Class #168

Insightful Mat

55 min - Class
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Description

Amy begins class again by reading a passage from Return To Life. Sit back and enjoy hearing insights about our 'telephone switchboard', our brain, and the power it has in regard to our body's potential and muscular development. Amy demonstrates how the use of a prop (in this case a small ball) can wake up our mental connection to our bodies, "our 'switchboard." Playing with different uses of the ball, Amy gives a well-rounded and insightful class.
What You'll Need: Mat, Overball

About This Video

May 26, 2010
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Transcript

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So last week we got to um, and got through quite a bit. I'm just going to read another chunk. So yes, you can sit back and close your eyes, get come, stretch a little, read a little. Um, and I'll read again. It's a, it's a few paragraphs. Okay, so this is title controller, g restores physical fitness controller g is complete coordination of body, mind and spirit through control g you first purposely acquire complete control of your own body and then through proper repetition of its exercises, you gradually and progressively acquire that natural rhythm and coordination associated with all your subconscious activities. This true rhythm in control is observed both in domestic pets and wild animals with known exceptions, without known exceptions. Excuse me. He was really into the watching animals and how naturally they can just like a cat could just spring from one place to the next. No thought needed.

They just do what they need to do cause they can't, their bodies can do that. You talked about cats a lot. Apparently control g develops the body, uniformly corrects wrong postures, restores physical vitality, and visit invigorates the mind and elevates the spirit in childhood with rare, rare exceptions. We all enjoy the benefits of natural and normal physical development. However, as we mature, we find ourselves living in bodies, not always complimentary to our ego. Our bodies are slumped, our shoulders are stooped, our eyes are hollow, our muscles are flabby, and our vitality extremely lowered, if not vanished. This is, but the natural result of not having uniformly developed all the muscles of our spine, trunk, and arms and legs in the course of pursuing our daily labors and office activities. So if you work too much, you're not going to have enough time to develop your body, your mind, your spirit. So you know, it's not like he was saying don't work, but some of the things were contributing to that. You know, nonvital lifestyle.

If you will faithfully perform your controlled she exercises regularly, only four times a week for just three months. As outlined in return to life, you will find your body development approaching the ideal accompanied by with renewed mental vigor and spiritual enhancement control. Logy is designed to give you suppleness natural grace and skill that will be unmistakably reflected in the way you walk in the way you play, in the way you work. You will develop muscular power with corresponding endurance, ability to perform arduous duties, to play strenuous games, to walk, run, or travel for long distances without undue body fatigue or mental strain. And this by no means is the end. And I, I've had many clients along the way. It come back and they say, God, you know, I didn't get sore when I went snowboarding and I've never been snowboarding in my life and I didn't get sober at all. Or the weekend warrior soccer player comes back and says, I don't, my muscles aren't sore, but my other friend's muscles are sore and they don't do plots. You know, I don't, it's just a, it's a regime that does seem to support, um, our daily activities really well and we can suddenly, you know, pick up a heavy box without really thinking about it because our body's organized enough to do take on that load. Uh, okay.

One of the major results of controller g is gaining the mastery of your mind over the complete control of your body. How many beginners are amazed and chagrined even trained athletes in the public eye to discover how few, if any control g exercises they are able to execute properly their previous failure to exercise regularly and properly or their method of training has not helped them at all. There is unmistakable evidence too that the functioning of the brain has correspondingly deteriorated. This gets kind of heady here. The brain itself is actually a sort of natural telephone switchboard exchange incorporated in our bodies as a means of communication through the sympathetic nervous system to all of our muscles. Unfortunately, pure reason plays only a minor part in all the lives of most of us in practicality. Every instance the daily acts we perform are governed by what we think we see, hear, touch without stopping first to analyze or think of the possible results of our actions, good or bad, as the result of habit or reflex action. We wink, we dodge and operate machines more or less automatically.

Would you guys agree with that? Kind of automatic autopilot? How often do you say you're on autopilot? Uh, I do that sometimes. Ideally our muscles should or bay or will. Ideally our muscles should obey our will reasonably. Our wills should not be dominated by the reflex actions of our muscles.

When brain cells are developed, the mind too is developed. Controller g begins with mind control over muscles by reawakening thousands and thousands of otherwise ordinary dominant dormant muscle cells controlling [inaudible], correspondingly, reawakens thousands and thousands of brain cells, thus activating new areas and stimulating further the functioning of the mind. No wonder then that when so many persons express such great surprise following their first initial experience with control Ajai caused by their realization the resulting sensation of uplift for the first time in many years, their minds have been stimulated and truly awakened. Continued use of control Ajai steadily increases the normal and natural supply of pure rich blood to flow to and circulate throughout the brain with corresponding to new brain cells that were previously dormant most more significantly. It actually develops more brain cells. G Stanley Hall, the Great American psychologist observed the culture of muscles is brain building. Are you guys awake? I think we're getting smarter.

I think we actually are getting smarter as we do this work, you know, but I, I, I, there's a, there's a lot, I think there's a lot in, you know, he, he really was passionate about obviously about what he was doing and seeing how bodies move better by being challenged in the brain. You know? And if we just continually repeat the same old action every day, you know, without having to consciously think about maybe the how to, of how we're moving or you know, the power of, Gosh, I think I really want to lift my leg a little higher. How to do that, you know, um, it is, it's true. We're constantly staying in the moment of the work and, and getting our bodies to perform new things all the time. Maybe a little higher chest lift, a little more Swann, you know, so brain activity. So today you see the ball and they're going to be a few things that we use with the ball and they chose to bring out a prop. Um, I don't use these very often, but we'll do a few exercises that we've seen before. I think with other pieces of a prop and then with this to stimulate new ways of thinking about how movement can happen. Okay. So just have a little fun, open-minded, and I think I'm going to have a start a sitting and place your ball right between your knees. Start warming up with some breathing and rolling back.

And things like that. So the feet, uh, pretty far forward of your pelvis, hands underneath your knees and just enough squeeze in the ball to hold it. Of course you don't have to death grip that thing and lift your elbows out, shoulders down, get a good starting position. Take a good inhale through our nose. We're going to go right into it guys on an exhale, pulling the abdominals back, rolling the pelvis under, kind of scooping and under if you will, and really allowing the, the thought of the pelvis is maybe a ball shape back there that it has some curve and around capability to it. And then inhale as we come back up, right up on top of the tall sits bones and again, exhale. So it's a rolling back.

I've used the image before that the sit bone have two little wheels on them are casters that they can roll that underneath. Same thing, visual of a rolling mechanism and then inhale as we come back up tall and exhale as we curve. So yes, we are contracting the abdominal muscles, but think about it more, maybe that we're actually activating some roundness in the pelvis. Okay. And come back up. Yes, two more times. Exhale and weak. Sure. Rounding the lower back and let's inhale. Come all the way up tall and exhale. One more time. We're going to curve this time going all the way down to the mat.

Scoot myself forward to continue to curve. Oh and open up the chest and shoulders. Scoot your heels in toward you. Now of course we're going to go up to some pelvic curl. Now the ball provides a little more work also for the muscles in the leg. So if you're, you might start to tap into feeling something new in your inner thigh. Okay.

I would ask us to press into the ball a little bit more now. A little bit more contact. Here we go. Take a nice full breath in through the nose and that exhale to contract the abdominals again and roll the pelvis under and up. And just notice if you press into the ball a little bit more what might feel in your legs. And in the back of the legs, maybe more than your stomach and let's breathe in here and then exhale as we start to pull the chest, the back of the chest down, leaving the chest nice and stable and open and coming all the way down to reach into that level pelvis position. Inhale again, exhale and pull the abdominals in. Scoop that tailbone under the hell vis under again.

Maybe apply a little bit more. Squeeze in the leg, muscles for the ball, breathing in and exhale and rolling down. Teagan, bring your heels in towards you just a little bit closer towards your pelvis. There you go. Inhale and exhale and curl. Tiny detail. Inhale and Exhale, rolling down. Perhaps that idea that your pelvis is reaching more toward the ball to get more sustained the length in your lower back. Just two more times you guys and exhale.

Lot of responsibility in the back of the legs to bring the hips higher abdominals to keep the spine pulled back and long. Inhale and exhale. Rolling down. Eyes Open. Chest, strong backs of shoulders, arms. Now. This last one, I'd like us all the everybody again to scoot the heels in a tiny bit more toward the pelvis. Let's go up again and we roll up. Okay, so standing there or on the back of the shoulders, let's go ahead and take our arms somewhere else than here. And to raise them up.

Palm is facing each other and as if maybe the ball were in the hands. Now, so you've got some kind of visual up here. There's some energy in your arms, in your hands. That's nice. They see some really good open fingers. Let's go ahead and do the heel lifts today. So I want us to inhale, lift our heels up and as we lift the heels up, the pelvis doesn't do, you know, do any ups and down movement. Okay. And then exhale, lower the heels, keeping the hips up. So what does it keep going? Inhale heels up. You're going to probably start to feel a little bit more work in your glutes and the hamstrings. We're going to go a little slower. Tad. So inhale heels and exhale down and inhale up and exhale and down. Three more. Inhale, heels up and exhale down. I see.

So and lift and last time and up and exhale. Lower the heels. Now I'd like us to take the arms back, framing the head so the arms are right alongside the ears. They're not on the mat. And then that Nice, very slow rolling down the back. Massage each vertebra. Take your time, try to find a little new reach, maybe with your pelvis out toward your calves, linked in your pelvis, all the way down into that level position. And then go ahead and circle your arms around and take your ball a wet bag.

Leave it there. I kind of lied to a few chest lifts with it. Okay, so interlacing the hands is taken in. Exhale and cruel up. Nice level pelvis. Inhale and lower back and exhale curl. So again, we've done this before with the magic circle or the ring between the knees. Similar concept. If you apply a little squeeze there with the ball, it might turn on some different connection in your core muscles in your belly.

Inhale, come down. And again, exhale. Let's curl and lower. And again, I'm going to invite us all to just think about lightening up the feet. Don't lift your feet yet, but just unweight the weight of them and yeah, and again, exhale, pulling a little higher into the chest. Lift not by pulling on the head, but contracting the muscles in the abdomen and lower back. And last time let's curl up and just reach the arms down by the knees or by the, by the hips. Those are Ah right arm and exhale, bring it back down. So we're trying to establish and hold the chest lift. Isolate the left arm up.

I didn't year and exhale a little lower. Let's do that again. So the goal not to let the chest drop back as the arm moves independently from that shoulder. One more single arm on the left. We'll do just you two times with both arms. You guys, you can do it. Curl higher, squeeze your belly muscles. Inhale, Nice. Exhale and curl down. Reach a little more with your fingertips towards your feet. One more. Inhale, lift and exhale.

Be Cooled back all the way with the arms as let the head come back. Chest to relax the chest to relax is the abdominal thing. Okay, the a hundred let's put it at the ankles. Okay. And yes, the A, this has a bit more play to it.

This has is an orbital shape thing. It can move. We want to try to stabilize the ball much like we stabilize our pelvis and our shoulder blades so we can start a tabletop with our legs. We can actually bring our arms up. Just start, get a good level pelvis, take a breath. Here we go. Extend the legs, extend the arms, bring the chest up. All right, just squeeze it just enough to hold it and let's go with our fives and a three, four, five x sale. Three, four, five might feel good to press into the ball a little bit to stimulate a little more muscular work in your adductors. You don't have to squeeze, you can experiment a couple pumps with the squeeze and release for a couple pumps. Pulling your chest forward though.

[inaudible] nine [inaudible] ten two, three, four five x sail three, four, five, knees and head. Okay, let's take that away now. A good, just bring yourself up for a second. Read from the book. I know came a little more, uh, this, this could be fun. This could be fun. Put the, put the ball underneath your feet. All right. Okay. And make that, we've just done a roll up magically. We all did it, but here we are at the top and we are going to do roll up with the feet on the ball and just to kind of experiment with with it. All right, so get the curve.

Feel the abdominals, contract down your shoulders, down your back. Here we go to inhale and not make that curve a Tikkun, a little rounder. There it is. Okay, so we start to pull the back of the pelvis back just like we warmed up with back of the pelvis, back of the pelvis, back of the pelvis. Now there's the lower back is reaching the mat. You're probably gonna go off your Mat Samantha, but that's okay. Okay.

Now just reach your arm slightly to the back wall. Oh, here we go. To roll up, trying to keep the feet on the ball so there's a little active. You have to press down onto it with your feet and curve up and over the legs. Inhale here and again, exhale and pull back. Make sure the back of the head is also coming with us so we're not sticking her head forward there and pulling the back of the head back. Imprint Vertebra by Vertebra long without arching the back. Here we go.

Arms and the chest and exhale and core all the way up. Go, go, go. Pull it back in. The belly muscles breathe in and exhale. Is it feeling different for anyone else besides me? I'm Huh? Yes. I'm finding something different to my tummy. I kind of like the different feeling. Now a XL [inaudible] go ahead.

I'm going to watch you guys a couple of times. What I know about my own body, my left abdominal wall tends to be a little dim in. It's what I feel inside. One more time. This has exposed something for me. I felt like I had to actually work my left abdomen a little bit more and probably it's navigating around the imbalance down there. So my core is having to adjust for something not so steady on my feet. So mind is active on that. Yeah.

Okay. So then let's just roll the ball in towards Ya. Okay. So we, we do single leg stretch every week pretty much. Um, we all know what a figure eight looks like. Now these balls or my hand is kind of small for this ball, but I'm going to do my best to, it's going to change hands. Alright, this ball and we're going to do a figure eight of the ball underneath the leg. So if I do this single leg stretch, w when you all join me, I'm taught taking a figure eight the ball around the outside of the knee, passing, changing and under and under. It's to stimulate the brain, right and left brain when we can exhale, maybe exhale, make sure that figure eight. So I'm thinking it passes the outside.

Then underneath goes around the outside. Then underneath, around the outside and underneath. You could do this with your head down if you don't like the feeling in your neck right now. Yes. Okay. Hold on. Let's go the other way inside than pass to the hand. That's on the outside. It crosses over. The thigh passes inside.

Does that make sense? Basically just turn your figure eight the other way. Yeah. We won't do this. All our by only any means, but did you, did you feel the little, the stutter in your brain or not feel it but sensitive like, wait, I can't, I can't go the other way. What other way? So we want to, you know, that's a channel of this switchboard, that telephone switchboard. Maybe he was talking about in the book. Turn that brain. Make it do something different. Wait, go back the other way again and change a little faster. Whoops. Whoo.

Can you go a little faster and switch? Good. And maybe four, three, two. I lost everybody over on that side of the road. Okay. And come down and just rest second. Just the subtle example, you know, get the other side to fire a little bit differently. Maybe it's the right hand side. You was the easy side.

The left hand was not the easy side. Ah, okay. Double leg stretch. Just put it, place the hands on your ball outside of the ball. This is nothing new. It's just you're holding this for a little different stimulation maybe in reaching it. Okay, so let's curl up to chest lift. Well, only do five repetitions. So can we talk about this a lot in the Golan double leg stretch or l all these chest lifts is to really work against that.

We don't want to drop back and we want to keep the work going this way. So as the arms reach back, the legs reach forward. I'm thinking about the wall behind me. Let this has a position in the wall. Reach it into the wall. Exhale and bring it maybe over the shins. Four more times. Inhale, reach it back. It has a position on the wall.

Put it in the wall and exhale. N N three more. Let me watch you. Inhale, reach. Excellent. Exhale over the shins. Two more. Can you get longer and exhale and in beautiful guys. One more time and reach and exhale, bring it in and then just bring your head back down and rest. Yeah. Okay, good. Um, I think I want to just have you come up a way that works for you. Now let's move our hips back. I love that.

Yeah. Feedback there. Flexor feet, spine, stretch forward. So hands up, fingertips on your ball. And again, starting very upright in the spine. Pressing your back as if you're up against the white wall or a wall and your back is completely against it. Okay. And good choice of a change of foot position. You can do it that way, but could you put the ball maybe on your feet? Because we want, what we're going to be doing is rolling the ball forward, uh, of us to help to stimulate a curve in the spine. We'll only do four. Breathe in Nice and tall and the exhale from the abdominals. Now you may have to kind of walk your hands on the ball. That's fine with me.

Allow yourself to curve curve over the ball. And I'm actually gonna let you let your shoulder blades move a little bit up towards your ears. It's okay right now. I do want you all to feel your stomach muscles pulled the opposite way. Last week I came around to some of you and got behind you and pulled you backward and just gave you a huge hug, a couple of you and pulled you back. Find that same kind of reconnection if I were behind you and I'm pulling you back. Okay? And then let's roll back up to vertical spine. Yes, by sliding the shoulders back down into position on your back. Again, breathe in tall and exhale and round over.

So sometimes the the, the ball shape in the hands can kind of stimulate mentally of, oh, there's a curve that's happening over my hands. I feel the curve. I can do that in my spine by, if you activate the abdominals, you might even go a little farther forward in the [inaudible], a curve of your back. Let's everyone take a breath in and exhale and return to sitting as if you're right up against a wall. Shoulders are down. We'll do two more with flo. Breathe in. Good. Teagan, and exhale and Whoa. And a deep breath. And exhale.

One more time. Inhale. Keep those feet very, very, very full X. Yes. Exhale in, rounding over. Inhale into the back. Let the ribs expand and exhale as you round back up to sitting tall to restack. Okay, great. Uh, I want you down to just bend your knees, put your feet down, put the ball. Now guys, behind your pelvis is, that's your sacrum. It should, yeah, the ball should intersect everyone on their sacred or out their sacrum though.

Yeah. And I'll keep holding on to it with your hands. Okay. So, uh, we don't do a lot of hinges in this class typically, but I'm going to have this hinge right now. Sometimes at the beginning of neck pole, I'll teach the hinge version, which mean just means a flat back. Now the ball is there to support our lower back in a way. Uh, everyone put awareness to the rib muscles. Pull those together. So here's what I'm thinking of of for us to do. It's not a big movement, a range of movement. Uh, but if you're on the reformer, this might feel a little bit like the short back, flat, short box, flat back. And then you come back up to vertical spine. So we're on our sits bones.

We're not going to roll them. Okay? It's really more lean if you will. Hinge. Nice Elizabeth, beautiful alignment in your chest and your head. And then we'd come back up to a vertical sit. Alright, let's go again. I'm going to watch you and see what I need to think about or tell you.

Chin a tad. Tuck your Chin a little bit. Lift the sternum. It's gonna activate your upper back musculature a little bit. Yep. Or a lot for some of you. Go again, this is beautiful. So if I, I might do this with a couple of you. I'm holding the side of the head. Just helping the head stay organized over their shoulder so the head doesn't drop back too far. That's a little too far. There you go. All right. And then exhale. So what if you think of going up first, then back there, not the head yet. It's the spine.

You're just relying on that ball for a little bit of support. There it is. And come up tall. Can we get two more [inaudible] yeah. Fair Samantha, good and whole. Tall, tall, tall, tall. And last one. Go. Think up before going back. Yes, and ideally we would love to be able to perform that of course on our own without the ball, which let's go ahead and try a couple. Put it off to the side and think I'm just going to have us take our arms and reach them forward. If you were on the reformer, you might be possibly holding a dowel or stick so you can mimic that with your arms here. So same exercise. No prop, pretend it's there. That's an inhale. And then the exhale to return back up and get taller when you come back.

Right up on top of the sitz bones. And again, inhale. So tell you lost your length in your back. You found it? Yes. Good. Feel that. Feel that, feel that. That's it. And exhale. Come back up. Pretend the ball was there two more times. You guys in here. It's like you're going almost up and over it. Yeah, that's excellent.

Good. Exhale. And then you got to guys, keep your eyes looking straight out of your eye. The orbits, the sockets, not up. You'll look up, look out and exhale and come back up to vertical. Okay? That's how sometimes the, the, uh, neck pool will start. We're not gonna do that again today, but all right, I want us to take a go onto the side side, some sideline work. I'm going to face you. You can face me and we're going to put the ball underneath our side and get this out of the way. I used to teach her this all the time. I don't know where I, I lost track of it.

All right, so legs are going today to extend right out from our hips. Now the, and the f, the upper arm is straight underneath our under arm. We can even make a soft fist with the hand or put it flat. Now let's all do the, rely on the ball for a second. Whoa. That feels kind of good. It's kind of buoyant. Absorbing the weight. This might be good at the beach, you know, to kind of hang out.

But we're not at the beach or in a politics class and we know that the shoulder right now is not very stable. So if we were to do the the side bend or lean up on the elbow, this wouldn't be so safe. So I want us to pull that shoulder down towards maybe think toward the ball and we know the ball was there, but don't, let's not rely on leaning on it. Okay. And then bring that top hip forward. She might make you feel into your obliques a little bit.

We're just going to start with some basic leg lifts. So let's go ahead and take the leg up a little higher than hip height if you can, and bringing it down. And let's exhale as we lift and inhale lower down. So we rely less on the ball. No, it's there, but how little can you touch it? A little weight. Can you put on it on your like your ribs. Okay. An exhale lift.

Inhale, lower foot is flexed. Exhale, lift and lower. And exhale, lift and inhale lower. Let's keep it up this time. Exhale, lift. All right, now just a front back. So let's breathe first. Exhale, slowly bring that leg forward for that little double pole. Point the foot softly and bring the leg back from just one stretch and coming forward. Little exhale. Exhale. Inhale back. So what I'm seeing, which is fine, uh, we know the ball is there, so we're starting to go, oh, so pretend it's not in a minute. We might try it without the ball. I doubt it, but you're right. And it also has some play because it's a circle. It's round. So keep going.

We don't want our torso to be reflecting the rotation yet. That's going to happen in a minute. Forward forward and sweep it back. I'll get us on the tempo. Wow. Couple more. Last one and back. And now bring your leg and whole hip height. Hand behind the head.

Okay, now we are going to invoice. Invite the rotation. So on an exhale, roll your chest toward the ball, but you're not relying on it. You just know what's there. Let your elbow come down towards your base hand open up the upper back. Inhale, come back to facing the front three more times. Exhale and rotate.

Try to stabilize the leg that's up straight up from the hip. Inhale as you come back to facing your front, and two more exhale and rotate. It's like you're trying to hover off the ball. Inhale, face the front and exhale and over and inhale coming up and then lower the weight of your leg and bring your hand down. Yeah, you're cozy on that ball. Are you? Yeah. Get up off there a little bit there. Okay. Snap to it. Huh? Trade. Yeah, go try this. I might've given you on the wrong size.

That's better. That's better. Okay. No guys, go ahead. I can trade out. Uh, she's like, okay, what's next there? Let's try up and down and wow. I really have to work out. Okay, so turning out the top leg, let's relax our foot and I think I'm going to have us challenge ourselves with this other hand up above the head. Okay, so again, not relying on that ball. You're just barely, barely needing it there to help you stay lifted. Let's lift the leg up on an inhale and bring it down on the exhale. Inhale and lift. So your dryness, however your ribs off the ball slightly.

Yes. Inhale, I lift some deep in the hip. That really your leg comes up and exhale two more today only in lift and exhale lower. Feel that. Inhale, lift and exhale lower. Okay, and Ben both knees. I'm going to have you take your top leg and bring it behind you. Let's keep your hand on the ball.

It's an open hip flexor stretch here where it's not really that open yet, but okay. More of a mermaid stretch actually. So goal to be vertical in sitting position, trying to sync this hip down the sitz bone toward the mat as much as we can while we enjoy the sensation of being pulled up. Tile. Tall, tall, tall. Yeah. What if we don't need to hold the ball? See Cause I think what's going to happen is there it is. Yeah. In fact, let's take that arm up toward the ear. Your hand can be on the other knee, might feel okay, and let's do a real gentle side bend. Yeah, toward the door. More on the upward, diagonal, then down.

Yes. So all those little lots of strands of muscle that are going between rib, rib, rib, rib, Rib, trying to fan those. Open breath helps. Let's do three breaths in and out. So sure. Two more. Fill it up and exhale. That's right. One more time. You guys fill up the rib in the lung and exhale and we can come out of outside.

Let's just do those on the other side. Okay. It's a lot. So the on your elbow, legs, extended, long upper arm or right below your shoulder, you can make a soft fist or just a flat hand flexed. Okay, well I'm not going to waste time on getting cozy on there. So keep lifting. Let's go ahead and take your top leg on an exhale, keeping it parallel, lifting a hip height and inhale and lower and exhale and reach the leg. And so toes should face forward here.

Lift and lower, barely touching the ball with the side of the rib. K Dan down four more guys and Xcel. That's lit and lower thinking. A long leg is stretching out from your hip, not pulling into it, reaching out. It's going to make a big deal here in a second and hold. Okay, so front kickback kick. Let's inhale first.

Fold right over your fingers and pulls polls. Inhale back. Exhale, exhale. Inhale back. Trying to pivot as little as possible on the ball. That's better focus. Yeah, and back is your brain having to work your switchboard on not moving.

For this is stability. So when we talk about trunk stability and inside side work, this is maybe a little different connection to it today. Last one that can help in a future classes. Okay, so leg in line with hip, foot flexed. Let's add the rotation. So hold your leg in space. Reach along from your hip. Breathe in. Now the exhale, rotate your trunk.

The ball might move a little bit as you're use your chest kind of round over. I'm going to have you drop that elbow toward the bottom hand. Inhale. As you open back to the front and exhale as you can tract and rotate over rotation really happening in those upper abdominals, upper back, not the pelvis. Inhale Open. You can relax your foot if you'd like to exhale and rotate. [inaudible] one more time as inhale open.

Okay. And exhale. Good, Lisa. And over. Inhale and exhale. Lower your like for a second. Great. Okay. We have our up and down. So turning your leg out. Let's go ahead and keep our hand back behind her head.

Elbow high to the ceiling, a little bit of less, less weight on the ball. Six Rep. Good. Really good. Six reps up. Inhale and exhale, lower. Do whatever you'd like to do with your foot. I'm very patterned to do the point flex. You don't have to do anything with your foot if you don't want to down three more. Less weight on the ball as if it weren't there and exhale, Samantha, that's gorgeous.

Up and down. That's plenty. And this bend, the knees come up into that mermaid stretch. That's hard. I, I, I, I think that's hard. I think, yeah, I, it's informative to me in how often I might not be asking that much of my side support position. Just tune in a little bit more. Yup. I can work a little more. So left arm is up. Yes. Take it to the high diagonal. You're trying to reach up to the cubbies. Nice. Yeah. And then that same focus of your, the muscles in the ribs, so when we inhale they can widen and the exhale, they actually can kind of narrow together two more times and you can feel the life there and exhale yes. And come on down. Great.

Okay. A couple more with the ball and it's coming back to our first position or facing how interesting. My glutes feel a little more awake there. Okay. I'm going to Ha, Ooh, this is a, that's fine. Okay. I'm putting the ball between my, in my mid back bra line area. Okay. Where's that book again? That's pretty neat. Okay.

And actually the w that's what I hope is it somewhat feels easy to be here. Supportive again, and definitely supportive for your neck. Does it feel okay? Okay. So guys, let's put our hands behind her head and you can have just your feet in line with your sits bones. Uh, yeah. And let's do some crisscross. Just the idea of Chris Cross, which is the spinal rotation and upper body rotation. Okay. Now we've already experienced the ball can, can move.

What I want us to play with on this one is that we don't turn so much in the torso that the ball is moving. Cause again, that's, that's not really it. Anyway, with Chris Cross, I moved these guys too much, but that maybe there's very little body weight on the ball. So perhaps we have to curl up a little bit off the ball. Okay, let's breathe in. Maybe let's turn to our right first on an exhale. So how little weight can you hold on the ball, but the, but work your rotation. Good. Teagan. Inhale, face your knees, exhale the other way. The left side. Ready to keep the ball steady.

You may not be allowed to rotate as far as you would like to go. Keeping the ball steady. Inhale Center. Anyone feel that? Exhale and rotate. I'm feeling a little bit more quiver in my tummy than I sometimes do. Inhale, exhale en over [inaudible] and l center. We'll do four more. [inaudible] Ah, Nice. Easy neck head can just float right up there on the shoulders and center. Yeah, try to pull off the, pull your weight off the ball.

Pretend you could do this without the ball there. I've probably said that already enough. But inhale one more each side. Exhale, rotate. Now I want you to stay on that rotation. Take that right arm and reach it out to the side so it's to the side and think to the back corner, but not laying back to do it by reaching from your chest through that arm and out as you're still curled forward. Do you all feel that quiver? Yes. You can't. You can't. Yeah. Tad really feels that his face is feeling it. Okay. Inhale, face your knees. The other side we exhale and we rotate.

[inaudible] we love our obliques differently. Today. Arm goes out to the side, not falling back. Ah. Our hips are level. We haven't shifted our knees. Little less weight on the ball. Breathe in and exhale, come back to facing forward. Now I am going to let us, it's in a feel like I'm letting go or relaxing, but it's really not more to a stimulation of extension and I'll show, can I show you that? Maybe what not to do, Darren. Yeah, it does. It does feel kind of good, but a little dangerous because there's no control in it. So what I'm for us to get the thoracic extension thoracic again is this the section of our vertebra in the spine. I'm thinking of going again, really light.

I'm not putting all my weight on it, but going up and over it. So the crown on my head going to that wall back there, not to the floor. Okay. And it's opening the elbows. You guys, your body weight is going to be on the ball. You understand? I know you know that, but it's not like you're just resting. So it's an active extension of your spine on this buoyant little supportive prop. Elvis should be in your peripheral vision. If they're there, if they're too low, then you're going to stress that neck and your and your upper back. All right, now take a breath, activate your upper abdominals and pull your chest forward.

We're going to do four of these total. Okay, here we go. I'm going to watch you. Yeah, and it might feel really delicious to just open up the chest so you can, we can open our chest without taking the elbow so far back because again, we don't want the eldest to go so far back. It's going to pinch the shoulder blades. I think about that. They're separate in this. Their chest is a chest. It can widen, but the elbows or the elbows and they stay in your frame. You can isolate the difference between the two sides.

If you're going up and over the ball. Exhale. I think I that was four, but what the heck? One more time because I want you to stay there this time in your extension sternum. Okay. One more active extension.

Just think about what it would feel like to be there without the ball. Of course, I won't do that. That would be weird, I think right now. Okay. And then exhale, curl all the way back up and all the way you can use your hands on your knees and come up. I feel okay. I know when you're quiet and must've done something, pop the ball and be done with it. Let's come down onto her stomach for just a couple.

Yeah. All right. So single leg kick one that sometimes ACU is, imagine a ball between your upper arms. Okay, well we have one, so I want you to put it now. The silver balls are a little small. Yellows are about the right size. Uh, so you know, we'll do the best we can, but yeah, right between the kind of elbow, forearm area. And this is pretty, pretty narrow. I may not work so well for us. Um, and then again, let's go ahead and just get lazy or a second. Just drop it down again. Kind of feels good in that weird, weird way. But if we lift up off of it and let's also take our abdominals and pull those up.

I think it's okay to let your hip bone stay touching the floor and your pubic bone. But then the abdominals up. Okay, so look just straight forward, kind of gazing past your hands and then start to do the double leg kick. We're going to bring our right heel and unless do the exhale. Inhale, take it back, left side. Exhale, exhale and back. Exhale, exhale and back. Keep going. Okay, so it's find something new in this exercise as well. Other than the, the distraction perhaps of the ball I'm gonna think of. Yeah, there's, there's a little more upward lift that you all can do in your chest.

Pulling the upper back back towards your hips. [inaudible] so there, so again, isolate. Here's your head. Your head stays steady, but your upper back can do something more. Can your upper back pull up? Not the head, but the upper back. There you go. Pulling his ears off and kick, kick and lower kick, kick and lower. Good kick. Kick their lower kick. Kick. I know you've done a lot of them. Let's take four more kick. Kick. Yup. And down kick, kick and down.

Last one on the right and lower last one on the left and lower. Okay, now rest. Put the ball in your hands. I don't know if I love that so much. It didn't really work as much as I thought when I was practicing it on myself. Um, I had uh, I had the yellow ball. It felt okay to silver. Didn't quite work, but did it make some sense? Alright. Uh, okay.

You know some we like, some we don't. So if we rest our forehead lightly on the mat, is this okay for everyone to put their hands on the ball? No shoulder discomfort. Feels okay. All right, so let's let our shoulder blades have some move. When I want you to inhale, slide your shoulder blades way up by your ears. Yep. It's a, it's a hike. Shoulder blades are up now on the exhale, slide your shoulders down away from your ears without bending your elbows. Inhale, slide the shoulders up and exhale.

Slide to shoulders down a couple more times. So the shoulder blades are allowed to move on occasion and exhale. They can come down. They're supposed to have some movement. Inhale up, Annex Helens, slide them down. Now let's keep them down and rely less on your hands pushing on the ball. Again, light contact. But let's go ahead and lift the chest.

The head is going to float probably above the arm level. So yeah, we're coming into some s uh, support is one. Now that same thing that we don't want [inaudible] do the movement, that's the head. The head shouldn't do it. The back is what does the movement lift more in your back and you can, yeah, that's better. Tad. That's better. That's better. And of course the higher we go, we are going to need a little more support in the, the lat muscles.

So perhaps we can pull the ball toward us just a little bit to find that the sides of the back. Okay, let's all inhale there and exhale as we roll back down the chest, you can actually articulate and get a little longer. I'm going to allow us to let our shoulders glide up. Three more, a little more flow. Exhale, shoulders down. Start picking up the back again, mainly the back, not the head, a little more source in your last inhale and exhale as we come back down and get a little longer in your front. As you come back to the mat. Inhale and again, exhale, find something new in there. Can you pull your abs into it more? Maybe your, your, maybe your legs have a little more stretch from your hips.

Beautiful Elizabeth. Three guys, it's looks good. Exhale and come back down. And one more time. And I'm actually very impressed on so many levels. This is narrow to have your hands on up that high in front of you. You know, usually when we have our arms above us, our arms, or at least shoulder with the part. So this, this is actually kind, kinda tricky to do. Real light hands. Yeah.

Inhale and exhale. Let's come all the way down. You are an extraordinary class. This I know, I never doubt that. Okay, come on back to a rest pose guys. [inaudible] allowing me to do extraordinary creativity with you. So take your arms forward if this feels okay. And I'd like us to turn our palms face up again, a different stretch maybe through your shoulders than you're used to. Or, uh, just play it up a little bit. You're allowed to let your knees separate.

That might feel better in some of your hips. Let's just take about three big breaths again. Let the ribs have some expansion. Ah, well, two more. Ah, yeah, last time. [inaudible] and then we're going to do rolling like a ball for a last exercise today or the seal. Let's do seal instead.

Seals a little more fun and please move your balls away. I would hate to have any slip on them and I, I want us to do the get up out of the end of the seal. You know what I'm talking about? Where we let go of the feet and you come up to standing. Do you know that one? That dismount? Sometimes we call it. So I'll just mark one real quick. Um, you want, you can, oh, because of your knees. Yeah.

Uh, well what I'm thinking with the seal, maybe we'll shoot for six repetitions. So yeah, the hands are holding the bottoms of the feet and I like to think about it that there's a kind of a duality of, of effort going on that the feet are reaching forward but the abdominals are pulling back yet. Should we make sound with it today? Oh, I'm on camera. I can't believe it, Huh? Yeah, yeah. Well you know we live near a hardware. We hear the seals all the time round back. Yes. That's, that's where I'm at with my realm back today. I know it. So the, and so we round back, we roll to the shoulder blades again, we don't let our head drop that. Keep our chest up in chest lift, hold your balance. And we do the one, two and three. Okay. Now before we do it for real, cause I think we're practicing it when the final one on the last one, let's say it's the six one, I'm going to say let go. You let go.

Tuck your knees in and we try to roll. Whoa. You can cross your legs to come up to standing. That wasn't really very clean or close your knees. My goodness, that wasn't very good either. But uh, here we go. Okay, now I know what [inaudible] so I did not do that very well. As an example, I should kind of get a little more serious really to get up to standing because it can put a lot of stress on the knees. Getting the chest weight over your legs when you're coming up is quite important that way. And then use the power in your legs to pull you up to vertical. Okay? All right, but seal is meant to have a little fun. Massage your back.

Let's roll back on the inhale. X coming up. Put the brakes on in your belly and one, two, and three. I know, I thought about it. I thought about how could we incorporate the ball, toss it up on the nose. One, two, three, three more. Super Advanced filets and roll that back and up one. This is our last one. Roll back. Let go. Tuck your knees in.

Get your chest over your legs. I redeemed myself. You got up. Okay. You guys, we're done. Thank you. So we had some good creative thought going on with our ball. Turning our switchboard on a little bit more intensely. Yeah, thanks.

Comments

Amy, great class. I love revisiting the basic mat work and looking for new connections.
Thank you Annie!

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