Latest / Ten-Minute Mornings / Lunar Landing: Warrior III + Half Moon (10-Minute Morning Practice)
Transcript
- 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. In just 10 minutes, we'll wake up, energize, ground, balance, and be ready to step into the day for whatever it holds. Hello, friends. Welcome to this daily flow 10 minute mornings practice. My name is James. Come to stand at the top of your mat. Plant your feet about mat's width distance apart. We're just gonna start with a little standing cat and cow. Bring your hands to your shins. Pull your heart forward. Think about lengthening your spine more than making your back arch. So get nice and long and maybe wrap those shoulder blades under a little bit. Inhale. Exhale deeply around your spine. Tuck the tailbone. Open up the space between your shoulder blades. Inhale. Exhale round. and lengthen out from that pelvis. There will be a little pelvic tilt, but you're not putting any pressure on the low back. And then again, round. ⁓ Finish this round and then come to stand. Step your feet together. Float the arms overhead. Just continuing our spinal warmup with a little bit of vinyasa. Fold forward, nice long spine. Hands to shins. Bow deeply, feel that opening up through the hamstrings, activating the core and the glutes. Rise up on an inhale. And then right away, fold forward on an exhale. We'll do this twice more. Inhale, flat back. Exhale, bow. Inhale, rise. Then right away, exhale, fold. We'll add on now. Find your flat back. Step the left foot back. Release the left knee down onto the mat and untuck the left toes. Interlace fingers on top of the right thigh, finding our crescent lunge. Let's see what you can do about really letting the hips sink down here. So I'm feeling a little stretch in the back of my right leg, right at the glute, and a little stretch in that hip flexor on the left. The right foot is firm and the tailbone is tucked so there's no hyper extension in the back of the leg. And then float the arms. ⁓ Exhale, bring your hands down to frame that right foot, lengthen the right leg, brief half split. Feel free to put your hands up on blocks or walk them closer if you'd like. Again, just finding the stretch here, waking everything up. Re-bend the right knee, tuck the left toes and lift the left knee. And then hop that left foot in a few inches. Let's come to a pyramid pose. Again, feel free to grab blocks if you'd like. Feel free to gently rest your hands on your shin, but ⁓ don't put any pressure on it. Energizing the ball mound of that right foot, pushing the mat forward. I feel a nice stretch in the back of my left leg because I'm actively trying to ground down my left heel. and then re-bend that right knee. Let's find a warrior one. I'm gonna start with my hands on my thigh again, because it's still early days, and then wrap under. Really feel the pinky edge of the left foot, the blade edge, like it's trying to slice the mat off, and then use the strength of your right leg to help pivot your chest forward so everything is super grounded. Then maybe you float the arms. Maybe not. And then again, just like in that cow pose, lengthen first, and then maybe a little backbend. Take a breath. Bring your hands forward to frame the right foot and then shift your weight and see if you can pick up the left foot and step it in with control. Find a flat back. Bow deeply. Reverse your swan dive, rise up. And then fold on your exhale. Find your flat back, step the right foot back, release the right knee down, untuck the right toes. Start with the fingers interlaced on top of the left thigh, sink the hips. Energize down any points of contact with the mat. So the four corners of the left foot, the top of the right foot, everything is actively pressing down. But I have a little bit of a tuck in the tailbone so that I don't hyper extend that left hamstring. It's a condition called yoga butt. When you do that, it doesn't feel good. It sounds sounds cute. It's not lift up and out from that pelvic floor. Inhale as you exhale, bring your hands down and start to energize to the left heel. Flex the left foot. None of us are perfectly symmetrical, so you might be a little tighter or looser on the left side. Just be with whatever you feel. Sensation is good, pain is bad, so just feel that ⁓ sensation, whatever it might be. And then start to reap in the left knee. Tuck the right toes, lift the right knee up, and let's find that pyramid. I'm gonna hop my right foot in ⁓ several inches, really. And the ball mound of the left foot is pushing forward. feeling that energy travel all the way up my left leg and help plug that femur up into the hip socket. Take your breath, inhale, exhale, soften that left knee. Bring your interlace fingers. I have to noodle my right foot back a little more so my warrior one is the proper length. These warriors should more or less match the length of your plank and then feel the energy of your feet traveling up through the legs, helping to square the hips. And then maybe you float the arms. Lengthening is more important than backbending. So get nice and long up from that base. Inhale and then bring hands to frame the left foot with as much control as you can. Shift weight to the left foot. Press down to step that right foot forward. Find a flat back. or surcelon dive. This time come to a mountain pose. Hands can be by your side or in prayer. The name of today's video, Lunar Landing on the thumbnail, I borrowed, I am so no stealing ⁓ from an instructor on a post COVID little spa vacation that we took at a very beautiful place up in the Berkshires, a guy named Mark. And I let him know I'm stealing that word. I use it all the time to think about as a nice image of how you land when you step forward or step back. ⁓ We won't work on floating back Chaturangas today. That's a bigger class. But ⁓ how you plant yourself when you arrive, I think it's a nice image. So I took it. Feel your feet on the floor. We'll add on this time. Inhale floats the arms. Exhale, bow deeply. Find your long spine and step that left foot back. This time, keep the left knee lifted and come straight to that Warrior I. Inhale. Exhale, find a Warrior II. Energize down into the ball mound of the right foot. Triangle pose. Left hip travels back, right arm forward. Feel the rooting in the four corners, especially the ball mound of the right foot. Start to shift your weight more to that point. And as you do so, press down, see if you can lift the left foot. If the answer is no, if you wanna stay in triangle pose, you certainly may. Feel your right leg engaged. Keep your left leg engaged, bend it slowly, slowly with control. Step the left foot back. This is my right leg. I may have said the wrong one. Step the left foot backwards right. And then find your warrior one. We're gonna do the same thing, but now to warrior three. Shift forward, forward, forward, plant down the ball of the right foot. The instep of the right foot, engage the right quadricep. Inhale, exhale, step back, warrior one. Open out warrior two. Cartwheel your hands to frame the right foot, step that left foot forward. Inhale, flat back. Exhale, bow. Reverse your swan dive, rise up. And your mountain pose. Let's do it on the other side. Inhale, close to the arms. Exhale, bow. ⁓ flat back, step the right foot back, find your runner's lunge, and then spiral that right heel down, rise up for your Warrior I. Find your feet. Remember, every pose starts with the mat, no matter how fancy you feel that firming down in both feet, especially the outer edge of the right foot. in the ball mound of the left foot. Feel that weight, shift forward, see if you find a Warrior III, push down in the ball of the left foot, engage the left leg, also engage the right leg. Everything's active, core is engaged. Now the strength of that left quad, keep it engaged, bend the knee, reach the right foot back, step back slowly, slowly, slowly. That's something, open out Warrior II. I just broke a little sweat. Energize the left leg, triangle pose. Right hip back, left arm forward, and at some point it comes down. Feel a nice little stretch in the left inner thigh. Again, ball mound of the left foot. Start to shift weight more there. Shift and press down as you move forward. Engage that quadricep. Your legs are strong. Even if you don't think of them as being strong, I promise they got a lot of muscle there. So oops, I started talking and I wobbled. That's okay, ball mount to the left foot. Again, step back with control, soft, soft lunar landing. Inhale, exhale cartwheel hands to friend that left foot, step the right foot forward with control. Flat back. Bow deeply. Reverse your swan dive, rise up. hands to heart center. to do. Great is the answer because you showed up. Take this moment as we always do to end our time together by reflecting on whatever the day might hold. How will you arrive? How will you land in the spaces where you find yourself? How will you treat others? How will you treat yourself? The light that is in me bows to honors and is so so grateful for the light that is in you. Namaste.