Wake Up and Go Flow

Greetings friends. Welcome. This practice, we're gonna be hitting the wall again just a little bit. Have two blocks handy, and we'll start actually standing at the opposite end of the mat, bringing the feet hips width apart. And the hands to the hips. Open up through the heart and inhale.

It's a standing Ustrasana. And as you exhale, bend the knees and just pour your spine forward, you can dry your hands down the back of the legs. And just let everything drip off. And then slowly roll up the spine one vertebrae at a time. So we open with this kind of wave like movement through the body, inhale to lift the heart. Exhale, bend the knees and pour out of the spine.

Draw your hands down the back of the legs, a little self massage moment, relax the backs of the hands against the earth, and then roll up the spine and just drip some things off of the shoulders, the fingertips ahead. Inhale, open the heart, strong legs, right through the chest, and then exhale, bend the knees, draw yourself back into that easy forward fold. Letting go. Let's do this one more time drawing the navel in as you slowly unfurl and then open up through the heart center. Big inhale, and then exhale soften through the heart hinge at the hips gracefully coming down into that easy forward fold. We'll plant the hands on the mat and start to heel toe the feet a little closer together, bending the knees deeply.

And coming up into a easy chair, we'll move right into Surina Muscular B as you exhale sweep the hands back alongside the hips, bit of a rhythmic version of sun salutation B as we inhale lift up. And then exhale. There's all these references of kinda earlier practices bringing your tips of the thumbs towards the wall behind you, exhale, sweep back one more time inhale to open the heart exhale, pour it out into your forward fold. Lift the heart halfway, Arta Uttanasan. Step back to plank.

Let's lower all the way down for this first vinyasa. And then inhale through the heart back through the toes, bhujangasana cobra exhale back to your downward facing dog. Right leg rises. We go right into this full expression of sun salutation b. Step it all the way through, warrior one base. Inhale, reach forward and up, tips of the thumbs towards the wall behind you. Let's add a twist here.

Bring the left hand down, left heel lifts, right arm to the sky. And then exit through your vinyasa. We'll take that same more lunar vinyasa as we lower all the way down. Inhale, lift the heart. XL back to downward facing dog.

Left leg rises just feeling into your body in this practice. Step it all the way through. Set the back foot. Feeling into the breath as you rise. Inhale, warrior one. Exhale adding a twist, right hand down, right heel lifts, left hand to the sky.

Release your hand down, step to plank and lower all the way down. Inhale, easy cobra exhale downward facing dog. Now let's hang out here for three good breaths and really establish yourself here, your intention, your body, your mind. Sometimes we show up to our practice and we're on our yoga mat, in our yoga clothes, in a yoga posture, but our mind might be somewhere far far away. And so just invite it back just by taking a deep breath.

An exhale release. Anything you don't need, let it go. Maybe open up the mouth, extend the tongue. One more time. I'm just inviting that presence to just these next several moments, you, yourself, your breath, and your practice.

Let's walk the feet all the way up to the top of the mat. Inhale, lift the heart halfway. Exhale, release forward fold. Bend your knees come up. Just one breath up into your chair pose.

Exhale stand tall, bring the hands to the heart. That was our first round. Let's take two more. Then the knees inhale, and we'll flow this time exhale hands over to the right and then inhale reach up. Over to the left and inhale. And this can be a simple precursor to a twist as we go side to side or it can be a little bit of sweeping of the inner household.

Again, sometimes we find ourselves with distractions or things that might be weighing heavy. Just sweep it aside. Make room for your practice. Exit. One more time.

Inhale to come up. Center. Exhale forward fold, let it go. Lift the heart halfway. Exhale step back. Maybe this time a stronger vinyasa we can hover in Chaturanga. Come through to upward dog.

Maybe back to Chaturanga, building some strength, downward dog, take the right leg high. Step it through, establishing your warrior one. Inhale strong presence. Exhale, simple twist, left hand, left heel, and then open. Exhale to release, strong chaturanga, inhale upward dog.

Maybe back to chaturanga. Oh, challenge accepted. Down dog. Take the left leg to the sky. Step it through. Warrior one. Inhale rise.

XL cultivating focus. Right hand, right heel. Left arm. Take a breath and then exit out. Here comes that strong vinyasa. Inhale.

Back to Chaturanga. Feeling that. Down dog. And then get still in the body. Keep the breath moving. One more.

Inhale to your toes, bend the knees, look forward, step, hop or float top of the mat. Lift the heart halfway. Exhale, let it go. Bend your knees, inhale a singular utkatasana, and then exhale return to that center focus. One more round. Bend your knees. Inhale.

Exale this time we twist to the right twisting chair. We take that left elbow to the outside of the right knee. Drop the hips a bit here. Reach the heart forward and then press your top hand down into your bottom hand to leverage the twist. One more breath. Come back to chair.

Singular moment. Exhale hands to the heart, twist to the left. Right elbow to the outer left knee, keeping the hips low, heart forward on the inhale. As you exhale, press your top hand into the bottom hand, ringing some things out, cleaning house, the internal, external housekeeping that is our yoga practice. Takes effort sometimes. Inhale, chair, exhale, and the legs are happy to release.

Forwardful. Inhale, lift the heart. Exhale, step it back. Lower halfway. Inhale, open the chest.

Maybe come back to Chaturanga. Just one more. Right leg rises. Step it all the way through, warrior one. Inhale. A little bit different here.

Bring the hands to the heart. Try to keep the outer edge of the back foot sealed as you turn. So rather than lifting the heel, That's a different pose. We take the left elbow to the outer thigh and it becomes parivrtta Parshva Konasana twisting side angle. A lot different with that back foot and that warrior one orientation. One more breath here.

And then release. Let's straighten the front leg just for a moment. So it's slightly not a textbook pyramid pose, but more of a visit to pyramid pose. And then we'll shift on the ball, the back foot, shift our weight forward, lift the back leg for a moment standing split just to feel into that, and then step back to plank. Lower Chaturanga.

Inhale. We're building this strength, exhale to down dog, building competence, And really working with perseverance in this practice, take the left leg to the sky. Step it through. Warrior one base. Inhale. Singular point of focus.

Hands to the heart. Once again, keep the outer edge of the back foot firm. Rotate right elbow to the outer left thigh. We can pull that left hip back as we reach the heart forward. And from there, spiral, You can feel the alchemy, the change happening in the body, in the breath, in your awareness, Working with this effort.

From here, we release. We spin on the ball of the back foot shift forward, find that standing split moment, and then step it back to plank. Chachorunga with enthusiasm, inhale back to it downward dog. Three good breaths. Inhale to your toes.

Bend the knees look forward, finishing this out, bring your feet to the hands, lift the heart. XL forward, fold. Bend your knees come into one more deep utkatasana. It's a fierce thunderbolt. And then stand tall.

Feel that thunderbolt energy in your body. Yeah. Release your hands. We're gonna take our two blocks, frame the front foot, and then take the left foot just to reach back. About two, three feet for a pyramid posture. Now, notice there's some wiggle room here with the pelvis.

You can shift the weight forward and back. Try to find that middle ground where the hips are square. The sacrum is lip level. And then from there, you can start to melt into your parsvottanasana. Really nice option to walk the fingertips back.

You can take the blocks with you wherever you decide to place your hands. And keeping your weight balanced between the front and the back foot is key here. Keeping the breath deep and full while you're in this deep forward fold. Is also key. Notice where the mind goes.

Invite it back. Come on back. Right here. We lift the chest. We place our hands on the blocks once again. Bring them a little closer.

So you're kind of sandwiching your front foot and then maybe shorten the stance a little bit. Check-in with your hips, and now we're not in a tight rope. We have our feet hips width apart. But we'll start to rotate our naval ribs, chest shoulders. And when I do that, my hips automatically wanna shift forward. Pull that right hip back a little. Try to keep it equalized And then from there, right hand reaches to the sky, and we're in our twisting triangle.

What it is that you're grounding, what you're reaching to feel that polarity between the top hand and the bottom hand, length through the spine and ground through the feet. Super powerful pose. XL release, exiting out, relax your head and neck. Now from here, we'll step our right foot back to the middle of the mat, turn the blocks tall, bring them with you. We're approximating lining up with the left foot at the wall for a twisting half moon.

So you might need to move the foot back or forward, but you wanna be able to extend both legs straight ish. You can always bend the bottom knee a little bit. And the blocks will be right underneath your shoulders. So we're still working with our right foot as the anchor, the left foot's on the wall. Hopefully hip width height is what I'm going for.

Hip height. Now bring the right hand to your hip and we start to turn the chest. And now it's getting interesting. Right? So the back leg is straight. We're lengthening through the spine.

There's a lot of pressure down through my bottom hand and then I can reach up. Maybe extending the bottom leg, extending through the heart. Whole body vibrating here. One more breath. And then as you exhale, stay and release. Oh, from here, soften.

Step the left foot down. Come down into a little crouch for a moment. Let yourself become a seed. Relax your head. Drop in.

The outer knees can rest against the inner arms. If your knees don't like to bend this deep, just hang in a forward fold. But otherwise, just relax here. Dropping the energy low. It's the shape of humility, release.

One more breath. And then start to turn the seed into that expanded beautiful twisting shape we're working with. We build the whole sequence again, hands to the blocks. Start to lift up through the hips. We'll step the left foot forward, the right foot back, and we start this little dance, pelvis shifting from front to back foot, working with blocks as low or as high as you like.

I'm kinda working with a little bit of a hamstring thing I'm healing. So I'm gonna keep this front knee slightly bent to honor that. And then we start to move into our parsvotona pyramid pose. Walking the hands wherever it works for you. Once again, classically, we would straighten the front leg all the way. But at any time you're working with healing, injury, or a special condition, we honor it. We don't force.

I'm just relaxing here. Perseverance also has to come with patience and with wisdom. Bringing your hands back to the blocks, lift the chest. Snuggle the blocks a little closer around that front foot, shifting the weight back and forth, and then start to turn from the naval to the ribs to the chest you'll notice your weight might shift forward, pull the left hip back. And then as you're ready, expand twisting triangle, privita trikonasana.

Firing up the legs, reaching through the spine, reaching through your arms, all these shapes that we move in and out of really giving it your full presence, full attention. Even the fingers, the hands, innervated. XL release. Here comes the fun part. Soft in the standing leg.

That's your front leg. Rock it back a bit with the blocks so they're taller. We shift back a little bit. We're finding where we need to be the length of your leg so that you can have both legs straight or that standing leg bent and feel like your joints are stacked. Hips over heal, shoulders over wrists right on top of the blocks.

So whether you're working with a straight bottom leg or bent, press through that back leg. Notice if you're kind of hanging low in the low back, pick it up through the core a bit. Start to turn turn turn. And open left arm to the sky, press down through the right. Find your beautiful twisting half moon.

One more breath. Stay for the exhale. Super fierce pose. Come all the way down and then step out of it. Good news. We get to go back to this little seed.

Oh, thank god. Actually take your blocks behind you. Make a little bench for yourself and have a seat. Oh, this seems right. And sometimes the best part of a pose is coming out of it because you can feel the effects, right? Feel the flesh. So from here, we're gonna turn back to our friend the wall. We'll take our blocks with us.

You can just simply lift up, pivot around and take your blocks so that they're tall right about at the edge of the mat. Come on up to standing and take a few shoulder rolls here. We're gonna move into a posture that we were just in in the last practice, a little artist on your asana. So we wanna line up our hands with the level of our rib cage. We'll walk it back to push wall. We've been here before and sweep the left leg back.

Couple of variations soften both knees notice I turn out my left leg. We'll catch the big toe side of our left foot and we start to string the bow. There's our Artadhan Yaurasana. We're working with this in our previous practice. Now, this sets us up for a little chapasana.

So I'm gonna keep my knee in position and open the hips a bit. So soften the standing leg. Right hand's gonna take the block and move it under my shoulder. And then from there, I can stay here with the support of my left hand at the wall. You can keep opening the hips. Or if you'd like to work with your balance, take the left hand back to the little toe side of your foot and start to straighten the standing leg as you open the chest hips and shoulders in two.

Chapasana, right? Which is this beautiful quadricep opener inside of half moon. Let's release that foot. Left hand comes to the wall. We start to square up and stand up bringing our left foot towards the wall, a little calf stretch here, just to say we did. And then let's take side two.

So we'll slide the hands back down right leg up, soften both knees, back foot crosses the midline. The left hand catches your foot. Lift up into that Artadonia Rossana moment. Really nice opening through quadriceps hip flexors. We start to turn the chest and hips open.

And now my left hand, you take your block under your left shoulder, walking your right fingertips up the wall, you might be in this floating tapasana, or you might start to reach your right hand back. And take the little toe side of your foot. Finding your balance here, opening up through chest and shoulders, opening up through the heart. Staying very focused. And if and when you fall out of these postures, just come back in.

Work with your perseverance. Release your foot. Reach your arm over your head. Square up and then lift the chest as you step the right foot forward. Little bit of a calf achilles stretch on that left side.

Alright. That was good. Let's move on from there. We're gonna take our blocks out of the way. And we'll stay with this flow coming into downward facing dog and pressing back. Now, we're about to come down and ground out the practice, but since we're here at the wall, Since we've been working with all this hamstring opening, shoulder opening, and perseverance, there is the opportunity for you to shift your shoulders forward gaze towards the baseboard and kick up, practice kicking up, towards your handstand.

So you'll step the ball the right foot in, the left leg will lift, and you can take a couple practice kicks. And if this is new to you, this is where you hang with the practice kicks. If this is something that's familiar, you go hit the wall. Take the leg all the way up to the wall and stand tall. Feeling the support, feeling your steadiness. You'll come down and return to child's pose.

Just for a moment, we're going to kick up with the other leg. Take a rest. Feel the effects of the posture. Feel the effects of the effort. And then let's come back up.

Second side. So once again, if you're new to it, you step the right, the left foot forward, shoulders forward, eyes are always looking towards the top of an imaginary triangle. And we start to kick lift and lower through the opposite leg. Take it up a little more juice. When you find the wall, stand strong in the arms, and stay for three good breaths. Two. One, slowly lowering and coming down into child's pose.

Well done. Whether you invert it or not, even in the kicking practice, even in holding down dog, all kinds of benefits. So just relax with that for a moment here. Let's bring the hands towards the knees, roll up through the spine. We'll finish our practice with our blocks today.

So you can go ahead and set them up for a supported backbend, a supported supta baddha konasana. We'll take it kind of on the lower and more mellow side. So one block low and horizontal, the other block second position and also horizontal spin around and then just come down so that your upper back, thoracic spine is supported. We don't want it at our waist. We want it right behind the heart center.

And then the back of your head is supported by the other block. Stretch the legs out long. Open up the arms wide. And just let yourself kind of snuggle into this shape and make sure the hips feel even. The shoulders feel even.

The blocks are in a good spot. And once you feel like, okay. The support is good, then you can bend your knees. And bring the soles of the feet together and we give this passive opening to the inner hips. Let your eyes close.

And there's this dip down. Like, we've just been on the surface kinda riding waves and paddling and working with weather and focus and perseverance and kind of a pretty challenging practice. That was moving at a good pace, and now we're finding the opposition, the balancing energy. So allow yourself to take that in, take that on by letting go. Just take one more breath in this shape. I'm taking the hands to the outer knees.

Gently draw the knees towards the midline. Let's shape shift this a little bit. We'll roll over to our right side, come up, and then set up your legs for Some people call it stag pose. It's kind of a pinwheel position, but we'll come into this restorative twist here. So hips are slightly asymmetrical.

Turn towards the wall. And then we can use these same blocks for our support system come down to the forearms, forehead can rest on a block. Right? And you can even turn the other block a little bit taller to give the rib cage a little support here. And you can also turn this other block that's under your head a little taller if you need to, but relax into this. And if you can allow your ribcage to rest fully on the block, then we get this really nice.

It's a passive, restorative twist, but it is actually quite potent lot of sensation here. The more weight you can give it, the more gravity you can give it the better. And then we have this kinda cool space to work with in between the blocks. You're welcome to slide your left shoulder underneath and press against the right elbow. You can leverage and slightly roll the twist even a little more deeply.

And then from there, gently come out of it by pressing the palms flat, lifting the chest, And then we swivel a little about face to the other side. Rock the knees side to side a little bit here just to even out the hips and rinse off the low back l five s one. We take the knees over to the opposite side, turn and sit your situate yourself, set yourself and situate yourself into the twist, rib cage on that lower block. Forehead on the upper block, dropping down. If you took that variation of sliding your arm through the space, go for it here. Press against the opposite elbow just to get that subtle turn and twist.

Last breath here. And then placing the hands under the shoulders, press yourself up. Stack your blocks. And I'll be ending this practice seated. We'll just take a very simple seated meditation if you prefer Shavasana, go ahead and hit the deck, lay down on your back and relax. But otherwise, if you'd like to come into just one moment, one or two long moments, you can allow the right hand, the back of the right hand to rest into the palm of the left hand, find your tall seat reaching up through the crown and taking three deep breaths.

As you start to bring your awareness back into that distilled place in your body, in your mind, and this reminder that you are absolutely okay you are right where you need to be right now. Bringing the hands together at the heart, allow your eyes to open. Beautiful practice. Thank you so much for showing up to yourself and to your yoga practice today. We'll see you in the next video, Namaste.