Stretch Out Strap® Mat

So guys, this morning, um, I'm going to sit actually for this first part and today's going to be the last reading of our, I've been reading from the book, the return to life book. Um, and hello? Ah, good. Oh, and hold on. Can't forget about this important. Okay. Alright. So, uh, okay. So today will be the very last reading. Uh, if some of you haven't heard the past several weeks, x should have been a couple of months now. I've been on Fridays when I've been here reading from the book that Joseph [inaudible] wrote. And if you want right now at this time to lie back at comfortable, uh, read a little bit. Do you try to, you know, to listen and follow?

I guess just some of what's happening. I've done, I've chosen to read from the book just to inform on what controller is. And that question came up from someone a few weeks ago. What is [inaudible]? And that's really what Joseph [inaudible] call his work. And it's not just muscle movement, it's not just exercise. It's the culmination of body, mind, spirit.

You know, not to sound kind of generic these days, but back when this was written in 1945, this is a very different way of looking at our, our body and our connection and what he felt exercise was supposed to be, not just going out and pumping iron or changing your physical, uh, structure. It was really the combination of your mind with yourself and your breath and, um, letting that transfer into everyday life. So what we'll read today is the last section. I won't read all of it because it's a little bit lengthy, but the results of control [inaudible] good posture can be successfully acquired only when the entire mechanism of the body is under perfect control. Graceful carriage follows as a matter of course, controlling the exercises that produce a harmonious structure.

We term physical fitness reflecting itself in a coordinated and balanced or try part of body, mind and spirit. This intern results in perfect posture when sitting, standing or walking with the utilization of approximately only 25% of your energy, while the approximately remaining 75% in the form of surplus energy reserve is on call to meet the needs of any possible emergency. So some of the times when we take class, I noticed, and I've been queued this as a student when I'm participating, relax a little bit, don't work so hard, don't tax your body. You don't have to be going full Max all the time. Save a little, you know, applaud is meant to be more of an efficient way of moving. And I think that statement there so that you have some reserve left for later.

You don't want to burn yourself out in your exercise class and then be so tired you can't play at the end of the day. Um, and that went back to the very first reading weeks ago. Okay. If you will faithfully follow the instructions beginning with the introductory lesson, you will without doubt, acquire correct physical fitness with proper mental control, you will be truly building upon the solid foundation of control. Logy, which itself is built upon built upon scientific principles. So true sound in unique that the science and art of controller you will live forever. As you progress in your self instruction, you never have anything to unlearn. These exercises will actually become part of your everyday self, securely stored away forever in your subconscious mind with body, mind, and spirit functioning perfectly as a coordinated whole. What else could be reasonably expected other than an active alert, disciplined person? Moreover, such a body freed from nervous tension and over fatigue is the ideal shelter provided by nature for housing a well balanced mind that is always fully capable of successfully meeting all the complex problems of modern day living.

Personal problems are clearly thought out and calmly met. The acquirement and enjoyment of physical wellbeing, mental calm and spiritual peace are priceless to their possessors if there'll be any such so fortunate living among us today. However, it is the ideal to strive for and in our opinion, it is only through control algae that this unique trinity of balanced body, mind and spirit can ever be attained. Self-Confidence, poise, consciousness of possessing the power to accomplish. Our desires with renewed lively interest in life are the natural results of this practice of control. [inaudible] yeah. So when you're very commendable pursuit of all that is implied in the trinity of godlike attributes that are only controllers you can offer you, we bid you not goodbye, but [inaudible] firmly linked with the sincere wish that your efforts will result in well merited success, change to everlasting happiness for you and yours. He was passionate, passionate, happiness. No. Yeah.

So the, I I've, that's it. I won't probably be reading any more from the book. Maybe occasionally, just a little tidbit here and there. Uh, but really along the way there was the discussion of breathing, the importance of full breath, full inhalation, full exhalation, purification of our blood and oxygenation. So, uh, rolling was the next kind of a chunk of information and the importance of really beginning being able to segment the movement of spine. And each time we're going to the mat roll down, roll up a mobility and precision of movement. Today, there was a part in there I didn't read, but it's so a little bit more about posture. So let's stand on that note and I have our green stretch out strap handy.

Don't need to pick it up yet. Let's just go ahead and put it on the ground. All right. And where I'd like to start us actually is on the floor. So I'm going to step forward right on the hardwood floor so that your feet really have a chance to uh, open up and spread out. And let's start with our feet just underneath our hips. I'm not going to have this go all the way together and you can have your strap down on the floor. All right.

And take a look down and see parallel. Open up all your toes. That's a quick check is period. It's a great question. Think more the outside edge of your foot for a parallel, which might make you feel like you're knocking in, which that'll address. Then the muscles right at the top of your rear thigh to kind of squeeze a little bit back here. That wrapping of the back of the leg will then hopefully make you feel like you're standing more upright rather than knocking in. Okay.

And then underneath the bottom of the foot, and we've, we've gone through this before but we'll just go on briefly is that the sense of a tripod or centers underneath your foot. So underneath the big toe and second toe, that space there across between the fourth and fifth toe and then the heel, the center of the heel bone. Our goal is to be weighted centered on all three of those parts, you know, most of the time if not all of the time. All right. And then just kind of walk your mind up your leg, feel the back of your legs, wrap in a little bit. So there will be some engagement in the hamstrings and the low seat.

Put your stomach in and up a little bit. Flatten your ribs near the front so you're not standing with your ribs. Thrust forward and just ease your arms down by your sides. Okay. I want us just to start some breathing. So Nice. Full breath in through your nose and as you exhale you [inaudible] can a horse, nothing.

Thanks again. Breathe in through the nose. And again, the objective is to fill the lungs rather than lift a shoulders. Remember the lungs are in those ribs so the ribs can expand and exhale. They'll narrow a little bit through the ribs and again, two more times. It's a nice, easy breath. Feeling open and cross your chest once again and exhale. Okay, we're gonna work our neck first so everyone look towards your right shoulder. I'm going to mirror you. That's an inhale. Exhale as you return your head to your center. Inhale to your other shoulder.

Then exhale to the center. Just repeat that and just maintain that even a weight on your feet, the foot centers. Exhale to center. Sometimes I'm probably going to talk as we do these head rotations, we'll start to drift our weight back to the back of the heels or weighted back. Try to feel that you're almost biasing the front foot centers if you're going to buy us something. Okay, let's go again. Inhale to the right. Exhale to your center. Your shoulders are steady.

Inhale to your other shoulder and exhale center. Once again, you decide just the head and neck. Exhale, center. Really use the neck and turn and XL center. Okay. You'll probably repeat that in a moment after I described something else. So underneath your feet, we've got the three points and we also often talk about three points in our pelvis. Hip, hip, pubic, bone, right? There's another triangle, there's a triangle under each foot. There's a triangle here. There's also a triangle up there at the base of the head and skull.

So underneath your left skull, behind your ear, underneath your right skull, behind that ear, and then the base of your skull on the spine there. There are three points there. One, two, three. Does that make sense? Okay there, there are lots of threes in here. I think I'm just gonna stick with that. Or else we'd just be standing here for a whole hour. So as we do, go back into the head rotations, think about you're right, part of your triangle on your skull, turning to the right, we turn that triangle corner, see if you might feel more in your neck. And then exhale, center and turn the other triangle corner behind the left part of your skull and center. And the right side. Inhale and exhale centers that changing for anybody.

It's okay if it's not, but I'm hoping that it has. So rather than just thinking, turn your head, think of very specific point. You're turning one part of that skull more than the other. And then the other turn and center. One more. Each side. Good. And rotate without the shoulders coming along. Just the head. Just this goal and left and center. Okay, so let's talk about our shoulders. We know they can go up. Let's go ahead.

Okay. We know they can come down and we know they come up and we know they come down. There's a gliding s uh, quality. We're looking for that. They glide on the ribs and they glide down the wrens and they're gliding up and they're gliding down. One more of each. Does one feel easier for you than the other? Perhaps?

Yes. I mean going up fuel either easier than going down. Okay. We didn't dissect right and left. We won't do that right now. Okay, so then just hold your shoulder study. Let's do a little bit of weight shifting. So often want to have this weight shift. We go forward and back. Let's shift left and a right. So if we shift to your right, not so much that the other foot leaves the floor.

Just put more weight on one side of your body, one side of the leg and hip, and then find your center and then wait, shift to the other foot centers and then both breathe how you need to weight shift and center and which really let your weight go. Okay, interesting. So that sometimes this is what's perceived, but I'm not weight shifting on my feet. I'm just leaning my spine. So keep your spine upright and lean. There's less you theory go and center trying not to dip your shoulders and center. Once again, each side, does anyone feel anything different on one leg?

[inaudible] from the other and it's okay if you don't, where do you feel it? You don't have to answer out loud. These are just things for awareness, you know? So I'll tell you what I feel when I shift to one side. Whoa. I feel this side of my hip. Turn on a little bit of work on the side of my hip. So if I were to pick up that leg, it would be there for me to balance, which that's a little foreshadowing in a minute. Okay, now let's shift front and back. So if we shift more weight to the front of two foot centers, right? And then shift our weight back to the back of foot center, which is the heel we do.

We've done this before and weight shifting forward and weight shifting back. And meanwhile this triangle is steady, this head triangle. We're not moving her head and neck, just shifting weight and back. And once again, shifting front. This is fun to watch and shifting back. So now we're going to go around the world. It's like drunken sailor left or right [inaudible] other foot and back on the heels side. [inaudible] other side, back to the heels. One more that direction Varun.

So really thinking about the base of the foot. Now let's go the other way. The base of the feet. Maybe you need to think about it just down on the foot. So you're really activating more of your weight distribution across the foot centers. He, you'll centers the lateral centers, the forward centers, the side centers. One more. Anyone feeling dizzy? Little Vertigo. All right, so we wouldn't want to go through life like off balance. So all that is a sense of being slightly off balance, right?

So if we find more balance on our legs and our head on our shoulders, we're pretty prepared to do some movement. All right, now let's just bend our knees and stay in a very slight Mitt, little knee bend. Your knees should come forward, not knocked together and they, and keep it a little catch in your seat. So this should be pretty firm. Okay? So depending on how flexible your ankles are, your calf muscles, you may not be going too low or you may be going fairly low. And then from there I just want us to stand. Let's do about three more. We can inhale, bend and exhale, straighten.

It's really think of bending right here in these hips that the joint, stick your tail back, a little Barbra. There it is. That's what it should be. And then stand and meanwhile this triangle is still steady, your head triangle and right over your shoulders. Okay, good. So we stayed fairly well on our foot centers. Now let's rise up onto the front foot centers so the heel centers are going to lift, but we still want to maintain that sense of upright balance, not leaning to the right forward, back or side. And then lower the heels and rising up. You can inhale if that feels good and exhale as you come down.

Shifting the front foot centers but not too far forward. We're still thinking of going vertical. Feel free to use some arm position to aid your balance if you need to in one more time coming up, going down. Okay, now pick your arms about to the side. Just rotate your shoulder so your hands are going to turn all the way up and then it keeps spiraling your pinky fingers around.

Now can we do that this arm position and bring the rib cage in so when our ribs tossed forward, we're definitely out of our nice natural alignment. Okay, so it keeps them focused here. I'm just going to have this do a rotation of the arms and shoulders and then the other way. So I think pinky finger to ceiling and then wind it around pinky finger to the ceiling, but it's that passed the other way. And then again, rotate and rotate. Now just one, it doesn't matter which one. Now as the other one switches, the other one switches, they're alternating and switch and switch. So keep going. What I'm noticing is some of us are, are back on our heels centers more than over. There we go.

Interesting how he's shifted our weight back as the weight of our arms came up. So really stay focused over the arches of your feet are the centers of your tripods and switch. Just a couple more of each. Rotate. I know it's a little awkward. Ribs are flat in the front and switch. Okay, and just bring it down. All right, now shoulders. Let's rotate our shoulders and bring them forward.

Or really it's our scapula or shoulder blades on our back. So they're coming forward. And now bring your scapula and pull back and bring your shoulder blades forward and exhale, bring them back. This is going to be a nice warm up for when we're holding that green strap in a second. Some of you know it gets a little fatiguing. Just a couple more forward and shoulder blades back.

And last one forward and shoulder blades back. Okay, so let's go ahead and just find our green strap. I could make a fancy transition to get it, but not today. All right. There'll be a plenty of things that happen. So we're all have, this start is the first loop from the center. All right, so this shoulder girdle work is meant to to work your upper body, work your shoulders, but also the this part of your middle back. That's really where our arms kind of stem off of. We've talked about that before. So guys, put your hands in, their palms are open still in your first foot centers and let's just go ahead and raise the arms up. They don't really have to be completely shoulder level.

Be sensitive how your neck starts to feel. Okay. And then once again, are you in your centers and is your ribs flat? Because oftentimes the arms come up and we do that strangely distorted posture here. So all right, now we're gonna flip. Turn the uh, rotation on the arm again. So if we rotate palms face up, rotate palms face down, inhale, palms up. Okay, that axial palms down. What I want us to do here is pull out on the strap, feel like you're trying to pull the loops apart. So there a little more feedback that we're getting in our shoulders. Yeah, open poems down. Stay here for a second everyone.

Put your shoulder blades more on your back. Keep them there as we do the rotations. Here we are. And inhale and [inaudible] not too hard is it? Although you're feeling some work perhaps and rotate and flat one more of each. Inhale, rotate shoulder blades are on her back. Let's go ahead one more time. I'm off my rhythm and then hands down. Okay.

And bring it down. Yep. Just a quick lift. Now lets go hands in the second loop. We're in the center. Pull out. Same thing, palms starting down. Pull out on the edges. Bring your shoulder blades more on your back, feeling upright. You're on your foot centers. Your ribs are in and down. Yeah, in flat.

Same rotation to see if you start feeling a little different area of your back. Inhale, palms up. Okay, and exhale, palms down. I want us to feel like we're widening our chest as well as working our arms and shoulders. Sure.

Good. So posture, it's gonna lead to self confidence. Grace, poise. We don't want to walk through the world with rounded stooped shoulders. It actually collapses the lungs when we do that. It's one of the reasons why we talk about the sternum being lifted so often.

If we drop our sternum, it's a collapsing of the lungs. You can't breathe fully that way. All right, one more time. Inhale and exhale, palms face down. All right, so going on from here. Inhale, lower your hands to your thighs. Exhale, just shoulder level. Inhale as you lower so you can stabilize your shoulder blades.

You can stabilize your head, triangle and work your scapula. Muscles, your shoulders so you can get a little abdominal work going. Flatten those ribs in the front. So if I were on the mat doing this, I'd be saying flat back. Get your ribs flat on your mat. Good. Steve and I will take four more if we can go a little higher with the strap. Maybe eyebrow level.

It's pretty specific. Your eyebrows are in a different place than mine are. So lift, I want us to keep those shoulders low and level. Sometimes if we go too high that the neck starts to fatigue. How are we doing? Everybody? Okay, so now can we hold this whole, continue to pull out in the strap, pull out in the strap. Now from here, let's rise four times are going to rise onto the balls of their feet should.

Nothing's really should change. It shouldn't be too difficult. Inhale, as we rise, exhale. As we lower. If you're in your body, in your organization, you're going to be fine, Huh? Shoulder blades on our back last time or eyes and lower. Let's go ahead and bring the strap down. Okay, here's again, shake it out. No hands in the third loop. Moving our way a little wider so we're okay in our shoulders.

If you have something going on in your shoulder issue, you said that at the beginning so far we're fine. This next portion might, if you need to modify, ask me and I'll show you something. Let's start with their arms again. A chest height, shoulders on your back. Now if you pull your right elbow back behind, you keep tension and the other arm still forward. We haven't yet turned the shoulders or the spine is really just an elbow was pulling back. Okay? Just hold that kind of like a bow and Arrow and then extend the arm forward and then let's check into the other side. Elbow, we're looking for a tot strap.

A good elbow should be shoulder level or lower, but if we take our elbow higher, see what happens to the whole shoulder itself. My neck disappears. I have a short neck to begin with. Okay, and so just the elbow isolate. The elbow doesn't have to be big. Exhale as you come center. Inhale, elbow back and center. These are kind of fatiguing. If you need a break, that's fine. Inhale, the other side stays taught.

Exhale and straighten just your elbow barber. They are just make it small. Center. Keep going. So what's happening is your, it's okay. You're learning. Your l, your waist is turning as your elbows moving. They're stable. So fairly finite little move. Are you about to finish your left side? Last one on your left. Okay. And Center. And then lower. All right. Again, just roll them around. Yup.

Shake around. Now let's take the strap again to waste our shoulder level. Now I'm going to take us from shoulders to above the head and as we go above the head, I'm going to ask us to turn the hand and the arm will rotate. So as you come up, I'm going to have you end with your hands facing out and lightly press well or press into the palm. Good. Okay. So again, on the elevation of the arms there, the ribs could love to push. They love to push forward so it takes more abdominal control and support to keep the ribs in. And then let's bring it down. So we'll inhale above the head and exhale down in line with their shoulders. Inhale and above.

Keep your ribs coming flat and exhaling down. Doing okay over here. Inhale and exhale once more, I promise. Inhale, as we come up and exhale as we come down, all the way to the size and rest. Okay, back in the second loop. All right, can we go up? Bend your elbows. You're going to think more like that goalpost position when we're on the mat.

Face down the Guantanamo as someone nicknamed it. Okay, so let's start elevated shoulders. Our arms are up, shoulder blades are down. Inhale, as you pull your elbows, shoulder level, exhale and extend. We're only doing eight of these. Inhale, bend. Think of pulling out in the strap. We'll look like you're trying to rip the loops out. Okay. Inhale as you bend. So again, sternum should be up.

We want our lungs to have full capacity to breathe. Four more. Inhale. Are your legs still wrapped still in your foot centers? Has anyone drifted back? An exhale, reach two more. You may not have to been so low. We want to on shrug those shoulders and one more time and exhale and lift. And then once again bring everything down.

Okay, good job you guys. Let's go ahead and stand a little part. Give your legs a different standing position and I hate to change your again, go back to three. When you change to a angled, are you feeling how it's different? Work in your shoulder girdle. Narrow versus wide? Yeah, I figured you were, but just in case. Okay, so the, the legs are externally rotated, slightly. Put a little squeeze in your glutes. Ribs are flat, your weight shifted even on your foot centers. This is it.

This is when you might be actually go more forward are in and lift the pinky toe. So be careful. The pinky toes are flat. Now we're going back into the elbow pool. All right. Now as you pull the elbow, keep reaching the other arm forward. Can you now start to turn your waist now, Alecia, now I'll let you really rotate your waist, your waist, your waist. The other arm still has tension to it and then come back to facing front.

Both arms are level and let's bend the elbow. This kind of steering us to rotate toward that bent elbow, keep the ribs coming in, shoulder blades are down, the elbow was lifted, and then coming front. All right, and pull the elbow back. Start to rotate. This might be instead of Chris Cross today it is instead of crisscross today and then center and elbow and rotate. So it's the just the torso, just the spine.

Pelvis isn't coming around the corner. Okay, and center. Four more times. Inhale, bend, exhale, center. So really feeling those hips stable. And Inhale, just the elbow and exhale. Center once again, each side and twist. Good. And exhale center and last one, rotate and exhale center. All right. And drop it a little bit more. So hands to shoulder level going. Oh, it's just as good as looking at the clock. Did you? Oh, you guys missed that. That was great. No, it's just cute. I said one more them. Oh Man. I know if this one that looked at the clock.

Okay, let's come up above the chest. I'm just giving you a hard time. All right, so his arms are up. Good. We need a little comic relief for a second. Turn those palms out. No. Yeah, this is a great one today. Can anyone take their hands and the strap farther back behind your head? Don't.

If your body says that's going to hurt, this is pretty advanced to go that far back. If you know yourself to have shoulder issues, this is not a place for you to go. Okay. But what I want us to do is reach behind the head and then come back up above the head and reach behind. So the hands are face out. Open the chest. Yep. And above the head.

You could go out another loop if your arms are nice and long like yours are. Absolutely and above the head. So when we're doing these movements, checking on your stability of your torso, the ribs, again, they might be thinking it's their turn to Po. Push forward. Keep going. I'm going to watch you. This would not be shoulder movement. You know, if I have my arms up and I'm moving my ribs, that's rib movement.

I want to be able to work just in the shoulder girdle. That's what this is for. Yeah. Okay. Just a couple more. It's really about stretching the pectoral muscle group also in the front to helping to stretch down in the upper trapezius. Pull that down. Very nice. Now I have this one one more time as gorgeous. Can you pull back and just feel a little sense of ease?

Is Your head triangle steady? Has Your head pushed forward? There's a little ease. Palms are open. Receive the space there. Yes, your shoulder blades are probably narrow on your [inaudible] back, but okay. And bring it all the way up and that's going to be plenty of that stuff. Happy all at least from standing. So let's walk our feet together.

Bind yourself down to your mat. Alright, we are gonna use the strap for a few things and I think we're, I'll start you guys is uh, the, the feet in this first loop from the center for spine stretch forward. [inaudible] I'm changing that already. I have, I just changed one foot to the second loop and one to the first. That for me feels like a good hip frame for me so that as I'm pulling out on the edge of the strap, my legs are just a little wider than my hip frame and that's where we should be for spine stretch forward. Okay? Yeah. Now find yourself nice and tall. Let's reach our arms forward and the ribs are flat.

Your shoulder blades are on your back a little bit. Let's take a nice little graph again and exhale as you round forward. I want you to keep bringing your chin towards your chest today. Let your spine bend farther forward. Keep pulling out on the strap. Make that your commitment. Pull out, pull out, pull out, pull out.

Is anyone touching a strap with their fingers? Trying to get there. Uh Huh. Good. Bend your spine to get forward. All right. Flex the feet. Now let's pull back through the low belly. Bring your shoulders on your back and restore yourself to sitting tall.

We'll do two more. Nice. Berm. Flex feet. Exhale and round over. We talked about that a few weeks ago. The spine is going to bend when you contract your stomach more. There's going to be a coordination of flexibility and strength. Yeah. Now, when you come back up, restore vertical, bring your shoulders down onto your back. One more time. Breathe in. Exhale and round. So, so k that your Chin may be coming closer to your chest, pulling into your spine, go under your strap if that's feeling easy. Yeah, a couple of you.

Put your fingers under your strap and go farther forward on the front of your mat. Go, go crawl those seniors out. Yeah, squeeze the stomach. Squeeze the stomach. Roll yourself back up. That's going to be plenty and rest for a second. Okay. We're going to turn that into saw. So Youtube might want to stagger just a little bit on your mat.

[inaudible] you're good. It's all blades aren't really long. Okay, so saw invites the rotation. Let's do the same thing. Press your ankles out in the strap. You want to be able to feel some the switch on and the glutes there. All right, arms out to the side. You should see your hands in your peripheral vision. Let's rotate the trunk to your left.

Inhale now pinky finger to pinky toe, and I really want you to go pass that pinky toe. Are you pulling out on your strap? Key pulling out on the strap? It may help you slice off that pinky toe. Reach that back arm up, up, up, up, and then return to center. As you breathe in. Other side, rotate. So you're just rounding this fine. Reach to that pinky toe. Yep. Past it. Pull out on the strap, pull the back arm up and let's roll back up. Other side. Inhale, exhale as you round and reach to the pinky toe.

Inhale, return to the other side and exhale ropes. Hold that back arm up if you can. A little bit more. Used to be trace tricep. Three more, two more times. Exhale and reach sawing off the pinky toe. Pull out on the strap. It should be very taught last time. And exhale, rounding forward, pull out.

It's also going to help you stabilize your hips. You guys come back up to sitting tall and rest for a second. Okay, very nice. Now let's try a little rolling exercise. All right, and I think we're all have this go is use this in our hands. Okay, I'm going to try it. The first, the first loop. Why don't you try it in the first you're waiting. What should we do?

Okay, well we'll see. I've got to do it together. So we'll as if we've just rolled up, we're going to do roll up with the green strap. Okay. So as you're pulling out on the edge of the strap, again, round your spine. Get that good c curve taking. Inhale, we're going rolling back and here we go. I keep pulling into your center bone by bone. We're going down our spine, taking our arms back. Our ribs should stay flat. Now again, the stretch of the arms without the pop of the ribs.

Let's see what happens when we roll up. Arms, chin, chest. Exhale, pull out on the strap. Let the crown of your head follow that green strap. Inhale here. Exhale, pull back. I'm going to watch looking good so far. So as you take your arms back, I don't want to see the daylight underneath your spine. Yeah, good Norris and arms. Exhale, follow the strap up and over your legs. Reach, reach, reach, reach. Inhale. Exhale, roll back. So it's looking good.

Let's advance it just a little four more times going a tiny bit faster. That doesn't mean out of control. Roll Bet. Roll Up. [inaudible] roll back. Two more.

[inaudible] roll back. [inaudible] once more. Roll back. [inaudible] oh, right. Good. Great. All right guys, I want you to let go of this strap back there.

Bring your knees to your chest, eh? Yeah. Actually bring yourself up to sitting and you can tell them on the creative thought, even though we just did a little, a lot of rolling. We're going to do a little more because I need to have you try it with this. It's very fun, but in your feet I think again where they were for spine stretch forward. So one I got, yeah, I have one in the second loop and one in the first loop.

It's a little wacky. Open leg rocker with the loop. The green strap. Okay, so we've got a few different elements going on here. Strap is the, and the main distraction. Pull out on it. Pull out like you're trying to rip the loops out. Okay.

Now we'll do a lift and tall in your upper spine. Curl your lower spine a little bit, right Barbara? Good. Okay. Now can you roll back just a couple inches back maybe or like that? Here we go. Rolling back. Cause again, we do want to get to our shoulder blades. I'm gonna Watch cause I need to see what to queue rest for just a second. Okay, so what's happening? Mind is going, oh my gosh, I've got this other thing to do.

It's hard enough without the strap when we do rolling or the rolling exercises openly rocker the ball. Some of us have that little hop in our low back, something like that or the hopefully exaggerating that. We're wanting to avoid that obviously to lengthen that spine and rule very smoothly through. Oh, I was going to have them demonstrate again. All right, so this distracted your focus on that because some of you that normally don't have that hop just had the hop. So try it again. I'm going to get out of your way. I'm going to walk around a little bit. Right.

Focus on pulling out. Think maybe you're not going to roll all the way back to your shoulders. Yeah. What if you just say, I'm only gonna roll to my low back. There you go. Just to the low back may help you not hop.

Breath is going to be essential. Inhale couple more. Well allowed on that strap. It will open up your back. Last one we've rolled to Galena. Okay. And you want to try another one? One more? Cause I know you, oh we fatigue might be setting in because you're normally not a hopper in that one. Just popped from okay. Food for thought. Right. Have you ever seen that before? Have you ever done? Yeah, I haven't done it in class before. I try it again some day.

It's kind of fun to play with. Uh, let's go ahead and just leave the strap away for right now. Okay. Do come over to your stomach skies. Head spacing in. Sure. And I want you to start with your legs together. Heels touching arms long by your sides.

Good feet, relax a little bit. Okay. So again, our basic flight position. Take a nice inhale through your nose here. Exhale, lift your back and she'll lift your back. Now there we are. That should be for all of you in this room. Feel easy because you've done this, most of you for a very long time. Uh, just a little chin down for Barbara, right? Okay. Give me some more unless you're not feeling, yeah. Okay. Now, lower yourself down, but try not to let the abdominal work fade. Exhale, as you go right back up, I want to see reach in your arms along your sides, which may allow you to elevate your back a little bit more or engage your back a little more. Feet should be down. Inhale, chest down and exhale, chest up. Let me see the region, the arms. Inhale down and exhaling up.

So we talked about posture when we are standing upright. All right, this is going to help for when you come back up, right? You've got a little more strength to stay up and not so rounded shouldered again, that's going to collapse those lungs who can't read efficiently. And one more time. Come up. Now stay right there with your very wide collarbone. Now we've done it before. Reach your right arm first of all, turn to your right shoulder. Look and look at it. Okay, now reach that right arm down your right side. It is going to put a side bend in your waist. I'm looking for that.

With your chest up. You'll probably feel this whole right side of your back and lower back. You're supposed to find center in you as you inhale and exhale as you come down. Inhale, prepare. Exhale, hover. Turn to your left as you inhale. Now let me see the reach.

Reach your left arm down from an aerial view. You've got this beautiful, almost like a candy cane shape that's being presented. Yeah. Inhale Center, and exhale as you come down. I'm going to do a couple with you. Inhale, prepare. Exhale. As we lift, inhale, look to the right shoulder. Can you see in your upward extension as you side bend, open the shoulders, good. Center in the inhale and exhale down.

Exhale and lift. Open the shoulders. Keep that right shoulder open as you turn to the left. We warmed up doing that. And then as you side bend left, keep that right shoulder open. Fire those lower back extensors. Inhale, come to center and exhale down. Now one last time, just come up to your hover.

Stay right there. Get high enough. Now Bend your elbows. Put your hands right underneath your shoulders. Okay. Let your elbows come down or your forms come down. And then just press up more to what we sometimes will say Cobra kind of a half lift. Now instead of having our ribs on the mat, lift those ribs up. I want to see no ribs down, no pelvis down. So lift and just hold that for me. Okay. More lift, more lift.

Yeah. Shoulder blade, no pelvis, no pelvis down. So can you, yeah, that's it. So it takes a great deal of strength in your core muscles. Now get more shoulders on your back. Yup. Legs together. Like together. That's right you guys. It's a good sense of lift. Lots of strength in your core.

Yes. Do you feel strong there? Yeah, we feel strong. Okay. And bring everything down and arrest. All right. So that's instead of our swan. That is a version of Swan. All right, so go ahead and come on up into all fours, hands underneath your shoulders, knees below your hip joints. Take a nice breath. Open up those hands or yes, you can go up on your fist. Most of you are seeing that as a little of a modification for wrist issues. All right, now on your exhale, let me see your tail in your lower back round and then probably the whole spine is going to follow suit, but focus on your low back vertebra coming up higher to the ceiling than your upper back, which is hard to do or upper back is going to do more of the mounding.

Now stay right there everybody. I'm shrug your shoulders. They don't need to be up. [inaudible] well it can't really bit in your mind. Yeah, good question. No, your lower back vertebra really can't be hired at the ceiling than your upper back if I've seen it. But that's something other, that's something interesting. Well, it's just an imbalanced spines. What that is, yeah, when we work with that too. Good question. All right, and then find a level. Inhale, exhale all round. I'm going to watch those shoulders. Stay on shrugged.

That's exciting to me to see you did all that good strap work with your shoulders. I think they might be tired. And then find level spine, easy shoulders. Once again, exhale. A new round your spine does. If you're bringing your pubic bone towards your forehead, your forehead towards your pubic bone, your spine up. And these are all my thoughts. You know, lift, lift, lift. All right, now as you flatten out your spine, go ahead and hold that flat spine and then extend one leg back, ball of the foot, second leg back and ball of the foot. Squeeze your bottom together a little bit. Lift your chest forward and up again. You don't have to be doing this. If your risks bother you, it can be on your fists. That one piece of steel from your head down to your heel.

That good old classical cube, shoulder blades, Elizabeth. Yes. Now you're balanced on your balls, the front foot centers, right? Transfer your weight to the left foot center and lift your right one [inaudible]. Nice work guys. Place that one down. Switch to the other side. Beautiful. Stand down. Bend your knees down to the Mat. Rest.

Okay, great. All right. I want to bring us back up to standing one last time. So here we go onto the floor again. How did it feel not to do the a hundred? I realize we didn't do the a hundred today. Delicious.

Can we do it again? Kind of did in our, in our, on our spirit. I think we did do the hundred while we were listening to the reading. Okay. So with the, with the balance work as your, we're going to do just a little bit of a on two feet first. Good. Yes. And if you need to stand closer to a wall, if you feel a little unsteady, you can, you can do that. That's okay. All right, so let's go back into the, the shifting weight to the F. Uh, one side. I'm going to go to my left.

You guys go to your right and then let's go ahead and just lift the other foot up. I'm also lifting my thigh. I'm not going to have you go too high. Don't go to where you feel like you can stay there. Okay, so often we, we, you know, we're down on the mat and we're doing all this delicious abdominal work and back work, but we come up to standing and we, you know, we're not, not as solid or connected. This can be just as much about your stomach muscles as the mat work is. This is your ab work right now. Okay, here we go.

And then place that foot down right underneath his hip. Let's go to the other side. So find the shift of the weight unweight the other leg again only to a place where you feel like you're going to sustain that for a bit. As you just found out, we know one side is maybe less stable, less balanced. We know that sometimes bring any abdominal focus in the lats down, a little more lift of the chest. We'll stabilize when we're down there. So put it up here. Good you guys.

And then stepping down, we'll do a little bit of a pace with it. Take a breath, exhale and lift one side, the first side. Inhale, step down without changing the height of your spine. Exhale to the other side. Ah, I feel like we're taking a very slow walk through the park and down. Transfer weight, good weight on that leg, and lift the other one and down.

Nice. Focus four more and lift. Inhale, lower 25% of effort, right? You still have 75% left for the rest of your day. The rest of your weekend. Stand with both feet down that way. Now, in weeks past, don't you think that was, did you feel better about it today then by watching the result of that? I'm going to say I agree. Today we've performed a little bit more balanced.

Okay. Could have been that we were up upright for a little longer, but all right, one more time. Rise up onto the balls of the feet. The front two foot centers. Once again, I'll bring the word ease into our mind. Can it be easy? Yeah.

Not as far as the skill level, but can you have ease in your posture and your breath lightness through your spine? Good work you guys. So when you lower your heels down to the floor, keep a sense of lightness. We didn't do any roll downs except for the roll on the Mat. We'll do one take an inhale here just to kind of put a period at the end of the sentence of our Polonius class today. Rounding forward, rolling this spine as he suggested in the book, and then unrolling the spine. So as you come up, roll your hip sender restack bone by bone, coming back up with a nice open sense of shoulder with and posture. Ah, [inaudible] we're done. Thanks you guys. Very good class today.