Hi everyone, I'm Tracy. I'm an acupuncturist and a yoga teacher and today's session is
a very short pre-game golf game warm-up that's excellent for your lower back, your hips and
of course your shoulders. You're going to start with your practice, always feet hip
with distance apart. We're going to go ahead and start to roll the shoulders out, just
gentle shoulder rolls. We're going to do 10 of them. So 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5. Are you breathing?
4, 3, 2, 1. I want you to take your arms all the way up, stretch nice and tall,
draw the belly in, lift your fingers all the way up to the sky, breathe in here and then
exhale, take your fingers to the shoulders. From here, I want you to take the elbow up and down,
the other elbow up and down. We're going to go five at those. 5, 4, 3, don't forget to breathe,
2, 1. We're going to rotate outward now. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Perfect. We're going to reach the
arms all the way back up, inhale, draw the belly in, reach the fingers up to the sky,
inhale and then exhale, release the hands down to the thighs for a nice seated cat and cat. We're
going to roll the shoulders back, lift up your chest, stick your tailbone out to the back,
lift up your heart and then exhale, rounding the back, fingertips are going to come to the
front of your knees, draw the chin into your chest. Belly button's going to go to the spine.
Good. Inhaling, this is cow pose, exhaling, breathe, cat pose, putting some nice flexion into the spine,
inhaling and exhaling. We're going to do three more of those. Inhaling, maybe exaggerating a
little bit more, opening up the heart, exhaling, rounding the back, chin to chest.
Let's go again, breathing in and exhale, breathing out. Okay, one more, please, breathing in
and exhale, rounding the back. Beautiful. Okay, from here, a nice little twist of the thoracic
spine, the twisting that you'll be doing in your golf game, we're going to make sure
our feet are planted onto the ground. I'd like you to take and I'm going to mirror you
the left hand to the outside of the right thigh. The other hand's going to come and plant nice and
firmly into the chair behind you, very close to your sits bones, your tailbone. Breathe in,
lift and lengthen, draw the belly in, open up your heart a bit and then exhale, twist.
You'll notice I'm shooting my chin over my sternum. I'm not turning my head just as yet,
but I'm breathing in, lift and lengthening and exhale, twisting, keeping the chin right over my
sternum, that flat part of the chest bone here. One more time, breathing in, lift, lengthen,
exhale, twist, relax the shoulders. Now I'm going to encourage you to look behind you, inhale
and then exhale, look over the opposite shoulder, drop the shoulders and breathe here in
and out with the breath. One more time, breathing in and exhale, unwind. We're going
to do the other side. So right hand comes to the outside of that left thigh. I'm mirroring you.
The other hand's planted firmly into the chair. Inhale, lift and lengthen, exhale, twist, keeping
the chin right over your chest. Inhale, lift, lengthen, exhale, twist. One more, breathe in,
lift and lengthen and exhale, twist. Good, go ahead, look behind you, breathing here
and then exhaling, looking over the opposite shoulder,
softening your shoulders, breathing in and out. One more breath in and exhale, unwind. Good,
give your shoulders a little roll here, back and forth and go ahead and give a little shake.
Good, shake out the arms too. Awesome. From here, I'd like you to widen your
stance of your legs and your feet. Just the same motion that we were doing for the cow and cat,
we're going to do it with a wider stance here because we're going to start to open up the hips,
taking your hands on top of the thighs, open up for a wide-legged cow and then exhale, cat.
Good. Okay, again, breathing in, cow and exhale, cat pose. Excellent. Now, from this position,
I'd like you to start to rotate from one side to the other and I want you to continue that kind of
cow and cat posture where we are, see I'm coming into a cat pose on the back end and the front,
I'm going into a cow. Good, cat with rotation, cow, sticking the chest out a little bit,
rounding the back here, cat and cow. Let's go the other way and see how this feels
as we're opening up a little bit into the hips, giving our waistline a nice little
cinching-y-ness. I think that's a word or not a word and we're going to rotate to just
having some movement. I'm going to exaggerate here this one, breathe in and breathe out. Great.
From here, let's go toe-heel our feet back so that they are right underneath our hip
width distance apart, knees right on top of the ankles. I'd like you to come into a gentle
forward fold. So come over and give me a little huddle, like we're going to huddle together here.
Good. So you're bending down and then let's go ahead and soften our fingers and melt all
the way down. Of course, if you don't want to place your head below the heart, that's okay.
We're going to keep it just here. If you want to, then you're going to place the head all the way down
and look behind you, breathing in and exhaling. And as you do this with this forward fold, I want
you to focus on softening into the lower lumbar, the back space. Softening as you breathe here
in a nice forward fold, inhaling and exhaling. Now to really try to relax the shoulders,
really soften here. One more breath in and out. Okay, now to come out of this posture,
we're going to tighten our belly muscles to support our lower back. Tighten your belly muscles and
crawl back up. Tighten belly, breathe in and breathe out. Okay, let's put it into a sun
salutation here. Arms are going to come up, touch, breathe out. You're going to take your
hands behind you. Give a little rub to your lower back. That's going to do a lot of work
today. Breathe in, chest up, and then exhale, slide all the way down. Breathe out to that
forward fold. Inhale, press yourself up, tight belly, and relax the shoulders. One more time,
breathing in, arms up, touch, breathe out. Hands are going to come right behind you,
rubbing into that lower back, giving a little love. Inhale with your chest up and then
exhale, slide all the way down. Breathe out, softening into the lower back, and with a nice
tight belly, press yourself up, breathing in, and then exhale, release. Well done. Now as an
acupuncturist, I love to incorporate a little bit of acupressure points in your stretch routine.
So I want you to press on the outside of your tibia here, that shin bone. We're going to take
our gentle fist, and I want you to rub up and down, up and down, okay? Up and down into that space.
That's going to be tapping into your gallbladder 34 point. That is the command point of your muscles
and your sinew. So we're going to press into that space up and down this channel here on tap.
Perfect. Now before we complete this practice, I want you to go ahead and tap on the top of
your shoulder here at the top, gallbladder 21, and release. We're going to tap on the other shoulder
and release. Well done, everyone. I hope this pre-game workout works out for you. Please comment,
subscribe, and just let me know what you thought of this whole practice. Thank you so much. Namaste.