Latest / Ten-Minute Mornings / Activate Your Core, Direct Your Energy: 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: 10 minutes of yoga to activate your core, wake up your body, open your hips, and ground your day in something steady and real. 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, set some intention for the day, and of course, like and subscribe and do all the YouTube things. Come to all fours. Setting up your quadruped, fingers fairly broad, wrap your elbows under, pull your heart forward for a cowpose. Exhale, untuck your toes around your spine. Really push them out away. Feel like your fingertips are pushing down. So it's the whole spine waking up. Inhale, cow. So cat. more time inhale. Start to bring your shoulders forward of your wrists. So feel like the shoulders want to be over the middle knuckle of your hands. And then step back to your plank. Inhale. Exhale, lower your knees, your chest, and your chin. Cobra pose. Tuck your toes, send your hips to your heels. And then pull yourself forward to plank. Really feel like you're unfurling your spine. And then you're down and facing dog. A couple of times like that. Inhale, roll forward. Exhale, lower the knees, send the hips to the heels this time straight away. Inhale forward. Exhale down, dog. time inhale roll forward unfurl lower the knees send the hips to the heels roll forward around the spine now pull the heart forward and then down dog Step your right foot outside your right hand, release the left knee down, untuck the left toes. Pull your heart forward. And then again, right hand onto the right thigh. I say again because I think we did it yesterday, but I don't even remember. Look above your right shoulder. Inhale. Exhale, release that. Tuck the left toes, lift the left knee, step the right foot back, go right to down. And step your left foot outside your left hand, release the right knee down, pull the heart forward first, and then hand onto that left thigh. Take an easy twist. Look up. Inhale. Exhale, set the left hand down, step back, downward facing dog. This time, bring your right knee to your right wrist. Walk that left knee back. No, it's pigeon pose and it's early for pigeon in a practice. Usually we do it at the end after we're already pretty warm. So don't feel like you have to go super low. Just feel long in your body, and then maybe you start walking that left foot back, and with it, the right knee comes a little further back, but the right ankle stays planted. Just stay upright for now. I'm trying to center myself. I'm feeling a little opening in that right hip. Inhale. Exhale, release the right hip now onto the mat, swing the left foot around. Step the left foot over the right leg. Try to ground in that left sitz bone, float the right arm, and wrap that right elbow around the left knee. Take a twist to your left. Inhale. Exhale, it feels really good. And then take a counter twist the other way. Untangle this, step that left foot back, and then come back to a blank position. Inhale, exhale, knees, chest and chin. Go repose, pull the heart more forward than up. And tuck the toes downward facing dog. Adjust if you need to adjust. Take a breath. And now bring the left knee just outside that left wrist and start to walk the right knee back. Take your time, get really long. As you noodle further back, the left knee might drag a little bit and it might not, and that's also okay. I'm gonna stay very upright here. A little external rotation of that left thigh feels nice. Breathe. If this feels really uncomfortable, then I encourage you to slay like a pillow, a cushion, something under, something soft under that left hip. Nice and tall. Inhale. Exhale, release the left hip down, swing the right foot around. Step the right foot over the left leg. Now try to ground down that right sitz bone. If you can't, you can straighten the left leg. If that's this just won't quite make it to the mat. Then float the left arm, inhale. Exhale, wrap that left arm around the right knee, twist to your right, look back over your right shoulder. Inhale. Exhale. One more inhale. Exhale, take your counter twist over to the left. And while you're over here, it'll be easy to untangle that right leg and start to come back to your plank. Inhale. It's a little awkward, maybe chitaranga this time. Upward facing or cobra. Downward facing dog. Pausing here. Pedal out heels, shake out head. Breathe for sure. Alright, let's do something a little different. Step your feet outside your hands. Come to your malasana. Make sure your heels are on the mat. It matters here that your heels are grounded. And if you're lifting up through the pelvic floor. Now release your hips onto the mat. Both knees can be bent or straight. So I promised a little bit of core activation this morning. Lower to half bone. Hover your shoulder blades and hover your heels. Look up. In Pilates, they call this hollow body hold. Inhale, exhale, come back to your boat. Inhale, lower, exhale, bow. One more time. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, lower down slowly. Hover here in your hollow body. And then release down. Give your knees a little hug, make circles. Plant down the heels, lift the hips, bridge pose. Interlace your fingers, walk your shoulder blades together. Firm the feet, relax the glutes. Inhale. Exhale, lower down. Hug your knees to your chest, counter the back bend. Keep your right knee with you, extend the left foot forward. Now extend the right foot to the ceiling. You can keep holding the knee. You can also keep the knee bent if this feels like it's not quite open enough this early. Maybe extend your arms. Inhale. Exhale, switch. Inhale. Exhale, switch. What makes it yoga is we're moving with breath. Inhale. Exhale, bring that left leg up. Now lower down, give your left knee a hug. Release the right knee down. Stir the pot a little bit with that left knee. And then take a twist. Guide the left across your body. Just releasing the spine after doing that core stuff. Look over your left shoulder. Inhale. Exhale and come back to center. Again, everything again. Keep the left knee with you. Extend the right foot forward. Stay here or straighten the left leg. Keep holding the leg or let it go. Low back is grounded. Heart is lifted. Inhale. Exhale, switch. Inhale. Exhale switch. One more inhale. Exhale, switch. Give the right knee a hug. Low or down. Make your little circles. And then stir. I mean then take your twist rather. Carry that left shin or right shin across. My goodness. Look to your right. Breathe here. Inhale. One here. Exhale, come back to center. Give one more little round of circles and then flex your right, or flex your both feet rather, up to the ceiling. Ground your palms beside you. You can stay right here. In fact, I think it's a nice place to stay. It's like taking legs up a wall. In fact, if you want to take your legs up a wall, you can move to a wall. Or you can ground down and come to a plow pose. So start to curl your spine up. I'm using My arms, my hands as anchors to help. Walk shoulder blades together. Maybe, maybe. So I just come from mine aren't actually, but not quite warm enough to do that. And then myself back down. Once your low back reaches the mat, come all the way to sit. How you do it? A little different one today. A little less flowy, a little more as promised, core and hip focused. He might close your eyes. might reflect on what the day ahead is holding. We might just try to be present with this breath in this moment. Self mastery. Another dancer. There are a few different variations of dancer in this deck and I like it. Self mastery. Directed attention generates energy, potency, and fulfillment. Now in our time with the word mastery. Yes, ultimately we're meant to master our thoughts. We are meant to master ourselves. However, I don't know that it's possible. It is, it is. Technically, we have some examples of it. and there are certainly some yogis who live. mastered masterful lives. I've never met one. But self-mastery. What does it mean in this moment to have mastery over yourself? And directed attention generates energy, potency, and fulfillment. We just directed our attention actually a lot to our core work, to the strength of our core, which of course supports everything that wraps around. So if you have low back stuff, oftentimes developing your core strength can help with that, as well as posture issues and things like that. generates energy potency and fulfillment. Potency means in yoga terms what you think it means. Your potent life force energy. We're not meant to waste it. We're meant to put it, place it, use it in directions that serve our community, that serve our practice, and to keep it, that top us, that heat that then builds. To change the world. So today, as we try to master ourselves, which is a process, a lifelong commitment, as we try to master ourselves, our thoughts, our minds, maybe by using our bodies as a tool, recognize that the more deliberate we are, the more focused our training, rather than Putting a lot of energy to a lot of different things. If we concentrate that focus, like a laser beam is concentrated light, then just like that light that gets concentrated, the force, the potency, the energy becomes single-sided, single-minded, and much, much, much. So where is your attention? Where is your energy? Where is mine? Let know what you figure out. I'll report back to. Have a great day. The light that is in me bows to honors and is grateful for the light that is in you. Namaste. Thank you as always for spending this time. Please take a moment. Of course, subscribe, like, share, comment, all the things. I love hearing from y'all. the few of you that comment means a lot and I start to feel a connection to you. So keep doing it. And th those of you who haven't, start. it makes a real difference. Have a wonderful day. 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.