Creative Mat Movements

So we're going to begin a mat class that I've been teaching for over 10 years and in interest is about a mat and flow, um, has a lot to do with looking at the movements and in a creative way. And it also has a lot of the exercises and movements that I learned from master teacher Kathy Grant, who always taught the most dynamic and fun and interesting movements in class. So this movement, however, we're going to start with, um, I call and the CD imprint because we really want to begin our movements and the correct position of our, um, with our pelvis and a whole body. So that's why I like to have you sit on the floor instead of the mat. Because with the mat we don't really feel our imbalances as much as we need to.

Um, and in life we don't sit on the mat, we sit on the floor. So we're going to start in this position. We're going to bring the soles of the feet together and sit comfortably. Whatever is comfortable for you. So it's not like I'm going to say, you know, have your heels too or six inches away, where with where you find your body comfortable on the floor. And then we're going to ask you to close your eyes.

I want you to just feel how you sit on the floor, feel if one hip feels heavier than the other and open your eyes. So I want you to raise the hand of the heavier hip. Yeah. And for me it's my left hand and you know there's no right or wrong answer here. So am whatever side just feels heavier. We're going to place that hand down so the heavier hand goes down, it goes straight out from the hip and we're going to roll over so that the knee is completely on the floor and the other foot is completely flat.

So that this is your stabilizer, the foot is stable, the knee is stable, and it doesn't matter how high this hip lifts. So really at this point, I want the knee all the way down so much that you can actually lift the opposite leg up off the floor. Yeah, there's a wait list. And place it back down and take the other hand and place it on your calf and then place it at the opposite knee. Good. From there, I want you to think about moving from your bones so we're all the way over on one hip and just reach down so that the tailbone goes down to the floor and come back up and we're going to exhale as we go down. Don't let the knee come up. So you're pulling away from a stabilized knee, letting the tailbone drop down and come up. This is, um, a technique that I learned from master teacher Bruce, who taught about the rule of the bones, about really coming from the inside of the body and letting the movement lead the activation of the muscles. There you go, Amy away. So, um, Kathy grant also called this, I want you to move without moving. So it's a movement from the inside of the body, not a big movement at all.

As long as that knee is staying down, you go down as far as you can and reach that tailbone down. Let's go to the other side. Okay. That legos up and the calf stays down. Knee stays downs. You Use your stabilizer, exhale and press down and inhale and come up. And once again, we're not thinking about activating muscles or making contractions.

We're thinking about dropping the tailbone down onto the floor and allowing the body to utilize as much muscle or as little muscle work as it needs to to do the movement back to the first side. Now the arm comes straight up to the ceiling. Remember, we're still straight out. Am I going to Perris that tailbone down and lift up? But now as you're pressing down, have that arm reach to the ceiling so that you're reaching and opposition and we're going up with the arm and down with the tailbone and we're breathing with the exhale to do the movement down. Nice work and inhale, come up one more time and exhale.

And for a sit down and go to the opposite side. Arm Up and exhale down and inhale up and for rest down and come up and down. Now let's go back to our first side. Both hands are dancing in a rotation. Now the chest is going to face the sidewall and we're going to Perris away.

End Down and lift up. It's hard. And for us it down and lift up and press down. Bring that arm back up to the ceiling face forward and press it down and lift up and press damn and lift up [inaudible] and place the arm back into our very first position and stretch it down and back up. Exhale down and up and down. Come into the center once again. Sit comfortably in your first position.

Okay, relax and close your eyes. And how do you feel? And Open your eyes. It's amazing. But what is it that is amazing about that? And that is we have actually now found our neutral pelvis because as we know, we've all come running in here with our bags and our hips and when we are moving through life, we don't move in neutral. We tend to have one side that's more dominant than the other.

And so how did we accomplish finding our neutral pelvis? We did more reputation on one side than the other. And then we also finished with the side that was tighter with more repetition and we did not do the opposite side. So it's an asymmetrical patterning exercise that allows us to even the body. Before we begin, now let's begin with an exercise that's called find your strength.

Let's sit on the mat and bend. The knees and feet are flat and from there we're just going to roll down and roll up. Let's do that a few times so that when you're rolling down, I want you to once again feel the interior of your body. So as you're feeling that movement, find the places where you feel really strong, where you could stop, you could lift your legs, you could change the direction of the movement, and that is your strength. I want you to go down to that place and stay there. Now what we're going to do is a small movement from there that just comes up about two inches and rolls back to the strength and it comes up about two inches and down.

Now everybody's place will be different and that's okay cause that's your body. We're dealing with the individuality of the body and exhale up and inhale back. Now they said we're going to pick it up and we're going to do just that small movement on the exhale. Find your strengths place and come up on one. Come up on to come up on three and four, come up on five and six, come up, 78910111213 14 51617181920 and roll yourself all the way up so it's not enough to just find your strength and stay there. You had to find your strength in move.

This is the place in your roll up that we need to have more connection in the core. And this is a place when we begin to do a rollover that we need that lengthening in the in the spine and the place in our core where we really need to find how to move through and connect through our core. Now we're going to go back and find our strength again and some people have more difficulty rolling up, but some people have more difficulty in rolling down. So find your strengths and go away from it and come up, go away from it and come up, go away from it and come up, go away and come up. Now we're going to go only 10 down. One, two, three. Use your breath for five, six, seven, eight, nine will all the way down onto your mat.

And so there you've done the hard part of your roll up. You've done the hard part of your teaser. You've done the hard part of your Jack Knife in that coming from the inside of the body coming from the core. We are now ready to start the a hundred yes, we're ready to begin the class now. And then the knees lengthen up and now just let the toes come up and extend the legs into that place where you have found your strength. We're going to do the a hundred we're gonna use the breath.

The three inhalation, the seven exhalation. Let's begin. Inhale. One, two, three. Exhale. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. One, two, three, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. One, two, three, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. In here. One, two, three, two, three, four, five, six, seven. One, two, three. Exhale. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Inhale, one, two, three. Exhale. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. One, two, three, x three, one, two, three, four, almost there. Inhale, one, two, three. Exhale. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, two sets. One, two, three. Exhale. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Inhale, one, two, three. Exhale. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and come down. And again, that longer exhalation really activates the abdominals so that you're getting it deeper, deeper movement, all the way in to that movement. Let's bring the legs in. Head comes up. And again, this is a Kathy grant exercise. We'll call the bicycle. So take your handlebars and begin to bicycle. Lifting the upper body. Very nice and bicycle. Let's bicycle up the hill.

Bicycle up and up and up and up. Bicycle down the hill. Don't move the position of the handlebars down. Reverse the legs, reverse the legs and go down the hill. Rolling down, roll it down and no roll it. Reverse the legs, grab your handlebars and pull yourself up the hill, up the hill, and then roll it back down the hill. [inaudible] coming down, roll back up the hill, ro ro roll and stay right there. Release your handlebars, grab your legs, bring your legs toward the shoulders, relaxing all the way through the upper body. Take an inhale and exhale, and now rolling like a ball.

And we're going to just rule and come up, roll back and come up and roll back and come up and come back. Roll back and up. One more time. Roll back and lift up. Extend one leg out and roll down and inhale and exhale. Now how Mr PyLadies taught this particular movement, which to think about a bow and an arrow. So the leg is an arrow shooting out of the bow.

You really want to think about stretching the leg out of the pelvis and hitting a target in the bullseye center of that movement every single time. So you want to really reach, it's called single leg stretch. So you want that leg to stretch across the room, coming all the way through, coming all the way out, pressing, keeping the pelvis in our stabilized position. And if you're hitting the target, your pelvis is stable. AA Stretch. We're going to bring both legs in and again, we're going to have a different breath pattern.

We're going to inhale for two and then the legs extend out on an exhalation of five. Exhale, one, two, three, four, five. Inhale, one, two. Exhale. One, two, three, four, five. Inhale, one, two. Exhale. One, two, three, four, five. Inhale, one, two, exhale. One, two, three. Beautiful. Four and five. One more time. Inhale, one, two, exhale. One, two, three, four, four, and a half, and five. So you see by extending just the breath, you extend the intensity of the exercise. All right, uh, let's go ahead and bring the hands behind the head. Bring your ledge up to table. Huh? We're going to work on a variation of criss cross so that we're really going to get that rotation through the upper body.

So we're going to lift the upper body and we're going to extend one leg out and we're going to twist to the bent knee. And we're going to reach on five one reach, two same leg, three, four and five pull it in and other side reach it. One, two, twisting the torso, three, four and five other side three, twist one, two, three and again, twist one, two, three. And now use that same amount of twists to do the singles twisting to the knee and turn. Use your breath with each movement and turn and twist and reach.

Reach two to go over, over last set and come into the center and bring the body. So from here we're going to do one of my favorite exercises that I also learned from Kathy Grant, and this is a variation that, um, has been developed over the years. We're just going to have the hand still behind the head and we just easily drop the knees to one side of the body. And the first part of the movement. We just going to exhale as we come up and length in an inhale to come down and exhale to lift the body up. Beautiful and reach it back and down and exhale and lengthen.

Inhale, come back to to go lift it up. Lengthen upward and stretch down and lengthen up and stretched down. Now this time part two, we lift the body up and we just turned so we have shoulder over, shoulder and hip over hip, right onto the elbow. Beautiful. Just stay in that position. Now from underneath the rib cage we're going to rule to come back and come down and lift so far, so far this is the prep for the exercise.

Lift and turn and come from the rib cage higher and down and lifted up and come from the ribs. Open it up, around and down. Let's go into the full movement. Lift up. This time the twist goes all the way around so we continue so that we open off the elbow and we have it across the shoulder blades. Now as we come back, it comes from under here, under, under, under to come back and it's very difficult but it is a full rotation of the ribcage around the spine. You've got it. Damien over the arm of this arm there and roll it around and come back and again, up and over. And I'm afraid we're going to have to do one more cause I can't count a couple of those as repetitions a, come on up.

[inaudible] a little all the way around and come back and to the center and bring the legs into the center. Drop them to the other side and come back center. Drop them over and center, drop them over and hold it there. We're going to start the exercise again. We're going to exhale as we lift and inhale to stretch out and exhale and reach it out and exhale up and inhale back to to go. Exhale to come up. Inhale to go back and one more time.

Exhale up and inhale back now up and turn to face me open, open, open, roll it back and come down and again lifted up, turn all the way around and center down and roll it back up and turn it and center. Here we go. Roll Up. This time we don't just turn but we go all the way all the way over. You'll find one side is harder than the other. Unfortunately. I think this might be the harder side. Everybody always does there. Easier side first, lifting up. [inaudible].

Roll it over, roll it over and I'll just help you anchor here. There you go. And around and down and only one more of these anchor anchor, anchor around and over and back and down. Okay, let's try one more. Yes, that was just lovely. That's exactly how we would like it to be with a little hop in it. Remember it is that complete rotation around the rib cage that really makes that work so that we're rotating the re the rib cage around the spine and it really is a great exercise for four rotation.

So great that we're going to put it to use bicycle, bicycle up the hill and around the corner into the center. Let's bicycle around the other corner and sent her and down bicycle up the hill and around the corner. Beautiful. Keep the pelvis on a stable, just turning from the rib cage back into the center around the other corner and back into the center. Bicycle down. Yeah. Bring the legs and knees ban in a knees toward the shoulders.

Toes the toes are together. Roll yourself up. Extend one leg, extend the other leg, bend it back, roll like a ball. Extend the leg, other leg. Open leg rocker roll back and up and come up cold roll back and up and hold real backing up. Hold. Let go with the legs. Lower them down.

Open the RS and turn to the side and saw, oh overstretch. Went on forward one arm all the way to the back. Lift to come up an open center, lift and stretch all the way over. Equal weight on both hips, reaching opposition. One forward, one back. Reach a little bit more, dive it out and come up into the center. Turn and stretch all the way over. Okay. And come back up and center. One more time. Up and over.

Reach it long stretching out and come up and center. Bend the legs in, leg up, leg up, open leg rock or roll it back. Roll it up. Control. Good and roll back. Keep that control. Keep the roundness through the body. And one more time.

Roll it back. Roll Up. Hold once again, let go the legs. Bring them down. Open the arms and stretch over and come up. Stretch all the way over.

Make it very fluid and come up both hips. Stay level. Stretch it all the way over and come up and stretch. Reach it long and calm up. Friendlies, negative together. Bend the knees and we're just going to roll the spine, this lightly off of the tailbone. But as we're rolling off the tail end, I want you to think about really reaching the tailbone down toward the heels.

Not just a tilt back, but an actual movement from the bones. Once again. Then bring the legs up and let's extend one leg and extend the other leg and bend them down. Extend one leg, extend the other leg and extend both legs. Walk the hands, tore the ankles, reach long, lift up and stretch all the way over. And now as you roll up, pull the legs in, lengthen them up, reach with the arms length in high reach and stretch over.

One more time. Bend the knees in, stretch the legs high, reach it arms. Beautiful teasers, length and upward and come over. So that is our first teaser in our [inaudible] teaser series. The second one is called rowing to teaser. So we sit up nice and tall. Once again, we bring the arms front, we're going to roll back and as we do we pull the legs and pull the arms to the chest. Open the arms out, let the legs float up.

Bring the arms around and lift high and round over. Roll in the rowing series. Pull the arms in full. The legs in, arms come out as the legs come up, arms come front, go a little bit higher. Bring the legs down and stretch the body over. One more of these rule and open and reach it around.

Lift a little bit higher and all the way over. Roll the spine up. Now we're going to go into spine. Stretch into teaser, so have spine stretch forward. And as we do that, we're going to bring the arms around and down. Yeah, this time now we'll roll back into that same position and legs come up, legs open, lift the arms, lower the legs, spine, stretch forward. Bring the arms back behind you. Roll to come up, come in and extend open arms and legs lifted high and sweep the arms behind you and roll it back. This time. If you can keep it like straight, let the legs come up. Arms come up, open and down, all the way over. One more time. Take it around, close the legs, let them come up straight. Open arms and legs match.

And now just lower the legs and bring the arms back behind you. Take a long breath in this position, circle the arms around and bring them to the front and roll your spine up. Let's sit up. Nice and tall. Teasers. Love my teasers. All right. Keeping the legs apart. Hands behind the head.

And we're going to begin with the butterfly. So lengthen the spine upward and we're going to stretch to the side. So, um, as we go over, we lift up and we go over to the side. Then we go out to the sidewalk and up to the center. Lift it up, go over to the side.

Now reach the spine out to the sidewall and come up, lift high and stretch over out and come up. And again, high and stretch over. Reach out and come up into the center. Now this time we're going to go over, we're going to turn and face the knee and round the upper back. Now just the front elbow, we're going to flap our wing.

So just that front elbow goes around and down. Good. Yes. And up and around and up. There it is. Three and up and four and up. The other elbow stays high and number five and up, turn to that side, stretch, reach out and ah, lift, nice and high. It really feels good and go over and stretch and churn.

Face the knee. So now we go under little head turn slightly good and back and underneath and back and reach. Very nice. And once again, really working the rib cage with that rotational movement too to go stretch it beautiful. And up and Marie to bring the elbow to the knee. Ees even more and up, roll to the side, reach to the side and um, all the way up into the center. So yeah, so they really got that nice rotation to the knee. Now we're going to go up and over, round to the knee, go across the body and go along the floor.

Go climb up the wall, go high to the ceiling and center. Lengthen upward and oh over round it. Sweep along the floor. Climb up the wall, lift high, and come in to your center. One more. Each I w sorry. These are so nice. And we're over. Come around and come up and center last one up and over and her and it's sweet and around and center.

Keep open the arms out and bring the arms to the front and just slide the arms a long the mat, round the back and sit up nice and tall. Lift the arms and one more time and those round and stretch out along the mat. Roll the spine and come up into sitting. Let's now work on our movement. We're going to go into a, uh, starting with rolling like a ball and then we'll go into our rollover position from there. So we'll start here and we'll role do our rolling like a ball.

But once we get back, we're going to extend the legs out. So we'll roll like a ball and then reach the legs behind you. Roll like a ball and come up ruling. Extend, bend the knees, roll and hold. Roll, extend. And if you can, you can keep your hands on your legs. Now bend the knees, roll and come up. One more of these. Roll back. Extend the legs, bend the knees and roll. Come up, roll back.

Extend the legs, keeping the hands on the legs. Beautiful. Bend the knees into rolling. Come up and extend the legs into teaser bend. Roll it back. Extend the legs rural up teaser.

Then roll it back, extend the legs, bend the knees, roll up and teaser one more time. Then roll back, extend the legs [inaudible] and come up and teaser. Open legs. Take them down. Place the hands back behind the head. Now this time we're going to let the elbows come in. As we roll over from that position, we're going to lane in this mine. Let the elbows come out and come into a long flat back position and lift two sitting lanes and upward, round back and bring the elbows in. Very nice.

Rounding it all the way down, round the back and come halfway up, slightly up. Lengthen the spine out and come all the way up. Back into that sitting position once again. Round and rule over. Lengthen the spine, lengthen it long and open.

Come up into that sitting position one more time. And use your breath and rule. Exhaling down. Take an inhale and let this spying a long gate stretching. Beautiful and come all the way up and to sitting and bring the legs in together. Yeah, and from here we are going to roll back.

Knees are bent, feet are flat. And we'll down one vertebra at a time and lift the heels up and then let the body come up into your bridge position. Lift the arms to the ceiling, relax the shoulders into the mat without changing anything lower. And lift the heels. Lower the heels, lift the heels, exhales the heels. Come down. Inhale as they float up. Don't change that spine position. Good. And up and lower and come up and lower and lift and lower and lift.

Keep the arms where they are and open from the throat. So we get a long, long stretch. Begin to roll down with the heels up. Rural the spine. One Vertebra at a time, rolling down, trying. Stay on the ball of the foot with the heels lifted and come and down. The last thing that comes down to complete the kinetic chain is the heels. Once again, heels come up.

Okay. Which means the body comes up, the heels lower and lift. Using the breath, relaxing the shoulders, opening the throat, making sure there's equal weight on both sides of the head, both shoulders and both feet. From there, keep the heels lifted and the ankles together. Start from the throat to the shoulders. Articulating this spine keeping heals very, very high.

And the last thing that comes down are the heels. Then we complete the movement by lowering the arms down at the sides of your body. Cross lift one day high to the ceiling. Cross it over the other leg. Roll the spine up. Extend that leg to the ceiling. Lower it down, extend the other leg up, cross it over, and roll the spine down. One Vertebra at a time.

Roll right back up. Extend the leg high to the ceiling. Bend and place it down and come up and cross and begin to roll the spine down. One Vertebra, editor. Once again, each side, rule it back up. Extend the leg, place it flat, change legs and cross it over and roll the spine down. One Vertebra at a time. Very nice.

Come right back up. Extended leg bend. Change and rule down and uncross the legs and bring the feet hip distance apart. And one more evenly on the spine. Really up and roll it down.

One Vertebra at a time. Bring the legs in and rule the spine up. Just sitting legs come apart. Now from here, we'll take the arm and we'll stretch over the leg. We're going to bend the leg in, extended high, bend the knee to the chest, extend the leg and stretch out and over. Oh, bend it in MFA and bend.

And one more time. Pull in and up and bend and stretch. Bend in and hold the leg up. Now we're going to go first past the little toe, so take the opposite arm and reach it past that little tail. Really lengthen the torso toward the little tail. Now come up, keeping the arm by the ear.

We rotate the body around and then we let the arms stretch back and behind us the arm comes right back to the ear. The twist is in the torso, not the head or the arm, but the torso comes all the way around and reaches past the little tail. Two more times. Come up, rotate. Really to get a long, long stretch lanes in that spine and stretch behind you. Breathe. Come up in her hatch and one more. Take it up. The leg doesn't move. It's just that twist of the spine. When you come all the way down, we come up and we reach past that little toe.

Let's do the other side. Go past the big toe. Okay, there we go. Up. Turn the opposite way. Lower the hand behind you. Reach wrong, struck out. Turn the tour. So reach past the big to lift and turn the torso and reach it down and up. Stretch, turn, stretch. One more time.

Up Higher and open and reach. Long turn and stretch. Bring the leg high in a long time. Oh he said, oh okay. And stretch over and come up. And we have another leg. There we are. Last one up and over. And we bend the leg in. Any, stretch it up, bend the knee to the chest and we stretch it all the way out. We pull the leg in and reach long to the ceiling.

We bend it in and we stretch to come out. And one more time we pull in and we come up and in and stretch. Nice and long as you go over Bandana and hold the leg up. This time. Pass the little toe, reach it high lift, turn it and open it and lift. Long turn, stretch pass little toe.

And now we're trying to keep the weight equal, both hips. And remember the arm stays right by the ear until we lower it behind us. So it's not an arm or shoulder move. It's not a head move. We have one more of these. Try and keep that leg stabilized in that position and strutted down.

Lift long and turn and reach past the big toe. Reach Long Up. Turn that torso and stretch down. Lift high. Turn the torso and reach past your big toe. Lift and stretch. Take it down, lift and stretch. And one more time. You nice deep breathing.

Enjoy the movement that the body activate the muscles from the movement and get up and bend and stretch all the way over. Bring the legs together. Roll the spine down, one vertebra at a time. Bend the knees in. Grab your handlebars and come on. We're on a bike trip. We have to finish it coming up the hill and stretch the legs in front of you.

Get a long stretch over the legs. Roll the spine up. Bring the legs together in your comfortable position. Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Okay.

Feel how we've set the body through this work. Feel the evenness of the hips. Feel the movement through the spine and op through the top of the head. Yeah. Take a nice deep breath and open your eyes. Bring your arms up and open.

Okay. Thank you very much. Great class ladies. Great class. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.