Latest / Ten-Minute Mornings / Ground Yourself Before a Busy Day | 10-Minute Morning Yoga
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. James: Before to do lists and emails and phone calls and meetings and busy work, take over your mental and physical space. Take a moment to ground it for yourself. Hello, friends. Welcome to your daily flow 10 minute mornings practice. My name is James. Be sure to practice till the end. We'll pull a card, we'll set intention together for the day, and of course, hit like and subscribe and bell icons and all that on your way out. Spreading your fingers wide, wrist creases parallel to the edge of the mat. Wrap those elbows under. Tuck your toes and pull your heart forward. Lengthen, look up, inhale. Exhale, untuck the toes, really round your spine. Tuck the tailbone under. Separate your shoulder blades. Inhale, lengthen to your cow. Exhale wrap under to your cat. One more time. Inhale. If there's other little bit of movement that's calling out to you, you're gonna wag your tail out or roll out your head, which I seem to want to do. Feel free to work that in here as well. It's your practice. No one else's. And go ahead and step back to a plank position, top of a push-up. Inhale. Exhale, lower your knees, your chest, and your chin. And then Baby cobra, just a little bit of a lift, press down in the abdomen, and send your hips to your heels. Keep your toes tucked. Wrap everything, lengthen, and then come back to your plank and to your downward facing dog. We're into a little bit of this little down dog flow that I like a lot. So right now just pedal out your heels, but Energize your fingertips, all those things, but we'll start flowing just a little bit here. So rolling forward. Really feel like you're unfurling your spine like an exaggerated cat as you inhale. Exhale, lower the knees, send the hips to your heels. Inhale, roll forward around the spine. Tuck the toes, exhale, downward dog. So really these are just cats and cows. So you're rolling forward, that's like your cat. Child's pose has a little bit of a backbend in it, like cow. And then come back to your plank. And then down dog is a fairly substantial back bend, really. Inhale, come forward one more time. Exhale, lower the knees, send the hips to the heels. If this is hard on your wrists, you can just do cats and cows some more. Never hurts. And then to your down dog. Walk your hands and feet to the center of your mat, separate your feet and take a little ragda. Sway out your hips. Keep a touch elbow. Release the elbows, bend your knees as much as you need to in order for your palms to be flat on the floor. For some folks, you'll bend your knees quite a lot, and that's okay. for this don't use a yoga block or anything though. Just bend your knees until your palms, your whole palm. Not your fingertips and not reaching and straining, but just until they feel comfortably supported, and then let your head be heavy. Find that little tuck of the tailbone under. So you're rounding your spine like cat, and they start to energize into the heels a little bit. Your legs will go a little bit straighter. You're not trying to get them straight. If they go straight, that's fine. But that's not the goal. The goal is to keep your hands firmly rooted and to feel the firm rooting of your feet. Let your head be heavy. Inhale, exhale, rebend the knees, roll yourself up to stand, one vertebra at a time. And then come to face the long edge of your mat. Step your feet nice and wide. Toes point out. Knees will track over toes when we bend them. Float your arms up. Inhale. And then cactus the elbows. Bend the knees. Think of your thighs pressing out. Still that little posterior tilt of the tailbone. Inhale, rise up, reach up. Feel the pinky edges of your feet. Exhale, knees want to travel over those pinky edges. Gotta squats. Inhale, reach up. Look up. Exhale, pull down. This time as you stand up, parallel your left foot, pivot your right foot, open your arms, come into triangle pose. Send the left hip back and right arm forward. And eventually down. Look up at that left arm. Feel the external rotation of the right thigh. Right hip is wrapping under. You can lean that left shoulder blade back. Look up at your left thumb. Inhale. Exhale, find a warrior two. We're going to pivot that. So float the arms, pivot the right foot parallel, pivot the left foot to face the left side of your mat and open your arms up nice and wide. Come to your triangle pose. Left thigh turns counterclockwise, left hip wraps under. Trying to make a perpendicular line with your arms. Exhale back to your warrior two. Inhale, flying warrior, parallel the left foot. Exhale, rotate the right foot, open your arms. Now, turn your body so your heart is square over the right leg. Float the left arm and start to send it forward. Forward revolve triangle pose. If you need to, you can shorten your stance, hop the left foot in, try to ground the left palm, but if it doesn't make it to the mat, you can either bend the knee or use a block. Drop the left shoulder. Inhale. Exhale, come all the way up, cartwheel yourself open. Pivot the right foot, pivot the left. You've ever practiced practiced ashtanga yoga. This is very ashtanga-coded. Although we're not holding for five breaths and we're flowing a little bit more than an ashtanga practice. Reach the right arm forward and forward and forward and see if that right hand comes to the mat. Hop the right foot in a little bit if you need. Drop the right ribs, drop the right hip, maybe float the left arm. It's a big twist. It's fairly intense, especially first thing in the morning, so just breathe. Excellent cactus and then And now rise up this time, pivot that right foot forward, bend the right knee, warrior two. Peaceful warrior, open up the right ribs. Keep that space as you come to extended side angle pose. So for a lot of folks, elbow to thigh is the best idea. Lengthen the left side body. So I see a lot of people with the left arm to the ceiling and side angle. And you're trying to make a long line up the left side of your body and then make right angles in your right knee and right wrist. Maybe right hand comes to the floor. Inhale. Exhale. Rise up. Pivot the right foot. Pivot the left. Warrior two. Vend the left knee. Feastful warrior. Extended side angle. Start elbow to thigh, even if you're pretty flexible. Look up underneath that right arm. So set up your alignment first, and then if it feels good, and you want to bring the left hand to the pinky side of the left foot, go for it. Lengthen through that right side body. Inhale. Exhale and come all the way up. We'll do another round of goddess squats. Float the arms, cactus the elbows, bend the knees. This time bring your hands onto your knees. Draw for your right shoulder. Back to center. Draw for your left. Inhale, rise up. Once again, parallel your feet. Bring your hands behind you. Catch your waist. Wrap your elbows back with a long spine. Bow forward. Keep that tuck of the tailbone. Maybe you keep your hands on your waist. Or my favorite is to loop my piece fingers around my big toes. Try to make 90 degrees in the elbows. And then you're pulling forward through the big toes. Still tucking the tailbone under. You don't wanna Work so hard to get your head to the floor that you strain in your hamstring. Head is heavy. Inhale. Exhale. Lengthen your spine. Look plant your hands under your face. And then engage your quadriceps. Rise up with a flat back, float the arms. Inhale. One more time. Goddess squat. Exhale. Inhale. Rise. Step your feet together. melt in pose or inashtanga samasitihi which is facing forward. You can stay standing, you can come to a comfortable seat as we pull our card from the Yoga Oracle deck. See what comes up. As many of you have heard me say many times, this has become my favorite part of all of this. And I think it's my favorite part because it doesn't come from me. It's nice to look for inspiration in other places. And so today's inspiration, let's see. Verse plank is the pose, meaning effort toward a valued goal brings fulfillment. Effort toward a valued goal brings fulfillment. This? How much effort do you put towards things that don't really matter to you? How much time do you spend investing in something? Well, here's Max. Investing in something that is not important. Or at least not important to you. Might be important to somebody else, and maybe you're trying to please that person. That's okay if you work for them, if they're employing you. I don't know if it's so great. If it's Not your job. So what's important to you? Or do your values lie? If you're not sure where your values lie, I sometimes think about the things that consistently annoy me, the things that I get mad about, because that for me at least points to something I think is important. Not little petty everyday frustrations, but stuff that really makes you mad. Maybe that's something that's important to you. Whatever you choose, choose something. Apply right effort toward that thing. And if you don't feel fulfilled in that right effort, choose something else. Doesn't have to take over your life. Just has to be some effort towards something meaningful. And we know how it goes. We haven't gotten this card much. Thank you for spending this time with me. The light that is in me bows to and honors the light that is in you. Namaste. Thank you as always for spending this time with me and with Max. Please ask questions, leave comments, hit bell icons, hit subscribes, reach out, visit my website, dailyflow.yoga. all of these 10-minute mornings and many other videos are in my video library there. and you can filter and sort and store favorites and all those things. and it doesn't cost anything. I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to connect. Be in the comments, all the things. Have a great day. Thanks for spending this part of it with us. Namaste. James @ Daily Flow: 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.