Brighten Your Day Flow

Greetings friends. Welcome. This practice will be using the wall and two blocks. And you'll start with your back against the wall. And it's a interesting concept when you feel backed up against the wall because sometimes it's known as a bad thing, but it's not in this practice. It's a good thing.

We wanna feel the frame of the wall here. Find your tadasana with your heels, your hips, your shoulders, and the back of your head against the framing of the wall, and then just draw the lower belly in and up take a deep breath in as you press down through the feet. And as you exhale drop the shoulders and just turn the palms open and circle your arms out and up. And again, using the wall as our guide here, so we can really feel what's happening in the shoulders and then bring it all the way back down. So it's this feeling of a snow angel, a sand angel, whatever your preference is.

As you circle out and up, that full expansion of the chest and shoulders and exhale all the way down. From here, we'll take the arms forward and up and we'll bring the thumbs, the tips of the thumbs to the wall or as close as you can get it to the wall and notice if the ribs are popping out, just draw the ribs in a little bit and lengthen up. This time as you exhale back to the hands against the wall and just take a side bend, drop the right hand down, reach the left arm up and over, and then circle back up to the center tips of the thumbs touch the wall. We feel the front ribs pull in, the core pull in and up, and the legs nice and strong. Once again, backs of the hands to the wall, take a side bend to the left.

This time the left hand drops down, as we reach up and over, and then come all the way back up. And these simple movements are fantastic shoulder openers thumbs to the wall. Keep the thumbs to the wall this time as you open looking down towards the right hand, scooping all the way up. Notice if that feels a little different in the shoulder. And then we'll repeat that with our left hand, scooping up and over with the right.

Inhale, bring it back up. As you exhale, take a step away from the wall, we'll turn the right palm so the thumb points up the fingertips point behind us shoulder level is best here and start to turn your feet away from your hand. So the chest is open shoulders are open, take a deep breath in here and feel that kind of upward arcing energy of your spine, almost like a half ustrasana. As you exhale release, take a couple big back strokes of your right shoulder. Really fantastic shoulder opener here.

And then just take your left side. The left thumb pointing at fingertips pointing behind you. Turn your chest and feet away from your hand. Feel that upward arcing energy will be working with that in our namaskars, our chandra namaskar, full body breath in and pressing your hand, rebounding up into the heart, exhale release, take a couple back strokes, of your left arm. And on that third back stroke, take it all the way up to the top of the mat, bringing the feet together, bringing the hands together at the heart. Deep inhale here.

Imagine the surface of the wall behind you so you feel that beautiful tadasana alignment. Exhale release your hands. Inhale reach forward and up. Just like we did at the wall, the thumbs reaching back. So we feel that beautiful shoulder opening.

Exhale soften the knees forward fold. Step the left foot back lower the knee, inhale reach forward up and back, reaching the tips of the the thumbs towards the wall, exhale downward facing dog. Moving into chandra namaskar here. So we elegantly shift forward to plank, exhale lower the knees, chest and hips all the way down. Low bhujangasana, low cobra is your inhale.

Exhale release downward facing dog. Step the left foot forward between the hands, lower the back knee down. Once again, as you inhale reach forward up and back, tips of the thumbs towards the wall. Exale step to the front of the mat, release the head neck and shoulders forward fold. Inhale lift your head, your heart, your hands. You can bring the fingertips to touch if you like.

Exhale hands to the heart. That was half of a round. Let's do it again. Inhale up and back. Exhale forward fold, soften the knees.

Step the right foot back lower the knee. Inhale reach forward up and back. Hands can be together or apart. Exhale downward facing dog. Inhale ripple forward to plank.

Exhale, knees, chest and hips. Inhale cobra. Working with a nice brisk pace here, exhale downward facing dog. The right foot steps forward. We lower the back knee, inhale reach up and back towards the wall.

Exale step forward forward fold. Inhale lift the head, heart and hands all the way up. Exhale hands to the heart starting to warm up. Let's do a couple more rounds. Inhale to reach.

Exale, bend the knees, forward fold. Step the left foot back, lower the knee. Inhale, reaching back up and over. Exhale downward facing time. Ripple forward to plank, inhale, lower the knees, chest hips, exhale.

Inhale cobra. Exhale downward dog. So now we have a pace left foot steps forward, lower the back knee, inhale rise. Working with this cadence, exhale step it forward. Inhale rise, head, heart, hands, exhale center. Inhale reach.

Exhale fold. Right foot steps back. Lower. Inhale to reach. Exale downward dog.

Inhale ripple. Exhale lower. I'm getting a little more sparse in my comments for now. Inhale. So I want you to just be able to find your rhythm, your flow, downward dog. Right foot forward, lower the knee. Inhale rise.

Exhale forward full. Inhale rise. Exhale hands to the heart. One more full round. Inhale. Reach, descend. Left foot, inhale reach.

Exhale downward dog. Inhale plank. Exhale lower. Inhale, open the heart. Exhale downward facing dog.

Left foot. Inhale rise. Exhale forward fold. Inhale rise. Exhale hands to heart.

Last cycle. Inhale reach. Exhale fold. Right foot. Inhale reach.

Exhale downward dog. Inhale shift. Exhale lower. Inhale, open the heart. Exhale downward dog.

Right foot. Inhale reach. Exhale forward fold. Inhale rise. Exhale hands to the heart.

Take a few breaths. Release your hands. Take a wide step to your right. Open the feet as wide as the wrist when your arms are extended and bring the hands to your ribs as you inhale literally pick your own rib cage up, lift your chest, draw the elbows back. So we have this nice open heart, almost like a standing ustrasana, and then forward fold from here hinge at the hips relax your head neck and shoulders.

You can relax the arms. Let them kinda hang out wherever you like. Shake out your head neck and shoulders for a moment here. And the legs are active pulling upward. The spine, the arms, head and neck and your head, especially your head. Your mind is letting go.

So just hang out for a moment. Maybe there's a couple things that need to be dropped off and released. So this is as good as place as any to do it. I'm looking to that sense of support that we get from just hanging out, pausing and breathing. Right? From here, we'll bring the hands back to the hips, or back to the sideways, lead through the crown, start to lengthen your spine forward and come all the way up to standing.

Open up the arms wide, and we set up for warrior two. So we'll turn the right foot out, turn the back foot in a little bend the knee. Yeah. And again, you can feel that the support of the wall is right there, but we don't wanna be reaching forward just yet. We keep the shoulders right over the hips, and we feel this spaciousness in the heart center sinking into your warrior too. Check out your alignment.

Make sure your knees right over your heel, the back foot slightly turned in. Hips are slightly angled on the diagonal, but the ribcage chest open on the one eighty here. So, I have this very geometric kind of structured shape that will add a little bit of flow to. Reach forward towards the wall. It's right there. And then bring your elbow to your knee.

Take the top arm up and over. And there's that rotation we're working on at the wall. And we turn the thumb upward the baby finger downward. Take a full body breath here. Exhale slowly come out of that.

Past through warrior two straighten your front leg and then Find that rotation in the top shoulder as you reach up and back for your reverse triangle. Let's go back and forth between these two shapes. We'll bend the front knee, elbow to the knee, or hand to the mat as you reach forward, maybe touch the wall, and then back through warrior two inhale reverse. One more time, exhale elbow to knee or hand to the floor, reach, and then exhale come all the way back up, reverse your triangle. Pivot the right toes in, bring the hands.

I'm a little bit wide, so I'm gonna bring the feet a little closer here, all the way to hips width apart, and then find this standing of strassana inhale, pick up the ribs, open the chest. As you exhale lead with the heart, forward fold, soften your knees, drop in, and you can even wrap your arms around the back of the legs and kind of hang out here for a moment. This is our vinyasa, which is so nice. Just a little release here. Relax through the head and neck.

Maybe start to straighten the legs. If that feels good to you, hugging yourself in any amount. And then go ahead and soften the knees, roll it back up. Picking up where we left off, open up the arms, heel toe the feet wide. Turn the left toes out, right foot in, and come into your warrior too on the second side.

Finding that alignment, that opening through the chest and rooting grounding through your base. Exale. And I'm feeling this energetic reach to the wall behind me not as pressure but as support. We're gonna be leaning up into it in a couple of moments here. So just aware of the space around you and how you're working with it. We reach forward, elbow to the knee, spiral the top arm into your partial Konasana sink into your lunge here. As you inhale, you can rotate your ribcage, your gaze up towards the sky.

Come back through warrior two. Reverse your triangle straight in the front leg. You might even shorten the stance a little bit if it feels too long. Reach up and back and then exhale side angle, parsvokonasana elbow to knee or hand to the mat. Come up through your warrior two, reverse, just adding a little flow, exhale warrior two to parsvokonasana.

One more time, straighten as you come up big inhale. Exale back to the center. Let's heel toe the feet all the way in and turn towards our friend the wall. Go ahead and walk your hands up a little bit higher than the shoulders. And we'll take our right heel, excuse me, left heel to the butt, grab on to the left foot, and we'll come into a bit of a baby royal dancer.

So as you start to press your thigh back, walk your fingertips up the wall. We lean into the support of the wall. We get this really nice chest and shoulder opener as we press back and balance is steady here because we've got this guy. So lean into it. Enjoy the quadricep opener.

Enjoy the breath. It's a very powerful pose. And when you come out of it, we'll come up to standing. Pivot that knee, external rotation. Switch hands, so we'll bring our right hand down to the ankle here.

And it's a bit of a It's a bit of a tree pose but slightly, a little bit different here as you open your left knee, just start to walk your fingertips up the wall. And this shape isn't necessarily in the classic book of yoga asana, but we'll we'll be seeing this shape, a version of this shape against the wall and inverted a little bit in a just a few minutes. So just feel into the side bend, feel into the open knee, and then let it go. It's a little foreshadowing, if you will. Keep that left hand up the wall. Bring the right heel to your butt.

Grab onto the little toe side of the foot as we start to walk the fingertips up. We lean forward in the heart and lift the thigh up and back. All of these shapes that we move in and out of in our practice, they have little progressions and relationships with one another. And so it's it's important to kind of move through those progressions and prepare the body. That way, when we get into the deeper postures, we're ready for them.

One more breath here. As you exhale, come on up, Turn your right knee out. We'll switch hands, right hand to the wall. Grab onto the top of the foot. Let the knee open.

Start to walk your fingertips up the wall. There's a little side bend action here. So we pull that foot up towards the inner hip crease and turn the chest open. So just feel that for a moment. And then as you exhale, we're out of there.

Release step back into that wide stance. We're gonna go right into the second cycle of warrior two. So open up the right foot, bend your knee. Reach forward, partial kanasana. We've been here before, all the way up and back, reverse triangle.

Exhale. Forward. Inhale. It's a little bit of a rinse. Exhale forward. Little bit of a rinse.

One more time. Exhale forward. Now, here we come with our blocks. We're gonna take our hands, spin on the ball of the back foot, take the blocks, move them over to the opposite side of the mat. Big transition here.

We'll step the back foot forward and turn right foot against the edge of the mat. So we did this in a previous practice. We started to come up into our half moon. You have that option. Otherwise, a little bit of a different option.

We keep both hands down. We take our right hand to the big toe side of the back foot and start to open the chest. And this is the kind of the cousin of the posture we just did at the wall. So we're turning the chest open looking under our arm. Towards the sky and just feeling this very funky but very freeing compass pose at the wall.

As you exhale release, let it go and come on up to standing with your blocks. Well done. Take your blocks over to the opposite side of the mat so they're ready to go. Open up second side. We turn the left toes towards the wall.

We bend the knee. Coming into partial konasana reach up and over. And then inhale reverse your triangle. XL rinse it off up and over. Inhale and these shapes might feel a lot different.

They might be new, exhale to your partial konasana. Inhale reverse. But you know, it's easy to get into a box, exhale. Part of our practice helps us get out of a box. From your partial konasana, we'll spin on the ball of the back foot.

Our blocks are already ready to go. We'll step the back foot in and then we pivot left foot to the edge of the mat. Option to open up into your half moon. Option to bring the right hand down to the block Bend that top knee, grab onto the big toe side of the foot and start to turn that knee open just like we did in our kind of funky tree pose looking under the arm The crown of my head is dangling down and breathing. I'm really opening up through the hip knee.

And then we sink down. We let it go. From here, turning, coming down onto your left knee and onto your mat, have a seat. Open up your legs for a wide leg forward fold and you might be like, what the heck just happened? But we're gonna don't worry because we get to visit that posture again.

I know you're excited after a little more preparation. So in your wide leg forward fold, start to walk your hands forward. And just take a moment here. Fill the opening of the adductors. The opening of your heart.

You can come down as low as you love and hang out and breathe. Notice the inner dialogue when we're presented with a new situation or a new posture. We feel back literally backed up against something like, wait, I don't like this. Or business interesting. It's just new. One of my guitar teachers, he says, It's just new.

It's just different when we're learning something that I'm like, this is too hard. It's just new. It's just different. So breathing into that, exhale completely. He also says, allow yourself to be terrible at it, which is a great teaching. Walk your hands in.

Doesn't have to be perfect. Let's bend our left knee, draw the heel towards your hips. And then take a side bend up and over. And notice this shape is pretty much the same shape that we were just in up against the wall. We get one more opportunity at it.

We just wanted to taste it. Feel it here and we'll come up in a moment. But we have this big side bend through the left side of the body. This opening through the left knee and a beautiful stretch along the bottom right leg. So hang out here for a moment.

Exhale completely. If you're a swimmer or a paddler or a surfer, this is great for your swimming muscles. Come all the way up. Let's turn towards the long leg just to say we did. Hello. And then we'll take the second side.

Open up the left. Fold the right heel in. And then keeping your hand on your ankle or your foot, take a side bend. And the depth that you go here is gonna give you that direct feedback. Of how deep you go at the wall. Right? Do you need a block or two or three under your hands? Right?

Is the knee gonna open very much or is it lifted? That means it'll stay closed when we're in the standing balance. Just check it out. Welcome it all and breathe with it. Starting to pour out through the left side here.

One more full body breath. Come all the way up, turn towards the long leg, and then we exit out. We're gonna come right into that shape once again. So we'll take our blocks set them up over to the opposite side of the mat. Maybe you'll turn them a little bit lower.

Maybe you won't even use them. We'll see. Come up into a forward fold facing this back corner of your mat and bring the edge of the foot right to the edge of the mat. We got about six inches here. So once again, you have the option to lean into the right hip and open it into half moon.

This feels amazing. I like to actually come into this first before compass. If you're interested in compass, you bring that left hand down, soften both knees. Right hand makes the catch of the top of the foot, and then we start to open up that top knee lifting I like to crawl my left hand kinda to the forward edge of the block looking under the arm. And I've got my back not quite on the wall, but my hip is on the wall.

I'm leaning into it for support for help. This is actually a pretty challenging balance to do without the wall. As you exhale, turn and look under that arm a little more, just like we did in partial konasana. And then we're out of there. Release. Well done. Take your blocks over to the other side.

We'll come into it again. No fancy transitions here. Just right to it. Line up your left foot at the edge of the mat. Start to open up into your artist Shandrasana.

And now my back really is up against the wall and it's amazing. It feels really good. Opening and enjoying your half moon artist Shandrasana. Option to bring the right hand down, soften the knees, catch the big toe side of the foot, and then start to open. We turn the top knee open, rotate the ribs. There's a very big shoulder opener here.

Wreathe. So weaving a little inversion into this standing balance. Releasing slowly, release the foot, soften both knees. Come all the way down and have a seat on your mat. Yay. Let's extend the legs forward.

And then reach your arms up to the sky coming into Pashimottanasana seated forward fold. We'll take either a strap around the feet, grab your ankles, big toes, whatever you can grab. And then soften the elbows and relax your head, neck, shoulders. Spreads here. As you inhale start to lift through the crown, through the heart, come all the way up to seated.

Let's cross the ankles. I'll turn for a moment here and bring your hips all the way back so you're seated with your back against the wall. Sucasana. We cross the ankles and we find that alignment that we did at the very beginning of this practice when we were standing. The sacrum, the shoulders, back of the head, maybe open up the arms wide and enjoy that circulation up over your head, bringing the tips of the thumbs to the wall, the fingertips to touch.

And then draw the hands down the midline and just take a moment here before we come into our final few postures, close your eyes and just feel this beautiful alignment of your central channel from the crown of the head down through the center of the heart, all the way down to your base. This realignment when our back's against the wall, right? It's not a moment of force. It's a moment of realignment. And then just release your hands. Open up through the eyes.

You're welcome to stay there if you like, but if you like to finish classic in Shavasana, we take a pivot come all the way down to our backs, rolling down slowly, and then draw the right knee into the chest. We'll take a simple twist onto the left side. Turning your head towards the right hand. Relaxing your shoulders down towards the earth. One more breath.

Slowly come on back to the center. Extend the right leg up and then lower it all the way down, reaching your arms over your head stretching out to full length. Left knee comes in. Taking a twist over to the right side opening up left arm, relaxing into the support of the earth. One more breath.

Slowly come back to the center, extend the left leg up and then lower all the way down, reaching your arms, overhead, reaching the legs long, setting up for Shavasana, take the feet a little wider than hips width apart, spread the shoulders out, back of the head, relaxed and neutral. If you happen to have a hairdo that's in the way, take it out. Give yourself some freedom here. And feeling that, again, alignment, support all along the back side of the body. Allowing the front body to open and release Shavasana. Take a deep breath into your heart fill your lungs, your belly, your chest expand as you exhale, send a little movement to your fingers and your toes.

Drop your knees into your chest and blink your eyes open. Rock on over to one side. Come on up to a comfortable seated position, and let's bring the hands together at the heart. Feel your beautiful verticality alignment. Structure, resilience, right inside of you.

Thank you so much for joining me today. Namaste.