Reclaim your Walk

Hi, I'm Myriam Kane. I'm so excited to be here at the beautiful Pilates Anytime with these lovelies and yourselves. And to share a series of classes that I've designed for walkers, for runners, for hikers, really if you have two legs, if you're bipedal, this will be helpful in resetting or reclaiming some of the integrated, really primitive, primitive movements that we were designed, that's deeply encoded into our systems for movement. And once we start to lose those, we begin to disintegrate. And sometimes, more than we even want to really think about.

The good news is, we can reclaim a lot of this, and so, what I'd like you to do is just feel what feels right in your body as we're going through these movements. What feels maybe not so good. Be aware of these things that you feel in the movement so that, as we progress, you can notice the changes in your body. Okay, so we're gonna start with a breath, the first reflex that we had was at birth when we breathed. We're gonna take a nice deep breath in.

Through the nose. And exhale out through the back of the throat. (exhales) And then again, we're gonna breathe in, but I want you to notice if your chest is rising or if you feel expansion in your ribcage. Again, in through the nose. And again exhale out through the mouth.

Now bring your arms out to the side and bend your elbows if you can and bring your hands to your ribcage. So let's see if as we inhale we feel the ribcage expand. And as we exhale, (exhales) we feel that full diaphragmatic breathing. And now, we're gonna bring the tongue to the roof of the mouth and do the same thing. Inhale through the nose.

And exhale out (exhales) through the back of the throat. You're gonna do a couple more breaths. The reason that the tongue is at the roof of the mouth is because that is going to encourage nasal breathing which is much deeper and then diaphragmatic breathing, which is really what we would want to feel. Okay? So, one more breath, inhale in.

Through the nose. Exhale out (exhales) through the mouth. Beautiful. And then we're just going to stand. And looking down at our feet, notice if our feet went wide or if the they are under our sit bones.

And we're gonna go for option B if possible. We tend to go into a pyramid without even noticing, as we lose some of our core awareness. So, we're gonna become core-aware. Feet are down and underneath of our ankles. We're gonna squat back and bring it back up.

So as we squat back, the knees are just gonna stay pretty much where they are, and we're gonna sit back, and I want you to bring your hands possibly to your hips. And just feel the relaxation at the hip flexors as we come up. We sit back, this shouldn't hurt the knees, so I want you to think knees stay where they are, sit bones go back and back up we come. And again, so just simple footwork. Nice, long spine, and coming back.

And then arms are going to go down and back. And down and back up. So as we do this, you may notice that this just doesn't feel natural. Leave your arms there. And now, as we extend, we're gonna bring the arms back.

And notice how that just feels just a little bit more natural. We're wired to move like this. We are wired as an X. We are X's, we're X men and women. We didn't even know it.

But we are, and right back up. And we'll talk more about that in a second. We're gonna squat back, but this time you're gonna go up on your toes. So we're gonna go down, and back up. And as we go back, we can bring the arms back.

And go up we go up. So that might feel a little bit more wobbly. I want you to notice these things 'cause, sometimes we do things and create a disadvantage to our own selves as we try to get stronger. So now the arms are gonna stay back as we extend up onto the toes. And as we go down we're gonna bring the arms forward.

And then as we extend, the arms are gonna extend backwards. This is the beginning of maybe a cross pattern. And back again. And back up, hold. And hold low, bring the hands here.

So, now we're gonna lift up onto the heels or onto the toes, lift. And bring them back down. And lift up. And bring them back down. So we get a nice, long spine.

Reaching from the crown of the head up through the tailbone. And down. So as we lift up we're working into a deep layer of calf muscle, the soleus. That we use when we're walking and running. We're gonna hold that this time.

We're gonna bring a heel down, and the other. Now, you're noticing, I know I'm noticing, that one leg might feel different than the other. And that's what we're doing. We're not judging, we're noticing. Two more.

And one. Bring the heels down. And bring it all the way back up. Okay, so we're talking about X's. If we think shoulder to hip, shoulder to hip, or if you're familiar with the Vitruvian or the Vituvian, anyways, Man.

Okay, you're gonna see an X, right? That X connects at the center. So the X marks the spot. That's already telling us the way we're created to that X. That something here is supposed to integrate the right and left.

And it's the right, left hemispheres of the brain, and that's why walking is so important for us, and we need to be able to do it well. Alright, so take a breath in through the nose. And exhale out. (exhales) And we're gonna work on our balance. So I'm gonna choose my leg that has the least amount of balance, and I'm gonna, that's gonna be my balance leg.

We're gonna push through that leg and breathe the other leg up. And I always encourage, try to do your side that, bring it back down, has a little bit less balance. Why not, right, because we can reclaim. And back. And I think that's the good news.

We tend to think we're stuck with where we are, and we're not. We might start losing possibilities of doing things, so just notice and feel. But we can reclaim it by neural rewiring. Right, we prune away what we don't use. But we can reclaim that by rewiring and etching it into our systems.

Beautiful, bring that leg down, let's go to the other leg. So we lift that leg up, find your balance. And back down, so we ground through that standing leg. So you may notice, I know I do, that sometimes my toes are doing a little bit more work than my center. These are things you want to notice.

You're just checking in right now. And back down, we'll do that one more time. And back down, excellent. We'll go back to the original leg. And now we're gonna challenge it by bringing the leg forward, and sweeping it back.

Bringing it forward, and sweeping it back. We're gonna add an arm, as one leg goes forward, the other arm's gonna go forward. So this will be a natural pattern when we walk, it's that cross pattern. So just hold your balance. Don't be worried if you fall over, you get back up and do it again, right?

No baby says, "I've fallen enough times, "I'm not getting up back up one more time," I'm done with this walking thing." So we can reclaim it. We're gonna hold in the back position. Hold there, sorry guys. Bring the legs, I'm sorry, the arms, not the legs, out to the side. But you get extra credit if you can get the legs out to the side.

And then we're just gonna hinge over. And bring it back up. And hinge over. And bring it back up. You should feel this in your standing glute.

Right, you're doing somewhat of a deadlift. But it's some balance work. One more time, over we go. And we bring it back up. Awesome, we're gonna change legs.

So we go to the other leg. Same thing, take a breath. And find your balance. You might think of pezzing or wrapping at the top. Find your balance on the other leg.

It could be a whole different leg. You're just gonna do a little scale back. And forward. So the front has to let go for the back to fire. And in walking and running back, the extension of the leg going back, not the back, but the leg going back, is really critical.

And it can't go back if it's held from the front. That makes sense, right? So now you're gonna go with the other arm. You're going into your cross pattern. So many of us, or probably all of us, have some tight bits.

And oftentimes it's because whatever the brain needs, it's gonna take. If it senses that we don't have the stability that we need, I know I'm feeling it, then it's going to steal it from another body part, and bring your leg all the way back down. Nicely done. And now we're gonna come down to a squat position. So as comfortably as you can.

And I missed that, so let's do that. We're gonna bring that leg back, thanks guys. So we have the lovely Mandy and Daria and Sarah and Martha here. And between all of us we will remember what we're going to do. We're gonna come all the way back up.

And back out again. So as you're going back, what I want you to feel is your standing leg. You feel how deep and around the bone the muscles are that are working? Okay, and those are the muscles that really are designed to help stabilize us. And if we use those guys to move more than we do to stabilize, they're gonna become tighter.

And actually it's the other way around is what I'm meaning to say. The muscles that stabilize us, that was really pretty though. I love how we can make things come together some way, and I am right with you. Okay, so, beautiful. Let's go ahead and have a seat.

So we're gonna come down to a seated position. Whatever way feels most comfortable right now. We're gonna sit facing in, in a butterfly position. So feet are going to be together like this. Alright, so as I'm yammering on, I hope that you're getting the fact that what I'm trying to really say is that certain muscles are designed, were designed to do certain things with certain muscles.

If those muscles are not available, other muscles have to go double time. And they get a little uptight, just like we do when we have to go overtime, right? So in this position here, we take a breath. And then we're gonna go double chin, 'cause we're all friends. So make a double chin, sorry.

Bring your chin down, I know. Then your eyes are gonna come up and your face is gonna follow as you look up. And bring it right back down. Let's do that again. So, we're gonna make the double chin, we're gonna bring chin to chest.

The eyes are gonna look up, and the head is going to follow. So one of the things we lose is cervical extension. And bring it back down. We're not going to, we're gonna reclaim it. And again, we're creating neural pathways.

We're not creating them, we're just re-energizing them. Or maybe we do have to recreate them. And bring that chin in one last time. Down we go. The eyes come up, the head follows.

And here we go, excellent. So the leg that's closest to me, what I'd like you to do with that leg, is you're going to internally rotate it now and bring it into really a mermaid position. And you're gonna notice right off the bat that perhaps, I would imagine that we all feel some tension maybe somewhere. It might be in the glute, it might be in the middle back. What I'd like you to do is just kind of square off your leg with the end of your mat, or if you're at home, with a wall or something that you can feel you're square off with, it doesn't really matter, okay?

Your hands are gonna be behind you. Your feet are gonna stay on the floor. So your brain knows you're safe. You've already gone as far down as you're gonna go, okay? Great place to work on our hip internal, external rotation.

So now we're gonna press down with the feet and we're gonna turn to the other side. And again, we're gonna press down with the hands and the feet, and turn. And we're gonna try to sit straight up. Uh-huh, right? So, if I'm over here I'm all good.

But I come over here, and ooh, I get it, okay? So again, we're gonna press. It'll get better. And again. So the person that has really been teaching me the most about this kind of movement is about so big.

His name is Jude, he's my little grandson. But I've been watching him move, and watching all those developmental stages, and it just really shows me where we grow out of and then what we can go back and reclaim, and science is showing us, we're doing this one more time. And we're gonna come back facing in. And then depending on your body and how comfortable you feel, we're gonna come up to a quadruped position. So, maybe, you just want to unload your knee and come up.

There are various ways of getting up, but right now we're checking in and seeing what feels right and wrong, okay? Okay, so, we're gonna do windshield wipers in this position. That's what we were just doing there, but we were on the floor with both our sit bones and our feet on the floor. Now you're gonna lift the leg closest to me, and you're going to go in, external rotation, even though that's going in, and then out, internal rotation. So this might feel different.

You're not grounded, it's your foot, right? But just notice. There's no judgment, we're not looking for perfection. None of us are perfect and we're never gonna get there. Might as well get over it.

But we do want bodies that carry us through life without pain. And bring it back and put it back down. Awesome, other side, other story. Bring it up, and then we're gonna go in and we're gonna go out, and in. So notice what you feel here.

If you feel just different restrictions, maybe? Maybe your brain's been using muscles that are designed to move, to stabilize, and if that happens, they get uptight. We start using the right ones, it's no big deal. And we come right back back to our quadruped. So now we're in quadruped.

This is the basis for good walking and good running. Good hiking, good movement. It's how we develop our cervical spine and our lumbar spine. You're gonna press down into your floor or your mat. Not by rounding your back, but by just pressing down.

And you'll feel these muscles, these stabilizers in your shoulder girdle, okay? And then you're gonna tuck your chin, here we go again, and then your eyes are gonna go up, and you're gonna bring your head up, and bring it back down. And again, you're gonna tuck your chin, and your eyes are gonna start to look forward and look all the way up. And do that two more times. So you started out with a big old melon head, no offense, we all did have big heads, right?

And how do you stabilize such a big head on that little neck? And you do, but then we lose that. So we need to reclaim that or you end up with a head that's sticking way forward, and that's no good. So here we are, and we're gonna stay right where are right now in our quadruped. The neck should feel nice and long, the chest is coming through the spine is long.

And then we're gonna wag. So you're gonna wag towards me, I'm gonna wag away, and you're gonna look to your hip. And then you're gonna wag the other way. So notice if one side feels more restricted than the other. It's not a judgment, it's just telling you that there's restriction because something is probably overworked for something else.

And one more time, other side, and back. So now we're back to that quadruped. And we're going to do something that I just think is much more difficult than one would think. We're just gonna float to the right hand and left knee off. And bring it back down.

So this is where, now we're gonna alternate. Can you feel your X? So remember when we started we talked about the X that goes like this, yes? Okay, and the right and left hemispheres of the brain connect to the opposite side of the body. So now, we're integrating, and this is really important work.

If this is hard, get excited, you just figured out that something can be reintegrated that's going to make movement easier for you. Bring your heads or neutral or so, your eyes are looking somewhat forward, they're not just dropping. We're gonna do that one more time. And then stop wherever you're at. And so now we're going to take this into a crawl, but before we do that, we're going to go ahead and get rid of our towels.

Move those back, if you will, ladies? Okay, so we're gonna bring ourselves back to that crawling position with, the wrist is under the armpit. The knees are under the hips. Now, we need to think about that. That there was a time when nobody told us how to crawl.

We just innately knew that. It's really something we're hardwired for in our bodies, and that's why we can go back to this, it's in there. Okay, so just have faith. Now, in this position here, what I do want us to do before we crawl is we're just gonna slight go forward, and then we're gonna go back. And if you've ever watched a baby, how they start this rocking back and forth.

We're gonna take our time coming forward and going back. This is part of the development of that cylinder of core from the pelvic floor all the way to the diaphragm. It's also very soothing. And back, you think of a mama rocking her baby or if we're upset, we might rock ourselves. And come forward, stop in your quadruped.

And now, let's go ahead and lift that right hand, left knee. We're going to bring them forward. Feel what happens at your X. And bring it down. And then same with other, left hand, right knee, come forward, and again.

Boom, and we're gonna stay right where we are and then we're gonna go back. So if you're at home, you're doing this with us. Okay, and back. And you could pause and do this for a while, okay? The longer you can do this, the better.

You're reintegrating your nervous system. You're hittin' reboot. You know how you hit reboot on your computer? Uh-huh, me too. So you're gonna go back and forth at leisure.

Back we go. And we're also gonna do that for our nervous system and we're capable of doing it. And there's plenty of research to prove that so that's very exciting. And bring it all the way back. Now you're gonna walk back.

If you have a towel or grab a pillow off the couch, it doesn't matter. If it's uncomfortable for you to sit back on your feet, you can put a towel under your ankles or you can put it behind your knees. It'll get better over time and you won't need that, but you don't want to just make your body angry. Okay, from this position here, we could sit here for a while, okay? So if you want, you could hit pause and you could sit here for a couple minutes, or maybe if you're not used to doing this, 30 seconds.

And then hit play again, okay? And then we're gonna come up and do the same but on our toes. So most of us, this is not necessarily our happiest place because of shoes, and shoes are gonna kill proprioception if we can't feel the ground. A lot of little sensory nerves running through the feet that go to that vestibular system, tell us where we're at in space. So if this isn't comfortable, you need to do it.

Alright, so maybe we'll roll out to the pinky toes. Some of us are happier, some of us are sadder. Martha's not real happy she came this morning. And then we're gonna roll in towards the big toe. And out, and big toe, and back out.

So you're kind of fanning, right? Finding where you're most inhibited. Knowing that that's not gonna stay that way. You're gonna work on it, okay? Then we're gonna come up to a kneeling position.

So we're gonna put the feet back down. And I want you to think of that pezz, I mentioned that in the running video we did a while back, but it's just a really kind of a wrap, it's just gentle it's not crazy. And then, we're going to bring the leg closest to me forward. So, let me just say this. And I'll face you.

We're gonna attempt not to flip out, okay? So flipping out is a tight hip flexor, typically. Just saying, so we're attempting not to, but it may happen, just saying. So you're holding nice and tall, and we're just gonna bring that leg forward and we're gonna bring it back. Nice, and we're gonna do that again.

So each time, you're gonna try to hold the balance before you put the foot out. And then we get pickier and pickier as we go, of course. So we're not gonna drag the foot if we can help it. We're gonna try to, whoa, lift it. It's not so easy at first.

And back. And the longer it's been since we've done this kind of stuff, right? Then the longer it might take to reintegrate it, but there's not a never, so be excited about that. Bring it back. And then you're gonna take the leg that is furthest from me and you're gonna do the same thing.

Now, different leg different story. We go forward, and back. So where the eyes go, so does the rest of us, so don't look down. Look forward on the horizon. Think light.

Kind of like when you're walking and running. You don't think about pilate-ing, you think light. So I cheated, I put my toes down, you might've seen that. Try not to do that. Bring that foot forward, and back.

And I think we're done. I think that's good, okay? So something for us to practice. We're gonna come back and have a seat. Come to our sides, it's comfortable.

You're going to be facing me. And we're gonna go onto our backs for some leg changes. So we're gonna roll back. All the way back, however you're comfortable. So we're rolling back, we're gonna bring the right leg to tabletop position, and put it back down.

You're gonna bring the other leg to tabletop position, and bring it back down. Now you're gonna bring your hands to the front of your hips, and you're gonna bring the leg to tabletop, and put it down. Notice how this may or may not tighten up. Bring the other leg up, your hip flexors are definitely working, they're lifting the leg, but we don't want gripping. So can you relax the front of your leg?

And bring it up, sure you can. And down. And again, exhale as you bring it up. You're gonna leave the leg up in the air. Bring your arms out to the side into a T position, and you're gonna float the other leg up, right there.

Nice. Legs are gonna stay here. We're gonna inhale towards me. As we go over, that top knee is going to slide over that bottom knee. And we're gonna exhale into the obliques to bring it back.

You're inhale away from me, top knee reaching and sliding over the bottom knee so that you're not just shearing at your side joints. And then you're gonna think pubic bone to nose as you come back. So really deep, think of that X, you should feel your X. So if your X is a little loose up top, I want you to bring it towards the opposite X point. Am I making sense, shoulder to hip, without curling, right?

Inhale over, and we exhale back. So powerful movements happen in spirals. And bringing it back. And over, and we're created so incredibly well, that when we rotate, the adrenals that sit on those kidneys, gets wet, they get a massage. I don't know about you, my adrenals could use all the massage they can get.

And bring it back. Inhale again, one more time. And exhale it back. Now, as you inhale away from me, you're gonna go all the way, but you're gonna bring your knees into your chest to support your back a little, as you bring your knees all the way over to the floor. And you're gonna take your hand that's away from me and you're gonna bring it over so that we're all looking this way.

Beautiful. Reach the hands away from each other. Look at the top hand, I want you to look at the top hand. Bring that hand up towards the ceiling, and back over to the other side. You're tracking with your eyes the whole time.

And as you exhale, you're gonna look at that hand, the hand's gonna reach, the eyes are looking at the hand, the neck follows, so does your body. And then again. So 90% of the cells, and bring it back. Your visual cells actually get information back to your vestibular system, and tells you where you're at in space, so the more we can do with that, the better we are at rewiring some of that balance work. One more time, we're gonna go all the way back.

We're looking at the hand. Beautiful. And this time we're looking at the hand you're gonna go all the way back over again, bringing the knees with you this time. And over to the other side. So now you're facing towards me.

And you're gonna bring the hand over. So the top hand's gonna slide over the top of the bottom. What a beautiful view. Bring the arms up, the arm up, sorry, and all the way over, got a little sidetracked. And keep reaching.

So you're reaching out of that arm, look at that hand, as we come back. Now, of course, you're tongue is at the roof of your mouth, you're breathing through your nose. Of course you are. And reach, right? And again.

So as we come over, you're exhaling. (exhales) And reach. And as we go out you're gonna inhale through your nose, tongue to the roof of your mouth, and over we go. And we'll just do one more. Bringing it all the way over and back.

All the way back, bringing the legs back as well. Bringing the hands down there at your sides. And the feet close to our bottoms. We take a nice, deep breath in, and we go into, let's bring the legs completely together. A deep posterior tilt.

So you're just doing a little bit of a pelvic curl. So depending on what is going on with you today. And know that we're building gradual progressions. And again, de-posterior tilt. This might be a good place to stay.

Listen to what your body is telling you. Okay, we go by feel. If it feels right, we know we are right when it comes to movement like this. If there's any red flag that goes up, you're just going to stop at the place that feels right and visit there. Knowing you'll go a little further.

We're gonna go into that posterior tilt. Holding in a posterior tilt now. Arms down by the side, we begin to peel the spine up, vertebra by vertebra. Reaching the knees away from us. So with those legs closer together, I know I'm feeling a lot more of stretch in the hip flexors and the quads.

There's many ways to do these, we're just doing this to be aware. And then articulate right back down. If my front is tight, it might inhibit my back line. And again, again, that might have happened because my body robbed these muscles to use for stability instead of movement. And articulate down.

That will go away with these resets. And release. One more time, we're gonna go all the way back up. Up here at the top, you're pressing gently down with your triceps. You're gonna lift your right heel.

That may already be enough to challenge your stability. If it is, you're gonna put it right back down. Otherwise, as we lift the heel again, same leg, we might possibly lift the whole leg to a tabletop position. And bring it back down. And back up, we exhale, inhale, coming back down.

I want you to press through that bottom leg. You're either lifting your heel or you're lifting your whole leg. You decide which is best for you. You want to feel stable. Keep pressing through that bottom leg.

That's the leg that extends when you walk and run. One more time, we're gonna stay here. We're gonna extend the leg up to the ceiling, or we're not. We're gonna do what feels right. Lift that heel up, and you're gonna push through the bottom heel as you lift and lift.

And you're not lifting from your lower back. You're lifting from your hip. And that's a problem when we walk or run. If we don't have the range of motion in the front, we end up robbing it from the lower back. One more time, we're gonna hold.

Bend the knee, bring the foot down, nicely done. Reach those knees away, reset, so to speak. Bring in your pubic bone up towards your belly button. And we float the left heel or the other heel, one closest to me up, and back down. And then back up, and we're testing the waters, we may be okay to bring the whole leg up if we feel stable.

And then we touch down. We exhale as we bring it up. And back down. And (exhales) and two. Last one.

We're gonna bring it up. We're gonna extend it all the way up to the ceiling. We're gonna reach through the heel. We're gonna press through this bottom leg. And we're gonna press up.

If this bothers the back, we're gonna bend the knee. There's always something we can do to modify. And two more. Beautiful. And one, bend the knee.

Bring that foot right back down. And articulate down one vertebra at a time. And release, nice. Extend the right leg, left leg. Arms over head.

And then we're going to roll over. Now don't do it yet. We're gonna roll over. So as we roll over, I want you to think about where you're rolling from. You're gonna roll, no surprise, from your X, right?

So as you go over, keep your legs out of it and try to roll yourselves over. I'm gonna move over. And then we're gonna roll ourselves over to the front trying to use the hips. Oh sorry, guys, got you right on the floor. Mandy sacrificed for the team.

(laughs) Thanks, girl. Okay, beautiful. We're gonna bring our arms down by our side. She'll pay me back later. Alright, squeeze those arms in.

We're just gonna go into a simple back extension. So again, right along the same premise that, well, we know it's true, that if we lose range of motion somewhere, the brain will rob it from somewhere else. And if it's not designed for that, we'll start having some stuff happening. And it's not gonna be good stuff. So for me, it's my low back.

Go ahead and pick on myself. So I'm gonna think about reaching my tailbone away from me. I'm gonna draw my abdominals in, because I have to consciously think of it, 'cause I've lost it a little bit. Eventually, hopefully, is no longer something we have to think about. We're gonna reach through the crown of the head, lifting the head.

So the eyes are going to come up. Remember that double chin. You're thinking double chin. You lift the eyes, you lift your heart, you're reaching through your legs, just squeezing those arms into your side. And then we're coming right back down.

And again, we're inhaling as we lift up, feeling that chest come forward, and reach, and we hold, and we slowly come right back down. Beautiful, we'll do that one more time, where we reach through the crown of the head. The knees are off, the feet are pressed down, the legs are active, the legs can be apart if it feels more comfortable for you. And hold here. And now we're going to keep the shoulders open, but turn the palms up.

Right leg's gonna go up, and down. Left leg's gonna go up, and down. We're gonna match it with the opposite arm. Right leg, left arm. Right hand, left leg.

Until we go into a swim. Inhale, and exhale (exhales). And a deep inhale. And we exhale in length. And inhale.

You can do these slowly, you can do these quickly, it really doesn't matter, okay? Inhale. You can play with both. And exhale. And inhale.

And exhale, last time, one more time. Inhale. And exhale, and bring it all the way back down. Nicely done. We're gonna bring the hands forward.

Bring ourselves up to a quadruped. We're gonna curl the toes under. And we're gonna press ourselves up into an upstretched position. So we're going to go where the body's willing to go. Heels might be up high, heels might be down.

We're trying to frame our ears with our arms. And we're going to lift those heels up. And we're gonna bring them back down. Let's bend the knees if we can. And lift the heels up, and bring them back down.

One more time, gonna lift up. Try to leave your sit bones up high as you bring your heels back down. And stay right there. We're gonna take the leg that is closest to me, and we're gonna reach it away. So I'd like you to think internal rotation at your hip.

That's the way that we start out in utero. So you're going to feel, more than likely, a nice little stretch on the standing leg, yes? Awesome. And then we're going to turn the leg out and that's stretch might migrate. And we're gonna lift it up a little higher if we can, whatever feels right.

We're gonna bend the knee. Lift that knee up, and reach it across midline, and back, just kind of back and forth. Back and forth. And then extend it. Bring it back to neutral or parallel, and bring it back.

Bend the knees. Take yourself onto your toes, push down into your hands, reaching your shoulders away from your ears. Bring those heels back down if that feels right. You're gonna reach the leg away from me up to the sky, towards. Beautiful.

You're gonna turn it out. You guys look awesome. You're gonna reach that leg up to the sky. We're doing what we can today with what we've got. Knee's gonna bend.

We're gonna open that hip up, bring it across. And bring it back. And across, noticing how the stretch migrates with the position of the leg, and we extend right up. We bring that leg down in parallel, we come right back down to a quadruped position, and sit back on our feet again. We take a nice, deep breath here, into the ribcage.

Exhale everything out. (exhales) And again, nice and expansive breath. Tongue to the roof of the mouth, and exhale. (exhales) We're gonna bring ourselves back up to a kneeling position. Bring the leg closest to me further, closest to me forward.

Try not to flip it out. Hands are gonna come down to the floor. And I'm actually gonna bring this right up. Let's bring ourselves back up, actually, instead of being closer to the floor. Bring your hand down to your back leg.

And I want you to swipe up this leg, and feel if that increases your range of motion. I know that feels crazy, or it sounds crazy, I thought so, but, it does work. So reach down, again to your skin, you're in the front of your leg. So bring your hand to the palm of your, the palm to the front leg. And you're gonna swipe up, which is affecting some of your receptors, and you're gonna bring your arm up to the sky.

And you should feel a little bit deeper stretch in that back hip. Bring the hand down, both hands on both sides of the leg. We go to our hammy release. We're gonna bring it back, and you're gonna do the same thing with this leg. You're gonna bring your hand to the back of your knee.

So hand to knee, and you're gonna swipe back as you pull the foot back. And then you're gonna come forward again. You're gonna come all the way up. You're gonna swipe that leg and extend. Take a nice breath.

Exhale. You're gonna bring it right back down. You're gonna bring your hand behind the knee. You're gonna swipe the leg back, swiping, yeah, optimizing our systems. Some parallels here.

And then you're gonna bring that leg all the way back. And we go to the other leg. We're gonna bring this leg forward, the other leg forward. Same thing, you're gonna bring your hand that matches your back leg, and you're gonna swipe up that muscle, and extend up, eyes are on the horizon, bring your body weight back. And bring the hands down.

So we're going back and forth. And then you're gonna bring your hand behind your knee, swipe back as you pull the foot back. Bring the hands back. You're gonna bring yourselves up, swipe up that muscle, and up. There are receptors in our muscles, and bring it back down again, that understand a swipe as a stretch.

It's kind of cool. So you're speaking the magic language. And forward. The language that it understands, right? Come forward up, bring it up, and this'll be our last one as we bring the hands back down.

We bring our hand behind the knee, and swipe back. Beautiful. Bring the other knee back. We're gonna have a seat facing in. Turn to face in.

And just take a nice, deep breath. We're gonna bring the arms all the way up to the sky. Reach, reach, reach. Let your eyes go up as well. Hands are gonna touch.

Press your hands together, bring them down in front of your face and to your heart. Take a deep breath into your back. And exhale. (exhales) And again, deep breath in. And exhale with deep gratitude for a body that forgives, and again, deep breath, and that allows us to grow.

Thank you. Yay! (applauds)