Latest / Ten-Minute Mornings / 10-Minute Yoga for Balance and Crow Prep
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. Just 10 minutes to wake up, energize, and find balance to start the day. Hello, friends. Welcome to this daily flow 10 minute mornings practice. My name is James. Let's come to lie on our backs. Tighten feet about hip width distance apart. Wrap your shoulder blades under. Fingertips can brush the heels. Give your toes a wiggle so you feel your foot spread across the mat. And then start to slowly curl your spine up into a bridge pose. Really see if you can articulate. Find every vertebra one at a time. When you come to the top, just pause. Give your glutes a little bit of a squeeze. Walk your shoulder blades together and interlace your fingers. Open up the heart. Inhale. Exhale lower back down the way you came. One vertebra at a time. So in yoga, when we talk about balance, we're really just talking about supporting our weight in a way we're not used to. In other words, anything that's not just standing on two feet, bring your knees into your chest and then cocoon your forehead into your knees. Find a little core engagement. Keep your right leg with you. Extend your left foot forward. So you can keep this right knee bent or you can straighten it up like a Pilates style scissor and then reach your arms forward or keep holding the shin. Inhale. We're just activating the abdominals with a little switch, bring the left leg up. And then the right leg up, left leg forward, lower down, lower your head, give that right knee a little hug and make a circle. Now interlace your fingers behind the right thigh. Flex the right foot to the ceiling. Your leg might not go all the way straight, and that's okay. Or it goes straight, but it's further away from you than it is from me, or closer. Now flex both feet. Activate both feet. Feel the support of the mat. Ground your back body. Inhale. And then as you exhale, bend that right knee and take a little twist. Send it over to the left. Turn your head to the right. back to center, we'll do that again. Set your feet on the floor. Curl up into your bridge. It might be an inhale or it might take a little longer than just an inhale. As you come up, walk the shoulder blades together, interlace the fingers, nice inhale. Exhale, lower down, really take your time. fact, force yourself to take time if it wants to rush. And then find your little cocooning moments. We're activating the core. You feel like you're really rounding your spine. And then keep the left leg with you, the right foot forward. So you can stay here, it's essentially a bicycle. You can float the left foot up. You can float your arms forward. Wrap the shoulder blades under, inhale. Slowly switch as you exhale. Inhale. Switch as you exhale, lower down. Hug that left knee in, make a couple of circles, sort of stir the pot. and then flex the left foot up to the ceiling, interlacing fingers underneath the left hamstring. I'm not only drawing the leg gently closer, I'm also guiding it down into the hip space, which helps grow my back more too. Feel the length of the spine, feel the flex of the feet. Take your breath. And then re-bend that left knee and take an easy twist. Turn your head to the left. Again, really just focus here on waking up the spine. and then come back into center, take another little cocoon moment and rock and roll along the length of your spine. Cross your shins, come all the way to all fours, maybe. You get there like that, maybe it's different. Start with just a moment of a cat and cow. So cow first, inhale, exhale, tuck the toes around the spine. Coming back to a neutral spine, tuck the toes. This time find a down dog. And right away, walk your hands back to your feet. Soften your knees, hold your opposite elbow, sway your hips. Come into a little ragdoll. and then release that heel to your feet to touch. Squeeze your thighs together, bend your knees deeply, come into a chair pose. Now it's early days for a chair pose, so maybe yours is not as deep as it will be after you warm up a bit, but look up between your hands, ease the shoulders away from the ears, lengthen the waist. Put your weight a little more into your left heel and just pick up your right heel. Feel that grounding down. Inhale. Now keep grounding down that left foot. See if you can straighten the left leg and float the right knee up. If you need to stand up first and then do it, that's fine. Right foot is flexed. See how high you can get the right knee. I wobbled. You can wobble. Just breathe. Inhale. Let's sit back into your chair pose. Shift more weight into the right foot. Lift the left heel. Feel the firmness of the right foot pressing down, especially the instep. Press down, lift up, lots of control. Get the knee nice and high. It's very tempting sometimes if something's close to want to hold on to it. I see it in class a lot. Instead, just wobble. It's all right, nothing wrong with it. If you fall over, you're probably not gonna hurt yourself. You'll stop yourself before you hit the ground. And then back into your chair. This time, bend your knees more, separate your knees. And keep your feet together, send your arms forward. So a little malasana here. Breathe. And then drag the palms in, bring the knees up into the triceps or the armpits. We're not coming up into crow just yet, but lift your hips, shift more weight into your hands, and then release the feet down. Pick up the hands. Exhale, set the hands down, shift weight to the fingertips. and then lower down. Chair pose. Mountain pose. We'll add on a little bit to that, but that's the shape of things, and you can always do exactly what we just did again. Sit deep into a chair. Let your fingertips brush the mat if you can, and then float the arms. Shift your weight into the left foot. Pick up the right foot. This time interlace fingers underneath the right thigh, and see if you can straighten the right leg, just like we did on the back. Take a breath. And now figure four, chair. Cross the right ankle to the left knee. You might stop here, you might bend the left knee again. Just focusing on the right foot mostly. Take your breath. Rise up, bring the right knee up with you. Sit down into your chair and keep going. Lift the heels a little bit as you need to. Separate the knees, send the arms forward. Drag your hands in and start to lift your hips. Now find your abdominals, engage your core like a deep, deep rounded cat. And maybe you float one or two feet and maybe not. Maybe you just get used to having some weight in your fingertips. And you set the feet down, sit into your chair. Yeah, that was tough. That's okay. Shift your weight to the right foot, especially the ball mound of the right foot. Breast down, come up with that left knee. and see if you can interlace fingers underneath your left thigh. Maybe just give the knee a hug and you hang out and work on that balance. Right leg is active. I've decided to flex my left foot forward and then take that figure four, ankle to knee. You can stand nice and tall or bend the knee. It's just like pigeon on your back. So you feel that little opening in the outer thigh. Take your breath. Nice, calm, easy breath. Relax the eyes. Rise up. Sit down into your chair and then keep going. Feel the middle of your back pressing back as you drag your hands in and your hips up. So like you're pushing the middle of your back, your low ribs up to the ceiling and just shifting your weight forward. Maybe you float the feet and then come back to your chair. and then a mountain pose. Yeah, good job. Let's do all of that, a little flowy. You'll have that chance if you want to, to hold a toe and maybe add a twist. Totally up to you. Feel your feet. Come to your chair. Shift your weight to the left foot, rise up. Now as you get that right knee nice and high, maybe right piece fingers to right big toe. Maybe you keep the knee bent, maybe you straighten it. And then you just guide that down to your figure four chair. down, rise up just like we did in the warmup. Left hand crosses over and captures the outside of the right thigh or the outside of the right foot. Take your breath. Sit into your chair. It's okay to wobble. It's okay to fall out of it and then come to your crow. So hands come down, knees tuck up, engage your core, press your back to the ceiling and your fingertips take your weight. linear chair pose. Rise up, bring that left knee nice and high. Maybe you capture the big toe and you hang out here. Maybe you straighten. Either way you're breathing. And then you sit down for that figure four chair. And then as you rise up, the right hand crosses over, it captures the thigh or it captures the foot. Get the knee high first. And then maybe straighten the leg. Breathe. And then to your chair. ⁓ Hands forward, hips high. Maybe a little crow moment. back to your chair. Melting pose. How'd you do? If you tried it all, you did great. As always, pause just for a moment, see your day as it unfolds before you, and decide how you find balance when you have to take things a little differently than maybe you expected. With breath, with concentration, with ease, and with humor. That's what I'm gonna try. The light that is in me bows to and honors the light that is in you. Namaste.