Class #1410

Primal Movement Basics

50 min - Class
294 likes

Description

Tom McCook teaches a basic Mat workout that incorporates primal movements that we had to use when we learned how to walk. These movements are a great way to introduce your body to movement patterns that will make you move better and feel good. He also includes a few corrective exercises that will stretch and open your thoracic spine.
What You'll Need: Mat, Foam Roller, Theraband

About This Video

Feb 03, 2014
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Hi everybody. Here we are polities anytime for a mat class with Christie and great group of people. So we're looking forward to a great movement experience today we're going to do a lot of basic Matt, but also some primal movements that are related to what we all had to do, but to learn how to walk. And there are really great ways to introduce your body back into movement patterns that make you move better and they feel really good. And we'll also do a couple of corrective exercises for the thoracic spine.

So we're going to start standing with your feet directly under your hip joints, about four inches, four to six inches apart. I want you to look down at your feet for a moment. Just lift and spread your toes nice and wide. Then lay them down, reaching into all four corners of your feet and do that again. Lift and spread and lay them down. As you're doing that, start to become aware of your posture head right up over the spine. Now staying connected to all four corners. Lean a little forward on your feet, back to the center. Lean back slightly back to the center.

Lean to one side, back to the center. Lean to the second side, back to the center. Now just sense where the middle is for the weights. Dropping down slightly in front of the ankles and soft knees. Just close your eyes and bring your attention to your posture.

Breathing and just sense what's happening for you on a feeling level. Letting go where the rest of the day preparing for your practice, noticing that your attention is the most important piece to cultivating desired outcomes. So as you're noticing, just start to formulate your own intention for your practice today. This particular areas of your body like to heal and become more skilled with qualities you want to develop, more graceful, more fluid, whatever it might be for you. If you just like to have a good movement experience, set that intention. Before we begin, go to the end of your next exhale.

And as you and I like you to bend the knees and slide the shoulders straight up on the exhale. Let the legs lengthen as the shoulders melt and see your spine getting a little longer, and we'll do that two more times. Hips down, shoulders up, legs. Lengthen, shoulders melt. Feel the weight of the arms and the spine lengthening and again, and like [inaudible]. Okay. Now I'd like you to bring your arms up and imagine your arms are on an imaginary. They're velcro to an imaginary wall.

Now I'd like you to imagine there's a flashlight in between your arms and you're not going to touch the flat. You're not going to cross the flashlight with your arms when we do these next series of movements. So walk your feet to the right and then back to the middle and to the left. This is your slow motion. Somba before you get into your pilots and one more each side, see, notice that you can rotate the spine from the lower part. Now keeping the hips still. Now rotate from the upper part, but without crossing the flashlight with your arms, just turn the spine side to side. There you go.

Now we're going to combine the two and I'll just show you what it looks like real quick. So you're going to take your upper body of the right. Then your lower body and your upper body. Then your lower, then your feet, and we're going to go all to the right. Are we ready? All right. Everything upper body to the right, lower body further to the right upper body, right lower body center, upper body center. Here you go. And now have your left upper and now lower whatever's moving moves further than what just moved upper lower center.

One more the other way. Upper right, lower upper, lower center. Last time we left upper lower, upper, lower center. Now we're going to go right into flex and extension. So as you bend the knees, curl the head and tail forward as you roll the shoulders in. Now lifting the spine and open the top of your chest. Exhale to curl. Ah, yeah. Inhale, lift and open. When you're curling, focus on the lower back.

When you're extending focus on the middle up, we're back to more. Ah, and one. Ah, yeah. Let's take that right into a spinal roll down. So bend the knees slightly, starting from the top. Peel into yourself sequentially. Allow the pelvis to roll over the top of your legs and just nod your head yes. A couple times. I hate it. No. Now on the next exhale, feel the sit bones get heavy and start to narrow as the waistline floats up and stack the spine, arriving and aligned posture. Let's do that one more time.

Inhale to bend. Exhale, peel down nice and fluid. Take a breath of the bottom. Exhale, sit bones. Start to draw it down in front of the spine. Floats up, stacking the spine in a fluid fashion. Very nice. Now we're going to come down on your back. I'm just going to show you the first primal movement.

You guys can come on to your back. Now I'm gonna roll over something in my back, but we'll see how that goes. So rolling. When we do rolling from the upper body, you want your legs to be passive. Your arm will be overhead. You're going to take your left arm or cross. I'm going to lift my head. I'm going to flex it a little bit. Then I'm gonna look this way and reach to turn onto my belly. I'm gonna lift the arm.

Gonna look to keep turning the head to roll back onto your back. So we can do that three times with each limb, but we'll do it all that way first. Sorry. So you might want to slide a little bit over to the right side of your mat so you have mat to land on. Now take your right arm overhead now see if you can keep your legs completely passive. Start to take your left arm across your chest, you guys, your right arm. Now lift your head off the floor and look towards where your arm is reaching and roll all the way over onto your stomach.

Try to avoid initiating it from your legs, which is going to feel interesting at first. Now as you start to take your right arm or your left arm, depending on which one you just rolled from up to the ceiling, turn and look up to roll back onto your back. Let me get this out of your way. Are you gonna do that same way three times and see if you're gonna avoid the tendency of using your legs. It's going to be at first. If you look at a baby, it's about a third. The size of their body is their head.

So what turns on your vestibular system and your core is from the movements of your head. And then again, turn and reach and then turn and reach. That's kind of good. [inaudible] now, now take your second side. So you might want to slide to the other side of your mat. And again, so some of you guys, when you, when you curl, make sure that you're, um, you lifting your head by flexing a little bit and then turn and keep turning your head to reach. And that's going to turn on your core cylinder. That's it said. Try that to the second side. You're right. This side arm will be up. Now reach across. There you go.

It's like, Whoa, why is that so hard? That's it. And then take the arm and open it up to the sky and turn back and look the whole time. Imagine you're initiating it from, you're looking of your eyes from the turn. And again, same way. There you go. Now reach across, lift here, lift your head a little bit. There you go. And then reach. That's it. And one more time after you complete the one you're on, I highly recommend you do these on a daily basis. If you do want to integrate clear movement through your body a little better, that's really helpful. That's it. So after you completed the one year on, now we're going to do three from your legs. So from your legs, it'll look like this. I'll take my knee up now my knees gonna reach across.

I'm going to keep my upper body relaxed and as the lead comes across an extend through it to come onto my belly, then I'll bend it, reach it across, and let it pull long to pull me back onto my back. So we'll do three. That one, we'll all go that way to start. So start with your left leg. Do you guys with your right arms are high. Now let the leg come across the body. Then start to reach it long as you pull yourself onto your belly and then bend at the knee, reach it back across the midline, and then reach the leg long to pull you back onto your back.

That's it. That feels good, doesn't it? Let yourself feel that stretch where you're pulling into length as you're getting, as you're rotating and as best you can, stay supple in your neck. There you go. That's it. And one more back. There you go. And then slide over to this side of the mat or that side of the mat, whichever side of the Mat. We'll do the second side.

We'll take the knee up now as it comes across. Then Reese through the Lam and let it spiral you onto your and then then at the knee, feel it. Reach across the midline, lifting the off the floor, then extend the leg. That's it. And there's two more. You feel that in your hip flexors, you might feel that nice stretch through the spine, pointing out how we want to be supple in the shoulder girdle as we move. That's it. One more. Awesome. And come on back.

Very nice everybody. Now come onto all fours. We're going to go into rocking. So rocking. I'd like you to come on to all fours with your knees, at least shoulder with the apart and your hands about a foot in front of your knees. Now without rounding your back, push the floor down in forwards. You feel how it sets your shoulder girdle down and open. That's it. Now on the inhale, hinge back in your hips without rounding the lower back. Exhale forward.

And to do that for s for 10 kinda like s like knee stretch series on the reformer, but your body's moving instead of just your legs. So it's an inhale back. Exhale forward. See if you can avoid rounding the lower back at that back end. Keep your sit bones wide. That's it.

One more. Now keep yourself back. If this is not uncomfortable on your knees, stay back. And I'd like you to bring your hands a little closer to your knees and keep your chest open. So this is head nods. So as you exhale, take your chin to your chest without rounding the upper back. Inhale to put your face on the ceiling. Look up. Exhale, Chin to your chest. Do that for five. Inhaling to lift Xcel to lower three low and deep.

Breathe. Diaphragmatically let the belly relax. That's it. Two more fluid motion. One more [inaudible]. When you chin comes to your chest the next time, hold it there. And I'd like you to take five diaphragmatic breath.

Let the belly expand and feel the stretch inside the pelvis from your breath. Go to the end of the exhale. Do that for five fluid breaths. Chin is to the chest. Okay, you're feeling the movement of your belly and the inside pelvic muscles from a deep breath. One more breath.

Now do five more of the head movements with the breath. Inhale to look up full neck extension without strain. Exhale, Chin to your chest. That's it. Nice and smooth. That'd be fluid. Breathing is fluid. Two more. Inhale, lift. Exhale. The close. One more.

This time is the chin comes to the chest. Take five more diaphragmatic breaths. Breathe. Let the belly move. Let the pelvic muscles move. Feel the inner body. Notice that it has a calming effect, a relaxation effect on the neck. Two more breaths. One more.

Awesome. Everybody. As you finish that, when come up onto all fours, come to the back of your mat. We're going to go into crawling. So for crawling, instead of focusing on what's lifting focused on what? Staying on the floor. So as you exhale, just lift the opposite hand in the knee, but focus on staying on the floor that the support of the floor makes the lifting limbs easy. If you focus on the lifting side, it gets a little bit challenging. So feel the compression in the weightbearing side. Now we're going to walk forward, lift the opposite arm leg, and walk to the front of your mat. Okay.

And then see if you can walk back the same way opposite. He had a knee, which can feel a little more interesting going back. Okay. Okay. And then forward again. I highly recommend you put crawling back into your life. That's not a bad thing because you can always, so this is like the beginning phase.

You can ramp up your, your crawling to where you do with the knees off the floor and all that. But this is the, this is very beneficial for your nervous system, your movement patterns. One more time, front to back. There you go. As you come to the front of your mat, we're going to take it into opposite arm and leg reach. So I want you to feel like you can widen, lower the shoulder blades and as you inhale, just reach your opposite arm and leg away from each other. Now feel the length. Now as you exhale, bring your elbow to knee and around the lower back.

Inhale, reach out XLT to round. Do that for eight on that side. Imagine the head and tail come towards one another when you round and the breath is fluid and the spine is fluid. That's fine. That's it. Two more. Last two and one very nice. Everybody set yourself up for your second side. Become long in the reach with the inhale. Exhale, round and head tail relationship.

That's it. Nice and smooth. And two more and one more. Very nice. Now find your roller. When you complete and you're going to have your roller, you're going to come onto your side facing me with your head on the roller like this, or this is a corrective stretch for your thoracic. Now you can't see my back leg that well, that the bottom leg, but that's going to be bent cause eventually I'm going to take hold of it with my top hand. I'm going to take hold of my ankle.

Just let your head rest on it and then pull your bottom shoulder out from under you so you're not lying on it. And this hand is going to be used to stabilize. So you're going to push your knee and your hand into one another. That's it. Now take your hands on the top pan, on the bottom of your rib cage in the front. That's the, now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna inhale deeply on the exhale. My eyes are going to turn them in a pull my rib cage to turn. As I pushed my knee into my hand. This exhale, I'll just show you one and I inhaled the comeback, but I'm pushing into my hand, my knee and and my hand to help stabilize the lower back and I'm turning from my thoracic. So on the exhale, lead with your eyes and turn.

As you pull your cage with your hand and you push your knee into your hand. Inhale to come back to the start and just let your head be heavy and roll on the roller. That's it. So this one will, you'll push the knee into your hand like that. There you go. That will help you stabilize. That's it. You feel how that helps to stabilize the lower back with that press. That's a nice also feels kind of Nice to be and I felt good.

Now when you inhale back, breathe deeply, so you're also working with your diaphragm. Breathe deep and then lead with your eyes. Let your eyes lead the movement. One more. Now what you're going to do with that top hand that was holding your ribs, you're going to bend your bottom leg and take hold of the ankle. If that's not accessible, just to the same thing, and now you're going to push it into your knee. Contract. Your bottom glute.

Inhale to come forward. On the exhale, turn as you press the foot into your hand and your knee into your hand and turn from the thoracic spine. Oh, inhale to come back with the head. Exhale, resist. Lead with your eyes and turn and do that three more times. That's it. There you go. Nice and smooth. Notice how you can roll that top shoulder back, but you're initiating from the thoracic spine. There you go. Lead with the eyes. One more. Everybody. Nice and smooth. That's it.

And then the rest. Why don't we take the roller to the other end of your mat so you'll guys will face the, you've got a better view for everybody. We'll take the second side. Oh, there you go. You can just turn it over. There you go. Don't listen to me. That's it. So have your top knee bent. Your Pan is going to be on your top rib cage, your bottom hand is going to be against that top knee, and you're going to lead with your eyes. So inhale to prepare.

So on the exhale, as you push the knee into your, so you're going to be like, be like, yeah, I'll put it on the front of your knee like I'm here and push them into each other. That's it. So as you exhale, turn as you press the knee into your hand and pull with your top hand, but really get the sense that your eyes lead it so you're not tensing your neck. [inaudible] the movement be initiated from your gaze. Then your ribcage follows. That's it. And there's two more before we add the hold of the ankle.

And one more. Really feel like you're getting that rotation through your thoracic. Nice. Now Bend your lower leg and take hold of the ankle with the top hand. And now you still gonna resist with the hands. You're gonna resist with both hands now. So inhale to prepare on the XL.

Lead with your eyes. Resist with the legs. In turn from your thoracic spine. Let your thoracic follow the gaze in help back to the start and again, resist and turn. There you go. That's it. Let's do that three more times. Nice and fluid. Resist and turn. Feel how you're getting a quad stretch.

You're getting a hip flexor stretch and you're effecting your diaphragm and your thoracics fine. One more. Very nice. Everybody. As you complete the one you're on, come onto your back. We'll take the roller out of the way. That's kind of Yummy, Huh? Yeah. Now come on to your back with your legs bent. [inaudible] we're going to go into a bridge series, so have your feet in line with your sit bones.

Arms long by your sides and just find neutral in your pelvis. Shoulders back, arms long. I just take a few breaths and acclimate with this position. So breathe wide and low and on the exhale, just engage the lower belly and the pelvic floor muscles by drawing the lower belly away from your inner thighs. And imagine that wrap to your back and like the pelvic bones are getting a little narrower on the next exhale from your tailbone. As you holler the belly, curl the tail towards the DS and peel up into a bridge at the top of the bridge.

Inhale the arms back behind you and do a High v XL. Sequence the spine down away from your fingertips, one vertebrae at a time. Once the tail is down, float the arms to your sides to that two more times before you add a little variation. Exhale, curl in bridge. Inhale to reach. Shoulders. Stay low. Front Rib, stay integrated. Exhale, sequence down. Breastbone, moving away from the Chin and floated down. One more. I said smooth, equal pressure into both feet. Useful behind your eyes. Inhale to reach. Exhale, sequence down.

Awesome. As you come down, I'd like you to open your arms to the side at about eye level with the palms up. Yeah, there you go. Perfect. Now just to get a sense of sliding your show the blade slightly in and down so you feel a little bit of the middle of your back. We're going to do a single leg reach in this exercise, but the goal is to keep your pelvis stable, so take a breath and exhale. Curl up into a bridge, forming a straight line from your knees to your shoulders. Imagine Your Asi.

This is the front of your hips are drawing away from your knees. On the exhale, reach one leg straight out to the height of the other leg with a straight leg lifted straight to the ceiling. Reach it back out the straight and place it down. We're going to do four on each side. Exhale, reach the second side. There you go. And lift. It's okay if you do them all at once down. This just happens to be the directions right now. Then again, reach and lift.

Reach and Lauren's still stay aware of your middle, upper back, your belly, and the back of your legs. You're working on pelvic stability and hip mobility. That's it. Nice and smooth and left and lower. Beautiful. You guys. Reach, lift, reach and lower. One more reef side reach left. Reach lower last time. Reach, lift, reach and lower nest. Keep that. Now, sequence down through the spine. Take the arms straight up to the ceiling and widen and lower your shoulder blades. Inhale the arms back behind you.

We're going to come and do an abdominal curl. XL the arms forward. Let the head roll towards the waistline and take hold of the back of your thighs. As you widen, lower the shoulder blades and inhale, curl a little higher. Go to the end of your exhale. Inhale, reach back. Exhale down, and again, inhale arms and head curl. Take hold. Inhale. Curl a little higher. Just use your app. Yes, reach back and sequence down. One more arm and head. Feel the shoulder blade curl. Take hold. Curl a little higher. Reach back.

Exhale down. Now we're going to take it into rotation, so come up the same way. Inhale, exhale, curl. Now as you come up, take hold of the outside of your right leg with both hands. Now rotate around the midline and come a little higher. Go to the end of the exhale. Stay in rotation, reach back, exhale down to the middle. Arms come down. Forward, curl, take hold of the second side, curl, lift a little higher, reach back, exhale down. One more each side, arms come forward. Curl as you hold, widen and lower the blades. Wrap around the mid line. Reach back and down.

One more forward curl. Take, hold, wrap, reach and sequence down. Beautiful. Take your knees into your chest and rock up to a seated position and find your theraband. Now put the theraband around your feet. I'm going to do a rollback variation. Look at that. We have a great sky outside right now, so I'd like you to wrap it around your feet. Now let your arms be long, but bend your legs a little bit. This is similar to what you would do on a reformer.

You're going to turn the arms away from you and just widen and lower your shoulder blades as you inhale, grow tall, but start to narrow your sit bones. Exhale, pull the waistline back and curl back about a quarter of the way. Now hold it there from the back of the shoulders. Pulse to the back. Now as you pulse to the back hall of the belly and feel like you're reaching your show the blades out towards your elbows so the back stays open, you feel in your core and your inner thighs. One more arms come forward, roll back up.

Take a breath and roll back the same way. This time your arms will be straightened in closer. Curl back again. This time as you exhale, pull your right elbow in and turn to the right. Inhale Center. Exhale, pull in, turn. That's it. Feel how you're turning from your waistline, but you're keeping your inner thighs toned. That's it.

Feel there. Wrapping around the midline of the body, just like that corrective you did in the thoracic spine. There you go. One more each side, nice and smooth. And last one. Inhale to the center. Exhale, curl all the way up that. Take your band and double it, so you're going to use it as a stick.

So hold it about shoulder width apart and just put a little bit of tension out and reach forward. Now grow tall on the exhale from your pelvis. Start to curl back. As you reach forward, as you sequence down, as the arms go back, keep the spine long, exhale the arms forward, the head follows. Peel off the Mat, curl over your center and reach. Grow tall at the top and then curl back to forge your own pace. Feel the connection to your midline, your Scapula, your lower glutes and hamstrings. That's it. Nice and smooth. Grow Tall, affiliate.

You're activating from the bottom up to go back. That's it. Smooth fluid motion. Two more and one more. Feel like you're getting longer, more space in the spine and then peel up and over as you come forward. This time, hook the strap around your feet. Then your knees slightly now widen. Lower the shoulder blades wouldn't dent knees.

Take your forehead towards your knees and hollow the belly back. Now from there, instead of just straightening your knees, draw the belly away from your legs to start to straighten your legs in to bend. Do that three times so you can keep your shoulders away from your ears the whole time. Focus more on the muscle activation as opposed to just the knee joint straightening. Feel the opposition, the belly pulling away from the legs. One more, and as you complete the one you're on slowly release, we're going to go right into the roll over, so let's help yourself down onto your back wide leg to start. So just come on to your back with your feet flat and your knees bent.

Find neutral again, draw the abdomen to float your knees up and bring the legs together and then straighten them up to the sky. Inhale to open shoulder with exhale. Take the legs back and peel into the rollover. Inhale, just flex the feet. Xcel sequence down with heavy, long arms, upper spine, mid back, low back at the bottom, inhaled the point. Exhale backs are going to keep them open for three weeks, a little easier. Inhale the flex. Exhale sequence down, reaching through your legs. If you want to get a bigger stretch, keep the legs closer to your body. One more time. Exhale back.

Inhale, flex. Exhale sequence down. Now we'll do three where we start with the legs together and held together. In points. Exhale back. Inhale, open, flex. Exhale, traction down with open legs. Two more. Inhale together and point. Exhale back. Inhale, open flex traction down heavy, long arms. See your spine getting longer, more aligned. One more time. Exhale back.

Inhale, open. Flex XL traction down as you get towards the bottom. Keep your right leg up or bring your left leg all the way to the floor. Now with the down leg, flex the foot and press the back top of the thigh into the floor. When the upper leg pointed and feel your belly is drawing away from your upper leg. Anchor the shoulder blades down for leg circles. Inhale into the mid line. Exhale the circle. Inhale N and circle.

Feel the strength who the down leg, the strength of your scapula. The moving leg is a gesture. One more in that direction and reverse opposite hip stays heavy all the way through. That's it. Fluid motion and too. One more. Lower the knees. Slide it out on the mat. Bend the other knee up and slide it up to straight. Now at flex the bottom foot.

Press the top of the thigh under the floor and draw the belly away from the reaching leg. Inhale away from them into the mid line. Exhale the circle. Use the support of the floor. That's it. Two more and one [inaudible] and reverse fluid motion anchored body. Two more. As you complete, bend both knees into your chest.

Rock up for rolling like a ball. Begin the first roll holding the back of your thighs. Now from your pelvis. Roll a little behind your sit bones. Lift the news, no widen and lower the shoulder blades initiating from your pelvis. Inhale to roll. Role Up. Find that balance point if you'd like to take it further.

Take your hands to your shins. Make your ball a little tighter. You can keep it either place. Move with your breath. Find that connection of your Scapula to your abdomen. Imagine your heels have magnets between them and your sit bones and two more and one more. [inaudible]. As you come down and place your feet on the floor, you're going to come back onto your back for what's called supine rotation.

This is a corrective exercise for your mid thoracic. So open your arms into it. Don't shoot position to your elbows are bent at right angles like goalposts, and bring your knees over your belly button. But relax your lower legs. Now focus on the space in between your shoulder blades. Draw your shoulder blades slightly down and in, and just take a breath and excess. See if you can contract those muscles in between your shoulder blades, not so much to your lats. Imagine that part of the back's not gonna move in.

The shoulder blades aren't going to move. As you inhale, take your knees and your pelvis to your to that way. Keep the opposite shoulder blade on the floor. Now exhale hollow the belly to come back to the middle and only move to the degree that the opposite shoulder blade mid back doesn't come off the floor. So is this helps for fatigue, passion, and really feel that middle upper back working. There you go a little more right there.

So come back and do that side one more time. But don't let this come off the floor even less, even less. Cmos don't go quite so far. A little less and less. That's it. Press that down into my, there you go. That's it. That's it. Nice you guys. So really feel the down and end of the shoulders.

You want to be feeling your middle upper back more than your waistline. A little bit of a smile helps on this one too. Nothing major. Just a little one. One worry side. Last one. Back to the Senate. Draw your knees and rock up to a seated position for reverse plank.

I want you to use those same muscles when you do the reverse plank. So draw the, show the blades back, activate your inner thighs and just handling from the bottom of your glutes. Lift up, keeping the show the blades depressed and drawn together. Inhale lower from the hip joint. Do that for five. Find your middle back. Find your low glutes and hamstrings and held down. That's it. Nice and smooth.

Feel it initiates from low in the body. There you go. Good. And two more. Feels Nice in the shoulders once you find that mid-back. Two more me. Nice. That's great. That was the plan. One more slowly lower. Reach your arms forward and come on to your back. Rolling down for double leg stretch as you come down, draw the knees in. Now think of the Ab curl we did when you were holding your legs when you curled up. Imagine your torso isn't going to change when the arm and legs move. Exhale, curl up or the upper body. Why do lower the shoulder blades?

Now keep looking at your belly and inhale slowly reach arms and legs away from each other. Xcel circle and dry everything into the middle. For more at your own pace. Feel your breath. Feel your breath. Breathe your back onto the floor. Good, nice and smooth. And two more and one more. As you draw the knees in, rock up to a seated position for spine. Stretch forward. Get up nice and tall. Float your arms up over your legs. Grow a little taller and on the x has a chin nods.

Feel the waistline drop back and up as you curl. Inhale, stack the spine from the bottom up, growing tall, getting right up on your sit bones. Feel the activation from the bottom as you lift to go forward, energy out your legs, fingertips top of your head. Inhale the stack. Two more. Imagine the top of your head is going up and over something, but it's going towards the floor and how the stack. One more time. [inaudible].

Inhale up tall. Bring your legs right together for spine twist. Grow Tall. Reach your arms out to the side and now widen and lower the shoulder blades. Inhale the grow tall. Exhale, turn to towards me with a pulse. Inhale Center. Exhale the term, that's it.

Feel the turn is being generated from the middle of the body. Feet are staying nice and stationary. Hips are still there we go. Good Af Eric. Traffic control going on out there and again, one each side, the side back center. Open the legs for the saw. Reach the arms a little bit forward. This time matches.

It's more like your shoulder bites can pull down and forward. Inhale, spiral towards me. Now keep the hip you're turning away from anchored and reaches you flat in to roll up to center. Exhale, rotate in. Reach opposite hip stays weighted. Inhale, center. Exhale, rotate in. Reach two more. Each side. It's your own pace, nice and fluid. That's it. Feel that sense of opposition in the body, wrapping from your waistline and your shoulder girdle. One more last side. Now exhale the turn as you lengthen up, help yourself forward onto your forearms.

So this is a prep for single leg kicks, but it's also a resistive stretch. So what I'd like you to do is with your elbows under your shoulders, push your elbows into the floor and lift up out of your shoulders and then tone your inner thighs and just practice doing this movement a few times as you exhale and push your elbows down in forward. Round your spine and look back towards your belly in Hilton neutral on the XL. Resist the elbows back, but extend your upper chest forward and look up slightly. In Hilton neutral x, I reached down and forward and flex the spine in Hilton neutral. Exa resists back and open the chest. Keep the legs toned. One more time. Inhale neutral. Exhale down and forward. Flex.

Inhale, neutral. Exhale down and back arch. Now hold that position. We're going to go right into single leg kicks in. Helps prepare. Exhale to pulse. Inhale to lengthen to pulses. With that short exhale breath as you're lengthening the leg. Steven, keep the knees light. That's it.

Two more each side and one more sequence down onto your belly. Put your hands on your lower back. For double leg kicks, you turn your head to one side and over. If it's not good on your shoulders to interlace so you can have your hands resting on your hips. Bring your legs close together and let your shoulders draw down. We'll let the elbows drop towards the floor.

Keeping the front of the hips anchored in health. Three pulsing kicks. Have your heels towards your butt kick, kick, kick. As you exhale, lengthen the legs. Open the chest. Reach forward through the spine and down. Head to the second side. Kick, kick, kick. Reach an open and down. Second side, pulse kick, kick, kick, reaching. Open and down and kick, kick, kick, kick. Reach an open. One more repetition. As you come down, kick, kick, kick. Reach an open, lengthen down.

Slide your hands under your shoulders and just press back to child's pose. Stretch back. Let the body become foldable. Soft tip soft. Next off, belly. Take a few breaths. Check in with yourself. Notice if you're building any unnecessary tension. One more breath and then slowly roll up through the spine and come on to your side. For short side sidekicks here, these are the bottom arm.

You have options. You can either cradle your head like this, you can have the arm straight or you can be propped up a little bit, but make sure if you're propped up, you're not weight bearing with the head into your arm. You're more doing it from the elbow, reaching down in a way. Now Stack your hips and have your feet a little forward of the body and see even create a little space on your bottom waistline and just take that top shoulder down with a hand close to your body. Now lift your top foot a few inches and tone the inner thigh or the bottom leg for sidekicks. Inhale, kick with a pulse XL point and reach to the back. And imagine throughout the movement, the hips and shoulders stay stacked.

That's that exhale to the back field. Like that relationship between your belly, hamstring, glute. As the leg goes to the back. There you go. Two more. And one more. This next one, when the legs to the back, hold the knee to the back and on the next exhale was the heel to your butt moving into bicycle needy or chest leg long to the front. Feel each stage of it as you bending the leg, keep the knee back. You really feel that glute hamstring getting a nice stretch in the front of your thigh and hip flexors. There you go. One more in the direction you're going. As you come to the front, you're going to reverse.

Bend the leg and reach to the back. That's it. A nice fluid range of motion from a stable body. Two more. There you go. One more. Awesome. Has He [inaudible] come back to the center? Lower both legs.

Now you're just going to lift your top leg up about a foot and hold it there and on the exhale, bring the bottom leg to meet it and then add pace to it and work from right where the leg meets the body. Low belly, shoulders, your low or your neck is soft [inaudible]. That's it. Three more. And as you lower transfer right onto your second side, the line up your body. [inaudible] hip stacks. Feet a little bit forward of the body. Head back in line with the spine. Top, hand in front of your chest. Legs are toned. Lift your top like a few inches for the flex foot.

As you inhale, kick with a pulse XL point and reach to the back. Visualize that your hip joint is the primary hinge. The femur head rolls back in the socket. As the leg goes forward, rolls forward. The sit bone narrows a little bit. As the leg goes back, sit bone widens as the leg goes forward. Three more and one more on the next one. Hold the leg strongly to the back. Xcel bend at the knee, needy your chest, leg long to the front, fluid motion.

That's it. Nice and smooth. Two more in the direction you're going. As you get to the front on this next one, just reverse bend and reach to the back. Feel that relationship back of your leg. Abdomen, stable, shoulders. That's it. Last two, last one. As you come back to the center, stack the legs.

Bring the top leg up about a foot from your very top of your inner thigh. Bring the bottom leg to meet it. Then increase your pace for 10 that's it. Smooth fluid motion. Last three. Very nice. As you lower roll back to your first side and come up onto your forearm.

Now have your bottom. Have your legs bent about a quarter of the way, your bottom forearms in perpendicular, so it's straight ahead. Now we're going to come into a side plank, but you want to push that down into the floor and then push the arm away from use your shoulders sets in. Your bottom waistline is active. As you push down, squeeze your legs, lengthen legs, and reach up as you lift the hips. Reach and look towards the floor. Lift lower the hips and look towards the feet. Just a few inches. Now lift and reach. Lift lower control. Use your inner thighs. One more time.

Lift and reach back to side. Then come down. Switch sides. Nice work. That was good. There you go. Hi. Welcome to our class. Oh, so push the forum down in a way.

The legs were a little bit bent and when you pushed it, you want to feel your bottom waist. Pull away from the floor. Feel that before you left. Now squeeze your legs, lift and reach. Lift the hips more and stretch over the top. Back to side. Lower the hips slightly and again, lift and reach side and lower. One more.

Lift in reach side and lower. Very nice. Come back onto your belly for swimming. Now stretch your arms out in front of you. Have your hands a little wider than shoulder width. And just first get a sense of anchoring the front of the hips and the pubic bone down and telling the inner thighs widen and lower the shoulder blades.

That's it. Now just extend the top of your chest to lift your head and come up a few inches with your head. That's an as you press your right leg and your left arm down. Lift the other two, reaching them away from the midline and lower on the inhale. Exhale to reach. Feel like you're staying long and your lower back and you're connecting to your middle, upper back. That's it.

One more each side. And now from their float, all four limbs off the floor, or were the long and the hill. Do four beets. Inhale for four. Exhale for four, five breaths. Still find that middle back. That's it. One more breath.

Slowly sequenced down. Place the hands on to your shoulders and press up to a cat stretch. So in the cat stress, I want you to round the back and hold it for two breaths. And one more breath. Everybody come to neutral spine and we're going to step into a plank for leg pull back. So widen and lower the shoulders. Step into a plank. Now keep your hips low.

Shoulders low and wide on the XL. Point and lift one leg. Inhale down. Exhale the second side, alternating your legs. Two, four on east side. That why low scapula connection. One more. Read sighted buddy.

Float the knees down. Help yourself into a seated position. Roll onto your back. Draw the knees. And we're going to do single straight leg stretch to take a breath. So roll up at the upper body. Now reach your left leg straight up and hold below the knee.

Reach the right leg long. Now look at your belly and widen and lower the shoulder blades on the exhale. Switch and switch fluid. That's it. Three more each side. Alright, one more. Each side.

Back to the center. Draw your knees in. Rock forward. You're, you gonna help yourself up to standing for push up. Walk to the back end of your mat. That's the now standing at the back end of your mat. As you take the arms up, get as long as possible. Feel the shoulders you're wide low. Oh, the front ribs are in Xcel. Peel down and walk out to a plank. Now in your plank, just feel the plank. Don't worry how much you bend your elbows.

Keep that line through the body and do three perfect push push ups. Inhale the bend. Exhale this straight. One more [inaudible] from the plank. This time lift back to downward dog. Hold the downward dog. Now just bend one leg as you straighten the other, press that dive on back as you reached the heel towards the mat and then slowly switch to that two times on each side. One more each side.

Now Ben, both legs deepen your hip crease and take your thighs back and take your chest more towards the Mat. That's it. Now lengthen your legs. Walk your hands back towards your feet. Soft knees. Let the head hang. Nod your head yes a few times. Rotate a few and an along excess. Slowly roll up through the spine as you get to the top. Roll the shoulders back. Sense your posture.

Wow. I'll just sell for your hard work, you guys. Thank you.

Comments

1 person likes this.
Wonderful, new ideas. Great cueing. I am a big fan of your work!
3 people like this.
I love the care and specificity of your cueing. I'm a big fan, too!
Beautiful. Thank you!
1 person likes this.
feeling great after taking this class. feels like something we should do everyday.
Excellent, thank you Tom!
1 person likes this.
my best side planks ever - great sequencing and great cueing.
thank you!
My favourite class so far. You have a lovely soothing voice and I really enjoyed the primal movement exercises. Thanks
Very helpful with posture and hip placement, enjoyed the pace and stretches.
Thank you. I feel great and agree it is something (at least) I should be doing everyday :) I do have a question for when I am working with my own clients - during the all fours rocking when you get to the point of holding for the head nods: are there modifications you would recommend for someone who cannot tolerate the pressure on their knees and/or the knee flexion (besides using a blanket or cushion to reduce the knee flexion). I have an idea or two but would appreciate your feedback. Thanks!
5 people like this.
Thank you everyone for your comments and participation. As you all know it's in the practice itself where we learn and grow. Amy here's a few suggestions for modifications for those with knee challenges on all 4's. 1. Have them sit on an exercise ball and place their hands on a wall or box and move performing the same movement going through as much hip,knee and ankle flexion as the can without pain or flexing the spine. 2. Sit in a chair or on a box and place their hands on a exercise ball or roller to guide the movement in the hip joints forward and back.I hope this is helpful and thanks again for your commitment to practice.
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