Latest / Ten-Minute Mornings / One Year of Showing Up | 10-Minute Morning Yoga
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: Before an email, before coffee, before you have to step off the mat and into the real world, let's step out of the world and onto the reality of the mat. Hello friends, welcome to your Daily Flow 10-minute mornings practice one-year anniversary edition. On August 18th, 2025, I decide to roll out my mat for a 10-minute live offering. Thank you so much for coming, for showing up, for sharing your practice with me. It is meaningful. Watch to the end. We'll set intention together. And of course, like and subscribe. All right. Come to stand at the top of your mat. Stip your feet together. Give your shoulders a nice shrug up. Feel the grounding energy of your feet. And as you choose to place your attention on the feet, as you put your mind's eye into the sole of your foot, like you're gently pulling it apart, trace up through the long bones of your legs, up through the crown of your head, and inhale and exhale. Inhale, float your arms. Exhale, fold forward. Inhale, lengthen. Exhale, step your left foot back, lower the left knee down, untuck the left toes. Come to a nice low lunge here. My hands are still on the floor, so push down to the top of the left foot so you soften the pressure on the left knee, and then I'm just gonna interlace fingers on top. Exhale. Set the hands down, tuck the left toes, lift the left knee, and then step that right foot back. Inhale here, exhale, lower your knees, your chest, and your chin. Inhale, cobra. Exhale downward facing dog. Paddle out your heels, shake out your head. This town talk feels a little tight in me this morning, so just feel your experience. Doesn't have to look like anything special. But feel that energy of the finger pads pressing forward and the hips drawing up and back and the heels yearning for the mat, even if they don't reach it. Inhale. Exhale, step your right foot outside your right hand. And then lower the left knee down onto the mat. Lizard, lunge, pull the heart forward. Now bring your right hand onto your right thigh. Take a nice twist. Look up over your right shoulder. It should feel nice. And I'm using my right hand, I'm actually sort of pushing forward and out as I lean back. Exhale, release that. Set your right hand down, tuck the left toes, lift the left knee, step the left foot outside the left hand, coming to a brief molassinous squat. So if your hips are really tight and you need to be up a little higher, be my guest. If you want to come all the way down, great, but try to ground those heels. You might have to take your feet wider. I see people set this up really narrow sometimes. So feel the outer edges of your feet, the lift of your heels and heart. Inhale. Exhale, hands to the mat, lift the hips. And then just sort of heel toe your feet together. Inhale, lengthen. Exhale, bow. Press down, rise up, inhale. Exhale, mountain pose. Inhale, sweep the arms up. Exhale, bow. Inhale, lengthen. Exhale, set the right foot back, release the right knee down, untuck the right toes again. Just pause here. I'm sinking a little bit into this left hip, pressing down to the top of the right foot, picking up the right knee just for a second. This is also a nice stretch in my right foot, by the way. And then come up, interlace fingers on top of that left thigh. Drop the shoulders, and then feel like you're peeling your belly up and away. Energy again into the feet, so there's less pressure on the knee. Inhale. Exhale. Bring those hands down to the mat. Tuck the right toe. Step back to your plank position. Inhale here. Exhale, lower knees, chest and chin. Your bum will stick up in the air a bit. Then for your cobra pose as you press the belly down. It's more forward than it is up. And then tuck the toes. Come into it. Down dog. We'll take about three breaths here and downward facing. Inhale. Exhale. Wrapping the tailbone under. Inhale. Notice if this feels different from your last down dog. Notice what even just that little bit of movement has done, if anything at all. And if it hasn't, then notice that. Step the left foot outside the left hand, lower the right knee down, untuck the right toes, pull the heart forward, and then left hand onto the left thigh. Let that left hip peel open a bit. Look up over your left shoulder. It should feel nice. Inhale. Exhale, set the left hand down. Step the right toes, lift the right knee, and then step the right foot outside the right hand. Come to your malasana. Feel that grounding down. Feel the outer edges of your feet. Inhale. Exhale, set the hands down, lift the hips. Heal, toe your feet together. Long spine. Bow deeply. Press down, rise up. Inhale. Exhale. Mountain pose. Let's mix it up a little bit. Inhale, float the arms. Exhale, bow. Inhale, lengthen. Exhale, step back to plank. Lower halfway. facing. Exhale downwards facing dog. Down dog split the right leg and then step the right foot between the hands. Tuck the left knee in behind the right ankle and have a seat. So essentially seated spinal twist. Set up, float the arms. And then maybe you hook the left elbow outside the left thigh, maybe you give the left knee a hug. There's no strain here. And you're lengthening on your inhale and spiraling on your exhale. Then take a counter twist over to your left. Pivot your left foot. Or sorry, pivot your right foot as well. And then I'm gonna lift my hips and extend my right leg, lower that right, that left hip down. Send my left leg, apologies. And then get a nice little stretch across the outside of that hip. Feels really good. Inhale. It's gonna take us off the mat a little bit. It's not the tidiest. But pivot yourself now to face the opposite end of your mat. Release the left knee down. Take your crescent lunge. Inhale. Exhale, the left hand down. Tuck the left toes, lift the left knee, look up your right hand. Now, one of my favorites, can you step the right foot over the left leg? Wild thing. Exhale, lower down, step your right foot over your left thigh, bend that left knee, standing split, shift forward. And then step the left foot back. Step the right foot back. Inhale. Exhale. Take your vinyasa. Inhale, lift your heart. Exhale, downward facing dog. A little weird, but kind of fun. Just mixing it up. Inhale. lift the left leg high. And then step the left foot between the hands. Tuck that right knee in behind it and have a seat. Feel the firmness of that foot. Float the arms. Take your twist. Look back over your left shoulder. Inhale. Exhale. Now as we take our counter twist over to the right, I'm gonna also pivot my left foot to be perpendicular with the right edge of the mat. So then when you pick up your hips, you can extend that right leg back. Nice little stretch. Take your breath. Inhale. And now pivot yourself. To face the opposite end, adjust that left foot. Lower the right knee down, crescent lunge, inhale. Exhale, the right hand comes down, tuck the right toes, lift the right knee. Ground in that right hand, step the left foot over. Wild thing. Inhale. Then we just have to unwind it. So set that right hip down, step the left foot over. As you tuck that right foot back, you can shift your weight forward. Step back, take a vinyasa. Excellent. Release your knees down onto the mat. Nice and wide. Child's pose. Walk your hands forward, wrap your hips back. Exhale. And that's it. Little less flowy. If we had another three or four minutes, we would flow that little sequence a little bit. But sometimes it's nice just to move and not worry about it looking perfect. In fact, it's never about the shape. It's always about your experience of the shape and of your body and of your breath. So that was less flowy and more just kinda stretchy. Alright. Healing. Resolve the past to free the present. Resolve the past to free the present. I like this idea of freeing the present. I like that word choice by Anthony Salerno who created this deck. Because resolving the past, if it's unresolved, it really is like a shackle. It really is something that is tying you back, whether the past is an old idea of yourself, if it's the way that someone treated or mistreated you. And I think sometimes we can also hold on to nostalgia in a way. We can Be held on, held back by good things. It doesn't always have to be that you have some trauma. We all have some trauma, by the way, so nothing wrong with that either. But what if you're holding on to either a time when you felt more successful, or maybe a goal that you had as a kid or as a young adult? And now You've changed, but you haven't let the goal change and you haven't let that story change, which frankly was probably never that story to begin with. Yeah. If we release that, if we resolve that, if we deal with that hope, that fear, that good story, that bad story, so that we can be free, free of any story in this moment. One year ago, when I made my first 10-minute mornings practice, I had a grand idea. That I was gonna make my first video, and suddenly I would explode. I would be a viral sensation. That's not my vibe, that's not my energy. We're not doing fancy things in here. We're just building our yoga practices together. And when I've come to appreciate the surprise, the thing I had to free myself from. Was that story that that was what would make my make me feel successful? What makes me feel successful is showing up every day. What makes me feel successful is being on the mat, whether there are zero people watching or it looks like one person. So hello, one person. Thank you for being here. And thank you for being here, whether you're that person watching live or you're catching this some other time. Thank you for watching this far. Thank you. The light that is in me bows to, honors, and is extraordinarily grateful for the light that is in you Namaste. Thank you so much for spending this time, and not just this time, but whenever you've been able to show up for the last year. Have a wonderful day. Do the YouTube stuff, like, subscribe, or don't. Thank you. 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.