I am expansive

Hi there. Welcome to the Filier Cup series. Today we'll be doing a heart opening class with a focus on shoulders and extension. You'll need one block for your practice today. As soon as you're ready, find any comfortable seat you'd like to begin your practice. Arrive into your sea and allow yourself to really just settle.

Just take that shift from looking outwards to looking inwards. Let that help you close your eyes and set the spine really tall by engaging into the earth. Integrating your breath here very naturally. Just taking a moment to pause completely as soon as you can. Witness your life force via the breath, happening within you at all times, bringing your attention to it, Feel your sensations of the body as they arise subtly and allow the mind to be as it is whether you've showed up calm or anxious, just enjoy where you're starting from so we can move forward.

Draw your hands to heart center, bow your gaze and reverence and gratitude to whatever you bow to in your life. Off up your efforts towards someone specific, or maybe to this universal idea of connection to everything and everyone. With that in mind, will take a single ohm, the sound of union to begin together. If you'd like to add an intention to your ohm today, I offer, I am expansive. Inhale?

Take another moment here to deepen your breath practice, hujai Praniyama, deep inhales and exhales through the nostrils, restricting the space in the throat. Hearing and feeling your breath more deeply. We'll start today in a seated Verasana pose on a block. So you can undo any cross legged you may have, grab your block and sit on the block in between your feet with the knees together. You can rest your hands on your thighs and prepare.

We'll wake up the reverse bind first. So take your hands, interlace them behind your back, take a moment to stretch and bend your arms until you feel the shoulder blades open up towards each other, and then take your left hand, wrap it around the left side of your hip, and then drop your right ear to the floor, and just nice and easy, rock your chin down and up until you feel some good opening. Feel free to pause in anywhere that feels good for you. From there, switch interlaced the other way. So switch the grip of the interlace stretch and then wrap the arms around the right side of the hip, drop the left ear to the floor.

Same thing. You can stay still or give a little movement of the chin up and down, pausing wherever you want to. Finally, one last time, stretch back. Drop the head back. Take a deep breath. Squeeze the shoulders up.

Slowly release the hands, take the block out from under your hips, and we'll meet in a nice forward fold. Stand up at the top of the mat, fold over the legs. Shake the arms out, leg the head, And if you want to, grab opposite elbows by the ears for a little opposite shoulder release, sway the shoulders side to side, and as much as you want. Take one more breath here. With control, release the hands, bend the knees, and slowly roll through the spine to stand.

Find your tadasana mountain pose, legs closer together, palms roll open, use the floor to help build the awareness and the engagement through the entire body, lengthening space between the vertebras, presenting your heart, neck, and forehead open to the practice. Today, we'll do some h office on salutations with some reverse binding engagement. So bring your legs hips width distance and interlace your hands behind you, pull your arms back, lift your chest, take an inhale look up. Keep the bind as you exhale fold forward straighten the legs. As you inhale, release the hands to the floor, step your left leg back drop the knee, pull the heart forward.

Step back plank pose and exhale drop your knees, chest, and chin to the floor, shift forward elbows back. Inhale, glide onto your belly cobra pose, press your hips, lift your heart, any amount. Exhale, step back downward facing dog, lift the hips. Inhale, bring the left foot forward, drop the right knee, pull the heart through. Exhale fold forward top of the mat.

Inhale, roll through the spine reach arms up, lean back any amount, exhale hands by the sides tadasana. Other side, non dominant reverse spine, inhale lean back, lift the heart. Exhale fold over the legs with the bind. Release the hands. Drop the right knee back. Inhale, plank pose, exhale drop your knees chest and chin.

Inhale cobra glide onto the belly lift the heart, exhale downward facing dog, tuck toes, lift hips. Inhale right foot forward, drop left knee, pull heart through. Exale left foot top of the mat forward fold. Inhale, roll through the spine, reach the arms up and back, any amount. Exhale hands by the side, tadasana.

Take a deep breath here. And now a simple vinyasa back to down dog, inhale reach the arms to the sky, exhale fold forward. Halfway lift inhale. Exhale, step, hopper float, lower down Chaturanga halfway. Inhale, up dog, thighs, lift, exhale downward facing dog.

Take two breaths here. And moment to build the down dog. Inhale, lift right leg to the sky, reach the foot. XL, place the right foot at the top of the mat. Roll your back foot open.

Cartwheel open to warrior two. And rebend your right knee as you find your stance. Reach in both directions, get nice and neutral for the spine as best you can, even out the hips. Take a breath looking forward. And then exhale straighten the right leg, he'll tow your back foot in for a comfort of holding through your back heel, and then take your left hand, reverse bind around the back body to the front hip.

Lift your right onto the sky as you inhale. Exhale reach the right arm forward, half bind trichonasana, bring your right hand down anywhere along the shin or to the floor, and then use that reverse spine to help open up the back, the side body up to the sky. Take another breath here. From here, we'll meet in a half moon with a half bind. So look down, bend your right knee, take your block of your hand, reach it forward, and so you can shift into that front foot and lift up your back leg, open your left toes to the side of the mat and pause here. Maybe the gaze stays down.

Maybe it opens up to the side or even up to the sky if that feels able. From here, you could stay or bend your back leg independently, keeping the reverse mind There's an option to think about floating your bottom hand by the heart from here shifting into that bottom leg. Maybe the bottom hand comes up to grab the back foot in the bind, really working to test your balance here. So it's meant to be extremely challenging holding on to that foot. After a breath or so, you release and then reach that leg back and float back to your warrior too. Open up your arms, take a breath, sweep your back arm down full forward warrior one, adjust your feet so your hips are facing forward and your shoulders are facing forward.

Interlaced your hands at the base of the spine, humble warrior, inhale, lift the chest, stretch the arms back, and then exhale fold forward on the inside of the right thigh. You can rest the chest on the upper thigh for support, or you can drop the head a little bit further and stretch the arms out. Really use that back leg for support and length. Take another breath here. From the humble warrior, lift your chest up and place it on your right thigh, and then shift your weight forward connecting the thigh and the belly together.

See how slowly you can lift that back foot up. Maybe balance for a moment. And then just place that left foot forward into that bound forward fold. Release your hands to the earth and roll through the spine to stand. Take a moment, finding your lifted chest, connecting back to the earth with your feet.

And then bring your hands to the hips, step your left foot back about, you know, half the way or quarter the way until you can feel the back, heel grounded, feet are hips with distance, hips are even side to side. You take the hands and either grab opposite forearms behind you. If you want to work reverse prayer, you bring the palms together and try to squeeze you the palms pressing up behind the heart, widen the shoulders around your back. Take a nice inhale to puff the back body up, exhale hinge forward. Pause halfway. Look at your right big toe, inhale get a bit longer in both directions through the spine. Exale pyramid pose, See how close you can get your, nose to knee, chin to shin, lengthening, maybe looking down.

Take another breath or so here. Trying to keep your hips even by squeezing your feet towards each other. One more breath. Inhale rise up, exhale warrior one, step your leg back, reach the arms to the sky. Take an inhale, exhale chaturanga, hands down, step back and lower.

Inhale heart opening up dog, exhale downward facing dog. Single breath here. Inhale lift the left leg up. Exhale, place the left foot at the top of the mat, roll your back foot open, cartwheel open to warrior two. Same thing on this side setting up for your standing poses, get nice and steady, nice and long.

Find a steady breath here looking forward. Slowly straighten your left leg. Bring your back heel in again enough to feel nice and stable here. Find that reverse spine with the right arm around the back reaching for the front hip. Reverse the triangle as you inhale look up.

And then sweep that left arm forward and down, down the left shin anywhere that feels appropriate for the body. Looking up round the right shoulder to the ceiling, getting long for a moment. This is your prep for the balance to really use the legs really find your long side core. Take one more breath. As you exhale look down, bend your left knee, take your hand with or without a block and shift forward into that half moon pose.

Pressing through the inner arch of your bottom leg to open those right toes to the sky. The gaze can stay down the entire time, or you could slowly float it up. This is a great place to stay and work on the length and the balance or independently bend that back leg. You can slowly start to shift the weight into that bottom leg as you either float the hand by the heart or work the backhand to the back foot challenging bow. You take another breath here. And then slowly releasing, coming back to the floating warrior two. After you find a breath in the warrior two, sweep your back arm down, step your back foot forward, square the hips and shoulders to the front of them at warrior one.

With the non dominant grip reverse, the bind behind your back, inhale lift the chest look up, humble warrior as you fold forward, either resting right away with the chest and the thigh or going a bit deeper, stretching the arms further back, pressing into your back leg. It helps sometimes to look at your back foot to really get that nice neutral hips neutral core. Take one more breath here with another slow shift. You lift up. Place the chest on the thigh if it's not there. You reach forward into the front foot, and then slowly use that back leg to help you maybe float up an inch or two, and then place that right foot forward. You're in that forward fold with the reverse spine.

One more breath. Release the hands to the earth and bend the knees slowly to stand. Single breath, tadasana. Bring your hands to your hips, set up for your pyramid pose, bring your right leg back, ground your back heel to the floor, and even out your hips side by side. You can take either the opposite forms once again in a different way, or take that reverse prayer peer, prayer again as you bring the palms together squeegee it up, open the shoulders, puff the back body up, inhale, exhale shift forward halfway fold.

Look at your left big toe, take another breath in, and then either nose to kneeach, and to shin her as far as the body wants to go here. Keep squeezing your legs together, keep lengthening your spine in both directions, maybe look slightly forward. Take another breath or so. As you inhale rise back up, And then exhale warrior one, hop your back- back- their back foot further, reach your arms up, bend your left knee. Take an inhale look up, exhale chaturanga hands down, step back and lower.

Inhale up dog, Exhale downward facing dog. Take a breath. Inhale prepare look forward, exhale walk or hop to the front of the mat. Find your chair pose legs together, sit low, take an inhale, exhale hands to heart center, twist to the right, left elbow outside your right knee. We're not here too long.

Just kinda get yourself connected with the elbow to the knee, take a breath, maybe look up. As you exhale, look down, shift your weight into your right foot, lift your left heel first. See how slowly you can lift that bat, that left leg, and float that left leg back into a high lunge twist. Once you get back, adjust, maybe rates the feet a little bit longer away from each other, open up into that high lunge twist a little bit further, maybe straighten the spine, maybe looking around the shoulder up to the sky. Take a deep breath in here, and open up a little bit more if you can.

Release your hands to the floor, drop your left knee, untuck your toes. Walk your hands up your right thigh, deep Anjanayasana lunge using the hands to kind of hinge your weight forward in space, You can always stay right here and open up the chest as you want to hinge the heart forward, bend your back leg, grab the foot with the same hand first, kind of lifting the chest and settling, or maybe you take both hands to the back leg, And if it's possible, interlace the hands behind the back ankle and flex your left foot. As you keep the weight leaning forward into the right foot, stretch your arms back and use the back leg to open up the reverse spine even further using the power of the leg, one day thinking about those toes getting to the floor there. Take one more breath. Seeing how smoothly you can come back out of this, rising back up releasing your foot back down. If it's bent, hands to floor, nice and easy, just step back and drop to a child's pose. Take a little moment to pause there.

We'll here take a rabbit's pose, opening up the shoulders and the back as you rise up, bring your knees to touch, toes are untucked, and then the hands start at the back of the heels. You tuck your chin to the chest and roll the top of the head to the earth. This is a great place to stay or if you want to, interlace your hands at the base of the spine, and think about stretching the arms up and over in that reverse spine while you bring some weight into the head and hollow the body here, preparing some weight on the top of the head there while using your legs and your arms. Take another breath. With control, releasing your hands, releasing your hips, releasing the forehead neutral so you get a little break from that neck space.

All you have to do from here is bring your hands forward and find your downward facing dog. From your down dog, take an inhale prepare look forward, exhale step hop or float to the front of the mat, chair pose as you inhale sit low, reach arms up, exhale hands to heart center twist to the left right elbow outside of left knee, just a single breath to really get settled into the connection. And then look down to the bottom to the bottom of the floor, lift your right heel up, see how slowly you can float that heel by the hip, and then slowly float that right heel back into that high lunge twist, continue to adjust the length of the stance so you really use the back leg as activation to stretch the heart forward. Another breath to see how much you can open the spine around itself as you breathe. With control, you release the hands down to the floor, drop your right knee, untuck your toes.

Walk your hands up that left thigh. Same thing. Use the hands to help bring the weight forward, set up for that control. It's always about that front foot in the deep backbends of the Anjaniasana for support. Stay here or hinge forward enough to bend your back leg. Same hand as foot one hand or both hands interlacing the hands around the ankle, flexing the foot and slowly but surely stretch using the leg strength to stretch back, keeping your left foot forward. Right? That way as you can see, needs to be forward to take that oppositional stretch. Seeing how far back you can go.

You take another breath or so here. With control coming back the way you came rising up and releasing the hands to the earth. Nice and easy child's pose, bring your knees back and sit on your heels. Arms can go behind you, forehead to the earth. You can take another of the rabbit's pose we did, or if you want to take an opportunity for headstand, you can interlace the hands of the base of the skull and bring the elbows to the floor, use that to help you bring the top of the head to the earth, release the hands, but keep them hovering around the back of the head.

Tuck your toes, lift your hips up. This is a great place to stay and start to build some strength, getting comfort over the top of the head. As you wanna go further, you lift the heels and you tiptoe your way, seeing how much you can bring the weight out of the feet and using the elbows to start to lift you up. You can do knees bent and hover. You can lift one leg and take a nice l shape, maybe working the counterbalance to bring you up.

As you get the leg stacking over the head, you work to align the spine further and further from the crown of the head to the heels. Take one more breath here. If you're lifted, see how slowly you can bring the feet back to the floor, and we'll all meet from wherever we are into our child's pose with the arms behind us, and the forehead to the earth. Nice slow breath here. Reach your arms forward and glide forward onto your belly. Setting up for a bound Shala boss in a really, working with all this reverse binding we've been playing with. So interlace your hands again with the hands bound, lift the fist off of your hips, see how far back you can bring the shoulders towards each other, and then start to pull back with the arms until the shoulders lift up off the floor.

The gaze is neutral towards the earth in line with the rest of the neck. Maybe you stay here or maybe you activate the hips down and lift your feet up, bring your toes together. This is more about length than it is about height. The height will come, but focus on lifting from underneath. Take another breath or two if you can. Last breath here.

With control, release yourself down, head to either side, arms by the sides, take a pause, with the body settled. Hands to the floor rise up to table top, swing your legs around to the front of the mat, nice easy Pachimottanasana, let's do the variation b as you flex the feet, hinge your hips into the floor a little dandasana palm to kind of lengthen the spine through the back body. And as you hinge forward, if you can get the hands to the feet, wrap, grab the outer blades of the feet and press the thumb into the knuckles of the big toes right in front, and use that to imagine like you're pressing into a wall and lengthen the spot as you inhale, bring the elbows wide around the l the legs as you drop the chin, any amount, maybe look slightly forward here. Two or three breaths. Really using the pressure of the legs into the floor to help you find that length underneath the body here. After your next exhale, slowly begin to rise back up.

Pravo tenasana or tabletop, if the legs long is difficult here, you can always bend the knees. Bring the hands behind you. If you're doing straight legs, bring them together, roll the feet flat to the floor, and then use the toes pressing down to pull the hips from under forward and up, and then press through the hands and open the heart as much as you can. Take one more breath here and then slowly release hips to the earth. Right away, we'll go ahead and lie down onto our back.

On your back, prepare for plow pose, press your palms into the earth, lift your legs up and see if you can get your feet all the way to the floor here. Once the feet are on the floor are close, You can use your hands around your back to get higher and higher on the shoulders. If it's available, you could take that same reverse spine in your plow, like a bridge pose, you kind of rock your shoulders closer and closer until maybe the arms and the fist are all connected to the earth. This is a great place to stay to start to make some space through the shoulders in this upside down variation, or you could work the shoulder stand strength with the arms. You reach one leg up, maybe, and use that reach with the arms and the bind to come up into a full shoulder stand. Take another breath or two here.

After your breaths and your inversion, if the feet are lifted, bring them back down, and using your palms like kickstands you slowly unravel through the floor all the way until you're on your back. Final counter pose here, fish pose, elbows, press down into the floor, lift the upper heart. If you're newer to fish, you can always bring the elbows higher up on the shoulders, drop the chin and just hang, or if you're able to, you bring the top of the head to the floor and slowly try to open the heart by bringing the head and the hips closer together. Deep breaths here. One more inhale.

And exhale slowly unravel. Let yourself start to settle. Let's take a nice twist to close out here. Drop both knees into the chest. Let both knees fall over to the right.

Reach your left arm open. And look towards the left shoulder, slowing the breath down. Slowly coming back to center, twisting the other way, knees over to the left. Right arm to the right, a couple slow breaths. Coming back to center, final hugging, forms around the knees, forehead eyeballs towards the kneecaps, squeeze everything in, take a deep breath in.

Altogether release body, breath, and mind, final resting pose, Shavasana corpse pose on your back. Allow yourself to fully let go. Notice the natural breath here, the body lying on the floor, Just the awareness of being alive. Feel free to stay here longer in your Shavasana. As you're ready, wiggle the fingers and toes, rock the neck, and head side to side.

Maybe stretch long through the body overhead, point the toes, take it in the nail. Roll over to your right side into a fetal position, drawing the knees into the chest, maybe using your right arm like a pillow, taking a moment to pause there. And then rising up to your final seat, maybe it's the same when you took before, maybe it's slightly different. Either way, once you find your comfortable seat, return to stillness, When the body is still, you can start to become aware of this internal movement that's always happening, but through the concentration practice, we get to bear witness to it a little more clearly. Dry your hands to a heart center bow your gaze and reverence and gratitude, thank yourself, honor your efforts, and we'll take a final ohm to close out together.

Inhale. Thank you for your practice.