Mat for Balance and Strength

That's good. So tonight I'm feeling energy and I need a little energy. So I'm giving you a word that just sort of came to me on my way over. And that is enthusiasm. And um, to me, let's just have your face run. So just stand on the back edge of your mat. We're going to do just a little bit of balance to, to bring our bodies into the room. But um, just for seconds to stand however you want to, um, either on the word or on the mat, but make sure it's not half and half.

So I'm gonna have you step back. Thank you. And then Wendy, will you just move over here a little bit, just so that, cause I'm gonna have you lean forward in a second. All right, so here we are firmly planted into the ground. Separate your feet just a little bit so that you can feel sort of rooted from the base of your feet all the way up your body. And then just take a deep breath and I'm gonna encourage you to shrug your shoulders for once. I know you heard it here. Exhale. And just let it go and then do not shrug. But this time, inhale more deeply and exhale, let go. And for me, enthusiasm just sort of means I knew I wanted to be here. I am here and so now I'm gonna really work with it and enjoy it.

That's what I'm talking about. Here we go for a roll down. We inhale and on your exhale, let your head fall forward. Let your upper back fall forward. Try not to [inaudible] does. Shift back in the hips as you round all the way down, drawing in and up on the abdominals to just free up the low back. Inhale. And as you exhale, begin to restack your spine by rolling the hips back over the legs and knees, rolling the ribs back over the hips, creating more space than how you started shoulder. Slide further down your back and up. You are. We do it again. Inhale, and as you exhale, chins towards your chest. Drawing deeper into the abdominals. It's not really meant to be a big hamstring curl, right hamstring stretch.

So just soften through the legs. Absolutely. Find a bend them a little bit. Inhale, become aware of the back of your body a little as you exhale and roll back up. Okay. And the nail at the top. Grow Taller on these inhales. Think about the length of the back of your neck. Exhale, you might feel that imaginary corset string tighten around the waist as you round forward.

And Inhale, stay there this time please. Exhale. Bend your knees a lot. Inhale, trying to fill up your back so you have width and breadth to the back of your body. Exhale, try and straighten your legs. It doesn't matter if they go all the way. Just sort of add a little bit. Inhale and exhale to roll all the way up.

Okay, good. Good. So far that can quite balanced. Walk your feet a little closer together. Zip Up from big total ankle through upper inner thigh. And from here we inhale. Shift your weight forward just a little bit rogue, rising up on the toes. Exhale, you can take that mat, Brittany, rising up. Inhale, stretch your back.

So there's this sense of length through the low back. As you lower your body down, lightly touch the toes and exhale, we go again. And so we're starting kind of mellow in some ways, but if you think about it, you can go rather intense in terms of hugging the midline, exhale. And we're rising up reminding ourselves that the freer of tension we are when we go into the workouts, the more efficient we're going to move. So try and do that now.

Kind of let go where you can hold on where you need to most definitely. One more time. Rising up and down we go. And from there at this, in this position, you have level pelvises. As you know, bucket of water. It's a level we're going to let the whole body lean forward. So certainly some of the water would spill. They're taking one leg back before you really go for it.

Reach the back leg. So if you were to touch your hamstring, the back of the leg, it's long, it's engaged. Hips are level now soften the leg, you're standing on it. That's probably not the best way of saying engage both sides of the leg you're standing on. If you want to bend it, no problem. Hindering forward, right where the hip and leg meat going. Only so far as you can that when the body lowers, the leg is still lifting. You do what you need to do with your arms rather down the side of your body. They can hang below you. Some of you may prefer a t position.

In any case. Inhale, let the knee bend a little bit. Start the XL fuel around the powerhouse as you steroid in that leg along. Next here. Inhale, bending the knee. Oh, think about reaching that back leg. Exhale. Should we help each other and in here and one more time. Exhaling all the way up and on that in one piece you're going to raise.

Everybody left the leg. Come down. Let's regroup here. Inhale, thinking around the middle of your body. Exhale, arise. Inhale. Stretch your heels down and exhale. You might feel the breath first. You maybe should feel the breath first. Follow the breath and one more time. Roll into your big toe. A little bit more gym.

Yeah, that's it. And down. Good. All right. Other leg, other leg. [inaudible] I had to turn back where I was to know which one it was and I was still wrong. Okay, here we go. Hips are level hinging forward and each side is different. So this first few minutes is the chance for you to check your body, take inventory, find out where you are right now, see what she can do with it. I'm taking my time. If you found your settled place, you'd just hang out and breathe.

And when we're all ready, we inhale to bend just a little bit and exhale. Half. The reason for bending is just to throw ourselves off a little bit. If you're struggling with even holding it at all, rather don't, don't add movement to it. Right? It's all about just challenging where we're at today. And that would be the last one.

Or finish the one you're on and help yourself back up. Yeah, and just to give us a sense of regrouping. Bring the feet once again back together and we rise up on the toes and we stay up and we get longer. My suggestion would be to kind of gaze out at the horizon. Not really looking at anything in particular to focus on the powerhouse.

Expect your ankles and toes to wobble and grip and relax when you can. Pull more onto the belly, more into the butt, more into the sense of pride and lower down. Great. Coming to the edge of your mat. That for you guys you'll face in and you guys will face this way. Come to the front edge I think cause we're gonna just cross one leg over the other forum over forearm and have a seat with control.

Fabulous. Right? Good. Okay. All right. Sitting up tall. Right upon the sitz bones. We can get more balanced in. Don't you worry holding on tight. You know me, I like to start here. I like to just give ourselves a sense of length. Inhale, feet slightly apart. Just cause I know where I'm going. Exhale as you tuck the pelvis, we keep the sense of lift though our backs are around and down, down, down, inhale. Feel free to use your arms but deepen in the ABS.

Exhale to come back up. And so in this class, this level of a class, we're thinking about using our breath as a tool. So exhale, let it be the sort of the guide, right? Inhale, checking things out and exhale, come back. We'll spend a few more minutes just sort of going through what I think of as a checklist. Are My shoulders down and my abdominals engaged on my glutes. Lightly engaged. Exhale back, and then I want to settle in and just be enthusiastic about wherever you intuitively went in here. Exhale, pull the belly button deeper into the body to help yourself up. Okay, and stack here at the end. Freedom in the neck, arms forward. Inhale, exhale, rolling down.

Trying to stretch out the feet onto the mat. If you can pick just one arm. Inhale, raise it up. It's just following the breath. Exhale, put it back down. Other side, easy upper body. Inhaling up, not really much going on with the arm other than to try and challenge you. How about both arms? Inhale, you could always just stay where you are and hold on. Exhale, keep it there. Hold. Inhale, let that I feel. Start easy upper body.

It's going along for the ride. As much as the shoulders are going to want to creep up. Inhale, we do it again and exhale down. We go. Iser basically forward, you know, again, sort of on that horizon. Tiny bit lower. If you can't, Aaron Inhale, one arm goes up. That's it. Exhale, lower down. Inhale other arm up and exhale down.

Here we go with both. Only go so far as you don't move your body. Exhale, you guys are looking great. Hold it there. Recommit, be enthusiastic and I don't even know what it means anymore. Exhale up. Weaker. Yeah, but something's happening. You're looking energizing. Two more at scoot forward just a little so you're not off the edge of your mat. Here we go. Exhaling down. A tip is to try and squeeze the sit bones together. A little. It's impossible, but just the action will help support you. Inhale one arm and exhale.

Inhale the other arm. Everything else is still stable, both arms. If you've got one more in. Yeah, and Exhale, hold, inhale, and here we come. Take your time. As they get harder, it gets more tempting to toss yourself. I fully expect to challenge you. Was that three or four? Perfect. Here we go again. Exhale down. I want to challenge you, but you you are in charge of not letting yourself get frustrated. Inhale or and exhale, not going beyond the integrity of the exercise.

You're looking good both [inaudible] oh, take your time. Full, luscious, deep breath. Then start exhaling and we come up just a slow on. The fourth one is we did the first. As I catch my breath, we're going all the way down. Down we go, down, we go, slide the feet in. A little closer. Hands are down. Just a pelvic curl for a moment. Inhale, spread out your upper back. Exhale as you peel yourself up. Bone by bone, beginning from the tip of the spine, the low tip all the way up to your long line. Inhale working the precision. Exhale as you come down, upper back, middle back.

This is a right about where you need to re scoop the belly or tuck around the back. Inhale, exhaling up. We go. Remind yourself that the focus is the abdominals and the hamstrings. There is some gluten involved, but it's not the main point. So if you find yourself gripping or, um, tightening a lot, let it go a little. And down we go. Yeah, I'm going to give you two more to explore. Same breath pattern.

Inhaling at the bottom. And that's it. Just watch the ranch right there. Bring him down and talk a little more. And now down we go. Down we go. Reaching last one. Inhale, exhale. Good. Just keep the ribs close. You might stop a little sooner. There we go. So hang out here at the top. Beautiful Debra. Inhale. Exhale. Either pull your hips towards your heels a little. You may not see it.

It's just an energy or heels towards your hips so you feel a little more hamstring. And then inhale, looks great. Jam and exhale. Upper back goes down. Massage your way down. Spread out the feel. All the bones being imprinted into the mat. And down we are taking the arms just out to a t or a low v. Whatever suits you best. Um, keeping in mind you want to keep the neck long and flat. So if you find yourself looking back, probably gonna want your hands a little lower, possibly a pillow, bringing the knees up to table top there, 90 degrees.

And I want you to for now to be aware of all aspects of the leg. So that means again, it's starting at the feet, ankles, knees, inner thigh. And then might as well add that last bit of wrapping around Inner Thigh, outer thigh to the front, we inhale or toward the Cadillac to rotate, lifting the opposite hip, start exhaling and follow the breath to bring it back to center. Inhale the other direction and exhale. So still just going deeper into the body if you will, exploring the space inside so that once we get to the more challenging exercises, you're prepared, you're committed hopefully.

And then if necessary, you'll modify based on what you find out now. And again in quite a lot of ease in the upper body. Fair amount of resistance around the waist, not so much going on in the legs. Other than that following, yeah, that's it. Ah, give yourself two more.

Maybe just bring your hands down. Just tiny. Yeah, that's actually a little bit more of a tea there and finally coming back right from there. Just place your knees and sorry, leave their feet there. Take your arms overhead. That's where we want it to be. Take a moment and press the back of rib cage into the mat. The challenge of doing that is doing it without tucking. Okay. Leave the tailbone or the pelvis neutral.

Press the ribs down for the a hundred we inhale and exhale to curl up, reaching the arms and legs forward. Modify where necessary. Inhale, prepare, reaching a little further, not any higher. Just further, and exhale two, three, four, five in and exhale. This is where you're really setting the tone. Now you know how your body feels. We're warm and exhale in and actually use it as the breathing exercise. It is fill up fully and out to be calm with it, but yet it's very strong. It is one long inhale and exhale and inhale. Brittany, often the elbows a little. There you go.

Make it more armpit. Two more cycles. Starting. Now. If you do not feel your low back, fully released on the ground, you should raise the legs. Keep it to the ABS, not the back. Finish this last cycle of inhales. Keep everything reaching forward. Draw the legs in on that exhale. Inhale, touch the toes to the mat. Oh, I'm not done. Re Scoop and bring it back up. Okay.

Inhale down. You can put your head down if you want to. I'm only doing one more exhale. Everybody put your head down as you lower your feet, reach the arms back overhead. Turn the pumps that they face each other and take a minute before we do anything else. Do you feel the entire backside of the rib cage on the Mat? I hope so. Then we slide the legs out and it'd be mindful of this, and this is just something I'd like to check on myself.

Every so often if the front of the hips are somewhat tight and you go to fully straight legs, it can pull. That alone can pull your low back off the ground. So if you've been sitting a lot, if you've been doing a lot of running, who knows. Any reason if necessary to bend the knees to keep the back of the ribs down. You should. You should. Alright, here we go. Arms are back for the roll up. We start lifting the arms. The head kind of comes with it.

Start exhaling now to lift off and as you do it's you're pulling the hips, hip bones back a little. Excellent. Inhale and down we go. Exhaling, rolling. Look at those positions. I love it. And back, lightly touching the back of the head. All watch the ribcage. Here it comes. Inhale to lift. Exhale to come off the shoulder blades. That's where the part is. That's where we like to keep it. Seamless and inhale. Exhaling, yes. And back and inhale, arms head follows.

Exhaling forward. One tiny little cue here. Bring the this and head up ever so slightly. Yep. And down you go cause great. That's great. And you know, excellent. Encourage the rolling the scooping of the, the the pelvis or the ABS. Really right about here. This is where you want to flatten Murray. Scoop the seat area and for both of you want you to slightly bend your knees on the way down. I'll, I'll cue it again. Exhale to come up. Yup. Yeah.

So keep going as you to come down just right when you get past the tail and barely bend your knees. Just a little you two jumped. Yep. And that'll keep that a little smoother as you go back. Nice job. Last one to come up. Excellent. Excellent forward fold all the way just for the moment so that you can just grab on wherever you need to want to and where it would feel good. Yeah.

And then from there slide your hands up your legs a little bit. Assist Yourself. So I am pulling, I'm going about mid Shin for me and I am going to even bend my knees a little as I roll my back into a flat spine. How's that for a cue? So collarbones I had that looks good. Ad Chin down just a smidge. Yep. Fabulous. And then without going forward, pull the hipbones back. So it's from where you are. It's basically trying to tuck the low back, round it back a little. That's all.

It's pretty small and we're coming right back to flat. So it's the pelvis is doing the majority of the changing here, not so much the upper back and one more time from where you are. It says if someone pulled the hipbones backwards backwards, backwards and one more time to come up. And then as you can pull the hips backwards, draw the knees in and scoot forward onto your mat for rolling like a ball. Now if for any reason in the rollout you are getting to this place, and this is just an option for you, if you get to this place that it's flat and you're having trouble getting through that, or if your back feels tight, remember you can open the ball up, you can, we're about to roll. You can spread it out and it'll, it might make it a little smoother and it's all about the point of the exercise, right? If we want to get ABS, if you're whipping yourself, it wouldn't be good.

So let's start the way we think we're going to, which is tight, tight. Remember what you were doing a moment ago. You pulled the hips out from underneath, you hover the feet just behind the tailbone. Eyes are down. We go. Rolling back. Inhale, exhale up. Whoa. Yeah.

In here. So, so far we've prepared for all of this. In other words, keep going. You've got that abdominal sustained contraction, the stillness of the trunk. Fabulous. The good. Make sure you don't touch your head at the back. I'm seeing some really nice rolling. I just want to make sure that that is clear. One more time. The other aspect is lightly feel the glutes, the buttocks squeezing together. Debra, that's about as smooth as I've seen that. That is awesome.

All right. Um, enthusiasm is working. So Deborah is doing this sort of really cool like levitation, stopping yourself in space thing. I don't really know how she's doing yet, but if you'd like to offer a suggestion, she's just enthusiastic. She says, okay, so slow down. I don't know how I think it. Let's see what happens. Same size, same size ball. Ooh, I caught myself shrugging my shoulders. What about you? Let's do two more. One more easy.

Okay. Ah, sliding your hands up to your knees. Thank you. Deborah. Inspired your knees and your hands to lower yourself down. Release the tailbone as long as it doesn't make your low back. Come off the map for the double leg stretch. We're going to inhale to stretch and reach. Exhale, bring it around and grab on.

Hold for the moment. Absolute stillness in the trunk. Sorry, Brittany. Inhale open and exhale. Suck it back in. Feel all the energy in the powerhouse, right. It's our energetic and physical center and and its reach to modify it. If it feels like it's too heavy against your back, you just take it up as you know and pull. Let's go three more and regional one and pull it back.

Change in tempo and two and back and three, hold it in. Roll your heads down to come right back up. [inaudible] for single leg stretch. Taking the outside hand to the ankle. Hang out for one minute or one second. Check that your legs are level unless you need to modify. Otherwise they're level and change outside hand, ankles and n. Oh, stay with me, Ed and press. Yes, we milk it.

We milk it and press the arms really aren't the to do rights. If they get in your way, you'll leave and let them go. You can support your head. Whatever you need to do to draw and reach from the center. Everybody hands behind your head. Let's do two more. Hero on. Add a rotation.

Crisscross, twist into it. Take your time. You want to hit it right yet there and holes with hole and whole. Prove it to yourself. Beautiful. Helen. Beautiful. Yeah, you'd in fact do want that rotation, right? So make sure the knees aren't turning out. They should brush past each other.

Only two more passes coming at you. Here's one last one here. Come back to center hole. Let the legs go down. Reach the arms back overhead, separating your feet toward a pelvic curl position with your arms reaching. In fact, shrug the shoulders just for a moment. Reach them up and then pull them right back down your back. Keep your arms plugged into the back. So right. You've just pulled them back in.

Then inhale. We're not going anywhere yet. Just exhale the back of the ribs heavier into the mat. It should require abdominals. Try Not to change your pelvis from that place. We do a pelvic curl. Inhale, hold on. The exhale. Bring the arms over. Peel the hips up in opposition. Looking for the hamstring work.

Yes. I just need to see that side profile. Ribs are still smidge too high. There you go. That should feel better. Inhale as you exhale, roll down, upper back, reverse the arms, reaching through and back and we're going to come up again. Inhale, prepare. Exhale to peel up. Yeah, easy on your breath in terms of strain around the face. Beautiful. Filling the lungs. Fully. Inhale and exhale down. Yeah.

Excellent. Excellent. We've got to get up to do the next exercise, so here it comes. Inhale, it's going to adjust this. Exhale up. Staying there. Well, we're going nowhere for the moment. Just exhale and attempt to raise or draw the pubic bone more towards your chest. I don't mean to push you higher, I mean to give yourself that sort of conveyor belt like action linked to the low back, more work through the apps from that place.

Take your leg closest to the back of the room, reach it up slow for now. As you reach long, and I do mean reach. Check that your hips don't change. Flex and lift the leg up. A couple more slow region long, long, long, long, long. You can reach for the so long as it doesn't throw the position and we get to do seven more. Just like it a little quicker. A Warren inhale as it come up. Exhale down to, it's another one of those core challenges where you're not really so concerned about the leg as you are the center. Oh God. One more. That's gotta be seven. Bring it up. Return the leg to into place. Take a moment. Readjust.

Almost always have to, to some extent, it might even just be relaxed. The shoulders, other side reaches up. We'll do three slow and again, reaching long. It's as if the leg is connected just under the sternum, coming up easy. And let's pick up the pace and kicked down and pick up and to check yourself. You get to sometimes, not sometimes.

A lot of times it's worth it to put your hands on your abdominals and backing or just sort of to keep the stillness there. One more here, go down and up. Return the leg. Check yourself. Do you need more conveyor belt action. Inhale and on your exhale, roll it down. Ooh, slide their shoulders down. They're gonna want to creep up on you, right with that. Hug your right knee into your chest strongly. If that's not good to hold onto your knee, that way you can always hold an underneath, right stretch out the other leg, long, long, long. And then in the interest of our position, press the straight leg on the mat into the mat as if you're trying to push the floor away from you. Not with the heel with the upper thigh. May or may not even be touching, but that's your intention.

Then stretch the top leg at this point, if you want to bend the lower leg again, that's absolutely fine. I want to get the stretch out of the top. What is probably not a good idea is to either hold the knee. So either above or below is fine. And what was the other thing? Right. Not to roll the hips up, cause then in effect, you're not really doing anything more than you would be if you kept the pelvis down and slightly bent the knee. Oh, Mary's challenging. Okay. I will too. Alright. Yeah. Just actually, you know what?

You've got your leg where it is lightly. Hold it. Try to hold it like that. Curlier head, neck and shoulders up. Yeah. Good. Bring the other leg up, change it. And before we go through the whole deal again, bend it. Lay down and hug it in close. [inaudible] enjoy this little reprieve again. I've got plans for you tonight. I don't think I just gave up on you when it feels right. Extend that leg again.

You're welcome to bend the lower leg. Just try to leave the pelvis as stable as possible. Sometimes it feels almost like you're pulling the tailbone down, but never to the point where your back feels like it's working. [inaudible]. It's a good time to check in with your neck. Where do you carry your tension?

Where does it need to be released? Then as, I don't really want you to let go of your leg, but lighten up on it so you have to hold more from the center. Then curl your head next in, shoulders up and from here it's going to go pulse. Pulse. Do it slow, so when you pick up the leg, you can feel that the low back didn't change. There was no bouncing. The pulse. Pulse comes from up under the ribs. Really? Or the, yeah, really actually and change and so we can go a little quicker now. You don't have to go all the way down.

It's helpful. I'd actually prefer you get the leg down on the mat and sacrifice a little of the range on the top and pulse. Eyes are forward forwards from about mid thigh height and press last one here. Can we take both legs up please? Heads down. We're heading into the rollover. If you've never seen it, you should sit up and watch one or two.

If it's been awhile and you or you don't want to do it, you can do the modification, which is any version of a slightly bent knee, cross the ankle or, or legs apart and just rolling up and down. Pretty small. Otherwise we're here. We inhale, prepare sail to roll over, up and over, hitting that horizontal line. Inhale, flex your feet, separate your feet. If you have it available to you, you lower your feet. And now from the chest down, you rolled out looking for opposition. Allow the hamstrings stretch. Find the tailbone, point the toes, circle the legs down at most to 45 Ian Hilton. 90 exhale up and over looking at this gorgeous position. Inhale, flexing the feet. Separate, optional, lower.

And now from the chest down, give yourself traction. So she pushes into me is finding the circle and around he all together. Inhale 90 exhale up to the over. Yes, don't collapse on yourselves. Beautiful Aron. Inhale, flex, open. We can. Good back here. Exhaling down, maybe not quite. So I'd think of the legs being about hip distance, maybe a little further.

Not much though. The wider the v the sort of easier it is to lose. Go ahead. Exhale out over. Good, good, good, good. Flexing your feet and let's just keep it there and exhale. Pull your chest away from your chin. That's it. That's it. That's it. We'll do one more and we won't reverse it tonight. Circle and close.

Listen to your body if you prefer to do a modification after that many. Yes. Okay. Hang out there for one second and just can you lightly squeeze glutes together? It's easier with feet together. Yeah, just lightly. So you feel that support then do the rest separate and down you go?

Yeah. Huh. We'll finish it. And Benjamin, he's fantastic. Fantastic. Alright. How are you doing? I didn't do all of this stuff. Can we just carry on or is that it's we're fine. All right. So from where you are laced the fingers behind your head. Okay.

And so if you're going to lace, you don't always to, but I do want to make this clear because I haven't in a long time. If you're going to lace the lace fully, you don't want to hang out on the knuckles, right? Rather go all the way. If that doesn't work for you, fine. How about hand over hand? That would be a good choice. All right, the neck poll, who stretch your legs all the way out supporting your head, elbows just off the mat. Can you tell I'm buying myself more time. Here we go. Inhale, head, neck and shoulders up. Exhale to continue. O'Boyle boy, let go. If you need to.

There you go. Keeping a little bit more lift but going further than you would on a roll up. You round over now from the low back and really it's lower than that. The glutes inner thighs. You stack your spine up to vertical. Looking out again on the distance. Keep your eyes straight ahead, hinge back and now from the pelvis scoop and roll down.

Don't drop your heads and now you they're looking at the ceiling and inhale, so to modify. You can just let go or do a roll up. Exhale, but you can also just go slow and this is just one of those ones. It's some days it works and some days it doesn't inhaling up. I like to say it's harder because I'm short, but I'm not sure that entirely works out considering all parts of me are short, not just my legs. Inhale, here we go. Oh, calm, calm, calm. Go ahead. Good, good, nice, excellent. Nice job, gym. And inhale. Can you be any taller, any taller? Being gentle with yourself on these ones that are a little more challenging.

It's so easy to psych ourselves out. Right? And so we just say, you know, I might get up, we'll see. Exhale and I might modify and I might be glad that that was the last one. Roll all the way up. I'm going to leave your hands here tonight for a modified spine stretch pretty much where I always do it I suppose, but it is modified. So you're up as tall as you can. If it's been a long time or you're uh, you're using your hips too much for today, bend your knees. No big deal.

No big deal. Keep your back straight. At least for now. So Aaron, let me see the ribs. Come back in a little and just look even taller without Lou. That's so good. I know you're working hard. Okay. Inhale the exhale. We draw the abdominals deeper. Let the head fall somewhat like that's original roll down.

And at this point you can travel forward a little with the intention on lengthening the, not lengthening rounding, but stretching the middle back from here. We're coming right back up. Exhale to roll up. Hopefully there was an inhale in there somewhere. Ian helped prepare one more of those and then I'll add the fun part. Exhale to go down. The hands are on your head, but you are not pulling from there. Inhale, pause. And from the base of your spine are the low abs, depending on what side you're focusing on, you yourself back up.

Restacking perhaps finding more space, adding back extension into the mix in exhaling down every repetition counts. So continue to look for a good setup from the low belly. Now low back. Inhale, lengthen yourself on the diagonal. So now we're trying to add the back muscles in. Exhale, extend your arms to straight. Inhale rebend the arms. Think longer in your spine.

We're going forward again to exhale and roll back up. Wow. So that back extension is going to add a major hamstring stretch to it. So again, if you need to bend the knees, that's fine. We want the flat back. Exhale to round. This is where you blow out all the air.

It's like you're coming over a ball. Then you change your mind and you go, I'm going to work my back extensors. Inhale, lean forward. More edge. You can, you can just bend your knees a little. Yeah, stay there. Go ahead and extend your arms. Come back a little bit. There we go. In how refold the arms with the shoulders going further down your back and exhale to go forward and roll up. Push me away from you. That's it. Wait, I forgot I was showing you our inhale. Soften and exhale down. You Go. That's it. That's it. Did you get all the air out? Cause if you did this next part will be easy. Inhale into your flat back. Good.

Now lean forward just a little with bent knees in that cause. I'm just trying to get you on air. We go arms. Exhale, head up slightly. Inhale rebend and XL down. You go way forward and enjoy the ride up. Gently pushing into me. Fantastic. Let's do one more. Inhale. Stay there for one second.

Just a tiny bit taller zone and push your ribs into me. Good. Exhale down you go. Oh look. Nice. Inhale into your long spines. Let's see Britney. Lovely, lovely, fantastic. Exhale the arms stay there. Rotate the arms so the thumbs are up to the ceiling. Inhale, lower the arms, but keep your spine long. Exhale, I borrowed this one from my friend Meredith in the front row here.

Lean into it a little more, but not by thrusting. Keep it a long line. Put the arms down in here. [inaudible] exhale the arms. Just like the very first exercise that arms are like helium. Heads are still in here. [inaudible] if you need more, lean into it with keeping the line and with that inhale, hold. Keep the arms long.

Exhale just round and hang out at the bottom there. Looking good. Looking good. So it's a stretch. It's a place of relaxation, but not a good excuse to shrug your shoulders. Even hear it. You'll actually get more released in your neck if you don't shrug. And let's roll it up before we lose all of that good work in the rom boys.

Hopefully closing the feet cause good. And you need some air, Huh? There is air in the room. I kinda like it. It's all stuffy. Anybody else want air? I don't care though. I'm not working nearly as hard as you guys are. You're happy? Good. All right, lovely. Where are we? Right? Let's go back to hands behind your head. I'll change it in just a second, but I'm liking what I'm seeing on you guys.

A sense of almost helping yourself up and then the shoulders down. So keep that going for you. Theater together and flexed. Feel free to bend, knees, long spines. And we come toward the front devil. Exhale. It's the spine doing its sh and center and Xcel the other way. Keeping the hips still the way you know as your feet won't move and carry on and beautiful. Yeah. So at that pulse, really, you get there on the first one and maybe you'll go further on the second. Let's change it a little bit. Going to goalposts. Yep.

And look to the side here that your elbow is as best you can or right below your wrist might mean you have to bring your hands forward a little bit. I'm good. Everybody bend your knees for a second. Press your heels into the ground and just lift the sternum. But the ribs stay in here. We go toward the front, double exhale and yeah, that's good. All right. Sometimes it's just better to take out the factor that's making us lose some of the objective. And here it's all about those wallets quite a lot.

It's the rotators of the spine, the abdominals, the back extensors, arms are just hanging out. Going along. Yeah. Yeah. Two more please. Here we are. Reach the arms up and round over. Just for the moment. As you roll back up, bring your feet with you on the sticky mats.

Just swap them in and then scoot forward to the closer to the front of your mat. And you guys just be careful, right? You don't have to get that close to each other. Got The pros. Draw the feet in as if you're going to do rolling like a ball and then extend one leg so it's kind of cramped. Yeah. So what you get to do is turn the one knee out from rolling like a ball and give yourself that space. You can even pull yourself into space, but when you do, you don't roll. Don't roll yourself over the tailbone.

Keep yourself behind the tailbone is my suggestion from there with a long spine and you get to lean back a little. Just take everything with you. Yeah, bring up foot and lean back. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Good, perfect. Other side. [inaudible]. Now if the straight legs throw you off, you can bend the knees. Not a big deal. Here we go. Inhale to roll back. Exhale and landed. I'll meet you back there. Inhale, roll back.

Exhaling up and grow into and inhale back. Lighter on your hands. This crowd doesn't need to go really grippy on the hands. Inhale back and exhale up. So think about that. Rolling like a ball that we all did that was a little slower and control. Nice.

Aaron, to make yours even more solid when you drop and it's nice. Go ahead guys. We'll be right back. Just don't let the chest sink cause you, you're maintaining quite well, but you just don't need to and you'll get just as much. Trust it. Trust it, trust it. Trust it. You're right. You're all right. And give yourself one more. I probably shouldn't mess with it, but it's just that last bit that I love hanging out. When you get there, draw the feet in closer. Bend them. Sorry ed like called the Rock yourself back out. Reaching forward. We slowly and you're welcome to use your hands here. Slowly lower halfway down.

It's fine to let the thighs drift away from you on this. Just don't drop the feet if you can help it. If you can. Inhale to come up. That's what I'm going to encourage. You might need two breaths to come and squeeze the inner thighs or butt and slowly down. Slow, slow, slow and up. Okay, slowly down. Benji needs a tiny bit more. That's it right there. Slightly pushing into me as you come up. Good. Yeah, you got it.

Now last one for everybody. Trusted, trusted who would come up [inaudible] correct. Feet on the ground. Nice work. And just swivel to face front. So you're all facing coming down to your forearm. Yeah. Forum for now. Top leg is in front, so we'll do just a little side balance first. Uh, in preparation for more fun later. All right, so as you look down your body and this is so worth it, first of all, make sure your shoulders over your elbow. Okay.

The temptation is to have the elbow really to into close and that's not good. Or vice versa. So, so much so that you could easily lift away. You can disperse energy through your whole forearm and get ready to hold all your body weight. Feet. They, I wouldn't keep them super close together. They could be, but they don't have to be. Lean forward enough that you can now straighten both legs. Lift yourself up, looking down your body to stack your hips.

And let's just finish the line with your head. Yeah. And you're okay. I'll follow you. Good. And we breathe. And to make this bearable, you decide to pull energy out of your arm and send it out the crown of your head to send it out your feet to draw it into the powerhouse and yeah, and exhale and carefully bend the knees to come down. Chat. Challenging tonight. Tip of the elbow. You're welcome to stay where you just were.

And bend the lower leg or tip of the elbow. Huh? So sidekick, that's where I'm headed because we were there. You're going to really want to make sure that lower shoulder is down. That's Great Wendy fingers right on the side of your head, top leg up, maybe the bottom leg forward a little. I don't do this one probably enough to make it and then reach that hip. Now starting out kind of slow. It's going to be forward, forward, reach, back and forward. So there's a real component of balance here.

If this starts to turn into a shoulder thing and that's what your awareness is to, it would be worth your while to either come to the forearm or all the way down would work for you and that might be better. Pulse, pulse and back. The point is to the stability, the center and some through the legs. So let's put our focus there. Pull, pull, pull, pull and reach. Hold, hold. Hold it to the back of my annual reach further.

Now that's enough. Come all the way down onto your side if you want to, you can bend the elbow so it points forward so it's not in that same position. Still, if you can, if it's available to you, reach back and grab the foot, the pant, uh, or you can set the foot on the ground. If that's too hard to reach and bend, just bend the knee. That would work. We're trying to stretch the front of the leg, the quad to get a even better stretch or maybe the stretch to the front of the hip while pulling the heel to your glute.

Tuck your pelvis a little. Should not be kneecap pain. If there is let go or uh, lessen the angle that you're pulling the knee, that's it. Right? All right. Release that. Let's help ourselves up to the other side all the way down a face. Yeah, exactly. And so we started on the forearm. We started with almost this, not almost with this triangle of space.

If you have a mirror in front of you or I will tell you. Good. Good. One last tip that I sometimes forget to say is, um, if you've have a lot of elbow pain that somebody put more weight into toward the wrist, meaning disperse it all through. If that doesn't work, come down. All right, lift yourselves up before you fully let go. You're thinking powerhouse. And I believe we were here today. So again, you with your hands up on your head, it's your a reminder to lengthen. Just breathing. That's what you're doing. You're taking big, luscious breaths.

Modify by coming down, up and down if you want. Or you can bend that lower leg. Just lightly weighted. That's not a big deal. As long as you're still working through the obliques and whole powerhouse. Give yourself two more breaths and one more time. And down we go. All right.

Coming down to the tip of the elbow or whichever modification you chose on the other side, the tip of the elbow being my teacher's way of making an already difficult exercise. Nearly impossible. Yeah. [inaudible] up and we go and back. That's it. And Go. Go. And so the point is, can we move the leg without a lot of movement of the body and okay, good. And as you go back, you'll feel the ribcage tight that it, that's far enough and kick and back. You can speed up just a tiny bit.

You've got control now. Oh. Oh Man. Excellent. So sometimes the range isn't as far. If you'll do two more in your count yourself, cause we're slightly often. That's cool. One more. And when you get to your last one, hold it to the back.

Yep. Hold it behind you. And here's a place, once again, you can almost get you to give yourself a hip stretch. The more you reach the leg, the more you attempt to Tuck the pelvis. If you just reach and let the back go. It's not any fun at all. When you're ready, let yourself lie all the way down. Let the leg be bent and or resting on the Florida slide back.

And one last time a subtle tuck. It's all about opposition. It turns out, or dispersion of energy really. It's probably a better way of looking at it. Encouraging a little deeper stretch and right. All right, helping ourselves up onto your hands and knees please so that the hands are right below your shoulders. Still working shoulder stabilizers. So what that really means is that there's a gentle sense of pressing the shoulders down your back, that the abdominals are engaged, the lats engage, and here we go. Extend one leg back or we're heading into a plank position.

Then the other leg feet are side by side. They do not have to be touching. You do want, once again lengthen out of the crown of the head and the feet take about three deep breaths there. Each exhalation should provide more support for you. If it doesn't, try to let it happen. Think about how could you make that happen. One more time from here. Raise one leg. Shouldn't change anything. Lift that leg up slowly but high. And when I say high, nothing else can move.

Keep lifting, keep lifting, keep lifting and reaching. Keep lifting and reach and keep lifting and reaching. Put it down. Change size. First thing of reaching to the far wall. Again, not so much that you torque the hips and start to engage the glute to lift. And I said, nice, isn't it? Everybody? Keep trying. Keep trying a long bodies and put it down.

Lift yourself up into a pyramid. You might need to walk your feet in a step or or the hands. It's fine to have the heels up. Okay. Dropping the head slightly, reaching the tailbone to the sky, always thinking of extending the spine while maintaining the ribs. Couple of breaths here and with that, okay, listen up the hand closest to the back of the room.

So far. Everybody on Ed and Wendy side, your little left hand and Maryann. Deborah, your right hand takes one big giant step forward and you swivel to me at this point if it will. Knowing I'm about to take my forward hand off. You may drop to one knee for support or, yeah, the arm up. Good, good, good. Excellent. Lift. And from here, inhale extra. Just lift the waist a little bit. I'm not going all the way over.

Just a little bit. Inhale at the hips. Come down and straight and not the body. Exhale allegedly hits. I'm only doing one more. Just these. Almost like a pulse, but slow and long and lovely. Maybe if we let it be. Okay. Here's the fun part. Start to come forward. Lifted heels. If they're down. Swivel plank. Yeah. Lower the knees and stretch back.

Are you curious there? I was too. I didn't know where I was going to be. I didn't know either. I didn't know either. I couldn't bear the fact of not looking at you. So we get to do something more interesting and we should do it soon so we don't forget. Right, right. So that's what I'm going to do. This is going to be my most fabulous transition rollers. Elves up.

Inhale, Tuck the pelvis. Exhale, hinge back, no bit. I'll bet you some of you may go further. But again, it's keeping the hip long, the glutes tight and bring it back up. Bodies in one long line. Inhale, exhale to row or hinge I should say. And we're really hinting at the knee. If it doesn't feel good to you, which is hanging out, we're almost done. You could just come into a stretch here. Yeah, I don't look up to you. Hi Brittany. That'll make you arch that back.

And last one. So I mean help preparing. I'm making sure everything's connected. I go only so far as I feel a lovely stretch and if I say lovely on one of these hard exercises, one more time. All right. Release it. And here we go. Right? So we would be all the way around. Let's just go all the way around. So you guys are facing that way. Yup, Yup.

And heading into um, into a plank again. Yeah. This time what you're going to do, cause you can't see me. Instead of raising the leg straight up, it's going to head to the side. So I'll do the best I can with the cues that you can't see. Extend your legs back one at a time, making sure you're all stable and ready to go. Take a couple breaths, two breaths. Inhale, exhale and notice how long you are.

Be Light on yourself. One more time. There was a good life lesson I just said. All right, raise the leg one. Love. 'Em It doesn't matter why. Actually it does matter. No, it doesn't matter. Pick one up, doesn't matter and slowly take it to the side. I like to flex my foot so I can tell that where I am in space and bring it back. Same side. We'll duty in. Take it out. I'm doing it slow.

Going as far as you can without deviating anywhere else. One more time for three each side reaching. Oh I just caught myself rounding you back. Long bodies, put it down. Pick up the other one first. Establish your position and to the side or toes. Stay pointed to the ground too. Don't let those toasts are now. They're very, put the foot down. Lift up into that up stretch.

So it's the pyramid like position. Walk the feet in again, lengthening your back, lifting the tailbone, kind of almost lifting away from the floor, resisting the temptation, thrusting the ribs forward. Heads are heavy and long. If you can get the heels down, dudes, just a nice calf stretch. But nothing should take away from the stretch through your spine. And then with that where you look forward, the hand closest to the back goes front. So if forward forward, windy, forward, forward, forward. Yep. And Swivel face from. So the right hand is what goes forward. There you go. There we go.

He said it was going to be a brain class did there. Of course it is. So Jim, just to start positioning your hips need to be a tiny bit lower to make a t. Yep. Right there. Right there. His program. Now having said that, now lift him up now when you know where they are up and bring him back. Good and up. And one more time. Yes, Andy, and with that bend, have a seat facing back to the center where we started right on with [inaudible].

Coming back into, we did a teaser prep earlier. I've got two more exercises coming at you, so bear with me here. Bear with yourself and Andy though it's at that point. This is where you get calm. This is where you, you remind yourself how enthusiastic you were when you got here. Set your feet up inner thighs.

If you want to just stay here. You can. If you want to challenge it, you'll move like we did before or you extend the legs and I'm just going to keep the arms in front for it today. Squeeze through the low belly, lower your body down. Take the head to the mat as you reach overhead. Remembering the ribs on the mat. Then like a roll up, but with the feet in the air, come all the way up. Taking your time and all. Get that sternum up, the heart up and tucking gently to go down. Yeah, reaching back, lightly touching and calm. It's all about bait. It's all right.

One more or take your break, whatever you need, whatever you need. Okay. Look forward. When you come up, if you want, you don't want to come up flat. You around up just like everything else. Then there's your flat draw the feet in.

We're whittling around so you'll be faced down for swimming. So you're going to once again be actually wherever you want is face to face down. Perfect. Exactly how I hoped he would end up. I know exactly. That's the, that's exactly the problem you're following me. Okay. So as you lie, stretched out on your mats, give yourself a full body stretch. I mean really kind of go for it. We need, Deborah should almost be grabbing hands. Okay. And then from that place, the shoulder blades slide them back down. And for a lot of us, that means the shoulders.

Our hands will have to go a little wider than perhaps you would think. Okay. From there, draw the abdominals. NC, you get this long, low back. Exactly. Energize the legs. Not by straining them, but by reaching them. So the hamstrings, you feel the back of the legs from there we're ready. Hover the arms and legs off the ground. Okay.

It can be modified in lots of different ways, but you know it. So we're going to go right into inhale for five. Exhale for five alternating arms and legs in that swimming position. I remind you that the shoulders are sneaky. They will creep up on you. Pick your head up a little bit, Jim. Yeah, look out of the water a little bit.

There you go. Yeah, there you go. That's it. Can you do one more breath panel? Wow, that looks cool. Inhaling and when you're exhaling, just finish yourself by bringing everything back in alignment but still hovered and down to the mat and just rest for a second. Chest rest. Let your back settle. Good. From there, slide the hands underneath or next to you I should say forums right by your side. So elbows on the ground. What we're going to ask of you to get out of this is first depressed the shoulders down your back. Then push the entire forearm into the ground to lift your chest and head.

Then almost like you're going to hover the pelvis. In fact, try and then pull the ABS in and round back and now you can free up the arms and just stretch this sense of letting the low back her. Like what Wendy's doing, a sifting herself into a deeper curve. This is your time where you go, okay, I did it good for me, but what else do I need before I leave? So if I miss something that you want, do it. If you need to sit up and stretch differently than what I have cause I am not going to do that. Do that. If you need to lie on your back and rotate, enjoy, right, it's your body. You want to walk out of here feeling like you want to walk Outta here for the reasons that you came, right and take whatever.

A couple more breaths and then I will have us come back together as a group to finish letting the breath go deep. And maybe throughout your day you think about the concept that Mr [inaudible] spoke of so many years ago, and we talk a lot about today, which is to fully exhale all the stale air so that you can easily bring in only fresh air. And, and that doesn't have to be a forceful thing. It turns out alright at your leisure. Start to bring your hands back by your sides. We'll curl the toes under so that we can come towards a standing position. So just dropping the heels into the mat, hips are down low. And then from here, begin to straighten the legs again if they don't have to be fully straight heavy heads for the moment, shaking out any excess tension. And then with that we inhale and on the exhale, recommit to the powerhouse.

As you roll up, letting the hands leave the floor, the arms remain on your back and that they didn't just slide forward and off and staying where we are. Let's see if there's a difference. You may want to just step to the back off your mat just that way. Yup. Good. And from there extending one leg back energized just as before, but it ought to feel a little easier to do and then without unsettling all that you've done, just lean forward a little. If it feels good to go perpendicular, you go right ahead reminding yourself of all the pieces that it takes, allowing for the wobble at the lower extreme or at the extremities because really all we need to do is focus on the center, including the neck. If your arms right in any place other than already down by your sides and let them come down now and allow yourself back up. One more time. Changing legs will just stay facing this way.

[inaudible] it's all about the center. It turns out pretty much always true. When you're ready. Again, it's fine to bend the knee. We don't want to strain hamstring it's level. The breath helps with that. If your arms up, put them down, help yourself back up with energy, Kinda light, feet slightly apart, just like we stay where you are just like we did in the beginning rooted. You might feel a little heavier.

The hopefully somewhat weightless. That's how it feels to me. Inhale, exhale to roll down. We'll think about halfway about halfway. [inaudible] easy on yourself and inhale Xcel to bring it back. [inaudible] and with his much energy, without strain in rather deeply. [inaudible]. Exhale forward. Inhaling again to exhale and come up.

And then when you find this place upright, maybe eyes closed. Maybe not center yourself, so just feels calm. And then with ads, take your arms in front. Inhale, exhale down the side. [inaudible] and then let's bring it up from the side. Bring anything back you need and let anything go that's necessary. Yeah. Thank you. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Great job. Thanks for coming.