Day 8: Control

It's day eight. We got this welcome back. Today we're gonna kind of swing the pendulum to the other direction. We weren't expansion yesterday or the last day you take class and today it's going to be a little bit more about controlling what better way to test your control or look forward anyway than with an unstability ball. Stability Ball, fitness ball. Mine is technically 65 centimeters, but here around the beach and with the heat, Nicole [inaudible] and the heat and cold and heat and cold, um, it's probably down to about 55 centimeters. So to pick a ball that you have or that works for you and um, let's begin.

Let's start at the edge of a map your mat. Put the ball next to your thighs, holding it kind of broadly with your hands, right so that you feel that connection. All the rules apply that we've been practicing, grounding, finding space, expansion, all of that. Discover what is so for you today. But let's take a focus in today. It's going to be control. Maybe balance. You choose what it means to you. We're taught, I'm using the ball against my body so that I can grow up against it so I can feel myself rise in opposition to some resistance from there.

Inhale, exhaling to roll down when the ball naturally gets before. Adjust your hands as you want to. Put them on the back side of the ball and start to roll yourself forward so you feel a stretch through the shoulders and your spine. Keeping the legs as vertical as possible. Take a moment here. It's so okay to bend your knees. I'm going to, but if you do, reach the tailbone higher and draw the Ribbon Zen and let your head belong.

Find where you are. You got to know where you are to have control over where you go. Take an inhale, think expansion. We don't have to contract on ourselves. If you can straighten your legs, go ahead. Be Mindful. If you're over flexible, hold back a little. From there. I can still, and I hope you can too lightly apply pressure with the palm of your hand, the heel of your hand or even your wrist and use that to start to curl the spine. Spine includes your head. It's at the top of it. Don't come all the way up. Just come in. Close enough your hands almost leave.

Feel that stretch in the back of your wrist and go back down. Line, head f with the arms reaching the tailbone in the opposition. Some things have to be slow or initially to just take inventory. Draw those ribs in length in your neck. Lengthen your legs where possible. Lift your toes. Can you do that to inhale and exhale.

Slight downward pressure both with your feet and your hands to create a curve in the middle of the body. You're in charge. I'm going down again a little faster. Inhale, make it a little more undulating. Now that you know what you're doing, look for things. Exhale. Look for those sort of guidelines. Wide collarbones long spine, top of the head, reaching to the ball, tailbone, reaching away from the ball, exhaling up to more. Inhale and exhale. One more and exhale, bring it all the way back in. Just roll the ball closer to you and Orient Yourself. Find a horizon. Find where you are. Find that sense of balance and control. I'm going to move just to face you. I think maybe not take your foot up on top of the ball and maybe I'll just stay right here foot, right. If on the top of the ball level, hips and just for now, extend the leg flex, put the foot back on so you know it's there and pull it not just with the toes but with that leg. Bring it back. Do whatever you want with your arms.

You're in charge, flex and bend and flex. It's not a bad idea to be near a wall. We'll do that. Whatever can give you that sense of control and when you lose it, know that you'll just get it back, be safe and you'll get it back. Be Cautious and you'll get it back and then we'll play again. Okay. From there, I'm going to take the ball extended forward. Take it around to the side, just like a ticktock to one side. I'm going right. I'm bringing across the middle and going left.

I now feel like I need my hands up to balance. I'm just taken, it's, I decide seeing where I'm at. Wishing I was doing ab work. Oh, guess what I am. Oh, and a whole lot of leg and foot work. Get Taller, get lighter on yourself. So the leg that's actually moving the ball is freer. Come back to the center, bend it in, put a little pressure on and not all of it. You want to know you're there. You're in control. Are you? Oh, good test change. Other signs for comes up.

Oh, remember we talked about the bad side, the good side. It's just a different side. But this one's gonna be fun. I put my arms up now, extended out flex, and I'm noticing I want to bend that lower leg. I don't know why I'm not need to, so I'm going to control for that. Extended out and bring it in. This time I'll remember to flex my foot, press out, flex, seal it all, get taller, all those things we've been doing apply.

Now we're just on an unstable surface. But you know, that's sounds so different. We can handle that w one more to leave it out there and I'm gonna Tick Tuck it or take it to the left and Oh boy, I wanna take it to the right. Makes me want to move my foot on the ball, but I'll just do it or not. Yeah, I'll do it. You can too, but I'm not going to do it again. And I could do it over and over cause that would sort of defeat the purpose.

I do notice what's happening now. I feel myself like pulling my leg in as if that's going to help. But no, if I get lighter, oh it gets more sloppy, but it certainly is more balanced. Believe it or not. I'll find the control later. Then bring the light back in, make sure your foot is on the surface of the ball. By the way, my ball is on a mat so I know it's not gonna slip out from underneath me and I pull back. I'm just leaning into it a little. I'm actually trying to leave more weight on the back leg. Just enough to go. Ha. No, not going to do it one more time. Maybe. Maybe, maybe. No.

I saw bulldog on a ball this week on youtube. I'm not quite ready. He had all four pars on, but we'll work on it from here. Take Yourself, take your ball too near the back edge of your map. We're going to do a little bit more of the hip extensor work because it turns out we actually need a lot of power in our legs to stay balanced and controlled in other things. So I'm going to focus there first and then we'll move into the ABS.

So backing up the ball, have a seat. So he's sitting on your ball and you're going to walk out. You need to feel secure, right? You can't have control if you feel really insecure and doesn't usually go well. So I feel good to you. Can you kind of move around?

Check it out my feet. Here's the action. Just so you know, you can kind of take your time getting into it. We're going to sit almost down, right? So there's a deep hinge at the hip joint here. My back is supported. Then the idea is going to be for the first few of just gonna roll a little, lift the hips up. We'll support her head back here with our hands and aim for level tabletop, whatever that means to you, and then we'll kind of roll back out of it. Okay, so the little bit of roll is slightly easier than where it heads, but you want to make sure that the ball's not gonna slip out from underneath you. So do that. Make sure and your feet are secure. From there we slightly roll. Push down to the heel, lift the hips up and go ahead and lift them. Really high support your head.

It's okay if you get slightly higher, it's just not a big arch of the ribs, right? They're still down and you're up and pushed. You feel that power in the legs, that power that kind of keeps us up, right? They keeps us walking. That keeps us balanced and boy, that's a good step towards control. It also ends up helping us in a lot of our [inaudible] practice. So that's why we're going to do a few more up and down my feet.

Or I didn't tell you what, how I there cause I right now don't really mind where they are. I might bring them closer in a moment, but for now due to more focusing on the back of your body, keeping the front engage, hold it there when you're up. Now if your feet are turned way outwards, toes out from your heels, turn in parallel. It's okay if your feet are wide, maybe not wider than your math. Maybe just inside. Think of dropping the ribs down a little. Leave your head where it was. If you can tuck your pelvis so that means I'm trying to round despite what it might look like. Then pushing into my hips. Oh boy, there they are. I don't know if it's level. That's about what I have for today.

Lift the right heel, put it down. Hips don't change. Lift the left heel. Put it down. If you're lifting your head or straining it, let it be heavy into the ball, right heel. Up and down. Left heel, up and down. Both heels up. Hold. Pull your hips towards your heels. Push your heels down if you can. Oh, that was a big task for me. Lift the hips higher and come back to what feels like neutral.

Lift the right heel. Lift the left heel both heels down, both heels up. Pull yourself to your heels or toward them. Heels down. Hits up and come back. That's enough of that. Walk your feet ever so slightly closer. Are you still under control? Are you really getting wobbly here? Lower the hips down.

Make sure you're stable. Different position. Lift up. Laurie hits down. Now when your hips drop, let your spine come with you, so that's gonna mean your head will probably lift too, right? You don't have to keep your head pinned back there. I'm not going for a big arch of the spine. I'm going for pure hip extension. Couple more, maybe three lift.

Let's do two more from now. It feels more right. Okay. Keep your position head. If you can rest it on the ball, you might need your hands to stay there so that you have enough of an alignment that supports you. If so, you're going to hold back a little on this next exercise. Otherwise your hands come out to a tee position. Your hips are still level. You're simply going to Shimmy, not shimmy. Slide, glide the hips and ribs to the left.

Try to keep them level so that means a little more weight, a lot more weight is probably on the left leg. I went left, so that's more on my left. Find equal, try to just get the ribs to go. It will make the right side work more, but it's not like I'm trying to lift the other leg. It just takes some weight out of it. Naturally. Do it again. Leading with the shoulder blades, it's like my shoulder blades. Whoops. Leading the ball off and I had to pick up and look actually, and you got to do that slow. That's a whole different level of control and make sure you're leaving the hips as level as possible. One more each way. Whoa.

It's amazing how this little stuff can be so challenging, isn't it? Right from there, hands go back behind your head. Walk back a little bit more, widened the fetal a little bit. For now, sit yourself down to look forward. Make any adjustments you might need to with your neck because we are going right back up. Here it is for this time.

More of my back is on the ball so I could drop my head backwards. Right? Oh, this was good. We could stay here. No, we can't stay here. We must control our workout. So I'm going to do a little tuck of the felt. I could just drape myself right and you could [inaudible].

We're going to control that pickup they have. So little vet from their head is still supported by hands, but you roll yourself toward your hips. It's almost like the two ends are coming together. Elvis ever so slightly forward rather than way behind you, but not so far forward that your shoulders are coming up. Reach back, try to leave your hips in place now. Exhale, push your spine into the ball to make the curve and inhale back. It's really kind of a nice way to do an ab crunch because a, you have to control, but also you get that extension beyond what you normally could on the floor.

So I like it for that reason to progress. If you release the hips every time, you kind of lose out on the fun cause we're not going to be here long so I'm trying to maintain that sense of a, of a lift to the pelvis. If you want more challenge for the next three, you could extend your arms and support your head with your arms. Maybe last one and hold. Reach your arms forward. Oh, nobody said control was easy. No matter how hard you try. I have one hand over the other.

I'm reaching forward, but I have got to relive my hips cause I can feel myself getting lazy there. We can't have that on this class. Rotating towards the front or towards the knee closest to me, not dropping that hip, reach into it further. Come back. Just stay over here, reach further and I'll tell you what I'm doing to make this a little more effective for me. I'm pushing that forward for the foot. I'm going towards into the ground a tiny bit more as I come towards it so that I don't change my hips. Just one more. Your hands can be behind your head, but it makes you heavier. Fair warning. Check your hips are level.

They're up and push forward. Reach one reached two. You can come back, but we're not. We don't have to drape over the wall. Three of six. Here's four, five and six. Come back enough to come. Center. Reach the arms up. Keep your upper body curled. Take yourself back, hands behind your head. Support it. Curl it up. Begin to see where you are on your mat. I'm going an inch my way forward, tiny, tiny bit with my feet. I'm going to let go of my hands in case I need them. Plus I want to extend my legs. My back is supported already. It should feel good if it does. Keep going over the ball and enjoy a stretch. If your balls really tiny, you might have to move yourself more forward. That's okay.

Make it comfy but also controlled. And you'll really enjoy the stretch. I am still pushing my feet into the ground, right head comes forward, everything comes forward. Bend your knees, Walk Yourself back up on top of the ball and sit right on top. I'm going to face you for this. So find yourself on your, put a little bit of a bounce cause we're gonna rotate on it a little bit and we're going to do some more interesting things in just a second. But you want to know where you are and you want to know that you can kind of play with it. So for now, let's just simply take our arms to the side and I think you can probably walk your feet a little closer. It's gonna make things a tiny bit harder. But if you can bring them ever so slightly closer, otherwise stay wide.

From here. The left arm goes up, the right hand goes down. Find the ball if you can. I happen to have really long arms, so it's not so tough for me. But if you can't imagine there was a smaller ball in your upper arm and press it, press it so that you can get the sense of everything coming toward the midline. From there you can climb yourself higher. I'm not rolling the ball or at least I'm trying not to.

I'm climbing higher now. I can feel that ball I am lately pushing into it. Now as I take that stretch, it's really more of a contraction of the side body than a, than a stretch at the top. But both are happening. It's an idea that you're gonna want to know about in case you don't want to do the next one or also so that you feel the next one pressing climb up. Even the sitz bones on the balls. It's hard to feel but try for that. Okay, that's so easy. I might go a little wider for this side cause I want to feel that sense of this side body working so the other side can let go and let's do that again. I'm leaving my feet wide cause I now know what I need today.

Be sure that you're not hyper extending your back. It's very easy to do on something like this. It's so random in its stability and one more and you'll see why in a minute. Reaching down to the floor, lightly engaging the ball, stretching the top and come back. Keep the legs there for now. We're going to rotate to one side. Again, check that you haven't come off to one side two.

That's where our control comes in. Come senators, feel that and then we'll make it a little more challenging. Still thinking up and center. Now walk the feet closer if it's available to you. If it felt really easy and silly from before. Do that. Stay where you were because or no, don't see where you are.

Come closer and go real tight. Otherwise stay where it was because it was good. Here we are to the right. Two exhale, one, two. We've done this right to to try and to keep the ball still and just notice what your tendencies are. Alright, so much about controllers, knowing where you deviate and bring it back. Not that you have to stay there. Control has its limitations too. I'm feeling my differences. I'm not going to tell you about them, but I'm okay with it for now. That's good. Center, take the arms out and exhale. Let it all come down. Now kind of to that point, uh, we're going to take the, I'm going to take the ball to my body, to the wall.

If you don't have a wall nearby that's convenient. This I'm just going to show you here. This next one can be done. It's a little harder right here from the side where you lean into the ball, you would take your hand either to the ball of the floor and then from there it's going to be an action from here with the foot, the top leg being grounded. If you have the option, I would take the ball to the wall to learn it. If you don't, it can be done here just with more control. So what I do is get as close as I can imagine. I need to be from my leg to be straight and my hip to be supported, right? I don't, I don't, I can't really say center of the ball, but it's that place where you know you can rest there little tiny bit closer and I am intentionally making sure my mat is underneath the ball at some point or to some extent. All right.

The foot does not have to be flushed, but it has to be touching if you're planning on using it for any support whatsoever. I have my top leg in front. I'm adjusting the ball under my hip a tiny bit more for now. Get used to the idea of the position. If you're using the wall or either way with the lower hand down from there, take a peek and make sure your hips are stacked. This is a very unstable surface so you might hold the ball if you feel more comfortable and use it to practice lifting up and coming back down.

The working muscles are the top side, right, the obliques, so that's where the focus ends up. But for learning it you might need, there are a lot of pressure into the wall and a lot of pressure into the ball, so you choose if that's like a piece of cake and you need some challenge, you take the hands behind your head and you lift and as you list your hip goes into the ball more and you stay connected to the wall or the floor. [inaudible] still thinking expansion from the last class? No. You want to work on the side body, not the back in this one. So if you need to you might have to switch which leg is on top. Just two more and one more. Hold it there. Oh, reach into it and come on down. Might as well put that hand down. Take a stretch over. You can come away from the wall a little bit and then switch them. No big deal.

It's hard without the wall, isn't it? It's hard with the wall. It's just hard. That's all right though. Most things are that matter sometimes. All right. Again, I have my top leg in front. You can switch it, but I would really monitor what's working. If anything, you want to err on the side of your abdominals facing the top, so practicing it because each side is different. I have security on the wall. I'm gonna use my hand for the first lifter too, just to go. Okay, I'm cool. I'm cool. My legs is strong, everything's helping me out.

I'm ready to bring my hand back on and stretch and to have your balls really huge. You might put your feet higher on the wall or not. Use The wall at all. I don't know. Three. Pull those abs in four. We'll talk about breath next time. Okay, one more time, but you use your strength here to keep your control each and do it. Reach into it and then take it down for your stretch. Oh, no way. Okay.

Now then I'm going to go into a back extension exercise. The back extension we're going to do is a fun one. It can be a little tricky. You can use the wall, but let's take a risk come sideways. The ball is somewhere in the middle of your mat most likely. And the pressure that you're going to have on the ball is, I don't know if I could tell you exactly cause you do need to kind of figure where you feel most stable.

But for me I want when I get into the exercise to have the majority of the pressure land on my pelvis. Okay. So for me that means I'm not right on top. I know you don't know where I'm going yet but it's about, I dunno a third of the way down the round, this other ball, try a few and then if not pause and go back and I'll do my best to explain it but my, my feet are curled under cause I need them. If you find they slip, he should go to a wall or if you don't have the flexibility in your toes but it starts with the knees bent and you kind of draped over the ball behind your head. I'm going to separate my feet just enough to use the floor cause I feel a little more secure there. From there. We list the upper back, we extend the arms, we return the arms, and we take it back down. I feel secure, so I'm gonna put my feet on the floor and bring it a little closer. In fact, I'm even going to touch the heels together draped over the wall. It's like I'm really mimicking the ball with the front of my body.

I try to keep the pelvis there. I lift just from the back extensors, extend the arms, return the arms and come back down. Making it a little more interesting. We lift the upper back as we straighten the arms, we straightened the lengths. Keep that lift, rebuild the elbows and knees and bring it down. I'm adjusting because I slipped a little, right?

So you know if that's happening, fix it for yourself. To lift the upper back. As you straighten your arms, straighten the legs, feel the whole body long looking forward a bit. Rebound the knees, re the elbows and come on down. Again. Lifting up stretches, almost superman style. Can you get your arms higher? Rebend elbows, rebound knees and take it down. We can do one more. Make your adjustments, make it work for you. The ultimate teaser, right? Without doing a teaser. Oh, that'll come stick a full out is you get to do the teaser as often as you like.

Hands back and bring it to drape yourself over the ball. Roll the bow back using your hands and everything and we're getting close. Hang with me for a few more exercises. We're going to roll out and find ourselves in a supportive plank, so from here again, bring the Bach flows to the tops of the thighs and the pelvis. Walk yourself out. Now everyone's going to be real different.

You might be able to go a lot further. I'm going to hold mine. You could hold just at the telus and keep your legs at the level of your rest of your body or you can challenge it by walking out a little further. Okay? That's what I'm hoping will try for. I have a downward pressure into the thighs in the ball, and from there I'm just going to breathe. I'm going to check that and not thinking on my shoulders. I'm lifted, I'm strong. I'm going to back up a little, adjust the ball because I feel stronger than that.

And if you do to move the ball down your legs a tiny bit more, not a lot, just a little bit more so that you can apply pressure on the knees. Lift one leg up, push it down. Nothing else changes. Same like Ugh, for sure. Thinking long for shutdown switching legs, there is three. So adjust and other side lift for one, push it down. Same like two. That's a different side, isn't it? Three, push it down. Hold from there. Push more into the quads.

Lift your upper back, not around it, just to make sure you're not sinking. And then look down at the ball. That's all from there. Push the chest away from your hands, the floor. So now you're rounded, right, but not your legs. Keep pushing so that your hip start to rise. Then the knees when it feels like you can roll that ball to your forehead and then take it back out to the long line. Look down. And as you do, start to pull the chest up away from the floor.

Continue that shins into the ball so you don't just flex the hips, but you continued around the spine and roll back to your position. Last one, this is it. Control head, chest, belly round. There's stretching, strengthening, control, all that happening sort of the way this whole thing works. Ah, but how do we get out of this? However you want to walk back as hell. I'm going to do it to control. Find the floor. Take the ball away. Stand on your feet.

Stand up. Ball as close. You can just leave it on the floor. Find it when you roll down. Inhale. Exhale. Off we go. Hands on the ball. Find that stretch. Feel the difference. Feel the hips rising the spine, growing the head, reaching to the ball, the ribs holding you in. Support the shoulders, holding you in support. Roll up halfway. Go down again and yeah.

[inaudible] I'm rolling. Halfway. One more time. Inhale. Go back to lengthen. And on this one will come all the way up and in a moment of Levity, get rid of your control. Have fun today. Thank you for being here.