- Hey, everyone. Welcome to Yoga With Adriene. I'm Adriene, and today we have a practice that is designed to reunite you with your core. And no, I'm not just talking about the abs, but yes, the abs too. So hop into something comfy, and let's get started. (upbeat music) Alright, party people, let's hop right to it. We're gonna begin today's practice on the ground. So come on down. Get your back on your mat. Take a deep "I love you" breath in. I'm serious. Breathe like you love yourself today. Life's too short. You're gonna walk the heels up towards the sits bones, bring your palms to the earth, and when you're ready, inhale, lift the hips up high, shins go forward. You can snuggle the shoulder blades together a bit here. We're slowly lifting the hips up towards the sky. We're slowly grounding in through the soles of the feet. We're slowly taking the deepest breath we've taken in all day, and then slowly exhaling as you lower the hips down. Excellent. Walk the feet together. Open the knees wide. Reach the fingertips forward, inhale in. Exhale, you're gonna reach, reach, reach towards the front edge of your mat. Keep your neck nice and long here as you start to begin to contract through the belly, the abdominal wall. Keep the neck nice and long. If you need extra support for the head or neck here, no worries, just bring the hands behind the head. Keep the elbows nice and wide though. Holding here, breathing, breathing, breathing. Gaze up. So not crunching the chin to the chest, but keeping the neck nice and long. We're here for three, two. You did awesome. On the one, slowly come back in. Great. Lift the shins parallel. You're gonna really scoop the tailbone up so that your navel draws down to the earth. Great. Cross the arms over the chest. Inhale in. Exhale. You're gonna lift, lift, lift the heart up. Try to think about keeping your gaze up towards the sky. You're gonna hold here, breathing deep, breathing, breathing, breathing. Scooping tailbone up, hugging lower ribs down, starting to feel the muscles of the abdominal wall turn on. Great. Then here we go. Check it out. You're gonna take the fingertips, reach them all the way behind you, then straighten the legs, inhale in, and then exhale. Hug everything in to the chest. Ah. Find what feels good here. Rock gently side to side. You can take a Happy Baby. You can extend one leg and then the other. Take a couple deep "I love you" breaths of here. Mmm. Awesome, then interlace the fingertips. Bring them behind the head, elbows nice and wide. Send the legs all the way up. Inhale in, exhale. Just the left leg lowers down, just the left leg. Try to keep the feet awake here. So you can point the toes or flex, just not lots of energy. And then slowly bring the left leg back up. Inhale in, exhale, right leg hovers above the ground. Beautiful. Keep breathing and keep switching back and forth, scissoring the legs back and forth, moving with your breath. If you want a little more here, you can lift the head, the shoulders, the elbows. Keep the elbows nice and wide. So you have two options here. Starting to warm up. Light a little fire. Reunite with your core. Awesome. Nice and slow and steady here, so you don't have to work super fast, breathing deep, finding that center point to reconnect with your center, and keep the lower back flush with the mat. Awesome work. Even it out. And then slowly release the hands. Keep the feet where they are. You're gonna walk your hands, or your thumbs rather, underneath your bum, or another option is to grab the outer edges of the feet, of the mat, sorry. Flex your feet towards your face, so toes towards your face. Inhale in, exhale, you're gonna slowly lower the feet and legs down just about halfway, halfway. Inhale in as you pause at the halfway mark and then slowly lower them all the way down. Whoo, and they kiss the earth. Take a deep "I love you" breath in. Reach the fingertips all the way up. Take a nice full-body stretch. Feel the muscles of the abdominal wall get long here. Inhale in, and then exhale. You're gonna hug everything in, we're gonna begin to rock all the way up to a seat. You can rock as many times as you like here. Find what feels good. And then we're gonna come to sit up nice and tall. Find length in the spine. Feet are gonna come to the ground. The knees are gonna be bent. And right away here, we're thinking about lifting up from the pelvic floor. So we're not just like expecting everything to just magically feel supported. You have to activate the parts of the body that you need to to recruit for stability. So start to lift up from the pelvic floor a bit here. Hug the low ribs in. Breath helps. Reunite with your breath here, breathing into all four sides of the torso. And now, for the core. So you're gonna take the left arm in front, bend it here, right arm on top. Inhale in. Try to keep the shoulders relaxed as you exhale. Great. Then lean back just a bit. You'll start to feel the transverse abdominals turn on here. And then you might just stay here, or you might lift the shins. Breathe deep. Stay here, or we're gonna add a twist. So you're gonna take the elbows, turn them to the left, touch the right toes down. Great. Reconnect back at center. Turning to the right now, touching the left toes down. Beautiful. Back to center. Turning to the left, right toes kiss down. Back to center. Turning to the right, left toes kiss down. Now keep it going, back and forth, finding that center point each time. Now lighting up through the obliques, through the low belly. Syncing up with a breath pattern that serves you, maybe inhaling as you come to center, exhaling to twist. Lift up through the chest, through the sternum here. You're doing great. Let's do one more on each side. Careful not to speed it up. Great. Then come back to center. You're gonna cross the ankles. We're gonna inhale, lift the elbows up. Big stretch up towards the sky. Inhale in, exhale, twist to the left. Just wring it out here. Lift your chest. Grow tall. Breathe in, and breathe out to come back to center. We'll take it to the other side, breathing deep here, finding length. Should feel really good. Yes. And then slowly bring it back to center. Awesome. From here, we're gonna come through, slowly making our way to all fours. Take a deep breath in. As you exhale, set yourself up for greatness. So find a nice strong base. Spread the palms super wide, wrists underneath the shoulders, knees directly underneath the hips. Benji, you're doing great. Okay, here we go. Finding a hollow position. So you're gonna slowly draw your navel up towards your spine. Start to round through the back. The placement of the hands is so important here, my foundation, pressing, pressing, pressing away from the yoga mat, creating space. Great. Just take a couple deep breaths here, finding that hollow front body, lifting the navel up, up, up towards the sky, engaging the muscles of the abdominal wall with each exhale. Excellent. You can stay working here or curl the toes under. Inhale in, and on an exhale, lift the knees. Find this static hold here. Now if the knees are lifted, hollow in the front body, breathing deep. Soften through the skin of the face. So no gripping, no clinching. Breathing, breathing, breathing to find that Sukha, that ease here, as you hold for ten, nine, you got this, eight, seven, six, you got it, five, four, three, two, on the one, lower the knees. Bring the big toes to touch, knees as wide as the yoga mat. Send the hips back, walk the fingertips forward, and melt your sweet heart down. Alright, this is precious time that you've carved out for yourself, so close your eyes and utilize it. Lean in. You can take the palms together, bring them up over the back of the neck as you walk the elbows forward, and really take a big breath in and out here. And find what feels good. So dropping into the present moment. Acknowledging any thoughts that come to mind but then returning to the sensations in your body. Returning to the breath. And I feel like this is a super important moment, particularly in this practice, because reuniting with your core is not just about the abs. It's about finding center, and it's about taking time to get to know yourself in whatever stage of life you're in. Knowing who you are, knowing your core beliefs, having this sense of center. If you're down with that, take a deep breath in, and a long breath out. And then slowly release the fingertips forward. We'll slowly come back up. Hi, Benji. You woke up. Say hello to everyone. Okay. Walk those palms out now. Spread the fingertips once again. Come into Plank. You got this. If the wrists are sensitive, ooh, hair toss, shout out to Lizzo, then you can come onto the elbows here for a Forearm Plank. So yogi's choice. Lift your heart space up between your shoulder blades. Spread them left to right so you feel this kind of doming effect in the upper-back body. Reach, reach, reach your heels back. Send the crown of your head forward, breathing deep here, for ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, lift your heart space a little higher, two, and on the one, send the hips up high and back Downward Facing Dog. Pedal it out. Find what feels good here. Remember your breath. Then anchor the left heel down and inhale. Lift the right leg up high. On the exhale, you're gonna shift it forward. Upper body's gonna be in Plank as you slowly hug your right knee in towards your heart. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, then inhale, kick it back out. Exhale, right knee to left elbow. Cross it over, nice and slow. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Careful not to rush. Great. Inhale, kick it out, Three-Legged Dog. Exhale, right knee to right elbow, nice and slow, slow and steady. You got this. Beautiful. Inhale, kick it out. One more time. Back to center, exhale, take it all the way up and in toward your heart space. Squeeze and lift, squeeze and lift. Try to touch your right heel to your right glute. Excellent. Then send it back, Downward Facing Dog. We're going right into the other side. Anchor the right heel down. Inhale. Lift the left leg up high. Claw through your fingertips to take pressure out of the wrists. Exhale. Draw it in. Squeeze, knee to nose. Great. Inhale, kick it out. Exhale, cross it over nice and slow. See how slow you can move here, slow and steady. Beautiful. Inhale, kick it out. Claw through the fingertips. Now left knee to left elbow. Take it nice and slow, shoulders over the wrists. Excellent. Kick it out. Here we go, last one, squeezing that left knee all the way up and in, breathing deep. Try to touch your left heel to your left glute, squeezing it up, up, up, defying gravity. Excellent. Then Downward Facing Dog. Take an inhale in here, and as you exhale, go ahead and breathe out through your mouth, pressing into the index finger and thumb. Awesome. From here, slowly lower the knees. Come to sit back on your heels. Nice and easy. Just take the fingertips forward and then drop them down to the ground. Ahh. Zombie arms. (snaps) And then you can take some fists and take a couple of wrist circles. Alright, last beat. Let's do it. Coming back to our Plank. You got this. Do not stop this video. Do not press pause. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Here we go. We got this. So it's not really even about the side planks we're about to do, wink, wink. It's about following through. You carved out this time for yourself. Let's do it. And I'll give you a couple options to modify, so you can find what feels good. Here we go. From the Plank, we're gonna slowly turn onto the outer edge of the right foot. First, first, bus stop. Bring the top leg up and over so you create a strong foundation, a little kickstand, so that you can press away from the earth with your right hand and slowly take the left fingertips to the sky. Option one. Option two: stack the feet. Option three: lift the top leg. Connect to your center. Hug the lower ribs in, breathing deep. Find a variation here that feels awesome. Maybe it's a tree side Plank today. Breathing, breathing, breathing. On your last cycle of breath here, lift the hips little higher, you got this. And then exhale the come back to center. Take a break with the knees down if you need to. Otherwise, going right in. This is the last bit. Here we go. Stacking the feet, creating a kickstand by bringing the right foot to the ground. Everyone, lift your hips up high. Spiral your heart up towards the sky. You have everything you need to play here. Breathing deep, just find your version of the shape today, and then remember your breath. Lift the hips up high. You got this. Have fun. Be kind to yourself. Take one more breath to spiral your heart and lift your hips up a little higher and then use the exhale to come all the way back down. Alright, check it out. Inhale the shift forward, exhale the lower halfway, halfway, halfway. Inhale the lift up. Exhale the lower halfway, halfway, halfway. Inhale the lift up. Feel free to lower the knees if you need to. Last one, exhale lower halfway. Keep those elbows hugging in. Draw your navel up towards the spine. And then slowly release everything down. Take a deep breath in, a long breath out. Drag the fingertips off the mat. Lift up through the center of the palm. Inhale. Cobra or a little modified Cobra here as you inhale. Smile just a bit. And then exhale to release everything. Press up to all fours. Walk the knees in together really together. Child's Pose, yay. Forehead comes to the earth. If Child's Pose is not right for you, just come into a nice, comfortable seat and take three long, beautiful, centering breaths. (breathing) After three breaths, slowly begin to rise up. Bring the palms together. Let them gently come together at your heart. So you can repeat this video if you want a little more or maybe it is inspiring for you to maybe try another video. I will link to some videos that I suggest might go well with this reuniting with your core practice. And as always, subscribe to the YouTube channel if you haven't already. That's the best way to support YWA. I love you guys so much. Let us know how this practice went for you in the comments section down below, and I'll see you soon. Namaste. (upbeat music)