Centering Mat Flow

Hi, I'm Diane Diffenderfer. This is geo. And this is Laura. We're going to do a at class today. We're going to focus on some of the fundamentals of the [inaudible] work on correct breath on spinal alignment, on core conditioning, on good pelvic stability. We're gonna do some stretching as well, and we'll go into some traditional PyLadies mat exercises. First, I want to take a moment just in our standing posture before we go down to our mat to bring our legs together to find our foot centers, to bring our inner thighs together to feel strong and tall, rooted to the floor. We're going to put our hands on our rib cage here with our elbows open. And we're going to take a deep breath in through the nose.

Yeah. And a full exhalation out the mouth. Closing the ribs empty in the lungs. Good. And we're going to do that again, remembering that our go ahead. Exhale. Remembering that our ribs are rounded, our lungs are rounded, we breathe side. Exhale closing, certainly involving the abdominals. So we exhale and we also breathe into our backs. Exhale. Good. And like gas, right.

And then let's put our right hand on front of our bellies and our other hand palm behind our sacrum just to remind ourselves that we need to do that wonderful Q navel to spine as well as pubic bone to sacrum. So we'll take another breath filling the lungs. As we exhale, we pull the front hand to the back hand so we feel flat and connected. Change hands. Inhale. Exhale, pressing belly button to spine, pubic bone. Just say crumb first side. Inhale and exhale.

Good. Then finally the other side, and exhale and I'll just read our, bring our arms down to our sides. Good. Alright, great. So let's come to the ends of your mats and go ahead and roll down and then police one leg behind and go ahead to your mat. Carefully. Good and great. All right, we'll go ahead and roll down to our starting position. Open the feet to about hip with the part, not too close to the buttocks, not too far away. It's kind of a personal choice.

We have our toes spread. We want to make sure we're not pronating or stupid nading. We have our knees in line with our feet, our thighs in line with our knees. Hips are flat. We have that neutral posture from the pubic bone to the belly button and to the hips. So we want to think of this as a nice like a seatbelt band.

Pressing down spine is our neck is lengthen, so we're not tucking, nor arching. The arms are long by our sides and in this position we'll breathe again. Exhaling, pulling the abdominals inward, closing the ribs, sinking into our mats, inhaling again and exhaling. The shoulders are down and inhaling again fully exhaling all the air connecting front to back like we did when we were standing. Next, we'll do some pelvic tilts. Breathe in first. [inaudible] as we exhale, we engage just the belly and tilt the pelvis.

Let's keep the glutes soft. We inhale, we release to a neutral pelvis [inaudible] and again we think of our breath, our low Belize and we scoop and roll the spine. Once more. Inhale to a neutral pelvis and exhale, connecting that low, deep belly. We go to neutral again. Inhaling. Now. Let's do the Tuck, but this time go ahead. Use the belly. Use the inner thighs. Use The glutes, engage the pelvic floor. Release to neutral. Inhale [inaudible] again. Exhale, breath, low belly, inner thighs, pelvic floor. Well, different feeling in earlier.

Once more. Inhale neutral pelvis and exhale, scoop. Deepen the waist. So we're now in an intentional pelvic tilt. Return to the neutral pelvis. Inhaling and stay anchored.

Exhaling long through the back will reach the right arm back. [inaudible] not impressed at forward. Sure. In the left arm back, we just want to get some stretch and some awareness into the arms. Forward both arms back. Hmm. Both arms forward, pressing through space, left arm, reaching back and forward. Push down on something. Imagine something heavy, right arm back and press forward both arms.

Inhale. Now we're going to bring the arms, the head, the neck, and peel up into an abdominal contraction. Keep the pelvis neutral. Don't Tuck [inaudible]. Exhale forward. Use the breath. Use the belly and peel for word. I'm thinking of reaching way beyond my. Again, start with the breath. Engage the belly. Peel. Press through space. Feel your shoulder blade muscles engaged. One more time, then we'll stay up.

Exhale forward. Remember not to Tuck the pelvis and we'll do our little mini pulses into use. Your arms are long, taut. Reaching the head is easy. Up over the chest.

Your focus is pretty much between your knees. Your pelvis isn't talked, it's neutral. Yeah, last set. And uh, not just got us going a little bit. Bring the knees in, take them and stretch back. Lengthen your neck. Okay, good. All right. Well bring the knees close together. Flex the feet. The heels are relatively close to the bottom. The arms are by the sides.

Our spines are long. We're going to inhale here. Slowly. Exhale and lower the heels. Keeping that strong. Center back, flat. Pelvis neutral. Back up and down. It's a subtle exercise. Try to keep the shoulders and neck. Relax. Inhale up. Exhale. I'm gonna go down and stay there.

Hovering the mat. Inhale there. Exhale, draw the knees up so we reverse our breathing. Inhale lower, keeping the back connected to the mat. Exhale, deepen the waist. Sure. And the last time, exhale, draw that belly. And God. Let's take the right knee for a stretch. Stretch the left leg out.

You can look up for a moment. Make sure your left leg is in line with the hip, and just put the head down and stretch here. Inhale and exhale. [inaudible] keep your name with your left hand. You may put your arm out to the floor or on your mat. Take the leg across. Inhaling and exhaling just for a little stretch. Certainly be careful if you've had some hip issues.

We'll come back to the center, turn the leg out, let that thigh open and completely relax. So you stretch the groin in the inner thigh on the right side. Well, bring the legs up as they are and do our little figure four stretch breathing in and out. [inaudible] this feels good and we'll change sides. Hugged the left, stretch the right and make sure that leg is in good alignment. Pull the belly in, pull the knee into the chest, soften the ribs, shoulders down. Keep the knee with the right hand.

Open the left arm to the side and start slowly, gradually taking the knee across the center. Yeah, you can push your knee against your hand and your hand against your knee for a nice stretch. Come back using your belly to return. Let the leg open, drift open. Try not to sickle your foot just for awareness of where your feet are. Yeah, and then legs up and stretching here.

Sure. All right, so these are not traditional plots, these exercises, but they should feel good on the back and the hips. All right, let's go to table top everybody. So I'd like to have the knees together like you're holding a piece of paper between the knees and the ankles. Try to find a good tabletop. Arms are down by your sides. We're going to do a little ab series here. So holding the abdominals, we take the arms back and we peel up [inaudible] deep and even the way, and we reached back control on the back and forward. Reaching a long [inaudible] good and back. Inhale.

Forward is deliberately slow. Once more, try to keep the legs still. If you're uncomfortable, you can turn them out. Exhale forward. We're going to stay reaching devil. Pay The legs. Ben, the knees should reach deeper and lie back. Exhale, forward reaching ribs in, belly down, and breathe into your back. Seer. Exhale, crunch a little deeper. Reach a little deeper again, lengthen that chin out over the chess. Stand up.

Bend and reach. Once more, come up and devil a. Pay the leg straight away and hold. We lower the right leg. Inhale, pick it up. Exhale, left leg. Inhale, the pelvis is still exhale. Right leg. You can watch where it is in line. Pull it up. Exhale, left leg. Bend the knees. Reach deeper. Oh, I bet we come up again and double pay.

Flex the seat. Shin the left leg down. Pull it up deep in the waist and the right leg down. Reach out through that heel. Left leg. Now we doing their right leg and pull up with the valley. Point the feet. Bend the knees.

We're not quite done. We'll take our heads and lie back. Exhale up and devil pay. Stay in there. Inhale, lower the left. Bend and twist to the right. Center a, there's side. Your flexibility isn't great. You can come to 45 [inaudible] legs up. Bend the knees and reach a little deeper.

We should be filling our bellies by now. Lie Back. Inhale. Exhale forward. Legs off. Flex the feet. Inhale here, left. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] last one. Legs Up. Bend, Shan, take your knees. Woo. Rest but the feet down. Okay. We feel that. Yeah. All right. Turn the legs just for a moment.

Turn out kind of a butterfly pose cause we'd been holding our inner thighs together. So we're just gonna stretch a little bit here. Try not to go crazy and arch the back at. Nor do you want to Tuck. So just relax for a moment. We don't want to stay there forever. And then bring the legs back to center and we're going to take our theraband and do some stretches. Good. Alright, so we have blue ones. It doesn't really matter what color that you like to use, but we've got blue and let's go ahead and roll back down. Once again, we'll keep our left leg bent, we'll put the right leg in the band.

It's up to you. If you want to do foot over the toes. Sometimes the band will roll around, but do what's comfortable for you. We have the leg extended, the hips are square, the pelvis is doing a troll. We're going to rest a little bit as we stretch, but I want to just remind you all to still be aware of your abdominals. So though we're not doing, you know, more curls and so on.

We still want to have that awareness of navel to spine in the back, supported on your mat. Pull the band taught so your elbows are, your shoulders are down, your pectoral muscles are engaged and isolate. Your neck is long. Everything's, there's an awareness of the whole body. Let's point the right foot. Inhaling, full exit. Exhaling, push the heel through the ceiling. Point the foot. No, I'm flexible and pointed.

Okay, and flex it. Lengthening always through the leg. One more time. Point the foot and flex and keep it and I sleep flexed. You can watch your own alignment. Bend the knees slightly and stretch the leg. I'm not saying straighten the Nan, I'm saying stretch any long gait.

Bend the knee and stretch two more. You can see that your knee is in line. It's not crooked. One more bend and stretch and hole. Lower that straight leg down. Keep the pelvis still and up and down. And uh, you engage your belly as you lower and release the hamstring. And one more.

So we did four of each and op and hold. Let's slide the left leg out. Check where it is. Make sure you're square. We point both feet, we flex both feet, we lower the top one to meet the other and develop it in and up. Point both feet and flex both feet lower down and develop it up. Go ahead and put in your bottom foot. Put your bands in your left hand.

You can hold your mat and take your legs slightly across the midline. She's kind of a wonderful, almost painful stretch. Take care of you. Don't go too far. And then change hands. Watch the band that you don't let it loose over your face and you can take the leg open to where you can manage. Try to not roll.

I'll roll off the table here. Try not to roll off of your standing side. So we get a nice open stretch for the inner thigh and we'll carefully come back. We have to do the other side so we're even, all right, so we have our right leg bent in alignment. Our hips are square, our pelvis is down, our shoulders are down and our left leg is lengthened up. We point that foot and we flex it and we point and we flax again four times and flex. So you work the foot, really work through it, make it articulate and flex. Flex, flex like you mean it. Flex. Bend a knee and stretch the leg and then two more hip down, heel up, one more and lengthen.

And we reached through the ceiling, down and up. Straight leg hinge in the hip. Three more. Keep holding your low belly, especially those of you that may have clicking hips. You want to have a strong lower abdominal area to help avoid that one more. And we come up and we hold, we slide the right leg out, making sure it's in alignment. We point both feet. We flex both feet, we lower that leg down, we draw it in and stretch.

We point both feet and we flex both feet. We lower reach out of the hip and pull it up and hold. We point our bottom foot. We put our bands in our right hand. Keep our left hip down and we take the leg across the midline. Change hands carefully. Other side opening.

You're on the floor. You're just going to reach that arm out to the side and then we'll regroup. Good. I will just casually put our bands out of the way and there we go. Alright, we're good. Let's bring our knees into our chest. Sometimes I deliberately like to go ahead and try it round your back so you've got a little stretch in the low back. If that feels good to your back. If not, don't do it. Then we come back to a neutral pelvis, so our sacrum is bolted into our mats and we're going to go into our traditional hundreds with five breaths fully in for five out for five, 10 times. Here we go. Up and down and continually reaching long through the fingers. That's set. [inaudible] take your legs where you can [inaudible] [inaudible] keep the reach. Yes.

[inaudible] and rust. Good. That always gets us warmed up. Gets the blood flowing. Bring the feet to the mat and adjust yourself so you're on your mat. Completely. Lengthen the legs out. Bring the inner thighs together. We're going to do a combination of pointed and flexed fate, so for now we'll start with point long energy through the toes, long through the legs, through the hips, through the body.

Reach the arms back over head. We're going to the roll up. Make sure in this ready position that you're in charge of your body. You're not flaring the ribs. Reach the fingers out. Pull the ribs down. We bring the arms to the ceiling and we roll up. [inaudible] hovering over the hips. We flex the fee [inaudible] and we rolled down pushing through the heels. Vertebra by Vertebra, by Vertebra point as we lengthen.

Arms won strong pecs too. [inaudible] hollow belly feet three roll down. Push through your heels. Keep reaching vertebra by Vertebra. Arms Up. One, come up through your arms to go a little further forward. Stay rounded though. Flex three and roll down. Push through the heels. Keep the inner thighs together.

You'd go back, but you reach forward. Last time. Arms. Inhale. Exhale, flex. [inaudible] we're going down in four. Start Rolling and hold. Breathe in. Little farther. Hold. Inhale, exhale. Inhale.

Exhale. Circle the arms. Hug the knees to the chest. Good, and I'm going to move down a little bit. Alright, we're back to our center. Make sure the neck is long. Shoulders are down. We're going to do our rollover, so bring your arms to your mat. Use your arms into the mat correctly. Pressing down nicely in the shoulders, in the palms. Devil of Hay, the legs to perpendicular. We begin back.

Inhale and exhale. Yeah, open. Start your descent and roll carefully. Vertebra by Vertebra. Anchor the pelvis, lower the eggs. We're taking a breath in and out, in and out. To come down Vertebra by Vertebra, by Vertebra. Again, legs glued together. Use the belly to tip the pelvis.

Open carefully and roll. Reach out through the toes. Reverse open, not too wide. Inhale, exhale over, close the legs tightly. Start Rolling. Lengthen. Reach the toes up and over. And again, open [inaudible] clothes and [inaudible]. Anchor the belly. Anchor the pelvis. Last time. Feet flexed. Reach back. Try not to drop the legs. Ever.

Bring them together and roll. Let's slower to 45 then the knees and breast. Good. [inaudible] how are we doing ladies? Good. Okay, good. Alright, so adjust yourselves on your mat or I will anyway, so we have the full mat length. We're going to go into our legs circles. So take a moment, put your hands on your pelvis. This exercise for me is all about pelvic stability, not so much about the leg.

So we want to really feel that low band across the belly, connected pubic bone to say crumb, navel to spine. And then once you know those hipbones are facing the ceiling equally, we'll put our palms down. We've stretched our hamstrings so we can take our legs quite up high, as long as we're not, uh, all over the place in the pelvis. So let's go ahead and double pay the right leg up and circle around, crossing up. And to center.

Make sure you find center for other way. [inaudible] last time and hold. Lower it down with control. Develop the left leg. Inhale and go all around. Hit the top and two and up and three and up and for reverse. [inaudible] all around. Pause two more and up.

One more and up. Let's bend both knees to the chest and rest. We're going to do what I learned. Uh, Joe Pilati is called the vacation special. So we do this when we're on vacation or actually we can do it every day and stay in good shape and tone and breath, the whole thing. All right ladies, let's take our right knee. We could lead with the other, but we're going to take the right knee, left hand on knee, right hand on ankle. We want to be precise with our movements. Elbows to the side, good form. We'll take a deep breath in, coming up into position, mindful of where the whole body is and we begin here and switch [inaudible] lengthening, reaching. It is called single leg stretch. After all, [inaudible] last set and straight pull.

Pull [inaudible] thank where you put the bottom leg. [inaudible] pelvis anchored. [inaudible] last set and then double leg stretch. Reach and pull. Reach long and Oh two more.

Keep the head up and over. One more long through the toes and fingers and holding the head. Legs up and down. [inaudible] and up. We could reverse the breathing on this. I've chosen this way today.

[inaudible] one more and hold coro crossover. One, two. Good. Remember to stretch the leg. Don't make it punchy. Yeah. Last set.

[inaudible] and rest. Good. Let's hug our knees to roll back and roll up. Good. Okay. We'll do our spine stretch so your girls can go a little bit wider if you like. I'm just to the edge of the mat.

We're going to take our hands to the mat in front of us. Stack the spine. Try not to Slouch, trying not to arch, which we liked to do, but we shouldn't. So we pull our ribs in, pull our bellies up and in. Lengthen through the top of the head. We'll start with pointed feet. Inhaling, growing taller and then flexing, using the belly to return vertebra by Vertebra. By Vertebra, by Vertebra, and head, neck, upper back, middle back, lower, middle, back, lower back, reverse, low, middle through the spine. Long breath. Sure.

[inaudible] so you're out of air. At the peak of your travel and the inhalation lifts, you lifts, you, lifts you. Take the arms out to the side, turn the palms up and down and up and down. Up and down and up. Keep the arms, flex the feet salt, the right [inaudible] Lyft center and to the left [inaudible]. Let's spiral the back arm and the whole body, including the neck lifts. [inaudible] and rotate over and rotate before you go forward and add one more each side and handover ten-ish up beautifully. Good, and we'll swing ourselves around. She'll, we're on our stomachs.

Let's have the hands near our airline. Forehead down. You may have your legs slightly apart if you need to. Just not too wide. Take a moment. Feel the bony landmarks of your body against your mat, your forehead, your ribs, elbows, palms, pubic, bone, knees, tops of the feet. As we inhale, we're going to strengthen the legs, tightening the legs, tightening the buttocks. As we exhale, we're going to start to lengthen through the neck and up. As we inhale, we come to where we can lifting the belly. As we exhale, we pull that belly in to lower carefully. This is just our prep for this Wanda dive in helped prepare. Exhale, [inaudible].

Inhale, shoulders down. Exhale, belly button to spine. Going on. Prepare. Inhale, shoulders away from the years. Exhale, press, keep contact. We're doing swan dive one inhale and go up forward. Keep the arch of the back forward up one more forward up and come back and we'll sit back on the heels. I don't go very far. I have a knee replacement so I'm not going to go all the way down. [inaudible] and then we'll go forward once again to our prone position and the arms will extend in front of us for head down.

As you reached through your fingertips, make sure your shoulders aren't hiked up by your ears. We're going to lift the right arm in the left leg and the head slightly and hold. Feel the length, not the height and lower on the other side. Make sure you're not throwing the neck out of alignment and lower right arm left leg up and lower our other slide up and lower. Yeah. Everything up. Take your arms around to the side.

[inaudible] forward. [inaudible] two more like you're flying. You're hovering. One more [inaudible] arms forward. Push back once again onto your heels. Pull your belly in as you sit back. So no movement is without thought. Oh right. Well walk out again and we'll all lie on our left sides.

Good. We'll lie exactly on the side of her mat in one straight line, like a pencil. For the moment, have your palms down, shoulder down. Press away from your mat. So if you slouch for a moment, that's not good. Let's press away from it. Really lift through our side. We're going to stretch out the right leg and lift it and squeeze it again.

We have no circle. We have no band. We're using space and push and lower and push lower. Flex both feet. Push out through the heel. Squeeze the inner thighs out through the heel. Squeeze two more up and squeeze.

One more squeeze. Keep them flexed. Bring the legs forward. Lift the top leg to hip height for our regular sidekick. Not too high with the leg, and go forward. Forward, back, back. Inhale. The body is quiet. Forward and back and forward. Continue hand behind the head. Try not to move anything but the leg.

[inaudible] two more and one more and we'll hold to the back breech. Take the right arm and reach it forward and bring the legs together. Then the come on up. Hold onto your right knee or shin. Take your left arm up and bend over towards your legs. All right. Again, up one more.

Get a nice side stretch. Good. Alright. And we'll turn around. So you're now on your other side. Oh, continue facing this way. So start at the one side of your mat. One straight line. Reach out. Out. We want long muscles, strong muscles and push up and lower the neck is in line with the spine. So now as we look at our legs, we really should look front and lower and up. Flex the feet. Same thing. Remember, we don't have a band. We don't have a way. We don't have a circle. It's all good, but we're pushing against our own space.

Our bellies are still in and good. Bring the legs forward slightly up to hip height and sidekick. Forward and back. Flex and point. Stretch the hamstring, the hip, and again, land behind the head. Forward. Two more. One more. Hold to the back.

Reach out through the toes. Out The fingers. Go ahead and bring the legs together. Then the knees come on up. Take your front knee, right arm up and stretch. Left and center and again to the left. Good. [inaudible] all right, let's circle around so you all have your feet towards me and we'll finish soon. Do some rotational work. Sitting tall. Once again.

Legs nicely in front. Flex the feet like there's a wall here. Take the arms out to the side, press down. Remember not to arch, not to slouch long. We'll do our spine twist. Breathing in to the right. Glue the legs together. Okay. [inaudible] take a moment here. Get Air and left.

I remember you can't exhale unless you'd taken something in. [inaudible]. Inhale lifts you and last time, good center, point the feet and take the arm. So we'll go to the rowing. Hold something tight and contract.

[inaudible]. Stay rounded. Sit Tall as though you have the ropes on the reformer. Pull them back, pull the belly, stretch the hands back. Don't get disjointed. Circle the arms around if you'd like to head to the knees. Feels good. Belly in to come up and begin one contract too.

Yeah. Sit Tall. Three. Present the arms. Pull four. Stretch the hands back. Fine. Circle them around. We're still pulling the belly into the spine. We'll sit up and do one more big breath in.

Exhale, half of the air on the way back. You're still act. Exhaling as you come forward. Sit Up straight. Lengthen through your back. Nicely pull. Alright, hands back. Inhale. Circle the arms around. Yeah, and roll up to sitting. Good.

I'll have you gal circle around to your crouch position. You can put your head to the front and come back onto the souls of your feet. Good. Press your heels into your mat. I'll do this part with you. I just don't do the crouch. Soften your knees. Inhale, stretch the knees. Exhale, bend the knees. Inhale and straighten the knees. Exhale.

We'll leave the knees straight. Take four full breaths to come to standing. Eh, me too. [inaudible] and three shoulders down for God. No. Why don't you face each other. So we see ourselves as a group here. We'll reach down into the ground, fingertips down. We'll take a breath in.

One breath in, two parts. [inaudible] in three. Breathe into your backs. [inaudible] for the arms will be horizontal. [inaudible] five sex [inaudible] all the air out. Seven mandate. Cub.

[inaudible] one more. And turn the palms down. Good. Stand tall. Feel how beautiful your body is lifted. Strong, full of air. Thank you. [inaudible].