Day 6: Center

Thank you for being here. We made it, we're halfway through. That's so exciting. So today's principle is the principle of center. So what do we think about when we think about center?

Of course we think about the center of our body. But we could also bring mind ideas like centering, right. Bringing awareness and ease and whatever you need to feel centered in your experience, in your life, in your movement practice. But, we're gonna focus on the center as well. Here we go.

So standing on the mat, organizing the feet so they face straight ahead. Take the arms right away, and just reach out to the side so that you touch both sides of the room and can you expand how big you feel in the center of your body. And I'm not talking like three dimensionally big, I'm talking about like wide. Wide and then take the arms out to the side. Widen, take up a lot of space.

Feels good to take up space, feels good to have space to take up. And inhale, and exhale. Chin comes into the chest we roll down. Thinking about lifting from the center of the body. And is this, can this movement practice be centering for you, it sure is for me.

Exhale, press the feet into the floor. Roll up. Stand up. Bring the arms out to the side. Send the chest out and up.

Reach out. Eyes start to come down, arms come in. Can you press into the sides of your body with your arms to create abdominal contraction and then roll down. Arms reach away from the body as you roll down. I like to keep my knees bent in the beginning anyway.

And exhale, roll up, up, up, up. One more time, we're gonna do some prone abdominal work today. Doesn't that sound like so much fun? Reach out, get ready, gonna roll the body down. Roll the body down.

Place the hands down on the floor, walk one, two, three steps into a plank position and just pause. Pushing the floor away with with the front of the body. Reaching the legs long behind us and hold. Gonna inhale, gonna bring the right knee into the chest. And step back, left knee into the chest, step back.

Right knee into the chest, step back. Left knee into the chest, and back. Three more, exhale. Step, exhale. With every exhale bring your awareness to the center of your body.

One more. Both legs out, hips lift up. Walk back to your feet, one, maybe just two steps and roll the body up. Take the arms back to the sides. Reach up, the heat up.

Reach out, chin down. Roll down. Find the floor. And walk one, two, three, stay here. We're gonna go left knee right arm, step back.

Right knee left arm, step back. Rotate the pelvis, and back. Rotate the pelvis so the shoulders stay pretty square but the hips are twisting. Let's do two. Is it too early for a push up?

I don't think so, what do you think? You decide, I'm gonna do three. There's one, two, three. Hips up, heels down, long spine and walk, two, three, roll up. Reach out, lift up.

Reach out, chin in. Roll down, round forward. Find the mat, try not to back up. Walk one, two, three. Hold center.

So we're gonna inhale and twist, right hip down. Exhale, home. Left hip down, exhale home. One push up. Right hip down, use your obliques.

Left hip down, use your obliques. Bend, press, right hip, center, left hip center. Bend, press, right hip, center, left hip, center. Bend, press, last time. Some prone abdominal work.

Lift up away from the floor, last time. Bend, press, hips up. Heels down. Long spine. And walk, walk, and roll up, up, up, and at the top.

Make the arms wide, reach up. And bring the arms out, growing the spine tall. Taking the arms all the way down. We'll come to the mat. Okay, so we're just gonna start lying on our back for now, arms long, inhale, press into the feet, curl the spine.

I don't know about you, but there's nothing that makes me feel more centered in my body than just a simple pelvic curl. Just lining up, feeling the placement of the bones into the mat, the elongation. For me it's very grounding. I love it. So thank you for indulging and coming along with me.

We'll do a couple more, rounding the spine up. And inhale. And lowering the spine down. So if we think about the center of the body, do we just think about it as our abdominals? Well maybe, but that's not really the case right?

So there's a front center body, but there's also a back center body. So you wanna, we do wanna strengthen the front of the body, but we also wanna be aware of energizing, working with and strengthening the back of the body. So right now we're strengthening the back body. Right, the back muscles, the back of the legs. And then we're articulating, and that's where the front of the body comes in.

It moves the spine through space. Last one, we're gonna stay at the top. So curl and lift. And lift, lift. Stay lifted and inhale.

As you exhale, can you use the center of your body, your abdominal muscles or more realistically, your deep hip flexors to lift one leg. Keep it bent. And then reach down touch. So what are the abdominals doing here? They're stabilizing the spine.

And reach down, touch. And lift. And reach down touch, and lift. And reach down touch, and now hold the leg up. We're gonna take the body down and up in one piece.

So the whole center body comes down and comes back up for five. Down, back up four. Down, back up for three. Down, back up for two. Down, use the abdominals to pull down to stabilize.

Foot comes down, inhale. And now peel down, articulate. So sometimes we wanna hold the center of the body stable. And sometimes we wanna create a lot of mobilization. So what do we wanna do today?

Both, inhale, and roll up. Up, up, hips up. And inhale, I'm just gonna stall for a minute while I try not to cramp. Here we go other leg, up and down, keep the hips high. Exhale other leg, up, and down.

Hips are level, lift, and down. Last two, can you feel the evenness of the weight on your arms, going back to balance. Last one, hold, pelvis down, making sure you're not hyperextending your spine, but your just lifting and lowering in one piece. Two, inhale, exhale, three. Last two, one more.

Lift up, place the foot down, inhale. And roll down. Sending the knees forward, just to create some opposition. Some elongation, so letting the ribs glue to the mat, but try to stretch the pelvis longer so we increase the line of our midsection. So let's take one leg up, stabilize the trunk, center, lift the other leg up, and let's take the arms out to the sides.

So we're gonna inhale and take the knees over. Let's do this once, so we stretch the center of the body and then we kind of tract to lay it back down. We wanna imagine that the two sides of your body, the space between the ribs and the pelvis stays as equally long on both sides. What does that mean? It means I'm not shortening by lifting my hip to my ribs.

Let's do that again, inhale and exhale. And inhale and exhale. So now let's take the legs to the first side, exhale stretch them up. Come back to center. Inhale bend and rotate, breath.

Exhale navel to the spine. Stretch the legs. Pull to center, and bend. Inhale, reach over, stretch out, pull back, and bend. And inhale, reach over, lift up, pull back, and bend.

Last time, inhale cross, exhale stretch, come through the middle, the center of the body with the center of the body in a very centered way. Stretch out, come back through the center, bend the knees again, reach the hands behind the head. Inhale to prepare here. And exhale curl the head and chest up, up, up, up, up. We're gonna lower the feet.

We're gonna lift the feet. We're gonna lower the body. So there's our pattern for now. Exhale lift the head and chest, press the chest forward, inhale, reach down, exhale draw deep, pull the legs back up, inhale, lower the body down. Three more times.

Exhale to lift, reach, lift, and down. Last two, exhale to lift, reach, pull back, lower down. One more time. Exhale to lift, reach the legs away, pull them back, hold there. Take the arms forwards, we're just gonna lower one leg and the other, one.

Press the back of the leg, energize the back of the leg to keep the pelvis stable, last two. One more. And now we're gonna go across, holding onto the leg. Lift and twist, and change. So the legs are just passing one another by.

And I'm not using my arms here to make it easier, for your information, nor should you. We're using the arms here to see if we can get more sensation, more control, more work in the center of the body. Maybe a little bit of efficiency. We're gonna talk about that one soon too. Let's do two more to each side.

And one more. And one more. And then both knees in, and then bring the knees into the chest and lay the head down. So here's what's gonna be happening now. Hands back behind the head, gonna do a little pattern.

Lift the feet, lift the head and chest, exhale, inhale, take the legs away, inhale lift them back up. Drop the feet, now reverse curl your spine. Bring your knees to your nose. Lower your body. Lift your feet, lower your body.

Exhale head and chest up, inhale, legs go down, exhale legs come up. Inhale feet drop, exhale knees to the nose, inhale roll down, lift up, exhale down. Let's do one more, not easy. Exhale lift head chest, inhale hinge, exhale back, inhale draw, exhale curl, curl, curl, curl. Come down, reach forward, curl, curl, curl, take the legs, and in one fell swoop, maybe, can we, ooh.

Oh that wasn't very beautiful on my part, but I made it. So that's okay with me. Can't be beautiful all the time. Lift up, can't be perfect ever. And let's rock.

And roll. So where does this come from? Well, from the center of the body. So we hold and we use the abdominals to stabilize the position of the spine. We rock, we lift.

And we're there. Using the abdominals to stabilize. Rock, lift, and reach, and bend. Rock, lift, and reach, and bend. And rock, lift, and reach, and bend.

Two more, rock, lift, reach, last one. Rock, lift, reach, take the legs down. Take the body forward if your off your mat like me, then just scoot back. Just scoot back. So let's bring our arms out to the side in a goalpost shape.

So we look at last time, keeping the elbows a little bit forward of the hands so I'm in that orientation in the shoulder joint. Inhale, get tall, exhale, pull, pull. Come to the middle and pull. There's another thing to think about as center, the center. All right, so we lift from the spine, we lift from the waist, and we talk about using the abdominals to do these movements all the time, but we feel, we talk about the back.

The back has to do some work too. Twist, and center, and lift and center. Now twist, we're gonna do one more to each side. Gonna twist, this time I want you to reach up, up, up. Want you to open your arms and lift your chest.

Find a straight body, bend your elbows, come into the center, rotate. Reach out, lift the chest. Bring it back, bend, come to the center. Stretch the arms overhead, take the arms out in front, separate your legs, breathe in. Exhale, chin into the chest.

We're gonna round. We're gonna lengthen. We're gonna round. We're gonna lift. And inhale, and feel the center of the body contracting to take the upper body, the back of the body up and over.

Inhale, reach out. Exhale dive back forward, big long reach. And roll up. And again, exhale reach forward, inhale, elongate the body, exhale, take it back. And reaching the arms forward, roll up, let's do that one more time.

Inhale, exhale reach forwards, reach out, take the arms out to the side. And inhale, and now can we do some rotation here. So in that spinal extension, arms wide, spinal rotation, center, rotate, and center. Just do two more. Lengthen forward as you go through your rotation.

Lengthen forward as you go through your rotation. And last one, forward and rotate. And forward and rotate. And then come back to center. Take the arms back overhead, lift up tall, bring your hands behind you, bend your knees.

So the arms are backwards, we're gonna press the chest forward, this is a little hip opener that I like. So also, and it's not comfortable for your hands to have the fingers face in, just turn the fingers to face out. So what we're gonna do here is we're gonna press the knees down towards the floor and we're gonna lift the hips up. And we're gonna send the hips down toward the feet. And then we're gonna come back to the little shoulder stretch, little hip stretch, we're gonna sit back down.

Again, hips up, hips to heels, come back, and down. Again, one more. Up, reach out, come back, and sit. Turn to face me, crossing one ankle, the top ankle over the bottom, we're gonna come back down onto the forearm today. So we did this exercise a few days ago.

Today we're gonna do it with straight legs, it's a twist. Wanna reach our bottom ribs up and then straighten the legs. If it doesn't feel, if it's too hard, keep the one knee on the floor, the bottom knee on the floor. We're gonna exhale and wrap around ourself. So we twist under, arm come up quite up close to the body and unwind.

And exhale, rotate through. And inhale unwind. We'll do two more. Exhale rotate through. And unwind.

Oh yeah, do you fell your center? I do. Last one, rotate through, and unwind, and bring it down, adding on so the feet are stacked now. We'll just take the hand down to the pelvis. I don't really, ooh, all right, I'm like where do I hold, my mic's in the way.

I'm just not quite sure. So now I'm ready. So now we're gonna go up, holding that undercarriage strong. From that place, we're gonna lift the top knee up, and down, up, and down, five times. Up and down, working that through the center of the body to stabilize the shoulder.

I don't know, I don't know, I think this is five. You're gonna come down, put the hand down, sit up, scoot the feet in, reach up and over. Stretch. Come back down, line the heels up with the hips, the knees are about 90 from the pelvis to the knees to the feet. Going again, lift the hips, now this time we're gonna go knee, kick, knee down.

Knee, kick, knee, down. Can we do five? You feel that bottom hip working too. Two, out, and one reach, and down, and down. And up and over, and just enjoy this for a minute.

Or allow me to enjoy this for a minute. Let's do a little quarter turn, reaching up on the diagonal, and drop that arm down in the front, down to the mat, over to the other side, here we go. So you're on your elbow, you've already talked about how to stabilize the lower half of the body. We reach up with the legs, inhale, and reach through, through, through, through, bring that arm right up close to the body, we did this four times. Inhale, unwind, exhale through, through, through, through, and unwind, and two more.

Exhale, and back, and exhale and back, and then bend, bend the knees a little more so they stack on top of each other. Just gonna readjust my elbow a little. Long spine on the bottom, press the knees into the mat, lift the bottom side, undercarriage of the body is working. The whole bottom side of the body is working, hip included. We go up, and down, push against the top of the range.

And three, and two, and one. Knee goes down, hips go down, we scoot our feet in, we help ourself up, grab the ankle, lift the arm, reach over, and then we come back. Come down onto the arm. So setting back up, remember we scooted the feet in so we scoot them back out, here comes the little bit more challenging one, but it's a little fancy so that's fun. Lift up, so you go knee, kick, knee down.

And open and reach, bend and down, and open, and abdominals, bend and down. Last two, reach, bend and down, one more. Reach, bend and down, and stay controlled as you lower. And then again, help yourself up, scoot your feet in nice and close. If that's not comfortable, open them up a little bit, but if you can, get in nice and tight.

Arm up and we bend, and then we reach forward, do that little quarter turn, and then let the arm come down the front of the body. And for me, just the weight of the arm gives me a good stretch. And then let's come onto our abdominals. So heres' one we haven't done yet. Let's do the single leg kick.

So we're gonna go elbows under shoulders. Now if that's too much for you, take your arms out a little bit more. So what I want us to think about, so there's a lot of trunk involvement here. So we first slide the upper arms backwards to feel the spine, almost as though you're pulling your spine forward. And then I want you to lift your stomach off the floor and then I want you to send your, or try, right, just the energy, the attempt, and then send the chest forward.

We're gonna float the leg, we'll go slow for the beginning. We're gonna go kick, kick, reach. I want you to think about using the center of your body and the back of your legs to prevent yourself from kicking yourself and moving all around on the mat. So we stay lifted, and stay lifted. Now let's speed it up.

So inhale, and exhale. In on four counts, two kicks, exhale, two kicks, in two three four, out, two, three, four. Body super still. Chest reaching forward, both legs come out. Lower yourself down, keep your legs up.

Turn your head to the side. You can put your head all the way down, I just can't. So elbows down, and we're gonna kick, one, stable body, two, three, and now we stretch the center of the body using the back of the body. Holding, the then other side kick one, two, three, and reach out, and lifting the arms, and again. Reach, two, the arms come high up the back, as high up the back as you can, and the elbows drop to the mat.

Two, three, and reach, and one more time. Kick, two, three, and reach to the other side as well. Kick one, two, three, reach out all the way, take the legs down, lift the arms and the spine, bring the arms down, rest. Rock the pelvis from side to side and when you're ready we're gonna press up, leave the hands, oh maybe we can't, we scoot the knees in just a little bit, and I want you to keep those arms out, way out in front of you, way out in front of you cause what we're gonna do so that we feel that we can pull the pelvis away from them, we're gonna roll the spine up. I want you to feel the backs of your legs working as you drop your hips forward, lift the chest through the arms, use the back of the body to open the front of the body.

And then curl the tail under, and sit back. I'll do three. Inhale, and roll through, so to support the lower back, use the back of the legs, think of lifting up and forward, pelvis dropping, chest lifting, great stretch for me and my abdominals, I love it a lot, my hip flexors, my hip flexor work, especially if you're doing this every other day or even every day. Every day's a lot. And then drop, and reach up.

And sit all the way back. We'll just take a breath or two here. Letting the pelvis rest back on the feet. Letting the forehead come to the mat. Maybe just taking a moment here to center yourself.

So maybe you're centered in your body, but maybe we need to find some center in our just experience, right, before we go and walk back into our lives. And then roll up. All the way, and I just wanna thank you so much for spending this time with me and showing up and continuing to show up. That's day six. It's amazing, it's amazing.

So thank you, I appreciate you so much. Next time, we'll speak of efficiency.