Connecting to Your Seat

Hi everyone, I'm Lesley Logan, and today we have an amazing mat class to do. So we're gonna start standing at our mat. Thank you ladies for joining me. And you can stand at the front edge of your mat and get nice and close to each other. And then lift your arms up to the sky.

Good. Now hug your heels tight together with your toes just about two inches apart. We often get a little too wide in our stance and then pulling your ribs towards your back, and your tailbone towards your heels, hug the inner heels together to lift you up and then lower down. And notice how on the first one you wanted to roll out onto your easily held up joints and instead, what I want you to do is roll up and hug and stay evenly weighted across the ball of your foot. So maybe you don't come up as high.

And then lower down and let the reach of the arms help you pull your shoulders down to your hips. And let's do five more. So today's mat class is all about finding your seat and that's gonna connect you into your powerhouse, your abdominals, because that's what's gonna hold your long legs up and let's do one more time. Hold it, nicely done, nice catch, hold it there. Hug the back side of your legs together.

Pull the ribs in towards your spine and then lower your heels down with control. Cross one arm over the other and carefully lower yourself down to your mat and we will lie onto our backs and draw our knees into our chest. Sweep your hands behind your head. Bring your heels tight together like you just did and we'll do footwork, toes. So we're bringing a little reformer to our mat today.

Lift your head and chest up and then point long through your toes, press your legs out to your high diagonal and hold the first one just so we can get connected. Wrap the backs of the legs together, pull your ribs up and in and lift your chest one inch higher. Now bend the knees into your nose and press them right back out, you've got nine more. And what you want to feel is a little bit of space between your chin and your chest. Yeah, so you can push your head into your hands and then as your legs go out, you're wrapping that seat around and on your last one, stay out there, hold it, and then flex your feet and point.

Flex and point. And watch that your turn out is not so wide that you're in a dance studio, which is beautiful, I wish I had it, but we'll keep it narrow so we can stay connected to our seat and not go into our easily moving habits. Hold it out there with a point, pull the knees into your chest, lift your chest another inch higher, and then lower your head and chest down. Now today, for the hundred, let's take your legs out on the mat. Take your arms out behind your head, reach all the way back.

Give yourself a big stretch. So I know a lot of us usually come into the hundred with our knees into our chest but for today, since you've connected yourself to your seat with that standing tendon stretch, and you've connected yourself to your seat from your footwork, can you take a deep breath in, exhale, ribs to the mat, lift your head and chest up and your legs go to your level of the hundred and start pumping your arms vigorously. So I want big, vigorous pumps, right. Get your arms between your hips and your knees, like really try to make yourself bounce around so that your abdominals have to work harder to keep you up, that's what the hundred is all about. So it's really trying to knock you off your abs.

And then, instead of letting your hip flexors hold your legs up, like a marionette doll, can you find the backs of your legs and hug them together? One more cycle of breathing. Exhale all the air out and hold your arms still. Good, reach your legs long for each other and your arms over head and lower all the way down the way you came in. Nicely done.

Flex your feet, guys, for the roll up. Hug your heels tight together. Take your arms to the ceiling and then inhale, lift your head and chest up, pull your tailbone for your heels as you round forward, the first one's always a little yucky, and you pull your shoulders down out of your ears and you'll roll back but drive your tailbone towards your heels. Reach your heels for the person in front of you. And then inhale, lift up, exhale bend your spine and round forward, you got it.

Hold it there, pull the shoulders outta your ears and roll back. Let's do four more with a little flow. Inhale up, over your legs, exhale, roll down. Reach your arms forward but your waist has to pull back. So you're not just taking all of your weight towards your feet, you got a little bit of it going to the back and then on your last one, stay down.

And take your arms down by your side. Hold your arms into the mat and actually feel your shoulders press down. Now bring your right knee into your chest. And straighten your right leg up to the sky and then hold here for a moment 'cause we tend to hike our leg a little higher than we really want and then we have no space between our waist so can you push that hip away from your ribs? Yeah, so maybe your right leg actually goes a little bit away from you and then flex your left foot.

Push your left heel down into the mat, feel the back side of your leg tuck, hug into your body, and then take your leg across your body, circle it down, around, and up. You have four more in this direction. And you're really trying to actually make your left leg work harder so go ahead and take your leg wide to the side. Really see how far can you go and then reverse. And I wanna see that left hip hugs into your body so we're not letting it just hang out.

Good, on your last one, hold it up there, pull the knee into your chest. Straighten along the mat, get it next to your other leg, hug the heels tight together before you move on and feel your ribs pulling into the mat and your arms press down more. Then draw the other knee into your chest, lengthen up towards the sky, and just like you did on the other side, reach that hip away from you so you get space between your ribs and your hips. And then take your leg across your body, circle it around. And if you've been with your leg springs recently, can you feel how your leg pushes through honier, pushes through an imaginary leg spring, so you can turn the back side of your leg on, right.

And then as you reverse, try to go wide and try to challenge your right hip and how it can press into the mat a little bit more. On the next one, bring the leg up, bend the knee into your chest, slide alongside your other leg, and rock up or roll up for rolling like a ball. Now take your hands by your hips and bring your hips to your heels. And then before you set up for your rolling like a ball, place your hands on the outsides of your knees for a moment, tip back behind your tailbone and lift your feet up one inch. And then don't fall back, if you could hold yourself up, that'd be amazing, push your knees into your hands and your hands into your knees and feel your outer hips turn on.

And then keep that as you slide your hands to your ankles. Now your head is looking in towards your abdominals and your abdominals are pulling back so much that you'll rock back the tips of your shoulder blades and come right back up and hold it there for this first one, did your seat stay on or did you lose it, right? Can you find that feeling and go back three more times, rock back and up. The outer hips staying on is the key for that Elvis pelvis. We tend to lose it at the top and we get a little rock 'n roll up there but can you press into your heels a lot and your knees energetically out to hold you up on your seat.

And then pause there, take both hands on your right leg. Stretch your left leg out and look at it. Reach it to the high diagonal, woo, it's like a spear at your neighbor, I love this. Get your leg a little higher, to the level of Gita's, that's it, and then you'll roll back leaving your left leg exactly where it is. Oh yes, just to the tips of your shoulder blades and pause.

Good, come back down, stay there, I know it's super exciting but we gotta stay right where we are. Hold that. Now take your left leg, it's reaching out away from you, can you lift it an inch up and find your left hip holding your leg up so it's not just hanging off of your hip flexor and really being supported by your seat. And then switch, grab your other leg. And switch.

And we'll stay together so you don't knock the person around that you're in class with. But you're trying, really, more not to just think about the stretch of the hip but the reach of the other one and how the seat is holding your leg up. And when you're even, bring both knees into your chest. Keep your head and chest off the mat and hug your heels tight together. Inhale, take your arms and legs away from you and hold here for double leg stretch and pause.

Squeeze your seat nice and tight. Circle your arms around and bend your knees in and do three more of these. So we don't have to do a lot 'cause we just need to find where our seat can wrap together and our shoulders can stay up off the mat, last time, and bring your knees into your chest and rest. Good, slide to the backs of your mats a little bit guys. We have a single straight leg stretch and we don't wanna be knocking legs around.

So bring the knees into your chest, and take your head and chest towards your knees and pause. Straighten your legs to the sky as your ribs pull down. Now everyone, walk your hands up to the back of your right ankle, get all the way up there. Make your leg push into your hands, not just so you lift your chest a little higher, but so that you can press into the leg into your back of your hamstring and seat on, then your free leg is gonna lower, not too far, just to the level that you can hold it up like you did in your single leg stretch. And then pull on that right leg two times and switch.

Pull, pull, switch. So you can keep going, we have five more each side. But how can you not only find the seat of the leg that you're holding, but the one that's hanging down there, instead of relaxing it towards the ground or dropping it, can you press it there and let it be held up by your seat? Then when you're even, both legs come to the sky. You sweep your hands behind your head.

Hug the backs of your legs tight together and then inhale, press your legs down. So instead of lowering them, push them down through mud. And then sink your waist and lift it back up. Good, again, press the legs down. Can you feel that there's something that you're pushing into the floor and then lift it up?

So that, again, we don't drop. Push me down, press my hand towards the floor, and then pick yourself up from your seat. And that's just gonna feel so much better on the front of your hips. One more time. And then hold it up there, bring your knees into your chest and rest your head.

So we'll do something a little different today before we go into our criss-cross. You'll bend your knees and place your feet on the mat. Taking your hands behind your head, lift your head and chest up, twist towards the right, and pull your opposite knee in. Your right knee in, yep. Sorry about that.

Now push your left foot into the floor more. Feel like you can drive it into the floor so you could turn the back side of your left leg on and you let your left hip ground down. And then you can curl higher off of your right rib cage 'cause you're not having to hold your whole body up. That's it. And then you come back through center without resting, you switch your legs.

So push that foot down, your left, excuse me, your right foot down, and then you're gonna feel the backside of your right leg turn on as you lift up off the left shoulder blade more. And then, go back and do it one more time each side just so you can find how when you twist, we often just turn and roll over, and I want your opposite hip to stay down. Last time to the other side. Curl higher as your transition. Find a little bit more pressure into the mat so you can find a little bit more of your seat.

And then put both feet down, let your head rest for a moment. Draw your knees into your chest and keep that feeling as you go into the real criss-cross. So hands back behind your head and then take your right knee in and twist over to it and lift up off your right shoulder, twist a little bit more and then switch sides. So you're gonna continue on right and left but I want you to feel, that's it Gia, how much your seat can hold your leg up in space so that you're not rolling over when you twist but you're really twisting your waist out. When you're even, bring your knees back into your chest.

Lift your chest one inch higher, and then you can rest down. Good, let's sit up for our spine stretch forward. And today for your spine stretch forward, just go as wide as the mat but take your hands between your legs. And then imagine that you could push down into the floor like a pommel house and your a gymnast and if I asked you to, we'd all be amazing and we could lift everything up, which I can't do either. But there's that feeling of it, right?

Flex your feet and then we tend to press our knees down so can you soften your knees and push your heels down and feel how that connects you into sitting a little bit taller on your seat. And then keep your hands where they are and round forward. As you exhale, pull your ribs back, we'll slide those hands forward and your ribs back and then drag the hands back and lift your spine a little taller. Inhale here, exhale, round forward. Reach your hands forward.

They won't get past your feet because you're pulling so much back with your ribs and your shoulders. And then inhale all the way up. And we'll do one more like that. Reach forward, pulling the ribs back, reaching those hands a little bit more forward, hold and think about how open leg rockers gonna feel like this and how if you could, you'd grab your ankles and rock back. And then you roll all the way up.

And you roll up so much you lift a little taller, you feel the wrap of your seat a little bit more. That you rock back towards behind your tailbone and you reach your arms forward and you just lift your legs up from your seat, take your ankles into your hands, and grab on. That's it, nice. Hold it here. Push those legs out into your hands but don't let the legs get wider than your shoulders.

Press your arms into your legs. So you're this tight connected piece. And then, look to your abdominals, rock back just the tips of your shoulder blades, and then come right back up and stop at the top and hold it. Good, rock back to the tips of your shoulder blades. Stop at the top and pause, push those hands into your legs and legs into your hands.

One more time. Rock back, lift yourself up, hold, close your legs. Reach your arms out to the side. You're holding your legs up from your seat and your belly is lifting up your chest and then criss-cross your legs here. Ten. Nine.

Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Lift.

Reach your arms forward. Lower your body down but lift your legs up to the sky. So you're gonna go all the way to the mat, legs are up. Nice. Scoot onto your mat if your head isn't on there so it's nice and comfortable.

Well, as comfortable as it can be, right. We're going into the corkscrew. So, what you want is to push your shoulders down, we're not lifting anything up so we all can do this one. Take your legs to the right and as you go to the right, make sure your toes stay even with each other so really reach through your hips and circle the legs around to the other side and reverse. Hug the backs of your legs together so that when you are taking your legs around, it's not gripping up in your hip flexors but you can really feel that your pelvis is supporting your legs and you can take them around the room with you.

And then your shoulders are pressing down as an anchor so you don't just roll off your mat. And when you're even, hold your legs up to the sky, bend your knees into your chest, rock and roll up to seated, let's do the saw. So the saw is my favorite exercise 'cause it just is so easy to let it all go but what if we kept it all together and we really, you know, wrung out everything that we could out of it? So, flexing your feet, and then have your feet as wide as your mat today, arms wide to the side. Good, now lift up super tall and press your heels down into your mat a lot.

Feel the backs of your legs turn on just like you did in your spine stretch forward. We'll twist to the right together. And then hold it. Your left hip has to pull back as you twist more to the right so your feet don't slide. And then you dive your head in and your round forward and just like you did on your criss-cross, you have to feel that opposite anchor you so you can pull three times.

You could like reach forward and twist more and more and then hold it. Here's where I get picky. You roll up, you're still in your twist. You roll up, you're still in your twist. And then you come through center, lift tall, twist the other way.

Pull that right hip back so you feel like you literally wrung yourself out. Bend forward, reach forward, that right hip is down as you pulse, one, stretch a little deeper, two, pull your ribs back a little more, three, lift all the way up. Now let's continue on, take it through the center and then twist over towards the right. Pull your left hip back and go one, two, three, lift up in your twist and then center and pull it across to the other side. Pull that right hip back and go one, two, three, roll it up, Heather flex your feet tightly, and lift up, yep, and go one more time each way because you really have to find how can I get that opposite hip to stay down as I go.

And then last side so that you're nice and even. Reach forward, pull the hip back, and go one, and two, ribs back on three, lift up in your twist, and come through center. Great guys, let's lower the arms and flip onto our stomach with your head at the front of your mat. So when you're in your swan, take your hands just by your lowest ribs if you can with your elbows to the sky and forehead to the mat. And then take your inner thighs and spin them up a little bit so that you're not so externally rotated.

It can get a little pinchy in our back and I do want you to feel your seat but I really want you to feel where your thigh meets your seat, right, where your buttocks is, and so your inner thighs are lifting up and then your pubic bone is pushing down and that should engage all of your core and your seat'll still be on but it won't be gripping. Press your feet into the mat. And then without losing any of this, take your hands, head, and chest off the mat. Hold it here. Take your hands to the mat and pull your heart forward more and your shoulders back more and then, squeeze your elbows towards each other, just lift your hands up and pause.

And then lower everything down. It's probably my favorite thing to do after a long day on the computer is swan because you lift your hands, head, and chest up, and it activates all those muscles I just rounded by sitting at my computer. Place your hands down. And instead of thinking up, think more forward with the chest. And then squeeze those elbows together.

Press your feet down, lift the hands. Lower down with control. Let's just do two more like that. Press your feet down, reach your tailbone long, hands, head, and chest lift. Place the hands down and draw your self more forward.

Lift those hands up, balance, and then lower down. One more time. Inner thighs lifting up, and then pubic bone is pushing down, lift your head and hands and chest. Place the hands down, draw yourself maybe another inch higher, maybe you're ready for it, right. Then squeeze those elbows, lift the hands, pause, and lower all the way down.

Now prop yourself up for your single leg kick. Good, take your elbows directly underneath your shoulders and then do this. Press your fists, I don't care if they're parallel or together, push the fists down into the mat or the palms into the mat, and then energetically drag your elbows towards you so that you could pull your heart more forward. Yeah, so that you're super connected to your mat. And then reach your tailbone towards your heels so that your low belly is up and I even like to think about my hip points and how they can be light on the mat.

And then as you pull your right heel towards your seat, kick it two times and then press the foot down and switch sides. Kick, kick. Keep going, kick, kick. And instead of thinking how close can your heel get to your seat, think about how much your hamstring and your seat can pull your heel in. So that you're not necessarily kicking your own butt, but rather just firing off your seat.

And as you go one more time each side, double check that you're not kicking your lower back to the floor. Good, when you're even, lower all the way down. Look to the right and layer your hands high up on your back. Good, and I like to keep them layered so that you have them with one hand over the other rather than interlacing your fingers. Then pressing your feet down, pulling your tailbone towards your heels, kick your seat three times.

One, two, three. Press the feet down and then instead of thinking back with the arms, think up with the arms and forward with the chest. So how can you find your rowing back, right, how can you get those muscles to connect? Then lower down, look the other way, get those hands high up and then again, as you kick, press your pubic bone to the mat so we're not turning into Miley Cyrus on our mat today and lift your hands a little higher and pull your heart a little bit more forward but feel the upper back muscles stretch your front out. And then lower down, let's do two more times.

Kick, kick, kick, and reach the heart forward and arms up. Last time, kick, kick, kick. Press the feet, lift the palms up, reach your heart forward, and then lower it down. Sit back, child's pose, and I personally like the old Joe child's pose where you put your head down towards your knees, you sweep your hands back behind you, grab your heels, and you'll actually lift your bum up a little bit so it's more like a rolling like a ball on your head or if someday you were to do crab, you know. You'd be ready for it but you can really round your back out and it actually is a nice delicious stretch but it keeps you in your core so that way when you come up to staying on your knees, facing each other, yeah, you're still connected to yourself.

You can come to the center of your mat if you'd like. And then stand on your knees, just a fist distance apart. Take your arms up to the sky. So we'll do the thigh stretch here. And this isn't a back bend, it's just a really delicious thigh stretch that's gonna get us ready for shoulder bridge.

Right, so, here we go. Your feet are parallel, press your feet down and reach your tail down towards your knees but your ribs are in. Then as you lean back in a straight line, arms will go forward in front of your chest. Now press into your feet and lift your arms up, feel your back turn on to help you get up there. Get taller in your spine.

Lower your arms, reach for the person in front of you, but press your feet down and then press up. Feel the back side of your body support you. A couple more. As you go back, you'll feel there's a brinking point, don't go past it, just push your knees again and lift yourself back up. And say hello to your hamstrings and your seat.

And last time, reach forward, open up the front of the hips for that thigh stretch and then lift yourself all the way up, get a little taller, push your knees down a little bit more, and rest. Good, ready for shoulder bridge? I think it's so nice when your hips are already open for shoulder bridge. So, I have a couple little things before we start kicking our legs so lie onto your back and set up for your shoulder bridge where your arms are long by your side, your feet are a fist distance apart, but before you go anywhere, push your feet down, specifically that center heel and big toe mound, so that your inner thighs stay connected even though they're not touching, they're still working. And then energetically pull the heels towards your seat so you're gonna push the feet down and then pull them in to you and this should really turn the backs of the legs on so that way when you roll your hips up, that first one, you're so connected to your seat and your arms are pressing down so the hips will go up and you're gonna hold this one.

And double check, is your big toe mound still on the floor or did you roll out to your pinky toe? And then push into your heel. Now hold. You're only gonna lift your right foot one inch off of the floor. And you're gonna set it back down.

And then you're gonna lift your left foot one inch off the floor and set it down. And you'll all start marching right and left and as you go, your hips do not have permission to drop side to side. We don't get to sway. We have to keep them even 'cause when you do the big kick, you have to keep them even. So what you should feel is the backs of your legs turn on and your seat turn on and that's what supports you in your shoulder bridge.

And then when you're even, you hold it, you double check that you're on your whole foot, and then you'll roll your spine down one bone at a time. And take a deep breath in, you're gonna roll back up on your exhale and stay there and you'll continue to breathe normally because I don't want anyone to hold it here but if you wanna march, march, otherwise bring your right knee into your chest. Straighten your right leg to the sky and hold, push your left hip a little higher, you're standing on your left foot, it's holding you up. Flex that foot to lower it, point, kick, and lift it up. And three more times.

And you already know how to lower your leg, we did it in the ab series, you know how far you can go. And when you're on your last one, you stay up there and you push into your arms and you press into your left foot and you bend your knee into your chest and you place the foot down. And you're gonna bring your other knee into your chest. And you're still even, you're still up here, you take your leg up, when you flex that foot, you're gonna lower it to the level or maybe past the other one but your hip stays high. And you're gonna lower it down, reach into your right foot, it's what's holding you up as well.

And you've got two more. And that left hip is still up, up, up. And when you're even, lift your leg up, bend your knee, place the foot down, and then roll it down vertebrae by vertebrae. Now, let's set up for table. So, taking your feet and your knees about a fists distance apart and your hands back behind you, fingers in.

So I love this because it really strengthens the upper back and gets us ready for leg pull up, which we'll do in another time but you can never stop practicing for it, so might as well start now, you'll roll the shoulders back, press your feet into the mat like you did your shoulder bridge and then roll your hips up, lifting up. And now be careful not to W out, right, so reach your tailbone towards your knees and lift up and open your chest. And then all of us are big elbow hyperextenders, I can see that, so soften your elbows, it doesn't ever look that pretty and open your chest a little bit more into your upper back. And then you can lower down to touch your hips to the mat or reach your hips back and keep your legs straight. Now push your heels down into the floor and look at your abdominals, pull them back.

Then bend your knees and pull yourself through to table. Open the chest, remember those soft elbows for the hyperextenders, pull your hips back, press your heels down into the mat, find your tendon stretch, and then bend and lift up, and then pull it all the way back. Now we've got one more. And I really want us to see how connected are we to our seat. Can we do this?

Can we pull our hips so far through that we can just lift our legs up and set ourselves down. It's kinda my favorite. Okay, so, spine twist. You're all set up, legs are together, you've got your seat and you've got all of this connected. Now just take your arms out wide to the side.

And then do yourself a favor, not really a favor, just check in, let everything go in your legs. And see how you kinda sink into your back. Now hug the back side of your legs together and it really does turn on your tuffet, it's like your sitting on your own tuffet. And then twist to the right and as we know from saw, you gotta pull that left hip back so you twist a little bit more and you twist a little bit more and then you take your abs and you pull yourself back to center and you go the other way and you twist one, two, three, and come through center. And as you twist, remember that your arms aren't what twists you, so that's not what's pulsing, it's your ribs.

And then come back through center and twist. And it's that waist that goes around, your arms just follow and come back to center, you get to do one more time each side 'cause it's such a great exercise. I'm a little jealous, I shoulda done it with you. When you're even, come through center and rest your arms down by your side. Good, let's lie on our side for side kicks.

Head to the back of the mat, facing that way. And then prop yourself up. So, I'm picky. You gotta have your elbow, shoulder, and hip to the back edge of your mat and then your legs to the front edge of your mat. You just do, because you don't want to be rounded forward.

You're rounded forward at your computer and your car all the time. And then you take this chest bone and you reach it and let it chase the top of your head. So for these guys, they're gonna chase them out towards the walls, right. Then they're bottom elbow is gonna push into the floor so that they're underside waist lifts up. Yeah, so that might feel like air could blow through, right, so that you're so connected in your side body.

Now push your bottom foot down, take your top foot, lift it to the level of your hip and point that foot a lot. Reach it across the room and then kick it forward two kicks. And then kick it back two kicks. And I don't want us to ditch the back, right. Usually the back becomes an afterthought.

When you get back there, pause and pull your heart out, away from your foot so that your hip comes with you and kick, kick. And then reach it back, so don't swing it back, but instead pull your hip bone towards your nose and reach your leg back. Two more times. Forward and reach back, back. Last time.

Forward, forward, and stretch it back, back. Then hold it at the back of your mat and stay here. Push your bottom foot down more, especially get it down there Gia, that's it, and lift your right waist up a little bit more Gia, now circle this leg. Five circles back here. Little circles.

And all I want you to notice is how much you can reach that leg and work the back and the up a little bit more. Reverse them. So that you find your outer hip because that's what's gonna help us in our teaser, it's coming. Might as well get ready for it now. Take your top leg over your bottom leg.

Good, let's just flip over, do the other side. Good, same set up, so elbow to hip at the back edge of your mat and then legs to the front edge of your mat. And I really find that the more I think about my bottom foot, the better I'm grounded and the more I can work both hips. So lift your bottom waist up and pull those ribs in. Point through your top foot and then kick it to the front two kicks and then to the back.

And as you keep going, find how you chest, again, can chase out the crown of your head so that your leg has some opposition. It'll feel a little swan like in your upper back and that's okay because this is not a flexion exercise, you do get a little extension in your upper back. Let's do two more as you push that bottom foot, I know that hip is tired, but you gotta let it be your anchor. And then reach your leg back and hold it there. Pull your waist up, open up the collar bones, and then circle the leg back here.

A lot up and back, the down and front are kinda easy, you don't have to work those as much. And then reverse the circles. Again, lift that waist up a little more. And then hold it there. Take your top leg over your bottom leg.

And flip over onto your back, feet still towards the middle. Stay on the center of your mat and then, flex your feet, arms up to the sky, just give yourself a full roll up. We're going into magic teaser. Yes, okay. So, this is an amazing teaser especially if you're learning how to do teaser, it also just really gets into your body getting you ready for boomerang someday.

So take your hands by your hips, not necessarily behind them you can go more in front, they're very helpful there. And then I like to press down into the mat and pull my waist back at the same time. So you're already curling your tailbone towards your feet. And then push into the mat so much and pull back so much your legs levitate off the ground just like magic. And then you reach your arms forward and you hold.

And you don't just hang out there, you're gonna reach forward and you're gonna tease that gravity and you're gonna pull your ribs back and let's just go. Roll back to the tips of your shoulder blades. Roll right back up and hold. And then roll back to the tips of your shoulder blades. Roll right back and hold.

And last time, roll back. Roll it all the way up, hold it up. Reach so far forward that you tip all the way forward and you land back in your magic teaser, hands go by your side. Woo, you get to do that again. So, press into your mat, wrap your outer thighs around, reach your tail to your heels and lift up.

Take your arms forward and this time take your arms all the way up to the sky. Roll back for your teaser. Roll back to the tips of your shoulder blades, maybe more, and come back up. Yeah, reach your arms up, get tall, and then roll back. And then reach forward and up, one more time.

Lift your arms up, roll it back, reach your tailbone, squeeze the seat, and come back up. Hold it. And then lower down with control. Oh, this way, oh yes. No, I'm being nice, we're doing magic teasers all day.

And so here we go, last set. Here it is. Press down, and you're gonna press into your hands and reach your waist back that you just tip back and you're in your perfect little teaser. Reach your arms forward, and then this time, just stay with your arms here. And remember our double straight leg stretch.

Here it is. Lower the legs with the back side of your legs and lift them up. Push the legs down and lift them up. And press them down to lift them up. Hold it.

And this time, you're gonna lift your arms up, and you're gonna lower your whole body down to your mat. And (exhaling) Thank you my new little magicians. Here we go, flip on over, onto your stomach so you can keep your heads where they are and just flip onto your stomach. We're gonna do a little swimming so you're arms are long in front of you and your legs are long behind you and then spin your inner thighs up so that you don't take this compression into your sacrum and instead you can keep it into your seat. You push your pubic down and lift everything off of the mat.

And hold. Roll your shoulders onto your back and then right arm and left leg lift higher. And then switch. And switch. And start to do your full swimming without touching the floor each time as you inhale and exhale.

Double check that it's your inner thighs that are swimming you and your upper back that's swimming you. Last breath in, exhale it all the way out. Hold it, reach a little longer. And then lower everything down to the mat and sit back to your child's pose. And you can do your regular child's pose or you can do Joe's and you can grab your heels and lift your head onto the mat and lift your seat up a little bit, pull your ribs in, and just stretch everything out.

And then you're kinda magically in the right shape to flip over, face each other, for seal. Right, you gotta do seal if you're trying to work your seat and connect everything in so let's go for it. Dive your hands in, and then wrap your hands around the bottoms of your feet. Now get your inner heels to touch and don't worry about, and your inner foot to touch, yeah, so not the bottoms but the inner foot. Yeah, that's it Gia, so you have to hug your legs into you and then you push your arms into your legs a lot more.

Yeah, so now you've got this tug of war going and you're going to open and close your legs three times. And you're gonna rock back to the tips of your shoulder blades, maybe you get to do it up there again, and you come back up. So as you go, you just have four more on your own. You're not going to do your collapse as you're rolling so it's much better if you hold it at the top, balance, do your collapse, and then if you go back there and you have time, you get one to three back there. But, it's kind of hard to actually stop yourself and not use momentum.

It's with this collapse at the top of our four, like can you balance and do it without letting everything hang out and then come all the way up and pause. Alright, these guys are just gonna stand on up. Go to the back edge of their mat. And be on your mat, it's nicer. So take your heels together, toes apart, and we're gonna bring it a little bit all together.

So at the beginning of class, we lifted up and we lowered down, and we lifted up and we lowered down. And now, you have to find that same work when you roll up and down for your pushup. So take your arms up to the sky, lift your heels, I recommend just one inch off of the mat, and really squeeze the backs of your legs together because those are gonna be your best friends. And then take your head in and dive in and pull your ribs up and your tailbone reaches for your heels until your hands touch the mat. And then walk out into a push up in four counts.

One, two, three, four, you're there. Now you can do three elbow bends or you can hold your pushups. I like to call them elbow bends, they're less scary, right? And then you hold it up there and you pause. And when you're up there, you're gonna dive your head in and you're gonna think about your gonna pull your ribs up and reach your tailbone to your heels.

Now walk your hands back in four counts without swaying side to side so wrap those legs together and hold. Your heels are one inch off the floor. So then the more you pull your tailbone to your heel, the more it picks your waist up like a crane. So start to drive your tailbone down to your heels lift all the way up, arms up, uh huh, and do it again. Nice save.

Lift up and round forward. Pull your waist up and your tailbone down. Come on Gita, get those heels tight together, weight on the big toes. Walk out in four counts. One, two, three, four, hold it.

Three elbow bends to the back of the room or just hold your plank 'cause that's really hard, you don't even get a break, you don't get to cheat when you hold plank. Hold it, take your head in, curl your tailbone to chase your heel so as you walk back, you're actually working your waist up to the sky like a roll up and then, when you roll up, you work your tailbone to your heels to stack your spine one bone at a time. Let's do one more together. Round forward, pull your ribs up to the sky, reach your tailbone to your heels, and walk it out. Try not to let your butt stick out as you go up there and hold it, three elbow bends or plank holds.

Nice, elbows a little closer Heather, yeah. And then hold it there, lift your waist up, and imagine your waist pulls higher as you walk your hands back so your hands get lighter you walk back. And then, with those heels up one inch, wrap those outer thighs, last chance to get it all the way up, and take your arms all the way down. And you guys were troopers. Thank you so much for joining my class today.