Latest / Ten-Minute Mornings / Morning Yoga for Hips, Shoulders & Karma | Daily Flow with James Donegan
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: Just 10 minutes to ground, energize, and arrive into the day as we are, not as we kind of wish we could be. Hello, friends. Welcome to your daily flow 10 minute mornings practice. My name is James, and of course, be sure to practice all the way to the end because we'll draw a card together and set intention for the day. Come to sit. Right away, straighten your right leg and step your left foot over your right. Find your sits bones, flex that right foot and then float the right arm up. I'm giving my left knee a bit of a hug with my left arm so I can sit up taller and then bring that right elbow around, wrap it around. Take the left hand behind, wrapping that right shoulder blade under, sitting up tall, inhale. Exhale, look back over the left shoulder. Take another breath, inhaling. Exhaling. Coming back into the center, allow that left knee to fall open so that it's into figure four and step your right foot flat on the floor. Adjust whatever you need to adjust until you feel the stretch right in the outside of the left thigh. I'm energizing down into my palms, which are under my shoulders, to help lift the heart. And then flex the left foot so the foot's not just hanging there. When you flex it, I felt a bit of a change. Maybe you will too. It gets a little deeper into the stretch. Take a breath. Exhale. And then press down on that right foot. Lift the hips up. Keep your figure four if you can. A little back bend. Open up. And then lower down. Extend both legs. Give them a little shake. Flex your feet. Float the arms. Send your heart forward. Forward. forward, forward, and round at the last possible moment. Lengthening is more important than where your hands arrive, so feel that length through your back body, especially since it's first thing in the morning, for me at least. So ⁓ give yourself a chance to kind of wake things up and breathe into your back. Inhale. Exhale. Coming to sit up, step the right foot in and then cross the right foot over the left thigh. Again, firmly root down in that right foot and I'm gonna wrap the left elbow around the right thigh and float the right arm and then sweep it back behind. Take a breath, inhale. Exhale, wrap the left shoulder blade under, look back over your right shoulder. Inhale. Exhale. and come back to center. Plant the palms underneath you, let that right knee fall open, step the left foot in just enough until it's flat on the floor. And you can find stretch in the outside of the right thigh. Flex the right foot. I actually feel this traveling all the way up into the right hip, which for me is where I feel tight in the morning. Maybe you too. Side sleepers. Am I right? And then grounding down that left foot, lift your hips up. Find your back bend. You can keep the chin tucked here or let the head fall back. Whatever feels best. Inhale. Exhale, lower down. This time extend the legs forward and come into a boat. So I have my knees bent for now. You can keep them bent. You can lengthen. What matters more than the length of your legs is the length of your back. So feel like you're lifting up from your sits bones and then lift the chin, look up, inhale, cross your shins, rock all the way over, come to all fours. Let's take a little cat and cow. Inhale, lengthen, toes are tucked. Exhale, untuck the toes and round. Inhale, lengthen. Exhale round. I have a hard time not doing this with my eyes closed. just want to go inside and feel the breath and feel this little stretch. One more round. cat Step back into a plank position. Make sure your shoulders are a little forward of your wrists. Wrap those elbows under big external rotation of the biceps. Feel like you're energizing into the finger pads and into the knuckles. Inhale. Exhale, lower your knees, your chest and your chin. Cobra pose, wrist down in the belly, pull the heart forward. Tuck the toes, downward facing dog. Lift your right leg high, down dog split, internally rotate the right thigh in this first round. So you feel like you're closing off that right hip and then lift it higher. Again, it matters more that it feels high than that it is. I don't know what mine looks like, but I know it feels really good. Inhale, exhale, bring the right knee in between the hands. So it's on the floor and then tuck the left knee behind the right, sitting up for Gomukhasana, cow face pose. This is another big hip open. So you're doing your best here to get your knees stacked on top of one another. If you're new to this pose, you might have to manually take your hands and kind of adjust them. And if there's space between your knees, slide something in there like a towel or a cushion. Sit up nice and tall, float the arms. Then we're take a twist. So twisting to the right, hook the left elbow just outside the right knee. And then that energy, you're pushing gently with the forearm into the knee to help deepen the twist, yes, but also to help keep that stacking of the knees. Take a breath, inhale. Exhale. And then release that. Float the arms, keep the knee stacked. So the right knee is on top. Open your arms out wide and rotate from the right bicep to point the right thumb down. And then rotate the left bicep externally to point the left thumb. ⁓ back and up and then rotate. Follow the thumbs until you can't go any further and you bend the elbows. Cow face pose. Now my fingers are not touching one another. However, I feel a big shoulder opener because I started with that big rotation in that wrapping back. Lean back in your low ribs, lean back in your head. Inhale. Exhale. and release all of that rock yourself forward. So the right knee is coming back to the floor. Step that left foot back. And then again, down dog split the right leg. This time externally rotate, bend the knee, stack the hips, open up the hip flexor. Maybe the right heel actively tries to find the right glute. Inhale, exhale, step the right foot outside the right hand for your lizard. Energize, pull the heart forward, get longer. And then lengthen that right leg. Back heel spirals down. It's a sort of wide stance pyramid pose. My hands are still on the floor, but if you need to walk them further back or closer to you rather, do what you need. If you need to bring them up onto blocks, big stretch in that right hamstring. And then step forward, release all that. Take a vinyasa, knees just in cobra pose. facing dog. We'll do that on the left. Lots of hip stuff today. Down dog split the left leg. This first round internally rotate close off the hip. Feel that heel pulling you up and back and notice how that affects not just your left leg, but your right inhale and then bring the left knee in between the hands on the mat. Tuck the right knee in behind and then take your time. Come back to sit. trying to get the knees stacked the best you can. Float the arms and then take your twist, right forearm outside the left knee. Ground down in that left palm, wrap the right shoulder blade under, lengthen on an inhale. Twist more deeply on an exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Coming back up, float the arms and then take them out nice and wide. So rotate the left thumb, big internal rotation of that left bicep. So you feel the left shoulder wrapping under, right thumb rotates up and out. I'm still sitting up tall, follow the thumbs so they travel back and away from each other. And then you bend the elbows, trying. to connect your fingertips or some of you might be holding your hand fully. But again, it's first thing in the morning. So my shoulders are waking up. That's what this is for. Breathe into your back body. Lean back, inhale. Exhale. Another inhale. Exhale, untangle all of that. Shift yourself forward so that left knee comes to the floor. Step the right foot back and then down dog split the left leg. Bend the knee, stack the hips. Really think about connecting left heel to left glute, peeling that left hip open. Heart square the floor. Inhale, exhale for your lizard. Step the left foot outside the left hand. Now I'm staying up on my palms here. Thinking about energizing my points of contact with the floor. lengthening my heart forward. So I have a lot of sensation happening in the inside of that left thigh. A little lift of the right quadricep. Breathe and then start to energize the ball mound of the left foot. Let the right foot spiral down 45 degrees or so, pyramid pose, but a wide stance pyramid pose. And if you need to, you can walk the hands further back. You can step the right foot in a little bit. The event is the big toe mound of the left foot is active, plugging the left femur up in the left hip socket. Inhale. Exhale, re-pinch that left knee. Step the left foot back. Inhale. Exhale, knees chest chin. maybe slightly higher. Downward facing dog. and then come to have a seat. taking a moment, a little pause as we always do. And as I shuffle our Yoga Oracle deck, see what our intention might be for the day. Let's take this one. Karma. Unlearned lessons and unrealized effort hold unclaimed growth. This is not the first time we've drawn this card together. Unlearned lessons and unrealized effort hold unclaimed. We often think of karma as karma's gonna get ya, it's coming for you. Instead, it's simply a cause and effect. When you put positive things into the world, your life is more positive. When you put negative things into the world, that tends to come back as well. But I like this idea that unrealized growth. unrealized effort can hold unclaimed growth. There's growth that is unclaimed for us. It's been going around on that baggage carousel for a while. Let's pick it up. The light that is in me bows to honors and is very grateful for the light that is in you. Namaste. Thank you so much for spending this part of your day with me. Please take a moment to like and subscribe and comments. I love hearing from you. Really, it makes my day. ⁓ let me know how things are going, if there's something special you wanna work on and maybe how these intentions are helping in your day. Have a wonderful one.