Release Tension Mat

Let's start standing. Okay, so we're going to face the window please. And no special requests necessarily. So we're just going to try to inhabit our bodies as much as possible. So let's start at the top this time. Sometimes I start at the bottom and I'd like you to just sort of become aware of your head in space and if it were a lot heavier, what would it do to the rest of your body? So if, if you find yourself somewhat forward head, which most of us will, where would that continue down?

And actually we don't have to think about it too much. Let's just lengthen it up as if we were being held up and the rest of your body or hanging from there. And then maybe you can even think of the bones of your body and forget all the muscles and just let the bones be upright, but heavy and hanging. All right. And then wave in the wind a little bit. Just sort of finding, whereas behind the center, whereas in front of the center, do you have more weight on one foot than the other kind of dedupe around? It's like just become aware. That's the first principle of philosophy.

So if that's all you do today, mission accomplished. Um, I'm happy to have you on your mats, but I will do some balance in a moment. So maybe just everybody's one step back. All right, finding that center line, staying with the bones. Let's think about drawing the upper thigh bones toward each other about leveling the pelvic bone so that you don't have the hipbones in front or behind. Okay. About lifting the rib cage up on the spine and shoulder blades falling down your backend. And from there we'll just take an inhale filling up. And since the lungs are high up in the rib cage and you're taking such a big deep breath, exhale, right?

Maybe the ribs will open enough in the back of your body that your arms will leave them both and then exhale. See if you can feel the space around you. Inhale, [inaudible] and exit. And with each exhalation, let yourself go just a little bit. Let yourself go. Come on in, honey, we set you up and exhale. Yeah, maybe breathe into the broad back and exhale. Manny just move just a little to that. Thank you. And inhale, filling up and exhale into the voice narrowing. It will stay here this time. Take the deep breath, leave the arms heavy and down. Inhale, we're doing a roll down on the exhale. We let your heads come forward up, not your heads, your head. Keep going.

All of your heads will go forward and keep going. Keep going. Even in here you have a sense of drawing up on the abdominals, but heaviness through the back and exhale to roll. Finding the back of the legs. Hi, I'm Chris. Nice to meet you. Anything I need to know. Okay, inhale, exhale. Debra, can you lengthen your low back? So just going to feel, not that you're taller, but that you're more drawn down. The last one, going down, down, down, and inhale. Let go of any tension here. If you've got to kind of move your arms a little, go ahead. Exhale.

We come back up. Restacking realigning, pressing the hips over the ankles if they're not already there, and then we're going to inhale. Let the knees bend. Just a little, not a lot. Exhale to come up and really just trying to kind of draw the body forward a little and back. Actually, I'm trying to give you a sense of opposition. So as you bend the knees, you're reaching forward, the hips are reaching back, exhaling up and more than anything, these first few minutes are for you to let go of tension so that we move more efficiently. Inhale and exhale. Let's make it a little more round through the back. So we'll let the arms come around the side and around the low back.

A little exhale and let you go yourself to go into upper back extension. Exhale and inhale and the knees are just soft. They don't have to keep bending and straightening a lot. Just sort of leave them as they are and round and up. This time stay upright. Go back to straight knees. If you can take the arms up, grabbing onto the right wrist stretching.

Think about hugging them bones together as you stretch up and over reaching, looking straight out that window. Take the right leg to the right. If you're way over, you might want to come up a little and think longer. Take that right leg, flex the right foot, and reach the right foot to the opposite side of the room. Now you can put the foot on the ground, right. Let's not get too too out of whack here. Just reaching, stretching and bring the foot back. Let the arm come down.

Take a big deep breath up in. Feel the shoulder blades. Get heavy. Reach up. You can even let the shoulder creep up a little. Oh, we forgot to take that down. Taking that leg out. Now. Again, if you're way over to the side, let's make it a little more of a diagonal line. That's great. You were reaching through the bottom of the foot. Knee point straight ahead. Reaching.

Now can you reach from the waist as opposed to what? I don't know. Tightening the leg. The what? As opposed to the arms? Yeah. Good one. I was thinking leg, but that's right. Okay. Come on back and let the arm come down. The lacing the fingers or maybe just grabbing a couple fingers or maybe just getting close. We're going to take the arms up, bend the knees a little hinge forward with a flat back and then round over taking those arms overhead.

I had no idea that one was coming and we'll just roll back up. Roll back up. All right, here we go. Taking your right leg straight back. Keep your upper body higher. I've gone back to that queue length and from the waist. So the arms are relaxed. You do whatever you need to do with them.

We're going to hinge at right at the hip joint. So it's as if someone came by and took your strong straight from the back and started to lift it. And because it lifted the rest of you had to move. Now before we get too far, cause if we're gonna keep it kind of mellow, reach the arms down your body, down your back a little bit more. Stretch the leg a little more. Now we'll allow the knee to bend the one you're standing on. That's your inhale.

Exhale, the straighten. If your knees not wanting to bend a don't cause it doesn't make a huge play on it. It's just kind of trying to throw you off just enough to have to recommit to the center. That's enough. We're going to come back to upright. Bend the knee that's in the air. Take it forward, making sure the hips are level, bring it up, bringing it up, soften the leg you're standing on. If this feels way out of balance, just lower the leg or even keep it on the floor. All of that's fine. And we'll go back to the rounding of the low back.

I have a soft knee in the front and extend and extend the leg as well and around. Exhale and inhale. Oh, putting that chest without our CIMA low back. If you can help it. The trick is is lightly squeezing the glutes. This is the last one round. And with that we'll put the foot on the ground and stand up. Yeah, left leg back. You can stay forward. I'm just looking at Geneva. There we go.

Trying to link to the front of your body. So you almost get a stretch here in the hip flexor. All right, straighten the leg. Reach it so you already feel hamstring reach it longer. If you can tip forward, you do. Otherwise you're welcome to leave the leg on the ground, sliding the arms further down your back so your become even more aware of the center. Inhale, bend the leg a little. If you're wanting to do, go that way. Exhale and story a tip.

Draw those innercise together as you straightened to good and from there we held it up. We came forward, we let the knee bend so it didn't hit the floor. We checked our level hips and we brought the knee up and decide sort of where do you need it. Each side is a little different from here we rounded a little and then we extended and extended the leg. We bent the knee, we rounded the spine and stretch. I'm going to, I don't know what breath I gave you, but I'm going to say inhale here. Exhale, round, pulling, reaching. You can go as far as you want, right? You can make a big deal out of it or not. It's up to you and excellent. Last one, inhale, do what you need to do. It's early, make it feel kind of good.

Waking up to the body. You last round, keep it round, set foot on the floor, roll yourself up and let's come to the mat facing in. So you guys all face the center and you guys all face the center and have a seat. Okay. Keeping the [inaudible] feared of that. That looked great. Felt great. Anyway, when I wasn't looking just to Mandy is with the feet slightly apart but slightly being what? Straight out of the hips. Hold on underneath. Take care of your bodies, right? So I expect you're going to know all exercises we're doing.

We may put a little flair on it if you want to jazz it up. A little do. If I come back and ask you to pull it back, please do that as well. So we're sitting tall, we inhale on the exhale. Just roll back halfway. So you're leading this with the pelvis, you're leading this, not leading. You're using the spine, doing what you need to do with the arms.

Find ease in your neck and shoulders. Inhale, hold, exhale to come forward. And at this point just do what feels right for your body. Okay, so my, you can start thinking about putting that towel back there real soon. Inhale and exhale, roll back. So if you feel like you want to go all the way to mid back, fine. If you want to hold out the whole back of backup, that's cool too.

There's an inhale there. Then exhale up and rely on your breath a little tonight unless it gets in your way. Then kind of just breathe, inhale and exhale. It's a sense of scooping the sitz bones or the abdominals and the sitz bones kind of reach forward. Inhale, hold. There you go. And exhale to come back up. Nice job. All right. I'm going to try to take it a little further, but if you don't want to, you want, we inhale, exhale. We go checking the collarbones are wide. I'm about mid back.

If you'd need to bring the legs closer to what arm goes up, keep your eyes forward. There's your inhale. Exhale from that upper arm. Press down. Not very much tension in the arm itself. Inhaling up. Fantastic. I switched arms. If I didn't say so. Exhale down. We're going to both arms. Inhale now resist the temptation to fall back. Exhale, hold here for no movement. Just inhale and find some sense of ease. You're welcome to hold the legs. We're going up. Exhale. Oh, I should have warmed up with you and straight up the back. Inhale. Exhale down.

We go. The towel work in my feet mean a good spot for it. When you feel the tab, what we've done is just put a little towel there and you know, one arm. Thank yarn. Exhale down. Body doesn't raise up or lower other arm. Inhale, take your time. Exhale. Let yourself tuck. Inhale. Both. Yes. Exhale back down. No movement. Looking good. Inhale, hold. Now feel the abdominals pulled backwards and that's what brings you up.

This is your exhale. Come on up. Good, good, good, good, good. So far so good. Only doing one more inhale, right? One more. Makes for one more. Makes three. I don't know. Exhale. Only three, right? Yeah, that was three. I don't know. This is three. Oh good. I didn't miss it. Inhale, exhale. It's a good time to look at your abdominals, hopefully, and it had sales.

See the movement. You're going to expect movement both arms in the trunk in terms of expansion. Now inhale, start. Exhaling it up. We come. Take your time. Keep the curve this time. Just keep the curve. So you're going to sit just behind the sitz bones. Inhale, hold, exhale.

Down we go. Somewhere in there, I noticed I put my knees together. I don't know if I told you to do that or not. It's not super important, but it's a little easier if you do. That's why minor there and exhaled, so you didn't give him a heart. Whatever you challenge yourself. I've got enough challenge in my life and I'm hold it here. Inhale, check your collarbones so they're not in front of you. They're sort of just hanging out. Up we come. Keep the curve.

Yep. So now go as far forward in this without touching your ribs to your legs. See what you can do and without shrugging the shoulders. Then with that, roll up an imaginary wall. Take your arms with you up there. Slide your feet out a little bit. Feel free to flex your feet or just relax them. Rotate towards the window up. Exhale, we're going down. Keep the knees bent and exactly side by side.

So knees straight ahead, Nathan. Inhale, take the arms up. Everything kind of goes over to the other side and we're coming up that side. So just a little bit off center, but the knees and lower body stay in the middle. Keep it round for now. Right in the middle. Inhale Cita and rotate to the back in that way.

And exhale down. I didn't know, I didn't know. And we just kind of roll across the shoulder blades. Exhaling up. Do we need no more breath or less time? One of the two in nail and spiral to the front. Exhale down. Inhale. Just take the upper body over. Exhaling to come up center and in lengthen. Find the spine. Turn the back. Exhaling down.

Yes. Inhale, just switching over to the other side. Nice. Muffy and exhale, pulling back on the belly to come back to center. And if we come all the way, straighten out your legs. Hint actually tell you what, take your hands behind you. Use them to lift you up. So for the moment I'm, I'm right on top of the sits bones. You can use your fist, whatever, do what you can to hinge forward. Even if you need to bend the knees with that straight spine, pull the rib cage in, one arm goes in front, and then pull it back onto your back. Meaning if it's, if it went in front like so for like off your back, pull it into the collarbones wide, then the other.

That's awesome. Try, try. I don't know if it's possible yet. Try to keep your upper body where it is and pull the hipbones, the front of the pelvis backwards. Your head's gonna adjust by looking maybe down at your feet. Oh, I love it. And let's externally rotate. So that means your hands are facing each other and opposite your shoulders, not higher. If you just lower your hands a little. Yup. Okay, here we go.

Inhale, you're going to lead with the hips. Go all the way to the mat. Exhale, roll down. God, that looks pretty. Take your arms up and over the back of your head will touch. Your ribs are down now. Come right back up. Inhale, arms up. Head follows. Exhale to roll up. Well done. Remember how you started. Beautiful. Inhale, and to give you one more tiny bit and exhale to come back down.

Wrinkled it, sorry. All the way, lightly touch and inhale. Feel the back of the ribs. Drop into the mat to exhale to roll up. Yes. Feet and needs together. That's another one of those tips that really helps. Good, good, good. Go ahead. Go ahead, soften broad back. Nice. Sandy. Really nice and lightly touch. We're ready to go again. Inhale, come up.

I'm going to slightly speed up. Use the breath and it goes. Inhale. Exhale down to where there before three touch four right away. Inhale up. One, two, three, four. Inhale, still working here. Exhale down to three. Touch four and up to you know the breath. Now. Three, four, inhale and down. I start to count now. Two, three, four. Last time just to get up. Keep the curve at the low back. AB area. Start to go back one more time, but I'm going to stop you about, I don't know. Soon bend the knees.

Bring them into your, behind the sit bones. Sorry. Lick you. And then Nathan, why don't you scoot forward? I'm afraid you're going to tap your head on the woods back there. Yeah. Everybody adjust. I think I'm going to too if you need to. All right, so here we are. Let's for the moment, raise the feet up and our eyes are somewhere around shin, knee area, heavy shoulder. See if you can do just a tiniest rock. Oh, without losing it. It's just like a Teeter teetering on the tip of the tailbone. NN truthfully, I'm behind the tailbone. You're okay with this line on. Okay.

Now this could be done with one leg down, right? You can play with this stuff that I kinda like it better with one, like barely touching. So I'm going to invite you to do that if you want to. I'm doing four more. So if you're using one leg you'd want to change too. Both are up. Bring the heels in closer. Holding onto those shins. Here we go. Rolling like a ball. Inhale back, exhale up and inhale back.

So this is one of those places. The more advanced people are going to feel this more, most likely because they're going to get calmer, they're going to get quieter, and they're going to get smaller. If you're newer to it, it's might seem like a gigantic waste of time, but trust me, hang on with it and look for the, the circle, the flow in your body. So I'm just inhaling back, exhaling up one more. Next time you come up, stay up, slide your hands up to your knees. Slowly pushing the knees into the hands. You instantly pull the belly button. I actually forgot what I was trying to say. Abs. Oh my God, I think I should quit. Here we go. Down. We go. Oh, that was kind of scary. Now check it out here. Don't look, but just look straight ahead at yourself and everybody tuck your pelvis a little bit so you're gonna feel your low back onto the ground, your tailbone.

Come off a little and then release it down. But don't let go of everything. Do it again. Little tuck up and relate that to today and again, duck and release that support heads and do it duck and release. So it's not about the thighs coming towards you. They might, but it's, that's fine. Yeah. Feel for that coming from that lower and the upper body's just sorta there. Then from here, leave it down, meaning you still have your whole back touching, but you haven't drawn the tailbone up. Flex your feet, squeeze your glutes, push away only to the point where you can keep the back exactly as it is now.

So you might have to go higher. You might have to stop. Then softly point the legs and from right under your chest, drag the knees in so it has nothing to do with the lights. It's, that's a big exhale perhaps or anyway, it's high in the trunk. I like to flex. It just gives me something to think of pushing against. There's not a lot of tension in my legs and then I drag the knees back in. I remember Kathy Murakami used to talk about your feet being stuck by, what was it, Wendy? A rubber band or might've been gum, but I won't give you that one anyway.

The sense of drawing the bottoms of your feet away from something that they're stuck to and then allowing them to be pulled away and draw in. You could do this with your head on the ground and go straight up to the extent that your hamstrings could take it. Lots of options there. I'm only doing this last one in. Everybody leave your knees up unless you need a full break. Let your heads go down for a moment and for most of us, this is still a fair amount of AB work.

We're going to exhale to come right back up. I'd invite you or encourage you to squeeze the glutes again. It's not a lot. Just a little one leg goes down instead of out change on the exhale. [inaudible] and I just notice myself and so if you followed me, I'm going to change it. I went up like this with my foot.

Keep going instead of let's keep it a tabletop. So we have a true like thigh motion there. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Next one. Hold it up. Flex the foot that's up. Press it out as the other one comes up, flex it. And I'm not really going to bicycle though.

It looked like I was going to and we reached. Let's go a little quicker now and press Oh one one don't bicycle. It's a slide and pull. Pull. Now check in with your backs. We've been up here for a while. If it's taken over, either go higher or take a break and pull. Pull one more breath. Cycle in, in and out. Out. Point the toes. Put your head down. Hug your knees to your chest.

Yeah, I think it's getting warm. All right. Taking your feet to the ground. You can for the moment. Do what you need to with your hands. We're going to take the knees toward the window, so I've got to lift my hips up and rotate that way. So I'm more on the hip closest to the window or to the front of the room, to the screen. I don't need my knees all the way down.

Most people I don't think you're going to because what I do want, what do I want? That's a good point. Deborah. Uh, I was going to say both shoulders down, but that's going to change almost as soon as we start. So what I want you to be able to do is not arch your back. How's that for English? Have a little tuck of the pelvis. So if I'm you, I am in fact not doing that, although it feels quite fun. Um, it's more of a tuck, more of a tuck and rotate. Alright. Hands behind tread. That looks good from what I'm seeing. So it shouldn't be in your low back from there if you would, which just curl up.

Just curl up. And so for this whole side, it's going to be your right arm coming across. Right arm. Literally like Andy's got it right across your hips and you guys, your left arm. Yup. So you're crossing over what? Yeah, right here. Little pulses and make this not about the move. Right? That's it. You bought it MFI. So it isn't that you have to move. You will, but it's almost like more of if Andy's here, he's going to pull the rib cage away from me. Yes. That.

That's fantastic. Yes. Mandy, why don't you bring your lower knee up just to match it? Yup. Yup. That's going to be a better position I think. Yeah. You're probably counting, huh? About how many? Ten-ish enough. Okay, so then take both arms up to the ceiling. I should do this. Make sure it works. Where were we? And then take the knees up. Eh, let's put your head down. I need to switch fully on the hips properly so that you don't have more weight on the one side. Curling up. Opposite hand goes over, crosses that body. And then again, so come to what you feel is your high point with your head resting in your hands. And then it's, to me, it almost feels like I'm trying to draw this lowest rib bone deeper into the body. Now. In fact, I might be lifting, I'm not sure. It's just my intent is slightly different than just pulsing.

And someone will tell us when we need to change or stop breathing or doing anything. Fantastic. You look like you are 10 good. Let yourself go down, level your hips out. Bring your feet in closer. So you're kind of near the ball of the foot cause we're going to start to swivel the feet side to side. Curl yourself up with the hands behind your head again for the moment and then we're going to take the knees toward the front. Keep the upper body as it is. Bring it through the middle.

Take the knees to the back. They do a few of those kind of figuring out where you want your feet. I don't have a specific spot for you so much as you need to feel the control and the movement happening from your waist. Now I'm going to offer reach opposite with both arms. Let the arms come up as they change and reach opposite and let's go a little quicker over and over and over over when the arms float up, just to clear the knees. Don't let that change your upper body.

Make it a little more pronounced, but no less precise. Let's go ten nine eight, seven deeper. Six, five, four, three. Hang on. Do come back to center. Let your heads go down. Arms reach back behind you. Separate your feet into that sit bone distance or four or five inches apart. You're reaching the arms. We're going into a pelvic curl. Inhale, exhale, hauling the abdominals as you roll up. Yes, take the arms through the air, kind of like you did earlier in terms of pressing against the solid.

Hold it there. Look at your body. If you can't see it as well as you want to feel your body. How else can you inhabit it? Unless you really know where it is. In exhale, we're going back down. Enjoy the arms reaching up where you can leave him down. We'll be back in just a second. They go overhead. I'm going to keep one down. One up. Inhale going up again. Exhale, reaching through. Come on up.

That's it. That's it. Hanging out there. Take a moment. This isn't going to be a big deal for this group in terms of seeing it, but we are going to slightly draw the heels along the mat toward our glutes. You won't see it. You won't even move. Hopefully you're just going to contract. Tuck the pelvis a little more so that you are in fact flat on both sides of your pelvis. From there we inhale, exhale, take one leg, doesn't matter at this point, straight up lowering it and reaching it out of the hip joint. And I'm just going to keep it slow and see how low you can go without dropping either hip, drag it back into place.

And by drag I don't really mean you have to touch the ground. Let's go the other side. Oh that was a better idea, wasn't it Deborah, to do it that way. Oh well you're up. You reach, you know that's what I'm doing with my own songs cause it's, I can't see either and I'm just trying to feel for it. The legs to the ground, maybe, maybe not. And pull it in. Now I'm going to tell you, we're going to go, we'll go to the first leg again. We'll stay on that side. I'm going to tell you, a lot of us aren't meant to go all the way to the ground here. So let's think more about long reach to the opposite side of the room. Make that your goal and then if you'd have it, the ability to go a little lower do but otherwise you drag it back into place. Same leg, same like reaches up and it reaches long. That's it.

Excellent. And bring it in. Trying to feel where the leg in the hip meet on the back side. And one more time up. Bring it in. Both feet are down. Chet. Listen up in here. We're going to roll halfway down cause I need more length through our low backs.

Just halfway down and take the stretch. Joy. Inhale. Exhale. What does very little extra use of the feet. Try and pull yourself up from that upper edge of the abdominal wall. Here we go. Other leg is up and grow. Long out of the rag.

You can bring that knee really close to your nose if you want. You want a little more challenge, but you know what the rules are. Don't move the body. Yeah. One more time. Nice job when you get back. If you beat me there, just put your foot back in place. Arms come up right above your chest if you can palms together. Otherwise, just straight up is fine and from there we exhale and soften, melt through the front of the body.

Just go on down almost all the way almost. And when you get to the top of the hips, inhale that we're just staying in that curve. Exhale, no extra pressure on the legs. Draw the abdominals deeper. Check out what that does to your shoulders. It shouldn't do anything, but it often does come on up and the higher you go, the more you feel the glutes and the back of the legs, but hopefully not more pressure into the ground with the feet. Inhale, exhale. Let's bring it down again. Encourage the inner thigh. Encourage articulation, encourage length through your neck. Same spot, almost all the way in hand. Exhaling. Let's talk.

I'm going to go up a little higher than we normally do, however, not from the ribs, so let's take those hands and place them on the ribs and hold them back a little more than you're used to even. And press the pelvis higher as the ribs almost go down. There's your bicycle contraction. Oh my gosh. Wow. Or is that just me? And arms back up and roll down. Yeah. Right on. Keeping the arms there. Take your knees up to tabletop.

Nathan's in the house. He's still glad you came. Oh yeah. Good. All right. If it's available to straighten the legs, if it's not, no, I'd rather you not have the strain in the legs. We don't want your attention there. We want it. Uh, I'll show you. Exhale, curl up. Take both arms to the front of the room. Yeah, and for now, just switch to the other side. Know what you can watch for now is you have options. You could keep the palms together like we had a minute ago that would help you measure, but if that feels tight or weird, keep them apart and just make sure you don't let one get ahead of the other.

Meaning one does not get in front of the other. How's that for clarification? It's not easy. People, if you didn't understand what I said, let me say a louder. Okay. For fun because sooner, that's where I'm at now. Which side are we on? Are we on the first side here? Tilt the legs too. That's an option. Whoa. And Woah. So we're basically doing what we did earlier.

Kicked up a notch. Yeah. Whoa, Whoa. Those long legs make a difference. Don't they? Windy. I'm good. Last one there. Come back to center. Just bend your knees for a minute. Let your heads go down. I'm heading into the rollover. So if you are not up for being on your shoulder blades, you're going to do that contraction we did a little bit earlier. Just up to the, maybe the top of the pelvis. Otherwise, um, I don't know if you don't have that towel there, do you? Good. Good.

Don't put it there. All right, here we go. We're inhaling. We're slowly going to exhale to lift up, to go over to horizontal to deepen our abdominals and make sure that the glutes are involved in how flex your feet separate your feet. If you're flexible through the legs, you can touch down and now we roll down. Yup. Check your spines if you can. You'll lower the legs a little bit. Nothing changes in your back. Inhale, exhale to go over.

This is a place for a lot of people where they rest and say, Oh, the rollovers is not hard. You don't get to rest here. Inhale, separate the feet, lower them. If you haven't already an exhale, push your feet to the opposite ends of the room. Circle and close. Inhale, exhale up. Beautiful area to come over. Yes. Inhale, flex, separate. Feel the bottoms of your feet. Not cause that's the point, but because we want to be aware of where they are to go ahead and come on down. I've seen some lovely variations from Debra with the arms. Okay. Separate once you get there or altogether. Now I think up and over. Go ahead. Still on that. And I did not reverse. I didn't, but I will. Good idea.

Okay, so now we get to the bottom. We close up, we reverse it by opening, take it to the V and up to go over. That's right. So a lot of times you know it. Now you can just keep going. I'm only wanting three more after this or a break if you need it, which might be the case. Um, if your wrists aren't down when you go over, that's okay. But that is something you want to work on. Always is trying to, as soon as those risks can be down to put them down at any point in the exercise. Just wanted you to see these. All right. This must be the last one. Yeah.

Good. When your legs come down in a way, if your neck starts to lift, it's too far. It's actually just too far. And we know with your spine being a little bit more arched that that would happen. So that, that'll be your last one. But yeah, if I may, when you come away this way and it starts to pull up or is it when you're rolling down? Let's see.

So yeah, no, that, that's good. So what I would do is put the energy. Yeah, you've got that. You've got the boots. I would just stop it there. Truly. And, and, and know that, that all our spines are different and that may change for you. So every so often check for for it. All right folks. Um, we good, good. Stretch your legs on the mat out to your long. Yeah. Good. Oh, you guys are okay. The two tall people in front. Sorry about that. I was like, you go there. Okay. And we'll follow Deborah's lead, but we're going to put our hands behind Nick bull. That's what I'm going for. So I would like them together if you can. Um, and or if you always put them apart. So together I need to just like shish MFI. Will you roll up? I want this, but I mean just rock up. Don't, don't do the extra. There you go. All right. So what we do is we inhale, I might be a little high, but if it is, when you start to come down, if you feel like you're going up Hill, move it down. We inhale to the chest lift, then you exhale to continue coming over. Beautiful. Going all the way over, all the way, all the way, all the way, all the way, all the way. And when I say all the way from the flexible people in the room, we are not laying on her legs. You hold back at the hipbones. Then inhale, roll up your spine like you're sitting up a wall. That's it. That's it. Tall, tall, tall. Squeeze the glutes before you go, that's good LaLanne.

Hinge back a little and then roll and push into the towel. If you have one or pretend you have one. Excellent and inhale modifications or let go of the arms at this hard part for a moment and then put them back when you can. That's how we get stronger. We can't expect it right from the start. Inhaling up now for you, which is just as good. I just want the low back to lead the way so I'll feel your low back before I feel your upper back pushing to Memorial. Huh? Beautiful.

Good, good. Also for you. Are we doing about two more inhale to start it. Let go when you just put them back when you can't or don't need to. Uh, also what was also, yeah, once you come up to straight and you start to go down and you know there's that spot that's going to get flat, that's where you bend your knees a little a little and press the heels into the floor. Recruit the hamstrings. Last one. Here we go in. Excellent. Excellent. Hold the hipbones back a little bit so they don't get a full stretch.

That's really nice. Are an inhale rolling up. We're going to stay up on this one. I think. Exhale. Extend your arms in front of you. Separate your feet. Great. Remember what we worked on six months ago? Always. Okay. That what you did was perfect. And so what I'm telling, we're doing spine stretch and I forget what it was that we pulled you back from, but anyway, we'll just see if it happens in here.

She's going to keep her hips where they are is what I'm trying to say and she's going to exhale and she's going to almost vertically roll down even though, and this is what it was, isn't it? She can also go forward without moving her hips. Inhale, hold. Exhale. Reinitiating from the low belly to stack the spine to rule yourself. Self up. Inhale and exhale to roll down. Nice. Sandy.

Imagine leaving the lowest part of your back. Stuck up on the wall. Yes in, and then exhale to roll back. Pushing into that wall as you straighten. Yup. Inhale, exhale. You'll feel the ribs kind of dive back into your body as you, yes.

Now you can go forward. Don't push me away. There you go. There you go. You go. That's it. And inhale. Exhale, roll up. I'll add the back extension on the next one. Okay, so that's good Erin, right? No, yeah, for sure. Here we go. Adding the back extension. Inhale. It starts the same. Exhale you round.

So up here a little bit. It's kind of that lower. It's not, not up here. It's right here. There you go. Can you go ahead and travel and then when it's time, which is now inhale, start to lengthen your back on the diagonal. Yup. Pull the ribs in and everybody hang out for a second. We're going to go more forward on the diagonal. You already have rather than a meaning on a diagonal line.

Rather than practicing your chest. Exhale round forward. I'll say it better next time maybe, and roll up. There's at least a shot. Pretty good one after that. Inhale and exhale down. So we know that we're going to end up forward, but we don't just go there. We articulate there. Then now I can kind of stick your hips out.

Now you can kind of go for that. That's it. That's it. Let's take your head down and then it's on the line you've already created. You follow it up. Inhale. If you haven't a deck sail forward and down, I tend to milk that parts. If you need extra breaths, you'll take them. Inhale, heavy shoulders. Now Nathan, lifting the chest. Beautiful. Exhale forward. So right there. Mandy, pull the hipbones backwards. You had a great, there you go. There you go. Keep them there. Go ahead into your back extension. We'll leave it here this time. Aaron will. Tiny bit of ribs in the front.

Just a little and sorry. I thought you would know that this looks great. Right? And, and now gentle presses of the arms backwards. I'm gonna lean you forward. You look flexible. Bend your knees a little. There we go. That's it. That's it. And so it's so feel the space between your shoulder blades. That looks great. Muffy how are we doing? My mom's always good at this one. If anything, my lawn has to be careful not to be too flexible and low back. Good.

How are we doing? Hold this one. Inhale, exhale. Just go forward. Round forward. Hold it there and relax. Just let your arms go to the mat or wherever it feels right. Hanging out is you're looking good. Really good. All right.

Connect. Reconnect to the same spot you were working. Which means draw the abdominals back in. The glutes are involved, not a lot, but enough. Bend the knees and come into this position where the toes are on the ground. The knees are turned out a little bit, and you could easily pick the feet up if they weren't cramping and you're behind. And we're back in that rolling like a ball place again. Right? So we're going into playing with this open leg rocker, a little extend one leg up and then without yanking on the leg, although you can draw it towards the hip socket a little bit, lift your upper back and find something out there on the horizon, maybe a little higher to look at. Put it down other side and you know, respect the fact that each leg is different and the way we're set up is a little different and just sort of adjust for it. How about both?

It doesn't matter if you don't go all the way straight, you're a little more interested in keeping your back straight or long other than somewhere around here. And then bring the legs together, squeeze them together. Don't use your arms to do it. Use your upper inner thigh and glute and open. Just easily minimize the hand tension. Although they're there, you can hold lower if you prefer. That's not a big deal. Yeah, keep them apart high as you feel comfortable. We're going to roll back on the inhale here at Combs. Inhale, roll back.

Keep the shape. Exhale. Keep the shape until the last moment. And then you grow up into it. Inhale, roll back. Now the fact of the matter is you're not going to hit it every time for whatever reason. So just sort of know that you're gonna get it on the next one. Sort of like my killing. Okay?

And things that I've learned and forget and learn again are the easier I let it be easier. It is, you know, isn't that life right there in a sentence? Almost a sentence easier. I let it be. The easier it is, I could even let go, right Deborah? I can even let go and if I don't try too hard and get my own way, I might actually be able to do it. Close the feet up, slowly. Roll down halfway. Stop before the point of no return. You're welcome to hold your legs. Squeeze the glutes Rola.

Doesn't matter if you don't go over here and you can move a half inch. You can think about moving and that's enough if you want, but it's from down deep in the belly or even higher up to the chest. Notice the knees, there's tension in them. Let them go. The easier they are, the easier this is Anna. Last one, Hannah and bend the knees and lie down. All right, so you're going to turn and face the front of the room please.

Yup. And just lying on your arm. High on your arm. Stretching your lovely selves out. Okay, so in the beginning of the day we were somewhere around here. Stretching the waist. Same thing. In fact, lift the legs. Both of them for now. Both of them. Now that's exactly where I'm heading.

Lightly flex them both if you're not already there. Slide that top one toward me or not. You guys. Sorry. Good job though. I'm at these move. And then lift the leg a little higher. This is help on, just stop on and now up from there. Just little up. So if I came and stood by all of you, you're just sliding straight up and down the leg. Huh?

The bottom ones barely up. Yeah. And it doesn't have to be, but why not? Nathan? Sarah wanted to impress him. You too. Cramping, tingly feet. Oh my goodness. Take the top leg and stop it now. A hip height is going to be somewhere around there. Bring the bottom leg up to match it. Now try to do this from your, certainly your lower leg, but high up in the lower leg.

So if I'm you lying on that side, it's take your free hand if you have one and put it on the bottom side. Dig in anywhere. And by digging I mean be nice to yourself and just feel it lifting from there. Yup. Do one more. Hold them together. I'm in two more. Here it is. Love you. Hold it. Selects it.

Check out your feet and just notice what it is. Can you put the big toe joints together? Not necessarily the actual big toe. Can you do that and keep the ankle bones touching? Not everybody can just do what you got. Flex the feet strongly. Try and close up all the space. That's it. You got it.

And then from your waist image point, flex, stretch your waist to do it. Wait, flex. Flex one more time and flex. Lower the feet. Lift him up again. Actually take your feet forward. Send it down there.

Yeah. So now you're in a bit of a banana, like shape. Okay. Top leg lifts again, bottom leg is now on the ground flexed. Good, good. Can you be in the position you're in? Exactly. And relax the legs, even the foot if you want. All right, now making a circle from the hip joint. So it's, the leg itself is quite relaxed. It's pretty small, just like this, like the size of a magic circle, stirring it up. Leg itself is just kind of going along for the ride, being heavy and then reverse it and we go on stretch. Two, three, four and five. All right, take that leg behind you as far as you can without tipping back with it. Good. So in fact you'll have to almost reach the hip. The topic more forward.

Is it like goes back from there, lifted 10 times and by lift I mean reach good. Six. Feel where your leg connects. Three more. Fabulous. Hug the knee into your chest. Yup. Yup. Open the knee toward the sky. Either.

I was going to just take you straight up from here to stretch it. And a lot of you will like that. Um, if you don't, you can put it on the ground and press open. That's one option. Or you can grab it from the front. Keep it bent and just pull. That's kinda nice too. You might want the bottom of your foot for that one. You decide, all right, help yourself up to the other side all the way down on that arm. Long body stack tips.

This is fun. We should do this every Tuesday. Oh, what am I here next Tuesday. Okay. You feel it and find it. It's not in your back. Here we go. Uh, we lifted both legs. We reached everything a little longer. Then we lifted the top leg and then we lifted from there. We looked out enough one out enough to, and this is theoretically my leg out enough. That's it.

And I'm exaggerating. The sensation I'm hoping you're getting is reach out. Oh yeah, yeah. And if you want more stretch, I'm assuming that's why you're doing that. And that's how we did it when we were standing. You can grab onto that arm. It's gonna make your balance a little more of a deal. Okay. From there, um, we did some thing really fun. We flex, we put our feet together, flexed them, check for spacing.

Cause if you did it on one side you should be able to do it on the other end point. You brought up the bottom. Oh we did. All right. So flex the feet, bring the bottom leg up and down and I swear I'm paying attention. I just have a lot and it's, it is all polite. It's related. I assure you I'll be over here. So now you're reaching the bottom like two, right? How many more? Nine and hold 10 I believe it's time for, we're almost done. Time for, what is it now? It's flexing 0.5 fine.

So good. This is good. Looks great. I like your position. I just want to look at it so I know where it can be. It looks great. Your low back's not working at all. Is it good? All right. And once you've done that, we did let him come down or actually okay. Right. Well, yup. All already we let him down and then we brought them back up and then we moved them forward and then we brought him down again. Symmetry. Okay, so now you're in that little bit of a pike. Yeah, hips are, she'll stacked top leg lifts, top leg only. Top leg only.

I think my Bacopa is wearing off five after five switch and you know, I'm really not trying to entertain you, it's just, it's all I got. So take care of your bodies. Right? We already had that conversation. Once you've reversed five, we then took it behind. You push the leg behind you. You'll have to feel like you're rolling the top hip forward just so you don't tip over. But if you looked at it, it will still appear straight on top. Once you get there and you feel that resistance lift 10 to three hour and a half. Oh good.

So the waist isn't moving. Eight nineish and ten-ish hug the knee to your chest. I appreciate you not being sticklers for details or actually I should say not caring that I'm not. You guys are, I know it's been a long time, huh? Since I've been relaxed. I know. I feel good today. That's all good. Yes. You know that w yes. The, those cues that kind of come out of you from the first day is yeah, that's a good one. Actually I should remember that one.

The mouse coming out from the little mouse hole and then we consequently got a whole classroom of people going like this and like going, I can't lift my leg so that's why I don't use that one. Let's go face down. No, me neither. I never could. That was why I don't use it. All right, we need to do some back extensions. So here's where we're going to start. Um, just here. This, our goal is to work your upper back. So no matter what I tell you to do, if you are feeling it more in your low back or even not in your upper back, you're going to move your arms forward and look for it there. I'm going there now cause I know that's where I'm going to feel it more.

All right. Our intention M you know what it might be worth it if you'll indulge me, is to do the exact opposite of a chest lift. And I think it's a hard concept to get because we've been used to lifting our backs to get up and that's all low, low, mid back. Um, rather, I'm exaggerating the start. But anyway, rather too, it's like I'm skimming these two points are the point we're focusing on. I'm skimming my nose, my chin forward to then pluck my spine or my chest as a case may be off the mat without hopefully losing the length you start with. Okay. So that's from me. That's it. And that is a lot of work. Okay.

So let's find that sense with the elbows slightly wider than your shoulders probably or or under is okay. But in front of them a bit. Draw the abdominals away from the floor. I'm not saying they're not going to touch, but they're being pulled up. That might feel rounded. You might feel the tops of your thighs heavy in the mat from that place.

Imagine someone pulled you by the ankles. In fact, literally try and reach your legs further that way to where that you can push them into the tops of the feet a little. Yeah. And the knees will clear the floor. Just the kneecaps, I should say. Then keep that and start to grow through kind of what I'm showing you. The back of the head, I'm imagining I'm skimming my nose along the mat, my tunes going forward, my chest is being pulled and now I'm literally gonna pull my upper arms backwards as if I was doing this, which is dragging myself forward with my lats. I'm not really gonna do it, but that's the idea.

And you're looking somewhat forward. However, the knees, I mean the feet and from there we're going to go kick, kick, straighten other sides. So one leg at a time and straight and pulse holes straight. Now if you could, you would actually lift your arms off the ground. You can't cause we're all too high, but to actually not use the arms but minimize them. Okay, kick, straighten and kick, kick, straighten, and last one like that. Hold that. If tops your feet, go to the floor, open up your your hands so that if you were fifth you just went like that.

You turned them to the ceiling. Yep. And then from there, open the collarbone. So I just pulled back again. That's great. Annie. Taking your right arm start to reach it forward, but don't shift your pelvis. That's when you stop. As soon as you feel your pelvis shift, you stop. It might be as soon as you think about it, right? Reach the opposite leg.

It doesn't have to come off the ground. It can a little, but it doesn't have to start to. If your hand gets be up above your shoulder, you start encouraging the bend in your upper back, not your lower back. Pull those hipbones off, meaning tuck your pelvis or press the pubic bone and bring it back down. And she may adjust, regroup, draw the hipbones up as you take the left arm forward first before up, reach the opposite leg if it's available to you and your hand starts to continue forward and up. Take the spine with you. Don't worry about straightening your arm. Good. And then, and then lower yourself down the arms, a slide forward into a V position. Draw the abdominals up again. Raise one arm up from where it is. It's just straight thumb toward the ceiling. Then go ahead and do the other one.

I'm not doing the feet. You can, but I'm not. And just, and your head's up if they're not. And try to make that little bend right below the shoulder blade. So it's that same articulation we were talking about earlier. It's like a vertical. If you were upright, if you have vertical rise, like you're trying to shine a light that's on your chest forward and then release down hands by your shoulders when it feels right, once you've let the back rest and come into a rest position. Yeah. Lovely.

So when you're ready, um, if it would feel good to you, just think of all offer and I don't, haven't done it in awhile. Andy. I'm thinking this is not a good one for you today. Uh, and that would be wherever your hands are. Maybe take your hands to the left and hips to the right a bit and then using your hands for support. Cause we don't really want to shift the pelvis on the knees like that to kind of lift your butt up a little and switch, allowing yourself to breathe naturally, but hopefully deeply or at least easily. It doesn't have to be super deep. Just easy. All right. And when you're ready, find a way to curl the, come back to center. Curl the toes under.

Lift your hips to press the heels into the ground and fold over yourself. Letting tension draw right out of the top of the head. We started class by thinking about the bones. I'm going to bring us back to that. I'm at the moment more comfortable with my knees bent.

You're free to keep them straight if that feels better to you, but whatever you do, breathe and let the bones move and, and I'm not, you don't need to see it. Perhaps you'll feel just ease. Inhale, notice how the whole trunk moves. Really, I kind of envision everything including, it's almost like keep, keep where you are. It's almost like your spine is a slinky and as you inhale, let your neck get longer, like the coils just separate and then you exhale and it just sort of naturally comes back to itself. And again, inhale, if that doesn't work for you, just breathe. Exhale, I'm coming up right now and inhale. When you're ready, start exhaling and roll yourself up. Restacking realigning whatever you need to do to kind of bring you back to help you feel that work that you've done and then facing out the window when you get up to the top. Yup, come back and you're just going to wrap it up the same way we started. And if there's anything needs stretching, do it. Otherwise. Ground yourself. Feel the differences. Feel just the sheer fact that you took time for yourself.

Maybe that hopefully that matters to you and then we breathe and if it feels good to allow things to expand, let them, I would encourage taking up as much space in the room as you can. [inaudible] when you exhale, you just let go. Not easy to do. Hopefully easier. Now that you've worked [inaudible] and the last one from me, if you need more, you'll take it. Inhale and [inaudible]. [inaudible] you are done. Well done guys. Thank you.