Playful Theraband

Hi, today we're gonna play with the band. So what I want us to do is, oh, and I'm so excited to have all my girls here! How fun, it's been a long time. So, let's stand on the band. And when you stand, organize it so that your feet are parallel to one another, and both facing forward. And then just standing yourself up.

So, bringing your awareness to the positioning of your body, feel your feet on the mat, and feel that there's a inner outer and heel connection. So, we'll say ball of the pinky toe, ball of the big toe, and heel will form a tripod. And then, bring your attention to your arms, and allow the band just to pull your arms down. As the band is pulling your arms down, feel that you can oppositionally, energetically, lift your spine. And, with that, we'll just close our eyes, and have a moment.

So breathing in, bringing awareness to the breath, and let's actually go ahead and exhale 'cause we have to, but as we inhale next, let's take the band out to the sides, so follow your arms and the band with your ribcage, feel your whole ribcage expand. And then as you exhale, allow the arms to soften and get pulled downwards, and feel the center of the body narrowing and then, again, inhale, bringing your awareness to your breath, the ribs slide out, they fill up with the space between your spine and your arms. And then, exhale, the arms will reach back. And as this happens, continue to feel that you're light in your body, light and lifted in your spine. One more breath like that, inhale, wide arms.

And exhale, let the arms route come back. And then for a roll down, we inhale, and we start to bring the head forward. Exhaling, taking the body, rounding down. Feel that as that happens the abdominals are lifted, let the band just go, I mean don't let, take it out of your hands, but let it pool around your feet, let the top of the head reach for the ground. You can open your eyes at any point, if you haven't already, and inhale.

As we exhale we'll lift the abdominals up towards the spine, right as we catch the tension on the band. Press the pelvis forward, increasing the stretch through the spine. And stand all the way up, tall again, looking forward. Inhale, and exhale, the head will draw downwards the abdominals will lift upwards. If you need to or want to soften your knees at this point, please do.

So we just use this as a moment to check in. Check in with ourselves, with our bodies, inhale, let's bend the knees. And straighten the legs, exhale. Continuing the exhale as we lift back up. And this time, at the top, as you stand up, send the arms back and lift the chest, and then bring the arms back just next to the thighs, for one more.

Exhaling to roll down. Lifting, supporting, working through the center of the body, top of the head reaching for the floor, arms reaching for the floor, pause, bend the knees. Straighten the knees, and lift back up, exhale. And then, at the top, standing tall, again, lifting through the breastbone, let's take the arms back, for a five, as we're working in a chest expansion like action, four, holding the ribs back, that cue is mostly for me, but there are other people who will hear it too. And, last one, good.

So, come back, step out of the band, and hold it in your hands out in front of you. We've got pretty light bands, so, did, depending on how heavy your band is, if you want more tension, you could always double it up. I'm gonna just wrap my band in my hands, so I don't have to hold on to it right now. So, there you're always allowed to choose your own tension, I have a, a fair amount. So we're gonna bring the elbows wide.

Bringing the band towards the center of the body. And then we're just gonna take the arms and reach back forward from there. Lift the arms up, so don't push past any, flexibility challenges, but see how far back you can go, without thrusting the head forward. And then bring the arms back forward. Let's inhale to bend the elbows, feel that you pull the band as you bend your elbows, you pull out wide.

So we want the hands to be just in front of the elbows, and then reach the arms out. And then lift the arms up, see how far back you can go. Nice, Justine, and then bring the arms back down. Let's do that two more times, we'll inhale, to bend. And exhale to reach, and inhale to stretch the arms up and also stretch the spine up.

And exhale to come down. And inhale to bend. And exhale to stretch. And inhale, arms up, let's pause here. Gonna inhale and stretch to the left, with our bodies.

Exhale, pull the left arm down a bit, so you get a little bit more stretch in the right side of your body. Inhale, the arm comes up, and exhale we lift to center. Inhale, reach up to go over. Exhale, pull down on the right arm. Inhale, lift up on the right arm.

And exhale, come back through center. And now again, inhale, we'll go to the left, no pulling this time, but this time, we're gonna rotate our trunk. The top arm's gonna come down, we're gonna bring our band parallel to the floor, we're gonna inhale and reach back open, and exhale to lift up. And, last one, over to the other side, inhale, and exhale, to rotate the spine, and inhale to bring the body back and exhale to lift up. Let's bring the band all the way down.

And, undo your hands. Come down to the mat. So, we're gonna take the band and wrap it around our feet. So, I love the band 'cause I think it, not only is it great back and arm work, but it also gives us the opportunity to really challenge some of the positions, like sitting up, that it's tend to be hard, for some of us. So just flexing the feet, I want you to push the band towards the mat, and as you push the band towards the mat, lift your spine.

It's not a great deal of movement, but we should feel some energy in our bodies, inhale, let the arms come up. Exhale, press the arms down, to lift the spine taller. Inhale, let the arms come up. Three more, exhale, pressing down, building the spine, drawing the abdominals back towards the spine. And we just work with our breath, last two.

Bringing the knees into our focus, or the inner thigh muscles into contraction. So now, from here, I want us to keep the shoulders over the pelvis, and curl the spine, without curling the collarbone, so, we just round the spine, it's again not a big movement, curling away from the knees. And then, press the band down, lift tall. Exhale, curl. Deepen into that, basically the top of this a C curve, or the top of the roll up, and then, press the band down to lift.

And, two more, curl. And press lift. And, last one, curl, this time, from that curl, we're gonna start to bring ourselves back. So, you can lighten up on your band, or you can tense up on your band, whatever you need to do. Inhale when you get to your shoulder blades, exhale, we roll up.

So I'm gonna speed us up a little bit. We're gonna build the spine tall, press the band down, inhale. Exhale, round the spine, roll back towards the shoulder blades, keep the knees connected together, inhale. Exhale, curl, shoulders over the pelvis. And press up, one more like that.

We curl, so we warm up the spine here, rounding back. Inhale, and exhale, curl. And press up. Inhale again, exhale, curl the spine. We're going down into the mini roll up, so this is where, if you need a little bit more band, you should give yourself a little bit more band.

I'm pausing on my shoulder blades. Pelvis in a neutral position, now we're gonna come up, and around that neutral pelvis, and down. Exhale, curling up and over, I feel, in my own body, like I have to imagine that there's something heavy and round on my pelvis, and have to wrap my spine around it. And as that is happening, that challenge of not moving the pelvis, also, look into your own body, look into your own experience, and see how deeply you can get your contraction to happen. We're gonna do four more.

Curling, and back. And curling, working our way, through the sticky spot in our spine. Or, through my sticky spot, anyway. Two more. And, last one.

Come all the way up, this time. Find your round position, lift your spine tall. Bend the arm that's closest to me, and take the other arm, and push towards the floor. So we pull, we rotate, the opposite arm goes down. Inhale, center.

Exhale, bend the opposite arm, the arm closest to me pushes down towards the floor. So, I've got my left arm straight, Casey. Yep, you got it. And then, center. So, now I'm bending this arm, my straight arm is gonna push down, and I can actually push into the floor and use the floor a little bit.

And, inhale, center. And, rotate and push. And, center. So we're trying to stay right over the top of ourselves, sitting up as tall as we can, and center. And twist, most of us could think just a little bit about going forward slightly, as we go in through that rotation.

And, center, and pull. And, center, last one, beautiful. And rotate wringing out the spine. And, center, and rotate, and center. From center, we're gonna start to take it back again, so we roll back down, finding that same, I'm just at the edge, of my shoulder blades position, my pelvis is in neutral, everybody rotate in my direction, sliding the the far ribs across, and the near ribs in.

And now, we curl, and down. So, use the band to challenge how deep we can go, in these movements, or to just get through these movements, if they're tough for you, as is. And breathe, and back. And four, and back. And three, and back.

Last two. And up, last time, turning into that rotation. And down, find center, inhale. And come all the way back up again. Lift the spine tall.

This time we're gonna bend the elbows wide, both elbows at the same time, pull back, and reach forwards, pull back, wide arms, and reach forwards, three more. Pull back, and reach forward. And, two. And, last time, and then from there, we curl the body down, again, keeping the legs still. Rotating the spine to the opposite direction, and then just little curls there, small, and intense and controlled.

And curl, the knees are connected, the feet are lined up. It's not about just working the up, so try to feel that there's work on the way down, as well as on the way up. You have four to go. And, two, twisting as you lift. Or maybe just trying to increase the sensation.

And, one, and then we'll come to center. And we'll roll up. And we'll lift up. Stretch the legs out straight, reach forward, take a stretch take the band away from your feet, and bring it with you as you roll yourself down onto your back. So, bending the knees, setting yourself up so that your feet are right underneath your knees, your feet are right underneath your knees, and they're parallel to one another, band in the hands, you can hold on to it, or you can wrap your hands again.

So, we're gonna inhale here, coming through a pelvic curl. As we exhale, start to curl the pelvis under. So, feel that the lower spine flattens, then the spine starts to travel upwards, and as the hips come up to meet the band, I want you to wrap the band around your legs, and pull. Inhale, let the arms start coming up, and as the spine rolls down, reach the arms backwards. And inhale, tailbone touches.

And exhale, we curl and lift, pressing the feet down into the floor, bringing the band through space, wrap around the thighs and push. So, the arms are pulling down, the hips are pulling up, there's oppositional work happening, we roll the body down, all the way, reaching the arms back, inhale. And exhale, curling. Inner thighs are in our focus, our knees are parallel to one another, and we reach, and articulate, so trying to, for you to play with the idea of just here is all our contractions, right? The contraction of the back of the arms, the back of the legs, the abdominals pulling down, and then, as you go down, how easy can you bring yourself down?

Which is like a rebound. Last two, a work, like a coiled spring, wrap, press. And a rebound, and gentle release. One more time, inhale, and exhale to lift. Wrap and let the band come just over the chest.

So, we're gonna hold here, inhale, we're gonna lift the left leg, as we exhale it's gonna come all the way underneath the band, or maybe, just right underneath the band, and tap the toes. Exhale, pull the leg through. And inhale to tap, give the band a little bit of an outward pull. In comes the leg, and down. And in comes the leg, and down, two more.

In, and down. And in, and down. And now, lift the leg, and take the body down, in one piece, down, and then up. Down, and as the hips lift, give that band a little pull. Each time, down, and lift.

Down and lift. Down and lift, last time. Down, and lift, pause at the top, place the foot on the floor. As you roll your spine down, take your arms over your head. Inhale there.

Exhale to curl the spine back up, we'll take the band again, right above the chest, left foot stays on the floor, right leg lifts, five, and taps. As the leg's moving through space, there's no change in the spine or in the pelvis. It's all very still, and supported, last two. Last one, pausing there. Lower the spine, inhale, and pull lift.

And inhale, and pull lift. And inhale, and pull and lift, last two. Last time, we'll place that leg down. We'll reach the arms overhead, and we'll peel the body all the way, all the way, all the way down. Bringing the arms back up.

I'm gonna not wrap my hands now, but instead, hold my band, but you can feel free to do exactly what makes you happy. So, bringing the legs up into a tabletop position, inhale to bring the legs towards me, just keeping the arms still. And exhale to come back. And inhale, so how far can the knees go, without the band changing? And exhale to come back.

And inhale, so we hold our base of support in our upper body while the lower body changes, moves through space. Inhale, reach over. Exhale pull back. I'm gonna change it now, so as the knees come towards me, pull the opposite arm away, you'll get, you'll get further. And exhale center.

And inhale, the knees go away from me, the opposite arm that arm closest to me pulls on the band. And center. And inhale, we reach. And exhale to come center. And inhale to reach.

And exhale to come center. So, we're gonna curl the head and chest up, placing the band just above the shins, I want you to pull down on your band, at the same time as you press up into the band with your shins. Just that action should make you feel something in your midsection. Inhale, we're gonna reach out, double leg stretch, hold here, try to lift a little higher in your upper body, exhale, bend the knees, push down, and curl. Inhale, reach out.

Exhale bend, push, curl. So you can use that, that band connection to increase, the sensation, if you wish. You can use it to help you feel the heighth of your body, if you wish, you can just lightly rest it there, if you wish. So, we'll do five. And inhale, and four.

And inhale, and three. Just holding ourselves in that nice high curl, two. And reach, last one, take the band just off the knees, or off the shins, one leg out, one leg in. Pull it right in today, and change. And let's pull the band as we exhale.

Pull, and three. And reach, so that straight leg, is energized, reaching away, I'm not actually touching my shin, with the band, I mean, you could do whatever you want, but I've got mine right over the top of it. I'm gonna do two more. Last one. Holding it together right, ladies?

We're gonna turn, everyone turn towards me, take the band in your hand closest to me, pull it down. Take the band in your other hand, and pull it up. Find center, and twist. And center, so we slowed this one down a little. Twist, and center.

And twist, and center. And twist, curling up into the center. And twist, and curling up into the center. Four, and center, little faster. Four and center, and three.

Three. Two two. One, one, center the body. Place one foot down, place the other foot down. Lining the feet up again, so they're right underneath the knees.

Exhale, curl the body up, just leave the band where it is. Pausing there, lifting the left leg. Stretching it out, now, organize the band, so that you can touch it with your leg. So, I have to bring my arms a little forward. From there, we're gonna kick the leg down, inhale.

Exhale, bring it back. Inhale, exhale bring it back. Inahale, and back. And two, and back. And one, and hold, now we're gonna do a little circle try to brush the band, two, three, four, five other way, one, that band is like your net, you're trying to touch it each time.

Two, one, the leg comes down, the arms reach overhead. The spine comes down slowly, reaching the arms the other way and then, as the pelvis comes down, the band comes up, over the chest, inhale, exhale, we'll curl the body up. Bring the right leg up, you know what to do with your band, make it touch the leg, and now we take the leg down. And back, down, trying to get it as close to the floor as you can, without letting the pelvis drop. Down and back, down, and back, last time.

We hold, we make a small in circle, one and two, and reaching back to touch the band, four and five, we reverse, one, and two, and three, and four, and five, the leg comes down, the arms reach, and we roll down. So, lets' stretch the right leg out, lift the head and chest and wrap the band around the left foot. I like to make sure that my band's not bunched up on my foot, but that it's pretty wide on my foot. Okay, so elbows pinned to the body, we're gonna lift that hip off the mat. So, the left hip is actually clearing the floor, the leg's gonna reach down, around, and back to the top.

We're gonna do that three times in each direction. Inhale, and exhale, so, feeling the relationship, between the musculature of the trunk and what needs, and what needs to happen the other way, what needs to happen to create stabilization, in this movement, which should feel great. So, last time, now I want us to take our leg forward. Lift he head, the arms will straighten. We're gonna roll through the spine, so come up as far as you can, with straight elbows, then begin to bend your elbows, pushing the opposite leg down into the floor, we lift the back, so we're like single-leg teaser, with a little bit of rowing, and then, we're gonna roll down but we're not going all the way to the ground.

We're just gonna find the shoulder blades, the tips of the shoulder blades, and let's inhale to lift. So, yes, we're using our arms, but we're not pulling ourself up with our arms, we're using the abdominals, to create that spinal articulation, one more time. Inhale to lift, reaching up up up, really getting that back nice and flat, exhale to roll down. Come all the way down this time, bring that leg back as far as you can, bend, inhale, stretch exhale for three. Bend, inhale, press the arms down as the leg stretches.

One more, bend, and stretch. Bend the right knee, replace the band, or, replace the foot. The left foot with the right foot. Send the left leg down towards the floor, again, pinning the elbows next to the body, here we go. Inhale, lift the right hip off the mat.

Circle down, around, and up. And again, lift, down, around, and up. Just notice, right, if you just keep your abdominals lightly engaged, the contraction that's happening in reverse there, will change places, it will move around, but it will definitely be there. And, inhale, and down, around and up. And inhale, and down around and up, and then pause.

So we take that leg down, set it where it'll be challenging for your own teaser, lift your head, and then, peel, look where you're going, try not to look down, and then start by bringing the arms into the picture, lifting the chest, and then bringing yourself down again, curling, pressing the foot out into the band. Pause, and curl. Trying to keep that bottom leg, we use that as an anchor, and reach down. One more, lifting up, finding that nice, flat spine position lower all the way down this time, bring the leg back. Pull it back as far as you can, we'll all be a little different.

And bend, and stretch, and bend, and stretch. And, one more, and stretch. So, now bend the left knee, place the left foot into the band, with the right foot. Take both legs down, lift your head up, again, and now we roll the spine up, rolling up, up, up, up bending the arms, and straighten. Holding your balance.

Bending the arms, and straighten. Last one, bending the arms, and straighten. And then place the feet down. Just gonna back up a little bit. Okay, so we have this band, is still around our feet, we're gonna do a little bit more rotation, this time with straight legs.

So, this time, as we bend the elbow that's closest to me, instead of pulling down with your arm, I want you to pull it out. So we'll pull and then you do this arm, pulls to the person behind you, it helps you with your rotation, and then inhale to center. And then, rotate, pull and reach, like you're gonna touch the person next to you, yeah nice! And center, and rotate and pull and reach. And center, and rotate and pull and lift the chest, go forward with the body, and center, and again we twist, rising up, up, up, and center. And twist, building the spine, getting taller, spiraling.

And center, two more, both sides. Reach across, really giving both arms the chance to help. And reach across. And back, last one, lifting up and across. Checking in with your feet, are they slipping and sliding in your band?

Or are they nice and still? And then center. So we're gonna lean forward, separate the legs, band is still gonna come around the feet, so you just have to readjust. We're gonna head into the spine stretch forward here. I just had an idea, and I don't know if I've ever done it before, and I don't know if it's gonna work, but we're gonna try it.

But it's not happening yet, so I'll think about it for a while, while we do this. We're gonna round down, and then bend the elbows, bend the elbows, reaching the head like you're gonna take it, like it's going into the band, and then let the arms come next to your body, the arms are gonna drop down like wings (train whistles) Hello, press down towards the floor, with your knuckles, so your arms reach toward straight, start to bring your back up on the diagonal, yes. And then lift, back to straight. Exhale, bend the elbows, pulling down, pulling down, and then arms down, knuckles to the mat. Spine reaches, long flat spine, beautiful positions, ladies, and we lift up and inhale, and round, wide arms first, using the arms to pull.

Elbows come in, arms begin to straighten, head leads, chest comes up, abdominals are pulled back. Nice flat spine, and sitting up, last two then we get to try my crazy idea. Which, I'm sure it's been done before, but maybe just not by me, and then arms down, so, pushing into the mat. Try and get closer and closer to your legs with your flat spine, each time, and now lift up, and last one. Rounding down, arms in, pin your shoulders back.

And reach up, up, up, up, and up. Okay, so here it is, we're gonna, make sure you've got some space for rolling. We're gonna round back a little, ready Amy? We're gonna woop! Our legs up, this is where you might decide you want a little more band. (laughs) And we're gonna rock, open leg rock, we rock back, woo. (giggling)

And find balance. And rock and, it's actually, for me, it's like harder to go back, for some reason, and, maybe not (laughing) different to come up, let's do two more. Definitely works though. (laughing) Just shows you where your asymmetries are. Okay, that's enough of that, lower the legs, take the band off your feet.

Sit up tall, hold it in your hands. That was fun, so the feet, I'm still gonna keep 'em separate, we're gonna be heading into the saw, so I want us to lift our spine tall, we're gonna turn towards me, the front arm pulls the band, the back arm pulls the band. So the arms are off the mat, but now we're gonna take that back arm to the floor. We're gonna stretch the band on the diagonal, using the arms and the band to help the spine get long, lift the back hand, and come to center. Inhale to rotate, and exhale, diving forward.

While keeping the band off the floor for now, and then anchor, and reach stretching the band, stretching the spine, the back hand lifts, the spine comes center. Inhale, turn, exhale reach, arm comes down, spine reaches long, arm comes up, body comes center. Inhale, rotate, exhale to stretch, inhale elongate the body, let the back hand come up, exhale center, making a change, starts the same, we go all the way down, we find that long line again. Now I want you to take that band, and rotate, wrap the band around your chest, like a Miss America sash, you're gonna reach back, look back, come back to your rotation, you're looking at me, and center. And, inhale, turn, stretch your band, exhale.

Anchor, reach out, wrap around, come back into your rotation, let the back hand come up, and center. I love it, let's do one more, turn and reach, anchor, breathe, lift, turn reach back, look back, come back through center, or back through your rotation, back arm comes up and center, last time, inhale, turn exhale dive, inhale reach, wrap, rotate, back to rotation, back arm up, and center, nice. We're gonna turn onto our sides, face me, please. So, I'm gonna take the band, it's gonna be in the hand that's on the bottom. It's gonna be in both hands, really, but I'm gonna use my bottom hand, to create some pull, as I use my top hand to create some pull.

So, what I want us to do, and if this doesn't work for you, right, if it's too hard to balance, just bring your arm down in front of you. So we have the band in our hands, we're lined up in a straight line, draw into your abdominals, lift your legs, and stretch your band. You bring your band down the side of your body, and then the legs don't go all the way down, they're just gonna hover, and the arm reaches up. So I want us to just recognize that there's connection, from the shoulder, through the ribs, into the waist, into the hips, it's all connected. We know that, I think, but if you didn't, or if you doubt me I promise, and I promise.

And back, and then we bring a little bit awareness, right, into what it feels like to have to balance, right, to do this movement with nothing to help us hold on. And back, let's just do about four more. So these simple movements are so valuable to me. And back, to everyone, I think, but I I genuinely appreciate them so much, because they they're the movements that allow for concentration, right, to really get deep or go deep. The building blocks that enable us to do the fancy tricks.

The fancy choreography, we'll say. Okay, so we're gonna come back. I want us to take the band, and put the top foot in it. The bottom leg's gonna bend to a 90 degree angle, So this is my kinda idea of like, a side-lying leg circle, with a little bit of tension, if you will, or resistance. So I'm still gonna lie down, and what I do is I take my elbow and I hook it right in my, the crease where my hip is.

Can I see, you help your, you can put your head up if you want, or you can lie all the way down. The back is straight. We're gonna start to take the leg back, so as it hits that straight line, we're gonna start turning, and that's when you can think about turning in your shoulder too, so you rotate the shoulder as well, and then the leg comes down in front of us, and then press back, you can see how far back you can go, right, you don't have to stop just level to your body, but I do want your elbow to stay slightly in front of you, not behind your body. And reach back, and then you really play with that deep rotation of the hip, and we'll just do two more. Reaching back, nice, good, and playing around with that, it's there's two ball-and-socket joints working here, being challenged here, and we can think about both of them.

Okay so lets' take that in reverse, we go up, it's a little trickier this way, don't push so far back, that the band's gonna pull you backwards, but it does go behind and then it does come forward. So, a suggested breath pattern could be inhale, exhale through the work, or what I feel is a stretch, in my experience, and up, and around using that resistance of the band, last two. And around. And one more, and around. Okay, so now just bringing that leg forward, let's bend the knee.

We'll just sit up and swing the legs around and do the other side right away. So, we're lined up, we're lined up. You've got as much or as little tension as you want. You got your toes and shoulders in alignment, here we go. We reach the legs, and as the legs are lifting, the band stretches down to the legs, and then we lift and lower, and press and flow.

Feeling that connection, bottom of the scapula, through the ribs, through the muscles of the side of the trunk. And, again, it's never important if something that doesn't work for you, right, you just make it work. Or you put you hand down, or focus on the, on just the body working, it's all just suggestion. Gonna do two more, always floating, always hovering. And last time.

And then reaching up, bending the bottom knee. Taking the top leg into the band. Right, so now you know what you're dealing with, you can give yourself more tension, less tension. And we're just bringing the leg, right out in line over that bottom knee, just where we started. Okay, and then we're gonna press back.

Working against that rotation in the hip, against the rotation of the shoulder. Whoo, against cramp, against a cramp if you're me. And then press back, so one side sometimes doesn't feel like the same body as the other side. That's what I'm getting to play with right now, I'm sure I'm not alone. Last two, keep thinking about where the elbow is.

Does anyone else get a stretch in their neck? I didn't feel that on the other side, but I'm really getting a stretch in my neck on this side. Which is nice, it's the first time I've ever experienced that, okay, so here we go. In, this exercise, anyway, and then we're gonna go up, gonna push elbow to hip, reach back and through, and then forward, and then up, press elbow to hip. Reach back and through, so you can work, right you can get a lot of work through the back of that hip.

Through the rotators of the hip, as the leg passes through and presses against the band. Two more. Good, and last one. Okay, so, bringing that leg out, we're gonna turn over onto our stomach. So, I want you to take your band, for me, this works really well with my elbows just a little bit in front if not right underneath my shoulders.

If that doesn't feel like a great place to be, definitely move yourself forward, it's just a little harder the exercise I'm asking for is a little harder with the arms forward than it is with the arms here. Justine, I would take you forward slightly, yeah. Okay, so just pinch the band with the thumbs, look down, for straight wrists, and then, drawing the abdominals in and up, pick up the forearms, so that they're just, like, hovering off the mat. Now I want us to focus on our shoulder rotators, so we're gonna start rotating the upper arms outwards, and that gives us a little bit of a pull on the band. And then release.

So, that would be a great place to exhale, feeling the rotation, you should all be feeling a lot of work through the back of the shoulders, and the upper back, and exhale to pull and rotate, and release. Let's do five more, exhale, pull, keeping the breastbone lifted, it's kind of like the single-leg kick position. And pull, I just had an idea, let's make, let's make it a little more single-leg kicky, so, floating the legs up, let's bend the knees in, with the band is relaxed, and then pull the band, so externally rotate the shoulders, stretch the legs. Inhale, bend, release the band. Exhale, rotate, stretch.

Inhale bend, release the band. Exhale, rotate, stretch. Two more like that, I love this, I've never done this with legs before. And just one more, bend, and stretch. Awesome, take the legs down, turn your face towards me.

So we're gonna take the band behind us, and we're gonna wrap our arm, hands up. You can wrap up as close as you want, or as far away as you want. I'm gonna get in nice and close. So, from there, drawing the abdominals in, floating the legs up, I'm just keeping my head a little bit lifted, you guys can stay down. Looking this way, and then we'll pull one, two, three, then we'll stretch the band as we lift our spine.

And the other way, one, two, three, and reach out. So, bend, and inhale, two, three, and stretch. And bend, the band comes up high on the back, if you can manage. And stretch, we're gonna do one more, one, two, three, and stretch, and one, two, three, and stretch. Lower the legs down, lower your body down.

Your band can come around, and just rest in front of you. So, we're gonna come up onto our hands and knees, We're gonna rest back onto our feet in rest position, briefly. And then we're gonna finish with something fun, for me. So, come onto your hands and knees. Step one foot back, find your center.

Step your other leg back, and pause. We're gonna start by doing three push-ups. One, two, three. Keep the right leg down, lift the left leg up. Five, four, three, two, one, can we hold the leg in the air and do three more push-ups.

One, two, three. Press the hips up, press the leg up, reach way up. Round, bring the knee into the chest, and reach way back, and round, bring the knee into the chest, reach way back, kicking up, finding your heighth. And round, last two, and round, okay, this is my new favorite thing, so we're gonna come back into that round position. You can either do one of two things, you put your foot on the floor, that's helpful.

You can keep the leg floating, we do three push-ups here. One, two, three. Place your knee down, bend your other knee in, and sit back. You know I don't like to do mat class without push-ups. That's one I recently started playing with.

Okay, ready, other side. It's gonna be the same. We step the leg back, we step the other leg back. If you don't want to do push-ups you don't have to, if you wanna do push-ups on your knees, please do. You make your choices to suit yourself.

Here's one, and two, and three. We hold, we pick up the right leg. Five, four, three, two, maybe we leave it in the air. We bend, and reach, two, and reach, one, and now we kick back, find the lift, and round in. And reach back, and round in as the leg comes back, keep the eyes looking down.

And in, and two, and in, grand finale, here it comes. Reach and in again, it works really well with the foot on the floor, bend, press, one. Bend, press two, bend press three, knee goes down. Leg comes in, and sit back. Okay so you're band should be right in front of you.

Grab it, come up, turn this way. We're just coming up onto the knees, I've given myself a little bit more band than I did when I started, so we've got a lot of space to move with. Lining the shoulders up, so they're resting right over the knees, we're gonna lift the arms up. So, now we have a dangling part of the band, I want us to bend the elbows, I want you to send your elbows forward, into the, into the part of the band that's hanging. Mhm, give it a little outward stretch if you want.

And then stretch the spine up, as the arms reach up. So I'm trying to bend from, not from my lower back so much, and bring the arms down in front. Not from my lower back, so much. I'll do it to the side so you can see, I'm not going backwards from here. I'm trying to really just find thoracic extension.

Here we go again, reaching up, and then elbows bend, elbows go forward, hands go back, you might find you've got more room each time. And then, just a slight lift of the sternum. Like the breastbone or the collarbones are connected to the upward motion of the band. And then down, one more. This is another one of my favorite things to do.

So we're reaching, we bend, and we reach up. And now, from here, we're gonna round so the band reaches out in front of us. Just pulling back, like a neat stretch. And then back up, hand over head. Inhale, I'm gonna come back this way again.

And exhale, curling, drawing in, the band reaches for the floor, just hovers. So, we stretch the spine, and inhale. And round. (exhales) Drawing the shoulders down, deepening, deepening into that rounded spine, and up. And one more, rounding, and up.

And then the band goes all the way around. Opening the shoulders, and then all the way around. And up, and we hold, we're gonna go over to the left again. We're gonna take that left arm and pull. And lift, and over to the right, and just following your own breath.

And then over to the left again, no pull, just rotation, so we spiral, we bring it back. And we lift up, and over, and spiral, and bring it back, and lift up. And rounding the spine, rounding so deeply, that the band can come all the way down. And you can sit down onto your feet. And just let the band be there and roll up.

So you're just sitting on your feet. And have your eyes open or closed, the hands resting on the thighs. Just pausing for a moment, and noticing, right, noticing what you feel, the energy moving through your body. There's not enough moments like this in a life, I think, to just notice, and be grateful for. Like I'm grateful for you! Thank you for taking class with me.

(applauding)