Beginning Matwork with Flow

Thanks for joining me. This class is a beginning matworkflow. Hopefully, you've already visited beginning with Matwork, which is a just will help to kind of break down all of the exercises and give you some feedback as to how to modify and just how to work better in your math work. This class, we're just gonna move from exercise to exercise, and I may refer back to that workshop class. So feel free to visit it if you have not yet visited it. Most importantly, listen to your body.

Things should feel good and things should feel like a good idea adhere to the pre the pleasure principle and make sure that you're enjoying the movement. If it's hurt, or uncomfortable, then try to find a different way because there is always a different way. So for this class, we're mostly just using our bodies. And, we will use a towel. Everybody has a towel.

I have a band here that is available for one exercise as an assist with the roll up. You can live without the band. So if you don't happen to have a band, it's okay. If you do grab one because they're really useful, but if not, we can modify a different way. So let's get started. We're going to 1st find your towel so it's available to you. And put it back where you can retrieve it easily when the time comes. Okay? So let's have, You could just get back onto your back, however you'd like.

I don't wanna actually talk you through that too much. I do like to hold on to my legs and kinda roll back, but just make your way onto your back and and be comfortable. Pay attention to your space first and foremost and feel that you've got, you're even on your mat. So so feel the edges of your mat. Feel your your body. Try to align yourself and kind of settle in here for a moment.

Start with your knees and feet together. Find your your towel, and you're gonna wanna make it a little bit, Bigger. So I folded it over, so that I can just put it between my legs to keep the space in between my legs. So with my feet together, I wanna feel the bones of the big toes. I'm gonna then separate. So I'm about I'm a separated about the distance of whatever my spacer is between my legs. Place your arms down by your side and settle in, breathing in through your nose, and perhaps breathing out through your mouth or your nose.

Inhale through your nose, filling the lungs with air, and exhaling completely. Feel your head heavy on the mat, Feel your rib cage, heavy on the mat, fill your pelvis, endeavoring to be in neutral, feel your shoulder blades grounded, Perhaps your palms are facing up, if you can, palms are down, and arms are close to your body. We prepare to move in how through your nose. Use your exhale to flex your spine or ground your low back, feeling your pelvis respond. Put your pelvis back down.

Repeat. Exhale. We're gonna curl the pelvis a little bit, trying not to use the legs, but to use the core. And put it back down one more time like that. Exhale to curl. And back down, pelvic curl, exhale.

We curl first the spine, and then we lift up using the backs of the legs trying to find the height of your pelvic curl. Inhale here. Use the exhale to lengthen and lower down one lovely vertebra at a time until you find yourself back in neutral pelvis inhale. Exhale to curl up. Lifting the hips high.

Try to feel that the pubic bone is higher than the hip bones. Inhale. And exhale to curl down one vertebra at a time. And then find your nice neutral spine. Feel your shoulders. Relax. Exhale to curl up.

Feel the fronts and the backs of the feet equally weighted. Your inner thighs engaged. Inhale. Use an exhale to lengthen and lower down. Moving with ease, enjoying. One more time, exhale to curl up.

This time stay in that lifted position and organize your pieces a little longer. Can you press your pubic bone a little higher using the backs of the legs, the glutes, and the hamstrings, softening the sternum, Check-in with your shoulder blades and ground them down and reach your fingertips in the direction of your feet, pressing through your hands for a little more attend intention. Take a breath and lower down one vertebra at a time. And one more pelvic curl here, inhale. Use the exhale two curl up.

Pressing a little higher at the top through the pubic bone, try to feel that you've got a nice straight diagonal line. Remember, you're modifying as needed you need to not lift as high, don't. If you need to have a bigger prop between your legs, retrieve it. Take one more breath here. And then lengthen and lower down. Let's go ahead and remove that prop from the legs. So just place it by your side so it's out of the way.

Flat your hands up to the ceiling. Feel shoulder blades lift off the mat. Shoulder blades on the mat. Shoulder blades off. And shoulder blades on.

So lifting up. And then with the shoulder blades down, allow your elbows to go out to the side. So your back of your upper arm is down, and then your elbows will straighten. Let's do that again. Elbows bend.

Hand reach up. Shoulders lift. Shoulders down, elbows out to the side, and then straighten. So if you widen your fingers, you're going to get a little more stretch through the front of your body. If you keep your fingers together, it'll be a little less.

It's up to you. If it feels uncomfortable, take your arms a little lower. Otherwise, we're at a t shape. Feel your shoulder blades grounded. And let's just twist to one side. It doesn't matter which way you go. We're gonna inhale to twist one side lower body.

Exhale, drag the pelvis back, pull the legs back to where you came from, inhale to twist, You're gonna use your breath to pull the back ribs down and drag back to where you came from. Twist again. Now you can push into the outside and inside of your foot to create a little bit more range there, a little more stretch through the ribs. Use your exhale to pull back to center, settling in neutral spine again, inhale to twist, Push into the inside and the outside of the foot to go a little deeper. Remember not to arch the back, but to feel that you're lengthening through the low back, and pull back. Let's do that one more time.

Nice and easy like. These spine sways are a really great way to re set your body anytime you feel just like you're a little off return to this exercise is a good reset. One more time, please, inhale twisting. And exhale, lengthen your spine and drag the pelvis back. And let's go ahead and settle there. We're gonna float the hands back up to the ceiling.

Now we're gonna move into some abdominal curls. If your neck doesn't like abdominal curls, use the howl, like I showed in the beginning with Matt, as a modification, because it's really a useful hammock. The rest of us are gonna take our hands up to the ceiling. Take a breath. Lyft your head and chest looking in the direction of your legs or your pelvis as your arms come down.

Exhale. Lower down. Let's do that with an inhale stretch your arms behind you. Use an exhale to lift the head and chest. The arms come down. The chest is open, you're looking in the direction of your pelvis.

Inhale, lower down. The sternum stays down or the rib cage stays grounded, settled. Exhale to lift. So your arms are only gonna go back as far as it suits your shoulders and that you can still keep your rib cage where it is in that neutral or ideal alignment for you. Exhale to lift again this time, we're gonna stay. So staying in this lifted position, inhale through your nose. Use an exhale to see if you can create a little more intention, soften your tailbone down, if you can keep your low back grounded, inhale again, and exhale to deepen the connection.

And just one more breath here and exhale to deepen the connection. And lower down. Remember, if you begin to feel neck tension more than abdominal work, it's an indication that you'll wanna modify or rest. Always feel free to do that. Let's bring the hands together so that all five fingers are touching. Your elbows are gonna stay straight.

But your shoulders are going to stay plugged on the back body in hell. Use an exhale to lift the head and chest, looking in the direction of your legs or your pelvis, arms stay as they were. Take a breath. We're gonna draw a straight line out over one knee. Keep both elbows straight. Come back to center.

That's your inhale. Use your exhale to twist in the other direction. In health through center. Just breathing and moving. Ideally, we wanna move on the exhale. It helps, but certainly if the breath is throwing you off, it is more important.

That you are moving and breathing at a pace that suits you. We're gonna do just one more on each side, twisting, Back to center, feel your low back rounded, and we twist. And we come back to center, and we're gonna lower down. Good. Bring one leg into your chest. Give it a hug. Bring the other leg into your chest.

Give it a hug. Feel a nice little stretch through your low back. Place one foot down, place the other foot down. Be mindful of your neutral spine here. Press your head into the mat. Feel your tailbone down, your pelvis is grounded. Your rib cage is settled.

Your abdominals are engaged. Try putting your hands on your pelvis keeping your pelvis nice and still see if you can lift your how let's go right leg to tabletop just so we can be aware of which one we're on. We're gonna tap that toe down to the mat, and we're gonna lift it back up. So the knee stays bent at about 90 degrees. I like to inhale to attack.

And exhale to lift. Be mindful of rooting through the supporting or the leg that's on the mat. So my left gluten hamstring is engaged to help stabilize my pelvis as I lift and lower. Let's do one more here. Table top with that right leg and then rest it down.

Other side, bring the left leg to tabletop. Feel your pelvis position. Feel free to use your hands. So you know that it's stable. If you're pretty sure you have it, feel free to put your arms down by your side.

We're gonna tap the toe inhale, exhale to lift pelvis. Stay still. Check-in with your other leg, the one that's on the floor. That's my right one, and I'm keeping a little engagement in that leg, hamstring and glute. Back of the leg.

Breathing and moving. We're gonna do 2 more here, tapping the toe. Chest is still open, lift. And one more here. Lift that leg to tabletop stay.

Let's go ahead and bring both legs to tabletop. So using your abdominals to support, we lift the other leg up, and we glue the legs together. Holding this shape for, for me for a little bit or for you, really. Can you soften your rib cage down, feel your pelvis heavy, and can you breathe here safely? If you're feeling tenderness in your low back you might need to ground your low back a little more.

If you're feeling fatigue in your legs, you might need to figure out how to use your abs a little bit or work up to both legs staying like this. Can you float your arms to the ceiling? Will you put your shoulder blades down? Open your arms wide to the side and let's do a spine twist like this. The knees stay glued together as you twist one direction, exhale pull back to center. Think about your shoulder blade grounded in how to twist the other way, exhale to pull back to center, inhale to twist, and exhale back to center. Keep the knees glued together, shoulder blade grounded, and pull back. So make sure you're not overarching your back. If you're feeling your low back, it's an indication that likely you are not using your abdominals well enough you'll want to lengthen your low back better or engage your abdominals more. This is the last one in this direction.

And one more in the other direction, please, gently come back to center, hug your toenies into your chest, and take a pause. Alright. Now return your legs to tabletop, and we're gonna work our abs with tabletop legs. At any point, when I ask you to have your legs like this. If you need to put your feet down because your body is not working for you, feel free to. And that goes with the twisting or anything. So feel free to do that. Here, our legs are at tabletop. Our arms are up at the ceiling.

The shoulder blades are on the mat. Reach your arms behind you. The rib cage stays grounded. We're gonna lift the head and chest in one fell swoop, finding a nice grounded low back, and we're gonna lower down. So it becomes a little more challenging when the legs are lifted like this.

Lift again and lower down. Remember, listen to your body. Lift again this time, we're going to stay. So a trick I like to use is to use my hands on the backs of my legs and lift up a little more to stretch the back. To take a little bit of the work away from the abdominals, soften the tail, feel your positioning. Now keep that position and let go. Let's breathe. Palms down.

3 breaths. Chest is open. Breathing in. Feel the grounding of the low back. Chest is open. Body is lifted.

One more time. Now if you can, Exhale all your air out. Hold on to the backs of the legs. Lift yourself up. Lift your pelvis, and let's just see if we can rock and roll until you find yourself sitting.

Now if you need to get up a different way, feel free to. Here's where we're going to use the and to endeavor to do a rollback or a roll up. But if you don't have a band, you'll just use your hands on the backs of your legs, and that's fine. I do have a band here, and I would like to use it. So you're gonna take this band wide across the balls of your feet. You need a good connection on the feet wide band.

And you're gonna hold pretty close to the feet. If you have a real thin band, you're gonna wanna hold closer. If you have a thicker band, you can hold a little little further back, but you'll figure it out. So here, sit up high on your sits bones. Your knees can be a little bit bent.

That's gonna be useful for most people. That are new with the roll up. Would like your elbows to remain straight. So feel that you can sit up and this the the band is pulling you just a little bit into that upright position. Now gazing forward on the horizon, wherever that may lead your eyes or take your eyes, please gaze forward. Take a breath.

You're gonna 1st round through the low back, which means you change your gaze. You're gonna look down, and then you're gonna sit tall. Take a breath. You're gonna round through the low back, look down. Your pelvis goes back a little bit and sit tall. We're gonna round through the low back and one more time. We're gonna round through the low back, and then we're gonna try to continue going back.

So You're gonna feel I just have to bend my knees a little bit more. You're gonna feel that, there's a point where you're sure you have it, and there'll be a point where you think If I go any further, I might lose my way. So stop there and roll back up. And if you're not sure, Stop a little sooner than you think, sit tall. My knees are a little more bent now. I decided to make that arrangement.

Exhail, we're gonna round the back, And then we're gonna begin going back. The band is stretching. My elbows stay straight. You wanna make sure you don't lose your band or lose your connection. And maybe you can get the top of the pelvis to ground down, and then you're gonna roll yourself back up.

And sit nice and tall in hell. And exhale, we're gonna roll back again. So you're doing you. Like, some people will need to stop at this high point. That's okay. If you feel you can roll down through your pelvis, through your low back, And then you can touch the shoulder blades, and then you can put your head down.

Feel free. Lift the head and chest and articulate up. That band gives a very beautiful assist and allows for most people to do some version of the roll up. Sit tall, just so you can see if you didn't have the band, I'm gonna hold on to the backs of my legs, and I'm gonna roll back. And I might just roll to the point where my arms are straight. I'm using my arms to help.

I'm gonna take a breath there. And then I'm gonna roll back up using my arms. Now if you think you can, if you could get all the way down without the band, The next step would be to roll back and see if you can get yourself to roll all the way down. And make sure you can stay in control. The arms might then go overhead.

You'll lift your head and chest, and the key is that you need to be able to roll up. If you get stuck, lift a leg. Hold on to it. Use a little momentum and abdominals to kinda rock yourself back up. So that's a way to be able to achieve the roll up in a class environment. Let's get that band out of the way. So I'm just gonna neatly fold it up so it it stays in a Good spot.

And we're gonna place the feet out in front of us here. Okay. Scoop any flesh out that needs scooping so you can sit up straight. As I mentioned in beginning with mat, if you need to prop your hips up, please do sit on a block or a mat or, or your towel. We're gonna try to straighten the legs and flex the ankles. If that's uncomfortable, let your feet relax or your legs relax. Otherwise, we'll take our arms out in front of us here with nice straight legs, flexed ankles. Okay? So this is the progression in hell here. Exhale, curl your head forward.

Rule yourself down. Your hands may touch the mat, and then you'll continue reaching forward. Hands will graze forward on the mat. Take a breath. And then you're gonna stack your spine one vertebra at a time until you're sitting nice and tall.

What are we thinking about in how exhale curl down? We're thinking about keeping the pelvis print as is. So I've got both sits bones in hell here. XL stack your spine, one vertebra at a time. I wanna make sure I'm not leaning back on my tailbone.

Think a little bit about grounding through your legs. Inha? Exhale to curl forward. Try to keep the arms energized. Inhale in that forward position. And, exhale, I'm laughing because I was shaking a little bit doing this today.

I'm working so hard in the spine stretch. I love that such a fundamental exercise can be quite a good challenge. Curling forward just one more time. Take a breath. And then stack the spine.

Let's keep the legs like this and work into the twist, the spine twist. So you'll put one hand on top of one forearm on top of the other. Sit up tall. If your hips are bothering you, if it's uncomfortable, please adjust. If you can manage, please do. Sitting as tall as you can, let's all twist I as in head as far as you can to the right, and then I as in head as far as you can to the left. Notice if you feel restricted on one side a little more than the other side.

So we're gonna go again. Just the eyes in the head, If I feel restricted on one side, it usually tells me my shoulder blade is not where it belongs. So think about that. One more time, I'm gonna go to the right. Do you feel restricted try pulling your shoulder to your back body and settling.

It might feel easier. Go to the left. Do you feel restricted? Pull the shoulder to the back body. You might have an a little bit of movement. Good. Now let's add a full twist. So eyes and head and twist the body? How far around can you go?

Unwind. That's all we're doing. Eyes and head, how far around can you go? Try to keep your feet and your pelvis still. So feel where your heels are. Feel where your pelvis is.

Keep it still. One more time, please. Twisting all the way around. And unwind that. I think that's enough for today. So let's bend both legs.

I'm gonna scooch forward just a little bit I have plenty of mat to roll like a ball. Remember, you need enough padding for you and rolling should be fun and should feel like a good idea. So if you're able to without using the hands, you're gonna tip yourself back until you feel like you are in a rounded back and you feel like you can balance here, lift one leg up, put it down. Lift the other leg up, put it down. See if you can lift both legs up either one at a time, maintaining the shape of your spine. So both legs are lifted.

Can you tighten up the ball with your body? Not using your hands yet. Feel that you're using your abs. Holding the ball tight, gently put your hands on your shins where it's comfortable for you, and breathe here for a moment. Settling your shoulders back, feeling the shape of the ball, tensegrity throughout this ball here. We're gonna roll in hell to go.

Exhale to find your balance, fully committed to the position, inhale to roll, And, you know, if you find yourself flopping around, laugh a little. It's a good idea. He inhaled to roll. And exhale trying to find balance. Let's just do one more rolling. Nice breath, and we'll gently come to rest there. Let's stretch our legs out in front of us. Take your arms out in front of you.

Let's do that with bent knees and begin to roll back. So if you feel like, okay, that as far as I can go. Please use your hands to help yourself out. Otherwise, we're gonna see if we can control ourselves down with bent knees. And you're on your back. Rest your arms down by your side.

Let's just relax the legs for a moment here. So you're just lying flat on your and grounding in neutral here. So feel your pelvis nice and heavy. Feel your rib cage heavy. Feel your head heavy. Press your arms down in a way that allows you to put your shoulder blades down.

So palms up is a good idea for many of us. So feel the 3 body weights, the pelvis, the rib cage, the head, also the shoulder blades. We're gonna ground down through your legs. So find what feels like hip width distance, flex spolf ankles, pressing through the legs and pressing through the pelvis into the mat. Lift one leg up only as high as you comfortably can, put it down. With the other leg up, put it down. Now if you keep your pelvis really grounded, many of you who think you're flexible may find that you're less flexible than you thought, myself included.

So when I keep my pelvis really grounded, I lift to, like, just barely can get to 90 degrees without a little shift in my pelvis, and that's okay. It's kinda better, just changes the intention here. So one more time, we're gonna lift. So whatever leg is up, keep it up, ground through the other leg, really root through the leg that's on the mat, and see if you can then lift the other leg up a little higher. I've got both ankles flex just because it gives me some power here that I like. You can feel free to change that if you want.

We're gonna make 3 little circles inward first with the leg that's up in the arrow 1. 2, 3. Go the other way. 1, focus on the standing leg. 2, and 3. Good. Put that leg down. Shake out your legs, other side.

Ground through both legs and your pelvis. Ground through your shoulders in your head. Flex both ankles if it suits you point them if you prefer. And then we're gonna lift the other leg up. So I'm grounding through my leg that's down.

Really thinking about that. Straight straight legs here if I can, and I'm gonna make 3 little circles. So one and 2, and 3. That was inward, and then we're gonna go outward 1, small little circles, 2, and 3 and lower down. Now if you find that circling there, you're not quite ready for it. Just lifting and lowering the legs like that. Will juice up your body so that you will be better for that exercise.

Bring one leg into your chest, pinching that hip flexor a little bit Hopefully, that feels like a good idea. The word pinching can be negative. I want you to think of of lessening the space here If you feel a pinch that doesn't feel good, you may find that by simply pushing back into your hands, either holding the thigh or the knee or the shin, pushing back through your hands will help alleviate that pinch. So that's just a little tidbit that might help. Let's change sides.

So two legs are straight. Lift the other leg in, hug it in. I like to hold on top of my shin that works for me. If you feel an uncomfortable pinch in your hip, try pushing back into your hands or hold the eye instead of the shin, and you may find that that alleviates that. Both legs come into your chest, stretching your low back for a moment, 2 feet on the mat, arms wide.

Hip sways just for a nice little release. So hip sways or spine twist was that one of those first exercises I taught where we just kinda glide the hips in the pelvis. We allow the pelvis to respond. You are rotating a bit here, but we're not maximizing the rotation yet. We're just kind of loosening up those hip joints.

Come back to center and let's settle the feet together feeling your alignment. So you wanna make sure the ball of the big toe is touching on both feet. Put your arms down by your side, separate your heels, separate your toes. We're gonna return to pelvic curl inhale. Use your exhale to engage your abs and lift yourself up nice and high.

Take a breath. Exhale and lengthen and lower down. So the progression from the pelvic curl is the shoulder bridge prep. So we're gonna exhale to curl up again. Find this nice high position and get organized.

Feel your pelvis high. Feel your abdominals active. Your glutes are active. Your arms are active. Can you shift your weight to one of your legs, how about the left, and lift the right leg away from the floor?

Tap the toe down and lift it up 2. And let's do 5. Here's 3. Same leg, 4, and 5. Let's change sides. So feel the pelvis lifted Shift your weight to your right foot, lift the other leg up, and we lift, and we tap.

And we lift, and we tap. Find your breath. Remember we're just breathing and moving. We're trying to keep that pelvis lifted and leveled. Put the foot down, reorganize the pelvis lifting a little higher if you're able to, and then lengthen and lower your spine down.

One lovely vertebra at a time. Hug the knees into your chest. Give your low back just a little release there. Perhaps you sway side to side. And then we're gonna find our way on our sides.

So just roll over to your side. That will probably work for everybody. I'm gonna look at you for this first side. So I like to have my, I'm just gonna move a little bit. I like to have my long straight arm palm facing down.

It's a nice little latch stretch. But if you need to adjust your arm, please do. We're gonna take the bottom knee first and bend it at about 9090, and we're gonna just hover that other leg up away from, in alignment with the body. Here, we're trying to get that outer hip to work a little bit. Glupe meat and some other things there, but to try to get the outer hip to work a little bit. So we wanna stack the pelvis We wanna feel that the bottom rib is lifted. So this gets very lazy.

You wanna create a little bit of a mouse hole here and try to maintain it. And this hand could be down here, or it could just be up on your hip. I like it on my hip because I can feel the muscle. I like to keep my foot relaxed. And slightly angle the knee inward.

And we're just gonna swing the leg forward a little bit in space. It's very relaxed, my leg, and we're gonna swing it back. And swing it forward and swing it back. Now as you swing forward and back, there's little adjustments in your body that need to happen, but you wanna be aware of not letting the peace, the the core fall apart. So I'm just swinging.

I'm gonna hold the forward swing position. I'm gonna try to lengthen my leg a little bit. I'm gonna turn my knee down a little more, and then we're gonna tap the toe down and lift it up. And, hopefully, you can feel a little heat in that outer hip there. You can feel a little challenge right there. Yeah. Let's do 3 more like that. Just a couple.

Just checking it out. Good. And then go ahead and hug that knee into your chest for a moment. We're gonna put the foot down, slide the other leg down to straight. So I'm looking for a straight bottom part of my body. I'm gonna take my top foot and find a place where I can put it down comfortably enough.

It could be from the ball of the foot if needed, but if you can flatten your foot, that's better. See if you can really engage the under side of your, your spine or your abdominal wall here, shoulders are stacked, hips are stacked. So then I'm gonna just use my fingertips out in front of me, and I'm gonna cover that bottom leg up. Let's flex the ankle for that and lower it down. I'm gonna squeeze the hip ball up away from the floor is what I'm thinking about, and that should help to alleviate some tension on that hip joint when we progress to the abdominal the side work. The side lift.

Good. We'll do that just one more time. Lift and hold. So we're gonna keep that leg lifted as is. You're gonna engage your abs, push into your flat hand, and see if you can just let your top leg take a ride on your bottom leg. So ultimately, we're in a straight line We're lengthening out through the crown of the head. The head is light on the hands, reaching through the heels, breathing, using the hand a little less if you're able to stabilizing this position, just breathe, and then we're gonna go ahead and rest. Let's roll to the other side.

We'll just kinda come onto our belly and roll around to the other side once again. Set yourself up so that your bottom knee is bent at 90 degrees. Hips are at 90. Hip is at 90 degrees. Long straight arm, if it suits you, if not adjust, leg is straight in alignment with your body, but everything is relaxed in the leg, and I'm putting focus on trying to hold the leg up from the hip. Hips are stacked.

Shoulders are stacked. Mouse hole stays there. So a little bit of space underneath your waist here. So I like to put my hand on my glute. We're just gonna swing forward and swing back.

I'm thinking of a song, some songs right now. Just swing the leg and swing the leg. So at some point, there's lots of different things you can do. To work the outer hip here. I just want you to get used to the weight of the leg moving forward and back and your body having to adapt. So you're trying to keep your body stable.

Hold the leg forward. Relax the knee a little bit down, and you're gonna tap the toe down and up. So you wanna be able to feel that with that nice relaxed leg, you can really control this movement from the hip here, the outer hip, the the outer glute. And we'll just do 2 more there so you feel that. I hope. Yeah. And one more.

Hug that knee toward you. As you do, slide the other leg down to straight and flex the foot The reason I like the flex foot is it's because it's kind of more like standing, so that's why I'm doing that right now. Find a spot where the top foot can rest comfortably. Use your hand in front of you if you need to for balance. And then you're gonna try to pull that bottom leg away from the floor and really think of pulling your inner thigh, your hip ball off the floor into your pelvis.

So just think about that. And then let's go ahead and lift, feel the inner thigh, and feel the inner thigh. Nice. So this is a really powerful inner thigh exercise. If you're feeling pain in your hip, it's an indication that something is a little bit out of alignment. And maybe you have some inflammation, so you'll just try to manage it.

Hold here. And then slide the other leg and rest it on top so it's just taking a ride. You're gonna flex both feet for me and think of lengthening through the crown of the head, out through the heels. You're welcome to use your hand down in front of you the entire time. But if you're feeling like you've got balance, you may work you may work on lifting the arm and putting it somewhere else.

Really up to you. Breathe. And breathe and rest. So roll back onto your belly, and we'll move into our back extension for this, you're gonna need your towel again, and you may want to roll it up like a little burrito roll. So you're gonna put your forehead on your towel. And settling. Do tuck your toes if you can and press into the toe balls, but also press into the pelvis. So the hip bones and the pubic bone. Feel that your body is aligned and long, not relaxed and squished.

So you wanna lengthen through the crown of the head. Slide your arms on the edges of your mat and open through your chest so your shoulder bowels are not resting on the floor. Open through your chest and reach. Feel the energy here. If you feel safe, if you feel comfortable here, try hovering your head away from your towel roll.

Try pointing your feet, bringing the legs a little narrower if you can. In hell, let's see if we can gaze forward slightly lifting a little more. Exhale. Tap your, forehead to the towel. Inhale. You're gonna gaze forward, extending your upper spine, and you're gonna tap. Now if you feel your low back pinching, put your feet back down, inhale to lift, chest open, If you feel your low back pinching, don't do the lift.

Just hold. One more time, we're gonna inhale to lift. And exhale. Lower down. Relax. Let's all make our way into a child's pose now.

If a child's pose or a rest position does not suit you. That is when you're sitting your bottom on your feet. Feel free. Please to lie on your back and hug your knees into your chest. So if this does not pick, work for you, lie on your back, hug your knees into your chest. Breathing in.

And breathing out. That should feel like a nice release on your low back, especially if you happen to overdo it a little bit because that happens sometimes. Little trial and error. Practice makes better. Put your hands underneath your shoulders and your knees underneath your hips in a quadruped position.

Just gonna adjust my clothing a little bit so I stay clothed. So here in quadruped position, many times we don't know where our shoulders are. And we don't know where our head is. Can you be a proud mammal and open your chest and keep your head kind of back where it belongs rather than having it hang forward? So just as if we were on the mat, you wanna feel that your shoulders are on your back body, and your gaze is going to be straight down, basically, but your head is back.

Using your belly muscles, we're going to round the low back look in the direction of the legs as you do, and then come back to neutral. Do that again. Round of the legs as you do. And one more time, please, rounding the low back. Now if your wrists do not like this, feel free to change the hand position come to your elbows or skip altogether. Let's extend the spine now.

We're gonna open the heart looking forward, abdominals are still supporting, and then look down. We're gonna open the heart looking forward. And undo it. And just one more time, please. Also, being on the hands and knees, being on the hands requires practice. Pause here.

We're going to sit back in a child's pose. You can tuck your toes. You cannot tuck your toes. Whatever suits for you here, and we're gonna all make our way now to our backs again. So I'd like you to figure out the best way for you to get onto your back It doesn't matter.

As long as you are mindful and you are careful, you can make your way and roll onto your back and find a comfortable path, and that's what I wanna encourage you to be empowered to do. So let's just settle for a moment with our bodies relax. This is the end, my friends. Lift your right leg up and place the out side of your right ankle on the other knee. Just be here for a moment.

Feel your pelvis. Push your knee a little bit away from you. Take your arms wide. Try taking your legs. So my right leg is the one that's lifted.

I'm gonna take my legs in the other direction. So I'm gonna take my legs to the left as I twist, I should get a beautiful stretch out through my outside hip and spine. Breathe in. And breathe out. If it doesn't feel good to twist this far, just don't hang out there for a little while where it does feel good to you. Listen to your body, breathing, moving, stretching, enjoying.

Come back through to center. Please let's change sides. So lift the other leg up and rest for a moment. One side will always feel a little different than the other. This is the side that's always trickier for me. What I find is when I put my pelvis down better, I have a little more range in my hip. That's a surprising feeling, but it it it's a surprising thought sometimes, but it is the case for me.

If I'm too tucked, I feel stuck. When my pelvis is down, it feels better. So push the knee away. Try taking the leg in the direction of the right. So I'm reaching my legs across my body, and I'm getting a really nice release in my outer hip For me, I get it a little bit more in my back here as well.

But just breathe into what you feel because what you feel as long as it feels like a good idea. Is what you're supposed to feel. Breathing in and breathing out. And then carefully bring yourself back to center. Hug your two knees into your chest.

Perhaps you'll sway your legs a little bit side to side, and then you'll maybe roll yourself to your side and come up to a seat. And I would like to thank each and every one of you for playing with me today. Hopefully, you enjoyed this nice beginner flow. Take care.