Creative Mat Exploration

Hi everybody. I'm Kathy Murakami. I'm here to teach my class for PyLadies anytime. I'm super excited about this. So, uh, what will probably help you is if you have a towel hand towel we'll be using later on. If you have one of these squishy balls like this, we'll use this later on. It's not mandatory that you have the ball, you have your mat and we're ready to go. Yes. Ready Class. Okay, I'm super excited. So we're going to start out lying on our backs. So everybody, if you could lie down supine and we start in what we call baby tantrum pose.

So you bring your legs up like this. You do want the size to be outside of the chest. If you can reach the outside of your feet, the soles of the feet are to the ceiling. You're totally relaxed in the hip joints. And as you exhale, you gently press the thighs towards the floor. This round your lower back, you breathe out. So as you inhale, you release that and as you exhale you will press. So everybody's going to press a little differently.

Try to do this at your own pace of breathing. After a few, I would like you to maybe alternate one side and then the other. This moves you through the spine. You can see I start making some circular type movements. You could extend one leg out. I'd like you to make this a little bit of a personal exploration.

I know the classes are really geared for you to follow along, but because you are doing your practice at home, it's really a nice way to explore movement individually to see what you need today. Then I'd start making these circular movements. I'm rocking my pelvis a little bit left to right. If you want to move your hands, come to the inside of your feet. You could do that. If you want to just take it down here at the knees, you could do that, so just play around with this. Extend the legs may be one at a time a little bit more and if you're making this kind of circular figure eight makes sure you go the opposite direction.

It feels a little bit different too. If you start, when you press into the legs, you draw the head forward and back down again. Breathing out with each one. Ah, so there's a little bit of a massage [inaudible] right after that you can cross your ankles. Hold on either at the feet or underneath your knees, which is what I like to do, but this is fine and you're just going to roll up and down. We're not trying to roll up.

I'd like you to stay rounded and you're rolling from the tailbone. You can kick the legs over a little bit. Keep the head up from the upper back to the lower right, and then you'll rock yourself all the way up. I'm going to turn forward, separate your feet, flex your heels, make them in a jar so the heels are in line with the pubic bone and you just got to lean a little bit forward. You can use your elbows to gently reach the legs, not so much pushing straight down to the floor, but lengthening them out. So the indication here with the arms is that the thigh bones are drawing out of the sockets and then you'll exhale forward a little hip release.

Yes. And then back out of it, taking a breath and again, exhaling forward. Ah, so make sure your feet are flexed here. It is going to help you to protect your knees and then you'll switch it out. So any distance here is fine. Whatever feels best for you.

And then again, rounding and release and again, rounding and release. Then rounding, admiring your heels. Ah, and you release. Good. Let's flip over to the hands and knees or quadrupled position. Stack your hips right above your knees, your wrists underneath your shoulders. Make sure the index finger is pointing straight ahead.

If you're not quite sure where your neutral spine is, you may have to wiggle it a little bit. Yeah, your hips. Figure out where your head and neck belong. But you have that nice extended line. From tail to crown of head, we're going into extending the opposite arm and leg. So we're starting with the left leg and the right arm here. Organize yourself so there's no collapse.

And then hover the arm and leg. You'll take a breath in here. Exhale, curl through the pelvis round. You're not necessarily trying to touch, breathe in and reach the elbow to the knee. We want to feel the movement in through the spine and that the head and neck move as well. If you're feeling a little pretty comfortable with this, you can go beyond the neutral return and take yourself into a little bit of an extension. I like to slightly bend the knee to get a little more hip opening.

So you inhale on that lift, you exhale on that curl. Make sure the breath fully escapes you. Ah, and we'll take one more here. Now from this position, organize your center. You'll rotate the leg to the side, the arm to the side. Be Sure your arm is not higher than your shoulder. Bring that leg forward as much as you can to the foot. Keep breathing.

Hold your center and pay attention to that sensation in your middle. Bring the arm and leg back out or as Santal. That's it. Keep your arm forward. Lower the back leg. So tuck those toes under, charge up the back leg. Reach over to the opposite side, hand towards the floor, about 45 degrees.

So you're flexing. Open your right ribcage. This is your inhale. The exhale is here where you lift and open and breathe out. Reach hand on the floor and up and open. Pay attention also to the hand, the supporting hand. That's your left, that the fingers are not buckling away from the floor.

Again. Breathe in and breathe out and breathe in and breathe out. Very nice. Now you'll bring that hand forward. Place the hand underneath your shoulder and as you take yourself back to downward dog, you'll bring up the back, left leg. Organize yourself so that you feel the leg and your trunk and your arms in a nice diagonal line. Then take a breath here.

Inhaling as you exhale your curl floor, word knee to nose. Come way forward into plank or rounding. Inhale, let the leg reach up now as you curl forward, bring the knee to the same side, elbow or armpit. Again, weight forward. Charge up the back leg. Inhale, reach up. Exhale, take the needle, the opposite elbow. Hips rotate, chest stays towards the floor. Inhale, reach the leg up again. Exhale, curl the knee in. Use your abdominal step gracefully forward. Left foot by the left hand. Pick your foot up if you need to.

All right, fingertips here, lower the back knee. Organize the inner thighs. Bring Yourself Upright, arms along the sides, lengthening your torso. Press forward, stretch that hip flexor on the right leg a little bit more. And then as you bow forward, bring the torso and the arms in the same line. This is your exhale. You'll inhale and come up to your upright position or extend.

If you feel like that's gonna work for you. Exhale and bow and breathe in. Lift any amount, exhale and bowing forward. Inner thighs will help you with your balance. Inhaling up, exhaling forward and once more. Inhaling up, exhaling forward. Place your hands underneath your shoulders exactly where you want them.

Float the back knee up. Breathe in, float the hip, float the foot. Exhale, come to plank and then press back to downward dog and staying in dog and carefully. You'll lower both elbows towards the floor a little bit. May or may not touch the little tricep work one and straighten and down and press back to and down and press back three legs strong for the last one. Five reach to the tail and come forward. Hands and knees reorganize yourself for the second side. Y'All with me? Okay. All right, so which side are we on?

No, no other side. Thank you. That's the side we just did sync. Glad you're paying attention. Right leg, left arm will hover. Organize that middle. I like to give the cue of a little hidden rubber band from the lower tip of the scapula. That would be your left. Crossing the back to underneath that right buttock on the exhale. Curl in and breathe into reach.

Make sure your head is moving too, rather than just staring at the floor and curl in and reach initiating from your dominoes. A little more extension as the option and breathing in. Exhale, breathing in. Exhale, breathing in. And one more. Breathing in. Organize that center. Rotate the arm to the side, the leg to the side, flex to the heel. Be careful you don't shift the hip too much. Oh, perfect. Tiny. Come back, open length and front to back. Bring the back leg and then we're going to side bend.

Reached 45 degrees over to the right. That's your in breath. Exhale, rotate, open, lift and breathe in and exhale and breathe in. Make sure your back leg is working and coming up and breathe in and coming up. And once more, breathe in and coming up. Bring the hand down. Organize your mind. Hover the knee, press back to downward dog.

I'm sorry, and the leg up. Okay, keep reshifting the back leg and then on the exhale, curl the knee into the nose. Fully forward to plank one. Reach the leg up. Go to the same side, elbow or arm pit. Breathe it out to reach it up. Opposite side. Rotate your pelvis. Keep looking at the floor and reach up.

And now you curl in and step forward. Lower the back knee and bring your torso up and lift those arms. Pause here. Make sure that you're feeling both of the inner thighs. Take your breath in as you exhale, bow forward, arms in line with the tourists. We'll be careful of jetting your chin out here and bring yourself up.

Bright, exhaling to and bring yourself up. Option again of re ching a little bit more and forward and coming up and forward. Last one and forward. Great. Place your hands flat. Pick the back knee up, hip up, foot up for us. Back to your plank and then into dog. And again your little triceps here. Pressing down. Exhale. Inhale, straighten one and two and three and four and fi reached through the tail. Charge up the legs, make sure the fingertips are clawing your mat.

Look forward to where your hands are. Soften through the knees, the little spring and take your little hop up by your hands so that you can sit down. All right, great. Everybody life flat on your backs and we're starting with a pelvic press, pelvic press. So I must sweat in a way here. I hope you're sweating at home. Um, feet are flat. Your heels are in line with your buttocks. Specifically your sit hands flat on the floor.

From this position, press the pelvis straight up, not a bridge. Straight up neutral spine. This is your inhale. The exhale, the arms hover and reach out overhead alongside the ears, not to the floor, just by your cheekbones. Take a little breath here. As you exhale, engage the inner thighs. Draw your tailbone away from as you roll down slightly. Tractioning your spine. That's it. Arms come up to the ceiling. Roll the head forward.

Take a hold of the back of the thighs. Bring your body up. Exhaling round over yourself. Spine stretch position. Reach up into a flat, back, neutral. Inhale. Exhale. Roll yourself to an upright position with the arms open to the side road.

Take to your left. Breathe in. Exhale, come center to your right. Breathe in. Exhale, Come Center arms upright. Breathe in. Exhale, curl forward. Take another breath. Roll yourself down. Make sure you softened through your knees if you need to to get your lower back into the floor and then slide your hands. Heels back, repeating, pressing the hips up. Inhale, exhaling the arms, overheads, feeling your energy [inaudible] size, anchor through the balls of the big toes. Take a little breath. As you exhale, melt your chest to roll down, arms to the ceiling. Head rolls forward. And again, exhale, curl yourself up and round over your legs.

Flexing your heels. Inhale flat, back reach. Exhale, roll yourself all the way up, arms to the side road. [inaudible] right, breathe in. Exhale, center left. Nice. Exhale, center. Inhale, arms [inaudible] up. Anchor your sit bones. Exhale, curl forward. Take a little breath and roll. Softening your knees all the way down.

Very good. From here, bring your legs together. Point your feet. So we're going to go into a rollover. So if you know that you're strong and that you can bring your legs off of the floor from this position with any ramification on your back, then go for it. If not, I'm going to encourage you to start with your legs upright. Okay, so everybody in class is choosing which on the floor except for these two. So here's your example of how you can start the PR Dick. EULAR position. Yes. But from here, take a breath. Your inhalation hovers the legs that brings them up and you exhale and you [inaudible] come over to modified plow, modify plows where your legs are parallel to the floor.

Flex your feet open shoulder distance. That is your inhale. Exhale as you roll down, keeping your legs straight, roll through legs may lower any amount. Whatever you did previously, point your feet. Inhale, close the legs, exhale and take it over with control. Inhale, flex, open. Exhale to roll down. If you're super flexible, you're not dropping your thighs on your chest. Taking advantage of that too much in avoiding the abdominal work. One more.

Inhale, roll in, float over. Nice. Flex, open and breathing out. Abdominals pulling away from your heels. Rolling. Rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, lowering and then reversing. Open the legs and take them over on your exhale. [inaudible] flex your feet and clothes. Press the thighs together as you roll down. That's it. Lowering on the exhale. Inhale, open. Exhale, float it over.

Inhale, flex and close. Be careful. The Chin does not smash down to your chest. You want to keep a little pressure into the back of the head onto your mat. And here's your last one. Open the legs. Point the feet. Inhale. Exhale over. Flex and close. Breathe in. Exhale. Roll down carefully. You're rolling. Rolling. Rolling, rolling. Rolling.

If you're lowering the legs, go ahead and lower. If you're not, go into perpendicular points your feet. Bring your head forward and up. Bend your knees in for double leg. Stretch and breathing in. Exhale, sweep those arms. Breathe. Exhale. Slowly do head, neck, shoulders. Stay focused. Forward three and four.

Reverse your arms. Breathe in. Round over and back. Press down on, open to the side up, and exhale to open to the side and press down. Three. One more. Exhale for pause. Breathe in. Rock yourself up to balance and curl here. So maybe take your feet down for just a sec. All right, so I can explain this. We're going to do rolling like a ball. [inaudible] we're going to rolling like a ball, but we're going to roll in a circle. Okay. In a circle.

So this is a little, um, plagiarism from Ashtanga Yoga because in the, in that practice we roll in a lotus position, arms are stuck through the legs. It's called embryo pose. So you're rounded in like a little embryo. Okay? So what's going to look like is something like this, so your see, start forward and then you're and a half month, one month too, et Cetera, et Cetera, et Cetera to you come around to nine [inaudible] and there you are. Okay. So you sort of fire on one side of your Donald's a little bit more. Your obliques. Okay. If you need a little kick, that's okay.

We're going to the right. All right. Rounding in, making sure you try to stay on your own mat, double breath. Inhale and one and two and three and halfway there for five. Are we going to be premies six and seven and eight. One more. Did you make, oh, we have some lake births going on. All right, so you're forward and then what you'll do is your feet should be off the floor if you can. Right. Come up here. Either have teaser or whole teaser holding. Breathe, bring your arms up, hold and breathe. Rotate your right arm open a little bit. Hold and breathe.

Come back. I'm on the line of the legs if possible. At least your thigh and back. And then bend your knees. Keep your feet off the floor, curl in and go the other way. Reposition yourselves on your mat if you need to. Okay. Are you ready? And one and two and three and four. It's like learning how to drive five, six. Make sure your head stays tucked. Seven, nine. One more time. Oh, I did.

Oh, I'm an elephant. I have to stay in for 10 months. Was it easier one way then that usually you'll find one way is easier than the other. Yes. Okay. We've been, every man is to stay on their maths and this time flex your feet like we did in the beginning and round yourself over. Exhaling. Curl. Okay, very good. Now we'll turn on our sides this direction.

So if you all maybe have your heads to the right, so this side will have to shift with the legs. We will start with side bend. So I will do this. In this position, the bottom knee is bent. Your right knee, your left leg is bent upward and the left foot turned. So the toes are facing straight ahead. And we're here.

So from this position you will inhale and levitate your hips. Press your thighs together, press the feet flat on the floor arch and look down towards the hand. Exhale, bending the knees very, very lightly. Touch your hip and then right away come up, breathe in, and then exhale and bend to and up. [inaudible] and exhale, knees bin three and up.

Pressing the hips up to the ceiling for, let me take one more. Coming up. Breathe in, rotate to the floor. Exhaling coming into plank position puts your feet and knees together. So front support, right foot, double pulse. Inhaling, one, two, exhale. Lower left, left lower. Breathe in, in, down. Breathe in, in, down. Breathe in, in, down and up. Up.

Last set. [inaudible]. Great. Now you will rotate actually away from me. And your opposite legs are in position with your hips down on the floor.

Yes. Great. Now we will inhale and come up. On the other side. Side Bend, inhaling, reach, and exhale lightly down, one and up. And exhale down to shifting that weight over your supporting arm. Three the eye or the facing out. Breathe in, up and lower.

One more time up and lower. Turn around. So you are on your backside. So ladies here, you, you can be in that position. You can face away. All right, great. Spiral the fingers open. Bring your feet underneath your knees.

You may care and you may want to turn your hands a little with your fingers out a little bit. There you go. Press into your feet. Inhale, press the body up in the air. Tabletop. Inhale, press and hold. Exhale and lower down. Either do this again or put your legs together and extend the legs. So it will be back support position. And inhale, press up. Exhale, hold it. Inhale again. Exhale and lower. Alright. And you can repeat either version one, version two or some of you know the full on version with the leg kicks. Yes.

So if you're not doing the kicks, just hold and breathe. Okay. And we'll take our bodies up in the air and the right leg will up, up lower and Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay Beth. Set right now. Last one. Great. Lightly bring your bottom down. And ladies on this side of the room, would you spiral around every one?

Separate the legs, the distance of your mat. Inhale up. Exhale, dive over. Grasp either your feet or your ankles, arm straight and reach through the leg bones and gently curl the spine. So we're not especially trying to push the lower back backwards but more lift up so that the lumbar area lengthens and then dive a little bit forward. Breathing there.

Keep the shoulders soft. Great. Roll yourself all the way up. And let's have everyone turn on the sides towards me. And let me show you this. I don't know what to call this hook, foot side, lying leg lifts. Karen, I think you want to have your head this way.

So I will show you how this works. Your top leg hooks under here, your ankle like so you were resting on your shoulder. And I like to have the legs ready and I'm reaching through the side body here. So I reach in, look a little bit towards my hand, right? So this is going to be my inhale. Exhale, the pivot starts in the pelvis. So the pelvis slightly rolls back.

You will press up onto your elbow. You're going to want to push onto your hand, but you just come to the elbow and you lift the legs up and the legs are on the same line. Is your arms, your arm, one arm. If the hamstrings restrict you, you just bend the knees a little bit. Yes. So Tomo put your elbow down. Yes. So you can press on it a little bit to lift up. So here's your Tata Pilati Stone magazine.

And inhale, reach open. Exhale and up. Looking towards that hand. Inhale, reach open and feel that pelvis roll slightly, but you are not on your butt cheek so you are not rolling all the way back. You lower with control, you breathe in and you breathe out and you breathe in and you breathe out and you breathe in. Keeping your thighs to press together. Out and one more.

Breathe in and breathe out. Now hold your position. Lower the legs. Inhale and lift. One and two. Upper body still three and four. My VA, my voice is not still though.

[inaudible] this is zigs. Two more. Seven. One more eight. Tada. Tada. Tada. Thank you. And come down. Stretch it out here. Languish in your stretch and then bring yourself up and we'll take the other side. [inaudible] you're right here. Ruth is asking where you are. Um, can you see it? If I show you from the back, this is a reachout position. See, I'm pivoting my pelvis back a little bit.

So I'm here. I'm not like this. Yeah, right here. The same place you feel when you do a lot of those leg lifts like this and you get the burn that part. So you're like, you're massaging yourself. Think about it that way. All right. Top leg hooked under the bottom. Ankle.

Legs are relatively straight. Your supporting arm is perpendicular to your body. Don't have it reaching too far forward because you won't be able to get any, um, balance on your, on your elbow. Okay. Let's have the legs ready to go. You reach out. You're opening up that, that top side, your right side of your body, because you're going to use those obliques. This is your inbreath and then as you exhale, you pivot the pelvis and lift and then d rotate down, breathe in, exhale.

And this is like a magazine exercise what you think and breathe and exhale and breathe in inner thighs, helping fi and breathe in working the torso, the arm of the legs to move simultaneously. Last one. Here's the best one. And coming all the way up, lifting and lowering of the legs. One, I would suggest you keep your eyes up. Two and threes.

You bring your feet into the line of your vision for five, six, last, two, seven and eight. Nice. All the way down. And if your blue ball is nearby, no, if you really time this when you're practicing at home, we'd be here. De de, De, De, De, De, De, De, De, De, De, De, De, De, De, De, De, De, De, De, De, De, De, de, De, de . [inaudible]. You can try, why not? So your ball is ready, right? Your ball is red, you're hooked, you have finished, right. Your ball is there for you to grab.

You separate the legs, bend your knees a little bit. You put it between the ankle bows. Make sure you have that secure. Bend your knees in pivot because we want to end up facing the floor. There wasn't that really coordinated and cool. Have your burrito towel rolled up ready for your head? Oh, I forgot to tell you. The towel needs to be nearby too.

And um, this exercise is for the hamstrings and glutes. So you'll notice that when you extend your legs, the ball will touch the floor before your feet, which is what I want. And then the sensation, Karen, would you extend the legs for me to stay? Now the sensation here is not so much you are pressing into the ball with your inner thighs, but that you're lengthening the bones away from you because we're going to perform a basic hamstring curl. But what I'd like your intention to be, would you slowly bend your knees. That is that as your knees are bending, pause here.

It's as though relax your legs a bit. The ball was behind here so that when the leg comes in here, we are not thinking of folding at the knee joint. We're thinking of going around the knee joint like so, so that the feeling is as the, Oh, I'm doing this hooking and this feeling here and what's you're going to feel is a lot more sensation right in this strategic zone. You all know what I mean? Yes. Bye. Strategic to the zone. So see if you can just feel that.

So stretch your legs out. Your head can be on your towel or you're more comfortable with your head on your hands. You can do that. Then slowly bend the knees. Then intend that your kneecap or your thighbone is growing away from you. Reaching gently out of your hip socket and you do want to come to 90 degrees at the knees if possible, you will have a little more range of motion going to the floor.

If you keep your feet pointed versus flexed, you notice that sensation, everybody okay? Enjoy it. So folding the legs in and stretching them back out. That's your inhale and exhale, reaching the knees away from you and breathe in and exhale and breathe in. If you'd like a little bit more challenge [inaudible] with the train, you can remove your towel and hover your upper torso either with the hands here, continue to breathe and move the leg or to the side, arms back any, any arm position is fine, but just that extra extension of the upper torso, we'll challenge that whole back body line. So that's an option for you. So we're probably at about 10 or 11 and hold the legs in the 90 degrees at the knee position. Flex the heels. Now gently anchor your pubic bone.

And we take tiny pulses here. Just a dozen, 1211, 10, nine, eight. Even if the thighs aren't moving, your intention will feel, you will feel the little more contraction right under the glutes there. Four, three, two, one, hold, stretch, [inaudible] and then release. Oh, bring yourself upright. Take a mile, child's pose, and then sit all the way back and you will be sitting on your ball. And if you roll a little bit side to side [inaudible], you'll feel a nice stretch on either side of your lower back.

[inaudible] take the ball out from behind you. Put it to the side. Ladies. Flipping word. Come to the downward dog position. Okay. Bring your feet a little bit closer together.

[inaudible] really reach, yeah, bring the right leg up. Rotate your pelvis, then the knee opening the front of the hip, the same sensation through the knee. Now as though you're pressing into the ball so that you're bending around your knee. Joint shoulders stay square to the floor rather than letting the left armpit drop. [inaudible] curl the pelvis under. Bring the knee in. Exhale, draw a circle out and in and out and n and Oh, okay.

Ah, and then bring that leg down. Switching sides left leg up. Reach back through the armpits. Bend the me, rotate your pelvis. Keep the weight shifting back again. Avoid dropping the other arm pit down would be a right. Ah, so charge up the strength in that supporting leg and curl the pelvis in.

Bring the knee in, rotate open [inaudible] and exhale and inhale. Open. Exhale in open and one more and open. Bring that leg down. Separate the feet again. Here's one final balance position for you. Pivot out and turn out your left foot.

Keep looking straight down at the floor now versus looking back towards your feet. Bring the right leg up. You'll feel more weight and support occurring on the right arm and shoulder blade. Keep engaged there. Take the left hand off the floor and reach back for your foot. Look straight down. Breathing that little quiet and release switching sides. You will turn out now your right foot.

Anchor your energy down through the left arm from your chest and back. Levitate the left leg again. Shift the weight back. Look straight down at your mat. Then the left knee, bring your right arm behind your foot's back there somewhere. If it's easy for you to grab your foot, you can pull on it and arc [inaudible] and then slowly release. Great. Lightly put your knees down face forward.

[inaudible] come up on your knees, lace your fingers and how have your legs together. If you can come a little forward, cause my feet, and then take your hips to the right, rounding your back. Aw, you can lower the hips a little more, a little more, a little more, little more, as long as your knees are okay with that. And then you will side bend a little bit to your left. Inhale, press the hips forward, slightly arch. Exhale and press your thighs together here to help you with your balance. Breathe into the ribs on that left side and inhaling up. Maybe you want to press your hips a little bit more forward. Arch through the back. Exhale, curl over again to your left.

Okay. And once more little tractioning on your fingers, exhaling curl. Ah, coming up, pry open your arms. Exhale, crush your ankles behind you. Fit down. There you go.