Mat Variations

Hi everybody. My name is Deborah Cole away and I'm visiting here from Boulder, Colorado. And the class that I'd like you to join with me and today is basically an intermediate mat class. However, um, I like to add some small variations of the exercises, not all of them, but you'll find that there are some variations in between, which might just help give you an extra opportunity to get your body a little more prepared for the full exercise. So you may find that you're familiar with some of the names, and then I'll be doing some exercises that don't really have names. So do your best to follow along and I'll help you. Okay, great.

So you're ready to start. Okay. So go ahead and lie onto your back. I'd like you to bend your knees, bring your feet and your legs together, and gently press your feet onto the ground, trying to make as open sold of a footprint as you possibly can. And notice it as you press your feet onto the floor at activates musculature around the backside of your leg and the base of your pelvis. So if you took this a little bit further, in fact, you'd go up into a shoulder, a little bit of a bridge or a pelvic tilt. And I don't want you to literally do that, but I want you to feel the potential of the power of pressing your feet into the ground to activate the musculature around your hips and pelvis.

So we're going to keep that strength and that power and start with some arm circles to bring breath and movement into the body. So everyone together now inhaling, stretching the arms up overhead out to the sides and back down and around. And let's do four of them in this position. So notice as you reach that it helps lift and open your shoulders and your chest and invites the breath in. It also stretches you up out of your hips, keeping pressing your feet down. One more time in this position.

Let the breath fill, lift and open and exhaling. Come back down. And let's do four in the opposite direction now. So think of the back ribs, the back bottom ribs, loading ribs. Exhale, bring the hands down. Inhaling, widening the ribs. The collarbones, the chest, the shoulders lifting. And then bring the hands down, keeping the back of the shoulder on the ground. Two more in with the breath. Invite the area in, not too technical, nice and big. And on this last one, stay with your arms out to the side.

Don't allow your hands to rest on the floor, but rather bring your arms up so that you're using muscle to hold your arms. Pick your hands off the floor. Literally. There you go. And feel like you had somebody on either side. Gently pulling out your wrists to widen your shoulder blades away from your spine. And then from there, interlace your fingers all the way to the webbing and press your hands into the back of your head equally pressing your head into your hands. And we create what I call the circle of power.

And the circle is a connection from the palm all the way into your arm, into your shoulder girdle and your sternum. So breathing in, pick the elbows a little off the floor. Exhale, lift your upper back and roll forward. Trying to get up to the base of your shoulder blades. Stay there for another breath is if I grabbed you by the triceps and pulled you up just a little higher. And then exhale, roll back down, allowing your elbows to reach out to the side. And we'll do a couple more, a little faster. So in hailing the elbows, lift slightly, exhaling, float up, keeping the collarbones wide, the bottom ribs narrow. Breathe into that space, lifting a little bit higher and then exhale, roll back down and open your elbows. And with the breath, this is the last time we're going to stay up. Bring the elbows forward. Exhale, come up, suspend there, and now walk your feet as close to your bottom as you can come up onto the balls of your feet. Try to keep your ankles together. Take a nice deep breath, and then exhaling. Roll through your feet and bring your knees close to your chest.

Reach around and grab yourself around the backside of your legs. Your biceps are now assisting your belly to keep your upper body off the floor. Start pressing your legs into your hands at the same time you pull back on your legs, straighten your legs as best you can, keeping the pressure just to the base of the shoulder blades. And now we're gonna let go and start our hundred. So you let go and you begin to pump. Inhale two, three, four, five. Exhale, two, three, four, five. As you pump, try to still feel that strength in the back of your arm, the back of your shoulder blades working to boost you up almost like you're in the water and you'd have those water wings on your arms so you're pumping to keep yourself afloat. Remembering the circle's nice big inhale, deep exhale. If your neck starts to bother you, you can always grab your legs again so that your biceps can assist your abs.

You can also bend your knees closer to your body. Let's do one more big inhale and then exhale. Bend everything in. Put your head down, relax your neck, rock up and down a little bit on your sacrum, and then holding your knees or your shins with your hands. Roll yourself up to sitting and arrive with your feet flat, your knees bent, and your hands now behind your legs. Sort of like you were doing when you were lying down, except now you're sitting up.

So we're going to go into the rollups somewhat slowly. Tip Back Til your elbows are straight. Take a breath. Exhale, slide your hands down the back of your legs, all the way to your shoulder blades in with the breath. Take your arms over like our big circle. Come on around. Grab yourself around the back of your legs. Lift your head and roll back up. There you go again. Inhale, tip back. So you're shifting your way back.

Exhale, slide your hands or walk your fingers. Big. Inhale as your arms circle out and around. Exhaling. Grab yourself around the back of the legs and walk or slide your legs up, your hands up. Couple more. Inhale, tip back. Exhale, slide the hands down. Use that pressure to keep your belly engaged in with the breath. As you circle around, you can put your head down in between and then walk yourself back up.

Next time. We're going to go all the way. So a tip back. Inhale, exhale. Slide your hands down this time. Put your head down and reach your arms overhead. Also straightening your legs, flex your ankle strongly pressing your heels into the ground. Breathe in. Begin to roll up. If you're having difficulty getting up, grab yourself on the back of the legs. Otherwise, just keep reaching out past your toes. Allow your neck to release and then reverse the curve. So rolling back, tipping the pelvis, keeping the ankles still, and then stretch your arms back overhead. We'll do that again. Inhale, reach forward, roll the head, neck, shoulders, upper body. Exhaling, continue to roll.

Let the bend actually squeezed your air out and then roll back down. Inhaling, narrow through the legs, pressing the heels down. Exhale last time in with the breath. Big Stretch, big reach, soft neck. Reach the top of the head. Forward retreat. Treat, treat, treat, treat, treat, treat, treat, and then release it back in. With the breath. Press the heels down, drawing the legs together, and then just circle your arms around by your side. Bending your right knee up in towards your shoulder. So got the fingers into laced all the way to the webbing.

If it doesn't bother your knee, otherwise it's fine to hold underneath. Grab a hold of that Shin and gently tug your knee towards your shoulder and then release it out. Tug it and release it out. Tug it and release it out. You remember our circle of power, so now you feel that pressure of your hand to your Shin and your Shin to your hand, circling all the way around into the back of you. So press your shit into your hand until it feels like an easy thing to pick your hat up. We're going to do what I call a single leg bent knee roll-up, so you keep coming up. Keep the leg inhale. Just touch a toe down so you know you've arrived and then float yourself back down. Lifting the knee up into the shoulder, roll back down.

Doing your best to keep your other leg on the floor. Inhaling, press this shin forward. Float up. You can change the angle of your hip as much as you need to. Touch the toe down and then roll back down the angle of the hip. One more time in with the breath roll forward, pressing into the Shin. Touch that toe down.

Now stay here and Hook your right arm underneath of your right leg and hold your right wrist with your left hand. Okay, tip back. So you're just behind your sit bones. If you're really struggling to keep this foot down, you could always bend your knee cause I noticed that you don't have any straps on right. So stretch the leg up to the ceiling and then exhale. Let it release. Let it flop. Soft foot. Just inhale. Think of the Shin floating the sit bone crawling up the backside of your leg.

There you go. And let it flop last time in with the breath. Stretch it up and now add the ankle flex point. Lex point flex, really reaching that heel all the way from the sit bone is if I was trying to take your leg right up out of the hip and then stay there. Walk your hands up to your ankle, have a little bit of bend in the elbow. We have a different circle of power now, right?

Using the strength of your arms to pick your rib cage up, bend your spine forward over your thigh, and then walk yourself back down. Walk your leg, walk down your leg, trying to keep your leg right where it is for tree down, down, down, down, down, down, down, barely. Touch down. Lift your head and come right back up. Walking up, up, up, up, up, up, up. It's totally fine to have a little bit of band in that right leg. What you're aiming for is that the size stays perpendicular to the floor. Okay, so walk back down. Inhaling and exhaling. Nice, smooth, easy breath. Let's just do one more time.

Keep the breath flowing through your body. Take as many breaths as you need last time. Take an extra little lift up, beautiful, and then tip yourself back. Control the roll with your abdominal so that you don't fall. Literally you're just, you're lowering your body weight down. Good.

Bend that knee into your shoulder, give it a squeeze. Squeeze out any tension and then slide that foot down the floor. We'll do the other side. So bend your left knee in. Interlace the fingers all the way to the webbing so you're, you know, you're using hand strength risks, strength for arm, strength by sub strength, using your whole arm. Okay, so it's not a position, but really a strength. Go ahead and pull the knee in and let it release and notice the closer you get your leg to you, the easier it is to relax the back of your shoulders onto the floor and let it go. And then one more time, gently press it forward.

Now creating that circle of power until it feels like it's easy to pick your head up and then don't stop. Just keep going. Don't hesitate there. Beautiful. And then flow yourself back up and control the role. That's awesome. Back Down. Inhaling, remember the inhale lifts and opens the chest. Exhaling helps you bend forward and the bending forward squeezes the air out last time and with the breath, exhaling roll down.

Come back up again. Stay up this time and hook your left forearm under your left leg. Hold your left wrist with your right hand and stretch the toes up and release it down. That's it. Keep working the strength of your upper body. Your arms are working to help lift your ribs up out of your pelvis. Good job. One more time. Stay up and add the flex point. Flex.

This is so much more than just an ankle movement, right? You're bringing circulation and massaging deep into all the muscles, the calf. Walk yourself now up to your ankle. Take a moment to readjust your circle of power. Lift your elbows to keep those ribs up and then walk yourself back down. Do your best to bring the backside of your legs together to create some power in the base of your pelvis. Barely touched down. Just come right back up.

Inhaling and exhaling. That's it. Go, go, go, go, go. Open the chest and back. Down you go. Good. Better to keep a little bend in your knee than to rock all the way forward. Okay, so keep that knee a little bit more, Ben. Last time, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up. Take one more second to kind of lift even more and then back down. You go, bending the knee into the shoulder and then slide that leg down.

Beautiful. I'm sound by your side. We're going to do a little bit of a preparation to get into single leg circle. Okay, so right leg point through the toes. Arc the leg on an inhale up toward 90 degrees. Exhale, cross it over only as far as you can go. Cross it to your left only as far as you can go.

Keeping your right shoulder on the floor. Come back to the center and carry it down. Let's do the other side. Inhaling, reach the leg up. So left hip over, left hip, right hip. It's okay to have some twists in your spine. Come back and take it down toward the floor.

Let's do that again in with the breasts. Arking up, stretching, almost like I've got you by the ankle and I'm pulling your hip right out of the socket as you go over to the side and then come back. Feel that shift of weight through your midsection and last time. Now on the left end with the wrath up, really reach the foot up and over to the side. Gorgeous. Come back to the center and lower that leg down. So that's the crossing moment in single leg circle, right?

So now we're going to practice the opening moment in with the breath. Bring your leg up to the top. So turnout and if it helps you turn out more. Flex the foot. Some people really feel this helps them a lot and turn the heel towards your mid line. Okay, so just carry the leg out to the side and then bring it back.

We're going to do that a couple more times. Now. Think of the sit bone. Okay. Think of reaching the sit bone out toward the knee. Maybe as opposed to the whole weight of your leg. Because you know you only want to take that out to where the other side doesn't get pulled off the floor. Very good. And then come back, take a break, bend the knee and slide that foot down and we'll do the other side. Reaching the left leg up towards the ceiling, either flexing or not. Uh, get a deep turnout in the thigh and feel the strength in those hip muscles as you carry your leg out to the side and then come back.

But notice the difference. If you think sit bone or inner thigh and knee, somehow it helps you control it better than just thinking, take my leg out, right? Okay, last time out to the side. And then bend the knee. Squeeze out any tension, slide it down. So are you okay to go into single leg circles? I have enough of that. You can. Okay, so you felt that right? How when we take our leg out to the side, it, it's tricky to not get pulled off.

So you'll feel those two moments now as you go through the whole thing, bend your right knee and again this time, hold underneath. Use Your biceps for a second and then feel how if I don't have my arms and I let go, how much abdominal strength is ticking take to hold my leg up. Stretch that leg only as straight as you can go. No hands anymore. And now here we go. Cross it over, carry it down, out to the side, and back home. Three more. Over, down, around, and back home. Beautiful in with the breath circle. Remember how when you inhale it opens and list the chest and takes the breath up into the shoulders. And now reverse it. Here's your moment out.

Don't just do any old thing, right, cause you practiced it. So take it out. Circle down, really cross it. There you go. Let two more reach up for the ceiling and last time, strong arms and bend the knee into the chest. Give it a little tug, slide that foot down and we'll do the other side. Bend the left knee and go ahead and grab underneath it for a second. So you're using the assist of your arms to get deeply into your body.

Then you have to let go. And a new kind of circle of power is now pressing hands down by your sides, right? Extend the leg. And here we go. Over Cross and then Bingo, right up to the top and with the breath and exhale. Great to more around and back up. Reach it like I've got ya. And I'm pulling that leg right up by the soccer. Reverse it. Take it out. There you go. Exhale, easy face. Now. Easy jaw. Easy eyes, easy forehead. Last time. Bend the knee up into your shoulder. Again, circle the power.

Feel that pressure roll on up to sitting for rolling like a ball. We've been here before, right, so come on down to the front of your mat. Lift your hips to your heels. Reach around is low down on your ankles as you can do. Feet pressed together, knees a little bit apart. Okay. Walk your feet as close into your bottom as you can come up on those tippy toes.

Hover there and on your next inhale, roll just to the shoulders and exhale. Come back up in with the breath. And exhale, opening, stretching, warming up your spine, feeling soft and pliable in your back and strong and sturdy and your front. Inhale, suspend. Exhale, come back two more only. And with the breath field is new. Circle of power, hand to arm to shoulder blades. And then find your balance here for just a second. Good job.

Now press your feet down. Put your hands behind your hips. So feel this for a moment. Notice as you press down, remember the very, very beginning when you were lying down and we played with how when you press your feet, you feel the strength. So, and, and how many times have we done something with our palms? You know, to strengthen this? Okay, so we're gonna try to put that together. If but for just a moment, press down through your feet and your hands and try and lift your pelvis off the floor and just hold that and think about the strength in the back of your body. We're about to do a lot of stuff that's front oriented, but you want that support the back of your body too. So sneak your hips back a little bit.

And as you lie down for single leg stretch, stay curved. Stay curved. Bring that right knee up into your shoulder. Hold the right ankle with the right hand and hold your right knee with your left hand. Pull strongly with those arms and find the height for your left leg where you know you're holding it up with your belly. You're not hanging off your quad. Okay. And then we're going to switch sides. Inhale for two switches.

Exhale for two switches. Inhale for two nice, wide open, chest wide open, elbows wide open. Collarbones last time, bend both knees in hold close to your ankle. It's kind, Kinda like rolling like a ball all over, isn't it? And as you breathe in, ie long gate and then squeeze it all out. Exhale good. Find the angle out of your hips where you can hold those legs up from your center to warn in circle around. And last time, circle round. Very good. Keep your legs close to you. But now one more of these, hold the back of your head.

This is one of these ones that doesn't have a name. Okay? So you're gonna flop your legs, flop, flop, flop on the inhale. And then on the ax, hail, flex your feet and really press up toward the ceiling as if there was something heavy and you had to hold it up with your abdominals. You feel that? Okay, good. And then let the toes go and flop. Flop, flop. Exhale, press, press, press. I always think like that game you play. We have a kid on your, you know they're on your belly and you're playing airplane and reach up, up.

Last time flop. Guess what's coming? Yeah. Okay, so now put a couple of tennis balls on the soles of your feet and grab them with your toes like a monkey. And so we're going to do double leg stretch. Okay? No double leg, lower lift. Inhale, take those legs down only as far as you can go, not losing your center. Hey, I'll come right back up. Beautiful. And with the Bradfield, that suspension in your upper back. Good job. All belly, no yanking on the neck and with the breath. Exhale last time. Fabulous. Lift up, take them down and then exhale, bring them back. Fabulous. Bend your knees, put your feet down, head down, arms by your side.

All right, take a nice deep breath on. Very good knees and feet together. So we're going to add this little twisting exercise just for the heck of it. On an inhalation from your belly button. Take your knees to the right only as far as you go without knocking your left elbow off the floor. Now exhale, curl the tail between your legs and bring those knees up into your shoulder. Inhale, come to the middle and then you're going to place your feet down, centered on your exhale, and then you start over.

Inhaling over to the left big open chest breath. Exhale. Feel the backside of your and the tail curling through. Inhale, come to the middle, suspend and exhale down. If it's difficult to get your feet down without fear of arching, just put one foot down and then the other. You don't have to place them both down at the same time. Inhale, rotate to the right, keeping nice and open and wide. Stay for just a second. What happened to your left shoulder blade? Is it totally off the floor?

Remember the very beginning when we did all that widening across the back and trying to take the blades apart. See if you can reconnect to that a little bit. See if you can almost feel your left shoulder blade. Yes. Beautiful. Take some extra breaths here. Reaching itself back into, toward the mat. Yeah. And now if you haven't inhaled in the wild, do it. Exhale. Bend your knees up into your shoulder. Inhale, come to the center and actually all toes down last time to the left.

See if you can keep the right half of your chest kind of over there. Exhale up into the, into the shoulder. Inhale to the center. Exhale the feet down. Now we're just gonna roll up to sitting and come into spine stretch. So legs apart, taking your arms up to the ceiling, remembering double leg stretch and all that upper back strength.

Right? So if this is too hard, after you've done a couple, you can always bring your arms down in front of your shoulders, you know, but this is actually a really nice feeling. May I just pull on you for a moment? Okay. So it's as if you had a nice person come behind you and take you by the wrists, is that felt good on you? Just lift you right up out of your hips and then you try to stay suspended like that. Exhale, curl forward. Even though you're maintaining that strength in your upper back and then roll up to sitting up, up, up, up, up, up, up, reach, beautiful. Exhale.

Allow the weight of your head to naturally curve you forward. Inhale, fill up with new air. Like you're creating this vacuum and then you fill it. Exhale, curl forward. Strong, flexed ankles. Inhale, roll up. Last time.

Exhale all the way over this time and place your palms on the mat. Bring them close enough in between your legs. Yeah, bring them close enough to you so that there's power in that hand. In other words, walk them closer to your pelvis so that when you push down into your hands, you feel again a different kind of circle of power. Like you're lifting some of your body weight up. You could almost feel like you could pick your legs off the floor. Feel that?

Yes. Okay. So now go ahead and take hold of the front of your ankles. We're going to go into this little preparation for open leg rocker. So point the toes, draw the heels into the sit bones. If the sticky mat is sticky and you can't really, you know, slide on and I get that. Okay, so here's the position. Exactly. So these are apart and you're holding what I would say inside your legs.

Yeah. And grabbing hold of the ankle. Okay. Feet together. There you go. Can you take your elbows inside? Yes. Okay, great. Now you're going to straighten your legs from this position and if you find right off the bat that you're too tight and you can't, then don't worry about it. To sneak your hands to the underside of your legs cause we're going to stay up for a second. Close the legs on an exhale. Draw those sit bones together. Inhale, open them out and without dropping your chest or falling, bend your knees. Exhale toes to the mat. Inhale, reaching up on that diagonal. So we're working from the strength of the hips.

Draw the legs together. Beautiful. And he'll take them apart. Fill as the chest, lift a little bit more as you exhale, tips of the toes to the ground. Last one in with the breath. Stay up this time. Exhale everything. Then I pull the rug out from under you, roll back for open leg rocker, lift the hips and exhale. Come on back up. Beautiful. Yes, and with the breath, shift your weight. Exhaling. Stretch the chest in with the breath. A new circle of power, right? So no matter where you're holding on your legs, you've got to feel that strength all the way around into the back of the shoulder girdle to help keep you lifted last time. And with the breath, actually I'll come up and find your balance. Close your legs. Nobody suffered, nobody suffered. Bend your knees and just hold underneath for a second, right? So nobody's suffering, right? You're fine. Just find your balance.

Draw those legs together, lift the chest and realize now how really advanced a movement this is compared to when you were lying down. You're using your biceps to hold you up. And then if you were to let go, you could still balance, right? And then if you could stretch your hands forward and straighten your legs a little, there's your teaser, but his dad, bend your knees, put your hands down, roll onto your back with your legs up 90 degrees. So we're going to go into a little prep for corkscrew. Okay. So your feet are straight up to the ceiling.

It's totally fine to bend your knees a little bit. If you struggle with the tension in the front of your thighs, you can always bend the knees a little. Put a pad between the inner thighs, maybe even take some kind of a wedge or a pad underneath your seat crumb. So we're going to do what I call tick tock. So before we circle, you take both legs like you did at the beginning of single leg circle. Both legs, inhale over to the right and then just bring them directly back to center. Beautiful. And then to the left.

So it's like somebody grabbed you by the ankles and picked your hips up and exhale, come back. Do you remember the flop? Flop thing? So in with the breath, pick the way to the legs up. Exhale, come back, remembering the breath in the chest and the shoulders. And the next time you come back, take it into a circle. Inhale to the right to the tail. Exhale left and come home. Inhale to the left and the tail. Exhale to the right and come home. Beautiful. Keep feeling like, like if I had my hand under your right, I would be pushing you up off the floor.

Or if somebody was under the floorboards, right, they're going to be pushing your sacrum up and making your legs lighter last time to the left or where you go. Exhale, bend the knees and roll yourself up for saw. Beautiful. Good. So take your a little wider if you don't mind. Just right outside the mat. You've got it perfect. Unless it makes you super tight here. No, it's okay. So with regard to this position you want to find is, you know, technically it's a little bit wider than your hips. Straight up and down, right? Not turned in or turned out.

But if you feel like you can't get out of gripping here, then a good modification might be simply to bring them a little more in the more narrow. So you can find the inner thigh connection or it may be advisable to sit up on a little pad or something. Any of these seated exercises, if you are bogged down by that tightness, you know, it just inhibits the movement a little bit. Okay, so we'll go for the SOC, reaching out to the side, huge wingspan, right? Breathe in, rotate to your right. Exhale. Now dive down. Take that back palm up to the ceiling and reach way, way back. Inhale. Let that back arm help. Roll you up and twist over to the left. Inhaling. Exhale. So it's a combination of curling in and twisting up.

You go twist over to the right. So the front palm is facing the floor and the back palm is facing the ceiling roll back up to sitting over to the last exhale. We call it the SAR, right? So you're signing off your little toe, not your ankle, and with the breath, sit up and twist to the right. It doesn't matter at all if you make it to the, to the toe, what matters is the direction. Okay? So no lower and no farther, just right there. Come back up over everybody.

Let's everybody go to the right one more time cause I messed you up and exhale. Now stay to the right. Okay. This is a really cool feeling. What you're going to do now, take your last hand somewhere on the outside of your right leg, but don't push your leg into any funny position. So take your palm either to your ankle or your calf. What you want to feel as you do.

This is a pressure or a relationship of that pressure of your leg into your hand, in your hand, into your leg, all the way up into your outer right hip. Do you feel that kind of like side splits or something? So what that does is it strengthens you through the hips so you're more less inclined to just fall down on yourself. Right? More inclined to get that suspension to really ring out and get the best out of that back arm. Okay, come back up and let us do that on the other side. So you pivot to the left, you keep your right hand somewhere to the outside of your left leg and you press to find a power all the way up into the outside of that leg.

So you don't need to go so far forward but more around. Okay. And then come on up to sitting spring your legs together. So you know, one of the cool things about doing saw before all the prone work is that first of all, twisting is really nice just to open up your spine for extension. But you're also strengthening that whole component of the back of the arm into the upper back to give you the power.

But a lot of people don't get the benefit that they could out of the hips. And then you know, you struggle with turning out, tucking under, you know, not getting that. So if you practice that, that pressure, I wonder if you'll feel it when you turn onto your belly now a little bit differently. I'll talk you through it. So go ahead and let's have the all the heads this way. Okay, so the palms are by your chest. Your Chin is tucked way in, and you're gently pressing your forehead onto the mat. Okay? And now take a moment. Bring your legs together. Tuck your toes under. Come onto the balls of your feet.

Push into the balls of your feet and try and lift your kneecaps off the floor and really try and get the big toes, the ankles, that whole thing together. I know if you're used to turning out, it may feel odd, easy to get the knees off when you're pushing into the ball. The feet right now, try flatting the toes away and pressing with the tops of your feet onto the ground. See it even with the top of your foot pushing into the ground. You can have a lightness under your knee. And think about, think about what you just did, you know in those outer hips, don't let your feet roll out. Feel almost like you were gonna. Press your legs apart, but hold them together. Okay? And we'll take it into the swan breathing in.

Now pull it with your fingertips to help your breastbone come forward. Inhale, look, look, look, look, look, and then press with the strength of your arms to lift your chest, keeping your elbows pointing behind you. Exhaling, stretch yourself toward each other, down through, into the middle of the room. Inhaling now feel, if I was going to partner you, maybe I would take you at the rib cage and I would slide your ribs away from your lower back and reach you forward. And then, uh, and then exhale, stretch the belly as you come back down. Really curl the chin in and take the forehead to the mat. Why? Because if you curl your Chin in at the beginning and put your forehead on the mat, it gives you a little bit of flexor power. You see this? And then you're not hanging the way to view through your shoulder girdle, which is going to give you that balance of flex and extend support as you try and lift the weight of your body forward and Swan. So last time, feel how that really is helpful to stretch your chest forward, but feel that what we call hint of hundred, a little bit of ABS, right? And then exhaling, come back down. Beautiful.

So we're going to do a little intro into single leg kick. So come back up onto your forearms this time a little farther forward than you would od than you would ordinarily do for your single leg kick and squared off like that. I call it the Sphinx, you know, so you're pretty low. Your chest is pretty low to the ground, so it should really relieve any sensitivity in the lower back. And then literally as you breathe in, pull, don't actually move your hands. But Paul, as if you're trying to drag yourself forward on the mat. And can you feel a tug? Like I always think of like a pair of suspenders.

You feel a tug in your abdominals coming up out of your pelvis. Do you feel that? Okay, good. So at the same time, notice a different kind of circle of power. So as you have your hands there and you're tugging, do you also feel the potential to strengthen the back of your arms, the back of your shoulders, and your upper back, and that it makes your legs lighter because you're not pulling back and down on yourself, but you're actually picking yourself up and forward. Okay, so then we're going to play with this for a second. So as you breathe in, do that pull and straight as you can, right leg. I don't care how high it comes up, but you want it straight out of that hip. And then exhale, put it down. And then inhale, pull, stretch forward.

Lift the left leg and exhale, take it down and we'll just do one more each side. Inhale, pull, stretch, exhale, release down in with the breath. Feel the length, the space. And now remember as you exhale, you're not dropping yourself. You're using the belly to hold that suspension. Now just come in a little. Press your knuckles together.

Try to feel the same lift of yourself, up and over your knuckles, and take the kick right leg twice. Switch left leg twice, right leg, twice left leg. Notice if you can maintain that same pull and lift and suspension and strengthen your upper body and you can always come back to the Sphinx. You see, you can always go back to your, into behind it. Exactly. If you ever feel like this is just a little too much extension, one more set. Good. Now keep the right leg up in the left leg down. Flex your right foot. You remember that piano you are trying to lift with your belly?

Try and get your thigh. If, if, if only a hair off the floor. Keep lifting and stretching yourself forward out over your hands. You feel that? And then put the leg down, switch, bend the other leg, flex the foot. It's like you've got your favorite drink on the sole of your foot and you don't want to drop that. Keep lifting and pulling yourself forward. Take yes and take that thigh off the floor. Yeah, so really, really good. Now, how's your upper body?

Can you do a couple more kicks out of this? Because you're really gonna feel the connection now. Okay. So put that leg down and we go again. Right twice left and right and left. Beautiful, right and left. So cause didn't, I always wonder like what is this exercise, right? All right, so it's a lot of upper body strength, a lot of upper back. Okay, beautiful. So now we'll get and do a little intro into our AA kick, placed the right cheek of your face on the ground and then take your arms by your sides with the palms up and just allow your shoulders to roll forward into your, you know, not good posture.

So on an inhalation, shrug your shoulders up by your ears. Roll the shoulders into the back, lift the arms straight up like saw. Feel the strength of the arm. Pick your chest, neck, head, and a couple of ribs up. Turn your cheek to the other side and lie back down. Exhaling arms and the rest back on the ground. Inhaling, lifting the shoulders, the ribs roll and into the back. Literally feel the strength of your arm connection, picking your upper back off the floor.

Rotate your neck and exhale down to the ground. Good. Two more. Each way. One more each way. Two more times. Inhale, shrug up to free the joint that all the shoulders into the back lifting. So think of the front of your shoulder getting lighter and lighter in full of air. Beautiful. Turn and switch. Last time. We're going to go into AA. Keck. Okay, so bear with me and with the breath. As you lift in, Shrug your shoulders.

Now get up a little higher as you ax hale, bend your elbows, clasp your hands, put the cheek and kick. One, two, three. Beautiful. And with the breath lift, lift left. Exhale, kick. Now, same thing. Keep your palms to the ceiling. Try not to turn your hands inside out and hyperextend your elbows. Paul the elbows. Exhale, kick, kick, kick. Feel the strength of the arm picking your upper back and chest off the floor.

And kick, kick, kick last time. Feel those legs straight right now. Take your arms out to the side. Go for a swim. Reach out, out, out at, not a real swim. I'm sorry, a pretend swim. And then bring your hands down and push back and sit back to our jails. Right now. We're not doing swimming yet. Okay?

Really let your pelvis be lifted back over your heels. Okay? So that your weight, if you need to push with your hands, get your weight back so that when you roll up, you're not dragging yourself up with your back muscles, but you're feeling literally that sacred can anchor. The abdominals can lift and you roll up using your abdominals and your hip strength. So roll on up, Arrive Upright, and then lie down on your back like you were at the beginning. So feed to the center. We're going to go into shoulder bridge. Alrighty. So now instead of having the legs absolutely together, let your heels be in line with your sit bones and your knees in line with the center of your hips. Okay, so this is a fun thing. Also, take your arms up toward the ceiling.

Pretend that you have a pole. You know in your hands, like the roll down bar, if that's a reference that works for you. But regardless, you're holding onto a bar that has springs coming from behind you and a little above you so that when you pull your arms down, there's some resistance. You'd have to pretend because it's not there, right? So simultaneously pressed the hands and feet lift the pelvis. So by the time your hands get down to the mat, you're up in your bridge and I feel good.

And then release your arms up and roll back down. Exhale, beautiful. Inhale, press through the arm, the feet, stretching, stretching, filling, filling. Release the arms and Exhale, roll back down two more times. Inhale simultaneously. Press arms, feet. You remember from the very beginning how pressing through your feet gives you that power. Release the arms to have room in the shoulders and Chester roll back down. We're gonna do one more and we're going to stay up.

So inhale as you press stay there, walk your feet a little closer to your bottom. So you're closing the angle up behind. Remember a couple of minutes ago you were laying on your belly. So it's kind of like I flipped you keeping level in the pelvis. Bend your right knee up, flex that foot and stretch it as best you can to the ceiling.

Don't care if it doesn't totally straighten. Feel one foot is pushing the ceiling and one foot is pushing the floor and soft face. Just take two more breaths. One foot is pushing the floor. One pushes the ceiling and then bend the knee. Put the foot down, level yourself and do the other side. Bend the left knee in. Flex the foot, push that piano up to the ceiling, one foot to the floor, one foot to the ceiling. Big Inhale, drawing that breath to fill and stretch. Open your ribs in your shoulders and then bend the knee and roll back down.

And as you roll back down, roll your head forward and see if you can arrive to sitting with your legs out in front of you. So we're going to do a variation on spine twist. So for some people it's not that easy to sit with your legs outstretched and be able to have your spine upright. And so for the twist, you know you don't want to be falling back and down into your lower back to do that. So this is a nice variation. It's another circle of power, right? So you bend the one leg and you use the, the pressure and the connection to help lift your spine up. Okay? And then you're trying to keep your two sit bones and your two heels. I'll remind you of that. One thing you want to be careful of is that you don't pull so hard that you push with your back. Okay? You're just using this to find your, your circle of power. Okay.

I think I'll show the other side so it's a little bit more good for the camera. Okay. So let's say I'm on my left side. My left hand goes behind me like a kickstand and helps hold my back up. The right arm is going to hold the leg, but try not to pull on it. Just help you sit up and then you breathe. Inhaling.

And with every exhale you turn, turn, turn. Use the strength of the back arm to help keep you from falling backwards. Does that you feel that Xcel turns in turn, and then what's great at the end is you actually let your arms go and kind of test whether you were just cranking with your arms or whether you are actually using your hips in your abdominals, which you'll need for later. Okay, so here you are. You let go. Look Ma, no hands. Then you come back to the beginning and switch sides. It's not that big of a difference, but it just really helps. Okay, so come on back. Everybody.

Sit Up as best you possibly can first and then just bend your right knee enough for you so that when you grab a hold and create your circle of power, you feel confident that you can be lifted and holding yourself up. You can flex both feet unless it tenses you up unduly. All right, so take your right hand behind you. Use that as a kickstand, so pretty close to your body. Watch out if you have a tendency to hyper extend the elbow and try and get the strength of the arm to pick you up and then take a nice breath. Exhale is deeply inside. As you can twist, twist, twist, twist those ribs, twist, and then breathe in again. And as you exhale this time, think about your shoulder blades, your left shoulder blade, helping to reach your left ribs around. And then one more time. Inhale, twist, twist, twist. I'm sorry. Inhale, twist a little further. Now let go your hands. Catch the twist.

Muscularly through your center. Untwist and switch sides. There you go. So you're holding that Shin, making the circle of power. And then take your left hand behind. Use it as a kickstand, little bit closer to your pelvis. You could be up on your fingertips. That's totally fine. Open the shoulder and then here we go.

Breathe in and exhale. Feel the deep musculature, the Oregon's ringing out, internal shower, breathing in and exhaling. Now feel the right shoulder blade connecting into your right rib cage to help you twist. You're not just yanking on your arm. One more time. Inhale, exhale, twist. Catch it in your belly. As you reach your arms, come back to the center, straighten legs. And now if you want to make sure that you stay on your mat and you went back a little, we're going to go into the Jackknife. So if you need to scoot a little bit forward, go ahead, point the toes. Use that same arm strength to help pick you up, Jack Knife, right?

So hands down by the sides. Point your feet. Breathe in, tip yourself back, roll over onto your shoulders and now extend the hips. Reach your feet up toward the ceiling. Stay there. Pretend you're pushing something up with your feet and lay the spine down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down. Open the legs to the floor. If you have the strength and repeat. Inhale, rollover. Exhale, press up, extending the hips. Open the chest. Take a little breath at the top and exhale, laying yourself down, keeping your feet over your face. There we go. And one more time down, up, and with the breath.

Exhale, feed over the face, not any farther away from you than that. And then lift up the weight, lay it on down, laid on lone. Lay It on down and we're going to go into side leg kick. So how about everybody turned onto your right side. So line yourself up with the back of your mat. Shoulders over shoulders, hips over hips, and bring the legs forward onto an angle.

Your right hand is behind your head and your [inaudible] going to come all the way to the back of your mat with your pelvis and your shoulders and bring your legs forward on an angle. So it's sorta like a shallow L-shape, right? It helps you connect into your center a little bit better. There you go. Flex the feet and stand as if the floor was here, right? So legs together and reaching into the souls of your feet flexed. So you don't have to literally pick your right rib cage off the floor, but you don't want to be heavy down on that rib cage. Okay? So pick it up toward toward the shoulder and then press really strongly with your left hand in front of your chest, just like you would have in Swan, right?

So pick up the top leg, flex through the toes, kick it to the front. Inhale, one to point to the back too. So inhaling, front and exhaling back. Try to keep that leg really level to the floor. Hip Height. We say front and back. Good. Now go past any tight nes and to the back. Good in with the front and out with the back.

Good last time into the front. And now stay in the back. Remember your Spinks remember how the hand out in front of your chest. If you pulled it a little bit, it gave you more length. Belly out of hip. Doesn't that free up your leg and help you go a little further back without feeling any tension in your lower back. So that's very nice, right? Okay. Then close the leg, turn it out so that the heel is in front of your standing ankle.

So the bottom leg is still the same and the top leg is turned out in front and we're gonna kick it up to the side. Inhale and exhale. Pull down. Almost like your bottom leg is doing the same thing. So if there was no floor there, both of your legs would press and they'd come back in and now reverse the foot. So you're going to flex up and point. Curl down. Keep reaching the chest up and staying on the side of your leg last time.

Good. Now take both legs up off the floor. Turn them out. So now they are turned out heels together. Do a little clap of your heels is turned out as you can turn. Turn, turn, clap, clap, clap. This is fun. Try to keep your legs up as you roll onto your belly. So swing your legs behind you. Put your forehead on your hands. Keep clapping for grasshopper.

Sometimes the sticky mat makes it hard to get right into the middle. Hold your legs up if you can. As you go to the other side, keep clapping, lifting, clapping, lifting. Roll onto your left side. Let your belly swing your legs forward on the ground. Ready to start the other side with flexed feet. There you go. Good up. Yes, and we go front, front and back. Back. There you go.

So it's not at all a bad thing to use that right arm. In fact, you could actually roll a little bit onto it and use the push you feel how that lifts your waist a little bit and gets you right on the side of your standing leg. Inhale Front. Exhale back last time in. Good. Now stay to the back. Feel that right hand again, sort of Spinks like pulling you into more extension, but nice and decompressed. Right close the leg. Turn. Turn it out, wrap the back side of your leg together and then kick it up and pull it down. There you go. Kick it. Try Not to get stuck in your hip, but lifts yourself up so it's springy. Good.

Try not to hit a wall and then reverse heal up. Lift point. Roll down. Hill up. Lift point. Last time. Heal up, lift good, and then just lie onto your back. Sneak yourself somehow into the middle. I know it's a little sticky. Yeah, I s I feel the humidity finally. All right, so now I'm going to teach you what I call the roll up teaser Combo.

It's just a nice way to get over teaser trauma or teaser anxiety, right? Okay? So I'm going to demonstrate on you if you don't mind. Okay? So bend the knees you guys should watch, okay? Now the angle of the knee is, is a little bit more open than your typical bent knee. Because let's say you were going to extend the legs, you'd be at 45 degrees of the hip. Okay? So you've got a plan for that. Bend the knees, have your feet on the floor.

Now I'm gonna help Christie by giving her a little weight on her feet. She doesn't necessarily need it, but I'm just going to show this. You get the idea and your arms are overhead and you get two breaths instead of the typical one. So it's really a treat, right? Okay? So here's the deal. You start to roll out. Inhale. Now you act. Hail until the weight is over your sacrum.

So it's easy to pick your legs up. You see that? You straighten them, you bend them, and you use that pressure to help roll you back down. So I want you to stop with the knees bent. Don't straighten them until I say inhale, begin to roll up your cramping. Okay? Sorry. Here we go. Maybe. All right, so now notice this though. What I want you to feel is that you dive forward until your abdominals and your weight is sufficient to float the legs that don't straighten your feet.

Bring them toward, that's what I'm talking about. Then straighten, bend, push off the feet and roll yourself back down. Now let's say you don't have somebody to stand on your feet and you struggle to get up. Don't struggle. Just grab your legs like we did at the beginning of class, okay? Because what you're really trying to do is train yourself out of that lurch, that good feeling where your back grabs your quads, grab. In other words, just try to not kick your legs out and get stuck in your quads, in your back. Okay? It feels good. I think you'll like it. Okay, so go ahead and lie down.

I'll try it. Let's do three of them. Okay. So the reason that I had you extend your knees and not have them so close at the beginning is it's too hard to roll up. If your legs are so close to you cause it's too tight in the front of the hips, you know, but then you can adjust. Very organic, very organic. Here we go. Inhale, start. Exhaling. Grabbed the back of your legs if you need to. Keep your feet down until you get up, till your weight is over, your sacrament.

Flow your knees. Gorgeous. Extend the legs. Put the feet back down. Reach the arms and roll yourself back down to the floor. See how nice. Okay, let's do it again. Inhale, start to roll at that breath. Phil, you use your ax. Hail to contract. Deep inside to float those legs up. You Go, Amy. Good. Pick your feet up. Okay, now you can grab the backside of your legs. No worries. Straighten and bend the legs. Use your feet. Press the floor away and roll yourself back down. One more and we'll go into Cancan. Okay, so inhale, exhale.

Stay up this time. Put your elbows back on the floor. Draw your knees towards you. Okay. And we're going to go to the right to the left, to the right, kick bend to the left, to the right, to the left, stretch bend. Try to keep that connection as you straighten and bend your legs that you just found. Yes. Two, three out in last time. One, two, three out in leftover. One, two, three out in beautiful spin around.

You can keep your head right at this end. I think spin around for swimming. Real swimming this time. Alright, stretch out. Feel very light inside. Take a nice deep breath. Exhale everything up. And paddle legs and hands, legs and hands. Good. So as you go, keep thinking about that power out of your hips. If you get stuck, what can you do? You can put your hands down and pull yourself forward so that you strengthen your upper back and you get your legs lighter. Take one more breath in.

One breath out. Release yourself back down. Sit back to your heels. And then everybody stay at this end of the mat for seal. Okay, so just your rear ends are going to be in the center. So you'll be sitting everybody facing in toward each other. Yeah. Good. They were, I guess they were, I dunno. Okay, good.

So go ahead and sneak your hands inside your ankles again. Hold on. Okay. And then find that balance and then we're going to clap only to the front. Okay, so clap. One, two, three, roll back on the inhale. Roll forward. Exhale. Find the suspension, a clap, clap, clap. Inhale, roll. Exhale, roll. Keep exhaling. Two, three, every buddy. And Hey, I'll exhale. And a clap. Clap tomorrow. Okay. Inhale. Exhale a clap. Last time. Roll back, roll up, clap, clap, clap. Relaxed down.

And I think that's enough, don't you? Yes. Thank you.