Class #737

Rotation and Extension Mat

60 min - Class
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Description

Take yourself deeper into your practice with this deliberate-paced Intermediate BASI Flow class. Featuring Thoracic Extension and Spinal Rotation. Enjoy!
What You'll Need: Mat

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Jun 15, 2012
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Wow. I'm so excited to have everyone here. Cool. Okay. Hold your legs and then just close your eyes for a minute and take a minute to just adjust yourself and breathe and read that. And as you sit with your eyes closed, just feel a release of whatever you need to release and an intake of whatever you feel that you need to intake to commit to your practice and your body. And then gently arise up forward through the spine energetically and use your arms for a bit of support there. And then what can we feel? The bones of the body, heaviness of the bones and not allow the muscles to be with the bones with the little least amount of tension and some support and a little bit of relaxation.

And you can open your eyes whenever you're ready. We're gonna inhale now and exhale just round the spine to keep the shoulders where they are. Don't back up. You're just bending the spine backwards and inhale to lift. So focusing here on the curvature of the lumbar spine, the pelvis will tilt up towards the tip of the nose. The lower spine rounds that upper spine will respond by rounding slightly and then we lifted in end. Don't be afraid to use your arms for support there.

And you do that two more times. How deeply can you go into the front of your body to release the musculature in the back of your body? It's a place where the majority of us, I think everyone in here has a bit tight marina. Just keep the shoulders relaxed. Yup. Yup. So maybe there's a little downward pressure on the shoulder areas we curve and left. I'm gonna take it a little lower now. So rounding back, feel the abdominals drawback. Find that curvature first and then begin to straighten your arms as the arm straight and keep pushing into the legs with the hands and just bend backwards.

Bowing the spine, reaching the lower spine into the mat. Once you touch your belly button to the mat, take a breath. As you exhale, start to curl inwards on yourself. Yeah, a little inward pressure on the arms. Find the backs of the legs and lift the spine and inhale, exhale, feeling the spine bend first. Then continuing that depth through the abdominals. A little inward pressure on the arms, not a lot of tension in the neck or shoulders.

Feel the belly button connect to the mat. Inhale and exhale. Feel the folding inwards so it's not ever just an up and down movement. It's a rounding movement. And one more time. Rounding back, there's mobilizing the spine here, reaching, reaching, looking in your own body for depth. Pause and breathe in. Breathe out and come up. Okay. And then lifting the spine, using the arms.

Take the hand for this away from me and reach around towards that front leg. I'm gonna do this in rotation. We're going to curl back and you don't have to use your arms if you don't want to, but sometimes I feel like giving yourself a little support will enable you to feel more work or better work. In Hilton. Pause. Xcel took curl through the spine. Lift tall and rotation. We're going to do that two more times. Xcel to curl backwards. Um, maybe take a look at your hip joints and make sure that they're both facing upwards and they're both level and in here.

And exhale we bend inwards and just a little bit of support, bending the arms and lifting the spine tall. And one more time. Rounding back. We're going to move a little quicker soon. So just use this opportunity to get your body nice and ready for that transfer to the other side. Feel a slight pressure. I like your top Caroline curling backwards, reaching backwards, feeling depth in Hilton path XL to reach out. So another thing that you could think about as you do this movement two more times is the pressure downward with your feet.

And perhaps a slight pull back through the heels. Just looking for the backs of the legs. Inhaling hold, excelling list. And one more time. Rounding backwards. Feel the heaviness of the shoulders. Nice Nicole. Keep talking the pelvis, tucking the pelvis. That's it. That's lovely. And um, and we sit tall and we return to center. Reach the arms forward, round back. If you need to, hold on with one arm, you should.

But we're going to take the arm closest to me and reach back and reach forward and lift and take the arms out and exhale. Push the arms back through space curling down. Find that lower back area. Reach the arm furthest away from me, out and back, and exhale and back. Extension and curling nams are pressing the ams for it. As the spine begins to bend the fingers in the abdominals.

Reach in opposite directions. Reach Open, close the position and come up. Taking the arms wide and push the arms back and reach open. Anchoring the feet into the floor. Reach back, curl in, curl in, and just nice and light through that spine as you reach up. One more time to eat side. Exhale, open, nice and wide. Follow the hand with the eyes. Come back to center, maybe in Hilton pause and not given breathing cues, but will know how to breathe, right? We just breathe. Exhale, oh can that and poured and exhale down. So if I were to give some breathing choices, I would inhale now and exhale back.

Anything healed up. Pause somewhere in there and curl. And then lift and turn the palms up and just little presses back with the fence back and back. And as those arms lightly press fill that you're building your spine taller and taller and taller, and take the arms forward and scoot your feet nice and close to your body. You touch yourself on your feet. Try to keep touching yourself on your feet as you roll down onto your back.

It's not easy. Yeah. So when you get to your shoulder blade area, make sure you can just still reach some marina. Your feet need to be a little closer to you, maybe a little closer, still reach for your ankles. That's it. And every, uh, all the way down. I'm just gonna move forward all the way down for a pelvic curl. So if we were to lift up into a chest lift, we could touch our own Ingels arms. Press down, breathe in, prepare, breathe out. As you flatten the spine, continue rolling through the spine there, tucking the tailbone as you left, reaching into us vertical line or a slanted line between the shoulders and the knees. Any alta paths and XL, we send the chest through the arms, press the arms actively backwards as the chest falls down, feel the middle of the spine rounding.

Focus on the deep curvature of the lower spine and release the pelvis all the way to the mat. And again, the first, that initial movement, that's pure abdominals. Then the legs have to kick in. Let's work them both evenly. So we all have a strong side and not to the strong side. Let's think about that and try to find balance and curling down. Feeling the length in the arms, feeling the neck lengthening in the opposite direction, taking the tailbone to the ground and again, exhaling to list that feeling that their ribs are below the pelvis in space. Good.

Come down with your middle back, a marina just a Smidge, just yet perfect and down all the way. And we're going to go up one more time to hold. So here we go. Lifting out. Feel a sense of the knees going forward, forward towards one another. And then say there we're going to lift the left leg up into the, what is the shoulder bridge prep? Tap the left toes on the ground without changing the pelvis and pull back and just let the foot relax. It's doesn't have to point or grip or anything.

Just shifting from the hip, excelling as the leg lifts. Inhale is the lake taps excelling as I like lifts. This is our last one and now keeping the leg where it is, we're going to peel the back down, try to land through the center of the spine, keep equal weight on the arms and release the pelvis down to the floor and then flats in the spine so the pelvis lifts off the Mat, roll up, working through that supporting lane, pausing to inhale. Exhaling as you roll down, releasing the pelvis and exhale into roll back up. So the light that's in the air, it doesn't really change much.

It just comes along for the ride. Let's do it one more time. Rounding Down Beautiful and rolling back up and from their place that left foot down, we're going to come halfway down. Let's say about the bottom of the ribs. A bottom of the rooms was almost all the way down the back, which is deep in the tucked pelvis. There are the flection of the spine roll back up, finding the weight on the left way a ribs down, just a little Nicole, that's it. And then we lift the right leg up and tip the mat and XLT, just float it back up.

So there was not a great deal going on in terms of gripping in the leg musculature on the way on. Maybe we push it down a little last time and now we'd have three pelvic curls. We p of the spine down. Remember to equalize the weight on your arms to keep the knees parallel to one another. Dr. Paul. This all the way down rolled back up hold at the top. Exhale as you articulate the spine down, feel as though you're creating space between the bones and your spine.

And again, look for the center of the spine rolling up, looking for the center of the spine there as well. And here's our last. When we heal the body down, feeling the length in the neck, the length in the arms, lifting back up, place the right foot down, lift, leveling out the pelvis. And from there just roll yourself all the way to the ground. Nice and controlled. From there as the pelvis touches, we lift one leg from the center of the body with control and then bring the other leg up to meet the legs together. Arms out to the side or in a Low v shape. You just see where you have space.

Take both knees towards me, breathe in, take both knees to center. As you breathe out, take both knees away, breathe in, and breathe out and breathe in. So feel here that as you come back, you're trying to get the ribs down first and then the pelvis slides back and inhale as you cross the other side. We're gonna try to keep the knees together so it might limit your movements on and that's, that's okay. And back and inhale my style. And we're just gonna do that one more time.

Inhaling across keeping the arms nice and long. Exhale and to come back. Inhaling across and exhaling to come back. Please. One foot down at a time. As you do so, reach back and place your hands behind your head fully interlock your fingers. Take a breath into prepare. Feel as you start lifting your head and chest. The folding action coming from below the rib cage, curling the head and chest up. Anchoring the pelvis down. Pause here.

Flex the lower spine flat in the back into the mat. Lift the pelvis just off the mat. Release the pelvis back to the mat. Try to curl into the pelvis a little bit with your energy and then lengthen the spine down to the mat. So what? How do we breathe? Let's exhale to lift. Blow up all the air in to flex the spine. Can we inhale and draw in?

Exhale to pull the pelvis down and intensify the lift. We'll anything else? A pause and exhale. Feel length, feel stretching. Action. But a working contraction. Xcel to lift again in Hilton flexis by flattening the Sli, keeping the head heavy in the hands. Inhale as the pelvis goes down, we've just mobilized the can we lift the body higher. Inhale, Fluor full pause. Exhale to come down and coming up again.

Exhale to lift him and change it a little bit at the top, no movement in the pelvis. This time, reach the hands behind the thighs instead and guide yourself into that little extra flection action so you're all the way up off the shoulder blades. Lovely. Let go. Take one hand on top of the other. Reach just outside of the knee just outside of that outer knee and center. Inhale, as you reach across, you're not going super wide. It's just a small diagonal contraction up in, across and Xcel to center and up and across and XL to center.

Thinking about the levelness, this stillness in the pelvis, India and XL center. Nice heavy feet and XL center. We're going to let the arms separate. We're going to reach back and take the body all the way down the feet. Stay on the ground. Inhale, prepare, exhale to cruel. The head and chest back up.

Allow the hands to find the backsides of the leg was once again curl just a little bit forward. That same action is going to happen again. But with the hands behind the head, this time in healing, prepare, rotate up and across. Exhale and inhale to center and exhale and inhale to center. One more time like that up in, across and center. Up and across. I'm changing. Find Center, lift the leg that you're turning to and reach past it with the arm and put it down. Center and reach up and across. And we're each good and center.

So just like the pelvic crow, we've got that nice light leg being lifted from the center of the body, reaching across and come center and one more and come center. And this is it. Finding Center and Linkedin the spine to the mat. Picking up one leg, picking up the other leg. Take the arms first just above the shoulders into towards the ceiling. And then pressing the bottom side of the ribcage down.

We take the arms overhead from there, lifts ahead in the arms so the arms are going to reach straight up to the ceiling first and then allow the arms to follow through. So we'd get the, the, the flection first. And now lift the arms and take the whole body back again. Floating the arms to the ceiling, allowing the head to come with you. Push down on the arms and look for more. Inhale, lift the arms and let the body go back as the arms reach back two more times. Exhale to lift up an annual arms and spine as the head and chest. Lift the head, his head frame just between the arms and then we follow through with the arms pausing here. Stretch the legs out, take a breath in and exhale for the 103 four, five and one and two two you can put your head down if you need to.

You can bend your knees if you need to. If you want it to be harder, you can lower your legs. There's all sorts of options. Just look after yourself. Here's number five, two, three, four, five, seven and now let's all Xcel and Ben. Two, three, four or five and push. Inhale and exhale. Bend two, three, four or five and push. Breathe in. And two more like that and push. And last time I don't push.

And then Denise, set the feet down, stretch the legs out, and take your arms back red, and then breathe to lift the head and chest up. And as you breathe out, anchor the legs into the ground and curl through your spine. Reaching forward. Take a breath. Exhale. We're gonna curl back. So take the keep reaching the arms forward. As you look for that depth, that rounded curvature of the lower spine. Reach all the way down. Start to lift the arms. If you want a challenge, they'll let the head in the arms. Go down to the mat.

Breathe in as you lift the head and chest. Breathe out as you curl. So inhale at the top. Exhale as you bend your way down. Lots of us have trouble with this exercise and here's a way to help yourself. If you feel that you get stuck, you come to the place where you feel that you're stuck, you hold on, you help yourself through the sticky spot and let go and you're there. And now go down again, reaching, reaching, reaching. Just one more please. Lifting on.

Nice Nicole. Beautiful reaching all the way over this time. Oh the we over. Give yourself a little bit of a stretch forward. Let the arms go, reaching past or wherever you can reach, and now we'll start to pull back. How much can you pull back with your abs without actually moving your arms yet and then continue to pull back with the asthma. Reach the arms forward. Eventually they'll have to come with you. Yeah, get the low back all the way down onto the mat, but stay lifted up off the shoulders. Nice Marina. Go a little lower, a little lower still right there. Bend the left knee. Stretch the left leg to the ceiling. Put the arms down.

Use your arms like there's a grip on your mat and you're pulling yourself into that. Curl a circle into the body and up. Let's exhale now, so allow those arms to help you lift and inhale and exhale. We're going to reverse the circle now. If you need to put your head down, please do just a little harder on the obs up here and circle and control can pressing through that stabilizing Lang. One more breath cycle. Last time, grab your leg, walk your hands up your leg. Maybe Caroline, you want to hold the back of your leg? I don't know. You'll look after your tasks. Just bring it with you as you come down. And then bend the knee.

Just allow the knee to relax a little and then lengthen the leg up. So here's the idea here, or my idea. Let's just let the knees soften and then without a great deal of pushing from the front of the leg, allow the femur bone to drop deeper towards the Mat and just see if you can ease yourself into this stretch. You and Nicole are experiencing a California earthquake here. I'm with you, Nicole. You're not alone. And one more. And then let's bend that knee. Take the opposite hand. Switzer right hand left outside thigh.

Just give yourself a twist. So looking over the left hand shoulder as you bring your right left knee towards the ground. Enjoy. Come back to center. Allow that light to stretch out. Let's come all the way up again, just finding that, yup, that sticky spot help if you need it, stretch all the way forward. Just like we did before, reaching the arms out. So don't Dun, don't lift the shoulders to take the arms for forward, but take the spine forward to take the spine forward. Oh, that was a duplicate. Let's roll back and reaching the arms, reaching the arms, trying to keep the arms where they are as you roll back. And then as you come down through the lower back, put your hands down, hold yourself up with your hands, bend your other knee and stretch it up.

And then it's just a gentle circle. Feeling the movement that occurs naturally in the hip joint and exhale and inhale. Um, last one, pull up. That's it. And last breath, I had said that, but here we go again. Rivers seemed to be saying things more than once tonight and swing cat. So it's a almost a drop cat sort of a feeling, allowing for some freedom. One more breath cycle and, and again, and now we just catch the leg, hold it where it's comfortable for you. Maybe just not right behind the kneecap, like behind the fire on or just over the knee.

And then bring it with you gently as you put your head back down. And then we're going to just soften the knee. This is for you, Maria, and stretch the leg back over the body and soften the knee and feel that it's not just a push of the leg, but it's a dropping, a relaxing into the hip joint to allow that needs to lightly extent. I think we did one more inhale and exhale. Yeah. And then allow that need to fully bend and hold onto it with your left hand, right arm out to the side to counterbalance.

Look over the right shoulder as the right knee comes across the body towards the floor coming through center. I'm going to hold the backs of the legs, both of them. So the bottom line is going to come up and curl your head in, chest done, and then just keep that shape as consistent as possible as you just rock back and forth over your lower spy. So what do we need to do that? It's pretty Abby, if that's a word that's rock all the way out and narrow the ball for the rural. Rolling, likable. So we hold on to the ankles. If you have a tough time with rolling a ball, rolling like a ball, keep it bigger. Here we go. Deepen the abdominals. Use that depth to just pull the body off balance, rocking it back, and then roll up and use the depth in the rounded position to find your balance.

And back and I and back. Try to avoid kicking the feet. Try to keep the leg the entire position consistent and back. How about one more time? Reaching back and reaching forward and then placing the feet down.

Let's stretch them out all the way. Press the backs of the knees down into the mat. Sit Up Nice and straight. Reach the arms forward and inhale. Lift the chest a little bit, marina. And here we go. Allow the head to go forward first. Can we curve the spine down before we start to take it forward? And then reaching out through the spine again, the body moves forward, but the shoulders pull back. Inhale to pause.

And exhale as you just build your spine right on top of your pelvis. Nice and easy. And Caroline, you're doing a little ruby thing. I probably am too. And inhale and feel the rounding first, the ribs drying backwards, so that's like a chest lift. And then we take the chest lift deeper and then we start to take the spine forward and inhale. And as you exhale, just begin building the lower spine stacks over the pelvis. The rib cage comes up over that and then we lift. Nice. Oh, you're leaning back just a little bit, marina. That's good.

Let's do one more rounding down. So how much can you make this at an habit exercise and then find some ease and come all the way out. And this time just lift the arms, take them open, bring them forward and round forward. We're going to add some back extension here. So let's take the tailbone back. Start to send the spine forward on the diagonal, reaching the arms up into the years length in the spine.

Forward dive all the way back down and round your spine to come sitting tall in here. Exhale, the arms will end just in front of the shoulders. We take the body forward first, reaching out, feel the length of the spine is this fine, goes forward on the diagonal, looking down between the arms, just lift your head a little depth. That's it. Take it all the way back forward and come all the way back up. But Alice, you're too warm and rounding down. Let's just remind ourselves self to take responsibility for creating our most best, bestest, most challenged within our own selves and reached down and Rola and last one and take it down.

We're going to lengthen up and then we're just going to let the arms fall and hold wherever they land. Use your arms to pull your back straighter and now just let the arms float back up. Nice and easy. Keep the head headstones and just little pulses back with the arms as the arms reach back. Take the spine on the diagonal forward and reach and reach and reach and drop the arms again and give yourself a little bit of help and then support that and then let go. But just take the arms out stray. Then the arm towards me closest to me in reach, the opposite arm forward. So we do a little forward rotation and come back to center and bend and reach.

So as you go through that rotation, create some energy in the back of the shoulder, but also remember that any rotational work is coming from the center of the body. Nice. Keeping the feet absolutely still reaching out and coming back and reaching out and coming back. Last time. Pull, push and back and pull. Push and back and then just sit up. And how easy is that? Hands behind your head. Step your feet together, lifting up nice and straight through the spine. Good. And let's just turn the double twist. Exhale, go further and center, double XL, double twist.

Try to erase any sensation of bouncing into the movement, but instead find a challenging position for yourself. And then look for more and center and turn and center. And perhaps on that second exhale we go taller instead of further or maybe we do both. And again, exhaling and finding center. Watch the shifting of the fee. The movement's a little smaller, but the stability is important as well. And reach and find center and lift the arms and take the arms around in a circular motion. Lean back and put your hands down.

And we've got a nice straight back here. Good, good start anchoring through the backs of the legs. We're going to come up into the back support. So we pushed down on the legs, just floating the pelvis up, reaching the tips of the toes into the ground and then keep lifting up off the ground. Energetically. The hips just reach and tap my shoulders. Nicole. Ana, the feet help if you can push your feet down. Caroline, you could bend your knees maybe. Yeah. So, um, this is can be done. You guys do what you wish, um, straight like this is perfect, but if we have nice stuff or calf stuff or it's just too hard, do it with bent knees and then just keep the spine straight on the way up in the way down. And um, and uh, and then let's take the hands around to the knees. Then the knees, if they're not been to already. Is that as hot down there as it is up here? Start curling down once you get just behind your pelvis. Kind of like a big, big rolling like a ball. Float the toes up, but try not to let the stomach poke out when you do it and then start to just shift nice and easy just to the tips of the shoulder blades.

Nice. We're going to do the double leg stretch. We take the arms out and the legs out and then circle around and in who we reach and as your arms come to your knees, hold the knees and pull. So we take a little bit of arm support there. A little bit of back work, Murray reach and pull round and easy and controlled. Not that it feels easy, right? Let's try and make it look easy.

Holiday should never feel super easy, but can it be, I don't know. Now I'm just talking in circles. I'm gonna stop talking now except to say exhale now and reach. Feel the length in the stretch and exhale and range and exhale and hold yourself there. Stretch your right leg out. Put both hands on your left knee, look at the toes. They want to be on a straight line with one another. Good. And now change. And the legs are kind of like a mechanical or a machine.

They just pass one another by in space and they hit that bulls-eye position and reach and her reach. And again, I'm using my arms to push down on my knee. So you make it a full body exercise and not just an AB exercise. We get a little back work in there, drawing the knee in towards the body from the center of the body. And one more. Here comes the crisscross hands behind the head. Reach across and across and up to go over and over.

And we're going to do five and then we're going to change it all. Nice. Last one. And then we do the same thing we did with the arm before. Reach across the knee and change. So use that, that freedom that the arm gives you to give yourself a little bit more range of motion. How about two more? And here's our last one. Reaching and reaching. Bring yourself into center, put your head down and bring your knees towards your body for just a moment. And then allow the knees to go back away from the body into a tabletop position.

Setting the legs out on a low diagonal. Lift them up to vertical. And as you exhale, we'll roll yourself over. Reaching up in over. Nice. Yup, Yup, Yup. And then you're gonna flex your feet and just reach to your heels and just slowly reaching through the feet. Roll down using the abdomen you have. And then the legs.

Oh, I forgot to separate them, didn't I? Just yet? I didn't cue that. That's okay. So they go here and then up and then just rounding yourself over. That's perfect. Separate the feet, not super wide, just about shoulder distance apart and then reaching through the heels as you bend your way down. Circle to attach and lift and over Nina. Nice. Nicole, I saw you super willing down. Keith likes a part of they love or bring them together in touch. Let's go.

Last one together. Xcel to reach up and over email to flex and separate and exhale to roll down. Healing the articulation of the spy. Some point circle around touch and bend. Turn onto your side. I'm up onto your hand crossing the top leg over the bottom leg and do some twisting or some side bending first. Anyway. Okay, so this can be done on your elbow should you wish to or you can keep your arm straight. Oh, might not go quite so far back, Deb.

Maybe just forward towards me a little by behind yourself. Okay. And the other arm is down. Straight down to the side. We're going to reach with the waist and the legs and lift to a straight line. So here your [inaudible] nice and straight and strong. And then we're going to make our rainbow lifting up through the lower waist.

Take just the eyes down and reach the top arm overhead. As you inhale, come back to that laser beam position a little lower with the pelvis right there. Bend your knees and move away from your arm. You can do it on your elbow. It's perfectly fine. Inhale at Xs. We are each or each reach creating that Nice, beautiful bend. Inhale down and bent, Huh? Eh, a little bit lower there and now and now Ben. So let's do that a little bit. Uh, I'm going to change it a little bit with my cuing. Not a lot.

Find the position first. Keep the arm now. Don't move the arm yet. Move the body, body, body, body, body, body, nice and height. And then the arm. So the, the, the biggest action in his is in that side bend and all way down. Scoot your feet a little closer to you. Hold on to that ankle or open up, whatever makes more sense to you. [inaudible] that you are balancing on. Reach over and then just do a little flamingo action with that rest.

Yeah. And then let's come all the way down to the elbow, keeping the bottom knee bent today, lifting up through the waistline. Take that top leg out and then reach it away from you. So much, so, so much energy outward that you're light on that elbow. Flex the Fi am a stuttering mess today, but your hand behind your head, good and swing the leg forward and point and reach it back. Can we keep the body super stone?

That's the ultimate goal that just presses into the hands. Exhaling forward and inhaling to reach. Exhaling forward. Lift up to that lower waist marina and reach and back and right and back, right. I'm back to more reach and hold it at the background as your little hot potato act and we're going to go down once, up in, down, forward, once up in, back, stop. Go down, up, down, up. Sorry. Late forward, down, up, down, up and back. And three, two, one. Lift it up and bring it forward. Three to lift it up and bring it back. Four, three, two, up and back. One and four.

Three, two, uh, bend back. Last set, five for Marina. Watch that lower waist. That's it. That's it. And up and forward. And Five, four, three to reach all the way up. Take the arm off the head and [inaudible]. Bring it around in front of you. Set it down on the mat with a straight on. So one elbows bent, one arm straight. Use your arms as the foot can.

Just rest there for a minute to help yourself. Turn a little right under a nice stretch and nice rotation through the body. Now squeeze that bat gluten. Lift the leg off the ground again. Push it backwards. It's backwards fits. Kathy. Just bend a little and work your butt good. Use your arms.

Help yourself into back extension. Sight, back, extension three, two, one. Let's come back to center with the leg. Take it across the other knee. Your hand on it. Push it away. Yeah. [inaudible] and play around with the stretch. I mean it might feel better for you to lean a little forward or back or whatever. Just make this stretch happen. Well and then just help yourself out.

Take that top leg and bring it around to the side and do a little mermaid. So we have like a figure four position. Has the formation arms your sides. Good. And um, yeah, you guys go this way. You guys go that way. Here we go. So you go that way. Yeah. Put your hand down gentle and now feel a flection in the spine, which they arm around towards the other arm. Staying there. Keep the abdominals working, but gently start to bend. The upper spine forward, going into a little bit of thoracic extension.

Refold re round the lower spine, open the arm back out to the side, looking forward. And now lift taking the opposite arm up so it's kind of like a windmill there. And then we just reach over and then we wind me all back up. Little easy in the arms, reach out, set the arm down, spiral the spine. Inhale as you guide your body into a little bit of thoracic extension.

Excelling as you re full. Enjoy the stretch open and up. When milling the bottom I'm up to go over this elbow can bend, can pull and let's do one more and [inaudible]. So squaring the shoulders with the hands and then easy and tobacco extension. I'm pushing my front foot into my back thigh to help me there. And then route and open all the way up and over [inaudible].

Okay, so just swing your legs around in front of you. Just like this. Take your arms behind you so you are going to lean back a fair amount. I might go to the window seal actually. Okay, so got the arms pretty far back, pretty far back. Yeah, that's going to be good. And then, and you can go to your elbows if you want to as well. So we lift the chest up even more down there, and we're going to go good and go the other way. Inhale as the leg shift.

Exhale as you pull them around and into your body, that's the important bit. And over and down and around and into the body. Lift the chest up and over and down and around and into the body and over and down and around and into the body. And now just come back just behind the tailbone. See how light you can be on your arms and you're reaching forward, reaching up, bend your knees, swing them to the other side for the side bend. Yes.

How long has it been since you've done hip circles? Hip circles prep. We did it with a straight, but I know anytime you hear something with a prep, that's really hard. Holy Moly. Maybe we should do the hip circles too. That'd be fun. Okay, so here we are, heading into the side bend. Yep. So you want to really focus on that bottom side waist and we're up on the inhale. Good. Squeeze your legs together. That's good and cold. Squeeze your bottom. Lift through the waist, and it's only the arm that follows through and the eyes that turn and then come back to that straight. That leads our beam.

Shape energy through the head and feet bend and go away from the arm. Keep reaching up off the shoulder and EMEA annex. How bend. Find the stretch. That's nice. Caroline. Looking down and coming back and going down. Oh, and just right back up. Nice. Stability, Maria.

Good shoulders and all the way reaching, reaching, reaching and finding straight and bending down. Here it is. This is it. Oh, all the way up. Feeling that arch and the spine get bigger every time and back and bend all the way down. Just scoot your feet a little closer to you. You can open them up if that makes more sense. The arm comes up, we lift up first into the air and then over and then we did a little flamingo risk. Yeah. Good.

Yeah, I was letting the rest move a little. All right. And then just down onto the elbow, keeping the bottom me bent. Do you have any doubt if you're sinking, just hold yourself up there, but you put your hand on and I'm not asking you to actually hold yourself up with your arm. Just feel that straight line. Go away from you so much with your leg that it's as though you could almost pick up the bottom arm. Here we go. We'd flex forward and we point back. The hand went behind the head. Good.

Marina Benja bottomed me a little closer to you. Yup. And then bring your the Shin of that knee towards the Mat. Yeah, that'll give you more support. Now I'm just going to wait for you. So we're all together and everyone to the back and forth for some had been fussy about being together in a long time. Let's do two more. Yeah. Watch that blower waist. Keep lifting up out of the shoulder and on my, Oh, here's our hot potato. We go down one time, up and down. One time, go up, go down and up. Two Times it's glute work up and across and to, to and all the way back. And three, think back, don't think high and up as three. Two, let the knee joint relax. And four, it doesn't mean I want you to bend your knee. It means I just don't want you to lock it or grip through it for two and back. And this is four or five, five, four all the way up and over. It's like picking up a whole log.

So I'm feeling for, and it is kind of all logged. Take the opposite. I'm not free. Arm forward. Use both arms. One arm pushes you back up into back extension the other, I'm the one on the ground, pulls you forward and then you find that rotation. Lift the back leg. Just a little backward pressure back and up, feeling that gluten feeling turning in the body. Keep the arms nice and act def. Nice work guys, here's our last four, last three, get longer in the spine and then bring that leg around the, set it down and push it away.

[inaudible] play around with that. You can bend into it. You can bin back from it and come up and unwind the legs. Okay, so this time everyone goes into the middle marine. I think you need to be this way. Perfect. Okay. And we're at, it's best that we can. In the perfect world, we'd be straight across in the pelvis. That's a perfect world. I don't know if that's the real world or not. Not For me. Anyway, exhale to reach all the way over now. Really deep abs, but allow the upper back to be easy and free and extent. That's an inhale. Rebend your low back. Open the arm. So here's an idea. I can reach over.

Let's just start thinking about what I was asking. How can we separate the lower spine rounding and the [inaudible] [inaudible] spine extending play with that idea. So we were curving for sure, but we don't really need to round through the chest to do that. And then you can stay round through the lower spine and just easily pull the upper spine up a little and then re round. But don't let the chest cave under just a little. You've got to make it little to make it happen. And then up and over, um, Deb, did we do three or four? Great.

Yes. Thank you for helping me. And all the way around. It's just easy on the arms there. Make it spinal movement. Maybe the hands pull back a little bit to assist and then curve and open and over. Okay, so the hips circles. All right. Okay.

So if you're in the hip circle, what we did was the prep, the hip, the actual hip circle, his body and legs in one direction. Arms go up and around and the legs go the other way and then you go and center. It's totally coordination. If you're not up for it, just go back to the prep, right where just the legs. We're circling, we're gonna do a prep prep. We'll, we've done the prep, we're going to do a second prep, and then we'll do the real deal. So lean back a little. You can also do it with Ben Knees. Okay. Maybe hold onto the legs for a minute and they don't have to be very high.

They can stay pretty low. Lean back a little. That's part of it. Let go. Take the legs to the right and the spine to the left and switch. Switch, switch, switch bent. Okay, so that's that rotational. And now we just, that was good. Now we just add arms and the arms circle up in the leg. Circle down. Okay, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm going to try and cue it as quickly as I can. So here we go. Let's go. Legs to the right, slide to the left.

Take the legs down, the arms up, rotate all the way around to the other side and find center. Go the same way all the way around and find center. Let's go the other way. Spine, legs go in opposite directions in the arms and the legs go in opposite directions. One more circling around. That's enough. Bend your knees. Open them out. You did well. It's super good.

You did great. Maybe you're acting all crazy now. Okay, so turn yourself so you're on your mat. You can put your hands back. You love this. Okay, so just nice straight arms. It's Kinda like the back support arm. So you want a good back and good arms. So a a hip opening action.

What I want you to try to do is push the knees towards the ground and allow the pelvis to lift up as a response is that the knees are still reaching open like a butterfly. And then we're going to just shift towards the FI. Lift your left hip up a little, just Maria. Yup. And back. Ah, that's all. Open the hips by pushing the knees down and the pelvis just kinda floats up from there. And then it just shifts towards the fee. Make it feel good. There's no rules.

The only rules is we've got to keep good shoulder stabilization and sit down. Knees down. Hello this up. For those of you who know, say chair work, it's like the hip opener on the chair. That feeling back and all the way down. Cross your ankles, roll over your feet and come onto your knees. All right, so waiting the hands. Feel here. Um, what pour out on your upper arms and then pull in on your lower arms.

Is that out in pull that I often talk about? And then just let your stomach and internal organs and everything just hang out towards the ground. Just feel the difference between that position and up. Suck all of that back in. Who said kitten? Someone said kittens. Um, Michelle, no. Anyway, it was a good cue. Take one leg out straight. Take the other leg out straight. Hold the straight body. Breathe in and breathe out. One no movement.

Breathe in and breathe out. Breathe in and breathe out. Breathe in again. As you exhale. Bend your right knee underneath. You. Don't change your upper body. Don't change your spine. Inhale back. Caroline, you could maybe talk a little and left me. Just slides in on the mat and right knee. Yeah, alternating.

And then strengthen the leg as it goes back to that straight leg. Superstrong and then under and then back and then under. And then back. One more. We're gonna drop the pelvis teensy bit. That's it. And Now Ben won the all the way to the ground, other knee all the way to the ground and sit back, bend the elbows, or reach the arms more forward. Well, it actually go all the way down on to our stomach for a moment.

Upper arms pretty close to the body, but farms just outside of them. Yeah. Good. Okay. Forehead down or just hovering. Now I want you to just engage lightly the legs, the backside of the legs and the apps and then feel as though you're trying to drag your elbows down towards the knees, not actually moving your arms. And so they'll move but they don't actually move on the mat. They just energetically drag. Okay. And now go forward with your spine. Go forward as far as you can.

As you pull back with your elbows and then just start to lift the heart. Feel the buoyancy there. It's beautiful work, Maureen. And not so much face looked down, but keep lifting the chest up. That's it. That's lovely. And then pull yourself longer. So they've got to go longer in both directions.

Had an legs and then we find that again and I'll try and say it better. So dominoes, draw up arms, don't push down, but, but pull back and make it light and make it come from the shoulder blades rather than the actual forearms. As you pulled backwards, go forwards with your energy and with your spine. And then once you're just hovering there, then the heart just starts to lift and it takes the spine. Yeah. Nice. Beautiful. You guys hand down. Let's do it again. Weight lift or drag back through the shoulders to take the spine forward, can we create more lane and then lifts the heart and hold that for a minute and then take a little bit of intensity out of it, but keep the position with a little bit at ease.

And now just float the arms. Just float them on. Take them over your head. Take them around to the science, then them and put them down and put your body down. So it's the breaststroke. Lift the body first in here. Lift the arms, continue inhaling. Stretch them out. One long inhale, but you could breathe it how you need to do. Exhale, the arms come back all the way to the sides.

They continue to bend as you continue to XL. And we're all the way down, kind of make it happen in one breath. I don't know. Lift the body up, slips the, I'm stretched them. That's all. Inhale, start. Exhaling. Now maybe you'll lift a little higher as the arms come around towards your waist. We been in the elbows and we lower the body on one more time. Inhale, lift the spine first. Feel the drag. Feel the lengthening contraction of the spinal muscles. Take the arms around to your sides. Bring them down and put them down.

And then just push off your forearms. Now do push down on your arms to lift your body up and sit back towards your feet. Okay. And then come back onto your hands and knees. So the last time we did, we held the spine still and we moved the hip and move the leg in the hip joint. Now we're gonna move with the spine a little. So find that strength, strong arm position.

Take a minute to feel the difference between just relaxing the stomach and deeply engaging it without actually changing the spine position there. Side, one leg straight, strengthen it, pushed back through it. Put the other leg out. Yeah, I mean that strong position. Lift the right leg lifted up without changing the body. Round your spine. Bring the knee close to the mat and in straight in the back. As you bring your leg back, we're going to do five.

Bring the round and Tuck with your move your pelvis, Nicole. So kind of like think it. Think knee, stretch, bend the spine and let the knee respond rather than pulling the needs around the spine. Two more. How low can you keep that bending knee and still round. Oh, and take it back and just bend and just bend. Take a little weight off your arms. Let's flip the arms over. Actually turn the fingers towards one another and just put some weight on the opposite side of the wrist.

Okay. Yeah. And put your palms ethnical. Just flip them over. Yeah, we're just doing a little stretch. Okay. Other side. So one leg than the other. So here's another wrist idea. Try to keep more weight in your center and in your legs. Then in your wrist, lift the left leg, bend the spine, drag the need just off the mat as you curl in and reach out and been in curl and, and ana, keeping the shoulder stable, curling in, and nice too.

One and putting the legs down. Let's bend the knees and once again, just slide back towards the thing. [inaudible]. Okay, coming back down on tour of dominoes. Oh yes, it's not exciting. Let me go. So what do I want here? I know arms out straight and then that same thing you did with the elbows or the shoulder blades do again, but with the straight arms. So just glide the shoulder blades back. We'll lift you some but not a lot. And then try to, so it's tempting to put pressure on the hands to lift up.

That downward pressure will actually hold you back. So, so now allow the energy to move into the spine and be light on the arms, but allow them to support you. And then list the left arm in the right leg and down. And then right, I'm in the left. I can so that they're pulling away from one another and down in reaching out, keeping the legs straight and down and down. And maybe keep the leg a little bit. Try to get the arm a little higher or lifting arm and down. That's where we get into our upper back extensors, which we need to have that so good. That's so good.

And Change. And now both arms down. Just hover the legs up two inches off the ground. Two inches. Keep the body really low. Now try to lift the arms high and now swim. Inhale alternating arms and legs. Keep the arms high in the legs. Low. Exhale.

Inhale. Exhale. One more breath. Exhale the rest. Come back up onto your feet. Sit back on your feet in rest position. Um, narrow knees or open knees, whatever feels better to you. I like to open my knees out sometimes.

So different stretch. And then let's come back onto the hands and knees. We're just going to do a cat stretch or two. So again, we, we play with the idea of separating the upper and lower segments of the spine here. Gently draw the shoulder blades down the back, push into the shins a little and curve the lower spine. So push into the shins and squeeze the backsides of the legs.

Hamstrings more than glutes is what I'm after. And the upper spinal round, it'll respond some, but it doesn't. You're not going into your biggest arc there. And then inhale straight, hold straight, hold the pelvis absolutely still and stretch out and forward. Almost like you're yawning, but just do the upper spine. Yeah, yeah. You're arching. And again, a gentle contraction through the hamstrings. Gentle press down through the shins. Curling it.

Got to use your abs here to make that happen and come back to center. Hold the pelvis steady and just take the upper spine so far forward that it starts to bend upwards almost on its own. Nice, nice and center. And last one, little pressure in the shins. Little squeeze through the backs of the legs, lots and lots of abs as the pelvis reaches forward towards the tip of the nose and then back and then Wong and then back and then go back and Tuck your toes under. Walk your hands back towards your knees, just going to push yourself over your feet. It's like, no. Um, and then we're going to go down at the heels and up with the hips down at the hills and up with the hips. And here I want you to let your knees bend and then to get, tried to get a feeling of relaxing the hip muscles so that the hip bone, that the thigh bone just goes upwards into the hip joint and rests there.

And then with that and a nice just gentle dominal contraction. Can you feel how the lower back softens and gets longer? Just breathe and then we're going to start to come up. I would keep my knees bent, start lifting. I'm might use my hands actually and put them on my knees.

And that was to protect my back. You don't have to, I just feel like it today, but I feel like I need, so that's where I'm going. If your back feels fragile, it's a good idea. And I feel really, really high up. I'm here so I'm coming onto the ground, but face me. Yeah, I mean almost done. Taking the arms out to the side in the left, the right arm. Take the left arm down and just reach the arm down the left arm down and reach the right arm up so there's pressure down that pole and then start to push with the right arm and pull up with it.

It's not really the arms that are pulling you up, it's the obliques, but I want us to be easy. We're at the end. Yeah, reach the right arm down. Try not to rotate in either direction and then take that top arm and push with it and that just helps you have gentle support through the waist. Feet, the right arm up. Again, hold onto it with your left hand and now pull on it. Push your pelvis the other way and I'll take the body all the way around and around in front of you, around to the other side and up and left wrist. Right hand. Push the pelvis to the left in the spine to the right and bend inwards.

He need your abs gently here, supporting, reaching around all the way up and down all the way. Just let the arms fall and then close your eyes again. Let the arms just be heavy and then just bend your knees. No, we're really, I want you to go except for into a really easy place and just do a little kind of Bouncy, bouncy thing there. I was feeling that. What side do you shift on and can you find your balance in the middle?

And then allow the arm, legs, legs to stretch and the answer. Reach up, you know, open your eyes or keep them close. Open the arms around to the sides. Let them just fall again and allow the knees to just soften, soften, soften. And we collect ease and stretch the legs and the arms reach up. That's it. Thanks for coming.

Comments

5 people like this.
My dear Meredith always here when I need her! I've awakened in my own bed for the first time in two weeks today after sleeping in a hospital sleeper chair at my father's side during what his dubbed his "long good bye party." Not only were you "here" with a new class but one that speaks to both the needs of my heart and my back. Abrazos.
Yay Nicole!
1 person likes this.
Lovely rotational work and happy to see some exercises I haven't seen in a long while, hip circles, etc.
Thank you!!
2 people like this.
Loved doing a lot of spinal rotations. Great pace! Going to put this class into my favorites!
Thank you everyone!!
Joni,
I'm sad to hear about your Dad but happy to be there for you anytime and anywhere!
Love you.
1 person likes this.
Great class! I miss you!!
1 person likes this.
Great Class thank you for the inspiration!
1 person likes this.
As if you had done this session exactly for me! Thanks from Germany,
1 person likes this.
I am a student working toward my certification and will teach this class to one of my friends.
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