Class #3911

90-Minute Mat

85 min - Class
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We live in a fast-paced world so it's important to remember to take time for yourself. In this Mat workout, Amy Havens invites you to move with her for 90 minutes in order to be present with your mind and body for an extended period of time. She encourages you to slow down and dig deeper so that you can feel your way through the work.
What You'll Need: Mat

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Hi everyone. Amy here for a 90 minute math class and I have my friends, Mandy N Qaeda with me. We're here to move together, but we're also here to support you and your movement out there and your practice of [inaudible]. I wanted to do 90 minutes so that we in this fast paced world that we're in, that we're going, going, going, going, going so fast that we actually slowed down, dig deeper into the work and take our time getting to the exercises. So maybe all 34 will make an appearance today. I don't know yet for sure.

We're going to see we're all doing our own [inaudible] practice, the three of us. And I want you to do your own what I mean, um, glance at the monitor from time to time to just check out the exercise if you need to. But I really want to encourage you to lie back on your mat. Try not to look at the screen drop in a challenge, your mental state for 90 minutes and your stamina and your endurance and mental attention. So hopefully you're going to be with us at the end. I'm going to have us all stand up and we're going to do a nice, easy warm up and we'll get into our body. All right. Yeah. However you want to stand, wherever you want to stand on your mat on to the front or the back. Let's just all close her eyes.

Breath being the number one principle of Polonius. We're going to start with some beautiful accordion like breathing through our rib cage, so we'll take a deep wide breath in. We're wanting to articulate those ribs right away and on the exhale, just feeling that air moving through us and that deep inhalation. It's trying to widen the rib cage here and the exhaling, feeling the air move through and as you're starting these initial breaths, just rock your weight. Also forward and back a little bit. You could open your eyes if you need to or if you'd prefer that and just notice how you're rocking and where your body goes, how it feels.

This is a very feely class as well. You've got 90 minutes to be with yourself and really feel your way through the work. Then we'll just slowly start our descent into a roll down. So let's all open our eyes for that. We'll take a breath together and letting the head roll forward off that spine or from the spine and let that upper back start to round again.

This is your class, so do what you need to do right away. To make this a nice, easy descent down and toward the floor. Once down at the bottom of your roll down, take a deep breath in. We'll start our roll up, sinking our feet firmly down, feeling that nice pelvic positioning above the legs and reestablishing a sense of an uprightness or a lengthened body and a nice breath in at the top. [inaudible] in a good, easy ex-CEO rolling down, feeling the movement of flection.

You may choose to bend your knees a little bit. Play with that feeling if you'd like. Letting the arms hang loosely from your shoulders. Nice deep breath in. Again, letting the rib cage really expand and your exhale feet heavy as if they're pressing that floor or your mat down so that you can rise up. Re-establishing a sense of uprightness. Let's do it again. Inhale and exhale.

So cue the checkpoints from time to time. Arm's hanging loosely from the shoulders, a steadiness on your feet, an ease of flection in your back, letting your neck hang. Take another inhale upside down, and here we go. Roll up. Exhale. It's like your back muscles are just really sliding across your ribs, down their back there. This time as we establish our uprightness, I want to have us keep going and lift your sternum, your chest wall up a little bit and just gaze up slightly. Let that sense of ah, breath come up and through your upper back and then reestablish your head right forward. Everybody, just take your ear, one ear toward the shoulder and just give your side neck a moment to lengthen.

Let's feel your way through that. Roll your neck forward so your eyes almost look inside your own shirt from there. Roll your head straight back up. You'll do that leaning head or listening head to the other shoulder. Feel your way through. Roll your head forward, feeling a stretch in your neck muscles and looking down again. Roll that head back up. We'll do it again. Each side layering lots of beautiful breathing with movement head rolling forward, ruling that head right up on the spine and cervical spine, leaning the head the other way and head rolling down and reestablish the head right up on the spine.

We'll look this time to one side. Either one, take a glance, use those neck muscles to turn the head and through center and to your other side. Don't forget your eyes are part of you, so really see your environment. We'll go through each side again, like we have laser beams for eyes, just tracking along a nice horizontal line. Let's go through each the center and other side. One more time. All the while, just easy breathing. Okay, I'm looking forward from here. Another roll down. So eyes down, head down. Yeah. This time when we, as we get down and you'll get down there and we'll get down there and want us all to squat down and just lift your heels, bend your knees and just lower yourself. Lower to the floor.

Put your hands in front of you. Yep. I'm going to just go like where you guys are and just rock your body weight a bit forward onto your hands and then back towards your heels and forward towards your hands and back towards your heels. And we do so much weight bearing and is, let's just use this as a little bit of hand warm up, maybe a little wrist warmup and just sinking your weight. It's not mandatory that your heels touch the ground, make it your own. Go where you go three or four more. See if you can lean more into your arms, what that might feel like.

Rock further back with more C curve emphasis of our lumbar spine rocking forward [inaudible] and rocking back twice more rocking forward. [inaudible] letting that head dangle from the neck and rock forward. And this time as we rock back, I want us to have a stay back and then you know, let me, I'm just going to peek at my friends and see where we're at. Okay, good. I'm just seeing, yup. [inaudible] good. Come onto your hands and your knees so you may have to face me. Yeah, we're just going to do a nice, simple, quadrat, quadrupedal moment, just a quadrant head moments.

You've got a nice neutral spine energy out the head, out the tail. Give a sense of pulling them out, apart, pulling the arm bones back toward the legs and the knees pulling toward the hands. We got a lot of good center body connection. Tuck your toes now and feel the stretch at the base of the toes without losing a neutral spine. Let's move our body weight back and forth, forward and backward. So again, bearing weight into those risks, giving them a a warmup below billowed and warming up the hip joints creasing back. I want us to start coordinating this idea that we're pulling ourself forward and we are pressing ourself back. For me, it's almost as if I'm pushing the mat away from me when I go back with my hips and I'm pulling them at back toward my legs as I come forward.

We can move that a few more times. That relationship, that simple [inaudible] of pushing and pulling and stretching and lengthening. [inaudible] yeah, let's do one more of each position back and forth. [inaudible] and then take the tops of the feet down. If you had shoes on, your shoe laces would be down and just set back onto your elbows a little bit there. Let go. Your hips kind of start to make up maybe a little more of um, um, like an undulated movement or just a cat articulations. Mixed tension flection. Maybe some rotation side bin. Yeah, some shifting of your ribs from side to side. Loosen things up good. And then make a nice cat shape come up on those hands. Yeah, just really feel that opening of the back ribs, the skin on your back. Stretching wide and long.

Check those toes again. Let's go into a little like up. See where hamstring flexibility is right now or the hamstring. Um, yeah. How you feel in the stretch of your legs as you lift your hips. Might look like our up stretch on the reformer inverted V on the reformer. C lift your heels, lower your heels a few times. Just get a sense of where your stretch is. You can do one heel at a time.

[inaudible] if you want to sense what your shoulders need, you might think of pushing your or reaching your hips a little bit further back and your chest a little further back. Again, a really making this your own. Take a few more moments and then I want everyone to drop down to their knees. Again, sweep their hips around or their feet around and end up in a seated position when you're ready. And we're going to slide our hands theirs and put them right on top of our feet and let your knees be a part in your head's been a dropdown. Once again, exposing your back so you can read big back there. Okay. Now if we start to get a little more a focus of abdominal work or muscle work as you're in this flection forward during the exhale phase, let's see what it feels like if we start to move our stomach back away from our legs pulling out, set that body backward.

Okay, inhale. You might just be down there and then on the exhale, that work of pulling or moving the front body back away from the legs, increasing that elongation of your back and the width of your back. Keep tapping into what this feels like, where you'll need this ease in your back during some of the mat exercises. [inaudible] Oh right. Sliding your hands right up along your legs. Yep, and it's right up and just maybe take a shoulder roll. I'm going to take her hands behind her legs.

I'm going to bring my hips just a little bit toward my feet and feel that use of your arms helping to somewhat hold up your back. Okay. We're ready to start moving a little more on your exhale. That rolling off of those sitting bones. Just opening up your lumbar and your sacrum. We'll go to where it feels good for you.

I'm going to go to where my arms are straight. My elbows are straight and ask for a little more engagement of my lower abs to pull my hips back a tiny bit. Take a breath right there. Let's use that exhale and pull ourself forward. Deepening the flection. You can use your arms round forward, head between knees, almost roll up to sitting using your arms slightly, pulling yourself taller. Take an exhale, rolling back. [inaudible].

I kind of create that really beautiful curve. Feel that effort of your stomach muscles holding in. Breathe and use your arms to help you rounding forward. Sometimes the glute muscles, the butt muscles, start to contract on this exercise. Let it happen. It's actually probably helpful for some of us, so just feel what happens.

Moving organically. Inhale and exhale forward. Keeping your attention on your movement, on your breath. That's inhale nice and tall. We're going to do a little bit of challenge with just checking in where our arms, our shoulders, our palms face up, our arms are straight in front of her shoulders.

Slowly open both of your arms out wide aiming my thumbs back behind me. Palms are way up and I want us to feel our shoulder blades come pretty close together on our back just to get that energy in the upper back. Release that contraction. Bring your arms all the way forward. Pinky fingers can touch right in front of your chest. Two more of those. So using your upper back muscles, contract them so that brings the scapula shoulder blades right toward the center spine. And then release that effort. Bring your arms forward.

One more time, awaken that up or back. Wake it up. Use those muscles, hold those arms wide and bring your arms forward. Let's straighten our lengths. Open the arms again. All right, from the arms being wide open, let's lift the arms as if you're lifting the air up. It's okay if your shoulders come up with you. Just feel your whole effort of reaching up and lower your arms down.

We'll do two more there. Nice relaxed feet. Lifting the air, sitting right tall, lower the arms, and once again, lifting those arms up. Let's check in a little rotation of your spine. Pick a direction. Rotate your torso toward that direction. As you lower your arms down, like leaves falling maybe down on the ground all the way. Lift the arms as you rotate back to face your legs. Of course, go to the other side.

You're checking in or checking into how our spine feels into rotation fluidly. Moving all the way up. Other way. One more time. Your chance to check in and see what site feels easy to move to. What side might need a little more breath or mental attention. Focus, strength. Maybe one side needs to dial down the energy a little bit.

So we've made it all the way up. I want us to bring her legs closer together. Make a round shape of your [inaudible] fine, pulling the tummy muscle softly back into your lower back and then just start a little bit of pulsing forward posing forward. So I'm thinking of my upper body round over my legs, but at the same time the effort of the abdominals pulling back just easy [inaudible] and then our one more time from there. Just glossy, like quality of never queued the word glossy. I don't think in all of my time. Roll yourself back. Nice. Ah, time is a good thing. [inaudible] bend our knees.

Time for some spinal articulation from our supine position. We have our feet slightly apart, our shoulders are pressed back, we have a breath. And the exhale is that pelvic curl. Feel how your low back really joins the mat rolling through your spine. We're bringing our hips up at the same time, pressing our arm bones down on the mat so you've got a good sense of lift in our hips. Arms down, breathing in. Know what starts to roll down is our upper back, our middle back, and we're all the while seeking length between our pelvis and our ribs.

Want us to come all the way to neutral pelvis and slightly float the feet off. Just give a little foot check like you could lift them really easily. Set them back down. Breathe in again, going again to pelvic curl. Let the low back join the mat all the way rolling up so the effort is in the back of the legs. Buttocks and lower back, back of arms. Nice high pelvis breathing in. Exhale coming down.

Beautiful sequential fluid body. Feel the simplicity of this exercise. Let's go one more time. Basic inhale and curling up. Just remember, remind your chin to not be lowered down on the chest. Your chin pointing straight to the ceiling, your nose to the ceiling, your eyes seeing the ceiling. We have an openness across our color.

Strengthen the back of those arms and exhale coming down. This time we'll do that little, uh, lifted the feet, that foot check neutral pelvis. Just sink your pelvis in the feet. We'll just simply lift, bring them right up into a tabletop position, arms up to the ceiling, and then just back overhead for a moment. We'll break it. The elbows are bent at the elbows and just come through kind of a goal post place and just circle those arms back down.

So do more super slow arms to the ceiling overhead cause you bend your elbows. You probably will feel some stretch in your chest and bring your arms all the way down. And we'll take one more there. All the way. Lift and back overhead. And then all the way down by your hips will, they'll stay lower. Both of your feet back down. Get ready for another pelvic curl. Breathe in. Exhale, pelvic curl takes us right back up. Okay. This time, lift your heels up so that you're standing more just on the platform of the balls of your feet. Engage your butt muscles more. Lower your heels without losing the height of your pelvis. Lift the heels again. Lower the heels again.

Let's just keep lifting and lowering those heels. Establish the pelvis in the one place in the air. Doesn't drop. Peel some breath. Maybe you can amp up the work in your arm muscles to press them on the mat a little more. Let's go faster for five of these one and two and three, four and five heels down. Start lifting your arms up.

They'll go all the way back overhead as we all the way roll down our spine. So starting to build a little coordination there. Let's go back up to pelvic curl again. As we lower our arms down, so feeling beautiful. Wave like motion rolling down the spine as we float our arms up and reach them overhead for shoulder flection. All the way to neutral. One more time you guys and we role moving that spine, preparing it for some bigger rolling moves in a moment. Roll the spine down. Arms go overhead. Okay.

Those arms are going to stay overhead. I want us to bring our ankles together. Knees together, raise, raise your legs both to tabletop at the same time. Okay. Hands behind the head. Elbows toward the ceiling. Check into some, uh, chest lift or upper body, cervical and upper thoracic flection. Just three times. Let's just go into occur.

Roll back two more. Let your spine fall down against the mat and really let it fall against your mat. You're bringing your front body, your torso, towards your legs, torso toward legs. Okay. As you lower your chest, lower your feet. We're going to add lifting the feet and legs as we curl our chest. Three dimes. Inhale down, sinking those abdominals. First, the limbs and chest follow second and lower down. Sustaining our attention. Exhale curve.

So we'll be up there. We're just going to start easy alternating legs. You can touch the toes to the mat. You can touch your heels to the mat. Establish a beautiful chest lifted position. [inaudible] let's breathe in for two leg exchanges and exhale for two leg exchanges.

N N Hale and X. hail again in eight, seven, six, five, four, three last two legs both come up together. We'll keep them there as we take our chest back down. Lower your arms down by your sides. I'm going to choose palms face up for some supine rotation.

Knees to the right. You're rocking onto that right hip. Think about the op visit. Stretch through the chest. Let's go right ahead and extend both legs on that diagonal. We're going to do a small no like a little horseshoe sweep from right down across that sacrum over to the left. Keep your leg straight, bring him right to the ceiling where you bend the knees and we'll reverse that to the left side. Leaning to the left hip, extending both legs. Feel a beautiful stretch of mainly that top hip to foot. Go a little beyond.

Lower those legs round across that sacred. Bring your legs to the right through the center and bend. Same thing again to the right and extend legs. Sweep around to the left and center and rebend. Now go left legs, extend, sweep around to the right.

Go through center and Ben once again to the right and extensive. You can go a little further. Go lower to the mat around to the ceiling and Ben, last one to the left and extend. Lower those legs way down. Sweep, center, bend and lower the feet. Okay. Inhale. Exhale. Chest comes up, arms reach. We're going to reach our hands toward our feet.

Stretch your legs beautifully. Long floater, legs up, toes at eye level only in four or five XL, three, four, five, two, three, four or five. Three. Exhale, three, four, five. Letting that low back, mid back, fall against your math. [inaudible] we're moving in our own way. Three versions of the 102 cycles.

One more cycle. Now from there, let's stop. We'll lower our legs. We'll take our arms all the way back and enjoy a stretch of your full body. Let it stretch, let it stretch, let it stretch. When you to circle your arms around through that tee position.

And then now my your hips that she's generate some circular movements of her arms and they can go a little bit more windmill like on tempo, meaning windmills. But just tempo. A little circular creates an air around you, reverse your direction and your arms out, up, around, down, out, up, around, down. A couple more and doubt around. Pause when the arms are starting to reach toward the ceiling. And let's see what happens if we pick up her head and chest and perhaps come into a rural up and we reach over our legs. We breathe in here.

We're going to roll ourselves backward slowly through those vertebra. The joints of our low back are thoracic. Ah, okay. Yeah. And again, a roll up. Chew some arm work that works for you. I had to make a change and that's fine because I'm still rolling up on my spine breathing. [inaudible] it's articulation.

Sometimes different arm gestures or positions serve the skill better. You gonna learn that in your practice. Those of us taking this class together, we understand that honor that let that happen. Sometimes going outside the comfort zone and making that change invites a new connection to more roll-ups. We go [inaudible] start putting your mind on the exercise known as the rollover that's coming up very soon. But we have one more roll-up to do. Here we go. Wow.

Once you're at the top of your roll up, pause. Let's go into that pulsing rhythm again. So I like a little inhale. Inhale, exhale, exhale. Just feels rhythmically right for me. It's a little bit of pulse. Hm.

And four, three, two and one. And then before rolling backward, I want us to roll up to sitting tall, bringing your arms with you. So tough. Flex the feet, lower the legs. Come back into a round spine. We're going to do that a few times. So articulating to sitting tall while we flex our feet, lower the arms, they'll go to the sides. Recontract to come forward. Feel that nice fluidity. Pick up your spine. Pick up your back. Lift.

Lower the arms. We have one more flex forward from there. Pause. Roll backward again. This time the arms can stay at the sides of you. Just at the sides of you. Hopefully we don't. No one, not even you at home. Don't watch us.

No one needs to move on their mat. No one does. I'm pretty sure we have to trust it. There's plenty of room above our head to roll back. Drag your legs in, extend your legs to the sky. Use those strong arms that press down on the mat for security and some help.

Roll onto your shoulders. Peel pelvic girl. Reach yourself back. Flex your ankles. Open your legs if you have the floor to go to. You can do that with your feet going down, lowering to the floor. If you don't have that, it's okay. The legs are apart. We're rolling down.

If the chest that comes down away from the chin, the mid spine, the lower spine, lower your legs to a challenging level for you. Let's come up and over again. [inaudible] breathe that air out. Flex your ankles as you open those legs. Take your breath coming down, chest down, away from the chin and head nice and controlled. Concentrate.

We're gonna do one more with the legs doing this same pathway overhead. You go flex and open. Breathing in. We're rolling down. I would like us to do the rollover with the legs open this time as we roll over with open legs. [inaudible] while overhead legs come together with flex tangles. Breathing in, coming down. Chest rules down from the chin. Articulate place that sacrum. Challenge yourself to take your legs lower than your comfort level.

Open them up, roll back up and over. [inaudible] flex. Pull them together. Breathing in who are willing down sustained attention. Mental clarity. No rush. One more time. Exhale. Up and over. Flex the legs. Bring the ankles together. Breathing in. We rolled down.

I'd like everyone to pause their movement when they get their sacrum down to leg. Straight up above the hips and does extend your ankles in your toe. Skin. Yeah. Lower your left leg. Once it's down, flex the ankle of that foot, the leg that remained up in the air. The right one. Let's just keyhole rotation, the leg, little outward rotation leg circles.

I'm going to take mine somewhat small today. Crossing down, around and up. Cross down around and up. Three more circles. Reverse for our five leg circles. One more and a pretty easy transition. Just switch legs.

The leg that came down, flex the ankle. It's parallel. The up leg is slightly externally rotated. Are crossing over, down, around, and up, over, down around X halo so that inner thigh can help pull the leg back up. And in the mid line, that inner thigh into the midline, our last circle here, reverse three, four and five, lower the leg. And once that leg is all the way down on your mat, slide your heels along that mat. Fold your hip joints at your hip joints. Put your hands on your shims.

Lift your chest up. Close your body into a little inside a Walnut shell or a little shell. And before we come up for the ruling like a ball, I actually want, I'm going to make this choice to put my hands behind my knees. It just feels right to me. Today, I want to roll a little bit, and before we do the full ball, come on up. Like up on your seat like this. Okay. Yeah. Good. Scoot back a little bit.

I'm gonna make it clothing adjustment because it's time for Julian that, yeah, open up your feet. I mean, your knees are open, your feet are together. Okay. Take your arms out to the side. How you're feeling. Warm. Warm. Yeah. See, huh? Do you see? Yay. Here we go. Close your knees. Bring your arms in front of you. Use your stomach muscles to close your knees open. I'm going to rock a little bit. As I close my knees, I'm actually thinking about like making my, my abs and narrower on that and then open. Do it again.

See if that's going to be our prep for rolling like a ball. Okay. One more little one like this. And then we're going to try something with our feet. I want us to see what it feels like to pull her in heels in and do the same thing. So keep your heels closer to your butt and open and pull your heels in.

Yeah, let me see what that's gonna feel like in your ball. Do more like that. Pull your heels in and round and stayed there. I think we've got room behind us. We do hands on your shinbones. Same feeling in your tummy. Let's go for six balls. Roll back. Rural up. Rural. Rural up is if you're still performing in that last little pre exercise, the squeeze the legs together. Bring the heels closer to the bottom.

[inaudible] we have two more rolling like balls in the sequence and our last one. But then I want us to place our feet down. Cross your ankles and just come up onto your hands and your knees. Okay, wag your tails. Well I did tell swishy swish, tuck your toes. Let's check into a weight bearing exercise. It's not an order. That's okay. Just come up onto your front support. Shoulders right over your wrists, above them and you're balancing on those toes.

Just hold now rural, make a little circular movement. So I'm shifting my weight around my wrist, using my feet for a little push off action. [inaudible] and then the other way what I would like us to do is pause in the middle, bend your knees down to the mat, lower yourself to your front. [inaudible] please your arms by your sides, with your palms facing the ceiling. Let's just do an isometric kind of a hold.

Everybody lift your face, your size, perse, your arms to the sky. Hold a back extension. Notice what's feeling pressed against your mat, pubic bone and hips, base of ribs, but is your right side pressing more of your left or vice versa? If so, check-in. We're looking for relative balance between our size. Charge up the workload in your buttocks. Lift your thighs, maybe half an inch higher arms, half an inch higher.

That's plenty. Let's bend the elbows please. Your hands right underneath your chest or your children's by your chest wall and press herself back to that quadrat pad position. Wag your tails and then we'll coming back around for some of this series of five so we just sit back up. Reach your legs forward, reach your body forward. Go back to the flection state again. Flection state. Yeah, breathing in, rolling back. I believe it was Martha Graham that said this is the most important movement of the day right here and then right here and then right here.

It was being in the moment. Every movement was in the moment. See what it is. Yeah, duh. We don't have to worry about what's coming next. Even though we think we might know, who knows. This is the most important movement of the day. I just feel that leg.

Pull on that shin, change legs and feel that one. Let's feel the press. When was the last time you actually felt that? Shinbone what does it feel like? Hello? Shinbone change sides. Feel the other one. Such a nice contrast. As hard as a solid bone against all this softer thing, you know, squishy stuff. Muscle. Here we go.

Let's just change and change and change. I like to press down on that sheet in press. That hard bone against the muscles. Eight more should allow your back to also make more contact with the mat for three and two and one. Yes, we're going to go right into AA, but let's pause for a second. You need to, if you need to rest your neck, you can press bushings, stretch your legs, stretch your arms, stretch, circle close. Press the shins. Just two more. Stretch longer than you think you need to, longer than you think you can, and close, close, close. One more.

Let's hold it for a little longer. Stretch into the air with your toes and your fingers and come around. Pick onto a calf muscle. Well now feel the calf. Pick that leg up as if you're going to take it over your body. Pull on it twice. One to change, like hold before you pull, pull, lift the leg up, pull it overhead, pull, pull. We go it. Lift up, pull, pull, pull it up. Pool, pool.

[inaudible] up and over the body. Notice what you feel with that. [inaudible]. Allow the stretch to happen in the hamstrings back here. Allow it invited in. Let's take this four more and three, two and there's our one who needs the neck support. I do.

Hold your head. All right, scoop those elbows up. Lower your head for a moment. That's the moment. Pick it back up. Refocus, recalibrate. Here we go. The last two sequences in the series of five straight leg, lower lift. [inaudible] lower lift. Last one.

Stretch more than you think you can from your hips to your ankles. Good and lift. Cross one side. Hold it, the straight leg, but squeeze happens. Change sides. Hold it and make sure that straight leg and [inaudible] wheezing and the inner thigh is working toward the midline. Let's change it and one and change [inaudible] rolling across those shoulder blades to change from right to left.

Eight more twist. [inaudible] twist more, twist more, twist more, and four, three, two and one. And then bring your knees in. Hug yourself, let your net come down. Oh right gals and people at home has rolled herself up in a way that serves you. I'm going to have us move our hands behind her hips. Okay, lift. You can place flat hands or fists.

I'm going to go onto my fist when I lift my button up, hips up, and then reach your hips back between those hands and try to sit back a little further. Those hand flex your feet. All right, open the leg. Let me be three spine stretch forward. Tic a deep breath. Sit tall. So we'll take our arms in the fashion today. More traditional that they're stinging shoulder level. Straight forward. Can you bend your spine so your body is going to go down lower than those arms.

The book says head to the mat. The book that mr Palladio's wrote, I can't do that. Roll back up. I can think about it. What if the crown of my head could get there? Hm. Swipe me. Practice this stuff. Ah, trying it. The arms have to live for the spine to down and we roll back up.

Let's go ahead at one more time and maybe if we lift our back skin up or back. Skin up and reroll over our front body. Squeeze the stomach. Did it help? Got it. Rolling all the way. Arms out to the side. Let's do a little circle. Circle, circle. Make some air with your arms. Feel energy in your feet and your legs. Pause, arms go the other way. This is the easier arm circle.

Move, pause. Bringing them up here. Like you've got little mini magic circles on your wrists and your bangles. Circle your bangles. Pause. Other way. We're setting up for open leg rocker. Okay, let's bring your legs together.

Hands or fists. Bring your hips to your heels. But don't let go yet. Let's go back again and come forward again and back again. So the sit bones were right up going to kiss those heels and back and bring it up and back twice more. Snuck in some arm work. Can you get in? There it is and then I'm going to ask us to have hands on the inside of your feet. Ankles, if you'd like to try today and let's go ahead and just extending the legs up into our V sit. Okay.

Our leg bones are slightly turned out from our hips. If this is not your normal rocker position, it could be an interesting ride. Okay. Yeah, let's try. So you go for that. Beautiful. I can already tell my conscious nature is going to want to go back to the regular way. Yeah, so see we're trying it out. We're trying it on. Here we go.

[inaudible] my mental attention went, went out the door. I'm going to try it again. Okay. Remember we're doing our own practice that okay. Inhale. Exhale. Maybe your hands have to go to your CAS [inaudible] and maybe they liked the normal way. Yeah. Three more together. Let's roll back. Flection of our spine coming up.

Let's lift the air top of the head to the air. Yeah. Two more times. Flection of her spine and up last time. [inaudible] in a hold at the top. It's your legs together and open a few times and we'll hold there with the legs together. Let go. Oh boy.

All right. Mental discipline. Attention to detail. Keep the legs there. Roll back until we're all the way on our spine and head. Bring your legs to the ceiling. Rolling over again. Corkscrew time. Choose a side of your back to come down easily.

Place that hip. Take your legs to where you'd like to go. Depth wise, up and over. Center down the opposite side corkscrew. Remember breathing with movement. Ah, coming down. Sweep plaque sailing up. Inhaling down the offices side. Exhaling up each site again.

Last time we're gonna roll right up. Take our legs out wide for saw. [inaudible] I'm gonna move back. Alright. Feel those sit bones. Shake on him just a little bit. Make sure you're right on top of them. Rotate to either side as you breathe in. Reach both arms in opposite directions.

Round for over that a forward leg. I want you to emphasize the back are more reaching back is if your friend had a hold of your hand and they're pulling you backward. Let that emphasize in initiate. Yes, rolling up and go through center. One more time. Slow on the second side so you're rounding over, but the back arm still has a lot of energy. If there were someone back there saying, Hey, come back, roll back up.

They'd pull on you. You'd lift a little more flow, twist round, rural up through center, second side and round. Roll up, first side and West Xcel and in last time to the second side and lift center. Take your legs together, take your arms up. I'm going to get a little back support journey here. So I'd like this one for myself when I'm come up on my fist. Bring your legs close together with maybe even a little bit of use of the butt. Elbows close together. All right, leaning back on your strong arms. Lift those hips up. If you can point your toes down to the mat.

Wonderful. I like to look down, but some people like to let their head go back. I make it yours. Remember, make it yours. Okay. And let's come back down to sit. Inhale, regroup. If you need to ring me arms closer to the body, snuggle in, get snug, get supported. Lean some hip extension. Push your arm down. Look straight out or up or backer, your choice and let it come down one more time. Inhaling. Yeah. Strong arms to support. As we lean, we use our legs, we use our back weaves or shoulders and we'll come down and to take advantage of having this up on our sit bones like this.

Take your arms forward. Again, everybody, palms face up. Let's take your breath. The spine, twist and open toward the left side. That's just my choice. Less flex our feet also. Okay, three pulses, but it's internal. The arms on the outside reflect what's happening inside. Pulse, your stomach muscles in three times. You'll one, two, three center. And the other sites we don't put, you know, gangs, the arms, it's internal. One, two, three. Center. The arms stretch on the outside. They lengthen to three.

But internal, our abdominals and our spinal muscles working together to contribute to more rotation. We have one more. Each side we twist, we twist. We're reaching our last time here. My twist ever taller. Ever taller. Okay. Prone time. Flip around. I didn't go right to some Swan clothing adjustment time. Hands by the sides of the chest wall is my preference.

Judas one that serves you best today as you're taking class. This one is an inhalation. To begin, I'm gonna take my arms and use them and push me. I like to come a little higher. Do this one that works for you and coming down. It's a long journey down the front of that chest and until we get to the forehead and that's rise again. Yeah. [inaudible] and coming down.

I liked about five swans. Inhale, the chest is ever reaching forward and up. Legs have extended energy behind those hips. Chest reaching forward and we come down. [inaudible] last juice ones. I mean she a white Swan or speckled fro Swan or young Swan. I'm a tour Swan.

Things I think about during my mat. A serious, seriously. I do. I'm doing it now. All right, last salon. Well, I want you to stay up. I'm gonna stay up there. Support your back with your stomach and your glutes. Shift your weight a little from right arm to left arm.

Maybe that thought of Swan and its age made you smile. That's good. And come on back down all the way. Bring your legs close together. I want us to sit her hands in a stack set up and just put your forehead right on those hands. Let's give her a low back, a little bit of attention. I don't want us to, uh, basically pelvic tilt right now.

So lots of emphasis of pubic bone pressing the mat to elongate that lumbar to sacred joint, uh, zone in your low back. Okay. And at the same time holding that, you might have to open your legs to make that feel a little bit more of a relief. Also, press the elbow bones down. Now I want us to have our forehead up off the hams. So we've got a really good base of strength in our back. I'm going to single leg kick and this is the design I want to do my single leg kick in today. You can choose something different.

I am now that I'm ready in my back and bring my legs closer together and I'm going to lift my legs up. Nice. You guys. When they comes in and we really think heel to buttock, heel to buttocks, it stretches back and down. Other side kick, kick. It's the stretch back and down. It matters a lot. Not just the kick kick, right? Kick a kit, but the stretch is important. Kick, kick stretches. Important kick [inaudible] if your back is doing okay, if you think you want to try unstacking the hands, moving the hands more forward, maybe propping up a little bit. Kick, kick. I think all went well. We have to stabilize those shoulders on our back. Ribs and four and three and two and one. Now bringing your legs close together. Keep your legs up.

Turn one year head. Turn your head to one side. Put your ear down. You know what I meant? Keep your legs up. Let's go for sing. Double leg kick. Hans. To the small of the back. Three kicks is one, two, three. Extend your arms. No hyperextending elbows. Feel the effort in that upper back. We did it at the very beginning of the warmup.

Sustain that attention turned to the other side. And kick two, three. Inhale, lengthen other side two, three stretch. Use that upper back to bring the scapulae together. Second side, one, two, three and open one more each way. One, two, three and lift one, two, three. And lift. Unclasp. Put hands under chest wall, tucked toes up to front support. Breathe, breathe, breathe.

Want us to bring our knees to the mat and make a cat back again? Good old kitty. Good old cat and it should feel really lovely today. Cat after all that extension. So when we're in this cat, maintaining that the slope down of the low back pelvis. Seagram take that and just shift back so your butt's more above your calves, uh, and sustaining that place and maybe reach one hip lower than the other hip so that one quadrant of your low back region gets more stretch. Like you're dragging that one down. Okay.

Then the other side, notice what you feel. Okay for site. Again, these are the elements that really keep me excited because if we're rushing through Matt class, sometimes we don't, not always, but maybe don't get a chance to feel all these little delicate differences or similarities, you know, tuck your toes and just come up onto your here. Kind of take a breath of air. Come up for a minute. All right, let's go to sideline. So I'm going to go on my left side first so you guys can do that as well. We're going to go all the way just down to her elbow today. Okay.

And first extend both ladies in line with your hips, elbow right underneath that shoulder and just, you know, with an ease in this, let's let our rib cage side stretch down to the mat. Let that just stretch, breathe in and out a little bit. You can actually kind of do some one lung or one side breathing. Then we'll take it up and we're looking for a little bit more of a balance between our right and left kind of hemispheres or sides for a body. But then the neck. I want you to bring your neck more up here, hand behind head.

Lastly, let's pick up our legs just an inch so that they can come from forward. Now Topley can come up and down. We're parallel abducting leg. Pretty simple. Lift and lift. Well, we're not letting our room cage drop. We've got to lift and a lift. One more. I want us to stay lifted. Front, back, kick. Let's breathe in first exhale.

We'd kick it twice. Inhale back for two, front for two and back for two and front for two and back for two and front and back. How about for more guys? Can you go any further in your kick today? Further in your kick? The answer was yes and lay back. Hold your leg back. Extend that top arm in a diagonal.

If we were the drone looking down over our bodies, we [inaudible] dyad know from hand to foot. Okay. Lift the back leg up and down about five times. Utilize the gluteals there. Feel them four and five. Now put your hand back behind your head. I'd like you to take your top leg, bend your knee. Very okay. Gesture he learned isK and rotate your torso face up.

Ah, just take some air in. No, this is not a traditional body politesse position, but you know what? It's a movement that body does. Sometimes it needs to do this. Okay, now let's come all the way down off the elbow. However, all the way, so you stretch yourself long and now make a straight line with your legs. Let's emphasize the inner thigh strength at this moment. So just nothing's happening except for lying down.

But if we activate or inner legs and our abdominals and our aside muscles of our back and think, let's lift our legs a little bit should be fairly successful. And I know I'm ready to take my arm up to the ceiling for a little balance challenge. Okay. I just want to feel the ease in this simplicity in this Martha Graham again, this is it. [inaudible].

Okay, but now this is it or move her head. Okay. And some leg flutters will be it. Little tiny leg flutters. Just little kind of quick ish. [inaudible] right? Four, three, two, one stillness in the legs. Arm can come to ceiling.

And then all the way back down. [inaudible] now Ben, both knees has come up for a mermaid stretch and our mermaid stretch. Yeah, you guys can stay looking at the beach, which is perfect for ya. Yeah. Arm lift side bend three. So this is one way we can sit in a mermaid. We'll do another style and just a minute, go down and put that hand on the mat.

Look down at your hand and do your upper arm over your head. I'm going to choose a different mermaid. I'm going to tuck both knees together. Quote more traditional. Just feel the difference between this mermaid and the other one. Breathing big into that open side.

I'm gonna ask everyone to stay with this place for just a moment. What does it feel like to curl your tail underneath you? Just a little, ah ha. Feel that. And then back to the other side. Ben, looking down at your arm and side bend it. Okay. Please come up onto your knees. You can still face that direction and just have your ladies very close together from an arms out to your side. We're not done working that hip. Take a deep, deep breath inside. Bend over and then just take your hand down to the mat, the other hand behind your head and for now the other foot just down on the floor, feeling the work of the alignment principle. Head into hand, pelvis and a little bit of posterior tilt or UBIC bone forward and now we'll take our long outside leg up.

Hip height is the goal and back down and again, up hip, height and down and lift. Lower three more. One and down. Two and down. One more time and lift. We're going to keep it there for five little circles each way there. Little one to go a little higher though. Three four if you want.

Do your own other way. I know we're being our own bodies. Yes, we're being our own coaches. Three, four and five. That's enough. Bend that knee round back into somewhat of a mermaid. Like stretch. She's a little different, right? They're really big. Okay. I'm going to keep on that same side body, but ask us all to come back down and sit on the hip so you're still facing the same way wall on that one arm. You're on your hip.

Let's get into a little side bend, one arm side, Ben support. So the opposite arm is long out to the side. Your Palm is face up. Before we start loading that single arm balance it. Feel your shoulder, depression, your scapula, depression, lats if you like those muscles to work in your upper back. But also as we're about to lean onto that straight arm, the effort we need of lifting or abdominals in lifting our hips in and up.

Let's breathe in to prepare. We're going to go all the way out. Lifting your hips. Now I like my arm all the way overhead. That's just where I like to go. But do what you need to do. Emphasize the hips. You guys lifting hips higher? Yeah, hips higher. I am sorry. Now lower your hips. Barely touch them above the mat.

Look to the opposite him. You're waiting for a snowflake or a little leaf to fall ven over again. Oh, it's okay. Hips, hips, hips, little leaf falling. Hold one more. Press up. Hips, hips, hips, bend your knees come all the way down. Now we're ready for the other side. Okay. Up on our elbow. [inaudible] exactly like that. So we began with two straight legs in mind with the pelvis. We let our ribs gracefully sink toward the mat.

Just a feel. Yad a field, that side of the diaphragm in there, the obviously your obliques, muscles of your ribs stretching. But that's not a supportive place for them to be for all the leg work that we're doing. So we lift those ribs, we'd get some more uniform work in our mid body. We took her hand behind her head, we lifted her legs in inch just enough so there's clearance for them to move forward. There we go. Or in parallel. And we began with simple hip AB duction right. And up and down about five or six times. [inaudible] yeah, I to keep her leg up. Let's breathe in eight repetitions.

I did count front, back kicks. We have one, two, front and back. Back and kick. Kick, front, kick, kickback. Can the elbow more front, front, back, back. Four more. Can you kick a little further? Yeah. Front. Front. If it feels good to do that. Kick, kick back, back. Kick, kick back, back. Keep the leg there.

We took her arm in a gesture and opposition to the back leg and we took our back leg gluteals and we asked him to help lift the leg. Five times two, three stretch your inside body towards your outside body. Four and five and came together. Okay. Now bend the knees. I believe I ask us to do the subtle rotation, didn't I? Yeah. So we have our hand behind her. Honey, you open up that chest. Thank you. One knee is bent. See I didn't remember what I actually did.

It feels better with one leg bent. Yep. It's okay. [inaudible] and then we came back in though for the inner thigh work. I know that we came all the way down. Legs in line with us started simply long on the mat. [inaudible] let's recollect our thoughts and take our innercise closely together.

Bring the legs up off the mat slightly and also the arm up. So we were definitely in a balanced position. Fluttering the legs, event, arm overhead, [inaudible] inner thighs, nice and close together and like fish swimming, making away through four, three, two and one and arm down, leg down. Okay. Let's come on up and do our mermaid stretch. The first one which is more of this little open gesture like arm up and lean toward the feet on the opposite side.

Exactly. So those ribs are open for more air and the lung is exposed to take a bigger breath into it. Right and come on down and lean onto the hand and elbow and stretch the office away. If that mermaid felt good for you, you can do that again or the second version we did with our feet tucked under and our army came up and we lean over. We stayed there for just a little bit longer and allowed our pelvis to come slightly under an a tuck of the tail or rounding of that sacrum. And then we went back over, got the good stuff out of the way in there because the next is all the way up on our high kneeling position.

So let's come up high kneeling arms, our sides taking an inhale side, bending over, hand on the mat, other hand behind her head and first his foot on the floor and again establishing head back into your hand. That simplicity of posture checking right their tailbone that's curled under slightly take a breath in preparing for the lift of the leg on more exhale we lift and we lower, exactly trying to get hip height and down hip height and now last to hip height and down last when we kept it up, five small circles, one, two, three, four, five reverse by four, three and two and one and we tucked the knee in, rounding your back, stretching that side body. That just got a lot of that work. But we have the single arm balance side arm balance. So coming back onto that straight arm.

Legs are slightly stacked or staggered. One arm is long over those legs. Shoulders square again, check your scapular position. Make sure the scapular shoulder blades are relatively, if not quite low on our back. Breathing in, we need our hips, our abs, our legs, everything to help stand us on that single arm, the opposite arm overhead and it's an emphasis of the hips underneath there lifting us up. Exactly the opposite is lowering the hips, stretching out waist toward the mat.

The office hand is like waiting for a little snowflake to fall and we go up again. Press play with changing your head direction, looking down, lifting those hips. Breathe. Life into this stretch is very hard exercise. We've got one more though, all the way up, Ben, and stretch and lift and that's all we do. We bend our knees and we came in. Fantastic. I want us to turn toward our feet. Now you guys can turn back toward me. Let's kind of rewind for a minute, the very beginning of class and place your hands on the tops of your feet and let yourself just realm breathe in and out a few times. Keeping your mind here. We're not done yet.

Check into your breath. See if you're restless. Nothing else is happening right now except this last bit of class we have teasers to do. Okay, so we're gonna role ourself up. We're going to take her legs in front of us. We are going to reach our arms forward. We've already done a few teasers. Let's roll ourself back onto our sacrum.

We'll bring our legs up. Okay. Roll back to your lower back or all the way to your head. Let's roll up to teaser one. Okay. Maybe this Deezer one and that.

Go for one more teaser one. No, I've lied. I'm going to have us do another teaser one. Okay. Three teaser ones. Oh boy. All the way up. Now keeping your arms here or up. Lower your legs. Lift is if your legs are gonna still attached to your ribs in a way.

And lift one more. Yep. Twos are three. Everything down. Legs don't drop. They hover. Here we go up. Reach for your toes first. Then the ceiling, Deezer three, two more times. Reach for your toes and the ceiling only. Got one more.

Yeah. Oh yes. Stretch though. And reach. Okay. Bring your elbows down. Bring your Towson. Okay. Hip circles. Let's go. Legs straight up. Actually let, yeah, we'll go Lake circles. Go over to your right hip corkscrew. The leg is down around. Uphold other direction. Legs to the left, down, around, uphold.

Go ahead and right reach way out around. Uphold to the leftover [inaudible]. One more [inaudible]. Last one. Bend your knees. Roll down. Open your feet, shoulder with the part. Taking a nice deep breath through your nose.

We've made a full circle journey. Let's go into a pelvic curl up into a bridge position to give her quadriceps some stretch and length. You can keep your hands and arms long on the mat or if you'd like a little extra, you can lift your hips higher by placing the heels of your hands at the side of your waist and hips to help lift your hips up. I want. Then for myself, I'm going to walk my legs closer together and take one leg. It's your choice. Everybody. Your choice. Stretch one may long on the mat.

Keep your foot down. Keep your foot down the leg that's extended. Squeeze your buttocks please. Okay, now lift the leg up. Take it as far overhead as you feel like you can. Lower it down. Touch your foot down. We'll do with just three of them. They're slow today. Lift that leg up. Lower down, no rush. Take your foot down, hold it and lift. Lowered all the way back down. It slides its way back in.

Stand on two feet for a moment. It's the other legs. Turn sliding out. Hold it there. Feel and bring your leg up. Lower your leg down. Touch that Matt, if you can lift lower last time, lift and lower, slide that leg in. If your hands are holding hips, now they can let go and you get to rule all the way down your back. Once your pelvis is in neutral land, bring your thighs to your chest.

Rock your way up to a seated position. Cross the ankles. Let's take the hands and hold those feet. [inaudible] find a nice rounded feeling anyway of your body, the outside of your spine, the back of your spine, down to your pelvis, your tailbone balance. [inaudible] part of the seal, or as part of this crab exercise related to crap. Rolling back to your shoulders. We'll switch our feet overhead.

Come back up just to the balance place today. Well, unless you're doing at home, your full crab, you can go for it. If it's your full crab or anyone here, rollback, change your legs. Find that round. Nest. We got a pull that stomach wall back. Okay. Inhale breath and movement.

Rolling that [inaudible]. Two more [inaudible] last one. [inaudible]. Place your feet down. Crawl onto your stomach is just a nice, easy transition. [inaudible] elongate a little bit more. Your chest, skin, your arms, your legs.

Let's come up into a swimming position and begin [inaudible] head above water slightly, but it's from breath, fluid and pause. Take your hands underneath your shoulders, walk your legs together. See if we can get that front support again. Yeah. Okay. Rock your body weight slightly forward over those risks. Again, back to your heels over your wrist again, back to your heels. And one more forward and back. Take. Why your hips up pretty high now our feet are together.

Yeah. She feel nice. If you want to lower your heels, that might feel good too. I'm gonna keep my heels relatively lifted. I might even want my feet in closer. That's just what I think I need. Now taking one leg toe toward a knee and then pretty high in the air above us in the back. That Lake can turn out. Use your buttocks to get your leg a little higher. Yeah, lower that laid down as you lower yourself into a front support.

We'll do that two more times on that side. So as we go to up stretch, lead with your foot. Lead with your foot. Lead with your foot. Now your buttocks takes over to get your leg a little higher and we come back down one more time on that side. Now we lift exactly no more front support. Just take that leg down. The other side needs a turn toe to the knee. Like comes with the sky leading with your toes.

Feel your glutes kick in and help bring that leg up. Your hip can turn out slightly and we go down front, support the leg, lowers [inaudible] back up and again, front support, hips down, chest up, a little smile on her face and the last time with that leg, that's it. Bring the foot down, bring your knees down, lean your hips forward. How about three pushups from your knees? One press two, three and press [inaudible] that's all. Shift her body back. Slide your hands along the mat and let's roll herself back up or up to finish this. We're not quite finished. We do have a few moments but if we just sit here and sit there, close your eyes and I encourage everyone that is still a watching class and taking class with us. Not to, not to leave yet because no more, no more exercises are going to be asked of us to do for being here and breathing [inaudible] which is also the most important thing of the moment of the day right now.

Congratulate yourself if you're still here, which I know you are. If you're hearing this that we've just done 90 minutes of sustained movement and thought and application and concentration and fluid movement and precision [inaudible] I didn't get all 34 in. It's okay. This practice is what it was today and I will go back to this practice occasionally and repeat the very same thing. Add more variations if I'm feeling needed or omit some things if I need [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] I encourage you to do the same thing. That's all just to let your head drop now, just let some flection occur in your neck and just take your hands in a more comfortable position.

[inaudible] when lean forward to put my hands down on my mat, I want to change my own foot position. You do not have to. I want to go back to sit on my toes. [inaudible] let me take about five more breaths together before we're done. Finally, for today, inhaling through the nose, feel that simple suggestion of breathing wide into your ribs in the air and move out. It'd be nice to open your eyes if they're not already open and just take in the space around you. [inaudible] let's do one more together.

[inaudible] it is gift to be able to move, I think, and I have two friends that help me move a lot and you all out there. Help us move a lot. Thank you for watching. Thank you guys for being here and the gift to move. Thank you.

Infinite Vitality - Playlist 2: Intermediate Mat Workouts

Comments

1 person likes this.
That was great Amy! Glad I had time to do this today as I’m heading to the airport. Hopefully I will have a nice easy flight! I love that “Cleopatraesque” move after  side lying.  Your cues are always so helpful. 
1 person likes this.
Thanks Amy, This was so great. I loved the pace and will definitely re-visit. 
1 person likes this.
Thank you for such a mindful, slow unravelling! Feel well stretched out.
1 person likes this.
Fantastic class, definitely proud of myself for keeping at it! May become a weekly ritual to do this class, thanks so much.
1 person likes this.
Thanks  for the opportunity  to do a long slowly paced class.  Always enjoy the energy and mindfulness you bring.
1 person likes this.
This class is so thoughtful. As a yogi and a Pilates practioner I loved the mindful movements in this class. And as a yoga teacher I can’t wait to add some of this smart strength work into my classes. Xx a queer and trans yogi
1 person likes this.
Beautiful beginning to class that settles mind and body. Wonderful flow to the class. You have a lovely voice to listen and cueing is perfect
1 person likes this.
Amy is a genius. ;)
1 person likes this.
love this, but gotta go - supper!  Thank you.
1 person likes this.
This work was restorative, peaceful and hard work all in one. 
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