Hi,
My name is Clara Ritger and I am a meditation,
Yoga and somatic movement teacher and today I am going to be guiding you through a moving body scan.
I like to do this in the morning as a full body stretch,
But you can also do this after a long work day when you've been kind of stuck in one position.
I'm going to do this standing up,
But you can also do it lying down.
And as we move through each part of the body,
I invite you to notice where feels more free and expansive and where feels more contracted or like there's a limited range of motion.
You don't have to change anything.
We're just noticing what's true in our body and inviting compassion for our experience.
Let's get started.
Bring your attention down to your feet.
And we're gonna activate the toes.
So I want you to try to bring each toe one by one down to the mat.
Starting with your pinky toe.
We're going to do it almost like.
.
.
A little ripple.
And when you feel like you've gotten that done,
Then you are going to go in the opposite direction and do the thumb toe first.
Big toe first.
Ooh,
This one's harder for me.
And then bring all the toes down.
Just kind of give your toes a little squeeze,
Feeling the mat or the floor beneath you.
And then go ahead and rock back and forth on your feet.
Now starting to feel the weight in your heels.
Maybe coming off the toes a little bit.
Catching your balance.
And side to side.
You're scheming.
Feeling the sides of the feet.
Now we're going to do little circles around the ankles.
So see if you can really focus,
The knees are gonna move,
But focus really on the ankles.
What is the range of motion in your ankles?
Might be really small.
If you can stabilize the knees and just move the ankles.
Much smaller.
Now go ahead and lift one foot off of the ground,
Catching that balance.
And do a little ankle circle.
You might hear your ankle pop.
It's okay,
As long as it doesn't hurt.
And switch to the other side.
Kept your balance.
Nice crack there.
All right.
And now we're going to activate the calves.
So see if you can.
Really clench your calves.
And then go ahead and touch the calves and give them a nice massage.
So many of us carry tension in our calves.
And as you do so,
Awakening the shin with your thumb.
Make sure you're getting both sides.
Feeling that nice massage.
Now let's wake up the knees.
Just doing little bends.
Of the knees.
And placing your hands,
Not your weight,
Just your hands on your knees for stability.
We'll do some knee circles.
So the focus here really is on the knees driving the motion.
And it doesn't have to be big.
Don't strain your knees.
Moving in the opposite direction.
And coming up to stand.
Feeling as you do this,
Maybe your hamstring.
Or your quad.
Go ahead and if you can,
Catch that foot.
And get that nice quad stretch,
Waking up the quad.
And when you release,
We're gonna wake up the hamstring.
And how are we gonna do that?
Put the heel down.
And flex that foot.
And just kind of lean into it and feel that hamstring waking up.
Now let's switch to the other side.
First the quad.
Oh no.
Feels nice.
And then landing that heel,
Flexing those toes,
Yes.
Feel that quad.
Now the fun part,
Make sure your feet are just a little wider than hip width distance apart.
We're going to wake up the hips.
For me,
I get a lot of cracks there.
Imagine you're like.
.
.
Trying to clean the inside of a cylinder with your hips.
Noticing all of the areas of tightness and soreness.
And go the other direction.
Don't forget to breathe.
And then side to side.
And then let's give the legs a little shake,
Just.
Shake off everything.
Shift your knees.
Thank you for your help.
Thighs.
And then we'll do a pelvis activation.
So squeeze those glutes.
Squeeze them again.
I can't help but squeeze my face apparently when I squeeze my glutes.
Ah.
All right.
Then let's just take a moment to pause.
Notice if there's a difference between the lower body and the upper body.
There might not be and that's okay.
Just noticing.
Anything that came up for you in the lower body activation.
Now let's let the breath get a bit deeper as we wake up the upper body.
Breathing into the belly,
The chest.
Ribs.
Feeling that front body awakening just with our breath.
Now let's bring it into the back body.
It might help to place your hands on the back of your ribs and take another deep breath in.
You feel the back of those ribs expanding.
Really breathe into the back of your ribs.
Now the side body.
Leaning over to one side and feeling that nice side body stretch.
Opening your chest up to the sky just a little bit,
Noticing how that changes the stretch.
And the other side.
Hmm.
Opening that chest again as well,
Heart toward the sky.
Mmm.
And then now see if you can squeeze your chest.
Ah.
Yep,
Squeezing those chest muscles,
Rolling those shoulders up and back and down.
The other way.
And then waking up the arms,
Let's,
I've taken this one from Qigong,
Let's tap.
Tap the outside of your arm.
And the inside of your arm.
And the back of your arm.
And come across the chest.
And now to the other side.
And let's bring the taps down our front body.
Down the legs.
Up the backs of the legs.
Up the back body.
And then before we move on to the head,
Let's just do a shake of the upper body.
So shaking your arms.
Shaking your chest,
Shaking your fingers.
Shaking your middle and your hips.
Clenching your hands and releasing them.
Clenching,
Releasing.
And then just taking a pause and checking in with your whole body.
And now it's time to wake up the head.
Let's start with the neck.
We'll just do a gentle neck roll.
I have some upper body tension,
So you might not see me do a full expression of this.
Just very gentle.
And then go ahead and hang the head back.
Healing the neck muscles.
And the jaw.
Bringing your head forward.
Circling the jaw.
It's gonna look silly.
They're gone.
To open up the back of the throat.
I'll just massage under the chin where the tongue is.
And the sides of your jaw.
We carry so much tension,
Invisible tension in our jaws.
Now waking up the cheeks,
Light taps.
And the forehead.
And the top of the head.
Now bring your fingers just to press where your third eye is,
A gentle press.
Pressing the sides of your temples.
Pressing underneath the ears,
There's a little soft part in here,
Just gentle.
And then pressing the little nubbins on the back of your skull where your spine meets your cranium.
When you can use a little more pressure,
It feels nice.
And release into a Tadasana.
Mountain Pose.
Letting your attention waterfall back down your body.
Reconnecting with every area of your body that we just brought our attention and energy through and noticing if anything is speaking to you in this moment.
Noticing how you feel.
Where can I bring more loving compassion and ease into my body today?
How can I move today in a way that is kind to my vessel?
When you are ready,
If it feels right to you,
Bring your hands to a prayer position.
And just take a bow to yourself for honoring your body today.
Thank you so much for joining this practice with me.
I hope you found it helpful.
I've got plenty more resources where this came from,
So make sure to follow or subscribe.
And I hope to see you again soon.
