Releasing Mat

Hi, I'm Juliet. And today we're going to do a math class. I'm going to give you a few little concepts from a fantastic book I've read called the body has its reasons by to raise a birthright. So we're going to start with ball. I want you to place it on the floor and you going gonna put your right foot on the ball. We're going to start just by kneading. Oh, that's hard. Onto the boys. If it's a piece of dough you're just going to need onto the ball, you can use any kind of ball. But if you're feeling really hardcore golf ball in the freezer, we'll really do the trick.

Now Start to circle the board under your foot and what always going to go clockwise with this? My posts more like an oval or maybe it's my foot. So press as hard as you can bear. And then we're going to take the ball under the big toe and you're going to draw a line from the big toe to the heel and then from the heel to the little toe. So doing a V, so we're getting the arches. So this is a really simple exercise.

I keep a ball under my desk so that if I'm doing work, I can just do this when I'm working. And the next exercise we're gonna do, we're gonna do everything on one side first so you can experience the difference. So just stand with your feet next to each other and see how that foot feels that you've, that you've worked on. Now I'm going to do a release for the shoulder. So with your left hand, you're going to pass your hand underneath your clothing if necessary. And you're going to grab a great big muscle between the tip of your shoulder and your neck. So imagine you're a mother cat and you're gonna grab your kitten by the scruff of its net.

You're gonna hold it as tight as you can and you're going to let your arm hang. So yeah, that's the one hold as tight as you can bear. Keep your body square. I know we're going to lift and lower, so keep squeezing that muscle lifting and lowering. So I find if I'm getting a headache, this will usually dissipate it quite quickly. So it's a really useful little or release technique.

Now from the tip of your shoulder, imagine you're gonna draw a circle with a tougher shoulder. And then the other why keep squeezing up muscle as much as you can. Even if it starts to get cross about it, keeps squeezing it. And now let go. Let the arm hang and just see how that side feels compared to the other side. And we're just gonna do a little head turn. We should've done this really first.

You could see the difference. It's a few. If you can turn more to the side that you've worked and the one you haven't. So now we're going to do everything on the other side so that we have a matching pair. So start with the ball. And again, just need under the foot from board of foot to heal. So you can see these techniques don't really take very long, but they can be quite effective. You start your mat work or just any time throughout the day. And again, we're gonna do some circles and then, and then from your big toe to your heel and from your heel to your little toe ball control, Aimee ball control.

Awesome. Oops. No place that foot next to the other one. And let's do the neck again. So with your right hand, now, hold that muscle between the base of the neck and the shoulder. And you just gonna do the lift and lower. Keep your body square and keep your gaze forward.

And then start started with circles backwards about half a dozen. It doesn't have to be much to get some effect. And then the other direction. And then let the arm just hang and release. And now try your mobility the next way.

See how it feels any different? Great. Okay, so we all have a band. If you don't have a band, that's fine, but I'm going to tell you band now, we all got to keep the bulls. We all going do something else with the balls in a moment. Just keep them to one side. What I would like you to do is to lay your band out on the floor and you're going to stand on your band and policy stance and your v.

So it should be a better fist gap between the base of the big toe. And then you gotta take the band behind you and hold it above your head. So my elbows are directed forward. I'm going to use the band food. It'll feed back into our roll down. So I want you to think of continuing to stretch the bands around the band compressing you. You're going to really start to lengthen into the band, so a little gentle pull on the band. To begin, we're going to inhale and as you exhale, you're gonna nod the head and start to roll down.

Think of feeding the spine backwards into the band. You get down as far as it's comfortable. Then breathe in. Now, the moment here is not to let the band just snap you back up. Keep stretching into the band, get the pelvis back on top of your thigh bones and roll back up. Ponytails can be a little bit of a nuisance with this one. And again, we're going to breathe in and as you exhale you're gonna roll down. So the band is really giving your spine some feedback as you go forward.

Breathe in, try to keep a weight over the feet if you can so that your butt doesn't swing backwards. And again, so I'm going to open your band out a little bit more so you getting your own back on me, aren't you? Good. Last one is there's a tear in this band. I'll be careful. Last one. So Kathy, just bring the bun down to one side and you're going to come down onto your mat.

Have you been next to you? Cause we are gonna use them again, but I just want to do one more little thing with the bull so you can lie on your back. Send me supplying and half the ball in your left hand. Right hand. So I got mine in my left hand. So what don't we do is put the ball under your palm and let the palms start to just drape over the ball. Then begin to roll the ball to your fingertips. And what I want you to try and do, I want you to imagine that your arm is elastic and you're going to roll that ball as far away from you. As you can see, your arms going to get longer and longer.

Your fingers are going to get longer and longer, and you just going to roll it as far away as you can and then you're gonna roll it back in. You're going to [inaudible] it back onto your palm. Then think of pressing down through the elbow to bring your hand directly up of your elbow. Now open the palm out. So the ball again just sits like a little nest and in your palm it's not touching any of the fingertips, it's just lying there. Your forearm is at 90 degrees, so the palm is facing the ceiling and you just going to breathe, holding the ball. Try to spread the fingertips even wider, but really get the sensation that the palm is dropping down on the ball is dropping into your arm and then slowly put the arm down and just rest the arm. By your side and see how that side feels, and then we're going to change.

Put the ball into your other hand and do the same thing. The hand is on the floor. You're going to allow the fingertips to drape over the ball and then start to roll the ball away from you. So if you imagine your arm is elastic and you can keep pushing it when you think you can't push it anymore, just keep pushing it a little bit more on a little bit more in a little bit more, and then draw the ball back underneath you. When the ball is under your palm, I want you to push down through the elbow to lift the ball up. And again, it's a sensation that the ball is nestling into the palm.

The fingertips are not touching it. Just let the waist of the pool full through the forearm. Just see how that fails. So with these concepts, sometimes it's just letting it happen. Just breathe and then place the ball back down by side. Good and brief. Okay, so I'm not going to ask you how it feels. It's obviously for everybody's a slightly individual experience, but it's quite a nice way of getting people to focus on their bodies.

So from here we're going to do some spine coals, some bridges. So before we start, just make sure you've got your band ready to hand because we are going to use them again in a moment and just check your alignment before you start so that the pelvis is level left to right and pubic bone is level with your hips. We're going to inhale and as you exhale, I want to think of reaching your fingertips just like you did a moment ago with bat ball when you think you can't stretch them anymore, just keep reaching and then start to bridge. Breathe in at the top and as you exhale and roll the spine down, still think if that ball was there and you were reaching it away through the fingertips. And again [inaudible].

So we're going to start to put these concepts into your mat work, you know, exhale to lift. And as you roll the spine back down bone by bone, really concentrate on, think of how it felt when you were rolling the ball away, lengthening the neck away from you as well in opposition to that movement. One more like this. Good. And then down. Now we're going to take the hands behind the head so I don't mind if you link your fingers. We'll have one hand over the other, the hands behind the head.

We're going to continue with the bridge and spine [inaudible]. But what I want you to do is we're going to incorporate a spine call and a curl up together. So because often what happens is our clients have a very mobile spine bottom to top, top to bottom at the tends to be the sticky bit in the middle. So we're going to really focus on making the spine mobile all the way through. So what I would like you to do with the hands behind the head, you're into exhale and spine cull exactly the same as you just did. Braden.

Leave the pelvis there. Then as you exhale, you're going to not the head and you can start to curl up. And what I want you to feel is as you curl up, there is a natural reaction further down the spine and then the spine will come to neutral. Keep your curl up, breathe in, and now she works her start until the pelvis. And again, let it run the moment. Run through the spine. So as I left my pelvis and it gets higher and higher, there is a natural rolling until the head goes down. Breathe in and again as you exhale. So don't force the spine. Focus on doing a good, clean, effective curl up and feel just how it the movement runs through the spine.

Imagine that ball was inside your spinal column and you're in a roll it from one end to the other. Good. And I keep the curve and start to roll the upper body back to the mat as the lower body lifts. Good. One more. So the action of lifting the head is what moves the spine. Good. Now leave the pelvis that and just rest your head back down.

Keep the hands behind the head. Are we going to do some rotation, some hip roll. So bring the feet and the knees together. Breathe in, and as you exhale, lift the left hip so the pelvis will rotate to the right. Keep lengthening out through the crown of the head. Breathe in, and then as you exhale, come back, pause in the center. Re-Establish neutral before you go the other direction. And again, it's almost like the hands are giving you traction.

The more you start to turn, the more you're thinking of the head lengthening to the wall behind you without extending the upper back. Good. The feet stay together and the leg stays together. They move as one. Good one more each side. [inaudible] really try to feel the movement again. Travel through the spine. Last one. So really focus at the head as you turn the P, the head doesn't get drawn down like a tortoise into between the shoulder blades you're lengthening out of it.

Finish [inaudible]. Place the hands back by your sides, part the feet back to hip width. And now we're going to straighten the left leg and take the right arm behind you for an extra cycle. Staff fish, we're going to breathe in. As you exhale, straighten the left leg down the mat and take the right arm behind you. The spine remains still, we're going to breathe in. And then as you breathe up from the left leg back and the right arm back.

So we're working on a diagonal as we're breathing in. And then breathing out opposite diagonal. Keep the pelvis still. These mats are a little bit sticky for this. And again, good one more. Each side. Good.

Keep the Chin lifted. Think of a weight falling through the back of the eyes so the limbs are moving without effecting the spine. Now you're gonna take your bands and because the quite light, you can fold them in half. So what we're gonna do this time with your staff fish is both arms are going to be involved. So this time as you breathe out, you'll take both arms backwards and straighten the leg. As you breathe in, bring the arms forward, curl up, and I want you to lift the leg just off the floor.

Lower the leg back down, rest the head, and slide the leg back into your start position. So the hands finish at the vertical position above the chest. We breathe in to prepare. As you exhale, we're going to go into star fish, but with arms, pelvis remained square to the ceiling. Breathe in and as you breathe out, bring the arms forward, curl up, lift the leg, stay square in the pelvis, lower the leg down, slide the foot in. Bring the arms back. Now bring the legs together. We're going to make it slightly more challenging.

This time we're going to take the arms back straight and both legs. Reach the legs away. Now bring the arms forward, not the head. Look at your feet. Reach the bounds of the feet. Lift both legs in her lower legs as the band goes backwards. Slide the feet in towards you. So we're preparing for our 100 and again, as you exhale the bar, the band comes forwards. Curl up.

Now lift those legs. Good. Lower the legs, rest the upper body down. Bend the knees back in. Okay, so we're going to go for it. Next time you're going to bring the arms forward, straighten in the legs, curl up, look at the legs, lift them and breathe in. Two, three, four, five and out. Two, three, four, five and then pump the band at out two, three, four, five man in and out in good.

So the whole time you're imagining how it felt with that ball, you're rolling the ball away. Pulling the band slightly apart. Two more. Last one. Good. You notice I didn't join in for that one? We're going to lower the legs, lower the head, take the band over the head and we're going to roll up. So this time as you bring the band forward within and not the head, and you're going to curl up over the legs. Breathing in, breathing out to roll back down. Take the arms overhead. Bring the arms forward is I pass that vertical line.

You're gonna nod the head and roll up. Reach the legs away. Try not to suck the legs into the hip socket. Breathe in. And as you exhale, reach the legs away. Move the pelvis around the femur. Head arm's got back one more like this. Good. Reach those fingertips away. Think back of the head to the seal and we're going to breathe in.

And as you breathe out, you're gonna roll down this time as you take the arms behind you, just rest the band on the floor. Bring the arms forward by your sides for a rollover. Bend the knees in. So we're going to start from a bent need position. So bring the legs into the air and straighten the legs. What I want you to think of, imagine the ball is still under your hand.

Roll your fingertips towards the edge or the front edge of your mat. Keep doing that. As you start to hinge the legs, you and roll over, keep reaching the fingers away. Now start to roll down. Reach the feet to the wall behind you and your head to the wall behind you, your fingers in your spine to the wall and front and again. See if you can make that concept work for you.

What we did with the fingers earlier. Good. And then we'll roll back. Two more. Feel the weight fall through the back of the eyes. And again, it's tempting to let the arms get sucked into the socket. Reach them away. Press the triceps down. Last one, and again, this time was the legs come forward.

Bend the knees, place your feet on the floor. Reach behind you. Pick your band up and we're gonna put the band. Let's go for the left leg. We're gonna put the band around your left foot and you're going to straighten the right leg. So point in the foot. What I would like you to do is think of your bone in your socket.

We're gonna do some leg circles. We're going to do three in each direction, but I want you to keep this small and very deliberate that your other leg is anchored in reaching away from you three in each direction. And then you're going to bend the knee in place your opposite hand. Just take hold of the band with your opposite hand. Bend the knee, place this hand, the free hammer down on the mass again and bring this like over you. So we're doing a half hip roll. Now again, this hand is actively reaching away cause if the ball was there and breathe, now bring the light back. Take the band into both hands again and we're going to do a bigger hip circle.

And this time you're going to allow as the lead comes over that hip roll mo movement that happens. You're going to allow the spine to join in. So we're going to bring the leg across, circle down and up. Like comes across, circled down and up. And again, now we reverse the leg goes down and up. One more bend the knee. You can pop the other foot into the band just to exchange. And the same thing. So first of all, just a small, quite conservative little like circle three in each direction.

Okay? And then you did the same thing that we put the band into the opposite hand. You bend the knee, reach your free arm down the Mat and bring your leg over into a little hip roll. Breathe. And then we're going to bring the leg back, separate the band.

And now go for the bigger like circle. Bring the like a cross circle down on oh three in each direction. Okay, you aiming something? Bend the knee. Take the band. Okay, we're going to take the band to both hands, bring it over the head, bring the arms forward and we're going to roll up. I'm sitting. Okay. So from here, take a band and we are going to cross it over your ankles, length in the fingertips.

So we're not rolling likable positions. We're going to use the band to try and stop ourselves from cheating the c word. We're going to try and make sure we stay in a nice white, tight little ball. So from here, we're going to inhale, roll back and exhale forward. And again, inhale back.

So you'll feel if you press into the band with your legs and you open out the hip and the knee, you'll feel the pressure change in the band. Good. Two more. Good. Last one. So from here, lift the band up. Start to roll backwards and we're going to single leg stretch. Just holding the band still. I'm five, four, three, two, one.

Bring the legs together for double leg. Stretch the arms. Come over the head. Exhale, pull back in. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. One more breath in and out. Now straighten both legs. Bring them as far as you can.

You might need to move your hands to your legs to feel the band against your legs. Now lower the right leg and pull the left leg towards you and switch and switch and switch and switch and switch. I'm getting ground and switch and switch and legs together. Bend the knees, ditch the band. Ben, the pilots, the hands alongside you. Now imagine those balls are still there. Roll the ball away with the fingertips. And then bend the elbow.

And imagine the orange is that the ball is there on your palm. I said orange cause you could actually use an orange. So from here what I want you to do is we're to do coordination. We're going to inhale, straighten the arms and legs open. Close, pull back in. Breathe in, open close. Pull the legs and curl up a little deeper.

Bend the elbows. Two more. Breathe in. Open close. Exhale last one. And N or rest your head down. Roll over onto your side and it sit up. Take your band. So lay it on the mat because I want you to sit on it, but you need to make sure you're sat on enough bands.

It doesn't was out from underneath you and take your eye out. So we're going to do the spine stretch forward in the way we did our rollbacks. We'll roll down. Sorry, I should say we're going to have the band behind you for a little feedback. Okay. Just arrange my top, my trousers come down. Okay, everybody set.

So the same thing. The band is acting as a wall behind you. You're going to lengthen the spine up yet we're going to breathe in. And as you exhale, not the head pressed the heels forward, press the femurs down into this, into the bed or into your mat. And then breathe in and roll back up your imaginary wall. Let the band assist you with some feedback. Breathe into lengthen, and as you breathe out, not the head.

Really exhale as deeply as you can. And then inhale to roll back up. Good. Two more. You use the band as feedback for the spine. [inaudible] roll back up. Last one.

Good. So now we're going to use the band as a waste to assist us to find on that pool. So what I'd like you to do with your band, it's to really feel the band behind you. You're going to lean forward very slightly into a hinge, and then I want you to lean back with into the band. So you're gonna keep your spine neutral and you're just leaning back from the hip. And then you're going to breathe out and come forward.

So you can link this to the reformer on the short box. Hinge back, hinge forward. But the whole time my spine is growing, it's lengthening up the band. I'm not compressing, I'm lengthening, I'm sending my sit bones down, my fingers down, my legs forward. One more. And this is where we start to get into neck pool. This time I want you to lean back as much as you can. And then when you can't lean back anymore, you're going to posteriorly tilt and you're going to roll the spine back to the mat. Inhale. Now use the button, nod the head, feed your spine into the band to stretch up and the legs breathe in. And as you exhale, sit to that neutral spine hinge, hinge. When you can't hinge anymore, keep lengthening as you will, as bind to the mat.

Breathe in, and then exhale too. Well back up and over. Let's do one more. How these bands working out? Really. Okay. Last one. Hinge, then tuck under and rural. Good. Last one. Good.

So this is the last one. You're gonna go down to the mat. Lean and the hit likes forward. Hips back. Lean, brilliant. And then next time you're down she's let go of the manned on roll back up. So part legs nice and wide. Bring the hands in front. So again, we're going to get that idea of rolling that ball away to lift the spine back and up.

Now we're going to go for open like a rocket and we're going to throw it and catch our legs. You're going to lean back in the same way you hinged. You're going to press your fingers forward and you're going to catch yes you are. Yes you are. Yeah. You're like, yeah, hold them there. Now inhale and roll back. Exhale to come back up. Good. And go read. Reach, boobs out. There you go. And again, Woo. Two more boobs out.

Chest up. There we go. So we're in a pasta retail and the length and up on top. Good. One more. I'm come back up and we're here. We're going to let go of our legs, we're going to lower them with control and we're going to lower our spine with control. We're going to place our hands by our sides and we're going to find our teases.

So before we do, I want you to think of the legs lengthening away along the Mat. The fingertips lengthening along the Mat, but the spine is lengthening to the wall behind you. We're going to inhale to take our arms backwards. Now as you exhale, bring your arms forward. As they pass that vertical point, you're going to nod the head and you're going to lift your perfect teaser. Look at your feet and narrow back down to the mat. Take the arms over the head and again, we're going to come up into our perfect teases and all reach and rural down. Good. One more.

See the feet. The feet left with your eyes. Now stay here. Inhale, lower the legs. Exhale, lift the legs and in her lower exhale, lift in her lower. Exhale, lift and lower. Everything with control. Good rollover on to one side. And let's come up to kneeling. Okay, I'm going to put the hands behind the head. We're going to inhale. As you exhale, release your left arm down, start to side bend, find the flow. Now push the floor away and take your leg out to the side.

So I'm pressing the floor away. Lift my elbow to the ceiling. My leg is on an angle down from the hip joint. Sweep forward and back and forward. Try not to tick top the spine. You're not a pendulum. Just swinging. Lift forward and back to more forward and back.

And last time. Forward and back. Now bend the knee, please sit down. Come back up. And again, we're going to reach the psalm down. We're going to side burn. We're going to find the mat and release the leg. So here I'm pressing the floor away and I'm lifting my elbow to the ceiling. Left foot and one, two and smile through the cramping.

Hit a wall. No, we can do it. And then up, let's go for onto our fronts. Okay. So I want you to stretch your arms out in front of you. Okay. So I'm going to give you a little exercise. Um, we're going to like, we did star fish opposite arm opposite. Like we're going to do the same thing here. So the head is down. As you exhale, you're just going to lift your head into a tiny extension, not too high. Now inhale, and as you exhale, I want you to lift your left leg.

Inhale to lower. Exhale, lift the right leg and lower. No [inaudible]. The next time you lift your left leg without your spine moving and release the right arm as well. Inhale to lower. Exhale, lift. So we're working on opposite parents. Good.

Last one, even your self up. Rest everything down. Slide your hands so they're underneath your shoulder. We're going to take a little Cobra, swan pro, like a Cobra. So this time you're going to lift the head onto the end of the [inaudible]. Fine.

Send the chest forward and come up to where you feel comfortable today. Revision and then breathe out to come back down. And again. So think of the hipbones lengthening away and the breast bone lengthening away from the hipbones and opposition on back down. It's tempting to think about bringing your head to your butt.

Think about taking your forehead away from your pubic bone. Good. Last one. So now this time from here, we're going to reach the arms out. So we're in a t inhale, and as you exhale, lift the head up into a small extension. Stay here as you breathe in, really reach the fingertips away from each other. And then as you start to extend a little more, bring your hands to your sides, but like t arms on the reformer. Then bring the arms forward, unrest the head back on the mat. We're going to lift the arms, lift into extension, extend a little bit more as you pull the arms to your side.

And then forward. Place the head down one more like this. Lift the head, reach the hands to the side. Now stay extended and bring the arms forward. Reach the arms away. We're going to do two without the head going down. So you've got to stay in that extension.

Keep that spangles of the spine the same, and then rest down and carefully push yourself away from the mat. And let's take a little child's pose. Good. Nice to dig deep in breath and then slowly restart the spine. How am I going to take the band again?

We're going to use the idea of reaching the arms away to find our spine twist. So take the brand behind you. Try and have it as wide as you can because it gives you a little bit more support for the arms, the ribs, sorry. And across in front of you and reach the band away. So I've got my band crossed.

That's why you need quite a long lighter band obviously. Cause the more you open your arms out, the stronger the band is going to get. So from here, get that sensation. I felt stuck of reaching into the band. We're going to reach the feet away, bring the legs together, inhale. And as you exhale we're going to rotate to the left.

Reached the band away and center and keep reaching the band away. As you twist, I'm Santa's pardon? And again, last one. Cause now we're gonna change it slightly. Are we to uncross, but this time put your band around your arm, move through. So you're holding it more like this. Okay.

So now it will feel slightly different and just see what you prefer. You do the same exercise, lifting up and really reaching the arms away. So just see what you prefer. That just very, very slightly different. Can you feel that personally? I prefer the bum crossed cause it helps me get the exhalation. Yep.

So let's just get my beans. Yeah, good. Okay. Bring the band back in. Okay. But you can ditch your band now. It's now we're going for seal. Okay. So we're going to do seal and then some crap.

But I'm doing it up here because I don't want to fall off. So we're going to bend the knees now tries to get your little toes touching. The more you press the feet to go, the more I went to really open up the hip joint and curve your spine. So we're looking at your pubic bone thickness to pubic bone. So now as you inhale, we're going to roll back. Pause. One, two, three, up one, two, three. And again, roll back. Hold it.

One, two, three. So think of it as an exclamation mark. You roll back, there was a stop, there was a punctuation point. You do your claps, you come back up, you stop, you do your claps. Yeah. And again, good. Last one. Okay. Are we all ready for crab? So who are going to cross our ankles?

Hold the ankle joint or hold the foot. You all got space. You're not gonna wake your heads. So if you haven't seen this before, when you go back again, you balance exchange, come forward and try and stop before you fall off the bench. And then you roll back, cross and cross. So again, it's almost like an exclamation about the more my head goes down, the more this has to lift to stop me falling on the floor. Your head off, putting it down. I don't mind. I'm not putting my head down because I think I'd over balance. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You can get onto the crown of the head. Yeah, go. Let's do it. And Cross recross balanced.

Yeah. Good. So think of your abdominals almost as being a break. You're gonna roll back. You're going to stop. You're going to cross and cross backing up and abdominals up. Tommy down, head down. That's it. Good.

That's it. Awesome. Brilliant. One more. So now my challenge today is to go the next time if you can, please don't hurt knees and ankles to go to standing. Okay, so we're going to rollover and up. Oh yeah, yeah. Excellent part your feet. We're going to do a roll down. I'm going to do roll down. Since we're squat, one of the most functional things that can do as human beings is to squat. Okay? So we're going to do a little score. We're going to breathe in as we exhale, we're going to not the head roll down thinking. Imagine the band is still there breathing. And as you exhale, you're gonna roll back up.

No, put your feet wider. You can be a little bit turned out if you want. And what I want you to do is think of sending your shins forward, your heels back, cause you need to let the heels lift. We're going to squat, my heels have to lift, but that's fine. If the heels can stay down, breathe in. And as you exhale, come back up. Turn the feet back to parallel, not the head and roll down. Good. Come back up. [inaudible]. If you don't want to take a deep squat, you can take a shallow of squat, but make sure the angles of the ankle, the knee, and the hip stay the same.

If you choose to squat like this, like a Wonky, we're going to take the feet slightly wider and again, think of sending your shins forward or your heel backwards and squat. [inaudible] [inaudible] press down and come back up last time. I'm not the head. Good. Come back up the feet a little wider. You could do the whole sequence with the legs wider and we're going to squat. How's everybody feeling? Good? Yeah. Good. Thank you very much for coming.

[inaudible].