Balance and Coordination

Okay. So this morning we've got some props. I've got our magic circles out as well as our foam rollers. We're going to do a little bit of a both isolated and then some combined. So today, right away, let's go ahead and lie flat on our back honor roll or go ahead and bring your ring with you. Uh, yeah, heads can face back, feet can face in to each other. And as you're kidding, down on the roller, you know, make sure that your going down smoothly, no jarring of your back. And I want make sure your head is also on the roller. You're not letting your, the weight of your head hang off of it and organize your legs, sitz bones with the part feet forward in parallel and just have your ring nearby.

We are going to do just a little bit of kind of warming up through the upper body before we get going with squeezing and applying the resistance of the magic circle. All right, so wherever your spine is today, acknowledge it. We are looking for more length always. And uh, I'm going to just turn the ceiling fans on. I realize that they're not on yet. So begin some breathing for me while I adjust. I think we'll appreciate the fans even though it's damn pelt side. Yeah. So as we are looking for length in the spine, taking the tension out of the erectors, you know so much of the grab in the mid back in the mid extensors there. Okay.

Starting to concentrate on the deep abdominal muscles to support that back and again because some of us have little bit more lumbar curve, we are going to just acknowledge it, but we are trying to diminish that curve with the abdominal contraction as much as we can without making the pelvis tilt to get the back flat. All right, so as we're stationary, everybody open your arms out toward the sides, palms face up, just allowing the weight of the upper arm bones to fall open and perhaps stretch. You might feel that down your bicep, maybe off their deltoid, under your pectorals. We'll just take three breaths here and on the exhale, contracting more into the abdominal start to lighten your feet on the mat. Just lightened your feet a little bit to a imprint more into your sacrum. Okay. And another breath in. Ah, one more time. [inaudible] all right. Standing strong in the legs and your balance. Bring your arms up, palms facing each other, arms or shoulder with the part.

We're going to start warming up the shoulder blades and the scapula a little bit. So if we reach our arms toward the ceiling, we know we're moving our shoulder blades forward on our ribs. And then on the exhale, let's go ahead and just glide the shoulder blades toward the ruler just to easy gliding motion. Inhale as you're reaching the arms up and exhale as we're gliding the shoulder blades to the roller, that protraction retraction. Inhale forward and exhale and back. Okay, so as you're moving through the shoulder blades, start to find that stability or connect to the stability in the ribs. So often that the, we're doing the arm work, the rib cage is moving kind of arching, you know, to and fro.

We want to keep that anchored and stable moving those arms. Let's take a couple more. Inhale arms to the ceiling. Widening the upper back. Exhale, gliding back. Give a little kiss on the roller. One more time. Inhale and exhale as we're gliding back. Now keep the shoulder blade snug against your roller and let's do an opening of both arms, not all the way to the floor. I have the arms still.

Hello. Suspended above your floor a little bit. So the arms are really just shoulder level. Now on your back, can you sense your shoulder blades? Widening is if you're reaching the fingertips out to these sidewalls. Okay. And then as the arms are staying wide, let's do some uh, abduction of the shoulder blades, meaning bring them together. So pull the shoulder blades close together on your roller.

It may not feel incredibly comfortable, but to engage the back in that, in that direction. Now opposing that go the widening wide, wide, wide. And let's inhale as we squeeze the Scapula together. And exhale as you widen this gap. Hello.

Couple more. Bring them together and squeeze. Open, open, open fingertips reaching out. And one more time, pulling them together. All with the stable rib cage and exhale and let's widen. Okay, so we've established width. We're going to move the arms now up and down or toward the ceiling. Inhale. And then exhale as we're opening. Same thing.

I don't want you to drop your arms all the way to the floor. Think of reaching out rather than down and bring them up shoulder with the part and opening without distending the ribs. Just a couple more and up. Exhale. Let's start engaging the abdominals. A little [inaudible] more on the exhalation. And two more. Inhale up and exhale and open the only no shoulder blades down on the back of the ribs. And we're going to open and hold the open. Alright, because again, we're in different places with their shoulders and chest flexibility.

Do what you can, but I want us to keep the arm suspended above the floor. Take your arms. Now back and up above you is if you're doing a snow angel or jumping Jack, if you can get your thumbs to touch at the top without feeling your neck and your shoulders elevate and squish. So we are still trying to work that shoulder blades down concept. All right. And now we're taking a bigger motion out, arms coming all the way down.

Pinky finger toward the hips. And all this time I've got my palms facing up. We'll do a full breath up and over the head. Ah, I feel the relationship, the shoulder blades have to drop down the back and circle open. Exhale, palms facing up. Still fingertips to the thighs. Couple more open. Hopefully this feels good and wide open. Exhale to the thighs.

Two more in hand. Take in that space. [inaudible] seeing those shoulder blades down and open. One more time everybody and open. Ah, and back out just to the tee position. Okay. Now can you make a goal post shape from there? Okay, I'm gonna just sit up and just check that you've all done your goalpost.

And you know what that means. That's right. So where I want you to think, here's the elbows a little higher to the ceiling then your hands. So there's a little more need for that external rotation of the upper arm. Exactly. And we've done this when prone a lot face down where we get that rotation. Okay. So now the movement is going to be reaching above your head.

Take an inhale as you length and still working shoulder blades down the back. And then on your exhale, break at the elbows and get that goalpost position. I want you to think that you're reaching your elbows outside. Decide and again, inhale, reach up or behind you. Depends on how you think of it. Exhale and rake at the elbows. [inaudible] three more times. Always stable ribs. Exhale, break at the elbows and think of reaching out toward the windows and the walls.

And two more. So getting that stretch in the upper chest, upper arms, shoulders. One last time. Inhale, lengthen and exhale, break at the elbows and then go ahead and bring your arms all the way down and just find a place that works for you. Okay, now, well, I should say go ahead and grab your ring. Let's get some coordination. You're going to put the ring between the knees still on the roller.

I might grunt a little this morning. My abs are very sore from something and surprisingly so all the way down. It feels so good. But, um, I mean just this little minor hit chest lift and I'm like, so like I'll try to keep it to a minimum. All right, so we're ad ducting working our adductors, uh, low glutes, hamstrings. Put your arms from now where they feel comfortable. Press that ring just a little right now since the feet level, let's do 10 of these. Take an inhale. On the exhale, we're going to press and hold for three counts, one and two and three.

Inhale, release. So we're pressing that ring without distending the ribs. You are engaging your abs. Inhale, release, and again, exhale and one, two, and three. We want to strengthen those adductors. So squeeze pretty firm. One, two, and three. Released with control. There's work on the release. Also. Exhale, press two, three. So you're controlling the amount that you let go. Still work in the abductors. And three more exhale. And two, three. Inhale, release. Two more to go. Exhale.

And press two. We're still in level pelvis. No, I tell Ya. And one last time. Exhale. And press two and three. Inhale, little release. Okay, everybody take the pelvis and rotate it back. Posterior tilt, scoop those abdominals as if you're trying to pull your pubic bone to navel. We're going to do the other squeezes five more times. So inhale, get ready, press and squeeze one. Try to hold it and two, three inhale, let it go. Let it go. Exhale, find that pelvic tilt.

So you might have to engage the low glutes a little bit as well. Three and release. Exhale, but primarily the abdominals holding that pelvis in that tilt. Two, three little release. Exhale, press one, two, three and a little release. Yes, last time. Exhale, press two, three little release and release your pelvis into level triangle position. Okay, so it's odd to do a pelvic tilt bridge on the roller, but we're going to go for it. It might not be the highest bridge that you would do if you're on the floor.

I know it is sometimes a little more intricate on the articulation and the need to really get the segmenting of the bones. So let's start with an inhale level pelvis. Exhale again, we're ready. We're prepared for it. Pull the pelvis to the tilt. Now making sure also that you're not putting it, pushing too much weight on the back of the head because that really will trigger those neck and shoulder, um, tendencies to stress. All right, so you can be up on the back of the shoulder blades, lots of strength in the hamstrings, glutes, lower back, but also the apps primary work here. Let's breathe now as we exhale, sink the spine mid back all the way down to tail where we level.

We'll just do this five times. Inhale. Let me take a quick look. Exhale up to where your bridges staying stable on the roller. Good inhale. That's nice you guys. And exhale, we roll down. [inaudible] Tryna stretch your spine long on this cylinder. Three more to go. Inhale, exhale. You can just squeeze the ring a little for added work. Curl your way up.

Breathe in here and exhale. Rolling it down. I'm actually just going to have us do one more up the middle. Okay. We've done this many times without the roller. We're going to come down. Just track the right side of your spine. Okay. So as you're flexing your spine rolling down the right side, you can still think of your left hip bone staying somewhat pressed upward.

It's a little tilt. Little Asymmetry got rolling down the spine. Now roll up the right side of the spine. Okay, and level your pelvis at the top. Now working on the left side of the spine, right? Uh, a sis or your hip bone stays up as you're rolling down the left side of your back and rolling up the left side. And just notice how intricate that is. I'm going to say challenging. One more each side. Rolling down the right just to the back of the right hip. Inhale. Exhale, roll back up. How are we doing? Good.

Roll back down the left side. Articulate gotta. Get that pelvic tilt down to the left side of the bed. Inhale. Exhale. Roll back up. Left side. Anybody's roller. Moving a little. Yeah, mind's moving a little. Okay. Let's come off of that.

The bridge just rolled down the center of that and rest. Okay. Let's move away from the legs for a minute. Go reach in and grab the ruler. The ring with your hands. Okay. Now I'll let you decide where you want to put your legs for challenge. Go feet together, knees together as if you have got one leg to stand on.

If you need a little bit more balanced, separate your feet and let's go ahead and take the ring. Now right up in the poems of the hands above the chest. Neutral shoulder blades. They're not too up there, not too far back. They're just level. [inaudible].

Press the ring slightly with the chest muscles. We're going to do the chest pool. Inhale, bring the Loring to the chest. This is another one of stretching the elbows wide out, out, out, and ring to the ceiling all the way up. We'll do five. Inhale to the chest and exhale, trying to stay very stable. Minimize any rock right or left.

Do more. Stretch those elbows wide and exhale. Lengthen upper back. Still staying wide and one more. Okay. Okay. He keeping the arms long. I often do. We'll take this next into the reaching the arms back overhead.

We're going there now and again, we're all in a different place with flexibility through the shoulders and or stability of ribs. Take it to where you can without feeling your net contract. Your ribs. Just stand up. Laughs should be really strongly pulling down toward the hips. Same idea. We're going to try to press the ring.

Hardly anything happens I think so just take a breath on your exhale. Press your ring. Anyone get something? My mind did not move. I tried to but it didn't. Inhale. Let it go to press the ring. I'm actually having to pull my lats way down.

I'm trying to squeeze something but squeeze this, but it's not really moving. Couple more times long fingers. It's really not about how much this moves, you know, in and out, in and out. It's the stability in the working that you're back in your last, okay. Long fingers. Let's go one more. Everybody exhale and just release. I'm going to have you keep your arms back there. Separate your feet and knees if they aren't already going to try just about six, uh, marching in place very slowly. Okay. Let's see what happens.

So take your breath into the nose, right leg. This could be interesting coming up to tabletop. Inhale, step down. Whoops. Exhale. Left leg. Inhale, stepping down. Oh, okay. Right leg. Exhale. I've got to lift my arms a little bit. Inhale, stepping down. Fun to learn new things. Exhale, left side switching on new connection, isn't it?

Am I right? Inhaled down. I know right side guys, this is tough. Requiring quite a bit of stability. Strength on opposing sides. I've got to make sure I get that right. The low right side last time left where I can tell what side. I'm stronger on an inhale. Bring your foot back down and rest. Okay, we'll save that for another rainy day. Huh? Would that off to the side? Okay. Yeah, you can lie your ring down. Now kind of something in a similar vein, but uh, probably easier to accomplish.

Go ahead. Bring one knee up to tabletop, then the other that loads those abs. Okay. Now again, try not to let any arch happen here with your back off the ruler. Contrast that and really try to imprint all right now. Um, and have you take one arm. I'm going to, let's say, right, right arm up to the ceiling. I've got my palm facing in light with the other arm on the floor. I know some balance stuff.

Now this arm is going to go back by the ear as the left leg comes forward. Reach and you know I'm not really worried about pointed feet flexed, feeding under that, it's really stability, strength, balance, control, plots, principles and coming in. We're going to do just three, that same arm and leg. Ready. Let's inhale. Exhale, arm and leg. Awesome.

Stay there. Inhale, exhale, pull it back. One more to go. Nao Prepare. Exhale and arm and leg. Inhale, hold and exhale coming in. All right, knee stay up. Hand comes down. Other arm comes up. Oh yeah, yeah. This is my side. All right. Mind, mind, work and are moving.

Right leg stretching forward, left arm, moving back. It may help to spot something. I'm staring at a drywall tape on the, on the ceiling. Inhale, hold, exhale and center. Have Fun with it. Inhale, exhale and lay. I'm fighting all my might to grab this mat with my hand and he'll hold and exhale.

One More Mama needs some work here. I that sales for wretch. Inhale, hold and exhale coming back in. All right. Lower that arm. Oh, thank goodness. Let's do some toe taps. Ready. Exhale right toes one on the mat and two you're gonna do 23 pick it up. [inaudible] and familiar ground light hands.

Maybe just your elbows on the floor. 10 more in one, two working like the dickens in the belly for five and six. Seven, eight and nine last one and 10. Let's bring the knees up and place the feet down. Okay, great. Can you all just bring your hands behind your head? We can do chest lift on the roller. A little bit of Albert. I'm not going to do a lot cause it's kind of uncomfortable I think, but it does also demonstrate a little bit. If we take it, go ahead.

Let's take a chest lift. My feet are in line with sitz bones so we could push on the roller or we could pull away from it. There's two kinds of connections. If you push on it, that's where it might feel, you know, not comfortable lift up away from it, but yet you're still rounding your spine. Okay, and then just simply lower that back. We're going to do that just five times. That was one. Let's check an exhale. Eyes looking out past the knees. Inhale as we roll back down, trying not to Shimmy side to side or rotate. Three more exhale. The shoulders can slide away from the ears. Inhale as we roll back an exhale.

Good. It's harder to get a forward flection, isn't it? All right. Now I'm going to have you guys come up. See if you can pull higher off the tips of those shoulder blades. So it's not just your neck that's moving your spine. This thoracic spine is flection. Now five more times.

We're going to lift our heels. Just do a little heel lift up, lower your heels down. Try to pull higher in your chest. Lift four more heels up, heels down. Anyone want to challenge it? Inhale, heels up. Heels down. Two more heels up. Ah, Nice. Yanni. Last one. Lift and heels down.

Let's take your hands back and support the neck rest all the way there. We do an okay. Alright. Let's slither off. Roll to one side. That's a long time to be in that position and just enjoy the mat. Let your back soften.

I love that. Let's say it every time. You feel like that was some significant abdominal work without really having to do kind of reg traditional mat things, you know? Yeah. Some good stuff.