Qi Gong-Inspired Mat

Hi, I'm Jennifer Golden Zuman. And today we're going to do a quick mat workout, which will get you moving, get your blood pumping, but also focus on neck, shoulders, and ribcage. So we're going to begin lying down on our backs with the knees bent and the feet flat. And we're going to do a variation on constructive rest position. So there's a lower body part of this, which you can take your feet a little bit wider and let your knees drop in towards each other. This is a very common, uh, movement that a lot of us might talk about. Constructive rests.

You might hear it in yoga classes or other movements. Um, but this is one that was taught by Irene Dowd. So I want to give her credit for that because it's a really wonderful way to get your body reset, reorganized. But the arms, we're going to cross the arms and holds them so your arms are relaxed. You could even use a strap to bind the arms together. So they're relaxed. But whatever position you get into, find a position where you can really relax into that shape. And whenever we begin, we first have to tune into the body.

So allow the weight of your body to relax down into your mat and let the bones of the spine that you're exposing right now by wrapping your arms, you're allowing that to drop down. When I lay in this position, I sort of visualize a canoe and you've got that bottom ridge of the canoe like your spine, and you can feel that Bony Ridge making its way down the mat. As you breathe with your arms wrapped, feel your scapula. Find their home on the rib cage. We can consider connecting the Scapula to the ribs, but we can also consider expanding the ribs into the cradle of the scapula.

So when you breathe in, make space between your sternum, your breastbone, and your spine, and expand that space to create more depth in your torso. Then as you exhale, allow the abdominal wall just to fall back very naturally and very relaxed. Now adjust your legs again so your feet are sitting bones, distance apart, heels sitting, bone distance, knees lined up, toes lined up, and now open your arms. But keep that connection of your scapula and your spine so you have a nice relationship with that thorax to the floor and bring your arms to a goalpost with your fingers pointing up towards the ceiling first and just settle the arms here. Let the arms settle into the floor. Continue to take a couple of breaths here to expand broad across the back, and as you exhale, the abdominal wall falls in without any tension or effort.

Now inhale, tip that goalpost back so your fingers point away from your feet rolling the upper ribs and collarbones back and then bring them down. You can breathe naturally here. You don't have to hold your breath as much as you can. The shoulder blades will roll forward, the shoulders will roll forward. We're going to continue back and forth and imagine what's happening inside your rib cage during this movement. As it goes back, you feel the ribs in the front being lifted and opened and the thoracic spine extends slightly.

This is a mini mini swat is a little extension in your thorax and as it comes down you see how that encourages a little bit of flection in your thorax. Now let the arms relax, maybe open in this up open position and then begin letting your head go side to side. Now if you've already seen the tutorial on the thorax, then you can visualize here, but if you have, and I'm just going to talk you through it real quick, the scalene muscles of the neck attached down through the front of your spine, right around your heart on top of your diaphragm. So as we're turning our head, we're doing so much more than stretching the neck. We are stimulating the Fascia all the way down our front core or deep core in the thorax down to our diaphragm as we go side to side. Let's put it together with some of the arm movement.

So as your head turns to one side, that arm's going to stay up and the other arm is going to come down. Inhale in that position as you exhale, turn both arms so the fingertips come to the ceiling. Other side. Inhale, fill up the whole rib cage and exhale. Feel all your rib rings stimulated by this movement. It's slight. It's not a lot of movement. It's more of a stimulation. It's more of a massage. Inhale, as we rotate, exhale as you return. One more time to each side. Inhale as we rotate, exhale as we return. Good. Finishing that up.

And now keep those elbows so the fingertips are pointing up and keep your scapula where they are. On the next exhalation, I want you to take your fingers up like you're slicing like blades right through the ceiling and up into the sky without changing your rib cage whatsoever. And then slide back out. Like it's just like a piece of cake. You're just sliding right through slicing through the air and again, bring it up, slicing through the ceiling into the sky and then driving the elbows right back down into the earth. One more time. None of this is causing tension in the chest because we're maintaining the relationship between the ribs, the upper spine, the shoulder blades, and the floor. Now this time when we come up, turn your palm. So they face each other and then interlace your fingers, let your elbows round a little bit. It'll slightly adjust the way it feels on the floor and bring the arms back over ahead. Don't let your spine, your back ribs lift away from the floor and then s glide them back up again.

They'll come all the way down till they rest on top of your pubic bone before we go again, when it's tempting to bring the arms up and it's tempting for the ribs to lift, it's really not the ribs, it's the spine lifting away from the floor. So maintain the openness and the depth of the spine and that relationship to the ground. That's how we're going to maintain and prevent the ribs from like popping or splaying or all of those words that we might use when we see the ribs came up, the roots are just as symptom one more time and now we're going to set up our feet so we're ready to do a bridge with it. So that might mean you need to really find an anchor so your whole foot is on the floor heel and make a from the field of the triangle from the heel to the little toe ball to the big toe ball. As the arms come up, I want your hips to float up like each five on each head of your thigh. Bone is like a helium balloon rising up to the sky.

Now is the time to notice. Gosh, there's one side lagging. Just imagine those hipbones floating straight up towards the ceiling and then as they lower down, like there's a magnet on each one, pulling it back to the earth, the arms return down at the same time. Let's do that two more times. The hips float up, the arms float up to, you can think of helium balloons or hot air balloons coming straight up, up, up to the sky, and then straight down like there's a magnet on each one. Pulling those balloons right back down to the ground. Now bring one leg into your chest, interlace your fingers and straighten the other leg.

Now slightly flex both feet, but don't just just flex them. Think of reaching your heel directly away and now the straight leg is going to come up on the inhale down on the exhale, up and down. Inhale and exhale. Keep your sacred perfectly still. Keep your spine nice and stable. One more and then round your head up with, point your toes now and again. Up and down, up and down. Two more times.

One good switch legs and rest back down. Flexible feet. Now bring your leg up and down, up and down. No, keep that sacred. Nice and still it's tempting to throw your pelvis with it, but I really want you to maintain an even sense of length through your whole spine. Round your head up. Point your toes and keep going. Inhale, expanding your upper back. Two more and one good. Bring both legs in.

Rest your head down. Let's bring your hands now behind your legs and we're going to start rolling. Just nice and easy. Roll forward and roll back. Just nice and easy and smooth. No. If it's reasonable for your body, I think it's pretty fun to start rolling.

To your feet, to a squat down, and maybe all the way up and down and up. Let's do a couple more of these. Get the blood pumping. We should do this every single day, partly because it's fun and partly cause it's good for you. And one more good. So now we're going to take all that energy we just cultivated and we're going to move it into a little bit of a cheeky gone movement. So we're going to open the feet just a little bit and get a little soft in your knees. When you do Chigong, you want to have a springiness to it.

Bring your arm and make a ball one hand on top and one hand on the bottom. And imagine that all that energy you're building up in your body right now is coming through your hands and making that ball. Then bring your top hand up towards the ceiling. Bottom hand presses down towards the floor, pushing away any stale, stagnant energy, and then drawing in fresh energy from above and below into your new ball. Go around your ball and we'd go to the other side.

While it's not traditionally polities. I feel that this is a really good way to understand the relationships and the arms and the thorax and the diaphragm [inaudible]. We'll just do one more and pull it in fresh vibrant energy and then take that and bring it into your chest to the protective position. Now we're going to bring the arms back with the palms up. Reach your thumbs and look over one shoulder.

This is called looking backwards and then you gather back in, you pull the energy back in towards your body. Inhale, look the other way. Thumbs reach back, reach through both arms and we bring it back in. Getting a great stretch through the chest, the inside and outside wall of the chest, the arms and all of the acupuncture meridians that run from the chest through the neck through the hands. We'll do one more of these and we're going to turn this right into some of Joe's real muscular exercises. So let's bring the feet closer together. Now stand up with your legs and zip them up. Really strong. Feel the two sides of your pelvis. Zip to the middle, both at the pubic bone and at the Sacrum, and then bring your arms up to the sides just to the sides here.

Make a fist and muscle the arms, squeezing out the air, stretched back up and pull them back down. And again, up muscle Paul, really use every muscle and keep using every muscle. Now we're going to class the arms over, head up, clasp and pull, and then up and down. We're massaging the Oregon's massaging. The abdomen pull up and we're going to go behind the head now and Paul, keep working. Those are muscles and down. Last one, fill with air. Squeeze out your air while you muscle those arms.

Then stretch and bring it down. Come towards the front of your mat. We're going to lower down to the floor so you can come to a squat or you can bend your knees and come down slowly. Come down to a squad. If you can enroll straight out to the floor. We're going to do a roll up twist exercise. So start with the regular roll up, arms up, head up, blow out your air and reach forward. But then sit up very, very tall, very tall.

Press the arms to the sides. Twist one direction, twist the other direction. Bring the arms back up and roll back down a little faster. Now roll it up. We're going to twist the other way. Now. First lift arms, stretch, twist and twist back up and roll down again. Roll it up. Stretch, sit tall.

Press the arms out, twist, twist, center. Roll down. One more. Roll it up. Squeeze out your air. Sit up tall. Open the arms and twist. Twist Center, roll down. We're going to go right into the hundred now, so roll up to the top of your head.

If you can just raise your legs off the floor. Otherwise you can bend them in. That's quite alright. And begin pumping. Inhale, two, three, four, five. Exhale. Now we're doing a quick workout, so we're just going to do four, three, and four and bring it down. Take a full breath in, feel everything, expand. Exhale, make sure any extra tension in your belly relaxes back, and then slide your legs in and up towards the ceiling. Make the arms strong on the floor and rollover. Open the legs, flex the feet and control the way back down again.

Close the legs and go ahead and roll over. [inaudible] open the legs. [inaudible] and now again over open. Flex and roll back down. Beginning with open legs. Keep on moving back. We go legs close. Flex the feet.

Don't forget your arms here. The arms are really significant part of this exercise. Press down from the palm through the arm, across the shoulder blades, down to that other arms. So you feel like a springboard base to help you roll over. Yeah.

Good. And as we land here, bring your hands behind your head. Round your head up. We'll go right into double straight leg down and uh, draw an arc with your toes and draw it back up. Let's not make it a kick. Make it a smooth drawing around the radius of a circle.

Bring the legs in for Chris Cross. Let's twist and hold. Take a breath in. Stay here as we exhale. Ring the air out of the waist, bring it back. Other side. Twist and hold. Take a breath, squeeze the air out of the waist really strong and back. Now for fast ones, twist and twist and twist and twist.

Rock up to sit right away, right into the saw. Take the legs out to the sides, arms out to the sides. Take a second to feel what is between arm to arm and reach those fingertips way out in opposite directions. Still wait a second. Sitting bones anchor down. Inhale, twist. Exhale, squeeze out all your air and up and ring out all the air. Good fill with air and it out. Don't lose that back arm when you go through. Press that back arm.

Way Up. Yes. One more to each side. Last one. Good. Okay. Alright. Now we're going to lay down on our side. So let's turn over here and face me here on your side. We're going to do an exercise to balance the obliques.

So we're going to start with the body stick straight like a pencil from the head to the feet, but your top arm rests on your side. Inhale. Now as you bring your arm forward, almost to the point where you could fall over, feel that almost tipping point and feel how the muscles up here stop you from falling. And then bring the arm back and open it up again. Like you could almost fall. But these muscles can track to stop you forward and back. Inhale forward and back.

One more time. Forward and back, stretching the chest, stretching the breast, and then let the arm come down onto your side. Now just the leg going to pick it up and as you bring it forward, this is challenging, so don't be surprised. You may feel like you could almost fall, so go just as far as you can and these muscles will fire up. Then bend and bring it to the back and bend to the front. We want no bobbing forward and back with the rib cage.

Use your inhalation to expand your rib cage into the floor. That inhalation will provide you balance. Now we're going to add the arm to it. The arm goes forward as the leg goes back, and then we bring it through the other way. Now that we have the counterbalance, it's a little easier, but still depend on your breathing in an unrestricted way in hell. Allow the ribcage to feel expansion. Exhale. Just feel a natural engagement.

Doesn't have to be a ton of work here. Last one. Good. Now come up to your forearm and go ahead and bend your knees. Bring your arm forward so we have a rotation. Imagine that you're kind of lifted up here so we don't sink down. Feel this rotation and then you're going to come up lifting your hip, opening up your arm, and then bring it back down. And again, up and down slowly.

One more time, up and down, then up and hold and stretch your top leg out. Now that leg is going to be like a compass. You're going to slide it forward. Imagine the floor is still there for me. And then to the back to the front and to the back two more times forward and just making a circle on the floor and bring your hips down. Stretch that bottom leg out and we're going to bring the arm forward and the leg back. And then up and twist the other way.

Up and down, arch and down. Two more [inaudible] and one good. Now Bend your knees. This arm is just going to turn. So now it's ready. And we're in mermaid on this side. When we do Mermaid, be careful we don't just move the whole rib. Imagine your whole set of rib rings and arc those evenly over your support arm.

Then come up, stretch that arm up and over your legs again. Away and over. Okay. Now this time we're gonna use this to transition to the other side. I'm just going to scoot a little bit so I have space. We come up, clasp your wrist. Kay, you're gonna use so much of this stretch that you lift up and sit to the other side. This is the mermaid. Get up, up and down, up and down. We'll do a couple more of these. Let's do one more to each side. Good.

Now we're on this side and we can lay down facing this way. So starting as a pencil stick straight and strong from hand to foot. That means it's not like when we usually do side kicking, the leg is forward. I don't want you to do the leg for stability. I want you to find that stability in your trunk, your torso and pelvis, relationship arm goes forward and back.

Now you're all going to find that one side is easier than the other. The other side, it was easier for me. That's why I demonstrated at first, I think so I have to really concentrate here on inhaling and expanding my lower ribs. So I have a platform down here to balance on. You may find that you have a similar situation on one side or the other, you may not, but if you do breathe into it and fill up that side. Sometimes we try to squeeze tight for stability, but sometimes we have to actually expand to get stability in stead. Plus bring the arm down now just the leg band and bring it forward.

So this is my Tufts side. See you guys. This as far as I get, that's fine if I try to go further, but I'm going to develop less effective strategies to stabilize there. So here it's a conservative distance, but it's just the right muscles. That's what we're looking for in the long run. I'll have much more change couple more times and one, add the arm forward as the leg goes back. Breathe in and out like a sigh, not like a squeeze, like sigh.

One more time. Good. Now we're going to come up to the forearm, then the niece, so my heels are still in line with my sit bones. When I do this, take that top arm. This one has to be planted for you. If you're stuck in this, you're not going to get very far and I'm rotating my torso around that and my start position. Really try to lift your waist a bit away from the floor as you come up that bottom leg work, the bottom hip works. We open up and then bring it down and too when we turn the head, we complete that rotation all the way to the front of the spine and down. Feel that relationship from your head through the front of your back. Good. This time, we're going to hold it open. Straighten the top leg out.

And this leg is like a compass pencil drawing on the floor. Drawing an arc. I had some chalk on my toe. You'd see a perfect circle forming. One more good. And then come down still on the forearm, but straighten the bottom leg out. You may have to adjust your position here. That's fine. Now the arms going to go forward and the leg goes back. We go up and down, up and down. [inaudible] good. We'll do two more.

[inaudible] and one good. And bend the knees. Switch the arm and adjusted. So we're ready for mermaid here and we come up and stretch. Good and over. Up and stretch.

Now this time is, there'll be our last one. We'll still clasp our wrist and we'll do a huge up and a. Now try not to come forward when you do it. Try to feel like these outer hip and waist muscles. Do the work to take you side to side.

One more to each side. Huh? Good. Now we're going to lie to our bellies. So let's go ahead and face the middle. We're going to lie on our belly. Okay?

And we're going to begin by bending the knees and having the hands right by the sides here. So I want you to imagine a flashlight on the center of the breast, the breastbone, and the palms of the hands. So we need to shine those flashlights forward. Still a little bit towards the front of your mat and then stretch the arms and legs as you exhale and then pull them back to that bed position. And again, stretch. Now really feel your bones on the floor. The ribs and the hip are anchored on the floor, so all the flesh here can massage.

As you move and breathe, feel the pivot of your heart as your thorax goes forward and back like you're rolling your heart and lungs inside your rib cage. Now the next time we come forward, we hold and then swim your arms through the air, opening your chest, and then bend it back in again and stretch and swim and bend to more stretch. Don't cut any of these movements short. One more time. Give yourself a full length and a full breath in each movements and then rest down. Come up now to your hands and knees. Good. Line your hands up so you have a horizontal crease from one risk to the other.

And feel that your scapula now heart connected to your rib cage just as they were when you were lying down. So take a moment to remember what it felt like when you were relying on your back. To expand your rib cage up into the scapular cradle. Bring your right arm forward, then bring your left leg back with nothing else changing. Now round your spine, bringing your elbow and your knee towards each other, round the head and the tail. And then stretch them back out two more times around and stretch one more time round and stretch.

And then bring them back down. Find your four points again. Left arm comes forward, right leg goes back first. Fill your balance. Don't let anything else change and then round and extent and to extend three, extend and bring those back to the floor. Okay, now right arm again reaches out. Don't lose that left arm guys. Still keep the scapular relationship. Their left leg extends hold. Now both of those are going to travel just a little away from the midline.

Then bring them in to three and then bring them back down. Other side, the arm first. First, find your three points of stability. Do not push your shoulders down. That won't give you stability. Press into the floor and expand your torso. Expand your rib cage. Now bring your leg back away from the midline one and two, three and bring those down.

Good. Now sit back for a moment. Just make sure your wrists are feeling supple still. If we get a little tired, you can just give them a second. We're going to come back to something that I did in a yoga class that was so much fun. So we're going to do it right now. You're going to lift your hips up and you're going to stretch yourself up and back, so feel like you're grounding through your palms and grounding through your feet. Now it's also similar to some stuff we do on the reformer. I think you'll recognize, lift your right leg up.

Now we're going to curl forward like we're doing up stretch. Pull your knee towards your nose and to reach and bring it in. And last one and bring that leg down. Switch legs. Start with it up and back, stretching back. Feel your three points of contact on the floor and then curl your spine and pull the knee.

And so the upper spine is very round and stretch and two and stretch three and stretch and bring the leg down back to the first leg. Pick it up now when we crow forward, bring that knee to your right. The right foot is up. Bring the right knee to the right armpit. Now bring it to the left one and back to the right one. Good. And back to the left. Good. Keep breathing. Keep moving your spine. One more to the right.

Good one more to the left and bring it back down. Now we've got to do the other side. Here we go. Get that left leg up and bring it forward to the same side first. And then to the opposite, letting your torso twist. Same side and opposite.

One more time, same side. And opposite side. Good. Bring that leg down. Come down to your knees, cross your legs behind you. Bring your legs straight forward. Wrap them together. Arms to the sides. Spine, twist. Let's squeeze out your air. Then center, squeeze out and center. When you squeeze out, try to imagine all the way from the throat to the pelvic floor.

So the diaphragm up here, diaphragm here, pelvic diaphragm winding and ringing. Good. One more. Teach side. And now we're going to bring the hands behind you to the floor. Who should be working by now? Anchor those arms. Don't let the elbows get lost here.

Use the floor and find the balance between your scapular connection to your ribcage and the ground. And then float those hips back up to helium balloons. Lifting straight to the ceiling. And then the weight of them comes down when you land, bring your legs right in and right up to teaser. And again, stretch it out and float your hips up.

Float the hips. The chest will open because the hips are floating up. And then we come down and straight up to teaser. One more time, floating up and down. [inaudible] okay, and now when you stretch your legs out, cross the right leg over your left. We're going to go right into boomerang. Ready? We roll back. Switch your legs, roll up. When you come forward, squeeze out your air, roll back.

There's a lot of variations of boomerang. This is my favorite. It's simple. Squeeze out the air and then keep rolling. I want the blue brain to look like it rolls away and then rolls back without too much fancy extra artwork. Okay, let's do one more. And on the last one you're going to bring yourself up to stand. So roll one more time. Rock yourself right up to your feet.

Up to stand. We're going to close with one more. She Gong exercise to bring all that energy we built up back in. This one is called my favorite name. Upholding living heaven with two hands. So again, your feet are a little open. We can't really buoyant in the joints. Feel that your shinbones are buoyantly floating over your ankle arch and that your hips are floating, your trunk is floating, and that your head is floating on top.

Reached down with your arms and gather up from the ground. Interlace your fingers and pull it up like you're pulling a steak up out of the earth. As the hands turn over your face, your gaze goes ahead, but a soft gaze and you rise up onto the toes, up holding heaven with two hands. Let the arms open, float back down, and we'll do that again. Gather up, dry it up. They say you watch your hands with curiosity and then the arms turn. Rise up and float down. We'll do one more time finding a moment of quiet and stillness before you float down and your feet land with wade onto the earth and then we can go about the day. Thank you guys.