If you wake up feeling stiff and sore and need to work out the kinks remaining in your body from the night before, this sequence is magic!
It will focus on essential spinal movement, to get the core moving in key ways, along with your added extremities.
No props are required for this, and it is all levels appropriate.
1. Seated Side Bend – Start seated, with one leg in front of the other. Roll the shoulders back, lengthen spine. Inhale to circle arms up, exhale to release them back down. Repeat a few times. Then on final exhale, lower right hand down, reaching right arm up and over. Roll the left shoulder back. Maybe gazing up. Push into the left sit bone. Inhale back up to center.
2. Spinal Twist – Bring left hand to right knee. Walk the right hand back behind you. No slouching or rounding, stay up tall.
Repeat 1 and 2 on other side.
3. Extension/Flexion – Come up to table top with knees under the hips and hands under the shoulders. Spread the fingers wide. Inhale to drop the belly and lift the gaze and curl tailbone up. Exhale to round and contract the spine, pulling the belly in. Trying to get into every inch of the spine. Repeat a few rounds through.
4. Three Legged Dog – Walk the hands ahead slightly. Push down into the fingertips and knuckles, going easy on the wrists. Tuck the toes. Send the hips up and back. Don’t worry if the heels come down or the legs are straight. Alternate bending one knee at a time. Reach the right leg up, bend the knee and open the hip.
5. Warrior 2 – Step the right foot through to the top of the mat, between the hands. Spin the back foot parallel to the shorter edge of the mat. Push into the feet and lift up. Stack shoulders over the hips. Extend the arms out, engaging the arms. Squeeze the right knee open. Take three deep breaths here.
6. Triangle – Straighten the right leg. Extend right arm forward and down. Reaching left arm up. Keep length in the side body. Roll the top shoulder back.
7. Tree Pose – Lift up and step left foot forward to the top of the mat. Balancing on the right leg, bring the left foot to rest somewhere along the inside of the standing leg. Externally rotate the left knee. Keep hips level. Maybe growing the branches of the tree as you extend the arms up.
Repeat 4 through 7 on other side.
These poses come from a quick 10 minute morning practice I recently shared. Check it out and practice with me below.
Kassandra
