Class #1273

High-Intensity Mat

50 min - Class
115 likes

Description

Meredith teaches a high-intensity Mat workout where each exercise flows into the next. Once you have completed the workout, she cools you down so you can feel a sense of lightness after all of your hard work. Enjoy exercises like Twist, Kneeling Side Kicks, and much more!
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

Nov 04, 2013
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Transcript

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Okay, today we're going to do some polarities. First Change. No, I'm just kidding. We're going to do a pretty high intensity level to at least mat class and it's going to go as quickly as I can make it go. I'm not always very good at that, but let's see what happens. So to prepare, I want you to just hold onto the backside of your legs very firmly and lift your back and take a moment just to close your eyes.

And as you close your eyes, feel where your feet are in space and feel that there's equal pressure in them. Feel where your bones are in space, and then lift effortlessly the bones of your spine and allow the rest of your body to settle downwards heavily into the mat. So there's a heavy feeling and a light feeling. They're oppositional feelings, but they're very real. And Open your eyes and breathe in. And as you breathe out, deeply flex through the lower spine. So feel the tail bone lifting up towards the bottom side of the rib cage.

Press into your legs with your hands and inhale as you exhale, we're gonna reach back up. We're gonna build the spine up straight again. Inhale again. I'm going to make us do that on one breath now. So exhale, curl the front of the ribs. Tip downwards, the backside of the rib. Reach up and over the chest, but the shoulders are still open. Inhale, lift the spine. Exhale, curl the spine, feeling the pelvis move out from underneath you. Creating an inward pressure with the hands, encouraging the inner size to create inward pressure. Lift the back this time. As you exhale, find the rounded shape first and then continue in that rounded shape downwards, allowing your arms to straighten and then sliding your arms down the sides of your thighs in. He'll take the arms up overhead. Exhale, take the arms around to your sides. Find your legs, Xcel. Curl yourself back up.

Take your spine this time, very close to your thighs, and then pull your spine up as close as you can to your thighs coming up on the diagonal until we again become upright. Exhale, tilt the pelvis under, curl the spine. Then allow the arms to straighten. Slide the arms down the sides of the thighs. Inhale, reach the arms up. Take the arms around to the sides. Exhale, curl the spine up. Look deep into yourself, not with your eyes, but with your mind. Reach your chest towards your thighs.

Build the spine up on the diagonal until you're upright again. One more XL. Curl the spine. Then allow the arms to straight in the arm. Slide down the sides of the thighs. The arms now lift. They reach around, they find the size. We curl inwards in both our mind and also in our bodies.

We reach into the size. Tilt the tailbone backwards, setting the chest up over the knees until your arrived back straight again. Let go. Exhale, curl the again, same action. Just know arms. Find your way down to your lower back. Turn your palms to face the floor. Lift your right arm and your left leg. Inhale. Exhale. Press them down. Lift your left arm in your right, right, and press them down opposite again so that the limbs that are not moving, arc also working. Here's my suggestion. Push the leg.

That's on the ground into the ground and reach the arm that's reaching further and one more. And we take both arms in both legs down in an inhale, and we curl. Lift the spine up. Sit up tall. Open your arms out to your sides. Exhale, curl the spine. Press the arms inward, right, roll backwards. Inhale this time both arms up. Exhale both arms down. Inhale both arms up. Exhale both arms down. Inhale both arms up.

Exhale both arms towards me. Inhale both arms up. Exhale both arms the other way. Inhale both arms up. Exhale both arms down and heal. For a full pause. It's okay. XL Roll Up. I never know what's coming next, either Wendy, until it comes out of my mouth. Lift and reach your arms out to your sides. From there, take the arm furthest away from you. Bring it across towards this arm.

Roll down your spine. Find your way to your lower back. Open your arms, take the other arm across to meet the arm that just moved. Roll up, lift all the way up in rotation and unwind and we go the other way. The way we just came up. We'd go down that side of the spine. Yeah. We open through this center. We reach across here as an inhale. We roll up. This is an exhale.

Lift all the way to a straight back and unwind. One more time through reach over. Inhale, feel the scoop, the tailbone, the pelvis, moving, reach across. Reach across. Roll. Lift up on wine last time to the back. Round down.

Okay. Take both arms out to the side. Reach across the other direction. Rural all the way and unwind. Take both arms forwards. Roll backwards. Yeah. Pause.

Slide the feet and until you can feel the shins with your fingertips and light all the way down, I'm going to have to scoot forward, but we're all there. Okay, so if you need to adjust yourself on the mat that you should do that. And now we press the arms down into the ground and we pull the spine up off the floor, pressing down into the feet. The arms press down the hips, press up, inhale, exhale. The chest falls through the arms, but the shoulders continue to press backwards. The spine comes down into the mat, bone by bone, taking space, making space between the bones of your spine. Drop the pelvis, all the heavy and breathe in. Breathe out, flatten the spine. Feel the movement of the pelvis first. Then lift the hips up, keeping the ribs just below the pubic bone. Reach up nice and high with the hips. Inhale and exhale to roll down.

Feel the spine stretching in both directions and by that I mean stretching through the tailbone and also through the top of the head. Pelvis comes down in here and the pelvis comes back up. Exhale, pause here at the top. Lift. Float the left leg off the ground. Reach. Tap the left toes. Exhale, pull them back up. Tap the left toes. Press down and back with the arms. Lift up. One more. Tap the toes. Lift up, roll your spine out all the way, all the way to the tailbone. Check in with your shoulders. Drop the pelvis, roll back up. Press the foot down to lift the hips up in here. Exhale, roll the spine down. Reach the arms forward, reach the neck behind you.

Pelvis goes down. We articulate the spine Baca. I'm going to go one more time down, rolling down all the way. Place the left foot on the floor, roll the spine up and hold. Lift the left, right rightly and we just tip the mat and lightly pull the leg through space and tip the mat. Press down with the arms and up through the hips. One more. Tip the Mat. Lift up. Exhale, peel the body downwards, keeping that hip just at a 90 degree angle all the time so it'll shift away from you as the pelvis shifts down and it will shift towards you as the pelvis curls up holding at the top. Inhale, exhale, curl down. Long arms, long spine, long neck, pelvis drops, pelvis comes back when you go down one last time at the bottom. Drop the pelvis down. Pick the left leg up to meet the right leg, both arms out to your sides. Inhale as you tilt your body towards me.

Spine twist, supine. Exhale as we slide using the center of the body to come back to the middle inhales, we tilt the pelvis the opposite direction. Reach the opposite arm away. Excellent. As you engage deeply through the center of your body, through your waist line, bringing the legs into the middle. Inhale, reach up to go over. What I mean by up to go over as, as we're lifting the pelvis, the hip, pelvis, it's going to go off the ground, lifts up or right away. That's going to help the feet stay in line with the knees, which is going to help the pelvis stay in neutral or level position. Last time on each side, we lift Baca last time the owl opposite direction and draw in place one foot down plus the other foot down. Reach back. Place the hands behind the head fully.

Interlace your fingers. Breathe in, breathe out. As we curl the head in Chester, breathe in. As we take the arms forward, lifting a little higher. Reach the arms, hands back behind the head. Length in the spine to the mat. Xcel sir. Curl the chest. Inhale to take the arms first forward and then up. Exhale.

Now as the hands come back to the head and we lower the spine down there. Long breasts. If you need to read differently, you should. Xcel to Corolla in wheelchair reach, but these long breasts can really encourage us to take full deep exhale. Now breaths last time. Exhale to lift, Huh? Inhale to reach forward and up. Exhale, hands back behind the head and laying in the spine to come down. Exhale to lift up, drawing the front of the ribs down the front of the body.

Reach behind the thighs. Curl up just a little bit more. Take let go of the legs. Take your arms up back behind the head are going to rotate towards me and we're going to stay high in the body. As we come to the middle, we're going to rotate the other way and come to the middle. As you rotate the rib that you're rotating, two poles inwards as the opposite. Inhale, center rib comes across the body, so it's like those two ribs on opposite sides of the body are meeting in the middle and center and rotate. Nice windy and center and rotate. Last one, both sides. Check the pelvis, keep it still center and rotate and center.

Take the arms forwards. One leg lifts, the other leg lifts the arms lift and the whole body comes back. The whole body now lifts up. We reach the arms up, we take the whole body back, the arms had in chest lift. We follow through with the arms. The arms lift up only the arms and then the whole body comes back. We lift again, we hold there, stretch the legs out if you will, and breathe in. Exhale, one, two, three, four, five for the hundreds and to to curling deeper and three, two, three, four, five and [inaudible].

Lift one leg lowered on the end. Lift the other leg. Five, two, three, four, five in lift both like six, two, three, four, five and in they go down, bend them in. Seven, two, three, four, five. Inhale, stay here. Kick them up. Two, three, four, five. Inhale, lower them down. Ben Them in two, three, four or five. Kick them up, lower them down to three, four, five. Then them in, I've lost count, I think we're there. Lift them or lower them down. Bend them to the Mat, stretch them out in front of you or they can go wide along the ground.

We're gonna roll up from there. Oh yeah. And we did it. Reach all the way forward. Lift the spine up, hands behind the head, flex through the feet, pull up on the backside of your neck and rotate towards the what? Me Towards the MI and center and rotate the other way. Twist with lift and center and Paul Paul, lift and center the legs. Press down and feel that they are also pressing away from you.

And the spine is lifting and twisting, rotate and center and rotating and center. It's not a balancing action, but instead you're trying to go further on that second exhale. So it's a pole deepen center, appalled, deep and center. I'll reach out. We Ho I'm going to take the arms up. I'm going to reach the spine longer.

We're going to keep reaching the spine with you. Abdominals drawn in as the hands come back behind the head, we're going to bring it to the middle. You're gonna rotate first. We're gonna reach the arms up. I'm going to bring the hands back. Head lifts, Huh? Or we're going to exhale to center. We're going around over our legs.

We're going to bend our knees and reaching for the ankles. With the hands. It ends close. Draw in worth deep in the curvature of the lower spine. Just float the feet and rolling like a ball. We rock back. Keep the shape and lift and press the legs together.

Rock back and lift and rock back and lift and rock back. And lift. One more. Take your hands here to the tops of your knees. Push your knees into your hands. Roll your spine away so that the knees are pushing into the hands that help you control that. When you come to your low back, lift your feet to parallel to the ground and reach out. Double leg stretch and Lara.

And it's an inhale and an exhale. So feel in this movement, the expansion and then the contraction. That's the idea, right? The stretch. And then the pole and the reach and the round and five draw. Push the legs in and four and stop the legs just at nine. And as you start to like just sit 90, pull the spine into them.

Last one I think, and back in. Now we hold the left knee and we reached the right leg and we switch. Pushing down. Push your femur on your bent knee into the mat, not closer to your body but downwards and, and really work those arms and reach and reach and continue to reach the spine. And uh, and again, here's for strengthening the back side of like or engaging. Three, three, two, two, one, one both knees in, curl into hands behind your head. Come towards me in your rotation and across and reach and across, um, humming high through the center of the body. And again, the bend knee stops right at 90, but pulls inwards and five more and reach the opposite arm across the knee and across the knee.

Using the reach of the arm to pull the spine around, two to one. One bend the knees and lower the head to the mat. Take your arms off your head and bring them down to your side. Stretch your legs out straight. Lift your legs up. Going into the rollover. We take this shape straight over, flex your feet, separate your feet, lower your legs down towards the floor.

Roll yourself down bone by bone, bone. By that energizing through the backs of the Ley point, the feets are cold attached to lift them up in here. Exhale, curling over. Flexing the feet separate and lower. Draw. Lower down, plain circle. Touch. Separate lift, rollover. Flex and come together. Draw in. Where's the, with the abdominals. As we lower the legs.

And then we drag the legs. We're right across the tip of the nose, right across the center of the chest, all the way down to the tailbone point. The Fi separate the legs. Lift, rollover. Last one. Flex the fee. Bring them together, place them down. Roll down. So here's what we're gonna do is a transition company. Come ending. It's not a word. Bend your knees as your tailbone touches.

Curl your head and chest up. Rock yourself up. Put your feet on the ground, stretch them out straight and bring your arms behind you. So you push the floor away from you. You push your legs into the ground. You've gotten nice, tall spy. And we inhale Emilia, tech savvy and any other kind of codes down the chest reaches forward. We got afraid. Or here guy lifts and use your feet and the backs of your legs lift.

And then again lift. You could do this with bed, knees and down. So if you wanted a modification, bent knees and you just pick the whole pelvis up into a bridge. Yep. Just like that. And uh, we'll do two more reaching out. And uh, last one, lifting up into the bridge. Lower down. Sit yourself up, separate your feet, reach your arms forward and breathe in. Squeeze in with the arms, take the head forward, roll the spine down, reach out, walking through the body and inhale.

Press the knees down into the floor and then build this spy and sequentially bone by bone, stacking it above the pelvis. It's like a wheel. This rolls right up and then it rolls down. Or life chain fill-ins or a slinky one part moves, arrest, part follows very easily. Inhale at the bottom. Look for more exhale as you're rolling. Yeah. And reach and inhale and exhale. We take it forward.

Taking it into extension here. We're going to reach the arms up and I'll lift the back. Long, long, high. Nice step. Reach all the way back down and lift back up. Inhale at the time. Exhale. Take the body forward. Inhale. Lengthen out. Long back.

Exhale, reach forwards and lifter. Yeah, Xcel reaching down. Okay. Yes. Lengthen out. Pause there. The hands of the size. I'll just Leon, where they land. I'm not the size but the legs. Give yourself a little bit more.

Tilt the tailbone back flat, not the spine. Arms reach forward and bend the arm closest to me. Reach back, open up and look at it. Bend and push it forward. Bend the opposite arm bed and I want you to pull like you're pulling a pulley and push like you're pushing something heavy and pull like you're pulling a pulley on. The other arm is reaching forward all the time and then push and pull. Reaching back, looking back and pushing forward. It's almost like a swim stroke.

Swimming in the ocean. Push last one. Alright. And I had into the open leg rocket. And here's how we're going to transition points. Your feet curl back. You can do this with [inaudible] bent. Knees. Do this with bent knees. Ready? One, two, three.

Lift your legs. Catch them. Nice Wendy, that was very, very good. Calm and controlled in a rock back. I'm not sure I've got enough. Matt [inaudible] scared and we rock back and lift up and at the top, lift the back and rock back. Okay, and rock back. Nice and lift. One more rock back lift.

Lift the back, flex the feet, lift the arms, lower the legs, but lift the spine at the same time. Reach all the way down. Hold your ankles or feet or wherever. Give yourself a little pole. Roll yourself back up, arms out to your sides. Inhale, twist towards me. We take it into the saw, we reach out, feel the spine, get longer as it reaches up in space and then unwind. Breathe in, bend. Knees are fine. Breathe out. As you reach forward, breathe out in.

She will lengthen outwards and center and twist and reach and get longer as you come up and center and twist and reach and we get longer as we come on and we find center and twist and reach longer on the way and center and twist and reach and longer and center. Step the feet together. Reach your arms over your head, roll down through your spy. Keep the ends here if you can. They can always reach in front of you. That's no big deal. No big deal. We're gonna stop at our low back and I stop at our low back. We're going to take the arms a little forward in a lift.

Catch the leg and Paul now right where your hands are, I want you to keep them right very still. You let go of your leg, you exchange legs and Paul, so it's not the arms that are moving the leg through space that the abdominals and just copying the lay with a f even hand Deb, hold behind the knee, underneath the knee or over the top of the knee, just not directly behind it and switch and switch. Hold here. We take the hands behind the head or not and we continue. Kick. Try to get the leg just as far back. Kick and kick and kick and kick and kick and twist. Lifting across and a reaching over so you could modify by holding the leg that you're twisting towards or you can just keep your hands behind your head or you can reach one arm across what we're almost there. We're almost there.

We're going to go both legs up. I'm going to take the arms forward and a place the arms down. Roll over corkscrew. Tilt your pelvis so that your legs come in my direction. Roll down that side of your spine. Make a circular motion around the rim of your pelvis. Roll up the opposite side of the spine and center.

You could modify this by just doing rollovers. Twist the other way and roll down. Or you could do pelvic curls. Even swing around swing. Find Center [inaudible]. Watch the pelvis as you tilt your head, legs across and make sure it stays even, even as you roll down as well around. Swing around in the lift.

Find Center. Inhale across. Exhale down around center and all the way home. Place your feet down on the floor. Reach around for your hands with your hands for your feet. Hello Lankenau through your side again, the roll over the pelvic curl, good modifications. Hold the right foot, lift the left leg into the year, reach through the spine, reach through the spine, one leg pulls and one leg lifts. And then we stretch. We keep the spine lifted, kicking all the way up to the ceiling and also away from you and reach kicking up up in a way, an range. So the trick to getting the long that that vertical position is to really use your back extensors. If you don't want like this and it's too much on your neck, come down onto your shoulders and just don't lift that top leg as high.

We're going to go one more time. We're going to drop the feet into the hands and in a hold the feet with the hands going to pull the feet, the legs closer to the body as eating hello or down sequentially, bending your knees if you need to. I mean all the way down, all the way down. We bend the knees, placing the feet down on the floor. Open up your feet wide. Tilt both knees over towards me. Really pressed into that.

Outside in the front of the hip with the back of the hip and find center and tilt the other way and find center. Walk your feet back to the center. Arms at your sides. Inhale. Exhale. We roll up into a pelvic curl and hold that shoulder bridge. We're going to lift the left leg and kick it to the ceiling. It's going to go down and flex and come home.

Reached down and come back. One more. Reach down and come back. Reached down, bend the knee, tip the mat and kick up. Reach down. This is the prep for the bicycle, which I'll save you from doing today or myself anyway, and then stay. So now we, then we reach towards the floor. We slide the leg out, just beat. Monitor how low you go with your outward slide so that your pelvis stays lifted. Here's number one who reach out, kicker, bend the knee it on the floor.

Roll your spine down just to the bottom of your ribs. Get a nice deep scoop like you're creating a Hammock, a deep d hammock hat of your mid section. Or I just made it all the way in my pelvis. It feels good. Go for it. Roll up all the way, opposite leg in the air, kick it on, and then three times it reaches and pulls back and reaches and pulls back and reaches and pulls back. And then we bicycle. We see tip and slide. Kika reach out. Tip sled, kick reach at tip sled kickoff.

We reverse bend, stretch, and lift there. Reach down and lift. Then reach down and lift. Bend the knee, place the foot down. I'm going to give us 10 full seconds to roll down our spine. Here we go. Use It wisely. A eight, seven deepen. Six Curl, five, four, three, two, one.

And finally the pelvis drops all the way. Bring your knees one at a time into your chest. Hug your knees into your chest, push your knees into your hands and rock yourself up. Turn and face me. So modifications for this would just be to um, lie on the Mat and do the side lift or to sit on something and do the same movement. So here we go. We're going to take the spine or we're going to reach over. Keep the arm straight across. This is going to be our inhale hand.

Get that nice stretch to the side of the body. And then exhale, pull up with that side and inhale as you reach out to go over, out to go over and then left one more to each side. We reach over and then we left. I may reach over and we left. And to go to the first side, we're going to come up into the sidekick. Here we go. So kicked a leg up, check the pelvis should be facing straight on and a stretch out. Yeah, just as flat on the mat as a good modification all the way down and behind the head. We're gonna kick and stretch. Perfect. You could even ally all the way. Kick and reach, kick and reach, kick and reach, kick and range. Kick forward, bend and reach back, bicycle, kick forward. Bend. And kick back. Kick forward. Bend, kick back, hold here. Then reach, they have an kick and Paul, then reach, kick, pull.

Then hurry each kick, pull, hold it to the back, lowered down, lifted up into the front. Three and three, two and two, one and keep the leg on [inaudible]. Turn and do this on the ground. Turn to that your hands are on the floor. Rotate your knee around so that you're now parallel to the ground. [inaudible] that's a cramp. Sorry. So now I want you to bend your arms close to your body, but I want you to lift your leg to touch the ceiling as you do it.

And then Pusha and we bend lifting the legs of her going into a lot of hip extension, a little bit of spinal ascension and a nice strong push up and push last too. And push the leg helps a lot. Use it to your advantage. Kick Push. We take that hand, we were on [inaudible] back to the center. Roll the hip back open. Bring the arm out to the side. Lifting that leg. Nice and high. Nice and high. We're going to place it down.

We're going to kick underneath it with the other foot holding here on the elbow for the side bend, same side, same side. We're going to lift the body. You're gonna look down. As we reach over. I'm going to come back and we're going to bend the knees. You have so just right on your elbow just like this. Lift. Yup. Or use the bottom knee. Reach over. Nice.

Back and bend. Last one. Reach out, lift over. Come back. Hold here. Nope. Come down and back and drop the knee and lift sully and lift off your arm. Finding your balance, finding your balance. Lowering that foot. I'm comes down the side of the leg. We dropped the hip underneath this.

We reach all the way over the top all the way. I was a ta. Yeah, and then we come back and drop that knee into place. Arms out to your sides. I'm going to go that way, but not lifting the leg yet. We're going to go back into the side. Stretch, going to let the arm come underneath us and I take the not yet. Not yet. Not yet. And to take the arm, just keeping you guessing, keeping you guessing. Hey Deb, if you, when your arm goes over your head, turn it like that. Yeah. You'll get more room with your arm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Great. Good.

So what I suggested to Deb is do it again, is if you have tightness in your shoulder and your arm camp feels like it won't go. If you rotate the eye of the elbow inwards, your arm will have more freedom and back. Yeah. Feel it. Alright, I have the elbow inwards. That's it. Nice and lift. Okay. Here comes outside kicks. Go into the, this way if you wanting to say rights and less. So here we are. The hip is lifted, the leg kicks out, the hand comes behind the head or straight out and kick forward and reach back and kick forward and reach back and kick forward and reach back. We have two to go forward. Nice. Back, forward, back. We bend and kick and pull. Bend, kick forward, pull back.

Keep your body as still as you can and your bottom shoulder under control. We go the other way. Forward. Bend in, reach forward, bend in range. One more forward, bend in reach. Say their touchdown lift and front and it's up. You're clearing a hurdle and you're clearing a hurdle. One more and the last one to the front and then we lift and return to the ground. We unwind that knee.

Put your other foot down if you need to for a second. Lift the leg back up. This sound. Let's go wide with the arms. Yeah. Wide lifting the leg and push back. Neutral and lifting and push back. So using the hip to help you achieve the hype.

I'm attempting to tip my nose to the mat. Just one more. Tipping the nose to the man and I'm back. The outside hand comes back to the front. We pivot around, we reach the leg out to the side. We come. Uh Oh yeah, we did that first. You're right Deb. Thank you. You're helpful for me. Let me find our side. Plank, elbow or one knee down. Make a rainbow or reaching up and over and then find a stray line and then hover. Hover. Stabilizing the shoulders. Reach out.

Lovely. Reach up and over. Come back and bend and lift and reach up and over and come back. Bend. Oh Ma, I lift and dropped the knee and lift the leg and lift the body. Finding our balance. And then the lay comes down. You drop the pelvis into place, you take the Arma or you reach over.

Come all the way back, Ben and Ian and sit down. So, oh, we're going to sit crossing the ankles. Let's switch so that we're on our first arm. Switch to that. You're on your first time. This is an elbow thing too. We're going to do the twist. Okay.

So what you want to focus on is pulling away from the arm and using the weight going into your legs here. So we first find our side plank and then we rotate. Lift the body up, press the pelvis upwards as you reach back towards your feet and then around underneath your arm, flattening out your spine, reach back. And you can either bend your knees or you can hover. You can hover, you do what you wish. I'm gonna do this three times. Lift, reach under. Finding a flat spine, you reach back. And Oliver, nice lift up reach.

I'm going to transition as differently here. Reach up. We're going to hover. We're gonna lift. We're going to bend the bottom knee, bend the outside knee, reach over the top and sit into that hip. You didn't think I'd forget to give you a stretch, did you? No you didn't. I'm sorry to kind.

I just sit in that stretch for a moment. Let yourself soften [inaudible] and then we're just gonna roll onto that same side head and bring the legs over the other way. No, we have the hand on the mat reaching away from the arm, you know, for the twist three times, lifting up and then pick up the bottom side of the pelvis, lift the pelvis and then push the pelvis out over the feet as you lengthen your spine. Come back and hover or bend. Nice, windy and pull out from the ribs and reach under, wringing out through the waist. Then come back and hover. Last one or you reached through? We come back. We have heard again. Yes we did.

We lifted, we bent the bottom knee. We went the outside knee and we'll reach across. That's giving yourself a moment there. Again, allowing yourself to soften into the stretch. And then I just want you to roll onto your stomach. Take the arms just to your sides.

So the forums are just outside of the biceps and the arms are a biceps are pretty or the triceps are pretty close to the body. Forehead down, spine long lifting through the waist, reaching out through the legs, push like you're rolling a marble away from you with your nose. And then slide the shoulders back and just start to undulate upwards. And I'm not, you don't have to go very high here. I want us to really get into our upper back muscles. And then I want you to use your arms with a backward dragging action to pull your spine more forward on the mat.

The last thing to come down is the nose and then the eyes and then the forehead. So we do that again. Don't let your legs and your abs be lazy. So we engage there, we tip a marble rolling it across the mat as we slide the shoulders back. So there's an oppositional pole here. Upper back, pulling backwards is the spine reaches out lately into space. And then we continue to look forward a little while as we start to pull the spine forward.

And then the nose and the eyes and the forehead. Let's do it again. Two more nose goes, body goes looking in the direction you want your spine to travel. Yeah. And lowering down. And it's not a downward press. Remind yourself, it's a backward drag through the shoulder blades in the arms. 15 and then from here, push into your forums. Push down into your forms.

Push yourself up and sit back on your feet. Walking yourself out, taking a stretch, roll through your spine. Come onto your hands and knees. Make sure you have enough mat for your feet behind you. Hands underneath you. I'm gonna step back into a plank position. Hold that and appoint the right foot and ran out.

Lift it up and down and up and up and up and down and too, and yeah, and one and on. And now we are around the spine. Bring the knee to the chest and back and around the spine and back at around the spine and a hug. And I'll kick the leg up and extend the spine and come down. The pelvis stays square and kickoffs. Extend pushing the opposite foot down the left heel down and down and kick up.

Reach all the way and come all the way back down. Round your spine in the air. [inaudible] roll over your toes and drop your knees and reach back. Just for one moment. Keep your toes tucked under so your toes get a stretch and the anus.

The suggestion. Anyway, roll yourself back up over your hands. Here we go. Stretch the legs. Left leg left five. The body stays stationary. You could drop your pelvis just a tiny bit. Wendy. Last two. Nice Helen. Last one. Round your spine, knee to the chest and reach and the need of the chest and range and the need of the chest and reach and now we touch and lift up kicking into the air.

Here's another place where you really have to activate the whole backside of the body. Kika shifting back away from the arms and down and kick up and down. Round your spine in space in the air. Keep the shoulders down, roll over the toes, give the toes a stretch, drop the knees, sit back. Keep the toes where there. So in my experience, the feet tend to get fairly flexible if we don't notice them not to be [inaudible]. Roll up, come down onto your stomach again. Interlock your hands in front of you could go down onto your forehead. You can go further away from me.

All modifications. I'm gonna do this single leg kick. I want you to pull backwards with your arms as your arms. Pull backward, feel the backsides of the arms working, and then push down into the arms and lift the chest. So they're very active. Upper body here. Lift up through the abdominal, however the legs and it's a kick, kick, reach, kick, kick, reach. Keeping the spine still by focusing on the contraction of the hamstring to move the leg. And the forward pulling an upward lift of the spine and kick, kick and kick. Kicking. Now do it at the same time. So one foot kicks in, the other foot kicks and kick, kick, kick, kick. We to speeded it up, sped it up, kick, kick, kick. Still have your back muscles working.

Looking ahead of you. One more to eat side. Stretch the legs out. Start to lower the spine. Control it. Keep the legs in the air. Turn your face to face me. Hands behind your head. Interlock your hands. Drop your elbows down and it's a three kick process. Now one, two, three and you reach out. Wow.

And the head goes the other way. Elbows drop down all the way. Three and I'll reach out long stretching the shoulders and two and reach out and the other way. One, two, three. [inaudible]. One, two, hurry, chat. Last one, one, two C and r e Cha, go a little lower onto your chest. Swing the arms around. Lift the left arm in the right. Lay right arm in the left. I got this face. Inhale, two, three, four. Exhale, two, three, four and two, four and two, three and in and out and reach everything.

Everything reaches. Everything comes down. Allow your spine to settle. Okay. Push into your forums. Again, please lift yourself off. Walk back towards your feet and set. Cross your ankles behind you. Push into your hands or roll over your feet.

Bring him around in front, sitting just behind the pelvis, leaning back, lifting one leg at a time. Yep. It's happening. Stretch out and yeah. Are you gonna? Yep. You Bet. Knees walking down the legs. All modifications are going to roll down and keep the legs were right there. And now reach the arms overhead, laying the spine down. Lift the arms, the head and the chest roll. Finding your back, finding your arms. Enter each flower and slide.

Nice. Dab the pelvis underneath you. Reach back and reach forward. Heal the spine. It's helpful to look where you're going. So keep the ice forward forward all the time. Even now they'll just look straight ahead of you. And then lift. Keep the ice forward forward holding, holding, holding, holding. Bend your knees, hoping them out to your sides.

Reach all the way forward over your legs and stretch. Create a little backward pressure on the knees with the elbows and lengthen out through the tell them. So you tilt the pelvis forwards and then start to press using the arms, the spine up on our long diagonal. Continue as you do that to try to tilt the pelvis forward. And by that I mean, uh, back the back of the body going up and the front of the body of the pubic bone trying to go underneath you. And then we're just gonna make our way all the way up from there.

[inaudible] and then take the arms out to the side. And I just want you now to feel a sense of lightness in your body, a sense of achievement, reaching a bow going forward and as drifting through the air and building the spine again, amz. We'll just reach outside the knees. They'll reach, ah, we reach forward. And then just one more like that. Feel how your body can move almost effortlessly.

Not always, but sometimes reaching forward and remember that we can create our own ease lifting all the way. Allow the hands to rest just underneath the knees. Guide the spine. Take the head to the right. I'm closing my eyes again, you may or may not want to. My idea here with my eyes closed is that with our eyes closed, we can eliminate other senses and focus inwards. Lifting the head, guide the shoulders back, and just allow the heart to start floating upwards in space.

Taking the spine with it. Take the closed or open eyes upwards. I just explore that range of motion, not back-bending range of motion, and then settle yourself back into what feels like an effortlessly straight body and breathe in. And as you breathe out, just let tension flow from your body into the ground underneath you and feel everything soften. And then again, inhale, fill up with energy and we allow the bones to get heavy. Everything softens. The only thing that's still effortlessly lifting is this fine.

And with that, when you're ready, you can open your eyes and be all done today.

Comments

5 people like this.
Amazing teacher!
3 people like this.
I agree with Kirsty - you truly are an amazing teacher, Meredith! Loved the sequence of the exercises, the pace, those smooth transitions... Certainly a class to return to, thank you for sharing it!
A very heartfelt thank you to both of you!
1 person likes this.
Yet another awesome class, Meredith, thank you so much. Loved the flow, cues, tips, creativity... Now my body feels just like you said : effortlessly straight !
2 people like this.
As always: wonderful! Thanks from rainy and cold germany...
1 person likes this.
Great class. Thank you.
1 person likes this.
Agreeing with Maike! As always... wonderful class Meredith! I did this on my big screen tv, felt like I was right there with you ladies. :)
1 person likes this.
Great imagery! Love the energy!
3 people like this.
Thank you Meredith! Wonderful flow class.
Thank you so much everyone!! I appreciate your beautiful feedback more than you know.
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