Moving in All Directions

So, hi. Hi everybody. I'm Carol, sir. And um, we're going to do mat class and this a pretty up level class. Um, and you know, I'm on a little rampage right now in my practice where I'm trying to support my clients and myself and people like yourselves to increase the level of extensions I had been in rotating that they're doing. Um, I just feel like the slump is, is out there to get us, so I'm trying to move in all directions, so I'm adding some stuff and I'm, I'm inspired also by my yoga practice. So you're going to see you have a yoga block block by your mat. I love my yoga practice. Um, so we're gonna start with an exhale with that yoga block. So what I'd like you to do is come to your mat and I'll demonstrate this on, come forward on your mats and put the block. Um, somewhere around here you're gonna sit down and you're gonna basically lie over this block, so it's right at the bottom of your shoulder blades.

So it's really at your upper back. Oh yeah. Everybody, I know. Go ahead and take your hands behind your head for right now. So you have a little support. If this feels like too much for you, then you're going to put a pillow under your head. You need to move your block down more. Yeah.

So it's at the bottom of your shoulder blades. Your blocking needs to be down that bottom. Tips of your shoulder blades. Yeah. Laurel more down. No, you the block more to AIU. More up. There you go. Let's see. A little bit more. Yeah, there you go. Good. Now you have. Exactly.

So you have your hands under your head because it might be too much, right, too. In which case you're gonna float yourself up a little bit. And I just want to start with some breathing where you allow yourself to spread your ribs like crazy. So we're gonna inhale for one, two. Just stay back. Three, four, hold that. Inhale. And then exhale for four, three, two, one. This is rib cage breathing. Inhale. One, two, three, four, exhale, four. Yeah, let them move even more than that. Yeah. Inhale. Spread them. Let them go.

Let them reach. Stretch your abs out. Yeah. Axe. Hell Great. One more time. Inhale, stretch your abs out. That's it, sweetheart. Good. Now you're going to inhale and you're just going to lift your head and chest up a little bit, right? Make sure you support your neck. You can bring your Chin into your throat a little bit, and let's bring your elbows a little more narrow and come up a little higher, right? And a little higher.

Some of you still see you're on a straight diagonal to the block now, so come up a little higher. A little higher. Still a little higher. Few still. There you go. And pause here. Now everybody come up a little higher. So look around the room and make sure that everybody's said about the level of this Gal, right? But Laurel don't flux, right? And then we're gonna twist here. So you're going to inhale, rotate to the right. Exhale. Come right back to that floating diagonal. Inhale, rotate to the left. Come back to that floating diagonal.

Here's your diagonal. Come up a little higher. Right there to west. Inhale. Exhale, center. That's it. Vapes. That's it. Twist. That's it. Love. Good Ladies Center and take a back. Bend over. Take a deep breath in. Yeah, kind of. It's a little too high. Yeah, there you go. Uh Huh. And one more time. Come up. Float up to that diagonal.

Come up a little higher. A little higher. It should be shaking a little higher. There you go. It should be shaking. That's it. Now trust yourselves. Come up. One more inch. Higher pause. You're going to come to seated. One more inch higher. Flatpack pause. Get up.

One more inch are coming up to seat it. Come on. What happened? Come on, get it. Stay Tall. Oh, and or take the block. Reach back behind you. Right? You feel so. It's like, wow, I'm really strong when I'm flexing, but when I'm doing what I'm calling a flection moment now, which is stabilizing my abdominal cavity in a more flat, I'm like, I'm not that strong because it's east centric, right? So I want to be able to do all those things. Yeah. To take the block.

Now lie back when your back and put the block in between your legs to lie on your back. Take your hands behind your head. Take your legs up to the ceiling and put the block in your crotch actually is what I should have said. And Flex your feet. Okay, so now what we're gonna do here is lower ab curls. Okay. So you're gonna lift your head, neck and shoulders just a little. So don't go to a bra line crease, but just float up to the sky. Now take your elbows narrow or reach them to the back of the room. No. Yeah, straighten your legs. Squeeze the block. Take a deep breath in.

Exhale. Squeeze the block. Curl your tail. Good. Inhale. Put Your Butt back down. Exhale. Squeeze the block. Curl your tail. Don't let your legs get closer to you when you do that. Good. Everybody pretend they're kicking the person across from them. Exhale. Squeeze the block. Curl your tail. Good.

Inhale. Exhale. Squeeze the block. Curl your tail. Yeah. This is not your crotch. There you go. Squeeze. It's a different part of the body. Yeah. One more time. Squeeze that crotch. Yes. Bend your knees.

Lay your head back with your arms down by your side for shoulder bridge. With the block in your crotch. There Ya go ladies. This way. There you go. All right, here we go. Shoulder bridge. Pick that block up to the ceiling. Yeah, that's right. Take a deep breath in.

Exhale. Good. Now I want to know if you're opening your chest on your inhale cause I want you to, so take a deeper than move your chest. Exhale. That's it Laurel. But now per every moment you move your chest, curl your tail. So both ant, that's it. Good, good, good. Maybe a little more squeeze and then push me away from you.

Yes. And roll down. Good. Take that block out. Set It side of your mat, straighten your legs, reach your arms over your head. Flex your feet for a modified, um, Rola. Basically that requires us to speak while we're moving. So you're basically going to come up into the first number four gesture.

So what that means is that, uh, I have this mic pack on, so I'm going to try to do this. Okay. So you're going to go here and we're going to say one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. So do that with me. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. You come up another inch. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Now Councilor Lee, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Take a deep breath in. Exhale, stack your spine. Shh. Reach your arms out. Flat. Back you go. You're still rotating your pelvis though, right? So still change your, yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Take your arms all the way over your head. That looks so good.

So come up to number four and say it. Push your arms. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Now, slowly, one, two, three, four, five, six, external, eight, nine, 10. Take a deep breath in. Exhale, stack your spine all the way up. Good. One more time. Take it back, flat back. Let your pelvis rotate, right? Yeah. That's okay. That's awesome actually. And here we go. Last time, come out and say it. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Come up a little higher. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Come on Laurel. Shoulders out. I know it's hard.

You need my help. What am I standing here? Poor. Sorry. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. That's it. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. There you go. Nine, 10. Good. And Stack your spine. Good. Take your right knee into your chest.

Sit up tall. Yeah. So when I sit up tall, my shoulder girdle can take a second tier position. Yeah, just relax. Tip back onto your sacrum. Lift, lift, lift. Lower, lower, lower lift, lift, lift, lower, lower, lower. Lift. Lifting told to the side to three.

Oh my goodness again, that was good. Lift your chest, Laurel up, up and in and get that like up sister. I know, I know, I know you've been working hard. Bend your knee and sweat. Here we go. So the leg, the, my arms are like this. We'll show it on this side so I can tap up. Right. So get your elbows wide. Get your leg up all the way. One, two, three down, whatever it is. And one, two, three. Yeah.

And um, pick up your chest walls and up, up, up, down, down, down. Then we're going to get up and go out. Out Tap and in, in, out, out. Oh yeah. Hips. Oh yeah. Legs. One more. Oh, my leg is falling. Oh and good. Bring it in. Scoot your butt forward. Proof for rolling like a ball.

Now consider something besides just schlump in your back to roll like a ball pit. That situation that you just played with up in space. Right? So here we go. Inhale, roll back. Good job. Exhale home. Inhale, roll back. Very nice. Squeeze the sides of your hips. And three more. Inhale. Good. Let's lift our eyes in length in our heads. Yeah, let's not talk our heads right now cause it's making a flump it. Yeah.

Stick out your boobs. Okay, you got it. One more. Good and good. Now put your feet down. Hands behind your head. Sorry. In advanced. For this next series. Take it back. Yeah, but we love to exercise and move. That's why we do this. Right?

All the way down. Bend your knees, drag your heels close to your butt, flex your feets feet. That was weird. Um, and then I'd like you to float your head two inches off the mat. Yeah, just a little. Pick your feet up, two inches off the mat, and take, squeeze your legs together and take a deep breath in. Good. And Curl your tail so your low back stays on the mat. And don't pull your legs in. Inhale. Exhale.

Curl your tail. That's it. Inhale. Exhale. Curl your tail. So you're finding it from underneath. Exhale, curl your tail. Good. Now we're going to go right from here to twist. So come up a little higher. Elbow to knee. I want you to keep those actions to the right. Go.

Inhale to the left. Exhale. Now don't go back to your regular favorite spot to fold in. Lengthen out, Jen. There you go. There you go. Keep going. Twist, [inaudible] and legs. Yeah, and rash variations on form is perfect. I, yes, I was looking for you to do the traditional one. I should have said that. And rest either way. Pause. Okay, so my point that what I was getting to instead of just like pushing back through here, get that tail curl and that head lift and you'll be able to twist a little bit more fully. Did you feel that? Great. Okay. Come on up to CD by taking a right hold on. Right knee into your chest.

Straighten your left leg. Roll up to seated. You've got to keep you guys in track here. Swine stretch forward. Please open your legs, right. So when you're thinking about your spine church forward, you have to find the organization of your posture first. So you're going to inhale, reach your arms over your head.

Exhale extra, Leigh. Rotate your upper arm bones external. Inhale, exhale, take it forward. It's fine. Stretch forward. Now let's pretend you're gliding across a tabletop. Good. And then back up. Easy. Does it? So think last of going over a beach ball and more of bringing your arms in far head to a tabletop and then taking the entire thing.

That's what I want from you. And then back up a little bit more flat back than you were thinking. Yes, it won't be flat, but it'll be longer than round, right Laurel. So it's a longer shape. Good. Now everybody pause there and that long shape forward and twist towards the camera's twist and center and twist. You've got to pick your boobs up, ladies and center. That's it.

Twist and center and twist and center. Stack your spine. Take your arms up, zip your legs together and roll all the way back. Yes, that was lovely. Good. Make sure you're on your map fully. So what I was saying there for that one was that I was looking for you to go forward as you were flexing your spine as opposed to going down as you were flexing. So just a longer shape. Take both knees, bend them, slide them to your sits bones, flex your feet without hyperextending your lumbar spine. Pick your heels up and hold for a moment. Good.

Now bring your thighs to a 90 degree angle to your hips, right? And straighten both legs up to the ceiling. If your hamstrings don't allow this, you can keep your knees bent for three counts. We're going to go towards the cameras were going to go one twisting to twisting. Three hold coming back. Three too. [inaudible] one. Now everybody needs to use their quads more. Here we go. One, two, three. Good.

Coming back. Three, two, one, pause. Now you're overstating with your neck and shoulders. Everybody in the room. So Yep. Take your hands into rib cage, arms position. That's this fingers interlaced so you don't get to squeeze your head and shoulders back and take your legs over. Use your waistline, take it over. So maybe you don't go as far as I'm pushing you. Right? So you say, lady, stop pushing me like that and then come back to center. Right?

Cause I don't know, you know, come over. But this one, I'm going to push her. There we go. Yeah, figure it out and pull your belly back to come home. Good. And again, figure it out. Take it over. Figure it out. Pull your belly back to come home. That's good. Right? So that's hard. Super Hard, right? Yeah.

And then drop your right leg left. Legs up, arms down by your sides. Single leg circle. Here we go. Inhale, twist. Okay. But wait, we're, we're doing a twisting, right? So we just prepared for this. So we're going to do the version where you twist acts, hail around. Inhale, twist, acts hill around. Inhale. Exhale. Yeah, good.

Pause at the top. Everybody take this arm stance again. You got to find out who you are, right? Because as soon as you have the opportunity braised with your arms, it's like, Ooh. Well we God. Right? So get them out and see what it is. Other way. Open. Twist your hips still though. So what else could bring you back to center? Your center can, right. Your center can bring you back. Yeah.

And rasp, bring that knee into your chest. Yes. Roll up to seated for a second. Right? Switch legs. Roll back. So can you roll back without going here? Let's do it. Let's lift this and let's go really slow and let's get our sacred down.

So I'm squeezing that block between my crotch. Yeah, I'm squeezing that block to make that oh one one down. Oh right. She took me into the challenge and she did a perfectly, very nice, that's what you need to do. Exactly. Take the moment. Take the moment. All right. Take the leg up. Take your arms again like this because we know you're going to hunker down.

Cross it over. Inhale acts hell home. Cross it. Inhale. Good. Now can you imagine you're still squeezing that block even now you need to tighten your quads up. Yes, yes. And switch. Take it out and up. Take it out. Good. Squeeze that block in your brain. Well in your Crotch, brain and Brandon your knee in and roll up to it.

That's it. Terrific. Good. Come on to all fours please. Beautiful. So I love to, um, I think I love [inaudible] and yoga and dance class and all these things I've done my whole life. Cause I like to know if I can do stuff, you know, like if I see somebody do something I'm like, Whoa, I want to do that. Right. So it's, it sparks an interest. And one of the things I like to know is that I can pick which part of my spine I want to move. So everybody's going to come into a floating cap.

They're going to extend their spines. And I want you to just curl your lower spine until your knees touch and then stick your buck back out to pick your knees up. Oh yeah, baby. Curl that tail until your knees. Just make a tip. Now can you pull your belly in when you extend your spine? Yeah. Good. Put this part down now. Just the lower part.

Good and arrest. Nice. So that's the same action I was asking you to do to curl your tail, right? Not to push this back, but to get that to come under. That was super terrific. So go ahead and float that cat one more time. Take your right leg out. Take your left leg out. Plank. My favorite exercise. Come forward and back. Forward and back.

Forward and back. Good. Now heals back. Shift onto the outside of your left foot and come into side plank for sideburns. Lower the hip. Inhale, exhale, side bend. Lower the hip. Inhale, axe hillside.

But now I wonder how you're doing this without your lateral hips. Put your feet on top of each other. Squeeze those guys. There you go. Good. Come back to center plank. Pretend you have the block in between your legs and you're squeezing your yes, Jen. Now transferred to the other side. So this is not an arm exercise. This is a hip exercise.

So I dropped down first and then pick your hips up in space. Drop down your awesome. It's hard shoulder. Gotcha. Go on your forearm in the future for that one more. You know what I mean? It's just fabulous. Good.

And then come back to plank. Don't give up. Bend your elbows. Two inches. Okay, two more. Hold two more. Hold. Come all the way down. Toes under swan. Inhale up. Good. Exhale.

So I wonder if your lower legs just got heavier and if they did, that means you're leveraging. So can you pick the weight off your lower legs please and come up into a swan. Oh, I have to use my back of my legs when I do that. Right. Cause that's part of your extensor group. And back down. This is good. Pick up your legs. Good. Come into a swan.

Good. Stay there. Let your eyes look out in space. Yeah. Now that's perfect. Now see if you can bend your knees. If you can't, that's fine, but see how that made you drop forward, Jen, spread your fingers out. Yeah. Great. That's it. Much better with your shoulders and then stretch the whole thing back out. Reach your arms forward. Lift up into a swan to bring your elbows under you.

Take a deep breath in. Exhale, bend both legs slowly. Good. Lift your thighs. Inhale, straighten your arms. Exhale. Inhale, straighten your legs. Exhale. Inhale, exhale. Good. Inhale, exhale.

Now we're going to just do a little rotation and look over the right shoulders. Straighten and down. I'm borrowing this from Irene Dowd and Steven feather. Huff's straight and now and look over your shoulder and down. Perfect. Straight and and down. Good. Send yourself out into the swimming position.

Reach your arms around. I won't hit China where you are and get ready. Turn your head to the window for triple kicks. Now you should be super warmed up for this one now. So you go triple kick. One, two, three. Exhale, stretch. Good. And in now, one, two, three. Exhale, stretch. Inhale. One, two, three. Exhale, reach and nice look up when you do your extension work out. And last set up.

Turn your head to the camera. Last one. And good. Stay there. Reach your arms around and swim. Inhaling. Exhaling. Good. And pull back into a child's pose that does not have a lot of flection in it, but rather it brings your chest wall over your knee caps. Yeah.

How's that feeling? Good. Good. Okay. So swing your legs around and let's do um, some teasers. Okay. So using your back body for a teaser is sort of what I'm looking at here, right? So we didn't spend a lot of time trying to find one vertebrae at a time. Rather we woke up the back. So you're going to come up allowing the back body to stay engaged with you.

So lie back onto your backs. Yeah. Good. And Zip your legs together and flex your feet and squeeze your, everybody do a straight leg bridge for a second. So just lift your butt and your legs exactly. And then plop it back down.

Now you feel how much you had to engage back there to do that. I'd like you to engage that much to start your teaser. So I'd like you to lift your heads, look at your toenails, turn your palms up, press your heels down, suing night your back body a little bit, and then come up into your teaser. Take it up, Jen. Yes. Good. Now stay there. Open your arms wide.

Close your arms, right. Open your arms wide. So what if you take out a flexor group, right? Because having your arms for it gives you more of those flexors. Nice variation there for the crowd. I love it. And one more time. Yeah.

And then take it down easy. Does it open your arms, Laurel? See what happens. You've got to use something else, right? Good. Okay, let's try that again. So what's happening here is I'm asking you to brighten up your back body so you don't hold yourself forward at the front. So press your heels down. Bridge up. Yes. Put your hips down, lift your head.

Good. Squeeze your butt for lack of another thing to say and come on up. That's right. That's right. You've got it now. Sorry. But open your legs and close them. Sorry, I'm going to grab you a little bit right here. Open and close.

Open and close. You used your lateral hips, you know where they are and lie back down. Beauty. Great. Good. Pull your knees into your chest and rock yourself side to side for a moment. Good job.

Okay. So what that means is that it's not the case that the front only does front things in the back, only does back things, right? Because the front and the back are antagonist to each other and one group has to East centric contract while the other concentrically contracts. Okay, so, so now I have a block in front of all of your maths, right? Cause we're going to keep igniting that back body. But what the point I'm trying to make or what I'm trying to help you feel is that it's, it's you. When you, when you use your back body, you have to essentially contract your front body, right? And so there's both concentric and eccentric contraction happening and they're all really, really important.

And it's a matter of fact that long control is the one that makes us stronger and sore. So surprisingly enough, I'm going to help you get stronger and maybe a little sore. I'm going to first ask you to kneel on your knees, just, just letting that block be there. We don't have to worry about the block quite yet. So we're going to do a little bit of kneeling thigh stretch, okay. Without the spring bar. Yeah.

So first thing you have to do is find your central access of support. Try your best to stay straight up and you're going to bend your knees one inch and pause and you're going to take a deep full breath and you're going to calm down and you're going to bend. You're going to go back one more inch, you're going to pause and you got to take a deep breath and you're going to go back two inches and pause. And you can feel that, right? And then I want you to look up with your eyes a little bit, right? And come all the way out, right? So you're gonna come back one inch, now you're going to come back two inches. Yeah. Now you're gonna come back a hot. Use Your apps, right? That's how hard it is. And come back. Take your hands behind your head. I'm sorry. In advance.

Tip back four inches. Pause, twist to the right and center. Twist to the left and center. Twist to the right a little back further because you're looking like you're having too much fun to me over here. And you can put your toes up and rest. Good. And all the way up. So can you feel that? Like that's body right?

Really working on keeping you off against gravity at that level. Good. So now you're going to slide around. You're gonna put your feet on the block and your hands behind you. I like to have my hands this way. What the heels or heels? Yup.

Now if your knees tend to hyper extend, you need to charge your quads up right away. Okay. And we're going to come into leg pullback position. Good feed on the block is going to give you an opportunity to lift up one more inch. Good. And pause. You can look up if you want two more inches. And pause breathing.

Now see if you can take weight off your right foot without slipping your hips. Hacky sister and then switch. Oh yeah, Jen. Oh, she's going to Olin Pant. Yikes. And come down. Good. So if you're going to go on a Fisk, go on to fists cause that's making your crooked. Yeah, go on up again. Yeah, right up. Yeah. Yeah, you can. I'm helping you. Perfect.

Good. And down. That brings your shoulders to the Max, doesn't it? Yeah. That's great. It brought those, the Max. Oh, that's what I was going for. I was worried I was taking your shoulders to the Max. So let's go up again. Do it again. One more time. All the way.

Good. Pick up your right leg. Yeah. And then take it out to the side. One inch and one inch. I know that's weird, right? It's like, why is this lady making me do that? And other way. That's your side. Hip Control, right? Talk about pelvic other side public's out in pelvic stabilization, right?

Core stabilization. Oh yeah, babe and rast. Good, good. You can take the block away. Reach your arms up, bend forward and take a rest forward. Take arrest and arrest means you [inaudible] also blank your mind a little and stop fighting. Yeah. Sometimes we're working hard. We go on the fight.

And actually what's interesting about plot is that yoga is, you can work really hard and not go on the fight. So you want to let go of that. Let go of that fight that we have. Roll your spine up slowly. Beautiful. Okay. All right. Let's finish with something playful. Um, I think we should do squat to standing. Okay.

Rolling ball to squat. To standing. Okay. It's Super Fun. I'm going to take this off. So at fun, it's so much fun. It's fun. It is fun. See, I know, but I'm going to help you so you're not going to hate it. I'm going to put this in the print per second so I can demo this. So you're going to roll back and you're going to come to squat and you're just going to try. You're going to try to stand up. I have a zipper on my pants.

I can't do that again. Down and up. Down and up. So we're going to start in Roland likable. Yeah, it's fun. So if you don't make it up, who cares? You're only on TV and like 8 million people are watching it. And don't be saying, okay, roll back and forth.

Just roll back and forth several times. And when you're ready to start squatting squat, there she goes. Yeah, we'll see. Now you're not overusing your shoulders, right? Cause you're picking your torso up. Yeah. Jen, don't look down while you're trying to look out. Good for you. Good. Where is she? All right. Ready and grab me one more. Yeah, so good.

So the only way to be successful at something is to practice it. You know? So it's this funny sort of thing where we learned these forms and we think, oh, oh, my teacher showed me, now I should be able to do it. No, my teacher showed me and now I have to practice it 100,000 times before I can do it. And I have to figure out which recipe allows me to be successful doing it because my recipe and your recipe are not the same.

Right? Yeah. But it's not about getting there. It's about how it's so interesting to keep adding and subtracting. Right. Which is what I also am always doing in my practice, which is why when I come out here, I make up crazy new classes that felt like this. So I hope it felt good.

Have a great evening. Thank you guys.