Beginner Mat

Okay. Again, let's start sitting today with the knees bent and the feet flat on the floor or the Mat. Rather. Reach your hands behind your knees and just take a couple of moments. First to help use your arms to help guide your spine up a little straighter. So feel perhaps a sense of uh, being pulled towards the ceiling by the top of your head or by the tips of your shoulders and by your ears. And stay there and just have a couple of breaths. And as you breathe in and out, just look for a contraction of the abdominals, a contraction of connecting or a connection of the mind to the body.

And just bring yourself into this space, into this room, into your practice. From here, we're just going breathe in, breathe out and contract the lowest part of your abdominals and just allow the pelvis to shift backwards. You won't really move a lot. You'll feel your shoulders right over your hips, your elbows will stay pretty much the same amount of bend and then inhale to extend back up. So it's just a deep contraction to the lower abdominals. You will feel a slight shift of the pelvis as it rocks backwards, allowing your lower spine to move. Inhale as you grow even taller, looking forward and as you exhale, letting the pelvis rock back again will allow your eyes to look downward.

So the whole spine is in alignment in neo. We're going to do that two more times and I'm going to ask for you to look for a theme today. And the theme is to see how much you can do, correct, precise movements, but also relax into the movement. Often when we allow our bodies to be more effortless, you'll feel work more intensely. So just taking the force out of it could in fact give us better work. And with that we're going to lift all the way up.

Continue to hold your legs if you wish. If not, reach forward breathing in there. Breathe out. Start with that same movement, Lao, the pelvis to move. Roll yourself down when it's keep a light pressure in the bottoms of your feet. Going to go definitely behind the pelvis, maybe a little lower, maybe to the bottom of the root cage. Breathe in there. Start your breath out again, relax the abdominals downwards, relax your spine forward. Continue to just feel a sense of heaviness in the center of your body and then elongate. Get lighter on the sitting bones as you sit up, breathing in again.

Breathe out as you rock the pelvis back again. Just that heavy feeling through the waist. That's what's dragging you down. You can imagine pulling away from something or pulling away from the air in front of you. Breathing in, pause, starting the exhale and using your breath to create a sense of lightness as you restack your spine, coming up onto your city meds. We're gonna do that three more times in a little bit quicker. Excelling. As you roll rents, the feet are gently pressing into the floor.

There may be some engagement through the inside of the thighs, or we're hugging the middle of the body or the midline of the body. Xcel to come back up. And last one, allow the pelvis to move. How deep can you begin to go? Can you warm up your abdominals in this movement?

Breathe in whole and breathe out to come back up. As you arrive up at the top this time, find a straight back. Let your hands rest just in the tops of your knees and then press your hands into the front of your legs. Lift your spine first tolerance and just your chest and your eyes slightly upwards as your shoulders reach heavily downwards towards the floor underneath. Yeah. Return your body back to a straight position.

Reach your arms back forward, and as you exhale again, come down to a place in your body where you feel a strong abdominal connection, no strain in the lower back, but a place that you can hold relatively well for a moment. Breathe in there. As you breathe out, you're going to float the left leg out. It's really light in space in. He'll put that leg down. Exhale, dig in deep. It's like the the, the abs are definitely picking the leg up, not the leg itself. Exhale this time, bring the leg a little closer, right up towards the forehead and back down on the opposite leg. A little bit bigger movement rod up towards the forehead. Bring it back down. Take a breath, start your XL, roll yourself all the way back up.

This time sitting tall. We're going to turn in my direction, so feel that the arms stay just as they are, meaning one arm doesn't get further forward than the other. As you turn your spine this way, as you exhale again, start with the pelvis. Curl down through the spine, moving past the pelvis. Go as low as you wish, but make sure you've got good support in. He'll come across the front of the body. Exhale, roll up that side of the spine.

First curving and then lengthening. As you start to come over your sitting bones. Breathe in, rotate in the opposite direction from me. XL, curl back. Feel a heaviness through the back of the belly button. As you come around through center, come up that opposite side. It's just keep rounded until your shoulders are over, your hips and any long gate and come to the center.

When you do that one more time around breathing. Rotate, breathe out. To move downwards. Inhale to come across center. Keeping the hips in the knees. Still exhale to come up and unwind last time for the day and he'll turn away from me. Keep the shoulders reaching away from the ears, the head nice and still in space. Come across through center pelvis, states.

Still come up that side. Find yourself through center. Take one more moment. Let's put the hands down. Just lift into that. It's not even a forced position. It's more of a gentle back extension. Heaviness through the shoulders, lightness on the sitting burns, and then just grow taller. The very littlest bit does the chest lift in the eyes left.

And with that reach forward and start to move yourself downwards. We're heading towards the pelvic curl, so your roll all the way down onto your back and want to probably slide your feet a little closer to you. Keep them slightly separate from one another, arms at your sides. Take a moment to just stretch the arms a little further away from the heres down towards the heels as you begin to exhale. Again, a sense of heaviness but also lightness and the abdominals. And what I mean by that is, is a good contraction but not a force contraction. And then let the pelvis come up gently guide the heels towards the fingertips as you roll up, creating a straight line from the knees to the shoulders.

Take a breath, and as you exhale, start from the neck. Feel the chest. Reach through the Sh arms each rib come down individually. All five bones of the lower spine. Come down one by one and finally allow the pelvis to rock back into a neutral position. We're going to do that a few more times. Breathe in, breathe out as you articulate through your spine, looking for a tucked pelvis or the pubic bone to be higher than the hipbones hold at the top. Maybe give yourself a little bit deeper.

Inner thigh contraction XL. Start to move yourself down as you roll yourself down and reach your arms in the direction of your feet. So there's, there's activity in the upper back. They're breathing in at the bottom. Moving. When you're ready on the exhale, you just roll yourself up. Imagining perhaps a ball of energy through the inner thighs that you get a good squeeze on, keeping equal tension in the inside and the outside of the feet. Breathe in and breathe out to come down. Looks good.

Really Tuck the pelvis as you come down. That's the way to get the, get the best stretch out of the lower back. Cramping. That's good. Oh, one more time in here. This is going to be our last one for now, so we were all up that activity that that really deep work in the hamstrings is good. Sometimes it makes us cramp and if it does, we just move through it and or come down and come straight back up again and roll yourself all the way down. Bring your arms up over your shoulders, straight up towards the ceiling. Keep the shoulder blades abroad or try to spread them out away from each other and then feel that the shoulder blades flat and heavy on the floor underneath. You. Inhale as you stretch your arms away from one another, sending the fingertips away, away, away to the you, perhaps feel a stretch to the front of the chest. Exhale, engage the ABS. Bring the arms back again. Lightness in the arms, heaviness in the, in the core, in the powerhouse. Inhale, the arms stretch out.

They reach away from one another. They don't go on the ground. They reached just off it and Xcel to engage with the abdominal muscles. So here's a place where you can envision that lateral breath. The ribs travel outwards as the arms travel outwards. The ribs contract, the abdominals deepen as the arms travel back inwards.

Let's do that one more time. Inhale to reach out. Exhale to feel the breath powering the extremities. Inhale to reach out. One last time. We're not coming back up from here. We're just going to pause, reaching a little further and then gently rest the arms on the ground. Pick up one leg, holding it at a tabletop position.

Pick up the other leg and glue the legs together. Going into the spine. Twist supine. So I'm going to have you come towards me first. On the inhale, keeping the knees lined up as you exhale, contract with the opposite waistline coming back through center and you'll feel the the hip that you're rolling away from. Lift off the mat pretty much right away. That's going to help the pelvis stay level and the knees stay level with one another. Exhale to come back again, making the movement as as small as you need to to keep the opposite shoulder down. Xcel traveling backwards and as we do this a few more times, how can you relax into the movement? How can you relax your mind enough so that the body can work deeper?

Let's do two more to each side. Inhale to come across. Exhale to come back through center. You want to feel that the feet stay just in front of the knees. If they shift off center of the knees, generally that's going to be happening from the pelvis. Okay, we've got one more to the front, one more to the back. And as you come back from the back of the room towards me, that's gonna be our last one for the day.

And reach up and wrap your arms around your knees. Hold your knees into the chest. This hug Ryden, and we're gonna move on into the chest lift. So I'm going to change the chest lift for us just a little bit. Today. We're going to have the hands behind the head like always, but we're going to add a leg extension. So before we lift the head and chest, in fact, put your hands on your pelvis for just a moment. Feel you're gonna slide one leg out in front of you.

So it's going to go out on the inhale. And on the exhale I want you to think about it doesn't have to go all the way straight. Engage to the back of the leg, drag the heel, and actually touch the abs and see if you can feel that that movement happening from right underneath the ribs from deep within the ABS. Let's go the other side. Inhale to reach the opposite leg out. An exhale. Feel the abdominals contract as the back of the league works to draw all the leg back inwards. Okay, so that's the movement that we're going to add into our chest lift for today.

So hands behind that the elbows are gonna point just away from the floor a little. We're going inhale, send the right leg out as you exhale and start to draw the leg back towards you. Curl your head and chest. Can You keep your pelvis level? We're going to do the same, same side. We're going to neo, right leg out, neutral spine neutral pelvis. Head goes down right away. Started lifting back up ribs. Press downwards, squeeze deeply. Feel the movement of the leg. Go. Help you.

Going to help you to go deeper into your center. Go going two more times on this side. Exhale, feel the low back. Connect into the mat. Nice work. One more time and you'll reach out and Xcel to come up. Good. Look for a little bit more hype, Jen, if you can get right up there and then place the foot down on the ground.

Lower the body down. We'll go into the other side so that leg will just add an additional challenge for the stability of the pelvis, lifts and heel. Taking the left leg straight out. Exhale, guide the leg in wards, but also start to curl the head and chest. So you're moving from two directions, contracting from the top and the bottom of your body. Inhale, slide the leg away. It's nice enlightened space. Exhale to drag the leg and can you find the back of your legs by thinking about pulling the heel to the hip. Inhale, reach out. Stretch.

We're going two more times. Good. Inhale, reach out. Stretch more. I think you'd be happier with your hands or I'd be happier with your hands. A little higher up on your head. So you're holding, you're holding the back of your head rather than just holding the neck. And I was that too. I stopped counting. Okay, so let's all, let's come back up.

Lower the leg down and lower the spine down. Heading into the chest, lift with rotation. We're going to do that a little differently today too. I, as you exhale, pick up your right leg. As you inhale, prepare, and as you exhale, pick up your spine, your head and your chest. Turn towards the leg in the air. Re reach your arms around your leg, lift yourself up.

Now need a hold that height. Just going to go partway back with your Bartee partway down with your leg. It's an inhale there. Exhale, pull the knee in the chest together. It's like you've got a rubber band, the chest, so they're still connected. They're just stretching away from one another and they bounce right back together. Doing that three more times. Go down, come up in a cross.

It's just a little movement in the body. A little movement in the leg last to come up in a cross. Look for that leg. Look for the height that you found. When you are holding onto your leg, come all the way down. Lower the body down and pick up the opposite leg so it's a left leg. This time, we lift it up, lift the head and chest, rotate towards the leg, reach behind the use your arms, but use your abs more to lift you up a little higher.

This is the place that you want to come back to. [inaudible] followed by the other behind the head. We're going to lower the toe and lower the spine one inch or one bone XL. Bring everything back so it's not a big movement. Maybe you move ever to bro. Maybe you move too, but definitely no more than that. Here's three good Dan and Paul Up.

Go down and Paul up last one and Paula, lower the spine and lower the leg. Stretch the legs out in front of you. Raise your arms up over your head. As the arms are over the head, you want to feel that the back of the rib cage stays connected to the ground. Hands facing one another for the role lap. Inhale, lift the head and chest. Draw downwards through the abdominals. Curl yourself up. Stay round, but think about creating length as you come up into a seated position. Inhale at the top. Excellent. As you slowly roll yourself down, starting with the pelvis, feel the feet reach energetically out in front of you.

Place each vertebra down rather than rushing through the bones. Inhale, lift the head and chest. Dig Down through the abdominals. Curve your spine again. Think about length as you come up through a seated position. Inhale at the top and excelling as you roll down back of the rib. Stay touching as the arms raise overhead. Inhale against a lifting the head and chest. Exhale.

So you want to pause when your shoulders are just over your hips and also get a sense of reaching up. Good. So the ABS are definitely in, but there's a long position in the spine. Shoulders down. Don't go further. Don't go further. Xcel roll down. We're going to do two more. As the arms come over the head, the bottom of the rib cage stays down. So we're challenging the abs there too. Inhale, lift the head and chest. Exhale, place the shoulders just over the pelvis. Stay round but long. One more to go. That's much nicer. Jenifer. Uh, arms a little bit more narrow.

Lisa A. Little bit more. Chest distance apart. Arms overhead, ribs down, little back of the legs, reaching down. Inhale to lift off Xcel to roll all the way up. And this time reach all the way forward for your feet. Stay there. Take a moment. Yeah.

Wherever your hands have landed is where you're going to continue to hold on one ESOL to bend our knees just a little bit. Point the knees up towards the face. Then lengthen the spine even more, especially out of the low back. So it's like you're trying to push your hip bones forward and your tailbone back. And with that, if you can try to straighten the legs again without backing up with the body. Bend the knees again. This time, length in the spine, weigh four. Look for a flatter back. You might have to back your hands up a little bit.

So you want to your chest towards your knees. Yup. Don't lift your face so much Jennifer. Just lift your heart and then stretch the legs. But try not to back the spine up. And with that come all the way up to sitting and stuff, right? Your legs, you can keep your leg straight. For this one, it's the spine stretch forward.

You can also bend your knees. It's up to you if it's too hard to sit with straight legs and a straight back at the straight back is more important. So we inhale, we exhale and reach the head downwards. Feel the ribcage, draw down deeply down so then the arms just through the feet. Keep the spine moving, but stop the shoulders from moving up towards the ears. Inhale at the bottom. Exhale, recommit to the abdominals. Everything else is light.

Only the front of the body is working to extend or create movement in the back of the body. Breathe in at the top. Breathe out. As you round down, the head drops down. The collarbones stay long, which means you have to keep the shoulders back a little bit. Look down at the mat, take a breath in, and exhale. Recommit again. Undulate through the body. Can you get a sense of only one bone at a time? Restacking no. Do that one more time. Breathe in. Start with the head. See your eyes go down towards the ground. As you take your spine forward, your shoulders continue to pull backwards towards your waist. Looks Beautiful.

Everyone's perfect. Breathe in and breathe out. To come a hold the way back up. Going to add on. We're going to do the extension. Inhale at the top. Exhale again, articulate. Imagine that you're rolling away from an imaginary wall. Keep the low back lifting as the chest reaches downwards and then finally it has to move forwards as well. As you inhale, lengthen out through your spine.

Send your tailbone back, reach your arms up near your ears and look for a flat spine hold. As you inhale, exhale as you dive back downwards and articulate the spine at. Breathe in at the top again. Start from the head round down through your spine, keeping your shoulders away from your ears. If it's too much pressure in your neck to keep your arms straight and extend your spine, you I have a couple of choices.

You can either keep your arms right out in front of you or they can go slightly wider and and also lift up. That's an option that you can decide. Exhale to reach back down and articulate back up. Let's do that two more times. Sitting Taller each time you come up two more. Here we go. Head goes first. As you round down, the shoulders are very much away from the gear, so you've got some space. They look down more and then feel the arms guiding you up.

Reaching the shoulders down the back. Don't look, Huh. Okay. Chest reaching up, spine reaching ups. Beautifully done. Exhale to reach back forward and all the way out and one more for the day. Sitting Taller and taller, excelling as you head forward with this spine contracting deeply through the waist as you send your just forward. Then sticking the back of the spine out or the tailbone out as you send your spine up in fort on the diagonal. Come up just a tiny bit more and look up just a tiny bit and then exhale tests head back down where it's stay there for a moment and roll yourself up. Bending the knees, bring the heels up close to the body or know that we're going to head into rolling like a ball is basically what's coming here. You can hold behind your knees, you can make a big ball, or you can make a small ball. A smaller ball is harder. So do what works better for your body.

So I want us to just round away from our thighs. Pull the low back away from the thighs. Lift the toes. I'm going to roll back on the inhale. Here it comes. Exhale as you roll up, find your balance. Inhale to rock back. Okay. Annex Hill to come up.

It's helpful to push down with the hands into the legs and push into the hands with the legs. So that'll help you keep a a tight contraction. Don't kick the legs. Avoid throwing yourself back with your head or looking upwards. Good. And let's do three more. Breathing in and breathing out. Every time you come up your balance, you stop on a dime. Good. Last time here please. Coming all the way out. Let's just drop our feet down.

Open the knees out to the side. Sit away from the feet just a little bit. Reach forward over both legs. Try to just energetically kind of press the knees away from one another towards the ground underneath you. If you're not getting enough of a stretch length and outwards to the low back or try to flatten the low back over the legs. When you're ready, roll yourself back up. We're moving into the saw.

The legs are going to go straight out again, toes facing upwards. Always. You can bend your knees when you do a modified arm position for a space. Um, come into a goalpost shape with your elbows. So what you want to, let's all bend our knees for just a minute. Sit up tall through the body. What you want to look for is that the thumbs are moving slightly behind the elbows there. So Jennifer, I'm just perfect and then move your hands out a little bit. Lovely. We're going to turn towards the right as you exhale. The left arm's going to straighten, reach down for the right toes. The writing's going to stretch, straightened and reach behind you. So we've got that straight arm position.

Reach way out through the spine. Lincoln upwards. Send the left chest towards the right knee. Come all the way up as you sit up in rotation, rebound the elbows and come back to center. Inhale as you the opposite direction. Exhale, the outside arm comes across through the inside leg in. He'll try to get that right chest closer to the left knee.

As you sit up tall ribbon the elbows at the top and exhale to come back through center. Now's a good time to straighten your knees. If you're looking for a straight legs return, reached the a left arm forward, but also push the right arm back. That'll give you a sense of moving against something in hilly, long gate the body up, rebound at the top and come back to center a couple more times. Inhale really milk this movement. So Lincoln, way down. Reach the back arm, way back, lengthen upwards, bend and come back. And let's just do one more to either side.

Try to keep or feel that the feet are perhaps against a wall so they don't shift back and forth. So you go down, you link then up and you come back through center. So don't let one shit hit, hit shift away. Perfect. Perfect. Reached down. Lengthen. Lengthen. God. Lovely. Jennifer. Come up and out and come back to center. Okay, we're going to bend our knees again. Sit just behind the tailbone. We're going to do all open leg rocker today, but I think we'll just do the prep.

So hold the back of the legs. Sit just behind the tailbone. Lift one leg, hold yourself stable as you pick up the other leg. There's a a movement from a flat back to around back here. But can we just round the lower back without affecting the chest too much in here? It is. It's the same movement that we started with where we draw the abdominals deeply in the below backgrounds and that creates the movement backwards. Roll Up, find your balance and then lengthen up and slightly back on the diagonal.

Here we go again. Round in the back. End Heel, roll back, roll up. Find your balance and lengthen up in back and again, round back. Roll Up. Yeah, go on. Three more times. Like that. Keep the shoulders down in both directions. So there is some pretty significant upper back work or upper back stability necessary to keep the shoulders from rising up and down.

Last time here, okay, I'm all the way up. Uh, bring the legs together. Place the left leg down. I'm gonna do a teaser prep prep. So you're gonna hold on onto the right knee. The one that's up still at the left. Legs down. Keep your leg totally still in space. Start with a flat back.

Start to Tuck the tailbone. Do not let the leg move. Use Your hands as much as you need to, but the focus is in the abs curling away from the leg. Try not to shift the opposite leg around. You. Go right down towards your shoulders. Your arms will straighten as you go down. Roll yourself back up. Whereas again, use your as much as you need to.

But focus, it's not about the arms, it's about the ABS. Curling, curling, curling, curling. And then at the last moment, the spine extends back up. The eyes go forward. As you exhale, Tuck the tailbone under if you want. You can let go. You don't need your arms. They're just there for help. If you, if you should need them. Exhale, send the chest, first photo, word, and then, ah, so even here and with any spinal articulation, can we get a sense of just one bone, one bone, followed by the next bone, followed by the next bone, followed by the next. Just off the shoulders. Curl up the same way. Send the ribs down. One bone at a time. Comes away from the ground. Come all the way at. Lift the spine.

Actually hold onto legs. Pull the lead me right into the chest. Nice straight back. Placed the leg down. Change sides. So we breathe in, we breathe out in Tuck. Starting from the pelvis, rolling away from the leg. The leg is meant to be perfectly still in space.

Inner thighs will help maybe a little bit of hamstring on that bottom. Like we inhale. Exhale, curve ribs downwards. Come forward first and then elongate up into back extension. Breathe in again. Breathe out to move. Feel the shoulders. Stay away from the ears.

Let go of your leg if you want to or need to work harder. And we come forward first. And then all the way, one more time, like so excelling to come down. Deepening. Think one bone at a time first curving forward and then coming all the way up and out the top. Just bring the leg close to the body, lifts the spine up and reached down. Place that foot down. Bring your arms back behind you.

Your fingers can either face inwards or out to the sides, depending on shoulder flexibility. So choose a position that's most comfortable for you. Um, from there with street Elvis to begin in the eyes forward, we're going to do another spinal articulation exercise. So I want us to Tuck the pelvis initially, keep reaching up away from the floor with the body and then lift the hips up, boss the mat. From there, we're just gonna roll forward lifting the pubic bone upwards towards the ceiling. There'll be a little bit of leg work involved. Start to sit once the pelvis gets up, about to hip level or that didn't make sense. Pelvis gets up about to knee level. Start to send the knees forward.

So now you're stretching out through the front of the body. Jennifer looks slightly forward. Mara, look up a little bit. Exhale as you send the chest back through the ribs. Pull back between the arms. We're still very, very round. We're going to stay around. Continue pushing up away from the floor.

So really lift up out of those shoulders and roll yourself up. Again. Pelvis presses up towards the face, guiding the knees out towards the toes, stretching, open through the, you want to look up some, but don't drop the head all the way back. Excellent. As you curl yourself back, maintaining control and again, look for work, good work, but also a sense of fluidity in the movement. One more time or two more times. Rolling yourself out. Creating space, creating space in the spine and the neck holds. Exhaling as you come down and feel the head. Reach up doing a good job. Reaching up as a pelvis comes down so there's still that pressure away from the floor. Let's do that one more time. Curling yourself up.

So you want to imagine that you're pushing the floor or defying gravity. So that's that lack contraction that we often talk about. Reach the head back but not, not all the way back. And then as you roll yourself down, continue to push out ports. Yeah, so the body is moving, but the shoulders are pretty stable. Good hand. Go ahead and sit down. Okay. Both legs up for the realities of prep.

Here it comes. So you're going to sit just again behind the tailbone. You can hold on to your knees if you want to or lifting the legs up. They stay together. You can use your arms if you need to. If not the arms reach forward. It's an exhale. The legs again, stay perfectly. Still. Tuck your tailbone underneath. You roll down just to your shoulders.

Can you find the same intensity? I think the other one's harder personally, but here we go again. Roll yourself back up. Good, good. Shoulders down, shoulders down, shoulders down in the spine. Exhale to round out. Pressing the knees together, talking to the pelvis. Feel that mobility in the lower back. That's important to us throughout life. And definitely in this method. XO, we curl forward first and then length. And how about one more?

Rolling yourself down if you're using your arms. Try not to crunch the shoulders or, or get too much into the neck. We hold at the bottom, we come right back up. And we guess I said that was the last one, but we've got to get down. So let's go get down with control all the way, all the way, all the way, and then reach in knees into your chest. Give him a hug.

If it feels better to keep them together. Do that. I personally prefer to open my knees out to the side. That feels better to me. So do whatever works for you. With that, we're going to bring the legs together. Reach your arms over your head, rib cage down for the hundred prep so you breathe in. Lift your chest, feel that your arms are perhaps pushing something solid away from the [inaudible], from the sky down into the earth. Hold. Inhale. As you lower your body down, keep the contraction through the, through the abdominals. Keep the bottom of the ribcage down.

Start to lift right again. So the exhale breath pulls us up. The inhale breath brings us down, but it's not relaxing where we're definitely working down. The minute we're touching down, we're not resting. We're coming straight back up at the very origin of the next exhale, holding the shoulders down. Inhale to come down last time please excelling to lift up. Hold yourself up, reach for the tops of your knees.

Use your arms to curl yourself up a little bit higher for a modified double leg stretch. Arms are going to reach down towards your hips. Arms go up, and the toes reach either towards the ground or as low as you can without leaving your low back on supported. And by that I mean don't let your low back lifts. When your legs lower, it stays glued to the mat and back and feel the knees and the fingers reaching away from one another. You don't have to go very far behind you. You can put your hands behind your head if you'd rather. So if you need some support for your neck, your hands can reach back behind your head. Try to keep your torso lifted, so don't let your body go back.

When your arms go over your head and back. This is our last one. Keep the upper body lifted. That SSA challenge. Bring it all, everything back and reached the knees into the chest. Come all the way down. Stretch the right leg down onto the ground. Send the left leg up into the air again. It can stay bent or it can straighten. We're doing some leg circles, so we're going to inhale, reaching towards the middle of the body first. Circle the leg up and around.

Pause. Exhale, same directional circle. What's most important about this, and you can put your hands on your body and feel it is the stability in the trunk. Things that help of course the abdomen or the muscles are in, in and around the trunk. Back of the supporting leg part at the top. We're going in the reverse, so it's an inhale. We reached down, swing up and catch on a dye, so you want to look for, here's another one where we're trying to relax the leg around and then pull up. It's not the thigh muscles so much that pulls it up. It's the muscles just underneath the belly button or just underneath the ribs.

One more breath cycle hold at the top, reach behind your leg, walk up, walk up the back of your leg so you're just going to reach back, guide the leg towards you. Reach the opposite leg away from you. Let go of the leg, pick up the bottom leg, change legs in space, but keep the middle of the body totally still guide that leg towards you. Anchor the bottom lake. We change. It's like, it's almost like doing the splits in the air so the legs are trying to reach us far away from one another as possible and we change. Lifts the chest to the leg rather than just pulling the leg to the chest. One more time around each leg and again, pause there. Walk Yourself. That lake head in, chest comes down, here comes our leg. Circles. Look for stability but also freedom in the pelvis.

Region up and around and exhale, crossing the body, swinging the leg down and pulling it up and exhale. One more breath. Ankle, anchoring through the straight leg on the bottom. Pause at the top, go the opposite way. Reach out, reach down across an app, down across, and to the last breath here. Bring the leg up, bend it, and slide it down along the mat, reaching your arms straight up in front of you and to lift the head and chest again. If you want a challenge, bring your arms up towards your ears or roll yourself up. Oh the way. Sit up all the way tall. Slides your hands behind you fingers. Let's all face put.

Just put your fingers out, point them out away from you, and then just press into the arms and try to just lift the chest up. Lift the chest with the eyes, maybe extending the spine a little bit, but not letting the pelvis rock too much to arch the low back. You want to hold back in the pelvic area and work on the upper spine and then just slide yourself all the way back up and bend your knees and go into a twist. Kind of a slow and relatively gentle twist. Let's hold the hands behind the head, sitting as tall as you can. You can adjust the bend in your knee to to work for you.

You can also drop your knees out to the side if that's a better position for you. Here it is. We're going to turn in my direction. That's an inhale. Exhale, take the arm. That's a way the back arm to the front. Guide yourself a little further. Inhale, hand comes back and we exhale back to center. So every movement has a breath. Let's make it like a dance he come across. Don't let the niche shift you. Guide yourself a little further. Sit forward. As you turn, you come back to center. Hand comes back and u-turn. Let's do it again. Inhale, two, exhale Lough, that free arm or the arm that's helping you to to really help you intensify not only the stretch, but also the work. So as you help yourself more for a stretch, can you engage your abs more and use them to to help you increase that movement. He hung back and central. Let's do one more time around. We go over, we turn more.

When you come back with the hand and we exhale to center and this'll be our very last one for the day. Inhale to exhale, twist, smile. Inhale, hand back and exhale to come back to center. Stretch the left leg out. Bring the right foot up against the left thigh or knee or shin. Just find a diamond light shape that's comfortable for you.

I'm going to turn your trunk, your tour, so with that same oblique movement towards the leg in front of you, walk yourself forward towards delay. Let both hands just rest where they, where they can comfortably stay. Take a moment, breathe into the abdominals and maybe allow the spine to feel a little heavier. Keep the left hand where it is. Let go with your right arm. Reach your right arm a little further than it's already reaching, and then start to roll the right chest out or around.

The right arm is going to reach up towards the right ear so you're pointing your chest away from your straight leg. Going to really engage the abdominals to bring yourself back, so make it not just a stretch, but also a functional exercise. Roll yourself up from there. Stretch the right leg out. Then the left knee. Sit Tall first. And if you need to assist yourself into a straight spine, please do.

Then turn towards the leg in front of you. Guide yourself forward. Reach forward towards that foot. If you want a bigger stretch, you can flex it. Let your arms just be where they end up comfortably. And then put the intention of relaxing the back forward.

As you deepen the muscles around your trunk, keep the right hand wherever it already is. Reached the left arm further away. Start to turn your body, your left chest reaches away from your right knee. You're turning towards your bent knee. Guide yourself back and articulate your spine or roll your spine up. And with that, let's turn in this direction.

We're going to do a modified twist exercise today. So we're all going to do is we're going to keep the bottom knee bent. We're going to come down onto the elbow. So we're not all rights and lefts, are we? Okay? So we're on our elbow. We've got our bottom knee bent and our reach, our left arms, our top arms straight up. So the most important aspect of this exercise is going to be a lift up from the waist, not from the legs or from the shoulder really.

So let's all pull the ribs away from that shoulder. Feel a good space between the ear and the shoulder on that side and with that, use the waist more than the legs, but allow the legs to support you as you lift up into a side plank position. From there, you're going to take that top arm you're going to reach underneath you, rotating through the spine, allow the the back to get a little bit of a stretch. Inhale as you come back around, eyes go forward and exhale as you keep your spine long, pulling that shoulder down away from the edge. Just allow that hips to settle down or sink down. Inhale, we lift up abdominals working actively, XL reach underneath. You.

Allow the mobility of the upper spine to happen without changing the pelvis too much. Inhale, unwind, look straight ahead and exhale. Just drop the hip spot without changing the the line of the spine to match. You guys look good. Let's do one more lift, reach under, reach back and come all the way down with that. I'm just help yourself up off that side. Bring that straight leg in a little closer to you can. If that doesn't work, you can open the knees out, hold onto the outside leg, reach the right arm up or that, that arm up.

Reach the spine app and then had been to the side. So from here we can all feel as stretch. Let's reengage the musculature. If you've lost it and pull yourself back up to sitting up straight. So you want to go up to go over, find this stretch. You can use your arm to help you and then reengage those muscles or deepen those muscles and they pull you back up. Right? So that one more time.

We're going over first and we're coming up. Let me take that same hand, place it back down on the mat. Shift your feet so that the leg that was on the bottom of the foot of the leg that's on the bottom comes up against the opposite side. So you have a, this is kind of a z formation in your legs. And to start with the free arm down, push the hips up, bringing the left arm over your head, press into that top hip, look down at your bottom hand. Reach over for the side stretch and then start to take that dop hand reach in front of you, reach in front of you as you start to sit down through your hips, come all the way back down as your hips come down. The arm ends where it started and you lift up tall.

We're gonna do that one more time. So we're going to push up into the stabilizing the shoulder, lift the hips, reach the arm overhead as you press into that, that's a, I don't know that back yet to getting a stretch, reach forward rounding, pulling the abdominals away from the hand, coming all the way down onto the hips and then this time just sitting up, leave the legs as they are. We're just going to go back to a side bend and then allow the chest to rotate slightly forward so that you change a stretch, perhaps somewhat towards the back. Come back and lift up. Swing your legs around to the other side of your mat. We started with the bottom knee bend, the top leg straight and my elbow on the floor or on the mat.

So again, I'll just reiterate that the most important line in the body is the line from the shoulder to the hip. It's going to straight stay straight the whole time. It's helpful to try to think about pulling the ribs away from the arm cu. You definitely are gonna have weighed on that arm, but pull up away from it too. To create little essence of lightness. Here we go into the twist. We're going to lift up. You can push into the straight leg for, you can push into the knee. You're going to lift your pelvis.

Now you've created a straight body. As you exhale, reach the arm underneath. Look down at that handler. Just follow the hand with your eyes. Come back and then just allow the hips to reach downwards without changing the line of the spine. Okay. Inhale, reach up. Exhale from the abdominals, reach underneath the body, come back and just allow the hips to drop. Dan [inaudible]. Cool. One more time. Mara, you might be happier moving your knee back a little.

So you're less here and more underneath. Yeah. Yeah, so, so just kind of, it's kind of underneath the straight leg and it props you up a little bit. That's it. That's it. Yeah. And then reach last one underneath. If you're ahead of me. Go ahead, Jennifer. I'm fine. Shoulder stability. Good up. And then we come all the way down. And then with that we bent her knees, stacking the top leg over the bottom like makeup.

Find a position that feels comfortable for your hips, for your body. Good. The arm that you were just leaning on is going to come up towards the ear on that side. I'm going to lengthen up through the spine first and then allow the body to side bend over. So look for a stretch, but also don't just collapse into it. Reach up and then re-engage or deepen that muscle contraction income straight up so you're reaching vertically towards the ceiling. It's an inhale to reach up and over and an exhale to engage that side of the body and pull yourself back up. Right?

One more time to go in heel to reach up and over and Xcel to pull yourself back up. Place that hand down on the ground, separate the legs so that the bottom knee comes a little bit more in front of the pelvis. The the back leg will come. It's just the foot up into the thigh. From there. You're going to put weight into that arm again in a more weight, maybe into your legs and into your shoulder. Lift up, bringing the top arm over your head, press forward. So if you look from the back of the hip to push forward into the front of the hip, you'll get a good stretch. You can keep both knees on the ground and then round forward reaching the arm first forward, reach it in front of you, and then as the arm comes back to where it started, you just undulate back to a straight back. Going to go one more time. So you press up looking for the back of that, that far leg to push forward to the hip gets a stretch and then around the spine, pull the supporting shoulder down. As you turn your chest downwards, reach the hip down towards the floor. Come all the way down.

Place the arm that was just circling down. Reach the opposite arm up. We go up first and then we reach over and if it feels good to you, it feels good to me. That's why I like to do it. You're going to turn that bottom, that that inside chest forward. You can drop the arm, you can keep the arm up and then come all the way back up. All right, I'd like to do back extension. I'd like to do it sitting up.

Today's everyone comfortable sitting with cross legs or bent knees or some version of sitting up straight. Hold on. We could probably just get you something a little bit more comfortable to sit on. This will work better and then you'll won't have to worry about, um, thank you. Tightness stuff. You'll be able to focus on what you want to focus on. All right, so what we're going to do are we going to do a couple of different exercises and what I want you to look for, I'm going to show you from the back and you guys can come with me. So elbows out straight out from the body. Notice that you're sitting right on your sit bone.

So if you're forward of your sit bones, chances are your bet low back is arching. You want to be right on top of them. And then reaching up. We're going to inhale and turn the elbows forward and the hands back as you exhale on here we are back into the theme of relaxing the body, stretch the arms overhead, and as the arms go, I want your arms to feel really light like they're pedals or leaves on a tree. The shoulder blades is where the where the heaviness is going to happen. You go to straight, you don't have to go to straight, you can go wider, you can go a little forward. All of those are choices.

Once you get to where you're going to be with your arms, then just grow taller or organ, a sense of lift and just the littlest, tiniest lift with only the chest. Maybe the arms move back a little. From that place, the elbows rebound, they pulled down the back. You're reengaging your back muscles or engaging them more so and then the palms turn back down. I'm going to turn around so I can see now. So here's the breasts cycle. Let's inhale and rotate the fingers back. The elbows forward. Exhale. It's not an arch yet.

It's just so it's getting taller type of feeling. You go to straight arms, you don't have to go to straight arms work four with what works with your body and then it's just an inhale to lift the chest, lift the eyes, let the arms just go the littlest food behind you, but don't let your pelvis arch ribbon the elbows and allow the palms to turn back down towards the floor. Like to do that about two times. Here we go. We're going to inhale and come on. Don't force it. Let it feel good to you. Let the arms be heavy. Don't even push back. If that doesn't feel good to you, just try to go a little taller. Maybe. Then let the shoulders.

Now here's that's the elbows rebound. That's the place where we can get really good solid work. Feel the elbows stretching away from one another as they re bend and then send the arms down. Oh, did I say two more? Okay, here we go. One more lightness in the arms. Heaviness in the shoulders, space between the ears in the shoulders. Maybe the arms go back. They definitely don't shove back. And if anything, they relax a little back and then the elbows bend and the palms turned back down. We're gonna do one more palms face one another again, if at any time.

So let me just be clear about this. If we're, when I say let the arms go back more, I just want you to make sure that you're not, and I'm not seeing it in here much, but I'm just wanting to be clear about the movement of the pelvis. So the pelvis should say really solid, whatever the arms are doing, the movement should be a focus in the upper back end. Here's the next one. LBS facing one another. If you've crossed your legs, maybe cross the opposite. One on top, changed across of your legs. So here it is. Your palms are facing one another.

Just energetically reached the forums towards the floor. Allow the arm bones to be a little bit heavier in the shoulder area. From there, we're going to inhale and turn the hands away from one another. Again, looking for good, solid upper back work, but not forcing anything. Exhale as you've stretch your arms out to the sides, try to feel no difference between the weight of your arms and in the weight of the air around them. All of the weight should be concentrated in the upper back area, shoulder area. You can go straight, you can stay a little bit bent.

We're going to inhale just the arms press back, Ma. The chest lifts the littlest fit, the eyes, lift the littlest bit and as we exhale we're going to take one arm across the other. Hold onto your shoulders and drop your head. Oh, just pay attention at this moment to the arm that's on top so that you can alternate arms. If the crossing over or holding onto the shoulders is uncomfortable, you can always hold onto the elbows or or figure out a different place that works. Here we go again, so sitting up tall, palms facing one another. This is going to be our last one for the day. We're going to turn.

It's not really a hand movement so much as it's a turning of the arm bone in the socket. So it's like a, you're opening a door from here. From there you're stretching the arms out. This is our exhale, heavy, heavy, heavy, upper back, nice light arms and space like wings and, and bird. And then using that analogy, allow your wings to reach back, lift your chest, maybe just lift your eyes a tiniest bit. Notice if your pelvis is moved or pressed forward. And if it has tried to sit back right on the sitting bones again.

And then the opposite arm comes across. Reach across for the shoulders or the arms or the elbows. And then just allow the head to be heavy towards the chest. And then sitting up. I just want to do one more spinal exercise. So let's all hold on. You're going to be fine. Just exactly as you are.

We're going to bring our feet, the bottoms of our feet together, and it's just on the front of the knees. So just to kind of an undulation through the spinal, a to press like we started with the Nisa in the center, um, in the beginning press just a little bit into the front of the knees and with that, keep the collar bones long, but tuck the tailbone round away from the feet. Might feel a good stretch in your upper back. Don't make it big, make it, make it come from the pelvis, but try to keep the shoulders relatively close to right over the hips. Inhale, lengthen the spine and this time go just slightly beyond neutral into a little bit of an orange. And we exhale rounding the back, coming from the abdominals, allowing the pelvises shifts slightly forward, allowing the eyes to travel downwards as we round our backs and inhale to lift shoulders reaching down the back top of the head, reaching up one more time for the day, rounding the back. Okay, I'm coming back through back extension and then I'm just sitting here. Close your eyes for a moment that your arms reach down towards the sides of your body. As you inhale, raise your arms again lightly with not a lot of focus on heaviness anywhere.

Just let them float up into the air. Feel that you're gathering energy from the space around you, bringing inwards. As you relax your arms down where it's, feel your spine go in the opposite direction or taller. Let, we're just going to do that one more time. Inhale as the arms float up, gathering energy from the space around you. An exhale. Allow the arms to just relax all the way back down towards the ground.

The spine is getting a little longer, feeling lots of energy in your body for you to go out and enjoy the rest of your rainy evening. Thank you for coming.