BASI Flow with Friends

Here we are, all together. Thanks for joining us. We are very excited today to welcome our new BASI friends from Poland and they are our very first guests in the studio since COVID. So we're very, very excited to have you all here with us. And we are gonna get moving.

You ready? Okay. So we're gonna get centered on the mat, we're gonna bend our knees, and we're gonna take the hands to the back of the knees. So you might know this about me but I like to start with my eyes closed. So I want us to soften our gaze or close our eyes and I want us to feel a sense of lifting up. Lifting up in our spine, lifting up in our spirits, lifting up in our imagination, in our hearts.

Using the arms to feel the back extensors. Open your eyes. Open your eyes when you're ready and take an inhale. As you exhale, draw in through the abdominals and round the spine. And inhale as you lift up, creating lightness, and now lift your chest so you can lean back from your arms.

We're thinking of just bending the upper spine. And then find upright. And exhale, let the pelvis rotate under, drop back through the abdominals, deepen, and lift up. And now take the spine into extension, lifting up and back, feeling that mid back and then straighten. We'll do one more like that.

Round the spine, keeping the shoulders over the pelvis. Come back up to a straight back. Take yourself into extension. Come back to straight. Take your arms in front.

Round your spine. Take that round spine back towards the mat, pressing down through the feet, articulating through the body until you come to your low back. Raise your arms. Open your arms. Reach your arms forwards, and roll your body up.

Take the arms up. Take the arms out. Just making sure everyone has room. Take the arms forward, round your back and roll back. Find the low back against the mat and raise the arms.

Open the arms. I love it. You're coordinating with each other. That makes me feel happy. And roll up.

And raise the arms, and open the arms, and round the spine, pushing the air through space, and roll back. Two more. Take the arms. Take the arms up. Scoop through the abdominals and lift up.

And feel the spine float up. And open the arms. And round the spine. And roll back. And take the arms.

And open the arms. And reach forwards. And roll up, up, up, up. As you sit up, let the knees just open. You don't have to shift your feet.

We're just taking a small stretch here. Round forwards, articulate the spine back up to sitting, bring the knees in, and roll down. This time, we'll go all the way down. We'll bring our pelvis towards our feet preparing for some pelvic curls. Head down on the mat, arms down on the mat.

We roll the spine up. So push down with your feet and begin lifting up through the spine. Pressing the upper arms back, finding a straight line. Inhale. And exhale.

Chest drops. Ribs drop. Really finding the articulation of the lower spine as we lower all the way down to the mat and inhale. And exhale, feel your weight on both feet equally, lifting the body, creating your straight line. And inhale.

And rolling down, softening the throat, softening the chest, bringing the spine down bone by bone, all the way down to the pelvis. And inhale, three more times. And lifting up, feeling the heels dragging back towards the fingertips. The fingers, the arms reaching forward, creating a circle of energy in the back body, and we rolled down. I have to say, We'll do two more and I'll tell you what I wanna say while we move.

Here we go. Up. It feels very nice to be moving with other humans. Breathing together. And go down. Very nice indeed.

Last one, inhale. And lift the spine, fully articulating, pressing the pelvis up and inhale, and rolling down. Take the arms up towards the ceiling, bend the elbows straight down so you have like a goalpost, and then lay the hands down. So everyone has a goalpost shape. I'm gonna hold onto my mat.

You'll just be resting on the floor. We'll lift one leg, lift the other leg keep the knees connected together, spine twist, supine. Let's come towards me first. Inhale. And exhale.

And inhale, lifting off one hip onto the other, finding a range, and deepen the center of the body to bring the knees back to center. And inhale, lifting up and across. And (inhales). And inhale. Up and across.

And feel the abdominals pulled back to bring us back to center. And inhale, over. And exhale, center. And inhale, over, warming up the spine. And exhale, center.

Last time to each side, my friends. We go over. And center. And over. Ooh, can we go a little further than we think we can?

Maybe we can. And center. Place one foot down, place the other foot down, reach back and bring your hands behind your head. Chest lift. We lift the head and chest, looking straight ahead, just past the knees, keeping the head heavy in the hands.

We take the body back down. And inhale. And drawing the abdominals in, curling the head and chest up. Keeping that head heavy. Keeping the elbows and the shoulder blades wide.

And feel that you're working as you come down, lengthening the body. And inhale. And exhale. We come up, up, up, and inhale. And exhale, we come down, down, down.

And two more. Lifting up. getting the low back to flatten into the mat and down. Last one here. Lifting up.

Reach to take your hands behind your thighs. Step your feet together. Deepen and lift a little higher. Try to drop the tailbone down as much as you can without losing the connection to your lower back and let go. Raise your arms over your head, bring them behind you.

And rotate. Let's go. Towards me, towards the ocean, and center. And away from the ocean, and center, staying lifted. And towards me, and center. And away from me, and center.

And towards me, and center. And away, and center. One more time. Towards me, and center. And away from me.

And hold yourself in the center. Reach forwards. Can you lift a little higher? Straighten one leg. Straighten the other leg.

Turn the palms to face in. Reach your arms up, take yourself back. Inhale as you lift your head and chest. Roll up. Exhale as we roll up to bring the shoulders over the pelvis, keeping the arms parallel to the floor, and inhale.

(Meredith inhales) And exhale, rotating the pelvis under. Reaching forward with the legs, pause when you feel your low back connect. Lift your arms, and take it back. And inhale, lift up. And excel, roll up.

And finding your rounded spine. And we go back. Starting with the pelvis, reaching the feet. Feel the arms reaching. Feel the legs pressing down.

Lift your arms, and go down. And lift up, inhale. And exhale, roll. And inhale. And exhale, roll down.

(Meredith exhales) Take the arms, take the body down. Last two. Lifting up. And rolling up. And deepening.

And rolling down. And taking the arms. And bringing the body down, feel the legs pressing into the mouth, the backs of the legs are active. Last one. Lift up.

And roll up. And sit all the way up tall. Take the hands behind that. I'm gonna scoot a little back. Flex the feet And we go towards the ocean.

Spine twist, please go pull, pull, center. And pull, pull and center. And pull, pull. Think of leaning a little forward all the time. And pull, pull, and center.

And pull, pull, and center. And pull, pull, and keep the head pressed up into the hands, almost feel as though you're pulling your head up towards the ceiling. And pull, pull, and center. And pull, pull, and center. And pull, pull, and center.

One more. And pull, pull, keep the feet side by side. And pull, pull, and center. And bend your knees in. Finding your rolling like a ball shape.

Lifting the feet, keeping the shape of the body, and we go back. And balance. And back. And balance. And back.

And balance. Me too, me too. And back. And balance. We all try to be perfect but perfect isn't real.

And back. We just do our best and we have fun. Put your hands on your knees. Push your knees into your hands and your hands back against your knees and roll down. Bringing the shins parallel to the ground.

Double leg stretch. We go back. And in. And out. And back.

And inhale. And exhale. And shoot out. And resisted. And five.

And back. Look at these beautiful BASI movers. Not that BASI is the most best, but we all move the same. We are like family from everywhere. And back.

And two. And in. And one. And pause. Lift a little.

Stretch the left leg forward, and change. Pressing down onto the knee, pulling the elbows down and wide. (Meredith exhales) Staying nice and centered in the body, in the mind. Last three. Last two.

One more. Hands behind the head, crisscross. Two. And two. Three. Nice, steady pace.

Keeping the head with the hands. And five. And six. And seven. Keep the height of the body.

And eight. And nine. And 10. Bend your knees in, hold right there. Lift a little higher.

Lift a little higher. And take the body down. Place your feet down on the mat. Arms down to your sides, one pelvic curl. We roll up.

Finding your line, taking a little breath, and roll down. Deepening, deepening, deepening, and down. And lift up. Stay up at the top. Lift the left leg.

straighten that leg, and take that leg down and flex up. And push. And pull back. And push. And pull back.

And two. And pull back. And one. And hold. Bend your knee, place that foot down.

Change legs. Stretch the leg up. And we go down. and flex up. And push.

And pull back. And three. And pull back. And two. And pull back.

And one. And hold. Bend. Place your foot down. Take an inhale, and softly rolling down, down, down.

And all the way down. Lift one leg. Lift the other leg. Roll over, stretch the legs forwards, lift the legs up, and we reverse curl the body. When the legs are parallel to the ground, we flex the feet, separate the legs, take them down, and we go down through the spine, energy through the back of the legs.

When the pelvis comes to touch, point the feet, take the legs down, touch together, come up. And we go up and over. And we flex, and separate, and down. And we go down. Slow, controlled, supported.

Pelvis comes down, feet points, legs come down, touch together. Come up and over. And open. And down. And roll.

And point. And down. And together. And up. And over.

And open. And down. And roll down. And come down. Touch together and bend the knees.

Put your hands on your knees, lift your head. Tuck into a tiny ball. So lifting the head. Lifting the head. Tucking into a ball.

We're in a tight, tight, tight, tiny little ball. And then we push the knees into the hands and sit up, and separate the legs and spine, stretch forward. Sitting nice and tall. Your legs can be a little bent if it helps you to sit tall. And we take the head down and roll down.

Reaching out over the legs. Pausing to inhale. Feel the weight of your body sitting just over the sitting bones as we roll up, up, up, up and sitting tall. And exhale as we take the head down, and the spine goes down. And we inhale, and pushing the legs forward as we lift the spine.

I'm just thinking about energy there. They're not moving. There's just that forward reaching energy. And inhale. And exhale to go down.

Maybe a little further every time. And lift up. And get a little lighter. And two more. Go down.

And inhale. (Meredith inhales) And keep the arms active as you roll up. They're parallel to the shoulders, parallel to one another. One more like that. We go down.

And inhale. And lift them. And sit up. Spine stretch forward with extension, go down. Take the body out into a flat back, reaching the chest forward.

Keep the arms active but right by the ears, and we go down and back to sitting up straight. Perfect. And go forward. And reach out. Flattening the back. Very nice.

And go down. And come back up to sitting. And inhale. And go down. And out.

And back down. And lift. Two more times. When you take your back extension, we try to keep the head right between the arms, right between the biceps. Perfect.

And go back forwards. And sit up. And last time, go down. And reach out. Everybody put your hands on your legs.

Use your arms to get a little bit flatter, little straighter, little bit more energized. Take the arms up. This might be one you might not know so just listen to me. Hand from the back of the room comes towards the middle of the legs. This way. Yeah.

Now come up and around with that arm. Now we know what's happening. And then back to center. And then the other way. We use the arm on the mat to help us keep our extension as we reach up around and back, and back to center.

And again, towards me. And reach around. And come back to center. And this way. And reach around.

Ringing out the spine. Look at this beauty. Look at it. So perfect. And back to center.

One more time to each side. Here we go, towards me. And circle the arm around. And back to center. And the other way.

And circle the arm around. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. And back to center, and stretch forwards, and sit up, and bring your legs together. Hands behind, back support. So we press up with the arms, lifting the chest, finding some abdominals, and we lift the pelvis up.

And stay connected as your old pelvis comes down. Lightly touch, think chest forward all the time. You can go too out if you want. Yeah. Easier. Good. And here we go.

We go up. And down. Lifting up out of the arms. And up. And hinging from the pelvis, from the hip joints.

Two more times please. Up. And down. And last time. Up.

And down. And reach all the way around and forwards, and roll down. Once you're down, we're gonna turn to the side, face me. Side lift. So now I can see your faces.

That makes me happy. Okay, so we find a straight line, stack the pelvis, and take both legs up and hover. Perfect. And reach away. And down. Working through the center of the body.

Reaching out. And down. Nicely done, everyone. And reaching out. And down.

And we go four, and down. And three, and down. And two, and down. And one, and down. Take the top leg back, bend your bottom knee, take your top arm forward and reach that top leg behind you, just finding a stretch.

We're going onto the forearm, bottom knee stays bent, side kick modified, you're welcome. Hand behind your head. Here we go. Lifting it in, flexing through the foot. And we go pull, pull, and reach.

And we go pull, pull, and reach. And we go pull, pull, and reach. Lifting that underside body, and reach. And we go pull, pull, and reach. I have no idea how many we've done.

Does anyone? No. And three. We'll make up a number. And two.

And one. And we take the leg back. Take the hands, bring it around, rotate into your arms, lift your spine, and take that back leg up and up. It's kind of in my imagination leg. Single leg kick with rotation, little bit.

I don't know. It's an imaginary exercise. It's called hip extension. Last two. And one more.

We're gonna bend that knee. It's coming around. Sit all the way up. Hug the knee into your chest. Drop the hip down.

If you've taken class with me before, you know we always do this stretch because this person is not very flexible. Lifting the spine. (Meredith exhales) Breathing. Okay guys, we're gonna take the legs around to the other side of the mat and just spin. Give yourself some space.

Hand down, head down on the arm, and we raise the legs out and up, and out and down. And out and up. Finding connection to the center of the body. And out and up. And out and down.

And out and up. Finding the breath, letting the breath dictate. In form, support the movement. We're doing three more. (Meredith inhales) (Meredith exhales) And two.

(Meredith exhales) And one. And take the legs down, bend the knee, take this arm forward. The other arm reaches back. It doesn't have to look like anything except it looks like it feels good. So make it look like it feels good.

And then back to center up onto the forearm. Long line from the shoulder to the pelvis on the underneath side of the body. Hand back behind the head, leg up in the air, flex your foot, and we go pull, pull, and back. And pull, pull, and back. Keeping the body nice and steady.

And back. And pull, pull, and back. And pull, pull, and back. Let's do four more. Maybe it's the same amount on the other side.

Who knows? And three. And two. And one. Taking the leg back.

Take this hand, bring it around. Rotating the body. So think about back extension, think about rotation. Take that back leg up. Hip extension and up.

So it's like the highest you can lift, and then higher still. Last four. And three. And two. And one.

And bring the leg around. Taking a stretch, bringing the knee in. Sitting nice and tall. Again, it's so nice to have humans in the room with me. I love it.

I'm so happy. I hope you're happy. Good. Everybody's happy. Okay, we're gonna do some back extension, starting with the single leg kick.

So we're gonna turn towards the center of the room. Just like that. Come down onto your arms. Lift the chest through the arms, lift the legs. Starting with right leg, we go boom, boom, baboom, baboom.

Ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta. Lifting the chest all the time, keeping the body nice and supported. And ba, ba, ba, ba. Ba, ba, ba, ba. And ba, ba, ba, ba.

Ba, ba, ba, ba. And ba, ba, ba, ba. Ba, ba, ba, ba. And ba, ba, ba, ba. Ba, ba, ba, ba.

And three, three. And two, two. And one, one. Both legs out straight. Turn to look at the ocean.

Head down. Hands behind your back. Elbows down. Double leg kick we go. 1, 2, 3.

And stretch out. And head the other way. Go 1, 2, 3. And reach out. And we go 1, 2, 3.

And reach out. You're very in luck today because there's no room for you to take your arms overhead. So no one has to do swimming today. And reach out. You're welcome.

And go kick, kick, kick, and stretch out. And and kick, kick, kick, and stretch out. Two more times. And kick, kick, stabilizing and reach. And kick, kick, kick, and reach, hold here, put the legs down and take the arms up.

Five. Just the arms, keep the chest. Four. Legs are on the floor. And three, almost there. And two. And it's okay.

And one. And put the arms down. You're welcome, press with your arms, let your knees come underneath your body and sit back towards your feet. We are coming onto our hands and knees. Positioning the knees underneath the pelvis, cat stretch.

And we inhale. And we draw the abdominals in, tucking the pelvis and bringing the pelvis forwards. And then finding a straight line. We did this before, we were sitting, and now we do upper upper spinal extension. And center, and round the spine.

And center, and feel the arms slide backwards towards the knees as you send your chest forwards. And center, and round the spine. Maximum flexion in the lower spine, and center. And extend the spine, and center. Take the right leg back.

Get ready. All the way down, plank. Front support. Take the other leg back. Pause.

We're doing front support. We take the right knee in, and back. Left knee in, and back. Spine stays stable, right knee, and back. Left knee, and back.

Right knee, and back. Left knee. One more time on each length. And the other. Pause.

Lift your pelvis, press your feet down. Lift your heels. Roll your spine forwards. Front support the position. Take the leg closest to the ocean, point the foot, and go up and down.

Leg pull front, keep the head in line with the spine in this pace. And down and up. And down and up. And down and up. And down and up.

And put that foot down and lift your pelvis. Pressing back. Pausing and having a breath. Lift your heels. Roll through your spine.

Find your position. Other leg. It goes up and down. Small. Reaching away, and down.

Reaching away, and down. Reaching away, and down. Last two. And down. And one.

And all the way down. And lift your pelvis. Heels pressing down. (Meredith exhales) Pausing, having a breath or two. Bend your knees, look at your hands.

Hop. Sit. Seal puppy. We take one leg under, getting the elbow nice and close, the other leg under. I'll take a minute.

Find our shape. I always like to see if there's room behind me. Here we go. We go 1, 2, 3, and back. Hold your balance.

1, 2, 3. And up. This is one where we get to practice not being perfect and go 1, 2, 3, and back and hold. And 1, 2, 3, and up. Me too, me too.

And 1, 2, 3, and back. And 1, 2, 3, and up. Very nice, everyone. Last two. 1, 2, 3, and back.

And 1, 2, 3, and up. Very good. One more. 1, 2, and back. And 1, 2, 3, and up, and rest.

Turn to face me. Positioning your legs into a diamond. It can be longer than mine, I just only have so much room. So you make yourself happy, comfortable. We take the arms out to the sides, take this hand, down, and stretch over.

Just stretch over, keeping the opposite sitting bone heavy, and then float into the center and the other hand. And we let that arm bend as we reach over to the side, and feel, float, as you come center. So feel equality of movement. And float. I can feel you're floating.

And go over. And back. We're gonna do one more time. I'm gonna add a piece. So go over. Same.

Now take rotation. So you're reaching down into that leg. Just as wherever. Wherever it feels good to you. Come back around, side stretch, and up, and over.

Stretching across. Take rotation, feel the arm reaching. Come back. Come up. Take your arms up, take your arms out and lift your chest and reach forwards.

And we roll the spine up, following the spine with the arms, soft, open, opening the chest, and reaching forwards. And lifting up, bringing the arms with head, and open, and reach forwards. And lift up. And sitting tall. Last time.

Open, and reach forwards, and lifting up, and take the hands to the chest. Soften your eyes. And together all at the same time, big inhale. (Meredith inhales) And (exhales). And in.

(Meredith inhales) And (exhales). Taking a minute to feel gratitude. I'm feeling gratitude. And inhale. (Meredith inhales) And (exhales).

They thank you for coming. Thank you. Thank you for coming.