In the Moment Mat

Hi everybody, welcome to class, (hands clapping) I'm so glad you're here. Today, we are gonna focus, I'm gonna focus on a little bit of where am I today? How do I feel? Who am I in my own practice? And it's kind of about moving and moving forward, so let's do that.

I'm gonna open the door to inquiry, and to just let myself out, I hope you'll do the same. Let's begin, start by sitting on your mat. Nice and tall, you know looking, at least try holding on behind the knees, draw your body upwards, draw your spirit upward, your feet are flat, check out like how loose can you make your head, sort of bobblehead it a little bit, just like sits up there on top, wobble, wobble, wobble, see where it's landing. Then I wanna say pull in a little more to get tall, but we don't have to work so hard yet, let's just start to tip the pelvis back and roll back, and then come back up. Tip the pelvis back, I think of it from the front of my hips, my hip bones draw back first and again, take it back.

Draw yourself back up, just sort of like it's like bobble heading, so to speak, your pelvis forwards, you can even keep it smaller. See if you can initiate the movement from there, don't worry about anything else. Back and up, and so when I say we're focusing on ourselves, I really mean like what do you need? And I'll give you some exercises, but what do you need was in the middle of them, and then we're gonna build our back strength and our back flexibility, and we're gonna focus a little bit there because if we do that, the front can move up forward. All right, so I'm just going back and forth.

Now, I'm just gonna put myself forward a little, and just go all the way down, just all the way down, put your head on the mat, your feet are flat about hip bones distance apart, and off we go for our pelvic curl, I gotta warm up this way, inhale, right away feel the back of your body. Exhale, roll up, bone by bone, sorta just checking yourself out, where are you now? Inhale. And I think of it from my throat, almost like right there, that's where I start rolling down, keep going down all the way, there we are, inhale at the bottom. Start the exhale, just notice what happens.

Come at, you know, you don't have to think, oh, I gotta contract my abs, or my butt, or anything else like that, you just let your body be, and then you discover a lot, inhaling at the top, exhale down. And as usual, you, I'll cue breath, but partly out of habit, and partly because I liked the choreography, keep going, I'm going up on an exhale, but mostly you just wanna keep breathing and try for ease right at the beginning, why not? Inhale, exhale, roll down. And forgive me if I cue a different breath in what works for you. I'm doing about three more, I start the exhale, I feel just what happens, I go up as straight of a line as I can up my spine, I get up there and then I commit, I have to almost re-tuck the pelvis to find those hamstrings, and then I melt my way back down.

I stretch the spine further down the mat, than when I started, hopefully, up we go. And so sometimes we try too hard, so I'm just gonna ask you to check out yourself, are your collarbones wide? Are your hands down? Are your wrist down? And don't worry if they're not, but you'll notice what's going on there.

Exhale, roll down whenever. And I'm at the bottom, inhale, start that exhale. Do your best to keep the backside of your body on the mat, in terms of the arms and the hands and the wrist, we're there at the top, and hang out here for a second, what are your knees doing? It's okay to look, (laughs) look at yourself. Are they splaying out to the side?

Are your feet rolling out? Are you feet turned out? If they are, stop it, back straight, and then you can really learn things about yourself, and where you are in terms of the structure. Inhale, exhale up. I'm gonna stay up on this one, and remind myself that I can stand on the back of my arms, so long as it doesn't pop my shoulders forward, if it is happening, just widen your hands, it's okay.

Around here, just lift the right heel. Put it down, your hips are not changing. Lift the left heel, put it down, just sort of feeling our feet, feeling ourselves. You can't have inquiry if you don't know where you're starting, right? You got to know where you're starting, I'm gonna go back and forth, back and forth, just kind of like, right okay, I'm on right, one more left.

I'm back to the thing, and have to recommit for me that sense of a pelvic tuck, and then I can start stretching my spine back to the mat, one bone at a time. Without all the haha fancy stuff, we're going up just one more pelvic curl. (exhales deeply) Check yourself out. Ah, if you need longer, I don't know. Exhale down.

Down. Down. Hug your knees in for a moment, then just leave them, or put them together, (hands clapping) and take them to about what we call the tabletop, arms are outstretched to the side in a T-like position, still warming up here, gang. Come toward the front, or to the plant, or towards me, however you see it, check yourself out, knees are lined up, exhale center, Doesn't have to be far and your feet can be on the floor. Other side, inhale over, and exhale.

Center. So that hip does have to lift, but the opposite shoulder, that's gonna dictate your range of motion, don't go so far that it comes up at all. Inhaling to one side. And again, I like to start that exhale, so I feel the middle of the body, center and inhale. It's as if it's one leg.

(exhales deeply) Still warming up, and again, feel free to put your feet on the ground, I'll probably do one or two down there in a minute, so I'll catch up with you, but if you're doing it. Over, back, try to stretch your arms a little bit more, even though they're on the floor. And back to center, put your feet on the ground, place your fingers behind your head, support yourself, and check out how you're gonna do that, you can leave your feet together or separate them, I just separated them because I said. Here we go, exhale, curl your head, neck, and shoulders up, looking forward, take a moment, try to come a little higher, but now press the back of your head into your hands without falling back on your spine. Ooh, and come on down.

Here's the breath using, I'm inhaling down here to kind of just gear up, staying ready though. Exhale, starting and I curl up, I curl up, I have to remind myself on this inhale to press back into my hands a little bit. And then exhale, come down. Just two more today. Exhale, curl up.

Okay, curl up a little higher, inhale. Exhale down, last one here. (breathing deeply) Feel yourself moving full forward by your middle, maybe just notice that, stay here please, inhale again. We're gonna rotate toward the front, or toward the plant, or toward me (laughs). I'll let you decide that front from now on, come through the middle, inhale, go to the other side, or the back.

Inhale. (breathing deeply) And so this one's so small, I'm really just trying to heat myself up a little bit before we head into the hundred. Yeah, we're doing it today. Keep going. But I'm...

so I'm thinking shoulder to hip, rather than this big rotation we might go into later. Just heating up, other side. I'm gonna do one more each way, I'm exhaling to shoulder to hip, inhaling, holding my height, exhale the other way. This is it. Rotate through the middle, rotate, come back to center, hug your knees in.

And just so that we can really kind of warm up a tiny bit more, hold on behind your legs, do whatever you want with your feet, really. Curl your head, neck, and shoulders up, but as you do, draw the hamstrings, the back of your legs into your hands more, so you end up in this nice curve, almost boat like position, and give yourself a little rocking back and forth, try to make it smooth. Think about those collarbones wide, as if your hand, your arms were on the floor still, those collarbones in the same position, a couple more here, couple more here, stay up on the next one you can, and set your feet down. Okay, so we're heading into everyone's favorite. (hands tapping) We shouldn't judge exercises, but we, me do, so we're gonna roll back feet together, just sort of softly point the toes I suppose, but really lengthen the ankles, we're gonna roll down, and there'll come this point where you feel like you can float one leg up, when you do do (laughs), take a leg, inhale, exhale, reach everything and come forward back to upright.

And so we're just rolling back, and you'll just find that connection between your body and the rest of your body, and that's what we're looking for, so roll back, roll back and somewhere it's just easy to float the opposite leg up. Maybe right now, push the other one down on the floor, and we'll come back up, one more each side, I'm gonna do right then left. Here we go, inhale. We exhale, draw those hip bones back, keep going, you'll find that place where it's just easy to lift one leg, you're ready to go, can you go any further? And come back up, here it is, come back up, sit tall or bend your knees at this point if you need to, we go down, go down, find that spot, find that spot, heels are still together for now until you get to float the leg up.

Inhale, exhale, come back up. Here it comes, we're going down. You have the choice, I will say to pick up one leg and then switch it to the other leg, I'm gonna rely on you for counting, and so it's four, anyway here we go, roll back, but otherwise you're gonna find that place where both legs can come up, you're gonna have to go a little lower, and we pump it in, two, three, four, five out, inhale, try and expand those lungs out, in, you can raise your leg, out, in, and out, heat yourself up, in, (breathing deeply) (breathing deeply) You got it, if you're using one leg, you should have switched by now. And in, fill up those lungs, keep your curve, we're doing two more breaths, and out, pump, pump, straight arms in, and out. Pull the knees in, rest your head, hands behind the leg or on top of the shins, curl your head, neck and shoulders up, get that resistance, where you're kind of pushing into the hands, so you find that kinetic chain, my heels are together, it's up to you if you keep your knees together or apart.

Exhaling to rock back and forth, one more time, stay up, then just drop the knees to the side, and yes. Hmm, I always think at this time of year, like isn't it great that we don't have to set a new year's resolution to work out? (laughs) All right, sift off, put your knees closer together (hands taping) actually totally together for a challenge for some of you, if it's too much, just let them be apart, but you're trying to make a shape, we're going back to or into rolling like a ball properly, trying to make the shape that won't change. So again, I draw the hip bones back, I then have this opportunity to tip back, just like we did a minute ago and slope the feet. Okay, I'm going knees together today, I haven't done that in a while. Inner thighs are glued in my case, push the ankles into the hands, but don't change your shape.

Here we go, roll back, inhale. (inhaling deeply) Exhale, roll up, hold, again, back, don't worry if you don't land it, right? 'Cause you will, you'll land somewhere. Keep yourself safe, that's all we have to care about. Okay, so now you've got the deal, can you make it tighter?

Can you put your forehead on your knees? Can you keep the spine smooth, the ride smooth? (inhaling deeply) I'm gonna do just one more here. Come hold. Opps, not oops, whatever my toes touched, who cares?

All right, I'm only scooting back 'cause I have to, extend your right leg. Sorry, your left leg. Roll yourself down, you're still up on the shoulder blades, we're going into single extra stretch. And so right now really stretch, pull that knee way up to the shoulder. You did that?

Reach that sit bone (hand slapping) of that same bent knee toward the opposite ankle, but keep pulling the other knee up. Check your shoulders, check unnecessary stress, Switch legs, and let's just play with that side. So draw your left knee in, we reach that right leg, our inner thighs are theoretically still connected, and we alternate. Here we go. It's inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale, that's how I'm choosing to do it today, you can change your breath, and I'll do my best not to overbear you with mine, but as you're doing it, think of sliding those inner thighs right next to each other, oh, we're not falling back, look at your feet, look at where you're pointing to with the other foot.

Let's do four, four, three, three, two, two, and one, both knees in, head down, open collar bones, curl your head back up, curl your spine, leave your collarbones wide, double leg stretch, reach out, that means the legs go one way, the arms, the opposite, exhale, bring them back, spine stays strong, inhale, open, exhale, open, (exhaling deeply) exhale. Remember how we started that exhale to drag the belly down naturally. (exhaling deeply) One more coming at you. Hold it in. Head down, look right, look left.

Bring your head, neck and shoulders back up, but not just from the head, neck and shoulders, everything, engage, be ready, hands behind your head. Drop your head into your hands more, and then curl up more. I'm extending my left leg, turning into the right knee, inner thighs are somehow connected, switch and stick, stay up, it's very similar to that earlier one, the way I'm doing it, so shoulder to hip, reach and reach, I'm again inhaling, and then I exhale, you choose. Stay up, just keep going, we're doing four more, here's the count, four, four, three, three, keep holding that knee in, and last one, boom, boom, both knees in, hug them, head down. If you need to sit down on your mat, now's the time, we're gonna go right into rollover, if you don't know the rollover, don't try it and watch, rather sit it out or go back into a pelvic curl, both legs are up, ideally straight, and from here, exhale up and over.

So you're at this point again, you're not looking, but you're supporting yourself, remember how we stand on the back of those arms, our spine is long, even though yes, it's rounded. Maybe legs parallel to the floor if you can imagine it, flex your feet, push the sides of the room away, if it's available, you touch down and you roll, roll all the way down, softening the feet, circle them back together, come to about 90, start exhale, up and over. (exhaling deeply) Aim for parallel, flex, push the feet apart, lower them if you can, and roll down. only one more like this anyway. Inhale to 90, my feet are together, softly pointed up and over, our breath really helps, inhale, flex open and down.

So just remind yourself, we're thinking about we're about to go into the back stuff, so think about, hold on, hold on, think about keeping yourself supported once you get there, it's not just about getting there. Hmm. Here we go, so I'm about 90, exhale over, get there, but you're still you're helping yourself through the middle, it doesn't mean your legs raised, flex your feet, lower them down, you're still holding yourself strong in your so-called powerhouse, we are going the other way, up into a V position, toes are just sort of softly pointed up and over. Close the feet, now flex them if you can (laughs), and roll down. That's how I start, circle around, check your shoulders up over, I'm only doing three, I know I said that on the last film, but I mean it this time, flex your feet, lower them if you can, might go a little more gentle on that one.

Last one, inhale up and over, zip-up, and when you do, when those inner thighs come together, how can you translate that up through your body, flex feet and roll down. Leave the right leg up, left leg is down, softly again. It's the ankle can be as pointed as you want, but if it's just the toes, it's not really beneficial. So I'm gonna leave my foot kind of loose, something I'm working on, slight turnout, arms can be wide or low V, cross the legs over the body, circle around, bring it to the top and stop. Do it again, cross it over, circle it around, stop.

Same direction, cross over, down around, stop. Okay, now do two more without moving your hips or try, over, down around up, last one, over, down around up, reverse it, don't move your hips if you can help it. Out and around up, one, out and around up, two, three, how important is that other leg, right? Everything is useful in ourselves, and I'm gonna give you, I don't know one more, why not? When you get there, hold it there.

Hang on to the like somewhere, maybe other than the knee, pick your head up, check yourself up, can you take the sit bone of the leg in the air, and reach it more to your opposite ankle on the floor, then draw the leg in closer. And if you can, you can lower down, you can even hold your hands higher on the thigh, or closer to your hips. Now switch, other leg is up. Okay, adjust where you need you to feel square in the hips, maybe a soft turnout, we cross the body, down around up one. This is so nice to do with a fairband if you have one, you sort of hold it around the foot, around the leg, maybe could have said that earlier (laughs), but for next time, switch directions, take it out, down around, up hold, out, down around, up hold, out around and boom, couple more.

Boom, here it comes, voila. Reach up, find a place to hold on to, see what happened in your body, I saw my leg drifted a little to the other outside, and then come on down. Oh, baby. (hand slapping) What happened to you? What did I do to you? (hand slapping)

Be nice to ourselves, right? Okay. We're just gonna bend the knee, hold on behind the other, rock yourself all the way up to seated, heading into a spine stretch. Arms are forward, I do turn mine out 'cause I like that external rotation. You don't have to.

Here we go. Inhale, inquire as to which feels better, and what keeps your shoulders open, we are rounding down. It's as if you're trying to get your forehead, or the crown of your head on the floor, check out what's happening at your legs, are your toes pointed to the ceiling? If not fix it, fix it, I don't care if the knees are bent, neither do you, and then roll back up. Okay, so everything's pointed up. (hands slapping)

Everything is pointed up, let's hope. Here we go, inhale, exhale, take it forward. Reach, so yeah, I'm reaching forward with my arms, I'm really trying to get down and use the shape of my body to exhale every drop of air, my feet are flexed almost, and come back up. Hmm, that one could make you dizzy. Here we go, get it all out, exhale, get out the bad air.

And come back up. And, all right, so we've been focusing whether I said it or not, on moving ourselves forward, right? So we're flexing, we're moving forward, and the easiest, well, keep going I'm just gonna talk for a second, I'm inhaling at the top, exhaling down. Keep in mind that we can flex more, we can move more if we have some stability to work from. So on this next repetition, we're gonna start heading into more of the back extension, and back strengthening, you know, there's the yin and yang of the body too.

Inhale, exhale forward. See what you got, think about pulling those hip bones back maybe flex feet, flex feet, then it's oh, here's the fun part, start to elongate your spine on the diagonal, your arms just follow your spine, looking for a long, almost like a Down Dog, or a pyramid upstretched kind of position, lean into it, exhale round and come back up. It's not quite the elephant, it's a little flatter, inhale, hug the midline of your body, exhale, take it down, rounding forward, round and forward, how low can you go? From here, I do use the back of my legs to engage them, and elongate the spine on the diagonal. From here, take a peak, the way you do this, you're just gonna look to one side or the other.

Is your arm higher than your sight? In other words, are you looking under your arm? Are you looking over your arm? Try to get to your position where you're looking under your arm, no matter how high you have to sit for this one. Okay, and we just kind of let that one go, and come back up.

Now, milk it for yourself, inquire, exhale round forward. Rounding, rounding, rounding, I'm at my max. Elongate from the tailbone through the low back, middle back, upper back, arms, where are your arms? They can be wider if that's all you need do that, or sit taller, but find that upper back support that you have, exhale re-round and come back up. Two more, two more.

(breathing deeply) We exhale around forward, check your feet, check your anger, elongate from the back, if it's to be too much, put your arms on your legs there. Exhale forward, (exhaling deeply) and up. This is the second of two, but we'll stay up there in that middle part. Oh, forward to your back yet, exhale down. Start growing from out of the tail bone, through the whole spine, and when you get up there, do the arm check thing, if you're not there, fling them higher, shoulders, our shoulders.

Can you lean into whatever you got, and from there, pull the upper arms back for 10. Two, three, again my thumbs are pointing backwards, or toward the ceiling maybe. I'm gonna call the six, it might be seven, but lean into it, lean into it, hang onto that last one when you get there. Re-round, hang out down there, hang out, just kind of be happy you made it through that, and then sit back up. Okay, so now that that's all activated, let's move right into Open Leg Rocker, so it's back to rolling and rocking, and move kind of inflection, but utilize what you just reminded yourself of with your back in this one.

Scooting forward, nothing fancy here. Just again, tipping back, draw the feet in, one leg or two, I like to go both legs at once sometimes, it's all exciting stuff. Okay, from here, I'm not rolling yet, you can if you want, draw the pelvis backwards again without rolling if you can, I have a subtle turnout on my legs, but okay, so here we go. We're off, inhale roll back, exhale, roll up and find that upper back. Right, go back.

We don't wait to find it, we're sort of trying to stay connected the whole time. Do it again, roll back. Exhale up. (Kristi gasping) I went around the corner on that one, again back, and up. Where's your upper back?

You can find your, maybe you think last, I don't know, but find it, last one. It's your shot. (Kristi gasping) Okay, we're not done, hang on, you're still holding on right? Draw the hips back again, connect to your center so much that you can hold your legs there. That takes a little while, but not really if we just go wait, I got it, I'm holding from lower, set it down.

Sit till, we're going into the saw. And again, I'm a little more focused on the back this time, so you'll get more hamstring with this version for sure. So we're going a little longer, it doesn't mean we're gonna be totally flat for you ballerinas that are really flexible, you might have to hold back a bit. All right, my feet are wider than the mat, flexed arms are up, bodies up, let's rotate to the front, or to the right. Inhale, exhale, reach outside that foot, but that other arm is reaching so far back that it actually helps to elongate your spine.

Then sit up, and center, you can almost think robotic for now or always, you can think whatever you want, how about that, rotate, and hinge, so a bit of a hinge, there's no doubt my lower backs around it, it's cool, I'm just looking for a little more back extension, reaching the back arm, sit up and a tiny bit faster, we rotate, We, both hips are down, we sit up, and center, we rotate. You can bend your knees, just do your best to keep them bent equally. that's the hard part in that, rotate again. Reach, go long, go long, don't worry about that full on rotation right now, up and center, trying to kind of keep connection to our back, keep the connection to the other sides of us. All right, set it down, hands go back, legs together, fingers face your heels, and from here just first nothing big, just try to lift yourself almost out of yourself, I am leaning back, but what I'm trying to do is get those straight collarbones and straight arms.

So already I feel a stretch, that might be enough for some of you, but another point is do your best to keep your arms straight, even if you have to widen your hands and turn them out. Here we go, we're just lifting up to a Reverse Plank. Inhale, get strong, exhale, hinge at the hips and flex the feet. Go up again, lift, lift, lift, and come down now, think about the back of your body, not so much your arms, your arms are strong enough for this, come on, just maybe heels or back of the legs lift up, find, can you squeeze the inner thighs together, sometimes that helps, down, and again lift. One more, open your chest, open yourself, but use the strength of your back and legs to do it.

Okay, sitting tall, let your hands come up, turn them all the way over, so try to do that not just from the wrist, but the entire arm, and then reach so long that you were surprised. Here we go, spine to us, I have my feet flexed, you can bend your knees here, no problem, just keep them equal. Here we go to the front, exhale twice and center, or it's a pulse, pulse centered, are you leaning back? I might be, but not supposed to be, so don't do that, and rotate. Can you feel the stretch through the chest?

Especially for like you do wits and stuff. I don't, but I still feel it chest, I do computer and stuff. All right, let's make it a little more dynamic, and switch, pulse, pulse, switch, pulse pulse, find the breath somewhere, I like to exit exhale, little tiny inhales are sometimes okay. (breathing sharply) And then to the center, reach the arms up, be as tall as you can, again, bent knees are fine, around forward. Hang on to something, but let your head go, bend your knees, maybe your forearms go to the floor, I don't know, but just try to let go for a second here.

Mm-hmm. Right, onto your side. We're lying all the way down, go for the back edge of your mat. I'm gonna go for a tiny sip of water, so you're lying on your side, on the back edge of the mat. And as far as the arm's concerned, this variation, either be where you're supporting your head, or on your fingertips.

What I would encourage you to do is pay attention to whether or not you're just like chilling, and waiting for me to get the exercise going, stay strong, stay kind of what I like to say is proud. Move your legs forward a bit, maybe to the front edge of your mat, check your hips are all stacked up. Lift the top leg, and we are kicking forward. Forward reach way back, hang out, check it out. Is your leg straight?

You can look up, you're allowed, is it straight? 'Cause you're gonna feel both the hamstring and the glute if it is. Let's go, kick forward, forward, reach back, try to keep tip pretty still here. Back and forward, forward, back, I am flexing as I go forward. Get as far as you can, then further and press, far as you can, then further and press, one more, far as you can, hold it back, stretch the top arm, the free arm so to speak, off on the diagonal, like you really want something over there, up there, and then press the leg in the air back further, even as you reach the lower leg into the floor.

And we just lift six, easy, five, four, three, two, and one, everything comes back to center. Just gonna sit up, and we are doing a little bit of that mermaid I keep doing, but for now, hold the leg up in front of your other thigh, so I just came up and did that, if you can't do that with a bent knee, you can do it with a straight leg, you can put your foot wherever you want, I just wanted a quick stretch. (Kristi gasping) Sitting up, try to get the opposite hip down. And again, the upper back can help you here. It's like, right I got you, I'm gonna hold you up a little bit, so you don't feel like you're overstretching.

Okay, so we can just open up to a figure four, or I got one foot up, one knee and one at the other, but I'm relatively comfortable, in an ideal world, I'm gonna try to pull this leg, let's see, the top leg, that's the best way I can say it right now, back a little bit to challenge my ability to sit up. Here we go, you can see it's a challenge, arms are straight out, we reach, reach out, reach out, reach out, let the hand land softly, rotate into it, doesn't have to be a big move, we're just feeling our spines. We reopen, see that, position where we're all looking at each other, and then as if someone pulled you, lift up. (breathing deeply) Go again, on three, low and softly, your spinal column, that's what you're turning, your arm just goes along like it's a wing of a plane, and reopen. Someone's making bacon nearby, that's not even nice at all.

Over again. Land, rotate. Stay here, if you can get your hand (hand banging) on the ground, do that. If you need to back up a little, and you don't know what I'm about to do, we're doing some back extension here, so I walked my hands ever so slightly back, so that I can get them both down, I'm in that rotation, I am gently pressing one foot into the opposite knee, and extend your spine. So it's like, you're trying to reach your chest through your straight arms, when you're there, make sure your hips are down as much as they can be, and then reopen the arm, and come back up.

Just one more of those. We come down, we land softly, we rotate, go into that extension. Come on, you can come out of it a little bit, right, to get up, so come out of it a little bit, come back up, this time grab onto the opposite shin, that shin that makes sense to grab, to hold you upright. Try to get those hips down, reach the opposite arm way up, can you put your bicep on your face? I'm trying, my lats are still a little tight.

Try to arc over from here, keep going over, keep going up and over. Ah. And then change legs, just swing the legs around, swing the legs round, we're going all the way down, supporting our heads, but now just chilling, we bring the legs forward toward the front edge of the mat. Check yourself out before you pick your leg up, right? Setup matters, so it's as if you're standing from your shoulder to your hip, and then the legs are just in front of you.

Here we go, we reach and lift up, do you use that lower leg? Flex it if you need to, or don't, but just use the lower whole leg, meaning the leg on the bottom. Here we go, kick forward, kick, kick, sweep it back, oh, enjoy the stretch, kick, kick, sweep it back. I tend to flex as I go forward and point as I go back, but just kick, and back, kick, kick, back, kick, kick, back, use the back of your body, feel the strength that you have there. Come on, and hold it back on this one, hold it back, hold it back, hold it back, what's your lower leg doing?

Push it into the ground, be tall, even as you are on near side, and press back further, oh, sorry, reach the opposite arm, rotate it, and then from there breath, breath, breath or lift, however you see it, back, back and back. Okay, help yourself up. Take the stretch, if you can keep the knees bent do, or if you want to bend the knees, as it tends to be a little bit more of a stretch, or keep it straight, make your adjustments, you're inquiring about your own body here, and then try to get your hips down, so that you can sit up. Down as much as you can. Hmm.

What's your tension like? Can we let it go anymore? Come into a figure four, let's give it a shot with the mermaid. Bottom of my foot, into my knee, doing my best to sit upright, and press that far leg away, Okay, here we go, reach long, let the hand land softly, rotate that spinal column, rotate, rotate, rotate, or reopen. Find that imaginary friend up there, let them help you up.

Can you sit down anymore? I don't know. Gotta check yourself out, reach out, land softly, rotate the spinal column. Sometimes if you keep looking in the direction you're going, you end up actually going, reopen, and up. One more like that now.

Land, rotate your arm, like that wing of a plane so to speak. Hurry, open it. And sit up, here comes up a couple of those back extension, like enjoy, look for it, we reach out, we land, rotate the whole spinal column, if you need to you back up a little, so that your hands are relatively level on the ground, and extend your spine, extend your chest through your arms, even as you do your best to keep the hips down, come out of that a little, reopen and sit up, just one more, reach, lands soft, pivot (laughs), sorry, I'm not myself, extend your spine, but as your chest goes forward, it's like your hips are going the other way, find something that just feels kind of good, just sometimes you have to look for it. Come out of it enough to feel neutral, or easy to open up again, sit up tall, arms up, way up, again the whole, can you get that bicep to your arm, to your face with a straight arm? I don't know, I don't know if we have to do that, but it's nice to think about why we might not be able to, and then arc over, arc over, you went up, you went over, you're trying not to rotate, although you can eventually, but make sure you went up and over to the side first.

Okay. Let's head into a little more back extension, we talked about strengthen, or we're about to talk about strengthening as well as just using the back of our bodies, so we can continue to move forward more easily. All right for now, easy basic swan. Forearms right by your side, elbows are bent, you're looking at the floor, your imaginary pushup, but your hands are quite close to your shoulders, feet together or slightly apart, it's up to you. Draw your belly up, and if you don't know what I mean by that, just exhale, maybe you think pubic bone into the floor.

Hold that, inhale, start to look forward. Your head goes forward, you're starting to try and lift up, but without any more pressure on your forearms, you go as high as you can, but remember what we did in start. Abs are in, and then we come down. And it's a recommit to this idea of my legs are long, I've exhaled or I've draw through the belly up, look forward, not a lot of pressure on the arms right now, go as high as you can until you absolutely couldn't go any higher, unless you put some pressure on the hands, and go ahead and put pressure on the hands, so the elbows lift up. Collarbones are wide, and come on back down, it's like reverse the sequence on the way down.

It's okay if you need your elbows out a little bit, but just try to match your hands with where your elbows are. Here we go again, abs are in, legs are long, we look forward, we look forward, we go as high as we can without using arms, then we add our arms, we lift the elbows, and for some of you, you might go all the way to straight arms, but you follow it with those long legs, and looking up, bring yourself back down. And again, same idea. Looking forward, connected from the front, so you can work the back of it, that's just how it works, keep lifting, go to the height that you can, but don't worry about going all the way, straight arms, keep your extension through the legs too, come on down. We're gonna go up this next time, and either you'll just come back down like we just did, or you're gonna drop the arms, and keep your shape and do the next version of it (laughs).

Here we get, look forward. Your shoulders are down, you lift your spine to the extent that you can, then you'll allow the hands to help you, 'cause why don't we wanna help ourselves? Okay, before if you're gonna do this, you just gonna let, not yet, let your arms go, keep the exact shape of your body, that means whatever's contracted in your glutes, and hamstrings does not change. So you become like a teeter-totter, it looks like this, you let go, down up, catch. Again, down up, catch.

Try not to let the legs get too far, down up, catch, and when I let go, I just take my arms out to the side. Down up, you can take them forward too, that's coming later, down up, another class, down up. One more time, down up, lower yourself down, bend your elbows, reach your sternum forward, take a moment, rest your forehead on your hands, and just, I call it shimmy, let your lower back release. Let go, shimmy side to side. Right, hands by your side, push yourself up and round back briefly.

Do a little bit more here on this. Coming into all fours. So you're on your hands, your knees are theoretically right below your shoulders, extend your right leg back, flex it so you get the stretch already, draw yourself into a ready position, like you're about to be holding yourself up, so you're ready for it when the other leg goes up, right leg lifts up five, one, straight leg, two, three, four, here's five, switch sides, and one, two, is that other foot flexed? Three, four, five, put it down, bend the elbows a little, straighten them, bend the elbow, straight back a little, straighten them, bend them a little more. Straighten them by your feet, still flexed, bend them a little more.

Straighten them, bend them a little more, backside of your arms, straighten them, you can go all the way. Straighten them, I'll give you three more tens, as one, try not to collapse those shoulders. Here's two, here's three, hold, lift the hips up, walk the feet in just enough to make that pyramid shape again, hanging your head, it's okay if the heels aren't down fully, in fact let's all lift up on the two, so we're up on the kind of a high heel shoe, really high (laughs), shift, your body weight back towards your hip, your legs, let your head hang here, and then start to think, okay, do I need to back out a little bit to get a straight spine? Try for that, it'll put more weight in your arms most likely. Heels of the feet go down as much as they can, and then reach the tailbone up, even as your head still hangs heavy.

Right, rise up to the heels or toes again, bend to come down to the knees. We're going down for a swimming, and we will be calling it a day after that, so what I'm hoping you're gonna do is remind yourself how stable you can be. I'm gonna try and make it vigorous, I'm gonna try to make it kind of big for how I normally do it. But most of all, it's you can feel how strong and stable you are, so do whatever makes you feel that way, it goes like this on your abdominals, your arms are stretched out, your legs are stretched out, it's almost like Spiderman-like, you can take a second and even press the tops of your feet, and your hands into the floor, and that almost automatically draws the belly up. From there, we're just gonna hover, don't change your belly as best you can, hover with your arms and legs, (indistinct) you can go wide with your arms out, right arm, left leg up, you did not bend that back leg, you did not bend that back leg, and switch, and switch, once you feel like you have the opposition, go for it, it's in two, three, four, five, and out, look forward a little, a little, don't, just don't bury your head, keep it going.

We're gonna do two more breath cycles, whatever you're on, da, da, da, come on. Vigorous, vigorous, vigorous, go, go, go, you're stable. And then just lengthen yourself, lengthen yourself, now you can look at the floor, get a little lower, lengthen, lengthen, lengthen, come on down fully, rest your forehead on your hands, chill out, move side to side. Hands by your side, by your shoulders, draw the abs in just one more time, help yourself up into a rest position, or a Child's Pose. If that doesn't work for you, just come to seated, and allow yourself to roll those hips back a bit.

And then we sit ourselves up, find a comfortable position, not necessarily on the floor, I realized that, I'm just gonna sit in the diamond position, hold myself up. (hands slapping) Feel good about the strength that is in my back, and remind myself to do all the time because we think we're so focused forward, sometimes you just have to remember where you came from, and remind yourself how strong you are, so let's just breathe into that, inhale. (inhaling deeply) And exhale. (exhaling deeply) Shake out whatever you need to, I still have a little bit and I'll let go. How about you?

Inhale. Bobblehead it again, whatever, your body. Make it feel good, inhale. (breathing deeply) I'm gonna do one more, you can go anytime (laughs), but here we go, inhale, I'm so glad you're here. (inhaling deeply) (exhaling deeply) (hands clapping) Onward, keep your strength, (hands clapping) see you next time.