Feel Good Tower

Hello. Hello! It's been a while. (laughs) It's been a long time! Look who's back. Meri's back from all her travels and her teaching around the world and some vacation, I presume? Yeah, a mini one. A mini one.

A tiny one. A family holiday. But this is our real vacation, it's our vacation every week. For those of you who don't know, we call this Girl Time because Meri and I come here to work out together, recognizing that if we didn't force it it won't happen, and we let it go for a while. We've been doing this for a couple of years.

We invite you in to join us, and we call it Girl Time! Yeah, come on! I don't know if you know but I did substitute one day of Girl Time. I brought Sarah in. What? (laughs) Yeah, you can't go that long! Well, it's my thing. It's always your thing.

Welcome home. Okay, thank you. Shall we begin? Yeah. So, let's...

We have some things set up. We've got roller bar on the top, purple springs, leg springs about halfway down. We have two red springs coming from the bottom just in case you're wanting to get set up now, so ready to set up for footwork, and we've got a pair of handles. And so I think that's all the information that they need. Yup.

So let's move. Okay, so what I want to do is take the roll up bar, and just sit with your legs together, and almost feel as though the roll up, the springs on the bar are pulling you up and forward. And inhale, (inhales) and exhale, rotate the pelvis, let the shoulders slide down the back. I need a lot of stretching today, Kristi. My body is cranky.

Oh, forget it. (laughs) You're going all the way? Yeah, going all the way down, then we're going to lift the head and chest. The springs are quite heavy here so can you resist them? Can we almost let them pull us up until we get up to that seated position where we can allow them to give you a little bit of stretch.

And inhale, (inhales deeply) and exhale, (exhales slowly) pressing the legs together, feeling the lower back come down first. I have to make sure at the bottom that I don't lift my ribs. And come up. Yeah, that's no brainer for me. (laughs) Mm-hmm, now roll up.

And let's just do that twice more. So rolling on the exhale, softly pressing the hands or the upper arms, maybe you could think of pushing the upper arms into the bar rather than the hands, and then lifting, and rolling up. So, at the bottom of this next one, I'm going to add on. You ready? Yup.

Okay. I'm going to roll down. Where do you look when you roll down? Straight ahead. Thank you.

I get so inquisitive sometimes that I forget to just do it. Yeah, I try to just look straight ahead and I try to keep my head right over the top of my spine, and then I put it down. And let's bend the knees. So we're going to do just some mini roll ups. So, lifting the head and chest up, and don't let your springs do your work for you.

That's my advice to myself and to anyone else who's listening to me right now, and then we're going to curl up, so just take the bar just over the knees, and then pull the springs back down. Just over the knees, and try to lengthen. Can we create... Or what I'm thinking about is working with the idea on the way down, or I'm trying to create more space between my pelvis and my ribs, with my abdominals. When you say the bottom of the knee do you mean brushing against the knee?

Or are you just kind of like- No, no, no, I'm not pushing down on it at all. Oh, okay. Just, like, its relativity to the knee. Got it. Thank you.

Let's do one more like that. And then we're going to come back down to the shoulder blades. Let's rotate towards one another. Can't quite see you but there you are. And then come up that side, keeping the knees in center, and down.

And up that side, and just letting the shoulders just soften. I never tire of this one. Me neither, I love it. Especially on this spring. Yeah, with this weight, with this heaviness.

It feels like an easy thing to oppose and just connect to. Yeah, exactly. Let's have three more. So I'm counting to eight, how well is remains to be seen but that's what I'm trying for, and this one is eight coming up right now. And then we're going to go down, transferring through the center, other side, and we're there, eight.

Why? I don't know. I like the work on the down. All right, what do you mean? I like the work that you can feel as you pull the spring down. Got it.

Yeah, you could just fall back, I guess. Mm. I believe there's three more. I believe you. Good.

If it were me I'd say two, but I tend to cut it short. (laughs) So you were right. All right, well just in case we'll just do three, and so that was that, and then we'll come down. In center stretch the legs out straight, come all the way out, and as you arrive at the top, going to bring the bar down on the diagonal towards the chest and lift the chest up to the bar, and then forward, and pull back, and feel as the springs are coming back into the relaxed place that they're pulling us up and pull down, and reach up, and pull down. Now lifting the spine, and reach up.

Let's do two more, and there's only just one more thing I want to do and then I'll let you do some things, (laughs) is that fine? (laughs) Sure. I'm kind of making this all about me right now, but-- Not really. But that's all right sometimes I suppose. So let's go into a pretty long diamond shape.

Oh, that did something to my hip. What? Nothing. Just feeling the tightness of my hips. Oh, same.

Okay, so we're going to shift just onto the right sitting bone. Roll down just off center of the spine on your right side. What about the bar, are you tilting it? It's on the diagonal. I'm not thinking about doing anything.

Okay. It's just coming with me. And then come to the middle, rotate just on to the left, from maybe at the left low back area the bar does tilt, roll up, and return to center. Mmm. Well go back the way we just came up, so rotate left, or lean left, pull back on the left side, push your left heel onto your right.

I like it. Ooh yeah, that's nice. Come center, push the right heel into the left, right? You able to do the right thing? For me it works.

Yeah, it does work. Our legs are being a little lazy actually. Thank you for the reminder. We're going down the right side now. Coming into the center.

Oh no, Kristi, I lied. What? I want to do one more thing after this. That's all right, I'm stoked. You can do the whole thing.

(laughing) Okay, last set. I'll take it. To the left, down, heels together, and then the center, and over, and all the way up. So, the thing that I would like to do that I think will feel amazing is to take the legs over the top of the springs. You can do that more beautifully than that, that's-- You mean for pelvic curl like-ish? Yeah, pelvic curl.

Oh yeah. Then just lay down for a nice, nice spring for the pelvic curl here, so just long arms, maybe a little activity through the arms, but no pinching of scapula necessarily. We're going to roll the pelvis up, and just let the spring pull. Then yeah, it feels amazing. And then let the spring continue to pull the knees forward as we peel the body down and back and in, and stay on on the long of feet.

I want to feel the sense of lightness that having the spring here makes me feel. Mm-hmm. I feel nice and light in my body. Just a couple more, that's fine. How about three?

And fall into the left. That's more than a couple I realize. I'm just saying. (laughs) You like me to count. (laughing) Then down.

Yeah, one more's fine. I'm hanging out and milking it up here. Nice. I'm swearing at the top, it feels really good. Oh! I don't know what made me do it, but I did.

I like that. Theoretically it was going to come from my ribs but I'm pretty sure that's not what happened. Anyway, I'm ready to come down. Yeah. Yeah?

Yeah, cool. So let's take the bar out and then I'm going to let you be in charge for a little while. Okay. So I want to just go ahead on into foot work and start that process, and we'll do some abs more. I feel like let's do that.

So setting up your safety strap first, and then once your safety strap is on, we've got two red springs. You could do this with one, you could do it with two blue as well. Just make sure your safety strap is on and secure of course. And I'll just say now for those of you with tighter hamstrings that are joining us you can turn the other way around. We're both going to be with our heads on the center, feet underneath the bar.

I may pull myself off a little more than normal. I might too. And I'm not going to take the time to build up on it, because I know I couldn't do it to the extent that I need without unsupporting the weight on my head. All right, so we're crawling underneath, we're all locked in and loaded and we're going to start with the heels parallel so help yourself into that position. Heels parallel.

I like to take a minute and kind of soften my knees and really feel the weight of my back and hips as much on the floor or mat as possible, and then I just see where I can go. So you don't want to be up where your tailbone is off the ground, as you know. Arms are down. Feel the weight into your upper arms too, just so that there's that contact. The feet are in fact flexed.

Bend your knees, and you're just letting that leg bone sort of spiral in the hip socket, push back to straight. And you do want to go to straight. Don't be afraid of straight. Inhale, pull the knees towards you. It's almost like you're being pulled right into your shoulders, then extend.

I'll go ever so slightly faster, bend. And push away. And just notice the separation of the disassociation you can have between the hip joint, the knee joint, the ankle joint. They're all kind of moving as they need to, hopefully. Let's do three more here.

Press one, pull it in but keep some weight through the sacrum. Two. And three. Stay there, go ahead and go to the balls of the feet. So still parallel position.

Go into plantar flexion, now just push the ball away a little bit, but not at your mats, right? You don't want to lock off that joint. Leave it to where it has to maintain itself. Then you bend trying not to change that and go from there. Now it's just knees and hips.

I guess it was before too if I think about it. And press. And press straight, and pull. I like also to think about trying to press the bar forward. Forward like away? Yeah, yeah.

That's great, connecting to the hamstrings? Uh-huh. Yeah, okay. You're going down. Let's do five more here, one, and pull, so then if you're pushing away as you go up are you thinking it's pushing on you as it comes back?

That's an, I didn't think about that, but I like that. Work it infinity, right? Uh-huh. I don't know. Last one, stay up from the hips, and sometimes I like to just take my thumbs right into that crease, make sure there is one first of all, and then spiral outward until the heels touch.

The legs are absolutely straight. It's not absolutely critical that the heels touch but give it your best shot, bend the knees. Bend the knees to the shoulders, from way down there by the upper part of the leg start the contraction and push back up. Be real easy to not think about abdominals here but you might as well include them with the breath. We're exhaling as we go along.

We pull down, we push up and away. (exhales slowly) You can go as deep as you want, just don't let the hips really rise up to meet the heels. Rather you draw the heels to the hips. (exhales slowly) Give it three more here. Nice and secure, the heels don't move around.

One more time, finishing it in both directions, stay up. Go ahead and go wide. I'm taking my heels out to the, not the far edge, but pretty close to the edge of the bar. If you can, put the balls of the feet on the rest of the frame. If that's too tight for the calves you can leave them in and work towards it.

Here we go. Bending the knees. You can probably go a little deeper so let it happen. Stay down here for a minute and imagine it was heavier than it is. Keep the anchor through the base of the spine, and then just extend those legs.

That's it. Sometimes I like to think about not just the pushing up and away, but also the adduction, as if we had that big magic circle or something we could drop inward as well. Just sort of make the most of it without overcompensating throughout the rest of the body. Inhaling down, exhaling up. This one feels quite good to me today.

I wasn't going to do it, but if we both-- It's amazing. We both talked about our hips, so... I'm doing three more here. And you can see what you can do, but you just don't want it to affect the whole upper body if you go really low. One more time.

We stay up there, shift it to the balls of the feet. Same thing with those ankles. It's sort of like a... I don't know, it's not a high point and it's not flexed either, but it's somewhere in the middle. You have to actually work through the calves to maintain a wee bend.

We push and straighten. And I agree you can really go quickly to the quads for most of us. It's not that we don't want to work them, but let's make sure the hamstrings are getting their work as well. I think that cue is good, the idea of pushing away. Thank you.

Like you kind of go to the ground. Well, you're welcome. (laughs) We're being so nice to each other because we haven't seen each other in so long. No, you're a good teacher, Meri. (laughs) Well thank you.

That's what I was saying, you can keep teaching and I'm just happy to be doing this one. Can we do just a couple more? Yeah. Whatever the count might be. One more here.

Stay up there. We walk our way back to parallel. We've still got Sitz bones distance apart, and then just take a minute and just find your feet. Look at your feet. See what they do naturally.

Do they roll up? Do they want to roll up? What's happening? Make sure you're secure, then flex, or take your time. Try not to bend your knees more than where you started.

Oh my goodness. Yes. Happy to say I'm dancing again, but boy... I know. (laughs) Stretching my calves back to straight, and let's go slightly quicker but really find the range.

What do you think, Meri? Sometimes I like to grab my toes on and pull down so I get almost like a full (unclear)? Yeah, I do. Okay. And then sometimes I think that's my version of cheating because I kind of takes me out of the stretch a little bit, so I'll play with that.

Mm, interesting. You know? Like it can become a foot thing only. And no, no, no, but what you could do, just keep going right? Who's counting?

But they're both going to push the focus more on one push, one foot pushing, so it does more of the work, and then switch it. I'm doing two each. I'm going to do that one more time to each one, and then we'll move on. But sometimes I just don't know, and honestly since I fell, one side has a lot harder time coordinating. The same side all the time?

Yeah. The same side. It's probably noticeable. I'm not going to point it out, but it's true. All right, do you need a break or can we just stretch here?

I think we can stretch here. Okay, so bend your right knee, push the left heel up, and just hold that stretch. I'm not going to run. I can come back from one. And just check on yourself that your hips aren't hiking one way or the other too much, and then push with the left foot way, way, way, waaay up until both toes are pointed and then switch.

If you hyper extend in your straight leg, it's not that you want to soften it because that will take everything away, but it's maybe to Meri's cue of pushing away ever so slightly, you'll keep it engaged, so it's at least supported. Let's do one more each way. Oh my goodness. I know. I feel the same way. My goodness.

I haven't worn high heel in a long time. I have no excuse, other than I've been on that trampoline. Oki dokey, let's come on down. I'm going to skip single leg, since we did those others. Yeah.

You could either get up, that's one way to do it, or just take off one spring carefully. And just let it come down. Let's do some bottom loaded roll ups. Okay. How's that sound?

Yeah. Yes, okay. So, we take our arms to straight. We fully gripped through the ball with the wrists straight and that's kind of key on this one. That's the thing people, we, I, lose.

So then, with the arms straight as if they're part of the machine you start to curl up, look forward. Continue rising up. Find that straight spine. From there stay tall even though you bend the elbows wide, I'm going to do two, and straighten up all the way. Pull it down as your head rises up, spine rises up back to straight and hold it straight, inhale, and then you roll the pelvis back, and this cue, same cue that Meri said earlier, push that bar forward and away as you roll back and touch, stay ready, inhale, head up.

Exhale, rolling up, hitting all those bones. Stay tall, inhale, bend, exhale, straighten. Great shoulder stretch. Inhale, bend. Exhale, straighten.

Try not to collapse on that inhale. Exhale, push the bar forward as the hip bones come back. We're trying for three more, just like that. You could do this with a lighter spring, you could do it with no spring. I'm not sure any one of them are easy. (laughs) Up we come, and inhale, think long through your lower back.

That's usually where I tend to think I'm upright but not. Hold, inhale, exhale down. Pushing it forward, work with your springs. Be mindful of those collarbones that they don't wrap around you. Two more.

And inhale, bend. I think of an arch, yeah, I think of when the elbow's going to try to reach up through the spine to not quite touch the bar but get near it. And down we go. Last one. Thank goodness.

Huh! Come, don't make me go by myself, I need a friend. (laughs) Up, up, up! And... (exhales) Inhale, and exhale down. Right, slide on. Can I take tarot and then give it back?

Yeah. Right on, okay, so let's do a tarot prep. Taking your hands onto the poster poles, push away until they're straight. They're not real high, they don't have to be touching the mat either. Just take care of yourself on that.

Strap is on, still one spring. If you've never seen it this is not the time to learn it. You're going to stop and do it right. All right, so flex your feet, and I think that cue that Meri said earlier about kind of pushing it by weight is going to apply yet again. And the reason is you don't want to do this thinking it's just an ab exercise, right?

So, push into it. I don't know, would you say something more before we go, Meri? Mm-mm. Do you... Okay.

So, we're going to go into, we'll be bending the knees on this one, so that's that part we're going to do, Meri. So we've flexed the feet. We point the feet. We've got some engagement of the hamstrings. We start to roll up but really we're bending the knees to bring them right over our head.

We're not folding deeply. We want the space. From there we straighten the legs. I'm doing some version of a prep. We rebend, we still have those hamstrings.

Imagine that bar's heavy. We roll back down. The bar is heavy. Huh? The bar is heavy.

Well, there's that. (laughs) Don't forge, I guess is what I'm trying to say. All the way to straight legs, flex your feet. Good point. We point, we start to peel up. So the bar will move a little but not a lot, because you're really just rolling again so you're getting those knees over your forehead, put some space in between, straighten the legs with that sense of pushing away as well, not just up, rebend, pull that bar back to the new position, and from the throat you roll down.

My goodness, that feels so good to me today-- Me too. However imbalanced I might feel. All the way to straight legs, flex. We point, same thing, bend. Draw yourself up.

So yes, the abs, but also the glutes and hamstrings. You could just roll down if you didn't like the straight part, that's fine, but there it is. Rebend to roll down. Either keep to that, or we'll try a few straight on. So we won't do the knee bend part.

We just flex the foot if you haven't already. You point. You engage as if you're going to bend your knees but this time you just go up straight. So you decide what you need, but stay strong on those hamstrings, if you don't flam that's not a good sign. From here you bend.

You go back to straight, and again, roll it down. So it's very similar mechanics there if you choose. Oh, that's good. Just one more. And maybe next time we'll do more of those, or next time if you take the classic then you can do all of them like that.

We're not pulling on the bar. If anything we're kind of pushing from it. Pushing it away, yeah. Yeah. And down.

Down. Subtley resisting that heavy bar. Flex the feet to finish, bend your knees, and let yourself up. So, you want to do something fun? No, not bar.

Well, but, come on. Yeah, of course I do. You can just stay as you are, I'm just-- Okay. Gonna take the spring off. So no spring.

Nope, you don't need the spring. And the safety strap can just stay because it's not important, and then we're going to... So that you're just under the ball with your shoulders, and then hold the bar. If I know you, no spring and fun. That means it's about to be hard.

It's going to be fun! Okay! Good. Okay, so hold the bar. Lift one leg at a time. And here you can push the bar forward, right? So you've got a little bit of control from your back.

Going to take the legs away, hinge them away, tip the mat, pull them back up, drop the feet to the back of the legs, and then curl and keep the feet close to the hips, curl, curl, curl, curl, curl, all the way to the bar, Oh, that's cool. Isn't that fun? Yeah. And now... I told you.

Roll down. (laughs) Sorry. And lift the feet. So that's the whole thing. So that's all, awesome. Yeah, that's it.

Fun. Super fun. I promised. Okay. (laughs) Inhale down with the legs. I'm so sorry.

Exhale, pull up, stable back. Inhale, heels come to the back of the legs. Keep them in tight, that's the hard part. Yeah. Exhale, roll up, up, up, up to the bar.

I don't know, I guess I'm going to have to inhale a little down. I love that. And exhale with he feet. That works. Inhale down with the legs, exhale up, inhale, drop, stay tight, exhale, curl in.

You have to push the bar, right? Yeah. You get to use your arms a little. I love that part about it actually. And then down.

Especially the deceleration right here. Uh-huh. Huh! And then should we do one more? Yes. _ Okay, enjoy.

And pull up, and down, and curl, uncurl, and feet, and one foot down, the other foot down. Wow. Yeah, fun. That was very fun. I stand corrected.

It was not easy but it was fun. What I would really like to do now is some sideline leg circles. Okay. So take the straps off, and let's just start facing inwards, and we'll just line up. So we're going to be right to the front of the towel, the towel and mat, so that we line up with the spring.

Okay, I'm just taking my arm overhead and I'm holding onto the pole. I'm going to take the leg in, and then bring the other arm just down for support. There we go. I know, it's going to be heavy, are you ready? Yeah.

Okay, so we go forward. You can't go away this long because that gives me too many excuses. Up, wrap through the hips. Pull this over and down. Are you going behind the hip?

I'm trying. Okay, good. I'm totally not. Okay, so you can do better. (laughing) Let's make that a little (mumbles).

Is that better? It is. Well, the hips are right there. Yeah, there you go. You did want to loosen it, right?

Yes, I do want to loosen it. So let's just do three more, so six. Make it six for those people who have to stay in the same count, and two, go way up there, up. Press the pelvis slow as you reach back, lordy. I just asked-- I just love how it's going to.

I'm being snarky around my issues (laughs) when I see it in someone else. All right, this'll be six. Yeah, that is six. What I do is I have my hand right in front of my rib so I can see if I'm where I want to be, and then we're going to go to the back of the body. I'll catch up. (laughs)

Up. Whoa. (laughs) Kristi and I are both quite tight. And pull back, and up, all the way through. Nice.

So the back of the leg pulls back. It's quite easy to push from the front. Huh. Right? Yeah.

By pushing the front? It doesn't make sense to me but I know I can feel what you're saying. Like, how could the quads to that when they can't? They can. Huh.

That makes it easy. I mean, better. It's hard. It's easier to get further back when you're-- Mm-hmm, when you're working the back of it. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, just in my mind. No, I know, I did it. I think one more. Okay, this one?

I think finish it. I'm not positive. And then once we get down let's bring that back down the knee, and if you just let your foot drop into this trot you can actually lean here and hold here. Lean, lean back. Lean back?

Yeah, just lean into the spring. Oh. Are you using your thumb? Yeah, I feel it's just about to come out. Okay, and just be careful as you come out.

That was good. Okay, so-- I've done exercises where you think God, if I just did that every day... Right? And then next time, and then when you do it again in two years you'll think about it again like that. Yeah, exactly.

There's that line I said two years ago. No, well, we'll do it before two years goes by for sure. I love it, I love it. Right, are you ready? I am.

You just give me a cue to go. So we start to the front, and I'm on my way. We go up, we both press our pelvis first as we turn the the corner with the leg and come back. I turned to lift my head and look at Kristi to see if I was actually behind my body. I was just thinking I'm so glad you can't see me (laughs) on this side.

(laughing) I'm going to get flying comments going, "Kristi, roll your head forward "just a little tighter on the side." I'm trying, I promise. We're on three? Yeah, three more. Stabilizing the spine. Two.

You know what helps too? I finally remembered there's on this last one is to press the outer thigh of the bottom leg down too. Mm-hmm. So, are you ready to reverse? Yup.

Okay, so we go back, and I'm taking my time as I go back there because the spring's going to help out a little bit too. Mm-hmm. Reaching out also helps me. I'm just noticing I'm starting to turn out a little. I like it.

I don't know if you're staying parallel or trying to-- I'm not, I'm actually... I've been turning out the whole time. Okay. Sorry for not telling you. I probably have been too but I just thought about it.

I'm kind of going for the feel good, it's amazing. Mm-hmm. So, by my count, there are two more to go. I'm trying to reach past my bottom foot as I pass it. I'm also trying to, as I go back, not just back but stretch out the coils more on that diagonal.

Mm-hmm. Mm. Okay so this is where we just come back and bend and let that spring hold the foot, and lean. Oh. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I'm not giving any directions besides for leaning because I only know how to find it in my body, right? Yeah. So you just go until you find it, and if you don't like it you just stop. I hooked my heel on this one, I didn't do that on the other, just, like, touched there. I did a frame.

That feels good. Well that looks nice. I've already taken my foot out. Okay. Woo! What would you like to do?

_ [Kristi] Well, now that we're a little more open let's do some seated push through that Rea taught us, and sometimes it's done with two blue springs that are naturally sitting up there but we're just going to move by one red, up, right? Doesn't matter which side but do loaded up. You don't need your safety spring for this one. Might be a good idea just to flip the leg strings to the back. Good idea.

Just to get them out? Just take them off. Are we going to use them? Yeah, we're not going to use them much. Take them out of the way.

We're getting rid of them so that we don't run into them. It's up to you. We can be fussy when we're procrastinating. But this one feels really good. So with your feet up as close to the bars as you can, I'm going to turn mine out because we have eyelets on here.

Yeah, and just grab it. Same. You're right up on the Sitz bones, the spring is loose, we're upright, tall. We're going to use the pelvis to move the spine. Of course the abs, whatever, we'll just do it.

Whatever. (laughs) (laughs) Whatever. No, I just mean do this (laughs) around your back. Keep your arms straight though, that's key. Keep your wrists straight.

Press the bar forward. Aim towards a flat back. It's a sense of recruiting the back extensors, and then we're just going to backtrack out of this, so you keep the arms straight, you roll past that tailbone, you don't fly up. You roll up using the back extensors again. I am hinging forward, Meri, because I wanted to, and then it's like the front hip bones pull me back.

My feet are sent forward into those poles. Round spine, straight arms, round forward, press forward. When you get as far as you think you can, without shrugging the shoulders, extend your back a little, maybe a subtle downward pressure on the bar and then start to reverse it, roll back. Keep those feet on the bar. That's a hard part for me.

Can I move in to the next one? Mm-hmm. So let's call that the beginning of it. We roll back. This one's a little different.

We're going to keep the left foot, both feet anchored, but particularly that left, and take the right arm off. Actually both feet, keep them anchored. Take the right arm off and reach back. Way back, like you're maybe reaching for the back corner of the mat, you're still in that rounded spine. We're going to come back, can I go right into saw?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. We come back through, you push that left arm straight up, you reach for side, either for your toe or for the bar, and add a rotation. Think of a flat spine on this one for this version. You can push the bar or the spring loose, no big deal.

There's a lot in my arm, let's do it again. Come back to the center, both hands on. Round back, just like we did before. We're seated push through, push through the bar. Keep those feet anchored.

Find that little modicum of back extension, pressing the backs of the legs into the mat. We roll back. We're going to go all the way up to upright, and hinge forward for a stretch there. This time the left hand comes off, but we start by bringing both arms down. Now the left arm comes off.

Keep the left foot definitely connected, tucking under on those, oh, that's the side I needed. And then we just slice through from the waist, press the bar up out of your way. How do you like to do your hands? Oh, I see. So Meri's kind of grabbing from the inside.

You may or may not actually reach that. You could go to your thigh. I like to turn the top of my hand to the outside and use it for an assist. Mm, mm-hmm, that's nice. Yeah, they're on the pole, or-- Let's do two more.

I can get more pull with my arm though. Hm? I can get more pull with my arm, like more flexion. Yeah, sure. Okay, come back now.

All right, getting a little too luxurious over there. (laughing) Two more. Round forward and down. Ooh, I just flexed my wrist. I won't do that next time.

Note to self. Bending and roll back, and use this part. It's like as if the legs were on the small conveyor belt being pushed into the poles. Nice long back on that stretch. We roll down to the point where we can kind of almost hang on the bar, the right arm comes off.

We slice back. If you've pulled the right foot off it doesn't feel as good. This is nice. Just keep going. Oh, we should-- I'm going to keep going.

We're going to keep going. Just keep going. It's the best. All the way. That's so awesome.

I always want to get really dramatic and fast coming out of that, but I won't. Mm-hmm. Slice over for saw, pick your arm position, what works for you, but really the point is not to twist using your arm strength, right? I think you'd agree. It's trying to assist the rotation happening at this line.

Last chance, here we go. I said I wasn't going to do something, I already forgot. (laughs) Mm-hmm. Oh, my wrist right here, right here, yes. (exhales slowly) Settle down the pressure helps me feel those back extensions. Extensor support, we roll back.

We come up. We hinge, get tall, lots of space between the ribs and hips. If I can you can. Roll back, left arm off, left foot especially reaches and we are going to continue all the way around this time. Do you take it to flexion?

That's how Rea does it with me. Mine is inflections. I mean, like, forward? Oh, no. I'm just hanging.

I'm just side stretching. Okay, cool. I like it the other way too. At this moment. That's good.

That's enough. Oh right. I forgot this detail. See, this is what you have friends for. Mm-hmm.

I gave up the last part. Okay, so let's do... Take the bar down, let's do some arms. So you are going to want the yellow arm springs, the short ones, and some handles. You can use the foot steps too though, right?

You could use what? You could use the foot steps too though right? If they don't have handles? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you do if you have a towel, but just saying. So just something

to put your hands in is what I was meaning. Remember just this one. What are you saying? This one here that's closest to the chin, and then you adjust for comfort by backing up or staying close. Do I have to commit or can I adjust when I know? (laughs) Totally, yeah.

Right. So I might go up more because when you go into circles those are going to run into you. So go one more up. Oh. Oh, I guess it's your head and my chin.

(laughs) Funny, sorry. It's okay. (laughs) (laughing) Carry on. I've got a long chin on my face. So we're going to push down to the mat to find some tension on the springs.

You're going to go back and down, and down and forward. It doesn't have to be that slow anymore so just back and down and down and forward. We're just coming from the upper back and feeling the shoulders, the shoulder blades specifically not squeezing together but just depressing, just reaching down and flat. Let me just do a few more, let's say four. And three, making sure Meredith that you're not leaning back.

And two. Last time. Yup, so that's that. Just turning around now, bringing those handles with the straps with you. A high cramp situation over here (laughs) for some reason. You were cramping?

Yeah, just on the edge. So just leaning forward with the body, take the arms forward. That's quite heavy isn't it? And open. Slightly you can fall into it almost, but don't, right?

Pull back, and open, keeping again, shoulder blades just stay apart. They don't come together as the arms open. Just stay nice and wide on the back next to the arm. We'll just do two more, together, and open, and together. Okay, so here we go.

Going to lift the arms up, continue just to think of falling through the arms. Take the arms out to the sides, and then back in front. And then lift the arms up, reaching with the spine through, open, and back. What is this, is this number three? So feeling the shoulder blades, and all the rotational movements now.

So last three. This is a nice way to get some back extension. Yeah, definitely. And together. Especially if you get right up by the ears and have been sitting. Mm-hmm, yup.

Here's our last one. And open, and back and then let's take it in the reverse, circle out, scapula, watch the other rotation, and press forward with your arms as you press down, open, rotation, press forward as you press down. Try not to let the body lean forward and back reach, keep it absolutely still. Just two more. I'm noticing since years ago now I hurt the shoulder, certain motions I want to bend the elbow and I don't know I'm doing it so I'm just encouraging anybody who has to kind of pay attention to the movement and keep the arms straight and same way with the body. Yes.

Okay, and then we just bend the elbows, take one arm forward and then let the arms pass each other, keeping the torso still. Let's do three, fully extending that elbow Kristi, two, fully extending that elbow, not that I, I wasn't even looking-- No, no. I was just telling you. And then come all the way up. And I wonder if we can just find some back extension with these just as they are. Let's check it out.

I think that we can. Okay, so yeah, let's get the handles, and come down. And speaking of with yourself in your springs. So start with the arms just like in a swimming position, but let those springs pull up on them, then we're going to just slightly depress them, energize through the legs, energize through the abdominals, and then start lifting the spine, pulling the arms. I guess we're not really pulling the arms anyway.

They've just sort of stayed as they were. Yeah. Didn't they? And then lowering them but they do go shift forward and back slightly. And then take the arms up.

And then inhale, press down, abdominals lift up into the spine. Now there's energy in your legs, a reaching energy mostly. And then lower, and let the arms come up, and down to float on the springs, and reach. Let's just do two more. It feels like enough to me, what do you think?

I think it feels good, yeah. That's good. I like it though. It's nice. It makes me want to play with it.

Not right now, but could we rock, you know? I don't know. Yeah, maybe. Well, not now. Just this is for-- We'll go further later.

Yeah. But for now let's just enjoy the simplicity of this. Okay, so once down I'm just going to go ahead and let those handles go, placing the forearms on the bed and just pressing back onto the heels. Let's just have a couple breaths here. Stretching the back, lift the elbows off the mat and push your pelvis more towards your feet.

You can just roll up all the way. Is there anything else you would like to do? Just to say that I'm glad you're home. Mm, I'm happy to be home too. Welcome back. Thank you.

'Til next time. Thank you.