Basic Mat Flow

Okay guys, let's begin. We're going to stand up tonight. So just somewhere around the middle of your mat, we've got a little space behind you, maybe, but definitely some in front of you too. And I'll tell you what, let's face front just for this first part, just for this first part so that you can sort of let go. You don't have to stare at each other, rather just take a moment and with that look down and we're gonna set up from the base of the feet. So if you looked down, your feet are pointed straight ahead. Okay. The outside edges of your feet are parallel, right? And then as you go further up the body, there's always going to be this space that we set up in between the inner thigh.

So you want to hug that space. It's literally like an energy that you're drawing in, but not just, and also imagine drawing the energy up so you're in effect getting lighter on your joints as you go up further, pay attention to your hips. Feel free to kind of investigate your body. Right here you are. Now we want to start in what we're going to call the neutral pelvis. As you know, you don't want the hipbones forward.

You don't want the hip bones backwards, but rather nice and level and certainly side decides to pay attention to that. Further up your body. Lift the rib cage, so if it means you've got to take a big inhale, do and then sort of leave the space, but support it on an exhale with the abdominals. Arms are heavy. Most of us are to want to imagine we're lengthening out the top of the head, probably pulling our noses or our faces directly backwards, which is a place that doesn't tend to naturally sit. And with that inhale and exhale, go nowhere. Just sort of solidify the position with a little more ease.

Finding energy through the body. Inhale, filling the rib cage expand to the side into the backend. Exhale, getting ready for a standing roll down to check in with your body. We inhale [inaudible] and on the exhale just engage the abdominals a little. Let your heads fall forward. Let your upper body fall forward. Key, continue to engage the abdominals as you round over, only going so far as you can where you don't have to shift your weight way back, rather just loosening up the low back. Some will go all the way to the floor. That's fine. Inhale, releasing the crown of the head. Exhale as you roll back up again, initiating from the abdominals, feeling the back of the legs to restack the hips over the knees, the ribs over the hip, the shoulders over the ribs, and finally your head. We'll do it again.

Inhale on your exhale, letting go. Sort of taking inventory on your body, seeing what's tight. Notice what feels like it needs a little attention tonight because an inhale in for now. All you've got to do is to breathe into that spot. Exhale to roll up. Notice your shoulders, they stay on your back. It'd be tempting to let the whole shoulder blade fall off, but rather keeping it right on top. Okay.

Inhale, just take a quick peek at your feet. Have you rolled the feet out? Have they rolled in? Sort of balance your weight there and the last one, exhaling down, still giving yourself that sense of hugging the midline, that sense of the inner thigh bonds coming toward each other. Inhale and XLU roll back up, requiring a Tuck of the pelvis or reaching down of the tailbone to lengthen through the upper body. Okay, let's see where we're at today. I'm going to suggest you step off the maths for a balance. Just straight back or forward. That's fine. And starting alignment.

Exactly the same. Take one lego stick left leg back. Oh, you all went right? My fault. Left leg back. All right. You're tall. It's as if you're a piece of plywood. So right away, and this is going to be a theme throughout class that like this extended is energized, right? It's not just hanging out back there. You're lifted, energizing. The whole body hinge forward right at the hip joint. We're going to keep it kind of small cause I don't, we're not warm enough to do a full one yet. Just raising the back leg as you extend forward from the hip joint.

Then reaching your arms down your back. So you have a sense of the upper back as the shoulder blades reach toward the hips. Maybe we can go tiny bit more. Keeping the hips level, reaching the back leg. From there, wherever you are, bend the leg you're standing on just a little bit. The whole position, the lower exhale initiate from the back of the leg as best you can to come back up, feel free to, you've got to put the foot down or hold on to something that's near you. Go ahead and exhale to lift again, I'm doing just one more. You can expect the foot to wobble. Let it you want to control from higher up, closer to the center. On this next one, you've exhaled up the straight. Just bring your body back into position. Leg will come down, body up, readjust again, shifting one leg back, energize it, start the arms, reaching down your back now so you have that sense of center.

This is a good time to remind ourselves. We're hindering forward of the powerhouse. Everything involved in the trunk. Sort of disregard the arms and legs or at least let them be secondary. From there. We'll inhale. Bend the leg you're standing on just a little, even a subtle release annex. He'll straighten everything, helping you. Inhale, bend to exhale straight. One more time, feeling length through all sides of the body.

Exhale to length and bring it back to the center and feet. Line up this time. Line him up exactly side by side. Yeah, do just a little more balanced with the calf raise and a little bit of footwork. So you've got the big toe joints together, the ankle bones as best you can, and the knees all the way up. So from there, I'm going to ask you to slightly shift forward. Not a lot, but just enough that you're on a subtle diagonal lean from the foot. Inhale, slide the shoulders down again. Exhale, rise up to the toes. This is an image cue. You're going to try to leave your head on the ceiling as you stretch your low back, reaching your heels to the floor. Truth is that you'll have to come down.

Of course, right? But here we go. Lifting again and lowering. So the idea is that yeah, you're going to work your calves a little, but we're a little interested in the sense of connection through the entire trunk, not just the abdominals, but the back. And I'm going to encourage the glutes too. So give yourself that sincere account and I'll let you, I'll touch you when you come down here. Inhale down. Give yourself a censor wrap. Yes, because you can squeeze the glutes without having to Tuck.

So keeping that starting alignment and down. Nice job, Mary. Two more. Rising up, feeling [inaudible] light and reaching down. Oh, me too. And one more time up and [inaudible]. Lovely. Okay, let's take our mats facing inward. Okay. As usual, I'm going to start a sitting upright cause I think that's just another place we can focus on the powerhouse.

Now even maybe more easily that the feeder that we're sitting right on the sits bones. Grab on behind the legs and use the arms to help stack your spine. Lovely. All right. Even here, hug the midline. So we've got the feet just a little bit apart. Hug in. So there's energy there. And then up. Here we go. Moving right and do it. Inhale on the exhale you're going to roll back.

We'll go midway. So your role in the shore hipbones back down to about the mid back. Inhale looking good, and exhale, pulling the belly in to come forward. Keep the curve. So it says, if you're trying to hold the hipbones back, once the shoulders are over, the hips lengthen up there and you keep lengthening right. Keep inhaling and exhaling down.

Okay, good time to check your collarbones. They're wide, they're going right to the side of the room. Inhale and exhaling up. Okay. Reminding ourselves that Joseph [inaudible] talked about exhaling all the air, all the stale air particularly so that you can breathe in fresh air and inhale, exhaling up [inaudible] if you're feeling up to it, feel free to let go of the hands. I'm going to follow Deborah's lead and exhale down. Even here, especially here, I should say lightly squeezing the sit bones are butt muscles together. Inhale and exhaling up.

I'm gonna change it a little bit and as you straighten up, and I'd like you to inhale, just reach the arms up, reaching, growing taller. Exhale, start to rock back, reach the arms forward. There we go. Inhale, holding it there. There's a lot of adjusting we have to do. Exhale, we're going back up. So even though we can kind of get in the right position, you want to just keep checking. Inhale, lengthen and exhaling down. Good, good.

Stretching out the tops of the feeding hale and exhaling up stacking your spine. This time. Stay up, move your feet out a little bit further. Just take your hands behind you onto the mat, push down so you're going vertical with your body. Then from there, a little lift of the chest as your eyes go up, trying to get a little upper back work. So you want to avoid thrusting the hips too far forward. They're right where they work and a little bit more. Inhale, lifting a right, they're fabulous. And then everybody just release that. Let yourself kind of let go.

Arms go forward and lie all the way down onto the mat. And then once you get there, just position yourself comfortably on your mat. Arms down by your side. I'll do just a couple of pelvic curls, loosening up the body from the other end so the arms are down strongly into the floor. I want you guys to feel your upper backs even now, feel free to feel the triceps to feed or slightly apart, just as they were. Inhale, here we go. Start exhaling. Roll the pelvis up off the mat, finding your precision, reminding yourself of the control and relaxed where you can. After all that, inhale, exhale, and when we go down, upper back, middle, back, scooping a little deeper, that means pubic bone towards face until you get back to the level pelvis. Inhale, linking one exercise to the next week. Exhale to roll.

Letting the breath, the exhales in particular, soften you, meaning soften. Unnecessary tension. Inhale and exhale down. Okay, and continue. Inhale, pause, exhaling to roll. That's it. That's it. In this one. Can you feel the hamstrings? Check it out. If you can't, fabulous. Inhale, I'm just coming over to check you out. I think you're fine. Exhale, letting the throat soften and then continuing to Tuck the pelvis, drawing the hips toward the heels so that those hamstrings work even more.

Inhale, exhaling up. Good. What you can do here is reach your arms and opposition, so continue reaching them down. Good, very good in here. Can you talk any more, Helen? Just the tiniest bit doesn't mean you have to lift higher. Just a little. There we go. Exhale and roll down.

Yeah, and just check your next again. Sometimes I think we get too rigid in the position of holding it. Last one. Exhale to roll up. Okay in Harlem and change it ever so slightly. Keep your hips up where they are. Exhale, reach the arms even further till they come off the ground.

Reaching them back behind you, but not so far that they touch the ground. Most likely they're going to float by the ears at most. Inhale again, leaving your arms where they are. Exhale from the top of your back to roll down, upper back, middle back. Elongating the body even though it's curving its way down. All right, from here, just walk your feet together. So you've zipped up from big toe to the knee, to the inner thigh, through the rib cage, all the way up.

Take the arms right above your chest and check out that you have not reached up to the ceiling. So the shoulder girdles not coming around the front rather down into the matter or close to the mat. All right. It goes like this. You're going to draw the feet in a little closer to the heels. Come up. You're on the tiptoes. Yup. Where you're taking both knees to your left. Inhale.

As you rotate from the waist, that means that opposite hip has to come up. Your knee stay lined up. So do quick position check. Look at it should look like you only have one leg. Start excelling in a rotate back to center, right. Real light on your feet. Inhale to the other side. Arms are stationary.

Shoulders are bolted to the ground. Exhale to bring it back. Dig in a little deeper. Here we go. Inhale, waking up through the waistline, through the abdominals. Big exhale, and we draw the legs back to center and in here. Exhaling. Being mindful to note that it's a true rotation. They're not hiking the hip in any way. Again, and exhale those heaviness in a sense to the rib cage. Inhaling to the right and exhale, plug those arms into the mat. And one more time.

Good, good. Last time to the right. Just pull those, the shoulders down a tiny bit. Yep. That's all. And back to center. Taking your hands behind your head to fully lace the fingers. Elbows just off the ground so there's softness to the, to the back of the neck.

Inhale, start exhaling and allow yourself to curl up, aiming to get to the lower tips of the Scapula, leaving the majority of your back on the mat. Inhale, hold. Squeeze a little more through the inner thighs and link than yourself out, out, out, out, and inhale. Exhaling up. We go. Chin toward the chest. A little. We don't want to close off too much space. Come on with a tiny bit more windy little. There it is. Inhale hole and Xcel. Stretch yourself out. Couple more.

Inhale and exhale. Curl up high enough that you really released it. The low back. Inhale and exhale stretching out. That's the way you'll work. The abdominals more and not the back. Inhale, exhale. Ribcage closes or comes together as you curl up.

Then inhale and exhale, changing it just a little bit. Inhale, exhaling up from here. Inhale, exhale, reach the arms forward. Walk the feet a little bit away from you. We're going to take a yet another inhale and on the exhale we're going to continue rolling up, but extend the legs as you go so you keep them light on the mat, curling yourself forward, and I know you all know the roll up, but I'm going to encourage you to do the modified version. You don't have to, but I think you might find more out of it. Some sort of doing the basically challenging class tonight. Inhale, as you exhale, draw the hipbones back, start back, slide the knees in, bend them a little bit gotta. Stay light on those mats or you can move forward and reach back.

Touching the back of the head, leaving the arms up or roll up. Inhale, curl up, kind of lag on extending the legs so you get a little bit more exhaling to lift off those shoulder blades, keeping the curve blow out all the air. Inhale, the exhale starts the ABS, the abs start. The movements are sliding those knees into a bent knee position and touching down and inhale right away. Head, neck, shoulders come up. Arms can continue or you can leave them a little higher if you want to make it a little more challenging. Stretching, looking for that c curve at the pelvis. Excellent. Inhale and exhaling. Down and back. I'm to play with it a little bit. Ian Hill. [inaudible] to exhale. This is where you really ring out the spine all the way.

I'm going to change it to where we're only going down to the shoulder blades. Inhale, exhale. Here we go. Rolling down to the shoulder blades and hold. Inhale, rotate to your left. Exhale, come through the hips. Don't move just to center. Inhale, rotate to your right, keeping your hands equal and back to center. In other words, you're not going to close up the arms. Inhale, rotate.

Chest is right in between those hands. Exhale, equal weight on the center. Good. And again, inhale and exhale. Let's do two more. Can you still feel the glutes working for you in Excel? Drawing in about cross center. Last one and center from here. Inhale. Exhale. We're going up or you can go down and we'll wait for us. We'll be right back.

Stretching out, leaving the leg straight this time. Inhale, exhale. We go down all the way. Imprinting the bones of the body in the back. Lightly touch. Come right back up. Inhale it. Exhale the lift off. The breath matters on this one. It's helpful. It helps us focus to inhale and exhale down.

To go back. We've got to come up once more just so I can change it on you yet again in here. This is where it's gonna Change. Stack your spine sitting up tall. Feel free to bend the knees cause it's more important to get the straight back. Once again, rotate left. Then from there you pull the hipbones.

You're going down and by going down, I mean to the shoulder blades. Only do that swivel across to the other side. Oh, don't let it knock you off balance. You're going up that side. Inhale, probably somewhere in there. Then. Exhale. Good, good. Keep the curve. Keep the secret of just in the low back. Come center straight and up. Inhale and go the other way. So to your right. Exhale, roll down. Excellent. Inhale across. Exhale going up.

I have to say I'm not that far off. Center. The hips are still pretty. Squared off to the middle. Inhale, lengthen up, rotate left, and exhale down. If ever you need extra breaths, please take them. Inhale as you come across, start exhaling to come up. Let's try and finish the exhale in the middle. Lifting up. Inhale, rotate. Last time to your right. Exhaling down. Yeah, good. All the way across. Inhaling as you go, exhale to come up and center lengthening up, right. Scoot forward onto your mats and we're going into rolling like a ball, so whatever you feel like you need to do, if your back feels tight, still keep the ball spread out. If you want to challenge yourself more deeply, bring those heels right in close to your glute. Beyond that, get just behind the tailbone, pulling the arm, the legs and elbows point to the side. Heads are basically down, but I think you should focus more on the low back. Feed her up. We inhale, roll back, exhaling up, stopping at the top. Hold.

Inhale, roll back. Exhale up. The trick to this one and I'm looking quite good. Actually. Uh, go ahead. Inhale, back. Exhale up is keeping the tech particularly in the back. Inhale back when you're in the back position. Yes. Exhale on the breath. We'll help you get back. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it's going to, but it will. Inhaling back to exhale.

Good. Avoid kicking the legs keeping. It's basically where you start. You stay. All right, last one coming at you. Great. Inhale back to exhale up, right. Okay. Hands up to the knees. PRRS your knees into your hands to lower yourself down to the shoulder blades or just roll down and we'll be right there. All right, it's going like this.

Inhale, let go. Just touch toes to the ground. Exhale, scoop the belly and pick the light light legs back up, squeezing the glutes. Still. Inhale, touch the toes to the ground, reaching kind of off in the distance there. Exhale, scoop and bring it back up. Inhale down. You want to start that exhale just before the legs come up so you feel the sense of pressing, pressing down in the ABS. And again, if you want more challenge, reach way back or partially back and exhale, just bring it on top. Here's the deal. You can't move your body.

You can't move your spine where it starts at stays. Exhale, keeping your eyes forward. Somewhere around, I dunno, on the horizon or what would be the horizon? One more time. Inhale, reach. Exhale, bring it back. I said one more didn't I? Good? Let your heads down, right and inhale. Exhale, curling your head, neck and shoulders back up from here. Take your right foot to the floor. Just lightly touching. You have options here with the hand position. I'm not going to worry about it too much right now.

I'd just like you to hold somewhere around the knee. Tailbones are down. Inhale XL change like so the knee angles not going to change for you much here and change. Keep going. It's exhale as we chat or I'm inhaling as we change XL sort of landed and and same thing as before. There's no movement of the trunk. Yeah, but the hands behind the head keep the legs going. Lower the upper body. Oh, but you can't let the back pop up and I mean the low back, lightly touch. You may not be able to touch all the way. Now inhale, somewhere around here.

You come back up, keep the breath if you can, if you can, and up and up. Tig it down. Upper body down in four to kind of slow, kind of long. Three and four coming back up and wow, if you're already there, just hang out. Same thing. But at our rotation here we'll go upper body towards us, up knee and press. Keep thinking maybe shoulder to hip. Get up on it.

Try not to drop down in the middle but rather just roll to the other side. Staying lifted. Let's go. We'll take four more singles one and two. Three come back to the center, bringing both knees up. Inhale and exhale. Letting your head, neck and shoulders go down and reaching the arms overhead.

From here you have options. You can either, I'm going to keep my knees bent for the first part of the a hundred in fact, I'll tell. I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll we'll modify it a little bit and it might be harder. We'll find out how to inhale for now. Just exhale, curl your head, neck and shoulders up, reaching forward. Flex your feet, squeeze the glutes a bit. Don't worry about the arms today. Just inhale. Press out on a high diagonal, point the toes and drag the legs back in. On that exhale, flex. Inhale, push away.

So kind of emphasize the backside point and Xcel. Drag reaching the arms and opposition. Inhale, you can ignore the legs too and just stay there and breathe. For these five counts. In inhale, two, three, four, five and exhale two, three, four, five and in and exhale. Imagine those legs being pulled into right from below the chest and pool. Nice long collar bones. Good, good, good.

And Prs to three feet. It all starts to go to your back. You either don't do the legs or you can take them higher still works and in giving you two more into three, four, five, Andra, last one. Make it fun and pull. We know the truth. Feet go down. Separate them a little. Reach back, arms overhead. Oh, I think what we should do. Stretch your legs, grab onto a wrist or whatever it feels good and stretch. Just give it a good stretch. You can even arch your low back a little bit, stretching out the abs and then settle the rib cage back into the mat or bend the knees. Separate them for yet another pelvic curl arm, slightly upper or slightly off the mat, and definitely a part for a pelvic crow. We inhale. Exhale, start rolling the hips up.

Press the arms through the air as if it were a thick, solid opening up the chest as you go. Yes. All right, let's focus on the hamstrings for a minute. For a minute. More than that, pick up your right leg. Please. Just leave it for now at a bent knee without peeling, lower the hips to the mat, trying to keep them level. You focus now on that the supporting like push right back up and down.

Trying to keep the hips level number two of 10 and and getting all the way up there, which you have to watch for. Keep going for is that you don't go so into the rib cage, right? You want to keep the ribs down. It might feel like a little bit of a tech, but truthfully it's just maintaining some abdominals. Seven. Yeah, thank you. And focusing on the lower body two to go here. One more. Get up there, stay up there. And now we will roll down.

So you've let the upper backdrop, let the middle backdrop, let the free leg just accommodate you and then set it down. Find the level pelvis again so those bony landmarks are in fact level. Roll yourself up. So when you're ready, take an exhale to get up there. Adjusting your arms and shoulders. Okay.

Looking for the long line. Take your left leg up and off and just hinting at that hip joint to touch down. Reconnect with the gluten, press back up one and and to good and down. If you cramp, just come out of it right there. That's it. And things you can think about is the inner thighs here. Relax the toes of the foot on the floor. Everybody definitely. Okay, good.

Oh boy. Seven rs progress. That must be it. So stay up there and with that, roll yourself down. Upper back, middle back. Okay, well down here, take hold of that leg that's in here. Left leg. Hold it in close to you.

Leave the bottom like bent for the moment and see about straightening the top leg when you do this. So you've got to keep your chin slightly toward the chest. I suppose tailbone stay down. It doesn't matter if the leg gets to straight or not. If you can do, if this is not enough of a stretch for you and those two things are in place, meaning you haven't looked behind you with your head and you haven't pulled the butt off the table or the mat. Instead you can. Then you can straighten the bottom leg out. That's up to you. That's up to you. Good, good, excellent. While we're here, let's flex the foot.

Be Relatively light with your grip so you can do that and then point articulate through the feet. Oh they need it being in the shoes all day. Flex and 0.1 more time and point. And then bend the knee. Let's cross over for a stretch. So you just help your knee. Oh CROs looking the other way. It's more of a spinal twist than anything. And then bring it back to center for the moment.

Leave it bent cause every leg is different and every day is different. So let's just check things out before we go to the full stretch. If you'd know you normally do hug the knee and first check your landmarks. The tailbone is down, their chin is slightly to the chest, extend the leg. What am I to take it? Easy on this side for sure.

Sure. That feels good. Flex and point. You can do that again once we get to straight and find sort of a soft place. If you're happy there, stay there. Gently breathing into it to challenge it. If you need a little bit more, guide the leg out in the soon as you feel an unnecessary strain, meaning you're not no longer just stretching the back of the leg, then that's when you stop. Or maybe just before there, okay, I'm going to go another flex point. For those of you who want it from this place and with that bend in the knee, cross it over, enjoy the spinal rotation and we bring it home. All right, with that, stretch your legs out. Zip them up.

If you're feeling like your abs have had enough, you're free to just rock yourself up. Otherwise we're going to take the arms straight ahead above the chest. Inhale, bring your head, neck and shoulders up between the upper arms. Exhale, try to come up from there. If that doesn't work, just lower the arms and definitely lower the arms now. All Right, coming to an upright seated position, bending the knees initially, initially, arms straight ahead, little spine stretch from here. I think what I want to have you do today actually, because ultimately in who, how we normally round and we travel forward, that's where we're headed, but I want to start it with more of an emphasis on the vertical going down via the abdominal. So it's not a collapse. You're not sinking into it, but in fact you're tightening to go as vertical as possible. So let's try it with the hands a little in front of you so that your arms can be straight and they're going to end up just sliding out from underneath you. But you're still thinking of the down. The one thing to watch for, and I'll, I'll be up watching you, is that you don't just roll backwards, right?

It says if you're up against a wall, all right, so starting upright in hell, prepare, start, exhaling. You'll feel the ribs kind of come together. Your head just drops really. And then you allow the arms to get out of your waist as the shoulders drop down, hugging the midline in between the legs as well. Continue rounding forward. Yes. So okay. Stay there for one second. So I want to see you pull back here just a little bit more. Yeah. Uh, inhale.

If you haven't, there you go. Exhale to roll back up. Good, good, good. And inhale. Exhale a down. So you're going to basically not push me away from you, but stay touching me. That's it Aaron. Good. Can you go anymore? Uh Huh. Inhale and exhale. Roll back up. So what I'm not really trying to do, not really, I'm not even slightly trying to force your upper back into a major curve trying to stretch this middle section.

So it's kind of awkward and kind of weird probably. But let's go again. Exhale. Surround to my body. It feels like I'm going straight down to stay touching me here. Push back into me a tiny bit. There you go. There you go. There you go. And your upper back looks great in how when you get there and exhale, you'll feel like your low back starts lining you up.

Feel the heaviness to the arms, the full extension of the neck. Okay, so that's cool. Now let's add to it. If you want to straighten your legs at any point you can. Um, same thing, but with the arms in front of you. Inhale, exhale, they're just going to stay up peer. Okay, so you round, they may lower a little bit, but don't intentionally drop them. Same thing. It's as if someone's pulling you on the arms and you're trying to hold yourself back, not by tightening the arms, but by tightening the ads. Inhale and Exhale, deepen the contraction rolling up to the upright position. Again. Last one like that. And then we'll kind of add the last piece. Exhale to round.

It's a sense of trying to haul around over an imaginary ball. I'm going to ask everybody to see if you can gently pull the shoulders back and I do mean gently. There you go, Andy, and continue. If you have more space. Inhale and exhale. We come up. All right. Now we do that, but we're going to let you travel forward a little as well. Here it is. Inhale, exhaling to arounds. First part is basically down somewhere around that mid back or shoulder blade area. You can reach the middle of your body forward a bit, so the pelvis is basically still where it was. Inhale and exhale. That's great.

Coming back up and inhale. Exhale. Last one like that. Good. Excellent. Stay there Debra. I'm going to change it for everybody. Wherever your hands land, just let them somewhere on your leg, preferably from that place. Hold on. It's fine to bend the elbows. You're going to lengthen your back so it's going to feel like the front of your hip bones are reaching forward or the tailbone is reaching out and up.

I have to adjust because I come high enough that my hands have to come back a little closer to my knees looking for the long line. Fabulous. Deborah, come tiny bit higher. Yep, and lots of chest from there. Either hang out or you can let the arms come up, holding the position right alongside or behind your ears. Exhale, put them back down. But keep your posture, grab on a little bit. Maybe guide yourself deeper into the stretch. And I don't mean forward anymore. It's more of like an up, diagonal. Inhale, arms up. Good. Good. Can I keep coming? Keep coming. Keep calming. Exhale, arms down. Excellent. One more like that for you. Well we want more than one could just pull the ribs in a tiniest pit. Good.

And down. Last one. Inhale up. Good. And with that you can just exhale and round forward and you can just stay there for the moment and enjoy. Good. All right. Bringing ourselves up for open leg rocker. So once again, you're probably gonna want to move forward on your [inaudible] just behind the tailbone as if you were going to do rolling like a ball again. And as the legs come close, you can either pick up one leg or both.

Feel free to keep the knees bent. What you're interested in is finding that straight back to start. I'm going to stay here for the moment to get going with no momentum, you simply think of reaching the tailbone out from underneath your slightly tucking Wego. Inhale back to the shoulder blades, exhale up, and then use the back extensors to lengthen. And again, inhale a little tuck. Exhaling up and up. If your hamstrings are not limiting, you, feel free to straighten. Here we go. Inhale back to exhale up. Not Minding too much if we don't land it every time.

It's about the practice of looking inward and checking things out. Why is some days, is it easier than others? I have no idea. It's just us responding, right? Responding to our environment, to our day, to our thoughts. So let's just go a little deeper in here and whatever you normally feel like when you do this, do it differently. Do it a little faster, do it a little slower. Do it in a way that's gonna make you be there. Right? Maybe the few need to be closer together to challenge you.

Maybe they need to be a little wider, probably not. Maybe last one. Whatever you do. Nice job, Helen. Finding it at there. Assist yourself closer together, bending the knees, squeeze the knees. You might have to back up and lean. Let go without moving your back. Touch your heels to the exhale. Bring them back up.

Inhale down, keeping your back still. That's key to this one. Exhale, float and inhale. [inaudible] an exit from their stay. Their hands. Go back a little bit. Extend the legs if, if you can do it with the hamstrings or do it to the level you can. Keeping your back straight. Lower the legs a little inhale. Don't come out of your hand or don't change the pressure on your hands.

It should be light. Inhale down. Exhale, scoop. Oh, how did our legs get so heavy? You can bend them, but go deeper to the belly without rounding. One more time. Imagine sucking the legs deeper in. Bend the knees, set them on the ground. Turn 'em out and around for case those hip flexors over did their job. Okay. Help yourself up. Stretch out your legs. At this point, just sort of decide whether or not your hip flexors have worked too much and you'll know, right? Cause it'll either won't let you sit up straight or they start gripping.

In that case, bend the knees. All right, straight ahead. So you're here if you can kind of firm pressure definitely wants straight arms. Um, and I say that if that doesn't work for some reason you could be here. In fact, that might feel good. Let's do that and then I'll straighten him out afterwards.

So you've just done like, so you still have your broad collar bones. You didn't use that as an excuse to feel like Arnold all of a sudden. But here, here from that place feed together, you can, will you go just slowly. Exhale, twist, keeping your pointer right in line with your chest in. Where are we? Inhale Center. Exhale, twist. Good little pressure on the palms, but easy in the shoulders. Inhale and [inaudible].

Ah, good. Excellent. And one more to the first. Right back. Thank you. And come back. All right. You can stay like that or extend it out. And as you do though, like get taller everywhere, everything's an energized, it's going to be a double exhale to the front. Here we go. Or exhale, two, inhale to the back, check out the hips. They don't get to move. So that means your feet won't be moving and good. Your point are still in the middle of the chest. Good, nice, straight back.

So it looks lovely and sometimes there's a tendency to kind of back away from the side you're turning on. I don't think I'm seeing it, but I'd like you to just to think about slightly leaning into the side, you're turning to just slightly, I don't have to change things too much. And for the last two here ever so slightly, kind of gone with it and right point the toes. Take the arms up rather than folding forward. Bend the knees a little, take your arms behind you. Fingers face your heels. Okay. Or to the side. You could do it that way. You could always do it on your fist. Now bring the feed and closer.

I've separated my feet to the pelvic curl position. So four or five inches, right? A little more than maybe with straight arms and the shoulders down. So you're, it's like you're pushing yourself almost off the mat. Transition weight towards your feet to lift the hips up, to look at the ceiling hinge at the hip joint. So that just means like you're gonna sit back down. Let your butt touch the ground lightly and go up again. Use your feet. If you just use your arms, that's not gonna work for you.

If you're particularly tight in your shoulders, maybe don't worry about getting to the top. Go ahead and come down and you'll know if, if you find your shoulders pointing to the front of you, if that keeps happening, turn your hands to the side. And now trying to just distribute weight, lift up. And Dan, I want two more Audi and then I'm going to change it ever so slightly. Come back down on that last one.

[inaudible] Tuck your pelvis just like that. Good. Lift up out of the shoulder a little and now it's a tricep dip. So you bend the elbows. Exhale to straighten up. Exactly. 32 yeah, very good. That's it. It's all about the elbows.

The pelvis will just sort of go where it needs to. About seven. Yeah. Great. That never happens. And sometimes people like to take one leg up for 10 to, I'm leaving it down. Three. Did I really say 35? Do I always say 36? 28? No. 18. Right. 19. Oh my gosh.

All right. Last 10. I think perhaps I should correct. Can you somebody do something wrong? [inaudible] Huh? I don't get out of it that easy. I've already loved count. It's gotta be him too. And Wallah. Okay. Relax. Oh, they feel like they're just floating so you can just shake them out.

Sometimes. That's the best thing to do. If you prefer there's that you could stretch it to by reaching over sometimes. That for me right now it feels too full of lactic acid or whatever. Okay. We're good. Golden. Uh, I'm going to come back for that. So let's roll down. Just lie on our sides please. So turn to your facing me.

[inaudible] resting on your head and your head on your upper arm. And I should say it's worth it too. Um, it's if you're able to go straight ahead, it's tempting to shrug the shoulder up and do it like, so try and place it down. Now that doesn't work for everybody too, just because of frames. So you also have the option of bending the elbow and letting the elbow point more forward so you don't have to reach it quite so far back. Alright, with that lengthening through the body, just like this, perfect. Don't need to change a thing. I just want to point it out. Um, from here you're going to engage the entire powerhouse.

So that includes a little glute, certainly inner thigh and everything above it. Inhale, prepare on your exhale. Lift both legs. I should say. Reach both legs. Inhale, lower them down, maybe touch, maybe exhale, lift again. Pardon me. Inhale down and exhale up. So the idea is that you're upright, right?

It says if you're standing on your feet and doing a side bend, so notice tension in your body. You don't need a lot of leg tension. They don't have to be rock hard. They can be kind of relaxed there. Just the weight against the legs. The primary area you're working is the obliques. It's always worth checking. Okay, cool. Just one more please.

And then while they're up. Well that's all right. Just stretch the top like a little further so it's gonna feel like your hip is coming right out of alignment as I would knock you over. And then from there we relaxed the file a little. There you go. And lengthen and lift up 10 Hawaiian and two there's you pay. Sorry. Top like three, four could even more here. Five, six, seven going for the, the reach.

Alright, that's good. Take the bottom leg, lift it for ten one these are a little slower too. And so now we're clearly zeroing in on the legs. Think about picking up the leg from high in the belly though you can get a lot out of what seems like a little move. Exhaling up, up. And one more time. Uphold it together. Can you lengthen even more? Maybe not, but you can think about trying. Press the thigh bones strongly together.

Rest of use, relatively relaxed. Hand down if it's not already. And then just bring the legs forward a little bit. I'm going to stay down here today for the sidekick. There are other versions if you'd like to do in, please do, but what I want to focus on is first that the hips are stacked to pick up the top leg. I'm going to ask you to reach the leg further, but not by changing the hips. It's more like let the leg just be try not to grip and hug the legging to close with the hand down. We come forward, forward, forward and take it behind you for kind of a deep stretch.

Flex the foot as you come forward. I'm exhaling there and inhale back and it's kick, kick and point. Reach and kick, kick point rich. Nudge in the back of the leg. Getting longer, especially as it goes forward. Press, press and back. Press. Press the rest of your body. Quite still giving it two more here. Reach, reach and squeeze. [inaudible] long to the back. Last one. Keep it to the back. Give yourself almost as stretched by again, thinking about reaching it.

Feel free to stay here or help yourself up just a little bit, bringing that forum underneath you or, or stay where you are, Deborah, that's cool too. And from there we're going to circle to the back one. So from where you are too, kind of slow three, right? You're not bringing the working leg in front of your body at all and hold that, reverse it, bringing it forward. Still keep it behind your body and that ought to do it. So to stretch it out and bring the top like in front, either just push the leg over. If it feels like you've been on your elbow too long, you can roll onto your back like so and either be here. If that's not enough here, if you're staying up, it's a little different for everyone.

I feel that more fights stick the tailbone out. Okay. Help yourself up to go to the other side. Still facing front. Okay. All the way down. Resting right on the side of your arm if you can. If that doesn't work for you, again, feel free to bend the elbow, grab a towel, whatever you need to do for spacing. And from there we inhale, start, exhaling, lengthen and lift both legs.

Inhale as you reached down, exhale and lift. Again, keep going. I want you to think about in your body is this one though, you're all straight and I know you lined up well. There's a tendency for the low back to work more than it needs to. Just when we end up lifting the legs, especially if I've asked for a little glute contraction, which I have, it can go into the back. So sometimes if you just place your hand on your back, you can feel, I'm just going to do that for you guys so we can, yeah, and if anything, if you do feel like it's working a lot, you want to bias towards your legs being in front of you or rounding the low back. Let's go three more. Thank you. Good. A little, a little tuck for you would not be bad. Go from there.

Okay. That was it. So sorry. Stay up on that up. Pop Up. Reach the top leg a little longer and lift that leg for ten one and two and three. So I didn't really tell you about an arm option. A lot of you are having it up and balancing. That's cool. You can also have the forearm down or the hand down in front of you long like your leg starts right into your chest. And then on the next one, hold it at hip height right about there.

And now bring the lower leg up to match the top one and two. Good. Picking up from that inner thigh and abdominals. Yeah you can. You can kind of milk it right there. Squeeze and squeeze. And now the, I'm sure you feel a little bit through the legs. Redirect that energy to the trunk, the abdominals in this case and hold it. Hold it. Getting longer, longer and then set your feet down.

You can adjust them forward and come on up. I'm sorry. Stay down. My fault. Legs are slightly forward, hips are stacked. And here we go. Reaching the top leg again. Take your finger and either a thumb or one of your fingers, right where your, the flex or the crease at your hip is when the leg comes sore. Let's do one slow. When the leg comes forward, trying to almost pinch your finger rather than allowing the back to round, you'd be far better off not kicking so far forward to then to round the back.

Let it go behind you. There's no crease. Let there be a crease. It feels maybe a little like you're sticking your butt out and back. And here we go. In real time, I put the hand down, now it's exhale. Two. Inhale, pulse, pulse, pulse, Ann Marie and pulse pulse. To maximize the energy in it. You keep the body still and back. And again, reach, reach to soy and reach. Reach, sweet. We're in. Should be getting some decent work, especially back here.

And pulse. Pulse, reach, pulse, pulse. Reach one more here. Pulse, pulse, reach back. Hold it back. Can you get any more length through the waist without arching your back. And from there we helped ourselves up to the forearm.

You can stay where you were and we circled back. What I'm gonna ask for here is don't bend the knee, but relax the knee. In other words, you're not energizing through the back of the knee. Turn like from the hip where it meets the Duluth last one here and reverse it. Be longer and around one, around two the legs just going along for the ride.

It's happening right at the hip. One more. And then we take the stretch coming in front. Have that option to lie on your back. All right. And with that, come over to your hands and knees please.

Hands directly underneath your shoulders. A couple things we can play with here. Thinking in terms of full body integration. So to begin we start with the hands right below. Take up, take a gander straight down and just noticing your peripheral vision. Do you feel thanks money? Do you feel like your shoulders are in front of you?

Do you feel like you're sort of dropped down? You can't even see your shoulders. Rather find a place where you have a good sense of where the front of your chest or where your chest is and where your upper back is. Hopefully flat. Alex Fan. Tastic good. All right, Helen, just slightly tuck your poles. Just barely, barely tick. Okay, good. Good. Extend one leg back, everybody. You're gonna curl those toes. Gender bias towards your Tuck of the pelvis.

You're gonna feel the butt tighten a little. Here comes the other feeder slightly apart, and all we're doing tonight is breathe in. So inhale on your exhale. Imagine reaching energy out your heels and out the crown of your head as a subtle sense of up or the upper arm reaching to your hips and exhale. Yeah, and inhale and exhale. Each time you exhale, pull the abs in a little deeper, but don't use that as an excuse to around one more breath. Inhale and exhale.

Lower the knees down if you need to take a full stretch. Do otherwise, just let yourself roll up to kneeling upright. Great. From here, we draw the abdominals in. Feel the back of the legs tightened. This doesn't need to be big. We're going to keep the shape of our body as we hinge back just the littlest bit hamstrings, getting closer to the calves. Inhale and exhale to come back up. Being mindful. In fact, I'm going to exaggerate one for you here. Inhale, Tuck your pelvis.

Flex the spine so you actually look down a bit. Okay, so the hip bones are a little bit behind. You hinge back on an exhale. Eyes are sorted down. Low. Inhale, exhale and come back up and then release sort of the two. Neutral. Good. Inhale, tuck. Again, eyes and chest, sort of drop a little, maybe not quite, no. That's okay. It's okay. Exhale back. If you haven't, inhale and exhale says major work to the quadriceps. It should not be pulling on the kneecap in a way that's uncomfortable.

If it does, you stop sooner. We're only doing two more. Even if you just tuck your pelvis, if you're really treating your quads, a tuck of the pelvis alone will do what the rest of us are doing. Inhale, exhale, come back up and one more time. Exhale. Inhale and exhaling up was unusually hard today. Take one leg forward for me and then just adjust the back DC.

You're not rolling over the kneecaps after that last one, especially to come into a lunge position. So the idea being that it's fine. The idea being that you press the hips forward if that's not good for you, do the best you can with it or you can hold on to something or certainly put the hands on your knee or above the knee. Yup. Good. If for some reason you just can't be on your knee but you want a similar stretch, not necessarily less intense stretch, you could be here with the back knee up, uh, or even a little higher. All right, from there, let's just, you want to raise the arms up. That's going to require you to sort of stabilize yourself through both legs and certainly through the powerhouse.

I think it'd be long gating your low back here. So what does that mean to me? It means drawing the pelvis forward and up. Head low tip forward and up. Inhale, exhale. Reaching forward. Put your hands to the ground. Take weight off of the back knee just enough to get past it more onto the Shin and extend the leg. Flexing the foot.

Hips are level and again, like every hamstring stretch you'll do. I think across the board you're gonna want your back flat. Right? Even if it means bending the knee a little. Yep, Yep, Yep. We've got those long legs to deal with. Debra, I do not feel sorry for you. Not even a little bit and then it is Aaron, it sounds like. Okay. Just shift enough to change legs almost there. Almost there.

I just getting past the kneecap [inaudible] before you take your arms off, if you think you're going to adjust in a manner that it's as if your knee is almost reaching, this knee is reaching back at the top of your thigh and hips are going forward and you may find that that's enough. If it's not, you can come up. A little things to be really careful for is that you don't just sing Kahn to yourself, especially you flexible people or you've got to hold yourself up. That's what I meant earlier about lengthening the low back. Include that into the upper back. And if you're going to raise your arms now, it'd be a good time. Yeah.

One more breath there or wherever you're at. And then exhale, letting the hands go forward. Just adjust past the kneecap, getting onto the Shin and take the leg forward. Trying for squared-off hips tendency would be to let the leg you're stretching that hip would pull forward. I'm seeing good work though, so that's pretty good. You've got a little bit of it. The tiniest bit now. You're good. You're good. Okay. And then just shifting forward enough to release that foot and we're going all the way down to your abdominals and forehead. Forehead on your hands. All right. From that place, draw the abdominals off the floor as best you can.

And another way of saying what I said a moment ago, which is to lengthen your low back. Then as if I came by and pulled your legs, they energize so you have a sense of hamstring, the back of the legs from that place actually lift the legs. Not very much. It's about kneecaps off. Certainly the tops of the feet. Great. From there, we're doing a little beats of the leg, so it's beat two, three, four, five, six. Let's keep them parallel for now. Good. I like that. That's good. That's good. So the movement has done great. Helen Movement is coming from the, Yep. Keep going. Pete. Pete, Pete, Pete. Oh yes, I did pick it up. Yup.

Don't focus on the feet. If you focus on the feed, it's going to feel like it's going away too fast. Focus on the upper inner thigh. All right, from there, keep going. You can either stay like that or reach your arms down by your side. Hover your head and chest. This is an option. Good. And Dat, Dat, Dat, dat, recheck in with the ABS. If the low back takes over, it's not worth it. It's going to get some work, but it shouldn't feel like dominant reaching long.

If you want to take your arms to a t position. Oh yes. Lovely. Give yourself 10 more beats there. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. If you want to, you've got 20 more beats arms overhead. Any one of those versions. How about 10 more or one two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and 10? Just stretch and let yourself melt into the floor hanging out. Let your back settle.

When you're ready, bring your hands by your side. Hands by your shoulders probably is what I meant to say. Press yourself up and back into a rest pose. If your arms don't feel good in front, feel free to put them behind you or a long sign [inaudible]. It's a great place to feel that post lateral breathing that we talk about so often with your ribs resting on your legs or near your legs anyway, you can maybe feel this expansion of the rib cage as you inhale.

Let it be deep. Excellent, and exhale. Oftentimes in our, in our breath, I find that if we don't try too hard, if we just sort of let it happen, it becomes much more expansive. I'm just feeling, I think you look great. Yeah. Ooh, wow. That's really cool. It's like bellows, right? And one more of those. Then free up your hands wherever they are and come to where you can just curl the toes under, lift up the hips a bit, hanging your heads if they're not, if you've picked them up, check your shoulders and from here we roll up feet firmly into the ground. You have a welcome to use your hands on your thighs. Otherwise just roll up.

We're going to wrap this up the way we started. So stepping just to the back edge of your mat, being as tall as you ever have been. You're going to put all the things we worked on together in terms of focusing on the middle, shifting your left leg back or right leg. Doesn't matter. Really. It doesn't matter at this point. Hips are still level. Okay, and then again, if you can imagine the energy coming out your body. Just don't do this with your hands.

Just imagine that that's energy and you hinge forward. It doesn't matter how far it's that it's all one line in your body, your neck long. If you feel a more loose and can go further, this would be a better time to do it. Adjust where necessary. Feel free to just stay there and breathe. Otherwise, inhale, bend the leg you're standing on. That means everything lowers equally. Exhale any longer. Oh, how long can your neck be? Inhale, bend and exhale modifications to leave the foot on the ground, but don't lean over so much. Exhale, straighten, do one more. Inhale, bend, exhale, straighten, and then line yourself back up. All in one slow, lovely piece. Theoretically, right and other leg back. The real trick honestly is first getting the ch as much as you can go on, on in the middle, letting everything else be relaxed but reaching and then hinging.

If I show you from the front, you're going to see how much I wobble. Right, and that's fine cause it's not about trying to not move, it's about trying not to follow and that would be a good in life in general, it's like what do I need at bend? If you haven't already in here from flooding, annex, hips as level as possible. At this stage of class, you don't want anything to hurt at any stage of class. You don't want it to hurt. So don't go into a place that's going to cause frustration or modify where necessarily this'll be the last one. And as your upper body comes up, their leg lowers equally great spin to face the front. Again, toes, ankles and knees together from where you are. Just lean forward a little and then bring it back.

Feeling that sort of conveyor belt of energy, the front of the body, pulling up the back of the body, reaching down, lean forward again and back. And then somewhere in between. Just a gentle lean from the heel and with that inhale, feel the back of your neck. Long exhale, we rise up on the test. It doesn't have to be high, just needs to feel connected. Inhale, allowing yourself to just be in space, lightly touching the ground. When the heels exhale, rise up.

Trying to keep the sense of lift throughout your days and our least whenever you think of it and down, breathing really at a pace that feels suitable to you. I'm going to do two more. When you lower the heels, can we create even more space without strain? And by space, I mean between the hips and the ribs. Last one. Okay. With that, separate your feet, a little standing rolled down.

Inhale and exhale. We go. Just as we started, right. Heads are heavy. We still have the arms on her back. Inhale, hold and exhale to bring it back up. You take your time. All right. If I'm going faster and you need me to take your time, I want to do one or two more than I offer. You do that too.

In Halen though it appears as we're stopping, this is our chance to bring more energy into the body. Our chance to let go of any tension we don't need or want, and I'm going to suggest we don't need it at all, any of it. So just consciously let go. Whatever you have to do physically to let go. Shake it out. Do that. Your your best coach. Inhale, and I'm coming up for the day. [inaudible] finding ease in the body and let's take two deep breaths together. When you get there. Inhale, arms coming up. Exhale, filling the space. And last one, inhaling up.

Okay. Bring everything in and exhale, letting it off. Thank you for coming. Nice. Work as usual. Bravo. Bravo. Until next time, Huh? Yeah.