Class #1577

Breath-Focused Mat

55 min - Class
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Brent Anderson teaches a Mat workout focused on using the breath to find free space in the body. He encourages you to notice and appreciate how breath can change the way you initiate each exercise depending on where you are directing the breath in your body. Brent will have you sing, buzz, and even play a fun game of Red Light, Green Light to get you to use your breath consistently and correctly during the class.
What You'll Need: Mat

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All right, we're going to start with a little movement and a, the movement I want to happen is going to start inside your lungs, but I want you to appreciate how breath and breath actually takes up space and posture and changes our weight bearing. So if we're just standing on our feet about shoulder width apart, and I always like to take you into a little bit of an here lean so you can feel your feet right and if you just try to go around the edges of your feet and feel the all the contact points on the floor, she can feel your toes, the inside lateral side of the foot and just moving around and then you're going to come with smaller and smaller circles until you sort of fall in that place where you have good grounding. Typically about 55 to 60% of the weight on the ball of the foot and about 40 to 45% on the hill. Can you find that place there? And we just stack our bones up so we know that the Tellez is sticking straight up and the Tibia is on top of that and the femur on top of the tailors and or the Tibia and Sonos. You can think of those bones stacking up. You can find a place where there's the least amount of muscle energy happening, right?

So sort of like we're just suspended or that elastic band connecting the crown of the head up to the ceiling and we're suspended like a puppet. You just sort of find that free space. And when you find that place, close your eyes and as you take in a deep breath, notice what happens to your weight distribution. And I exhale now for me when I inhale, I feel my body weight shift back towards my hill, the deep breath back and this time, see if you can bias it by really sending the air into the back of the lungs and notice that it even sends you more to the back. This time, deep breath into the diaphragm of the belly and you notice it doesn't change at all. Can you feel the difference in that when the weights in the front of the foot, right? Deep breath into the back.

So the weight shift in the body shift in the back. So now this time, see if we can bring the area and as much as possible in all sir conferences. So we talked about forward and back side and superior inferior. And you notice as you do that the body doesn't sway. It stays up nice and tall and exhale. So understanding again that the movement or what causes breath with your eyes open is going to be the movement of the rib cage.

If your rib cage moves forward, it's going to displace your gravity forward. If your rib cage moves back, it's going to display, shift your weight back. If it displaces in the abdomen, it's going to go forward. And we go all directions. It should keep us right in our ideal alignment. Okay, so let's go and start on your backs. Knees bent, smiles on your face, smiles across your shoulders, has down to the side. And again, we're going to be playing with the concept of breath throughout this particular class. And not so much with rules of breath, but more with observation of breath.

So allow breath to do its job as I sort of take you through the movement. So let's just simply start off with some gentle bridging and bridging with articulation. And I want you to observe how you breathe with this exercise. So I'm not going to give you any breathing cues to start. Just begin to articulate the pelvis, the l 504-OH-THREE-0201 t 1211 ten nine eight is about as high as you're going to go.

And then from there you'll roll back down 891011121234 five and the pelvis. Now less go right into our rule ribs. We're going into a bridge and so we're going to want to send the ribs posteriorly into the mat as we start to peel up. That's probably going to be associated with easiest, with a little bit of an exhalation, at least opening your throat as you roll the pelvis up and then taking a deep breath. And as you exhale again, sending the upper ribs down and back. First. Let's repeat that again. Coming on up, rolling up around my hand, the ribs relaxing down into the floor. That's right.

Now we're thinking of this day in here a little bit and fill this. Sending down into the mat, fill the ribs, posteriorly gliding pads, and not worrying so much about this. On the next one, you're going to bridge up and you're going to stay up and we'll go right into our lateral translation. So we're going to slide the pelvis to the right, slide the pelvis to the left, drop down one rib and then slide to the right and the left again and see if you can get at least five or six segments by the time you get down into the l five s one area. Feel that translation of the ribs side to side. It looks good. Good, good, good. Everybody's getting some good movement. And one more time. Rolling up.

Good. And at this drop down just a smidge. And now bring the ribs over to the right lead. There you go. Good. And to the left. Good. Drop down a little bit. Keep going. Good. That's the translation I want. Fill these ribs, reaching down into the mat, keeping the hair you go. Good. Excellent. Last one. We'll do one more of those side the sides and again, just loosening up that connection.

Sometimes we just hold a little bit too much in there and this is what wakes up those deep local muscles and puts those big muscles that are holding the rib cage tight to rest. Get those illiocostalis muscles to chill out. You got it. And when you come down, rest in that position, now slide your feet out about another foot. You're still going to have a little bit of a bend. Dig Your heel into the mat. Yeah, and just point and flex your foot so that your whole body rocks.

Can you make it so you just rock, rock, rock, rock, rock, rock. Because the whole body translating. So you're going to feel more of this of food in your head. Yeah, I am doing and see if you now take the feet out a little bit further and keep pumping it so your body articulate. You are a chain dominoes. That's it. Isolation. Okay.

Find your rhythm too. Maybe your pumping too fast, maybe you're pumping too slow. Typically we like to go row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily. Life is but a dream. Isn't that your favorite thing to do is this thing that, like I said, I never get mad. I just get you that and relax. Very good. Bring the feedback into that hook line position. Yup. And let the knees now shifts side the sites of the feet. The knees are going to be together. Widen your hands out a little bit. Yup.

So there's some room. Take the knees together over to the side. Right until you get all the way over to the right side and just before that left shoulder wants to disengage from the floor. Now in this position, stay there. Stay there. Stay there. Off to the right side. Yeah, your other eyes. There we go. Good. Taking a deep breath and as you exhale, bring that first rib up underneath that left armpit. Bring that rib down to the mat.

Then bring two and three and four and five and six following it all the way until the pelvis comes back into its resting position. And then take the knees over to the left side and again, keep the knees together because that's going to give you that nice pull in that direction. Taking a nice deep breath this time. Send the breath into the back of the right lung and as you exhale, bring that top rib down only to your armpit and continue with a sequence. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine 10 1112 and then the legs come back. Let's go a little bit quicker. Now. Take the legs over to the right, taking a deep breath into that left lung back behind the heart. Exhale, bring the ribbon, the chest down into the floor, bringing the legs back over and to the left.

Inhale you in the back of the right lung. Exhale, bring the armpit down. Then the ribs follow the increase in the movement. Those upper ribs that we saw often just ignore and again, bring it down. Last one to this side. Well, here's some releasing going on in your body, so that's good. Last one to the left. Now let's challenge the control of that a little bit.

So we're going to bring the right leg up to a 90 90 and bring the left leg up to match that connected. Take your hands out just a little bit wider. Yep. Send your shoulders wide and fill that in. Anchoring in that organization if an upper yeah, and take the knees over to the right. Now a little more control. Same thing. Breathe in the back of that left lung and bring that rib down. As you bring the legs back up into that neutral position, take the legs over to the other side. Deep breath in. Yes.

Feel it. Come in right here. That's what's going on there. That's it. Good. Eh, one more time. If you want to make it more challenging, you can straighten your legs up towards the ceiling and do the last one with straight legs. I use increasing the lever, but see if you can still find that segmental movement. That's that good drawing down. Excellent. Bring your hair to the side. Feet.

Come back down. Take your hands to your sternum. Back the hands together. Yeah, just like that. Elbows in front of you. Now the sternum is going to slide, but I want us to think of the rib cage expanding in the back and the lower ribs lifting up underneath our heart. As we come up into a pre chest lifts, we're going to send those elbows away and feel the ribs coming up underneath our heart is we come up right. That's good. And it's almost like if you could feel me Huggy, eh, there we go. Exactly. Good and back down, Eh, feel the sling. Relax for a second and let me pull you up last. Less work, less work, less work.

Sometimes we work too hard on this one. See if you, again, if you think of that sling of the Trapezius and the rest into my hands. Rest into my hands. Ribs dropped back into the floor there. This last one up, down and, and come down. Very nice. Hands behind the head, going into the chest. Lift this time. Elbows in the peripheral vision. We're going to exhale. Come up again. There. You fill in the ribs, come up, pronate the heart.

Inhale as you reach the hands behind your knees, grab with your hands, your fingers and exhale and come up a little bit higher. So we're going to challenge ourselves. Opening the rib cage in the back below the shoulder blades. Keep that hype now inhale, bring the hands back behind the head and then exhale on rolled out. There's two, two more of those. Exhale, roll up. Expand the ribs posteriorly. Reach your hands through space behind the knee.

Draw yourself up a little bit higher. Find those ribs, open them up in the back. Hands come back behind the head and roll down one more time and preparing. Exhaling, rolling up. Ribs are going posteriorly. Lower ribs are lifting up underneath the heart arch, the arms lift. Use your assistance to come up to that space. It's awkward for you.

Stay there for a second. Keep the fingers there. Send those ribs back with breath in. Helen. Inhale. Exhale three or four times right there, filling it, expand post too early. This is going to help all of your flection exercises, not about strength, about movement. And relax and go down. Good. Very nice. All right.

Now bring your legs up to 90 90 hands to the side with a happy smile on your face. Roll up into a pre hundred position you go. It's going to be easy right now. Inhale in the back of the lungs. Pulse in the hands in two, three, four, five, three, four, five. Feel the air in the back of the lungs. Exhale from the belly. Inhale on the back of the lungs behind the shoulder blades and exhale halfway there. Here we go. Straighten the legs out if you can challenge yourself.

If you got it in you, the lower the legs, by all means do so. Here we go. Feel the breath expand. If you get tired, bringing those knees back in. Key breathing into the w four last one. Here we go. Big deep breath in the back of the lungs. Exhale. Bring those knees into your chest. Give yourselves a huck. Excellent.

Roll your head side to side. Gentle nod on the floor and no support of the muscles. Release the muscles in the front of the neck. Nice deep breath. Relaxing your jaw, your tongue, your throat, even your sternum, your body is warmed up. That is the internal heater. Grabbed the back of your thighs and without any muscles other than your fingers.

Roll up into a seated position or thrusting. Just balance. Roll it up. Good. Now sitting up nice and tall, taking another deep breath and exhale by starting to reach the ribs back. As you inhale posteriorly and give out halfway down. Exhale, finish the roll down again. You could stop at any time. This is where we play red light, green light. Okay, hang on. Do your legs. Modified roll-up. So keep your fingers there grabbing on.

We're going to use those legs. Grab all your legs. Legs are up in the air and when I say greenlight, you start rolling. When I say red light, you stop. If you do not stop when I call red light, you're out of the game. You got it. Green Light, red light. Oh, I'm going to get a second chance. Okay. Greenlight all the way up, all the way up in the seated red light. Green Light, red light, green light, red light, green light. Keep going up and down. Don't wait for me. You trying to play me?

I'm more random than that. Keep going. Here we go. Two more times. Green Light your green light. Keep it moving. Keep it moving. Now here's the trick. Some of you are holding your breath. There's two things that happen when you hold your breath. You can't move or you fart. We don't want to Fart on film, so don't hold your breath. Not a good idea. Use your breath to help you out.

And let's think of the ribs moving. Okay? Very important. Hey, it's happened on film. Trust me and saying that back. Exhale. Take a breath in between and see if you can find that. That's right. It's gotta be continuous. You can start and stop at any time. Your body is that supple. It's about just moving the spine. And last one, you're gonna roll down and stay down.

You got it all way down. Hands up over the heads. Legs straighten out in front of you. And we're ready for our full roll up. Yeah, so the full roll-up has an advantage because your legs are heavy into the floor. Fill your legs heavy into the floor. Think of a little bit of stiffness happening with the energy between your legs and little bit in the pelvis and that's going to give you the foundation so the rest of your spine is really supple and can move and will move as you exhale.

So inhale and hands float up over the chest, excelling, roll in the spine, up all the way up and over. Lovely. Rolled up over there on the corner. Very nice and right back down. Now this is where we all get to sing because I said I was going to get even and the song goes like this. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. You wait, you guys are going to sing it and then when you go back down, it's going to go like this. Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. So you all know the song, it's very easy. Here we go. Start with the hands over the head. Inhale and exhale. Arms float up over the chest and we started singing, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and down.

Eight seven, six, three, two on now, some of you, I heard this. One, two, three, six, seven, eight, eight, seven, three, two, one. So the key is I need you to be operatic on four, five and six. You gotta be operatic on four, five and six. You lose. I don't care about your roll up. I want to hear you sing. Inhale, arms over the head. Arms float up over the chest. Exhaling. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, eight, seven, six, five, four. Oh, we're calling that a tag. That was a good one. On your right side going into side kick position. Right side.

They seen the window faced in the back. No, he writes out right there. Right there. Right side. Yup. Right side. All right, let's come up onto that forearm. Get ourselves up there. Feel the length of the spine. Left hip on top of the right hip, the crown of the head, reaching away the shoulder blade on top of the humerus. So feel that. Lift that energy down into the floor. Lift that left. Dig Up as high as you can without changing the position of your pelvis, your ribs, and bring it back down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up.

Halfway down circle is going forward. And one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and reverse and go. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven side kick. Take it forward and back and forward and back. Use your breath. And in and back, and in, and x and n and eggs. And in an x last one. Inhale and X. Leave that left leg back.

Take that left arm forward as far as you can. Have full rotation in your body reaching opposite directions while your right heel and the crown of your head are reaching in opposite directions from the sea, like the lengthwise. You got that. Cue the length. Good. Now in that position, taking a deep breath, expanding the rib cage as much as you can. And when you exhale, you're gonna make the sound of a B. [inaudible] connecting the belly button to the spine and t seven to the sternum. Another deep breath. Let's do it again. This time.

I don't want any air left in the lungs except for that residual volume we talked about. [inaudible] keep going. When you run out of air, you can roll over onto the floor on your belly. All right, let your head rest on the back of your hands. You should be warming up. Yes, I see you taking these sweaters off. It is the right time to do that. Head resting on the back of your hand. Yes, yes. There you go. You got it. The first thing we do is we find our head and then we see if we can put our hands close to the head where we can rest our hands on there. All right. Create space.

Create space that gravity work with you right now for a second. Softening the middle of your thoracic spine. T seven coming down into the floor filled [inaudible] coming right down. Yup. Soft tissue moving aside. Sternum comes down for that softening.

Taking a deep breath into the lower ribs posteriorly. See if you can expand that space away from your head, away from the neck. And as you exhale, there's even more space around your neck and more space around your head. Now with those arms on the floor, feel the pressure of the forums into the floor and reach the crown of the head forward and gently lift the head and the neck up off the floor. Just the head in the neck and then bring it back down to your hands again.

Reached the head. Bring the head and the neck up off the floor just a little bit. The back of the neck is long. It's coming from. Think of just the very top of the sternum, reaching towards your hands a little bit and head coming up. You sort of feel that connection there. Good and back down.

[inaudible] last one. Head will come up one more time. This time from that position, bring the hands up to touch the head as well as the forearms. So you're floating. Hold that position right there. Take a deep breath into the back of your lungs. The back. Yeah. Now when you exhale, bring those hands into that scarecrow or a goalpost position.

Drop the hands down onto the floor with the arms out at a 90 90 angle, 90 90 angles. So bring your elbows up a little bit higher until your armpit is a 90, 90. Yeah, there we go. Now push those hands into the floor. You're lifting the head and the neck up. But now feel the spiral. Don't come up too high. I want you to feel the spiral of the arm brewing the sternum forward.

Can you feel that? That's the direction I want. Good. That's it. And back down. You guys got some wild tape on your bodies and uh, I want some of that tape still the spiral from here. So what I'm bringing forward is about t for up to five up behalf and back down. Last one come up that same height, just about t five t six, take your arms and float them off the ground. Hold up position.

Deep breath into the lower thoracic. Keep the hands off. See if you can find it. Can you expand those ribs? Come on. You can do it. Do it. Do it good. Bringing the hands now down to the side of your chest. Elbows up to the ceiling and a priest. One position. Send the elbows down. We're going to continue to come up to the lowest rib. We're going to continue.

Articulate the spine. The lowest rib. That's right and back down. All the way. Head, neck, sternum, lowest rib. Come up into your priest one. Send the elbows down and back. There's no muscles involved in this. It's floating. You got it. And back down the last one. Bring it up. Lift your hands off the mat. Take him down by your side.

Palms up towards the ceiling. Legs come off the ground ever so slightly. You're in the dark position right now. Nice. Slow pulses with a hands. I'm fine with the hands or palms being down or up so it doesn't matter to me, but palsy. Now where's the breath taking place on that pulse? Notice where the breath is. Can your breath lengthen the lumbar spine? Ah, there we go. Good. Let the breath lengthen at.

See if you can fill up that space. Still pulsing, pulsing, pulse. Turn your hands the other way, whatever way you are turning the opposite way, palms down or palms up. And again, just feel that difference. The Pec muscles pulling on the ribs in front. Last one and relax. Rolling over onto your left side. Wrapped up on that forearm. Lengthiness spine, that left foot, reaching away the head, reaching away. Take the right leg up.

We go without displacing the pelvis of the ribs and up and up and up and up. And here's a little trick. Leave the leg up. Think of the hip joint itself. Spiraling down into the groin rather than lifting the leg up. When I say up, okay, it's a little bit easier on your abductors. So fill the spiral of that femoral head that floats that leg out. There you go. One more time. Halfway down circles coming forward, and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and reverse and go. One, two, tiny small flowing circles and sidekick going forward with a double pump and back and forth.

Okay, and back. That's it. Tomorrow, last one, forward back and leave it back. Now fill that reaching. Now, the key here is not the leg that you're gesturing with. It's the leg that you're standing on. Send that heel down opposite of your head. Push into my foot. Yes, good. Push into my foot with that hair. You Go, good.

Push into my foot. Feel that push. There it goes. Now that rotation is complete. Fill that you can't rotate on something that doesn't give you a foundation. Taking a deep breath. We're going into the z mode. Busy bees [inaudible] until there's no more air narrowing and reaching, continued to reach. As you exhale, mobilizing those ribs, mobilizing them with an XL and roll onto your Tommy beautimous beautimous. Push up into a quadriplegic position.

[inaudible] you got it right there. This is about movement right now. So this is a relaxation exercise. We're going to go and move the pelvis like a pelvic tilt, and it's going to be like a wave. You're going to roll it all the way through your body all the way through the head. So as the pelvis tilts, the body's gonna wave, it's looks like an angry cat and a saggy old horse. But really it's a wave. And I need you to find the wave inside each of the segments of the spine.

Where ever you're at. Find each segment of the spine. Yeah, find it all. I need movement in here too. Yeah. And all the way up to that. Good. And I'll live it. You got it. Come on. And now let's see if we can do a diagonal.

So can you send your pelvis to the right foot? When you go up into the angry cat, the head goes down to the left and then comes up to the opposite angle. Staying right on top of those femurs. Yep. And go two more times of that side. And then we'll do two to the left side. Find the diagonal freeing up the intercostal tissues.

Move it a little more flowing. Like when we were rocking on the floor with our ankles. See if you could find that kind of fluidness moving through your spine. Like I said, it dominoes going right into circumduction pelvis and head moving around opposite direction of each other. Circling the spine, listen to your breath. Don't force it. Just let it happen. It's going to happen on its own. When your body wants air, it will find it and it can find in any of those directions in inspiration or exhalation. It doesn't have to be one or the other.

Spontaneous movement requires spontaneous breath. Beautiful. You go both directions yet. Make sure you switch to the other direction. I don't think I caught it, so you're okay. Beautiful Movement. Now keep your hands just a little rash. Shake them out. All right, good. And we're going to go into a little quadruples activity.

So let's go back onto your hands when you're ready. Yup. And let's just see how easy it is as you sweep out the right leg and the left hand. Sweep them out from each other. Feel how easy it is. Bring them back together and switch and back in. Now use your breath to your advantage. Exhale when you reach out and how when you come back in and exhale when you reach out and how when you come back in x on your reach out and how you come in. Now we challenge ourselves, so we're going to switch our breath.

We're going to inhale when we reach an XL again and oh my goodness, it creates stability too. And in Hell, when you reach out an x, when you come back in and inhale and you go out x or you can alternate it, we inhale with the right arm or left arm, bring it back in and switch it around a little bit faster because your breasts gonna switch on every alternation. So it's an inhale, reach, exhale, reach, inhale, reach, exhale, reach and switch. Exhale, reach, inhale, reach, exhale, reach. You got it. You got the idea. Exactly. Much more practical, isn't it? That's probably what we're going to do when we go running or whatever we do now from that quadrupled position, I want you to come up into a squat position. Fee can be apart and your elbows are going to be between your knees. Yup.

And as we're going to practice our diaphragm and our pelvic floor breathing. Yeah. So the idea is inhale, fill the diaphragm and the belly expands. So the sit bones expand and then all you gotta do is release it and they will spring back up. And you feel that. And how like span XL springs back up again. Inhale, expand. Eh, XL springs back up. Good. Now come on up into a half squat position. Yup. And we're going to do, yeah, we're going to do our swimming this way. Good.

So we're here and we're going to try and get it so we're nice. And here's the body's relatively flat bringing the hands up and the hands can, don't have to go over the head. We're just gonna go into the swimming right here. Organizing the body. A little different level here. So we're just doing this swimming beat, beat, beat, beat, beat in Haley. Now let's use that diaphragm. See if you can fill the dynamic span and then contract back in. Yup.

Expand the abdominal wall. Get a little more horizontal with the body. It's here. Yup. [inaudible] and what you'll notice is that the breath expansion posted early as well. So take it into that low back, expanding into this space. When you inhale five more beats and relax.

Beautiful. Go Back Down into quadro pad. Now in this position, we're going to allow our belly to separate itself from the spine, so we're going to find that nice, neutral position. We've been working on the heads in Nice alignment and we're going to inhale as if you had a little weight attached with a string to your belly button. So the spine stays in this neutral position, but as you inhale, the belly is going to reach down towards the floor. When you exhale, the spine still stays in its place and you draw the weight back up into the spine. You got it? Okay. Yup. Spine is not moving, so you're in that nice neutral position in how the belly reaches down towards the floor. Exhale, the belly reaches back up in hell. That's right. Excellent. Draw that.

Yeah, let's do that again. Huh? Buddha belly. It's a Buddha belly. Now lift all four limbs off the floor at the same time. Jump. Okay, very good. We're going to go into a mermaid position facing forward with your right this direction here. Let's go this way. The front room.

Right leg is to the right side for everybody. Right. Left leg in front. Right leg to this side. We are there. Yeah. Okay. We all got Latin on the floor. Let the left elbow soften a little bit. Yeah. And then give a little bit of push into the floor.

Bring your right hand over your head, right. You're going to grab your head like your elbows bent here. Yep. You got it. Now we're going to stay in this position for awhile and we're going to inhale. Sending the elbow up towards the ceiling is a great exercise for you, isn't it? Yeah. And remember we talked about the rib cage moving over and sending out underneath the armpit. So the breath is coming in underneath that armpit, right for that expansion. And think of the lower rib, reaching down a little bit and the underneath ribs lifting up underneath the heart and we're just going to about four more breaths or just expanding that area.

I'm coming fill that elbow region up. There it is. Really? That's it. Good. Now up and over to the right side. Leave the legs where they are. Right. Hands going to go down the floor. Left hand goes behind the head. You got it. Good feeling this reaching up towards the ceiling.

Inhaling into the left lung. Now expanding underneath there. Yeah, fill those lower ribs. Lifting. Yeah, up underneath fairness and just be patient. That breath will do its work. It will open up those ribs. A little anxiety at first and then it just melts away. Now let's pick up the pace a little bit. Add the upper arm as a gesture arm. So up and over to the left, reaching the right arm as a gesture arm.

Reach it out. You got it. Regular Mermaid. Be careful not to lose that control. Right. We're still keeping the rib so I don't want to see us dropping down to the side. We're staying in the picture. Yeah, and up and over to the right left hand gestures, up and over to the left, up and over, the left arm opening up underneath the rib cage, upper ribcage. Good. And up and over to the right. Let's go a little bit faster flowing.

Seaweed in the ocean and over to the left. Yeah, up and over to the right and then over to the La last one. Up and over to the right. This time when you come up to the left, come down and stay down to the left. Bring that right hand down around to the floor to match both hands. Pushing into the floor, sending the right sit bone down towards the floor by rounding your back. Go into fleshing flection and left rotation.

Now stay there. Listen to your can you increase the space between your shoulder blades with your breath. Can you increase the distance between the ribs on the right lower rib cage? Expand. Expand a little more air, even though it feels uncomfortable. Good. And now we're going to go into extension. So the hands pool into the mat, the head and the chest come forward and the sit bone comes up. That's it.

Exhale, push back into the mat. Setting the sit bone down. Rounding the spine, opening the shoulder blades, Max expansion. Those ribs are coming up underneath your heart. Feel that lift, that massage and forward in extension and push into flection. Last one right hand becomes behind your head. D Rotate d side bend, hands behind your back on the ground. Bring your legs forward and switch them over to the left side. All right.

Right hand on the Mat. Left hand behind your head. Sustained breathing posture. Up and over. Up and over. Fill the ribs. Expanding on that left side. Now there is what we want. Yeah, and stay there for four or five breaths, allowing that expansion to take place. It doesn't happen just because you want it to. It happens because you're there because you're breathing.

Last one up and over to the left. Sustained. Hold right hand behind the head. Inhaling into the right lung, sending that right elbow up to the ceiling, opening up that space. You're going to feel the left ribs come up underneath your heart and the right ones reaching down to the mat. Yeah, you ready to go? A little quicker gesture, arms in place.

Up and over to the right and up and over to the left. Seaweed flowing in the ocean and over and over feel the energy and the spring of the body. The tension in the spring of the body. The tension and potential energy. One more time to the left. Last one to the right, up and over that left hand down to the mat.

Push with those hands, send the left. Sit bone down to the mat. Increase the space between the shoulder blades. Feel that space increasing, increasing that space. Increase the distance between the hip and the left lower ribs with your breath. Expanding that space for that fashion aback opening, expanding happy Fascia and taking a right into extension. So the head arms pulled down, the hip can come up. Where's that movement happening? And back.

That's it. Go ahead and forward. Inhale a little more fluid. Now Roll in through that and back and extend. Last one and legs left hand behind the head. Open it up and come up. Good. Bring your feet towards the center.

So long sit position and excellent. Good fingers to the side. Now I'm going to ask the two centers to back up about a foot so that you're staggered and the inside and outside the come forward a little bit and that gives us plenty of room. Good. So fingers to the side, spine stretch, right? We're going to walk those fingers on the floor. Keep walking and walking and walking them. Do you feel a little attention in there? A nerve tension. Good.

Keep walking them. Enjoy it. It feels good and it's good for you, right Phil, the crown, reach into the ceiling of the, of the roof of the building. Feel the shoulder blades and the collarbones drawing apart as you actively are walking those fingers out, open up all the attention. Those are all muscles that hook onto your ribs, right? That's your Pec minor and your Pec major and your ah, cervical muscles. I can feel that. Go ahead. Now float the arms up and hug down imaginary tree with a deep breath up and over the imaginary ball.

Right now I like to let my hands come down to the outside of my legs, palms up and I like to let draw come out of my mouth onto my legs. So if you could imagine your lips become your berry hair bubbly, fob ahead, probably you couldn't park very well. You've heard the heaviness. Take inner bregar birth and as are you back to hell. BUBBA stack up warrior's spine, one vertebrae at a time, right all the way back up and I dragged my hands that give me a low resistance, leave them down and let's go a little bit quicker.

This time walking the fingers out, floating the arms up, hugging the imaginary tree up. Then over the bar, reaching up over that upper thoracic as a movement I want and coming up and over. Feel that energy. Lifting the ribs up as you stack the spine back up, dragging the hands a little quicker. Walk the fingers out, float the arms up, hug the tree up and over. The last one you got hands, come down, drag it back. [inaudible] your hands go behind you. Now knees are bent. You can go in a traditional pies position with the fingers in or you can go the hands back. I'm comfortable. Whichever you're more comfortable with, knees are bent, they stay bent. We're going to do is we're going to bring up and fill the anterior tissues of the body, drawing on the lower ribs as you bring your bottom up into a sort of like a leg pull position, but without straight legs. Now here's what's important. Hip flection tightness affects breath and affects your ability to move your spine correctly.

So I do want you to give me the energy of sending those hips up and throwing the ribs, drawing down and opening the shoulder blade so the breath is going to go in the front of the chest, the front of the shoulders. When you exhale, lifting your bottom of the exhale, lift your bottom up. Inhale, expand the front of the shoulders and descend the bottom back down. Good. Shake your wrist out. We'll do that one more time. It is, but it's a good one. You started with our relationship. All right, hands back behind you. All right, here we go. We're going a little bit quicker. We're going to bring the pelvis up right, taking a deep breath up. Exhale while you're up in the next exhale, drop the bottom down, take a breath down. Exhale, bring it up in how while you're up expanding the chest. Exhale, bring it back down. Inhale to prepare. Exhale, come up in Hawaii, Europe, expanding, expanding, expanding.

Hold that expansion. Stay there for a second. Take your right leg, reach it out, stay there, stay there. Keep the hips up. Challenging the load. Now breathe in four times that leg there. Inhale. Exhale. Keep it up. Challenge Yourself. It's a dynamic challenge. You've got a diagonal coming across your body. Last breath and bring that leg back down. Don't put your bottom down.

Take the left leg up. You're almost there. This is it. This is a challenge. This is where we take you. We take you to the level. You got to keep that bottom up. The ribs connected, opening across the chest. The expansion is full. Last breath, bring the foot down. Bring your bottom down. Shake your hands out. Cross your feet in front of you. Yep.

And you're going to roll over onto your hands. Yeah, you got it. You know what follows Lake Cora? [inaudible]. Oh, but we're just actually going to play with plank. We're going to forget about League pour front, but I do want you in plank so you can either be on, we will all need to be on your hands. Yeah, everybody okay? Being on their hands. All right. You know what plank looks like.

Let's go. All right. Now in this position, I want you to concentrate on the breathing more than on the muscles. I'm going to talk softer and slower and I want you to think of how breath is actually floating and supporting your body up in space. We're holding this for 15 seconds where it's seven right now, eight, nine, 10 1112 1314 down on your elbows and forearms. Don't let your knees come down. Keep the post a little more challenging there. Now breathe into your lungs so it's like supports you on your shoulders.

So can you breathe into the part of your lungs that's just underneath your shoulder blade. Expand that air and you'll find you get some power in it. Fill it. Exhale from the belly. Inhale into your shoulder. That's it right there, right there, or three to relax, relax. Sit back on your heels. Give yourself a little love little prayer stretch. Yeah. Nice. I like, I like, I like, I like a scoot to the front of the mats sitting on your bottoms.

Little Fun time. Rolling like a ball. Rolling like a ball. Hug those legs. Hug those legs. Grab those ankles in your wrist and create space, right? Make this fun and feel the expansion like you're sort of pushing into your legs and sending the belly back away. So the back is nice and round. Inhale rolls back. Exhale, brings you back up.

Find your balance and held back. Exhale up. That's it. Yep. There you go. And how back. Exhale up. Last one. Find that balance there. Taking both legs. Reach them out and back in. Now what I want you to realize, don't worry about even how far the leg straighten out, just to go to where you feel the tension and then bring them back in. Now part of this is where your breath is going down into the low back.

So Sandra air into here as you reach up. Yeah, it's going to give you stability and bring it back down. Can you feel that in hell, not lower. All of a sudden your stability improves significantly as so did your range of motion because we don't worry about stretching. If you organize your body right, the legs will do the rest. Okay. This is the last one. Keep the legs up. Yup. Bring the legs a little closer together. Yep. Find the balance. Breathe into that low back and send it back towards the ground a little bit.

Yeah. And when you're ready, roll back your dope and leg rocker. You got it. [inaudible] one more time. Just nice and easy again, just appreciating how when your back is in the right place, it's not so hard. Good. Bring your knees in towards your chest sitting there. Now you're going to keep the feet up off the ground. Hands behind your knees. Yup. So we're going to do is we're gonna do a little teaser from this position.

Yeah. But your leg straighten out a little bit more. Yup. You got it. You okay there. So now bring the hands out over the top. Can you lower through here with a breath? A little bit into, towards the Mat. Just let it keep your balance. You have good now disassociated the hips, the knees and ground dropped down three inches and back up and backed up. Yeah. Cause this is where you're working the right way. Yeah, I see.

I like that the hips are sinking in the socket to come up. Not Lifting the legs. Good. Now leave the knees up. Take your body down three inches and back up just a little bit with your breath. If you inhale in those lower lungs in the back, it's going to help you exhale. Come up and how to come down. Exhale to come up. That's the last one.

Now both are going to move. So teaser three legs and body. Go down just a little bit. You don't have to go down all the way and up. You got it. And um, do you want to show off? You can do it with straight legs. Yup. And down. And you got you got it. And relax all the way on your back. Roll. Bring your knees to your chest.

Give yourself some love. So one of the things I want you to notice is when you're in that position, your tendency is like hip flexors dominate and they pull you into hip extension and sheer force. When you use your breath to expand down low, all of a sudden your legs became very free and you could move them. When you were here, you can't. And so you fell down, you fell back. Right? So again, using breath to fill that space and get it out of the idea of muscle, all of a sudden that leg became much freer to move through space for a teaser. Um, let's roll over onto the right side.

Okay. Reach your right hand out on the floor. You're laying down on your side in front of you. We're going to do book openings. This is time to have relax, right? So I'm just going to be this way. Yup. Bring your left hand on top of it. Yep.

You got the idea. And I like my knees bent in this position. So like my anchor and only thing is you're probably gonna put your fingertips in somebody's mouth, so just don't bite. Okay. So we're going to open up that left arm. Leave the knees where they are, roll that body open. Just be Karen to whack anybody in the face. Good. Now stay in that position. This is where like what we did in the Mermaid, okay, we're looking at how breath can increase that thoracic mobility. So in this position, breathe into the front of the left rib cage and as you exhale, feel it softened down into the mat and notice that you get a little more rotation. Each breath. Don't be in a hurry.

Don't make it a muscle thing. Just let gravity and breath open up those intercostal tissues on the left side and the pectoral girdle will draw naturally on those ribs by the weight of the arm. All right, let's do it for one more breath. Bring that left arm up and over. Slide it through. Good. Taking a deep breath into the back of your rib cage and once again, open that arm up. We'll do two to each side. I guess I notice you're going to go down a little bit further.

Take your left leg now reach it out straight in front of you and just let it drop down to the ground. That's it. So again, that whole posterior chain on that side, notice a difference on your rib cage and that leg is straight. Reach that left leg a little bit further. Now reach it towards the front of the room or towards the wall. Feel that reach, reach good. Take that deep breath.

Feel that connection of breath all the way into the diaphragm. This time can you breathe in your diaphragm and excellent. Bring it back over. Bend the knee back in place and we're going to switch sides. Yeah, so we're going to come over and lay on your left side where the left arm out in front. Okay.

All right. That works a little bit better than a stagger like that. All right. Opening up the right arm. We'll say we designed it that way. All right. Right. Arm outs and opens up. Leave the knees bent, knees anchored. You might find one side easier than the other. Yeah, one time. Maybe more challenging. Breathing in to the front of the right rib cage.

Now exhaling, softening in the back. Feel the weight. That's right. Let it happen. Let it happen. Imagine a nice warm bag of rice, about 10 pounds, 15 pounds being set on the middle of your rib cage on the right side. It's warm, it's heavy, and it's just melting your rib cage down into the floor. That's it. Good. And when you're ready, go ahead and bring that hand back up and over.

Slide it through. We'll do that one more time. This time we'll add the leg. That's going to be fun over here with the legs face in each other. Send that right leg out straight in front. Creates a little bit more of a lever that had come down to the ground. If you can get it there, feel that heavy rice bag right on the rib cage.

Have bike ride on the rib cage right there. Uh, uh, that's that. Good. Good, good. All right, I'm liking that Mary. Good rice bag is right here. Yeah, that space and roll over onto your backs and I'll let you correct yourself so we're all good. Alright, so I wanna try one more thing. Now that your rib cage is all loose and prepared and it's going to be a modified roll over. All right? So let you know if you do not do rollovers, I get it. If you have a fused neck or osteopetrosis, you might want to hold off on this one. Otherwise, I want you to think of this as, um, just a chain, like a bicycle, right?

And I'm just pulling the chain up and over, right? So you're going to bring your knees up into a 90 90. Now here's the thing, if you use a lot of your hands to push down to the floor, you're using your lats and your lats are extensors, so they're not going to work so well. They're gonna work against your body coming up. So I'd rather you widen your arms a little bit. Yeah. And I rather you think of having a little more stiffness through the shoulders, sort of anchoring down into the floor. Yeah. Rather than from the lats.

Fill it like you're winding into the floor. Good. Now start to peel the bottom up and the knees up and over. Right. You'll find it's a lot less effort. Now from there, imagine that I have handles on your sit bones and I'm lifting those sit bones up. Fill the lift, taking a deep breath into between the shorter ways that we've been practicing, and as you exhale, feel the sternum and the ribs sliding towards the Mat. The lowest ribs are coming up underneath your heart as you lower your legs down. You got it? Good. Let's do another one of those nice and easy.

Modify. Roll over the filling the breath now up and over. Now this time while you're up, once you feel the sit bones reaching up. Yeah, take a deep diaphragmatic breath and see what happens. Can you push your guts up towards your hips? Can you lift it up? Can you feel your liver and your tummy and the guts and the kidneys pushing the sit bones up in the ceiling and now roll down through your heart, your lungs, your liver, your pancreas, your intestines. Control, control, control. Very good. Grab the back of your thighs. Send them forward.

A modified roll up into a seated position as easy as possible. Crush your legs. You're going to stand up Pilati style. Very good of you. Go. Very good. No, no standing. We're going to finish up in the standing position. Just finding that weight, bearing the bone stacking up. Shift the weight over to your right leg. Shift the weight over to your left leg, right.

Do little circles around both of your feet. Alright. For weight, bearing this too, as a little easier. Little more movement around and find that middle ground, that space where you feel like you're dangling. The buttocks muscles are relaxed. The quads and hamstrings are relaxed. Even the calves, your face, your shoulders heavy. Yeah.

And from here you're going to take in a nice deep breath and notice the difference this time that your body weights not shifting. You're going to be right in the center as you inhale right up on top of your feet. That's how we know that our breath is right where we want it.

Comments

1 person likes this.
Thank you for a wonderful class! Loved the breath work and great stretch across the back and shoulders.
Karin
...love your classes, thanks a lot
Jennifer S
Brilliant! Love this work!
I watched yesterday, watched 2 more times, and then used several of the moves in my class this morning! Got some great feedback from the ladies! The moves seemed to be more fluid, and with less effort! Even on my part! LOVED IT!
I love Brent Anderson !! Thank you once again Pilates Anytime !!!
I am flattered. Glad you love the class. Your feedback is very helpful to me.
Ginger, Glad that you were able to apply to your clients.
Thank you Brent! So many marvelous moments in this class! Your preps and breathing cues gave me perhaps my best rolling like a ball experience ever!
Notme
Probably the best rollup I've ever done. And great humour. Loved it.
Trisha Donnelly
Great class, used the breathing cues in my class, they loved it.
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