Empowering Mat

Okay. So, hi, good morning guys. Um, I, some of you know about this book, you've seen it, some of you've seen it, some of you have not seen it. This is the return to life book. It's by Joseph [inaudible]. It's a, this is a re-edit of it, but I wanted to read just a little bit from it to start class with, uh, more his, uh, his kind of history lesson in a way, but just, just information I think. Um, so get comfortable if you wanna lie on your back and just listen to my, yeah, that it's actually, and I think over the next few Fridays, I'm going to read a little bit at the beginning of the hour and then what this book is, it's his, his, his opinion, his speaking about the state of physical fitness. Um, back in the day, early, you know, 1940s ish. Uh, and it was a very different world, different bodies, different jobs, different occupations, different environment, um, different life stresses, et Cetera. But it's very interesting that many, much of what he says here is very much still happening today. So, uh, and it's written, his style of writing is interesting. I'll just leave it that way. Uh, The v, the intro is several, several pages. So today I'm only reading a very little bit of it. And then the rest of the books, actually the exercises, the classical mat of 34 exercises, which is what the controller g mat used to be. Uh, and it's, it's fun just to see him in, in form. But here I'll start. This one was written 1945 this is a, again, a re-edit.

I think it was 1945. Oh, excuse me. Yeah. Yeah. 1945. This new printing of Joseph is his original 1945 work. So this was rewritten 1998 edition. So, okay, here we go. Civilization impairs physical fitness. Physical fitness is the first requisite of happiness. Our interpretation of physical fitness is the containment and maintenance of a uniformly developed body with a sound mind. Fully capable of naturally, easily and satisfactorily. Performing are many and varied daily tests with spontaneous zest and pleasure to achieve the highest accomplishments within the scope of our capabilities in all walks of life.

We must constantly strive to acquire strong, healthy bodies and develop our minds to the limit of our ability. This very rapidly progressing world with his ever-increasing faster tempo of living demands that we be physically fit and alert in order that we may succeed in unceasing rates with keen competition, which rewards the go getter, but bypasses the no getter physical fitness can neither be acquired by wishful thinking, nor by outright purchase. However, it can be gained through performing the daily exercises conceived for this purpose by the founder of Control [inaudible] Joseph Holidays, who you, whose unique methods accomplish this desirable result by successfully counteracting the harmful inherent conditions associated with modern civilization. Kinda heavy, Huh? But can you see this still happening? I won't read the next couple of paragraphs because what he goes into talk about now is stress, environmental damage of pollution. How we're supposed to be breathing fully through exercise, but how when we go outside and try to do that, we've got small toxins and junk out there.

So what that's doing internally to us, but to still perform it and still practice good breathing, uh, to get that, the toxicity out. Uh, he talks about play and how important play is in our life. And if we're too tired and too stressed out from daily living without having good health and, and physical fitness, who's, who's wants to go home at night and play, usually, you know, home at night and just collapse. You're fatigued. You can barely communicate with your family. Uh, you're too stressed out. But I don't feel that way when I get home. I'm pretty invigorated when I get home and I play with my dog.

I go walk and I don't have kids, but if I did, I'd think I'd probably want to play with them. But I have this, this lifestyle that I'm, that I practice. And so he talks about that his play is so important. If you're not physically fit, you're generally not wanting to play when you get home or at night or even on the weekends. Um, goes in and talks about stress, job stress, environmental stress. Again, toxicity, pollution. Um, he was in New York City at the time of this. So city noise, city energy, city stress, how good it is to go out in nature and just take good walks and just start running if you feel like running. Cause your body's able to do that for you and to perform that. So that's kind of what those couple of chapters where a they'll alert or pages, paragraphs, I'll lead the last two accordingly.

Since we are living in this modern age, we must of necessity devote more time and more thought to the important matter of acquiring physical fitness. This does not necessarily imply that we must devote ourselves to the mere development of any particular pet set of muscles, but rather more rationally to the uniform development of our bodies as a whole. Keeping all of our organs as nearly as possible in their naturally normal condition so that we may not only be in better position to earn our daily bread, but also so that we may have sufficient vitality in reserve at night for the enjoyment of compensating pleasure and relaxation. Perhaps with some feeling of doubt. You ask, how can I realize such a utopian condition at night? I'm too much, too tired to go to a gymnasium or isn't it too costly to enroll for conditioning courses and some good gym or club return to life. These exercises fully explains how you can successfully achieve your worthy ambition to attain physical fitness right in your own home.

So he wrote that way back then, which is what we're doing. This isn't our home, but it's my home. Um, so I think the point in this is, uh, and I didn't mention in one of the paragraphs there also the, the mind factor and the attention to, uh, working your mind with your body. And which I think is definitely what sets [inaudible] into a different place. We're not just going to go mindlessly do the stairmaster and things. We're really thinking about our body as a whole, all even this minor, minor, small movements and how impactful that can be to organize your arms correctly and when you do so, wow. It feels better in the neck or wow, if I just move my pelvis the right way, my low back. Sure feels a lot better. So that kind of thing, mindful movement, uh, with all of that.

And next week there'll be more. Let's start standing. Everybody wake up. Yeah. And let's start with our legs in. You can face me if you'd like to. I'm just gonna do a few standing roll downs. I'm just going to check back in. So many of us have done these for, you know, months and months, years and years. So find a little, uh, something new in it. If you can always bring in something new to your session or your class.

And that's for me also a ankles together. And if we had a zipper at the ankle, you want to zip yourself all the way up to the high inner thigh. Feel your legs slightly wrap around. It's not a pinch in the butt, but a little bit of connection back there. The front of your hips, nice and tall and feeling like you're bringing your waist up a little bit out of your hips. Yep. If you need to wiggle your ribs a little to do that, it's fine. Arms down by your sides needs to hang your arms as they would and just feel a nice openness. And Nicole are boneless. Take some breathing here. So as you inhale, we're trying to fill up those ribs and exhale, press all that airway again and breathe in and exhale and again, you know with height, then strengthen your back and exhale and just keep going there.

You guys want to do just a couple of little corrections to start with. So ribs are lifted. You've got a long waist, you guys an easy shoulders. It feels good to breathe. You're breathing in clean air. We're not out in pollution. One more time. Breathe. And this time go ahead and just start letting your, your head, your shoulders, your back round forward. Just let yourself round.

I'm going to pull my hair up in a quick ponytail. Okay? Just let it ease. I want you to stay there and shift your weight just a little bit more. The front of your feet, that's your arms. Hang everybody in. Inhale. And then exhale from deep in your belly, inside your hipbones, almost in the joints. Start to roll yourself up and organize yourself. Nicely told to come back up again. Inhale and exhale. So the head, the shoulders, the upper back, everything curving.

Keep the energy in the inner thighs. Ah, feels good to begin to move. Inhale at the bottom. Exhale as we pull up, mainly concentrating right now on the abdominals. Everybody keep them coming in. Let's just do one more. [inaudible] easy roll down, breathing nice and tall and exhale. So head, shoulders, good Louise. Oh all the way down. And inhale there and exhale as we come. All the way up.

Wow. Standing. Okay. And now we're going to move off center a little bit. So if we can see with your legs parallel, we're also going to do this in a second in a little bit of opening or turnout and just follow along. I'm going to have a step out to the side and just go with it. Yeah.

Out to the side and back to center and over to the other side and back to center. So you're going to shift weight and put weight on that foot and put weight on the other foot. So we'll start to kind of detail this. We do want our shoulders and our pelvis square to the front, which is me up here. And as you land on the knee, gently point your knee forward in a second. We're gonna do a little different alignment with your, with your knees. Why am doing this? I just had a, a discussion with a client and we were talking about how important it is to feel, uh, control and good coordination.

Not In such static poses or static things, so much of the time, but better balanced while moving. All right, so if you wanted to address your core, you could think about that. Are Your lats pulling down a little bit? Is your abdominal wall pulling back? And it should be. So your center is with you as you're moving. I'm sensing a little more coordination. This is good and some ease. We're starting to get the hang of it. We're doing [inaudible], we're doing controller [inaudible] this is physical fitness. We're doing it.

And one more need side control. Ology the study of an or study of muscle control. And you've seen the archival, I think, um, someone else brought that into, yeah. We'll do something in a second and then I'll give you a little history. How he used to warm up some classes. Okay. Turn your legs out. Same thing.

You're just a little rotated. Now this is not as natural unless you have a dance background. We're going to do the same thing. Step out land. Be careful. Push off that leg. Come back to center and land. No, I'm think of your knee pointing to the sidewall rather than pointing to me. Now when you come out, come out of this, this leg has to push.

If you like the foot to point, you can do that. I kind of do because of my background. I like to push and point my foot. If you'd like to have your arms somewhere to help you with balance, that's fine. That might feel good out here and just push. So you're shifting your weight, you're taking your trunk over your pelvis, your pelvis, over your, your leg or with your leg. And that's okay.

It's really not uncommon to have a little moment of not feeling coordinated, not feeling balanced. And again, this is good. I'm already starting to hear some breathing. You don't have to make noise. Good knee to the side and knee to the side. All right? And that's plenty. Okay. Stand a little wide. Take your arms up. Ooh, I better get up here. I don't want to get out in anyone's way. Okay, now let's work a stabilization concept. Here you are pelvis over, over your, uh, legs or in the middle of your legs. And we've used this before.

Imagine there's a really large magic circle right here. Squeeze your legs in. So you're going to have a little, quite a bit of activity and your adductors. Now can you rotate easily? Just your trunk. What we want to think about is that the spine is doing the movement, not the hips, not the thighs, not the knees, just twist spiel. What that is to move through your waist and your, your spine and your arms. Engage those inner thighs towards the midline.

[inaudible] so we're doing polarities and don't worry, we'll get to the good stuff. And I mean this is good, but you know what I mean. The regular mat in a minute. Okay, so you see how you can isolate your spine. You don't have [inaudible] move your hips. Now bring your feet in. We've done this before. I'm going to come down here because my mat moves. Jump.

If you can't jump, that's fine. You might do tap and the tap and go ahead and open. You can turn your toes out. You can turn your toes front. Let's feel what it is to move a little differently through your body. [inaudible] good and for three and everyone has a smile.

Isn't that funny? I know. See, go there. Sometimes the original mat, way back when kind of look like calisthenics. We're going to do another one. Raise your right arm up. Oops, I'm on. I'm opposite. I'm going to be, you're okay. Just follow switch arms. Other foot come up. Switch arms and a foot body up. Switch arms, hand to foot and up. Switch arms and and switch. Arms and foot.

Yes. Believe it or not, he used to do this to warm up a certain subject matters. Not Everybody. There's some archival footage, film footage on the Internet on Youtube. I'll just give a little plug for youtube and you can, you can youtube Joseph [inaudible]. You'll find some black and white archival film footage and this is something you'll see him doing. It's pretty cool. You'll also, there's lots of film clips. Couple more.

Does anyone feel there are their heart rate doing something different? Maybe just a little kind of pump in there. Last one. Okay. Feet together, but he does. He's out in the meadow doing something on his own. He's doing this. He's kind of showing off jog and place. I'm going to hold this little, Yep.

You used to do this to warm people up, get the blood in the muscles and for three, two and aren't you glad you came to class? Okay, well your shoulders good. Now there is a classical way I want us to try to get down to the mat rather than just kind of gunk and you can walk to the front of your mat. Why don't we do this today? Well, you guys can walk in this way. Some of you have seen this. If you have knee issues, you might be excluded from getting down to the mat this way. Okay. Cross one foot over the other foot. Elbow over elbow.

Okay. I know one person in this room, this is how I used to start bat every week. Very classical. The goal is that we sit down to the floor swiftly without doing a big tush move. Ready to think about all eyes on you. One, two, three. Okay, excellent. Okay, so if I were, if I were Joe, if I were Joe and had an opportunity to take you privately, I would. I'd say, let's go stretch your legs. Let's go start your calves, your ankles, and I know that about you already. That might've been the reason why he was his body didn't descend so swiftly as some tied down here to let him take his body weight down. Yeah.

Okay, so guys, let's go ahead and just roll down through the spine roll. As you know, a good class starts often with spinal articulation. Good. All right, enjoy that. Thank you for all of that introduction. Just give yourself a new way to approach him at work. Maybe you know, or anything that you're doing for that matter.

If you go to the gym or you go take a walk after this or over the weekend, spontaneous zest in vigor, that's something that's always rung true. The first time I heard that statement, I thought, God, I want to live my life like that. Spontaneously having zest and energy, and this is one way to to find that. All right, so let's start some articulation. We'll go and do some focus now. Call them your mind. It's press our shoulders back. We'll get into some good connection.

Let's take a breath in through the nose and here we go. To Pelvic Curl and articulate. Now rolling through, depending on how your back feels, because some of you may not be ready to go all the way to a bridge. You may decide to stay just down on your kind of mid back. If you're feeling ready. Most of you, I think are you can go all the way up so that you're heavier on the back of your shoulders. What we want to think of is the alignment of the legs. Knees not drifting. Open.

Your inner thigh should be active and you're opening in through the chest. Let's breathe and exhale. Here we go. To articulate his segmental movement, pulling the spine, the backbone to the mat, coming all the way to what we know is level, that triangle, hip, pubic, bone and hip. Inhale and again, exhale. As you articulate, and I'm just going to kind of take a quick little look around. Okay. Separate your feet a little more. Yeah, inhale there and exhale as you articulating the top of the spine work, you do your middle spine, articulate your lower back, your pelvis, and your tailbone. Breathe in. Exhale again, and articulate to roll up in your feet a little closer together. Yeah, there we go. So as, as often as we've done this, so many of us have done this for years, make something new out of it. How can you find something new in the articulation? Breathe in at the top, exhale and roll it down. Maybe today you're pulling your spine more to the mat.

You're actively more spinal focused rather than your abs. Think about your spine. Maybe inhale again. Exhale, roll up. If you're always really thinking about that, maybe you're going to start to think more about your backside, your hamstrings, your glutes, maybe even the back extensors in your lumbar spine. Inhale here. Exhale, rolling down. We're going to take two more and we'll stay up on the second one.

Inhale and exhale. What is controller do? That was a great question. Study of muscle control, body control, ah, how to move the body with muscle control. Ah, a lot from the brain. Sometimes the body doesn't know what to do. That's why we have to think about how to move it and and put it there in certain places. We roll up again. Okay. This time is, you're up on the the shoulders again. If you need to stay a little lower, that's fine guys, let's raise our arms up.

I want you to have your palms facing each other. Now we've used the magic circle before or the ball, something in between the hands. Imagine that's there. Press in, so you're going to feel your chest. You're going to feel your shoulders contract each time the arms come here. I want you to feel that sensation. Inhale, open your arms this time. Now, not all the way to the floor. Press them open. Can they get longer? As you open them out, let's exhale, come back into the center and meanwhile your the back of your legs are holding you up. Inhale as your arms open.

Exhale and Collo. Let's inhale and open in more air and exhale and squeeze the air out three more times. Make something new out of this. Squeeze and breathe in. He also had a quote, squeeze every Adam air out of your lungs as if there's nothing left. Squeeze it out. Last one. That wasn't a true quote, but you get the idea all the way. Okay? Your arms, your shoulder with the part, you're hugging that space. Take a breath, roll your spine down, articulate your spine, your arms are still up, your pelvis goes through a level position. Then we walk our feet together in class. Those hands.

Here we go for some abdominal work. Nice and slow. Inhale, get ready, exhale, and we curl. So I want us to think about these again because some of us have done these for years. How to make it fresh, how to make something new. And by the way, we're doing this in a level pelvis. We haven't, we haven't talked yet or tilted curl. Okay. So I want you to think about this. Go ahead. Can you just kind of go at a moderate pace? This is about articulation also. It's the thoracic spine, your upper spine. So it's kind of behind the throat, behind the breastbone and to the ribs.

We're mobilizing those vertebra for debris. And yes, we're contracting your ABS. Yep. We're getting good ab work out of it, but go into your body more so than just the, the tissue of your muscles. Behind that, there's the spine. We to mobilize those vertebra. Okay. A couple more. And you're all in a good level position. And last one was curl and stay.

Okay. This might get intense and some of you, we've, we've done this version of variation before. So without moving pelvis, take a breath first, lift your right leg on the exhale. [inaudible] inhale, lower it down. Exhale your left. Ah, and inhale and lower. So right now I'm looking at my pelvis. I'm looking at it for a few reasons, mainly to see that I'm keeping level, but it's also a better head position. Then of course, the alternative, which would be looking up. That's the stress in the neck. We want to keep the the concentration down in the abdominals and you know, not tucking the Chin too deeply, but it's down a little.

Okay, one more on the left. Now as you are lifting your legs, who has lost some of their chest lift? Anybody? Be Honest. I did. I lost a little cause I was talking. So let's go. Bring your head down. Don't worry. We have another chance to do that. Exhale. Here we go. Curl up and mobilize these vertebra. Move them. You might say, where am I moving them to? Yeah, I'm moving my vertebra back to allow me to curl higher. Okay, now hands around the thighs. Here comes the good part. Walk your hands up. Now move out of neutral pelvis. Move out of level.

If you in a will curl higher. Breathe three. Breathe you guys. So in, you're looking down at your stomach, it's kind of hollowed out like a hammock. You could set a bowling ball in there. Why would you do that? I don't know, but you could put something in there and just let it rest. Okay. How's your neck? Hopefully no neck tension if so, come out of it. If you're feeling your neck tension or of course I would say don't go down, go higher, get in your abs and pull your shoulders down. Okay?

Now let's take one arm and let go. It's going to come back alongside the ear or a little beyond. If you're feeling okay and then exhale, it comes back to the leg, other arm. Meanwhile, you've stayed high in your chest lift. You have not dropped that position. Exhale, en center, single arm. Again, you have to think about again, your body is not going to volunteer it.

You have to sink it there. Exhale and hold left arm in, back. Exhale and center. Now the real challenge we'll just do two times, both arms without losing your chest lift and up. I can't go that far with my arms and today, some days I can. I'm listening to what my body's going to be able to give me and down, and let's do that. Everything come down. Then rest, neutral, pelvis level, pelvis, however you like to think about that. Again, clasp your hands behind your head. Breathe in clean air. Exhale, push out the old air. Oh my goodness.

They're really reverberating there. And now breathe again. Exhale, right leg the tabletop. Hold it there. Breathe in again. Exhale, pull higher and chest lift to raise your left leg. Keep it there. Inhale. Exhale. Lower the right leg. You're not dropping that chest. Lift position. Inhale, and exhale. Lower the left foot down. We're going to start the pattern again. Lift the left first on the exhale.

Here we go. Stay there. Inhale. Exhale the right side curl higher. Ask for more. Ask for more. End left leg down. Pull up to lower that right leg. Yes, and then all the way down. Ah, one more little warm up or wake her up or I know it's more than a warm up and here we go. Curl up. Uh, yes it is. Exhale both legs. Yeah, we're going to rotate toward our right.

Rotate this spine and your shoulders, not so much your head or your elbows. Okay. What I want us to focus on, I'm going to have you here for a little while so we'll kind of love it. Um, yes, we're on the more weight on the right side, right? You all feel that come onto the right side. So we're all on our right side. Yeah, I've got more weight on that right shoulder blade, but it's not back on the shoulder blade. That's too easy. I'm not even in it. Much of a chest lift. Pull forward toward the thigh. If I had it, a flashlight in this underarm again, I don't know why I would do that.

It's shining toward this thigh hold. That's what we want to feel in Chris Cross, not back there. Okay. And come down and rest other side. Breathe in first. Exhale. First to chest left. Okay. Imagine. Imagine the flashlight say with my visuals and rotate a little to the left.

Point that under arm to the left thigh. You want to get a closer view of the thigh so you've got to shine the light more directly to it. Pull forward to see it. Yes, you're looking at that. Ease your face. Ease your face, high or high, your higher. Don't give up. Don't give up. Pull forward, pull forward, pull forward. Is anyone ever that high in chess? In crisscross.

That's where we want to go. Center and let yourself come back. All right. And you guys, I know and some of you have done this for a long time with me. Uh, it's so easy just to get back. You know, comfort zone. Yeah. Here I'm going look crisscross. But this isn't, you know, you, your body can achieve more. We've got to keep seeking more challenge even in the, the fundamental things. Alright, so yes, we'll have to do the a hundred here we go. Arms up, knees and tabletop.

We're going to go right up to the traditional extension on the legs. We're going to inhale four counts and exhale, six counts. Ready? So curl up, take your legs into the diagonal and inhale. Three, four, exhale. Three, four, five, six, two, sure. Three. [inaudible] sure for [inaudible].

Sure. Fuck sure. Six. Are you fading back? Curl up. Fight for it does. Look for it. Look for it. None.

10, five, six knees and down. Wonderful. Hands behind your legs. Come on, scoot your hips back. And I want you to separate your feet again. Hipbone with the part. Actually no, I don't sit up straight in your legs all the way. Okay. And as if you've just done your rent. Oh your roll up.

Cause we're going to do that in a second. And some of you've done this with me too before. Um, right here. The low belly inside your hip joints. Pool that area back while you're in your, your current position. Yup. Just hold, hold, hold, hold.

I'm gonna choose this wonderful figure and I'm gonna be behind her and I'm gonna pull her back. I've got my hands right in her low. Tell me and I'm pulling our tie. Yup. She's reaching an opposition to me. Pulling. That's what you want to try to achieve on your own. Go ahead and keep going there. I might do it also to a couple more people.

So even in this position, you will never want your abs to die. Don't let them fade out. So if I pull you back, you're reaching forward. Reaching forward. Yeah. Not the shoulder so much. That's too easy. Yup. The pose me. Yup. So as I pulled back, you reach forward. So the pullback and your belly is what it causes.

The roll back here you go and rolling back all the way to the mat. We're only gonna do three roll ups this morning. That put that feeling back there. Never, never phase. Here we go. Connected that as you roll up all the way, it hasn't let go. Breathe in and exhale. It's from that low tummy is if someone's behind you, pulling you backward, Paul and Paul and Paul and [inaudible].

Two more times. I'm really excited about the ABS. I can hardly talk. Inhale and exhale and roll all the way back. And one more time to come up. Pull it in. Pool, pool, pool, pool, pool, pool, and rounding back just to the shoulder blades. [inaudible] okay, so here we are. We're back to these vertebra.

We're gonna mobilize them with some little pulses. I'm trying to press those vertebra in my upper spine to the mat to allow me to curl. Ress press. There you go. You got to think crown of the head to the ceiling, eyes to the toes and your arms can reach and reach. Reach and ankle bones and take, sorry, I just scratched you. And three, two, last one's going to get you all the way back up again.

Good Tad, and then just give yourself a little stretch over your thighs. Good. I know. Yes. How does that, how do we work that? Right? We'll get there. Okay. Now guys, uh, we're going to do some teaser preparation, single leg teaser preparation. It just gets better and better. I to just say, everyone went, Oh man, why Friday? Okay, so where I, how I want us to start. This is a little bit more forward of you if you right now have a gut feeling that your back feels not as mobile in the role that we just did. Move your feet a little more forward.

If you're feeling okay, you go in, okay, I'm going to choose a moderate distance from my pelvis. Now contract yourself back. We're going to get, I want you to do this to get maybe to your, um, lumbar area again. Can you use your hands? I'm, I'm, have my hands on there for a reason just so we can kind of see it. Okay. Now Bolt your knees together. Extend your right leg. Okay, now commit to the bolt between your knees.

If you want to let go. Now it's your opportunity. I'm going to hold on cause some of you haven't seen this before. Those of you who knows, no teaser preparation, it would be here. All right. And then, uh, let's come all the way up. Oh, I shouldn't have said all the way up. You're gonna come up, but still stay back on the back of your tail. All right. And then here we go again. Rolling back. I need to complete it cause I'm not, I'm not giving you the full thing.

You do want to go all the way back so that your head touches the mat. So those of you who do know teaser prep, you know, the arms would then go back overhead. Should I show one that way? Just to show you. Okay, so arms move, chest moves, contract those core abdominal muscles. Now when you're rolling up, we're not ideally wanting to go pop cause then I've lost this. This kind of gets a little bit. It's still staying back at the back of the tail. Yeah. And then here we go again. So we're rural. Good. Susan rolling all the way back.

Now commit to the bolt. Ready arms. Inhale, chest. [inaudible]. Now don't go all the way up. Hold back. Hold yourself back. And I love that you're sometimes some of you are holding your legs. That's fine. Ready? Roll it back. Could the leg get longer? Could you energize that leg farther out from your hip two more times on the side round. Oh goodness.

Hold little curve. Ready? Roll it back. We're losing the bolt. Knee to knee, knee to knee, knee to knee. And we have to go one more time to get us up to change. Ready and long leg the bolts. Snap. Okay, now take that foot and put it on the Mat. Other one is going to lift the lift up. Ron Moore, I remember horseback from Wednesday. Yeah. Find your whole horseback killed.

You got it. Ready? Roll it back. [inaudible] okay. Long Spine. Strong but subtle. Here we go. And Curl. Reach, reach for it. Reach for it. Reach Ward. Reach port. Reach Ford. You're not gonna let go. Good. Inhale and exhale and round back.

No. Two. About three more times. I should have mentioned this on the other side, but I was so involved with some other things. The foot that's on the mat can be firm. Should be pretty firmed down there. Rollback could Elizabeth. Okay, two more. Are you mobilizing those upper vertebra? Yes.

Mobilize contract. Visualize this becoming easy. Someday. Today it might feel hard. Exhale and round back. We're only doing one more to come all the way up and then we've done it. We've done our teaser preps.

Oh, okay. Bend. Now we can let go rest for a second. Open your knees, let your chest drop forward. Good. Okay guys. Uh, that I think is going to be all for that section. Aren't you happy about that? I scared you with the Chris Cross prep, but we're not even actually going to do full crisscross. Come on.

Come on to hands and knees next time. I can't give away everything all in one time. You'll walk away this weekend going, how could that Chris Cross field too? What's she going to do next week? No, I doubt that you'll do that Katia. Hope. No. Well I don't know. Okay, so here we are. We're on our hands and we're on our knees and I've given this and when a flat back not so the flat isn't on, does a big cow dip in or horseback dip in the low back.

You want a nice flat lumbar. So for me, I have to actually tilt my pelvis a little bit [inaudible] and then pull awareness into your lats. Everybody, they should have already been connected, but you know, and then the sternum. Good old chest bone. Good Steve, pull it forward across the room. Yes, this is so good. I'm just going to adjust you a little bit so that your hips are over, your hips are over, our knees, hands are under our shoulders and in long gate this Susan. So reach your chest toward tat a little bit and your shoulders towards your hips. There you go. A little bit flatter here if you can. Yep. Okay. Now what we're going to do, and it might seem basic, but if you can make it hard, you can make it more challenging, is to step back into a front support without all the extra, like things that drop out, the wiggle, wiggle, and the hips shifting.

So very controlled on an exhale. Step your right foot back, tuck the toes down. Torso has stayed absolutely still and an exhale. The second foot back there is our friend support. Inhale. Exhale. Bend the right knee back in, right underneath the hip, and exhale, left knee back and under the hip. Inhale again. This time start with your left foot, so it's going to step back. Hold there, solid in the leg. Inhale. Good. Steve XL, second leg back. Hold yourself strong. Inhale, exhale, left knee in, and exhale right knee in. And again, inhale, same thing, right foot back, pause. Inhale, exhale. Second Lane that stay there. Inhale. Exhale. First knee down.

I forgot when I gave you and XL second knee. We're going to do it again. All right, so keep going. Uh, I'm losing some lat from a couple of you there. Yeah, get into those lats. So what's going on? And keep going with your own rhythm. Make sure it's not too fast. Ease up the pressure on your wrists.

And then I've said that in class before and some people say, well, how in the world can I do that? I'm on my wrists. We don't energetically, if we push down and drop our weight down, that wrist is gonna not be happy. So this strength to pull weight out of the wrist is, you know where up in the lats up in the back. And I have a visual image that there's like magnetic force above me. This is just how I've always done this. That there's something above me that's pulling me up off of my wrist.

All right, you're doing well. I know this is getting kind of monotonous. We're just going to go one more time around each side and exhale, right foot and exhale foot. Exhale, right knee. Exhale, left knee. One more round. Exhale, left foot and right foot and the left foot, knee and right knee. Now let's get off the risk for a second shift back because so many times as we go to more of the more advanced, uh, mat exercises, yeah, our risk start to take the pressure because we're doing more one arm balancing the side support. For example, pushups. We want to get more, um, empowered with our upper body to support the wrists. And you know, it's not out of the question you did. I saw a couple of you doing the weightbearing from your fist, so that's fine too. We just have to be careful that we don't go into such a callback or cat back position. Okay, so make your way down onto your abdominals. We've done this the last of in the last couple of months, a few different times, so it's kind of hard. Uh, you know, small movement, but deepen in wonderfully positive for us. Hands behind her head.

Now put your elbows on the mat just for a second and put some awareness in your abdominals. Of course it probably was already connected, but you've got your stomach up to lengthen your low back. Now you can do this already with your last engaged and I would suggest that they are taking inhale, and as you exhale, raise your head and your chest and slightly lift your elbows off the mat and out to the ceiling or up to the ceiling. I don't think you have to come very high at this point. All right, now inhale. As you exhale, come back down. We're just gonna do like four of those little, little flight and exhale. Inhale, hold and exhale and lower. I'm going to take a look at your heads and exhale as you come up back at the head is kind of pressing into the hands. You're not lifting your chin.

Inhale and exhale lower. Take your pause. Inhale, exhale. And we left. Okay. In fact, you might even want to tilt your chin down a little bit. A couple of you. Yeah. And Steve, lower your elbows toward the mat. Slightly. Good. Okay. Can you all see there, please? All right. Now as we take some spinal rotation, we're going to turn to the right.

This is Chris Cross, but we're revealing it, reversing it. Exhale, rotate towards your right. My left elbow has touched the map, but in Chris Cross like we talked about earlier, I don't want it to be resting my shoulder blade or my elbow. So I want you to engage your back a little higher. Come up higher, turn the chest, turn your spine. That's right. Inhale, face your front and exhale, bring your chest down. Inhale, exhale, and lift. Your chest is kind of the reverse. And again, exhale, start rotating to your left. All right, keep the hand the head, the head pressing up into the hands. If you want to rotate a little bit more, you have to lift higher so you don't rest that elbow down. Inhale, face your friend and exhale everything down. Inhale, exhale, chest lift. It's like a reverse chest lift. Inhale, exhale, rotate to the right. Inhale to your center. Beautiful. Exhale and chest down. Inhale, exhale, chest up and he'll hold chin down a little bit. Exhale, rotate to your left. Yep. If I might. Well you have got more than you thought and heal center. I would love to. One more each side it next week.

And exhaled chest lift. All right, so like in any good abdominal exercise are good control and the gr pelvis is stable and as you rotate, yeah, trying to get your chest high or move your spine into rotation. This is beautiful. Inhale Center. Exhale down. Last one, I promise. And exhale and lift. It's hard isn't it? Have you got it man? Go, go, go, go. Yes. Center and rest and with walked back to her rest pose. Never a dull moment. You never know what's coming next.

Your mini teacher probably I think. Okay. And you know what? I think I do want to have us do one side side support on the hand or elbow. I'll give you a couple of choices. So face me and I'm going to, I'm having my [inaudible] as I'm on my left hand. You can be on your right so that, yeah, opposite me.

Okay. Yeah. Put your right hand on the mat so your feet are not stacked. I've got my top foot slightly forward of my bottom foot and the legs are a little bit away from me. They're not crouched all the way up. Go ahead. Other risks you can. Other risks. If you could go the other way, it's okay. We're going to get to both sides, but just for continuity. Okay.

So this could happen on your hand if you're not happy about knowing what's happening, feel free to come down onto your elbow. If you're on your elbow, it's just going to be this little hip lift. Okay? But I think more of you're gonna want to go up. So as we're on bearing on the hand, again, not down in the wrist, you've got to pull this up. You can even use your hand and touch your lat if you'd like to. Nice. Slab a muscle and take a breath. And as you exhale, start to bear weight and lift. This hip doesn't have to be much. You might even be here today. That's fine.

That's a lot. If you're in the right connection, [inaudible] going high. It doesn't matter. That little lift is plenty. Yeah, and come down. See, even micro, even the acting as if you're going to move. You're in the connection. You don't have to go all the way up, but if you're going, let's go a little bit higher. I'm going to take my top arm over my ear. This feels good to me.

I like this stretch. I like to have my army helped me lengthen. I'm engaging my inner size. That's gorgeous. I have good balance like most of you do too. And we breathe and we exhale. Come down with control. We're going to take it two more times. Inhale, lift up rather than push down. Lift up. Yes. Can your leg stretch more from your hips?

Inhale, exhale and come down with control. It's just as much work should be happening on the way down is going up last time. Exhale. Inhale. I love how quiet the room. Just Scott and I'll come on down. Okay. Just that on the other side. Just that [inaudible]. Hey Ted, move your legs a little more.

[inaudible] that was classic. Move your legs a little more. I love you. That's great. Okay, well I did move your legs. Put your tours. I'd love it. Okay, so a kid. So we're bearing bearing weight but lifting up to do the bearing weight ready and you want to start a little small? You can. So maybe the first one is just that little little lift, feeling the weight come off the hip. You're still opening your chores though.

Good. And we come back, Elizabeth, that was beautiful. Okay. I exhale you is. Yeah. So the legs or the legs are important. The legs can help you if you ask them to help balance you, they're going to help your [inaudible]. Your arm can't do everything. Ready and inhale, come down with control.

Role might even think your abdominals help you land. We've got two more. We're gonna pull up. Pull up. There's something above us that's helping us lift. I don't know what that might be for you. I always think of a magnet. Magnetic force above me is pulling me up.

Yes ma'am. Look at that and exhale. Coming down with control. No one needs to how? No. How really hard. These are an exhale. We come up. We know how challenging they are. Some of the finesse with this work is making it look easy, right? And exhale, coming down with control.

Alrighty guys. Super shake your wrists out. I'm going to have us come back up to standing on our feet. So find your way up. Face me again. See what we've got. Come on. See what we have left. We still vigorous, still have vitality and zest. We're still smiling. Actually half of us are not smiling right now.

Sure. So I might encourage you to go through this. Yeah. Good. See, keep on one. If you can, Woo. Got some variations. Maybe think about what you're going to do this weekend and can you invite a little element of spontaneous zest and bigger play for three? We're not quite done after this. Okay. Ah, let's do a stretch. So I'm going to turn sideways when I'd have us do a standing roll down.

Just get yourself down there. Yup. Why I chose to do that before these is to get blood back in our body a little bit more. S kind of pulsating the blood flow. So walk out onto your hands again, kind of a general lunge stretch. I'm moving my left foot forward. I'm going to have you reach your right leg back and your front leg is important. Well, both legs are important. The alignment your front knee right above your ankle.

Go back a little bit. Yup. All right. Now the long leg hip is in extension. Right? Long, long, long. Your quadriceps are probably getting stretched your hip flexors, but internally that so as muscle, very big, strong, powerful core muscle and it's long. Right now if your ribs are arching, it's not going to be as long as it could. So if you pull your ribs up a little bit, take some good deep breaths. Everybody [inaudible] I'm choosing to just hold us here because it's good for us. We've done all kinds of 'em harder variations with this, but this is plenty.

Yeah. I am going to have us do a little transition to the other leg, not just stepping this one back. Push the the, or straighten the front knee. You have to do a little transition swivel on your hands, on your feet and you're going to just turn around and do the other side. Okay. Square the hips. Bend the front knee. Yeah, and again, organize yourself. You've got your knee over your ankle. Your knee is not for rid of your ankle. Not that I'm going to have you let go, but you could if you were in the right setup, you could if you were in the right connection in your body, and then just if you play with and explore that hip extension or the feeling of that long reach through your left thigh, your chest has some stretch to it.

How long can your muscles get Ivo? I think about that all the time. Can I get a taller? Can I grow? Can I really grow? My muscles have potential to linkedin. I have to think about it though. They won't volunteer it. We have to put the mind to extend the length of the muscles.

Open the joint. Now let's go ahead. We're almost done. Stretch that front knee. I want you again to swivel this time just to face me so your toes can be forward. All right. Okay, that's fine. We're going to toe heel our way back into center or heel toe. So then you're all the way ankle to ankle, inner thigh to inner thigh.

Your head is still rounded. Oh. And let's take our 10 very slow counts to role, to standing. Take a breath to start breathing on your own. Here we go. And it's one, two, three, four unrolling, five, six, seven and eight and nine and finally 10. Thank you. You guys are done.