Control

Hi again. Today we're back at the wall. While we will be focusing on awareness and balance and alignment, we're also going to work more powerfully. So I want you to really infuse control into this workout. So while we're working quickly, there will also be control. So just like last time, find your place against the wall and see if you can settle in in a way that feels luxurious. For a moment or two.

My feet are probably about six or eight inches away from the wall. My head is resting. See if you can find your arms connected to the wall and just bend enough so that you have comfortable bend in your knees. You're not locking them straight and we pelvic curl. Exhale, draw the abdominals active. Lift the pelvis away from the wall with articulation.

Draw Your Chin in just a little bit. Exhale to peel down. So articulating through the spine all the way through to neutral pelvis. And exhale again, we peel forward, pressing the pubic bone forward, getting a little stretch maybe in the, so as there and then exhale to peel back. And just one more time like that. Check in where, where you are, how you feel today and remember that this is about you. These workouts are for you. So adjust whenever needed.

Pelvis finds its way to neutral and we just rotate side to side with the pelvis. Now the legs have to respond. Start working your arms up to the side with the palms facing up. If that suits you and we rotate and we rotate. So now keep the legs still the pelvis still and curl your one arm across.

Doesn't matter which arm you're you're, you're using across your body until you can touch the other arm and lean into it. Do keep your head up against the wall and then undo that. And then again we're going to curl the arm across and see how far we can go. Kind of leaning and pushing into the straight arm. Do keep your head up against the wall if you're able to. You don't have to do anything but try. So curling across here.

So find a place where you feel your arm grounded and then tried to push or pull your pelvis back down first and then unwind your body. And let's just do that one more time. So we're coming across the body here. The pelvis moves the sides tighter for me. So I'm going to pull my pelvis back and then unwind. Press your legs to straight, take your arms overhead and we do a roll up rolling forward, articulating against the wall. Your head is dangling, your arms relaxed.

Inhale here, exhale to around and roll yourself up articulating, stretching tall here. So pay attention to what your legs are doing here. I do want them to be holding you up. Of course that wouldn't be a good idea if they weren't, but I don't want your knees locked. So pay attention to if you need to soften your knees a little bit. Your legs should be engaged, but not overly engaged here.

And then just one of those rollups here. Rounding through the body. Nice little stretch through the back body. And then we round and roll all the, all the way up. Bend your knees, bring your feet together, round through your low back and come into what feels like a hundred position. Let's just let the arms dangled breathing in so I'm not actively pumping them, I'm just letting them dangle a little bit. Feeling a little stretch through my neck. But what's working here? My legs are working to hold me up and my core is working to help me sustain this position. Breathing in and breathing out.

Just pause. Bend the knees a little more. Hands. Touch the legs. We spring up and we spring down. Keep the legs glued together. We spring up and we spring down. Try an inhale on the way up and exhale, flexing the spine. Inhale up and exhale, so it's our double leg stretch, but standing and one words. I'm here each up and bend the knees. Come in, flex your spine, dig deep into the core.

You do have to maybe go posterior with the pelvis and keep that low back. Really grounded here and try lifting one leg up and we change and we change. Single leg stretch, change, change. Make sure your breathing change. I'm purposefully cradling my hands between my knee, or I should say my knee between my hands.

And I'm actively pushing with my inside hand to create just a little bit more of an anchor here and reach and reach two feet down and we spring up and bend. And here's where it gets fun. You ready for it? A little rotation. So lift one leg up. What the other opposite hand comes into the the leg there and you're gonna look in the opposite direction. Keep your head up against the wall and reach your arms straight and then you're going to change.

You're going to look in the opposite direction and you're going to change and you're going to take your arm across the wall. And boy, it is so difficult for me on one side, I wonder if you can feel if there is a difference between your two sides that change there. The arm goes out and I'm looking, so I'm pushing and reaching simultaneously in control of my body even when I move quickly here. Last one over here. So that's like our crisscross standing up against the wall. Stretch your two legs to straight and bring yourself to an upright position here. Find your feet a little forward this time, so not completely up against the wall. And then bend, Keeping Your Body Upright. Continue to bend until your bottom touches the wall. And then we take our body up against the wall. Fold forward only as much as you need to to stand tall. Yeah.

So I'm, I'm going to change my arm there. I'm gonna SV have my arms here. I want to reach back as I come forward. I want the arms to come down and stand tall so the arms stay fluid. We're here, we're gonna reach back and then the arms come down and we stand tall. Just two more like that. Reach and reach back. Rounding up against the wall, their arms forward. Stand tall. One more time. And here my friends, we change it up a little bit. Can you sit a little deeper now instead of coming down or instead of coming up, can you bend down and potentially touch the floor, be in control, be safe on your joints.

Can you lift all the way up? Press up and we changed positions. So I'm no longer against the wall there. I'm going to bring my feet up against the wall with my heels lifted. Yeah. Okay, so now this changes it a little bit here.

We're going to take the arms up, bend as deeply as you can, and then figure out where you can go. Press back and press up. So you're going to bend as deeply as you're able to. Where can you go? Press back now if your knees don't like a deep knee bend, keep it small. There's no reason you couldn't just look over the edge. It's like, it's like you're looking over the cliff there. Don't fall down.

Please just look. And one more time like that. Here we go. Now Look, take your arms down. Whoa. Press your hands into the wall. Look a little more. Be In control standoff, and let's make a small v position. So we're going to make that small v position a little bit away from the wall so we have a little more space. Okay, heels are together. We're in rotation.

We bend. Okay. Bend a little bit deep. More deeper than you thought you could. And then keep your bottom against the wall as you fold forward. You can touch the wall if you'd like, and then you're going to be up and up. So we bend. Okay, look, reach up and up. Just two more like that.

Bend, look, hurry, chap. Good. Just one more time. Okay. And when your hands are behind you, you have a little bit more space to move. So keep them there, right? Your body and stand tall.

Come to an open position here. So a little bit wider, a little bit of space between your heels in the wall, but not a lot. Okay. So bend your knees and see how deep you can go here and feel yourself grounded. Do put your pelvis up against the wall. Do feel your spine long. Do Stay in control. So here with your hands on your thighs, perhaps see how far forward you can fold. Maybe a flat line. Maybe it's not. And then we come up. Yeah, and we fold. So you keep your, your bottom wedged up against the wall and look forward.

Lots of leg work. I tell you my glutes, my inner thighs, my legs are speaking to me, but it feels like a good idea. Remember, it should always feel like a good idea. Just one more time here and we're standing tall. First Fill your body up against the wall. Press the legs up, bring the feet all the way together. A little bit of space. Actually bring the feet all the way up against the wall like we did in in the first wall class and find yourself aligned. Try to press your arms up against the wall if you're able to.

And Go ahead and lift one leg up. I'm standing on my left leg. My right leg is lifted. Option one, feel free to keep your toe connected to the mat or the floor rather. Otherwise, just bend here and straighten. Yeah. The next option here would be to do this with a straight leg out. How about a flexed ankle and another option that I find more challenging his arms up. [inaudible] knuckles grazing the wall. Of course we'll do two more there.

So I'm not looking for a high lift, but I am looking for a nice straight knee, lots of quad work there. Gently put the foot down and we change sides. So again, I've got my heel pretty close to the wall, but again, I need to be able to stay upright. Option one, the toes touching, option two, we're lifting and then we bend and press. And then we can straighten the leg if it makes sense and take the arms up. What you'll find is you might not be able to balance quite so, so well when you're standing in the middle of a room. But here the wall offers you a little bit more support and therefore you're in a little bit more control. And we have just one more here.

[inaudible] breathing and moving. My friends puts your two feet down, take your arms down. And so now let's step away from the wall and return to us. So as stretch here, so take a wide stance about a fist of space between your inside hip and the wall and bend to a position that feels good. You want to work harder, Ben? More? But ultimately what we're looking for is a stretch here. So you want to feel that forward motion from the pelvis, the backward motion from the leg, and then feel a little bit of sensation in that leg. Now see if you can just kind of move your arm out of the way and lean into the wall with your pelvis. So I'm using my front leg to push into the wall.

So getting my arm out of the way meant taking it forward for me. Can you use your fingers and walk your arm forward more and feel that wonderful little bit of rotation. They're feeling a nice stretch in my back leg. Now I'm going to just take my arm up, okay. And maybe all the way around. And if your shoulder allows you, it goes behind you breathing in and breathing out. We walk all the way around. Now, if that suits you, we do that in a fluid motion up and around and up and around.

Two more like that. Up and around. Go slow if it's better for you or linger in a place where you need to be. Last one and up and around. Let's change sides. So again, you have about a fist worth of space between you and the wall, Ben. Both legs feel that you're in a place where you can stretch the so as, so that means pelvis forward, thighbone back, lean into the wall with your pelvis by pushing with your front leg and feel that, that have a stretch there. Enjoy it.

And then here take your arm forward and then maybe you take it up and just like we did on the other side, you might walk it around. I feel the most stretch in this up position first. And then as I start to take my arm behind me, I feel, Oh wow, that's quite a big stretch there too for my, my whole front, uh, shoulder area. And then take it around. Now you can choose to stay in one place, be mindful or you can up and over and up and over and up and over. Good, nice fluid movement is using the wall as a, as a, as a guide, basically. Right? And then around and gently come on out of that.

So let's put our hands on the wall with our body straight and start with your heels lifted and your arms in a position that feels quite comfortable. Like a plank. Yeah. Not a huge plank. Just an easy plank. Make sure you can bend and straighten your legs or these are not your legs. These are your hands. But actually can you jump a little bit? So pushing yourself away from the wall and then catching kind of rolling through your fingers, allowing your arms just to absorb and catch. Yeah, play with that a couple more times. If it doesn't work, you could do one arm at a time. Yeah. And then hold, take one foot forward, drive the other heel down for a nice stretch.

Now here, allow your elbows to bend as you reach your forehead or the tip of your forehead toward the wall. And then press out. Do that two more times. We bend for a nice stretch and we press. And one more time we bend and we pressed. And then change sides here. So again, most of the weight is in your back, legs supported by your hands. That frog mag is not really doing anything.

You'll feel some sensation in your arms as well as in your back leg when you do it that way. Feel free to lift your foot like I was doing, if that's a good choice for you. And then stay, bring your foot back and just come around to a side position and lean against the wall with a straight arm. Kind of hang out right away. I feel a really nice sensation in my shoulder, some stretching in my wrist and my forearm. Explore that. Feel what feels good to you. And then change sides. So feel first-year plank and then just come around to the other side and just kind of feel what you feel. Maybe you don't feel much at all. That's okay. This isn't so much a strength position as it is awareness and and stretching.

Oh, a dolphin just jumped out there again. I love it. Come back around with it. Two hands on the wall. Here we go and come around. So we're going to take that inside leg across and you're gonna try to bend your well and you're going to press out. And do that again and press out. And one more time, press out, make a change.

Take that inside foot across and bend your elbow head. Press out and bend your elbow and press. And just one more time, press come around. One last piece here, I want you to think about the idea of the transfer through your body coming through. So I'm transferring to one arm and I'm reaching open with the opposing arm and I come through. So there's a transfer and then I'm pushing with that arm and reaching open through my front body, getting a nice little bit of a stretch, touch and come through. And just one more time the transfer the chain. Good and come through. So one final piece here, sideline wise, we're going to take that uh, inside foot in front and be in a position where you feel like you can't quite get your hip easily to the wall and then push it into the wall. Yeah.

So find some tissue, some flesh that feels like a good idea to press. And then you're going to take your arm forward kind of like we did with the SOS. And if you don't feel enough sensation, just gently walk your feet out a little bit and reach with that forward leg more. And then walk your fingers forward and around maybe who different type of stretch here and then up and around. Now if it feels like a good idea, just take that circle two more times.

That doesn't feel like a good idea. Stay where it does up and over and back through. And then let's change sites. So again, you want to be in a position where it's not easy to get your pelvis on the wall, but that you can and then press the pelvis into the wall here and get a nice little stretch through that side body. Reach out through that inside leg more. It can be in front of you, across whatever feels good. And then take the arm forward and then again up and around and just really notice the difference between the two sides.

So paying attention to how, uh, this flat surface in this movement keeps you honest in what you're feeling and also be in control of your movements. And really it's what works for you here. That feels wonderful to me. So we're gonna return now to our, uh, leaning against the wall here for another piece. I would like you to find a place where your theater probably a little further away than they have been and kind of narrower. And then Ben, just a little bit, if that doesn't feel right, just adjust as needed. You'll take your hands together at the small of your back and wherever you place them, um, it's really up to you and your shoulders, but place them in a way that you can use your body to push into your hands, to push the hands to the wall and then try to push your arms into the, uh, wall here as well first. And then you're gonna take your arms forward, roll yourself forward. We did this in the first class, so hopefully you kind of remember this, and then press and now try pushing your pelvis forward.

Pull your pelvis back and we round. So it's like a circular movement. We're going to push into the wall and push forward working in the direction of like a, a bridge position. This is actually from the bicycle. We're going to create the bicycle from the Mat. Work. Are you ready? Sur Place one hand underneath your pelvis. Place the other hand underneath your pelvis and find a spot where your upper arms are completely anchored. Your Chin is in and your neck is long.

Now I realized my feet have to be just a little further out from me. I'm going to lift a one knee up, extend the leg and pull it in, lift the other lifted up again, reach out and pull it in. So I'm really pressing my pelvis forward here. I'm using my abdominals to support this position, but I'm also pushing myself into a powerful stretch for my upper body and change sides. Please up and reach. We reach and reach and just one more time and we come in and we'll finish it up with some beautiful back extension.

So here please press your pelvis into the wall. You can lift up high on your toes, you can widen your stance, but I want your pelvis grounded to the wall actively. You can rest your body against the wall and feel that we're going to send the arms up, press the pelvis to the wall, keep it pressing and lift up and lift up and lift up and come forward. Lift upper up. Stay in control there. We're not looking for a full back then.

It's like an assisted swan reach. Reach and allow your arms to slide down the wall. Gently push yourself away. Take a moment with your two feet under your hips and let's do one roll down. No Wall.

Okay. [inaudible] and as you come up, right, feel your body. I feel tall. Thank you for playing.