Class #16

Detailed Mat

50 min - Class
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Description

This class includes clear explanation of intermediate Mat exercises like the Double Leg Stretch and Criss Cross. Amy's class also offers modifications for the student with a tight low back and tight hamstrings. Stay to the end of class to get some great shoulder rotator cuff work during your back extension!
What You'll Need: Mat

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Dec 26, 2009
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We're in class right now, so welcome everyone. Thanks for coming too. This is our last class of 2009 also on Friday because next Friday is Christmas Day and then we have new year's Day, so, so why don't we start this morning. I'm going to have everyone and most of you already are just nice and flat on your mat, your legs down, arms by your sides, and and relaxed with your legs, relaxed with your feet. So nothing extra, uh, going on. Let's start with the basis of our work, which is of course our breath. And the maybe one difference with some of your, uh, experiences with breathing. Uh, not the big belly puff breath, but more of, think about where your lungs are and the lungs are more inside the rib cage. They're not in the belly, they're up underneath the ribs and the ribs go all around our body, not just the front.

So we've got the ribs on the side and all the way to the back. So as you're working, you're breathing, which is there. One of our big principles of the work is trying to fill the lungs. So your rib cage will have life and it will have movement to it and it's challenging to let that area move and expand but not have the belly do the puff. So just kind of play with right now the expansion in volume feel that you're getting in your ribs. Yeah, and someone has put their hands on the ribs, which is fine.

That's sometimes that tactile queuing will help you if you want to set your hands anywhere at the front of the ribs or the side of the ribs. And when you take the inhale through the nose, maybe you feel the ribs really reach into the hands and then the exhale, the ribs come away from the hands or your hands might even press against the ribs. It's a lots of volume. And because we're all uh, individual and unique, some of us have long rib cages, some of us have more barrel rib cages, some of us have narrower ribs, no matter what your, your design is, try to get lots of volume and take your time with that filling right here. Is that okay?

[inaudible] and I'm taking your time as well. On the emptying of the lung. Yes. Again, how much air can you feel, feel, feel good and close, and the breadth can not begin to warm up your body temperature. So if you're, you're getting that oxygenation, you might start to feel your body temperature rise a little bit. Don't worry, I, it's just your feet. And, and as we start moving with more exact exercises, this, this breathing is hard to stay with as most of us know. And as we've worked the practice of our, our exercises, uh, it can begin to get a little shallow. So part of the, the work to, to ground yourself is to really tap into that breath. Try to keep connected to the width of the back of the back, the back of the waistline. Let's do five now as a group together.

So that nice full inhale through your nose and your exhale, feeling maybe more toning or contraction going on in your tummy. And again, a nice full breath and I'm just noticing a little bit. So you know, just things going on with the legs and feet. In a moment we'll get more precise with angles and directions. You've got lots of turnout, don't you? Yeah. Let's take one more as a group. A big breath in. No on this exhale. Let's start to bend the knees.

Slide your feet or place your feet. Now, right on the mat and the feet position sits bones with the part. So you do have about a fist width between the knees and feet. You can't really measure that here but and all 10 toes facing forward. All right, so the pelvic tilt, can everyone just take their pelvis and press it back so your whole lower back is completely flat on your mat, but not the full bridge yet. And just see if you can hold that position by strong tug of your tummy.

Maybe not so much with your, your glute muscles yet, but lots with your stomach. Okay. And then just let that pelvis drop forward. Nice level position. Yeah, it's going to feel a little bit different I think. Okay. And then again from your tummy, Tuck your pelvis back so you feel your whole lower back. Very imprinted on the mat.

And then let that come down to a level position. Yeah. So as I look at it, that your body is rocking a little on the mat. So let's go ahead and add tach a breath and exhale to pull the abdominals in, which brings the pelvis back. Your lower back should be completely touching your mat now. And inhale as you let your pelvis come forward. And again, exhale, engage in the abdominals, tug the pelvis back, maintaining that leg alignment about a fist between the knees. Good Ted. And inhale as you let it come forward and little stronger tug, pull back.

It might bring more of your vertebral off the mat. Maybe you're coming up to the last rib on your back. Now can we go there? Go to the last rib on your back. So your pelvis is somewhat suspended and then come all the way down to level. Let's take a look at that a couple more times. Tug with the tummy. Yeah, here to the last rib on your back.

It's better and all the way down. And now again, let's exhale. Contract the abdominals. Keep going. Go all the way up. So you're more on the bases of the shoulder blades are the platforms of your shoulder blades. Okay? Yes, your hamstrings are going to wake up. You're going to feel some energy in the back of your leg, maybe in your Tush.

So you're all the way up. If that feels okay to be on the base of the shoulder blades. Take an inhale guys, and now as you're rolling down, take your time. Energize your pelvis toward your knees, your knees out over your second toes. If they could go out that far and then come all the way down to that level triangle position and take an inhale and again, exhale, lot of it coming from the abdominals.

Feel a little secondary work from the back of the legs and the buttocks keeping that space that's taken. Inhale at the top and again, exhale. Taking your time, pelvis, reaching toward knees. There you go, Lisa. Keeping that fist distance between and again, inhale at level, pelvis at the bottom and exhale and tug the tummy. Nice. Barbara, put a more lifted this one up. Yeah.

Inhale and exhale. So we're working to get some mobilization. It's a movement of this, of the spine. Let's take two more of these and talk from the abdominals. You can bring the Sitz bones together, tracking that nice sense of parallel line from hips to knees into the feet. Inhale at the top. That's okay.

And exhale as you're rolling down, think of it as a massage for your spine. All the way to drop the tailbone. One more time, guys, feeling looser, a little more motion in your lower back. Okay, so as everyone is up in the bridge or that that line, I'm going to just say maybe most of us, Yep. Can bring the heels in toward you. A titch. Okay. That's going to load your legs a little more. So if you're feeling the back of your legs, just hang with it.

So we've done the marching before or the one leg, the movement of kind of walking in place. So establish that connection of your ribs to your pelvis. Very strong ABS. Take a breath in through the nose. Let's lift the right leg first. You're creasing right at the hip joint and inhale, lower that leg with control. Now the left leg and crease at the hip.

And inhale as you lower and again, right leg and lower. I'm thinking of the hip staying very lifted, supported with the use of your legs and your back and lower for more and crease the right and lower it down. And crease the left. Lower it down there at least to connect those ribs and one more right leg and down right here and left their foot down. Reach your arms up to the ceiling. Back behind you.

We all recognize this stretch. I want you to let your arms be back, but not resting on the floor. So as you reach back, let your shoulders glide up towards your ears a little bit and start to trickle down your spine. This is the upper back. Rolling down your spine. Middle Back. Yeah. Good. Tad lower back all the way to a level pelvis. All right, working into more abdominal work. Here we go. Interlace the hands together.

Bring your feet and knees together and let's put the hands right behind the head. And just for a second, can everyone uh, pinch their shoulder blades on their back? Just it, just experience it, feel that. What does that, you don't have to answer out loud, but what does it feel like to do that? What I see out here is a lot of daylight underneath your back, so if you were to try to perform a curl or contraction of your abdominals, it'd be restricted because your back is up. So if we can do the converse of that, anchor the ribs down, let your elbows somewhat come off the mat. You should be able to see them in your peripheral vision. Yeah. All right. Keep your triangle of your pelvis level. Let's do some chest lifts.

So exhale as you raise your head, your neck and your chest and I like to think of your eyes looking right past her knees. Let's inhale as you lower down. Keep that contraction and exhale curl again. Stop your pubic bone down. Inhale lower and again, exhale, drop the pubic bone. Yeah, knee, inhale lower and exhale curl. Keep going. Not too fast, not too slow, just right. And you can also think when you're up in the curl position, those that are touching the mat pressing into the mat. So it's going to be those vertebra right behind their breastbone.

Really Push Goodley's into the map. Couple more. So I see just a couple of our, our pelvis is losing the, the leveling. So everyone come on up. We've been here many times. Now you hold this position, hold the position and it might be nice now to look down at your own pelvis and and learn about it is your pubic bone above your hips. If so, you want to see it in, drop that down. Got It. Okay. Now let's do a little bit of extra abdominal work.

Can you take your right hand and reach it just up alongside your ear? No. Hold that position. All right, and then the left arm, because if you're having a circle in your hands and you're reaching up to the ceiling, all right, now bring your right hand back behind the head and the left hand back behind the head and then all the way back down to the chest. Take an inhale at the bottom and again, exhale and curl. Yeah, we just, when you do this, you think of, you can be a little imprinted but it's better if you can go to hell. No. Yeah. Well, okay, good question. You want to have, keep going guys. Can you start, do the hand release? Yes. Some of you might kind of, and then alternate. So the lumbar should be imprinted, so which it is now but yet killed.

Then you also dropped your pubic bone to the map there. So you need to do that. You didn't lift this too much off. Okay. Yeah, it's it a little bit different isn't it? Cause I know you're imprinted, your body memory is that imprinted is somewhat like that where your, where your pelvis has talked [inaudible] so the language might just be a little different. [inaudible] yeah. Yeah. Good question. Really good question. Let's make this our last round and release one arm and the second arm and first hand behind the head and second hand behind the head and release everything down. Okay, good. Just rest for a sec if you need to turn your head right and left and a a really good question. Just did come forward about you know, what's imprinted lower back and it should the lower back be completely touching the mat during all of that or do we want to keep the lumbar curve? No, we want to keep them back down but pubic bone also level and that's newer I think for you then some of these other bodies. Okay, the a hundred no delay. Let's bring your knees to tabletop position guys. All right, and so that same conversation, your pelvis absolutely flat.

Let's extend our arms long by our sides first. Feel your shoulder blades glide down your back. We Chin lift away from your chest so you're not too compressed. Take a nice inhale through the nose and just the chest lift. Exhale as you curl your upper body, we're going to do the pumps in two breath cycles so it's this.

Sure, this might feel fine for some of you to keep the legs there. If you want a little more work, we go up. Let me think. Like telescopes straight up to the ceiling. Can you go there? It's more comfortable for you to go lower though. So let's try, if anyone wants to go a little lower, you would still want to have the upper body the same height. I'd love to see that. But I know.

Good town Rodan and Chad are you from here and four, three, two, last one. Everyone hold onto it. Hold onto it. If you need your hands behind your head, that's fine. Some of you know the next progression. I like to try this. We have you bring your arms up right alongside the ears on an inhale. Exhale, bring your arms all the way to the mat. Two more of those. So it's a little bit like double leg stretch and exhale. Exactly. One more. And exhale. Okay.

Fold your knees in. Rest your head. Yeah, a little foreshadowing for the double leg stretch. Okay. The roll up. So extend your legs down on the Mat. All right. And again, the reach back of you, the arms, and again, go ahead and just give into an arch back for a second. Ah, just let that, maybe you're a little rest of your tummy and nice curve in your back. And again, we don't want to do the roll up starting that way. Your spine isn't active. It's not prepared to flex. It's an extension. All right, so most of us in here need to bring the arms up off of the floor.

Again, feel your shoulder blades wide on your back as you can. I like to have energy between the legs, so lots of from inner thigh work. And let's do this. Raise your arms up to the ceiling. Let your head and neck follow. Take a breath in. Now the exhale. Here you go. Use Your Tummy. Good roll all the way up. Crown of the head, following the direction of your fingertips. Easy shoulders.

Now breathe in here. Pull from your lower abdomen, lower abdomen that that source to pull you back and work to imprint or articulate each vertebra to the mat and control that flection and arms back overhead. Beautiful. Done. And Inhale, arms, head, neck and chest, and exhale curl. If you could see yourself from a side view, you've got a curved back, hallowed in tummy. It's an easy neck. Take a breath there and the exhale to roll down. Yeah. Good. Strong. Hold in the inner thighs. Three more guys and breathe in and exhale again. Just an easy shoulder check. Ooh, yes.

Breathe in and exhale. Can your legs lengthen longer away from you as you roll down, watch the back arching. No. Daylight and inhale, head, neck and chest and exhale, curl. Yeah, brave. So source your low belly. That's the energy to pull you back. The leg lines lengthening forward. One more time and inhale. Exhale, contract and round.

Continued curve in your back, not letting go of that tummy contraction and breathe in and let sec sale enroll all the way down right there. You got it? I saw where you directed your contraction. Exactly. Okay. Not too shabby. Okay. Can you call, take the right leg to the ceiling and the left leg is still down on the mat. Okay, let's try this. Put your hands behind your right thigh. Two different things we're going to do with this.

If you use your hands and pull your leg towards you, just go ahead and experience that. You know, some of you can get your, your leg on your forehead and you know that might feel good. Go ahead and do that. And maybe your pelvis loses level position. Dads might not. I don't think so. Yeah. All right. And you know, no, we don't want to do a lot of exercises like that, but occasionally stretching with the pelvis a little out of that alignment. It just feels slightly different. Okay.

Now if you bring your thigh forward or a little less towards you, can you hold it 90 degrees at your hip and now let your hands come down to the mat. Yes. So some of us had to let the leg come down to Scotia and that's fine. Hands down by your mat. So I want to have you just hold the leg there. I know this is a lot of work. If you need to bend your knee, you can. I want us to think about the other leg. What's it doing?

Can It really anchor? Yeah, it's pressing down on the mat. So the back of that thigh trying to touch, that's going to help open up your hip and give you some anchor to then circle your right leg. So our single leg circle and move you here. Let's go with five reps each way we cross the right leg over the left on an inhale and a slow small circle around and exhale. Sure. Yeah. I think about the circle. Your leg diameter is not any wider than your mat.

Your circle is really out in space. It's not above your pelvis. It's out here. So if I'm you're, yeah, you're trying to draw your circle toward me. That's five. Now let's reverse. Go to the right, out and down, around and left round and lift. And the other leg is completely still [inaudible] four and five. That leg can go all the way down. Just take it to the mat, shake it out a little bit with a shake. Okay. And let's experience all that on the left leg. So up we go. And again, so use the first one is big, big stretch, big stretch. So yeah, using your hands to bring your thigh closer to you.

If that feels good and knowing your pelvis is slightly out of level, that's okay. For now. This might be a nice time to recheck that lateral breathing. Perhaps breathing into the sides and back of the rib cage. Yeah, again, boy, you're, yeah. Well, same with, oh yeah, all three of you just blow out. Okay.

We could stay there for awhile. Most of us except for you. So let's let go of that stretch. Bring your leg down a little bit more, 90 degrees or lower and again, focus for a little bit of time on the s the bottom leg, the one that's on the floor on the mat. Press it to the mat. All right, that's your anchor. Now this upward leg, let's cross in to the other leg and exhale around and center working within the frame of your mat. Either way. [inaudible] two more in this direction. All right, let's reverse now. So open slightly to the edge of the mat.

Circle around and lift and open. Ah, I might be going a little low. What do you think about out Smith, Samantha and out, right last circle. Open and okay. Lower the leg to the floor. Shake that out. Nicely done. There. Look to be a little bit more stability in your pelvis today. Thinking of that, the standing leg on the floor I think helped a couple of you. Yeah. Well then is not here, but yeah.

Well in know we're all a little bit different, but I think the focus of this reach out rather than, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're welcome. How about rolling like a ball? Give yourself a transition that feels good to you to prepare for it. Come on up. Yeah. In other words, come on up and we'll roll like a ball. All right, so our, our spine can dictate in our lower back can really dictate how your leg position is. So there's one Tad's got one with his knees apart, hands at the shins.

That's a perfect one for him. And others of you are fine to take your knees together all the way in, hands down at the ankles and maybe even crossed. There's one there. Okay. Take your head and round yourself in balance with those toes above the floor, above the mat. And again, just focus first on why you roll backwards. The breadth in makes you roll back, so if you hollow in your stomach, the just that breath will initiate you to roll backward. Then the exhale has to initiate you to roll back up. Let's play with that.

Here we go. Exhale. There's a little resuspension at the top and then the inhale to go back again. Go uncross those feet, not out of the question to think of bringing the heels closer to your back. End Your buttocks. Really pull in to that curl position.

Inhale, scoop. Lift your sits bones and you roll x. He'll come up to the sits bones. Play with that for a few more repetitions and you want to maintain a rounded back. Let's check in as your neck doing too much work. We could all think of lowering the shoulders a little bit. How about one more?

I've not counted correctly. Hold your balance. Okay. Stay with hat. Well, it's okay. Sorry. It's all right. Hands on the right shin. Extend your left leg forward. All right. Now the hands on the Shim. Let's get real specific with it. Take your right hand down to the ankle.

The left hand can stay where it is now as you roll back to your back and your blades is, if I could do this to all of you at the same time, the lead, the straight leg would really energize from your hip. Okay. Now don't get too comfortable on your shoulder blades by any means. Curl a little hot. Yeah. Okay, so single leg stretch. Let's just exhale this morning. I'll, let's exhale as you pull the knee in. Yeah, just keep going. So what I'm seeing, and it's fine if you all pull your knee close into your chest, give it a pull in and just, again, you don't have to answer out loud, but how does that feel in your abs? Right? I'm seeing some crinkled foreheads, maybe some question marks of, Whoa, whoa, well that's different. Okay, rest.

Let's do it a different way. Just so you know, you have the ability to feel the differences. So come up to 90 90 with your legs, tabletop, chest lift position. Again, same leg forward. Let's extend the left forward. Hands in position on the right shin. Now discipline yourself. The bent leg, not to come any closer. We already did that. We just did that on the last set. This is discipline, precision detail of 90 degrees. All right, let's exhale again to that and exhale and exhale.

There is a clarity of it so it requires a little more control of your triangle, your pelvis. Use Your rehabs. Sit up higher. I know you're got, you're getting fatigued. Four, three, two, last one and rest for just a second. How does that feel? You don't have to answer out loud. Yeah. For my body, that is much more difficult. You know, I have that flexibility where I can pull that knee all the way in, but my not so much. You get a flat, you get a stretch, a different kind of stretch at the hip. Maybe not so much tummy work. So you know, depending on what you're after. Okay. Double leg stretch.

Similar conversation. Start your knees in tabletop. Alright. Take a breath. Curl up to chest lift and let's just place the hands right at the front of the knees. All right. Yeah. Right in the front of the knees like that. So almost the knees pushing against the hands and the hands pushing against the knees. That's where those knees are going to go. Again, they're not going to come all the way in. So your legs will come out on a diagonal.

You go is your arms go up by your ears? That's the inhale. The exhale. Knees come to tabletop. Inhale and lengthen. Exhale and contract. Okay. Interesting. And legs going out there.

Just the tabletop with the knees. Just a tabletop. One more time and length and hold. Please hold, hold, hold, hold. Reach your arms to the ceiling. Chin down, Chin down. Lengthen. And everybody come in and rest. Ah, and let your head rotate. [inaudible] it's tough stuff.

Again, the discipline of position, you know, and that the slower pace allows for that. Okay. Let's come up off the back and we will do something on our stomach. Flip over. Let's have our feds, a heads facing into each other or feds. Okie dokie. Sure. Some shoulder work, shoulder and upper. Backward.

So how about this position? Yeah, I know. So it uh, sometimes referred to as stick them up or goal post or okay. And some of your shoulders, no, that's not the best place to go. So an alternative yeah. Is maybe just the hand stacked and your forehead down. That's, that'll be fine. Great. Okay.

So what we're looking for guys, if this is going to be a lot of the shoulder girdle and how it works with your upper back and your whole back in particular, but I think most of you are going to mainly feel that upper back just to a couple more things. So before we do the lifting of limbs and such little parts, pull your stomach up. Some of you already have that integrated so that the lumbar spine, your lower back, very long and supported. Okay, so here we go. If we just apply, apply a little bit of weight in the elbows to the floor, press in that turns on some muscles in the shoulder girdle. I already saw yours connect now go ahead and then float your hands and your forearm off the floor and it's going to be small and then go ahead and lower that. Let's just work that a few repetitions and you can exhale as you press your elbows down and float your hands and forearms and lengthen the arms down. A couple more.

Just this little bitty move, but just feel how intense it might be in the the shoulder girdle. We're still going to be almost down. Yeah, just press into the floor and down. And how about one more? Yeah. All right. And rest for a second. So, you know, I've some change today. Some of you that have, we've done this more regularly. Uh, good for you. You don't know about it, but your wrists line is straighter.

Yeah, it must be getting better as we practice our work. So we used to get that, that wrist angle lot more cocked when we push the elbow to the floor. That's a good sign. Alright, so let's start that again. Press the elbows down. Float the hand and forearm. Now the second layer, if you float just your elbows off the floor. Just the elbow bones now. So yeah. So you've got your elbows, forearms, wrists and hands. Hang with it. I know this is intense. Keep your breath going.

So that's where I saw more risks going. [inaudible] if you need a peek and look at your risk and you check it out and flatten those down. Okay. And then let's all bring all that down to the floor. We'll just do part one and part two again. So let's take a breath in. Everyone. Exhale, press your elbows down, lift your forearms, take an inhale again in the second exhale, just the, the hovering of the elbows and see if you can unstruck as you had set. Yeah. All right, let's add third layer is going to be your chest floating off of the mat.

Think of flight. We did it last week. All right. And as you're flighting lifting your back, your shoulders, we want down chin down. You're looking at the mat, you've got like your scuba diving, looking at the ocean floor. Okay. And everyone come down all the way. So we have step one, two, three. Let's take a breath and exhale. Step one is probably getting really familiar now adding a little rotation of your upper arm at your shoulder. Pull your lats down, take another breath. Second exhale. You're floating the elbows. You're unsure. Bugging the shoulders.

Take another inhale so I, good. Exhale. No head float. Chest float, flight. Long neck lift. A little more excess. Yeah, more. More lifted your back, more of your back, more of your back. Your arms are really attached from there. Okay guys, everyone come down. Must need to do one more. It sounded like last one and there'll be one more.

A position of the arms. Take another breath. Here we go. Exhale. Elbows pressed to the floor. Stay there. Inhale and exhale and float the elbows off the floor and exhale. Nose, chest lift. Lift that mid back. Is your stomach still working? All right. We know where our arms go for swimming.

Can you extend your arms as if you were going to do swimming? We're not going to do it now. Yeah, whole lengthen. Lift your upper back and shrug your shoulders. This is a lot of demand and let's just rest from there. From all the way down. Beautiful work. Would a cat stretch feel good now or a rest pose?

Okay. Ah, someday we'll do a nice clean transition from there. Today. You just got to a resting place. Take some good breaths again. Here we are. Back into that lateral expansion. How much volume can you put in those lungs?

The lungs are in the ribs, so the ribs should have some movement now. Yeah. Okay. So let's come down for a little bit of sideline work and if you're all facing the table up this direction on your right side. Yeah. And uh, again, two choices that you could work with along bottom arm to stretch yourself all the way out. Or You could bend that bottom arm for a little pillow. And if you, if you have your elbow bent, although it's nice and comfy here, the, the shoulder isn't quite as supported.

So I'm gonna adjust my position to see if that might help you to kind of Tuck it down a little. So if we really looked at our alignment, the shoulders still would be stacked one over the other, just like we were asking of our pelvis to be stacked. Yeah. Good. Okay. Kickstand hand today. So really f put the left palm down all the way on the mat. Can you get a palm down? Yeah. And then let your elbow kick forward. Kick stand and shoulder blade down there. So in a way, here we go.

Get some lat workout at this part. Okay. Take a breath. Everybody. Don't lift your legs yet. Can you just exhale and lift your waistline up off the mat in case it's not lifted? Most of you had it already there, but yeah, now that's where the waist is going to stay. Let's take another inhale. Now the exhale, lift your legs and they're not going to go too high. Inhale as the legs come down, an exhale as you lift your legs and inhale as you come down. And exhale, lift the legs so you're maintaining that waist line. Good waistline.

Lift the kickstand. Support, feeling your hip muscles working. Maybe your inner thighs working a little bit. Keep going. I'm gonna make a few corrections over on this side just a little bit. There you go, Gina. We want our legs extended right from our hip line and our hips to be stacked.

One on top of the other. Brandon. Yeah, you're good right there. And now lift. Go ahead and lift your legs. Dance it. 12,045 let's lift and hold just to sustain a leg. Lift both legs up. All right. If you're feeling confident, let's try letting this left arm reach up to the ceiling. Knows it's up. Don't let me knock it over. So if that lats working, pull that down. I shouldn't be able to move that on.

Don't let me move it. Don't let me move it. There you go. You feel the difference? Yeah. Let me do that on a couple people. So if that arm has to be really solid, whoa. Hold this. Pull that down. There you go. Don't let me move your arm. You feel the difference? Yeah. Okay, and then don't bring your arm down. You didn't bring your arm down. Bring your legs down. Can we do a side bridge? Can we go up on our elbow today?

So Yep. We're coming right up. I'm going to have you put your elbow down on your mat. Turn your palm face down. Your elbows right underneath the hollow of your underarm. Our shoulder is not near the ear. Shoulders, way down, away from the ear and take a second everyone and bend your spine towards your legs. So there's a lot of, lot of emphasis of the obliques on this top waist. Here we go. Now the other, when you get up to the side bridge position, this curve is not going to stay curved.

We're going to lengthen it more into a flat line. So take your left arm out to the side. See you feel yourself already lifted there. Yeah, there's a sense of lift underneath your bottom waist. Take a breath and a bear weight into the elbow, but lift the hip. This arm can help you lift it up. And I like to bring it near the ear.

I like that sense of lengthen out. Yeah. If that doesn't feel good in your shoulder, you don't have to lift the hip. Okay. And then bring everything down. We're going to do that two more times and here you go. Come on down for a second. You're too young. Your elbow is too far away there or your shoulder down here.

Everyone come down and one more time and yeah, hold my shoulder down a little more. Lower your hip. A little lower. Yep. Right there. Think long. Think long. Take another breath and sa and everyone exhale. Come all the way down and rest. Okay. Just those two, two or three pieces on the other side. So let's stay facing the front. Flip over.

So you're lying on your left side. Did that make sense? Watch this. Oh, just a second. This might help a few of you. It's okay. Uh, that's that strength that aesthetically you'll see. I think d w when you lifted yourself up, I'm going to, I don't want to hurt myself, but the, the angle of your upper arm was somewhat like that. See that diagonal, not so good for the shoulder. So then when I made you bring it in, that helped you. But then what happened? Cause you've got a lot of power in your shoulder. Whew.

Your body went a little higher than what today's Ah, request was. So to bring your hip down, you're just not as used to that with the proper shoulder position. You're used to it way out there. So just healthy shoulders. Okay. All right, so let's get ourselves stacked. You can be on your arm or the pillow. Pelvis is nice and stack hip over hip legs together.

Okay. Kickstand the hand. Keep that elbow. [inaudible] shoulder comes down. Abdominals. Pull in now again without lifting your legs yet on your exhale, just bring your waistline up. Yeah, and feel how that's not just the side of the waist, but perhaps the lower back, a little bit of engaged. We want to maintain this as you lift the legs. Here we go on the exhale, legs up both at the same time and inhale down and exhale and lift. Here we go. A lot going on. So there was a sense to have a little getting the legs long from the hip joints.

Yeah. Just ask yourself how much weight you're putting in the front hand. We don't want a lot of weight. No, that it's there for some stability and support, but that shouldn't make your shoulder get real tense. Once the work in your core wasting [inaudible] it got real quiet. Exhale and legs up. Let's take two more and legs up.

Feel that work in the waistline last time and exhale and lift. Told the legs up. All right, so you're working to hold the endurance in your cord, your waist all the way round. Not for float. The low right arm up. So you know what happened on the first side. If I tried to knock that arm down you wouldn't let me because your lat is working so hard. So strong with you. Very supportive. Yeah. All right. And feel how that helps the stability of your, of your balance in the sideline position.

Can you continue to Poe the lateral posterior breathing right now? Don't let me move your arm. Yeah. Is your waistline still up? Ooh, that's a good one. And then everyone come all the way down in and harass side riff on that elbow.

Legs are extended from the hips. I didn't talk about the feet on the other side. I could have two positions. The feet could be in, you could have them stacked, flexed or you could have that one in front. Yeah. So cause I see a few different setups right now. Okay. So your right arm out to the side, your waist is lifted, you're somewhat side bent towards your legs. Feel the contraction of the obliques. And then here we go.

And exhale as you lift the hip, that's better. That's better. So much better with your shoulder position. Yeah, still on drug. A little bit long. Rib Cages in hips are stacked. Thus breathe in as you come down. Still feel supported, not just a drop of your body weight. And here we go right up again. Yeah, it's just as much work in the lat and shoulder girdle as it is in the waist. And lift bottom waist up. Can this arm go over more long? Get Long, get long, get long. Inhale and exhale.

Let's come all the way down. And that's new for you. Yeah. Rest everybody. Can we do seal? Yes. Seal. Yes. It's in the rolling like a ball family. I know the rolling piece. And why don't we do it this way that we're all facing the mountains.

Yeah. So there there's a little bit more consistent, uh, of appearance going there for you. All right, so this seal your knees, your part hands are underneath the heels and holding right up on top of the front of the ankle and foot. You are not right up on the sits bones. You're back off of them quite a bit. So your center of gravity is already kind of falling back. You want to stabilize that look right out. Now, um, I'm not going to pull on your feet cause you might lose your balance, but as if I was pulling your feet kind, no forward, you can pull back with your abdomen, right? And here we go. We roll back. Inhale, come back up to that position and you can clap the feet.

One, two, three if you'd like. How Fun. We know this is a little more playful. Inhale back and exhale up in one, two, and three and we roll back without dropping weight to the head. So yes, that's better. So there's a little more suspension in the abdominal muscles. That's better.

Exhale. One, two, three. Okay, you've rolled back because the inhale directs you back. Exhale. Coming up in one, two, three. [inaudible] one, two, three. How about three more? Yeah, in one, two, three. Ben, one, two, three last time.

And I would like everybody to balance at the top. Was it fun? Was the seal fun? Go ahead and lower your legs to the floor. Just let your torso come forward. Nice. I know thing [inaudible] well, there was a magic circle in front of you that would have been fun. Just toss that on your foot and we met around you guys. Thank you.

Really Nice class this morning. Happy New Year.

Comments

L
Amy thankyou your teaching always inspires me.
Lisa......thank you for your feedback.......this inspires me!!
1 person likes this.
Basics remind us the main principles; great class thank you Amy
1 person likes this.
Thank you Cigdem !  This may have been my 2nd class teaching for PA, WAY back in the beginning!!  These were my real/regular students in class, no staging, no special lights... just me, teaching, doing wha I love doing!

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