Center

Welcome back. Day Two of the daily dose. Today the focus is center. We're going to ground down, find our center, open our heart, and open our hips. So let's get started. I have a towel with me. Whoops. Drop my towel. I have a towel with me just in case I need it. I am committed to not using any props except your own mat and perhaps the towel in this workout or this whole series rather.

But if you find yourself needing a prop, don't hesitate to use it. Will you just find your spacing on your mat and lie flat? Literally let go for a moment. Returned to yesterday's focus and breathe. Breathing in five counts and breathing out for five counts.

Let this be a mindful moment of meditation, Practicing Self Care for you and paying attention to where you are in this moment. While you continue to breathe. I'm going to talk about a few things, so make sure you're focusing still on that breath. Deep inhale followed by a full exhale. Feel the imprint of your bones on the mat. Do your heels rest equally on the mat or the backs of the legs touching.

Where's your pelvis? Do you feel your low back? Lightly lifted? Is the back of your rib cage grounded, heavy weighted? What about your shoulder blades? Breathing in and breathing out. Can you feel the backs of your arms? Perhaps your palms are open or down. It doesn't matter, but can you feel your arms grounded on the Mat?

Can you move your arms in a way that allows your shoulder blades to fall toward the mat? And what about the back of your head? Roll it side to side. Releasing through the neck. Feeling your jaw soft your mind at ease. Take one more full breath. Exhale completely in your own time and then maneuver yourself into a position for the pelvic curl. So your legs. We'll start feet and knees together to feel centered and then separate your knees and feet a little bit.

Place your two hands on your center. Feel your center and breathe a couple more times with your exhale. Allow your belly to kind of hollow inward a little bit naturally with gravity. Inhale, sending the breath to the back ribs, feeling what happens. And with the exhale, allow the belly to ground in naturally.

And one more breath, allowing the belly to soften in. Float your hands up to the ceiling and feel your shoulder blades resting on the mat and then open your arms outward in a passive way. Use your feet to push into the mat and push your body back an interest so your shoulder blades kind of attached to the mat. Creating a little bit of traction on your neck. If you happened to be wearing a high neck shirt, you might get a little bit choked. So adjust that if needed.

I'm okay with the feeling. Roll your head side to side. At this moment I'm feeling a delicious stretch through my neck and shoulders, my upper trapezius because I've created a little bit of traction in my neck using my mat and then settle here. Soften into a position that's going to allow you to move. Roll your legs to one side. It doesn't matter which one, just release. Make sure you're breathing and then pull back to center.

Just roll your legs. To the other side. Nice release and then pull back to center. Be Aware of what you feel, be aware of where there's imbalances and see if you can take care of yourself and mindfully find some sense of balance. Just one more like that. And we make a little bit of change. So we roll again. Let's go to the front back. It doesn't matter which way you're going, but the the, actually it probably does. How about we all go to the front, so make a change there, lift the back foot up and place it on top of your other foot ankle and push down through the foot and down through your leg to create a little bit more spine.

Stretch a little bit more opening through your hips here. That should feel nice, right? Wrong isn't, isn't it? It's nice. It should feel like a good idea and then come back through center and we'll change to the other side so the leg light lies flat, the other foot lifts up, push down into the ankle, foot, whatever makes sense and then push yourself into a deeper, deeper rotation. Again, that should feel like a nice idea and then gently come back and because I want to, we're going to do it one more time. Each side, press down through the leg, push up with the other foot and feel rotation. Hopefully your shoulder blades are still grounded and your arms are passive. And then undo that. Again, we're breathing and moving, so use your breath to fuel the movement.

Feel that lovely opening and then come back through to center. Settle your feet once again in your pelvic curl position and place your arms down by your side. Let your head ground feel your center heavy basically. So the navel to spine a little bit, but really just gravity is letting things sink in in hell to your back ribs. With an exhale, we curl the pelvis up through the pelvic curl position.

Inhale here in the lifted position and use the exhale to curl down one vertebra at a time. Fluid breath. Inhale. Exhale. Gather the energy from the core to lift yourself up. Inhale in that lifted position, use the exhale to lower down one vertebra at a time. So just slowly starting to pick up the pace a little bit here. Now that we've warmed up a little bit, feel your flow, feel your breath and begin to feel your body.

Remember if I stopped talking, you keep the flow of the movement. Exhale, abs first, backs of the legs. Second, we're in the high part of the pelvic curl. And then use an exhale to lower down one vertebra at a time. Go ahead and lift one leg to tabletop, followed by the other again, ground down through your abdominal wall. Feel it heavy toward your spine. Reach your hands up to the ceiling and then send them back with an inhale. With an exhale, we lift the head and chest, the arms come down.

Inhale to lower back breathing and moving. Exhale to lift. Full exhale please. And remember we're having fun here. You should be taking care of yourself, so feel free to smile or move around a little bit every now and again or hold a position if you need to. Always welcome that here, holding the legs bent. Just focus on breath. Inhale and exhale. Add the pump if you'd like. Inhale, ah, focusing on your breath.

Exhaling completely as you continue to breathe, check in with your body. Shoulders should be kind of open and arms are casually reaching, so it's not a big reach. It's just this casual reach forward. Feel the ease of the arms. Feel the ease of the breath, feel the inner thighs working and one more full breath. I'm just guessing that we're close. Exhale all your air out. Reach your hands to the backs of your legs. Lift your pelvis up, lift your body up, feel that beautiful flection of your spine and make sure that your neck is ease at ease, void of tension, and see if you can just kind of get that rocking and rolling here.

My back's just a little tight today so I need to iron it out just a little bit more. Taking care of myself and sharing that with you. Coming all the way up. See if you can make your forehead touch your knees. Perhaps now when I draw my chin into my throat and try to reach my forehead toward my knees and I get a lovely stretch in the back of my neck. Open your knees, wide feet, rest down, sides of the feet. Rest down. Hold on to the Shins and lift hall here.

Feel yourself opening the heart round through the low back. Opening the back of the heart. Good. Opening the front of the heart. Pull forward. Look up. Yeah, and rollbacks. So I like to settle into positions and so what I find myself wanting to do in this forward position is just rolling a little side to side, exploring the movement again within the movement.

I'm taking care of myself and I encourage you to do the same. Sitting nice and tall here. Let's take our legs back together. Scooch forward a little bit on your mat and then curl back to find that rounded position, holding that rounded position. Lift one leg up first with the other leg up first and hold without using your hands yet. How small can you make your ball? Keeping your spine inflection?

Remember, draw the chin toward your throat as you curve your neck forward will help keep that forward. Head thing out of the way, but it's more pulling back a little. Hold this position and breathe. Roll like a ball. If it suits you in hell to go back. [inaudible] try to keep your legs still. The whole shape actually stays still in theory and without tension.

Just one more. Okay. Balance on your tail. Ooh, find it. Shins. Come parallel to this ceiling. Straighten out your back for a moment. Open your hearts and exhale to peel back one vertebrae at a time.

Drawing your legs into tabletop position. Take your hands just beyond your knees. Let's do a double leg stretch so we reach away keeping the chest lifted and we pull in breathing. Inhale. Exhale. One more holding here. Lift a little higher. One leg out.

One leg in. Single leg. Stretch. We changed. Little Quick Cha Cha. One more time. Each side here. Now bring both legs in. Slip your hands behind your head. Let's move into the Chris Cross. Nice and slow. Slow, slow, slow. One more time. Each side. Two legs in.

We returned to this idea of rocking and of rolling until we find ourselves sitting again. Four head Denise. If that suits you, stretch in the back of the neck and the low back. All right, sit nice and tall. Stretch the legs out in front of you about the width of your mat or wider. If you prefer, scoop any flesh out that needs scooping and feel yourself sitting tall. Move into your spine. Stretch. So energize those legs. Exhale, peeling forward. Hold that position. Draw your navel to your spine. Exhale and stack yourself back up.

Breathing Hex, hail forward again. Feel that compression of the navel to the spine or the abdominals to the back and then round and roll up, sitting. Good and rolling forward again. So we are looking to stretch the back of the spine more than stretching the hamstrings. So just think that through as you do this. Feel that it's a head and neck movement first, upper back, lower back.

And then if you find yourself touching the floor with your hands, you can continue on. But the field that you're continuing on with the intention of stretching the back a little bit more. Hold here, clasp your fingers together, place them behind your head. Lift one foot up and place it down. Lift the other foot and place it down. So now you're hopefully together and then twists with a little pulse. Inhale through center. Think of really opening through your heart here.

So twist and then look up on the diagonal and use that breath fully with that rotation. With that rotation is what I'm trying to say. Sometimes when you're exercising and teaching, one gets tongue tied and I am no exception. One more time here. Good. Pause that. Good. Let's scoot forward one more time. Open the feet wide and sit tall.

So use your hands to help. Just lean back, keeping that long straight back. Try Lifting one foot, maybe pointed cause it looks pretty and then the other foot and gently point that foot. So here we're endeavoring to have a straight back for our open leg rocker. You're going to curl through the spine to roll back, keep the legs still if you're able to. And then we straight and find the upper back. Open your heart.

Whoa. Round and roll back. Go again. Take a couple moments, really opening your heart to your looking up. Feel the upper back and then again and open the heart. Just one more like that. Please. Open heart. Cross your legs in front of you, roll over your legs if you're able to and come right back to a plank position. So here were in plank. That means your hands are underneath your shoulders.

Your legs are long. You could always put your knees down if you needed to. Feel a nice strong abdominal wall here. Point one of your feet and have that toenail touching the floor. You could just stay here if you needed to or lift the leg up five times. One, two, three, four and five. Change sides and five for three.

Make sure you're breathing and one hold here. Nice and slow descent. We'll take ourselves down to the mat. Okay, now you're going to just rest on your belly here. I'm going to put my towel underneath my forehead because it's comfortable for my nose. If you have a towel, feel free to use it. If not, that's okay too. So here, try to feel your hip bones and your pubic bone grounded. Then pull your center up so your belly is light at your hipbones are grounded and then wobble your legs around and try to feel the flesh on the front of your thigh. Softening. Reground your pelvis, put your hands wherever you'd like to put them.

Cause this isn't about back extension, this is about traction. I want you to hold with your hands and your forearms on the mat and pull your body forward. So the goal here is to get, keep the pelvis hooked on the Mat, the two points of the hip bones and the pubic bones. So three points total. And then the legs are just kind of soft here. And what I feel if I stay here, pulling forward, not lifting is a lovely little stretch through my back. Lovely little stretch in my hips, especially if I stay here long enough. Feel free to reset your hands.

And I've even got my shoulders all squished up so I can pull forward and I just float my head up the slightest bit and that gives me a really nice release in my low spine and in my hip flexors. So it's really my hip flexors that are probably getting the release, which releases my low spine. Okay, rest. Feel free to do that whenever you'd like. So with your forehead resting on your towel, your arms are now actively by your side. We create that same sensation grounding through the pelvis. Inhale, lift to thoracic extension. Exhale, use the hands to pull forward.

See if you can create that same feeling. But now in extension, move my towel out of the way. We'll take the hands out in front for the single leg kick here. So still tractioning forward hooking your hip bones and your pubic bone down. Hollowing your belly inward. We lift the two legs and we do a little pulsing focus on your breath.

We have an inhale. Inhale, exhale, exhale. Think of this as the hundreds. So just using that long breath patterning throughout the class, throughout your day, throughout your life will help to calm your nervous system and allow you a little more power. I hope. Just one more breath here. Exhaling all your air out. Two straight legs gently come down to a rest position.

Bring your hands underneath your shoulders, push up to your hands and knees and then back in a child's pose or rest pose for just a breath or two here. Feel that nice opening through your shoulders, perhaps walking your fingers forward. Okay. And a nice, nice stretch through your low back. And then gently come to your hands and to your knees and just kinda roll yourself around onto your side.

And we're going to make ourselves into the sidekick position. So I would like you to try to work with two straight legs if you're able to. Feel free to bend the knee if you need. Here we are lifting up, lifting up, we bre and we're back and we breathe and we're back. So, so many people forget to use this bottom arm. Really think about pushing into the mat with that bottom arm.

And lifting up toward the ceiling, right diagonally. Hold here, push into that arm so much that you could actually lift the hand or lift the elbow. Just play with that for a moment. Yeah, and then rest, hug the knee in. We're going to make a quick transition to the other side, but never without a hug. Opening up through the outside of the hip for just a couple of moments. Again, I'm taking care of myself and swirling around on my hip is what feels good to me. So I welcome you to enjoy that changing sides. So here we placed the arm down, really lift out of the arms. I'm pushing up to lift up, hand behind the head, two straight legs, and we just float that leg forward and back.

It really is like a swinging of the leg forward and back. I'm not thinking too much about the leg, right? I'm thinking more about what's happening in my core with my breath and also at my shoulders here. So there's this heart opening feeling here because of the lifting up. One more time. Take the leg back and whole.

Draw the knee in. Come to a quick little stretch here, enjoying that lovely swirl, if you will. All right, let's do a nice back extension. So we'll come around first onto our hands and knees or right to a plank position if that happens to suit you. That felt good to me. And then just lower down. So returning to that same position, we were in a moment to go with the hands just outside of your shoulders. The legs are soft, slightly internally rotated.

Maybe in your mind we inhale, pull the body forward, draw the belly active. We exhale and lift as high as it feels good. I'm not thinking though about pushing back my friends. I am thinking about pulling forward. Give it a go. Inhale two upper back extension. Exhale, pulling forward and lifting and lowering.

Just two more like that. Inhale and exhale. My arms are just assisting me like a little kickstand almost. And one more time please. Breathing. Okay. And lower down. So from here, Tuck your toes under.

Push yourselves to your and knees. Walk your feet in just a little bit. Keep those toes tucked and feel a little stretched through the feet. Perhaps or change the feet if you need to. Perhaps your roll side to side feel stretch, and then gently push your hips up, walk your feet in a little bit and just nice and gently like roll yourself up to a standing position. And let's finish with a hip opener here. So just take a step forward with your right foot.

Perhaps it doesn't matter which one, but one foot. And then bend deep enough to feel like you're in a stretch, but you're not too far with your legs. Pull your pelvis forward, press your thigh bone back, trying to straighten the leg, take your arms up to the sky if it suits you, and really lift your heart here simultaneously. Ground down through your pelvis. Breathing in, perhaps reach with your same arm. That leg is back up a little higher. Feeling a little more stretch. Yeah.

And then undo that. Pressed the two legs to straight. Just come around and go to the other side. So hopefully your lunch is the same on the other side, but if you need to make an adjustment, please do feel that the legs are kind of soft in the beginning. Curl your pelvis down, lengthening up through your spine. Take your arms up. If it suits you, extend the back leg back and look up.

And then to add just a little bit more stretch, you can take the same arm as leg up, a little higher and over. And boy, does that make me feel something different over here is gorgeous. Yeah. Ah, breathing in and breathing out. Gently rest that come around to center with two feet underneath. You.

Take one big breath. Okay. And exhale, hands to your center. And I thank you for playing.