Latest / Ten-Minute Mornings / 10-Minute Morning Yoga for Balance, Core Strength & Twists
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: the reason to show up is because you don't feel like it. Hello friends. Welcome to your Daily Flow Ten Minute Mornings Practice. My name is James. And of course be sure to practice till the end. We'll pull a card, we'll set some intention for the day, and be sure to hit like and subscribe on your way out. Come to your back. We're gonna start with little bit of backbending, but with some hip isolation first. So really just lift the front of your pelvis and press down your low back. And then roll through the tailbone. So I don't know if you can even see this from there, but I'm just finding a little posterior tilt, press down the low back, anterior tilt. And the whole time. Feeling that little low back movement, that little bit of massage feels really nice. But I'm also thinking about keeping my glutes relaxed and using my core to do this work. My core and then eventually my legs. So as I start to roll up my spine one vertebrae at a time, trying to keep my glutes soft and use my legs and my core. I got to a sticky spot so I'm gonna rewind a little bit then come back up. When you arrive at the top of your back bend and your bridge pose, give your butt a little tap and see if you can relax it. Interlace your fingers, walk your shoulder blades together. So that little sense of kind of sticking your butt out almost and then energizing the feet helps recruit the legs and the abdominals. So you're not just pushing up. with your butt and then roll down slowly as you can. See if you can still keep a little bit of softness. It's okay if it engages a bit, but we're doing our best here. that feels really good. Bring your right knee in and cross it over the left. Make a figure four. And then interlace your fingers around that left thigh. Press the right elbow into the right inner thigh. Both feet are flexed. Pull that in. Supine pigeon. Breathe here. Inhale. Exhale, set the left foot down. This might seem a little weird, but I'm gonna step my right foot over to the side. So my right foot is planted. It's a nice deep twist, and I'm turning my head to the right. Still in that figure four with my legs. I like this because I feel a little more opening up through the what is this, the soaz, I guess. Feeling that traveling up the the low back. Nice deep breath here. Inhale. And exhale, see if I can go a little deeper. And then coming back into center. Cocoon in your knees to your forehead and your forehead to your knees. Really try to round the spine. And I'm using my hands actually to help pull my knees in. Tuck the chin. Take a nice inhale. And as you exhale, see if you can feel your core engage. And then lower back down. Let's do that all one more time. Plant the feet, all the shoulder blades under, start to energize down through the feet, and feel each vertebra up one at a time. And then especially as you're getting to the top here, find that little anterior pelvic tilt. Give your boots a little tap, let them go. Interlace your fingers, walk shoulder blades together. So the feet are doing some work, the legs are doing some work, the core is getting actually a little bit of a stretch. And it's how it makes it easier to breathe, which is nice. And then roll down the way you came. Left ankle figure for the right knee. And then left hand thread the needle. As you hold that right thigh, left elbow, right, left elbow presses into the left inner thigh. Waking up those abductor muscles, like IT band. Inhale. Exhale, set the right foot on the floor, keep this, maintain this figure for, and just let this whole contraption go over to your right. So the sole of my left foot is on the floor. Knee is still pointing to the ceiling, turn to the left. Now for some reason this feels like it's too much or it's painful. You can of course just take a regular supine twist where you just tug the knee and take it over. But I like shaking it up sometimes, find different things. Explore. I found this just because I did it one day. Nobody told me to. And I thought it felt really nice. And you can see I'm using my right hand here on my left thigh to help go a little deeper, give myself a little traction. Another inhale, an exhale, and then bring all that back to center. Cocoon everything in. Really feel a deep exhale. And then rock and roll yourself. All the way to all fours. So reorganize here a little bit as you come to your quadruped. Ten fingers spread wide, wrist creases parallel to the top edge of the mat. Wrap those elbows under, pull your heart forward for a cow. Untuck the toes around the spine for your cat. Just do a couple of those. Inhale, lengthen. Excel round. Yeah, yeah. Step back to your plank and then a downward facing dog. Bend your knees as much as you need to in order to feel like you're able to lengthen your spine. And this time it's a posterior, posterior tilt of the pelvis, so the tailbone drops towards the heels. You feel a little more lengthening in the low back and a sort of scooping out in the core. Shake your head out, maybe. Inhale. Exhale, and then walk your feet. We'll go about halfway in here actually and just pause, bend your knees quite a lot, hold opposite elbows, sway out your hips a little, let your head be heavy. And then release all of that. Roll yourself up to stand one vertebrae at time. We're gonna do bit of twisting today. So step the feet together and then sit into a chair pose. Look up between your hands. Now bring your left forearm to the outside of your right thigh, right hand to the sacrum. So there's a not a super deep twist. We're not starting there yet. Feel like you're using that right hand to help press the low back down and keep the hips square. Not press down. guide down. No force inhale. Release the twist. Come to stand and give that left knee a hug. So shift your weight to the right foot. Pick up the left knee. Give it a nice hug. Find a little balance here. Engage through the right leg. If the balance is tricky, you can keep the ball of the left foot on the floor, no big deal. And then set that down. Sit back into a chair. Inhale. Exhale, right forearm to the outside of the left thigh and then left hand low. This is a nice modification, too, if you ever are taking class or practicing and it calls for a prayer twist, and that's just not feeling like it's good in your body that day. this is a great option. Look up over the left shoulder. Make sure your weight's shifting back so there's no pressure on the knees. Inhale. Exhale. And then release the twist so you're in your chair. And as you come to stand, bring the right leg up with you so you're energized down to that left foot and just give it a hug. Feel the strength of that left leg, the instep of the left foot. This is an internal rotation of that left thigh. Inhale. Exhale, sit back into your chair. And fold forward, hands to the mat. Find a long spine. Bow deeply. Sit into your chair, pin the knees, flip the arms. Now I am going to take a prayer twist this time, but you can repeat that first one if that's a better choice for you. So this is the elbow to the outside of the thigh, and I'm just using my eyes to check my knees, be sure they feel even. Energizing the palms into one another, lengthening through that low back. Look up over your right shoulder. Exhale. Release the twist. Shift the weight to the right foot. Come up with that left leg. Now the right hand is going to find the outside of the left thigh. I'm going to extend the left foot forward. Point the toe. Energize. Inhale. Exhale. Sit back into your chair. Look up. Inhale, take a twist to the left. Right elbow outside the left thigh. Again, check out your knees, make sure they're all even, because if they're not even, neither are your hips. Energize the palms. Guide the heart to the thumbs. Inhale. Exhale. Release the twist. As you rise up, carry the right knee up. Left hand to the outside of the right thigh, right hand goes to the back wall. Point your right toes forward. Maybe if you want to challenge your balance, turn your head, look back beyond your right thumb. Inhale. Exhale, sit into your chair, inhale, exhale, bow forward, long spine, fold deeply. One more round, chair pose, inhale, shift the weight to the right foot, rise up. This time I'm going to see if my right hand can find the outside of my left foot. Take a breath. Now I did it out of order on purpose. Because now I'm gonna take a figure four chair. Bring that left ankle to the right knee. Look at that. We did this seated, we did this on the backs earlier. Now maybe left elbow to the sole of the left foot. Now this is really difficult, so don't feel like you have to. Maybe you take the four or maybe you skip the twist. Press down on the right foot, release, rise up, sit into your chair. Shift weight to the left foot, rise up with the right one. I'm gonna find the outside of the foot. You can find the outside of the thigh. Extend. Revolved hand to big toe pose. Inhale, exhale, find that figure for chair. Balance is largely about concentration. So if we concentrate, we place our attention where we want it. So in this case, the sole of the left foot. Right elbow is on the sole of the right foot. It's a deep twist. Inhale. Exhale. Release the twist. Rise up. Float the right knee. And there I wobble. See, I lost my concentration. Sit down into your chair. Fold forward. Shake your head out. Roll yourself to stand, one vertebra at a time. How'd you do? Less flowy today, but a lot of core work, a lot of leg work, a lot of balancing work. You can sit or stay standing if you'd like. Give these cards another quick shuffle. Just see what comes up. See maybe if we find a little inspiration for how to step into the day. How about this one? Well, karma. We had it either yesterday or the day before as well. Unlearned lessons and unrealized effort hold unclaimed growth. Unlearned lessons and unrealized effort hold unclaimed growth. A key tenet of karma, and you hear it in a lot of even self-help books, is that life keeps giving you the same lesson until you learn it. When you see patterns developing, when a relationship feels like another relationship in your life, a past one maybe, maybe a different version of a present one. Probably there's something in there for you, some little nugget. That you're supposed to learn. And even if you don't believe in karma per se, even if you don't think that you're supposed to learn it, it is an opportunity to learn. So what will today teach us? What's the lesson we haven't even realized we need to learn? Know how that goes for you and what inspires you. The light that is in me bows to and honors and is inspired by the light that is in you. Namaste. Thank you as always for spending this time. Please take a moment to like and share and subscribe and hit bell icons and do all of that stuff. And head over to dailyflow.yoga, my website. And join the mailing list 'cause I got some things coming up. And also every Monday I send out a digest of the past week's videos so you can have a nice look back and maybe start building your library of favorites over there. Or don't. And just keep showing up here, because that's great too. Have a good 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.