Latest / Ten-Minute Mornings / Friday Yoga Flow for Backbends, Balance + Truthfulness
Transcript
- James: In just 10 minutes, we'll ground, energize, wake up, and flow into whatever the day and the weekend might hold in store. Hello, friends. Welcome to your Daily Flow 10-Minute Mornings practice. My name is James. And on Fridays, we flow. Come to stand at the top of your mat, grounding down through your feet. ⁓ and be sure to practice till the end so that we can draw our card together and set intention together. James @ Daily Flow: Hello friends. Thanks for downloading the audio version of today's 10 minute mornings practice. The YouTube video is linked in the show notes. And if you're staying with just the audio, don't worry about doing it right. Just move and breathe in a way that feels honest. That's enough. a follow or review goes a long way. And of course, you're always welcome to practice live with me on YouTube, 8 a.m. weekdays. James: That's it. Firm your feet. Float your arms. Inhale. Exhale, open your arms wide, bring them to your side. Do that again in how it the arms. Exhale, wide out to your sides, opening up, activating the shoulders a little bit. This time inhale, close the arms. Exhale, bow deeply. Find your long spine, pause here. Wrap the shoulder blades back. Actively tuck the tailbone so you feel the front of the pelvic bone scooping up into the navel and start to bend your knees deeply, coming to chair pose. Feel that spiraling together of the thighs as you even press down more firmly through the feet and then see if you can go a little deeper. See if the biceps can come alongside the ears and you can lift your heart. It's a back bend, inhale. Exhale, bring your hands down to frame the feet. Inhale, long spine. Step back to your plank pose. Take your breath. Lower knees, chest and chin. Cobra pose. Downward dog. Roll yourself forward to plank, release the right knee down. Extend the right arm forward, flip the left foot back, inhale. Exhale, knee to elbow. Inhale, lengthen. Set the right hand on the floor, set the ball of the left foot on the floor, then flip the left arm up to the ceiling. So you're in a supported side plank, then you might flip the left foot. So you're in a supported half moon. You might bend the left knee, capture the left hand. And it's essentially a bow pose, which we often do on our bellies. So peel, press that heel away, make your back bend. Take your breath. And then big step back with that left foot. Set the left hand down. Reorganize here. Bend the left knee, flex the left foot up to the ceiling. And see if the right hand can reach back and find the left ankle. If it doesn't, that's okay. If you're reaching towards it, then you're pulling the heart forward for your back bend, like dancer. Inhale. Exhale, step the left foot back, set the right hand down. Down Dog, split the right leg high to sky. Step that right foot all the way forward. Warrior I. Rise up. Inhaling. Exhale, shift forward. Come all the way up to stand and see if can find a quad stretch, holding that left foot in both hands. Wrap the shoulder blades back. Think about pressing the knee down, drawing the thighs together and lifting the heart. Take your breath. Step back to your warrior one. And then take your vinyasa. Hands come down, step back. You can take knees chest or chaturanga, cobra or up dog. A little pause, a little breath. Then roll yourself forward, lower just the left knee down onto the floor. Extend the right leg back and the left arm forward. Inhale, exhale, knee to elbow, find your core activation. Inhale, lengthen, and set the left hand down. Ball of the right foot down. Float the right arm to the ceiling, let that left shin kick out. Nice supported side plank. Maybe float the right foot. Maybe reach the right hand back, capture the right ankle. Kick that heel away, find your back bend. Breathe and then step it back. Reorganizing, flex the right foot up to the ceiling. You feel a little glute squeeze here. Then that left arm is gonna reach back and see if it finds the right ankle. And if it doesn't, it'll just set the left hand on the floor again. Press the heel up, pull the heart forward, inhaling. Exhale, release that. Down Dog Split, the left leg. Inhale. Get nice and long and then step the left foot all the way forward. Warrior one. Take your breath, feel the firmness of both feet. And now as we start to shift forward, come all the way up and see if you can find the right foot in both hands, squeezing the thighs together, pressing the knee down, lifting the heart up. Just a quad stretch, like a runner stretch. Inhale and exhale, release all of that, big step back. Take your vinyasa, hands come down, follow your breath. Once in your down dog, take a pause. Bend your knees a lot. Lift your heels. Really pull your hips back towards your heels and then just lengthen the legs and come forward. Think about the crown of your head facing the floor. Send them back. Engage in the fingertips. This time maybe float to the top. Long spine. deeply. Bend the knees, float the arms. Chair pose. Look up. We're gonna flow a little bit now. Inhale. Exhale, bow forward. Inhale, long spine. Make your way to your down dog, step or float. Drop dog. Your downward dog. This time straight away, right leg high to sky. Inhale. Exhale, step it forward. Rise up, warrior one. Over now, warrior two. Just breathe. Straighten that right leg. Triangle pose or half moon pose. Maybe bend the left knee and capture the left foot in chapasana. Find that bow shape. Big stretch in the right inner thigh as well. Inhale. Exhale, big step back, warrior two. ⁓ Inhale, warrior one. This time as you come forward, send that left arm forward and the right arm back and see if you can bend the left knee and capture the right foot, or left foot in your right hand. And start to send everything back behind you. Send the foot back, send the head back, send the extended left arm back. Keep firming down inside the right foot. Take your breath. Warrior I. Chaturanga. Not easy. And if you want to repeat that quad stretch, you can always do that too. We meet in down dog. Feel your feet, feel your fingertips. Most of all, feel your breath. Down dog split left leg, inhaling. Exhale, big step forward. Warrior one. Open, Warrior II. Straighten that left leg. Triangle or Half Moon Close. If you're working on half moon and you wanna bend the right knee, just see if the right hand finds it. And then kick that heel away so you're opening your front body more. You're finding that quad stretch really. Take your breath, release it, soft landing. Warrior two, warrior one. Start to send the right arm forward and the left arm back. Get long, press down on the instep of the left foot. Lengthen first and then lift. Everything goes back, everything. The head, the right fingertips, the right heel, opening the heart. Take your breath, warrior one, Chaturanga, and so on. Not easy. shapes themselves, not all that advanced, but putting them together in this way is a challenge. So bend your knees, look forward, step or float, long spine, bow deeply, chair pose. Mountain pass. I'm a little sweaty, how about you? Come to sit. I'm pulling this one. Truthfulness. Be a faithful servant of truth. in the eight limbs of yoga, which starts with the five yamas, right actions, right intentions, essentially, how we choose to show up in the world. Truthfulness, non-lying, is more than being honest when you're asked a question. It's being truthful in all things. How you show up. whether you're honest with yourself. To be completely truthful means that you're not harboring any harmful thought or any thought at all. that is less than 100 % honest. It's hard to do. But Patanjali tells us, if we find that state of truthfulness, then it's so powerful that everyone around us will also have to be completely truthful. They'll have no choice. Maybe that's some energy we bring today. Not cruel, ever. Always loving. always truthful. The light that is in me bows to and honors that true deep light that is within you. Namaste.