Wake Up your Body

Happy New Year. Let's do just some nice, easy, simple, waking up our bodies after the holidays. Yes? Here we go. So organizing yourself so that you're standing with your feet in parallel, with your knees just in front of your ankles, and your pelvis right on top of your knees, and drawing the shoulder blades down and the abdominals in, and feeling the long, column of the spine lengthening.

And just take your arms, for the palms, they face forward, and reach down first, down. And then reach out, as though you could touch both sides of your space. Reach out and reach out, expanding your body, expanding your space. Reach all the way up, and then as your arms come up to the top, allow your upper body, just your chest, to lift up a little, and then push, reach the arms out wide. Bringing energy inwards, pushing energy outwards simultaneously, allow the arms to come down next to the sides of the body, and then bring the chin into the chest.

And as you bring the chin into the chest, begin to roll the spine forward. So just allowing the top of the head to reach for the floor, we can keep the knees soft or straight. Reaching all the way down, top of the head in, inhale, or top of the head down, exhale. Push the floor away gently with your feet, rolling up. Perhaps choosing to make some sort of intention or inhale, reach, commitment to your movement practice today or in the coming months, year.

Years go by so fast. And push out. I feel like I barely had time to make my last New Year's resolutions, let alone accomplish them. Arms down; so my resolution this year is to move with ease and grace in this moment. So rolling down.

And rolling up, lengthening, moving through the spine, taking the arms again out to the sides. Up overhead, and this time as we come up, let's take the hands, interlock the fingers, hands turned inside out, and then we're gonna reach up. Lift the right ribcage off the pelvis and then stretch over to that side. And then use this stretch to contract and lift up. And reach up first, and then go over in the other direction.

And then use the stretch to contract. It's almost like you're rebounding upward. Not grabbing, but just responding. So we stretch, this time we're going to take the arms down. We're gonna allow the body to do a quarter of a turn, so reaching around to the front of us, and then around to the back, or back to the side, rather, and lift up.

And then inhale up and over, and exhale as we round. And inhale to come back. And exhale to lift up and then just, again, take the arms, reach up, get taller, reach out. Be more open, create more space for your experience, and bring your arms all the way down. And we'll just take ourselves down onto the mat.

So lying all the way down on your back, arms down at your sides, breath in to prepare, and gently flatten the spine. So roll the pelvis up away from the floor. What does it feel like to move with ease in your body? Now, I don't have the answer for you. And I'm looking for the answer for me.

So just maybe the placement of the bones, the movement of the bones into the earth, or the floor, or the earth beneath the floor. The pelvis dropping, flattening, and then easy, working through the lower spine, feel the feet, feel the feet on the mat, feel the knees reach forward, feel the head and the knees pull the spine in two directions and inhale. And exhale as we roll down. So just allowing that spine to be so free, so easy. And release, and we'll just do a couple more like that.

And lift. So where is there heaviness? Where is there lightness? Notice where you are in your body. Maybe not even so much as where you are in your room, or your experience, or your life, but right this minute, right now, where are you in your body?

This is gonna be our last one, and what we're gonna do now is we'll take the arms up, and we'll reach the arms overhead. And then as we send the spine back down, we'll feel that the arms, or maybe we could imagine or we could create the essence of using the reach of the arms to make the spine longer. To slow the movement of the lower spine down enough so that we get deep into our movement there, and then once you come down, bring your hands behind your head. Keep the elbows just off the mat, the shoulder blades wide, set the feet together, and inhale; take both knees in my direction. So breathing in, feel the connection between that scapula and the ribs, and then feel the scapula wrap around the front of the body, so the ribs can slide back into it.

That will bring us into our obliques, which will bring our pelvis down into the mat. And inhale as we go the other way. So, opening up the side of the body. And then bringing the body back to the mat, without a lot of excess tension or a lot of excess tightening, but just using breath to move. Inhaling.

And using breath to move back through center, as we exhale. And inhaling. And exhaling. Now just, let's do one more to each side. Noticing the head lying flat in the hands.

And exhaling. And inhaling. And, exhaling. So as you come through the center, let's float the legs up off the mat. Keep the lower legs relaxed for now and breathe in.

As you breathe out, curl the head and chest up. Looking just over the horizon of the knees, inhale, take the feet down, exhale, lift the feet up. And inhale to go down. Lengthen down, work your contractions in both directions. Exhale, curl the head and chest up.

Inhale, reach down. Exhale, pulling, curling the chest forward, and inhale to go down. Maybe this is the first Pilates you've done in weeks, a week. Today. So, how can you inhabit your practice in an integris way?

And last time; exhale to lift. Reach down, reach up, and bring the heels together, holding the head and chest up. We're gonna press legs forward and pull. And press forward and pull. Little hip work here; reach and pull.

Reach, keeping the back stationary, or stable on the mat. Last time, hold it out, point your feet, and draw a little circle down, around and up. Down, working through the hips, working the stability of the spine. Last two. Last time.

Reverse that. Down around, pull up. Open, push and pull. Open, push and pull. Last two.

Last one. And then bending the knees and let's create rotation. So twist, and twist. Lift as you twist. Wringing out through the ribs.

We'll do five. Four. Keeping the head still with the hands, three. Using your breath, two. Last time.

Bend the knees, both knees in, head down on the mat. Take the legs up, inhale. And exhale to roll over. Keep the majority of the weight on your shoulders, rather than on your neck as you flex and separate your feet. Push through your heels and roll through your spine, and as you're lowering your spine down, send your upper spine longer, away from your lower spine.

So you're working in both directions on the mat. Point the legs, circle down in together and lift. Exhale to roll over. Flex and separate. Maybe the legs will go a little lower.

Maybe not. And then push through the heels as you peel down, point the feet, legs come down and together. We'll do two more. Exhaling to roll up and over. Flexing through the feet, separating the legs, and down, and roll down.

Ease. Elongation. Acceptance. And down in together and lift. And up and over, last one.

Bringing awareness to that quality of movement that you can create. As the pelvis comes down, this time, lift the head. Follow the legs forward with the spine, until you're sitting upright. Move myself back on my mat just a little. And then we'll go forward here.

So breathe in. And breathe out as you round down. Folding the spine down over the thighs, pause to inhale. And exhale, stacking. So can we create that in a fluid manner?

It's like building blocks. And roll down. Lightly and gently supporting from the front, pause. And inhale. And building blocks, stacking the spine.

And take that one more time; inhale. And exhale, rolling down. Inhale. And inhale. And stack.

And then pivot around your axis, separate the arms and dive forward. Send the arms out and away from one another. Super easy in the spine, bring the arms out to the side as you come out to center; lift as you twist. Reach out and forward. Reach out and up.

And center, just two more. Inhale. And out. And in, can you make your body move with your breath? Like a dance.

But not a dance performance. All just ideas, really. Reaching out and up, and center, and rotate. And reaching out and up. Down and forward, down and up.

And center, and then take your arms down. I'm gonna turn towards you, so I can see you and you can see me, and I want you to sit in a really comfortable place. So that means you get onto a pillow, or if that means you just sit in a chair, I want you to be able to sit with a long spine, in a very, in a manner that's free of tension. So we're gonna come to arms bent, gonna rotate the elbows forward and the fingertips backwards, and then we're gonna reach up and back. Up and back, like you're not so much going backwards, but almost as though the arms are going back, but the chest is going forwards.

Then we're gonna bend the elbows, taking the elbows out to the sides, and then returning the palms down. So inhale, rotate, draw the abdominals in, exhale, hands reach behind elbows. That allows us to begin really pulling up through the sternum, sliding the scapula down away from the ears. Elongating through the body, bend the arms, wide in the arms, and then bring the arms down. And we'll do that three more times.

So, reaching up. Reaching out and back. Out and up. Bending the elbows. And bringing the arms down.

And last time out, or rotate, externally rotate the shoulders. Reach the arms back and up, and then from here, take the arms out to the sides, and then press, gathering energy or gathering energy into your body, into your self, into your experience, as you round forward over your legs, whatever your legs are doing, and then flexing through the heels of the hands and pushing out through the arms and creating space, and pushing away any negativity that you might have or experience, or have around you, and gathering in, gathering in. Good. Gather in grace, ease. And then flex through the heels of the hands and create energy, create a forcefield around you.

That keeps you safe. And take the arms down. And have a happy New Year.