Flow In Fifteen

Welcome to flowing 15. My My name is Ryan Spence and I'll be guiding you through your practice today. With our busy lives and demanding jobs, we don't always have time to take 60 minutes 90 minutes to work through a full yoga sequence. But it is important for our physical and our mental well being that we take time to move mindfully each day consistently. Hence, flow in 15 because we can all take 15 minutes to care for our well being. Right? If you'd like to read the ebook to accompany this video, go to my website ryanspenceyoga.com and you can download it there. But for now, let's begin our practice. So we're going to start in child's pose. If you're not familiar with child's pose, we sit back on our knees. If it's comfortable to you, we take our knees as wide as the mat and then we walk the hands forward, taking our head and our chest down to the mat. If your head doesn't touch the mat, feel free to use a block or a pillow and rest there and take a few breaths. With each inhale, lift the fingertips up and with each exhale, just walk the hands forward, bring the arms down, increasing that stretch. Nice stretch in the lower back, the shoulders, and we're pushing back onto the heels, opening up the hips. Really good way to get yourself centered anytime throughout the day. On your next inhale, let's roll ourselves up to a tabletop position. So we take our hands shoulder width apart and our knees hip width apart, untucking the toes. Keep the palms pressed into the mat back straight and we're engaging the core so the belly isn't sagging down, it's fully engaged. As we inhale, we roll, drop the belly down, roll the head up to cow pose and as we exhale, we roll back, bringing the chin to chest, back to the sky into cat pose. Do this two more times in line with your own breath. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. And after the third time, let's come back to neutral position, tabletop where we began. Then let's tuck the toes, press the palms into the mat and we push ourselves up into a downward facing dog position. If it's your first down dog of the day, or even if you've been sat for a long period of time today, it's a good time to just walk out the legs, hear those little clicks and cracks and maybe just move your hips from side to side, just warming up the body here. And when you're done with your movements, let's come to Stillness. And let's just check our pose here. We want to have our palms firmly pressed into the mat, opening the shoulders out to the side. And we have our legs pressed towards the back of the room, feeling the nice stretch in the calves and the hamstrings. Bending the knees is fine and the heels don't need to touch the mat. And keep that core engaged. Imagine you're being pulled up to the ceiling and you're making an inverted V shape. Let's take an inhale. Exhale. Inhale. And as we exhale, we step forward to the front of our mat. Forward fold, knees can be bent. We're bringing our chest to our thighs and we're hanging our neck long. We inhale, we come to halfway lift, flat back, gaze forward, shoulders away from the ears. As we exhale, we fold forward again, forward fold. And as we inhale, we bring our arms out to the side, all the way up high mountain exhale. We're going to forward fold again, inhale, back to halfway lift. And as we exhale, palms down to the mat, step the right leg back, the left leg back. We're in a high plank position. We're going to lower ourselves down to a low plank. Keeping those elbows in, roll through to Up Dog, bringing the chest through, shoulders away from the ears, push back into a downward facing dog. Now, as we flow through and as we come to our high plank, if lowering yourself down is a little too much for you today, feel free to drop the knees, keep that core engaged and lower your chest and your chin down through your palms, untuck the toes and come through to a cobra position, so legs on the floor instead. Okay? So from Down Dog, we take an inhale. And as we exhale, we step the right foot through between the palms, drop the back leg down. As we inhale, we raise the arms up to the sky into our low lunge. And imagine that you're trying to bring this thigh down towards the mat, feeling a nice stretch in the hip flexors. Great if you're sat in a chair for long hours each day. Keep breathing. On your next exhale, we're going to bring the shoulder blades together, bring the arms down, open up the chest. Then we're going to bring the palms together in the center of the chest. As we inhale, we lean forward slightly. And as we exhale, we twist over, taking our left elbow over our right knee, pressing the palms together into our revolved low lunge. And imagine you're trying to push your thumbs to the centre of your chest, feeling that nice Twist in the torso and the lower back, looking over your back, shoulder, or out to the side, if that's where you are today. On your next exhale, we look down to the mat, and as we inhale, we bring the arms back up again and we exhale, bring the palms down, bring the right leg back, and we flow through again. So again you can go knees, chest, chin, Come through, Cobra. Downward facing dog. Take our left foot forward, drop the right knee down. Inhale, arms up. And you want to keep the shoulders down from the ear, so not up here. You want to keep the shoulders down, but keep the arms strong, fingers pointing up to the sky. And again we're going to bring the arms out, shoulder blades together, and then we're going to bring the palms to the center of the chest. We take an inhale here, lean forward, and exhale. We twist the other way. So we take our right elbow over our left knee. And if you can't just twist like this or there's not enough space, if it's beginning of the day, just feel free to lift the elbow and place it there. And then put the hands together. You want to be mindful of where our body is at any given moment. Challenge yourself, but don't force yourself if it's not where you are right now. On your next exhale, look down at the mat. We inhale to sweep the arms up, and we exhale to bring the hands down. Step the left leg back, and we flow through to our low plank, our cobra or our up dog. And we meet back in downward facing dog. We'll take a couple of breaths here. Exhale. And we're going to move through the next part of the sequence, which is a repeat a little bit quicker this time. So let's inhale. Exhale, inhale. And as we exhale, we step forward to the front of our mat. Forward, fold, inhale. Halfway, lift. We exhale to forward fold. We raise our arms all the way up to the sky. As we inhale, we exhale to fold. Forward, inhale, halfway, lift. As we exhale, palms down, step the feet back, flow through to our low plank. Cobra or up dog. Meet back. Downward facing dog. We take our right foot forward, drop the back knee, raise the arms up as we inhale. Exhale with each breath. See if you can sink a little bit lower into the pose. Now that we're warmed up. Exhale, inhale, exhale to open up the chest. Bring the shoulder blades together, bring the palms to the center of the chest, look forward, Inhale, exhale to twist and Notice if the body is a little bit different this time. Now that we've warmed up, can you find a little bit more space? Exhale to look down to the mat. Inhale to bring the arms up. Exhale, hands down. Step back, low plank up. Dog. Down, dog. Left foot forward, right leg down. Inhale, exhale to sink a little bit lower. Exhale, open up the chest. If you'd like, you can bend a little back here. Bring the palms together. Inhale, exhale to twist. Make sure you keep breathing through the pose. Allow the breath to guide you. It will help you to relax and help you to find some. Some additional space. Exhale to look down. And we inhale to rise up. Exhale, palms down, steps back. Low. Plank up. Dog. Downward facing dog. Let's inhale here. Exhale, Inhale, exhale. If you'd like to flow through the sequence again, feel free to do so. But for now, what I'm going to do is on the inhale, I'm going to exhale to step forward, going to sit down to the mat. And we're going to make our way into Corpse Pose Shavasana, which is our final resting pose. We take the feet as wide as the mat, let them fall out to the side. We lay ourselves back, palms out by the side, facing up to the ceiling, and you let the body relax, close the eyes and just breathe normally. There's a tendency for people to either rush through Shavasana or to skip it completely, but it is actually one of the most important poses. Taking that stillness, allowing the body to absorb the benefits of the practice, and disconnecting the mind, the body and the breath. Again, mindful movement is not really about a workout or fitness. It's about taking time for yourself, being present where you are and recognising and focusing on the breath. Everything starts and ends with the breath, but we do it without even thinking. So it's important to take time to just focus and give gratitude for our breath. Feel free to stay in Shavasana as long as you need to. And whenever you're ready, wiggle your fingers and toes to bring movement back to the body. Stretch your legs out in front of you, bring them together and raise your arms above your head to give yourself a big stretch. Then bring the knees into the chest. Give them a hug. Placing your right arm out to the side. Roll over onto your right side, using your arm as a pillow. And just breathe, keeping the eyes closed. And when you're ready on the inhale, use your left hand to gently push yourself up and come to a seated position at the front of your mat. Keeping the eyes closed, take a few breaths to reset yourself and on your inhale, raise your hands up above your head, bringing the palms together. Exhale to bring your palms to your chest and give yourself gratitude for making it to the mat today. And as you bring your thumbs up to your forehead, we bow forward to give gratitude to our mind and our body and our breath for taking us through today's practice. As we slowly come back up to seated, placing our hands on our knees, gently blinking the eyes open. Thank you for practicing with me today. My name is Ryan Spence and this has been flow in 15.