Good Morning Mat

Hi, I'm Troy McCarty. I'm from Cleveland, Ohio. I'm with Erin, I'm with Meredith, very excited to be here. We're gonna do a mat class that I give myself, so this is like my good morning, get ready, get your rear end out of bed, and get to my studio. But before I do that, I lay down on the floor, and I go through these mat series.

My dogs love it because it's play time for them. I got two chihuahuas, and they're all over me during this. So, if you see me like certain different moves, that's because my dog is licking me in my face at the time. Let's begin, alright? So we're gonna stand up nice and tall, and your feet are right underneath your hips.

And I want you to feel your feet on the floor. So relax your toes, and think about your alignment, your tummy muscle in. We're gonna do some real simple knee bends. So let's bend our knees three times. So we go bend one and a stretch, and a two and a stretch, and a three and a stretch, now on the fourth, we're gonna raise up and a down.

So we go bend and stretch, bend and stretch, and bend and stretch and raise, lower it down. And bend the knees and stretch, bend the knees and stretch, bend and stretch and up and down, one more. Bend and stretch, bend and stretch, and bend and stretch, and up and down. Just make sure that when you go up, that you're not rolling out or you're rolling over. I know it's early, but it really helps warm these feet up, feel the ground, alright?

Let's do one more exercise as far as spines. Let's just do some simple rotations. All I want you to do is bend your knees, and kind of let your arms hit where they need to. Just a little rotations in the spine. We're shaking all that fluid up into the spine.

We're getting ready for the day. And just a couple more, alright? That's it, just feel that little stretch and that little rotation, perfect. Alright, very good, let's come to the front of our mats. Let's go ahead and sit down, alright?

And sit, oh that was beautiful (laughs). Alright, then your feet there, and let's just do a simple roll down and get into place. We're gonna do some pelvic lifts, alright? So go ahead and roll back, and perfect. And your arms are down beside your body.

Bring your heels a little bit closer to your body. So I want to see that you put your heels about six inches away from your sit bones, if your knees can handle that. And I want you to be really, really aware that your knees are going over that second toe. Also think about what your upper body should be doing. I want to see lots of width across your shoulders.

I want to see your arms reaching down. I want you to feel like you have your scapulars down in the palms of those hands. We're in that neutral spine, meaning that the spines have the natural curve, alright? So let's just do a few pelvic lifts series, alright? So let's take an inhale, and that's a wide breath for your back, and during your exhale let's go ahead and let's curl that spine up slowly, bone by bone.

Perfect, that's it, and relax the neck and shoulders. Now hold there, take another inhale, and let's soften the chest, and let's exhale, just lower down bone by bone. Right. Let's try that again, let's take our inhale and during your exhale, let's roll that spine up slowly, bone by bone we're working. Good, excellent.

Take another inhale, and exhale, and let's roll that spine down. Very good. You know, I studied from Romana, and Romana was big about the spine. She would tell me to think of my spine like a strand of pearls, and there's space between each pearl, and those were my vertebrals and the discs, so there was space and I was creating space in my spine. Let's try that one more time.

Come on down, all right? So let's take a big inhale through our nose, and during your exhale, let's curl the pelvis up slowly, bone by bone, rolling up. Think of your thighs reaching forward, your knees over those second toes, your shins over your ankles. Take another inhale. Exhale, let's roll down.

Very good. Excellent, bone by bone. Perfect, very nice. Okay, let's do a little bit of a pelvic stabilization exercise, all right? So our pelvis is now like a punch bowl, so we're gonna keep the punch inside the bowl.

All I want you to do is lift your right leg up, just a little bit, and see if you can maintain that stabilization through your pelvis, and then put your foot back down. And let's try the other leg, so lift it up, good, and then lower it back down smoothly. Very good. And we lift up, and the pelvis remains absolutely stabilized and you lower it back down, perfect. And you lift up, excellent, and you lower it back down.

Okay let's hold there. Let's take another inhale, and during your exhale, let's roll the pelvis up slowly, bone by bone. Good, now let's maintain that pelvic stabilization and let's take that right leg and let's lift it up without dropping the hip. So we lift it up, perfect, and then lower back down. Let's try the left leg, lift it up.

Excellent, and lower back down, and let's do the right leg again. Up, excellent, and down. And let's do the left leg up, very good, and down, and let's take that inhale and exhale. Let's lower down, let's think about that strand of pearls, bone by bone, pearl by pearl. Very good, and you relax, very nice.

Good. So let's go ahead and let's move onto the hundreds. So the hundreds, the very, very famous Pilates exercise. So let's bring those legs up one more time into a tabletop position. So I like to connect my heels and let my knees open just a little bit.

Connecting your heels identifies that center line in your body. Let's take an inhale and raise our arms up to the ceiling, and during your exhale, I want you to pull your arms down, extend your legs out, and upper body comes up into that thoracic curl. Then we're gonna pulse, we go one, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five, two, two, three, four, five, two, two, (inhales) four, five, three, two, three, four, five, three, two, three, four, five, four, two, three, four, five, four, two, (inhales) four, five, five, two, three, four, five, five, two, three, four five, six, two, three, four, five, (inhales) three, four, five, seven, two, three, four, five, seven, two, three, four, five, eight, two, three, four, five, eight, two, (inhales) four, five, nine, two, three, four, five, nine, two, three, four, five, 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, now reach, go ahead and bring it back in, and lower yourself back down. Excellent, and let's put the legs back down on the ground. Alright so with the hundreds, with the arms pulsing, I was told that you want your accent to go up.

I studied from Bruce King, and Bruce would tell me, "Slap puddles of water." Feel like you're slapping, axing. So could we just do 10 more with that kinda feeling? Yeah, Erin you're good with that? Meredith, great. Okay, bring those legs up one at a time.

We connect the heels, raise those arms up with the inhale, and let's exhale, just bring the body up, extend those legs out, and let's pulse, go. Up, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five, two, two, three, four, five, up, up, up, all right, very good, bend your knees and bring it back in. Excellent. Just be careful, it's really easy to get the upper body pumping. You wanna keep that upper body absolutely stabilized.

All right, good. Let's go ahead and let's start with our legs down. So extend them down. Let's flex our feet and connect our inner thighs together. Okay, and let's raise the arms up, and let's bring them behind as far as you can go without popping your ribs up.

This is your roll up. So let's inhale, and let's start the arms moving forward. Bring your upper body up and exhale. Continue your movement, come on on over, and really reach, exactly. Now anchor those sit bones down.

Take your inhale, start pulling your pubic bone back, exhale, roll the spine down. A lots of energy coming through those heels, and then release those arms back. Let's try that one more time. Inhale, the arms start moving. Exhale, you roll up through that spine, reaching through.

Now anchor those sit bones down, feel like you're up and over. Those arms are reaching. Pull the pubic bone back. Let's aim those vertebrals, here's that strand of pearls again, and then the arms reach back. Let's try it one more time, take your inhale, your arms start raising up, exhale.

You curl up and you roll. Anchor those sit bones, that's up and over. Take your inhale, start pulling your pubic bone back. Roll that spine down, let's see you get those vertebrals touch one at a time. Very good, bring it in.

This is your last one. Inhale as your arms come up, exhale, you curl up and you roll. You go up and over, you keep that nice space. Perfect, you pull that pubic bone back, the spine bones one at a time. Very nice, very good.

And excellent, very good. Let's move on, all right. Go ahead and put your arms down. Let's start with the right leg. Slide the right leg up into a tabletop.

Take your hands and put it behind your thigh. So this is leg circles, single leg circle. Let's go ahead and let's take an inhale, and during your exhale, let's push that leg up to the ceiling. Exhale, and bend your knee on the inhale. And go exhale, and good, and press.

Go ahead and let go and put your arms down beside your body. Now keep your leg right up there, soft point. We're gonna circle the leg, we're gonna keep the pelvis absolutely still. So the only thing I wanna see happening is the leg circles, the pelvis is that punchbowl feeling again. So here we go, we inhale, the leg goes over across the body, down, around, and back up, and stop.

Inhale and exhale, over, and up. Go, inhale, over, down, around and back up. Inhale, over, down, around and back up. Let's do one more. Inhale, over, down, around and up.

Now let's reverse it, go. Out, down, around, and stop. Out, down, around, and stop. Out, down, around, and stop. One more.

Out, down, around, and stop. Hold, bend that knee, maintain your pelvis, slide that leg out, slide the other leg up, keep your pelvis stabilized, extend it, put your hands behind, and we go press and return, and we push the foot up to the ceiling, and we return, and go foot up the the ceiling, very good. Now hold. Your arms are down beside your body. Center that leg.

So we're doing the other side. So we take the leg over, and we go inhale, exhale, around. Go over, down, out, and around. Over, down, out, and around. Go over, down, out, one more please.

Over, down, out, let's reverse it. Go out, down, around, back up. Out, down, around, back up. Out down, around, back up. Out down, around, back up.

Bend that knee, and return and slide it out. Just a few pointers about leg circles. You wanna stop at the same point, all right. So we take the leg, it crosses midline, goes out and it stops exactly at the same point. Let's try that once with this is the right leg.

So let's bring the leg up, extend it up to the ceiling. Now make sure that this is a leg that is placed well and we're still maintaining a lot of distance between the rib and the hip. So the leg goes over, and it goes over, down, around, and it stops. It's like a bullseye right here and it hits it. Over, down, around, back up.

Good Erin. Over, down, around, back up. One more. Over, down, now let's reverse. Go, out, down, around, back up.

Out, down, around, back up. Out, down, one more time. Out, down, much better. Bend that knee, bring it down, slide the other leg up, here we go. Let's go right into that circle.

Identify your point, your bullseye up there, and it goes over, down, around, back up. Over, down, around, stop. Over, down, around, one more. Over, down, reverse. Out, down, around, back up.

Out, down, around, back up. Out, down, around, back up. Out, down, very good, bend that knee. Return it, all right, very good. So that bullseye idea, Romana taught me that.

Let's go ahead, let's do another roll up twist sitting position. Hands back, watch those ribs, keep 'em down, and take your inhale, start bringing your body forward. Inhale, roll up through that spine to a sitting position, and you might wanna, right, now go ahead and sit all the way up nice and tall. Let's scoot down now and let's get ready for rolling like a ball. So we're gonna grab those shins.

Exactly, elbows are a little bit wide there, shoulders are sliding down your back. Now you're gonna pull that navel back, you're gonna inhale, and you exhale and you're gonna roll back. So go ahead, roll through that spine and roll back up and find that balance. Inhale and go exhale, roll, good, and back up. Again, roll, perfect, and back up.

Let's do one more. And roll, and back up, very good, and just relax a minute. I remember my teachers telling me when you take that roll, feel like you're massaging that spine. Feel like you're articulating that spine, and feel like your sit bones go up to the ceiling. There's that moment back there in rolling like a ball where there is a slight balance, a small subtle balance, and then rolling back up and balancing again.

This balancing we see a lot in the Pilates vocabulary, so it's kind of where he's getting us ready for some other movements that are coming down the line here. Let's try it one more time. So there, elbows, right, shoulders and you're eye level, where is the eyes, perfect. Take your inhale, exhale, roll sit bones, that's good, and back up, and roll back, good, and back up. Let's do two more.

And roll those sit bones up, and down, excellent. And roll. Good, and back up. Now hold, grab your right leg, let's roll down and let's get ready for the next exercise. And go ahead, roll down.

We're into the single leg stretch. Good. So our position here, hand on knee, other hand here so it's guiding the leg. It's like a bracket, it's like a frame. Let's inhale, and let's exhale.

Let's switch legs, go. Switch, go. Switch. Switch. Switch.

Switch. Switch. Switch, two more. Switch. Switch.

All right, very good, and let's just hold. Just relax a minute. Once again, you wanna see that foot hit that bullseye. Same point every time. Also, you wanna try to separate your toe from your thigh.

So separating your toe from your thigh would feel like this, could I have your leg Meredith? Sure, I'll give it back to ya (laughs). So here's the toes, and we're really reaching that leg so we have this long separation between this point and the thigh. Also, Meredith is pulling up, she's trying to separate her rib from her hip, so this is really long. Another little cue that I learned too, go ahead and go into your regular position and switch legs.

Here. All right, so we wanna watch how we bring that leg in that it stays inside that hip socket correctly. Also, if you will take your leg and press it into your palm, you'll get a little adductor, you get a little bit more into your pelvic floor. So like a little press, okay, just real subtle. Let's try it once, here we go.

You alright? You can come down. Here we go. And now come on back up. (laughing) There we go, good hold.

All right so we're separating toes from thighs, we're pressing thigh into hand, you're holding your position. Inhale and go. Press, much better. Press. Good.

Press. Push. Bullseye, hit the bullseye. Separate toe and and thigh. Press.

Two more. One, and one, one more. Two, very good, and two, all right, bend both knees, hug 'em into your body, and let's go ahead and lay down. So let's bring our hands right there, that's perfect. Bring your body up now.

Now we have the next exercise. So think of the elbows out, little bit wide, with the shoulder blades pulling down. You are gonna extend your hands back and reach your legs out. So we go reach, one. We swing the arms around and we bend the knee and we bring it back in.

And we go two, good, and back in. Let's do one more and go three, very good, and bring it back in. Go ahead and rest a moment. So the way I learned this, Bruce was all about coordinating joints. He wanted my elbow joint and my knee joint to coordinate together, and then around.

Here's my knees, here's my elbows, and they would reach out and extend, so I was coordinating my movement together. I was very conscious that when my arms went over my head, my chest didn't follow. My chest stayed down. Let's try that once, all right. So bring your body up, tips of your scapular, your eye level is where?

Your necks are nice and soft, shoulder blades are sliding down your back. So we go reach and go one, and around. Now bend the elbow and try to elbow and joint, yes. And around. So the elbow bends and it stretches same time, and around.

Two more. And go bend and stretch, around, one more. And go bend and stretch, perfect, and around, hug those knees and give yourself that stretch. So there's a little bit more coordination in the movement. Let's go into the single straight leg.

So they extend their right leg up, extend the left leg out, and grab behind that leg. Now shoulder blades are down. Now we're gonna change the breathing, we're gonna do a sniff, sniff, and exhale change. And with the sniff, sniff, it's a little pulse. What I want you to be conscious of is that we pulse this leg only, this leg is stabilized and it stays absolutely still.

Once again, you're looking for toe and thigh to stretch out. Here we go. Go, sniff, sniff, and change. Sniff, sniff, and change. Sniff, sniff, and change.

Sniff, sniff, and change. Sniff, sniff, and change. Sniff, sniff, and change. Good. Sniff, sniff, change.

Sniff, sniff, change. Two more. One, and change. One, one more. One, and change.

One, very good, and change. Bend your knees and bring it back in. Excellent. All right, good, let's move on. Let's extend our legs up to the ceiling now and let's put our hands behind our head, and the upper body comes up now.

So come up to this, the very tips of your scapular. Now let's think of reaching those legs, so separating the toe and the thigh again. Keeping the upper body curve, let's go ahead and lower the legs down softly, and then bring it back up with control and we hit that bullseye. And we lower, and we're reaching through those legs and we bring it back up with control. You don't wanna swing your legs in this.

Go ahead and reach out, and bring it back up, little hug of your legs together, and go reach out, nice, and back up. Let's do two more. And go reach out. Excellent. And back up, one more.

And go reach out, very good, and bring it back up. Bend our knees, grab your thighs, grab your shins and pull yourself in and stretch out. Little word about arms. So I like to put my fingertips back here. I bring my elbows so they're in my peripheral.

I don't wanna do this, that's a big cue for me to pull my head forward. I don't wanna pull my neck. I just rest my fingertips, elbows come forward in my peripheral, I slide my scapulars down. This way I can feel my back. If my arms are way out here, I just can't feel my back.

You know, we take this from ballet. Ballet dancers stand with their arms here. They feel what's going on. If we put 'em way back here, we just don't have control of that back. Can we just do like maybe two more with that idea?

So extend your legs up, right. Tailbone is down, bring your upper body forward, aim your elbows a little bit forward, now feel your back in this. Good, excellent, excellent. And we go lower the legs down. Perfect, feel your back, and bring it back up.

One more, and lower your legs down. Excellent, and reach, and bring it back up. Very good, bend your knees and bring it in. Excellent. Take a rest there, grab your thighs, really pull it in there, stretch out.

Let's do crisscross. Let's bring our arms behind our head and our legs in a tabletop position. You're gonna extend your right leg out to start with, bring your upper body forward. Now you're gonna take that opposite elbow and reach towards that knee, one. Now you're gonna switch over to the other side and switch, two.

Good, over, switch, three. Over, switch, four. Over, switch, five. All right, good, bend your knees and bring it in. Let's rest a moment.

Okay, here's that idea. Legs are hitting a bullseye every time. My arms, not reaching way out, they're here so I can feel my back. With this, I think a small movement is a valuable movement. It's a subtle movement, and I get my clients to really, really pull into those abdominals and resist that rotation.

This is where I get licks from my dogs all the time, they lick, they lick, they lick. (laughing) So let's try it one more time. I promise I won't lick you (laughs). Well that's okay. Okay (laughs).

So let's go ahead and bring your body up, let's get into that position. Now extend your right leg out again, and that left leg is in that beautiful tabletop position. Exactly. Let's go ahead and cross it over. Go one, perfect.

Now recess it and do the other side. And go two, nice. And go three. The pelvis stays like a punchbowl. And go four.

And feel that back, five. And go six. Excellent. Go seven. Go eight.

Let's do two more. Go nine. And one more. And 10, very good. Bend those knees, grab 'em, stretch that lower spine out.

Let's go ahead and roll over on your side and let's go ahead and sit up nice and tall. And let's have the legs a little bit apart with your feet flex, and we're gonna do spine stretch forward. Flex those feet, as really as far as you can get those toes to come back and so those heels reach. And let's reach the arms forward with the palms reaching in. So we're gonna take a big inhale and you're gonna lift your spine higher, and your exhale, you're gonna start articulating forward.

So you go forward, and you stretch. Now what I wanna see is that your head comes down and you're reaching and you're anchoring those sit bones down. Now pull that pubic bone back, slide your scapulars back into place, line that spine like you're sitting against a wall. We flex these feet, they're tight, take your inhale, exhale, we curl down, nice. Let's take another inhale down here and exhale, let's roll that spine back up, sitting up nice and tall.

Good. Take your inhale and exhale, let's roll it down, reach nice and long. Those arms, lots of energies coming through these hands, that back. Take your inhale and exhale, roll it back up. Let's do one more.

Take your inhale, and exhale. Reach forward and stretch. Good. And take your inhale and exhale, you stack that spine straight back up to the ceiling. Very good.

Good, go ahead and relax, shake your legs out there a moment. So let's crisscross our legs. So sit crisscross applesauce, this one. Yeah, exactly. And let's do a spine stretch side.

Let's start with the arms reaching out. Let's take our right arm and we're gonna take it over and the left hand will go down on the ground and you're gonna stretch the spine all the way over to the side. Nice. Make sure you don't rotate. Take your inhale and exhale, bring your body back up.

Let's try it again to the other side. Take your inhale and go exhale and stretch over. Good, and shoulder blades stay down. This is anchored down and you bring it back up and you're working those vertebrals one at a time. Let's rest a moment.

On this one, I want you to think of stretching your whole spine. We all can get that upper thoracic, that upper back to stretch, but let's take it down, way down here at the sacrum, the lower lumbar, and let's feel like that whole spine is reaching over, and then let's think about stacking those vertebrals up one at a time coming up and trying to get taller. Got it? So we're gonna go to our right again. Feel that space.

Feel your back. These arms are extensions of your back. You're gonna fill this whole room up with your back. Take your inhale, and let's go exhale and let's go up and over you go. Reach it over and stretch.

Now think of stretching out of that to come up, a little stretch out of it and bring it back up. Find the longest path with those arms you can find. Inhale and go exhale, reach over and stretch. Good. Take your inhale and exhale back up.

Let's do it one more time on both sides. Take your inhale and exhale, up and over and stretch. Nice. And inhale and exhale, come on up, one more time. And go up and over and stretch.

Very good. Excellent. And bring it back up and stretch. Great, nice, go ahead and relax. So then we can extend our legs out again, and let's open them out just a little bit.

Let's do the saw. Saw, saw's a fun exercise, I just love the saw. We're gonna sit with our arms nice, out to the sides, and we're lifting up on the sharpest points of the sit bones. Let's have the palms down, and just feel that back again. Feel like you're filling this whole room up with your back.

Let's take our rotation, let's go to our right. We rotate over, and then we're gonna reach over and we're gonna saw that little toe off. Very good. And we're gonna bring the body back up, and then center it. Let's try the other side.

So we're gonna inhale, rotate, and we're gonna exhale, reach over. Good, and we bring it back up and we center. Very good, let's try it one more time. So go inhale and exhale, now reach over. Now make sure that you pull this opposite hip down.

Lotsa energy coming out, and you roll the spine back up and you center your body and you're feeling the sides of your back and you rotate again, and here's anchoring that opposite hip down. Exactly. And we bring it back up. Excellent. And we center the body and we relax.

Very good. Okay let's go ahead and let's lay down on our stomachs, and let's have your upper body down here. So let's put our hands right next to our shoulders and you're looking right down. You're kinda like hovering at the mat there. So let's do a little bit of extension of our spine.

Now your legs can be together if that's comfortable for you, or they can be out. So whatever's comfortable for you, that's where you wanna put your legs. The first thing we wanna do is we wanna think about pulling the scapulars back, so we pull those scapular back, it's like we're pulling our elbows down to our hips, and then we're gonna inhale and we're gonna start lifting the body up, and we're gonna push those hip bones into the mat. We're gonna take a inhale again, and exhale, roll down through that spine. So let's see you think about doing it one bone at a time.

Let's take a inhale, no movement, and a exhale. Now inhale, let's start lifting that spine up. Good. And think of your eye level traveling out here. Exactly, so your neck stays, that's good.

And then exhale, let's lower down bone by bone by bone. Exactly. Let's do that again. Take a inhale, start moving your body. Scapulars roll down that back, shoulders are nice and wall, this is beautiful, Erin.

Those hip bones are pushing down, and you lower down, we're going bone by bone by bone, articulating that spine. We're making it nice and chewy. Think of a nice chewy movement here. And one more time, we go inhale, it's like we're lifting the heart up, so lift your heart up. Not too much with your neck, keep that neck soft, and exhale, we roll in with a sort of bone by bone by bone, I can't stress that enough.

Very good. Now clasp your hands together and kinda brace your upper body up, elbows are underneath you. Let's go into the next movement here. Let's do the kick of the bum, right? I never liked when I was doing this with Romana and Bruce, I was like, what am I doing, I never really got this exercise until Bruce really explained it.

He was explaining to me that by kicking towards my glute, I was getting a stretch in my thigh. I was also anchoring my pelvis, holding everything still. I took that and I applied it into my ballet career and it was like ah, I get it, when I do cambrés back, my pelvis doesn't move. When I do everything, I can see now, it's starting to click, and that's where Bruce was an incredible teacher. He was a modern dancer himself, and he really, really understood what Joe wanted.

He really could take these exercise and explain it. We're gonna use the breathing with a sniff, sniff and a exhale. So let's start with the right leg, and we go kick, kick, one, two, and breathe. And go sniff, sniff, exhale. Sniff, sniff, exhale.

Sniff, sniff, exhale. Two more. Sniff, sniff, exhale. Sniff, sniff, all right, very good. Let's stay there.

Now think of really taking that leg and kicking towards your glute muscle without hurting the knee, but also think on the return, let's try it once here, Meredith, bring it up. So bring this leg up. We've just finished the kick, kick, so think on the return that this leg is gonna outreach that leg, so you get really, really long and you're really lengthening that front that was good, you felt that. Think of the shoulder blades down. And again, here we are.

Sometimes when I do this in the morning, I really push my hands together so I get some serratus anterior movement in my body. So here, let's try it again with the right leg. Let's bring your, can we bring your elbows a little bit more into you and then your shoulders are wide. Pull the navel up, exactly, don't do too much of that. Just a little bit higher than that, right there.

Here we go. And we go sniff, sniff, and reach. Good. Sniff, sniff, and reach. Sniff, sniff, and reach.

Excellent. Sniff, sniff, and reach. Two more. Sniff, sniff, reach. Sniff, sniff, perfect.

You felt that. Good, let's go onto the next exercise, double leg. Let's go ahead and lay down, put your hands behind your back and lay down with one cheek, exactly. Now we're gonna use both legs. Here we go.

We go kick, kick, hold. Now as your legs go back to the ground, pull your upper body up. Exactly. Open up that chest. Lay back down on the other side.

Go kick, kick, and reach, and back down. Good, and let's just hold there a moment. So when you come up for the kick, kick, you're kicking those legs, you're stretching that front part of your body out. What I want you to feel like is that you've got a string connected from your ankles to your wrists. As you press your feet back down, it pulls your upper body up.

And then we lower back down and we wanna make something out of the lowering down, too. Just don't lower back down, this is a great chance to articulate the spine, to put that idea of those pearls spacing that spine. Decompress. You've just laid in bed all night, you're a little, yeah, I feel that way. I certainly feel that way 'cause I'm getting very close to 60, which is kinda a little freaking me out, but I'm okay with it (laughs).

So let's try it one more time. So legs are out, so extend your legs out. Here we go. Shoulders are wide, and we go kick, kick, and pull, and reach those feet, pull you back. Now lower back down, bone by bone.

And go kick, kick, and reach, and then lower back down. One more time each side. And go kick, kick, and reach. Back down, and here's your last one. Good, kick, kick, and reach.

Very good. And lower it back down slowly, bone by bone. Exactly. Go back into your child pose to stretch your spine out just a little bit. Good, and let's go ahead and stand up on our feet now, and you wanna stand down at the end of your mat.

You're parallel, and let's raise our hands up to the ceiling now. Let's just finish off with a couple push ups. Your arms are reaching up, so let's take that dive over, up and over you, go. Place your hands down, walk yourself out now. Find your plank position.

One lovely push up. Go bend, excellent, and back up. Now walk yourself back, good. And then roll your spine back up. Good, now let's just rest a moment.

So you start out with your arms. You wanna think of going up and over something here, and when you walk out, you wanna control it. Don't let your body swing around. Think of walking, controlling in that space. One nice push up, push back, walk back without swinging the pelvis, swinging the trunk around.

Try to control that. So here we go. So your arms reach out, palms. Now make sure that palms are facing forward, that one hand's not rotated, exactly. Take a big inhale and during your exhale, start your curve forward.

Let the scapular slide forward, up and over. Place those hands down. Now walk out with control. Very good. Right to those heels, we're in that plank position.

We do one push up, down, back up. We walk back with control, good. We get that nice stretch. We roll the spine up, and let's repeat that one more time. Let's do two push ups now.

Big inhale, you all right? And go exhale. Up and over you go, we're diving over, and you go walk out with control, hold that plank for a moment, lower your body down, bring it back up, down again, and back up. Now place those heels down, walk back, roll your spine up, open those arms, open your arms out to the side, and thank you. That was a lovely class. (clapping)

Thank you.