Dancer: Focused Balance

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another practice. I'm so glad you're here to join me. For our session today, it'll be great to have your ankle weights on hand weights and a blanket for our practice. While you're getting your ankle weights on, give you a little preview here.

We're gonna do a little warm up on our back of to get our shoulders ready, our core ready, as well as do a little bit back bending while we're close to the floor. And then we'll work our way up to do more, active practice standing, which will also include some balance work. So we're gonna take our blanket and open it up in a way we haven't done, maybe, in class this series. Where if you had our normal shape that we do for tabletop, we're gonna open it one more notch. And we fold that in quarter or a third, and then flip it back on itself.

Another fold. Flatten it out. This will be the hardest part of class and fold it. So now it makes a flat long bolster, basically. K. If you put that down about the center of your mat to that line, we are going to have one end to sit on and the spine will be resting on this part behind you. So if you're mindful of coming down, you get a little bit of extra underneath your head.

And after tucking that little bit of extra under your head, we'll leave your arms down to your side with your palms facing up towards the ceiling. K. When you feel you get a little bit of next support, it almost feels like you get a little bit of traction. Make sure you're wiggling yourself into a balanced place right to left, so it doesn't feel like you're falling off the blanket. But this gives us an opportunity to let our arms and shoulders drop back a little bit around the blankets. So we're working with gravity here to take the arms back and create that early feeling of a really gentle back bent across the upper chest.

K. So whether your eyes are closed or lowered here, might we relax some of our facial muscles and the track, the breath coming from the nose down towards your chest area toward the diaphragm. More energetically towards your belly. And then from the belly back up towards the nose, gonna orient along the spine here as you inhale, feel the movement of air, essence of breath moving in and down. And as you exhale, the movement of the belly toward the back, breath rising back up towards your nose. Alright. And if we start with a little bit of shoulder movement here with your palms facing up towards the ceiling, start to sweep your arms like you're making snow angel arms more up towards your ears.

And then let's turn your palms to face the floor as they sweep back down towards your sides. Palms face up. We sweep the arms wide. And as much as you're comfortable towards your ears, palms face down as they come to your side. Two more, palms up as we sweep the arms towards the ears, snow angel arms, exhale down. Last one. Arms, arms opening wide.

Maybe arms travel back towards your ears. Palms down, arms back to your side. Okay. Now go ahead and grab your hand weights. And when you have hand weights, we're gonna stay on our little folded blanket for a little more core challenge and balance awareness. Lift your arms straight up in the air above your shoulders. From here, we're gonna open the arms straight out to your side, one part, squeeze your arms back to parallel.

Bend your elbows and have your weights touch the floor beyond your head. Arms back up, and then open again out to your side. Squeeze into center, bend your elbows touch down. Lift up, open your arms wide, squeeze the center, and those elbows touch down, lift up, again, wide, squeeze together. And one last time, bend your elbows, touch down, and then lift your arms up.

Alright. Now for me, you're bringing your legs and feet a little closer together. Just maybe to make it easier to balance, and we'll take just your right arm straight back, and then stretch your right leg straight. Bend your knee, bring your arm back up above the shoulder. Left leg down, left arm back by your ear, stretch long through that side, and then we're back to center. Right leg and arm.

Back to center. So it almost feels like you're going into a smallest backbend when that leg stretches down, back to center, stabilize, reach through your right side one more time, recenter. Left leg and arms stretch long and recenter. Alright. Excellent. Put your weights down. Let's go ahead and roll to aside for a moment so we can move the blanket out of the way.

And as we move our blanket out of the way completely, let's come down to the floor and get ready for some bridge variations. So ideally, nothing under your head. And when we're here, let's bring our weights to the front of the pelvis, and you just hold them in place. It'll give us a little bit more challenge. Feed about as wide as your shoulders.

So feet on the wider side versus narrow. Lift your hips up, just a little test and lower. And again, a little lift up of the hips, and down. Two more, a little lift up. And down, pushing again some weights.

And again, lifting up and down. K. Leave your weights down. Open your arms out to your side and swing your knees closer to your chest. K. Keep those on my keep in mind your ankle weights are on when you drop your legs a little bit to your left, and then come back to center. Drop your legs a little bit to the right.

Back to your center, to your left, and center. And again, to your right, and your pace and rhythm might be a little different than mine, but we're gonna twist a couple more times just to loosen up along your spine. Alright. Now, feet back to the floor. And as you are here, now we'll bring your arms really close to your side for more of a traditional bridge like shape. Bring your left knee towards your chest, and then stretch your left leg in the air straight, lower the knee, lower the heel, stretch your legs straight, lower your heel. Up and down, up and down.

K. Now, leave your leg up, and we're gonna do kind of a slow motion lift of your hips off the floor as you're going up. One, two, three, four, five. Coming down. And again, looking towards your left foot, let's do a slow lift up. One, two, three, four, and five. And lower.

We'll do one more slow lift One, two, three, four, five, and lower. Alright. Put your left foot down. So when your right knee towards your chest, like up, bend the knee, And we're just hopefully getting rid of some stiffness as you swing your leg up and down. If you're ready, let's keep your right leg up in the air straight, and we'll get ready for that slow lift. So let's go up one, two, three, four, five doesn't have to be a big lift, lower. And we're going up again.

One, two, three, four, five. And lower. One more time, anchor your arms. Coming up one, two, three, four, and five. And lower.

Alright. Let's set that foot down and turn onto your right side. And as you do, we're gonna wanna have one hand weights close by. As you prop yourself up with your right arm here, and you get a nice stretch to the side arm as well. Let's bring this way a little closer to you. So the knees can be a little bit bent.

And as we're here, we're gonna bring your left elbow and knee to touch. And then stretch your left arm a little forward, left leg a little back. Elba to knee, stretch that left leg back, left arm forward. K. So mindful of the weights that you're working with can make this We're quite different than when we're not using weights. And if it's not good for your shoulder at all, can let go of using that hand weight.

Let's do two more. Kick back. Reach forward. K. After this last one, bring your knees together, drop the weight down for a moment, and we're gonna lift your left leg, kick it back, and then grab ahold of your foot with your left hand. I know for me, I like to bring my head down to my arm when I do this one. It helps me go a little deeper into my leg.

If you prefer staying high on that one state higher, holding your head. So get ready for dance or holding your foot, pressing your leg back. And then bring your legs back together. Our transition, we're gonna lift up and spin to face the floor. K. Let's lower down to the elbows, bring your palms together.

And as our hips tip a little bit back, lift your forearms and point your fingertips a little bit more towards the ceiling. If you can imagine when we do our dancer pose and our arms are reaching back. It's a nice preparation for that stretch. One more moment, letting your chest sink a little bit more towards the floor. And then come forward, and you might come up toward tabletop and swing your legs to your new sides.

I'm gonna have to keep facing you here as we settle onto your left side, and we start with the propping yourself up variation, which stretches the side of your arm and chest here. Lakes will be bent. And as you hold a weight in your hand, we'll go with the right elbow and knee touching. Kick back. Reach a little forward. Elbow to knee.

Kick back. Reach forward. Elbow knee. Kick back. Reach forward. Two more elbow knee. Kick back. Reach forward.

Last time. Open up the front of that hip. That might be helpful for our dancer pose. And then bring your legs together. Leave the weight down. Then lift your right legs, swing your leg a little bit back, and see if you might catch your foot, maybe lower your head down to that straight left arm, and then focus a little bit more on pressing your foot back, pressing your knee back into your foot.

Letting me to say. Take a moment there enjoying that stretch for the front of the hip and the quadricep. One more moment. As you bring your legs back together, and once again, we lift ourselves back up, swing your legs to your side, and then come back around to our tabletop position And if you like more padding underneath you, maybe we go ahead and grab the blanket and add padding because that's just nice for the knees and eventually for the pelvis. K. Now when you're with padding under your knees, we'll come back to that same shape with your elbows down that we did earlier.

Same idea. Move your hips back, lift your forearms up and point your fingertips a little bit more towards the ceiling. And kind of that basic stretch for dancer pose for the shoulders. You bring your forearms back to the floor now and stretch one leg and then the other back. So you're in forearm plank just for a moment to transition and then lower your pelvis to the blanket, point your toes straight back. And once you lower your chest to the floor, we're gonna keep your elbows wide and have your fingertips touch the side of your head.

So we keep our nose just above the floor. Now, this is a little more strengthening for the upper back. So we're gonna lift our elbows out to the side and up, and then just bring your elbows back down. Just the elbows, maybe feel your back starting to arch up and lower. Inhaling legs are engaged. They're pressing down as you lift up and lower.

Two more with your elbows floating out wide. Come back down. One more lift up and lower. Alright. Now let's stretch your arms straight out in front of you for a moment wiggle your hips a little side to side. Just release some attention here.

Now, see if you can grab ahold of one of your weights with your left hand, and you may or may not use the the weights depending on your shoulder and the the heaviness of your weight, two pounds is what I have here. It might be too much. You fold your right arm in front of you, and rest your forehead here. Let's spend your right leg, and then see if you can, for a moment, without the weight, lift your left arm up towards your ear. Okay. So it's sort of our halft on your awesana shape. Lower back down to the floor.

Now, re bend your right leg, grab your weight, and see if it makes sense to lift that weight up off the floor or not. And we come back down. Okay. So you decide, are you using the hand weight or not? Bend your right knee, lift your left arm, lower. And again, bend your right knee, lift your left arm, and lower.

Okay. Slide the weight over to your right side, fold your left arm in. That's your little pillow. Bend your left knee and without the weight for a moment, lift your right arm up or halft on your asana. Right hand down, left leg down. Bend your left knee. Now, maybe try with the weight lifting your right arm up and lower.

Bend your left leg. Lift your right arm up. And lower. Let's do one more, bend your left leg, lift your right arm with or without that weight, and come down. Okay. Both arms out in front of you.

Palms pressed together one more time. Point your fingertips towards the ceiling as you spread the shoulders a little wider here. Complable breath. Now bend both knees, toes point to the ceiling. And then if you lift your gaze a little bit forward without straining your neck, sweep your arms out to your side and see if you might touch the sides of your legs, and then bring your arms forward and lower your legs down.

Let's see if we can do that one more time. Bend your knees. Look forward, lift your arms, hands. Sweet back, touch your thighs. Lakes down arms down.

Okay. Now, slide those hands beside your chest, curl your toes under, and let's press up to tabletop for a moment with knees on the blanket, and then let your hands wander forward. Okay. Take just a moment coming up to a downward dog. And bending in one leg, putting the opposite heel closer to the floor. Keep alternating, bend the knee opposite heel closer to the floor. Okay. So do that one or two more times.

Now, let's bring your knees to the blanket. Grab a hold of your hand weights. And if your knees are sensitive, you might even fold your blanket one more time. So you've got a little bit more padding. And then we'll come up and take your right foot forward first.

K. Now, your back toes stay curled under, so we're keeping that back foot awake. And from here, let's take your arms out to the side and up towards your ears. We're gonna bend your elbows and go a little bit deeper into your lunge. Take your arms up and take your arms down to your sides. Okay. Lift your back knee up.

And then hinge forward as your arms stretch back, palms face each other, and then we lower back down. Arms, again, out to your side and up, bend your elbows, lower those weights. Up you go. Arms down to your side, lift your back knee hinge forward, lunge, arms back, palms face each other. Left knee touches down.

One more time. Arms come up, bend your elbows. Let's go into our lunge, low lunge, move back, arms up, arms down, lift your back knee as you lunge forward and then send the arms back, engaging the upper mid back and arms. And then we'll come back down to the floor with left knee. Take your right knee to the blanket.

Roll your shoulders a little bit. And then let's get your left foot forward and your back toes stay curled under. Now, you know why, because we're going to the high lunge. Take your arms up. Bend your elbows as we go into our lunge. Lift up as you move back, arms to your side.

K. To lift up your right knee lean forward, send the arms straight back, arms down, knee down. Arms sweep up, bend your elbows as you do a little bit of a lunge, going up, arms down, lift your back knee as you tilt a little bit forward, and then send your arms back. Arms down, knee down. One more time, arms going up, bend your elbows as we do a little lunge, lift up, arms down, lift your back knee, lean forward with that lunge, and then arms back. Arms down, knee down.

Okay. Take your right knee now to the blanket. Keep both of the toes curled under. And we're gonna have your arms lift straight up in the air above your shoulders. Let's lower your left arm and look a little bit back over that left shoulder as your weight is kinda hovering above that heel. Reach forward and back up.

Take your right arm down to your side, follow it back towards that heel, and then bring your right arm all the way back up. Again, left arm comes down as the right arm is reaching up. Left arm forward looks straight ahead. Right arm down. Follow it back towards your right heel.

Right arm forward and up. One more time. Left arm down. Look towards that back heel. Left arm up, right arm down, look toward the back heel, and right arm up. Take your arms down.

As you set your weights down for a moment, let's lift the knees off the blanket, and then we can set that blanket to the sides. And if you'll meet me up at standing with your weights. K. So we have my feet about hip distance apart just to show you a little shoulder flow series here. So if we have our arms up just as a starting point, and you take your right hand to your lower back and bend your top left elbow. Arms out to the side, and we're gonna take our left hand to the lower back and bend your top right elbow.

Arms out to the side, right hand to the lower back, left arm up. Arms wide, left hand to the lower back, right elbow up. Okay. One more. Arms wide. Right hand to the back, left elbow up. Arms wide, and we have the right elbow up.

Left hand to lower back. Okay. After the arms are wide, let's bring them down and we'll stay up towards the front part of your yoga mat. Roll your shoulders perhaps a little bit, shake things out. Refocus back in mountain. Let's take a step back with your left foot for Warrior one footprint.

It's the foundation front leg bent. And as we're here, we're gonna send the right arm up towards your ear and have the left arm stretch a little bit back. Come back up to vertical arms at your side. Right arm pulls you a little forward, left arm back, re center. One more, right arm pulls you a little bit forward, left arm back.

Now, recenter. Now, lift your back heel. We're gonna step a little closer with your back foot, and with your arms out to the side, lift your back foot as your arms come up, Hold the foot up, bend your elbows, lift up, and bring your toes to meet the floor arms to your sides. K. Lean forward as you're lifting your back foot arms up, Ben those elbows, arms up, touch down, arms down. We've got one more to go. Lean a little forward, lift your back foot arms up.

Bend your elbows, arms up, and we touch down and send your back foot forward. Okay. Shake out the legs, refresh your attention for side two. Take a step back with your right foot, bend your left knee. And as we inhale, we'll let the right arm lead the way forward, and then you're back to neutral. Lina forward with your right arm leading the way.

Recenter. One more time. Your right arm pulls you a bit forward, and then recenter. Now, lift your back right heel, and we said that ourselves maybe a slightly shorter step so that you can lift your back foot and take your arms up. Ban your elbows, reach up, and we touch down arms to your side. Lean forward, lift your foot as your arms come up, celebrating our dancer pose, bend the elbows, lift up, touch down.

One more. Lift your foot, arms up. Bend the elbows, lift up, and we touch down and send your back foot forward. Okay. Let's check out the legs just a tiny bit and let your heels end up a little bit wider than your shoulders. So it might feel nice to come into a nice symmetrical stretch for a moment for the hips and strengthening for the legs. So with your arms out in front of you, Take the right hand to the left and take our right arm, left arm overhead, and do a little side bend to your right. And then arms come down.

Bring that left arm a bit to the right, and your right arm reaches over to the left. And we come back down to center. Right arm crosses over. Left arm comes up with a little side bend. Just to balance out.

Arms to your side. Left arm in front, take your right arm across. And then come down. Let's straighten the legs and bring your legs in towards parallel. Let's go ahead and set your weights down and grab ahold of your blanket to sit on.

Just so we have a little bit more padding for the sit bone area, which I think you'll appreciate. Okay. So working with the hand weights optional. I'll show what that looks like. So if we have our knees a little bit bent, just thinking of a boat pose variation. We'll have our arms out to our side, and this is where you can choose to use the weights or not. And lift your left leg and reach over to try to touch your foot, and we come back to center.

Lift your right leg, reach over touch your foot with your left hand, re center. Lift the left leg twist, center. Lift your right leg twist. So you're working your quadriceps, you're working your shoulders, keep going. Left leg straight, twist. Face forward.

Right leg up twist. Face forward. Let's do one more. Left leg up twist. Face forward.

Right, leg up, twist, and face forward. Let's lower your weights, lower your arms down to your sides. Okay. Join the soles of the feet together for a moment and have your fingertips a little bit back behind the line of your shoulders. So you're just kinda propping yourself up here with the knees wide. K. Do a tiny bit of a forward tilt with the chest leading the way, the heart leading the way as we lengthen through the spine and work toward a little bit of that forward folds or baddha konasana cobbler's pose.

And coming back up towards sitting, use your hands to help you bring your knees closer together and then stretch your left leg straight and let this right leg drop out to the side. Again, with your fingertips to the side to help you open up again across the chest. As you tilt a little bit forward, flex your front ankle to really ground your left leg. And see if we can start swinging this left hand more forwards or your right hand more forward towards your left foot. If you can't grab your foot, bend your knee to grab your foot.

Look over your left shoulder. I'm turning a little bit more from your waist. And release your right hand back to your side, stretch your right leg forward, and now let's bring your left foot in. Starting with that simple foundation fingers grounding, right leg pressing down as you lean a little bit forward with the heart leading the way. Now, maybe swing your left hand forward to touch your right foot and if you can't quite touch the foot, you just bend your knee a little bit.

Start to turn to look a little bit over your right shoulder. Conffortable, easy breath here, into your backside. And lift on up when you're ready. And let's see if we can cross the ankles, and maybe you slide your, weights, into a different position so that it's easy to cross the ankles. Sometimes they give a little lift of the ankles, which actually makes it easier for the knees. When you're holding the knees, take a moment to arch and round like you're doing a little mini cat cow here, as we wind down our practice, little mini cat cow so that you can slow down that movement and come to a place where you feel long through your lower back, mid back, cervical neck spine, and can maybe look straight ahead with your eyes open, or maybe even close your eyes, and just try to keep the energy moving through the spine.

Back muscles engaged, and front body getting a little bit softer as you take a few breaths to recenter yourself before moving into your day. And again, that little gratitude for all that we're able to do today and hopefully feeling a little bit of grace and flow in our dancer's sequence that moves with us into our day. As we wind down this practice, bringing the hands together, if you love that gesture, and may others continue to benefit from our practice, Nava Stay. Thanks again for being here.