This practice is meant to regulate energy by bringing routine and cadence and rhythm and also to ground and settle vata energy,
Which can get a little bit all over the place.
And vata is also very soothed by touch.
So let's actually bring some touch.
Bring your hands to your feet and just gently squeeze your feet.
Let your thumbs maybe work through the sole of your feet.
One foot at a time.
And you can just squeeze and bring a little bit of compression that's really soothing for vata energy.
And you can start to work up your leg.
And sometimes it's even nice to just press down,
Press the hands down onto the leg.
And you can move to the other foot.
And squeezing,
Compressing,
Bringing touch.
Maybe even massaging the sole of the foot with the thumbs.
Squeezing the toes.
And you don't have to do exactly what I'm doing.
You could find something that works for you differently than what I'm offering.
Gently making your way up the leg.
Squeezing the thighs and then bringing a little bit of weight.
Sometimes it's nice to actually bring weight to both legs at one time.
Pressing down and then go ahead and press the arms.
Vata doesn't have any container.
And so compressing and pressing like this brings that sense of container,
Brings that sense of solitude.
That sense of support being held and contained.
Okay,
Let's meet on all fours so you can make your way to hands and knees.
And spread through the toes and find the entire surface of your feet,
The top of your feet pressing down.
And then just a few cat cow,
Dropping the belly,
Opening the chest as you inhale.
And then rounding the back,
Tucking the chin towards the chest as you exhale.
Do that a few more times,
Starting to wake up the spine as well.
We're gonna try to engage muscles in this practice so that we find some stability through muscle engagement.
And then once you're there,
Walk your hands a little further forward,
Tuck your toes under and find downward facing dog.
And this first one,
You might have the feet wider than you normally take your down dog.
And you might pedal through the feet,
But try to be really intentional with your movement.
Try to be really present right here,
Right now.
And let the breath start to find a natural cadence and natural rhythm.
Maybe through Ujjayi breath too if that's in your practice.
And once you've moved enough,
Actually find stillness.
So hands are still,
Feet are still,
And see if you can engage through the legs,
Lift the quads off of the bone.
Lift your hips a little bit higher,
Press the hands down to energize and lengthen and strengthen through the arms.
And then go ahead and look forward and walk your feet all the way to the front of your mat.
I like to use blocks at the beginning of my practice,
So you could elongate the spine with the hands down,
Or you can have your hands on blocks and draw the navel in and really lengthen from the tailbone all the way to the crown of the head.
Find stability in the legs,
Press the feet down like you could shoot roots down into the earth.
And then go ahead and fold forward again,
Uttanasana.
Then bring your hands to your feet,
And drag your hands all the way up your legs to your hips,
And then maybe to the sides of your waist and your belly,
And eventually to your heart center.
You can find a prayer here.
Go ahead and close your eyes and take a moment with this intention of feeling grounded or finding a rhythm that is soothing and stabilizing,
And letting the body be the stability that we need sometimes in the mind.
Open the eyes.
When you're ready,
Reach your arms up,
Take a deep breath in,
Urdhva Hastasana,
And then bend the knees and fold forward,
Uttanasana.
Lift halfway up again,
Maybe hands on blocks,
Inhale,
And then plant your hands and step back to Plank Pose,
Please.
Take a breath in,
Stay in Plank Pose,
Head reaches back a little bit,
And drop the knees down,
Bend the elbows and lower all the way down as you exhale.
Lift halfway up,
Baby Cobra,
So it's a little bit lower.
Hug the elbows in and engage through the legs so strongly,
Your knees lift off of the mat.
Then tuck your toes under,
Bring your hips up and back towards Downward-Facing Dog,
Adho Mukha Svanasana,
Exhale.
Take an inhale here.
And an exhale.
Then look forward,
Inhale,
And exhale.
Step your feet all the way to the front of your mat,
You might do a few steps,
Exhale,
Fold,
Uttanasana.
Bring your hands to your feet and then drag your hands all the way to your hips,
To the sides of your waist,
To your belly,
And then to your heart.
Reach your arms up,
Inhale,
We'll do that two more times.
And then exhale,
Fold forward,
Uttanasana.
Lift halfway up,
Inhale.
And then plan the hand step back to Plank Pose,
Exhale.
Inhale,
Stay here,
Build some strength,
Reach through the heels,
Back against an imaginary wall.
As you exhale,
Drop the knees down,
Bend the elbows and lower,
Maybe you go a little bit higher to a regular Cobra,
Maybe you keep to a low Cobra.
Everything is really engaged here,
Except the head and the face,
Head and face are super relaxed.
Press the pubic bone down,
Engage through the legs.
And on your next exhale,
Tuck toes under,
Hips up and back,
Downward-Facing Dog.
Take a breath in,
And a breath out.
Inhale,
Look at your hands.
Exhale,
Step to the front of your mat,
And fold.
Plants your feet and drag your hands all the way up to your hips,
Belly,
And heart.
Last one,
Inhale,
Reach up.
Urdhva Hastasana,
Exhale,
Uttanasana.
Strong legs,
Lift halfway up,
Inhale.
And then plant your hand step back,
Plank Pose.
Get strong in your Plank Pose,
Drop your hips just a tad,
Tuck the tailbone under.
If you want Chaturanga,
If you feel strong,
Go for it,
Or you can keep dropping the knees on your exhale.
Maybe Upward-Facing Dog,
Or maybe you stay with Cobra,
Urdhva Mukha Svanasana,
Lift,
Lift,
Lift,
Get strong in the arms,
And then tuck toes under,
Downward-Facing Dog,
Adho Mukha Svanasana.
Inhale.
Inhale.
Inhale,
Look at your hands.
Exhale,
Step front of your mat,
And fold.
Hands to feet,
Drag your hands all the way to your heart,
And then release the arms,
Tadasana,
Take a moment.
You might separate your feet a little wider,
Just so that you get a wider base.
Sometimes feet together is a little wobbly.
That's not what we want today.
We want strong,
Steady roots.
So take a moment in Tadasana,
Feel your legs,
Feel your feet,
Press the big toes down,
Press the little toes down,
And then find the center of the heels.
Then once you have that,
So again,
You can have feet together,
Or you can have them separate,
Bend the knees and drop the hips for Utkatasana,
And if your feet are wide,
Look down and make sure your knees are in the same direction as your toes.
You don't want them in,
You don't want them out,
And then find a prayer at your heart center.
As you tuck your tailbone under,
You can get a little lower because you're engaging through the belly,
And get your toes a little fluffy,
See what happens there.
Take a deep breath in,
And a deep breath out as you go even lower.
If you feel pretty steady here,
Go ahead and start reaching the arms,
And as I did that,
I got a big curve in my low back,
Which is not a bad thing,
But it's not as easy to lower down if I'm really,
If I have a big curve there.
Stay with your breath,
And find your strength.
Can you lift your arms higher as you drop your seat lower?
Can you get your toes fluffy?
Can you feel your quads engage?
Your glutes engage,
And know that it's a lot of strength here,
A little lower,
Beautiful,
Fold forward,
Uttanasana.
And then go ahead and lift halfway up,
And what I'm gonna encourage you to do here is to have your blocks to start.
So take a moment,
Find your stability under your hands,
And then once you have that,
Go ahead and bend your knees as far down as you can,
So you're really kind of squatting.
From there,
You're gonna grab your big toes with your peace fingers.
If you can't do that,
Keep your hands on your blocks,
It's not a big deal.
If you could have fingertips down instead,
Also a great idea.
So your belly is on your thigh,
And you're looking forward.
Take a deep breath in,
And then as you start to fold,
It's the pressure of the big toes onto the fingers that drives the hips up.
And you could try that as many times as you need to really feel that in your body.
So the big toes press down,
And that lengthens the hips up as the belly and the head release down.
Stay with your breath.
And every few breaths,
You're pressing the big toes down,
Lengthening the legs,
Hips up,
Heart and chest down.
Soft,
Soft breath.
Then lift halfway,
Take a deep breath in.
Maybe your hands come back to your blocks.
And then hands to hips,
Come all the way up to stand.
Beautiful.
We're gonna move to Virabhadrasana I,
Warrior I.
So right foot stays forward.
The left foot is gonna step back.
And it usually takes me a moment to kind of adjust,
Find those two lanes on my mat.
If the heel down doesn't work for you,
You could also come to a crescent,
To a lunge.
But otherwise,
See if you can find that left hip rounding forward.
Strong anchor through the outer edge of that left foot and the left heel,
So really pressing down.
And then strong anchor through the right big toe too.
And once you have that in the legs,
My left leg is so strong that my knee is really engaged.
It's part of the whole lift from the left heel all the way to the left hip.
And then I can drive that,
I can continue to drive it as I lift my left arm and my right arm.
Big inhale.
Big exhale.
And maybe if you feel good here,
You walk your right foot a little forward.
You vary right knee a little bit more,
You re-engage through that left leg.
Feel the left outer hip engage strongly too.
Maybe you're shaking.
You know,
This could be relatively hard to hold.
And if you're just kind of hanging out,
Where can you engage more?
Because we're really looking to get into the ground.
Lengthen your right leg.
And then you're gonna hop your left foot in a little bit.
Grab your blocks for Parsvottanasana.
And then take a moment and bring your hands to your hips.
See if you can find some evenness there.
And I would really recommend to start with the blocks.
So get through a long spine,
Tailbone to the crown of the head.
Press the feet down so much that the quads lift off of the knee and off of the bone.
And then you can stay here and,
Or,
If you feel that you have the room,
You can bring arms behind your back and kind of wiggle to find the elbows.
So this requires even more strength in the legs because we're not folding completely.
We're just folding halfway.
Be aware of where your head is in space.
You want it aligned with the rest of your spine.
Beautiful.
One more breath in.
And one more breath out.
Bring the hands down if they're behind your back.
Great.
And then lift that left heel.
Step your right,
Left foot to your right.
Bend the knees,
Drop the hips,
Utkatasana.
One more time.
I know,
You thought you were done with it,
But no.
More strength.
Go a little bit lower.
More stability.
If you engage more through the belly,
Can you lift the chest a little bit more?
Great.
And then peace fingers to big toes.
So we've been here before.
Start really low.
Start belly on the thighs.
And as you press the big toes down,
The hips lift up and the chest and the heart softens down.
The elbows can start to fan out to the side.
And then notice if there's space that got constricted between the shoulders and the ears.
Can you bring more space there?
Release your head.
Shake it yes and no.
And then bend the knees and release.
Hands to hips,
Flat back all the way up.
Hands to heart.
Beautiful.
Step your right foot back with your Arbatasana one.
So take a moment to adjust.
Again,
You could be in a crescent.
You could lift that heel up.
And one side is usually a little bit different than the others.
This is my weird side.
So,
You know,
It takes a moment for me to be like,
Okay,
What needs to happen that's different than on the other side?
So feel free to find that for yourself as well.
Press the outer edge of the right foot down and the right heel really strongly down like you have roots shooting down into the earth.
Same thing with that left big toe.
And then from there,
Where can you find space?
All the way up to the right hip.
Right side waist as the right arm lifts and as the left arm lifts.
Maybe a little bit more space as you bring that left foot forward.
Big,
Big breath.
Stabilizing breath.
Strong,
Engaged legs.
Big breath.
Last one.
Lengthen the left leg and then hop your right foot in just a tad.
Grab your blocks.
Parsvottanasana.
So find your,
Find your hands to your hips.
Level out the pelvis.
See what needs adjusted.
And then from there,
Hands to your blocks.
Elongate the spine.
So from the tailbone to the crown of the head.
Press your head back like against an imaginary roll as if your whole back and head were against a wall.
And you can support that.
And then from here,
Press the feet down and lift the quads off of the knees and off the bone.
So the quads are engaged.
And once you find your breath,
Maybe the arms reach behind you.
Find opposite elbows.
And everything stays the same.
You just don't have the support of the arms.
So there's more legs,
More legs,
More legs,
More engagement,
More stability.
Another breath.
And an exhale.
Hands lower down to your blocks.
And then this time,
Actually drop your right knee down.
Drop your left knee down.
We're doing just half.
Just one more little thing.
Don't get too excited.
Swing your legs in front of you and bring your feet down.
Knees towards you.
Give yourself a hug and a lot of length in the spine for a second.
And notice how you're feeling.
Okay.
Bring your feet just a tad forward.
And your intention is to keep the upper thighs glued to each other the whole time as we're gonna go to Navasana.
We won't be here very long,
But there's still this kind of engagement and length as we create engagement.
Right arm reaches forward,
Left arm forward,
And then find length in the chest,
Like broaden the collarbones away from each other.
So we're gonna go to Navasana.
From there,
Lean back a little bit and lift your legs.
So squeeze inner thighs together.
You could have a strap around your legs if you needed that at home.
I like to have my knees bend,
My feet flex,
But you're welcome to lengthen through the legs.
Take a deep breath in.
Super slow,
Lower all the way,
Almost,
Almost,
Almost,
And then come back up.
Inhale.
Keep squeezing.
Don't let those legs separate.
Exhale,
Lower.
And then come back up.
Inhale.
Try to look up and to have a point up to go to rather than forward.
It helps lift the chest.
Exhale,
Lower halfway.
That's three.
I know,
I'm counting.
Come back up,
Inhale.
Exhale,
Lower.
Come back up,
Inhale.
We got one more.
Lower halfway.
Come back up,
Inhale.
And then feet down.
Go back to how you started.
Give yourself a squeeze and then long spine.
Maybe close your eyes for a moment.
Notice how you feel.
Beautiful.
Go ahead and lengthen your legs.
We're gonna go to Dandasana before we go to Paschimottanasana,
But the setup is the same.
So you can roll your inner thighs down.
Your outer thighs up and flex your feet.
And Dandasana has the hands flat next to you.
You may not reach the floor,
Especially if you have a lot of tension in your neck.
So you might need a book or something under your hands to be able to press down on something.
And so there's a little bit of compression in the belly,
But then there is length in the chest and in the shoulders and in the neck.
And there's really no tension in the neck.
So shoulders are reaching down quite a lot.
The legs are engaged.
It's a pose that looks like nothing and it can be so hard.
Big breath.
Just a little bit more engagement.
So reach down,
Reach down through the hands,
Down into the earth,
Reach the crown of the head up and then reach for the legs.
My quads are kind of tired right now,
Actually.
And then go ahead and release.
Give everything a little shake.
Ah,
Good job.
Okay,
So we're still here.
And I'm encouraging you to maybe sit on something if you know you're rounding in the low back.
Flex through the feet.
Bring your feet a little closer together.
Come to your fingertips.
We're gonna slowly walk to Paschimottanasana.
And it's the same thing we did standing.
We're thinking belly melting down on the thighs as we reach forward.
And I would say don't fold completely.
Actually stay a little bit lifted more than you could.
And find this kind of surrender,
This melting opportunity of the belly of the chest down.
If the toes are really readily accessible with your elbows bent,
You can do that.
Keep the chest lifted and lengthened.
And if you have to round to get to your toes,
Just keep your arms next to you,
Please.
But if you can have elbows bent,
Heart open and reach for the big toes with the peace fingers,
Go ahead and do that just for fun.
Big breath.
Beautiful.
And then release that.
You can even drag your hands on your legs as you come back up.
And find a seat.
We're gonna do a little bit of pranayama before we get to a mantra meditation.
So I'm gonna sit on a block.
I would recommend you sit on something.
If you're gonna sit cross-legged,
Sit on a blanket or a pillow.
I'm gonna sit in Virasana with my hands.
Heels under my seat or my feet a little bit outside of my seat.
And the first thing we're gonna do is to actually release any tension in the face.
So we're gonna make kind of some faces.
You can crunch your eyes and then release.
And then you can kind of stick your tongue out and really open the mouth.
And then open wide and out.
And kind of make some faces to release tension in the jaw.
You can do all at the same time.
It looks really goofy,
But it's really helpful.
And then maybe even fluttering through the lips might help release some of that residual tension.
I like to do that in the street sometimes when I feel that I have tension built up.
Okay.
And then close your eyes when you're ready,
Please.
Ah,
And you don't need to do anything.
Just find a slow,
Normal breath.
And in a moment,
What we'll do is that we'll inhale and exhale,
Imagining we're on each side of the spine.
So I'll guide you through it.
But we're basically going to travel up and down the sides of the spine all the way to the pelvis and then back up.
And each time we're traveling down,
We're grounding and anchoring just a tad more,
A bit more,
A little bit deeper.
And each time we're coming back up to the nose,
We're finding length and lightness and freedom.
Start by taking an exhale,
Please.
And as you inhale,
Imagine the air coming in through your left nostril down the spine to the pelvis.
And as you exhale,
The air comes up the right side of the spine and out of the right nostril.
Then inhaling into the right nostril down the right side of the spine to the pelvis.
Don't rush the process.
Try to slow it down.
And as you exhale,
Air comes up the left side of the spine,
Out the left nostril.
Inhaling through the left nostril,
Down the left side of the spine to the pelvis.
Exhaling up the right side of the spine,
Out of the right nostril.
Start to slow down even more.
Inhaling through the right nostril,
Down the right side of the spine to the pelvis.
Exhaling up the left side of the spine and out of the left nostril.
Do that a few more times on your own,
Please.
When you get down to the pelvis,
Maybe the energy is kind of whirling in your pelvis at the base of the spine.
Slow,
Slow,
Slow,
Slow,
Slow.
Great,
Continue on your own.
If you want,
You can have a one to two second pause at the bottom of your inhale and exhale at the base of the spine and see what happens.
So at the bottom of your inhale.
When you're full,
Pausing,
Feeling that energy swirling,
Enveloping the base of the spine.
Before you exhale.
And if the hold doesn't feel right,
You don't need to do it.
Do one more cycle of breath,
Please.
And when you're done with your exhale,
Let the breath go,
Come back to a normal.
Breath through both nostrils.
You can continue to imagine the air coming down the spine and then up the spine.
And maybe as you breathe here,
The sound,
The mantra that comes to mind that feels like it resonates,
Reverberates in your body down your spine,
At the base of your spine is the first chakra.
Chakra mantra.
And that sound is Lam.
So maybe as you breathe,
You're hearing that sound,
Lam,
Lam,
Lam,
Lam,
Lam.
Maybe it's a little slower even,
It's more,
It's deeper.
It's helping you ground even more.
Lam,
Lam,
Lam,
Lam,
Lam.
Resonating within you.
Supporting first chakra energy.
Stay here just a tad longer than you feel that you want to.
Repeating the mantra internally,
Lam,
Lam,
Lam,
Lam.
Right at the center of the pelvis,
That energy lies supporting you,
Grounding you.
If you're getting into the rhythm,
Stay with it for as long as you'd like or as long as you can.
And if not,
If you're ready to move on,
You can open your eyes and have a great day.
