Meri Christmas Mat

Merry Christmas. Thank you for joining me for my annual Christmas extravaganza class. Oh I don't know if it's an extravaganza but it's a class, that's for sure. Historically we've had many friends. It's been a good gathering time but unfortunately, we cannot have any friends for our Christmas class today.

So I'm going to invite you to be my friend and be in my class today. What we're gonna do is we're gonna keep things pretty simple. We're gonna have some weights. I have two-pound weights. If you don't have weights, go to your kitchen and get two cans and use those as weights.

It's just as good and maybe even better. So here we go. We're gonna start sitting on the mat with our feet out in front of us. I'll tell you what, the biggest Christmas miracle this year is that I'm here and I'm thrilled to be here. Rest your cans or weights against your shins and close your eyes.

And take a breath in. And take a breath out and you let go of any distractions that you might have in this moment. And just be here in this moment with me. And inhale, feeling your feet on the ground. On the floor.

The lift that you can create with your spine. In fact, push back against your shins with your arms and feel that you could lift a little taller. I'm just very grateful this Christmas that we can be together in this way. And open your eyes whenever it suits you and inhale. As you exhale, round your spine and as you round your spine you could potentially let the weights slide slightly down your shins and then we're gonna let the weights slide up the shins as we sit up tall again and inhale.

And exhale as we round the spine and if weights are not your thing, just don't use weights. This can all be done without a weight and lift back up. Tall, tall, tall, open eyes. Inhale and exhale, round the spine. Feel the heels pulling back towards the pelvis to create a contraction through the backside of the body and lift up, continue to feel that backward pull through the heels and inhale, one more time like that.

Exhale, round. And lift up and lift your arms. And as you exhale, go back. So we're articulating through the spine, articulating through the spine, articulating through the spine and we're gonna take the arms up and out to the side. And squeeze the air out of your body.

As you roll up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up and sit up. I'm gonna rest my weights and lift my spine and then we're gonna lift our spine a little forward and then we're gonna lift the arms and we're gonna roll back. I want you to feel or try to feel if you're interested in feeling that, the back of the legs. So heels down, pull them towards you. Take your arms up, take your arms up to the side.

Take your arms forwards, roll up. The weights can come back to rest. The spine can lift up, lightly. And inhale, and round through the spine and go back, reaching the arms forwards, rolling the body backwards and lift the arms, let those weights sit kind of heavy in your hand. Open your arms out to the side, press forward with your arms and inhale and exhale as you lift up.

You can keep your arms up if you want, I'm gonna rest and I enjoy that more and lift and inhale. And exhale and go back. And take the arms up and take the arms open wide and bring them back through and roll up. And lift the back and inhale. And roll back.

Take the arms just in front of you, bring touching the weights towards one another. We're gonna rotate in one direction and rotate back center and rotate the other way and rotate back center. And rotate and center and rotate and center. One more time through. Rotate and center and rotate and center.

And roll up, keep the arms up this time. As the spine lifts, reach your arms up. Open your arms out to the side. Press your arms forwards and round your spine and go back. Let the weights rest on the thighs.

Take the, take let's say the right arm up, open and center. Left arm up, open. You're welcome, merry Christmas. Lift your right arm open and center. Lift your left arm open and center.

Lift your right arm open and center. This is my gift to you and many other gifts to come and center. And lift up, taking the arms forward. Taking the arms up, taking the arms out to the sides. Come all the way down through the hands.

Scoot your pelvis close to your feet, just like you would prepare to go into a bridge. Reach your arms forward, get very small and then go down. Slow, slow, slow and down. And inhale and lift the pelvis. What I want us to do with our arms.

I want us to put the, our hands down on the weights. And I want us to feel as we're rolling through the spine that we're rolling the weights in the direction of the spine. So we roll them out in front of us. It's a nice way to keep the shoulders connected and inhale, press down onto the weights. Mine are right underneath the heels of my hands or the palms of my hands actually.

Roll up and push those weights forwards. And inhale, and roll down and reach the weights forward. And inhale and exhale to lift the spine. Moving segmentally, feeling gratitude for the possibility that we can create with our movement. Our movement is our own gift to ourselves and go down.

And go down and go down and go down. I like to tell my husband, my movement time is for your benefit. We roll up and reach the weights forwards and inhale. And lengthen the body as it comes down, down, down, down, one more time. Lift up.

And inhale. Softening through the shoulders and roll down. Now at the bottom, curl your head and chest up. Push the weights forwards. Now you have two choices, choice one.

Lift your arms off the floor. Choice two, leave your arms on the floor. It's up to you, we're gonna lift the right arm and the left leg. And put them down, curl higher. Lift the left arm and right leg and put them down and curl higher.

And one arm, one leg. And down and one arm, one leg. And curling through and one arm, one leg. Feel the opposite on the one side, reaching away and down. And one arm, one leg and down.

Two more to each side, one arm, one leg and down. One arm, one leg, stabilize the pelvis and down. Curl a little higher, we have one more to go. One arm, one leg and down. And one arm, one leg and down.

Take both arms up, take your body back. Circle the arms out to the side, feel the rotation of the scapula against the floor. Feels so good to me and touchdown and curl up. Now we're gonna do one arm, one leg again but we're gonna take the left arm across the right leg, push past the knee and center and the right arm crosses the left leg and center. And the left arm crosses the right leg and center.

And the right arm crosses the left leg and center. And the leg that's not lifting is pushing down and the leg that is lifting is floating in space. And center, two more to each side. Lift and down, if the weights are too heavy put your hands behind your head. And center and rotate and center.

And rotate and center and take the arms up. Take the body back, take the arms around to the side. Put them down, breathe in and roll through the spine to lift the hips up. We're gonna lift the right arm and the left leg here. And now what's fun is to see how much you can stabilize as one leg goes down and the other leg lifts up.

So I'm playing a game with myself where I try not to shift anything at all and down. And so now we have even more sensation of one leg pushing and one leg floating 'cause the pushing leg has to support the weight of the body. And one arm, one leg. And down and one arm, one leg and down. And one arm, one leg and down.

And one arm, one leg and both legs down and take your arms up over your head and as you roll down through your spine, make a circle with your arms. Let the pelvis land, palms of the hands come back down and we roll up the center. And we lift one leg, we roll the spine down and push down with your arms and press your pelvis up and roll down and press down with your arms and lift your pelvis up and roll down. And press down with your arms and lift your pelvis. Now reverse and go down and push the weights forward as you articulate back up and go down and roll the weights forward as you lift back up and go down and roll the weights forward as you lift up.

Place that foot down, take your arms up over your head. Around to the side as the spine comes down, down, down, down. The pelvis lands, the arms land, the spine goes up in the center. I suppose it's always going up in the center and you take the other leg up and we roll the spine down and you push into your foot and lift up and roll the spine down and push into your foot and lift up and one more. Roll the spine down, keep actively using your arms and lift up and reverse, go down.

And roll up and go down. Arms pressed down, spine articulates and one, down. And roll up and place that foot down. Lifting the hips up, take the arms back. This time instead of circling all the way around we're gonna take the arms out to the side, we're gonna let those weights, rest heavy in our hands.

We're gonna go down, go down, go down, go down, down, down. I'm actually gonna bend my elbows 'cause it doesn't feel good to have weights in my hands and my hands floating below the mat but you can, if you have room you can keep your arms out to your sides. Bring your legs together, inhale as you take your knees over in one direction reaching the opposite elbow and shoulder blade out and pull back through center and inhale as you reach over, draw the navel back towards the spine and come back to center and inhale as you reach over. And exhale as you come back to center. I hope you're also wearing a Santa hat 'cause that's part of the fun but if you're not, that's okay.

Maybe you're wearing your Santa pajamas and center. And over and center. And this time over, now we're gonna take that top leg. We're gonna stretch it out long, merry Christmas, find a stretch, bend your knee, come to the middle. Go the other way, inhale.

Exhale, let the weight of that upper leg push down against the lower leg, bend your knee and come center. And inhale, and stretch that top leg long and bend and from the center of the body we come to the middle and go the other way. And stretch that top leg long and bend and come to the center. And lift one leg and lift the other leg. And take your arms over your shoulders.

And take your arms over yourself, towards your ears is what I mean. Now lift your arms, round your chest, press past your shins or past your shins towards your pelvis and lift up. Another Christmas miracle would be if I could keep my words together. But I think that you're with me. Head goes down, lift your arms, lift your head, lift your chest, push forward with your arms.

Lift your arms, let the weights sit heavy in the hands and then feel that upward rotation of the scapula as the head goes back down and lift your arms, your head, your chest. And inhale, and lift your arms. And take your body back. And lift up again, holding at the top. Inhale, take the legs out.

Exhale, bend the knees in. Inhale, you can also put your weights on the mat if that's preferable and bend. And reach and bend and reach and bend and reach, now lift and lower. And lift and lower. And lift and lower and lift and lower.

Keep curling, keep pushing those weights. Lift and curl, lower, bend. Stretch up, push away, bend. Lift the body, push away, bend. Lift the body, push away, lift, bend, stretch out and curl.

Lift, bend, stretch out and press forward. Lift, bend, stretch out, bend in, place one foot down. Place your other foot down, lift your arms up. Take your head and chest back, take your arms out to the side. As they come around towards the thighs, we come back into that chest lift position.

We're rolling through the spine, rolling through the spine. We're gonna sit up, we're gonna go into back extension as we take the arms out to the side, take your arms back in front of you and roll down. Down, don't have to squeeze your weights very hard you can just let them settle into your hands. Once we arrive in the chest lift, the arms and the head go back. We're gonna take the arms around to the side, curl the head and chest up as that happens and roll up, and take the arms up and take the body through seated extension and press forwards and roll down.

Using the arms, using the weights to create resistance against and take the arms and head back around to the side, curl your head and chest up. Press down through your feet as you roll up. Lift your spine, open your chest, take your arms forwards, two more times, go down. Go back, go out, reach forwards, roll up. Take the arms up, take the chest open, reach forward, this is our last one.

We're going down. We're taking the arms and the head back. We're bringing the arms around, we're bringing the body up. We're rolling up, we're sitting up. We're opening the chest and we're gonna rest the weights down and just reach them forward so you're getting a stretch and bend your knees.

Lean a little bit more into that stretch and stretch and bend your knees and lean in. And stretch and bend your knees and lean in. And stretch and then roll back up through your spine, bring your arms out to the side. I'm softening my elbows and just letting the weights rest in my hands. We're doing rotation, here we go.

Twist one way and center and the other way and center. And one way and center and the other way and center. One more like that, one way and center. The other way and center, our rotate. Now hold here and reach up with your spine and up with your arms and bend your arms and pull yourself a little longer, stretch out, come center.

Rotate, lift your arms, bend your arms, stretch them and center and rotate and lift your arms and bend your elbows and reach out and center and rotate and lift your arms. And bend your elbows and reach out and center and rotate and lift your arms. Now take that behind arm back, bend that elbow and lean. Now push, lift, open in center, rotate. Lift your arms, take the back hand back.

Bend that arm and lean. Push and lift up, open in center. Can I remember that choreography for this second repetition? I believe, push up. Open and center, again rotate, arm goes down, elbow bend, stabilize your shoulder.

Reach over, come up, I didn't get it right the last time. I'm just gonna have to chalk that up to human imperfection. That's your Christmas gift to me, bend your knees. Reach your arms forwards, lean back. Keep reaching your arms forward and hugging your knees in as you rock and balance.

And rock and balance. And rock and balance. And rock and balance. And rock, just checking how much space I have behind me. And balance, I'm gonna scoot a little forward.

So here we go, what's happening next? Keep reaching the arms forward, lift the shins, roll down. Let the arms come down but push those weights away, hinge the legs, lift the legs, bend your knees, bring your knees to your nose, roll down but lift your chest lift your feet, hinge. Come up, bend your knees, curl in, push the weights forwards mine are on the mat but they could be in the air if you'd rather and lift, I'm just not that brave. That's just truth and lift and bend and keep curling into yourself as your nose comes to your knees.

I mean your knees come to your nose, I mean both. And lift two more, down and up and drop and curl in and down, have fun, it's Christmas after all. And reach and lift and bend and curl in. And go down, let your head come down, stretch your legs out. Lift your legs up, push down with your weights as you take your body over.

Keep the legs together, keep the feet soft. Roll down, lift your head. Bend your knees, balance, teaser and reach. And roll back, arms go down, body goes over. Inhale, and exhale to go down.

I don't think my hat has ever stayed on as brilliantly as it has in this class, quite pleased with it and lift your head, bend your knees and teaser, smile it's Christmas and reach and roll back and inhale. And roll down, bend your knees, balance. Teaser and bend, last one, go back. Little holiday cheer for ya, one teaser at a time. That's one thing that makes me miss my friends is there's no one to laugh at my corny jokes so please, enjoy a little laughter if it suits you.

Reach up, open your legs, put them down. Organize on your mat so you're all the way on if you're not. Take your arms out in front of you, inhale, exhale, roll down. Take the weights all the way towards the mat, just let them slide and then inhale, then let them slide as long as they can and then pull them up, lift up and inhale and roll down. Down, down and let those weights slide and let them slide, lift them with your stomach as you come up to sitting.

And inhale, and exhale and round and push forwards and lift back up, you gotta use your stomach to pick your weights up and sit up and inhale. Sorry, my hat is covering my eyes and down. And slide and slide, stomach picks the weights up. It's a reminder for me too, changing it. Changing the choreography, we go down first, we go forward.

Now slide your weights towards you as you take your back into back extension, find it. Take your arms out to your sides, circle, five, four, three, two, one, sit up. Arms forwards, go down, weights come down, you lengthen the back, take the arms out to the side. Do you remember the way you circled before? Circle the other way, two, lean into that stretch.

Four, five, sit up, arms forwards, go down. Arms come down, glide yourself up. Lift your arms up, out to the side, flatten out your back, arms overhead. Now bend your arms and reach and bend your arms and reach and pull down and easy up and pull down and easy up and pull down and easy up and arms out to the side and sit up and reach forwards and round. And lengthen and arms out to the side.

Now just the arms go back and back and back and back and back and now, what do we do? We go overhead, we put the left arm down in the middle of the legs. We open the right arm back, we bring the right arm back. We lift the left arm up, we put the right arm down. We take that left arm around and back, bring it around and forward, lift the right arm.

Put the left arm down, the right arm goes around and back. Around and forwards and lift and the right arm. Push down into that arm as you take your rotation and take your rotation and up and down. And take your rotation and take your rotation and up. Last one, down and take your rotation.

And take your rotation and both arms up. Sit up all the way, lower your arms, bring your legs in, turn to your side and come down. Did I say merry Christmas yet, merry Christmas. Take your one weight in your hand. You could either just leave it on the floor, I'm gonna choose to take it along my upper thigh.

And we're gonna find the center of the body, we're gonna sorry. We're gonna lift the legs up and down and lift the legs up. And down and lift the legs up and down and lift the legs up and down. One more, lift the legs up. Now take that weight and slide it down your thigh.

Bringing your ribs to your pelvis on that same side and go down. And slide it down and go down. And push it away drawing the abdominals in and back. And push it away and back. Are you having fun, I'm having fun.

And push it away and back. Now lower your legs down and bend your knees. We're gonna take that arm, it's gonna rest on your leg. Upper leg, now you don't have to do this with your weight but you can as you lift your knee, push against the leg and down. Just creates a little bit more resistance if you're into that kind of thing.

Resistance, I'm kind of not so into resistance in this moment but I like to feel my muscles, so that's fun. I'm able to just choose a different word, sensation. We have four more, and three more and two more and last one. So we're gonna take that weight and it's gonna go into the knee. I'm just holding it in my knee, put my hand on my pelvis, we're gonna make a circle.

Squeeze the, holding the weights still. You'll get a little hamstring too, that's a bonus. Merry Christmas and up and around and up and around and up and around and feel that strength of the hip. Last four and three, I'm trembling a little. Just full disclosure and one, I guess that's my Christmas present.

Now go back and around and back and around. And back and if it's not working out for you to hold the weight with your leg, you could rest it on your thigh just like we were doing a minute ago and back. And around and five, four, mine is slipping. Three, two, and one just on time. Take the leg down, take the weight out.

Put the weight down, sit yourself up. Bring your leg around for a stretch. Yep, you never get to do a class with me without a stretch, I'm sorry but at least you can count on that. Pull your knee into your body, drop your hip down into the ground. Lift your spine, lift your heart.

Take the opposite arm to leg and reach it around. Now lift up as you go into rotation towards that leg, hugging the knee in. And then unwind and bring your legs to the other side. Collect a weight while you're on your way. So laying sideways, finding alignment.

Tell you what, I've been practicing side lifts for more, for awhile now, mostly with my hand down. This is quite a challenge for me and that's just a fun fat about me. Reach out with your legs, lift your legs up and down. And lift your leg up and down. And reach out, stomach in and down.

You could push against your thigh if you want here too. More sensation if you're curious and this is our last one. And now the legs just hover and the arm reaches and comes back. And the arm reaches and comes back. So can you find the connection between the scapula, through the side of the body.

All the way through the pelvis, all the way through the hip, out through the feet and two more. And down and one more. And down all the way, bend your knees. Just resting my weight against my upper thigh so that I can create some pressure as I push into the weight and push into the weight. Might as well get more bang for our buck on Christmas right?

Right, now I'm just talking to myself which makes me sound crazy. Last four, there's no assurances that I'm not crazy. Three, two, not after this crazy year and one. But you know what, I might be crazy but I'm healthy and alive and grateful. Come in, up, around and back.

And in, up, around that back, squeeze the weights so you can feel your hamstrings, in, up, around and back. And in, up, around and back. Full range, find the edges and we'll do four. And three and two and one and reverse. Push back, find your hip extension, lift.

Come around and down and push back, up, around and back. And push back, up, around and down. Keeping the spine stable, almost there. We're gonna do five more and four and three and two and one. And that's all, put the weight away.

Help yourself up to sitting. Just gonna make sure I don't fall off the back of my mat, putting my weights around to the side. Bring the leg across, lift your spine, lift your heart. Bring your knee to your chest. Breathe, settle.

Take the opposite arm around the leg and rotate, lifting up, maybe getting a little heavier still as you go into that rotation, heavier still in the hip on that side is what I'm speaking about. And then come back to center, we're gonna unwind and what we're gonna do to finish, yes we're almost finished merry Christmas. We're gonna come up onto our knees, we're gonna take our weights in our hands and we're gonna do some kneeling side stretching, back extension. So what I'd like for you to do is take your right arm up, slide the left arm down the left thigh, lean in. You let the weight give you more stretch.

Pull up through the center of your body and as the right comes down, the left arm comes up and let that right weight take your body to that direction, use the backs of your legs for support. Lift back up, as the left arm comes down the right arm windmills up and we go down the left side and now we're gonna take that arm forward and rotate and come back, maybe you'll go a little deeper into your side stretch, I did. And then other side, you go over and rotate. And come back and a little deeper and lift up. Both arms out to the side.

So from a neutral spinal position, as the arms come down to the sides of the body, I want us to lift our chest up. Feels like hallelujah right and then bring your arms out to the side and neutral and bring your arms to the sides of your body and lift the chest and press the weights into your thighs and bring your arms out. And three, lift the chest. And out and two more, lift the chest. And out, last one.

Lift the chest and out. Bend your arms. So what I want you to think about, this is kind of like the breaststroke, it is the breaststroke choreography so you know, breaststroke, the way I know breaststroke and you'll recognize this. So elbows forwards, hands back. Let the weights just sit into your hands, as your arms reach over your head I want you to extend your spine.

Maintain the extension over your spine. As you reach really expansively out through your arms, bringing the weights around to your thighs and then as you come upright, bend your arms. And reach up, take the arms back. Take the arms really wide, it's another Christmas gift, it feels beautiful doesn't it and bend. And reach back and big, wide, open arms embracing the rest of whatever is coming to you in your day.

And reach out and open all the way. We're gonna skip the bending part. We're gonna put the weights down. We're gonna take the arms up, they're kind of floaty now huh out to the side and then sit back towards your feet and reach forwards. And then as you come back up, allow your arms to just be an extension of your torso, your body, your spine.

Open your arms out to the sides and reach forwards and round your spine and then articulate back up extending the arms overhead. Open the arms out to the side and reach forward and round. And just one more, up. Open and take your body down to your feet and bring your arms over your head and put your hands behind your head and turn your head to the, to one direction and bring your chin down. Gentle, and lift up and return to center.

And turn the other way and bring your head down and come back up and let your elbows come forth and curl down. So we're making ourself into a tiny Christmas package, a tiny, rounded, Christmas package. Taking a stretch through the spine, a stretch through the spine. When you're as low as you wanna go, take your hands away from your head, rest them on your thighs and lift back up and come up to upright. And close your eyes and as we inhale and exhale together three times we're going to inhale, and exhale, let go of what we don't need.

And inhale, and exhale and let go of what we can't control. And inhale and exhale and open your eyes and have a merry Christmas, thanks for joining me. Big hugs.