Latest / Ten-Minute Mornings / Focus Through Balance | Morning Yoga for Tree Pose, Eagle Pose & Stability
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. James: Stiff, tight, stuck, or just not quite ready to step into the day. Well, you've come to the right place. Hello, friends. Welcome to your daily flow 10-minute mornings practice. My name is James. Practice till the ends because we'll draw a card together and set some intention for the day. And of course, be sure to hit like and subscribe on your way out. Come to stand at the top of your mat, please. Step your feet together. Inhale, float the arms. Exhale, big bell forward. A long spine. And then step back to a plank position. Top of a push-up. Broad shoulders, wrap those elbows under. Inhale. Exhale. Release your knees and send your hips back to your heels. Nice and long here. And then come forward to plank. Inhale. Exhale down. We're facing. Let's do that a couple of times. Inhale, roll forward. Feel that cat back. Exhale, lower the knees, send the hips to the heels. One of my favorite warm-ups. Inhale, roll forward, engage the legs. And then downward facing dog. Lots of good shoulder stuff, of course, spine stuff. Come forward again. Just keep going with your breath. Tap those hips back. Roll forward. Downward facing dog. Pause here. Pedal out your heels. Shake out your head. Down dog split the right leg. Inhale. Exhale. Bring the right knee to your nose. Try to connect. Down dog split. Big core activation. Use your exhale. Push off the left foot to get the right knee closer. One more time. Inhale. This time as you exhale, knee to nose. Do your best. Now set the knee down between your hands. Cross the left knee behind. And come back for Gomukasana pose, cow face pose. Doing your best to get your knees stacked. It's okay if they are perfectly. Feel your sitz bones, float your arms. The left leg is on cut top, so we spiral that left thumb down. Big rotation from the shoulder, the right thumb up and out. Follow the thumbs as you reach up and then Maybe bend the elbows and maybe see if the hands catch each other. Mine are not going to, I'll tell you that right now because it's early and I have to warm up my shoulders more before that is available. Inhale. Exhale. Release all of that. Step your right foot now flat on the floor. Float your arms up. Extend the left arm forward, the right arm back, seated spinal twist. Right hand nice and close. Wrapping that left elbow around the right knee. Not only is this a good ⁓ is this a twist for your spine, because I'm sort of pulling on my right knee with my left elbow, I feel a nice stretch in the right outer thigh. Look back. Inhale. Exhale. Take a counter twist over to the left. Shift your weight forward. That right knee comes back between the hands. Step back, plank position. Inhale. Exhale, lower your knees. This time your chest and your chin. Cobra pose. Inhale. Downward facing dog. Pedal out heels, shake out hand, take a breath. Down dog, split the left leg. Inhale. Exhale, try to bring the knee to the nose. Inhale lift. So I'm using the strength of my right leg to help draw my left knee closer. Down dog split. Last time it's also, of course, a big abdominal move. Set the left knee down between the hands, tuck the right knee between, and rock yourself back to sit. So you're sitting between your feet, doing your best again. So get the ⁓ left knee stacked on top of the right. Open your arms wide. This time the left is on top. So that means I'm gonna rotate the left thumb down. I did it wrong last time, so let's reverse it this time. Somehow, this is morning brain. So I'm gonna rotate the right thumb down, left thumb up, follow around, lean back here. Nice stretch in that shoulder. Breathe. Release all of that. Rock yourself forward, that left knee. Oops, set up for seated spinal twist. Got distracted by my arms. Feel the planting of that left foot. Flanting of your sit bones. Reach your right arm forward. Wrap your right arm around the left knee. Left hand behind you. Sit up tall. Inhale. Exhale, twist. Look back over the left shoulder. Inhale, lengthen. Exhale, twist, nice stretch all the way up the outside of the left thigh as well as the through the spine, of course. Come back to center, shift forward, set that knee down, step the right foot back, come to your plank. Inhale, exhale, knees, chest gin. Inhale, cobra. Exhale downward facing dog. Walk your hands back to your feet. Take a forward fold to the back of your mat. Bend your knees enough to get your hands flat on the floor and then energize through the heels. Feel the front of the kneecaps lifting up. And think about actively tilting the pelvis so the tailbone drops down. Nice back body stretch as well as opening up the low back. Inhale. Exhale, bend the knees. Roll yourself up to stand one vertebrae at a time. Head and shoulders come up last. I thought we'd work a little balance today. So shift your weight to the right foot, pick up the left one, and just float that knee. So see how high, without touching it, how high you can get that left knee. So you're using the strength of your leg, and my right leg is helping here, just like it did in those knee to noses. Now can you plant your tree? See where the left foot wants to be without using your hands. And unless it's on the knee joint, then ⁓ just leave it where it is. I am wobbly this morning. So, what do we do when we're wobbly? We put attention on the instep of the right foot, on the connection of the left foot to the right thigh. Hands come to prayer. Energize your connections to yourself. Everything to the midline, and then soften your drizdi, your gaze. Feel that rooting down. I'm gonna let my left hip drop a little bit here too. That's gonna help. Now maybe float the arms. Inhale. Exhale. Float that left knee forward. Cross the left knee over the right like eagle. Now if this seems unavailable to you, you can sit in figure four chair. Maybe that left foot wraps around the right shin, maybe not, or right calf. I have hands in prayer rather than eagle arms. You can choose eagle arms. Float the left arm up, sit down into a chair pose. Inhale. Exhale, full forward. Lots of leg activation. Roll yourself to stand. Shift your weight to the left foot. Float the right knee. One mistake that I made last time, and let's all learn from it, is that I lifted my right hip when I lifted my or I lifted my hip when I lifted my knees. So I'm gonna think about keeping that right hip level with the left and just lift the leg. Now plant the right foot somewhere inside the left leg. Hands to prayer. Also, almost always the second side is easier. Because our body is remembering, our nervous system is remembering what it is we want to do. Foot presses into leg, leg presses into foot, palm presses into palm. Dries D is soft focused. Maybe float the arms. Your tree has branches or not. Breathe. Cross the right knee over the left for your eagle. Maybe wrap the foot as well. But everything suctions into that midline. Tuck the tailbone down. Feel the floor. Inhale. Exhale, rise up. Or rather, inhale, rise up. Sit in the chair. Fold forward. Walk yourself out to blank. Take a vinyasa. Little reset. Some mornings are a little shaky. Some mornings are fully grounded. It's a nice way to check in with your concentration. Walk your hands back to your feet. Step your feet together, sit into your chair. Shift weight to the right foot. Rise up with the left knee. Tree pose. I'm gonna use my hand to help. Take a breath. Cross left over right. Eagle ref left arm under right if you'd like. Have a seat. Rise up, float the left knee. Standing split. So this is a little different. Keep the right knee as soft as you need and then walk yourself forward three-legged plank. Lower halfway, three point chaturanga. Upward facing dog, downward facing dog. Inhale. Walk your hands back to your feet. Exhale. Step your feet together. Chair pose. Shift your weight to the left foot. Rise up with that right knee. Nice and grounded. Second round, always a little more, a little easier to balance. Cross right over left. Rep right under left if you're taking ego arms. Woo-hoo. Famous last words. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, rise up, float the knee. Standing split. Walk your hands out. Three-point chaturanga. Upward facing. Downward facing dog. And come to sin. That wasn't easy. I think maybe I chose those poses because I needed to check in with my own grounding today. When you wobble, it's a good sign that your concentration is somewhere else. So mine was somewhere else. It might still have been stuck in those Golmokasana arms. When I watch this back later, I'm gonna see what I did wrong. Here we go. The shape is extended side angle. Focus. Progress comes from committed practice. Almost a year into doing these ten minute mornings I started last August. And today is June twenty something, fourth. I have seen a real difference in my own yoga practice. And I already had a fairly advanced yoga practice. I've been doing it for a long time. But these 10 minutes a day, I have seen, I have felt in my body impact my own practice when I show up to take class as well as when I show up to teach class. Ten minutes, a commitment to the practice, not a commitment to a length of time. What is it today? Maybe it's yoga. Maybe it's something else that you're working to cultivate. What is it today that each of us can find to commit ourselves to? To a daily ritualized maybe practice. If you wanna run a marathon, you start with a step. Let me know how it goes. I really am curious to hear about these. The light that is in me bows to honors and is so so grateful for the light that is in you. Namaste. Thank you as always for committing this time to your practice and for share for trusting me to spend it with. It means a lot, really. So if you have a minute to subscribe and like and hit bell icons and leave comments and send emails, that's wonderful. And if you don't, I hope you show up anyway. Have a great day. Thank you. Namaste.