Explore Body Relationships

Hi, my name is dawn Marie Ikes and we are going to be doing a math class. We are going to explore some different relationships in the body between the thoracic spine and the pelvis. And we are also going to have some fun doing some challenging and maybe not so challenging exercises and seeing how different props in positions affect those on our body. So to get started, but I'd like to have everybody do is come up and step to the front of your mat. And let me ask as anybody had a total hip replacement or a total knee, does anyone have difficulty with deep bending of the knees or hips? Excellent.

So we are going to take a very traditional approach to coming down to our mats. Uh, before we do that and want everybody to just close their eyes, bring your awareness into your body. I want you to feel the bottom of your feet. Just make note not a correction of where you feel your weight. Do you feel more of your weight on the front of your feet, on the back of your feet, insides, outsides, wherever it may be.

Just observe it again, don't try to correct it. I want you to take a breath in with that connectedness. And as you exhale, I want you to just draw your awareness all the way up from the bottom of the feet through the top of the head. Before we get started, good. Go ahead and open your eyes without smacking your neighbor. Bring your arms to a t. There we go. And make adjustments if you need to. You're gonna Cross your right leg over your left and your hands in front of your body.

You're going to slowly lower yourself down to the mat in a five count four, three, two, one. Perfect. Bring your hands down so you're in a seated position and roll like about, no, I'm kidding. And Go ahead and place your feet where they are and extend your legs straight back so that your legs are straight. Good, good. And we're going to do just a couple of housekeeping items so that as we flow through the workout, you'll know what some of my reference terms are. And then as we ACU through. So from here, if this is a difficult position for you to get up tall on your sits bones, I'd like you to gently bend your knees just a little bit so that you can feel yourself up on the sitz bones and just take a mental note that when we do come into a seated position that you may be bending your knees just a little bit.

You could also have the opportunity to have them completely straight cause we've gotten them more flexible. But just be aware that in this seated position it's really important that you are sitting on those sitz bones. The next thing is I want to have you float your arms up to 90 degrees of shoulder flection. Good. And from here what you're going to do is you're going to reach your fingertips about an inch in front of you and then bring them back. Good. Let's do that a couple more times. Inhale, lengthen the out and exhale, bring them back on one more time.

Inhale and exhale, just bringing them back into that position and then glide the shoulder blades down the back and feel a small little connection to your belly. So this is the most optimal position I'd like you to be in anytime we have our arms elevated or off the ground. So you don't want to be reaching too far forward or popping your ribs and coming too far back and everybody looks great. So go ahead and put our hands by our sides. I'm gonna have you bend your knees now up towards your chest in this position and you're going to slowly roll yourself down the mat and then straighten both legs out.

Float the arms up towards the ceiling. Again, length in the fingertips and inch up. And now draw them back down into the mat. Notice how different this feels now that you have some input on the back of the mat from the floor. Two more times. Inhale the length and the fingertips and exhale. And one more time. Inhale, lengthen and exhale, plugging those arms in.

Keep your arms here as I'm talking to build your scapular endurance. Your palms can be facing each other or they can be facing your feet, whatever is most preferable to you. So figure out which position feels better. Bend your knees up. Good. And from here you're going to inhale to prepare.

You're going to act how you're going to use the ribs to lift the chest up for a tiny little chest lift and lengthen the hands past the hips. Good everyone. Hold that position. Inhale. Exhale, slowly lower down. Arms come back up. Now if you have your small ball next to you, grab your small ball and place it between your knees and we're going to do the same thing again, but this time you're going to squeeze the small ball. So float the arms back up to that 90 degree position. Plug your arm bones into your shoulder blades. Good.

Inhaling here, exhale. Using the ribs to lift the chest length in the hands. Pass the hips. Inhale, hold it. Exhale, float back down. Good. Let's do two more of those. Inhale, just warming up the core and exhale as you float up. Ribcage Lips. Squeeze the ball. Inhale, hold it. Exhale, float back down. Now holding the arms there.

I'd like you to connect to your deep abdominals and float both legs up to tabletop. Nice. Beautiful. Now balancing a tray of lemonade on your shins. We're going to stay here. Squeeze that ball. Inhale, exhale. Using the ribs lifts up length and pass the hips. Inhale, hold it. Exhale, float down you guys feeling a little bit of a warmup.

Inhale. Exhale. Using the ribs again. Chest lifts up. Inhale, hold it. Exhale, float down. One more time. Inhale and exhale. Chest lifts up and hold it. Now holding that position, I want you to squeeze that ball five times five, four, three, two, one. Inhale, hold it. Exhale. Float the arms back down. Good.

Take the ball out from between your legs. Bring your legs down and place it off to the side. How did that feel for everybody as a warmup? You guys look great. I'm, I'm giving you a warm up as well as testing to kind of see what everybody's body awareness is and you all look really, really good. So whoever your [inaudible] instructors are, tell them they're doing a very, very good job cause your body awareness is just wonderful. Okay, so from here, hands are going to be flat. Now we're going to inhale to prepare. Exhale, float the right leg up to tabletop. Inhale, hold it. Exhale, float the left leg up to tabletop. Good. Inhale, exhale.

Float the arms up. We're going to prepare for the hundreds. Inhaling here, you're going to exhale. Lift the head, neck and shoulders. Using that rib cage connection. Inhale, hold it. Exhale. Extend the legs out to your favorite hundreds position. Inhale, exhale, fold them back in. Inhale, hold it. Exhale. Float the head back down. Good. Now we're going to do the hundreds. So inhale to prepare. Exhale, using the ribs. Lift the head, neck and shoulders. Place your legs in that position and breathing. Two, three, four, five and out. Two, three, four, five and two. Two, three, four, five and out. Shoulders down. Two, three, four, five. And now two, three, four, five. I now connect to the pelvic floor, two, three, four, five and out.

Shoulders down, two, three, four, five. And out reach the legs. Two, three, four, five and now last four, five and out two, three, four. Inhale, hold it. Come up one more inch. Connect to those ribs and slowly release back down. Hug the knees into the chest, take a couple of breaths, kind of rock your leg side to side. See how everything feels. Everybody feeling okay as okay as they can.

Good. So with that we're going to do a little bit of mobilization work with the ball that we did a little bit earlier today that I want you all to feel before we get into the actual sequence of the mat work. So now you're going to take your small ball and you're going to place it in the middle of your back where your bra line. And there is no men in here. So I don't have to make my bro line joke. If there were men in here, we'd have to say your bro line or your broad line. Okay. So it's going to have you a little bit propped up in this position.

And what I'd like to have you do is now place your hands behind your neck, walk your feet together so that you have a little bit of an adductor connection. If you get any tightness on the sides of your legs, you can bring them back up to parallel, but you guys are an advanced group. I really want to see that inner thigh connection happening. From here. We're going to inhale back. We're going to exhale chest, lift up, one in how back a little bit more. And exhale, chest lift up to good in how back.

This is just a prep and some mobilization. And exhale chest lift up three and in hell back and hold it. If that is comfortable, if you can go any further back, feel free to do so. Get a nice stretch and now release the hands and bring them by the side of your body so you can place them on the mat. So I want you to see if you can get the back of your heads to the mat.

Do you guys all look really good from here? I want you to inhale, to prepare. You're going to exhale, draw the navel in, tilt the pelvis under, and slowly bridge up. And notice as you come up the ball that it puts your neck in a slightly better position. Inhale, hold it. Exhale, roll down the ball through the thoracic spine. Good. Does anybody having strain in their neck at all? If you are, you can roll the ball up a little bit more on your back. That might correct that. Or we can grab a pillow. Good. Inhale again.

Exhale. Draw the navel until the pelvis under and slowly bridge up. Good. Inhale, hold it. And exhale. Slowly peel down one vertebra at a time. Good. Now place the hands back behind the head. Inhale. Exhale. Chest lifts up. Inhale, hold it.

And then on the next exhale, I want you to reach around and take the ball out from behind your back. Good. So now come back down and we're just gonna do a little test. So from here, take the ball and place it between your knees. Walk the feet out to parallel. Good in how to prepare hands flat by your side.

Activate the back of the arms. Exhale, draw the navel in, tilt the pelvis under and slowly bridge up. How does that bridge feel? Yeah, I see some smiles and some head nodding. Inhale, lift your pelvis. One inch higher. Exhale, bring your ribs one inch lower. Feel how that activates your abdominal muscles. Inhale, hold it. Exhale slowly rolling down Vertebra by Vertebra from the back of your sternum, all the way down to your sacrum. Good.

Inhaling at the bottom here, the sixth grade, you guys, ax hell, draw the navel until the pelvis under coming all the way up. We'll do the hip check again. Hips an inch higher ribs come down towards the Mat to really create that connection through the abdominal wall. Inhale, hold it. Yes, and hamstring cramp is not abnormal. Exhale, soften the sternum down as you roll vertebra by Vertebra. God. Excellent. One more time. Where, I mean you guys up. Inhale and exhale. Draw the navel in. Tilt the pelvis under. Come all the way up, pressing into the back of the arms, opening the clavicles, spreading the front of the chest. Hold it there, and now squeeze the ball. 10 Times ten nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Inhale, and exhale, slowly rolling.

Do go ahead and take that ball away. How are you guys feeling? Pretty good? Yes. Okay, go ahead and straighten both legs out. We're going to go onto the single leg circles, so what I would like to have you do is take your left foot and flex it up towards your nose as hard as you can. The bottom of that heel is going to pretend it is pressing on a scale that has to measure five pounds. So I want your foot flexed up and I want that left heel anchored into the mat.

The right leg is going to point straight up towards the ceiling and if your hamstring likes to give you some trouble with that, if you'd like to bend your knee a little bit, you can, but make sure if you bend your knee that you don't then drop your hip in towards your torso. From here, we're going to come across the body around end up one, and when I snap, I want that foot to stop dead and center like a laser beam. Okay across, around and up to a cross, around and up. Three inhale and exhale. Last two, and exhale. Last one. And exhale, holding the leg. They're reaching the toes out of that leg. Good Opposite Direction. Now inhale out. Exhale down, around and up. One down, around and up, too. Beautiful down, around and up. Three down, around and up for one more. Down around and up. Five holding.

They're reaching those toes out. Bend that knee into your chest. Give it a hug. Thank it for working so hard and extend that leg all the way down. Flex the right foot down. Press into that imaginary scale that has to stay registered at a little, just a little bit. Five pounds of pressure will not five pounds pressure, but five on the scale. Just a little bit of pressure and you don't want that to waiver at all.

As we do the leg circles. Bring the left leg up, straight up towards the ceiling, lengthening out. Good. We're gonna come across, around and up, one across, around and up to a cross, around and up. Three inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Hold. Did I leave one out? No, that was fine. Reach that foot out. Now come out across and up, one out, across and up to controlling the pelvis and the last one and hold.

Reach out of that hip socket and now bend that knee and for a nice stretch. That looks great. You guys pull both knees into your chest and now hold onto the front of your knees and roll like a ball to come up to sitting, which leads us to our next and most favorite exercise. I want you guys all to take your balls in your hands, in the palms of your hands. And for this next one there's a couple of different positions you can assume for rolling like a ball.

You can come into a really small tight ball if that's how you're used to working. You can come into a broader ball if that's how you're used to working. Or you can come into a crazy ball with the blue ball, which is your elbows balancing on here and holding the ball between your hands. So if you've never done it with your elbows on your knees, I encourage you to try it. But let's first do your rolling like a ball exercise. Okay?

So the benefits of being really tight is that you can really feel that connection into the deep core. The benefits of having kind of a broader ball is you can actually get a little bit of counter contraction by pushing into your shins. So I'm not quite sure which way you guys are used to doing it, but we're going to try it three different times for a set of three. See if you can play with it. Okay, so come into your preferred rolling like a ball start. I see that nobody wants to start with the elbows on the knees and I'm going to count down. Don't do it yet. I'm going to count down three, two, one and you're going to inhale back and exhale up and then we're going to pause.

So I'm going to count you through each time. Okay? Make that connection to shoulders away from the ears, low belly, really lifting on the front to open the back, but really connected. We'll count down. Three, two, one. Inhale and exhale. Hold three, two, one. Inhale, back, control up. Three, two, one. Inhale, back, control up. And let's do one more. That looks lovely. Three, two, one. Inhale, back, control up and hold.

Place the feet on the mat. Who would like to try the elbow variation? Good. My favorite. So you're gonna place your elbows on your knees. You're going to place the ball between the hands.

And what I encourage you to do is keep the connection from your elbows to your knees, but also keep the connection between your hands on the ball. But don't let it make, don't let it allow your chest to cave. So really use the ball to create that counterbalance between your sternum dropping into too much concavity and the shoulder blades popping your ribs. This looks gorgeous. I should just let you guys hold here for another minute. Okay, we'll count down. I'm just kidding. Three, two, one. Inhale back.

Exhale up and hold. Three, two, one. Inhale back. Exhale up and hold. Three, two, one. Inhale back. Exhale. Up and hold. Now we're going to do three in a row. So we're not going to pause. Three, two, one.

Inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale. Hold that position. Put the ball off to the side. Hold the position right hand on the outside of the right ankle. Left hand on the inside of the right knee. Wrapping to the front. The left leg extends at a 45 degree angle.

Play footsie with your neighbor and slowly roll down to the mat. Good. Before we start, single leg stretch switched to the opposite side. Check your hand placement left-hand on the outside of the left leg. Right hand on the inside. Make sure everything feels good and now we're going to switch and switch two and switch. Shoulders down, Belize in and reach and switch.

Three good you guys too. Last one. Both knees in. Give it a little hug. Let your head come down cause I'm feeling generous. Inhale, exhale. Blow all the air out. Scoop the belly curl up like you're a little rolly Poli ball or really Poli bug or whatever they're called. Good. From here. You're going to inhale and reach your arms and legs out without your hips or shoulders changing position. So inhale, reach low. Exhale, circle around any new reach long on the inhale and exhale to reach long, long, long, long, long and three reach long and for Belize in reach, long, shoulders down and five and reach and six two more reach and seven beautiful ladies reach and eight holding their reach both hands behind the right calf.

The left leg extends out at a 45 degree angle just for checking and switch to the other side. Check your position and now we'll go for switch and switch. Breathe in for two and out for two and for two and out for two and for two and out for two. Last in for two and out for two. Both legs up towards the ceiling. Hands behind the head in hell.

Lower the head down. Oh many pause. Thank goodness, right. Flex and point the toes a couple times. Give yourselves a little bit of a break. Good. Connecting the ribs on the front. As you feel the back of your head and your hip flexors and quads are dying and want me to get on with it. Dry your shoulder blades down your back and the length in the back of your neck.

Feel how that helps you connect to the front of your belly. Inhaling here, exhale. Use the ribs and chest. Lift up one. Inhale back down. Exhale, chest lift up to in hell, back down and lift up. Thery as you lower down, lift the legs towards the ceiling and for two more. Inhale and five last one. Inhale and six reaching those legs towards the ceiling.

Lower the legs down to three up one and down. Two, three acts. Hell up to two to three inch and down to three and four. Elbows wide and five shoulders down and six two more. How you guys doing? Seven.

You're looking rosy and eight and last one up holding their right elbow, left knee, check position, left elbow, right knee and switch and switch two and switch three and switch. Shoulders down, elbows wide. That's happened and switch. We're almost there. Last two and double time. One and two and three and four and five and six and seven and knees in.

If I had told you I was doing that, you all would have stopped. Good job. How's everybody feeling? A little warm. Okay, go ahead and keep your feet where they are on the mat. Those you have your feet on the mat. Press yourself back so that your legs are straight. Good.

You're going to reach your arms overhead. We're going to inhale to prepare. We're going to exhale. Tuck the chin, scoop the belly, flex the feet and roll up and stretching forward. Inhale, hold here and reach the fingertips even longer, but stay flexed. Forward. Exhale, help. Glide the shoulder blades down the back, but stay in that position. Inhale, reach long. Reach the shoulders out of the thoracic spine and exhale. Reconnect them in how? Reach the shoulders towards the ears.

And now this time, exhale. Bring them down the back. Draw the navel in. Scoop the belly and roll all the way down. We're just gonna do one little roll down in one roll up. Inhale the arms overhead again. Exhale, Tuck the chin scope and roll up one vertebrae at a time. From here, roll back up to an upright seated position.

Spines are nice and straight. I want you to spread the legs so that the heels are on either corner of your mat and in this position what I'd like you to do is check your fleshy parts. If you need to move the fleshy bits out of the way so we can really feel our sits bones nice and anchored underneath. That looks great. You guys plug those shoulder blades into the thoracic spine and reach out of the top of the head so the belly has to be active the whole time. Beautiful. Inhale, grow taller. Exhale, relax the shoulders on your body. Inhale, grow taller.

Exhale, Tuck the Chin gently and stretch forward as if you're reaching towards a large beach ball that you want to stretch. Now, press the beach ball away from you and then gently bring it an inch closer and Preuss it away and bring it closer. One more time, pressing it away just with the shoulder blades. Bring it closer. Hold that connection. Exhale all the air out. And then inhale as you come back up to sitting. Exhale, stretch forward again, reaching for that imaginary beach ball. And as you're reaching for that beach ball, there's also an imaginary cactus right in front of your belly that you don't want to poke you. Inhale, sit back up slowly. Vertebra by Vertebra, reaching out of the top of the head. Last one. Acts how?

Stretching forward towards the beach ball. Good. And now we're going to inhale for a pause here and we're going to swap the breathing for three more of these stretches. So now you're gonna Inhale, pause, exhale, sit up. Taller shoe wrapping. Good. Inhale as you stretch forward towards that beach ball. Exhale as you float up. Upright seated position along the spine in inhale last time.

Stretching forward for the beach ball. Great ladies. Exhale, folding up one vertebra at a time. Good. Place the arms to a t. Bring the arms to a t. Oh, sorry. Yep. You might need to stagger and now we're going to inhale and stretch to the right side, reaching the hand down towards the floor and then come down to the elbow for spine stretch side. Good. Now in this position, draw that opposite hip into your mat. Exhale, come back to center. Inhale, opposite side, Belize working. Exhale, come back to center. One more time in each direction in how to the right, really oppositional pull. Exhale, back to center and to the left and exhale back to center.

That looks wonderful. Bring the hands down for just a moment. Readjust anything if you need to hear you guys feeling warm. Ready to rock and roll. Okay, good. From here, we're going to go ahead and do the saw. Bring your poems out to a tee. Hands are going to be flat down by your side. You're going to inhale and rotate towards the left. Yep. Other, let's start. Exhale, Tuck the chin, scoop the valley and saw the pinky toe off and two, three.

Now before you come up, everybody hold there. Inhale as if someone's pulling your back arm to have you come up to sitting. And then turn to the front. Exhale, turn to the opposite side. I'm sorry I didn't want you to exhale. I wanted you to inhale. Inhale, turn to the opposite side. Exhale, flex forward, Hon. Right to in hell. Let that arm pull you back up and back to center. XL, hold, grow taller. So in the center we're going to hold here.

We're going to inhale, turn ax hill. Saw that pinky toe off. Two, three. Inhale, come up. Exhale, grow tall are here in hell to the right and saw that pinky toe off XL. Exhale. Last one. Inhale and back to center and then staying here. Exhale, grow taller and bring the hands down to your sides. That looks really, really great. Ladies from here, bend the knees in from this position, we're going to come in for done thought at Oh openly rocker. Now some people like to hold it differently, but I like to hold them on the outside because otherwise if you come in here and hold it, all this business can happen. Speaking of hips. So if we want to keep our hips nice and controlled, Co contracted, we can do it in this position and it's just a preference of mine.

So whatever you prefer, but I like it here. From here, shoulders down the back. We're going to inhale. Exhale, extend the right leg out. Inhale, fold it in. Exhale, extend the left leg up. Inhale, fold it in and right leg again and hold for a pause. Draw that shoulder down the back and fold it in and left leg out and hold for a posh shoulder down the back and bring it here. And now we're going to inhale. Extend the right leg out and hold. Shoulders down the back and left leg out and whole shoulders down the back.

And we're going to down three to one in hell. Back control up three to one in hell. Back control up scoping God. Three, two, one. Inhale, back control up. And last one, three, two, one. Inhale, back control on the exhale, up open and close the legs. Three times one, two, three. Keep them closed. Release the right hand towards the right toe and the lefthand towards the left hook. Inhale, hold it. Exhale as you peel down out of the teaser position and bend the knees into your chest. Good. Release the head and a cup. Yeah.

Why don't you to position a little? Yeah, I kinda migrated you off your mat. Makes me a little nervous. Good. So from here, how did that feel? You guys who looked really good? You guys are rock stars, man. That's awesome. Okay. Bring your legs to tabletop. So there's a couple of different ways to get into teaser.

I'm going to take you guys into it this way for now. I hope you love it. I want you to inhale your arms just towards 90 degrees. You're going to exhale as you tuck the chin, scoop the belly, and you're going to slowly roll up as you extend the legs to come up into your teaser. Good. Inhale, hold it. Exhale, peel out and down. As soon as your low back hits, bend the knees in and hug again.

Good. So the next teaser I'd like you to try is when you come up for the teaser in your, in your V, you're going to inhale and then as you exhale, I want you to be in this position and you're going to reach out as you come down. So your legs are going to come all the way down to the mat. Okay? Sounds good. Okay, from here, legs to tabletop, arms up. Inhale, exhale, Tuck the chin, scoop the belly. Come up. Beautiful position, ladies. Inhale, hold it. Grow Taller. Exhale and peel down. Reaching those legs out of the torso, one vertebra at a time.

Inhale the arms overhead. Exhale, Tuck the chin, scoop the belly and come right back up. Beautiful ladies. Inhale. Exhale. Navel draws in. Peel down, reaching out of those legs. Inhale the arms. One more time. Exhale, Tuck the chin, scoop the belly. Come on up. Good from here, lower. Lift the legs three times. Inhale, exhale. Inhale. Smaller. Exhale, inhale and exhale holding. Inhale, lower the torso just a little and exhale, come back up. Inhale and exhale.

Come back up one more time. You got an inhale and exhale. Come up and hold in here and peel down slowly, slowly, slowly extend those legs and relax. I have to give you guys a hand. I'm sweating up here, but Dan, you guys are looking beautiful. That is awesome. Okay, let's have you turn over onto your stomachs and I'd like you to come towards the center so you're all facing each other. Okay, God. Excellent. We're going to have everybody take their blue ball and I'd like you to place it right underneath your sternum, right here. Your hands are going to be on either side of his shoulders for a swan crap, and what I want you to check is that the crease of your wrist is just at about the level of your shoulders. Okay, good.

From here, I want you to exhale all the air out and just let your head kind of stretch over that ball and breathe. Now, if that's uncomfortable, Ryan, I'd like you to pull your ball down just a little bit. Kathy, maybe your bulb shot a little bit. Good. From here. We're going to inhale and take the weight into our hands and into our forearms as we lift the sternum up. So inhale, press into the hands and forms, and if in that position you feel no contact with the ball, move the ball down just a little bit more on your sternum. Good. From here, you're going to exhale and come all the way back down. That was a good test. Good from here, don't move, but listen carefully. I want you to take your pelvis and pretend that the front of your pelvis is like a stamp and you've just inked it and now you have to stamp this mat, which is your passport with your ass, the front of your hips and your pubic symphysis. All three, getting an equal amount of ink on that stamp, Pat. Okay, so everybody imprint your pelvis on the front side and now draw your belly button towards your spine to activate.

Pulling your abdominals away from your passport so it's stamping while it's pulling away from here. Inhale, press up. Now off of that ball, that feels a little different, doesn't it? It looks really good. Exhale, come all the way down. One more time. Good in how pressing up, lifting the sternum, and exhale coming down. Now we're going to come in for our full swan. If you have any compression in your back, you can put your legs a little bit wider so that it doesn't bother them or bother your back. You're going to inhale the first part up to the forearm.

So inhale, pressing up. And now I want you to exhale and press all the way up into a full swan. God. Inhale, hold this. Acts help wrap to the front of your belly as you come down, opening your back as you come back down to the mat and onto the ball. One more time in help. Press up all the way into a full swan. This time. Exhale. Inhale, hold it. And exhale rapping from the back to the front.

As you come down to feel that unloading of your spine. Good. And rest, go ahead and remove the ball and now place your elbows under your shoulders and create a triangle with your hands. So we're going to do single leg kicks. Does anybody have really, really, um, challenging shoulder issues at all? No. No, no, no. Sometimes. So you may want to be here. Some people like to be here better than here because this feels very internally rotated.

But what I'd like to challenge you guys to do in this position before we start is notice that your arms are a little turned in. And now I want you to really engage to the back of your shoulder blades and shine your sternum forward through the middle there. That looks wonderful. Stamp your passport on the front of your pelvis and pull your belly button up and in. And we're going to kick the right leg twice. Kick, kick and reach. And then the left leg kick, kick and reach and kick, kick and reach and kick, kick and reach. Push the mat away with your shoulders as you kick so that you don't sink into your back. Kick, kick and reach last too.

And reach and last one, reach and kick, kick and reach. Beautiful. Come all the way down to the mat. Turn your head onto your right cheek. Go ahead and place your hands in the small of your back and take a pause in this position. I want you to hold your hands in the small of your back and I want you to feel your shoulder blade spreading as far as they can to the outskirts of your thoracic spine. Good. Let them really spread and open up. Good.

From here, we're going to glue the inner thighs together so that the heels are connected. The toes can be slightly turned out or they can be in line depending on what's most comfortable for your back. We're going to kick three times and then reach up. So we're gonna kick, kick, kick, and then lengthen out of the back of the feet. Lifting the sternum forward. Turn to the opposite side. Kick, kick, kick and reach holding there. And again, kick, kick, kick and reach. Really stamp your passport. Kick, kick, kick. And so your pelvis doesn't move. Last to kick, kick, kick and reach. Beautiful. And last one, kick, kick, kick, and reach. Let go of the arms, let them float out to the sides and around the front. Good.

And we'll lift the right arm and the left leg and the left arm in the right leg and right arm, left and left arm, right. And then start swinging at me. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. I know. Silly joke. I have a small child. 10 more seconds. Shoulders down, nose forward. Looking at the mat in front of you. Five, four, three, two, one. Lengthen out of the arms. Lengthen out of the leg, shoulders away from the ears. Hold it, and slowly lower yourself down. Ah, thank goodness, right. Bring your hands underneath your shoulders now and slowly bring yourself back into arrest position for just a minute or child's pose. Great.

Wonderful. Okay. And just take a couple of breaths and now walk your arms to the right and breathe into that stretch on that long side of your body as you sink that opposite hip down. And walk your hands back to the middle and to the left. Wonderful. Awesome. Anne Marie, go ahead. Excellent.

And come back to center and now I'm gonna have you walk yourself forward and bear with me for a little bit of fun. So we're gonna do a prep before we do our pushups series. And it's a prep for proper elbow alignment. It's one of my crazy picky things, but it's really fun. So what I'd like to have everyone, it's placed their knees directly under their hips and place your hands directly under your shoulders.

Spread all 10 fingers as wide as you can get them and feel your weight bearing evenly between the mound of your thumb and the outer mound of where your pinky finger would connect that metatarsal to your wrist. I want everyone to bend their elbows micro, bend their elbows a little bit, and now take your arm pits and connect the back of your armpit towards your rib cage. Spiraling your arm bones in towards the midline of your body to straighten your elbows. I'll say it again so it makes sense. You guys did beautifully, but I'll say it one more time. Micro Bender, all those. And then outer spiral your humeral heads to straighten them. Feel how that activates your stomach.

Does everybody feel how that really gets your abs engaged? Good. So from there, look down at your elbows and make sure if there were laser beams coming out of the middle of your elbow, would those laser beams be crossing directly under your nose if your elbows are pointed forward? So if they cross right in front like a laser beam and you're in position, is it right under your nose? You guys look really good. Yours do look like they're crossing but we gotta make sure we got to make sure it makes sense. So from that position, can you feel how much work is happening in your shoulder girdle and your torso and your belly? So when we compensate by kind of, I don't want to say being lazy cause we don't mean to be, but bending too much in our elbows or hyper extending in your joints. We take the opportunity away from our shoulder girdle. So we really want to be here.

If your laser beams are not crossing directly in front of your nose, but they're pointed straight ahead or your pointing your elbow straight ahead, you might be hyperextending which would not be a good position to be in. And Julianna, can you show us what that looks like? We can see right there. Can you see it? Her laser beam is not only point ahead, they point like Easton West, like that's crazy. But again, we want to be in a position that puts us in the most optimal place for our shoulders to work. Okay, so let's do it all again together. You at home too, just to make sure we have it down. Micro bend the elbows was just a tiny little bend and I'll show you from the side with me too.

You're just going to make a tiny band in the elbows and then you're going to outer spiral or rotate this part of the arm, keeping this hand flat and connecting right there so that if you look straight down in front of you, if there's laser beams coming out of your elbows, they're going to cross directly in front of your nose. Okay? You guys ready for the next part? Come on back. We'll get you off your hands. Good. Come on back into child's pose. That gets sore. Yeah. Good. Right? So now let's come into a plank position.

So we're going to come back where we were fined. You are crossing laser beams, so micro bend, the Albert Elbows, outer spiral, good shoulder blades down the back. Reach the right leg out behind you and the left leg out. Hold that position from there. Make sure your ribs are connected and your pelvis is in the right alignment. Four more seconds, three, two, one and bring the right knee down and the left knee down and unweight your hands. We're just prepping for the next exercise. Good exhale.

Come forward getting into that position again and the leg extends out and the left leg extends out. Good. We're gonna lift the right leg up and hold it for a four. Count three, two, one. Bring it down. Lift the left leg up for a four. Count One, two, three, four, come down, bring the knees down. Unweight the hands. We're going to prepare for the next part. So on the next part, the next piece of this, we're going to come into that plank.

We're going to inhale as we lift the leg up. We're going to exhale as we bring it down four times and then switch into the same thing on the opposite side. So really prepare yourself for that. If your risks are bothering you, you can also come onto your fists. So that's an alternative position if this position is just too much. Okay? Yeah, so be there. Okay, so let's come into that position. Good, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful modification there. Inhale, extend the right leg out. Exhale, inhale, left leg, good. And now we're going to inhale. Lift the right leg up. Exhale, pull it down. One inhale up. Exhale, two. Inhale up.

Exhale. Three. Last one. Inhale up, exhale for opposite side. Inhale up. Exhale, one. Inhale, exhale to exhale. Three last one. And for place that foot down, bring the right knee down and then the left or both knees at once and come into that rest position again in that position, come up to sitting on your heels, but facing forward, let's do a quick risk stretch. So this is a great stretch. If you're working on increasing your plank endurance and holding that position for periods of time, and you start to notice that you get sore or it gets fatigued or irritates, this is a really, really good stretch to do. You can do it right in the middle of your workout so that you don't get things hurting and fatigue and then move on to the next thing and then create funky compensatory patterns around it. So we're going to take our hands like this.

We're gonna put our thumbs towards our sternum. We're going to peel our thumbs away from each other so that the back of our hands touch them. We're going to take our pinky finger down the middle of our sternum and then away from us, and then rotate through again in a prayer position. So let's do that again. Hands are here. We're going to peel the thumbs away from each other so the back of the hands touch. Bring the fingertips through the sternum, stretching around, and then back into prayer. One more time.

Thumbs peel away, fingertips touch. They bring the front of the sternum and shoulders in. And now let's reverse it just when we thought it was easy, right? Point the fingers away from you. Bring the thumbs towards each other and the back of the hands together.

Turning the fingertips, the sternum and back to the prayer. Good. Peel the thumbs towards each other. Spin around and back to that and then go ahead and just stretch it down. That feel a little better. A little more opened up ahead. Okay, so now I'm going to have you all come back to line on your back, placed the ball between your knees and we're going to go back and revisit the bridge that we started with. We're just going to do a couple of pelvic presses.

So what I want to bring your attention to is what's your feeling on the back side of your body where you might be feeling a little bit of tension, a little bit of release, a little bit of something, something, any, anything at all that stood out in your mind at the beginning of class. Just observe it, pay attention to what it is, and let's go ahead and do a couple of pelvic presses before we do a seal and then end with some pushups. That sound exciting. Good. Inhale to prepare, you're going to exhale. Gently squeeze the ball, draw the navel and tilt the pelvis under and slowly bridge up. Good. Inhale holding there. Exhale, lift the pelvis higher and the ribs lower. Good, so there's that nice connection. Inhale the arms overhead. Exhale, bring them down. Inhale, hold this position and exhale, soften the back of the sternum to come down through the spine.

Wow, so the range of motion over here especially, we saw a really big increase in range of motion in the transition from the middle of the thoracic spine down to the lumbar spine. That's great you guys from the beginning of class. Sorry I didn't get to watch you guys. I was too busy admiring them. Inhale again. Exhale, draw the navel and tilt the pelvis under. Slowly bridge up. Good. Set that pelvic position.

Now we're going to inhale the arms up just as far as you can to fill a nice stretch. Exhale, bring them back down. Inhale, hold it. Exhale. Rolling Down Vertebra by Vertebra. Really feel that back opening up as you roll down in, through. Go ahead. Inhaling at the bottom. One more time. Exhale, draw that naval until that pelvis under. All the way up. Good. Inhale the arms three times here. Inhale and exhale. Inhale, and exhale. Last one.

Inhale, and exhale, pressing into the back of the arms. Feel that connection through the whole body. Inhale and exhale slowly rolling down. Good. Okay. Take it to a stretch. Keep the ball right where it is. I want you to inhale as you exhale, draw that navel in and lift the pelvis. Just halfway up. Sorry. Full Jack.

Good. Take the ball out from between your knees and place it underneath your sacrum. Okay. And then what I'd like to have you do is press the back of your hands into the mat. Take your right leg out straight and anchor it to the floor. So it's gonna have a nice anchor on the floor and pull that left knee into your chest slowly.

If you want to put the right hand down and hold that left knee with one hand, that'll give you a little more stability. Good. And feel the front of that hip. Open Up. Two more breaths. The other front of that hip opening. Nice. Good. And now extend that leg down and bring the right leg in. Really anchoring that. Stabilizing like, okay. It's not easy and feel the front of that hip open up.

Wonderful. Okay. Now that we're nice and warm, get us nice and stretched and now bring that leg out straight on the ball and bend the right knee up and planted on the mat. Left knee up and planted on the mat. Inhale. Exhale. Bridge up to take the ball out from behind your sacred good.

And then roll down slowly, God. And now pull both knees into your chest. Roll like a ball to come up to a seated position. Good. Good. And now we're going to do the seal. Has everyone done this deal?

Have you done the seal with sound effects? Yes. With the really, the barking seal. Oh, I love it. Okay. That's how I teach it as not to offend someone. So when you clap your feet three times, the last one before you stand up, we're going to clap, clap, clap, rolling back, clap, clap, clap. Rolling. Front on the third set of clapping forward and clapping back, you have to bark like a seal. So it's all bark for you if you don't want to bark loud, but you have to, I mean it's called seal for a reason and plus it uses your diaphragm differently. So it keeps you really connected to your core at the end of the workout when you're really tired. Okay? So we're going to do that.

And as you come into, let me show you really quickly as you come into the last part of the seal, when you come up to stand, you're going to cross your legs and your arms and come up to standing and don't immediately step out of the position because we're going to turn around to do our pushups. Okay? Aren't you so excited? It's so fun. Okay, so let's get into our seal prep. You wanna take your hands inside of your legs. Good. You want your feet clapping and tapping. So we're going to do it three times. The first two, no sound effects. Third one. I want to hear some seals cause I have not seen dolphins today. I had high expectations.

Everyone else talks about dolphins and I haven't really seen any squirrels, which is very typical of me. So, uh, let's do some seal barking at the end. Okay, here we go. Three, two, one. Tap, tap, Tap, controlling. Back. Tap, tap, Tap, controlling. Tap, tap, Tap, controlling. Back. Tap, tap, Tap, controlling up. I've come up to stand. Beautiful. Turn around and face the opposite direction. Inhale the arms straight up towards the ceiling. Exhale, Tuck the chin, scoop the belly and slowly roll down and walk out for a five. Count. One, two, three, four, five. Don't forget your laser beams. Set your positions. Five pushups. Here we go. Inhale. Exhale. One.

Inhale, exhale to good job you guys and three, and for [inaudible] and five. Inhale, hold it. Scoop your belly. Exhale, walk back. Two, three, four, five. Inhale, hazing at your back. Stretch out and exhale. Hey, grab the opposite sides of your elbows and let your body swing side to side. Keep rocking. Good. Inhale, hold it there. Release your hands.

Exhale, slowly rolling up one vertebra at a time. As you settle into standing, take this moment. Close your eyes. Feel the bottom of your feet just as we started grow taller. Notice where your weight is. Just observe it.

Has it changed from where we first started? Is it more even? Can you not notice a difference between the front of your foot or the back of your foot? And from here, take your feet and grow roots out of the bottom of them like you're going to go through the mat, through the hardwood floors, through the concrete, all the way down to the earth. Grow those roots. Inhale as you exhale. Take energy up through your feet, through the front of the knees. Connect to the pelvic floor. Feel the abdominals wrap into the front.

Lift the sternum as you close the ribs, reach out at the top of the head. Hold it, and now don't open your eyes. Shake everything out. Shake it out. Shake it out. Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out. Do it one more time. Inhale, grow those roots. Bend your knees a little teeny. Better should grow those roots. Exhale as you straighten the knees.

Feel the energy drying up through the feet, contracting the knees, connecting to the outer hips, engaging the pelvic floor. Draw the navel towards the spine. Close the ribs. Lift the sternum. Relax the shoulders. Reach out at the top of the head. Hold that. Open your eyes and notice how tall you're standing throughout the rest of your evening. Try to find this position a couple more times, especially if you notice yourself kind of slouching into unconsciousness or just sitting at the grocery store line. Really wishing it would go faster. Just take that opportunity. Thank you ladies. That was a great class.

You guys did great.