Continuous and Flowing Mat

Okay. So we're going to do, I'm more of a fast pace mat class now. Um, I would recommend starting with more of a warm up than what we're doing now. If you're doing this first thing in the morning, probably a good idea to get on the mat and warm up your spine at some bridging. Um, before we start the way, we're going to start right now. So that being said, let's go ahead and bring our feet about hip width apart and you can stand on the mat. Actually, let's start standing on the mat. So we're on the same surface. And before we go anywhere, just close your eyes at your arms, hang at your sides, and take a moment to feel where you are in space. Notice the weight underneath your feet.

Start to deepen your inhalation a bit more consciously. And as you exhale, encourage the breath to come out through the back of the throat with a relaxed mouth. Inhaling, noticing the upward quality that the inhale has as you hill, keeping that sense of length and yet increasing a little more tone and stability around it. And on our following inhale, we're going to reach our arms up in over our head and as we exhale, open the eyes. Looking straight ahead. Start to round up in over an entire beach ball coming all the way down to the floor. Bend your knees as you need to. Walking your hands out to the top of a pushup position. Inhaling, long as if you were still standing here, feeling the back of the head in line with the trunk as you exhale, Pike your hips up towards the sky into an inverted V.

Walk your hands towards your feet. Bend your knees as you need to. Keep the weight through the front of the foot and slowly roll up pelvis rolling up first, lower back ribs, shoulders and head. Once you're up there, inhale to reach the arms right back up. Exhale and again, lifting up and around and let the weight and really roll forward. As you're coming down, once you found the floor, walk your hands back out to the top of a pushup position. Big Open Palms. This time spread the fingertips apart and as you're ready, lower one knee down. At a time. Keep the knees about hip with the part on the mat. Inhaling, broaden the collarbones, lifting the breastbone forward and up as your tailbone does as well into the cat, cow or camel and cat.

Exhaling and rounding. So we're just gonna follow the breath. Bring your hips back just a little more. Inhale at the top of your head and pelvis. Move together. Exhale at the top of your head and pelvis. Moved together in the opposite direction.

Do that one last time and then go ahead and find a flat back across your feet. Have a seat and let your legs reach out in front of you. Walk on your hips, scoot forward and go one hip at a time. Nice way to create a little more warm through the front of your body. We're going to bend the knees and place the feet flat on the Mat.

So go ahead and scoot just a little further forward so you've got more mat behind you. As you inhale, you'll grow up and sit tall. Exhaling starts to roll back. Roll your pelvis away from your thigh and let it feel like you're hanging off the back of your leg. So use your legs at first and then slide all the way and onto your back. Your feet will come up and off the ground with you, so and bring your feet into your chest. Hands behind your knees.

Inhale while you're here. As you exhale, just use your legs to help you lift your head, neck and shoulders up and off of the ground so you're not going to go anywhere off your back. Inhale and let yourself come back down. Exhale again. Use your legs, push your legs away from you, and then slowly come back down. Let's do this two more times, so make sure that you're really holding onto your legs so that when you push you, it just helps to bring your upper body into that flection curve. We want to give the body and easy way to do it right so that you're using your legs. Hopefully muscle memory will kick in on your next repetition. And as you exhale this time, you're going to press through and come all the way up to sitting, sitting up tall. This time, length in your legs, out here, arms reaching out in front of you and start to roll back just the same way. Keep those legs feeling like they're reaching away from you. And as you inhale, reach your arms up and overhead like when you were standing. Exhale, reach the arms back, lifting up into a roll up position, rolling through the spine. If it helps to use your knees, Hook your hands behind your legs. Please do that. And then against it up tall.

Exhale and curl back down. [inaudible] once you're down there, inhale, reach the arms back up and overhead. Exhale, the hands are going to reach back up. Look through to your toes. Start to peel up. Inhale to sit tall. Beautiful you guys. Exhale curling back. Last one for just a moment.

Once you're down here, inhale, reach long, get really long in your torso and then let your arms come down at your sides. Go ahead and bring your knees into your chest and turn onto your right side or your left. It doesn't really matter. He'll do both. Bring your knees in towards your chest so your whole body on your side and you're going to reach your arms out in front of you. Your head is going to feel like it's coming off a little bit. If that's not comfortable, please prop your head up. As you inhale, you're going to reach that left arm up in towards the ceiling and start to into what we call book openings or a bit of rotation. And as you're ready, you'll exhale.

Let your arm come up first and then turn your body onto your side. Go ahead and bring your legs up just a little higher. Inhale, bringing the arm up and over, opening your heart, noticing the twisting happening at your ribs. Exhale and bring it back and if you'd like to use the bottom arm to support your head, you can absolutely do that throughout the whole thing. And then coming back up to the side. Last one here in hell.

As we open up, your top knee can reach away from that arm just a little bit to help create more distance and then rest with your knees and go ahead and turn onto your back again. And you can just roll onto your other side. Opening up to the other side. Same exact idea. Either arms come together or your hands under your head, whatever feels comfortable. Inhale and open yourself up at the back of your head. Rest. Exhale and bring that arm back to center. And again, let's bring your knees in just a little closer and look at your hand when you come to your side, all the way to the side and then reaching up.

So you want to feel like you're coming through neutral, going past it to stack your hands and then opening back up into rotation. Keep your head heavy on the ground the whole time. So we want to make sure that we're really opening up and mobilizing the top part of the spine so that as we start combining movements and loading them with gravity, uh, we're, we're trying to get the movement through as many segments of our body as possible. Keep that head heavy the whole time. Last one, and exhale. Good. Once you're on your side again, you'll turn onto your back. Lengthen your legs all the way out. We're going to come up through a roll up. Now, after doing that, notice if it feels any different. Inhale, reach the arms up and overhead. Exhale the arms come through first.

Once you see your fingers, lift your head up. Peel yourself all the way up, sitting tall here. If it's challenging to sit up tall, please bend your knees so that you feel like there is movement at your hips and you're not stuck. And because of the hamstring length, inhale, open the arms up just a little bit wider so that they're in your peripheral vision. As you exhale, go ahead and twist towards the right side, trying to keep your Chin in line with your breastbone. Inhale, coming back and around through center. Exhale, twisting to the left side idea the chin and the breastbone, or staying in touch with one another. Inhale, find center. Exhale, twist the other way. Use the least amount of effort in your legs. Instead, think about growing tall and letting gravity support your pelvis and your thighs. Inhale, sitting tall through center. Bend your knees just a little bit. Yup, so you can separate your feet. Bend your knees and then still tall from here. That's it. One more, and now find your center. Inhale while you're here. Exhale, we're going to peel back through center again. Back into a roll up.

Just like before. Inhale, reach the arms up in over the head. Exhale, take the arms back up. Start to roll through, sitting up nice and tall. This time we're going to inhale, twist towards the right. Exhale. Roll down the right side of your spine, keeping that length. Once you come down, find your center. Exhale, curl up through the center. Inhale. When you get to the top, exhale, twist the other way, so roll back with the rotation. Once you're on the ground, find center. Roll up through center. Exhale as you come up. Inhale to sit tall. Exhale, twist the other way.

Curl down that right side of your spine. Inhale, find center. Exhale, roll up through center. Last time. Twist the other way throughout. Keep Your Chin in line with your breastbone. Finding your center. Exhale, curl all the way back up to sitting tall. Inhale. Bring the hands behind you. Find that base of support.

Go ahead and bend your knees now placing your feet on the ground hip with the part. As you're ready, you're going to inhale. Reach your knees and pelvis over your toes. As you lift up, keep looking out through the front of your knees. Exhale, bring your pelvis back down. Do that a couple more times. Make sure that when you come up, you feel comfortable in your wrist and in your shoulders. Keep your gaze through towards the front of your knees. Last one. So if you feel like you've got a fidget, this is your chance to find the right position for your arms.

Go ahead and come back down this time. Length in both of your legs, out for leg pull. Bring your heels together as you exhale. Think about really reaching your legs long from you as they press down so they reached long and pressed down and magically your pelvis starts to float back up. Keep looking out over your toes. Exhale, bring it back down. Inhale, reach your arms back, up and over your head. Exhale, roll back down through center. You can keep the arms overhead or reach forward for less. Challenge. Inhale, when you're back, exhale, curl back up through your center.

Come all the way up to sitting tall. Slide the hands behind you. Point the toes. Reach the legs so far and down. Your pelvis floats up. Take a breath while you're up there. Exhale it back down. One more time. Inhale the arms float up. Exhale, we roll back down pelvis, lower back, ribs, shoulders, and head. Inhale while we're here. Exhale the arms reached. Curl it up. Once you've come up to sit tall, scoop the arms around last time. Exhaling up into leg pull.

Hold it in. Breathe. Keep looking at your toes. Press the floor away. Breathe into that space between your shoulder blades. If it feels appropriate, press down through the right leg. Lift the left leg up towards the sky. Exhale, bring it down. Alternate sides. Really focus on pressing down on the leg that stays on the floor. Last time. Push that pelvis up and then bring both hips down.

Reach the arms back up, and inhale. Exhale, arms will float down. Cross your legs and flip yourself back up and on to all four. I'm sorry. Yeah, on to all four hands and knees. Spread the fingers and then slide the legs out into plank. Find a very long plank position here from the top of the head out through the heels. Hold it here and breathe. As we exhale, create a little more length through the top of the head and out through the pelvis. Notice if you can keep your body in the same position and then gently bring the knees down to the mat, bringing this area down a bit. Yep. As you exhale, roll through your toes, reach your heels back and lift back up.

Do that two more times. So can we isolate the movement in the lower extremities while keeping the trunk still? You can imagine that you've got a dowel on your back. You've got a box. The crown of your head is reaching long. Exhale, reach really long, the breastbone gliding forward. Last one. Stay up at the top of the plank for a moment.

Keep that breastbone reaching forward and as you exhale, bend your elbows slowly lower down. Your knees can find the mat first. Take a moment to rest. Keep your hands in the position that they're in, but the tops of the feet rest on the mat. As you inhale, notice if your abdomen expands into the mat or not. As you exhale, get all of the breath out of the body again with that feeling, creating a fog on the following. Inhale. See if you can guide the breath into the space between your shoulder blades. So it almost feels like you're inhaling to lift the breadth into the space behind your heart and with that feeling in mind as you're inhaling, start to glide your shoulder blades down, your back, lifting the front of the body up into a small swan.

We'll make the first few small and then slowly come back down. We're going to do that again. Follow your own breath. Inhale. As you come up, you can imagine that the inhale is a helium balloon that floats the breastbone forward and up. Exhale and come back down. If you're using your arms a lot to do this, try to use them less so that you're using your body, your trunk, and your extensors a little bit more on your arms, a little bit less. Slide your hands back just a little bit. Yep. Keep going. So keep your gaze down and then come back down. Exactly. One more. We're going to hold the body now in that position.

As you're ready, exhale. Press down through your hands and knees to come to the top of your swan. Really reaching forward and long. Take a breath while you're here. Slowly bend the elbows as you come back down and let your head release back down to the mat. Two more. Start first with the upper back. Small Swan. Hold it there. As you exhale, use your knees as much as you need to so that your lower back feels like it's supported. Press down through your knees. Yeah, and then slowly bend your elbows. Yup.

Keep lowering your body. That's it. So we want to avoid movement in the lower back. We bring the upper body up into that small extension position and then we lift it up using our arms and legs. Exhale and slowly come back down. Hover the face over the mat. This time as you're ready, slide your fingertips back towards your feet. Turn the palms to face the floor.

On the following breath. Start to pulse. The arms from your shoulders. Inhale into three, four, five. Exhaling two, three, four, five. Reach your breastbone. Forward and up. Big Breath. Lots of exhaling. Moving from the shoulder. Think of the back of the arms, the triceps, wanting to move up towards the ceiling. Almost there.

Keep the legs long and in contact with the ground. Inhale into that space between your shoulder blades. Exhale all the air out. Really energize those fingertips. Good. Two more breaths. [inaudible] exhale all the air out. Let's make the movement just a bigger from here.

So when we get those shoulders coming into little more movement, exhale all the air out. Hold that in. Freeze. Bring your hands back underneath your shoulders, pressing back up and onto all four. Tuck the toes under, rolling back into that Inverted v position. So sending the hips all the way up, shoulders are wide on the back. The head is still in line with the space between the shoulder blades. If you need to bend your knees to keep that length through your spine, please go ahead and bend your knees. And in fact, that's all.

Bend our knees for a moment so we can feel that. Walk your feet in just a little closer. Bend the knees, stick out the butt, and really push the mat away while still keeping the body elevated, right? Not Collapsing into the shoulder. This is looking good. And then see if you can keep that feeling through your trunk as you start to straighten your legs. So bring your head this way a little bit more and just keep looking at your feet. That's it. One last breath.

And then as you're ready, start to walk your hands back towards your feet. Just the way we started. Heels coming down to the floor. But You keep the weight through the front of your feet. Roll your pelvis on your legs, coming back up to the standing position. Always make sure you're breathing when you're taking your head up and down a lot. So avoid dizziness. Once you're up there, we're going to inhale, reach the arms back up. Exhale, and again, rolling back down, up and over a huge beach ball, putting some of this stuff together. Now place the hands flat on the Mat.

Walk yourself back out into a plank. Hold it here. This time doing leg pull front. So create lots of length. Push the floor away, keeping the body elevated. And as you're exhaling, you're gonna brush the toes of the right foot back. Point that leg and lifted up. And then bring that leg to flex and back onto the floor. Exhale, do the other side.

Heap that feeling of reaching your breastbone forward and up. There you go. Hold it there as you switch it through your legs. Well, just you each leg twice for your pubs down just a little bit, and then go ahead and bend both knees, bring. Okay, one more time on the other side. If you're ready to bring both knees down to the mat. Take a moment in child's pose. Press all the way back on the following. Inhale. Now we're going to come back up and onto all fours, up onto hands and knees. From here, we're going to slide the right leg back and then take the top hip. That right hip.

We're going to turn and bring the right leg onto the right hip and you can let your foot turn onto the floor for some support there. Okay, notice that first. If your hips are still in line, go ahead and come back to face the mat one more time. So it's very helpful if you let your foot on the Benton leg slide back just a little bit. So help you increase that base of support. Okay. Some might need more space than others. And now as you're ready, go ahead and come back on to all fours and let's just do the other side.

So bring everything back underneath the trunk. Slide the other leg out now and as you exhale, turn the left tip on top of the right hip. Let this foot come out just a little bit more. Yeah, exactly. And think about this hip moving forward. That's it. And then turn back towards the Mat one more time, then that knee and bring it under and again, setting it up.

Slide the left leg back, turning the left tip on top of the right leg, the right foot slide back as it needs to to help facilitate that. Keep that bottom hip moving forward. Roll the shoulder back energy out through the top of the head. We can exhale and reach the left arm up and then start to lift the left leg up as well. If your neck gets tired, look down at the floor. As you're ready.

Let's bring the left hand onto the left tip so we can feel where that leg is. Point through the toes and start to lower the leg down. Exhale and lift it back up and throughout. Really feel like we want to increase the length between the foot and the top of the head. Push the floor away. Yes, exactly. Really pushed that mat away to keep the collarbones equally wide away from the neck. Good. And roll this shoulder back.

You can bring your hand under your shoulder a little bit more and this foot can come back anymore. Yep. And keep moving this hip forward. That's it. That's better. Last one. Bring that foot down. Go ahead. Keep the left foot on the floor. Find the entire floor with the entire foot. Inhale the left arm up and over the head and take a side bend over the right arm.

Push the floor away here and lift your ribs up towards the sky. As you're ready, we're going to turn back towards the Mat. Go ahead and bring your knees in and find child's pose for just a moment. Notice how different one side of the body feels and then as you're ready, you'll exhale. Come back up and on to all fours. Slide the other leg out now and we'll do the other side.

So again, as you're turning your body, you can put the top hand on the top hip, slide that foot back with your hands. Notice if you're in this much of a hip extended position on that bottom hip as possible and that your arm can really push the floor away. As you exhale, lengthen that top leg out so far it starts to lift and hover and then slowly bring it back down. If your neck gets tired, look down. Otherwise try and keep energy out through the top of the head. Keep thinking about this hip moving forward. That's it.

Even if it limits the range of movement. Think more about stacking the base. Exhale as your leg comes up. We're almost done with this. Push the floor away. This shoulder comes back. Yup.

Really pushed through that hand. Spread your fingers apart a little bit. Last one, bring that foot down to the floor. Reach the top arm up and over and take a nice side bend there. And then as you're ready, we're going to bring it back to the center. Turn towards the Mat and rest in child's pose.

Take a breath while you're there. Inhale, come back up and onto all fours. Cross the legs. Have a seat behind you. Lengthen those legs out in front of you. Go ahead and scoot forward so you've got some mat behind you. Inhale and reach the arms back out. Exhale, start to lower yourself back down and onto the mat. Once your hands, shoulders, and head have found the mat. Exhale one leg up towards the sky and then bring the other leg up towards the sky. Inhale, lift both legs up in over head without touching the mat just to that 90 degree position on the horizon, so keep them, yes, hold them there.

Make sure that your chin stays away from your chest. You can imagine that there's a um, uh, something that you need to hold on the back of your legs. You don't want it to spill. Go ahead and flex your feet. Separate them as wide as your shoulders and slowly start to curl down your spine. Once your pelvis has found the mat, circle your legs out and around the just a little bit. They'll come back together. Exhale, we'll take them back up and overhead.

Keep them on the horizon. Exactly. Flex the feet, lower your legs just a little bit here. Separate them shoulder width apart and then slowly curl back down. Once your pelvis is down there, circle the legs out and around. We'll do this one last time. Exhaling to lift up and over. Make sure that the chin stays away from the chest. Once you're there, separate your legs.

Keep energy out through the feet and then slow the curl them back down. Once you've come down, bend the knees, hug them into your chest. This time use your hands behind your thighs. Exhale, you're going to use your legs to help you roll back. From here. We can cross the legs and start to make our way back onto all fours. Tuck the toes under.

Come back into that Inverted v position. Start walking the hands towards the feet, bending at the knees, and slowly coming back up to standing. Bring your feet just to close together. This time as close as it's comfortable for your legs, let your arms dangle. Let your eyes closed, and just notice for a moment what your breath is like.

Do you feel a little more energized and maybe ready for something dynamic? Ready to go on a run, ready to go for a swim? I hope you keep this energy with you throughout the day and thank you so much.