Class #2138

Energetic Mat

30 min - Class
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Description

Be the boss of your body in this energetic Mat workout with Kristi Cooper. She plays with tension and release so you can focus on your energy instead of the intricacies of the movements. She also adds dynamics to the class with variations of the Series of Five, Seal, and so much more!
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

Apr 29, 2015
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Transcript

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If you're standing, Do York sit down gracefully. I'm just going to hop up on the bed and lie down. Feeling my body for a moment. Feel your body for a moment. Uh, and I'm not suggesting you rest just yet. You're here to play. So let's first feel your heels.

Press them into the mat, activate the back of your legs, press the legs together, find a sense of wrapping around. Or perhaps it's just a sense of drawing together, but let the energy from that rise up the rib cage if you're used to flaring and do it now and bring them back in knowing that you are going to let them be supple. That from a down position, a more down position, press the back of the arms. And if you can, the shoulder blades, even into the mat, grow the neck long. Press the back of your head into the mass of you're pushing down. You are. Gravity's not doing it for you. You're doing it. You're beating it to the punch, right? So that you can feel that rebound effect from it. Breathe in. Exhale, soften a little, but don't let go. The whole idea, Ian Hal, zip up again. And as you do, reach further through the feet, reach further through the counter, the head of the arms, all those lines of the body. Exhale, soften a little, but don't shorten from here.

Just take the arms up to the ceiling. Reach them up to the ceiling so the shoulders do come off the table for a minute and just drop them down. Reach them up. Someone pulling, pulling, pulling is just about to change your neck, but before it does, you drop them down. Feel the weight of them there. That's a good feeling. That's a feeling we want to go back to with ease. And there they go. Stay there. From there. Let's just press the arms forward. Look forward. Look right at them. Pressing down with the legs down with the arms. Inhale, two, three, four, five. Exhale, two, three, four, five. Feel the breath.

Come up through the body and out the sides. And exhale, two, three, four, five. Inhale, arms up. Two, three, four, 5%, everything into the floor, but it almost lifts you up, doesn't it? Up to three, four, five, down, two, three, four. One more up to three, four, five down, two, three, four, five. Reach the arms up to let your head go back and you're back to the beginning and reach the arms up. Drop them back down, let them go. So there's going to be sort of a play of Tencent tension and release. Tension and release. CISM pulling up and drop it. Meanwhile, there's some held conscious tension throughout the rest of the body. Not because we're bracing, but because we're actively doing something this time.

Inhale, exhale, curling forward. Same thing. Don't get so high that you're off your back. Completely. Lift the right leg and set it down. Inhale there. Exhale. Push the right leg into the table to lift your left and set it down. Upper Body. Let's keep it still now. Same thing and push down to go up.

So small. Something in here you can find is effortless. Parts of it certainly are not. I'm alternating if you can't tell two more. One. Here's one more one. Unless it press down to go two and two and reach the arms back. Still working this time. The arms would go all the way back.

Keep the weight on the shoulders and the shoulder blades. Everything else is still working. You feel your inner thighs just from that. From here, just place the arms down if you need to move down to otherwise lift both legs up and over for the rollover. Stay there for a moment. You pressing those arms down to keep the body up. Then push the legs into the ceiling, not by raising them but by the full length of the leg. From there, separate the feet. Flex them, lower Michigan and down we go.

I'll pick it up a little now, just a little and pick it up. Pick those hips up before you get to them. Flex open, push feet down. Roll down. One more in this direction. Lift your, we're helping ourselves today. We're pushing down to lift up. Reverse the direction. Inhale up over, bring you together. Flex feet, roll down. Don't worry about the intricacies yet.

I'm sort of trusting that you know these moves and focus on the energy of them. One morning you get a little stretch out of this. Next one. Flex. Find the mat slowly down. You'll leave your right leg in the air. Take the left leg down. Push the left leg down, point the right foot circles. Inhale down around, up. Inhale down around. There's an exhale in there too, right, right there. One more.

Hold other way. Try and still your hips. Inhale. Now. Exhale, boom. Inhale, exhale, boom. Inhale. I'm going to do one more and there it is. Switch legs. Other side. Press down on the right leg. Inhale down around, up. Inhale den around, up. Little turnout of the leg is fine. Two more, but you're working even the arms other way. Let's go down, around, up. Two, up, three up. Breathe. Stirring it up from there. Lower the leg down. Reach the arms up and back. Inhale, arms up. Head Up. Bring everything into the ball. Here we go.

Rolling back. Keep it tight. Keep it firm and inhale. Exhale. You got room to fill the lungs up, but it's in the back, so use it. That'll get your roll into, can you make it tighter? I'll stop talking so I can. Three more.

One more. Oh, just when you thought we were done. Tape all hands to the right leg. Left one will be higher. Stretch the left like out. Pin the right arch to the left knee and shoot that left leg out there. Okay.

Hug tight. Elbows wide. Roll back and forth three times. Just like this. Here we go. Use the foot. Inhale. Exhale. Try and stop at what you're pointing at the next two times, Paul, it's like you're pulling the legs apart. The leg apart. The hands apart, I should say. There we go. Roll back enough. You're the bend in your waist to easily switch legs. Get that grip foot to me. Need a foot that matters.

That helps. You got to go for the help. Here we go. Roll back. [inaudible] breasts, rhythm. Whoa. Too much breath on that one and bring it in. Switch it back to the first time. So hold on the right again. Rolling down. Slowly push into it to come up. I don't know. I had to trick you like that idea down.

I'll do normal after this. Strong, right. You're strong up. Oh, not as strong on that side for some of us. Switch back. Get down there. You know it's coming. I'm going to back up just cause I feel myself in a weird spot. Let's go. Inhale. Inhale, exhale. Exhale are off we go and in, in use it.

Yeah. Strong arms, elbows wide. [inaudible] way in there. Why not? It feels good. Two more breath cycles. Last breath cycle, then double leg, but it's going to be different. Both knees in hold both legs forward. Inhale, reach, hold, arms go up and around. This is an exhale, I think. Yep. Inhale, come up a half inch or four and then bring it back in.

You can put your head down briefly. We're not done right away. Inhale up everything forward. Arms Inhale, come up four or five inches. Maybe squeeze the heels. Start to come down and drag the legs in. Brief moment. Head down. You can take it higher if you want. Inhale, reach.

Exhale meaning right here. Inhaling up. If you do, you can bring the lights with you, but as you go down, you don't fall down. You place, you reach longer, you reach longer. You pull the knees in, head touches, two more. Inhale, reach forward, everything. Arms. Exhale, pick yourself up. How? I don't know. I don't know. Pull it in. I said one more I think. Here it is. I didn't put my head down either. Hope you did and around. Come on. Come on. You may not get another one. As you go down, grab the right leg and pull, pull, switch.

You don't have to touch the mat on this one, but imagine you were trust, not twist stretches. What I'm going to say now go a little quicker. Skip the double pole. Just switch, switch, switch, switch control for three, getting ready for both legs but not so fast. Both of them are up hands behind your head. That'd be crazy. Reach him along only as far as you can control. Exhale up. Inhale, push your head back, exhale up and by that I mean you stay up it.

Don't do it with your face and up. Breathing, whichever way you want and up. You're only doing two more. One more twist towards the screen. Hold. Pull that knee in like you did before and just to prove it, grab it, get it up there as if you're on a balance beam. First of all, bringing your legs closer together. Twist and look back. Yup, come a little higher. Maybe switch, grab it, pull it in. Make sure the legs aren't balancing. You. Get up to it. Twists to the rib cage is turning. Look back if he can. Why not? Now?

A little slower to get all that in. Switch and switch. Breed however you want. Try not to lead with your face. Try to get that rotation. Cut a low like this. Really like you're on a balanced longer. Titian long rotation. One more. Each side. Here's one. And then to the back. Both legs in. Hug them. Sit right up.

Stretch your legs out. I'm straight ahead. Push down on something. Have somebody around you come and push on your hands and if they can, don't let them. Next time. Connect. Exhale, round forward. Try to get your forehead on the ground. I'm not kidding. And actually, I mean the crown of your head. Inhale, come back up. If you get all the exhale out, go ahead. If you get all the exhale out, you will have to inhale and it will just bring you up.

Don't even worry about that part. [inaudible] try three more. Squeeze the glutes, get up off your seat. Exhale. Just exhale. It's doesn't have to be super forced, but to get there it will be in here. That's good stuff for the lungs. One more feeling high. Go, go, go. Push through the heels, everything involved. Get that air out. Get it out. Get it out.

And there's your space. Yeah, tilt back. Before you do point the toes and as you're pointing through the inner thigh, you're just going to have to move forward as you're just thinking intersect so that you're connected here. Going to find the sweet spot where it's easy to pick up the legs and set it down and come out of it. Squeeze and not putting them together. I'm just, Oh there they are. They're actually getting longer and there's this point where I know I can lift him and I could rock.

I try it cause then you have a little trust when you want to actually get them higher into your hands. And that's what we'll do now. So find it. Try and there's a little bit of a lift heave, but they're there. Let's go. Same idea. Roll back and up, trying to keep some sense of curve to the low back. It doesn't have to look like a curve. Right? And we're not asking you to drop into it. It's just, that's what keeps you out of rocking back and forth on the tailbone.

Stay behind it. Pull those legs closer to you or retire and enhance [inaudible] oh, long neck. Two more. One more. Let's not overly turn the legs out, right? I'm kind of parallel. There you go. Now if you were to think, oh, don't do that. Just do this. Bend at the waist a little more. Not by falling backwards, but by lifting your butt higher off the table. I swear it becomes easier just in that set the feet down when you let go.

Sit Up tall feet a little wider than your mat. Nice and tall. And even here, you're not thrust over your hip bones or sit bone or tailbone. You're Kinda just on it, or even slightly behind to the front. Rotate, hold reached the forward foot. In my case, the left foot, the one closest to the window, further forward as you twist more around, then let's go ahead and reach over and use the back hand as a lever. Push that whole rib cage up and over. Attach it. Sit Up. I want to do one more slow and then we'll go.

So you as you turn your kind of opposite leg reaching. If you don't need it, obviously don't do it. But most of us do. Keep looking, keep reaching as you go. I'm turning the hand over just for the sake of being able to think of pressing the rib cage up right, and I have flexible shoulders, but let's take them ribs with me to feel that again, getting the air out. All right, here we go. A lot quicker than that. Inhale, go. Exhale, get it out. Get it out. Get it out. Inhale up center. I'll skip that part and next time go bush, Bush, Bush. Come up, but also to the center. Here we go. Inhale and exhale, reach, reach, reach. As you're inhaling come center.

Oh and bypassing the middle. Now finding our flow. Let's do four more. Now we got it and up in oh two up and up, pushing the air like it's a solid with the arms. So you involved everywhere. This is it. And then just up in the center and let it down. Feet together. Roll down and back from here. Roll the hips up [inaudible] and then stand on your feet a little more.

Stand on your hands and your shoulders more to step higher into yourself. Then maybe if y'all want to rest your hands on your ribs so that you don't overly arch here, but I am leading the move with my tailbone so I'm not articulating down, but I do. I don't want to leave my ribs fully up there. I'm just not rolling down. I am going to roll up right now. Stand on it. I inner thigh it, I feel it. And then I just didn't. Can I lead with the hips? Yes. There's some arching, not a lot, but some.

And then as I hit our roll up again, just an idea. Okay, so you want to do the next one with me a little differently. Roll up and you have a choice here. You can either do the shoulder bridge here, which is just kicking and pointing without the hips moving or you can go a little higher. He might need to bring your feet closer to your hands underneath your waist.

I like turning my hands sideways. You could turn them toward your hips. I'm not sure which is preferable, but to the side certainly doesn't hurt generally. So right here we are. Before we do anything else, if you're with me, um, either way you're going to lift your heels. So you could do this without the arms too, right? And then press the heels down and if you can walk your feet a little closer, no matter which position you chose, squeeze the glutes, push into the feet, then lift the heels, trying not to sickle the feet in order out. And again, lift and down and lift. And we'll keep this simple for today.

Pick up the right knee, bend it, stretching the other foot is down, flex the foot in the air. Reach at long, long as you can. And when you can't do it without any kind of stress on the back, just bend it and put it back. Other foot lifts up. Ooh. Flex it and reach it. Reach it, reach it, not just down, but long. And when it's done, put it back again. Right. And like a giant step in down switch and reach.

Let's do one more each. Like from there, unfurl your hands. Roll down instead of doing the arch back down, roll it down. Then how can use to your chest? Yeah, just sit yourself right up. Flex feet, legs together, and then take your arms. Once you know you're really right up on s on your sit bones, once you're there, take your arms out to the side and turn the shoulders over without thrusting.

Okay. To the front. A double exhale. So it's inhale all the way and pulse. Pulse, the pulse coming from the spine of course. And really I can think of the breath is up, up. If it feels like nothing, I would invite you to change your arm positions so they're closer to you. And so you could feel where you might be pulling from. In other words, sometimes we kind of make it look like we're going certain directions.

So just check that out for yourself. There's lots of ways you could do it, but you're the boss. It's your body, right? So what do you want? You want to rotate the spine? Okay. Real simple. Back support. Just lift up. I bought my fingers facing the heels, but you could turn them sideways. Sit down and then let the arms come up. Back Down with the arms. Lift up, leg straight. Use Your Butt. Sit down and up. Turn your fingers back this time. Yup.

And this time arch your back a little like we did a minute ago. Flex your feet. So right after I use tall as you can be, he lifts the arms and one more like that. Lift whichever way you want. Hips almost right underneath you. Arms Up and now cross the furthest from the screen over.

So I'm going closest to the window. You're going for this for me and turn Ben Janiece, your hand is out. I used to say it's about 45 degrees is I don't really know for everyone. Um, we're doing the side bend. What matters is that you're not chilling. You are so ready to go, including everything below and you will use your legs. Lift up, find it. If you weren't sure, now you are. Find it. Check it out.

Use both legs. Then it's as if someone pulled you by the waist to lift you up. Yes, your bottom shoulder pulls towards you a little. That just feels better left and there's some weight in your feet. Come back to the long line. Then the arm will come up and just bend to come away. Hey, lift straight up first, let the waist lift you. Come over, make that rainbow should use your feet. Use your arms, leave your arm overhead a little bit.

This time as you come into the straight line so you can feel maybe that straight line. And then down. We'll just do one more before we twist. Here we go. Lift up over. Oh yes, come back. And here's the twist. This is the way I do it. I'll try to be clear and lift up. Now it's almost like a pyramid shape. You're gonna reach straight across your chest rather than to the heel. But you do reach the table of the sky and you do kind of aim for a flat or back.

Then come right back. It's all happening around that shoulder girdle and down. Two more. Oh, I know we can get strong arms this way. Why not? But don't over challenge it in that you're not sure your arm is there for support cause that's just not mind. Body enough for us. One more lift on doors, rotate, rotate. Come on back and bring the knees in just closer if you can.

You can always split them. If that's not good for you, try to get your chest more forward and then your arm is close to your ear as possible. Straight. I'm holding that because it took me years to get done. My lats are too tight for years. Look at me now. Oh, kind of lose it right about here, but here we go. Stretch. It's just straight over as you can to make it feel better. You're going up to go over if you need more than some of you will, you let the head go. I mean arm go. You can hold it.

You can actually rotate down to finding the different places in your body, right? There's, there's the right way and the wrong way, but really there isn't. It's moving and it's moving differently, so just kick your legs around the other side. The top leg is on top in front. That's what I meant. Set Yourself. You're in, you're in control. That's all you need to know. You know it. You don't do it. If you don't know it, I know it. I'm there. Boom. All right. Then we left some Alma. I'm not really, but I feel like I'm trying to take weight out of that lower hand.

There's a ton of weight in it, but I have some down here at my feet. Again, one of those things that took me a while to figure out, so I'm trying to help you with that. Lift again and over and let's just take it high ticket, high pushing down. We left our top arm near our ears. We came into straight for a moment just to feel it and then bring it down. Here comes the twist. Not a whole lot of adjusting should be needed, but take care of yourself up. Lift the hips, reach across the chest. It's a sense of opposition. Tailbone to crown ahead. Open it and up again.

Tight, tight, but not stressful. I'm not really sure if I've mastered that yet, but it's something I think about. We get one more here it is over, under, over under, and then bring it back. Prove it to yourself and knees come closer or you can split them for comfort. Arm of hold on. You got to hold on, right? That's normal. Hold on.

Take care of your knees. Try not to let the arm get in front of you in the spine behind you, right? You're there. Then tilt over to the extent you can. And by tilt icon, I mean that way first anyway. And then if you want to bend the elbow, this one's a little tougher for me, so I'm going to help myself. Hmm, sure. You're not reaching your head to it either. It's just wherever it is, you can hold your head. That's fine.

And for those of you who want a little difference, try again. Try not to back away from yourself. Keep your lower body where it is, but turn the upper body and even flex it if it feels good. And why. Face down very close. He still forehead on your hands, feet for now or together. Draw the shoulders down. Reach the legs to the point. I'm not sure this is going to be a great cue.

What we want to relax the front of her hips. So for me it's a sense of releasing, but if I tighten it, it's bad. So let go a little and then bring your legs together from that place. Lift your right leg straight from your but not from your foot. It's different from your back. Lift it, bend it from there so it doesn't drop it all. How's your back?

Did you live too high? Maybe check it out and then just straighten it and lower back down. So when you start to bend the knee, let's do that a little slower. So you can know if your quads are really tight that maybe are going to be limited for the next thing. So your legs are long, you lift the left leg [inaudible] maybe not as high. If it felt yucky and the other side, then bend the knee.

But try not to drop it and just pay attention. Is there a pole in your back at any point? And if it's really soon, maybe this is what you do this time I'm gonna give you a shot on that other one. Again, lift the right leg straight, bend it, see if it's pulling you in any way. Okay. And if it's fine enough to move on, just be aware that you may have to adjust. If it starts to pull, we're going to lift the right leg, bend it so you can grab it. Yes.

And then the other and you can grab it preferably at the foot itself, at the top of the foot or the ankle. If you can now try to keep your thighs down on the mat. We're not lifting them like we did a moment ago, at least not yet from their dye. Stay down pelvis stays in the mat, so there is, but contraction right from the start. Definitely start pushing your feet into your hands. Actually, no, let me say it this way. Start to lift your back with nothing else.

Then push your feet into your hands to accommodate space, but keep the thighs down, the pelvis down. You may have to feel like you're trying to talk. Okay, we won't get very high this way, but we might not hurt either. Come down and we could possibly be stretching the things we need to stretch before we go bigger. Let's it again. We've still holding on. Try to keep the eyes down, pubic bone towards the Mat. Push the hands into the, oh, sorry. Lift your back. Then push the feed into your hands. If that's going, you can go back down or if that's going well, now you can push more into your hands. You gotta use more glute though and hamstring probably.

And now we rock rock. You keep the shape, keep the shape. Four, three, two, one. Come back to the middle. Lower the size. Let go as a feet. Take a moment, shake it out, a little lift up and just do a brief stretch into a child's poser rest position. That means hips over heels. And then we'll just unfurl ourselves back to the mat. Very close. I've said that, haven't I will swim.

And maybe one other thing and that'll be it. All right. For starters, the outcome with all four points, the hands and feet on the ground, um, maybe even your forehead. I'm keeping mine up for now. Arms the straight a little bit apart at the feet and arms. Press down with everything and see if that doesn't lift your belly without you thinking about it. Just pushed the hands and feet down. What happens?

Whatever happened, try to keep that sensation. But now lift the right hand and left foot without wobbling over. So keep that. You've got to do slower, you're going to shift. Try not to. Yeah, and that leg is straight, that arm, the street. If you want, you can start adding in that cervical stuff, looking forward a little and then come down. Push those two into the ground. Everything's being pushed down. You can even try to push your abs down, but don't do anything to do it. Just you're like Spiderman stuck to the floor except all of a sudden the left hand and right foot can come off. You can still push the other side.

It'll help you want to look forward to see what's going on. Do and down. Now everything pushes down to lift so they all came off. Go right and left, left and right, alternating swim. Just swim. Keep it straight. Keep the legs straight.

It doesn't have to be high. It can be high. He can go slow. It can be super fast. What do you need to do for the last four counts? Three counts, two counts. One get long, get lower and rest. [inaudible] when it feels like you've can come up, maybe do a quick shift back into a child's pose, but swing your feet around to finish with the seal. Have some fun with it. I encourage you not to do it perfectly, but do it safely, so no, you're not going to do it perfectly. Reaching through.

I learned this very tightly and I like it like that. I never know if I'm going to be able to do it like that, but sometimes I like to do it. How I also have seen it, people prose is to kick the legs a little back there. You just have to be mindful of knowing you're going to do it. So it would go let them go. Clap that pap up and just pluck, letting go with your feet land. Just go with it, right. Don't stop yourself.

Don't get hit by a wall there. Just be free with it. I'm going to take my arms out now a little bit and just cause they get in the way at the front end and I'm enjoying that front end. [inaudible] stay forward on this next one. Just sit yourself up tall, rounding over, and you may find you what you're like a stretched away from you. That would be fine too. Whatever feels better and whatever kind of opens your hips a little bit more air. Just let you relax.

Did your head go using your hands on the floor to help you roll up? Not that you need so much help or you know you don't know. We can just be gentle. Switch the cross in the legs if you have one. Otherwise you're just taking a break from the diamond and go forward again. Okay.

Do you feel like you need more of a stretch to the hip? You can walk away from the hip to either side, whichever legs in front. You can also use your hands to press back a little and play with that sort of action. Whatever you want. I'm going to end it here for us, but you can stay in play with that. And for those of you who are ending in with me, sit up tall and let's just feel the energy, hopefully running through our bodies or perhaps it's fatigue in either case. Decide what you'll do next with a couple of deep or longer breaths for yourself.

Here they are. Well, can you still let go of, or what are you getting ready for in any case? Thank you for being here till next time.

Comments

I smiled the whole time watching this, as usual I love your genuine style, you are so yourself, so humble too. also so strong and in tune with your body. Thank you.
4 people like this.
Loved this- hard work but perfect when you don't have a lot of free time
Lauren P
1 person likes this.
Kristi I just keep growing in my practice with you. Thank you for your style incorporating challenge, stimulation and fun...
1 person likes this.
Always enjoy your workouts. Good class and you always have the ability to make me chuckle. Thank you!
2 people like this.
OMG- I feel like i had a good night sleep with an exellant massage- full of energy, relaxed and super strong. . THANK YOU.
Terrific! Thank you all for sharing your feedback with me!
3 people like this.
short sweet and powerful..lovely way to begin the day
1 person likes this.
loved it! thanks, Kristi!
1 person likes this.
Just looked trough it. Can't wait to do this class! I love the shorter sessions 30/40 minutes. Thank you for another great class I really love this side x
Cher
2 people like this.
Great Challenge ! Love it :) Thank you Kristi
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