Latest / Ten-Minute Mornings / 10-Minute Morning Yoga for Balance, Crow Pose & Hidden Blessings
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: 10 minutes to ground flow, energize into whatever the day or the weekend might hold, including technical issues. Sorry for any delay if you're waiting. Hello friends, my name is James. Welcome to your Daily Flow 10-Minute Mornings practice. ⁓ Be sure to practice until the end, because we'll draw a card together and set intention. Come to your back. And as you lie down, firm your feet so that your ankles are right underneath your knees. As you wrap your shoulder blades under, roll yourself up, one vertebra at a time. Just start to articulate that spine. Get the hips nice and high, that's an inhale. Exhale, lower down the way you came. Do that again, inhale lift. Exhale lower. Hug your knees into your chest. Keep your right knee with you, extend the left leg long, and then rock yourself all the way to sit. Step the right foot over the left thigh. Sit up tall. Take a twist. Inhaling. Exhaling. Inhale, rise through center. Set your ⁓ hands down and take a little counter twist the other way. Then come back to center. You'll be in a figure four, so step the left foot in. plant down and lift the hips. Inhale, exhale, lower down, and then untangle that boat pose. Look up, lower down slowly. Five, four, three, two, one. Anchor down in the feet, curl the spine off the mat. Inhale to bridge. Exhale to lower. Hug everything in, cocoon everything in. Keep the left knee, extend the right one. Rock yourself to sit. Step the left foot over the right thigh. Inhale, close the arms. Exhale, twist to your left. Toller on the inhale. Go further on the exhale. And a little counter twist over to the right. Stepping, bending that right knee, stepping the right foot in, lifting up. Alter in figure four. And then lower down and come to your boat. Untangle, float the feet, maybe reach the arms forward, look up, inhale. Cross the shins, rock yourself all the way forward, step back to plank. Setting up your plank, 10 fingers wide, external rotation of the biceps, pull the heart forward, inhale. Exhale, lower knees, chest and chin. Inhale, Cobra pose. Exhale, Downward Dog. Pedal out your heels, shake out your head. Walk your hands back to your feet, separating your feet about as wide as the mat coming to a yogi squat or malasana squat. Ground down in the heels, lift up through the pelvic floor. Elbows gently help to open the hips. Take your breath, heels are grounded. Now take your left hand down, take your right arm up, nice easy twist. Inhaling, exhaling. Inhale releases a twist. Exhale, fold forwards and lift your hips up. Heel toe your feet together and rise all the way up to stand. Mountain pose, hands come to the side. You know, on Fridays we flow, so we're moving. Shift your weight into your right foot, pick up your left knee. Really think about picking the knee up, flex the left foot, open it out to the side, and then see if you can find your tree pose. So by energizing the leg first, you've created a sense of balance. Balance happens when the energy on either side of an axis is the same. So if you're standing on one foot, you gotta energize the other side a little bit more to balance that out. Float that left knee forward. Hold the left foot in your right hand behind you, like a runner's quad stretch. Really think about pressing that knee down, lifting the heart up. Find the stretch of the hip flexor and maybe float the left arm. Remember, this is an internal rotation, so feel the thighs spiraling towards one another as you start to send the heel back. And as you come to your dancer, everything is spiraling in and back. Take your breath. Now release that, come all the way to stand and fold forward to a standing split. You might have to bend that right knee quite a bit and then walk your hands forward, three-legged plank. Take a vinyasa, chaturanga, up dog, downward dog. Not easy. Feel your breath and then walk your hands back to your feet, separating your feet about as wide as the mat coming to that malasana. to the right. See you. Release that. Plant your hands, lift your hips, step your feet together. Rise up, inhaling. Mountain Pose, exhaling. Energize into the instep of the left foot, flow the right knee. You really feel strong in both legs. Then plant your tree. Remember, you just don't want that foot on the knee. It can be... on the thigh, even the ball of the foot on the floor. And then everything energizes together so that you have more energy than you think you need on the right side. And then as we do that, you can float that right foot behind you, reach the left hand back to hold the right foot or ankle. The knee is pressing down, the foot is lifting up, the heart is lifting up. Now start to send everything back. So the head is wanting to go back, the right arm is wanting to go back, the left foot is wanting to go back. and you find some variation of dance there. Mine's not the biggest, maybe yours is. And then when you're ready, come up. Keep that right foot lifted if you can. Look down at the floor, bring your hands down to the floor or to blocks. the left knee a lot if you need to. And then walk yourself forward, three-legged plank. Lower halfway, chaturanga. Outward facing dog. Downward facing dog. Just breathe for a moment, inhaling. Exhaling. Walk yourself back. Separate your feet. Come to your malasana. Twisting to the left, right arm down, left arm up. Open up that heart. This time, bring your hands back to the floor in front of you. Lift your hips nice and high. Get your knees up into your armpits. Feel a cat back and then maybe come to the balls of your feet. Wrapping those elbows under, you're just thinking forward, thinking of lifting, picking the knees up and not picking the feet up. Feel that compression of the knees into the chest and then set the feet down. Rise up. No, if you didn't quite get to your crow, that's all right. Energize down into the right foot, float the left one. Find your tree. Once you feel grounded, then you can float that left knee, reach the right hand behind, capture the left foot, spiraling everything in. This time release that foot, just keep going, standing split. Walk it out to plank, Chaturanga. Downward facing, separate your feet, walk your hands back, just moving and breathing. Left arm down, right arm up. Bring those hands down, lift the hips. Now maybe you stop here just with your knees in your armpits and a cat back. Maybe you start to come to the balls of your feet, energize the fingertips. Maybe one or both feet floats. Take your breath, set the feet down, rise up. and pose. This is it. Float that right foot. Find your tree. Whatever expression feels right for you. Keep the right arm lifted, float the right knee, capture the right foot in your left hand. Get long, get tall, and everything goes back. Keep that chest lifted, keep that chin lifted, it's a back bend. And then release the foot, standing split. And then walk out to your plank. Take your time. It's perfectly fine if you wobbled a lot. I wobble a little. Come on down. Have a seat. Any comfortable seat. Happy Friday. So we end our practice by drawing a card from this beautiful yoga wisdom deck by an artist named Anthony Salerno. I emailed him to tell him we were doing this. He thought it was cool. Anyway, let's just see what comes up. How this one? Hidden blessings. With every challenge, a treasure awaits. There's a thing that I learned years ago, which is that every good rises with a bad, and every bad rises with a good. They're just different sides of the same coin. best day that you're having ever, the best that you're feeling ever. Literally, just on the other side of that is the worst version of it. You're living in the best one in that moment, then it starts to rain. You didn't bring an umbrella. So with every challenge, a treasure awaits. When that day is rainy and you're feeling wet, right on the other side is something wonderful. Let's look at the challenges. Our ability to handle them, whether it's standing on one foot or being in side plank like this yogi. and let's find the treasure, the gratitude that we're able to do with this, that our bodies show up for us, frankly, at all. Thank you for showing up. The light that is in me bows to and honors the light that is in you. Namaste. Thank you so much for spending this time with me. Please leave a comment, let me know how it's going, especially if you're embracing this hidden blessings challenge today, intention today, and share with a friend. Love to grow our community together organically with each other. Have a wonderful day. Namaste.