Class #104

Mat Progress. Series 9/10

50 min - Class
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This is the 9th class in a series that takes the new student from Basic to intermediate Mat work. In this class we are taking the mat work to the next level, students learn how to use the Powerhouse while executing exercises on their stomachs. The Neck Roll, Single Leg Kick and Double Leg Kick are introduced to complete the Intermediate Mat Work Repertoire.
What You'll Need: Mat

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Feb 20, 2010
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All right, you guys can actually start lying to sitting down or lying down. Okay. That, but I would turn that way. There you go. Yeah. That way it'll be easier when we do our sidekicks. No, well it's always rolling, but until I like give the official he, he doesn't really start it. [inaudible] that's the mode, the movement.

I did notice that walking with my behind to the camera wasn't my best side. Oh, I don't mind the side view. The side view is obvious, but the like spread out, back view. Not really my best [inaudible] in the class here when you were talking the last time we did a class, can you give me straight on as possible? [inaudible] shots I had was [inaudible] yes. [inaudible] oh God. I don't know. Alright everybody. So today where you're going to add the rest of the exercises for the intermediate session and it's the hardest ones because we're going to be on our belly, um, for the last three exercises.

And if we just keep in mind about our pelvis, pelvic, uh, orientation as well as how we've linked in our legs from our powerhouse, then we should all be okay. So let's go ahead and lie down on your back. Good. And just have your knees bent and your feet flat on the mat and feel your spine right now. Are you able to get all of your back flat? Go ahead. Yeah, actually fine. I'm going to get two little towels here that just, so do you feel your back flat if not, try to start before you adjust your pelvis. I'm going to give you that and you can go ahead and I want you to instead of adjusting it and just rotating it, let's see how strong your powerhouse is. And if you drew a line from one hipbone across to the other, could you pull your belly button below that line and could you feel your waist also kind of pull in like you're in a corset?

The two are really important, not just that you pull in. Sometimes we spread out of the not. So pretty images though is like a jelly donut like you're pulling in, but you're spreading out this way. You want to pull in and pulling your waist as well. So see if he can feel that as well as your back stretching so that you're to get the small of your back on the mat.

And then if you can't do that while keeping your pelvis relaxed, then you can go ahead and rotate your pelvis like you're tipping that bolus soup towards your chest. Okay? All right, so we want to really focus on that pelvis. If you exaggerated now and tipped that bowl of soup towards your chest, go ahead and do that. Your back is really, really flat and it's a really easy to pull in your stomach. But if you tip the bowl of soup so it's towards your feet and a little mouse could crawl under your back. It can be a good back strategy, a good lower back stretch, but it's a very vulnerable position for your back. Okay. And your, it's very hard to support your back with your powerhouse and go ahead and tip that bowl of soup towards your chest. So we've said this kind of over and over again and let's go the other way.

Good. But now think about it. Imagine yourself instead of on your back. Imagine that your flipped over onto your belly. If you allowed your pelvis to do that, you would be pushing your two front hip bones into the mat and you'd be really significantly arching your lower back. Go ahead and tip that bowl of soup towards your chest. You're not in that position for too long. And again, let's tip it the other way.

So imagine if you were on your stomach, you'd actually be pushing your belly into the mat, which we don't want to be doing. And you'd be pushing these two hipbones deep into the mat and your lower back would be arched like it is right now. And so when you're doing an exercise on your stomach that would hurt your back if even if you didn't have a bad back, it would eventually aggravate it. So you want to still feel like you're pulling your powerhouse and using your glutes, your seat, your bottom to help work. When you're on your stuff, on your stomach, does that kind make sense? And how much your belly is pulling into your back.

You're not going to be able to have actually space underneath your belly on the floor, but you don't want to feel like you're pushing your belly into the mat. Okay? You just want to feel like you've, you actually have awareness. Oh, I can pull my stomach into my back. Even when you're flipped over. Let's add the legs here. Let's go ahead and use your powerhouse to bring your right knee into your chest. Good. And then extend that leg up and give it a good stretch.

And you're always turning it out from your hip bone. Put your hands behind your thigh or your calf, but just not your knee. Not like that because that's a real vulnerable position. Um, place on your leg. Good. And you're sinking your belly down. Good. And now keep your hips square and straight across and you're going to put your hands either on your hip bones are flat on the mat and reach that leg long up to the ceiling. Beautiful. That navel is sinking down a little bit more for me, Jennifer. There you go. Good. And now reaching down the middle of your body.

Let's start reaching that leg away. Just hold it a little higher. And Marie, perfect little lower. Let's get those thighs even pull this leg in a little bit and just to thighs even. There we go. Good. No energy in those toes. All the energy is in that thigh. Reaching out at from that sinking navel. There we go. That's nice.

And then you can lower it down a little bit lower so that the leg is about mid calf on your left leg. Good. So right now let's try to scoop in that belly a little bit more. Pull your belly away from me, Jennifer. Pull your belly away from me. Good. That's it. Nice. So your stomach is sinking and your leg is really lengthening away.

Maybe lower it down just a bit more. And as you do it, make sure, obviously your back is flat, but see if you can feel that right cheeks squeeze and see if you can feel the back of that right side, that hamstring a little bit. Those are the muscles you're going to be using when you're on your belly is the bottom and the hamstring. You'll be stretching the front of your thigh, but you'll be using the back of your leg. And you can only do that if you keep your powerhouse scooped in like you are and a good orientation of your pelvis and keep reaching that leg long and bring it all the way up to the ceiling. Hug that knee into your chest, place that foot down, and let's just feel it on your left leg also. So using your powerhouse, pull that left knee in towards you. Good, very good. Paris, hug it and then extend the leg up to the ceiling and you're already wanting to engage that left cheek and outer thigh and inner thigh by turning the leg out from your powerhouse and then press your arms down by your side that like reaches long.

And we're going to start lowering that leg as you stay scooped in that belly. That's it. Try not to use the back of your knee. That's you. Don't want to hyperextend. You want to use the back of your leg, the back of the thigh, the bottom good. Hold it so that the thighs are even, and then go down to mid calf reaching out. But even as you lower that leg, it doesn't change. We're going to go down and mid calf doesn't change that pelvis.

You feel that control from the powerhouse and lower just a little bit more. If you can keep feeling that bottom and the back of your leg and you're reaching long. Good. Good job with the powerhouse. And Go ahead and lengthen that leg up to the ceiling. Hug that knee into your chest. Good. All right, and place that foot down. So you want to think of all the exercises that we're about to do as preparing you for the ones that are on your stomach. Okay, so we're going to start off with your hundred.

We're gonna use your powerhouse to bring your knees into your chest. Give him a hug and also your head comes up, long arms by your side. Keep using that power house to pull those knees in and then extend the legs without changing that pelvis and pump. Inhale, two, three, four, five. Exhale, two, three, four, five. Imagine you have that magic circle between those ankles member. We had that magic circle.

It was to help you feel those outer thighs and seat good in with the air. And exhale. Now try to tip your bowl of soup a little bit more towards you. Tip those hipbones. Feel that powerhouse a little bit more, more and more and more and more and more. There we go and keep pumping. We're at 50 x Haley, so sometimes all we do is focus on that powerhouse during the a hundred which is most important, but also try to feel those outer thighs.

Try to feel that seat so that we can really prepare for the exercises on your belly. One more time, try to squeeze from the back of your thighs. My hand between here, nope. Don't have so much light there. And Hug your knees into your chest. Use those legs to sit right up into a sitting position. Feet on the mat. Good and hands right under your knees.

So legs are together on this one and we're going to start off with the rollback. So one hand underneath each. We will leave our legs where they are and we're going to round your back and head to your chest and you're squeezing as you roll down, squeezing those legs together and head to your chest and roll back up. Good, very nice. And let's work this one together. Scoop, scoop, scoop. There we go. Staying right there. All right, and squeeze your seat and we're going to roll back your lower back. Really squeeze in that bottom waistband. Middle Back, upper back.

Head goes down. Inhale, lift your head up and exhale scooping in that naval and really try to feel your bottom squeezing. Good. And one more like that. And squeeze your seat. We're doing the roll back so you can get that lower back down first. Good. I'm able to use that mirror to see if you're getting that lower back down and inhale, lift your head. How long can you keep your waistband on the mat? You want to keep it down as long as you can.

Now stay up and curved and straighten your legs on the map. Let's do three more with the legs hurt together and in Pilati stance from your hips and try to get your exactly work that seat. Rotate under a little bit more and you can reach your arms up to the ceiling and then exhale. Inhale, head comes up and exhale, curl the rest up. You can use your legs on the side if you want. I mean your hands on the side of your thighs and rolling back.

You want to feel like you're pulling a heavy weight back with your powerhouse. Good. Exhaling the rest of the way down. And let's do two more. Inhale as you start the motion. Exhale to really come up. Good. When you that extra bit of energy, use your breath.

Inhale to start and exhale to really roll. Roll, roll down and we'll do one more inhale to start. And as you're coming up, you're going to need that extra bit of force. So exhale all your air and pull those ribs into your lungs. Stretch forward. Good and rolling back. Inhale, rolling back, squeezing the seat, thinking about that pelvis. Good. And Rolling back. If you need to slide back onto the mat a little bit.

Do so we're going to do single leg circles, so with the knees a little bit bent, hugging your right knee to your chest. Excellent. Straighten that leg up to the ceiling and stretch it again real fast. We're very stretched so you don't really need an extra stretch. And then arms go down by your side or on your hip bones. And we're going to use your powerhouse, okay. To pull that leg up to your nose, cross the body around and up.

And it's a nice quick motion. So it's cross around, up, cross around, up. You're trying to really keep the like free one more and hold reverse down around, up. Good. Down around, up. So you don't want that pelvis moving. It's being held still by your powerhouse, but you really want to aim for here too. That's it. One more time. Nice. And hugging your knee to your chest. Good. Let's do the other leg, right leg down, left knee in, and give it a hug. And then straighten that leg up to the ceiling. Stand and stretch it again. Good and arms by your side on the mat or on your hipbones and pulling it up with your powerhouse to your nose.

Cross to that right shoulder around in a cross around a good length of that leg away from you. Two, three more. Cross around, up. Good. Sinking that powerhouse. One more. Cross around and reverse down, around and up. Good. Down around. Really sinking in the powerhouse. Two more against trying to pull in that waste, anchoring that power house and hug your knee into your chest. All right, place that foot down on the mat and use your powerhouse to sit up.

We're going to do rolling like a ball, so almost like the roll back, but we're gonna take our legs with us. So lift your bottoms forward to your heels. Is your hands to lift forward. There you go and hold either underneath your knees for the first three or you can go right to holding on your ankles, but balanced with your feet up. Good. Now keep your legs a little closer together. Yeah, and we're going to really pull your hip bones away from your thighs, supporting yourself just a little bit with your lower back. That's excellent.

That's what I wanted to see. So Jennifer, if you want to hold onto your ankles, you want to keep your ankles close your seat. If you want a lot of distance and you can put your hands underneath your knees, but if it's going to be on your ankles, then the reason we put them there is to hug those ankles to your bottom. Now it has to be tighter and now you really have to work on your backstage super round, so head to your chest and your head's trying to stay between your knees. Good. And pull your powerhouse away from your thighs. Let's rock back and exhale rock up without popping your lower back forward.

Very good. Inhale rock back and exhale. Roll Up. Good. Really scoping, scooping, scooping, inhale, roll back. Exhale, roll up and you want to keep your powerhouse pulling away, but use your upper stomach to bring your head forward. More forward, forward, forward and Nice have. That's what I wanted into more. Inhale, roll back and exhale the lower belly holds you, but use your upper valley to come forward more. And one more time. Inhale, roll back and exhale. Roll up and rest your feet down on the mat. We're going to go right into the series of five and when we do, I want you to bring your right leg back with you.

So actually let your bottom back. So it's the middle of the mat. There we go. Think you're okay and you're going to take your right leg with you. Think about the position as you roll back. Good and extend that left leg forward. Head and shoulders are up and we're ready to go. Jennifer, let's join us.

Head Up. There we go. And switch. Switch. Now you've done this exercise a lot. Keeps switching. Focus on that powerhouse. Focus on that pelvis. Are you arching your lower back as you switched legs or using your stomach to really pull that knee and thigh into your chest all the way in, all the way in last set, pulling it in all the way and grab both ankles, double leg stretch. Inhale, reach. Exhale. Pull it in any overreach. Work harder that that back does, not arch as your legs go forward and that your belly pulls in and up.

And two more. Inhale, reach, scrap and squeeze those thighs. Try to avoid those parallel feet as you go out. You want to work from here a little bit more and right leg goes up, single, straight like right, like forward, left like yes and switch and switch. Good from your past. Only. Think about this area. Pull that pelvis more towards you as you switch and stretch and stretch and stretch and stretch. Right last left and both legs up, hands behind your head and wrapping. Squeeze.

Drop that belly and legs go down a little bit and they pull towards you in with the air. Exhale, good in with the air. Exhale, one more and bend that right knee. And you're going to take that left shoulder to that right knee. Hold and switch again from your powerhouse. Pull that leg in. One last set, twisting over and last time to the left knee and hug and Jennifer on that one. Remember that we stay to one side that entire time.

You don't want to cook quickly, back and forth. It's not a bicycle. Um, it's a real strong twist. Twist, keep twisting, keep juicing you twisting and excelling all that air cause you want to ring out all that air. Alright, let's go ahead and sit up and we're going to do spine stretch forward. So this is our little breather. Our legs are a little open, wider, good and arms up at shoulder height and you want to feel like you're up against an imaginary wall. So good. That's better. Nice head too good. Pulling your powerhouse into your back. Slide up an imaginary wall, touching the crown of your head to the ceiling and then exhale forward one vertebrae at a time. Good. Really pulling your navel behind your hipbones and inhale, rolling up. Shoulders roll up through that neck.

And inhale, squeeze up off that seat. Exhale down, head to your chest, pulling in your rib, scooping and reach, reach, reach, and ruling up one vertebra at a time. Looking good. Let's do two more. Inhale, lifting up tall, even getting that bottom nice and exhale rolling down again, really trying to stretch that back, especially the lower back. And Inhale, rolling back up one vertebrae at a time. Shoulder blades, come back and down. And then head last time. Inhale, lift and exhale forward. See if you can have your toes putting right up to the ceiling, flexing those toes so you can get a hamstring or back of the leg stretch as well. And Inhale, rolling up. Looking good. All right, let's lift your bottoms forward just a little bit so that they're about a foot forward and your ankles or feet will come together. But knees apart.

We're going to work on balancing to start. So hands underneath your knees. Yup. And to lift up your feet. Don't just pull them up and keep your back arched, but pull your powerhouse into your back. Almost tilt your pelvis under you and then that's what lifts up your feet. So see if you can give me a round lower back.

Jennifer still got a significant arch and that lower back. So let's rest your feet down and pull this forward. There we go. Pull these away from your thighs. Excellent. Now let's just little by little, lift up those feet holding from here. Pull away from me more. And you want to use your upper stomach to hold your shoulders and head forward. Right now you're using your back so you gotta use your head and scoops. Scoops.

There we go. That is that way to put your mind into your body. That's great. Feed just an inch off the mat. You do want to be able to look up Marie. Good. There we go. And we're going to extend just the right leg for open leg rocker. Balancing the right leg goes up, pulling it in and bring it down. Good.

And the left leg. So as it goes up, you're trying to pull your stomach in tighter and bring that foot down. The right leg goes up and your powerhouse goes behind the line of your hips. Deep, deep, deep, beautiful, and down. And now the left leg coming up, scoop. Pull a little bit more into your powerhouse. Into rack. Yes.

And bring it down. And now we're going to do both legs. So both legs go up and the powerhouse really pulls in. That's what I wanted to see. And lower down one more of those pole going up with the legs. Scoop. Hold. Good. And bring it down and bring it down. Jefferson. There we go.

And now bring it up again and we're going to go into the open like rocker. You're gonna walk up your calf's so your hands can be arms, can be straight behind your casts. There you go. Just like that. Okay, great job holding yourself. Challenge yourself when you come up that you hold yourself with your powerhouse. And we're gonna Inhale rock back and exhale. Rock on up.

Perfect. And inhale, roll back. And exhale. Nice job. Rolling through that round. Lower back, and inhale. Roll back and exhale. Rock up. Good. Two more. Oops. Sorry, Jennifer. Yeah. Inhale, roll back. Most. Most of my clients do like to do that. They dream of that moment.

One more time. Inhale rock back and Exhale, rock up. Okay, and we're going to keep those legs up, but squeeze your legs together, squeeze them together, turned out and roll away from your legs until you're on your mat. Good. Hug your knees into your chest. All right, let's make sure we're square on the mat. Sometimes we have a more dominant side and we'll roll over to the right or the left more so make sure you're even on your mat and in a place that pillow back. Actually you don't need a Jenifer and we're going to bring your knees into your chest. We're preparing for corkscrew here. Extend the legs up to the ceiling.

A real important exercise here. I want you to wrap and squeeze those legs into a plotted stance and use that powerhouse to pull the legs up towards you a little bit. Keeping your back flat. Swing them to the right. Go down around to the left and hold them center. Hold them center. I need to see that politely stands for me, Jennifer.

And keep an eye on them as they go. Left around to the right and center. Yes, at to the right around to the left and center and left around to the right. Hold them center this time. Make this a bigger circle. As big as you can. Make it stretch to the right. Go around the left and center. Good. Reverse sinking that navel to your spine. Excellent. And that's enough.

Hug the knees into your chest. Use those legs. Help. Sit Up. And we're going to do the saw. Good. So another great prep exercise for what we're going to be doing on your stomach, because we're going to keep those hip bones over those sit bones. As you twist, you're going to make sure that you don't move that pelvis and it's a sure sign of those feet move right. So arms reach out to the side and your peripheral vision. So out of the corners of your ICA. Okay, good. And pulling into your back.

Lift up tall, twist to your right. And now think about that pelvis as you exhale down, reaching past your baby toe. Make sure your head, your pelvis is both sit bones are down and inhaling up and twist to your left. And exhale, pulling your right rib into your right lung as you straighten this arm behind you. Good. Inhaling up, twist to your right and exhale. Let me see you pull more into your left side is instead of pushing it forward, pull into it. As you stretch away. Inhaling up, twist your left and Xcel. You're pulling into your right side as your right arm reaches for that baby toe.

And one more set. Inhaling up, pulling into your back and exhale. Good, good. Keep pulling that hip on back a little bit more. Last time up and twist to your left. And exhale, reach, reach, reach. Inhaling up at rest your arms down by your side. All right, we are ready to flip onto your belly. So we're gonna bring your legs together first and then just flip over so your head can use this. Your forehead will be on that little pillow.

So we're going to do some prep exercises as we always do. First, scoot over just a little bit towards this wall. Amery just an inch. Good, not right. You look pretty centered, Jennifer, and have first your arms just long by your side. So not the most comfortable. I was just about to say that Jennifer, to have your forehead down, but let's just do that for a little bit. Okay, so right now, most important thing is think about that line of your hips and your have a straight line from one hip to the other. Try to pull your belly up behind that line and feel how much you just supported your back when you did that. That's going to be the most important thing that you have here. If you have a bad lower back or a sore lower back, you might end up leaving these exercises out all together. But if you can, we're going to keep that belly pulled up off the mat. Good.

And now also try to squeeze your seat. So squeezing your bottom and pulling up the [inaudible]. Excellent support and a main support for your lower back. That's how you should always support your lower back. Now imagine there is a pencil right between your shoulder blades.

Okay? And without pushing your belly into the mat, can we squeeze that pencil between your shoulder blades? Squeeze your shoulder blades together. Nice. Now using your powerhouse, can you lift up your head and your shoulders a little bit? Go ahead. Try not to push that belly into the mat. Just lifting, squeezing that shoulder, that pencil, and lower down. Let's do that one more times of powerhouse pulls up, squeezing an imaginary pencil and coming up. Good. Good.

Don't lift the legs up though. One last thing here to add. I want you to imagine your spine. While you're lying down there, just head on the mat. I want you to imagine your spine and I need you to lengthen it. So I want you to push all your energy out the crown of your head to the street so we're not lifting it off. We're just lying here and I want you to imagine that you're pulling each vertebra away from the other as you push energy into the crown of your head.

And in the opposite direction. We're going to squeeze our bottom and length in the legs, away from your lower back, reaching long through those legs. The reaching long is super important in these next exercises, so feel that length in the back and I want you to place your hands now onto your shoulder blades. Good. Elbows point straight back, and then maybe a few inches forward. There's the just off to the side a little bit so they're more on the edge of the mat. Good. All right, so we've got our belly pulled up above those hip boats and we're lengthening our rapid squeeze away from my lower back. We're lengthening our energy out the crown of our head and let's start by squeezing that pencil between our shoulder blades and we're going to start pushing into the mat as well as using our powerhouse to come up as high as you feel comfortable into a backbend. Good.

And then stay there and you're going to look over your right shoulder. Circle the neck to your left. Look forward. It's a good time to check your powerhouses. It's supporting your back and then look left. Circle around to your right and look forward.

And now we're going to come down lengthening your spine towards that street. Great. Lengthening. Good. We're gonna do it one more time. So before you start, you're squeezing your body and you're lengthening your legs away from your pelvis without lifting the legs up. And now your belly pulls up. We squeezed that pencil between our shoulder blades and use that powerhouse to start coming up with a long spine. We're going to start by looking to your left. Circle the chin towards your chest, around to your right and look forward and reverse to your right.

Circle the chin to your left around to your right and look forward and come down lengthening your spine. Good. I want you to use your hands and push off and sit back onto your heels scooping and try to give me the best round, lower back. That's great. Good, wonderful. And we're stretching. Stretching that back. Give it a little bit of a break, but same idea. Now we get into a little tough choreography. In fact, I want you to sit up right there and I'll kinda demonstrate what we're gonna do right here. Imagining that my arms or legs. So you're going to go back onto your stomach. And the first one, you're going to end up this time actually my arms, arms, you're gonna put yourself onto your elbows, but push your knuckles against each other like you're holding a big physio ball or big beach ball underneath here.

So you're not going to sink into the mat like this. You're going to try to hold up above it, okay? But the first one's called single leg kick, which all that means is that one leg at a time, you're going to kick your bottom and you do it for two beats. So it's going to be one, two and switch. The thing I want you to think about is, again, what is your pelvis doing as those legs do that? Is it going to be pushing into the mat? Then it's going to hurt your back, and then also one leg is coming in, but this other leg, it's not just there.

It also needs to reach just like you've been reaching right now. So if you can get that reach, that helps a lot too. So we're just going to switch back and forth for about six sets and then we'll go to double leg kick in which both legs at the same time. We'll squeeze and lengthen together and they'll both pull in for triple beat. One, two, three. Now notice I didn't go all the way out. One, two, three, but they lift a little bit and then they come in and they try to squeeze two, three and then they're going to reach long as you pull up into a back bent.

So we just did a nice backbend right? You came up kind of high when in between the triple kicks, I'm gonna want you to use your powerhouse and lengthen your arms behind you and come up into a backbend. I'm going to help you with that quite a bit. Okay, so let's go ahead and start with single leg kick where you lie on your belly and let's lift up onto your elbows. So elbows are almost right underneath the shoulders. Good. And then point the elbows out to the sides of the mat a little bit and push your knuckles into each other. The goal is to be able to feel your underarm muscles, so if you're wearing like a strapless dress like those muscles are a little tight, they're good and you should be able to look up at the street in front of you. Good. Now again, your back is not hinging.

Your supporting your back. It is. You can open the chest a little bit more, but support that back and lengthen the legs away from your pelvis together. Can you get them together, Jennifer? There you go. But lengthen them away and we're going to just take that right leg. It's going to come into one too and switch left. They pass each other left two and right, two and left two and right, two and left two and right two and left, two and last set and left to add.

Bring your right cheek bone or facial cheek on the mat, on the pillow. Switch and place your hands behind your back. The goal is to get those hands not laced, but clasped up as high between your shoulder blades as you can and to be able to see both eyes as you turn your head when your head a little bit more like that. There you go. Try to press your elbows down on the mat. Good. Do you guys feel that stretch right there should be a nice upper back stretch.

Let's work first on that back bend I was talking about. So I want you to keep your hands clasped and straighten your arms as straight as they can behind you. Good. Now using your belly, try to lift your chest up as you take a big breath of air and look forward. We use your belly. Use your belly and now look towards the wall. Lower your cheek down and bed. Nope. There we go.

And put your hands right back up between your shoulder blades. Jennifer, keep your cheek down and bring your hands right here and lower those elbows. Okay, so then you would do three kicks again. We're not going to do it right now. And now we're going to straighten your arms and show me one more time that back bend. So use your powerhouse and try to lift up your chest as you look forward and look the other way towards the mirror again and lower down. Okay, so that is go ahead and put your hands back up between the shoulder blades and keep looking that way. There we go.

And elbows is low to the mat as we can. So in between the kicks, you're going to be doing that back bent, and that's about as complicated as it gets. Let's work on those hamstrings, the back of your legs and your seat. Let's try to define some muscles here. So pulling your belly into your back, I want you to squeeze those legs together and lift them up just a little bit off the mat so that you feel that and try to pull them into your bottom three times. Vending them in one, two, three and lower the legs down. The legs are done. And let me see that back bend.

Straighten your arms behind you, lifting your, use your powerhouse, looking forward and switch your cheeks. So now you're looking towards the wall. Elbows down on the mat and three kick. Squeeze your legs together and we're going to kick in. One, two, three and lower them down. And now arms straighten and use your powerhouse to lift up your chest. Use your past. Look forward and switch cheeks.

We have one more set hands go high up and using your belly to support your back. We're going to use these muscles to lift up your legs and kicking. One, two, three. Good job and legs long and lifting up your chest, up, up, up, and look the other way. Last time. Lower down hands. Go back here and three kicks in. Elbows are down on the mat, Jennifer and head down. One, two, three and legs down. Lifting up your chest. Arms are long behind you. Looking up at the street, kid, I mean stretch, stretch, stretch, and enough place your hands underneath your shoulders. Push off and round your back to sit on your heels. Really good.

How'd that feel on your back? It did. It felt good. Good. So I know you kept the range of motion smaller cause you're getting over that back injury, but looked really good and that felt good, Jennifer. Okay, good. Try to have a little bit more space here as you stretch it in between your hipbones and thighs so that you get a really good lower back stretch. Ooh. All right, we're done. With those exercises on your belly, turn onto your bottom and face that way. Stay seat it. We're gonna do. Stay seated for me, Jennifer. Up we go. And we're going to have your legs apart. Hip with apart.

Good and hands underneath your knees. So we're going to do neck pool, net pull. You want to sit up really, really tall. How about look at yourself in the mirror. Can you see whether you're sitting up tall? Good. And now head to your chest and use your powerhouse to roll away from your legs. Keep your feet hip width apart here. Good. All the way down to the mat for me, Jennifer. And Inhale, lift your head up and exhale scooping in that belly until you kiss your knees.

And then inhale, sit up tall and exhale. Roll away from your leg. So round your back again, head to your chest. We're going to do that one more time. Inhale, head to your chest. Exhale all the way forward. Actually stay here and go ahead and just straighten your legs on the mat and if you can again, keep them hip width and point your toes up to the ceiling hip with for me.

Jennifer pointed him up to the ceiling. There we go. And sit up tall, so tall that you're squeezing off your seat and your bellies into your lower back, lengthening and now round your back and roll away from those legs you want us to imagine your bottom is pushing your heels away so as your head goes down, inhale, lift your head up and exhale, curl all the way forward. Great powerhouse, beautiful. Kiss those knees. Inhale, sit up tall, lifting off that bottom, that tight, bottom. Good, and exhale rolled. Good. And one more like that. Inhale, head to your chest. Exhale, kiss your knees and then we'll add two hardwoods. Inhale, sit up.

Not that these aren't easy. Remember, don't sit up with your head, sit up with your powerhouse and exhale, roll back. And once you're down, place your hands one over the other, behind your head. Just don't clasp or lace those fingers. And if you need to bring those elbows in, you can, but do what you can. Rolling up like that. Inhale, rolling up and exhale all the way that your knees. Good job, Jennifer. Inhale, sit up tall, squeezing even off your seat and exhale, roll away, pushing those heels away with your Paris last time we're coming up again.

Inhale and exhale all the way up. Great John, Jennifer, all the way to kiss your knees and inhale, sit up tall and exhale. Try to squeeze your bottom as you roll away the whole time. Very good work. Alright, nice. We're ready for sidekicks lineup on the side of your mat, on your right side, on the back side of your mat. And you're going to hold your head up. There we go. Alright, still here and lift your head up onto your hand for me, Jennifer. There we go.

Bring your feet a little forward for you. Good. All right. It actually, this angle, when you're starting off, you can have your feet forward like this, but as you get a little bit more advanced, it comes back a little bit. Never a straight line. But depending on how forward they are, it makes it easier or more challenging. So right now you can have your feet forward off the mat a little bit still. Yeah. [inaudible] there you go. Take advantage of it now. So I don't get, it's easier to balance here and as you pull them back a little bit more, it'll get harder. But do work on your posture from the back of your um, shoulder blades up. Try not to look down at your feet too much.

Try to have the crown of the head going towards continuing the line of your spine. Let's lift up that left leg just at hip level and turn that leg out from your hip. And we're still stabilizing our pelvis with our powerhouse as we pull that leg up to your nose and swing it back behind you and up to your nose and swinging it back. Good. Eight more forward with the powerhouse. Squeeze the back forward with the stomach. Feel the back of your legs. It goes back. Good stomach.

And this is kind of like what we just did on our stomach. As that leg goes behind us, you're using that back of the thigh in the seat to more forward and back. Really high up to your nose and back. And one no energy in that foot. And now legs together. So your top hip likes to rock back. See if you can keep it right over that one. Good.

Lift this leg up just a little bit and turn out that thigh. Use the outer thigh to push up towards your ear and now squeezed down a hundred pounds, a thousand pounds. Good. Push up and then take your time squeezing down. So push up and now squeeze me down. That's what I want to feel. Good. And as you squeeze down, pull your belly into your lower back to last one.

Push up and squeeze. Hold the leg down and working. Long foot and five little circles like you have a little hula hoop on that. Five, four, three, two, one rivers, two, three, four, five. Nice job. Very good. Alright. I want you to swing your legs forward. Grab your pillow if you can, and we're going to take your legs over. Switch sides. There we go. Put your pillow wherever you want, but just have your body nice and long.

Try to keep your powerhouse engaged. Good. All right, and again, feet a little bit forward off that map. If we had a regular polis mat, there'd be a box there that we could help with. All right, keep lift your right leg, hip level, rotating it out, wrapping and first we're going to go forward, kick it forward and squeeze it back. As you go forward, pull your belly in, go forward and squeeze back. Good and flow and back and full. Keep it moving.

Keep in mind that you want three tea cups stacked right here. You don't want to spill up, so that takes a lot of work from here and [inaudible]. So you use this instead to more forward and back. Try to work on that posture a little bit. Maria Marie and legs together and now push up that right leg and squeeze a thousand pounds down. Push up and squeeze. Don't work the foot so much. In fact, try to make this, he'll go into the bottom arch.

You're reaching so long out of this hip, we're going to pull that leg longer too. As you go down, pull that belly into your back. Last one up and pulling and that leg stays long and working again. You're really trying to see how this legs a little shorter. Make it longer. I know five circles. One, two from here. Three, don't circle the upper body and reverse. One, two, three, four, five. Nice job. Lie On your backs. Bend your knees into your chest.

You can use that pillow. Good. And Hug your knees into your own. There we go. Are your knees into your chest and right about now we like to shake out the legs up towards the kind of like a kid throwing a tantrum. You want to just shake them out because the thigh muscles get really strong, like a quick shake. Okay? And we would go right into teasers, but I'm going to kind of sneak them in again like we have been doing. So use those legs to go ahead and sit up. Yup.

And we're going to have your legs together. Feet flat on the mat so our legs will not move in this exercise. This is the typical roll back that we've been working. Fetal, stay down, round your back, using your powerhouse and roll back away from your legs. Get that small, the back a little bit. That's it. Head touches the mat and come right back up. Exhaling.

But don't come all the way up. Perfect. This is what I wanted to see just to there. One more. Pulling your navel away from those thighs, squeezing your seat, rolling through your spine. Inhale, lift your head scooping in. More skewed for me, Jennifer. Great. Now hold it there and extend just the right leg.

Thighs are glued together. Yeah. Wrapping and squeezing and you're going to roll away from those legs and this is beautiful. You're reaching that leg away and inhale head to your chest and scooping in. These are great prep exercises for the teaser. One more pulling away from that, those thighs. Nice. Try not to use too much energy rolling up with those. Um, that foot on the floor. Stay there, supporting yourself with your powerhouse and just easily switch your legs and the left ones up. And we're gonna roll away from those size. Good. Having them wrap in. Squeeze head touches, head to your chest and roll up.

Be careful as you put your head back that you're rolling through your neck. Don't just put your bra strap down and then put your head back, but roll through your upper back. Roll through your neck. Oh, you skipped all those poor Vertebra and rolling up. They want to be stretched too. And now holding your leg up with your powerhouse. Bring both legs up. Here we go. And we're going to roll away. Rolling your lower back down first, middle, upper and you can take your hands back if you want and then use a little momentum to come on up. Scooping in. Yes. Excellent.

And Rolling back. How we're doing. One more time. Up we go. Scoop, scoop, scoop. Yes. And Rolling back. Use your powerhouse here. Roll through your lower back. There we go. Hug your knees into your chest. Nice job. Very good. All right. We are already going to do the last exercise. Sit on up.

We've got seal, so you want to stay almost in this position, but lift your bottom forward and under you a little bit more lift. Use Your hands instead of weeble wobbling and bring your tailbone underneath you. There we go. And hands dive through the legs underneath the ankles. Now again, to lift your feet up, don't just pop them up with your lower back, but pull into a c curve with your powerhouse. Excellent job. Love it. Now show me how strong your your stomach is, your powerhouse. Feel like you're in a course at right now and hold that nice firm, powerhouse, and clap the feet three times two, three and roll back in.

Massage in the back. Exhale up and [inaudible]. Hold and clap. Two, three. Inhale round the back ward. Exhale, roll it up. Make sure when you coming up that you're not popping that lower bow. We popped it forward right there. I just don't want you to hurt your back, so you got to pull away from those ankles more.

And we're gonna wait one more second because we're going to go together. Here we go, and inhale, roll back and exhale. We can't be perfect every time. Exhale, but you're trying to hold it. That's better. And use your hands to help pull forward. Two more. Inhale, roll back. Don't use that head to roll back. Exhale, roll up. Scoop, scoop, scoop. Good. Last time. Inhale, roll back and exhale. Rolling up and staying up. Clapping to three and rest your feet down.

Fabulous job, ladies. Wonderful. Very, very good. All right. Nice job. We are all done for today. Good work. You guys. Grab your pillows and we're all set.

Comments

Fabulous!!
i am an apprentice in the USPA certification program....this was a great learning tool.
real world!!! thank you so much..

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