right leg to the left, and center. And last time, a little tipping of that right leg to the left. When you're back to center looking up towards the ceiling, just kinda feel into the airplane version of your warrior three, take your arms back by your ears, kinda feeling a little bit more into a traditional warrior three on your back.

Swing your left leg up to meet your right leg up in the air. K. Now let's take your arms down to your side. You might tuck your hands a little bit under that sacrum low back area, and let's drop the legs forward in front of you. And then swing them back up. Okay. Just a little core orientation, legs down, and up. Keep looking towards the ceiling.

And maybe we can notice that a little bit more of a challenge having ankle weights on going down and up, and maybe two more times, lowering down, and swing the legs up. K. Last one, going down. And up, let's catch the back of the legs. We're gonna rock ourselves up towards sitting. Now, as you sit down, let's introduce our hand weights into our practice and keep your legs straight out in front of you.

Okay. So we're gonna hold your arms straight out in front of you. And then we're gonna lean a little bit back. And as you come forward, let your arms open out wide, like our airplane version of Warrior three. Lean back, arms parallel, and then open out wide. Lean back, and open wide. And let's do two more.

Lean back. Arms are in front of you. And then open wide as you tip to neutral. Lean back. Arms forward. K. Let's finish with your arms out for just a moment holding that position. Reaching out through the arms.

And then take your arms down. Alright. Let's bend your knees and swivel around and let's meet together now in tabletop. So you might wanna open up your blanket to have a little bit more padding, for this next setup. Okay. Let's take your hand weights up to the front of your yoga mat. And with your hands on the floor, toast points straight back.

You might just wag your tail, side to side, make a few circles just to get rid of some stiffness in the backside of the body. Nice nice to do that every day a little bit. And then bring your knees a little closer together. So let's stretch back your right leg first, toes meeting the floor, and then grab your hand weight with your left hands. So let's start by lifting your left arm forward just to feel that out and then bring your arm down.

Bring your right leg up and bring it down. So we'll do our hunting dog and maybe lift both the left arm right leg and lower. With or without weights, lift up two, lower, lift up our hunting dog three, lower, hunting dog four, lower. And come to our hunting dog five, pause one beat, and then lower. Alright. And as you get ready to transition, send your left leg back.

You can maybe bring your, right hand weight into play. Take a moment, steady yourself and feel what it's like to bring that right arm up and down. Left leg up and down. K. Now, together, hunting dog, one and lower. Lift your left arm, back leg two. Lower.

Left like right arm three. Lower and four. Lower down, and that right leg left arm, last one, and take that little hold, and lower. Okay. Set your hand weights down. Bring your elbows to the floor, and then send both legs straight back.

So your hovering for a moment in your forearm plank and let's tip our body a little bit forward and back. Kinda waking up the feet a little bit more a little bit more core engagement. And if we can hover here parallel to the ground, it's a little bit like what your torso is doing in warrior three. And kinda feeling what strength we need to hold our body up here. Then lower your knees, lower your pelvis to the blanket, and then chest to the floor.

Okay. So we might move your blah, your weights off to the side as you send your arms straight out in front of you point your toes straight back. So it kinda has maybe a little bit of the feel of warrior three, through your arms and torso. Now we'll do a little back strengthening as you take your gaze a tiny bit forward and then bring your arms to 90 degree angles, then open your arms straight out to your side, and then bring your arms back to touch your thighs. Bring your arms back to 90 degree angles. Reach forward, and then we're back to the floor, arms and legs parallel. Let's do that again.

Lift your hands, arms, bring your arms to 90 degree angles. Straight airplane arms. Bring your hands back touch your thighs. Back to the airplane. Bend your arms.

Reach forward and rest. One more time. Lift your arms, your hands, arms at 90 degree angles, airplane arms, reach back touch your thighs, arms up to the side, bend your elbows, reach your arms forward, and then you rest, bring your hands together under your forehead area. Bend your knees and let your legs do a little windshield wiper move side to sides just to get rid of any tension that might be there in the back. Alright. Put your feet back down.

Slide your hands beside the chest. And we're gonna press up towards the knees and tabletop. And you might put your knees here on your blanket. Okay. Now walk your hands a little bit forward of the shoulder area. And as we exhale, lift your knees up, swing your hips up and back into our downward dog, and bring your feet a little closer together.

We'll stretch up long through that right leg. It's got a little bit of that energy of warrior three. And then lower your foot, send the legs back up, and down. I'm getting longer through that right side as we lift three. And lower.

K. Now, shift into your plank pose, separate your feet and feel again the strength required to hold your body parallel to the floor. Lower your knees, pelvis, and let's come down with our hands by our chest and do a little backbend of cobra on inhale one, lifting, and lower. A little lift up to strengthening the back. Lower. And a lift of three.

Curle up and lower. Toast curl under, press back to the knees. Hands a little forward, and then we're coming back to down dog. Send your feet a little closer together. It's easier to balance.

And get ready to swing your left leg up. Kind of channel your warrior three energy here. Bring your foot down. Swing your leg back up, get long through that side, foot down, leg up, and foot down. Okay. Shift to plank.

Knees down, come down to the floor, point your toes back. Send your fingertips out to the side of your yoga mat. Now, you're on the fingertips version of cobra. As you inhale, lengthen and lower. Inhale, doing a little fingertip pushup. Lower, finger tip pushup.

And lower. Let's bring your hands by your chest, curl your toes under, and come back to the knees. With your toes curled under, walk your hands back towards your knees here. Wake up your feet. I'm gonna fold up our blankets. And we'll come up to stands.

We can set that to the side. Now, let's go ahead and grab your hand weights as you come to meet me up more at the top of your mat. Let's go ahead and do a couple shoulder rolls once you've got your hand weights in place. Okay. And then start to steady yourself with your feet. Maybe, hip distance apart here.

Alright. Now, with a little balance in mind now, let's open our arms out to our side and bring your left knee up towards your chest. Getting ready for more balance. Bring your left foot down as your arms come up. Bring your arms back behind you, chair as you hinge forward, arms are back, and then we're gonna back up to standing. Bring your feet in.

Arms out to the side. Bring your right knee up. Getting it feeling for balance, as your arms come up, your foot comes down. Come to the chair, a little hinge from the hips, arms back, and then straight legs. Arms out to the side, again, left knee up, now we're going to add the leg in front of you.

And as the arms come up, the leg comes down. Let's come to our chair, arms back, and then straight legs. Arms up to the side to help you balance, right knee up, stretch your leg out, hold, kinda like airplane version, foot down, arms up, bend the knees hinge from the hips, arms back. Stannie Mountain. Okay. I'm sure you're having so much fun.

Let's do that again. Bring your left knee up, stretch your leg out straight. Now, see if you can hold that leg out with your arms up, so you're doing warrior three. In a different way. Foot down arms down. Chair arms back and back to standing.

Arms out. Right knee up. Take your right leg out straight. Let's see if we can take our arms up towards our ears and foot down arms down chair. Arms are back. Okay.

Let's come up to standing. Okay. Now, we're going to add a step back with your left leg. And let's come into what will be your crescent lunge variation. So, again, still working through the balance. Let's send your arms forward and up. Gonna channel a little bit of that warrior three energy here.

Arms at 90 degree angles. Arms out straight, and then we're gonna do a little leaning over that front leg. One of my favourite variations of warrior three. And then go ahead and take your arms down, step your back foot forward. Step back with your right leg.

Find your crescent lunge stance. We're gonna take your arms up. Ban your arms at 90 degree angles. Open up wide as you lean forward. Channel that warrior three airplane variation.

Arms down. Step forward. One more time. Left leg back, swing those arms up. Come to 90 degree angle arms. Arms open all the way out as we lean forward variation. You might explore.

Arms down. Step your back leg forward. Up to standing. Right leg back. Let's keep our flow with your arms up. Crescent lunge.

Arms at 90 degree angles. Open the arms wide as you lean forward, have our variation of warrior three. Arms down, step forward straight legs. Okay. Now, bring your feet a little closer. Our last one, we'll get into our warrior three.

Step back with your left leg. Arms come all the way up. Open your arms right out to airplane arms. Lean forward and lift your back like an inch and then start to get a little more lift in your back leg, and then tap down. K. Come back to lunge.

Let your arms open out wide. Lean forward, maybe step your back foot in a step, lift your back foot airplane. If you want arms out in front of you, back to airplane, foot down and when we're in our high lunge. Okay. Let's step your back foot forward. Okay. Shake things out.

So you have full attention for side two. As you step back with your right leg. In your crescent lunge, open the arms, lift your arms up. Take your arms out wide, lean forward. This is a better variation.

Stay here or a little hop forward, lift your back leg. Put your foot down. Arms down. Look straight ahead. Okay. One more time with your arms out wide, working toward warrior three lean forward. A little hop forward, lift the back leg.

If it feels okay, you bring your arms straight out in front of you. Back out to your airplane, foot down, arms down, step forward. Let's gather your weights by your chest. Turn your feet out a few degrees. And let's just do a little squatting up and down, something that might feel nice for that back area and the hips, just going up and down as you look forward.

Okay. After taking our wonderful ride and through our airplane, warrior three variations. Okay. When you come up to stand, let your feet face forward and we'll set our weights down carefully. And take a moment to maybe grab your blanket to put, down around the middle of your mat. Okay. When you have that at the middle of your mat, let's go ahead and have your block to sit on. And you might turn it flat or medium and have a seat on your block as you look straight ahead.

Maybe do a little tipping in your pelvis back and forth. Like you would in a cat cow position. And then it's come a little bit now toward neutral shape here. As you look straight ahead. Let your arms reach up into the air. And drop your left hand down to touch the shoulder area as your right hand comes around to catch that left elbow. And let's look straight ahead here.

This little opening through that upper left chest. And then take your arms up in the air as we bring our right hand down towards the shoulder area and reach over with your left hand, grab that right elbow, and do that little opening through the chest here. One more moment. And then taking your arms all the way down. Okay. The shoulder shrugs, just a few of them.

And then from that shoulder shrug, let's come forward off your block. And when you set that aside, bring your knees back hands forward. And when you get ready just to lower ourselves down to the elbows, stretch your legs back and come all the way down onto your blanket with your pelvis. Take your toes straight back. Slides your elbows wide and let's rest your forehead for a moment on your stacked hands as you wiggle your hips a little side to sides.

And after doing our back strengthening work, and our challenging core engaging practice, it might feel nice here to really soften the belly as you inhale towards the ground. And that gentle lifting of your belly in towards your back here. I was trying to drop into focusing on three more cycles of your breath here in our prone position. Alright. After enjoying those few cycles of the broth here, let's slide your hands a little bit wider. And as you stabilize yourself, press back towards table top, but have your knees right on the ends of your blanket and big toes touching behind you.

So maybe after some of that back strengthening work feels good to tip your hips back, whatever amount works for you, and let's send our hands again under your forehead and come into one more kind of resting pose here of a widening child's pose. And if you don't go all the way back towards your hips, comfortably, you just would be leaning a little forwards, with your hips so that we're not and bending back through the knees. So if you can be here, we're finding a comfortable resting place, and let's drop into five cycles of your breath here. If it's better for you to do the shape on your back, you could also flip over onto your back and do the same shape. You ain't gonna feel in that belly area moving towards the earth on inhale and in towards your back on exhale.

K. When you're ready, gonna lift on up, bring your hands in front of you and now bring your knees parallel. If you were on your back, you'd be hugging your knees to your chest. Those that can tip your hips back come to our knees parallel version of child's pose and either keep your arms out in front of you. Some of you could put a block under your forehead.

This works better for you as we take our arms back towards our ankles and soften into a little bit more of traditional child's pose. After doing our kind of back bend oriented moves, we might enjoy that forward fold. Or if you're on your back, you're hugging your knees towards your chest. It's if you can feel as you inhale a slight widening of your back body here, opening towards the sky. And exhale the weight of your body sinking a little bit more in towards the earth.

Let's take the next moment or two to start to transition to lift the head up. If you've got a block there, we're gonna move that to the side and get ready to sit a little bit more up. And maybe from here, fold your blankets, If you like that to sit on, those of you that might be on your back come back up to sit, and let's go ahead from here and maybe cross your ankles. Just your waits so that you can sit in that way or a different way that works for you and sit up and align yourself from tailbone up through the crown of the head. Just focusing on good posture for a moment.

As we get ready to wrap up our practice. Alright. Maybe the hands together in front of the heart center. Taking a moment to tune inwards and to align with your intention for this new day. What is it that you wish for a little bit more of and keeping that in your heart mind? Alright. Thank you, Yogi Warriors out there.

Thanks for being in practice today, and I look forward to being with you next time. Take care.