Refresh and Renew Flow

Good morning. Welcome back. This practice would be helpful to have all the stuff. Couple of blocks, a blanket, the wall, and, strap that you can preset so that it has a loop that's kind of the width of your shoulders like so. So make sure you've got that set up.

We'll use it a little bit later. But in the meantime, we'll start actually in a super chill, relaxed way in a supported suptabatikonasana. So you're gonna love this sweet beginning. I know I am. Set one block up tall and one block up, medium second position. And then we'll go ahead and use our blanket to just give a little bit of push here.

You can drape your blankets right over the top. And then position yourself so that the first block hits you right at your mid thoracic right behind the heart center and oh, this feels right behind the head. So we're in this nice supported back bend. Your legs can be long or crossed at the ankles or soles of the feet together. I like to do a little cross that supports my inner hips.

And then the arms get to relax alongside your body. So we have this very nice opening across the chest, close your eyes, and you can probably guess this practice has taken us into some back bends because we're starting with a heart opener. And just start to cultivate your breath here, close your eyes. And let your inner eyes stream down into the heart. And just even hearing that, like, okay.

We're going into back bends as an agenda. See if you can kinda turn around whatever sort of reaction that you might have for me. Sometimes I associate like back bends. I've gotta do all this work to prepare my body to get into back bends. But today, we're going in.

Our approach is gonna be a little softer, a little more restorative. There'll be strength involved for sure, but just the general tone is mellow. So allow your arms to come down and then reach the arms up and over. And I love to work with this kind of swimming through the space as well as that tone of mellow with strength in how to reach so that we can come really efficient in our practice, exhale open. Inhale reach over the head, and you can even lace the fingers and point with index fingers back towards the wall behind you and then exhale surrender and open.

Inhale, gather the fingers, lace them together, accept the index fingers, reach up and back. Like, that's where I'm going. And then, but right here, right now, I'm relaxed on these blocks. Couple more. Inhale. Big breath in. And exhale, surrender, release. It's a really interesting kind of practice to investigate working with flow and invigoration and energy and power.

And also staying super chill and super grounded while you're doing that. So from here, turn the palms face down, bend your knees, feet flat, and just start to windshield wiper a little bit from side to side and you might feel the corner of one block giving you a little pressure point action right at the kind of mid spine right at the erectors there as you go side to side. The hips will shimmy you down and kinda start to make your way off of these blocks. Go ahead and roll over to your right and come on up off your blocks. We'll set the blanket to one side, and then keep your blocks handy.

We're gonna take the second block and turn it flat, and then the other one's gonna go over here. We don't need it right now. Have a seat on your block, but the way we'll do this is pretty specific. We'll take the top of the right foot flat and set your hips on top of your other block. If this is too much flexion for your knee, you can put two blocks underneath you.

And then we're just gonna lean back. Take a little recline here. I'd like to come up onto the fingertips, lift and tuck the pelvis under. Then walk your hands back so you get this nice opening across the quadricep up into the hip flexor. Take a couple shoulder rolls here.

Just allow your shoulders to scrub down the back. Opening through the chest and feeling what's possible here as you lift through the heart center and maybe look back behind you and then exhale melt. You can come up onto the fingertips hands wide and once again inhale through the heart, exhale. And it's this very sort of complex cat cow we're moving in and out of while we've got one foot tucked and one quad opening. Moving through the pelvis here, moving through the spine, inhale, and then exhale. Ground through the left hand, reach the right arm up and over your head, slight diagonal line, looking down and back towards your left hand.

And then that allows you to sneak your right foot out and tuck the left foot in. And we come to the second side. Right foot is flat. The left foot's tucked underneath. You try to get on the top of your foot.

Walk your hands back. And then just oh, what's happening in the shoulders? See what you can find there as you move in and out and open up through the chest as you draw the shoulder blades back towards one another and then roll them forward and getting curious here of what's possible. Coming up on the fingertips, add that cat cow arching and looking back, exhale pulling in. Inhale to arch.

Exhale. Back bends are interesting because they ask us to open up through the front body through all the areas that are a little bit tight. Let's ground through the right palm. Reach the left arm up on the high diagonal. And just turn your spine.

Look towards your right hand and let that left foot come out. Find yourself in a little squat here, right on your block. Press the feet wide, the knees wide. Open up through the chest. Take a deep breath in.

Exhale round the spine, drop the chin into the chest. Do that again. Open up the knees, inhale, lift the chest. Exhale dropping in and down. Once more, inhale, lift through the chest. This time as you exhale, tip your weight forward, bring your hands to the mat, and then just hop the feet together. And, oh, what?

Is there a crow pose waiting to say hello? Yes, there is. So if you want to come into your bakasana for a moment, you're welcome to. Otherwise, you can keep your toes on the mat and sink into this little squat, relaxing your head, neck, and shoulders. It's just a transition moment. From here, we come back into our forward fold. And we set our block off to the side.

We'll come back to those later. So from here, walk your hands forward, walk your feet back, find a downward dog, and take a little bicycle pedal through the feet and knees. Just notice how you feel. Kind of a different opening than we've been working with in this particular show. We're moving into a Chandraana mascara variation. So we'll start from here from downward facing dog.

Take the right leg to the sky. As you exhale, step it all the way through to a low lunge, and then reach forward up and way back behind you. And you can lace the fingers and point the index finger just like we did in the beginning. And then circle the arms. Do that again.

Inhale up and back. Exhale wide circle with the arms one more time. Inhale up and back. Exhale wide circle tuck the back toes under, lift the back knee. We'll shift our weight forward.

Left leg's gonna go to the sky for a standing split and then release back to downward facing dog. Take the left leg up again. Inhale, exhale, step it all the way through. Here's our low lunge. Lace the fingers, point the index finger up and back towards the wall. Exhale circle.

Inhale. Take up some space, exhale. Going right into opening the front body, inhale, up and back, exhale circle. Palms come down back knee lifts. We can adjust our left foot back a little right leg rises into our standing split.

And then step back to downward facing dog. Take that same right leg in the air, big breath in. Step it all the way through, lower the back knee. Inhale, lace the fingers up and back exhale circle the arms. We call this stepana mudra.

This pointing of a direction, intention, exhale circle. Getting clear on what it is we're moving towards. What we're creating and what we're letting go. Standing split will lift the back knee, shift the right foot underneath you a bit and then left leg rises. Feeling that verticality and then just step back out of it.

Downward dog. One more cycle, the left leg sweeps, step it all the way through, starting to feel a little warm up here, lower the back knee, but keeping it mellow. Reach up and back. There's our Stepana mudra. Exhale. Inhale.

Exhale. There's a little power in this surrender. Exhale. Bring it down. Back knee lifts, slide the left foot back a bit, standing split, right leg rises. Just feel that shape, and then step into downward facing dog.

Our first vinyasa is going to be a little bit different. We shift forward to plank. Lower all the way down to the belly. Low cobra, lift your chest. Now take your left arm and reach it directly out to the side palm flat.

Keep the right elbow bent, the right knee bent, and we roll onto our left side. Now if your head isn't resting against the floor, you can grab a block or a blanket and give yourself a little headrest here. But it's almost like we're we're putting our ear to the path or maybe the walls have ears that we're listening and surrender. Right. This is a great chest and shoulder opener, which is part of the recipe for preparing for back bends, but it's a mellow nice version, twisting, releasing, and just restoring energy here. Let's come out of this and go to the second side.

We'll come back to the belly. Hands placed right next to your chest, inhale low cobra, right arm reaches out, bend the left elbow, the left knee, and roll on to your right side. Make sure your head is supported and allow gravity to do the work here and one more breath. Coming back to the center. Let's inhale, lift the chest.

We'll go in and out from right to left side. Left arm reaches out roll. Back to the center, inhale cobra, right arm reaches out and roll. Back to the center one more time each side inhale cobra. As you come down, left arm reaches out, we roll.

Back to the center, inhale rise, cobra as you come down, the right arm reaches out and back to center. Inhale, lift the heart. Take it back to child's pose. Take one more deep breath right here. Exhale completely.

Come one up to hands and knees. Curle the toes under shift your weight back, hips to heels. Grab your blankets. Next little series. We'll work with our strap and our blankets. So We wanna be kind to our knees.

Give your knees a little bit of padding. And from here, you can take your strap, which we already have that loop that we talked about. And just hook it around your left foot. And we wanna take the long edge of the strap forward so that the loop itself is over the bridge of the foot, the rest of the strap is reaching forward. It just makes it a little easier once we step into a lunge. You bring the right foot forward, come into your low lunge, and make sure you're kind of dragging the pelvis forward so you're not directly on the kneecap, but more towards the lower part of the quadriceps.

Then we can just reach back, grab our strap, and like we're pulling a knapsack over our shoulder, we bring that foot right up to meet our glute. Now, this is more of a squared off lunge with a quad opener than when we reach opposite hand to foot, it kinda rotates our shoulders and hips, which makes it more accessible. But this because we're squared off, it's typically a little more challenging. Do what you can. You're welcome to hang out right here.

Hold in your knapsack or if you'd like a little bit more, You can take your hands behind your head and start to walk your hands down the strap towards the back foot. And this is much deeper. We're opening the shoulders, the chest, upper back, as well as the quadricep. So even though it may have the look of a relaxed posture, it's actually quite powerful and we stay with it for three good breaths. Try to keep lifting up and out of the lower back.

Elbows are bent a lot. So rather than if you're holding up here, you wanna make sure your hands are walking down. Eventually, we hold our own back foot. Probably in another lifetime for me. That's okay.

And then start to let the strap slide through your hands. Set it to one side. And then we step out of this through downward facing dog. And you can just take the strap over to the other foot, bring it over to the other side of the mat. Oh my gosh. It's ready to go.

And we step the left foot forward, direct path into the second side. I wanna make sure we have some tension on the strap. Lift up through the chest. We're in that low lunge and then reach back and you can pull it over your shoulder. There's your knapsack. Hang out and check-in with how it feels on this side.

It's always very different right to left. So we let go of this expectation that everything is gonna be the same because this is not. Life keeps showing us that. Take your hands behind your head. If you did that on side one, maybe give it a shot on side two. And see what you got here.

Opening up through the chest, and we're constantly changing, constantly growing, and hopefully constantly evolving. Right. Our self reflection through our yoga practice gives us the chance to witness what's happening. So just working through this, working with it, with some grace. It's a very deep posture. Give it a couple more breaths here.

And then let that go. Step on out of it back to your downward facing dot. Oh, that was amazing. And then set your strap to one side. We'll come back to it in a moment.

We're gonna kinda pick up the tempo of our flow here. You can even set your blanket to one side. We'll come back to that. In a little bit as well. So from here, take the right leg to the sky, step it all the way through runner's lunge.

We'll stay in a high lunge this time, inhale come up to crescent. Exhale Chaturanga. We know this one. Halfway down, inhale to your backbend, exhale downward dog. Left leg rises, exhale step it through. Crescent lunge, inhale generating some heat.

Exhale through Chaturanga. Inhale to your backbend. Downward dog, we've got two more rounds each side. Right leg rising. Step it through.

Inhale crescent exhale vinyasa. Maybe one foot floats, inhale upward dog, downward dog, left leg exhale step it through. Inhale rise, exhale, vinyasa. Keep it going. You got one more round downward dog, right leg. Step it through.

Inhale. Crescent, exhale, chaturanga, open up the chest. Fold it back. Left leg inhale. Step it through.

Inhale crescent. Exhale vinyasa, floating, hovering, opening, fold. Okay. From here, shift to plank. Lower down.

Inhale cobra. Let's come back into this open twist. Left arm extends. Right knee bends roll. Back to center.

Inhale cobra. We're repeating this again because it has purpose, right arm out to the side, roll to the right side. Back to the center, inhale cobra, adding on, bend your knees. Reach back, grab your feet. Get your hair out of the way. And then add a little dhanurasana into the mix here.

So we lift up through the chest. And then we melt down. Inhale, and it feels a little bit like a pump as we go in and out for the back body. Front body lifting and lowering. Pressing your feet into your hands.

Open up through the chest. Hang out for an extra moment here. Smile at it. And then let it go pressing back to child's pose. I'm awake. Hope you are too.

Take one more breath here in your child's pose. XL through the mouth. And then let's go ahead and come on up through downward facing dog. Walk your hands back to your feet. And then soften the knees and roll up your spine.

Coming up to standing shrug some things off. Look back the walls there behind you. Maybe not quite an arms distance, but a little bit less than an arms distance. And then that kind of sets us up so that we can reach up and back, look for the wall. There it is, and then bring the hands back to the heart.

It's just a point of reference. We inhale up and back, and you can even point the index finger to the wall. Exhale. Just one more time. Inhale pointing back, that's where I'm going, and then bring the hands back to the heart.

We'll make an adjustment with the mat. Take your feet a little wider. And slide the edge of the mat actually to the wall. We'll need it right at the wall for a couple of our next postures we're moving into. And here's where our strap comes into play, working with a little bit of It's another you'll notice with these practices, there's a lot of preparation for postures.

That way when we get into them, we feel ready, or we're working on what we need to open up and strengthen to get ready for them. So we want one lock at the wall, And then we take our strap that hopefully you buckled and set. If you need to take a moment and do that now, that this would be the time. So that when you put it above your elbows, your elbows are shoulder width apart. This is gonna allow us to keep the frame of our base for dolphin posts. So we'll come down fingertips are gonna frame our block like so. Right.

And then the strap keeps elbows from going wide while the block keeps the hands from pivoting in. From here, walk your feet back. Into forearm plank. Everybody's favorite posture. Feel the tailbone coiled downward and the core pull in.

And it's a powerful pose, right? But can you keep that? Relax mellow chill kind of attitude inside. The biggest adjustment you can make in any posture besides an attitude adjustment is in the tilt of the pelvis. So keep that tailbone coiling down. And the low abdominals coiling in.

Now, the shoulders are working here, and we're gonna ask them to work a little bit more when we come into dolphin. So, walk your feet forward. The strap provides a nice little head rest here. You can let your head relax. Press the heart back and let the shoulders, the underside of the shoulders open, the hamstrings open. You might hang here and this is as far as you go.

If you like to kick up to the wall for a moment in pinch of my arasana, then you can step the right toes forward a tad, right knee bent. You lift your head and look right in between your forms, and then that left leg lifting and lowering, we've been practicing this all week, can push and kick up to the wall. So pushing off the right leg and swinging the left leg up to the wall. And you might even find your forearm stand, pinch my arasana for a hot second. And this is a beautiful prep coming down.

It's just a prep. We're not getting too attached to it, but it's a prep for wheel. So let's if you kicked up, let's do the other side. If you were patiently hanging out in dolphin pose, take a moment, rest in child's pose. And again, this opportunity to lift up into dolphin.

Keep the head lifted. You want your point of focus between the forearms. The left foot steps forward. This becomes the pushing leg, the driving leg, the right leg lifts and lowers. This becomes the pendulum swinging leg.

We exhale. Kicking up as we push off of the ball, the left foot, and you might go right to your balance, feeling the core pull in. Heart open. It's just a moment in time, and then we're out of there. Oh, okay.

That's a great prep for wheel. And you might be kind of like, well, that's just the prep. That feels like a peak pose. It is. It's a peak pose too. So let's take this strap and set it to one side.

And now we work with both of our blocks. We'll set up our blocks on a diagonal at the wall. This is one of my favorite ways to come into wheel because it provides a little bit of a different angling for the wrist which makes it more accessible for the shoulders. So, you want enough space for your head between those blocks and then we can flip and come onto our back. So, check with one hand and make sure that your head is pretty close to the wall. You want it close to, if not, almost touching the wall, and then that the blocks are right there where you can place your hands, fingertips curl around the bottom edge.

Heels of the hands go towards the, the wall itself. So this provides that angle we were talking about that makes it a little more accessible on the shoulders four wheel. We come up in three steps and there's no rush. We take our time because each step will let you know kind of if the next one is a green light or not. So start with a deep breath in here.

As you exhale, tuck your tail under, kind of imprint the lumbar spine against the mat and then start to lift the hips up into bridge. You'll feel your weight roll into the shoulders and the back of the head. That's step one. You might stay right there and practice giving a little pressure into the heels of the hands. If it feels like a go, take a deep breath here and puff up the chest. Press down into the hands, lift up and position yourself on your crown for a moment.

So I'm looking right at the base board. Elbows I want to spin into the midline. Take a deep breath here and puff up the chest a little more and then press down into the blocks to propel the chest and heart up and towards the wall. I'm pushing with my legs a lot. To press my heart towards the wall.

Big backbend, big heart opener, feet and thighs stay parallel. Arms are pressing strong. Take a very full breath in. And then as you exhale, we start to ease down, tuck the chin, back of the head lands, shoulders, ribs, hips, feet go wide, and the knees come in. And then you give yourself a hug. Close your eyes and breathe. Now we could do a few more of those.

There's it's wonder the first one's always like kind of a surprise and especially in a morning practice it's great to do three to five back bends to really energize you for the day. We'll just do one more here together. If you want more than that, feel free to pause and do a few more. Again, if you scoot it away from the wall, adjust yourself, find your hands, the shape of the hands against the blocks, we tuck and lift that step one. Press down, inhale lift the heart, crown of the head. Press step two. Take a deep breath, exhale drive down through the hands and legs as you lift up through the heart, pressing the heart towards the wall. Breathe, this pose feels like a celebration.

Enjoy it. And then slowly, ease your way down, tuck the chin, back of the head, shoulders, ribs, hips. Feet go wide, inner knees rest, we come into what we call corrective rest position, which is like a little hug. And with a sense of accomplishment, let everything just open. Arms open.

Souls of the feet can come together. You can move your props out of the way. Take a little relaxed baddha konasana for a moment. Let your head roll from side to side. And just enjoy that flush feeling of coming out of that backbend.

From here, we gather the knees back into the midline. And then stretch the legs out long for your shavasana. You've earned it. Separate the shoulders wide. Separate the feet a little wider than the mat.

Relax. Let anything that might be any tension or any holding in the fingers, the toes, the feet, let it go. Let's inhale belly ribs, chest. Exhale chest, ribs, belly, inhale, belly, ribs, chest, exhale, chest, ribs, belly, once more like a wave, inhale belly, ribs, chest, exhale, chest, ribs, belly, Just feeling into that beautiful space of what you can accomplish from a grounded relaxed place. Sometimes we feel like we've gotta push so hard. Everything's gotta be stressful and warrior energy. And although the warrior energy is good, we can sometimes be just as effective if not more when we're coming from a relaxed place.

Just take one more breath here. Send a little bit of movement to your fingers and your toes. Draw the knees in. Roll off onto one side. Press yourself up to a comfortable seated position and bring the hands to the heart.

Should you inhale, open up the arms, opening up to this day. Thank you so much for being here. Exale, bring the hands back, gathering all this energy you created and put it behind what you stand for today. Have a great day. Namaste.