Breath-Focused Mat

Hi everybody. I'm Carrie, sir. Hi You guys. Um, we're going to do mat class and here's our setup. We have a theraband lighter, uh, is a little better than heavy. Um, with yoga block on top. We're going to start with some breathing. And this class is really designed to really stretch you out. Lots of breath work. So you're going to cross your legs, um, Criss Cross applesauce style. Yes. And hold on to the edge of your theraband. So right away, if you need to sit on two blocks at home because it doesn't allow you to sit up, right, that's also fine. Slide your hands out to the edge, a little bit of your band, or you know, to the edge of your diagonal length.

Yeah, exactly. And then let your arms just set down and keep holding the band. So let's start with some deep breaths. Okay. So you're gonna feel the length of your spine. You're going to inhale through your rib cage really fully. Three, two, one. You're going to hold your breath at the top and exhale. One, two, three.

Now we're going to add the pull of the band. You're going to inhale. One, two, three, just a little bit. Three, two, one. So the arms don't even have to come to shoulder height. Inhale one too, right there is perfect. Three, three, two, one. Inhale, one, two. Straighten the arms. Three, three, two, one, one more. Now let that pulling. Lift your rib cage and expand your posture. That's right. That's right Wendy. And Super. Now you're going to drop your head.

Let your arms just rest down and round your head and your upper back down a little bit. And once your head is down like that, I want you to make little teeny circles with your head as if you were stirring a bowl of soup with a spoon that's hanging off your nose. I want you to breathe while you're doing it and I want you to go in both directions. Yeah, a little smaller, Deb. Yeah, so it's, yeah, it's really like way in there. Perfect. Both directions, letting the tension in the back of your neck and the back of your body go. Yep. Bring your head to stillness. Take one more breath, stretching the back body and stack your spine back up until you achieve the goal. Full length of your spine. Inhale, pull. Two, three, four. Hold the breath. Exhale.

Four, three, two, one. Inhale one. Let the ribs move too. That's better. Yes. Good. So sometimes we don't really allow enough in our ribs. One more time. That was super. Yeah. And arms down. Great.

Now straighten your legs out in front of you Dorsey. Flex or flex your feet as they say. And we're going to be pulling the band. Okay. So I want you to round your spine over. Let your legs and back stretch and then pull the band and come up to tall seated arms forward. Okay, Ben and down. Good. Here we go again.

Inhale, pull. Ah, open the chest. Open the chest. Open the chest, those it, and down. Good. Two more in Nail Fal. Good. Let your body stretch. Exhale. Come up and open that band and reach your arms out. Out, out, out, out. Um, one more time. Head down. Roll the body length in the band up.

Stretch that chest. Big Breath. Yeah, that's gorgeous. And arms down. Perfect, you guys. Okay. Get off your block and take your thera-band around the balls of your feet. You're going to sit towards the middle front of your mat, so I'm going to have the theraband around my feet like this.

We're going to do some setups now, but there are bins there to help you if you need help. It could also be there for resisting if you want resistance, so you get to both be have both happening. We're going to have our knees bent. Yeah, and choke up on your strap quite a bit. Yup. Let's sit up tall. Good. You're going to start leaning back. [inaudible] lean back with your chest lifted, right.

Get halfway back and then slowly start to move your pelvis under and allow yourself to roll down. Straighten your elbows all the ways you can go down. Yep. Super. Pull your arms down to the back of the Mat. Take a deep breath into the front chest. Exhale, lift your head. Great elbows. Lift your arms and let that spine be pulled up. Bend the knees, bend the knees, bend the knees.

Good. Let's go ahead and look straight out as we come up again. You guys can keep your knees bent. So go ahead and go on back again. Yeah, that's it. Move through your spine. That's super gorgeous. Wow. Are We? Yes. Good. And then take a big breath on the exhale phase. Lift your head.

You're going to bend your knees as you come up and let that lift up. Look out, Wendy. Look [inaudible] up, up. Ah, and last time take it down as they used to say in dance class. No looking for pennies. No looking down. Come on up. Look where you're going, Kathy. Grant used to say, so bend your knees and let yourself come up. Head Up. Uh, uh, super great. Go ahead and get rid of that band. Great. And Go ahead and just lie down on your back. Oh, actually I just fibbed take your block and put it at the bottom of your map and then lie down and put your feet on the block.

Super Heals on the block. That was a good, good thing. I didn't quite say it. Straighten your legs all the way. Yeah. And your arms down by your side, then you have that sensation in the back of your arms when you were using your, your band. So bring that to the mat now. Right? So you felt that, let that work. And what's going to happen here is you're gonna lift your bum. So you're going to inhale and you're going to pick your fanny up off the Mat by pushing your heels down. You're going to take a breath or two there. Try not to tighten up around your shoulders and come back down.

Super. [inaudible]. Inhale, lift up. This is a back body planking position. Yes. And back down. Super. One more time. Lift it up and bring it down. Great. So I'm going to ask you now, because you're going to come up, we're going to do a little bit of leg lifting.

So come up into that plank again and now see if you can take your right leg up right and back down and take your left leg up and back down. Super. One more time. That's great. So that's toning a lot of that back body. One more time. Great. And put yourself down. Now take your hands behind your head. Okay.

Lift your head, neck and shoulders up, but not super round, like a little bit longer than round. Yeah, like that. You're gonna have your chin down a little bit. This is actually great. Now lift your right leg. Ah, and down. Left leg up. Now push down in the block. It's not, you're not lifting your bum this time, but you want to feel that same pushing down to come up.

Exhale down. Good. Push down to come up. ACH. So guys, you fill your tummies toning here. Come up a little higher dab. Yeah. Yeah. And don't push down in the math to come up and lie back down. Super.

Take your right knee into your chest and stretch that leg up to the ceiling for hamstring stretches. Great. Circle the ankle. Now why do I have this block here? Well, it's nice because if you push down into block, you can feel the difference between your legs. Yeah. So you can hold on there if you want. Now I'm going to ask you to, um, yeah, we're going to go from here. You're gonna bend that knee and you're going to bring your other knee in and you're gonna go ankle to knee figure four stretch Emile. Go right there. Yep.

And you're going to add in to this stretch next. Super. So keep the bottom leg active. Yeah, maybe Dorsi. Flex the foot. Cause if you keep everything active here, you're gonna get a deeper stretch. Let this knee push out a little DAB and hold onto your thigh in the back. Right. Okay. So Debbie, your legs are change your legs for a second.

Just cause we're about, there you go. Okay. So now what's going to happen is we are going to take this shape over to the side for a twist. So just take it over. Super. Take your arms out to the side. Yup. Now what I do in this position is all sometimes. Yeah, exactly. I might hold on with my hand to my ankle to help that stretch out.

Yeah, you can. You can go. Yeah. Good big breasts guys. Yeah, that way. That's perfect. That's it. Nice. How's that feel? Yeah, that's a great stretch for you. Perfect. Try to let this knee come up a little more. Yeah, so meaning it's going to be open. Yeah, there you go. Perfect. Great. Great. You guys come back to center.

Put both feet on the block. Super. Take the other leg up for hamstring stretch. Press the opposite leg down. So yeah, that's right. Yep. Now hold the back of your legs. Straighten your knee. Circle your ankle at the top. Yeah. Good.

Press Down with the opposite heel on the block. That's keeping the back of your supporting leg activated. Go into the figure four stretch on the other side. It's the other one, Wendy. Yeah, it's that transition. That's confusing. Yeah, and just take that stretch for a moment.

Flex both of your feet and liven up your hips by pushing the knee out. Yeah. Now come over to your twist. You're going to come this way and you're going to take your arms out to the side and I'll bring you over. Perfect. Yeah, and then as best you can, let that hip open. Nice job.

Nice job. Yeah. Big Breasts. You guys know we started with breathing. So I want you to breathe your rib cage. Let that move. Yeah, the the breath, the more the stretch. Super, super. And come on back up to center. Good. Put both feet on the blocks on the block.

Good. And do one more straight leg bridging. One more big bridge up. Couple of deep breaths there. Good. And come on down. Great. Take your feet off the block. Take your right knee into your chest and roll up to seated.

And you move that block to this right side of your mat for right now. Perfect. We're going to come on to all force and let's just start with some cats. Okay. So you're just gonna start by. Let's all look out in extension spine first. So we have an arched back and then you're going to round your spine and look down towards your thighs, and then you're going to arch your back and then you're going to round and look towards and big breasts all the way through the rib cage again. Right and around. Okay.

So now we're going to up the ante here a little bit. We're going to do a little sequence first, you know, lift your knees. Let's float that cat a little bit so your knees are up and you're going to shift your weight forward and back. Just a little bit. Big breaths here. Super Great, nice strong arms you guys. Now put your knees down and look out and stick your butt way back towards your heels. Your toes are like that. You guys all have that right now.

Really stretch your chest forward. Looking out, right? We call this picture Kat. It goes this way. Now you're going to shift your pelvis forward, knees on your knees and you're going to do a little push up, coming down. Curl your toes under and come up into a small swat. Yup, and back down.

Put your balls of your feet under, pushed back into that cat. Again, looking out. We're going to repeat that. Here we go. Everybody shift your hips forward a little pushup down. Keep going all the way down. Curl your toes back under a little swan. Yeah, whatever's your swan right now, come back down. Go on the balls of the feet again and push back into that cat. Looking out.

Looking out. Ladies, look out. Look out. Keep pushing your butt back to your heels. That's what I'm talking about. There's position. We don't spend our day in and let's come forward again or we're good. Lower it down. Nice and slow. That's it. Dab.

Good. Stretched through to Your Swan. Whatever your swan is today is fine. Come back down. Good. That's marines each time. That's what we like. Toes under. Push back and to your cat. Look out, look out, look out. Come back up onto all fours with a flat back.

Take your right arm and twist. Axe. Hell curl under and stretch. Take a breath or two and come up and twist. This is called thread the needle. Lovely Yoga exercise. Something that Eve gentry also taught.

Bring it through. Gorgeous and back up. Yes. One more on that side. Back through. You got it. It's all right. Good. Yeah, and just take a breath into those ribs. Perfect. Alright, good. And come back to center and let's go to the other side.

Inhale, stretch it. Exhale all the way through. Good. Now notice how much you change your hips. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but if you didn't make a decision to change them, they might be getting pulled around instead of your spine twisting. Inhale, stretch it over. Exhale. Take it around. Stay forward on your arm a little bit during the cat. Yeah, that's right. That's right, that's right. And back up. One more time. Twist. Open it up. Let your ribs move.

You've got this thing and come back around and beautiful stretch super and come on up. Good. And bring your legs forward on your mat. Straight. Legs out. Good. Lean over your legs for a forward fold and scoot forward a little bit cause you're gonna roll back. You guys who if you don't have enough room and then go ahead and do PyLadies roll down. Roll back all the way.

Bend your knees. Good. Cross your right leg over your left for crossovers. So on this version we're going to have the legs crossed all the way down. I call this cocktail Party style and then we're going to go in Hail, twisting over and ax hell recover.

These are called crossovers from Cathy's work. So you go in to the outside of the supporting foot. Exhale, come back. Super Inhale. Yeah, good. And Back Wendy, I called you Monica, didn't I? Did I? Oh I didn't. Okay, good. Come back. Now you're going to go this time you're going to come all the way over and you're an end up on your side body.

So you're going to take your arms over your head all the way over and end up on your side. Buddies, you're going to go all the way over and end up on your side. Great. All right, let's lift head, neck, shoulders, arm and legs up. Exhale down. Inhale, lift up. Exhale down. Yeah, you can put your hand down in the front for help for sure. Inhale up or not. You know Amy feels like rocking it out over there. Exhale up, down and rest. Good.

Turn onto your back and cross the other leg over. So I think the question was on the side lifts. Do you use this front arm please? In my world, you use whatever you need to be successful. That's your goal. Your goal is to be successful. If you need a profit, if you need to help yourself. Motor learning is about trying over and over again and being successful makes us want to do it again.

Failing makes us want to pick another option. You know? Inhale, take it over. Good. This is just your crossovers. Acts Hill home. So let's have the arms out. I like that. You guys are going, why'd you like that? That looks great to me. That looks like a beautiful gesture. Inhale, take it out. Good.

Let your stomach muscles work to bring you home. Good. Inhale all the way over and then let that move you to your side body so you can bring your arms around and you can take one of those arms into the front to help you. And we're doing sides. Sit ups, a very simple side set up where you pick everything up. Use Your front hand if you want to and axle everything down. Now notice if your body wants to flex, see if you can keep it you long gated all the way through the crown of the head.

Exhale down. One more time. Inhale up and exhale down. Good lie back down on your back. Take your arms over your head, legs straight out, and let's do the roll up. Lift your arms and roll yourself. Oh, super [inaudible], great. Sit on your block like we did at the beginning of class. This term, you're going to have your legs out wide for spine, stretch, seated and laterals. So you're sitting on your block. Perfect.

Reach your arms out. Take a deep breath in. Drop your head. Exhale, spine, stretch forward. Reach it out. Feel like your arms come from, from your waistline. Keep on reaching out. Gorgeous. Let your head relax. Thank you. And come back up slowly, slowly, slowly. Find the length of your spine.

Let your shoulders relax. Exactly. Yeah, so we get to this thing of like, you know, and again forward. There you go. Let your head draw. Let your back body speed breathed and come back up. Super Correction. Yeah, Deb, let your shoulders go. Exactly. One more time. Now just notice your shoulders as you come forward.

Do they want to elevate and what could you tell them? You know, like you don't actually need their help right now. Yeah. And then come all the way up. Super. Take your hands to your forehead, right, and we're going to side bend to the right. Inhale. One, two, three. Exhale. Three, two, one. Inhale. One, two, three. Exhale. Three, two, one. Stay with it. One, two, three. Exhale. Three, two, one. That's the breath. Inhale. Inhale there. Now you're breathing.

That's perfect. All the way up and rest. Good. Put your hands in the middle of your legs. Take a stretch and you feel how you smooth your breath out that time. That was really good. Really, really nice. Just take a stretch.

Hmm. Come all the way up. Good. Take your block away. Great. Bring your self forward. Good. Reach your arms out and take your time rolling back again. Great. Bring your feet a little closer to your bom.

Take your arms down by your side for traditional shoulder bridge. Chin off your throat. Curl your tail through. Come on up into your bridge and I want you to take three deep breaths and I want you to keep your knees parallel to your feet and I want you to feel the front of your thighs opening and slowly come down. Lift your head, neck and shoulders off the mat. Bring your right knee into your chest, bring your left knee into your chest. Take your hands up to the ceiling. Yep. Just right there.

Straighten your legs up to the ceiling. Lower your right leg down towards the Mat and pick it back up. Just like we started with other leg. Pick it back up. Super. Keep reaching for the ceiling, Deb. Yes, other leg. Keep your knees straight if you can. Keep your legs energized.

If you're can keep your chin tucked in. If you can. There you go and lie back down. Feed on the match shoulder bridge. So we're alternating back body, front, body, back, body, front body in this class. Yeah, so you get the benefit of all. Yeah, that bridge came up high or for most of you. Nice job. Big Breaths. Super and come all the way down.

Great. Straighten both legs out, arms over your head, and roll up to seat it. Great. I want you to come into a squat. Now for some of us, this might feel prohibitive and you can just modify at home cause, but getting down low into these squats is an important thing to keep in our body, as you can imagine. Um, so now I want you to stretch your legs up. I want you to come up to a tall stance. So just come right on up. Break at the hips again, Ben, your knees, and come back down into a squat. And this is functional.

Yeah. So however you do this is fine. Go Up, lift up, stand up, break at the hip, break the knee, go back down into your squat. Good. Last time. Up, up. Good. And I love this gesture. So look to add that to finish. Inhale, exhale, round. Inhale, exhale, round. Inhale, exhale around. And wonderful job you guys. Thank you.