Latest / Ten-Minute Mornings / 10 Minute Morning Yoga for Twists, Balance, and Calm Focus
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. 10 minutes to an energized, grounded, calm start to the day. Hello friends, good morning. Welcome to your Daily Flow 10 Minute Mornings practice. My name is James. Come to all fours. We'll start with a little bit of cat and cow. Inhale, pull the heart forward, tuck the toes. Really feel the energy of the knees, of the toes, of the fingertips helping to lengthen your spine. And then untuck the toes and deeply round. Same thing as you ground down, you're able to go a little deeper, the spine a little bit more. Again, inhale for your cow. Exhale for your cat. Hard time doing these with my eyes open. I just kind of want to go inside. So feel free to close your eyes. Inhale, last round. Exhale. Coming back to your neutral spine, bring your right fingertips to your right ear and just lift that right elbow nice and high, using the left hand like you're trying to drag the mat to the left. And then just bring the right elbow to the left wrist. Again, inhale, open the heart. Exhale, tap down. Inhale, lengthen this time, straighten your arm, it up. and thread the needle, bring the right ear all the way down to the mat. Keep the hips nice and high. Maybe walk the left arm forward. And by walking the left hand forward, I'm able to ground a little more and feel more stretch in the right shoulder. And then I have to do a little work in the hips to keep them level, so I anchor down and the knees more firmly. And then bring that left hand back. Float the right arm up. And set it down. Only the other side, left fingertips, left ear. Open up the chest, inhale. Exhale, tap down. Inhale, open, lengthen. Exhale, bring the elbow to the wrist. Last time, inhale, this time straighten that left arm. And thread the needle. We're doing a bunch of twisting today, so it matters to start slowly and to let the spine kind of warm up. Also lets you check in. to see how things are feeling. If you haven't moved yet today, I haven't really. And it's a nice opportunity and an important one just to see how things are feeling before you assume you can dial things up right away. Bring the right hand back, flip the left arm up. Then come back to neutral. With 10 fingers spread wide, start to shift your weight more into the fingertips. Feel the gripping at the tops of the fingers, wrapping under the elbows, step back to plank. Quads engaged, heart pulls forward, carve out the navel. Inhale, exhale, lower your knees, your chest and your chin. And then comes your baby cobra. Press the belly down, pull the heart forward, maybe pick up the hands. Use the strength of your back to make the back bend. And set those hands down. Send your hips back to your heels. Nice move through child pose. We won't really stay here. Then come forward to plank. And downward facing dog. Adjust what needs adjusting. out heels, shake out head. First down dog of the day. Take your breath. Stay with your breath. The hallmark of vinyasa yoga of course is that we link breath and movement. But sometimes it's very tempting to let the movement lead rather than letting the breath lead. Lift your right leg high and step the right foot outside of the right hand coming into a nice high lizard. And then lower the left knee down and tuck the left toes. Bring your right hand to the inside of your right thigh and allow yourself to come to the blade edge of that right foot as you guide the hip out. This is sort of like a gentle pigeon, because I'm getting stretched in that right outer thigh. Re-firm the right foot down so the knee is over the ankle, and then float the right arm up. Reach it back, see if you can capture the left foot. If it's too far away, don't even worry about it. You can loop a strap or a towel around your foot, but you certainly don't have to. And then release all of that. tuck the left toes and step the left foot outside the left hand coming to a malasana squat. Take a breath. This time, I'm take the right hand down in front of the right shin and float the left arm up. Opening up. Look up over at the left hand. and then reach the arms forward, tuck that tailbone, have a seat. We find our boat. We're not doing all that stuff we did yesterday, but nice little core moment, take a breath. And then lower all the way down, three, two, one, hug in the elbow, or sorry, hug in the knees. Make little circles with them one way and the other. Keep hugging them in. Rock and roll forward and back. Give your spine a little massage. and then come all the way up and over, making your way back to all fours. We'll do those things on the other side. Start by setting up your plank, step back, inhale, exhale, knees, chest and chin. Cobra pose. Tuck the toes, tap back to Child's Pose. Roll forward to Plank. Down with Jason Doug. Check in with yourself. Breathe. Left. Make that left leg active. And the more you activate the left leg, actually the easier it is to get the right heel to the floor or closer to it. And then step the left foot outside the left hand. Lower the right knee down and tuck the right toes. Left hand to the inside of the left thigh, open up that hip. Look up over the left shoulder. Breathe. Now step the foot flat on the floor again. Left knee over left ankle, float the left arm, swim it back, see if you can capture the right foot. Take a breath. Untangle all of that. Plant the left hand down and then step the right foot forward. Sitting into your malasana. Left arm travels down towards the floor. Right arm goes up on a diagonal. Big revolve malasana squat. Take your breath. Arms reach forward. If you want to, you can take your fingers behind you or you can reach them forward for more of a challenge. Also attentive this time, release the hips, float the feet. Take your breath. Lower down slowly, five, four, three, two, rock and roll along the length of your spine. We're moving on straight away. Rock yourself over, step or float back, plank position. Inhale, exhale, Chaturanga. Inhale, upward facing dog. Exhale, Downers facing Dog. Right leg high to sky. Step the right foot between the hands and if it doesn't make it, just noodle it up. High Lunge. Start to send the left arm forward and the right arm back. Keep that left arm reaching forward, forward, and then hook it outside the right thigh. Hands come to prayer. over that right shoulder. The firmness of the legs keeps the hips square. The energy of the palms guides the heart to the thumbs. Release the twist, warrior two. Straighten the right leg. Triangle pose. Take your breath. And then re-bend that right knee. Hands come to frame the right foot. Step back, take a vinyasa. If you'd like, skip it if you'd rather. Down Dog Split, the left leg, oops. Really reach it up and back. And then step the left foot all the way between the hands. Come up to your High Lunge. Float the arms, breathe. Send the left arm back and the right arm forward. And then start to send that right arm further forward, further forward, and see if it can more effortlessly hook outside the left thigh. Breathe. Legs are engaged, feet are engaged, hips are level. or two. Stay grounded in that left foot. That's your anchor. Straighten the left leg, triangle pose. Look up at that right hand. And as you re-bend the left knee, both hands come down to the floor, step back, take your flow. One more time, one more little progression. Down dog split, right leg. Step the foot between the hands. High line. Prayer twist. Start to shift your weight more to the right foot. Can you hold the twist as you energize the ball mound of the right foot and float the left one? Warrior two, big step back. Straighten the right leg, triangle or half moon. Step back. I know I'm out of time, but we're gonna finish up. Take your vinyasa. Down dog split the left leg, step it forward. High lunge. Take that airplane-shaped twist and let that guide you into your prayer twist. Now, if this is a fine place for you to work, you're right. But maybe you start to shift more weight forward. You energize into the ball of the left foot. You keep calm, steady breath. Warrior II. Energize that left leg. Triangle or half moon. And then step back. We finished with the vinyasa. Come back to your mat and have a seat. We have to prepare for challenge. So it was a longer warmup than it was a flow, but that was appropriate. If you're into all this twisting, you gotta wake up your spine. So how will you carry that into your day? How will you let that knowledge inform what you do off the mat when it actually counts? The light that is in me bows to and honors the light that is in you. Namaste.