Mind Body Flow

Hey, everyone. Good morning for my morning people, afternoon and evening for everyone who's in those time zones. It is, as opposed to last week when it was really overcast in Santa Barbara, you can see we've got beautiful sunshine coming in today, I thank you, Mother Nature for that and so, this glare in my face will go past in a few minutes but I'm welcoming that warmth and that sunshine. So, here we are guys, we're in the middle of October. We've done so many weeks of live, thank you again for being with me, if you're here now and then again on the recordings back later.

It's just such an amazing community, isn't it? That we're here and we're moving and week to week with me, you never know what you're getting and I didn't put a description for today either. So, I was just really thinking kind of straight forward mat, get in body, get in breath, maybe a little extra focus on hips today. So, join me for this. So, we'll start in a seated position however you're comfortable with your legs and if you're crossed this way, make sure we'll uncross in a minute, so that each leg has a turn to be in front, okay.

So, let's just kind of settle in and thank your body for showing up also for you and put your mind to your body and let's get the breath going in there, so I'll get that trilogy of things. So, I want you to put your hands on the side of your rib cage, I like to put the heel of my hand right on these side ribs and give yourself a little lift, like you're trying to get your ribs a little bit up out of your waistline skin and that feeling there, so go ahead and start to generate some really nice deep breathing, big inhalations and feeling how you really have that expansion potential here in the rib cage, right, that you can lift it, you can widen it, front, back, side to side and then as we exhale, see if you can keep your lift that you just created, so we don't shrink back down. We're starting this practice of lifting and opening and expanding and strengthening. Then again, if your hands get tired, you can lower them down. So, I want you to think on your exhalation, it's not such a grip or closing or knitting of the ribs, that's not knit.

We're working on expanding them for that ability to be wide and have lots of space in here, the contraction is deeper inside than that. It's not at these ribs and closing those down, it's deeper inside, kind of subtle in fact. A couple more breaths, you can lower your arms if you'd like to. One more time and this time as you exhale, I'm gonna have us, just everybody, round your tailbone underneath you, round your head down, and you can have your hands on your legs and create some flexion in your spine and think the whole spine and you all know yourselves very well, where do you need more flexion or attention of flexion of your spine? I know where I need mine, I'm gonna put my focus on where I need it the most.

For me, it's my lower back, in my lumbar and then here we go inhaling, let's come up to sitting tall and I want us to uncross and cross the legs the other way. We'll do the same thing, deep breath in. So your flexion, so head to tail, creating that flexion spine and you may notice that your glute muscles may contract, let whatever happens happens, but see if you can, again, if you were watching someone do this, like really studying them and looking at them, we'd want to see that uniform curve in their back, you know, from head to tail and if you don't see it, that's okay, you feel where you need to feel it. Let's come up to sitting tall and do one more. I'm gonna turn now and face this way and do that, and then the same thing, flexion of the tail and lumbar spine and mid spine and neck.

All right, and keep your attention on the lumbar. I'm gonna have you now focus from the base of your rib cage, the end of your ribs, rib 12, those floaters that I talk about a lot down underneath your sit bones, really that lower lumbar zone, okay? Open your feet, place your feet flat, put your hands underneath the back of your knees and just be here for a little bit and you can go back and let your arms straighten, that's what I'm gonna do, I'm just gonna keep hammocking kind of the image from my ribs to my sacrum, trying to get that rotation of my pelvis and my lower lumbar to stretch and then here we go, bending the elbows, bringing ourselves forward. So, sitting nice and tall without a whole lot of extra stressful effort, let's breathe in. We're gonna go back to that same curve again.

So, feeling like you lift inside, taking those two top hip bones and really rotate them back as if you're gonna put them on the wall behind you, hip bones to the wall behind you. Yep, try to get onto that sacrum, inhale and here we go, exhale, bend the elbows, it's okay, use them round, flexion, inhale, sitting tall. So again, put your focus on where you need more flexion relationship, flexion connection as Karen, wonderful Karen Sanzo says a lot, flexion connection, love that woman. Yeah, I know where mine needs to go, and curl, let's come forward everybody one more time and we're gonna add on to it when we get back there, inhale, sit tall, here we go and round down, all the way to the mat, down we go, ah. Bring your heels in close to your sit bones, we're gonna continue opening up, breathing in here, rolling up to shoulder blades and curl.

Let's put a focus on that flexion again. So I'm gonna stay focused in my own lower back, but yes, we're coming more to extension. So, we all know that we go through all of these movements so beautifully, nice breath here at the top and rolling down, upper back, middle back, here comes the place for me, get those vertebra to come to the mat. Inhale, neutral pelvis, well I'm having a little, keep going guys, I just need to reclip, y'all are doing fine, I just gotta reclip my technology on my hip, okay, keep on going, there we go. Yeah, so underneath the back of the legs, right, where the leg meets the buttock, contract and lift your hips higher.

Get that hip extension, breathe, here we go, rolling down, massage, okay, one more, we'll take it up. Take a breath, we're gonna be here in this bridge but let's start taking one leg to tabletop, bend, set it down, alternate sides, exhale, second side and lower. So, as you're doing these very common movements we do in mat, keep thinking of that strength and support from other places in your body. So, I'm thinking the back of our shoulders, use those, stand on them like you're standing on your arms, right, but pressing the shoulders back, there's a lot of muscle support there, as you continue just moving from one leg to the next, exhale, tabletop and down, we've got one more now, tabletop and down, everyone inhale, got two strong feet on the mat, lift your hips a tiny bit higher and let's roll it down, upper back, middle back, lower back. Walk your feet together, knees together, Raise your arms up and spread your scapula wide on your back, reach up to the stars or the clouds or trees or something way up there, like you're gonna pick some fruit or you know what I'm saying?

Flowers, okay, then let your shoulder blades just slide to the earth, slide to the ground, inhale, reach up and exhale, slide back and it's really glidey slidey, I don't want you to think so much muscle right now, just feel how the bones of your shoulder blades glide around your rib cage, right? And your rib cage is a beautiful kind of cylindrical structure. So, the movement of the scapula kind of have a rounded-ness to them, don't they, go up and down, one more time, scapula up, scapula down. So getting some good warmup there, let's go to scissor arms. Now the arm that goes up towards the ears sliding up that rib cage wall and change, and just feel that and inhale through center and exhaling, reach and inhale center and exhale reach, yeah, four more and then, the mid spine where we tend to want maybe to arch, let's not arch, those upper abdominals in the front in command there, so that the rib cage doesn't arch off the mat.

We're working on length, so keeping that body against the mat. Now, from here, let's go ahead and take both arms reaching back to the wall behind you. I do want your scapula up your ribs, so that you're getting a really full lateral body stretch, not pulling the lats down, let's stretch them, breathe deeply and from there, now, shoulders down back, hands behind head, chest lift, breathe in to prepare, scoop the elbows up off the mat, roll up to your chest lift position, inhale, come down. Four times total exhaling, so we are in a neutral pelvis. Some of us have to bias that pelvis to just a little bit of a slant back, so that we feel the lumbar in contact with the mat.

I don't want you to be in an arch there. So, if you have to tilt way back, you do that, okay. Curl up and hold please, hold, hold, hold. So now, we have to really hold the integrity of this forward flexion position, breathe in, that tabletop leg comes up again, inhale it down. Second leg up, inhaling down and repeat, first leg and lower, second leg and lower.

Four more, see if you can engage those abdominal muscles, think chest toward thighs, spine a little higher off the mat, one more each leg, curl and last time, good and from there, roll yourself all the way back. Wherever you'd like to put your arms, put them now and put one knee in to tabletop. Second knee to tabletop, taking both knees into our lateral movement, a little bit of side to side. So, I like to press my knees and ankles firmly together. Yup, and then leaning to one hip, I'm gonna go to my right hip and just feeling that again, the shoulders don't come with us on this exercise, this is about from hips to knees really and then center the length and over to the opposite side.

So, you do want to shift some weight to that hip and center and shift to the first hip and center, all the while inside, we've got that abdominal wall that's pulled inward, we're engaging it in, snuggle it in as I like to think, pull sometimes can be a little bit for me, a little aggressive and I like to think snuggles, right? Cuddling in, pulling in that feeling, just at a pull. Okay, anyway, one more each side, yeah. Full is not a bad word, I just think sometimes it's maybe not the best choice of words. Okay, so then come to center everybody, pick your head and your chest up again and put your arms long by your sides, adjust if you need to, I'm gonna start going from here, tabletop and the Fletcher breathing, Fletcher rhythm, so inhale, exhale.

Three four five, then straighten your legs perpendicular to you, legs, pointed toes, energy in the toes. Keep going, lower your legs a few inches, hold them there. Shoulders are back, chest is toward the thighs, lower the legs a little bit more, hold them there. One more lowering, line of your legs and hold, two three four last breath cycle, lower everything down, legs, torso, head. Arms come up to the ceiling, stretch back overhead without arching the spine.

Bend your knees a little bit, let's try some roll-ups. Here we go, inhale, exhale, rolling up. Take care of your back, I do have my pad with me today. My lower back feels like it needs it and I'm gonna take it back. Let's roll across that sacrum through your lower lumbar and stretch.

Here we go. Remember, where do you need more flexion in your spine? We know so many exercises in the mat have flexion. So, where do you need yours? Focus on that place, focus on that place and really concentrate on what you need.

There we go. Rolling back. Let's take two more roll-ups today. Inside, we're lifting as we curve over, we're lifting as we curve over and take it back. Last time.

I am not doing roll over today. If you want to throw a few in for yourself, go ahead. I am gonna continue on however, into leg circles. So if you have a pad or something, take that away. Okay, let's take one leg up to the sky, hold onto the back of the thigh, just made a little rhyme and circle your foot a few times and this is our opportunity to really focus on pelvis and that squareness of it, that you're pulling your hips down into the floor.

Take the leg that's up in the air, externally rotate it, before you circle today, can you bring the leg closer to your body, your torso today, bring it closer and I want us to think that as that's happening, yes your quad is working and hip flexor, it's supposed to, go in, pull your stomach in and notice that your lumbar probably met the mat, let that happen please, let's cross. Circle around up and let the pelvis and the lumbar meet that mat a little more. Three more this direction. I want to make sure those of us, especially that have more of an arch down there that we're starting to lengthen that, one more, right, continue to lengthen, now other way with the leg. Every time it comes up to us, get that lumbar down.

Two more and then just quick change in the legs, pull on it a little bit with your hands, circle the foot a few times, okay and then as you let go and have the leg stay up, turn it out slightly, bring it toward your chest a little more, notice your lower back. Can you get the lumbar vertebra more imprinted, that's from your stomach and the effort of lengthening your back. Here we go, crossover, around and up, cross around and up. Every time it's up, your lower back gets longer, like a TheraBand on each side of your spine, nice and long. One more reverse Three four yeah, five and hopefully you feel a little more that you've gotten that connection.

Both knees to your chest, please. Hands on shins, press those shins down. Lift your head and your neck up. Yep, and just walk your chest a little higher to your legs, get yourself in a roly poly position, before we actually do the rolling, like a ball, feel the position, feel the shape, open the knees a little bit. Put the hands on the shins and compress your legs against your torso.

Okay, wouldn't that be nice if we could all keep our heels that close to our sit bones when we do rolling like a ball? Let's see what happens, so come on up. Bring your hips to your heels. Okay, yeah, it always kind of starts out fine up here and then we roll in it and we lose it. So, we're making an effort to keep this space the same.

Here we go, we roll, we come up, put the flexion where you need it, put your mind on that place where you need it. Three more. Can you tell, this class is really about my lower back right now, one more time, trying to get that back down and pause, okay. I can tell you, I teach a lot of osteoporosis type of clientele, right, where we don't do flexion. So, I'm in hinge and extension a lot and so I just have to be really honest, I've lost a little of that in my flexion, so that's why I'm kind of queuing that today.

I know I need that. Yeah, it's not that I don't need extension but I certainly need more flexion in that part. So if you're the opposite (static sounds) Amy, sorry, this is Julie, Amy, can you hear me? What I want you to do is keep your knees to tabletop, hands on your thighs and really feel your effort of tummy to spine, how that lovely compression feels. We're gonna keep the legs in tabletop and just extend one leg forward, really, you can take that leg as low as you'd like to go, it can go low, it can go high, but stay with your back, stay feeling your back down, change sides, exhale and exhale and exhale and exhale, we're gonna keep going with our hands behind our head and nice and slow because it's good for us and it's hard sometimes to go slow.

We're gonna add some twist rotation, criss-cross, one, exhale, two, keep that back down. I know some of us like to kind of lose it there, we start moving more from the other parts of our back, keep it down, take up the tempo, eight, seven, six, five four, three, two, and one and then everyone come in and rest for a sec. Double leg stretch is coming, I didn't leave it out. Come back up to this position, okay, get a little higher off your shoulder blades, here we go, inhale, stretch, exhaling in inhaling stretch, and exhaling in and lengthen the side of your waist, just as much as your arms and legs. So it's the sides of the body, let's take four more today.

Stretch your hips from your waist. Stretch your ribs up off of your hips. Last two, stretch and then we'll be coming down to rest the neck for just a moment. Keep your knees up, just rest the head. We'll come up for scissors, now take one leg up, walk your hands to your calf, hold this position again, climb a little higher up your leg, try to get up off your shoulder blades and then I want you to take this top leg and as if you're trying to pull it up to the ceiling, then toward your torso.

Other side and don't go fast, pull it up to the ceiling and then toward your torso. That should really get you and your back down on the mat. Ready, change, up and towards you. Pull it up and towards you, up and towards you, up and towards you, four more. Up and towards you.

Last one. Tuck your knees in, roll yourself up. Good, let's do a spine stretch forward, open those legs and you can go the width of your mat or even a little wider than your mat. Let's do the first one with the hands, right down on the mat between the knees, sit really tall, everybody, take your head down, walk your fingertips, where do you need most flexion of your spine? Try to focus on that, put the focus on where you need the most flexion, lift and flex and roll up to sitting tall, we can do the regular one twice more with our arms up, inhaling, same focus though, concentrate, mind to body and breath.

Keep that trilogy going, that triad, right? Lift the abdominals, flex the lumbar back, ease those shoulders, roll up to sitting tall, one more. Exhaling, so we know our sit bones shouldn't go anywhere and if you're focusing on flexing your lower back, your butt really won't move off the mat because your butt is your butt and it's down. Your lower back is your lower back and you're trying to stretch it back. Stay with it, put your hands on your toes.

Grab a hold, pull the stomach back even more, pull it back. I want you to really know, this is your preparation for your open leg rocker, right? So, oh yeah, from the ribs to the sit bones, round, here we go. Come up towards your feet. No preparations today, let's just go right to it.

But before you do, hold this position. You're already starting to round your lower back, yep, pull it in, and here we go, roll through, coming up, lift through the chest, not too high, roll and up and roll and up, here we go. It sometimes can take a few to feel like, oh yeah, that's my rocker. It took me four repetitions to feel like I've got my rocker on, that's okay, that's why we do our practices, right? One more time.

We're gonna hold it here. I want you take your legs together and we're gonna roll a little more and I love Pat Guyton, as you know, I talk about Pat a lot and she is a good friend of mine and also my teacher whom I've learned so much from and I want you to do this version of Pat's. Open leg rocker like this, remember the day she said it, that's open legs, it sure is. Try not to move the legs, so this one is gonna wanna probably move, try not to, roll back, oh dear God and up, change legs. So the leg that we're not holding onto has to energetically reach out from the pelvis, right.

Change. Four more and reach roll and roll. Thank you Pat, every time I do it, I'm humbled. It's called learning. Okay, and rest.

Yeah, fantastic, we're gonna move on now. Let's move on to our side, I'm gonna roll onto my right side and I want us all to start up on our elbow today. If this doesn't work for you, take care of it and come all the way down and clam. Yeah, so it was where my mic was, I'll be a little more mindful, okay and so, I've got my heels pressed together firmly, I want to keep my side bodies long, this way up toward my armpits, as well as up off the mat. Let's just take four and three and two and one and then holding the knee down, lift this underneath side and we're just gonna take the whole parallel leg up, flex your foot here and lower your leg down and press the leg up, try not to turn it out, we just did that in clams.

So I want you to keep this abduction focus, right? And that side of the hip, press up and the other hip on the floor can also be pressing down. Three more, press and down with your shoulder blades, here we go. I want you to take that top leg now and reach it forward, let's do a little bicycle movement with your leg, right? And knee up to the chest, leg forward, bicycle back.

If this is not a comfortable position for you on your elbow, change it and go all the way down. Four more this direction, four and three nice bicycle movement of the leg and that was our fourth one, reverse it, so it comes towards you, back and then front. I think, heel to bottom, knee back and then I bicycle forward, heel to the butt, knee back and bicycle, in and bicycle, four more. Feeling those hips, I said, there'd be a little more focused on hips today and here we go, and then everybody close together. Okay, I do want us all to lie completely flat if you're not already there and then bottom arm makes a pillow, take the top leg and bring it up, toe to the knee and set the knee down on the mat.

We're not quite ready for inner thigh, I'm still gonna work here, adjust this hip, so that you're not hiking and now what's happening guys, contract the back of the hip, it's like a clam, but you're gonna pull the leg back into what we dancers know is our passe and then close. Contract and bring that thigh back and lower. Press it back and lower and press it back and lower. Four more here, press, try to increase the strength in your hip, but also the mobility of that hip, press and now, holding here, okay, that knee, can you bring it up toward your elbow or your shoulder and then back down. So, just work this movement here, okay, that thigh to shoulder.

So let's work with that here for the passe developpe on this direction, so we're gonna drag it up, up and lower. So it's thigh towards shoulder, foot to the sky and down, you know this exercise. Reverse it, so we're gonna take the leg up, knee to shoulder and stretch it very long as if the top leg goes past the bottom leg and and stretch, four more and lift, touch and stretch and lift, touch and stretch, last two and lift, really working those hips and then the next sequence is finally the time for the inner thigh, so I want you to bring this leg up, hold at your ankle, bottom leg very long and pull it up. Again, you're contracting that whole long line of adductor muscles and you want the leg to come high without turning this leg in though, so you still get your turnout in this top leg and four more and three, two okay everybody, hold it up there, let's do our eight little pulses of the leg. Five, six, seven, eight and circles, four in each direction, other way, four, three, two and one and now keep the bottom leg up, set your hand and you want that for some support, bring both legs to touch now and I want you to roll onto the side of your hip a little bit more and see if you can balance with your arm over your head and just get a beautiful stretch through your whole body and then, we'll go ahead and bend the knees and rest.

Let's do a book opener stretch. So take the bottom arm out from underneath you and then take the top arm and you're opening toward the ceiling, any amount, your hand can be on your shoulder, you can really just open this up. Let's do it two more times, so the hand comes back and arching the arm to the ceiling, the bottom arm is also stretching way out from underneath you and close, one more time. Yeah, I think in all the months we've been doing these live classes or all the weeks that I've been, that might've been my first technical difficulty. I guess there's first time for it all.

Okay everybody, thanks for sticking with me. Let's come on up, we're gonna do all of that hip work on the other side, of course. So we started here on your elbow. Knees are bent, heels are together and again, the heels are in line with your bottom, right? And you can have your hand behind your head for that support, moving the ribs and the hips and the head and the neck here first, just getting some of that kind of Sidewinder mobility, lateral flexion.

Okay, and now, stay in the place where you're long on both sides. Let's go ahead and start that clam movement, exhaling. So, I'm gonna contract in the posterior hip to get the front of the leg to move open, press and press without falling down in this underneath side, last two, press and press. Of course, that's external rotation, right? So now, let's just do abduction and lower and lift the thigh and lower.

So thigh, shin, and foot are all in the same plane. We're trying not to drop the bottom waist, we're doing what we can. So again, if this is fatiguing this underneath side, you can lower all the way down, three more to go, that was one of them, two, and lift, okay, then we're gonna do our bicycle, right? So thigh to chest, put your foot forward and bicycle the leg back and I don't want to have you overthink of the steps of it, just ride a bike, right? You can always get a little more focus when the knee bands to contract your hamstrings.

I just like you to move, you'll feel those hips, we've got two more this direction, yeah and then pause when the leg is in front. So now, we reverse it, bring your heel to your bottom, put your knee behind you and then start circling backward and two, three, good and four, four more everybody, we're doing great, feeling those hips, six, seven and eight and close the knees. Okay now, coming all the way down on that arm, bottom arm bends, turning out, take the toe to the knee, and then put this knee down, okay. Contract the back of the hip to press open in that passe and then pull your knee down to the floor and press back. So this is an interesting exercise, you could start accidentally hiking the hip up if you're not careful or mindful.

So, we don't want that compression back and you'll feel it over time. So you want to keep those waist lines long and press and press. Okay, keep this one open, here we go, we've got to bring knee to shoulder. We're kind of prepping that hip joint for that big passe that's coming right in a second here. Okay, so we're trying to get that high lift, here we go.

Now let's go all the way through the passe, so we do toe to the knee, knee to the shoulder up and down, draw that line and up, and if you feel like kind of making an expression of your movement, like a kick, go for it. A lot of times, we say do more of a stretchy sense but sometimes if it's really a hard exercise, this is tough. You might need that burst of energy in that leg. That's all right. Okay, that's enough in that direction, go the other way, up, toe to the knee and get really long, up, toe to the knee, stretching long, lift as if you're trying to getting that leg half, quarter an inch longer and then the other side.

Let's do one more, okay and now, we'll get ready for the inner thigh work. So bring this leg up, waist is still long and we pull the bottom leg up and two and three. Good, that whole long line of muscle on the inner thigh and six, seven, and eight, hold it up, eight little pulses, one and two, three, and four, six and seven and eight, hold it there, pick a direction for four circles, one, two, reverse and four, three, two and one and then hold that bottom leg up, top leg meets it, lifting a little higher and let's check our balance. Hold and strong, if you wobble a little, you're human, don't worry. Lean forward a little bit, it's kind of fun to test it.

Good, okay, that's plenty though. Come on up, everyone, wonderful work, come on up and I want us to come into quadruped, okay and I'm gonna face this way. I do need to adjust one thing here, everybody there, come into quadruped and let's do a little bit of cat and I think I want to do just a good old cat position. So, starting from neutral shoulders or over wrist, take a breath, we're back to flexion, aren't we? So where do you need the most flexion?

Go back to it, feel it. I'm gonna focus on my lower lumbar and then I want to take that cat and move her back or move him back right there and then keep that cat and move it forward, so shoulders over wrists and then just come to neutral. Exhale, flex into cat, move your cat back. Oh, it feels good and then over the shoulders over wrists and neutral, twice more. Oh, good and neutral, one more and neutral and there.

Now come on down to your tummy and let's do our single leg kick and you can prop up on your elbows, right? And before we start the single leg kick, and this is what's challenging about doing some of these lives, I can't see you all and I just really wish I could, but notice right now, if you're on your elbows and your navel is on the mat or that part of your abdomen, nothing wrong with that, but let's see if we can pick it up and get more that the balance of you is this part of your thigh where you meet the pelvis, that crease, that's what's on the mat, okay and so, from the pubic bone skin up to your chest, you've really got to pull it up. Bring your legs close together, here we go for kick, kick, down and kick, kick, down, and kick, kick, and down. Do what you need to with your feet, I like to flex, yep and kick, kick and down, kick, kick, and down. We're going to go just a little bit faster, here we go and kick, kick and kick, kick.

Four, three, two and one and then everybody, come down. Place your hands in a stacked position and set your forehead down. Again, let's just check on a few places and that's going to be the pelvis. Now, if you need to separate your legs a little bit, that's fine, to allow your pelvis to really get to press on the mat. If you can do that with your legs completely together, that's what I'd like you to try doing, okay.

Now I want you to flex your ankles. Put your toes down on the mat. Your knees are still touching the mat, a very subtle little move, but now to engage the glutes and hip extensors, now lift your thighs up and your knees up and still press your pelvis on the mat. My feet are still flexed and then just easy does it, put your knees on the mat and go ahead and look, if you need to. So first is the toes are tucked, the knees are on the floor and all it is, is this, engaging your quads, your glutes, your hamstrings to elevate the knees.

It's such a small little move, but you should feel it and lower, three more guys, exhale and out and press, I'm really trying to press those hip creases and pubic bone onto the mat, that was our third one, stay there, brush your toes on the mat, lift your feet up off the ground and begin a little leg fletcher. Okay, you can point your toes. Keep the hip creases, pressing the mat and start to float your head up off of your hands. Feel free to do swimming if you're going for swimming, this is my version today. I'm trying to focus on my pubic bone, pressing the mat.

Four, three, easy shoulders, two and one and everyone rest. Okay, what I'd like to do next is have you take your hands right by the sides of your shoulders, put your forehead down, let's work on a little swan. Do what you need to do with your legs, I'm gonna scoop mine apart, here we go. I'm looking forward with, once I pick up my face, eyes, nose, chin, and chest. I'm continuing to look up the ceiling to the wall and ceiling in front of me, using those arms, pressing up.

Remember, you're stretching your front up, pull the back of the head back, breathe in deeply and as we come down, bend those elbows, which are very close to your sides and you're not collapsing, you're reaching with strength, looking at that wall, looking at the floor, looking at the mat. Couple more everybody, lift the chest and look forward. So it's a continuation, forward and up, forward and up, forward and up, forward and up, shoulder blades need to be behind you on your back. Lift, breathe in, and coming down all the way. We'll do one more together, inhale and exhale swan.

Let's do a little bit of a dive and catching. I'm gonna just dive and catch my hands. You don't look down, you still look up. Three more, look up, look up, last one and now, come all the way down. Yeah, if you look down on that, you're probably gonna face plant, okay.

Come on up and then guys, let's face each other. I'm gonna sit in a straddle and face you. Take a moment and get right on those sit bones. Okay, this'll be interesting, take your hands underneath the base of your knee, by your inner thigh and use your hands to help you sit up a little bit higher, not pushing your ribs forward, that's kind of false extension, right, that actually makes the back get shorter. So you want to think of your back taller and then flex one ankle and knee and then set it down and you can go to point, other side, flex the ankle and the knee and this hand can kind of help you.

We'll do this with the hands on the body right for a few and then, we'll challenge it. So, we have flex the ankle and the knee and extend, flex the ankle and the knee and extend. All right, that's single leg, two legs at the same time, it's gonna look kind of silly, flex and point like so, and up, very jointy with the ankles and the knees. Okay, you can keep your hands here if you'd like, which is the easy way or arms here. We don't want the back to fall down or slouch.

So, it's a lot of work in the back, right? Your hip flexors, absolutely, you're gonna need them in about a minute and lift and up. Okay, keep going for four more arms here, reach up, reach up. The last exercise I wanna really work on is our teaser. Okay, oh, how could I do that to you?

But we're going to bring your body forward, stretch this out a little bit. Now the teaser, of course, you all know your teasers, I need to move my mic pack, hopefully we won't have another glitch, let me get it over here, is really what you need to do in your teaser and what I mean there, I'm gonna turn, you guys can do, we all know we can do hands behind the knees and keep holding on and make your shape, right? If you're fine with this and you wanna keep your hands on your legs, come with me. You're gonna walk your hands down, even one walk and you're trying to get your lower back back on the mat a little bit, right? That's your teaser and walk back up.

Where do you need flexion in your back? Make it your exercise. If you're going farther, go ahead and come all the way down. I'm gonna take my legs down, it feels easier to do this for me, roll yourself up to your teaser. Keep that lower back rounded, breathe in and roll back.

We're only gonna do it one more time, so get what you need there, here we go. Wherever you are, please put your hands behind your thighs, take one arm up to the ceiling, just one arm, try not to fall back and change hands, one arm up, do you think you could try two arms? Let's try, lift, lift, lift, and that's plenty, cross your legs and rest. Okay, let's do a hip flexor stretch. Okay everybody, we've done a lot of hippie stuff here, so I'm gonna have you just take one foot up kind of that lunging position, so one foot forward, lean this hip forward, get a really satisfying stretch on this line from your tummy to your thigh.

Make sure your abdominals are supporting this stretch. We're gonna do kind of an old school tuck the toe down and get into more of a runner's lunge right here. So whichever leg is your front leg, mine's my right one, I think most of you went there, can that hip, can you pull that hip back a little bit? Okay, and then use the back leg foot to kind of push you forward and back, kind of think leg pull front, but we're not gonna do it. What I wanna do next is transition us from here all the way through the center, so you have to do a little pivot.

You're in a wide, second position, put your hands on the floor, bend your elbows a little bit to get slightly lower to the mat and just do a couple, bend and straighten of the elbows. Okay, now you're ready to do the other side. So you're gonna pivot all the way around to the second leg, put that knee down and we went into this stretch of your hip flexor, abdominals, quadriceps, making sure your abdominals are supported in for the lower back support. One more and we're gonna stay forward and then we'll take that kind of old school extension runner's lunge holding there, you can rock back a few times. Good, and then we are gonna finish with one more rolling exercise.

So take your back foot and bring it forward, come on down. Let's do our seal, okay. So knees are open, hands go underneath those ankles, hold up on the front of your ankles and instead of toes facing out, I want you to put the feet, the bottoms of your feet closer together, sometimes we call that the prayer position of the feet. So, if you can get the whole bottom of the foot to touch and then aim your toes up, okay, I'm just gonna hold that position, so you can kind of see the shape and then go into flexion again. Ready, I'm not gonna do open close of my legs, right, when I go over my shoulders but I'm gonna roll and roll and try to do it at the top, one, two, three, roll over and so, when I'm going backward, I'm thinking of my toes going up and then to the wall behind me, right?

So ceiling and wall behind me, four more times and open, open, open. Three, I'm feeling some interesting things in my calves, that's why I keep saying oof, one more time and one, two, three. Okay guys, finish with me this way, just sitting straight forward mat for the most part, little extra stuff. I'm gonna ask us just to sit for a second and just kind of let your system come down. If you have to leave, thanks for being here.

We're halfway through October, we've got a couple more weeks of this month and a lot of you know that my favorite holiday is coming up, which is Halloween. There's a good chance, I'll be in costume in a couple of weeks 'cause of my last Tuesday class of October, right? So I'll probably do something themed. If you have any requests, let me know. But you know, things that come up are cats and things that are Halloween related but lost my train of thought, which is fine.

Thank you for being here, have a great week until I see you next time. Join us for all the other amazing people this week. Kira Lamb is still here tomorrow, Karen Sanzo is on Friday of course and amazing teachers. So we all thank you so very much. Have a great week, everybody.

Bye bye.