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Good morning or good whatever time of day it is, where you are today. Thank you so much for joining me for the final of this eight class live series. My intention today is to work both powerfully and mindfully. I would like to really just kind of get juicy and zesty and see what happens. But also my thought is that I wanna do what feels good in my body today.
So I don't have a complete agenda but I hope that you will take inspiration from what I decide to do and make sure that if anything doesn't feel right in your body that you choose to kind of be curious in the position and maybe change it a little bit or adjust to suit your needs. With your feet underneath your hips, let's stand tall and feel our body aligned, kind of ground down through the feet. Feel a little hugging of the earth with your legs, so you'll engage the inner thighs. Inhale, take the arms up and see if you can grow a little taller through both arms, through both sets of fingertips, and then as you take your arms down grow a little taller yet. So I'm gonna say palms up as you go up, inhale.
Breathing w/ Arms
Take your eyes up, but try not to really change your back, and with the exhale, press those palms down. And let's do that just one more time, inhale, up, looking up, and with the exhale, press the palms down and let's roll down from the head, the upper back, just kind of check out how you feel today. Feel your knees, soft, if they need to be. For me, I always like to have my knees soft here. Allow your hands to rest to the earth or not.
Standing Roll Down w/Plies
Let your head hang. Bend your knees a little bit. Feel a release in your low back. Exhale to lengthen your legs. Feel the stretch, the head relaxed, inhale, bend your knees, and exhale, lengthen them, feel the stretch. And just one more time.Inhale, bend, nod your chin maybe and lengthen them, and then roll up through your back. So feel free to bend your knees more if that suits your body or keep them pretty bent. With a little more energy, inhale, arms up, exhale, the arms come down and you roll down one vertebrae at a time. Let your arms relax, your head relax, bend the knees, just one time, relaxing the head, lengthen the legs and then roll up through your back. Just kind of see what you feel here.
One more time, inhale, creating some heat, exhale, rolling down, using those abdominal muscles to support. Feeling what your back feels like. Inhale here, and exhale to roll up. We are gonna do one more but we're gonna make our way down to the mat. So feel free to adjust yourself so that you'll be able to come to your hands and knees, just like I've done.
Inhale, we lift up, and as we lower down with the arms and the body you still wanna feel this energy going up in various different places, so it's not collapsing here. Walk out to your hands onto your knees, with your hands underneath your hips and your knees underneath your hips. Just kind of feel what you feel here. So a little bit of play, a little bit of opportunity to move around. I'm stretching my wrists as I go side to side.
Quadruped Mobilization
I'm not worrying too much about my abdominals. They may be relaxed here. They may be working. I'm stretching my hips a little as I go side to side. And then as I feel ready to go, I'm gonna stand on my hands and on my legs, my knees, if you will, and I'm gonna round through the back. So join me, narrow the belly inward, have the head relaxed and then come to neutral and extend.
Mini Cat Cow
So it's a mini cat cow here. Opening through your chest. Move your head around if you please. Round with the exhale, head is relaxed, inner thighs engaged, and with the inhale find extension, moving where you need to move. Exhale, rounding, and inhale, extending, and just one more time, rounding and then extending. Just waking up that body.Come back to center, walk forward a little bit, a little crawl, and then cross your legs behind you, roll onto your bottom and take your feet out in front of you. With your feet about hip width distance apart, approximately, hold on to the shins and pull yourself forward and round yourself back. So my low back tends to be bit a little tight on a regular basis. So I'm doing lots of things that help my low back loosen up so that I can do some more vigorous exercises. Rounding and extending, just moving, one more time, rounding and extending, and then round back, release the arms and make your way down onto your back nice and slow and controlled.
Seated Flexion and Extension
Settle in your mat. Settle your body on your mat so that you're ready to do some pelvic curls. You may start with your knees and feet together to assess that they are aligned and then separate your knees and feet. Feel open through your chest, inhale through your nose, with an exhale, engage those abdominals and curl all the way up. So if you find it's better to go only halfway up on the first one,that's your prerogative, exhale to lower all down.
Roll Back
A reason you might not go all the way up is if you don't feel fully connected to the abdominals first and then the legs second. So be aware of this as a two-part movement, inhale, use an exhale to lower down, one breath at a time, keeping it with the breath, exhale to peel up, feel abs, hamstrings, inner thighs, in with the thighs, inhale and exhale. Lengthening your spine as you lower down, the vertebra at a time. Two more pelvic curls, exhale to peel up, (exhales) inhale at the top. Use the exhale to peel down.
Pelvic Curl
I'm holding that belly inward and finding stretch through your low back. One more time, exhaling to peel up, and exhaling to peel down. Here, take your arms up to the ceiling, inhale, stretching across the front of your upper body, open them and exhale to lift up. Find some flow. Inhale, widening. Good.
Arms Open Close
Be curious here as we do these movements a little faster and see if you can get what you need out of it. Take your arms wide and stay there. Inhale, legs go one direction. Use the exhale to drag those legs back. Inhale, the legs go the other direction.
Supine Spinal Rotation from Legs
Using the exhale and the abs to drag the legs back. Good, inhale, and exhale. One more time and then we'll pick up the legs and make it a little more challenging. So here with the legs, that center engage your core, settle, one leg up to table top, lift the other, squeeze those knees together, and we continue twisting. Exhale to pull back.
Tick Tock
So option one, you can keep your knees bent the entire time. Option two, you can stretch your legs to straight when you get there and then bend them at center, twist and then stretch and then bend center. Option three. Let's keep the legs as we do a pendulum. Inhale, exhale back. Focus upper back and your shoulder blades actually staying grounded as you twist side to side.So this is an abdominal exercise, but there is some upper back work as well. One more time on each side. Pull those legs back and inhale to twist. Pull those legs back, hug the knees deep into your chest and then lift your head up and your chest and see if you can make a forehead to knee connection stretching through the back of the neck, stretching through the back of your body. And then lower yourself down.
Knees to Forehead
Find tabletop with your two legs. Send your arms behind you. That's your inhale. With the exhale we find a nice lift, and we inhale down. And we exhale with flow. We lift. Good.
Chest Lift
So moving faster, it doesn't mean we're losing control. I am gonna challenge you at times to move a little faster today, but stay in the moment, stay in the abs, stay here, please. Single leg stretch. We change and change legs and change and change. Find your breath, find your flow, find your pieces.
Single Leg Stretch
So make sure that you are in control here even though we're moving just a bit faster, right? Breath. One more time on each side. Draw two legs in, lift a little higher. Hands behind your head and then move into your crisscross. Let's do 10.
Criss Cross
10, 9, 9, practicing, 8, 8, stay lifted, 7, feel. Your head heavy. And here's 4 and 3. Good energizing through the legs, two. And one more time each side please. Draw two legs into your chest.Once again, try to make that forehead to knee connection lifting the pelvis, lifting the head, and lower down. Put your feet on the mat. Sway your legs side to side. Feel the ease there. (exhales) Release. So go ahead and come back through to center with your two legs, lift one leg to table top, lift the other, reach the hands, once again, to the ceiling, send the arms behind you. Inhale.
Supine Spinal Rotation from Legs
With an exhale, we lift the head and chest nice and high. Bring the hands to the backs of the legs. Lift a bit higher. Keep that lift. Hold on one leg with two hands. The other leg goes to the floor. Hamstring pool. Here we go. And we change.
Scissors
Pa-pa-pa. Pa-pa-pa. Pa-pa-pa. Nice, powerful abdominal warm up here. Good. Feel the energy. Feel the breath. Move slower if you need to, or a little faster, if it feels good.One more time on each side. And then we take the hands behind the head and we continue on five. Try to keep your knees straight, four and three, stay lifted, two, and one more time, we're gonna add rotation starting now. You twist to the leg that's up in the air, and you change. Take the pulsing out of it and take one arm reaching toward the outside of the leg, the other arm reaches away, and we're gonna change, so the arms go up and over.
Scissors w/Arms Behind Head
You're gonna reach and reach. You're gonna reach and reach. So your base is in between your two arms. You're looking up on the diagonal and you're gonna change. And really try to ground, that's going to the floor, and try to feel that you're reaching with your arm that's not touching anything but not resting as much on the floor. So really reaching. One more time on each side.
Scissors w/Rotation
And pa-pa-pa-pa. Draw your legs into your chest. Rest your head down here. Place your feet back to the floor. Start with your knees and feet together to feel along your pelvic curls. Separate your knees and feet with your arms down by your side, your palms facing upward.
Pelvic Curl
Feel your shoulder blades resting on the mat. Inhale. With an exhale, engage your abs and curl up through your pelvic curl position, feeling openness across the front of the hip, and then exhale to peel down. Now, if you feel that you can keep your shoulder blades grounded and bring your hands down by your side, please do. Otherwise keep your arms a little bit open today so that you can feel that connection to your upper, grounding down through your shoulders as you do your pelvic curl. Think about it. Let's do one more here.We're to exhale, to peel up and stay. So holding this lifted position. Press into those arms for me, palms up or palms down, you choose. Lift your right leg up to a tabletop position. Keeping your pelvis lifted.
Single Leg Toe Taps
We tap the toe, we lift, we tap the toe, we lift. Just three more here, using your arms as well as your core. And one more time, tap and lift, place the foot down, reorganize. Feel those abdominals working, feel the backs of the legs. Lift the other leg up.And we tap, and we lift, and we tap, and we lift and three, and two, and one. Place the foot down. Here, widen your feet a little bit. Press your pelvis nice and high. In fact, if it feels like a good idea, you could even press put your hands all the way up underneath your pelvis and hoist your pelvis up. Otherwise you can take your hands together underneath you stretching through your upper back.
Shoulder Bridge
Really stretching through the front of your body, your chest while using your upper back. And I could have pressed the pelvis high and enjoy an opening a back bend here. And then release your arms, lower your body down. (sighs) Allow your legs to sway side to side one time, and then lift your legs up to the tabletop. Supporting always with your abdominal, reach around and hold on to the backs of the legs.
Supine Spinal Rotation from Legs
Lift your body, lift your pelvis. Use your abdominals. Use your legs. So I'm using my hamstrings to get a rock and a roll here. I'm using my hamstrings without moving my legs. That's an important piece here.
Rocking Up to Sitting
So you're like a turtle rocking around on its back. One more time here and see if you can come all the way up to sitting. Allow your legs to open, relax your forehead in the direction of your feet and sway side to side. Even let your belly relax. It's a good thing every now and again. Let's sit up.
Butterfly Stretch
Our sitting straight, feet are gonna be in front of you about the width, scoop any out that needs scooping and sit nice and tall here. Ankles are flexed to, use your belly muscles, exhale to peel forward for the spine stretch until we're as far forward as we can be. Inhale here, exhale and round and roll up. What do I mean by that? I want the first part of it to actually be abdominals and a back.
Spine Stretch Forward
So it's a back stretch first and then you can continue your pelvis staying rounded through your back, so you're also getting a hamstring stretch. Round and roll up, one more time, nice and slow. Exhale to peel forward. Abdominal stretching the upper back. And then as you continue to move you are stretching the hamstrings that much more. Some of you will go a lot further.Some of you will not go nearly as far as I am. A little bit faster. Exhale, peel down. (sighs) Inhale. Lift to extension. Heart is open. Elbows are straight by your ears. Exhale, dive down on all the way back up. Three more times.
Spine Stretch Forward to Flat Back
Inhale, breathe, exhale, peel forward. Inhale, lap back. Exhale, round down and back up, repeat. Exhale, feel the back, inhale through the chest. Feel through the back and the leg. Round up one, exhale to peel down.Inhale, flat back. Exhale. Nice flow here. Nice zesty movement. Sit nice and tall. Lift one leg up and bring it to center. Bring the other to join. Go ahead and clasp the fingers.
Spine Twist
Rest the head, put the hands behind the head and press the head into the hands. Create more length through your body here. So grow even taller as you twist in one direction with just a single pulse first, come back here. Twist the other way. Take your gaze up slightly. Just your eyes.So that way we're opening a little bit through our hearts here and a little bit more through the upper back. The feet and the pelvis stay still as we add the double pulse. Here we go. One, two, inhale. Exhale. One, two. So same choreography. Let's breathe and move.
(sighs) Good. Try to feel the upper back as well as the abdominals. Just one more time. And rest. Take the arms down. Move forward on your mat a fair bit, we're gonna roll like a ball here.
Rolling Like A Ball
So remember with me, I really like to take the time to set up the rolling like a ball. I want you to round through your back first and be fully committed to your abdominals right here. Fully fully committed. Lift one leg up without changing the shape, lift the other leg up, and now hold this shape for a couple of breaths and feel it. Slowly try to tighten up the ball, but make sure you're focusing on staying rounded through your low back.Place your hands where they can comfortably hold on. And then you begin to roll. Inhale to roll. Exhale to find your balance. Inhale to roll back. Exhale to find your balance. Keep going. Inhale.
I found that this way of getting into rolling like a ball has really helped my tight low back tremendously, go again, because a lot of the reasons my low back is tight is because I have a hard time accessing my abs in certain positions. One more time. So functional abdominals here stay. Take your shins parallel to the ceiling for me, and then open wide. We're gonna go right into our open leg curl. So here your back is straight.
Open Leg Rocker Prep
You're gonna inhale and now round and roll back. And exhale, straighten out. Go again, inhale round and roll back. So this is really the prep when we have the knees bent like this, let's just do one more like that. And then I'm gonna change things a little bit.We'll come back to this. Inhale, roll back. And exhale here. Bring your legs together. If you can straighten your legs, wonderful. If you need to keep them bent, keep them bent, it's up to you. If you have straight legs and you can really move your hands, you're now in your teaser shape.
Teaser 2
Let's hold the legs where they are and slowly roll down. Through the back, five, four, three, two, and one. Hug your knees deep into your chest. Hold your right leg. Slide the other leg long on the floor. Take a quick little spine twist enjoying any release that you may need through your back, through your hips.
Supine Spine Twist
And then hug that right leg in again. Organize your pelvis in neutral. So I'm gonna change my right leg to a tabletop position and hook my hands around the back of my leg to wake up my hamstring. So waking up the hamstring means you're sort of pushing the leg into the hands and grounding through the pelvis, trying to stay open across the front of the hip. Straighten your right leg, feeling some stretch but feeling energy too and bend.
Bend and Stretch
And let's just do that two more times, straighten, and bend, and straighten, this time hold the straight leg, flex the ankle, release the arms wide to the side palms facing up, leg circles. We're gonna go inward first, one, and exhale and inhale and exhale. Three breaths. Three full breath cycles in each position. So this is the last one. Reverse. We go outward. Inhale, pause and exhale.
Single Leg Circles
Pause. Nice flow. Inhale. And exhale. And one more full breath please. And exhale. Good point. The foot knee. Quick spine twists. Come back to center.
Supine Spine Twist
Change legs. Hug to the left leg deep into your chest first and just get that nice pinch of the front of your hip, the compression of your insides. It's a good thing for us. And then find tabletop with your legs and get your pelvis organized in neutral. Holding the hands, clasping them together, push the leg into the hands to create some hamstring.
Bend and Stretch
Feel the pelvis grounded. We try to straighten the leg three times. I say try because for some of you, you won't go all the way to straight. And for others, you may find that you wanna bring your leg in even more than this 90 degree angle. I encourage you to stay with the 90 degree today.Hold there, release your arms out to the side. Flex your ankle. Leg circles inward, one, and two, and three, and four, keep breathing, and five, and six. Now we reverse. Inhale and the exhale. That's the breath pattern.
Single Leg Circles
Inhale and exhale, and inhale, and last one, exhale, point. The foot, knee and come into a deep wonderful luxurious spine twist. Draw the leg deep into your chest, freeing the other leg up to join. Once again, give yourself a hug. See if you can make that forehead to meet connection.
Supine Spine Twist
Maybe you can, maybe you can't. I know mine's a little bit easier. Land at tabletop with your two legs with your arms down by your side. I'm just gonna center myself on my mat here. So tabletop. Stretch your two legs to straight, a little bit away from 90 degrees.
Knees to Forehead
We're going all to 90. Use the exhale to roll yourself over, for your roll over here. Flex your feet, separate your feet and then touch the feet to the floor. With the exhale we're going to roll down. Now the touching the feet to the floor happens only if your hamstrings allow.
Roll Over
Point the feet, inhale, 90 degrees, exhale, rollover. (sighs) Flex the feet, separate, tap the floor, maybe, and roll down. Pleasure principle with the rollover. If it doesn't suit you today, simply return to the pelvic curl. Continuing on exhale, flex, and use the exhale to roll down.Let's do two more rollovers with our breath. (sighs) Flex. And roll down, one more roll over, please. Try to feel the abdominals really fueling the movement. The choreography ultimately is for fun. (chuckles) For fun.
Nice stretch through the back of the body here and then hold this position if you're still up there for a few moments, enjoying that stretch, and then roll down. If you are already down that's okay, good. Bend the knees. Come into your chest. Hold the legs, the backs of the legs. Lift your head and chest.
Rocking Up to Sitting
The turtle on the back. This time, play around with like moving in various different directions. So what do I mean? You can rock just forward and back, but if you're pretty comfortable here, see if you can also rock just a little bit side to side, but it doesn't feel good on your body, don't do it. Come back through to center and we're gonna rock and we're gonna roll up to a sitting position, please.Perfect. With your feet, press your legs to straight, cross your legs out in front of you. We're gonna make a quick change here and cross over your legs, onto your hands and knees, with your hands underneath your shoulders and your knees underneath your hips. Once again, get organized and make this position feel right. So feel your abdominal supporting, feel your chest open, feel your head back where it belongs.
Plank
Slide one leg back to plank position, slide the other leg back to join. Feel that your abdominals are really holding you together a lot here. Your legs at any time can be free and mobile. They're not working too terribly hard to hold it together. The abdominals are. The upper back too.Going to your right foot for me, we're going to lift the leg up five times, and one, and two, three, four, five. Change sides. Breathing please. And two feet are down. Shift forward onto your tip toes and lower yourself nice and slowly to the floor. Setting up for our single leg kick, with your hands just outside of your shoulders.
Leg Lifts
You're going to pull your body forward first. And then you're gonna find your upper back extension, using your back muscles more than your arms. Lower down, let's do that again. You're gonna pull your body forward and then you're gonna lift back extension. One more time for your teacher.
Mini Swan
It feels really nice to me to redo that and set that. We're gonna lift to back extension and stay. Place one arm forward and the other arm forward. So we've got fingers clasped, pressing down through the outside of the hands and pulling your heart forward and open. Hover your two. We kick with a one two, one two.
Single Leg Kick
Inhale, inhale, exhale and exhale. Keep the pace here if you can nice and quick. If you're starting to feel tension in your low back, check in with your abdominals, make sure your abdominals are really supporting your low back. Also feel that your upper back is staying engaged the entire time. So you pull inward, not propping you up with your arms.Try hovering your elbows and continuing on. Nice breath here, inhale and exhale. One more full breath, inhale and exhale. Two straight legs, gently release. Go right into your double leg kick, two hands clasped together, reaching up high on your back.
Double Leg Kick
Your head is rested. Here we're gonna squeeze the thighs together and hover the legs and do three little pulses here. One, two, three. Inhale to extension, opening the heart. Look the other way. Pump the knees. One, two, three. Inhale and exhale.It's probably really hard to make sure that you can get your elbows down each time. So your hands come up high on your back. Your elbows go down. And again, and exhale. Two, three. Just one more time here and exhale. One, two, three, release.
Bring your hands underneath your shoulders somewhere, tuck your toes under, engage your belly muscles and see if you can first lift your low belly, your pelvis away, and then press yourselves back into your hands and knees with your toes tucked, stretching those feet a little bit. So you may wave side to side with your pelvis. If this doesn't feel right on your feet, adjust so that it does feel okay to you, always, always, always, always, come back to your hands and knees, crawl forward a little bit on your mat so you're somewhat centered and be here for a moment. So once again, I'm gonna have you slide the leg back to straight, slide the other leg back to straight, we're in plank. Instead of going down, we're gonna go up.
Child's Pose
I want you to engage your belly muscles and lift your hips and come back downward dog type, (indistinct) tail bone to the sky. And then with abdominal support, come to plank. Be here for a moment. Use your exhale to lift up, flatten through the feet, and through to plank. Just one more time, lifting up, flattening through the feet, bend one knee and stretch than the other knee and stretch.
Plank to Downward Dog
One more time. Bend, and bend. Good. Come back through to your plank position and nice and slowly roll over, lower down. That is not a roll down. That is a lower down. I'm gonna have you come to your sideline position and we'll do our side lifts, while you settle in on the one side that you're on.
Prancing
I'm just gonna move my microphone. So you have two straight legs and you have one straight arm. You can take the other arm right away up by your side or you can keep it down if that's a better choice for you. Let's engage those belly muscles and lift the legs and inhale down, and exhale lift and inhale down. You can take the arm up to the ceiling, if you wanna challenge your balance that much more.
Double Leg Lift
And let's just do three more here. Teacher's struggling a little today. And one more time, please. We're gonna lift and hold. There's my balance. Lengthen through your low back. That helps take the low back out of it and puts it more in the obliques here.Holding this lift try to lift the legs a little higher, try to lift the arm even more toward the ceiling if you're doing this version. And then gently take the hand down, slide your elbow into place. We're going right into our sidelight kit here. So support with your core, lots of support from the core. Float the top leg up, flex the ankle as we go forward.
Side Leg Kicks
And we point back. It's an exhale and inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale. Good, nice flow. Just two more here. Try to keep your knees straight if you can. Keep the leg behind you. Reach even more.Try to open across the front of the hip. Externally rotate and lift the leg up a little higher. Here, take your hand down in front of you, flatten your other arm and pull your body forward. Opening through your heart, lift that leg back there 10 times. Use the glute.
Leg Pulses
9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1. Gently bring that leg into your chest. We'll take just a short little moment here in this sitting posture. I wanna save time for more stretching later. So just stir it up for a moment, enjoy that little release through hip, and then quickly to the other side.
Seated Twist
Lying on your side here, you have two straight legs and you have your head resting in your long, straight arms. So you may choose to put your arm up right away or you may choose to support. Find those abdominals. And we lift and we lower and we lift and we lower. Now, remember you wanna feel that you're fueling the movement with your obliques, your abdominals, not with your low back.
Double Leg Lift
So check in with your low back and make sure you have this feeling of length. Lift and hold here. Feel those obliques working, low back is long. Hold it and reach a little higher with everything. See if you can go up more, more.Then bring your hand down, come right up to your elbow, resting your head on those fingers, work with your core, this hand can go behind the head and we flex. Sort of new to this exercise. Don't hesitate to put the hand down in front of you. The breath should be nice and quick, actually, it's a quicker movement, but if you need to go slower, you're welcome to do that. Yeah. And forward, and back.
Side Leg Kicks
And one more time forward and back, hold. Take the hand down in front of you, flatten the other arm, pull forward with your heart, externally rotate that lifted leg and reach it up more. 10 times. Here we go. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. We're trying to look for the glute.
Leg Pulses
9 and 10. We come in for a quick stretch and enjoy for a moment. So sit and let it swirl around. Let the stretch happen. Ah, some time left. Just took a sneaky look at my clock and we have a lot of time.
Seated Twist
Keep doing everything I wanna do. Yay. So let's go ahead and spin around onto the bottom, onto your bottom, and send your legs just kind of out in front of you a little bit. Yeah. Out straight out in front of you. I was trying to get my bearings here. Take your hands behind you.
Seated Flexion and Extension
All five fingers facing your bottom and you're gonna get the back support here. So we're opening through the heart. We're looking up. Good. And then I just want you to stretch. So you're gonna round through your low back and you're gonna go down as far as it feels good today. Maybe you take your elbows all the way down.Maybe you just kind of linger here for a moment. And then you're gonna press up again, opening through the heart. Oh, that feels nice. And then we're gonna round, let the head relax, let the shoulders even relax. Let this become something that feels good to stretch.
And just one more time, pressing up, opening through the heart, leaning side to side, wiggling, exploring and then rounding. One more time. Good. And then just take a forward fold. So I'm gonna separate my feet a little bit, I'm gonna hold onto my feet and I'm just gonna relax my neck, I'm gonna relax my back, my belly, everything and just kind of wave in the wind here and enjoy this. Every now and again it's nice to kind of have a pause in our workout and just kind of relax and breathe.
Forward Fold
And then come up. So let's do our back support here. So you'll take your hands, once again, behind you, your wrist, hopefully, have had a break. I'm gonna open through the heart here and just feel that upper back, really working, the abdominals as well. And we just pop those legs or the hips up, pressing down through the legs and lower down. Repeat, tail to lift up.
Reverse Plank
So here we're moving with like a hinge at the hips. So it's ideally a straight spine, but you really have to think about opening through your heart to get the lift to happen. Good. One more time. And let's hold for three breaths. Lifting the pelvis a little higher, using the backs of the legs, using the arms, feeling the position, and then lower down.Good. So go ahead and flex your ankles. Lift a straight leg up and start to walk forward. Straight leg. Straight leg. Straight leg. Straight leg. Straight leg. Good.
Open Leg Rocker
You should be far enough forward to be able to find your open leg rocker. We're gonna bend one knee. We're gonna bend the other knee. We're gonna pitch back. We're gonna hold the backs of the legs once again, we're gonna lift the legs up. If you wanna go to two straight legs, go to two straight legs.Let's open leg rocker. Here we go in now. I'm a huge fan of rolling and working, meaning infusing the various rolling exercises in the work, inhale back, and some playful rolling exercises too. One more time, please. Setting up for our teaser shape. Here we go, my friends. So, can you hold the shape without using your hands? Yes.
Can you bring your legs together? Hopefully the answer is yes. If not bend your knees. Really feel the belly working like powerfully. Here, keep the legs where they are. You're just gonna round through your low back and then come back up.
Teaser 2 Prep
You're gonna try to feel that movement in your low back, rounding through your low back, using your abs, and then come back up. That right there is the key to the boomerang. Really getting that rounded position with two straight legs and come back up, bend your knees. Lean forward. Let your forehead rest, maybe on your knees, or stretch.So let's work just a little bit first with this boomerang shape here. So we've got the two legs crossed out in front of you. I'm sorry. We've got one leg crossed on top of the other out in front of you. We did this last week.
Boomerang Prep
So I want you to be mindful of using your inner thighs, not your feet to hook. We're just doing a prep right now. We're gonna come back to it. Round through your low back for me. Put your fingertips down with your low back rounded and your abs active, float the legs up three times.One, two, should be easy to do, three. It's not easy, but it should be, good. Let's go ahead and change legs. So one leg and the other leg on top. Two straight legs, we're in an external rotation.
You're using your inner thighs. You're gonna round back. You're gonna your spot. Where is your spot? Touch your fingertips down. Float the legs up. Three and two and one. Feet comes down.
Round and roll forward. Good. Uncross the legs and let's roll back. Inhale, exhale, rolling down one vertebra at a time, finding that beautiful control. Hugging it in and the other leg... Two legs straight up to the ceiling for me, arms are wide to the side, revisit our pendulum.
Tick Tock
We inhale to one side, we exhale, pull back. We inhale to the other side. We exhale, pull back. We inhale and we exhale and we inhale. Corkscrew. With your arms down by your side, you inhale, you take your two legs around, back to center.
Modified Corkscrew
Go the other way. Around, back to the center. One more time. Around, back to the center. Now we're gonna have an add on for those of you that would like to do it. First hug your. Feel free to do the add on. (indistinct) Corkscrew advanced takes us overhead.
Knees to Chest Stretch
Let's take our two legs straight. We inhale. We exhale, we roll over, we're in the rollover position. Take your legs to the right over one shoulder. We roll down that same side of the spine around and up the other side. Back to center, reverse.
Corkscrew
It should be flowing and beautiful and pretty comfortable. If it's not, feel free to modify. Use those phenomenal abdominals. Your arms are assisting a little, nothing wrong with that. We'll do one more on each side.It's a one long breath. (sighs) Last one, please. Rolling down. (sighs) Come to center, bend your knees and see if you can bring your knees in the direction of your forehead or your eye sockets and just relax there. Now, if you're not overhead, just hug your knees into your chest, like we've been doing. Feel the stretch through your back.
Knees to Forehead
Feel pretty relaxed here. And then with control, find your way down, slowly roll. You can keep your knees bent if you want, you can straighten them and make it different. It's up to you. Give your legs a little hug and then we get a rock and roll up to a sitting position, like I like to do here.
Rocking Up to Sitting
Feel that back. Nice and loose. Let's cross the legs out in front. Once again, we're gonna come forward to our hands and knees. Slide the legs back. You're in your plank position. Instead of going down here, though, I'm gonna ask you to bring one hand to the center.
Side Plank
So that's the hand you're gonna keep down. And you're gonna come around to a side plank position. Yeah, let's undo that. Use your abdominals. Two hands are down. Feel it. Bring the other hand to the center.And you come around to the sides of your two feet squeezing your inner thighs together. This is one way to know exactly where your hand needs to be so that your feet and your hands are in the right position. So next time we're adding on. You may wanna face me. Yeah. So the one hand goes in. We're gonna come around. We're in our side plank.
We're gonna stay here. Use the abdominals to support, of course. You're gonna bend your knees and lower your hips to the floor, very gently. And you're gonna lift right back up. Good, repeat, bend, lower, don't rest.
Knees Bend and Stretch
And you're gonna lift right back up. Good. Two more times down and you're gonna lift it right back up. And one more time, down and right back up, stay, come around. Two hands are down, reorganize, put the other hand to center, two feet are down, reach the arm up, squeeze the thighs together. As you bend the knees, you go in the direction of the feet tapping the hip and lifting back up.
Swan
Good. Really feel the support from your arm and your waist, lifting back up and feel, both of your feet are actually quite grounded here. Back up, and down, and back up. Stay, come around to those two hands. And feel. Tip forward onto your tip toes and lower all the way down.Let's find a nice, yummy back extension here. So place your arms so that they're just outside of your shoulders. Inhale to extend your spine first. Exhale, this time, pull forward and up and maybe stretch your arms all the way to straight. And then lower down elbows, and body, repeat.
inhale, upper back, exhale, pull forward and up just as open, and exhale. Lower down. One more time. (sighs) You can breathe whenever it makes sense to. Sometimes I queue breath just habitually. Bend one knee. Reach around and hold onto the top of the foot.
Prone Quad Stretch
Find a quad stretch that suits you. If you've been following me throughout this series here, you'll know that I'm a fan of really just exploring. So press down through your pelvis. That's important. Support with your abs. That's important. But feel free to move the leg around so that you feel the most stretch for you.And that may be different on any given day. Do focus on your breath and stay with this position for at least another deep, full breath cycle. Go Ahead and change sides. So we're gonna rest the forehead on the other hand, reach around, grab the foot and just breathe in breathe out and find what you need to find here. Enjoy that stretch. Breathing in.
And breathing out. So option one, feel free to repeat the single leg stretches again. Option two, return on and hold on to the tops of your feet for the rocking prep here, perhaps rocking if it suits you, I'm gonna stay with the prep today. So I want you to keep your legs narrow. See if you can actually bring them close together, and then step two, make sure your pelvis is grounded.
Rocking Prep
So many of you are gonna feel a lot of stretch right there, and that may be where you stop. And then those of you that wanna move on, you're gonna really allow your elbows to bend a little bit and pull the legs in more. I'm gonna push those feet to the hands, to really lift up to whatever feels good to you. And lower down. Find your breath, please. I like to inhale and lift, and exhale and come down.Inhale to lift. (sighs) Just one more time. (sighs) And gently come down. Release the legs, bring your hands underneath your shoulders. Feel free to tuck those toes under for me, and lift the belly up first and push up and then sit back on the feet.
Child's Pose
I like to do this with my feet tucked sometimes like this, my toes tucked, so I can toe stretch. If it doesn't feel right on your toes, always feel free to change. (sighs) Come forward to your hands and knees, cross the legs behind you and send the legs out in front of you. So let's play a bit with the boomerang, and we'll start with the same pieces we worked on last week, which is one leg is crossed and the foot is not resting or hooked. So just a very slight hover, just so you can really be mindful of using your legs.
Boomerang Prep
Your inner thighs and your gut to need to work tremendously for this exercise. Make sure you're far enough forward so you have room to roll back. We're gonna find that same shape we just worked on. So you round back, you put your fingertips down and you hover the legs. Good. Put them down and come forward.That is the key piece. The challenge, most challenging part of this is being able to keep that rounded shape, move the legs, still keep the rounded shape as the legs go down. It flex your functionality. But just do that one more time on the same leg. We're just gonna practice that little movement.
And the key is to be able to do that quickly. Change legs, okay? So we have the other leg on top. You're squeezing with your inner thighs. You've got your belly working. We're rounding back, put the fingertips down, the back stays the same, the legs float off.
If you find that is just tremendously difficult for you, just that one piece, you may not be ready for the full expression of this movement. And so you may choose to just take a pause or just do a piece of it. Those of us who feel like, okay, we've got this, we're gonna flow, okay? If you don't know the exercise I recommend watching without doing at least one time. Change which leg is on top. Here we go.
Boomerang
The arms are out in front. We round, as we roll back the legs go over. We switch which leg is crossed. And then here, we're gonna roll up and find a teaser, balance in the teaser. Let's avoid the stretch behind us the first time around.Arms are forward. Now, use your abs, feel the flection as you fold forward. Inhale, exhale, roll back, bam. Switch. And then we're gonna roll up and we're gonna find a nice little balance in your teaser shape. Arms are up, legs are hovering. Feel the flection.
This time we add the stretch. Here we go faster. Here we go. Exhale to rollover. (sighs) Switch which leg is crossed. Exhale to roll up. Woo, hold it. Take your arms behind you, open for the chest and try to find a nice stretch.
And then the arms swoop around and you're in forward fold. Inhale, and exhale rolling over. Switch going up. Queuing and doing this at a time is always challenging but I'm up for it, and forward full. Let's do a few more together with breath. Exhale. (sighs) Change. Exhale.
Find teaser balance. Find your stretch. Chest is open and reach forward, again. (sighs) Exhale. Pa-pa-pa-pa-pa. Change. And exhale. Balance. Stretch. And reach.
Now, with a little more energy take the stretch out of it again. We're just gonna roll over. Change. Roll up and reach forward. Roll over. Change. Roll up and reach forward. Just continue with me. I'm not gonna talk.
I'm just gonna ask you to do it. Keep the motion going. And reach. Should feel lovely. It's like we're speaking the language of Pilates. We're practicing. (sighs) Couple more. Exhale, rolling over.
Feel that ease and flow. There's no right or wrong. Just let it feel, friends. Pleasure principle. Be curious. One more on each side. That was for your teacher here. Breathing.
Feels so lovely. Boomerang marathon is one of my favorite things to do. (chuckles) And relax. Mmm. Let's move. We're back on the mat.
Take a little more back extension here with you. So roll over your legs until your two hands are down and you're in plank. Go ahead and come down on your belly here, and just lie flat on your belly for a couple of moments, with your hands just outside of your shoulders, you may pull forward and stretch your back. For me, whenever I do a fair bit of flection like that it feels like a good idea, but it also feels like a good idea to make sure that I let my body kind of revisit neutral and extended position. It's very important.
Rest
So now we're gonna move into full back extension again, inhale to lift the upper back, exhale to pull forward and up. Feel the abdominals. You can go all the way to straight if you want, and then lower down. And repeat that please. Inhale, upper back extension, exhale, pull forward and up and lower down.
Swan
We're gonna do two more. Forward and up and lower down. This time we're gonna add a little bit of arm work to this. So inhale to back extension, you're still using your back. This is still a back exercise, yeah?But I'd like you to bend your elbows until they maybe tap and press back up. They maybe don't go all the way to tapping but you should just feel a little bit of a challenge actually in your triceps, but trying to keep your back engaged the entire time, as well as your abdominal bending and straightening. Good. Two more like that, please. One more please. And with straight arms, we're gonna lower all the way down.
Tricep Press
Good. Tuck the toes under. Bring the hands underneath the shoulders. Hold the belly in. Lift yourself up. This time to hands and knees. Flip the hips up high, walk the feet in just a little bit. So you're in like a downward dog stretch here.
Downward Dog
So pressing your heart towards your legs, pressing your tailbone towards the sky. Knees can be bent or straight, whatever suits you. Walk your hands now back to your feet. And we're gonna roll all the way up to a standing position. Take the arms nice and high.
Roll Down Push Ups Combo
Take the arms down and roll down again. Yep. We've gotta do some pushups, don't we, my friends? We're gonna walk out to our plank position. We're in a nice powerful plank. Give me three, five, two. I don't care how many pushups you do. Give me a few.What feels good to you today? Ooh. I feel a little weak. I'm gonna put my knees down. There we go. I can do a few more of that. Two more. Or you are holding your plank if you prefer. Lift your hips up, walk your hands back to your feet.
Let your head, your legs a little bit. Shake anything out that needs shaking, and then roll up. So kind of a modified push up opportunity here. It's not our traditional Pilates pushup, but there are some pieces of it here. We're playing, right? We roll down again.
Your abdominal supporting you. Feel your legs. Decide where you wanna do your pushups. I made an executive decision today that from my knees, it's a better choice. I'm cleaner. So I'm gonna put my knees down and I'm gonna do five.
Straight arms are from the knees. Your choice. Two. And hold your plank position. Lift high. We're gonna do that just one more time, my friends, so choose the choice that works for your body. Dangle, relax, breathe, rolling up.
Feeling yourself upright, open through the heart. Take your arms down and roll down. Come back out to your position once again, choose straight arms. Arms are straight, it's your choice, and give me five breaths, five movements. One more time, please.
Lift your hips high. Come to your downward dog shape, enjoy, the head relaxed, breathing in and breathing out. (sighs) And down to your knees. One last time we'll transition onto our backs so we can stretch a little bit more. Cross your legs behind you.
Downward Dog
Take your legs out in front of you. Feel free to take a rollback or get down however you need. Rolling your body down onto your back. Just release for a moment. Go ahead and bend your two knees for me.
Roll Back
Just like we do in the beginning, your arms are stretched wide. Let your legs relax side to side. Find the breath and find the ease of movement here. We've had bursts of working really hard and bursts of working really kindly and softly. So this is now time to soften.
Supine Spinal Rotation from Legs
Take your right leg and cross it over your other. And just sit here for a couple of moments. Try to feel neutral pelvis. So rather than needing to pull the legs in just yet instead find neutral pelvis, and so the right leg is across. You wanna sort of push that knee away from you a little bit and see if you can feel a little stretch.
Supine Spinal Rotation in Figure Four
Now here, we're gonna take the legs side. So we're gonna go across the body. You may feel something in your waist hip and then you're gonna come back. And you can take the leg the other way. And perhaps that's a better stretch for you today.And then come across. I know for me, it's this across stretch that's really delicious and necessary. So I'm gonna stay there for a few breaths. Please be patient and be curious about this position. Find your breath and get what you need here.
And then bring the legs back through to center, keeping the same leg cross, go ahead and lift the two legs up and hold on to the thigh and give yourself a little stretch through that outer right hip. If you wanna hold on the shin and create a tighter bind, that's great. Give me a few more breaths. (sighs) And then release the hands. Cross the legs tightly so there's no air between the legs and then reach around and see if you can hold just beyond the knee, one hand on either leg, so you're kind of all twisted up here, and see if that gives you a little bit more stretch somewhere.
Figure Four Stretch
You can certainly walk the hands closer to the feet if that feels like a good idea or you can simply hold the knees. That's what feels good to me today. Breathing in and breathing out. Let's change legs here. So go ahead and cross your left leg over the right and organize your neutral pelvis.
Crossed Knees to Chest
(sighs) Let the legs sway side to side and maybe they go across the body and you feel some tugging, some resistance. And then when they go the other way perhaps you feel some tugging or not. And so stay where you need it or continue to explore side to side. I know for me, I need it just over here across the body. I get a beautiful stretch through my hip.
Supine Spinal Rotation in Figure Four
It goes all the way up into my waist. That chain continues on. And breath. (sighs) (sighs) Come back through. The center. Keep the same leg crossed. Lift the legs up and reach around and hold on to the leg there.If it suits you, if it doesn't suit you just keep your foot down. You maybe you're holding the shin on the side. It's easier for me just to keep my thigh and explore, be curious, enjoy. Breathing in and breathing out. Cross that leg completely over.
Figure Four Stretch
So you've let go with your hands and then you reach up and hold on, somewhere beyond the knee. It's best not to be right on the knee join unless that suits you, but maybe just a little beyond the knee and see if you can find the right spot to get some stretch. I feel it nice and powerfully in through my hip here and I feel it more so on one side than the other. And that's typical. So just be okay with that and accept what you feel and go for that sensation with your breath.
Crossed Knees to Chest
(sighs) So let's go ahead and undo that. And like we might do in yoga, allow your legs to just relax long on the floor. Perhaps shake them out a little bit. Allow your arms to relax somewhere on the floor. Perhaps shake them out if you need to.
Breathing
And in a complete restful position, give me a few breaths. Feel your feet, light and relaxed. Feel a lightness that's traveling up the knees, up through your hips, through each and every of your spine, out through your arms and your fingertips, up through your neck, out through the crown of your head, your ears, your eyes, your nose. Breathing in and breathing out. Just awaken your fingers and your legs.And again, in the most organic way you can, slowly bring yourself back into your day or your evening. You may roll to the side, perhaps, And you'll very organically bring yourself to an upright position, perhaps sitting, perhaps standing, whatever suits you today. And To each and every one of you, I thank you so much for playing with me today. Have a wonderful rest of your day.
Zesty Flows with Sarah: On the Mat
Mention
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Sarah Bertucelli (Teacher) |
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Katy R |
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Helen |
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Norita |
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Kerry H |
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Sandra B |
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Joanne Bezzina |
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Lacey |
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Alexandra M |
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Judy P |
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Erika A |
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Amanda S |
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Emer D |
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Sharon M |
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Laura Maria |
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Gary M |
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Pauline E |
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Carinna B |
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Lesley Muir |
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