Fletcher Towel Mat

Hi, I'm Jen [inaudible] and this is [inaudible] network with the Fletcher braided towel. What I'd like to say before we start is that the towel is a fantastic addition to any mat practice. It will really show you not only where you should be working from about where you should not be working from. However, it is not the best way to start your mat practice. So if you've never used the towel before, you might want to visit one of the tutorials by curious Sabin, director of the Fletcher Company to get a little more detail on the use of the towel and or visit one of the basic mat workouts so that you can get a little more information about the mat. But today we are going to towel it up and so in general we'll be holding the towel about double the width of the shoulder.

So I'd like you just to fold the towel in half. This is always the most confusing part of a towel class. We're going to take the folded end, you're going to find the edge of one shoulder. You're going to take the open end or the end with the tails you're going to find and measure towards the distance of the other shoulder. Okay, we're going to drop the folded end so you have a little loop and where you have your fingers left over is about where you'll hold onto your towel. Now for some of the exercises, it might seem tempting to open your hands way out here to make it a little easier to move the towel overhead.

I want you to challenge yourself and understand that at times moving simply to here might be an overhead movement for some of us and it's, it's, it's an earned position, not a given for everybody. Alright, so we'll start with the towel hanging on to you and we're just going to begin with some of breath breathing in through the nose, out through the teeth or through the, through the mouth, pressing past the teeth. So we'll breathe in an exhale. Let's keep moving at this pace. As you inhale, your arms can react to the broadening and the widening of the ribcage excelling, coming back to center one more time. C inhale. Let's lift the toes up. And as you exhale, let's spread the toes and press down, finding the points of the foot behind the ball of the big toe. Breathing in, lift up behind the ball of the fourth and fifth toes. And one more time.

Breathing in and find the center of your heel and press down evenly into all three points. Go ahead. Then from here we're going to just relax the legs and let them go passive. And as we breathe out, we'll draw the ankle bones just above the knee and all the way up to the top of the inseam of your inner thighs together. So we have a nice strong connection to mid line. So let's inhale, release. Let the legs go. Passive. Exhale, activate the legs and draw them together.

Good. And breathing in and exhale. One more time. And exhale, keeping the legs active. Let's take a plea. A will reach the towel forward at Xcel. Stand tall. So as we bend, keep the shoulders balanced over the hips. Inhale, just like you were on the reformers and not letting the upper body go forward. Yes. Think of sliding down a wall. Better.

Keep those shoulders back. That's it. [inaudible] one more time and exhale. Stand nice and tall. So we've set up a nice foundation. Let's take a moment just to find length through the center of the girdle. Find the shoulders grounded. Let's inhale with the shoulders to the ears.

Exhale, draw the blades down the back. Reach the crown of the head to the sky. Inhale, lift, exhale and lower. [inaudible]. One more time. [inaudible] from here we're going to take the towel up, turn the palms over and narrow your grip just a little bit.

Bringing the elbows into the sides. So this is actually a development of our friend Sherry. Bets from Pollstar who has helped us find a new and inventive way to seat the head of the humorous in the shoulder socket. And it really works nicely for the rest of the towel work. So let's open the hands, breathing in and then slowly wrap all four fingers, including the thumb. So we have a nice strong connection. Do that one more time.

Breathing in and exhale. Wrap. [inaudible] no, the inner edges of the arms are hugged into the side of the body. And as we pull the table top, we're looking for a broadening of the collarbones and you should feel that your humeral head drops back or seats itself right in that shoulder socket. So let's do the pull on the inhale and then exhale, slowly control the release. So we're trying not to let everything go, but instead to maintain some tension. Breathing in and exhale [inaudible] and each time trying to open wider than before. Almost like you could serve two trays out to the side.

[inaudible] two more times. [inaudible] and on the last one we'll pull top. We're going to hold the tension and then offer the towel forward to shoulder height, breathing in, and then we'll pass the sides of the body and pull the towel back to the belly just to get a little stretch and engagement in the shoulder blades. Good breathing in. Exhale, pull back, draw the blades together, retract opening the chest, breathing in, feel the moon widen. [inaudible] last one and pull back. [inaudible] and from here we'll reach forward.

We're going to flip the grip gracefully and come back to our original towel position about double the width of the shoulder blades. Now as you're holding strong, try to see a parallel line to the floor directly in front of your chest, not mine. And then reach your knuckles forward so that the risks are long on all sides of that wrist. We're working without hyperextension and if you look down into the empty space of the negative space of the towel, see that shape when we pull the towel. Let's try to broaden the entire shapes.

So my collarbones are moving to this side. My arms are moving out, the towels broadening, and then as I exhale, I'm reconnecting back to the original shape. So we'll breathing in, broadening, widening, taking up space, breathing out. Good. And as we inhale, let's breathe the towel Bree, this space open. Exhale, reconnecting everything back to center without dropping the energy. One more time. Breathing in and exhale. It's fine. The towel tops and Xcel stay rolling to the ball of the right foot. Let's breathe in. Exhale, reconnect back down to the floor and the left breathing in.

And exhale place. Never know how much you need that footwork until you feel that stretch in your arch. One more time and lower. Alright, we're going to take this shape, this negative space and reach. Pull the shape up above your head, remembering that the place above your head might be different for each person and then lowered all the way down. It is so tempting to release a finger and or all fingers. I'm going to ask you to try to keep those fingers working so that you have the inner outer edges of the forearms and everything in between. Active [inaudible] two more times. [inaudible] one more [inaudible] [inaudible] lower the tile all the way down and that's it. Thanks for coming.

It feels like that feels like enough sometimes. Let's roll the shoulders up and pull down [inaudible]. Again, this is a nice chance to release your hands as well and just feel the weight of your hands. Really drawing your shoulders down through the arms. Pull the towel tot across the hips and you're going to bring the towel to about the level of your pelvis. And then we'll pull tot here. Breathing in and breathing out.

[inaudible] inhale again, expanding that shape and then reconnecting to center. So through this standing work, it's always nice to check in with. Have I shifted my weight to my favorite foot center? Am I on my heels? Am I on my outer edges of my feet? Am I still connected to midline? One more. Pull the towel top. Lift up to the chest. Inhale, lift overhead. Exhale lower to chest.

Inhale lower to the hips. Exhale to chest level. [inaudible] inhale, lift up. Exhale lower to the chest. [inaudible] take a full breath to lower down. [inaudible] we're going to plea. I bring the risk together and [inaudible] [inaudible] again please and [inaudible]. [inaudible] two more times getting prepped for the adventure that we're about to go on through the network.

[inaudible] holding here. Two inhales to bring that towel over. Head to exhale. [inaudible] [inaudible] four, three, two and one. Good release. Roll the towel up and lower down. I will say as we go through the exercises on the mat, if there's a moment where you need to take a break, you can always roll your shoulders out or you can do your hands without the towel. So let's stand to the center of your mat. We're going to face inward towards each other. Drawing the links together.

Pull the tab, we'll Todd at hip level, lift the arms overhead. [inaudible] now see if you can feel the space between your ear and your arms on either side. And as you take your contraction to roll down through the spine, you're going to try to maintain your relationship between the arms and the ears. So take a full breath. Let's bend the upper back. [inaudible] we'll take three more to come down working through the spine.

[inaudible] aiming the towel for about a foot in front of the fee. Last one here, reaching the towel to the ground and you can release so your hands are touching the ground. Let's breathe in and bend the knees and Exhale, lift the hip [inaudible] and bend the knees. Letting the weight of the head take you over. Lift one more time bent and lift. The hips will rise up onto the balls of the feet. We're going to bend the knees into a Fletcher Ball, so curling the tailbone under and let's just pulse too deep in the shape of the ball. Breathing in in [inaudible], prepping ourselves for rolling and contracting. Good.

Last one here. Reach back to the map behind you with your hands. Have a gentle seat to your set spot. Good or you can extend your legs all the way out in front of reaching for the towel will take the towel into the hands and then let's keep it at chest level. Find the tension. Feel the shape of the upper body, grounding the shoulders into the back. Let's roll down in two full breaths.

Inhale and exhale back to the waistline [inaudible] and then all the way down to the mat. Good. We'll end with a towel directly over your chest, so know that it will probably want to go farther back because it's a little easier to hold it there, but we're going to try to keep it very specific. Let's draw the legs up to tabletop. We'll do one abdominal prep position here to make sure that we are ready. We're going to take the top towel and press the full line, the full shape to touch the front of the nice. Good.

Exactly. So from here, maintaining the weight of your pelvis and your upper back into the mat. Also the tension and the stability through your arms. Let's just reach the towel above the knee. So you're going to protract your shoulder blades and reach out with your head down and then you're going to press an imprint the shoulders back against the mat. Is that clear? Yeah. So inhale, reach them away. Exhale, engage them and press back. Good. Inhale, reach them away and make sure that you're grounding through your rib cage as you gauge. Good. And one more time and connect to the mat and reconnect the towel towards your, towards your legs with your shoulder blades grounded. Good. Now from here we're going to reach the right leg out long, almost like a single leg stretch position. So we're inhaling to lengthen a way, exhaling to reconnect with the towel. Good. And the left leg. Breathing in, lengthening through the center. Exhale, reconnect. Good again, right, and exhale, and left. Excellent.

Now we're going to add movement of the towel, so we'll bring the towel just above the chest as we inhale and extend the right leg across the mat. Breathing in. Exhale, reconnect from the center of the body. Head still down and the towel comes back to the knees. Inhale, reach the towel up as the leg goes out. Exhale, start the breath from the center and bring the extremities back in. Two more times. Reach and pull in last time. Extend that energy out into the space and come all the way back to center. Very good. Keeping the legs at tabletop. Inhale, the towel comes to chest level.

Exhale, start to bring the towel back overhead. Now this overhead position is not touching the ground, so your arms should be engaged in Hubbard under arms wrapping towards the ceiling. Inhale up to the chest level with the towel. Exhale, touch the towel to the knees again. Inhale, chest, exhale, reach back so it's a new sort of rib cage. Arms experience. Inhale, bring the whole shape over your chest. Exhale, press to the nice and last one. Inhale, chest level. Exhale, reach back. We're going to add on from here. Inhale, bring the shape of the chest. Exhale, curl your head and shoulders forward for upper contraction. Reached the towel past your knees. Excellent. Keep your upper contraction.

Inhale, lift the arms above the head. Find the crown of the head. Exhale, lower the whole shape back to the ground. Beautiful. Inhale towel over the chest. Exhale, slide the ribs. Lift the back off the mat. Reach your arms forward. Good. Inhale the towel lips up above the crown. Exhale, stretch the whole shape back. You know what's coming next. Inhale the arms up to the ceiling. We're denial. Exhale, girl. Forward.

We're going to jump rope the towel up and over the legs. Yup. You're going to narrow your grip in Nice and strong and tight. Try to reach the towel beyond your hip so you're not giving yourself an inappropriate massage. As we go through and we pump the arms. Inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale. Inhale. Inhale. Exhale. You can narrow your grip a little bit more. Yeah.

Good. Now you're going to continue to work on that upper contraction as you extend your legs straight to the ceiling. [inaudible] each breath gets a pump. [inaudible] [inaudible] now we're going to lower the legs, just a third towards the Mat. Keep lifting the back up off the mat. This is a slow and tedious, but so effective. 100 exercise.

We're going to lower them against you. If you can press forward and lift a little higher. Breathing in in [inaudible], reaching wide through the back. As you press. We're almost there. Let's lower one more time and or come up a little higher. One more time. [inaudible] we'll go for [inaudible] and three. Keep broadening those collarbones. Remember to draw the head of the humerus back into the arm or last socket.

Last one. Hold. Take a full breath. Press the legs to the Mat. Press your towel down all the way. [inaudible] we're gonna lower all the way down. You can release the towel with the hands. Reach the arms up and stretch all the way back overhead. Excellent.

Good. Let's reach the arms by our sides and just feel the towel underneath the hamstrings. For a moment. We're going to use it as an anchoring system to give our hands a break. Want you to flex your feet, and as you flex your feet, feel the backline of your leg pressing down into the towel, through the hamstrings, through the calves, through your heel. And as you point your feet, try to feel the same connection through the back line. So we'll inhale flex, ground, deepen. Exhale, point, good. Inhale, flex.

Sometimes I think if my world were how I would like it to be in plays, I would just be leaving impressions of myself all over the place. Maybe we're doing that figuratively. Last one, flex and point. Okay, no towel in the hands. The towel stays underneath. We're going to reach the arms up. Flex the fee, and as you contract up, press down through the legs. Lift your upper body up. Okay. Another breath to reach all the way up and over the legs there.

Keep grounded through your legs. Good points your feet and roll halfway back to your waistline. Find that upper contraction challenging that upper contraction. Inhale, lift the arms up. Exhale, stretch the shape all the way back. Beautiful. So it's two breaths up, two breaths down. Flex and reach, contract up to come forward. Lift the back up and reach over the leg. Point to roll back and arms and reached back. Let's do it. Ooh. Almost all together.

So flex and reach, curling forward. [inaudible] find a lift up and over and pull yourself up. Lengthen from your tailbone all the way through. Point the toes real halfway back. Find that upper contraction. Lift the arms up. Breathing in and stretch all the way back.

Let's do one more time here. Homeless there. Flex the fee, curling forward. [inaudible] lifting up, reaching up and over to go back. Forth, pointing to roll down that direction. [inaudible] the arms. Reach up and stretch back. Okay, so reaching the arms up, flexing the feet, curling forward. Lift that up or back up. Off The match. Reaching up and past the toes.

And let's go ahead and point the toes as we come up. And you're gonna just make a small contraction back and we'll take the towel out and we're going to place it in front. And we're going to work a little out of order into rolling like a ball. So we'll open the knees to a diamond and then you're going to use the towel as almost a brace or an anchor just to feel some resistance through your legs. So let's take the pelvic tilt back just behind the sitz bones.

Lift the legs up to a balance. We'll feel that the shins are pressing into the towel. The towel is pressing into the shins and the elbows are creating that three dimensional shapes so that we're pulling nice and strong. Make that upper contraction happen through your upper body and then we'll take a full breath without losing the connection to the towel. To roll to the shoulder. Blades are an inhale, excuse me. So we inhaled to roll back, Xcel to come up and find the connection to your arms again. Inhale, rolling back. Exhale, curling up.

Beautiful. Inhale, rolling back. Exhale, curling up last time. Inhale back and exhale all the way up. Excellent. More to come on that one. We're bringing the legs together. We're going to extend the left leg out and reach the arms to chest level. Take a full breath to roll down to your upper contraction with control.

Try to keep the towel over your Shin and draw that right shin into your chest. We're going to take a full breath to switch legs and the arms go overhead. Inhale. Exhale. [inaudible] back to the Shin. [inaudible] go ahead. That's nice.

So never losing that upper contraction, extending energy back and extending your energy forward to more [inaudible]. Last one, each side. Breathing in to reach out and all the way back to center. Let's draw both knees under the towel and just another Ab work in an exercise. Bring the arms back overhead as the legs. Reach out for double leg stretch.

Exhale, pull everything back to center. Good. Deep breath in. Stretch out. Exhale, pull the shape. Inhale, reach back. Think of drawing your knees through the shape of the towel and your arms. Good. Two more times. Reach. Exhale, pulling in and the last one, reach and exhale all the way and lower your head, neck and shoulders all the way down. Good. We'll separate the legs hip with distance apart.

And then we're going to [inaudible] take the towel and use it as a bit of a, um, a prop for some extra feedback for the pelvis. So it's almost like unbuckling my safety belt down and it had a little bit of internal rotation of my shoulder so it's not the nicest position, especially if internal rotation is a challenge for you. Um, but definitely a good place to gain some awareness and have a bit of tension across the front of your pelvis. And from here we'll take a full breath just to come into the pelvic tilt. And so the towel is great because it can influence us to draw a little deeper into the belly wrap of the tail a little bit farther around the towel. And then as we lengthen down and out, it's nice to kind of press the towel into the fold of the hips feel where that centered neutral pelvis position is. Yes. Good. Alright.

Take a full breath to do your contraction into your tilt. [inaudible] in a full breath to lengthen back out, pressing the hips long. [inaudible]. You can just do this for the rest of class. [inaudible] no, we'll do one more to go back into the tilt. And let's at the top [inaudible] Sandy. Well into your feet. We're going to start to peel up through the spine, so use tension on your towel.

But if you need to let the towel slide through your hands, go ahead and do so until we get all the way up to the pelvic press or the shoulder balanced on the shoulders. Once we're here, we're going to lengthen the arms out and slide the towels down towards the thighs. So we have a nice strong connection. Hips are still pressing up and then we'll roll all the way down. One breath through the chest, one breath through the rib cage, and as you reach out to the tailbone, slide the towel back over the hips and you can change your grip again if you need to. It's a really yummy piece. So we'll roll back again, curling the tailbone under, deepening the belly, press the towel with the pelvis to continue to reach up to the top. Take a breath to extend your arms. And this time, let's reach them above the chest. So from here, one breath to soften the sternum, rolling down. One breath to roll through that middle, back to the lower back.

And on the last breath, reach out through the tailbone, lowering the towel back down. Go ahead. So now we get to ask the Cherry on top, which is a nice stretch for the thoracic spine. So again, we'll curl back into the pelvic tilt. Can I get another breath to reach up into the press and reach your arms forward at the same time. And then from here, breathe in as the arms come over the chest and breathe out to reach them all the way back. Overhead lengthening. No is your roll down. Allow the throat to open and stretch through your thoracic spine. One bone at a time, and then stretch all the way down through the ribs to your lumbar and reach all the way out to the tailbone. I love that. And then reach out to Seeley and lower back down. We'll do it one more time.

Curling the pelvis back. Find your tilt, pressing the hips up and slide the arms out. How will comes to the chest? Bring the whole shade back overhead. No. Reach through your arms, reach to your knees and stretch through your upper back. Open the throat, lengthen down, rolling through the ribs, all the way down to the lower back. And then length and down to the tailbone. We'll draw the legs together and we're going to extend the legs out nice and long in the mouth and bring the towel back up to chest level.

And just for a little break, we're going to pull to w so the elbows bend to either side, the towel comes to the chest, and then exhale, press to the ceiling, feeling the imprint of your shoulder blades breathing in. And exhale, press and breathe into pull and press. Last time pull and press. All right onto my next favorite. Let's take the right leg to tabletop and you're going to extend it straight up to the ceiling at a 90 degree angle. So make sure that you're truly at 90 and not beyond.

And from here we're going to cross the body. So as you bring the right leg across, try to keep the shape of the towel and your arms consistent and see if you can bring that right leg parallel to your left arm. Okay, so they're in a diagonal relationship. Good and without moving the hip. And then we're going to bring the leg back to the center and then move the leg out to the side. So we bring that right leg parallel to the outer arm, which is a little bit harder without moving the opposite hip. Come back to center. Let's do that a few times. So it's an inhale to cross. Good. Exhale to center. Inhale to open, pulling a little bit more on the opposite arm to stabilize. Back to center.

Good. Find that balance. Inhale, cross, exhale, center. Inhale, open and back to center. So we've just drawn the boundaries of our circle. They don't have to be massive, but we're going to try to work with this width. We'll inhale cross, sweep the leg around to the outside, strong to center. Good. Inhale, cross. Exhale around to come up. Great. Cross and around.

One more cross and around to come up and let's reverse to the outside, find the boundary and then we find the opposite side. Good having that thighbone just sink deeper into the hip socket. One more. Good. Lengthen all the way down to the mat with that leg. Good. And let's bend the elbows again and press back up.

Now you guys are both good on this exercise but I will say that at the beginning there is quite a bit of towel movement during the leg circles. So your goal is to lessen that as time goes on. Good left leg comes through the tabletop to extend all the way up to 90 degrees and let's find parallel with that leg crossing to the right. Squeeze and engaged across and back to center. Good. And then open.

Think of pressing the towel out with that left leg and back to center. Good and engage all the way across to me. Reach out of the hip and back to center. Good. And Open that hip joint and center last time and engaged. Deep and through the inner thighs and center and open and center.

Beautiful. Here we go. Circling across. Inhale, sweep around and center. Use the breath. Breathe with Axo. So connect to center and inhale. Cross around and up. One more time. Cross around and up. Reversing to the outside.

Around in. Squeeze. Good. Consider using that standing legs. Inner thigh muscles as well. So we're constantly connecting to midline. Last time. Open and reached. Good. Reach the leg down and connect through the upper inner thigh at the knee. That ankles flex your feet.

You're going to crow your head and shoulders up through the shape of the towel and roll all the way up to a seated position. Yep. Not always the easiest thing to do with the towel. And then rolled back up. Let's for a moment, just keep the legs here and we're just going to release the hands and we'll bring them out and do a little articulation exercise. Starting with the thumbs going. One, two, [inaudible]. [inaudible] [inaudible].

[inaudible]. One more [inaudible] and just to give a little break and then we're coming back down right back into it. So let's now take the towel under the legs. We're going to go into the crab. So not the crowd. This is the seal. It's difference the animal the end of the day. All right, so pull the towel taught. You've still got a little bend in your elbow to keep that.

It's like a laser beam underneath your thighs that we're trying not to touch. We're going to curl back into the pelvic tilt. You're going to draw your legs up into the balance to just prep. You're lifting the shins up with two claps at the top and then you're bending the knees down, hugging towards the towel, but not gripping it and two claps in the bottom. No breath in the claps. It's an inhaler. Clap, clap. Xcel down.

[inaudible] clap, clap. Breathing in. [inaudible]. [inaudible] one more time. [inaudible] clap, clap. Adding the roll. Breathe in to go to your shoulder blades. Here we go. Inhale back, clap, clap. Accella clap, clap. Good. Inhale back. Lift the sitz bones to the towel. That's it.

Then exhale up. Inhale rural lifting up. Exhale, reach down through the tail. One more time. You got it. Clap, clap. Exhale up. Clap. Good. Stay in your balance for a moment. We're going to slide that towel up to help us lift all the way into the open leg rocker position. This is really nice to hold here. We're going to flex and point [inaudible] flex and points. [inaudible] two more.

[inaudible] last one. Trying to lift up out of the hips. Lift up out of the waist. So hold the towel and see if you can bring your arms taught to make it a little more challenge. And then as you roll back, keep the connection between your legs in the towel. Inhale to the shoulder blades, so come back up. Should help a little bit. It's not the nastiest one. So inhale roll back. That's the com. Exhale. Come back up. Reach your legs up on the diagonal.

Inhale, curl back, sits bones up. Exhale, upper contraction, lift up out of those hips. Beautiful. Last one. Exhale up. I'm assuming that the legs can stay up there like that without the towel. So we're going to come all the way back up with that towel just as tall, close to the legs. If you can touch it there, go for it. And then inhale, roll back. Exhale, press the upper body forward. Good. Inhale, roll back. Exhale, lift up out of the waist two more times. Inhale back.

Exhale, lift up. Beautiful. Last one, and lift all the way up and good. Let's bend the knees, cross the legs. We'll place the towel to the front. Very good. And then just roll over the knees and come into a quarter pen position. So we're going to smile the towel so that there's a little bit of a a you here. And then we're going to have a thumb underneath. Fingers on top.

And even though we've got a little bit of a lift underneath the fingers, we still want to have a nice wide [inaudible] hand. If it's too much on your risks, you can always try a grip that's a little bit on top to give you a little lift there. So let's have the knees together. We'll have the knees directly under the hip and we're just going to start with the arm movement. So it's a full breath. We're going to pull the towel top, lifting the right arm up as almost in line with the ear, depending on how long your towel or your arms are. And then take a full breath to come back down. Good. So Aimee, shift your weight forward so your little hips are a little bit over your knees. You can move your knees back. Okay, good. And then take inhale.

Exhale with the left and do use those inner thighs and pull all the way back. Now we're trying not to hike that shoulder up, so we're trying to do the best we can to anchor the shoulder down. It was rage, good and all the way down. Excellent. And reached in the opposite direction. Good and all the way down. Now let's take the right arm out and take a full breath.

Keep the tension on the right arm and we're going to the check myself here. Extend the left leg out in opposition. Now we'll hold here. Maintain your inner thigh, Jen. Reach out through the arm, reach out through the legs and just breathe in and breathe out and try to keep the [inaudible] tension in the towel and the tension again. Your left leg, even one more breath here. The heat builder. Yeah, lower all the way down with both arms. Reset the opposite arm and leg. Extend reaching out, pulling nice and strong. We'll extend the right leg out to Matt.

Breathing in and out for two more breaths. Come all the way back in. Excellent. Just a nice way to work that out position. We're going to come down on to the Belize and you're going to take an underhand grip into for a uh, single leg kick. So having this little grip on the towel will allow us to find the same connection hopefully we did at the very beginning of class. So do press the back of your wrist down against the mat and then wrap your fingers around and draw out just a little bit. Inner thighs are together.

You are in an actively lengthened extended position and we're going to kick the right heel in two times with two inhales and let's flex the foot as we do. So we'll go flex, flex and [inaudible] go ahead and left. And this is a really good place for you to pull apart so that you can feel a little more connection there. Yes. Great. One more on the left.

We're going to add a little element so you'll kick kick on the right now, lift the knee off and extend the leg off the mat to lower good. And then kick kick on the left lift point, extend good. Keep that stability with the upper body kick, kick lift point, extend. Excellent. And kick. Kick the point. Extend Two more times. Cool. Last one. And extend and good.

Let's take it all the way down onto the mat. Good. Let's take one hand on top of the other. You can even rest your head on your towel if you'd like. Uh, just to take a little bit of a break here. So even weight through both sides of your pelvis, finding the scapular stability, even without the towel. And feeling that there's length from the crown out through the tail, out through the inner line of the legs, through the heels. And let's um, have the legs just about hip width, distance apart.

And we're just going to lift the right leg up and off, stretching out, and then lengthen it as if you could place it down farther away from you on the map, the left leg up and out, and then lengthen all the way out. So be aware to keep the length behind the knee consistent. So lift from the calf and the hamstring as you lift the right leg up and then reach out and feel the stretch and the space and all of your joints. And then lift through the opposite leg and Lincoln all the way. I'll just a little break for the upper body. We're going to lift both legs up.

We're going to open them a little wider. We're going to close towards the starting position and lower down. Inhale, lift them up to hover XL. Press them out to the edges of the Mat. Inhale, reconnect, exhale lower. One more time. Lift up, open to the edges of the Mat. Good.

Reconnect back to center. Hold. Exhale, stay. And we're going to swim from the smile line going. Inhale. Inhale. Exhale, exhale, kick. Kick a little faster. Kick, kick, kick, kick, kick. Four, three, two, one. Lift up and lengthen all the way down. Excellent. Okay, so this piece is um, one of the, it's a little bit more accessible to work behind the head, I should say. Okay. But if there's a shoulder talking to you, then maybe it's not the piece for you, but it's a wonderful, beautiful, you want me to [inaudible] is that we do we do it today?

So we're going to have the legs about hip width, distance apart. And again, working that same length into position, we're going to work to lift the arms up. And now the challenge always with lifting the arms up is are we lifting the arms or are we lifting the shoulders? So we want to try to feel that the grounding of the shoulder blades into the back is helping to float the arms up. So that's simply the first part. Let's try it a few times. So four focuses down, towel is taught. Again, feeling that full shape, lengthening out through the legs, and then breathe in as you lift and breed out as you lower [inaudible] being the tension through the towel is really gonna help. Inhaling up and exhaling down.

One more time to lift. Yeah, and to lower. All right, adding on. We're going to lift the towel up and then we're going to pull to the w behind the head. So just making your way past your ponytail towards the shoulder girdle. And as we draw the shoulders down a little more, we're going to start to lift up into the baby swan. So we're lengthening out through that lower back. Now this might be enough, so let's lower down and then extend the arms forward in all the way down.

Yes. All right, let's try that again. Inhale, lift the arms up. Exhale, engage the blades down into the [inaudible]. We have the back and you can start to lift up to that baby spot. So ideally we're going to flow through it. Let's lift a little higher in that upper extension, lower down and reach out. All right. Here's the tricky part.

We're going to flip the towel to bring us up into a higher swan. So here it goes. Inhale, lift, exhale, bend, drawing the shoulder blades down. I'm going to reach the towel back to my hips or thighs. Then I'm going to bend in, trying maintain my lift and then extend to lower down. Full easy. Inhale, lift the towel and the arms up. Exhale, pull down, reaching the blades down into that V, continue to pull down.

Elbows wrap to the ground as the arms reach over. Yes, you can widen it. How do you need to good. Lift up a little higher. Bend the elbows and lower all the way back. How does that feel? Good and hard. Yeah, it should feel good and hard. If it's easy, you're either a contortionist or you're probably not working from the right place. All right, so the last part of this, and again you can go back to any other part, is coming into like a full swan like you might see on the reformer or even the Cadillac. So we lift up, we pull down, we reach out. We find that extension there. We're gonna lift the arms up overhead and reach all the way forward. So if that last part was tight, you can slide out on the towel or maybe it's not the best best movement.

So you can always come back to what we did a moment ago. Alrighty. Let's lift up. We'll do the first one with you. Slide the towel down, find the connection to the back, lift from the upper back, reach the towel back to your thigh and then lift out of your waist to come forward and exhale to come all the way down. One more time. Yes. Lift. Bending the elbows back. Open the chest as you reach the arms back to the thighs. Then the inhale brings you up.

Lengthen your spine out and reach all the way to the ground. Fantastic. Release the towel. Let's take a press back to rest pose. Hips over heels. Really Great. Excellent. All right, lets us come into side series. So I'll have both of you facing me.

Okay. These are all kind of nasty, Yummy, so it was a really nice element of it and also a really tough one. We're gonna come to, um, it's a normal sideline position where you are wherever you need to be to establish your balance of you align yourself back against the back edge of your mat when you move your legs forward, wherever you feel like that needs to be. And then we're propped up on the elbow and we're going to be working on a lot of support from that underneath side. We are using the towel once again in this position we're going to rotate the arm underneath, arm out to external rotation to to keep that towel out.

And what happens is I'm gonna take, how do I want that? I'm going to anchor it down with my, my fist and then I'm going to keep my opposite arm overhead. Now again, challenges is we want to keep that top shoulder from hanging out by the ear. So we're going to wrap the underarm. Basically, it's an overhead tiled position, just slightly skew and we want to keep the tension and hopefully keep it over our head throughout. So the ultimate and upper bodies to stabilization. We're going to flex the v very simple leg movement. Just lift the top leg up. It's a two kick forward. Breathe in in, and then point it back.

Try not to let that towel move forward. Yes, yes. Especially for me because that will go off this table. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] last one. Bring it back and stay. Here's the yummy part. When you keep the tension on the towel, you're going to rotate your upper body. You're taking your upper body into rotation towards the ground only as far as you can maintain the tension that tall.

You grow your shoulder blades down and lift up from the side to come back to center. Your leg comes back over center. Then we get to extend, flex the foot forward, open the chest to the ceiling, pull the Tel back, reaching out position with the top hand and the top leg, and then come back to center. We're going to take a full breath in both directions. Inhale and exhale, wrap and reach. Inhale and exhale, recover to center [inaudible]. Inhale and exhale, extend, open, stretch and back to center. [inaudible] [inaudible] it's again, nice work and hail and XL. Wrap and reach and back to center. [inaudible] extend up, reach up and out of the bottom. Shoulders and back to center.

[inaudible] lower all the way down. We're going to bend the knees in, come all the way up and we'll swivel around to the other side. Go ahead, stop. It's to feel a really obvious place of oppositional energy rather than just the idea of it. If you don't have it there, you will not stay up. So nothing like forcing the issue. So we'll take the towel up overhead again to that other side, but trouble shoulder here, wrapping it down, lifting up two kicks forward. [inaudible] so really let that leg be the mover moving. It would be the movable piece rather in that socket, [inaudible] and four.

Wow. Last one. Wow. Holding here, take a full breath. Find your contraction, wrapping the spine forward, recovered a center. [inaudible] flex and reach high release, high extension, the to center [inaudible] up and over to go forward.

[inaudible] back to center. [inaudible] stretch and reach. Feel the opposition. [inaudible] back to center. One more time here. Wrapping forward, up and over leg and arm reach in opposite directions. The spine brings you back to center. [inaudible] flex reach [inaudible] all the way back and good. Very nice.

Whew. Okay, let's come up and we'll come and we haven't really done any spine stretchers thoughts. So let's go into those two and then we've got a wonderful fun variation coming up. So we'll flex the feet about mat with distance apart. Very simple spine stretch you can take in a lighter hole, but just still with the intention here of a width through the upper body. And take an inhale to lift up out of your waist and exhale, contract. Articulate the spine forward, reaching from the tailbone, crown of the head to the towel, and then a full breath to roll back up.

[inaudible] inhale, lift. Exhale. Round forward. Hey. Yeah, up through the spine. [inaudible] one more time. [inaudible] and all the way up through the spine.

[inaudible] we're going to lift out of the waist and rotate. Let's go over the left leg first. Good. Now we're taking our right arm, passed our left ankle, and you're going to reach forward in your soft position. Good, so we're going to hold here for just an uncomfortable moment. Let's try to take this towel to a vertical position. So one arm is over the other. Good. Then with your body, you're trying to wrap the body up in through the frame of the arms.

So you're essentially pulling the towel back overhead. That's it. Good. Now when you lift, the left shoulder has no work. It's all coming from underneath, so you roll up to face that same side and then recover back to center. Let's try again to the opposite side. It's an inhale to rotate, exhale and saw forward. Good. Let's take a breath. We want that towel to pull top, wrapping the body through the frame of the arms.

No work in the top. Shoulder. Lift from underneath. Find your rotation, tell it chest level, and then back to center. Okay. Again to the left. Inhale, exhale, reach. [inaudible]. I always love a breath here to deepen [inaudible]. And then lift from underneath. Find your rotation and back to center again.

Reach over and contract. Arm past the ankle. Take one extra breath here. Find at rotation, reached your body through a beautiful and as you roll up, engage the shoulders to coming down to chest level and back to the center. One more each side without the extra breath. Breathing in, dive through. Breathe out from underneath. Rolling up. Find the towel at the chest. Recover to center. Excellent. Breathing in and reach.

Great. Rolling up and back to center. Beautiful. It's a hard one. The devil is in the details. Yes. Learn. Learned that from Ron. All right, so the last big push we're going to do is for the teaser. In a, the teaser, we work with a position that's called the canoe, which is kind of like the pre teaser where the teaser comes from.

Many of my students will call it the could know, but we're going to definitely work with canoe. So we're going to work this piece much like we would do, um, the teaser on the Cadillac, because we have the prop here. We are wrapped with all four fingers and the thumb, I know it will, you will be called out with illegal use of equipment or improper, improper, no, the plots. Police will come. All right, so we're reached the arm overhead, just like we have the push through bar on the Cadillac. We're coming back just to a little hinge so we can feel that nice long length, like your advanced teaser position. And then we start to roll through the spine as you come down the bar or the towel comes just above your chest.

Now we're gonna pull to a w you're gonna flip the WWE to bring their arm overhead just like you're, we're doing a push through. And then you're going to pull through the W and you're going to press the bar or the towel right over your chest. All right, you've created a frame with your arms. And from here we're going to roll up into the canoe. So it's your low hundreds position with your leg and your upper contraction with your upper body. Full breath all the way up here. Then we're going to lift up. We're going to lift up to that teaser lengthening all the way to the top.

Then we're rolling back down slowly finding that. Can you again [inaudible] as you press the legs down, the head replaces back to the mat and then arms reach over. So I did the nice cheat where my head came up before my legs. It's not allowed. We got to try and get the head in the heels to lifted the same time. I might as well admit it before somebody calls me out on it. Right? All right, so we'll bend the elbows through. Press above the chest. [inaudible] find the canoe on a full breath.

[inaudible] Ooh, that's hard. And then a lift, keeping the tension on the towel to come up to the top. [inaudible] roll back down to that canoe. Tell still above the chest, lower down, bending the elbows and reach all the way back overhead. One more and we have just a special add on. At the end, we're imagining pressing forward, curling up to the canoe, lifting to the top. Find that link. Come back to the, can you bring the towel to chest level? Puddle your canoe. [inaudible] last one.

Lift up and lower all the way down. Oh, I let that tell go. Excellent. Let's bend in the right knee. We'll roll back on over to a quadro pad position. Yes. And we'll just take a nice, it kind of feels great to have your hands nice and wide against the mat. Now yes, Tuck the toes under and we're going to lift up to up stretch hips to the ceiling and just press out.

So allow your shoulders to lift your shoulder blades to lift it in this position as your hips lift up higher just to feel that opposition stretch and then slowly draw your shoulder blades down as your head reaches a little closer to the mat. So we're going to stay in irrelevant here. We're just going to push the mat away to lift the shoulders up. Exhale, bring the shoulder blades down. Good. Two more. And the last one and their stolen is down to stay. And then let's lower the right heel down.

Inhale is your left knee bend. Exhale, lifter, lower the left heel and lower both heels and lift. Let's lower both heels down again. Find your connection to your blades and walk your hands into your feet. Trying not to wobble too much. Breathing. One, two, three, and four and you're going to roll up slowly through the spine. [inaudible] coming all the way to the top.

Let's give some shoulder rolls. We'll come up to go back and down. [inaudible] big breath and just reaching out into this space. Thank you for what you've allowed me to do today, my shoulders, and thank you both and thank you.