Stretch-eze® Variations

Hello and welcome. Well check out the stretches tutorial that I did that will give you a little more information about the stretchies, this amazing, wonderful, full body resistance band that has a, an energizing effect on our bodies, but also creates space. How do we create space as we're moving? Usually we're used to core control. How do we pull the shoulders down? How do we pull our belly in? And as you know, I'm really been encouraging a us to really look outside of that paradigm, which is very compressive and it's also doing something to the body rather than having a conversation with our bodies.

So when we look at how do we be with the deep intelligence of our body, that is an awesome, amazing experience. And we're really studying that. And this beautiful band that was designed by a Kimberly died is a fabulous, fabulous way to find that communication. And once, once you found the communication, remember awareness is a motor act. So one of my beautiful mentors, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, has said awareness is a motor act. So what does that mean?

That means that once you've woken something up, it's a wake. So we're waking up and getting in touch with what is it to have our deep intelligence move us. So here we go. I'm my hands. Our hands are going to be in the band, just gently releasing out like this. So you're making contact with the band. I could use a smaller band. This was a tall band, so it takes my hands a little wider. You just see what feels good to your shoulders, and that's what we're going to be listening to the whole time as we're, as we're doing our med class, we're not here only doing it one way.

We're actually looking at how does my body, what is my body asking for right now? How do I find the release of my shoulderblades into gravity as I press into the band just enough? What's just enough to allow the waterfall of my shoulder blades down the back? And how does that down the back meet the internal lift up the front on the exhale. How does that create a whole new awareness of a new powerhouse, a way of thinking, of the powerhouse from a natural perspective and natural breath perspective.

So as we press very, very lightly in the band, just begin to follow a spiral that feels good to your body. As you press down into one foot, you roll over onto the other foot. And how does that begin to allow your arms to move can from a connection to your feet? How does your foot connect to your head? How does your hand connect to your foot? Feel how your arms can float up as your shoulder blades release down. What does the side then feel like?

How does releasing into your feet and then straightening your legs without tightening your knees? How does that create more shoulder blade to deep belly support? As you go to the side, see, feel how, let's say if you go to one side, lift the heel on the opposite foot and now feel that the heel comes up. Now keep that release to that side and just lower your heel. Notice how you get fascially released because everything is connected to everything else and the muscles are supporting, are supported by all of your Fascia. Beautiful.

Now put the band behind your head and just let your head relax into the band. Feel how releasing into the band and begin to sit down and just let your head relax back. Let your head relax back. Let your feet open. As you sit, you're only going to go to where you can feel the lift balanced by the down. So how do we open up our knees? How to knees open as we sit? Beautiful. Yeah. And feel how you've got lift happening.

Now I'm going to have you partner for a moment. So now you're going to put the band, just a bout two people in one band. So put one band down and you going to stand on a mat here or there and just put one band around your hips. Yeah. Good. And you're going to stand right just on a mat like this. Yeah. So come right there. That's it.

Good. Yeah. And come around this way right here. So one person here, one person there. Now what you're doing is you're backing away from one another. Walk back, walk back, walk back and feel how that wakes up your core support. Internal core. Yes.

Now imagine that you're sliding down the back wall. As you bend your knees, keep your back moving backwards and the only go to where you can feel. Lift through your inner ear as you sit down and then press down through your feet and come up. So what you're doing is you're opening up your knees, you're waking up your inner thighs. How do you find the squat? How do you find the lift of the inner thigh as you sit down? How does your chest stay open?

How does your back stay open as you sit down? Right? That's it. Beautiful. Yes. Isn't that amazing? It's a wonderful feeling, right? As you stand up, can you stand up without locking your knees? How can your shoulder blade to deep belly stand you up?

How can you waterfall down the back and your internal lift up the front? Yes. And feel how that opens up everything. Yes. Talking to do it one more time. Just really feel that down the back shoulder blade. Sit Bone tailbone into the tripod of the foot up the front inner ankle, inner thigh, internal belly along the front of the spine to the inner ear up.

Beautiful. Now come back and get your own band. It was fabulous. Good. And now you're going to sit down on your mat. Put your feet in the band. Okay. Put your shoulders in the band and once again, allow your elbows to release out to the side.

Elbows out to the side like this, right? Except have your hands in the band right now. As you press out, relax your waterfall down your back and just make contact. What's just enough contact that allows you to press out. You feel it. There you go, right Candace and have, make sure it's over both shoulders. There you go. And then as you begin to curl, you're allowing your tail to release. As you press out, press out into the band. What's just enough periphery? How can you press out as you curl?

How can you press out as you curl? Widen your feet. Take your feet really wide, right? Keep opening up your feet. Yes. See how you create any more space in your body. That's it. Good. Yeah. And make sure the band stays over the front of your shoulder. So you're just kind of discovering right how it feels to you. That's it.

Right? So notice how it eases you all the way down. Beautiful. That's it. Now lying here, press out. Press out into the band. Feel the waterfall down your back. Lift your head. Yes. How do you feel? The down the back. Lift your head. Fabulous. That's it.

And keep feeling the down the back. Press out with your arms. Your arms are long in the band, right? Keep pressing out with your elbows. Now instead of popping up with your back, let your backdrop down and press out with your arms. Yes. And feel how that widens and opens up your back. See all the changes, the feeling of the rollout, because usually will often push, right?

But how do you press out with your arms and feel the release? So feel the waterfall down the back as you press out into the band. Keep allowing the shoulder widen your feet more. Press out even more. Keep opening them up wider than hip width. Go wide or the hip width. Yes. Go wide. Yes. And notice how that opens up your back.

How that opens up your hips. That's it. Good. Good. And press out as you inhale. Exhale, waterfall down. The back floats your head. Then allow your inhale there. Press out and round your spine, round your spine. Feel the widening and opening as you curl.

That's it. Yes. Very, very good. Good. Yeah. And now from here, put the band behind your back. Lie Back Down, depending upon how long you, how much tension you have. Can you do a rollover? So I have a long band, so I wrapped it around my feet so I have more support into my back as I'm pressing down. So the feeling is as you reach down with your arms, take your legs over so your arms are on the outside, pressing down into the mat. And as you press down, begin to take your legs over and reach into the band. Feel how reaching into the band gives, you know, widen your seat, really open up, open up, and then roll back down. Yeah.

So just feel how good, yes. No. Right there. Yes. Beautiful. And I reached down with your arms down with your arms. That was great. Good. And I keep pressing out as you roll down and feel how that gives you more support. Yeah. Press out. Keep pressing out. Excellent. Excellent. That's it. The periphery gives you the midline. So you want to feel that. That's it. That's it.

Feel that you get the support. Yeah. Let's just do one, wrap it around. [inaudible] there you go. It's funny to kind of feel it at first and then you'll get a feeling for, there you go. You see how you get that feeling there and then you press down. It's beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. You know, it's just, it's, it's really, there's no one way to do it cause y'all, we'll play around with lots of different ways of doing it. You'll feel how, uh, lots and lots of ways of wrapping the band in different ways that communicates with your body.

But notice the big thing we have happening here is breath into your back. How does breath into your back? Allow your ribs, ribs to relax. Allow your chest to relax. How does that give you more? Press down into your arms. You see, you get more upper core, more upper core support, allowing you to go over. Good. Now stay back down. Keep one leg, one leg in the band. Put the other one down on the ground.

Stand on that da-dum foot. Yes. So one foot stays in the band, the other one goes straight down for single leg circles. Keep that right. Keep the breath into your back. It's beautiful. That's it. Perfect. Excellent. Right? Yeah. And you could either do it like canvas has here with a foot in wide into the band, or you can do it where we've opened it up and, and, and um, made more of a stimulation through the, uh, the dome of the foot. See how that opens up the dome of your foot. So from here, take your leg, your right leg over, just enough to look to the right.

Taking the right leg over to the left. As you look right. Go ahead and look to the right. Yeah. Oh yeah, I didn't say which foot. So that way you can do your leg circles in the same direction. Yes.

Good. And what's beautiful about this is you really have a very playful way of being with your body. So it's all about exploration. And then come back to center and now allow your legs to go out in the other direction. But feel your ribs relaxing down. Only let your leg go where you can still relax your shoulder, relax your hip and don't let the leg that's going to the side pull you off mat. You see, cause the whole idea is to calve connection rather than overstretching.

I used to do that all the time. I used to overstretch all the time and it did not help my body at all. So how do you communicate and how do you find balance with your body? Now from here, come back to center. Hold the band again, right around your low belly. So hold it low so you can feel the waterfall down your back.

And your shoulder blades. And then from there, inhale the leg across your body. Circle around. Exhale, back to center, right. Inhale over around and exhale back to center. So what you're doing is you're having your upper body work with your lower body to create shoulder blade to deep belly. How does your breath bring the leg back to center?

Inhale over around. Exhale back to center, then go the other way over, around and back to center. That's right. Down, over and back to center. Yes. Down, over and back to center and around and beautiful. Let's do the other side. That's great. So you're really, you're really in that place of what is, how does my leg get connected with the front of my spine? How does your leg, the back of your leg get internally supported with the front of your spine?

So from there, hold the band for just a moment. Hold it where you can feel the waterfall down the back and have the elbows. Inhale. Soften your knee. Feel your heavy hip. Exhale, straighten your leg without tightening your knee. Inhale, soften your knee. Feel your heavy hip. Exhale, straighten with a soft knee. How do you get connected from the back of your leg to the front of your spine? That's what will give you teaser, that feeling.

So from here, then just circle your leg around. Inhale, exhale, back to center. Inhale across the body. Exhale back to center. Inhale, exhale over around, and reverse down, over and back to center. Inhale, exhale. How does your leg get light? How does it get connected to your spine?

Down and back to center. And then this one, take it across. Just feel it over days across your body. Look in the other direction so you can feel your shoulder dropping down. You're not rolling off the mat. And then come back to center. Fill your hips and allow your leg to go out to the side without pulling your spine off the bat. Feel that heavy, heavy, heavy hips, and then come back to center and come up to sitting.

As you come up to sitting, put your hand, your spout, your a band underneath your feet. Now this is going to be rolling like a ball. So the the setup here is going to be pulling both ends over your knees. Thank you. Great. Yeah, that's it. So bring your feet close to you, like rolling like a ball. Bring them really close, really close, and then bring them. Bring the ball.

But the band is high towards your hips as possible because the whole idea with this configuration is to feel the down and up. And how does that lift your feet? You see that that's very different than just your hip flexors and your belly doing it. How do you have your whole body float your legs? Keep that. Now feel the reach away. Send the ball of your big toe.

Remember the ball of your big toe is related to your midline lift. So if you're not reaching, if the ball of your big toe is lifted and not reaching, then you're not getting lift. You have to work too hard for it. So from there, inhale to roll back. Exhale up to balance. So play with that. Play with the inhale. Take it back. Hips lift X. Hell right. Keep asking.

How do you find your shoulder blade to deep belly? Find that internal support. Good. Good. That's right. He goes together. So feel the waterfall down the back and the internal lift up the front. Yes. Gorgeous. Last one. And very, very good. Yes. And now stay up.

And now just straighten your legs. As you hold close to your feet. Hold the band close to your feet as you straighten your legs. Point and flex. Play with that circle low along the law. Go out to the side and come center and out and center and out and center.

Beautiful. Yeah. And now open out and open leg rocker it pale. Exhale. Now how does you, how do you reach out as you roll? Feel the reach. Yeah. Beautiful. That's it. Good.

Yes. And then stay up. Good. Now take your legs out in front of you. Bring the band around your feet and around your shoulders again and actually take it behind your back. Wide behind your back. And I'm see on my band is a little long, so I'm going to wrap it again around my feet so that it's not so it gives me a little more resistance because the feeling you want to have is lift. So you want to feel that you've really got the feeling that you had when you were squatting in the band, right? How do you get the breath into your back?

See as you begin to allow your inhale as you allow your inhale, instead of taking an inhale, right and arching, how do I let my tail be heavy and just allow the inhale into your back. Feel how good that feels. Just allow your back to breeze and feel your tail heavy. Feel your sit bones heavy. Feel your feet opening right. Reach forward, spine stretch. Inhale, lift up, exhale and [inaudible] five over and then reach through your feet. Feel your hips heavy, sit bones heavy and come up. Come back up. Inhale, lift up, breath into your back, exhale as you go over and then inhale breath into your back.

Feel your back opening and why? Evening as you come up. Exhale and dive over. Create spates good. And then come back up. Arms out to the side saw, right.

Inhale, lift up, twist, exhale, and reach. Press your leg against your hand, your foot against your hand, your hand against your foot and reach back with your back hand with your palm to the ceiling. Feel your shoulder dropping down as you dive forward. And then pull back to come up. Inhale, lift, tall, twist. Exhale and dive Olver and then pull back to come up. Inhale up, twist.

Exhale over. Reach your arms away from one another, right. Feel that shoulder blade to deep belly. Inhale, lift up tall. Exhale oh over. And then coming up.

Bend your knees right now we're going to play with an interesting way and you actually may need, I think y'all will be fine. Um, Candace, you might need a bigger band, a [inaudible] tall band. This is what we're going to do. So you use different size of bands sometimes, but this is a way that I like to play with the swan seed in the ban reaching through my seat. So your, your, you're doing this with your fingers, your thumbs are holding the band like this and then you're just resting your head. But I'm really getting a feeling of, see my feet. Look at the how I've put my feet in the band so I can, yeah, you can even feel it with your whole foot in the band to see what that feels like for you. And then you look up and as you look up, feel the waterfall down the back.

Spiral your elbow under your shoulders. How do you feel? The energy through your feet? Yes. Reach back through your heels as you reach back through your heels. Notice how that brings your hips forward. Your hips come into the mat. Allow your hips to relax into the mat. Relax your back, relax your tail.

Inhale there. Exhale and release down. And again, look up. As you look up, feel your tail. Relax down. Allow your elbows to spiral under your shoulders. Feel the waterfall down the back. Meet the internal, lift up the front. Allow your inhale there and release down.

And then lie on your side. When you go into sidekicks. So from here, put it over your left shoulder and around your right foot. So it's opposite. So the feeling you want here is how can the sense of arm, hip, foot create internal support.

As I look around standing on that foot, just look behind you in front of you. Above you, you're looking around and notice how having that foot reaching long into the band is creating deep connection inside. That's it. Yes. And then from there, just float the like up and down. Now at the same time, allow the bottom leg to release down. As you lift the top leg, feel the down. Create the up.

Can you see how that creates more buoyancy across your pelvis? The down of the lower leg creates lift down, creates lift. Very good. This time. Feel the lift, keeping the hip long and then leg goes forward. As you breathe into your back, exhale as you leg goes back, feel that shoulder blade to deep belly. Inhale as you leg those forward. Exhale yes. Feel hard down the back.

Up the front is supporting your leg moving. Very good. Yeah. How does your hip release down? And long as your leg goes forward. Good. Now lie down on the mat and seal the lift. Remember field, lift up.

How do you stay lifted right now? Reach that bottom like long and bring your top leg forward slightly and point out to come up. Flex out and down. Point and flex and point and flex. And last one. Good. Now reverse flex up and reach away.

How do you keep your hip long as you move your leg so you're not hiking your top hip. And then you bring your leg back in line with your body. Feel your foot to head and do tiny circles reaching through your heel like you're polishing a mirror. So you're supporting all of deep muscles around your pelvis and then go the other way. Reaching through your heel. Beautiful. Good. Then release down and let you let go forward and let your body go back in a spiral.

Hmm. Ah, lovely. Allow the breath into your back and then coming up to sitting. Change sides. So all you do is this. You move it across to that shoulder and over to the other foot. Okay.

So first we're up on the forearm. Feel how each side feels unique, right? So first we want to keep the hip, keep our hips long as we lift and lower. So you notice how can you stay long in your hip? As your foot comes up and down, it's very easy to hike your hip up, lift and lower. And how does the lower leg release down as his hip lifts?

As this leg lifts, feel the weight of that bottom leg supporting the lift of this leg. This time the hip stays, the leg stays hip height and we take it forward and back. Inhale as it goes forward. Exhale as it goes back. Inhale, feel the breath into your back. Exhale. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale, and last one.

And then laying down. Feel the support. Feel the lift up, shoulder blade to deep belly. And then from there your leg goes forward. Straighten your bottom leg and point out to come up, flex out and down. Point out and up and reach away.

Point up and reverse flex and point. Flex and point last one. And then reach it long in line with your head. Tiny circles reaching through your heel. How can your neck feel soft? How can you feel? Shoulder blade, two deep belly, circling your leg and go the other way. Good way to test it is can you move your head?

So then you see, wow, I'm, I'm more connected, not in my neck. Beautiful. Now your leg goes forward and your body goes back in the spiral and then come back to center. Right? So now we're going to experiment with putting the band around our heads and our feet. So when you put the band in your head, you're theater hip with the part, you're lying down and you're just going to send. So we've got to do teaser. But what you're doing is you're sending your legs away from you just enough to reach into the band and create lift. So I need to actually shorten my band cause it's a little too little loose for me.

So see what tension you have that allows you to feel the reaching of the band. Now let your head release into the band as you come up and notice how amazing that is. Notice how as you open up. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. Very good. Very good. Yeah. You playing with attention.

That gives you the support to feel your back opening. How can your back feel open? Beautiful. That's it. Yes. Yes. That's it. Feel your back opening. Fabulous. That's it. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Not Amazing. Yeah. That's it. Beautiful. Yeah.

Yes. Wonderful. Wonderful. Isn't that playful and beautiful? Yeah. No, you can only see their huge smiles. Oh, the teaser, which is usually like, oh my God. No. You know, it becomes like [inaudible]. Woo. So playful. Yes. Universal.

Yeah. So from that, now stay down for a moment. Lie Down on the Mat and have the same sensation with hundreds. So stay on the Mat and just allow your head to release into the band as you curl. Just to that place where you can feel the waterfall of your shoulder blades down your back and gently pump your arms from that place. Can your chest widen?

Can your arms feel heavy so your hands are not pumping wildly, your shoulder blades are releasing down, and you're just feeling the waterfall down the back. Let your neck relax. Look gently at your knees. Yeah. Feel the back of your leg, right? Yes, yes, yes. That's it. Keep releasing into the band with your head. Allow your head to release back.

Allow your back to open to breath. Feel the shoulder blade to deep belly moving you gorgeous. Yes. And then bend your knees and come back down. Fabulous is gorgeous. Yeah. All right. And now from there, just put the band around one foot and over the other shoulder.

So you'll see what tension you need from here, whether that I might even want a little bit more. Give me more. So let's say, yeah, you could. Either foot is fine, so it's opposite shoulder to opposite foot, right? So whichever foot is in the band, put the other foot on top of it for boomerang right now, you're going to check it out and see, do I have enough tension? Because if you do, the lower leg lifts the upper leg. As you go over. Now, don't change the cross.

Just keep your legs like that and come forward and lift for teaser right now. Keep the lift of your legs as you sweep your arms around and keep lifting your legs up as you release down. Right? And then reach your arms forward and right and I need more tension. And again, so see if did that tension worked for you or did you want to wrap it around one more time? Cause the feeling you want is you want to feel like as soon as you start to tip back, Bam, your leg comes up, your, your, what you're doing is you're playing with the deep midline support to lift your leg, right? And you want to feel, what is that? What's the tipping point?

What is the lift that happens that takes your legs over, keep the legs the same way, come forward, reached gently into the band and teaser and then from there, open sweep back. Keep lifting your legs up as you go down and then reach forward. And that was fabulous. Y'All now change legs. Good attention. Isn't that amazing? Yeah. See what do you do? Your, that was so gorgeous what you just said because it is all about communication. You see, it's all about what's just enough with just enough tension that allows your body to go. That's it. That's what I need.

Awareness is a motor act. Remember? So we're, we're, we're, we're waking up what we need, we're waking up that internal support. Yeah. There you go. [inaudible] good. Now from there, press down. Use your internal support. Reach down to lift your legs up, legs go over. And then as you come forward, reach into the band, open teaser rowings and reach back as you come forward, right? Yes. And again, press down, lift your leg up and take it over.

And then as your legs come forward for Teaser, feel the reach back and down and lift, and then sweep around. Lift up and release down. Yes. Fabulous. Alright. Yeah. Good. And now take the band off and come up to standing.

You're going to stand in the band and put the band around your shoulders. It's come up to standing. So this is looks, this is how we did for roll up. Once again, your elbows are facing out. The outer border of your hand is gently released. Right? Good. Soften your knees.

Just enough to feel your inhale. Relax your knees, let your tail be heavy. Feel your feet opening. Exhale as you straighten your arms and legs with [inaudible]. [inaudible] without gripping your knees. Inhale, exhale, shoulder blade to deep belly, right? Feel how that straightens your legs.

And how does your leg get connected to your shoulder blade to belly rather than tightening your knees. Inhale, soften. Exhale, waterfall down the back. Internal. Lift up the front. One more. Inhale X. Hey, yeah, beautiful. And now wait, shift over. Let's go to left leg. Right leg.

Just kind of feel what is it that allows you. So as you go to, let's see here, you'll go to the left leg and you'll look right and then you weight shift to your right leg and you'll look left. Feel how the waterfall down the back frees up your neck weight shift and look to the side. And then weight shift and look to the side and then come back to center. And then just look up. And as you look up, feel the waterfall down the back.

As you look up, lift your chin to the ceiling. Feel how that's a huge release along the top of your chest. Keep lifting your chin to the ceiling as your shoulder blades waterfall down, and then just drop your Chin and look forward. And now keep the waterfall down the back as you look down and notice how you're really communicating with all of your deep neck muscles, and then come back to center and then just pop the band off, I feel, Ooh, beautiful. Bravo. Thank you.