Return to Life Mat

Well let's go ahead. I what I've been doing is go ahead and have a seat. Nice. So what I've been doing the last two Fridays a or three Fridays now I've been reading a little bit from return to life, which is the book that Joseph [inaudible] wrote, uh, back in 1945, originally published in 1945 and I'm doing it partly, well, a lot of it for some of you who don't know that he even wrote a book, but also just to give an insight of what, uh, what he was like a little bit and how passionate he was for controlling g, which is controlling you really is the mat work is, we know it. He didn't call it mat work, you didn't call it Palladio. He called it [inaudible]. And it's interesting, he's a, you know, it's very different writing style and voice, but you get a little more about why he was a passionate and what his opinions were. So today's Lee, a little bit of reading. I'm not going to do a lot, just about a page and a half. And if you can sit, if you liked the last few classes, people have been lying down and breathing and just closing their eyes. It's up to you. Sure, sure.

If you'd like make yourself comfortable. Something where you can focus on what I'm, what I'm reading. Um, but I'll give you just a little update. So far he's talked about the toxicity of environmental stresses and that can be stress of job, uh, bad air rushed lifestyle and how all that can contribute to, uh, I don't want to say disease, but unease in the body stress and how important it is if we keep moving on a regular basis, exercising, breathing fully of course, which is one of the biggest principles here. Um, how vital that keeps us and energized that keeps us so, and also his commitment and our commitment to do the exercises as he's listed them in the book. Um, some of the things have varied now over time and variations have been developed and things, but the main premise of doing control, algae and keeping a consistent workout. All right, so guiding principles of controlling, controlling g is not a fatiguing system of dull, boring ed hoard exercises repeatedly, daily done ad nauseum. Neither does it demand your joy, your joining a gymnasium or purchasing of expensive apparatus. You may derive all of the benefits of control g in your very own home. The old only unchanging rules you miss, conscientiously obey or that you missed. Always faced faithfully and without deviation. Follow the instructions, accompanying the exercises and always keep your mind wholly concentrated on the purpose of the exercise as you perform them.

This is vitally important in order for you to gain the results sought, otherwise there would be no valid reason for your interest in doing control algae. Moreover, you must accept all collateral advice with equal fidelity. Remember that you are teaching yourself, right. The benefits of control algae depends solely upon your performing the exercises exactly according to instructions and not otherwise. So that's a pretty firm opinion. You know, do them this way. And only this way was often from what I've heard from my older mentor teachers is that's how he wanted them done only this way.

And as you've seen through time, I think with just the way I teach, things vary and change, but I think the premise of if we're flexing our spine, we want to perform this, the the flection correctly each time if we're working extension, same idea. Okay. Another paragraph. Remember too, that Rome was not built in a day and that patience and persistence are vital qualities in the ultimate successful accomplishment of any worthwhile endeavor. Practice your exercises diligently with the fixed and unalterable determination that you will be out. Excuse me, that you will permit nothing else to sway you from keeping your faith with yourself. At times you may feel tempted to take the night off. Don't succumb to this momentary weakness of indecision or rather wrong decision. Decide to remain true to yourself.

Think of what would happen if the Stoker's firing the boilers of a giant ocean liner would just had decided to take the night off. You know the answer if they were to repeat this action. You know, the result, the human body fortunately can withstand more neglect successfully than the complicated machinery of a modern steam ship. However, that is no good reason why we should n necessarily an unreasonably tax our bodies beyond bounds of endurance, especially since doing so results only in hurting ourselves. Make up your mind that you will perform controller exercises 10 consistent minutes without fail. Amazingly enough, once you travel on this country, Ology road to health, you will subconsciously lengthen your trips on it from 10 to 20 or 30 minutes before you even realize it. Why? The answer is simple. The exercises have stirred your sluggish circulation into action and to performing it to duty more efficiently in the manner of discharging through the bloodstream, the accumulation of fatigue products created by muscular and mental activities, your brain clears and your willpower functions. So what do you think? Dramatic.

He did have a strong point of view. I mean, how dare a steamship would have anyone take the night off and people stoking the fire. But you know, I think it's consistency is key. You know that has passion really derived from, Gosh, if you want make change in your body, feel better, get stronger, breathe better, all that and definitely have more mental awareness and alertness is to repeat new things. What 10 minutes, what, 10 minutes, what do you have us be doing? I don't know. That would be an interesting question for Joe. The next chapter revealing, right. Okay, so what we're going to start with today is sitting and let's work on a little bit of breathing so you can sit either facing in or out. Either way, make yourself comfortable guys and I'll have you with your feet separated. You can either be right in line with your pelvis width or a little wider. Again, a little wider might feel more comfortable in your pelvis and your lower back.

And then let's just take our hands down our shins toward our feet. Let your spine curve normally don't over force the curve this point and allow the weight of your head also to healing. So we're really deeply exposing the upper back, the back of the shoulders, the back of the spine, down into the lower back region, cross the back of the pelvis, right? And I've started class like this on occasion. We're going to just begin with some nice deep breaths. Inhale through our nose, and exhale as you press the air out, you might even feel like you can pull your navel back to your back. Again.

Inhale and exhale. Ah, so that with each breath we are bringing in new clean air and with every exhale trying to press out the stale air or perhaps the fatigue or the stress that we no longer need for efficiency. Posture wise. As you're taking your inhale, see if you can allow your head to stay hanging relaxed through your shoulders. So sometimes the inhale actually makes her back kind of straightened and flatten out deep. You can trust just the weight of your bones hanging here. Few more times guys breathing in.

Uh, you're taking a chance to fill the back of the lungs, the back of the ribs for that expansion. [inaudible] let's take one more nice deep breath in. Yeah. Right now as we articulate up to a sitting position, let's just put our hands behind the knees and organize the feet now a little bit. So definitely in line with the sitz bones if they weren't before. Okay. And I do want us to engage the hands on the legs and really feel yourself.

Pull on the back of your legs, open your elbows out to the sides and just squeeze your rear-end a little bit. You're finding your glutes, finding your navel to your spine, open up the width of their collarbone and try to find some ease in the sitting position. Okay, so we're going to start just with the rocking of the pelvis or the finding of the low abdomen. So let's inhale here on the exhale. So pooling, I'm really thinking almost that I'm just checking a yawn in my lower back. Okay. And again, it may not look like much, but it feels like a lot for me. Inhale as we come back up to vertical spine. And again, exhale as you pull, I'm thinking of going back, not necessarily going down. Inhale forward on the sitz bones.

Okay. And exhale. As you pull back. This might feel good. Stretch the back, open up the back of the ribs. Go again. Filling up and exhale en contract. Open the chest. Find a steady head and inhale coming up tall.

Does he know if we can go maybe a little bit deeper now or farther back by engaging the abdominal muscles? Inhale, yeah, and again, so pull from the belly, wrap your sits bones under. That's it. Curating more of a curvature in your back. Inhale back up to [inaudible] tall. Say Two more you guys ex tail end. We're rounding back. Finding the c curve. Still holding on. Pretty firm with the arms. Inhale coming up to tall. And this time exhale as we go back, just taking our time, letting the pelvis round under a little more, or tilt if that's a good cue for you and keep going.

Let's see if we can go through that lower back through the back of the ribs, down all the way so our shoulders and our head arrive on the mat. Now I'm a little far back, so I'm going to just take a quick scoot forward. Yeah. Thank you guys. Once you as well, you don't want to be too far back in the backend. Okay. And we'll start this a very common, uh, roll up through the spine for the bridging or the pelvic curl. So take a minute, feel your feet nice and flat. Heels in mind with the sits bones, arms flat on the Mat, a little engagement in fact in the back of the shoulders and the back of the upper arms. Take a breath in here. So again, finding any abdominals to do to perform the pelvic tilt. And as soon as your pelvis starts to come off of the mat, that's what I want you to start engaging your glutes and the hamstrings and continue to roll the spine. And we're a little bit higher than Bra line.

Inhale at the top and exhale as we come down. So finding a little more contraction in your abdominals. Maybe this morning, pulling yourself more to the mat with your back. Alright, it feel the stretch of your lower back into the mat. Let's go again. Inhale and exhale. Starting down low in the belly shifts the weight of the pelvis back. Press into the feet, feel the back of the legs, contract as you roll a little higher up your back, and at this point just check to see that your feet, all 10 toes are still down.

You haven't begun to lift your toes. You're feeling the work all the way across this band of muscle. Also across your rib cage, the intercostal muscles inhale and maybe deep in that quality there in the front as you begin to roll down, wow. All the way through the spine. And again, inhale at level pelvis and exhale and round. So dynamically pulling from the belly. Pelvis starts to leave the mat, feel the back of the body, hamstrings the glutes up into the lower back, not letting go of this band of muscle across the rib cage.

Now let's focus on the inner thighs a little bit. They should be active to hold parallel alignment. Let's breathe in and again, exhale. Using that a little more in focus as we roll down. Ah, two more times. Everybody breathe in and exhale again from the abdominals, glutes, hamstrings. Inner thighs.

Intercostals the mind, triceps, shoulders. Inhale, everything waking up. Exhale. Can you roll the spine a little more? Let's take it all the way down to level. Now this last one, just quickly scoot your heels and maybe an inch more towards you. Inhale. Exhale. Here we go. It might feel a little bit more dynamic in your, your backside. You might even feel more stretch in the front of your thighs.

I'm going to have this be there for a few, a little while. Okay. And we've done these before. Uh, if you need to or want to put your hands underneath your pelvis just to feel stable. You don't have to, but that's something you can choose. We're going to lift the heels now and as you lift your heels rising up on the balls of the feet, trying to keep your pelvis and your, your torso acts absolutely still okay. And then lower the heels down and that could happen. You could cramp up in the hamstring or the calf.

So I'm going to have us inhale as we rise. Exhale, deepen the abdominals as you set your heels down. Inhale, lift. Excellent. Ah, keep awareness and the abdominal muscles, inner thighs working toward the mid line. Two more times. You guys inhale, press your heels up. Good, Carol. Exhale and lower you guys. Nice work. Last one.

Inhale and exhale. Now before we roll our spine down, let's reach your arms up. Just keep them vertical to the ceiling, palms facing in. Imagine last week we held a ball. Pretend you're holding your ball again and then articulate from the upper back down through the middle, back down through the lower back and out through your tailbone.

And again, fully commit to stretching yourself more tail toward heels, so activating some elongation in your low belly and your low back. All right, now let's bring ankles together. Knees together. I'm going to work our chest opening for a moment. Inhale as you open your arms without falling them all the way to the floor. So just as if your arms are elastic and someone has an end on either end or pull on, either end to stretch you wider from your breastbone, all the way out to your fingertips. That's an inhale. Okay.

Okay, sale back into center. Let's do four more [inaudible] so with each air, inhale again, taking in clean air, expanding the chest. Exhale, impressing the stale air way two more times. [inaudible] last one. Yeah, and exhale now holding the arms there. You okay? What's going on? Hips are killing you.

Take care of yourself. All right. Separate your feet again. Everybody else. Now we're not going to keep our arms reaching here. Now get, give them some energy, something to do. They're not just, you know, in space for no reason. Energize your lats, the arm muscles, biceps, shoulders, everything. And we're going to need these to stay strong as we roll up to bridge again. So take a breath in and here we go. Pelvic tilt. Continue to peel up into the back of the shoulder blades or bra line if you don't want to go that high.

Now this could be a little bit tricky if we a shift weight slightly to the right foot. All I want you to do is slightly take weight off of the left foot. I'm not even going to really lift my foot all the way off the mat. I'm just feeling more weight on my right side, connecting into that gluten hamstring and then center your weight on both. Same thing on the left. So shift weight to the left, slightly. Release weight from your right foot, and then center both again over the right solite Li shift weight.

You might even think of lifting your heel now, slightly good Barbara. And then back to center and over to the left onto the left foot. Maybe the right heel seems like it's safe to start lifting off the mat. It's gonna lead into the uh, tabletop position. You Ready? So let's go ahead. Shift weight to the right, gather energy into the back of that leg.

Feel your abdominals on your left and you're bringing the left leg up to tabletop. Of course, we're trying to stay very steady. Inhale as you lower that without dropping the pelvis. All right, shift to the left. Feel the glutes, feel the hamstring and the abdominals and pull that right leg up to tabletop. Inhale. As you lower it back down, feel free to put your arms on the floor if you need a little assistance. Just one more each side. Shift to the right. Exhale, bring the left leg up. Inhale. As you come back down, we only have one more. We're doing fine. Exhale to the left and pull the right leg up.

Inhale and lower that foot. Now let's take our arms back. We do this often back alongside the ears. I'll leave it up to you. You could let your shoulders go up or not, but it feel good for you. But what I do want us to do is focus on the vertebra behind your breastbone. Okay? And really activate pulling those vertebra down to the mat here.

Okay? Just hold that integrity there. Yeah. Now the vertebra that are below that, maybe below the shoulder blades, the bra line, let's pull those to the mat and then keep going down in sequence down through the lower ribs, down through the lower back, and finally the sacrum and the tailbone. And then just continue reaching your arms back overhead. Send some very big link. Okay, you guys now walk your ankles back in together.

Nice together and just real easy. Put your hands on your thighs. We're only going to do four easy chest lift. Open up your chest, take your breath in sync here. First exhale and me round up. Just let your hands kind of slide up the size. We're not doing a big high movement yet. Inhale is we'll come back down. Yeah, and again, exhale, [inaudible] wheezing that air out. Inhale as we roll back and exhale, contract and peel.

Maybe the hands can reach a little farther. Inhale as we lower. And just one more time you guys exhale and we round up. Inhale as we come back down. Okay. I'm going to give you a different variation today with something. So put your right or left hand behind your head, right, and then that elbow up, enough off the mat. You can see it in your peripheral eye, right arm long by your hip on the mat and since the back of that arm and that back of that shoulder in that lab. Okay.

Can make a really committing to neutral pelvis or level pelvis. Inhale here. Exhale as you curl up to the chest lift. Now this arms gonna reach toward the Heel Max. You, you know, I'm tapping just so you can hear me and see it. So that activation of your lat downward might even help you curl a little higher. Okay? Stay with that. Now breathe in again. We're going to add a bend of the waist to the right. So it's a side bend.

I'm now, if I've been far enough, I can actually almost see my right heel. That's not the idea, but we're going in that direction. Okay, now start lifting that right arm higher. It's going to be in the height of the right knee. Take the left hand also and reach it on the diagonal toward your right knee. So do you feel some old bleak work? That's the idea. The feet. Yeah.

Now hold your torso up. Raise your arms up pretty high if they could get right along your ear frame. Very good. Now we're going to class for the hands behind your head. Return to face in your thighs, and then roll all the way back down to level. We do the other side. Left arm by your hip. Inhale.

Exhale. Here we go. And Curl Up. Ah, in your whole side. Ben. As you exhale, you're bending your waistline trying to contract your side obliques there. Now inhale, we're reaching both arms. Left arm starts to hover, right arm releases. You're at the height of the left knee, you're in the chest. Lift on a little bit of rotation. Side Bend, raising both arms higher. Try to keep your torso where it is. That should be loading those obliques, hand behind the head. Inhale, face the thighs. Check your level pelvis and exhale everything coming back down.

Once again, each side, now we know what it is. Arm Long, then here we go. No, stay there. Breathe. Activate the exhale inside. BIM, both arms reaching, so it's the height of your right knee. Lots are engaged. Now keep the tour so there we're going to raise the arms trying to get them to frame the ears. My say there as you bend the elbows right there behind the head.

Return to facing your thighs and then everything coming back down. One more to go. Left arm, long breathe in. Exhale, exhale side. Ben Reaching toward that left heel. Now both arms reach toward the height of your left knee. Exhale and just hold really deeply engaged there. Okay, now we're lifting both arms. Keep the chest pulling up as the arms, hands behind your head in hill. Turn toward facing the thighs. And exhale as we come all the way back down. What do you think?

Four was? Plenty. I'm in agreement with that. Yeah, I gave that to class last night too and they were whoa. You know, just, it's nothing really that different, you know, muscular wise but different, different patterning. Okay. Another one flat. This is again for o bleaks and some rotation. Um, now let's go ahead and open the arms. You feel free to put them all the way in the floor now. Okay. If that feels fine. And guys, um, I want us to try to raise up on just tippy toes. So your toes are actually so light. They're almost not even touching the mat, but be careful for foot cramping. You can do this with flat feet. Also, we've done this before, so let's take our knees to the right and it's so, and it's a big rotation of the spine.

And then we want the ankles to stay bolted. And there needs to be Bolton left foot comes off him at absolutely okay. And the left shoulder stays down. So that's the idea. If we can pull awareness to opposition, knees are going right, left arm, left chest to the left. Now one more place. I want us to think about the side of your right ribs and waistline. Can you imprint that Nice Barbara? Yeah. So go into those oblique muscles and instead of having a big airspace there, big daylight curve or you know, gap, activate the s the body and the spine and the imprinting of the ribs to diminish that space. Okay, now keep that.

We're gonna post the knees to the right in the percussive pacing. So here we go. Whatever breath. Sure. Four, three, two and one. And then come back to center and keep everything level.

You're still in printing to the mat. Now let's go to the left. So finding the rotation. You just checking on you guys. Yeah. So you know your right foot has lifted your ankles and your knees are bolted. You don't have the daylight. That would be an arching back. And we know we don't want to arch in this. That's too much load in the back.

Extensors are back and nothing going on here. So imprint the mat. Okay, open that right chest. Nice. Reach the right arm. Let's pull [inaudible]. Sure. So we're contracting and stretching at the same time.

Diminishing the arch in that small of the back. Little more. Barbara, diminish that arch. Yeah. Yeah. Did you know you had one? Right. Okay, so it was the going there versus a little bit more going in. There it is right there. Okay. And come to a center. Can we, I'm going to have you guys do what? Each side again. So inhale, exhale, knees to the right. I will help you. All right.

And let's also see if you that that me can grow to this one. Yes. You really have to at your ship there. Let's pulse now. Sure. Yes, sure. Four and three.

Do you feel that and two and last one and come back to center and then over to your left. Yeah. I won't push too hard. I'm never really pushing. I'm just starting to give you some feedback. All right, ad yes, sure. Yes. You don't need me to push x sale x sale for, that's better Barbara. And three good carols too. And last breath.

Plenty. Come all the way back into center. Okay guys, just bring your knees in, put your hands behind your legs and just pull gently back there. All right, I want to have us do a few in the double ab series of five. You're lucky out. I'm not making us do the a hundred today, so let's go with single leg, double leg and scissor. Alrighty, so go ahead and bring your knees to tabletop and we're going to try to do them without any, I'm dropping back of the head position. Just flow right through. So let's take an inhale. Prepare. Exhale. We curl up. Nice high chest lift. Get yourself to stretch your spine forward, move your left leg out and let's place the hands on the right shin.

Hold onto that Shin before we start changing the legs, can we go higher? Yes we can. And the elbows are out, shoulder blades are down. I'm going to have this go into the percussive rhythm or the the the double breath. Here we go. Changing now. Hi, pulling high. You're in the chest. Lift. Good. Four and three.

Two and last one. That's it. Knee in five of the double leg stretch. Again, you're not going to let the chest drop back. You've got good solid connection in your abdominals and your lats. Here we go. Open and exhale and close. Arms to the ears.

Legs to 40 flavor a little lower if you can manage that with your back. Inhale, last time man. And in. All right, we've got one more of the scissor. Let's go ahead. Hands at the calf or your hamstring. Pull up a little higher. Go ahead and very gently bring the bottom leg to the mat. Just gently, just feel it. So linkedin, that hip. Okay, let's double pool and shake.

[inaudible] so again, that double pool can be the hands on the leg, but more importantly it should be tummy, tummy, tummy, tummy. [inaudible] eight more and one and two. [inaudible] curling higher. And here's four. That's plenty. Let's bring it in and rest. I, if I were the one doing 10 minutes of plots a day, I might include that in my 10 minutes, those three at least those we'd want to balance it out with maybe as some back extension and some twist and rotation. I love these.

I think this is great but you didn't ask me. You were what Joe Thought. Okay, let's roll ourselves up and moving your hips back. Are we all okay with diamond position? Okay. That's probably better than long set I'm imagining. Yeah. Okay guys. So we're going to do a little bit of rotation from here and I think we'll choose the folded elbow position. This is pretty familiar with us. So uh, yeah, over Sarah if that's not going to work on your shoulder. Oh okay. Cause you could still fall but you could just bring it lower. The lower might be healthier for your shoulder. Okay, so go ahead and sit.

Nice and tall. Alrighty. Shoulders are down. Let's take a breath in. Just exhale. Squeeze your bottom for a second. All right, now we're going to rotate toward the white wall as we inhale. Exhale is we come back to face in your feet to the other side. Inhale and exhale as we return. So keep going. Inhale.

The reason I chose to fold the elbows first is really to determine and establish our central axis, which is the head through and all the way down to the tailbone. It's the spine. So sometimes when we have our arms out to the side to start, we turn our arms and head too much, right? So we really, if we're the Carousel Pole, we're the pole that turns. Yeah, and we come back to center. So somewhat basic, but make it be a little bit more in your core, your abdominals, your oblique muscles. I gave a rotation to my reformer class this morning and one one woman said, Oh, I'm imagining my hourglass waist, what that might work. [inaudible] she loved it. Inhale and find the Arrow and the hourglass. Exhale and keep it one more time the other way.

And exhale as we send her. Now we're going to add a little arm extension just for more. So inhale as we rotate now that's where your torso stays. The arms unfold from there. As we exhale, inhale up and around a little more, not the arms, the spine, the torso, the torso. Now you're probably gonna feel your lower back a little bit. That's a good thing. Inhale, come back to your center. Other side.

Inhale. As you rotate, kind of start modest there. Exhale from the chest, the arms open, your gaze is out, your sternum is open. We inhale, we go up, and maybe a little farther back around from the spine. Inhale, return to your center. Beautiful form you guys. One more each side. Inhale, rotate, and exhale. Extend. Never giving up on the lift of the lower back. Inhale, and we go up and around. Exhale as we returned to center, gorgeous and the other side. Inhale as we twist, exhale as we open.

Inhale, going up and around a little bit more. An exhale. Find your center. Be pleased with that. It looks really good, really good. Let's rest it for a second. Resting sometimes is good in between exercises. You know, we don't have to always be be going. The muscles need that. The mind needs that. But also a little segue to the next exercise.

I'm going to have you stay over your legs. Definitely hold onto your shins perhaps, or even lower at your ankles. And can you guys find your, instead of being round, come up into flat. Back in the extension, right Carol? Good. Exactly. All right. So just stay right there for a second. And so flat back, the infamous cue that a teacher sometimes gives, putting the knee in the small of the back, bringing the torso more.

There's your flat back. And let me just adjust your neck slightly. Chin down. Ever. So slight. Yeah. And just enjoy it. Breathe that. I'm going to do this also. So it's not even, you know, it's not that much, but a little bit in your back. So when the back extensors engage, what's noticing what I'm noticing? Yeah, you're really opening the front [inaudible] that's beautiful. Now what we're going to try to do is increase then the hinge of it being, you know, and I know for you to go further in your hand, your hips are going to go, oh, I'm not sure about that.

So we go as far as we can without that feeling of pain. Can you go just a little farther forward because you have, yeah, you have all that good. Carol, do you love your hinge position? No. No. Here's beautiful. It's got, hey, hey, you're doing that. Are you kidding? Now let's just challenge a little bit by moving one arm at a time. This is not a new exercise. Most of you have seen this with me, so it's that maintaining the posture. Let's release the right arm.

You can either just come in front of your torso, but you guys are okay. Go a little bit higher. Again, we would love to have the arm alongside the ear. So notice how the higher you bring your arm, the back really begins to load. That's is a good thing. We want the back muscles to feel that without releasing the ribs. Okay?

Then bring that arm down and the other arm, and again, any arm exercise. Yes, our lat should be drawing downward. Our sternum should be pulling upward, feeling the work in the back extensors, the effort of opening the hips or keeping them open. And let's bring that arm down. Okay. Single arm. Again, a little more flow. Inhale. Exhale up. Sure.

Okay. What I'm thinking you guys keep going. As my arm comes down, I'm actually trying to go higher up in my spine. Longer. More space between vertebrata Vertebra, [inaudible], [inaudible]. [inaudible]. Now let's take both arms please. Out in front of your chest, up alongside the ears. If this is too much work, you could absolutely bring your torso up a little higher. Stay leaning.

Can you stick your tailbone back a little farther in your sternum up a little bit more? Yes, we can. I'm going to have this, take that energy and lift all the way up to vertical spine and just bring your arms out to the side. Yeah, and just restrict you. Let's just make some bubbles in the bathtub for being gone this long. It looks. See again, it doesn't look like you've had a break at all. To me. Looks really, really good. Okay. Let's do a little bit of side bend from a safe position. Face me. I'll face you. You can sit. Let's actually sit diamond. Okay. Arms helped them.

Let's choose to bend. I'll be my left. Your right and just take a nice easy bend to the side. Your right hand is going to find the floor. Now is if your arm can go over your ear a little more. It might feel okay to bend your supporting arm if you bend this elbow to see what you feel. I feel that I can get more stretch over this side is I, if I bend that elbow, okay, take another breath.

An exhale. See if you can not push off this hand, but pull yourself up to vertical spine. We'll go over to the other side. [inaudible] just be there. Allow your left elbow to Ben, perhaps bringing you a little lower in your side. Bend a little more. Stretch on your open side. And then as we come up, trying not to push off the base hand. It's pulling from here, your center. Okay. A little more flow. Inhale.

Sure, sure. [inaudible] [inaudible] so what I'm going to have with tri, as you start to come up, lift this arm off the floor, it's going to get a load your, your core muscles a little bit differently in your back and in your obliques. So the hand will lift before you begin to come up, lift and come up. That's better. One more each side. [inaudible] and center last time to your left [inaudible] and center feel okay. All right. Once again, just round forward this.

Let your spine relax. Let the weight of your head come down. Okay, we are going to do one back extension. So let's go ahead and turn it over to your tummies again guys. [inaudible] and I think with you, this one, so many, we choose to stack your hands and just go ahead and place your head on your hands. Engage your legs together, pull awareness up into your lower abdominal so your, your lumbar spine is longer than if you were relaxed and find your awareness of your shoulders on your back. Okay. So what, I'm going to have us do a couple of different [inaudible] patterns of this. First, just the head and the chest lifting off of the head or the hands in the on the mat. So let's breathe in first. So again, trying to feel some extension through the top of the head, the upper spine, but only coming up as high as you can without your elbows leaving the mat or looking forward.

You want to just pretty much stay looking either at your hands or at the mat by your hands. Now visualize that hourglass image again. Can you feel something shifted in your abdomen when you do that? Maybe in your back, a little bit of quality change. Okay, they're gorgeous. And then come all the way back down and try not to let go of that image. We're going to do three more there. Inhale, first annex.

Okay. Stay there. Inhale and exhale. Coming down. Two more. So there's a a relationship with the abdominals as well into the back. Some people say co contract, some say couple the muscles together. So it's not the just back working the systemic and the back and then coming down. Let's just take one more.

Everybody inhale and exhale as we lift. Fine. Those back extensors. Fine your abdominals, long legs, reaching back from the hips. Easy neck, easy shoulders. Okay. And exhale as you come all the way down. Now this might feel a little diff, more challenging. Keep the hands glued to the forehead. Okay, take a breath. Now on the exhale, we're lifting the head, the upper arms, the elbows, still trying to find those same muscles, but that might feel a little bit harder to do.

Inhale and exhale as we bring everything down. Three more of those. Inhale, prepare and exhale as you lift, feeling the shoulders easy from the ears. Inhale and exhale coming down. [inaudible] do more times. Breathe in and exhale as we lift. Inhale, hold. Getting a little longer through the top of the head. Exhale as we come back down. Last one, breathe in and excel and we lift.

Inhale and exhale as we come all the way back down. Okay. Flinty just move your hands back on a side of the shoulders or rib cage. Push yourself back. Ease your lower back into this transitional stretch. [inaudible].

Okay. And I do have the the green strap out and I would like to do a few stretches with the green strap. And I'm thinking about the bigger muscles in the legs and the hips. Okay. So let's once again returned back onto our back. Well first the hamstrings, then it will be going through the abductors and then the outer hip and outer thigh. Alrighty.

So find the end of the strap and put the foot in their arch of the foot. Other leg is long on the mat. Okay. So using this strap, you know, it's not the elastic band, it's something more from canvas strap. Well he sends the foot into the strap, you know, feel that.

And let's also focus good alignment of this. The right Sitz bone should be pointing to the other end of the mat, that hip in line with the other hip. If we had a level pelvis, that would be ideal. Okay. And the back of your other thigh as well should be activated downward toward the Mat. So Barbara Bring, yeah, bring the back of your left thigh flat or downs. You might even have to lower your leg a little bit. A little bit more.

It's okay. Oh, it's not about pat. Keep breathing. It's definitely not about that. It's, it's, it could be a few things, but could it be that you've just returned from vacation? My goodness. So does that feel different? It looks different. Yeah. It looks different. Where you know, a lot of times I think what happens when we stretch our hamstrings, we, we go for it and we bring that leg too high. It feels delicious. I think it's that Kinda hurt. So good maybe. Or it feels so good, but we do take the pelvis out of level so it's a little more modest.

Yeah. It's more about hips back and pelvis. Very flat on the Mat. Yeah. You know that one. I won't go too much though. Yeah. It's really your pelvis. This looks great. Yeah. You got it.

Okay. How are we doing? Feeling our hamstrings. Feeling your calf? Some of you. Okay. Boy, I could go on and on, but I'm not going to, let's lower the leg just a little bit. Now use your right hand on the strap. This just a district's make sense to me.

Open your right leg to the right and your left arm to the left. That left arm can somewhat counterbalance. Just a little bit of counterbalance. Same thing we're aiming for. You know, a level pelvis. It's very difficult to stay challenged yourself though. Not Too. As you let the weight of the right leg come over that your whole body rolls.

If you need to lift your head, he hadn't checked that your left hip is still flat on the Mat. Okay, and breathe into a guys a nice full breath into the nose. Exhale again when she tried to get out that Staley or the stressful stuff that's fatiguing her muscles breathing. Clean Air. One more time. Okay. Bend your knee just a little bit for me. A little safer to bring it in and then to the ceiling. Now lower again, just a skosh down toward the other leg. Switch hands.

Right arm is going to come out to the right. I know this feels very systematic, but all right, so here we go. Right leg over the left. Want that from the side of the hip. Some of you are going to feel it all the way to your ankle. I like to put my hand on the top. That right sigh or hip and press a little bit so that I don't perform this with a hip hike. I don't get anything out of it when I'm hiking that hip. Again, if I drew a line from my right hip to left, I'd be ideally straight across.

Okay. No Sera, instead of letting your whole body twist. See y'all, I'm just see the can you bring, keep going girl. Keep it going. Keep coming more there. See No, your pelvis is on the mat. [inaudible] okay. All right. Couple more breaths. One more. Okay. Bend your knee and then you can just do a quick transition.

Other foot in the loop, right leg down. So we're working left hamstrings. You can use both hands if you'd like to for the stretch. Okay. I'm going to go around again and just thought you with that bottom leg and your hip just so you have some reference. Perhaps it's, that's hard to know.

This is better though. Yeah. Does that feel okay? [inaudible] yeah, so you feel how that's kind of an eye and mine does it too and some depth. Sometimes I'm trying to activate, you know, getting disc to imprint the map more. Not really worry so much about this, like going that way, but because it is a hamstring stretch right now. That's the focus. Okay, good. Here we go. I can't try to get that hip down. Good.

[inaudible] we breathing. I know you're breathing. Good. Good. Excellent. It's good. 90 degrees right up at 90 that's usually what we're aiming for it. Okay, now add Dr. Stretch. So open the leg to the left.

Trying to keep the right hip as much on the floor as possible. Great. Breathe in guys. You're almost there. We've almost made it. Good Reentry class today for a couple of you that I haven't seen for awhile or if you've been away. Yeah. Good. That's just a little too far. You've got a lot of range there, boy.

Oh my gosh. [inaudible] yeah, there. So really it's this side of your belly too. If you can hold in, kind of catch these muscles a little more to stabilize so you don't roll so far to the side. Yeah. Okay. It band. So bring that leg up. Change hands. Now it's in your right hand. Exactly. All right, so again, if I were to measure across hip to hip, left hip, over the right hip, we'd have a relatively a straight line. So when that lane crosses our midline, often we'll hike the hiphop because the stretch is so big and it's this kind of alarming. There you go.

[inaudible] hello? Okay. Yeah. More fun being in the other one. I know it wasn't it. Sarah was having fun on the other side to doing that. Not Cheating. It just, you know, the body finds its way sometimes around where you know that's more exact and precise. You probably feel it more so to bypass that sensation of, oh, it's intense. It moves off of that. Just a couple more breaths, you guys. Fantastic. Ben, the knee. Go ahead and just take your strap off that foot.

And then one last thing. Okay. Just bring yourself kind of up to at rock yourself up. Wow. You can put your hands to your right. Spin your knees around. We're just going to bypass [inaudible].

It's come up into relatively straight legs. If you need to have your knees slightly bent, that's fine. Well actually, you know what I want, I'm doing this for everybody. Keep your knees bent, keep them bent so your seat drops down just a little bit. Exactly. And then look down and see your feet about sitz bones with the part again, and just let the weight of the head hand put some awareness up into the abdominal muscles. And to finish class today, we'll roll up from this rounded back bent knee position at the very end when our chest is coming up, that's when you can straighten the legs. Okay. Just a different way to get up standing nice and tall. Once you come all the way there, open up your chest. Yeah.

So I want to thank you guys for coming on this holiday weekend and staying committed to your work. So really important. Thank you very much.