Take Ownership of your Body

All right. Hi everyone. My name is Benjamin Degenhart. Welcome back. I'm, I'm here with a group of [inaudible] math students. Um, and we're working through a progressive series of breaking down some of the traditional amat exercises in a way that still gives you a workout but hopefully over the course of four little lessons that we put together, um, get more ownership over your bodies and um, be able to tackle the traditional mat exercises. So this is the second installment where we are going to continue right where we left off but also introduce some new skills as well as some new exercises and mostly in an upright position. But first let's remind our bodies again what we worked on last time. I want you to come to the middle of your mat and stand with your heels together and your toes apart. Remember your military stance. It's not a shape, it's a movement in an off itself. It's spiraling action of your legs where you heels press into each other for a central line connection and your toes wide apart, spreading into the ground like the roots of a tree.

To give you a really wide base of support. You take one fist to your neck with your thumbs side down on the top of your sternum, your breastbone with your Chin coming down towards your pinky fingers side to create massive length in the back of your neck. You take the free hand to your low back with your hand, the heel of your hand right at the base of your rib cage and your fingertips pointing down and tractioning your tailbone away from the ceiling. You take a deep breath in as you exhale, not the chin down onto your pinkie finger, to the length in the back of your neck. And we'll take a half roll down here, bringing your chin over your chest, starting to bend forward from the waist upwards, meaning that your lower back is still lengthening. You start to in has that sensation of your abdominals drawing in strongly.

And then with your next inhale, you fill your lungs and you roll yourself back up that the spinal movement. Now be really an expression of your breath. As you exhale, roll yourself down. It's like you have two balloons full of air inside your rib cage. And by bending forward and down, you squeeze the lungs empty. And then in return, as you inhale and inflate those balloons, that lifts you right back up. Let's do that one more time.

So instead of thinking, combining breath and movement, let's think that it's really one in the same thing. How about that makes it simpler, right? So with your next XLU rolled down and with your next inhale, you'll lift yourself all the way back up. Now keep the hand on your back, but take the other hand to your back as well, right next to it, as close as you can. This might post some problems for shoulder mobility issues wide so you could take your hands as far apart as you need to. Try to open your collarbones wide, bring your elbows towards one another as far as possible. And the goal here is weighty to traction your own back.

You lift the heels of your hands up against the back ribs and you traction your fingertips down towards your tail and you're trying to make it low back a little longer. Do you guys feel something back there? Right? So you tried to almost brace your lower back into somewhat more length and then keep it that way. Alright? Do not destroy that. Start to lift your chin away from your chest and look up towards the ceiling. We're going to introduce back bending a little bit, right? A direction of the spine that we haven't moved in the first lesson.

So start to think about your stretching up and away from your heels, which are still stamping down into the ground. Did that shorten the space where your hands rest against? If so, you probably work too hard. Slowly come back to center. Look straight ahead. Do that again. You lift your ribcage up and away from the hips, you press your heels down and you try to split your heart directly opposite to your heels as far away as possible. So you're starting to Beck Ben through your upper spine, putting some wrinkles into the top of your shirt and then you come straight back to the center one more time. Notice that as you back bend, especially here standing up, you will compress the space for your lungs somewhat so your breath might be a little shorter, but it's still there. You don't have to hold it nice you guys.

Then slowly come all the way back through center arms come down by your side. I promise you last time we're going to work on getting down on the mat in a pretty fashion that's going to happen right now. Come closer to the front of your mat. We'll start with a very simple drill and not assuming that you can just cross your feet and get down elegantly. We're just going to find a very simple way to the floor.

Kneeling one knee at a time goes like this. You take your right knee down to the ground, keeping yourself as upright as possible up from the hips, and then you add the other knee to that without falling over. In a perfect world. And I know the word is not perfect, but we'll try it, right, right when it comes back to the floor and then you stand all the way up. Simple as that. Do the same. Starting with your left knee, left knee down or right knee down, left foot, back to the floor and right foot, back to the floor. You've got the hang of it. You keep doing it. All right until you're sick of doing it right. Knee down, left knee, down, right foot, down, left foot, up to standing.

As you're doing that, you start to observe. How does your body react to that as your spine? Top of forward, back left, right? You try to keep yourself as upright as possible and you try to look friendly at the person across from you and you come back to standing. Let's do that one more time. Take it down and I know you're concentrating so I, I get it, but half some joint with it. One more time. Take it down and down.

Lift it up and we're going to add one more thing in here just to program a really good movement into your hips and legs. You take your right knee down, you can follow along with me. Left knee down once your knees are down. Can you sit back when you heels, how does that feel on your feet? Your hips, your knees. Doing all right. Come back up. Take your right foot to the ground and stand all the way up dude. Once more on the left side and then I'll leave you alone with that left knee down. Right knee, down. Sit back onto your heels and then come back up. Good.

Does that bother your knees a little bit there. Alright. Okay, so you're just go as far as you can or try to Tuck your toes under behind you. Let's do one more set for her so we can figure that one out. Take the right knee down, Tuck your toes under if it gives you any trouble to the ankle. Try the other side. How's that going? Much better. Alright, great. And then come back up one foot at a time. Not so much for you.

And then here, total freestyle. Find your way down to the floor, whichever way you think is the elegant and efficient. All right, I'm not even watching. We're going to get down on the ground and get officially started. Lay down on your back with your feet towards the middle and you head away from your feet. Very nice you guys. All right. A few reminders of some of the work we did last time, right? Your military stance is active here as well. Your heels together, your toes apart, your feet are long and relaxed away from you.

We'll start with the arms reaching over the head and our first exercise is the hundred we didn't pump last time. We might this time. Be ready for that, but first, lift yourself into your position once lift your arms, head, neck and shoulders, Chin over, chest to make the back of the neck longer. Legs strongly together. Reach them away from you so far they start to lift up. Hold that for a moment. Don't let it steal your breath or your peace and lower yourself all the way back down. I'm switch over your head. Now I will say even though you guys are so super strong, you might encounter a day where you can lift your legs up an inch. In that case, just leave them down. Think about lifting them up.

Start with that or bend them in towards your chest and start your pumps there. Deal, lift your arms, head, neck, and shoulders. Option over chest. Raise your legs ever so slightly off the ground. See if you can sustain this position as you start pumping the I'm speeding in two, three, four, five and exhale two, three, four, five. It's a slow, long sustained breath in and as long slow sustained breath out. It's an inhale over. Five. Try to finish the inhale in fife and exhale.

Try to finish the XL in five deep breath in and exhale. See if you can breathe in such a way that I don't hear it all that much. Give me the breadth that you would have when you're walking down the street, not necessarily the one that you have when you're lifting heavy weights right now, you'll just lifting yourself right breathing in and breathing out. Two, three. You guys are amazing. Give me one more deep breath and one more exhale and rest all the way down. Rest completely for a second. Shake out your legs. Feeling warm.

Yes. Speechless. All good. Bend your knees into your chest. Rock yourself up to a seated position. We'll go back into our half roll back from last time. Set your feet down on the mat right in front of your hips about hip distance apart. Hold on behind your thighs. Give you some, a little pull with your arms to lift your chest up nice and tall. Feel your ribs expand front, side, back as you accept crow the hips under, and start to roll yourself back towards the Mat.

First one with the support of your arms, just to check in with your body. It's your diagnostic repetition. All right. How does that feel today? Is it an even curve? Head to tail? Is your breath flowing fully? Your chest open? Slowly come all the way back up. Sit yourself up at the top if you like to stretch your arms out in front of you.

If that worked well for you. Last time were all yourself all the way back down, right towards your shoulder blade tips. Perhaps if you choose not to hold on to your legs or to the place where you feet are about to leave the ground, but you just try to keep them anchored. Check in with your knees. Did they just fall in or, ouch. Can you fix that? Lift yourself all the way back up. We'll take one more of those deep breath in. What's our goal to make space in our spine for even more breath.

Roll yourself all the way back. Nice you guys and lift yourself all the way back up at the top. Good, and that was a great modification for you right there. You didn't lose your breath over it and you didn't come up in a jerky fashion. That was perfect. All right, we're going to take one more down.

Over the count of 10 are you ready? Set your arms out in front of you. Nobody has their head down before a council tin, right? You start with a one, you curl your hips under two and three and four you're halfway down on five. Approach them out on six shoulders, seven, eight, nine and you're down on 10 nice. You guys, bend your knees up into your chest. We're going to add a new thing in here today. We're not going into a roll over just yet, but we're going to outline the movements somewhat.

It continues where your a hundred has left. You are. If you learn how to lift your legs up this time you lift them all the way up to 90 degrees. Stretch them out on the ground. Just start. Make sure that you're on your mats. If your head came off the mat, you can scoot down a little bit. What I'm thinking of you over there. Can you come down the madrassa as the tiny a little bit and [inaudible] arms down by your side. Chest is open. Think again. In the a hundred you lifted your legs about an inch off the ground.

This time you lift your legs in the same fashion, but all the way up to 90 degrees. Can you make that happen without bending your knees? Try it. Lift your leg straight up to the ceiling, toes point to the sky. Hold it there for a second. Did that change your shoulders, your neck, your breath, your ribs. Stretch your legs away from you and lower them all the way back down.

Slam on the brakes as you approach the ground because that's when your back wants to arch. See if you can keep yourself controlled against the floor. That was great. Let's try that again. Stretch your toes towards the person across from you first and then lift your legs up towards the ceiling and the biggest radius possible. Push the mat away with your arms because we are working the full body, right? Every single muscle is working and helping us.

Can you stretch your head further back and your hips further away from you? Start to lower your legs back down and away from you and that's really the hardest part, right? Lowering the legs down with control. Next time you're not going to bring them down all the way. Lift your leg straight up though. One more time. We're going to add a little circle to this.

Once your legs are straight up at 90 degrees, open your legs as wide as your mat. Stretch your legs away from you as far as you can. Keep your lower back flat down so that your feet away from you. And then once you reach that point, bring your legs back together and lift them back up. Do that twice more open and lower. Squeeze and lift up. One more time.

Open and lower. Squeeze and lift up. Now reverse that down. Open lift and squeeze. Two more down. Open. Lift and squeeze. Just one more time than you off the hook. Down. Open, live, and squeeze. Bend your knees into your chest and there's much more to this than that to the exercise, but that's, that's next time. All right, give your knees a nice little hug. Let's go back to something more familiar. Remember your one leg circles. Stretch your legs out long on the ground.

Bring your arms down by your sides, so really narrow against your sides. This time for a narrow base of support. Flex your left foot. Just your left. The one opposite of your right. There we go. Dig that heel down into the grouch. Make it really strong, and then lift your right leg straight up to the ceiling. Your right foot as long. It doesn't have to be super pointed, but it's long.

Remember, it's not the leg falling across the middle of your hip lifting up to initiate the movement. Take it three times over the middle, down, around and up, and two down around it. Up. One more time, down around and up. Reverse it. Remember that your left foot is really not moving all that much down around them. One more time over, down around it, up and switch sides, right? Like down, left leg up. So now the one that's on the ground is flexed. So that'll be your right heel, left foot up. Take it three types. Go across the middle. First hip lifts down around it up. Make the circle as small as you need to to feel successful and for you to not lose your breath, right? So where am I taking over, down, across and up, and then reverse it. Open down across the middle and back to the center.

Check in with your shoulders. Are they shifting weight lift to right? Maybe that means your circle is too big. Last one down across an up. Lower the leg. Shake out your legs against the ground. So much better than last time already. Very good. You guys stretch your arms up and over your head.

Reach your toes the opposite way. How much distance can you make between fingertips and toe tips? Essentially what you're doing in the next exercise, you know this one is you try to bring those ends together. You lift your arms, your head, your neck, your shoulders. You also lift your legs. You bend your knees into your chest. You sit yourself up into your rolling like a ball shape. Remember that one?

Let's do it. Lift your arms up and forward and over your chest as smooth as possible. Full load yourself up. Grab a hold of your shins, hands by your ankles, heels to see knees to shoulders. What happened if you brought those knees a little closer to the ceiling, pulling them into you? Does that make your background a little bit more or did that make you dumb weight into your lower back? You still want to maintain that space and support.

Remember, reverse the actions, stretch your arms and legs forward. Roll the spine down with control. Arrive sequentially and then rest arms over your head. Nice. So at this point you've done it so many times you might want to start making different decisions about how fast you move through certain parts of your spine. So that doesn't hang into your hips, that your legs don't get too heavy, that your spine compresses, right?

You'll get two more chances in your own timing to get better at it. If your arms and neck and shoulders lift your legs, float yourself up, bend your knees into your chest, make yourself a little smaller as a ball, but from the inside, inflate that ball even more. Right? So we take very little external space, but a lot of internal space. Fill yourself up and then roll yourself back down. Arms and legs forward. Release your head last arms. Reach back over your head.

Are you ready to roll like a ball or like a kid, I should say? Right? Lift your arms at and the controllers up. Lift your legs, bend your knees into your chest and now you get to have some fun with it. You've done the hard work. Enjoy roll to your shoulders, lift your hips up and Exhale, come back to center. Try it a few more times. So rolling back and lifting up. I will say at this point, this is the first real inversion, right? We did, which eventually will become your rollover to it will also become many different other rolling exercises. But this is the funnest one. So enjoy it while it lasts. Take it back two more times and lift it up.

And here's your last one. Rolling back. Lift yourself all the way up and then find an efficient way to come to standing, your individual style, because now we're going to learn something new. We're going to learn the one leg stretch and the double leg stretch, which are essentially, um, or we think of them as abdominal exercises. I want to propose a different thought. Maybe they're more about your hip mobility and about massaging your organs, right? It's something we don't talk a lot about, an exercise.

Maybe that's more of a benefit than toning your apps. All right? Um, it's a great place to start learning this standing up cause then there's a balance component as well, and you find that opposition between the legs we look for, because there's always a duality between where we scratch our body parts. Something goes out, something else has to go back in, right? You probably already felt that in most of these exercises, so come with your legs. I'm standing close together. Heels and toes touching this time just based on the, the shape of the exercise that we're going into next, you essentially just bring your right knee up into your chest and you hold onto your Shin with both your hands and then as much as you can, you bring that thigh into your rib cage you need to your shoulder without losing your balance. All right? And that might already be a lot of work. You might start to find that you're getting smoked.

Just finding your balance here. All right. Don't let it frustrate you. Choose a different approach. It's just a test. Take the right leg down. Let's try the other side. You might find that that's easier, harder, no difference. Maybe you don't know the difference. It's all good. When your left knee up into your chest, hold onto your shit and pull the leg up and into you. The wobble is part of the exercise. Very much so.

That's actually where your body learns the lesson, right? You take your leg down. Let's try the other side again. I'll give you some ideas on how to maybe make this better and maybe it doesn't work for you, but bring your right knee up into your chest. Pull it in towards you. What if you actually pushed your entire left leg right through the ground, right through the heel. So it's not so much about getting this knee up, but more about switching this leg down.

Does that get you a little bit more stable on the leg? Hmm? It looks like it's a yes. Let's try that on the other side as well. And the exercise called one leg stretch, right? It's not called one leg, pull it into your chest. It's called one leg stretch, so this is the leg that you scratch out of your hip so far it feels like the heel is pushing right into the basement and then switch again to the other side. Very good you guys. So let's do that again. One more time. Pull the knee up. See you already becoming smarter and better at doing this without losing your balance.

Maybe that right hip is sinking down a little bit towards the ground as well as you pull the thigh up and then switch it to the other side. This will be your last one. See, our brain has to make so many quick decisions and how to go from two legs to one. You do it all the time, right? And your everyday life. That's why we get tired at night, right? You do take that leg down and then get down on the ground whichever way you like. Just saying, maybe we find a new way to get down to the floor. We'll do the exact same thing laying down now and it will look like you're single. Express as you know it, if you know it, but maybe it feels a little bit different because now we really focusing on that leg, that stretching out. It's much more pleasant on the ground.

So you've already done all the hard work. All right, lift your head, neck and shoulders up the same way you already know how to with space in the back of your neck and a good free breath. Pull the writing into your chest with both your hands. For right now, I don't mind where your legs are going, where your hands are going to go on the leg. Just give yourself a strong pork. How close can you bring your thigh to your ribs and you need to your shoulder. And then what about that left leg? Can you stretch it sole far away from your lifts? Back up, like in the a hundred earlier? Feel that opposition.

Can you make more distance between right knee and left toes and then switch to the other side and switch and switch and switch. Now start to become aware of how the whole of your spine can support the weight of your head on top, right? It's essentially the same exact skill you've been working on all along and the a hundred right and that initial lift, what you add to that is a compression of your head and your internal organs. It's a stomach massage. You pull in erect, you pull in left, find a breath that supports you and that doesn't get crazy loud or crazy. Crazy. Switch and switch was three, four, two, four, one and you're done. Bend your knees into your chest, rest your head down that you need rock side to side for a moment.

That was really fantastic. You see how what you did standing translates in what you do down here. It's like you're stretching the leg right through the ground as you press it up. Now what you do with one leg would now do with two legs, so the double leg stretch, right? We're going to take a basic version that's right out of Joe's.

Applaud is his book where the arms do not go overhead. If you know that one, your arms go forward pressing against your thighs like you're holding an object. It is an object. It's your legs. You bend your knees into your chest, lift your nose to your knees, your forehead towards your knees as well. Make yourself small like a ball. Again, like that, rolling like a ball shape, but we're not going to roll back and forth just yet. Find your breath here. Again. Most important is to find that breath. Let it lift you up on your next inhale.

Stretch your legs out as low as you can, keeping your back safe against the ground and press your palms into your thighs. Take an inhale. As you do that, as you exhale, bend your knees back in, reverse it and hug it in so deep that the air comes out of you. Go again, deep breath and stretch yourself out. Fill yourself up. XL, bend back in until you're truly empty, which means you might go longer than you enable. That's fine. Inhale, reach, annex there. Come back in. God, let the movement fill you up with breath and Mtu out as well. Since you're working your body, a bellows. One more time. Inhale, reach and exhale needs to come all the way into your chest until you're truly empty, empty, empty, empty, empty, empty, empty, empty yet and as you are and release your head back down. Nice work you guys. Let's put that together with something we've been working on all along as well. We're going to combine that with a mini version of rolling like a ball.

Are you ready for that? I take that as a yes. Stretch your legs out. Log in front of you. Reach your arms back over your head. Let's find a way back into this. The same way we went into our rolling like a ball. First, you lift your arms up and forward your chin over your chest. You lift your feet off the ground, you bend your knees up into your chest.

You give yourself that hug at the top. See if that has gotten more effortless. In the meantime, I think it has. Take a breath at the top and slowly find your way back down. Legs forward, spine rolls, back, arms reach over your head at the end. Nice glistening bodies. We'll take one more like that. Arms up and forward shouldn't over chest. This is your best one yet. I promise. Knees, come in or grab a hold at the top.

Lift your rib cage your way from your hips. Give yourself more space. Find your stomach massage here and then roll yourself all the way back down. Legs forward, arms switch back over your head. Reverse the actions. We'll take it into our double leg stretch now. Bend your knees into your chest, grab a hole, lift your forehead to your knees. On an inhale, reach your arms and legs forward the same way you did before. Press your palms into the sides of your thighs. As you exhale, Bend your knees in and rock in a very smart fashion. Three times back forth, back, hips down, legs out.

Take an inhale to reach x or rock three times very small. Three, two, one. Go against stretch your arms and legs forward. Exhale, knees come in. Rock three and two and one give me two more like that in your own timing of breathing. Exhale, three, two, one. Here's your last one. Deep breath. In. Exhale, come in three and two and one rest completely. Release your arms over your head, shake out your legs, shake out your shoulders, rock around. Say mean things without saying them out loud. If you need to, ah, nothing like a little bit of comic relief after that.

Right now I want you to come back up to standing, and again, I'm not watching, but try to find a new way if just have one up, right? If the work doesn't lie to you, every time you try that, you'll, you'll find better ways, right? Maybe it feels a little lighter to come back up to standing. We're gonna introduce a couple new things here. One is the spine stretch forward, which we're going to do standing, which is a little unorthodox, but we'll do it anyway. And then the Saul as well.

All right. I actually want you to go ahead and turn and face me for the first one because we're going to put the feet a little bit wider apart to start. The feet are wider than hip distance and this time they're parallel to each other. Unless that bothers your hips in any one way. It's not very dogmatic. You can change the position of your feet ever so slightly. Take your hands right into the crease of your hips so that your thumbs point back and your index finger points in towards the middle, towards the other one, across from it. Open your chest nice and wide, like if somebody is pulling your elbows apart, that that pull your shoulders apart as well.

And then from here we take a little bit of a hip hinge. Keep weight back in your heels and your heel stamping down into the floor and then tilt your whole body forward from the hips without rounding your spine to start. All right, I'm going to turn sideways so you can see it from there as well. Your body comes forward on a diagonal and as long as you can keep your spine straight, you come down. But the second you start feeling that your spine is rounding, it wasn't worth it. You've gone too far. All right, slowly come all the way back up. So you bring yourself to your point of stretch through the backs of your hips, your hamstrings, and your lower back, right? You take it up and forward again.

When we do this exercise on the ground, we often find that we can have it at 90 degrees because tightness gets in the way and then we end up bending our knees and we never get strong hamstrings, right? So this is a way to get yourself into the position and then lift yourself all the way back up. We'll just take one more like that. Chest up and forward. Tilt out of your hips. Really pivot on top of your legs to come forward. And then lift yourself all the way back up. Alright, from here, just for change of scenery, turn around and we're going to add another thing in here.

Same exact position to start. Feel as though you're pulling the mat together between your legs. Tilt forward, out of your waist the same way you did before. You can sort of see me in your peripheral vision. Now if you tilt forward far enough, so we're going to add the next step. Do not change anything from your hands downwards, but start to bring your nose towards your navel and such will round your spine.

I could try to stick your head right between your knees, but nothing on top of your hand starts to change. Slowly pull yourself out again. Pull your head away from your hips and once your spine is straight, you come all the way back up. All right, that's essentially your spine. Stretch forward on the mat as well. We're just going to do a standing version. It's rare that a couple more times tilt out of your ways with a straight spine to start.

Use Your hands as if you're pushing your hips back and away from your head to create more traction to your back. Once you maxed it out, Chin over, chest. Exhale the air. Bring your nose towards your navel. I could try to stick your head right through your legs. Inhale, pull your head away from your seat and then lift yourself all the way back up. Let's do one more of those. Inhale, lean forward. Exhale, Chin over. Chest round yourself down. Feel your heels still in strong contact with the ground.

Ungripping the toes and then stretch your head away from your hips and then stand all the way back up. Good. Now you can see me for this one in the first part, so just stay with my words. He lift both arms up to the ceiling, arms by your ears. Trust your instincts. Let your right arm drop. Bring your left hand to the outside of your right foot, meaning you lean your spine down over your legs.

You try to take your left hand to the outside of the foot and you lift your right arm up towards the ceiling behind you. This is your standing Saul. All right, you're going to get down as far as you're flexible. We're going to make adjustments on the next one. First, lift back up, both arms up to the ceiling. Let me do the other side. Arms are up. This time the left arm goes down and back up behind you so you take your right hand to the outside of your left foot. Good. Somebody has an exhale in awhile. Slowly come back to the central. Lift your arms back up towards the ceiling.

See if you can breathe throughout, even if I don't remind you to all the time. All right, right on giraffes. Take your left into the outside of the foot. Here we make our first adjustment. As you reach towards the outset of your foot, can you make your hips level meaning your left seat is as close to the back wall as your right and your legs are still pulling the mat together. Lift back up through center. Arms up to the ceiling. Let's do the other side. Exhale as you round down. If you need a direction of breath, this is a good one to exhale. That's it left. I'm stretches up in a way.

From your right hand, come all the way back up to the center. Take it once more each way or write 'em down and back up behind you. Exhale all the air out and when you've done exhaling, you're done with the movement. You come back up and you take your last one left. I'm down and back and it goes up behind you. And again, your hips are level with the back wall so that your low back stretches nicely. Come all the way back up. Lift your arms up by your ears.

Take a deep inhale and exhale. Let your arms come out to the side and down by your sides. All right, and now we have to do it all sitting down. Sit on down on your mat. Find a nice way to get there with your feet out in front of you as wide as your mat. You feet flexed. All right, so this is essentially the equivalent of your body coming all the way down to 90 degrees. So based on how it went standing up, you might have to make different decisions here, but it looks like you can all sit here. Pull your toes back instead of having your hands by your hips. This time, um, we're going to take the right between the legs that your fingertips press down to lift the crown of your head up to the ceiling. We'll just do three here. Deep breath in. Exhale thing, nose to naval, head between the knees, stretch your arms forward. CIF. Again, you can bend every part of your spine a little bit, not just one a lot.

Inhale, lift your spine back up. Take a deep inhale at the top, Chin over, chest round yourself down. This will become our open leg rockers shape in your near future. Inhale, lift yourself all the way back up. We'll take one more. As you round down, as you empty the lungs, can you still pull your toes back towards you or do you feed? Start to give in. Inhale, lift yourself all the way back up. Bring your arms out to the side.

See if he can hug your shoulder blades ever so slightly together on your back. I don't want you to walk through life like that, but for right now, just gives you a nice little opening through the chest and mostly this is going to make sure that your arms don't steal the twist from your spine. This is your soft twist to your right. First your right, so that way there we go. Take your left into the outside of your right foot. Rounding down, empty your lungs. Does that feel like the shape you were just in standing in her.

Come back to center. Hug the shoulder, Bates back together. Keep them hugged together as you twist to the left. Exhale round down, right into to the outside of your left foot. And just take one more each way. Inhale, lift. Take it rates XL round on down. Keep both lips evenly steady against the ground by pushing your heels out of your hips. Here's your last one. Exhale. Roll on down. Release the head arms. Pull away from each other. Come back through center.

Hug your shoulder blades together. Just stay here for one deep breath with your arms as wide open as you can with your chest up as high as you can. And then release your arms all the way down. Ha. Good. Shake it loose for a second. Very nice work you guys. So again, what we prepare standing we can take to the mat after with bigger success sometimes. All right, remember how we did this one? Standing up your little back. Backbend we're going to do that or our stomach to finish our second blessing here. So, um, give me a break down spin with your legs to the other side.

Lay down on your stomach with your heads towards the middle. Be Creative. Take your hands underneath your shoulders for this one that you elbows stick up behind you and bring your legs as close together as you possibly can. If heels together, toes apart is available to you here, see if it can support you in the exact same way it has all along, right? That space right in front of your hip bones, right on either side of you. Can you press that down towards the mat in a way that makes your lower back feel longer and more supported and your seed more active?

Can you stretch your feet away from your hips as far as possible? Can you find more length through the crown of your head, forward and away from your toes as much as possible? Now remind yourself of that back bend we did standing right. Nothing changed in your lower back. There were no extra wrinkles in your lower back when you backbend remember that.

Can you do the same thing here? Slide your chin forward. In a way from Utila, you see your friend in front of you and then start to lift yourself forward and up. Think rib by rib. You reel the rib cage forward and up without using or overusing, rather your hands against the floor and then slowly come all the way back down. So our goal is not to come up as high as possible, even though that would be nice. Our goal is to get as long as possible. All right, let's try that again. You can go at your own timing. You don't have to wait for me to tell you when to come up.

Explore this for a second. Can You keep hugging your elbows towards one another? Just to open your chest a little bit more. Can you lift one more rib of the mat each time without losing your breath? Slowly come all the way back down. Granted, your breath will be shorter because we are back bending. There's not as much real estate to breathe in to anymore, but take little sips of air. Yeah. Do you have a question?

Should the feet be pressing down? Great question. Think of your hips pressing down, and don't worry about your feet just yet. See where they go. Some times the feed will want to fling up. That's your steel body making a decision for you and don't actually want you to press them actively down. Just reach them away from you and see what that does to you. Good.

So it's somewhere in between. You see? And that's exactly where I want them. You go full length before you go for a lift and then it slowly come back down. Nice. Let's take one more. If this feels all right for you, meaning you're not losing your breath over it. We'll take it up a notch. Lift yourself up and stay. Can you let your hands hover off the ground and without your chest coming down, can you reach your arms forward towards your friend in front of you without your chest coming down though? If it did or you lost your breath, it was so not worth it.

Hold it and slowly slide your hands back under your shoulders. Lower everything back down. Oh boy, that was rough, Huh? Let's do one more deep breath. In. Most important is that your low back stays long and traction. Remember that hand grip we used in the beginning?

I'm going to give that to you here. Tailbone lengthens back, ribs pull forward first you lift yourself. Is your breath still going? Then lift your hands if and only if your breath is still going, reach your arms forward if and only if you can stay here, especially your feet so far back behind you. Now your legs might lift up a little and then slowly pull everything back to center. Lower everything down and then sit yourself back over your heels into a seat at squad if you will. We often call a child's pose, but it's much more active than that. In fact, this is your rolling like a ball shape. It's your double x stretch shape, right? So we go for that same idea who you fold folding at hips and knees.

You stretch through the feed and she's already tucking her toes under because that's better for her. That was a great decision. Very nice. You use your hands to sit your hips back nice and far so you can really sit into that joint and let it release and then you slowly pull yourself forward onto your stomach. Just one more time. We created so much strength in your back. It would be such a shame if we didn't use that somehow, right? Don't you think? Take your hands underneath your shoulders, Tuck your toes under all of you this time, and if they're not on the mat currently, just slide yourself forward a little bit so that your toes are against the mat as well just to avoid accidents. All right, now from here, we're not going to back bend again, but I want you to feel all those muscles you felt in that little backbend working right now like you are about to lift your chest forward and up. Stretch your head forward, stretch your heels back and then see if you can push the ground away.

Keeping your back strong, pushing yourself in fact into a plank. Can you make that happen? One long piece and maybe the answer is no, but can you try? If you think, can I try? Then the answer is always yes, right? And slowly come back down. Good. So if that didn't work for you, try a different approach. Maybe your knees can assist you against the groundswell, right?

Think knees down, heels back, head forward. But more importantly, keep your spine law. Tuck your toes under, even if you're using your knees, and then push yourself up from here. Chest up, and then knees up. We're not going to do pushups or anything crazy here. I just want to hold that shape. Take a deep breath in. So would you guys and come all the way back down. I don't even care how you get down. Just don't hurt yourself. All right, so what's the plan? Well, often we think of it as a chest exercise raid. For me it's a, it's a way to challenge the organization of your spine because now there's no mat underneath you or on top of you, right? Supporting you.

Your spine is Ireland's own parallel to the floor. That's pretty tough, right? That's why it's such a hard exercise. We'll try it one more time. We're just going to stay there for like, I don't know, five breaths. Let's see. I'm terrible at counting in case you haven't noticed yet. So bring yourself up into your plank.

It might look from that of your neighbors and that's cool. Press your heels back, press your hips back, stretch your head forward. In our position though, feel as though you're pulling the mat together between your hands and your feet and mostly find your breath is sustainable. One, four, one more than lift your heads. Release the head. Yeah, lift your hips up towards the ceiling that your head drop and slowly walk your hands back towards flat feet. So what I want to see next is two flat hands and two flat feet and if you need to bend your knees a lot for that, I don't care. All right, just make sure your heels are grounded against the floor. It's almost like a standing child's pose. Okay.

Your tour's is draped over your thighs. Your head is so heavy, your neck doesn't have to do anything right now and your head is not falling off. Isn't that great? Give me a good deep breath in. Feel the connection heels to earth and push the ground away to start rolling yourself up. Think of that rollback you practiced earlier to move through each part of your spine a little, not just through one a lot. Once it's time for that, stretch your heart away from your heels. Rotate your pumps forward so that you feel the weight of your arms opening the chest. Give me one more deep breath from the soles of your feet into the crown of your head. XL all the air out.

Do that once more with your eyes close. Give yourself some privacy to enjoy this breath and exhale. And one more time. Get Tyler on your inhale. Get softer on the exhale. Open your eyes, open your eyes and there was your second lesson. Great job, you guys.