Creative Mat Variations

I'm Susanna Gutterson and I'm delighted to have two outstanding teachers who working with me today, Michelle Larson and a roof Alper. Oh, what are designed as a class using theraband that can simulate what we do on some of the equipment, particularly the reformer. So for people who do mat work, a don't have a reformer or people who just come to the studio to do a reformer. Here's a way that you can assimilate some of the things that you do in your class. You need a piece of theraband this long. I put loops on h n and you need a bar that can go over so it can slide if you don't where we're using our stationary bars today. But if you don't have a stationary bar at home, you can get a towel rack, you could put it in your door.

If you put it in your door, you want to put it on the opposite side of the door so that it can work. So let's get started. And I hope you enjoy it. He's bent feet, hips with the part. Um, we're just going to take a little, just rocking nice and easy and exhale as you go back. If you're scoop on inhale up, go back a little farther. Exhale back. Inhale. Just getting the body a little bit warm and roll up.

Now we're going to go in a circle. So take two hands on your van and it's going to be like stirring a pot as you go because you're holding onto that something your, you can take your trust in your head with you. So don't hold your head in place. Just let her go. Here we go. And hail scoping [inaudible] and are around and reach. Lift the chest scoop and push the trust out.

Let's go the other way and round. You can roll around a little. Don't worry about it. I'm one more and up. So you're working the upper back and the bottom. You don't have to stay belies in the center for this one. Short in your, we'll call these your reins a little bit.

Your arms are going to be straight. So I'm going to curl back with straight arms. As I pull my elbows back, the action lifts my chest and then I straighten. I just go back far enough so I'll have enough room when I come forward. Inhale, fill up the thorax and one more.

Curl back. Lift your chest and enjoy it. Now we're going to go the other way so you curl back, dived down straight arms. Push your far head forward and lift that dressed up. And I've down your blouse. Push out and reach one more.

Dive down and reach up. God. All right, let's straighten the legs. Put your hand in the loop. The other hand is going to be shorter. You're going to work the obliques. So just because your elbow goes back doesn't mean your obliques are working that hard. So as you pull the elbow back, let those obliques kick in. After you go back, you'll take two pulses every time that elbow goes back, you're scooping a little bit more and then come up. So let's go.

We'll do three on each side and inhale, scoop and okay. And come up again. Curl back and small elbow, just pumping it like this. Doesn't do anything on. Up and scoop one every time you pull worked as the obliques and come up.

Change hands. Put your hand in the other loop straight and it up. Start Tall. This hand reaches forward so it's like a bow and arrow. Here we go. Inhale and one, two, three and lift. Add and lift and okay, and lift up. Very good.

Put your hands in the loops. Your legs are still straight. You'll always want to have a little tension in the band, so sometimes you have to shorten that. So I'm shortening mine a bit cause I'm here too much. My back is supported. I'm going to lengthen and lift.

This time you're going to go back and stay. Lengthen [inaudible] and again to come up and one more back. Lengthen. Lengthen again to bring you up. Bring your hands here. It's a little more challenging. Exhale and oof. Again, exhale and lift.

One more lengths on your. Everybody want to be sure that that Chin doesn't go up and yours look very good. All right. Shorten your straps. You go into the curl so that you just won't flop forward and come up and flop forward and come up. I'd like you to pull the band down and get that length in your body.

Keep that links as you stretch forward. So you're pulling back. You're not going to go very far as you're there. Pull down to deepen. Press the size down, release. You're still in a scoop. Comeback and stack the Vertebra again and the hail length in the body.

And exhale, reach forward. Stay scoop. Bring your arms a little or right by your legs and press not on the outside. Let's bring it here right by the shoulders and take it up and stack the vertebral one more time from here. Stay around. You're gonna round back and pull up last time. Curl back. I mean, I'm sorry. Curl forward.

Reach forward, pull down. That's better. Bring it up. Roll back and stuck the vertebra because that's the feeling that you want for roll ups and so many other plots. These exercises. Let's have some fun and roll roles. Always good. So we're going to take two plane rolls and then on the third one you're going to hold it open, close, open, close on the fourth or the fifth. Straightened. Bend Straight and bend. Here we go. Two, four, six and scoop back. Come up, scoop back, come up. Third time, scoop back.

Come up and stay open. Close, open, close and scoop back and come up and straight bend and straight bend. Very nice. Okay. Straighten your legs. Just take one down. Roll down. And the 100 let's flex your feet today and just take it in eight counts. Here we go. So the more advanced you are, the less you need to hold.

If you haven't done much, you can hold them and we'll help you. Here we go. Add a seven, six, five, four, three, two and one. Point your toes and flex a seven. Cut your pie evenly. Five, four, three, two and one. Now what's the hardest part about the roll down? Going down. It's right when you get to the mid back.

So we're going to go down and we're going to pulse three times. Then we're going to roll all the way down. Coming up. This is the hard part. So you get the scapula off and you rule roll three times and then we'll come up because otherwise you're just going to power up and you want to really develop that strength in there cause that's a weak spot. So here we go. Flex your fee roll down until the low back is down. Exhale up Earl it.

Exhale up a little smaller Ruth. Exhale up, roll it all the way down. Ah, bring your head, neck, shoulders up. Earl it down and up. Feel the back wide Merola down and up, all the way up and come forward. Now using that shake out for a minute, we'll go down and see if you can find that power, particularly in those two places and take whatever count you want and down you go. Watch it at the waist that it really goes down flat.

Now come up, watch that upper back. Slow in there, slow so it really works. Pull back as you reach forward, pull back, pull back, pull back, pull back. Very nice. Okay, let's take your placement for the hundred for, I found that a problem with a hundred is people's necks and I think one of the programs that makes it is they don't get up for her enough. So they're holding my here and that all my neck muscles are tensing. So I'm going to have you put your hands behind your legs. I'm going to have you pull yourself up so you're right at that ribcage. Straighten your legs. Now your in place. Stay there and sniff. Two, three, four, five, two, three.

Nice. Two more. Last one. And roll it up. God. Just roll up, hang onto your toes, bend your knees and just hang forward and breathe into your back for a couple of counts. That's my favorite stretch. Oh, let's go into single leg stretch.

Be sure there's enough tension in the band. You're in a roll down. Bring the knees in. It's a small pump. Again, let's get your body up. That's always so important and it's going to go sniff, sniff really slow. Pull it in and sniff and sniff and blow. Now flex the put, push a piano and dance and blow.

And blow really push and push and blow and blow. Bend the knees and roll up. God. Just let it hang. Yeah. With your resistance, if you do too much, it's going to look like this. If you do too little, it's going to look like this. So again, it's a nice compromise between self resistance and letting go. All right, let's do a crisscross.

So because of this we had to design it a little bit differently as you Kris towards this knee, this hand is open so you look over your nape but reach to the opposite side and then you change and blow and blow and sniff. Very good, very good. Your legs are parallel cause it's easy to turn them out because your legs are out and blow to and sniff. Very nice and nice and fluid and blow last to keep a stable pelvis and sniff. Don't rock and roll below and below.

Very nice. Okay, let's face center with your legs in the straps, arms down to your sides and we'll just do leg lowers and we'll just take eight. So exhale down. Inhale up. Don't go any farther than that. Low back is stabilized and up. Feel the length in your spine. As those legs go down, legs go down.

That stretches all the way through the crown of the head. Two more has a nice dynamic. I guess you've been doing it awhile or let me have walking. So we'll go down and six, one, two, three, four, five, six ana, three, four, five, six and down and up and down and up. Walk down your favorite straight and uh, gimme froggy feet, knees out, knees bent. Take it close to your crotch. Here we go. You're going to do for keeping your flex. Then they're going to do for the go. From a flex to a point and back to a flex.

Here we go. Ah, reach and pull. Feel the belly. Press down and pull. Give me an exhale. Reach, pull a reach and I'll go to a point. Flex point, flex back, flex point, flex back, do more. Flex point. Flex back. Last one, point. Flex and back. Very nice. Okay, let's take one foot out of the strap and hold on with the other one as gracefully as you can. Straight in the standing leg.

We're going to do legs circles. You may want to put your finger on the groin of the opposite leg to try to keep you from rolling around. I'm, you all don't need to do it, but we'll do it for today. Here we go. So you're going to cross first. We're going to do five, then five on the jaw and then alternate for four. Here we go. At Xcel. Inhale, hold crust, ride the breath up and up and up and up of the way and yeah, and very nice. Nice dynamic and up and, oh at my straight stabilization up. I think this is four and up five and now alternate [inaudible] out and up and back and [inaudible].

Up and cross and up and out. Cross and up with two hands. Pull a bent knee into the chest and stretching the other leg. Long as though I had hold of it and I were pulling it long and just now let the knee turn out and just get a nice stretch. Turn it a little. That's it. Good. Let's change legs now.

If that's comfortable holding it up, fine. Otherwise, let's, that arm can just relax as much as you want. Yeah, that's kind of a good place. Here we go. Ready? Um, and up and up. Up One more. Nice. Perfect rhythm other way and yeah. Yeah. So you dropped the energy and then recover it.

And Five, now we're going to alternate Carl Ross. Um Oh and cross, um, oh. Um, pull the ne end of the trust. Nice stretch links in the other leg. Turn it out. Good. And Oh, that always feels so good. All right. Rather than a complete short spine, we're going to do a combination of Jack Knife and then go into short spine. So you can start with your legs long or in a chair position.

Here we go. Arms down overboard and roll it down through the spine. Let's do three of them. Exhale over and just stretch it. Ah, very, very nice. One more time. It's so soft and so easy. And that's what you want to have a condom.

Me of movement and ease of movement. It looks so beautiful. Make my heart patter and do it one more time because it's really lovely. So go one more time over you go. Easy, easy. Aye. Anybody can say, oh, that's easy. I think I could do that. Oh yeah, let them, let them try. Very, very nice and just hug your knees in for a second. That was good.

All right, let's lie over. Turn around on your, so you're prone. You're going to be in goalpost position. You need to get pretty far away so that you can have some tension in the straps. Your knees are bent, bend your knees and Michelle is going to uh, we're going to change it a little bit for her. We're going to modify it. So Ruth is going to stretch probably your arms only go about two here.

They won't go all the way back and we'll do two like that. And then you're going to reverse. So Michelle isn't going to go into a big arch and Ruth is going to go and do a lovely arch. Knees together, ankles together. Here we go. And push forward around, reach and around. Keep it moving and go the other way and back it goes very nice.

And just wiggle your hips for a minute. Now you're going to move way back cause you want a lot of tension. Okay. And this is a good for anybody who has problems paddling, patting the dog or whatever. I'm doing swimming because um, it shortened your loops when Michelle reaches out, reach your arms out. Now lift your arms for a minute.

It's gonna work from here cause it's pulling them. So if you can get your arms a little closer to your ears, unless that's uncomfortable, you're going to paddle your arms and your legs. Here we go. Head down. Two, three, four and lift two, three, four and down. Two, three, four and up to three, four and down, two, three, four and up. Either stop for one more, four and head down. Two, three, four, straight in the knees, two, three. Now this, you're going to love me forever. I'm going to give you a great stretch. Keep holding on. Sit back on your heels and stretch those arms forward so your arms are going to feel like their input them on the, on the mat and it's like I have hold of you and I'm pulling you here and stretching you back here. It's a lovely, nice big stretch. Okay. All right.

Kneeling facing the bar. We're going to take cat to cow, but it's a little hard to do it like this. So you'll have a little cat pause and you're going to, as the arms straightened, don't think down. Think up so as her arms go down, you can see how she's thinking of her arms straighten. She stretches out. Reach with straight arm. She pulls back, rolls up and then she, that was a plus.

Here we go and curl down. Think up and reach out. Look up and drop your head. Pull up and back to your little cat pause and one more curl and reach. It is a pleasure to watch you all move.

Pull back and come up. Very nice. All right, let's open your arms wide. I think we can do it for this and Michelle is going to twist. She's going to keep this open as she goes. One set gonna work, three and center. And so what I want you to avoid is doing this.

Okay? So use that band to hold you apart. Here we go. And Center and think up rather than twist up, up and centered like a spiral staircase. The wo three. I hope that wasn't intentional. Three last one. [inaudible] and center. Very nice. All right, let's turn around and you're going to have your hands in the straps.

You're gonna serve brownies. So your hands are here and we're going to do four where you're here. Open, gracious hostess. Now you're a little stingy. Take them back to the kitchen. They ate too much. So we'll do four of those. Then you're going to do what I call St Francis because here's St Francis.

Here are the little birdies on your palm. It's not this, it's pulling down, down. Use those lats. Good. And so it's right here. It's not open. It has to be just right there. That's just right. Straight arms. Okay, so let's serve brownies to your guests. Take them back to the kitchen and stretch forward. Yeah, let's try it again. Forward, open back, and take it back again. Keep your breathing.

It doesn't matter which one you inhale and exhale on. I'd inhale here, open, feel open and back. One more. Reach Open. Take it back. What you're doing, arch the back and stretch it straight forward. Open them a little. Keep those birdies on your palm and down. Down. You're getting taller and thinner as it goes down five and six and reverse it. Bring your arms a little bit more forward here. That's it, so you can really feel nice. Four, five and six. Let's salute so you can lean forward a little bit.

I hope these stay and go. Give me six. Reach and pull and inhale, pull, Arry reach, pull. Nice stabilization that you're keeping and that back and the body. One more and pull. Very nice. Open your arms for hug a tray. Now you want to be sure when you hug a tree that you can see your arms.

You don't want them back like this as it gets like this, so nice and round so you can see it as this comes together. This is coming in or your buttons are coming up and open and length in the body and open your eyes. Look Center. So your heads are in place to more reach and open. One more scoop everything and open. Very nice.

Let's lie down on your back facing the bar. And we're going to do a cheeser. We're going to do three. If you want to add arm pumps, you may, you can start with bent. I would be facing the right way. Yes, you can start with bent knees. And then on the second one, if you want to start up with straight legs, however you want to do it. So here we go. And up. You want to pump your arms? Do, if not, don't, and roll it down. Lovely. And two more.

Yes. Oh, it's so nice. It's so smooth and roll it. And again, it's like watching tiger woods. Oh, that looks easy to the ray and roll it down. Very nice. We're going to go close leg rocker, take three. And then open leg rocker. Start with bent knees. Here we go. Close leg and, and up.

Straight legs and up. One more. Yeah. And open the legs and reach and up and reach and up. One more reach and finish. Okay. Very, very lovely. It's nice to have such wonderful people who were demonstrating, let's come central floor, standing with her feet, hips with the part. Okay.

Pick up the world. Open yourself to the world. Take your space, gather your energy, and bring it center and enjoy a renewed awareness of the mind and the body connection. Thank you ladies.