Happy Spine Health

Hello, and welcome everyone to this Franklin made the class on the spine on the back. And so I'm sure, you know, back pain, tightness in the back is a very common issue. 80% of the population at one point or other will experience some discomfort in their back. So what are we going to do about it? Well, the good news is that exercise, any kind of exercise is preventive for back pain. So Let's move. That's number 1. However, there are other factors as well that influence the prevalence of back pain.

And one of course is your psychological state. So your mood, how, you know, happy are you about things? And you think, well, I can't necessarily do that much about it, but you can do quite a few things also through movement and using Franken Method imagery techniques. So to improve your mood. So we call that, you know, inflammation relating to your psychological state. And if you're happier, if there are things you can do to make you feel a little happier, even for a moment, That will actually reduce inflammation, which is associated with back pain. So we're gonna work with all of this, but the first is the psychological part. So, when you hear people talk about their backs, is it very exuberantly positive, or are people complaining? People are complaining. Right?

So they're gonna say, oh, you know, I a bad night and stiff here in this hurts like that and over here like this. You will hardly ever hear anyone say, when you ask them, how are you doing today? Oh, today, my back feels so free and flexible and organized and strong and balanced like that. And I'm asking, why not? Why not start the day and say some nice things about your back? So let's give it a try. So we'll just move our back any way you want, but I'm doing collection extension.

And let's try it on for size. So just say, oh, my back feels great and free and balanced and strong and open and wide and centered. Yeah. Just go for it. Briefly go for it. Or if you can't identify with that, just say that's my goal.

I want my back to be free and comfortable and cozy. And what about happy Yeah. Can you say, I would like to have a happy back. Happy back. Yeah? Why not? So were you ever happy Yes? Well, was your back included? Probably. So it's possible for your back to be happy. So happy back.

But now, the astonishing part This is kinda, yeah. Okay. I get it, you know, positive thinking. It's not really positive thinking. It's positive goal. Right?

So what happens if we do the opposite? What happens if we do the same kind of movement we just did, but think negatively. Let's just see what happens. So everyone, we have a stiff back, a tied back, move your tied back, move your stiff back. Do you feel any difference? Immediately, your back gets tighter. So make your mind, your ally, shower your back with positive reinforcement No matter where you're at, that is always a better choice.

Give your back a chance to have a vision of how it would like to feel. Right? So let's do it one more time. Happy back, free back, comfortable back, strong back, balanced back. And the other good news is most back pain goes away with time and with doing some movement. So movement is the name of the k.

And, of course, what do joints need? If you're looking at the back, it has a lot of joints. Over a 150 joints. So what do joints need to be healthy? So if you're a joint, let's make a joint. Ball and socket. So here I am. I'm a joint. You know, I'm one of those many joints in your body.

And so, you know, what do I need today? To be healthy? Well, the answer is movement, but it's a little more precise than that. Regular movement, not once a month, like daily movement in the full possible range. Why the full possible range? Well, you know, use it or lose it. If you don't move it in your full range, you will lose range.

Right? So regular movement in your full range but you also need some compression and some distraction. So at night, you're gonna decompress your spine as normal, but during the day, there should be some what's called loading of the spine. That's good because your discs need exercise both compression and they also need some stretching they need both. So the first thing we're gonna do is move our spine in all the possible ways it can move just to get started.

And of course, we live in a three-dimensional world, so we can start with moving in this front back dimension, which is also called the sagittal plane. We're gonna do that by taking our arms like this, and we're gonna think of the bottom of the spine, which is the tailbone, and the top of the spine is the top of the head. I'm gonna move the tail and the head forward and the tail and the head back. So the whole spine. Tail head back and tail head forward.

If that's difficult for you to imagine, then touch the tailbone and the top of the head and just like, move both those points front and back. There we go. So that's this plane, but now the interesting part Your spine is a stack of mobile vertebrae, and it so long that part of that stack can move one way while another part moves the other way. So literally, you could, flex the bottom part of your spine, you know, round the back while the top is extended. Or you could flex the top and extend the bottom. And you might think, well, I never do that in daily life.

Absolutely do. People are doing that all the time. You know? They're standing in these postures. And what we're aiming to do is become aware of that and turn it to a exercise. So let's flex the whole spine.

Extend the whole spine. And now we're only gonna flex the bottom part, and I'm swinging my hands forward to help me imagine that so tailbone forward. And then I'm gonna flex the top part and then I'm gonna extend the bottom tail back and extend the top head back. There we go. And let's flex the whole spine. Good. Extend the whole spine.

And now we're just gonna flex the bottom part Flex the top part, extend the bottom part, extend the top part. Let's try that again. And her flex and extend and flex the bottom, flex the top, extend the bottom, extend the top over time, flex the whole spine, extend the whole spine, flex the bottom, flex the top, extend the bottom, extend the top. And rest? Woah, that was a lot. But we said our goal is to move the spine in all its possibilities.

And after doing that, you'll probably notice. Wow. By spite this way. Because one of the things we're doing is not just about getting the joints going, making sure all muscles get lengthened and shortened. It's also improving proprioception, in other words, awareness in your spine. So many of the short little muscles in your spine, if you look at an anatomy They're not even really about movement only.

They're about sensation about proprioception. By doing these movements, you're waking them all up. But of course, we also have movement in this plane. Yeah. We can call it the door plane or the frontal plane, whatever you want. So, you could just move your head to the side like that, but you feel like, is that my whole spine? Not really. So, let's also move our leg to this side in our arm. And now you feel like, okay.

Now my whole spine is curved that way, and then let's curve the other way. It feels a little bit like a baroque dance. Maybe you've never seen one, but, yeah, it looks a little bit like this. Exactly. So you're gonna go to this side and flex the spine to the side. There we go.

Excellent. And if you're into it, the spine is so long, the top of the spine can actually move in the opposite direction of the bottom. Like that if you move your head back. So don't do anything that feels too challenging, but just to say, your spine can do that and does do that in daily life. So you're gonna see a lot of people standing there doing exactly that. Right? One part of the spine bending this way, the other part bending that way.

So it's something you wanna consciously practice. Find you have rotation in the frontal plane. So put your fingers on your shoulders and rotate the spine like that. But, again, that it feels like it's really only the top. So keep your shoulders where they are and just move the feet back and forth. Now you're rotating the lower part.

Yeah? So let's try to move both the upper part and the lower part with this exercise. We're gonna imagine we have Velcro on our hands. And we can vale for our hands to the space. You see? Attached. But we're gonna go to the right and attach our hands to the space.

Keep them there, but now we're gonna move with our feet in the lower part of the spine to the right. As far as we can go, moving to the right, keeping the hands where they are, then we detach our hands and go as far around as we can, again, to the front, and then come back to the front. Let's do that one more time. So here we go. Rotate the upper to the right as far as you can go.

And now your hands are attached to the space now. Move the lower part of the spine to the right as far as you can go. Detach your hands. Go to the right and come to the front. Attach your hands and come to the front.

So we move the upper part of the spine, the lower, the upper, and the lower. So here we go. And Hands go to the right, attach to the space. Good. Feet, lower spine goes to the right as far as can go. Detach your hands, go to the right as far as you can go and back to the front. One more time. Detach, attach, and There we go. Detach and come to the from. Good. Whatever. Just rotate your spine. And now, before we do the other spine, the other spine, the other side.

You're gonna notice that you have a bit of a, you know, preference for rotating to one side. You feel that. So that's a good insight, because actually, you know, in daily life, we turn around about a thousand times. But most of the time, always in the same direction. So that's gonna set up a pattern in our spine, and I recommend that after this class tomorrow, whenever, notice, are you always turning in the same direction when you turn around and try to balance that outlook?

And that's gonna pattern your Let's go to the left. So we take our hands to the left as far as we can attached to the space. They're gonna stay there. But now your feet, the lower spine, it's gonna go around. Gonna detach from the space, rotate to the left as far as you can.

Beautiful, everyone, and attach and come to the front. Great job. So one more time. Detach, go to the left, attach, move the lower part as far as you can, around, detach, come to the front, and attach. And again, to the left, and attach to the space, rotate the lower, rotate the upper, come to the front, One more time, rotate the upper, rotate the lower, rotate the upper, come to the front. Good. Shake it out. So now we moved our spine, all parts of the spine in all directions.

Just notice how you feel. You know, I feel like, wow, my spine is really awake. You feel that lengthened spine warmed up spine. Right? So daily program, move your spine, In all its potential every day. So let's do it one more time.

Flex and extend. And again, flex the whole spine and extend. And now just tail forward, head forward, tail back, head back, and now flex the whole spine, extend the whole spine. And again, tail forward, head forward, tail back, head back. Now to the side. Here we go. Our little baroque dance, and then take the head to the other side.

Take the head to the other side. Take the head to the other side. Beautiful. Take head to the other side. Rotation. To the right, rotate the upper hand attached to space, to the right as far as you can go. Rotate the lower.

Detach, rotate the upper, come to the front, go to the left, detach, rotate the upper, rotate the lower, rotate the upper come to the front. Now how does your spine feel after that? Very centered. Do you feel that centeredness? So very centered, very alive. There we have it. Okay.

Let's check it all out. So that's working with all the joints, giving all the joints a chance to move in their full range by focusing on the three-dimensional of human movement. Let's go to one more interesting fact about your spine very unique, and that is that the human spine has curves. And also, for all you educators that are watching, that's a big thing. You know, the discussion about curves, deeper curves, flatter curves, lower doses, whatnot.

So we all have curves. And the goal is actually to have balanced curves. It's not so much about Oh, flatten them or make them deeper like that, but having balanced functional curves. But why do we have them in the first place? It's a really unique human thing. Let's quickly look at the evolution of the curves.

So a quadruped of 4 legged animal, right, has one curve. And actually, you're also born with only one curve. And it has front legs and it has back legs and it happily gallops along. You know, and it it's 4 legged animals are much faster than we are because they have 2 lakes in front, 2 lakes in back. Right? And that means you have four time, 4 propulsive units. We only have 2.

Makes them faster. And then evolution decided at one point, we should become upright. And there, of course, are very serious why that was beneficial. The one that's kind of winning out is that, obviously, if you're only walking on two legs, you use less fuel. It's more efficient.

We are extreme efficient. So our closest genetic relative is the chimpanzee. We are four times more efficient in walking than they are. And one of the reasons we're only using two legs. And, of course, we have a better overview. Our arms are free.

So a lot advantages. So let's turn this spine into our spine. So you take this spine and you lift it up like that and you see That's not very good because you have huge leverage. So if here's the basis of the board, you have a curve like that, it just wants to collapse. Bad idea.

So why do we make the spine straight? And this is, you know, a long time. Took a lot of dance classes. I got this cue a lot. You know, straight spine had the idea.

A good spine is straight like this. You know? Yeah, straight in the spine. So what's the problem with this spine? Our spine is not like that, but what what is the problem if it really would be straight? Well, one, okay, is force absorption.

It'd be very stiff. Right? Where's the springiness? And but the second problem is Where would you put the orchids? You know, like so I'm just gonna use these balls to demo that. So would you put like the longs and heart in front and the stomach and liver in back? And what if you have a baby? You also an in front? You know, like, we'd be like a Christmas tree We'd have this center.

Right? And that wouldn't work. Also, let's say, you know, you start running and you have organs in the back behind the spine. These organs might like fly off your spine. Not a good design. It's not gonna work for us. So that completely straight raw idea, it doesn't have forced absorption.

It doesn't have those spaces we need also the organs and you actually need the organs to be in front of the spine because we primarily move forward. So what did Nature do? Well, First of all, we created a lumbar lordosis. And if you create a lumbar lordosis, that's gonna take the rib cage over your pelvis. Yay. So we have, you know, something really nice here going, but that's not good enough.

Now we have to take the head over the rib cage. For that, you need a cervical lordosis. And lo and behold, we have something that springy And we have something where you can place organs, babies, and things like that, and it has nice spring. And people who are healthy have a better spring in their spine with each step than people who have back pain. So people with back pain, they kinda lose this spring.

So your spine is a spring, only a does it with the help of curves that become more deep and shallow. So some people naturally have deeper curves, some people naturally have flatter curves, but we do need to have some curves for a healthy functioning spine. It's also about the muscles and fashions, by the way. So they have good leverage. So with alcoholumber curve. A lot of the muscles can't really support your lower back, but that's a more involved story.

Let's get started by embodying this. So in the Franco method, we try to embody these insights. Not just talk about them. So, okay, great. I kinda get it, but now what? So let's see if we can feel our own curves in action. Let's take our hands. And one hand, you're going to put on the cervical lordosis, one hand on the lumbar lordosis.

So those are the parts where the spine goes forward. And adjoining them are the parts where the spine goes back? So lordosis here at the neck, lordosis here at the lumbar spine. Those are the areas the spine goes slightly gently forward. And in between, you have the parts where the spine goes to the back, can you imagine that? Now take your hands and paint your spine into the space. So you have your head, then you have the neck goes forward. Thorax goes back, lumbar goes forward, sacrum goes back, tail goes forward.

So tail, sacrum goes back, lumbar forward, thorax back, circle forward and then the hedge. So if you do that a little faster, you're painting a wave into space. Isn't that nice? You're a wave. We have waves, but we are also a wave.

Our spine is a wave. Nice image. Right? Like this. So put your hands back on those lower doses, and now let's see if we can feel them in action. So when you bend your legs, these waves get a little bit deeper.

Right? And when you stretch your legs, they get a little bit flatter. And longer. You feel like a little flatter and longer, and now they get a little deeper and curvier. Just like you're not doing anything. It's a natural thing. So you're imagining a little deeper curves when you bend your legs, flatter and longer when you stretch, deeper, flatter and longer.

Let's say those words laugh. So self queuing, so deeper curves, longer curves, deeper curves, longer flatter, deeper, longer flatter. Can you feel it? Deeper, longer flatter? You're not doing anything. Just Bending and stretching, you'll feel that change deeper curves, longer flatter. Take your hands away. You probably already noticed, you know, slight improvement.

Okay? Feels good. Now let's do it with our arms. So take your arms like this. And when you stretch your arms and legs, you have longer curves, flatter curves. When you bend your arms like you're gonna have slightly deeper curves. So now you have deeper curves, longer flatter, fade out loud, deeper curves, longer flatter, deeper curves, longer flatter, deeper curves, longer flatter, deeper curves, longer flatter, deeper curves, longer flatter.

Let's do an experiment. So now you have long curves. And if you have that idea, okay, a healthy spine. It's always as long as possible, and, you know, the curves are as straight as possible. Keep your spine exactly as it is.

And bend your arms and legs. Don't change your spine. And what do you notice? It's very hard to move, right? So your spine wants to change. It's a spring, remember, and it springs by slightly dipping the curves.

That's alright. That's not creating an arch back. Let's do the opposite. Let's go down here. Now, you have deeper curves, the opposite. Now you're not allowed to lengthen the spine.

Just keep it as it is. And no change in the spine and stretch your arms and legs. Again, you're gonna feel resist sense. You feel that? I was like, no. So when you move, your spine adapts. It's not just the stick that stuck in there and staying exactly the same. So let's practice that again.

And deeper curves, longer flatter curves. Deeper curves, longer flatter curves, deeper curves, longer flatter curves. Let's even do a little jump if you feel like it. Long deep. Long deep, long deep. And don't try this or do try this if you want to, if you think only long spine, then you're gonna get tried.

Long, long. It's kind of a very stiff landing. Yeah? You that's good. You didn't do it. Exactly. But you already know it's not a good idea. Yeah? Okay. So let's do correctly again and deep and long and deep and long, deep, long with jumping or just with bending and stretching. Exactly. You like the jumping. Yeah. Exactly.

It's spinal curve jumping. Boom. The spine as a spring. So the spine acts like a spring but it does it by deepening and lengthening its curves. Very good. So now we're gonna move on. To using some balls to help our back.

So there's all kinds of things you can do with these Frank and Method balls. We have mini rollers. We have round balls as well, but we're gonna emphasize these mini rollers because there are lots of fun. So we have air filled mini rollers, but we also have water filled mini rollers. And at the very end of this class, you'll see what the difference is.

In the 2. And the first exercise we're going to do is we're gonna put the mini roller, lying on the floor, behind our sacrum. So here's the sacrum lumbar spine. So just right here, and we can roll the roller up and down, but we can also roll the roller back and forth. And that's really good for massaging and also stretching and releasing gliding the fascia like that. Then, you're gonna move the roller to the lumbar, you're gonna do some rolling, and also some lateral movement.

You can move it all around like that. So that's the first thing we're going to do. And the next exercise, I will demonstrate before we do it. So here we go. Good. And position it first under the pelvis, Exactly.

Very nice. Good. And the first thing you do is a little bit rolling towards the feet and then towards the shoulders. And you can do it nice and slow and smooth like that. Take your time. And, of course, you're breathing at all times.

Yeah. Faster is not better with this, so slow is good. And then you can also move sideways, so to the right and left. Very good. And of course, you can take a lot of time doing this. So we're gonna only do it briefly. To show you how you could do this, but you, yourself, if you wanna practice longer, you can do this. And the good thing about these balls is they're soft. They're comfortable.

And very safe. Looking good. So now maybe move the balls up a little bit under the lumbar there. Of course, always be careful if you have any kind of acute issue going on. Obviously, don't do this. Right? But if you feel decently comfortable or you only have tension like that, Then this is great. If you do encounter a tight spot, use imagery to release it. So imagine that spot is melting like ice cream, or just breathe into that area and just imagine it dissolving. Yeah.

There we go. Or you can imagine the muscles and fascia melting down over the ball. Good. Looks like you're having a good time there. Exactly. Yeah. So you can only see, like, from the expression on the face, like, you know, very good. And then move it a little further up maybe for a moment. Yeah. Very good.

Looking good. Isn't that sideway movement also great? Yeah. That shearing because you have something back there called the Thracalobr fascia, And you always wanna make sure that is free and gliding. And this sideways movement with these balls really works for that. Because the ball kind of, like, attaches itself to the more superficial layers and kind of glides them over the more deep layers. Very, very effective. Then let's take the balls away and see if we notice any, changes in our lower back. So anyone feel the lower back is more released, definitely more released.

Excellent. Good job. Okay. Very good. So now we're gonna work with the upper back. And for this, you can either use the rollers, but you actually can also use 2 individual balls. So I like both. You know, they they give you different abilities to work with the tissues.

Such balls like this, of course, have a more, very specific point related pressure. And so you can move them around to very specific spots. They're not gonna be as good as shearing as those, right, with those you can really shear like that, but here you can, like, move more 3 dimensionally. These are water filled balls. So they have a lot of wump, and they go a little deeper into the tissue than air filled balls, like these or the orange ones down there. So this is how I recommend doing this.

We're going to take the balls. Maybe watch first. You take the balls. And you just roll them up under the shoulders like that. Then you put your hands behind your head.

It's very important. If you don't do that, then you're gonna be straining in your neck. You don't want that. Right? So hands behind the head, I'm gonna use my feet to push up onto the balls, place the pelvis back down. So pelvis back down. Right? They'll go up here. At least initially, too much pressure.

Then we just kind of wiggle a little bit. Snanky kind of movement. We're breathing, and then we slowly go down and feel comfortable, might crack your back, which is good, by the way. That's a little crack there. And you go a little down like this until you're down. And then if you feel comfortable, you let go with your hands.

And then we're gonna reach up, and we're gonna reach down. Do that a few times. Like that, you can reach, like, jazz arms, There we go. A little dancing on the floor. And then you're gonna reach out with one arm down with the other arm and go like that. And now very importantly, to come up, don't come up like this.

You're gonna be all straight. Just roll to the side. Right? Push the balls away and get back on the map. And rest. Okay? So I'll guide you through this right now. Okay. So I'm gonna guide you through this.

So lie on your back. And then, very importantly, I would take the ball ideally in two hands, because then you're gonna be more symmetrical. Put them behind your shoulders, lift your head up, place them, then put your hands behind your head, So your head is supported, then use your feet to push you further up on the ball. So you push with your feet to get further up on the balls. Very good. How's that? Yeah? Now do a little wiggle just to get comfortable.

Breathe at all times. There we go. A little bit of a wiggle. You're doing great. And then slowly come down to the ground with your head. Good. And then if it feels comfortable enough, you're gonna take your hands away.

Very good. Excellent. Then you can do some arm maneuvers, which, of course, are gonna move the upper back and the shoulder girdle. It's gonna be great. So you stretch your arms up along the round.

You can do some jazz arms. So reach up with one arm and then the other one. Excellent. Yeah. Very good. Show time.

Then you're gonna reach down. And reach up. So just alternate between reaching down, reaching up. That's great. Very good. And then you're gonna reach up with one arm, down with the other arm.

Little bit of lateral bending in the spine, even perhaps very good. That's wonderful. Very good. Then do whatever you want for a moment, you know, unguided, like improv, upper body exactly. Just breathe. That's the important thing. Keep breathing.

Maybe even sigh. Like, helps you release tension. It's fine. You notice it's like, oh, let go. Very good. Woah. Good. So if you're doing this the first time, don't do it very long, just a little bit, and then you roll to the side, push the ball away, or just take it away and then roll back onto your back and just appreciate how you're feeling your upper back now. Yeah?

So anyone feel more released, more relaxed. It's like, this is so wonderful. It's an area very hard to get to yourself, like, oh, what are you gonna do? Yes. You can place these balls, you know, against the wall like that and behind your back, you can do that. Yeah. That's a possibility. Especially the air fill ball, the other one's a little heavy.

It might drop, but Yeah. Like that. You can do that, but this, of course, is absolutely wonderful. Yeah? So there we go. Excellent exercise, start under the pelvis, then under the lumbar. Lots of shearing here.

You see how effective that is? Yeah? Good. And then of course, we're going to do this under the upper back. Now take your mini roll. And just for a moment, put it under the neck, but the very top of the neck you don't wanna have the ball play so that your head is like that. Your chin is jogging up, but it's sort of more like that. You feel that? So if you come for a little neck roll, yeah?

And then you can do a little bit of knotting. Like, yes. Yes. I kinda like this. So like that. But I know you're sheering fans at this point. So fashion glide fan.

So a little bit is sideways movement. Just a little bit. Yeah? You feel that isn't that wonderful right there. Yeah? Very good. Looking good. I'm so envious. Yeah?

I'm stand here talking and they do all these cool exercises. Yeah? And of course, you can combine things, right? So if you feel wow, I wanna have the the full experience, you could, for example, put 2 balls under the pelvis. While you're doing that with your next, so feed up, I'll bring you some balls over as well. So do you want 2 balls, or do you wanna one of the we wanna like like this. So you can have ball under the pelvis and ball under the head. So combination right here.

How's that? Yeah. That's kinda fun. Delivery. Exactly. And of course, you could, you know, could even add more. So the full ball experience that you wanna you wanna add some more in the middle back, then you add something under the middle back.

Yeah. Yeah. You wanna try something? Yes. You know, these or these, if those are the little red ones here, the middle back. Now you have the full can spend a Sunday afternoon like this, you know? And the key is, again, slower movement. No. It's not like wiggling around like the slow, continuous.

And if you encounter a knot, just imagine a melting like that. And it's interesting. This this is gonna enable you to release tension spots that you didn't even know you had. Right? And then when you stand up, there's this glorious experience of, wow, that really released some areas that I didn't you know, I wasn't fully aware that I need to work Yeah. And, of course, you can also have moments of not moving at all. Just allow gravity to do the work so you're lying on your back and, you know, gravity.

You're helper and just like resting down on the balls like that. Very good. We could go on like these for a while, but of course you wanna have some more action. I understand. So now we're going to take all the balls away, but roll back onto your back.

And just for a moment, notice how that feels afterwards. Yeah? There. Good. Nice and couple. I can tell they're happy, but, of course, we have to end this class. So I have to get them up off the ground for the grand finale. Right? So to get up off the ground, I recommend rolling to the side and then coming up and and you'll, you know, comfortable way for you.

So let's stand up. Good. And then let's take the balls of our choice because we're gonna do tapping. And we just like to point something out about that. So if you use air filled balls, They're gonna have less warm.

So if you tap your body, a bit less warm, but, of course, they're nice and light and easy. So if you wanna start out with those, However, if you're gonna use water filled balls, they're gonna have much more rebound. So they're gonna reverberate much deeper into the tissue. I mean, Yeah. They both feel absolutely great. So you wanna use these, and you're gonna use the small little red ones. Okay. That's fine.

And we also have these, So these are also water filled, but they're a little tougher. So they're a little the skin a little tougher. So if you if you feel like, I don't feel enough, I wanna have a little more impact there. Then you can use this. So the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna go through the motion of the spine, flexion extension, lateral flexion rotation, just like that, and we're gonna tap our back.

So let me demonstrate. So you tap your back, or you do flexion, extension, and lateral flexion like this, and rotation. You see that? Good. And I'm moving up and down my back, and then we finished with a glued tap. So you're ready to go. And we're gonna tap her lower spine, reflects and extend, breathing at all times, flex and extend, Good. Move the balls up and down.

Then let's do lateral flexion. Very good. And let's finish with some rotation, and then let's do some glued tapping, glorious, Very good. And then let's release and rest. Whoo. How did that feel? Yeah? So anyone feel lower back is, like, really released, like, really dropped. Excellent. Good.

And so now we'll just do some lower back tapping while we're lifting our legs. So lift your legs up like that a little bit. And a variation is also swinging your leg. Exactly. And swing the other leg. Balance is very good for your health.

So if you challenge your balance like that a little bit, it's also gonna help And now just to get your core going a little more to, like, activate your abdominals, it's actually helpful to do a gentle tap on your apps. So most of your abdominals are here on the side. So if the rect is here, the 6 pack muscle, but most of them muscles are here. So external internal oblique and transversus, We're gonna tap here, and we're gonna do a little movement. So we're saying, okay, abdominals, time to wake up. Good.

We can even do a little hop as we do that. Good. Waking up the abdominals. And lo and behold, after you do that, just notice the effect. Wow. Yeah. Do you feel that drop shoulders, length, and spine, isn't it absolutely wonderful? So a proprioceptive way to get your abdominals going, let's check-in. Those are spine, feel lengthened and alive.

Do our shoulders feel dropped? Do we feel more released in our back? Yes. Check mark, check mark, check mark, And that was it for this class. Thanks for participating, and thanks for doing such a great job on these exercises and see you in the next class.