Class #1854

Upper Body Mat

50 min - Class
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Meredith Rogers sets an intention to focus on the arms and upper back in this flowing Mat workout. Join her for a full-body class in which she uses cuing and focused thought to create more resistance and sensation in the arms and upper back. Explore Jackknife into Teaser, abdominal work, modified archival Bicycle, Pushups, Side Planks, and more.
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

Sep 18, 2014
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We're just going to start standing today. Look down at your feet and see that they're parallel to one another and then elongate your spine and, and just check in. You want your knees over, your ankles, your pelvis over your knees, your spine lifting up from your pelvis, your arms just heavy down your back, down the sides of your body. On the inhale, let's take the arms out. So Jen, if you reach out to the sides of the room, really going like east and west direction, that'll start to tap into your upper back right away, I think, am I right? Awesome. And now you reach out, out, out to the sides, and then down. Let the arms start to hang and then take the head forward. Exhaling is you roll down through your spine. Your knees can be soft at this point, they can be straight at this point. I'm going to leave that up to you.

We're going to bend the knees at the bottom. All of us. We're going to stretch the legs to stray. We're going to take another inhale and we're going to roll the spine up. I appreciate being upright, starting upright. I find that it helps us to find your alignment, to even just be upright for a minute of our day, right?

Which doesn't always happen. So reaching and take your body into a little bit of a backbend here too. And now push the arms open. Reach the top of the head towards the ceiling. Feel that connection, that connection that the arms have to the center of the body. And as we exhale, we roll the spine down again. Rounding, rounding, rounding, rounding. And we inhale and we exhale. Lift ourselves back up.

We're going to do one more. One more. I'm going to take the arms out and feeling the energy. We create the energy in our bodies. Hold onto your left wrist with your right hand. Stretch your body to the right.

Let your pelvis drift to the left. Go where you want to go, where it feels good to you. Here. Stand on your right foot and stand up. Take your right wrist with your left hand. Reach up and over to the opposite side. Let the right pelvis drift away and then present to your left foot. Um, stand up and then bring the arms down to the sides. Again, you're going to roll yourself down to your mat.

So round down the hands are going to come to the mat. Yup. Hands are gonna come to the Mat and I want you to put your hands on mat and walk forward and find a plank position. Yeah, just finding that nice long line pushing the floor away from us with our abdominals. We're gonna pick the pelvis up, press the heels towards the floor so they were going into a pike or a down dog shape or an upstretched in Pele's. And then we're gonna rise up onto our heels and then we're going to curl the spine back forward. Just that long line again in a press through the heels, we're gonna pick the pelvis up, pressing ourselves back through our feet. Find that nice long spine rise up onto the toes and around the spine. Forward. I had one more time like that. Flex through the heels, pick the hips up, pausing there, feel that stretch and then just start to walk your hands towards your feet.

Try to do that with a hands up. Yeah. Oh, sorry. I think towards your hands. I'm changing my mind. Feet towards your hands, feet towards your hands. Trying to do that with an pretty straight leg if possible. Then we're going to bend our knees. When are we going to sit down on our mat? A little bit more grace than me, hopefully. But you know, you get what you get in life. Hold your legs, lift up nice and tall.

Pool with the arms so the spine becomes up, right? So here's another opera back experience or an upper back opportunity. We draw down and back on the shoulders and pull like you're trying to pull yourself forward by pulling your shoulder blades backwards and inhale there. And now exhale. Keep a little bit of energy with that in the upper back and now just round the lower body round the lower spine.

Try not to let that upper back awareness go away completely. And then Ian Hill Pool. Use your arms like you're doing a pull up. You're pulling your body up and in here and exhale round and you're holding yourself up with your arms. Now to create something to pull back against. And then inhale, lift. So we want our work, we just create it.

I'm talking about arms and upper back a lot because that was a request that we had for this class. So we'll be talking about it throughout class. If you don't choose to create our homework in this class, that would be certainly up to you and reach up again. But we're going to try. Okay. And now take your arms out. So just feel energy there and feel how the arms connect to the upper back. And now exhale and round the spine. So we're going to roll back.

We're going to put our low back on the mat. Little less forward with your head, Casey. Look straight ahead. Perfect. Stay at the bottom, reach your arms out. Now push shoulder blades back. Collarbones open. Bring the arms forward. Inhale, take the arms out. Exhale, push the air out of your body. Inhale, bring the arms out. Exhale, push. We're going to find the length. We're going to roll up. Let the arms be light first. Light first unless you need them, unless you need them. And then lift the spine.

Pull your backup lifted. Now keep that sensation in the upper back and bring the arms out to the sides. And now re reach forward and curl the body and exhale, roll down, bringing the palms of the hands face down. Pause there, find your shoulder blades are just off your shoulder blade, left arm, right leg up, left arm, right leg down, right arm, left leg up. And so some lifting from the head lift float from the hit and dad and we were doing opposite arm and leg. Now as you push your arm down, push from underneath your shoulder blade so you feel again the connection to your back. Push from underneath the shoulder blade and reach up and down and reach up last one and down in pause and in here.

And now control your up control. You're on. Help yourself if you need to with your hands. When we get to the top, we're going to lift using the arms, pulling back on the shoulders, lift the chest, get a little upper back extension there, and then find neutral and let go out to the side. And then press the arms forward as we roll back down again. So now we're going to lift the leg closest to me. We're going to turn towards it. So we lift, bringing that outside arm across and center and lift.

Bring that outside on a cross and sent her nice and Cra and center and a cross and center. One more time, both sides across and center and across and center and hold center and lie down and slide in towards your feet. Get Nice and close to your feet, feet on the mat, arms on the Mat, head on the mat. Inhale, push down into your feet and curl your spine up. Round your spine. So you roll, ah, lifting the hips up. Now here you could press back and down into your mat. Not by squeezing your shoulders together, but by just reaching elongation. Exhale to roll down. And what I mean by that is the elongation comes from the arms reaching towards the feet instead of towards one another. In fact, tailbone comes down and we lift again. Something that I like to play with on a personal note is to feel that my arms are pulling in an outward direction, so as an idea, not mandatory and around rolling, articulating what is mandatory is that you look after yourself and make that a positive experience for you. And one more exhale to lift. We're going to hold the body up. Now I want us to lift the left leg, but I want us to really feel that it's coming connected from the trunk just like we did before.

We pull up and we go down and we pull it up and we go down and we pull up and we go down and we pull up and we the leg and we take that straight leg down and bend it in and we lower the body down all the way. Feel how the neck, how the head, the upper part of the spy responds in relationship to the moving of the lower part of the spine. That's interesting. If you think about it and exhale, it's connected after all rolling up and we hold at the top and now they're right like floats. Right. And that left right where that leg in down, it's bent. It's bent now and it lifts and it touches and it less. Oh, and what about the upper back? Are we still feeling that? And two more.

And one more time. We're going to come up, we're going to say [inaudible] to the ceiling. We're going to take it down so it's parallel to the other knee. We're going to fold it and put it down. I'm going to take our arms over our head, lift the pelvis even higher, but try not to arch the rib too much and then roll down, reaching the arms overhead, reaching the arms overhead as the spine comes down into the mat, down into the mat all the way. Bend the elbows, bring your hands behind your head. Keep the shoulder blades wide here and the elbows just slightly off the mat.

We're going to float the legs up from here. Spine twist, head stays stuff. I'm going to bring the knees towards me. Inhale and exhale to come back. So without the support of the arms, right, that movement might be smaller than normal. That's always fine in how you reach over and XLE to rob and reach over and drop. Now reach towards me. Pause there, kick the top leg straight, try to hold your balance. Come back to center with that straight knee and bend and reach over and kick the top legs straight and pull back through center.

And then one more time. We reach out, we stretch, ah, draw back against the spine with the abdominals center and down. We reach over, we stretcher, we pull to center and we bend and now we are curling our head and chest up. Keep the head heavy in your hands as though you're trying to lift the weight of your head. You are literally lifting the weight of your head with your abdominal muscles. Pause. When you reach the top, take the legs away from you, hinge, dip the map and pull back. When I say tip them out, that's a suggestion. Again, only what's really important or what's mandatory is that when your legs go away from you, your lower back stays on the mat all the way on the mat.

And two more reaching down and pulling. Dig Deep, dig deep, and one more. Reaching and pulling. Now we're going to pause here. We're going to bring the heels together, toes apart. We're going to push the legs up and press the stomach towards the floor and bend and push the legs up. So it's like the, there's a countercurrent pull. One goes in up, and that up creates down pressure, like pistons pressing. I actually don't know anything about Pistons. Is that real? Do they do that? It's awesome. As long as it sounded good, that's what matters.

So we're going to come down. We're going to stay here. We're going to take the right leg to the ground. We're going to keep that left leg lifted. You can always put your head down. We're going to do a little circle and a little circle. Keep reaching the head or keep. You can always reach your arms forward too.

We have two and one and center and keep fighting for that control through the pelvis. Two, three, so an interesting thing that you could do Jim with your hands down. He was like, use the mat, pull to help yourself up. You see what I mean? Yeah. Last one. So stay there. Hover the bottom leg switch low switch la, switch La and then we anchor and then we circle right. That's an option for everyone. Hands on the floor and use the arms against the mat to pull.

You can put that leg down if you want that bottom like only if you want to, you can keep it up. If you want to pause at the top, circle the other way. One circle the other way too. Jim's being brave. He's got his bottom leg as Wendy's being brave. I'm not as brave, but that's bravery there with a bottom, like off the ground. We pause here. We're going to take the arms forward. All of us. We're going to take that leg all the way down and meet the other leg on the floor. Squeeze your legs together and rural.

Slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow. And take the body all the way forward. More upper backtalk. Here we go. Let the head breasted backwards in the hands. Don't squeeze your elbows back. Instead. Feel the scapula come around the sides of your body and a down and under like shovels. [inaudible] like I'm gonna help you out. Like not back. Not, not, not this way. Like that way.

Yeah. So if we squeeze our elbows back, I mean we can all do it right, do it. It'll push our head forward and it'll create neck tension is my suggestion. So if we let this shoulder blades come, why that gives us space for the head and then we could reach the elbows in easterly westerly direction. Wendy set up two inches and then we're going to twist. So it's a spiral spiral centre and spiral spiral center, spiral, spiral centre and spiral. Spiral Center. Sure. Beautiful.

Fullbacks my friends center and spiral spiral center. Pay attention to their feet. Try to keep it still spiral spiral center. Hold your center, hold your center. Take your arms out in front of you. We're going to come from here. We're going to rotate the body towards me.

We're going to push like we're opening heavy curtains. Reach the arms out, lift the chest, bring the arms back and come back to center and we're going to twist in here and open now and come back and center and twist and o open or you can even arch a little if you want and back center. I last time. Open out and back and center and now bend the arms like this and now reached. Flip the hands so that they face forward. Reach up and back. Let the body arch, let the body are at the body arch and bring the arms down in front of you and bent in. Inhale her rotate palm space for it. Elvis, go forward and reach up and back. Draw the abdominals back to the spy. Feel the length of the spine and bring the arms down straight down.

One more bent and who reach back. Arch the back. Slide the arms up. Stay back there, circle them down and put them behind you and stand on them with your weight standing on your hands or elbows. India. As you exhale, press the pelvis up, reach the feet towards the floor, find a long line in your spine. We, you let the hips open and then sitting back. So instead of letting the head go all the way backwards into an arch, just keep it in line with his spine. Keep the gaze slightly Ford, maybe a little further back.

And maybe few fingers out is sometimes a better option. And then push up. Yeah, that's a gym. Now use your legs. Use your legs to get up there. That's it. And then we come down. So this is a shoulder stability exercise, but it's a lot about the legs in my experience, in my opinion. One more. Lift up. Keep your gaze forward, forward, forward in front of you and sit down and bend the knees and take the ankles. Drawing and rolling. Likable. So here's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna do a fun little choreography piece in a minute. We're going to go back, go and left. Oh, I got stuck and back. Okay, I'm with you now. And back and last and the huck and lift. Okay, so we're going to stay here. Stay here. Hands on your knees. Roll the spine down. Control it. Controlling, controlling control.

So from here, double leg stretch. Inhale, reach out. Feel that energy and, and reach out. Feel the out energy and around and reach out and around and reach out and around. So we feel the stretch in our body. And then the contraction and then the stretch and then the contraction and to more the stretch and then the contraction and then the stretch.

And then I want us to hold here. We'll get a little rock, a little rock, a little rock and rock back up and hold. Let go. Roll back. Kick over all the way, but the feet come towards the floor and then reach up through your spine, through your legs, reaching up, up, up into the air. And then we take the legs back over, drawing in at the hips. We roll the spine down, lift the head up right away. Roll the sign down, roll the body, teaser and bent hands on the knees. We're gonna roll back control, single leg stretch coming up control.

So this is like for me, we practiced this for me so you know, um, cause it's hard for me. So, so what my, what I'm suggesting is that it's probably challenging for all of us to take our time and to investigate further into why that could be and where our, where our um, asymmetries are. Stretch the right leg forward, push down on your knee, push down on your knee with your hands right and pull up into it and switch. Push down on the knees so that down press on the knee is going to give us back work. Yeah. So it's a down push, not a pull in, but a down push on a pretty perpendicular to the floor. Me and let's go a little faster and fast and fast. God and reach long through the leg. Reach lung through the leg. We do two more. Two, we do one more one and then we take both legs out. Arms are reaching four.

We're gonna roll, roll. Trying to roll up into the legs without changing that orientation of the legs. Very much. Gonna bend. I'm going to see this part of my class for a little while and now we're going to rock back. Rock back, kick over, legs go down. Feel your back extensors work as you reach up with your spine, reach up and press your legs away from you and e long gate into that high line and then fold at the hips. Legs come back over the face.

Roll down, lift the head. Roula reach teaser and bet. Yeah, let me just roll down again, not holding on this time, looking for asymmetries, looking for our own balance, our own balance and our own bodies lining up the spine, bone by bone. As we come down onto them and we bring the hands behind the head and now we rotate up in over slow and up and over like you're moving through sand or moving through. No access or something else. Heavy and sticky whipping cream. I don't know. [inaudible] make your own idea. Choose your own adventure and one were like that and one and now we go a little faster, but we keep our precision one and lift and to lift three, three, four, four, five, five. We say here, I'm going to separate the knees.

We're going to grab the backsides of the legs. We're going to curl out. Try not to push with your legs too much. Try to roll the spine into the legs, lift your back all the way out. And now rock back and lift. Finding length in the spine and rock back rounding, just the lower spine and lift.

And now we hold here and if we can, we stay where we are if we need to, if we can, we take the ankles and stretch the legs. Ah, we continue to feel that lift and sometimes we tip over and then we rock back and sometimes we don't make it back up and that's all. Okay. That's all part of the process. That's all part of the experience. Rock back. So we do our best all the time and that's all that matters. Do more and one way. Now we're going to hold it up. We're going to hold it up. Where I gotta go. Can I take the legs down?

Are you going to have to lift the body up and in here and I, it's just scoped back if you need to. So here we are. We're lifted up. We're going to dive up and over, dive up and over and then just lift in here. Sit Up. That's real easy. Let your body come up and then create a concavity through your waist, like tunnel. Dive up and over and then just effortlessly rise back up. See how when you let the effortless movement happen and dice in my body anyway, I hit like this energetic lightness. That's feels nice. Let's do one more. So we lift and we dive, create a tunnel deeper, deeper, deeper tunnel and then lifter and take the arms wide twist and reach and arms.

Reach away from one another. They bring us up and then we find center and we twist in here and I forward feel the arms reaching away from one another. That's more opera, back experience and center. Lift in, twist and dye through fingertips. Pull away. The spine elongates up on the diagonal and center and rotate and, and reach out. It's almost as though, uh, let's think about what the back arm reaching down and back pulls you up. The front end was pretty effortless, but it guides the way one more. The bathroom reaching down pushes you up.

The front arm leads the way and center on the arms. Come forward. And we're gonna round the spine. We're gonna place the hands down on the lakes. We're gonna eel longing through the body. Stick your butt out. Lift your chest. Yeah, feel that eyes forward, Casey, just a little bit. So look down at your feet more and then reach out.

We're gonna take their arm closest to me. Just, sorry. Reach forward arm closest to the beds. We've got a pulley. It's gonna pull. We pull on that pull in the opposite arm, reaches out and stretches and we feel the extension through the spine. And then he pushed back forward. And again, something heavy in your hand. You pull your pull back through the shoulder, you reach the opposite arm before we stretch the arms away.

And then we bend and push forward again and we bend, rotate and reach and bend and forward and bend and rotate. Reach up and bend and pull through and to more bend. Reaching the arms away from one another. [inaudible] pull through. Bend [inaudible] was hey and fourth. Now round your back. Round your back, drawn deep point in your feet.

Stay where you are. We're going to lift our legs right from here. We're going to lift to make sure you got space behind you and yet chum and bring them together and let them go and roll down slow control hands come behind the head again. Stretch the legs up towards the ceiling. I'm gonna do a little fish tail. We're going to bend. We're going gonna reach, kick out, keep the body flat. The spine flat under control. N Ah, I ran a bent and a kick out. All right. You know, list and bent and kick out and left and reverse. We Go, Dad, we've been meeting even will tip them out with our toes, dragging it and then we go down. Keep the body, always chasing the legs in a forwarding action. One more. I mean Ben and now hold and Ben from here and now do tip the mat. Set the feet down separately, spread the knees apart, lie to head down.

Bring the arms next to your body and enhance and now we Exxon roll the spine, lifting the hips, reaching up, lift the left leg off the floor, and then it's going to go all the way down and back. This is the closest to the bicycle I can give you Erin. And is this acceptable? Hmm. And back. Oh, we could do a little bicycle here. Here we go. We'll go down and bend in. Kika and down and bending kicker and down and bending.

Kika and we're going to go the other way. We're going to reach forward and pull bed. Reach down and forward and pull. Bend. Reach down and forward. Never letting the hips drop. Ben, place that foot down. Let's see. Arms overhead roll down through the spine.

Just reach the arms and the spine. Feel the neck reaching out between the arms. Drop all the way down through the hips and he, yeah. As we lift the body back up, we're going to press the arms through space, pushing the arms down, pushing the arms down, and then we are here and we lift the right leg and we kick down and Oh, I didn't say we roll up when the arms come down and ah, and now and sometimes I think you can just read my mind. Haven't you known me long enough to read my mind? Lower your leg down, bend your knee and reach up. Take the leg forward. Ben, tip and beauty reached out.

Then tip and left. Let's go the other way. We reach kicked down and forward and all the way up. Bend down and forward all the way. Hand Bend on and forth. All the way up. We bend at me, we put the leg down.

Going to reach overhead. This time I want you to interlock your fingers to interlock your fingers. We're going to roll down or just reaching those interlock fingers away from us. Feel like you can tunnel your head through your hands as you're rounding your spine. And tunneling the spine in the opposite direction, creating lots and lots and lots of space. Let go. Bring your arms to your sides, lift your legs off the mat one at a time are both together.

Stretch them out on the diagonal and lift them overhead. Exhale. So we're going to do the corkscrew and that goes like this. You're going to shift your legs over your left shoulder. Gonna Roll your spine down. You're gonna circle around the room and the pelvis roll up the right side of the spine.

And do you rotate or bring the legs over the eyes and then rotate over the right shoulder and we'll go down. Go ahead. Yeah, go around. Go all over and up and center. One more time through and our over and dad down and around and across and over and censure last, Dan, the right side of the body, across to the left side of the body, up to the left side of the body and center. And I just want us to reach up, take our hands and just let the hands rest on the back of the leg somewhere. Suggestion is about the calf or the ankle or even the foot. And as you roll your spine towards the Mat, just do a gentle down, gentle down pressure center, down, heaviness on the legs, and just let that stretch happen. She bring yourself down when you need to.

You can bend your knees when you hit for the pelvis touches. If it's necessary. We're going to bend the knees and put the feet down. Cross turn towards me. Candy will demonstrate beautifully what it looks like to be on the elbow. And what I want us to do is pull away from the hand with the ribs. Yeah.

So push into the mat, pull the ribs away, and we're going to straighten our knees and lift into a side plank. Nice. From there we lift the bottom, we make a rainbow with our bodies. We come back to the side planks position and this hold there. We'll do three. So we're gonna reach up, we're going to make a rainbow and then we're going to come back out straight and be a laser beam. Oh, Jim's doing laser beam sounds. Reach out. I'll copy them. Laser beam. Okay, so now we want to keep control through the shoulder and then the knee. Then the knee bend the knees is a better way to say that. And let's all come to our elbows. Now.

Bottom Lake's gonna stay bend. We're going to take that top leg out, stretch it out along the mat, lift up through the bottom ribs, and we're going to swing and back and swing and back and try to control the movement of the body with the lower side of the waist. Forward and back. Forward and back. He goes, what's next? We're going to go down, up front, up, twice. Back up, back up. Front two, two, back. Three, two, one, three. To keep the buddy lifted. One Up, four to one up. I lost my, I lost my place. Three, two, one, five, four, three, two, one. Up. Five, four, three, two, one up. Put it back. Turn and regionally, BB injured. You spiral through your spine. Give yourself a stretch and then bring that leg around.

See if you can set it down in front of the other knee without lifting up yet and just push it away from you. Arching your back. She'd feel okay, she'd feel a little stretchy and then we're going to help ourselves up. We're going to sit up into that leg and bring the knee into the chest. If this doesn't work with you, a bit bottomed me straighten out your bottom like some bill would just be easier to get there. Let me just bring her body up into our leg. Okay.

Lifting the body might be easier with that foot towards me. More it might is the operative where there, I don't know the answer. Okay. No again, right. We go back to the lesson that we work with what we have and you're doing a great job. Let's go to the other side. Cross top leg on top, our ms straight or you're on your elbow. You're doing whatever you want to be doing.

This arm comes down so when we are, when we don't have a shoulder in the right place, what we can do. That's right. Casey is push away with the arm like you're pushing the mat away by lifting your ribs and now we're all in a beautiful position. Then let's go and and put weight. Bear weight onto your arm. I'd make a rainbow. Wonder what the rainbow sound would be, Jen? Something like, and then the laser beam straight out shooting energy out through the legs and out through the feet.

We make a rainbow first and then we sign our line or straight line just straight towards me. So just a side plane and now lift top of, just go straight over. There's no rotation. Nope, that's it. Perfect. And then back. I want to hold ourselves up. Stay strong. Bend both knees come down onto the elbow. So that same relationship between the rib and the arm applies here as a whole.

This scapula still in to hold the body stationary and that leg goes out and swings and it swings back. So do that with the ribs. Gym. Push up like that and hold that and forward and back. That's getting it a little Frieda. How's your shoulder, Ms Candy? I guess one more time. Here comes our hot potato.

We go back up front up to try to find a little levity in the two to like a kick. One, two little glute work. They're up. One, two, three. One, two, three, four, up. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, five, one, two. I enjoy that you're making happy things. Does that mean Ah, it's nice to smile when hurts and now we turn and stretch. I know we come up, come back forward and take that foot across and just push out on it. Reaching out through the hip. So for really flexible in our hips, that's not going to be a stretch. Is everyone feeling a stretch? I feel a stretch.

Yeah. Yeah. Good. So let's sit up and bring the leg into the body. This is, I'm most certainly a stretcher. I expect suspect this as we drop the hip down towards the floor, we continue to choose how much or how little we decide that leg is being drawn into the center of the body. So even Jim, even like not even just sitting up like using your arms to help you sit up, like that's like a great option for you. And then we can think about just like, can we just sit into that head rather than holding ourselves away from it? Is it possible to just let go into surrender?

Perhaps it's all just words though. Okay, come on to your knees, hands and knees. Step the right foot back. Followed very shortly by the left foot. Finding our plank position. Good, great planks, great plains. Point your right foot and reach the right leg under you and back and under you.

Not Changing the spine much and back under you and back at an under you and back. Put it down to pushups. Now lift that right leg up again and kick up and Ah, and Ah, and a two one. Put it down with your pelvis. The floor away from your back into the place where we started. And in the head float between the arms, drawing in and supporting through the, through the what? The spine. Lift onto your toes, roll back forward, lift your left leg, it comes under you and goes back out.

It comes under here and goes back out and cuts Andrea and goes back off. Two more. Last one, step on him. Two pushups. Stay with the leg again and it goes up. And uh, and Ah, and Ah, and Ah, and, and to, and uh, and set it down. And two pushups, Eh, lift her head and pressed that. And we're all fine all the way and to push up and too much. Hey, anything can be done in sets of two. One more time. We come, we come for two pushups. Oh, bend your knees. Sit on your feet.

I love pushups. I have to confess. I do. I love him. I really lot. Okay, come on to your stomach. [inaudible] let's keep you, I'm a little further away from us in normal today so you could have one hand over the other. I'm into like lacing my fingers. What I want us all to do though is um, first draw or energetically move the upper arms towards the shoulder joint towards the shoulder joint. So now it's like plugging the upper arm bones into your trunk. Now we're going to lift the legs, lift legs.

We're going to externally rotate the heads. We're going to do a little beets, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, keep the pulling backwards of the upper arm. That's what we're going to get our upper body worker. Opera. Backward touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch pads. Turn the legs to parallel. Upper body, working arm bones, pulling back. Kick one leg and stretch. So kick kicks, stretch, kick, kicks, stretch. Try not to make the kicking of the leg. Kick the body around. Pull, pull, reach, pull, pull, reach, pull, go, reach, hold, hold.

Lower your legs. Lower your torso. Bring your arms out into a I. M what? Meredith? A goalpost position. [inaudible] do that. And then what you're gonna do there. I'm gonna come up so you can see me if you need to, but you're gonna go, you're set the arms on the floor. I'm done. The floor. Yup. I'm talking you through it. Here we go. The first thing that's going to happen, Jim, is you're gonna lift your hands and your forearms off the mat off the floor.

The elbows are still down. We feel that rotation in our opera back now. Lift the elbows only. Keep the head down. Yep. Now lift your head. That'll lift your body. Now stretch your arms and reach for the person in front of you and now rebuild your elbows and now let your forehead come down and now let your elbows come down and not let your forums come down. So there's a little rotator cuff work definitely up or backwards. Inhale, hands in a forums off the floor. Exhale, elbows off the floor.

Inhale, forehead off the floor. As you reach over your head. Think about guiding your elbows down in your hands up as you bend. Think about guiding your elbows down in your hands up. It's just an idea. It's energy. Put the forehead down. Put the elbows down. Put the hands in the forums down one more time.

Notice as you pick your forums in your hands up. Are you doing it by bending your wrists a lot? Yeah, that's a, that's um, common. Lift your forehead. Stretch your arms overhead, reaching for the person in front of you. They are your life raft. Poor Aaron doesn't have anyone to reach for, but I'm your life raft girl right here. Head down, elbows down, forearms down. Sit all the way back. Do a little combination now and that goes like this. We're going to lift the pelvis.

I want you to lift with your ads so we haul or we make another tunnel. Make another tunnel in your body. Curl forward, continue to curl forward. Your tunnel is now widening and now we're going to start to bring the hips forward. Reach out in, up through the spine. Use the backs of your legs in the front of your body to support you and now we're going to push the knees into the mat and we'll round the spine, bring the pelvis and the chest together and reach all the way back towards the feet.

The arms are way in front of you and we're going to curl through the spine around the spine. Come over making a tunnel, a bigger and bigger tunnel. The tunnel starts to change it. It's no longer a tunnel. As we start to bring the pelvis forward, we are two, this spine. Here's another place where you could think of if you wished or play with the idea of tried to spread the arms in an outward direction like you're trying to rip your mat through the center of it and then who around the spine and come back. We're going to go one more time just like that. Ran a rule. Tunneling through the waist around being hollowing.

Hips go forward. Head comes a reach through. Lift the chest. Nice. Tuck your toes under. Lift your pelvis up into a front support position. Two pushups, sorry, I couldn't help myself.

Lift your pelvis, walking again. Your feet, your feet. Go into your hands and feet. Come into your hands. One leg at a time, one straight leg at a time and then once you arrive there, bend your knees, soften. Feel the weight on your feet and now let your low back just cascade down over the tops of the thighs. There doesn't have to be a ton of abdominal work. I like connection is all that you needed, like supportive connection. We just let the lower back feel a stretch and then pressing into your feet, keeping your weight on your feet.

We're going to just start to bring ourselves up, bring ourselves up, reaching all the way and turn towards me so I can see your beautiful faces. And though I do this again. So we pushed beyond and we open as we open, we lift the heart, which yes, the high rise creating expansion and not take the arms up overhead. And as they come up overhead, bring your body just upright again and down in front of you we have visitors. That's okay. Why show open lift the shots reach, ah, spiral through the arms lifting.

Bring the body up right. And now just to let the arms trickle down. So that means what it feels like in your body. Maybe to the tempo of flip flopping flops. Yeah, let the ions trickled down and we feel the energy that that creates.

And then we bring the arms up again and feel as the arms reach up, the spine goes with you. And maybe we can with our elevation of body, elevate our minds and our spirits. And through movement and idea, and then we just fill out the arms trickle again, trickle down, trickle down.

Comments

2 people like this.
thank you Meredith, it was a wonderful class... looking forward for more
1 person likes this.
Love that class x
2 people like this.
Free extra push-ups. Thanks from Qatar.
1 person likes this.
Wonderful! Love the upper back work.
2 people like this.
Enjoyed the unique seqencing of moves. Your shoulder focus also translates to a more relaxed feel in my neck. Thank you. Would love another class like this.
2 people like this.
look after you, pushing curtains, tunnels, energetic lightness, sets of 2 -loved it...can't wait to share! Thank you
1 person likes this.
Lovely class - thank you
1 person likes this.
A big thank you from germany! You made my day because the autumn arrived today and I really was in a grumpy mood. Now I feel energetic lightness...
1 person likes this.
Great class!
1 person likes this.
Beautiful teaching. Thank you
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