Challenging & Controlled Mat

Hello. I'm North Tomlinson. Glad to be with you here at [inaudible] anytime from Chicago, Illinois at a studio called the Ron Pilati studio in the neighborhood of Andersonville. Joining me today is my esteemed colleague, Ilana, whose going to demonstrate the exercises. So let's get started. All you really need is a mat here, no extra props. We're going to start in a kneeling position right here in the middle of the mat. All four is a four point kneeling.

Then to make sure that the hips are lined up with the knees and the shoulders, elbows, and wrists all line up. Go ahead and spread the fingers long. Think about a nice straight line from the crown of your head to your tailbone. Just start to take a few breaths and inhaling deeply spreading wide across your bat. And then as you exhale, feel like your ribs sort of knit together in front, creating a nice neutral spine, neutral pelvis. Good in healing again and exhaling as you continue to breathe. Feel like your legs could almost pull your mat together so you engage your inner thighs and your pelvic floor with your pelvic floor and your inner thighs engage. You're gonna move into just a little bit of cat cow. Take a breath.

The end is preparation. As you exhale, thinking about the crown of your head and your tailbone, curling and down towards the Mat, zipping up through your pelvic floor. As you inhale, you're going to invert the spine lane, then through without overly sinking into the shoulder plates, they're cut in help repair, and then Xcel feel like there's a string pulling you up. Getting super super around here and then inhaling from the tailbone all the way to the crown they had. We create this nice bow. One more time in healing. Exhaling as you pull up that Ian Healing. Now as you move into cow and then this next exhale, you're just going to come into neutral. Good. We're going to take your neutral, then a walk your hands slightly forward and your knees slightly back so you're in a semi plank position and just do a few practice runs for your pushups that are going to become straight leg later on. Feel free to bend your knees, cross at the ankles.

Think about the hip bones aiming down to the mat like headlights. Then as you inhale, bend the elbows ever so slightly and we're going to focus on, I like to focus on the east centric phase of this, which would be now pretending like you're still pushing up even though you're lowering now. As you exhale, activate the abdominals straight in the arms. Lay that through the crown of the head. God, we'll do two more like that. Inhaling as you pretend like you're still pushing up, even though you're going down and exhale and coming eyes straight arms. One more time. Inhaling the lower, careful with the scapular abduction there and good.

We'll bring the lights back to parallel. Curl the toes under now. Good. Take a breath, lift the knees, lift the pelvis up, sit back into a downward dog position there. As we send the hips way back. Careful not to hyperextend here. Activate the Trans versus and the obliques that you feel like. Now you can walk your hands back to your feet light as a feather.

Thinking about your legs as sort of your tower and your base. Take a breath in and with a heavy head, heavy arms, very soft knees. You're just going to sort of rag all yourself up to a standing position and we'll go right into the standing roll down sort of pushups series. We'll bring the legs into parallel, making sure the hips, knees, and ankles line up as your strong tower. Go ahead and raise the arms up towards the ceiling and think about your upper body is just an extension that is your lower body.

Making sure their ribs are connected here. Exhale as you start to articulate your spine down and zipping up on the floor. I still keep it at engagement in the pelvic floor just like you did when you're in your knees. You want to have that sensation that the feet up, pulling the mat together so your pelvic floor is engaged, your inner thighs are engaged. Now from your strong tower, you're going to walk out very lightly on the hands or keep the abs engaged. One, two, three, four into this full plank position here. Now again, making sure that we maximize the space here. Keep the scapula pulled apart. Bend the elbows towards the ribs. One, two, three. We're going to pause right there. Exhale as you press all the way up.

Any lower for Atlanta? Keep going. We see the scapulas start to come together, so we want to get so we want to just the opposite of that yet. Keep them pulled apart as right. Getting the Pex to activate and be a little more active. Very nice. Now. Good. Exhale as you come all the way up. Then take a breath in. Still with the abdominals engaged, thinking about the pelvis floating across in space, and we can be light as a feather as we walked back. Flat feet.

Now start with the feet. Pull the mat together. Zip up through the inner thighs pelvic floor, and come to take your tall tower there and let's bring the arms all the way back up since that's the way you start it. Now take a breath in the deeper engagement on the public floor. See if you can plant or flex the feet. Rise up onto the balls of the feet, but be careful here that you don't roll out in supernate to the Pinky toe side of your feet. As you inhale, lower your heels back down to the mat. As you exhale, rise up, thinking about zipping up from the bottom again, from the floor all the way up to the ceiling without any hyperextension.

Inhale as you lower down one more time and an exhale. Staying up here in the plant reflection makes you at a point that you can sustain this. So she has some pretty high heel shoes here. She's the next dancer, so she might be to sustain that. Feel free to come down a little bit. We take our roll down from here. Pull a little bit more torture. A midline here for the ankles. There you go.

And articulating them. Let's try it again. Good. Keep pulling towards the midline, towards the big toe sides for your feet. Keep pulling up out of the abdominals and your pelvic floor. They're good when you have that sensation that you're just about to fall. Activate the obliques a little bit more and then keep going.

You have a little bit more. I know you have a lot more range than that. Good. Take a breath in and then as you exhale, you're going to pull your belly up and I'll be your hips, your rib cage, up and over your hips, your shoulders, up and over your hips. Very nice. Coming back to that line and then lower the heels down. Let's try that again. Rise up onto the balls of the feet. Inhale as you exhale, head, shoulders, upper ribs or ribs. Keep that sensation up. Pulling up in space. Good.

Roll into the big toe side of your feet. A little bit more. Treat a stronger tower, just a little bit more that the head hang a little bit more heavy, but I feel like there's a hammock here. Is that a hole in the midsection out? Beautifully done. All right. So now we'll go ahead and once again walk out, but we're gonna maintain the Plantar flection. Inhale. Exhale, walking out. One, two, three, four. Finding that plank position while still implant or flection. I'm going to ask you to walk your hands out a little bit more.

If we can get the hips to drop down just a little bit more and want to maximize here. The separation in the shoulder blades, the downward position of the, um, of the scapula there towards the waistline. As you inhale, Bend your elbows just to 90 degrees and it had that sensation that you're still pushing up. And exhale, press up, straightening the arms. Good. Inhale as you bend. Exhale good. And one more time. Make this one not quite as deep and do a little, keep the integrity here of the shoulder girdle. Nice. And then extend from there. Take a breath in. As you exhale, send your pelvis way back and say first, first, first, Yep. Way Back. Good. And then from there, bring the arms and the upper body and we start to get ready to align the spine on top of the pelvis. Set your feet. Yep. A little more firmly there.

Big Toe size of the v Pole towards the midline, engaging in at the eyes, pelvic floor and the Nexia as you articulated all the way up. Sometimes though faster than others and then lower the walls down. Good job. Let's transition to this beautiful high or mat here that we have and you get, just bring your head to the sand. The sand. Yeah. Head. Yeah. All right. Let's start you in the fetal position. Let's come a little bit more forward towards the edge and we'll have your feet reaching nice and long hair sort of, um, Demi. Point the feet, which will look nice.

And let's start you on a spine stretch position with the arms reaching out over the legs. So we'll get nice flection here as we pull the belly back in and we have a nice, beautiful c curve here from the very beginning. We'll take a traditional roll down. We make sure that we're not wearing the shoulders as earrings here. Exhaling as you articulate your spine, bringing your sacred spot on to the mat.

Just feel like you're painting a nice long line down the Mat. Don't take your upper body for granted. Once you get here, continue to focus and really late and then articulate all the way down through the crown and be head beautiful. From there. We'll reverse that. Inhale this preparation XL. Draw the ribs down towards the Mat, lifting head and shoulders up and again, feel like you're reversing what you're doing. Now you're appealing those tracks, peeling their line up and off the mat, keeps sending the pubic bone forward. As you come back into that spine stretch, we're going to start the next one in this same position. We'll change the next one. Draw the shoulders down, take a breath in, and an exhale had that same sensation that you did when you were standing that this fine moves backward in space.

We come back to a more neutral pelvis so that pubic bone aims forward instead of up but coming all the way through in the middle of the body and then again coming all the way through the cervical spine lengthening and placing it with intention down onto the mat. Take a breath in. We'll roll up and transition to the more traditional neck. Paul, it's come down, head and shoulders up. I had this sensation that you could send your fingers and your feet way across the room. Now let's pretend like there's a straight or a wall right behind your back. You're going to articulate your spine up to the wall, leaning in the crown of your head.

I'm going to take the hands and interlace them behind your head. Activate the transverse abdominis, the obliques, so that we can stabilize. We're going to take a breath in, grow tall. As you exhale, we'll hint at the hips most of the times about a 45 degree angle or to a point that you start to Trimble and you'll kind of know that you should stop pretending like there are two imaginary strings here at the elbows holding here from this position. Take a breath in XL. Move the law by the lumbar spine in deflection as we articulate down with oppositional energy here, the strings at the elbows, making sure that we articulate all the way down with much intention and attention given to the effort back all the way through. Good. Now Netball requires you from this point to roll up with the elbows behind you.

Sometimes we actually have to cheat it. It's very difficult task. So I'm here with you if you ever need. If you need a little spot come down, up and over without pulling on the neck as you come up and over, even though its neck pull it. I actually want to pull over. We'll stack up really tall. Inhale, go ahead. We're diving for it. Good. And then we'll exhale as we pull the lumbar spine. Flexing the feet will be good here.

Let's do a little bit more of the elbows coming forward. That hinge, ing hindering, hindering, hindering, hindering, hindering, and then reflects. Move into flex coming on down and landing out. Good. You wanna try one more. Let's do it and help prepare. Exhale, draw ribs down. Coming up old right there. Let's bring the strings here and we'll give a little assistance there.

Or if you're at home by yourself, you can bring your hands from behind your head, reach forward when you need to, and then resume the hands behind the head. Stack up really tall in healing. And then from here we grow a little bit taller and an Xcel hand. You got the hips keeping the integrity of the shoulder girdle, that's it. And then as you exhale, articulating down with lots of lane and with lots of intention.

Excellent. Alright, we'll go from there to single leg stretch with a little bit different take on it. So we'll take the hands, we'll interlace them behind the hat, the oxy put there, and we'll again bringing the elbows to peripheral vision so you can help maintain the integrity of your shoulder girdle. We'll draw the ribs down, lift your head and shoulders up as you come up into your seeker or focus and make sure the pelvis is still neutral and the tailbone is not curled up. Let's bring one leg in to show the other leg into shell. But without using the hands here, we're going to pay close attention to the integrity of the hip knee, ankle alignment. As you inhale, we'll send this lag away and then focus now on the pull in versus the extension. Inhale the new leg here, and then exhale as you draw in. Good. We're paying lots of attention to the integrity of the shoulder girdle, paying a lots of attention to the integrity of the pelvic girdle here and maintaining maximum work here through the abdominals.

Let's take two more, one more each way. Inhaling. Exhale, good. Inhaling, exhale. We'll draw both legs in and we'll give a lot on our break here. Lord the head and shoulders down. Now we'll start to work with the arms in opposition, which is why we didn't use them to help us with the legs, so we'll start in that same position. Take a breath and now let's get the tailbone. Here's what usually happens most.

We get that pelvis to curl up a little bit and we want to make sure that we're still neutral, tailbone heavy there. Let's bring the ankles, knees, and hips in the same line. Now extend the right leg and this time extend the left arm. Good that sure, and we'll do that simultaneously the next time. Exhale as you draw in. Good. Now extending the left leg and right arm and then exhale.

We'll try that two more times. We're going to maintain the integrity of the shoulder girdle and the pelvic girdle excelling to come in. Inhale as you lengthen, exhale to retract. Inhale to extend. Exhale to pull in. Nicely done. Let's do one more. Inhale and exhale and let's finish the other side. Lengthen. Exhale, whole shell.

And then with integrity we lengthen and Laura down. Beautiful Wall. So do our version of the double leg stretch here. Take a breath in and prepare again, keeping a neutral neutral pelvis here. The strings on the elbows. As you inhale, extending both legs in particular, there's something really, I mean this isn't you resisting you here. Exhale as you pull and God in heel as you firmly got keeping the pelvis neutral.

Exhale to pull in one more time and just like we did with the single leg stretch, we'll shave off the back of the head with both arms. Inhale as you extend. Good. Exhale. So the first thing that usually happens is that we lose where we are with the shoulder girls. They're going to keep it very stable in Hilton. Lengthen away. Very nice. Exhale to retract. One more time. Give it a shot. Try not to drop the ankles this time. Exhale as you pull in. Very nicely done.

Hold the Lexan shell over the head and shoulders down. Let's give the likes of right to all right. We'll do one more of those. We'll maintain the length of that and we'll turn over to the right side. Moving into banana, so it'd be a nice transition. All right, take a breath in. Prepare, draw a ribs down. Head and shoulders up. All right. What about your, your tailbone? Where should it be? All right.

We're going to bring it down just a little bit. That's where it is, where it should be. Now float the leg can shelf however you want to get there. Alright, go ahead and inhale as you lengthen. Now as you exhale, you're going to try to simultaneously turn the shoulder girdle and the pelvic girdle c ended up late out onto your side. Very good. Maintaining the lane, keeping the head nice and neutral there in the center there. Beautifully done. Now we're going to go the opposite leg. Opposite arm. Which one do you want to choose? [inaudible] coming forward. That's it.

There you go. So bring them towards people that are looking at this and then switch. Exhale, lengthen out. Good. Inhale, exhale, switch. Good. We have to really work hard and be careful to keep the pelvic girdle and the shoulder girdle. Very neutral here. How about one more time? Inhaling. Good. And I'll lengthen both arms and both legs. Have that Nice picture moment there and then take a breath and think about the rights.

That'd be rib cage coming around towards me as you come back into that double leg stretch position. There you go. And then bring the hands and draw it. She all beautifully died and of course we have to do the others so they can get to see your back. [inaudible] good. You Ready? Take a breath in. Exhale, draw the ribs down and pelvis. Check. Where is it? Is it, there you go. It's nice and neutral and we'll extend.

Beautiful. All right, take a breath in. We'll try to get the shoulder girdle and the pelvic girdle to both work. Lengthening. Good job. Good. Nice. You choose to hand in like the comes. It just used to be opposite. So we'll do this one. Yep. Inhale and exhale, switch. Inhale.

Exhale through. There we go. Inhale. Exhale, switch. Inhale. Exhale, switch. One more time. Hoop. Yup. Just a little bit too much there. Go ahead. Now find a picture moment again. Both arms, both legs, lengthen, take a breath. And then we're going to exhale term by redefine a double leg stretch position. Go ahead, draw the hands behind the head. Bend the knees, lengthen, lower for rest. Good.

We'll give Atlanta a chance to extend the legs and just take a well deserved deep breath here in healing. And as you exhale, turn the palms up. So that sort of set us up for our next little series. We're going to move into our variation of Teaser, right? So let's take the first one with the legs down so you can focus on keeping the pelvis neutral and take a breath in. As you draw the ribs down at the head and shoulders, the arms just elevate up as you exhale. Much like the roll up, we're going to keep the pelvis neutral as you come up, and we're not going to go too far and not overextend here, right?

So that later on you can keep a little bit of note of, I'm lectured in here, so a little bit more here, but exhale as you articulate down, think about sequel spine coming through the mid back, keeping the integrity of your shoulder girdle here. So pretend like you still have your arms behind you and the strings at the elbows, except your arms are reaching forward. Don't take the upper body for granted. Again, make sure your linkedin all the way out. Let's try that. The legs this time. All right, a good transition to be, to start with bent knees, but we know that Atlanta could do this with straight legs. Inhale, prepare, engage the inner thighs excelling and as you come up, yes, not too much reflection here. Beautiful. Take a breath in. We want to think of lengthening the toes, lengthen the head, the eyes and the toes down at about the same time.

Beautiful. Do your job and again, you're ready in help. Repair, exhaling as you come up. Awesome. Now I want you to hold here. We're just going to move through the plane here, opening the arms and the legs apart. Inhale from the mid line. Exhale to return to the midline. You went really far. Most folks can do that, but that was good in healing as you open away. Exhale to return. Good. One more time. Keeping the synching of the ribs here, but now with the same control that you had before. Take a breath in and then we exhale and we come floating down as if it were a word less. Awesome.

Now we're going to try to from teaser and do that same rotation of the shoulder girdle and the pelvic girdle right from t and we know that you get in hell. It's preparation. Draw either missed down, connect your eyes to your toes, actual as you're articulate out. Good from here, take a breath. As you exhale, pelvic girdle, shoulder girdle. Turn towards the folks watching this. You lengthen yourself out as you descend into your banana position again with the legs and the arms length and had neutral to come out of that. We take a breath in. We exhale.

Thinking about bringing the riots out of your rib cage around. Start to turn through your pelvic good a little bit sooner so that you can come up air. You Go. Go ahead. You need a break? You can take a break. All right, let's go to the other side. Take a breath. Turn the pelvis, turn the shoulder to watch the heads. Keep it in line with your stern, your sternum. There you go. Lengthening. Lengthening. So much control. You have yours. Good. Take a breath. As you exhale. Now bring the little left side of your rib cage around the axis of your spine coming back up. Good. Inhale here. That's your good side. Okay, and then exhale as you come down. Eyes, toes, shins, shoulder blade. At about the same time. Very good. You get an award for that.

Awesome. Done a friend. Let's turn you face down. Okay. And we'll get some much needed extension after a long series of flection here. We'll prep this and build up into it. I'm going to have you slide down just a little bit so you're more in the center. We're going to take the legs about the width of the Mat and take the arches of your feet and feel like you can almost embrace the side of the mat so that your gluteals fire just a little bit here. As you inhale out, we didn't think about taking your gaze just beyond the mat.

Using your hands for a little bit of work here, hold there. Make sure that you're starting to lift the abdominals away from the Mat. The gluteals are on to help support. Take a breath in in this position. This is plenty. As you exhale, feel like you imprint the front of your body so that you lengthen and once again, you're not taking your upper body for granted. Feel like now your longer this time than you were the first time.

Take a breath and exhale as you look beyond the edge of the mat, landing through the crown of the head. This time, keep the gluteals on and as you lower the sternum towards the mat, we're going to keep the cervical spine where it is. We start to move towards the dive, getting prepped for that. As you exhale, start to imprint the front of your body. Engage in the gluteals, keeping the pelvis steady there as it rocks. That's it. The hipbones go down so we don't drop the head. Try to keep the head. There it is. Good. So there's your phone. Good recovery. Now use your hands to press away. Good. Keep zipping lip downloads.

Exhale as you dive. Good. Inhale as you press away and now we move to the next progression. As you die, let your hands hover off the mat. Good. Press into the hands. Exhale, hover. Take the next step. Press into the hands instead of hovering, send them across the room. Keep the integrity of your shoulder, girl and head. You Ready? Good. Never tried the hands and press back up. We tracking hands.

There you go. Good. And An exhale and start to make it a little more rhythmic. Press and good. Up and die. Good. Watch the gaze. Watch the neck. Good. And there you are. Ready to do your full swan. No hands this time. Ready. All right. Take a breath in. Exhale, and three and up and two and up and one that's okay.

Take a break. Let's take a child's pose here. I'm gonna try it one more time. All right, we're going to practice. You're coming up getting a little bit more than the everbody. Whoa, you're ready? Alright. Take your hands behind your head. That's okay. Hands behind the head for me. Take a breath. As you exhale, get your feet back in the same position that you had. All right.

Do the opposite of weird flip flection that you did earlier. Look your look, lift your gaze, looking forward and see if you can expand through the chest. Use the glue deals. Now from there, extend your right arm out to the side. Yes. Extend your left arm out to the side. This is where you'll come back to your dive. You're good for that. All right, so bring the arms in front. Ready, take a breath in, exhale and die. Open Up. Just the opposite. So died, and now here we open here and, and open and died over and died and they were as much deserved, right? Good. Good to get a job going on out of that. Good around all the way up.

Let's come back to cat and cal, but take a breath in. Prepare as you exhale. Round your spine. Good. Deepen in. As you move into cat. Exhale, bring the hammock up on. Do Use of the lifts. You inhale moving into extension, and then exhale, pull all the way up. We'll finish in neutral.

Thank you very much for doing this program and we had a lot of fun doing it with you.