Meri Christmas Mat

So it's Christmas, and we got some ho ho ho's in the house. Woot! Girl time! Girl time! Woot woot! Super special girl time this week. We've got guest star Amy Havens in the house with us. So I'm so excited that everyone's here to share Christmas with us, and thank you for joining us, and let's move our bodies. Sitting on your mat with your feet inline with your sitting bones, and your knees bent, and we'll just take the backs of the thighs, and lift the spine.

Take a moment now. Just close your eyes. Close your eyes and let whatever you need to let go of go, and bring whatever you need to bring in, in. Ease. Grace.

Those are the things I feel like I need pretty much every day. And then feel the length of the spine, the easiness in the body. Open your eyes. If you're lucky enough to have your best friends in the room with you, you are as lucky as I am. Take an inhale.

As you exhale, rotate your pelvis. Just allow the spine to round, and be gentle with yourself because it's Christmas, and you can give yourself that gift, or not. And then inhale, lift up. It's just a suggestion. Exhale gently, round the lower spine, allow the upper spine to flex forward.

Feel that the shoulders are soft. Inhale, lift up. We'll do that a couple more times. Exhale to round. Around Christmas time every year is when I think we all start making wishes for the new year.

What would your movement wish for the new year be? You don't have to say it out loud. Maybe just tell it you yourself. We're gonna round, and then we're gonna let the arms straighten, and as we move through this movement in practice, can you give yourself your movement wish? All the way down, feel the low back touch.

I'm still holding on, Amy you can too. Inhale and exhale, curl back up. Real easy, lift and float the spine. You can use your arms for support. We all need support.

Exhale, round. Amy, do you ever feel like you need support? I do. That's just a life statement, not a Pilates statement. Inhale, when you get to your low point, exhale.

Curl forward. Curl forward. Kristi says she's got this laugh thing, she doesn't need any support. What I'm gonna suggest is that we don't stop giving Kristi our support. She needs all the help she can get, and we're happy to give it to her, cause she gives it to us.

Inhale at the bottom, use your arms, we're not even gonna let go today. Merry Christmas. Thank you, Mary. Merry Christmas, one more time. Inhale and exhale.

We use our arms as a Merry Christmas gift, and we let ourself come into the place where it's hardest for us to be. Just wherever that is in your body, you'll decide. Then we're gonna use our arms, and we're just gonna curl and go back. Oh yeah, this isn't very Christmas-y, is it? And curl.

Oh yeah, we're just staying in the hard spot, Kristi. That's another life lesson, just stay in the hard spot and breathe. Exhale, curl. Just stay in the hard spot and breathe. Exhale, curl.

My mind just went somewhere completely else, and I'm gonna let that go. Exhale, lift. And down. And one more time: exhale, lift. We're gonna roll all the way up.

We're gonna reach up, lift up, find the sky, open the arms, create pressure, so push the air through space, push everything you don't want in your life away from you, and roll all the way down. And then once you're down, get ready for a pelvic curl. I'm gonna scoot in towards my feet, got the feet flat on the mat. Don't lay on your Christmas balls, gotta move them away. God forbid, don't forget the balls.

Get the balls outta the way. Arms down at your sides, and inhale. Surprised mine doesn't have two. And exhale. At least they're not blue.

Flatten the spine. And peel up, so we go up into a bridge, feel the knees come into alignment with the shoulders. We feel the pressed back of the arms. We inhale, and exhale. Drop the chest.

Feel that the arms can reach forward as the heels can pull back, and then that way, we create some energy in the back of the body. Drop the tail all the way down. Take an inhale, and exhale. Flatten the spine. Press into the feet.

Feel the connection of the inner thighs, the connection of the back of the arms. It doesn't have to be a real force connection, it's just a noticeable connection. And inhale. As you move your spine down towards your feet, can you feel a sense of the head traveling away from the pelvis? So we lengthen in both directions, laying the spine down.

And inhale, and exhale. Flatten the spine, peel and lift. Softness and the breath. Ease of movement in the body. Inhale and exhale.

Peel down. Down, down, down, down. And one more time, inhale and exhale. Roll up. Once you get to the top, stand on your right leg only.

Lift your left leg up. We're gonna do three single leg pelvic curls. Here we go. We roll the body down, all the way, and inhale, and press into that supporting leg, and roll the body up, nice strong hips, and inhale, and exhale. Roll the body down.

And inhale, and giving thanks. Giving thanks for your body, maybe? And rolling down, or whatever else you feel like you... Oh yeah, giving thanks for your mind, giving thanks that you have the power. We're rolling up to move your body with your mind.

And then I'm just gonna put that leg down, and lift up, and I'm gonna take the opportunity on the other side to give thanks for my friends. And we roll down, and inhale, and exhale to roll up. And maybe giving thanks for our community, which is so amazing. Thank you, Kristi. And roll down. And Mary.

And inhale, last one. Exhale to roll up. Place the feet down, lift the hips up a little bit higher. Lift the arms up. Stretch the arms overhead.

Inhale, keep them just off the floor. And then inhale, reach through the arms, and maybe even let your shoulder blades slide up into your ears, because who cares? It's fine. You're not hurting yourself. But it feels nice.

Then once your pelvis is down, bring your arms around to your sides. Lift one leg, then the other. Spine twist, let's go to the right first, ladies. Inhale. And draw deep.

Come back, and inhale across to the back of the room. And exhale, or whatever part of the room, it's the back of my room. Inhale across to one side, exhale, come through center. Inhale, reach up to go over. Exhale, come center.

Let's do one more to each side. Lifting off one hip, onto the other. And exhaling to come center, and lifting off one hip onto the other, and exhaling to come center. And in center pause, reach back. Take your hands behind your head.

Inhale here, let the legs stay as they are. Exhale, curl the head and chest up, feeling your shoulder blades wrap around the outside fronts of the body, towards the knees, towards the ribs. Inhale to hold, and exhale. Lay your spine back down onto the ground. And inhale, and exhale.

We curl the body up. Deepen, ease, and exhale to lay the body down. And inhale, and exhale. Head and chest, scapula coming around the front of the body, so they're not squeezing together so that your head pushes forward, they're wrapping around like a support blanket. More like a hammock, really, but two more times.

Exhale to lift. And inhale. And exhale to lengthen back down. And one more time, exhale to lift. And inhale.

And exhale. Support, control, engage. And lift again. Hold there, hands behind your thighs. Deepen.

Deepening doesn't mean lift higher. It might mean go a little more forward. Maybe it does mean lift higher to you. But to me, it means find a more meaningful connection. Let go.

Arms come up, they go back behind the head. Keep the balls outta the way, Meredith. And then we take the legs outta the way, we hinge. And exhale, pull in. And inhale, take the legs away.

So these we call toe taps. And we're gonna make this a little bit more fun in a minute, not that it's not fun now, but we're gonna have some real fun times in just a second. (laughing) And one more, inhale down, exhale up, and take the spine down. And inhale, and exhale. Curl the head and chest up, and again, find a more meaningful connection.

Life lesson! And now we're going left, so hold the leg. Twist left, and using the arms to just help you find that deep connection to your body. Rotating from side to side, twist. So what I'm thinking about as I'm holding onto my leg, is pushing to find rotation, but also pulling the leg slightly upwards. Pulling the leg slightly upwards.

It's not real, it's not going anywhere, but it helps. We're gonna go two more times. Two more times now. And two more times means four, Kristi. Thank you.

You're welcome. Kristi and I count differently. And then we come to the center, we reach up and bring the hands back behind the head, and we lower down. So now, we're gonna lift the head and chest, we're gonna find the thighs. Amost over ladies, but this is the fun part.

So toe tap baby ball. Remember the exercise, Kristi, from the Cadillac? Hands go behind the hands, it goes like this, Amy. You take your legs down, you lift your legs up, you drop your feet, and then you reverse roll like ball. Oh yes, you unwind, you lift your feet, you lower your body.

Four more times. How many? Four, and that's only four. Exhale lift the head and chest, inhale, feet go down, keep your back stable. Exhale, legs come up.

Inhale, feet come down. Exhale, we go reverse curl, reverse roll like a ball, and then Merry Christmas. Lift the feet, and lower the body down. And inhale, and exhale. Lift and take the legs.

And lift the legs, and drop the feet, and curl. We're over halfway. Congratulations, ladies. Lift the feet, take the body down, last two. I don't know what made me think about five, but five it is.

I thought you said four? Well, that was after the first. So this is the fourth of five. And then curl, nice try, and then come down. Lift the feet, and then down.

So here's the transition that we're gonna do, just listen carefully, I'll tell you when it's coming. Exhale to lift. Feet move away. I heard four, too, by the way. And then back.

It's five total, jeeze. Drop the feet. Here comes the transition, are you ready for it? I hope so. Reach your arms forward, do your reverse curl, reverse curl, reverse curl, arms down, kick over.

That's a good shot. Thank you, flex your feet. Separate your legs, and roll down. You're welcome, point your feet, take the legs down and reach the arms forward, roll up, and then you're gonna roll back down. You're gonna get to the lower back.

Hi, Kristi. Hi! Drop the knees, kick over, flex the feet, separate the legs, and down. As the pelvis comes down, the toes point, we come around, and together we reach, reach, reach, reach. One more time. You sure?

Yeah, positive, it's real easy if you whisper. Just think, whisper in your body. Kick over. Flex, separate. Here's the transition, you'll like it.

You ready? We're gonna roll down, we're gonna roll up, so let there be a change of energy. We're gonna reach up, feet are apart. So now what we're gonna do is organize ourselves so that we can sit and touch feets. Touch feets.

Sit up all the way, take the arms forwards. Inhale and exhale, reach forward. Just rolling forward, reaching. And if you happen to touch someone who's in front of you, just don't worry too much about it. You might actually give them some love.

And inhale, and we're just gonna stack straight back up. So rolling the spine up. And inhale. Whatever, Amy, I don't care. Inhale lift.

Not so importante. Exhale, roll down. I'll follow directions. Roll down, so have your palms however you like, it's not important. And inhale.

What is important is that you stack your spine, and is that you do so within intention, is that you maybe allow yourself some ease there, and if you need to bend your knees, you could. And inhale, and exhale, and roll down. This is gonna be the last one like this. So hold and inhale, and exhale as we roll up. So here's what we're gonna do now, my friends.

We're gonna go forward again, so here it comes. Exhale, reach forward. Allow your hands just to reach forward onto the ground. They'll land where they land. Now, allow the arms to be light, cause you wanna hold yourself there.

You're gonna let your hands stay on the ground, and let your hands slide back as you come up into spinal extension, so up on the diagonal. Then we're gonna take the arms up, we're gonna press back. Five, four, three, two, one. We're gonna lift our bodies up. Take the arms out to the side, and exhale.

Reach for the center. Hands land where they do. Spine elongates. Let go. Arms float.

Sorry my legs are shaking so much, ladies. It's really me, it's not them, it's me. And then press back, and back. My legs are so excited to be here with you. Mary's very happy it's Christmas, and with us.

And then sit all the way up, and take the arms open. Let's lift the chest there, too, because it's Christmas. And reach forward. Last time, hands down. Elongate the spine.

Lift the arms up. Little backward presses. For one, get longer, feel free. Three, and two. And sit all the way up.

Take the arms out to the sides. Try to keep the feet from shifting on one another. We're all gonna twist right, so twist right. Into the saw, so you use that feedback. Propreceptive feedback.

Lengthen out, come back to center. And inhale, twist, rotate, exhale, reach through. Inhale. Kristi's trying to saw off my foot. Lengthen, that was my foot.

(laughs) I sawed off Kristi's toe. Try to saw off your friend's foot. It's more fun, actually. It is more fun. Then center, and inhale twist.

And reach. Oh that is your foot. Can't you feel? It's freezing. That's how you know it's me, it has no blood in it. One more time to each side.

Twist, and reach through. These two are so funny. And lift up. You might as well have fun. If you're moving your body, it might as well be fun.

Last time, twist, and reach. And lift, and center. That's a way better way to do saw, I like that. Yeah, you always need a buddy from now on. So let's all face left.

And what we'll do today is we'll come up onto the elbow, and let's just keep our bottom leg bent, because it's Christmas. Alright, another gift. Thank you. Feel that you're pushing the mat away by lifting the undercarriage of the bottom most rib. Take the top arm up. Either put it on your hip, or bring it behind your head.

I like it behind my head. We're gonna take the top leg forward. Now this is a little different, so just listen. We're gonna go kick, kick. Kick back, kick forward, and arc to the back.

Oh yeah. Find center, kick back, kick forward, kick back, and arc to the front. And center. Kick forward, kick back, kick forward, point arc. It makes sense to me in the kicks to have the feet foot flexed.

And then in the arcs to have them pointed. And forward, and back, and point arc. You're making a halo. And one more time. Kick forward, kick back, kick forward, point and arc, and then center.

Last time. Kick back, kick forward, kick back, point and arc, and then bend. And then cross the top leg over the bottom leg, come up onto your hand for some Christmas miracles. (laughter) We're gonna make a straight line. Here we go.

Straight line, and now we lift the bottom rib cage. We make a candy cane. Oh, that sounds delicious. And then we come back, and then we're gonna bend, and we're just hovering. Three times, ladies.

Inhale up, exhale up to go over. Merry Christmas! Back and down. Last time. Inhale, lift, exhale over, inhale back, and exhale down. Slide the bottom leg out from underneath the top leg, so you're coming into like a mermaid shape.

Taking the arms out to the sides, inhale, reach over to that side. Exhale, round your spine. Inhale, lengthen the spine, allow the whole spine to move, meaning you're tipping your tail bone up, and then you're pushing the mat away. Round your spine, allow the whole spine to move. Open the arm out to the side, and lift up.

Lift that arm up, and take a stretch to the side. And then come back, and inhale. Hand comes down, exhale. Rotate the body, you're welcome. Inhale, lengthen, and exhale, round, and open, and lift up, and reach over.

Get longer, because you can, because it's only Christmas, and that's the only days miracles happen, until tomorrow. Reach over. It's the Christmas miracle. Reach around, and reach out. So here's an idea: maybe the real Christmas miracle, open back up, is that you can create miracles in your life every day.

Lift all the way up and over. Miracles every day. Okay, come all the way up, and let's just swing the legs around to the other side. Yeah, that works. Okay, so we're on our arm, we have our knee bent.

Other leg goes out, straight. Hand comes behind the head. If that's not comfortable for you, you'll figure out something that is. And here we go, we go kick kick, kick kick. Kick forward, point the foot, and arc.

And center, and now kick back, kick front, kick back, point the foot, and arc. And find center, and kick forward, kick back, kick forward, point and arc. Keep the body lifted. Center and kick back, kick front, kick back, point the foot and arc. Last time through, ladies.

Here we go. Kick forward, kick back, kick forward, point the foot and arc. And last time, to the back, kick to the back, kick to the front, kick to the back, and arc, and center. Cross the top foot over the bottom foot. Come up onto your hand.

Organize so that you feel that you're pressing away with the bottom of the rib cage, so we're stabilizing the scapula on that side. Here we go. Inhale into a side plank, exhale, make a candy cane, look down, come back. We hover as we come down. We just hover, and we go up, and over, easy, easy in your body, remember?

And back. And bend. Kristi forgot about being easy in her body already. And we go out, and over. But I'm here to remind you, Kristi.

I got your back girl. And then back, and all the way down. Then we just slide the bottom leg out from underneath the top leg. Take a minute to pull up your pants, cause if you're like me, they don't stay on. And then arms out to the sides, and we go in the direction of our stabilizing arm, and let it come down.

As you exhale, wrap around, wrap around, and then inhale, lengthen the spine. Hi! Hey! Exhale, round, open back up. That was kinda creepy. And come up all the way. Hey! And over. Alright, I'll tone it down.

I'll tone it down. And then back, and reach out, and down, and around, and lengthen. Hey! (laughs) Ho! And round. Amy, Amy. Maybe just be like, "Oh, and Ho Ho Ho!" "Ho Ho Hos in the house house house!" Reach all the way over, and then back. Last one. Inhale, and exhale, and inhale.

Get long, get happy, it's a Christmas miracle, remember? And now round, and unwind, and float up, and reach up and over, then come all the way up, and turn onto your hands and knees. Tell you what the next Christmas miracle is. No pushups! Woot woot! No way. What a present. Okay, so here we are, on our hands and knees.

We're gonna take the right leg back, we're gonna take the left leg back. Oh gosh, it makes me wanna do a pushup so much! Do it, I'll be right here. We'll watch you. No, not gonna happen. So point the foot, I promise.

Lift that leg up and down. As you lift your leg, lift your waist. And down. And three, and two, and one. And now bring the knee into the chest, and back.

Kristi, keep your head up so you don't lose your tree. Exhale, round, and back. Another life lesson for Kristi: Keep your head up so you don't lose your tree. And back, two more. Exhale, round.

If you have a big head like me, there ain't no problem with anything falling off. Exhale, round. And now we're cutting across the body. Ladies, here we go. Knee to the left elbow, and back.

So we take the knee to the elbow, we rotate, let the pelivs drop. And center, and let the pelvis drop, and center. Who needs pushups when you can just hold plank forever, right guys? And one more, we're gonna come back, we're gonna step in, gonna bend the knees. Thank you.

You're welcome, and sit back. You're welcome. There is a miracle. Yes, I told you that life is full of miracles. And then curl back up, and the next one is...

You're not done, so step one leg back, step the other leg back. It's when my hat starts to feel a little hot. Point the other leg and lift out and up, and out and up. It's the left leg that's lifting up this time. Out and up, abdominals are in.

Here's two more. And down, and one more. And now round, and back. If I whisper it will feel easier, ready? Round, and back, and Amy says it doesn't really feel easier.

Oh, you can hear Amy. Talking about Christmas cookies. Two more. And one more. Oh, cookies and punch.

Squeeze it out, Amy, and cross the body, and back, and cross the body, and back, and across, and back. And two more. Last one. That's all, you're welcome. Knees down, and sit back.

And have a nice breath or two. And then come all the way down onto your mat. On your stomach, on the front of your body. Take the arms out and to the center, or out in front of you. Help.

Help, I need somebody. Oh, wow, I can't believe I just sang on the mic, that is not okay. I'm sorry, I apologize. Lift your head and chest. So you're still on the ribs, just your sternum's picked up.

We're gonna lift the left arm and the right leg and we're gonna let the right arm slide back. And then we're gonna push it forward and come down. Gonna lift the right arm and the left leg, gonna let the left arm slide back. Yeah, so you might wanna be more on the floor if you can. And down, so yeah give yourself some room to slide.

Opposite arm, opposite leg. The hand that's on the floor slides. Feel that the leg that's on the floor is pulling away. It's pulling that arm to you. And then down, opposite arm, opposite leg.

Reach out, and down. And opposite arm, opposite leg. And wave goodbye to this year. And down, yep. And opposite arm, opposite leg.

And reach out, and now come halfway back. Lift everything up, and inhale. Two, three, four, five, out. In two, three, four, five. Here's what you do: you think what you wanna swim to, and what you wanna swim away from.

And then you swim hard, or not. Or maybe, you swim easy. And stop. Both legs down, arms to the sides, thumbs up, and reach the thumbs up, and back. Reach the thumbs up, and back.

Reach the thumbs up, and back. Two more, up, and back. Last one, up, take the arms behinds you, interlock your hands, pull back, lift, lift, lift. Did your sternum just crack? Something made a pop.

And then rest down onto your- Wasn't champagne, that's for sure. (laughs) Wait, it's time for champagne. Almost. Okay, so let's get there. So sit back into rest position.

We're gonna celebrate whatever just popped in Amy's body with some champagne. And I hope that you'll join us, wherever you are. But before we do that, we're gonna do one more thing. So get in close, come to the front. This is the big present.

This is the big present. He's here! Santa. Santa's here. No, I don't know where Santa is, really, but what we're gonna do is we're gonna make a star with our feet. Alright.

Don't go too high, cause I'm not that skilled, ladies. Okay, and now we just make it work. And now we do the star of teaser. Yes, that was a biblical reference, I'm sorry. Reach back, reach around, lift your head, roll up, and if you didn't get it, then lucky you.

Kristi's gonna help all of us. Hey, hey, hey, hey. (laughter) And roll back, and stay touching, touching. And around, and roll up. Yep, yep, yep, yep.

It's kind of very strange, but it's okay. So now they're taking their feet on each other, and I don't even get any help, so that's alright. I don't need you, I don't need you, I got it all on my own. We're gonna reach around. Watch this! Oooh, ooh! So fancy! And bend your knees, and sit back.

It was very hard, it was very hard, I admit. So, let's just do something that's not so hard, yeah? So we just sit up. I hope you had fun. I hope you had fun, I did.

I did. So just lightly on the fronts of the shins. Maybe close your eyes, maybe not. We'll just feel the work that you've created in your body, and that champagne that is to come. Inhale, so like bubbles, champagne bubbles, they just travel up the spine, and they escape from the mouth as I giggle, and then you round your spine, just round.

There's no rules, you can pull away. Get a stretch. And then lift up, and then press back into the shins, and lift your heart and let your tailbone stick back, and arch your whole spine, because what is the spine made to do? It's made to move, and tuck under, and round back. And come back up, and feel the rock.

The pelvic bones moving backwards, the sitting bone's moving backward as the front of the hips move forward. We're just gonna do that one more time, so we rock back, and we come back up, and we arc, and then we take the arms up, and then you open your arms out to side. Go slow, opening yourself up for new beginnings. Lower the arms down. Bring your hands to your hearts.

I thank you. Thank you. I thank you. I thank you. Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!