Coordinate Breath & Movement

Hi, I'm Kathy Murakami. This is the grand finale of our fundamental progression series. This is lesson number four where we are putting together everything I've covered in lessons one, two and three and there will be a few surprises, so be prepared. All right, we excited. All right, so everybody will stand to the back end of your map to the back end of your mat and let's have the feet just a little bit apart and I'd like you to anchor down through the legs and reach up through the spine and let your arms hang at your sides. All right, so you know all the dots that were connecting. You understand this is the Bisquick formula to pull out ease. As we're breathing, we're focusing our mind, we're bringing our attention to the entire organism of the body, inside and out.

We're bringing our intention to feel breathing and moving. At the same time we are moving from the inside out so that the movements or the stability does not look overly rigid, overly rigid. There is some give in there because of the breath and we are doing all of this with no tension. So it's the attention, intention, no tension theory. So we breathe in wide in the side, back ribs. Exhale, roll from the crown of the head. Keep your weight forward, rounding down towards the full or any amount. Walk your hands forward. Inhale, we come to that plank position. Pause.

Exhale, sustain your position here. Inhale, stay. Exhale, stay. Inhale, stay. Exhale lightly. Put the knees down so you are still in plank, but from your knees and then guide your body into position so that you are on the hands and knees. Quadriparetic organized so the thigh bones are straight up and down and your toes are curled and you are aware of where your head and neck are placed. Okay. Inhale, prepare.

As you exhale without disturbing the structure, we're going to slide the right hand for the left toes. Back. Pause. Inhale, exhale, levitate off of the floor and hold. Breathe in. Exhale and stay. Connect the dots. Inhale, exhale and stay. Inhale here. Exhale, stay. One more breath. Everybody.

Reach energetically through the bones and then return gracefully to that starting position. Hand under shoulder, knee under hip. Breathe in. Exhale, slide. Right foot. Left thinkers and pause. Inhale, sustain, exhale and levitate. Hold their, breathe in. Breathe out. So remember, your breathing should still feel effortless. Two and number three. And number four, lengthen through the arm and the leg from the spine. Exhale, lightly and gracefully. Touchdown and guide your hand in the into place.

Give your bum a little bit of a shake. Very good. Cross your ankles. Slide forward on your mat. Okay. And let's take a hold of the squishy ball. Okay, the squishy ball. And um, you can have your little weights nearby. Nearby. Yeah. All right. Those of you that have the smoother balls, you're going to want to use that.

We're going to place the ball behind the sacrum, wedge it in by the tailbone, anchor it securely. Bring the arms forward. So remember, we use the arms as leavers to make things easier or harder. So today you can keep the arms forward here. If you want a little more challenge, the arms are here crossed. Okay, so you're bringing that way closer to the torso. Breathing up your spine. Exhale as you saw from the chest. Remember, it's a lengthened curve.

Lower the elbows so that they're not higher than your shoulders. Breathe in. Breathe all your air out. Feel connect. Good. Inhale here. Stay here and breathe out. Beck, I think you want to bring your upper body forward. Yeah, hold there. Inhale, exhale, curve forward and all the way back up. Once again, soften the chest and curve back.

So remember when you come back, you don't want to go too far, so where you're feeling like you're arching here. Hold here. Everybody rotate towards me. Hello. Inhale, come to center and take it the other way. Away from me. Keep your throat lifted or sorry, your Chin lifted your throat open. Come back to the center. Rotate again. This direction.

Feel where your head is so your head is not leaning forward. Come back and rotate away. Are you enjoying this? Yes. Inhale Center. Exhale, curve forward and up. Try not to bury your face. Breathe in.

I want to see you and curve back down again. Exhale. Okay. If you want a little more challenge, breathe in. Exhale, shoulder blades down, elbows up, throat stays open faced [inaudible]. Yes, you feel it. Inhale here, exhale and lower. Inhale, rotate towards me. Same thing maybe or maybe not. Exhale and lower.

Okay. Come back to center. Inhale, switch it to the other side and float those elbows up at the blades. Go down. So be careful of the potential elevation. Lower the elbows, and come back to center. Breathe in. Exhale, curl all the way up. Pick up your balls. Maybe. Remember, these are optional.

You want to keep that there and pick up the pair of balls. Sorry. Alrighty. Are you holding them palms or forward? Yes. Okay, that's fine. Don't use them. You don't have to. I could use them. Okay. You just lucked out. Inhale, exhale and curve back. Okay.

Inhale, rotate towards me. Okay. The arm that is away from me, bring it up. Exhale. Inhale here. Exhale and center. Remember the shoulder blade goes down before the arm goes up, turn away, breathe in, and then the arm floats. Any amount doesn't have to come all the way back. Okay.

Wherever you want it to go to. And you can still breathe. Bring it down. Inhale, exhale, come center. What do you think? One more. Sure. And Ta-da. Let me see that necklace, Cameron [inaudible] and come back down center one more. Turn and coming up and coming back. Come to the center. Breathe in, exhale and curl all the way up. Oh my gosh. Right.

Take this out. I think of that song. Take this job. Yes. So the rollback, the rollback. Yeah. Ready? You can hold the weights if you know you, they helped you in the progression. Number three. Otherwise, if you don't need them, um, and I'm going to use yours for demonstrating. Okay. So arms are forward and I remember you're going halfway down, right Cameron, right. Inhale, arms forward. Exhale and rolling back. Five, four, three, two, one. Inhale, head, neck, shoulders forward. Look forward. Exhale. Two, three, four, five. Breathe in and roll it down. Soften your chest, eyes open all the way down.

Keep your arms forward. It will help you head, neck, shoulders forward. Breathe in. Exhale, two, three. It's so fun to breathe and talk and do this. And we're all dad. Exhaling shoulder blades. Connect those stones. Yes for you. Then roll the head, neck, shoulders forward. Exhale.

That's it. Keep going. See if you can do it without the balls and rolling down to three, four head. Come forward. Breathe in. Look full forward. Come on up. Yes. Yes. One last time. Make it your best one. Curve it down. Nice. Beautiful. Inhale there.

Roll on up on that inhale first exhale. Feel still back all the way up. Nice. Very good. Okay. Let's cross the ankles and take the band in. Actually, we have not covered rotation in in any of the other progressions, so we will do it today. Your band sit up tall. Now if you're at home and you find that it's difficult to sit on the floor and the knees start going upward, get yourself up on a surface so that your hips are higher or a bit higher than your knees. Yeah, so we're going to pull on the band, pull it apart.

Bring it behind your shoulders here. Okay. And what I'd like you to monitor all of you. Is this okay? In order to try to sit up, you push forward in that mid back. So really bring that rib ridge down. Yeah, you might want to stagger yourselves a little bit. One four, come forward.

Hailey, come forward you to come forward. Okay. Otherwise you're gonna decapitate your neighbor, right? So bring your hands a little bit in front of your shoulders and stretch the wrist flat. We're going to rotate towards me. Okay, so we're gonna turn on the inhale and then exhale to center. That's it. Feel your noticed in the middle of the breastbone brewery. Then to turn, exhale to center. That's it.

Breathe into turn. Exhale to center. So that reach that you have to do through the arms to keep the band stretched, keep that sensation as though it's coming from the bones of the arms rather than the muscles so much so you don't over tense your neck. Great. One more breathing in. This is spinal rotation. Last one. Inhale and exhale.

Shoulder blade stayed down. Arms come up. Okay, so that same feeling. So here actually, you know what, bring your hands a bit closer. All right. See if you can get a sense that the arm here in a v shape is coming out of this spot of your body. So there's that. Enter genetic reach. Okay. All right. Now as we turn, turn towards me. Breathe in. Pull the band from that shoulder blade area so you are growing above the band and then exhale to center their direction.

Breathe in, exhale to center and to the right or actually towards me, towards the stage, center and away. Grow above the band, out of the tailbone and center. Breathe in. Widen that back as though the back widening is what pulls the arms apart. Last one, and exhale to the center. Very good. Let's put this down. Alrighty. Next piece. I'm going to give these back to you.

Let's put the towels down for abdominal curl and we're going to progress that right along. So if you still use the band to help you with curling forward, please don't let go. If you feel you have neck strain. All right, we will take two, uh, repetitions of this and let's have the feet and knees together. Alright. Anchor your Scapula, elbows off of the floor, tailbone heavy inner thighs connected. Breathe in as you're exhaling.

Start pulling curve forward, forward. Look over and at the inner thigh area, shoulder blades down. Breathe in. Exhale, everybody's an option. You can let go and reach those arms forward. They will help you come up. Inhale here. Anchor your tailbone option. Exhale, one leg. Breathe in. Exhale.

Second leg. Breathe in. Exhale, press the legs to gather. Okay, still breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Option is to start extending the legs. Remember, these are all options of progression. Breathe in. Exhale, x, terminally rotate heels together in her thighs together. Back of the leg, sealed. Inhale. Exhale, option of lowering any amount. Real work should be in the center. Inhale, exhale, stay. And somebody has some have counted how many breaths we did. Two more. Inhale. Exhale. One more. Exhale. Very good. Breathe in. Exhale, bend those knees and bring them to your chest.

Lie Down. Okey-Dokey. Did you choose wisely? Yes. You chose wisely because you know we're going to do it again. All right, so your option on the second go here is not to even start with the towel. Okay, so there's a couple of choices I'm going to give you. One is the arms are here.

You already know this connection here at the shoulder blade. So when you start to come forward, you want to feel the exhalation, start the arms pressing downward. K, exhale. Then the head next shoulder forward. Kay, one entry, second entry. Your legs are already up and you're here. Yeah, breathe out and then bring the body forward. Okay. If you don't want to, you still have this right, so decide how you want to start, but I think it was better that um, either you have the towel and the let go versus try the more challenging version and then, oops. And then pick up the towel. It's kind of a lot to organize.

Yeah. Dokie. Ready? I say Okie dokie. All the time in legs together. Everybody exhale and press the arms. Pull the towel. Come on up. Very good. Breathe in. If you're in the towel, let the head get heavy. Exhale everybody, the legs press to gather everybody.

If your feet are on the floor and you want to bring them up, bring them up one at a time. Consciously inhale and exhale. Remember we're focusing on just the breath, breathing in and breathing out. The option is to extend the legs. If that's something you'd like to do, turn it out and have the heels pressed together and lower a little bit if you'd like to remember. You don't look at your feet. You're looking here. Yep. Couple more.

And inhale, breathe out. Let your head get heavy now. There you go. And last breath. Make it count. Everybody rolls to the floor releases. If your legs are in the air, bring them to your chest. Roll your head side to side a little bit. Very good. We're ready for leg circles. So let's extend the left leg as though you're standing on the floor.

The right leg is stretched up to the ceiling. More stability arms would be to the side a little bit out from you, a little less stability. It's a little more challenging if the arms are next to you. If your arms are out, you want your palms down. So let's turn the palms down. You don't want them higher than your shoulders. Some your slower years, just a little bit. Okay, very good.

The leg that you would be standing on. That would be your left leg just a little bit. Press it into the floor as though the back of the thigh is reaching down into the floor. That'll open up that hip flexor a little bit. Point the foot cross over. We cross first. Inhale. Exhale, Sui foreign.

Exhale Sui to nice. Slice the air with the breath. Thery and four and five. Let's reverse and outside one, not too big so the pelvis isn't rocking and two and three and four and five. Nice work. Stay focused. Bend that knee. Inhale, slide the foot out. Exhale, flex it. Slide the left leg in. Inhale, exhale and reach energy through the leg to the ceiling. So relax this just a little bit there and use this. Think about, uh, opening this, this way versus pushing down from the front. Yeah. Here we go.

Crossing over everyone. Inhale. Exhale. One. Inhale, exhale, two. Inhale, exhale, 30. Inhale, exhale, four. Inhale, exhale, five outside and one and two. And thank you for releasing your jaw three and four. And I will stabilize more polar as far as hold, breathe in slim, bend the knee and slide the foot out. Stretch the arms overhead. Inhale.

Exhale. Bring the arms to the ceiling, roll your head, neck, shoulders forward and correct. Um, stretch it over yourself. That's it. Very good. And then sit yourselves up. Scoot forward, maybe move your towels out of the way and let's roll a little bit to have a little tension relief or maybe comedic relief. So instead of rolling like a ball, let's try half open leg rocker. Okay. We haven't done this one yet, but it's the same theory. So that nice long flexed shape. We don't roll above C7 we take the hamstring issue out.

And so I'd like to actually bring your hands underneath so you're not gripping from the top. You're just cradling the lower part of your calf. And what's nice here is you can slightly press your leg against your arm and your arm against your leg. So man, to have your legs just a little more open your knees, not your feet. [inaudible] all right. Yeah, you ready? Such a serious exercise, Britain. And here we go. Double exhale.

What one [inaudible] and oh two and that, um, Dara, three altogether now or one more time. Great. Stay now for fun. Bring your legs together. Seal them up and roll with the legs too. That was a face roll with the legs to gather one. Use your inner thighs. It's easier to use the elevator doors to see.

That's it too. And that, um, that um, three don't you like my sound effects and um, but um, for one more time, but um, but um, five are you there? Cross bring it underneath you. Okay. Slide a little bit back. Bring your hands in for run. Slide the legs back to playing. Kay. Put your legs together. Organize your shoulder blades, take a breath. Inhale, exhale. Stay.

Now you have a choice. We're going to lower to the floor. You can bring your knees down if you need to. If you bring in your knees down, you're still in plank though. Those hips are forward. Ready, lowering to the floor with the elbows. Bending. Five, four, exhale. Three, exhale to one. Good lie all the way down. All the way down. Okay, so we practiced Arrow in our preparation, which was, remember the towels were rolled up and we did this? Yes, we remember. Okay, so we don't need the towel here because I'm going to have you come up right away.

So let's hover the nose barely off of your mat. Your arms are down here at your sides and open the front of the chest. Reach long through the legs. Your legs are parallel. Organize that inner support, pelvic floor, inner thighs, deep abdominals, shoulder blades, breathing. Inhale to prepare. As you exhale, slide the arms, hover the chest, however the forehead and pause. Okay, now hover the right thigh a little bit off the floor. Inhale, exhale and lower other side. So as it hovers, reach it away. Breathe in.

Do you notice how your chest floats up a little bit on the inhale? Yes. Okay, let it right leg again. Inhale and exhale. And once more. Inhale. So remember that long shape earlier I was talking about making the long arc with the arch or the curl right leg again. So this is a long arch shape. Okay, last one, and lower hold here.

Breathe in and lower all the way to the floor. Bend your elbows and put [inaudible]. Yeah, stack your hands so the fingers are stacked. One on top of the other, and your forehead is now on your hands. Your fingers. Okay. Keep the shoulder blades down your back. This is furthering the challenge because now the weight of the arms is coming away from the center. Breathe in. Same entry. Exhale, connect the dots inside.

Hover the chest, the hand, the head. You're looking straight down. Okay. Inhale, open the arms to the side. Letter T. Exhale. Bend the elbows. Bring your hands back to the forehead. Inhale, stretch the arms out again.

Feel that chest float up a little bit. Exhale, return. Float the right leg with the arm movement in and exhale and breathe in. Okay. And exhale. Make sure your arms are not higher than your shoulders. One more set. So in other words, not this. Yeah.

And exhale. Last time, left leg, arms reach open and exhale, lowering the leg and coming back down. Great. Bend your knees. Windshield wiper, a little bit, side to side. [inaudible]. Very good. All right. Turn on your sides to face me.

Okay. So after Q, your top leg and bottom leg, do you remember the preparation we did side reach? Yes. And then the little preparation for sidekick. Okay. So we feel those connections, but we're going to, okay. [inaudible] come up. Ah, okay. So here, easy to collapse in the shoulder area. Remember that plum line we talked about in lesson once.

We want to feel that a little bit. Sometimes that feels a little stressful though on the neck so you can kind of bring your head up just a little bit. Okay. Good. Top leg, same reach. So let's kind of push it away with the um, the hand. So you've helps you stay lifted on that bottom part of your waist. Anchor into the shoulder blade. The scapula lesson was less than three. Yes. You all pass that class. Okay. Right. And then this hand, the top hand, remember, it's just to help you a little bit with your balance.

It's not to depend on, so it's kind of a light fingertip grip and there is contrast. It's the strength you build in the contrast of the reaching away in this direction. But this spinal energy in the opposite direction and the blooming, open up the chest, right? And then float this top leg up. Okay. Flex it and reach it. Long. Reach it long right into our sidekick. No pulse.

Just pull it forward. Breathe in, point the foot, sweep it back. Good. Inhale, flex forward. Exhale, reach back. Nice. Inhale forward. Exhale, reach back. Inhale forward. Exhale, reach back. This bicycle it. Bend the knee. Inhale, reach forward. Exhale, reach up back and inhale forward.

And exhale, reach back. Nice. Inhale forward. Exactly parallel to the floor and back. Make that leg even longer out of your spine. Exhale, reach right back. Okay. Other side? Yes. Okay, so remember we were here. You're going to feel that length.

You pull yourself up, bend the bottom knee, reach out. Kay. No matter what. I don't know, I always like to do this. It just helps me get that waistline organized. Press the front body to the back. Body. Yeah. Kickstand here. And just feel that. Um, it's almost like, I think the British flag. That's kind of like a big star.

You know that energy lines opening out out of your center and not just in the front but in the back body too. Okay? Hover it up, flexing forward, breathe in, exhale point and reach back. Feel that lengthening of here and forward and exhale, reach back both shoulder blades anchored forward and reaching back and hamstring length. And then quadricep and hip flexor length. Inhale forward. Exhale and fact looks great. Inhale Front. And I didn't forget bicycle for word.

So here's where you can kind of like your leg is a long piece of rubber hose. Make it a little bit gooey and back and forward and back and forward. Breathing out behind you. Couple more and that and your last one. And reach back. Put your foot [inaudible] and return. Great. Okay.

Lie On your backs. Hug it in for a second, couple of breaths. Ah, and rock yourself up. Okay, reverse tabletop. So bend your knees so your feet are flat. Your hands here. So I'll give you a choice. You can point your fingers straight ahead towards you or you can point your fingers a little bit to the side.

What we're going to start out with is coming up into this position. Okay. So depending on your wrists and your shoulders, fingers towards you requires more risk. Flexibility, less shoulder flexibility, fingers away from you. Require less respect, flexibility, and more and more shoulder flexibility. Okay, so it's kind of what feels best for you. Let's have the legs apart. Okay. Bend your elbows, breathe in. As you exhale, engage into the back of the legs. Press the hips up, knees over the toes.

Support the neck in alignment with the spine so you can still breathe and just hold your position. Inhale and exhale one. Oh No, no, you're fine. And inhale and exhale. Two. Next one. You want to bring your feet? Look closer. Inhale and exhale. Three s when your heels out a little bit.

Yep. Inhale. Good. Exhale four and one more. Whoa. Five and come all the way back down. Shake out your wrists, got your risks. Shake out your wrist.

How was that? Yes. Hard on the wrist or the shoulders? Both shoulders. Oh, forearms. How that's just tough all around. It's this tough all around. So this, you know, you may not know is the preparation for, let's see here. We could do it is for this position here, right?

And then member, he goes into this. That's what you're preparing for Su. We got to start out here. Let's try one more. Just one more. Okay. See if you can distribute your work. Does that make sense? I know there's certain parts that feel like they're working harder than others, but if you can distribute it just a little bit more, uh, it won't be as torturous. Okay, let's try with the legs together.

So you have a little inner thigh support. Okay. And remember how we talked about in the scapula lesson three, how you have to have the hands really flat on the floor when we did it. The window. Same thing here. So you want the hands really flat on the floor. You have to engage your forearm, you have to engage the bicep and tricep to everything. You Ready? K with a good attitude. Breathe in. Bend your elbows a little bit.

Exhale and press your bum up. Yes, feet are too close to you going out. One. Don't throw your head back too. Ooh, make a nice face. Camera three. So what I'm doing is helping them press their legs together and get more hip extension. Four yes. And one more. One more. Five. Beautiful Lie. Or sorry, bring your BombBomb down. Little I down. Collapse.

All right. Stretch your legs forward and stretch over the legs. Good. Very good. Take a deep breath. Exhale it out. Bring your body up. Bright Latin, your feet. Bring your arms forward. Okay.

We're going to do something called single leg stretch. Single leg stretch. Okay, so we breathe in here. We're going to roll down, but not lie down. So curving five, four, three, two, one. You're an abdominal curl. Drop the tailbone heavy. Bring your right knee in, right hand on the ankle, left hand on the knee.

Press your leg a little bit, actually away from you to help you come forward. Open the elbows, shoulders down. Stretch the other leg out. Find the hamstring of your straight leg. Okay, we're gonna go a little slower today. Breathing in, switch the hand outside, hand on the ankle and in and breathe out and breathe out and breathe in. Keep looking forward. Breathe in and breathe out and breathe out and breathe in and breathe in and breathe out. Remember the lead kind of presses away from you.

Inhale. Inhale. Exhale, exhale. Make this the last breath count. Inhale. Inhale. Exhale, exhale. Nice. Stay there. Use your straight leg and kick yourself up. Yes. Okay, let's try that one more time. So from here, yes, that this way. Can we try it one more time? Okay. So you're a single leg, right? And then come up.

Okay, very good. Let's come to standing. I'm going to s okay. All right everybody. We're going to finish with standing balance. So a face me and stagger yourselves a little bit. All right, face me, stag yourselves a little bit. Actually, I know I have to come down to the floor so my son won't fit here we are.

Step your right foot forward on a flat surface. So if you're, I'm gonna step off your mat, position yourself heel right foot forward and then get into your right leg so you feel your left leg behind you. So think about everything we've talked about during all the progressions, the inner thighs, the pelvic floor, the deep abdominals, the shoulder blades, your attention, intention, no tension, etc. Which legs behind ladies? So what's the opposite arm kid? Let's bring that arm up. Can you take the left toes off?

Can we hold it in balance and breathe and keep your dots? Energize that back leg. Good. Keep ru reaching through. Five, four, three, two, one. Bend it in. Stand on it. Bring your arm down. Can you step forward? Just find a flat surface matter floor. Shift your weight.

K, contain your energy inside. Relax. Relax. That outer body a little bit. Opposite arm. Bring the toes, hold and breathe. Relax the other arm. [inaudible] for it's fun to do this face in the camera. Three, two, one. Step forward. Good. Reach up in the air both feet down. Swing it out. Breathe in. Swing it out. Breathe in one more time. Inhale, reach up. Reach up. Not. Can we balance here? Come up to the toes in her legs.

We'll help you. Don't look down and return back down. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That was great. So I hope you enjoyed the progression of the fundamental work. And remember, the foundation takes a little bit of time to set, so be patient with yourself and have some fun. Thank you.