Eagle: Strong and Steady

Hello, everyone. Welcome back for another practice. So glad you're here with me. Today for our session, it'd be great to have two blocks, your hand weights, and a blanket. Our class is inspired by the eagle pose, and I hope you enjoy our adventure where we're gonna start on our back with your blanket folded, for your head.

So if you set that down, And as you get closer to the floor, please grab your yoga blocks. We're gonna have those for the sides of the legs. When you come down, and your blanket's basically at the base of the skull, pause there and then slide your blocks in either medium or flat position to support your legs and support the opening of the hips. Kinda on starting with a little bit more support, we can always flip them lower if you want more stretch as we go into our warm up. So with your blocks in place, if you like your hands on the side of your belly or top of the belly, please rest them here or arms out to your side.

And if you like your eyes closed, let's go ahead and close the eyes or lower the gaze and bring your dristy, your gaze a little bit more to the interior of the body. Once we get ready for our eagle practice today, maybe we can bring awareness to our nose as one of our first Dristies focal points. And imagine you're breathing in through the nose, the eagle beak, and noticing if you're able to breathe through both nostrils or if one feels more open, more dominant at this time, give a little bit of love and focus to the nose, the nostrils. And then your awareness drift a little bit more down towards the heart center as we breathe in and out and just notice movement in that area of the chest, the lungs. I'm not really needing to change the breath, but again tracking the breath from the nose, our beak, down towards the heart, and chest area.

Exale here. Let's do one more. Bring your focus to breathing in through the nostrils, the eagle beak, toward the heart. And exhale everything out. And slowly bring your legs back towards parallel. And once your feet meet, the floor just let your reach down and move your blocks out of the way off to the sides.

And then let's go ahead and grab ahold of your hand weights. So we'll grab our weights and have your arms up in the air straight with your palms facing your knees. Alright. So we're gonna do a classic kind of chest press for a moment as you bring your elbows to touch down, and then bring your arms back up weights touch. Elbows pull wide, we touch down, and go up, elbows down, and up. Two more times, let your elbows touch down to open and stretch that chest area going up, and open and lift your arms up.

K. Now when we take our elbows down to touch down, let's slip your forearms back parallel to the floor. Maybe they touch the floor. Now we're gonna squeeze our elbows and forearms to touch, and then open back out to our, open wing position, squeeze back in toward parallel, come to our open wings, squeeze to parallel. Open up the wings. Squeeze to parallel.

And let's keep the opening here. And if you need your arms to be a little straighter, keep holding your ink, your hand weights to help ground your arms and shoulders. Now take your left leg and stretch it up towards the ceiling, put your heel on your right knee and swing your legs towards you. Lakes go forward, left leg in the air, put your foot down. Same leg again, left leg up, heel on the right knee, tilt your legs towards you, feel into that left hip area, right foot down, left leg up, neutral.

One more. Left leg up, left heel and right knee, swing your legs for a moment towards you, going into that left hip zone, and then foot down. K. Left foot down. Other side now, stretch your right leg up, heel to left knee, swing your legs towards you, get a little read on that right hip, left foot down, right leg up, and right foot to the floor. Okay. Two more times. So right leg up, right heel to left knee, swing your legs towards you, left foot lands, right leg straight, right foot down.

Got one more, right leg up, right heel to left knee, swing your legs towards you, working into that right hip, and then touch down both feet on the floor. Alright. Now we're gonna put some of that together. Now see if you can bend your arms to 90 degrees, cross your left leg all the way around your right leg. And then we're gonna squeeze your elbows into parallel, and bring your elbows and knees towards each other. Put your foot down, open your arms back out to the side.

Bring your elbows in, swing your knees towards your elbows. Maybe you can curl up, roll down, elbows back out to the side. Elbows come in, tilt your knees towards you, curl up, roll down, elbows wide. Two more. Squeeze elbows in, knees, tip in, reach your elbows to your knees, curl up, roll down, elbows wide. Last one, elbows in, swing your knees towards your elbows, curl, roll down and release, uncross your left leg, and cross your right leg over the left. K. Arms are back at 90 degree angles.

Squeeze elbows in, and we'll curl up elbows in these might touch. Roll down elbows wide. Elbows in, curl up, and we're going elbows wide. K. We start with the arms three. Curl.

Touch down. Elbows are wide. Four elbows in, curl up. See if you could maybe touch your leg or your knees. Roll back down. Last one, elbows squeeze in, and swing your knees towards your elbows, curl up. And roll down. Alright. Let's leave your weights there.

Arms down to your side. Uncross your legs and tilt your legs towards you, and you might rock your hips a little side to side. Make a few circles. And then we'll get ready to rock on up towards sitting. Okay. In your sitting position, now you might slide your blanket under your hips.

And, from here, settle into a cross legged seat if that works for you. And in your cross legged seat, let's just take a moment to bring your fingertips to the tops of your shoulders, and just bring a little bit more movement into the ball and socket joint here. Going one direction. And then flip it around a couple times and do your other direction. Alright. Now I have your arms open all the way out to your sides.

And have your left arm cross over your right arm and reach around, touch that outer shoulder area, and give yourself that eagle hug as you're rocking and rotating your body a little bit side to side. Just stretching through that upper mid back. K. It might help us have a better binding of the arms eventually. Hey. Face forward. Let's have the arms open wide and then take your right arm over your left arm.

Touching that outer arm area and a little rotation side to side. Okay. Opening up across the upper mid back and shoulders. Alright. Let's take your arms down and slide off your blanket. And as we slide that out of the way, we're gonna transfer that to where our knees go. And once you put that, maybe about the middle of your yoga mat. That's typically where we'll want that.

Let's bring our blocks back into play and have them appear up towards the top of your mat. Okay. So lower your elbows just so you're not on your hands. The whole time and bring the palms together and knees a little bit closer together. So from here, let's stretch your left leg straight back and then float your foot up to the height of the hip.

We're gonna swing your left leg over to the right, and then straight back behind you. Swing it again over to the right, and then straight behind you. Over to the right, straight back. One more time over to the right. This next time, we're gonna cross your left leg over to the right, but put your left knee on the floor, just outside your right calf area.

So legs are crossed like we do in eagle. Now, grab your blocks with one hand and then the other. So you're up a little higher and then we're gonna try to swing our hips a little bit back. So your legs are kind of in that eagle cross position as you stretch your hips back. And we let that front right knee lift off your blankets.

And you take one more moment here stretching through the hips and shoulders. As we bring your right knee back to the blanket, let's swing your left leg all the way out to the side, and you might lift your knee and place your right knee a little wider as you anchor your left foot. Let's slide the arms a little further out. With your head down between your arms. Now from here, keep your right hand on your flat block and slide your left hand over to the right and look under your arm a little bit towards your left fingertips.

So we're stretching into that upper mid back area the way that we do when we're warming up for the arm position in eagle. Looking out towards your left fingertips. Take a moment. Just noticing what's changing, what's shifting as you bring your attention and focus to this corner of your body. Let's bring your left arm again forward, grab your block and pull your hands back in so you can bring your knees back together. We'll again lower down to your elbows.

Bring your palms together. And now as you relax your left foot, take your right leg straight back. And we're gonna swing our right foot over to our left, and then let your foot hover as high as your hip. Bring your right foot over to the left. And it floats straight back.

Going back to the left, touch down, and back over to your left, straight back. And one more time, over to your left, And then we go straight back and we're gonna take your right knee to your outer left calf area. And as you put that knee down, grab your blocks, lift up a little higher, it'll be easier in your knees. As you keep your legs crossed, And then your left knee lifts a little bit as you push into your blocks and tip your hips back with your head down between your arms. And just some version of this so it feels a little bit like the crossing of the legs like we do in eagle. They stretch for the shoulders.

And after one more moment maybe here, let's bring our left knee back to the blanket and take your right leg out to your right side. With your toes parallel to the long side of your mat. Okay. Now, your hands on the blocks might go just a tiny bit forward. Drop your head back down between your arms like we do in downward dog. And our front core is engaged, so we keep the spine pretty neutral.

I'll leave your left hand where it is. So let's take our right hand and thread it under the left arm to the left. And as you look under your arm towards your fingertips, that right leg is strong supporting us, maybe start to move into a deeper stretch for that outer right shoulder area, and enjoying just one or two more moments. With this stretch for the right leg and the right upper, mid back, and shoulder. Alright. If you're ready, let's come out. And as you grab your blocks, bring your knees back to the blanket.

And then we can set your blocks to the sides. Let's for a moment have your hands a little bit forward of your shoulder line and lift your knees and plank. And just a moment coming into your down dog. Kind of our overall stretch here as you push the floor away with your hands and get longer through your arms, side body, and legs. You feel that gradual sinking of your heels And just another moment seeing again, if you can feel the breath coming in through your nose, filling up your chest, your lungs, and a breath out through the mouth.

Let's walk your hands towards your blanket and feet towards the blanket. And when you get to the blanket, we might fold that up and set that to the sides as we bring ourselves up towards standing, and you might shake out your legs here. Let's grab your hand weights, and I'm gonna turn towards the long side of the mat once you have your hand weights. Turn your toes out. Let's come into our squat goddess position here.

And have your elbows in and your palms facing each other. As we pull your right hand back, we're gonna do our rotation to reach out to the right and pull that left hand back and then reach over to the left. And just a few alternating so that you're getting that movement through the spine and strengthening through the upper mid back and shoulders. K, toning up our wings as you reach out. One side and the other.

Okay. One more reaching over to your right, one more to the left. Okay. Take a break in the legs and arms. Alright. Now, the arms will go out to your side as you sink back into your legs, and we'll have your left arm cross over your right arm, and then reach out wide. Have your right arm cross over your left arm, so you're kinda getting that eagle arm position, and then take a break. Come back into the legs and arms, right arm over, reach out wide, left arm over, Wide and straighten your legs.

One more, settle in. Left arm over. It doesn't really matter. You're gonna do both. Right arm over. And arms are at wide and release.

Okay. Roll your shoulders. Let's bring the legs parallel and get ready from here. Let the arms float up to the side. We'll start a nice little balance sequence Take your left foot out to the sides, bring your left leg across so it makes kind of a figure four leg shape and have our arms in our bent wing position. K. Now, we're gonna cross the leg all the way over and come into an eagle elbows touching.

I'm gonna open back out to our original starting position. Come to that figure four with bent elbows, bend your right knee, come to the eagle legs and arms. Back out to the sides. Cross your leg over, see if we can do that all together. Elbows in, come to the eagle legs.

Going back out wide. Do the leg figure four, bend those elbows, squeeze in, sink down into your eagle legs, back out wide. Do one more. So if you can do that swiftly together, bend the elbows. Squeeze in. Drop down. And we're going out wide arms down.

Bring your legs a little closer, so you take a pause back in mountain pose. Okay. Now, we know the sequence a little bit, so arms are out. We'll bring your right foot out to the side and see what balance is like as you bring your leg to the fore position. Bends your elbows. You should cross over, squeeze elbows in.

Let me go back out to our starting position. Do the four shape with your legs, find your center, cross over, squeeze in. Reach out wide, start with the figure four, bend the elbows, cross over, squeeze in, reach out, looking straight ahead. Legs in the four shape, bend your elbows, squeeze in. Let's meet that eagle. Reaching out one more to go.

Come to the four, bend the elbows. Squeeze in. Open out wide and bring your arms down. Okay. Let's roll your shoulders a tiny bit. Okay. Now, let's come into just one eagle where we're mindful of spreading those wings starting from mountain.

Bend the knees ever so slightly and cross that left leg over your right leg. As you sink a little more into your legs, bend your elbows and squeeze in. If you want a little more challenge, put your left elbow and your right elbow. Can lift your lower foot off the floor, and you might squeeze the legs together as you balance in your eagle holding the weights. And then unwind, and we're back to mountain.

Hey. Roll your shoulders. Arms out. Let's go right into our second side, bend your knees, so you're set up in the legs. Cross the right leg over the left, bend your elbows, and come in. And maybe, as you float your right foot, does your right elbow fit? And that left elbow, or just keep your elbows parallel. Sync down and unwind, and we come out and rolling the shoulders. Now, doing a different crossing of the legs, if we hold the weights in your hands right to your shoulders, let's cross your left leg back, and we'll do that dropping down in the legs as you send your arms straight up.

Kinda like an eagle doing that full range through the wings, and then come back to standing. Same leg, going down as your arms go up and return back to center. Three, pressing up. Going down into the legs, four. Do one more.

Going down as your arms go up. Alright. Leave your arms low. Okay. Roll your shoulders. Take a break as you need to. And then we'll lift back up to the shoulders.

Right leg goes back. And as we lower the knees, we're reaching up. Back to the shoulders neutral. Going down three. Back to neutral.

Four.neutral. And five. Coming out. It lets your feet go a little bit wider than the shoulders. Now, hold on to your weight, so we're gonna hold on to the ends as you bend your knees and put your weights down and let your legs maybe get a little bit wider apart. So you feel pretty comfortable in this position. Now, if we're okay here, we're gonna bend the knees and now lower your weights flats. Just give you a little prop for your hands.

See if you can bring your left hand over to touch your outer right calf area. And we might slide your right hand block forward and flip it tall. So you've got, kind of like a block to hold on to as you look straight back under your legs towards the wall behind you. We're stretching through your outer left shoulder. In one more moment, feeling into the legs, the shoulder, kind of a similar stretch that we did on the knees and in eagle pose.

When you look forward, grab your left hand weight and maybe turn it tall. The other one might go flat. Right hand slides over to outer left knee or calf area. And then look straight back through the legs at the wall behind you and maybe notice what's changing. What are you feeling in that right shoulder upper mid back zone here?

Comfortable breath in and out. And then have your right hand reach back for that tall weights and walk your weights in more under your shoulder line. Bring your legs and feet a little closer together. Keep your toes turned out. Let's see if we can bend the knees and come down with your hips to a little bit of a squat position.

And set your blah, your weights down, hands down, and then carefully transfer to the floor. K. We're gonna grab your blanket for something to sit on. And as you're sitting on your blanket, if you like cross legs, if that works for you, let's take a moment in a cross legged seat. Grab a hold of your weights with your hands. And bring your elbows in with your forearms parallel.

We'll strengthen our wings one more time here with your elbows up, and then bring them in. Float your elbows up, like you're flying and squeeze in. Going up and hug in. Going up, and we hug in. Up.

Let's do that little hug. Okay. Set your weights down, stretch your legs forward. I'm gonna slide those weights a little further away from you. Hug this left knee towards your chest and then let's cross it over to your right side. K. Kinda find you're sitting in a good way on top of your blanket. Let's bring our torso a little closer to that front left leg and maybe we feel a little bit of outer hip stretch here.

If we can slide your right elbow a little more around the front of your knee. Let's go into a twist with your left hand meeting the floor. Or put a block under your hand, if that's better for you. And just stay for a moment with that rotation opening up through your upper left chest. Hey, focusing on good posture as you lengthen up through your upper mid back and spine.

We'll come back to face forward, stretch your left leg out and hug that right knee in towards you, and then cross it over to the left. Even if you do this regularly, just notice how it feels today to hug this leg in as you tilt slightly forward towards your right leg. Maybe put your elbow around the front of that knee and then see if you can reach your right hand to touch the floor behind you. Okay. So ground the sit bones, sit up tall, and maybe feel into that outer right hip area here. Imagine you're holding a block on your head that you're lifting towards the sky just to be mindful of your posture.

And then we'll unwind and face forward and stretch your legs out. K. We can move the weights out of the way and slide off your blankets. So that you can come down to the floor. One more time with the blanket under your head. And we'll come down with that blanket right at the base of the skull.

And it'll be a lot easier to do here when we're on our back, where we do our figure four leg shape. So bring your left heel to the lower part of your right thigh, and tilt your legs towards you, and depending on your hip and knees, some of you will grab the back of your right leg or the front of your knee. If you can't quite grab that, you might just have your legs go back and forth without holding your leg. K. So we'll give our, left hip here a little bit more of our attention. Same time can we soften a little bit more through the back of the shoulders?

Let's hold on to your left foot with both hands and move that left foot a little bit out to the left as you take your right leg in the air. And then start to circle this right leg as you just keep holding your left leg. Let's do two more loops with your right leg, making that circle. Right. And then put your right foot down, put your left foot down. And now let's bring your right heel to your left knee and see what it feels like when you lift your left foot in your right hip.

Does that work for you to hold the back of your left leg or front of your knee or better to go back and forth a few times with your legs? K. So it might take a moment for that right femur to get into a good spot where you can soften a little bit more through your shoulders, your face, maybe start to bring our awareness back to the breath coming in through our nose, our eagle beak today, and the filling up through the chest. When you're ready, we'll unlace the fingers around that leg, hold your right foot and move your right leg a little bit to the right as your left leg is in the air, and just make a few circles with your left leg while holding your right leg still. I'm kind of exploring different parts of the hip, by moving your leg around in those circles. K. Now let's bring your left foot to meet your right foot just for a moment, squeeze your feet together and lower your heels towards your pelvis as you press your knees forward away from your shoulders.

And enjoying here the support underneath you for two more cycles of your breath. When you're ready, we'll release the feet to the floor. And if we like turning to a certain side, go ahead to get yourself ready to turn to a side. And then up towards sitting with your legs maybe in front of you. And once again, maybe grab your blanket for a little bit of support underneath you to sit on up, rock yourself a little bit side to sides, You're just landing back in your nest, sitting up tall. And if you enjoy bringing your hands together in that gesture, palms pressing together in front of the hearts, Take a moment to consider your intention for this new day.

And may others continue to benefit from our practice? Namaste everyone. Thanks for being here.