Class #2397

Mat in the Middle

40 min - Class
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Work on the exercises that we often skip in this Mat workout with Blossom Leilani Crawford. She calls this class "Mat in the Middle" because she starts at Neck Pull and continues on from there. She makes the exercises accessible by showing different modifications and ways to build up to the full movement. Enjoy!

Because this class starts in the middle of a normal workout, it is recommended to warm up before. Try one of Blossom's warm ups to make sure your body is ready to move.
What You'll Need: Mat, Yoga Block

About This Video

Jan 06, 2016
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Transcript

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Hello, I'm blossom. Laelani Crawford. Thank you for joining me. We are going to do a, um, a mat work today, but we're not gonna start from the hundreds. I often feel like, especially even when I teach [inaudible] that I do hundreds and I keep going. I keep going down the line and I stop it. I skipped the hard things and I kind of stop around. Teasers, throw a few things in at the end and then I'm done. But I feel like there's this whole second half of them at work that often gets ignored or neglected and they're really awesome actually.

So I'm calling a sort of in my head, I've been thinking about this as Matt from the middle, right? So we're going to start literally from the center, well maybe more like the last two thirds of the mat and work our way down. So, um, we're not gonna go balls to the wall. That's for another time. We're going to actually do this, hopefully in an accessible way. I will break the exercises down somewhat slowly, so I'll sort of give it to you in parts. And so do the part that you can do. Don't push past to the harder part until you feel that you're ready.

And what else can I say? Oh yeah. And you know what? Warm up a little bit before this. If you have time, do a few little warmup movers because this really should be the center of the mat work. But I would like you to sort of warm up a little bit and then start with the neck pole so that you can really take a look at these other awesome, great mat works exercises that we often leave out because of time or because we think it's just too hard. So hopefully we can find a place where it's not too hard and that we can get it done kind of quickly. So don't you want to start with the neck pole? Yes. Okay. So we're gonna start with the neck pull, but we're not gonna start from lying down.

We're actually gonna start sitting up and we have some towels ready for the sweaty. Ready. All right, so go to straight legs and you can either do legs together or a slightly open. Let's do hands behind our neck and I really mean neck. Thank you. And open the elbows up wide or now let the elbows come forward. Lean your head back into your hands. Lean your head and lift up tall. Inhale. And as you exhale, go forward to the toes.

[inaudible] the stomach in and say there and breathe. Feel how you have your chin slightly toward your chest. From there, you're gonna start to roll backwards, keeping the chin slightly toward the chest. Keep Rolling. Keep Rolling. Keep Rolling. You're gonna find a place where you know you can come back up. That's about it for me and rural Becca. And this time give me a little pulse pulse as you go forward. Rolling back.

So we're going to start to maybe go a little bit bigger if you can, and maybe a little bit faster. [inaudible] Bingo, pulse, pulse. Keep breathing. Inhaling to go back. Exhale as you come up. Pulse, pulse. A few more times. Rolling through and rolling. Back Up. Pulse, pulse, a little faster. Three more. Maybe to the shoulder blades, maybe not a two more. You'll see what your body tells you. And pulse. Pulse. Use Your Tummy. Sit Up nice and tall.

The challenge one, lean your head back into your hands. You're going to lean on the outside, curl on the inside, lead on the outside. Cur, loving inside. Lean on the outside. Keep going until you go all the way down. Um, so we're going to do a, I call it the big three, actually. The scissors, bicycle and shoulder bridge. We often do shoulder bridge, but we don't do scissors in bicycle.

It's so easy to go right to that shoulder bridge, isn't it? So anyway, um, there's a nice way to do all of these. If you get a yoga block, so Romina and are going to yoga, block it. So you're going to lie down on your back, lift your hips up and put the yoga block underneath you. James and Carolyn, when you're ready, you're going to bring both knees into your chest and everyone is going to extend both legs up to the ceiling. The scissors is first. So point. The feet right leg is going to go away from you. Left leg comes towards, oh, I'm sorry. Stay there. Caroline and James. Bring both legs up and over your head. Lift up from there. Get your hands underneath your back. All 10 fingers are together.

Lift the legs up to the ceiling. Ramina we're lifting the legs up to right leg, goes away from you. Left leg comes towards you and you're going to give me a little reach. Reach, lift up to change legs please. Other side and go reach. Reach, lift to change legs and again, reach, reach, lift up, up, up, change, reach, reach, lift up. If you're holding onto your hips, thumbs come out to the outside. Right leg goes forward. We're going to scissor again. Bicycle that right leg. Change sides. Bicycle, the left leg. There's a moment where both legs are straight.

Lift up each time and bicycle forward. That's it. And reach up. Last one, bicycle forward. Bend that leg. Reach up. Bring both legs up and over your head so we're Amino. We can do that as well. You're going to put your hands down on the floor. Remove the block if you have the yoga block and when you're ready, roll down.

Exhaling. Everybody rolling. Rolling. Rolling. Rolling. Then the knees into the chest. Put the feet flat on the floor. Slide the right leg along the Florida Strait. Change sides. Slide the right leg inside the left leg out. One more time. Slide the left leg inside the right leg out. Last time. Slide the right end.

Left leg goes out. Adding on left leg goes point up. Flex down. One more. Time Up. Flex down. Change legs, right, goes up. Flex down. Point up. Flex down. One more. Set up. Flex down. Point up. Flex down. Change sides. So now let's do a couple of sets of just single legs please. Slide. Slide left.

Flex down. Change legs up. Flex down. Change legs up. Flex down. Really kick the leg. One more set please. So you get a nice hamstring stretch again. And with both knees bent. Okay, so now we do that with the hips lifted. So Romania, you and I are going to lift our hips up.

Put the yoga block underneath us. James and Carolyn, bring your knees into your chest. Actually, that's not true. Put your feet down in the floor. Lift your hips up and get your hands underneath you. Pelvic lift and you're gonna get your hands underneath you. Romania, we're going to enjoy ourselves down here. I'm having a great time. So from here you're going to extend your right leg along the Florida straight.

You guys. Okay, here we go. Point up. Lift the hips as you flex down. Point up, flex down. Slide the right leg in. Left leg out and point up. Flex down. Point up, flex down. Slide the leg in. Sled the right leg out and point up. Lift the hips up. Lift the hips, change legs up. Flex down. Point up, flex down. Now singles right leg up. Flex down.

Change like the hard part is to change along the floor and not panic. And bend the knee. One more set. Right leg flex down. Change legs left. Flex down. Bend. Remove the block. Remove your hands. Slowly come down. You're gonna reach both arms up and over your head and really get the yoga block out of the way. Extend both legs forward along the floor.

Take a moment to stretch and breathe from here. Pressing legs together. Bring the arms up to the ceiling. Lift your head up. Roll up to sitting up. Tall, tall, tall, tall, tall. Say reaching the arms forward. You're gonna Inhale as you twist and look at your right hand and reach behind you and come back to center to the other side. Looking at your left hand twists as you reach behind you and back to center.

Add the little [inaudible]. Go. Inhale, inhale, exhale. Other side. Go. Inhale. Inhale. Exhale. As a Fletcher, people say, sniff, sniff, blow. It makes me smile at a sniff. Sniff blow. One more set and a shirt and a sniff. Sniff. Blow open the arms. I did decide. Stay wide. Two sets to the right. Go. Inhale, inhale, exhale, center. And inhale.

Inhale. One more set. Keep the legs to gather. Last side, and inhale and center on the next exhale. Lower the torso. Dong. Hug your knees into your chest. Everybody pull really tight from here. Hands at your low tummy and on an exhalation, extend the legs up to the ceiling from your low app. So right now the tailbone is down. You're not. I have the hands at the time cause I want you to really press into the tummy curl. Just the tailbone up off the ground and take it down.

So it kind of takes my breath away too. You could do a little view of the feet again, car and take it down. One more time. Curl and take it down. We're going to add on. You're gonna bring your hands down by your sides and we're going to do that same little curl. I'm gonna think. Consider that the answer. Here we go. And lift up and down. So who cares how high you can lift up.

But if you could only do the first part, do the first part. Here we go. And up and down. Two more. And up and down. Last one. And hold it up there as you come down to count out loud with me. Say three, four, five, six. Hardest to seven, eight, nine, 10.

Hug the knees into your chest and pull tight. Who is right? So when you're ready, let's all line our side. Let's all found. So Carolyn, you're where you are at are going to face out. You guys will face toward the ocean. Okay. Yeah. So we're on our right side. Fancy that. So one long line from the heel. So the top of the head, let's you have a choice of being down on the arm or up in the elbow.

It's up to you. Yeah. And so just staying here, lift the waistline up just the waistline and take it down. I have to often remind people that does not mean rib cage, right? Ribcage stays down and take it down in this hand. It's in front. You're going to want it to be up here, but really I want it below the breast. And again, inhale, lift the wasteland and just stay here. Breathe.

Top leg lifts up. Inhaling it upstairs. Stop right here. We're parallel. Yes, continue lifting that leg up to the ceiling. Exhale. Take it down for more. Inhale up heel spins up to the ceiling. Exhale down. Inhale up, exhale down. Again. Inhale. Keep the wasteland lifted. Take it down. One more time. Inhale, hold it up there. End Up pulse teeny too.

So hopefully you're only seeing my leg moved from here down. Not My hip. What number do you think we're on? Like 28 it feels like 28 and take it down. Who? Pressing the legs together? Lift both legs up, holding it. Their waistlines still lifted. And when you think you're tired, lifting a little bit more. Take it down. Lift right back up again. Keep lifting, keep lifting. And at this moment I try to really say parallel.

Take it down with right back up. Heels are apart. Toes are together. And take it down. Last one, hold it up there. Keeping the legs together. You're gonna bring the feet forward up to the ceiling. Take it back a little bit and come down and around two more circles like that up. I pretend I have a mermaid tail, which would delight my daughter to no end. One more. And I'm circling my tail in the water. Man reversed the circles.

How come mermaids don't look like they were put? So having a work done to war. Yeah. One more time. Up and over and take it down. Rest. Okay. Other side? Yes. So Carolyn, you're gonna flip to face the other side. I'm going to roll over to the other side, you know, for camera land. All right, so staying on your side, you're gonna lift the waistline up only. So here we go.

Inhale, lift the waistline up and take it down again. Lift the wasteland up is going to come into play later by the way, and take it down again. Lift the waistline, stay there, reached the top leg just to hip height, hold. And sometimes you can even take a look and make sure your Uber parallel. Inhale to lift. Exhale down. Oh, let's get that leg up there. Inhale up, keep going, keep going, keep going. Keep going. Exhale down. Three more times. Inhaling, exhale down. Inhaling up.

Exhale down last time please. Inhale, step to your high spot. High spot. So pulse, each time you post you internally spiral burning yet guys, oh yeah, me too. And when you're ready, take it down. Gary. Lift both legs up to get her lifted up and hole. Keep lifting. Feet are slightly more forward. Ish. Keep lifting, keep lifting, take it down with right back up again. And in my mind, I'm counting to five. A very slow five. Take it down, lift it right back up again.

Waistlines still lifted. Yes. And take it down. Last one. Lift it up. Whole. Here comes the mermaid. Swing forward, up and over. Back to more forward. Up and over. Take it back. Last one. Think about what you're taking it back from. I'm thinking pelvis or ribcage. Reverse back up and over. Heels.

Come forward. Two more times. He goes back up and over. Try to stay parallel. Two more. How Ya exactly. One more. Back up and over and take it down. Rest. Nice you guys. So when you're ready, let's come on up. Let's do our teasers, shall we? So arrange yourselves.

We're going to get into teasers and a little rowing fashion. So both legs are straight. Reach both arms forward. Inhale, the thumbs are extended. Pull into the chest, go to the strong part of your abs. Thumbs. Go down and out to the side. Stay here. So Little v of the feet, little lift with the legs and take it down. So my voice might quiver a little bit. One more time. So while you're there, try not to let her leave her with your head, cur and take it down and that's plenty, right? One more time, one more car, and take it down and bring your head forward.

Intertwine your fingers behind your back. So if let me go to Teazers and you think, oh, I can't do that. Then just do that part that we just did. One more time. Inhale, bend the elbows. As you exhale, stretch those hands back. Gently separate the fingertips. Grab onto your ankles and pull.

Use Your Tummy. Sit Up nice and tall. Um, I'd like to see that again. Please go forward. Intertwine the fingers behind the back. Just go forward. Let me see that nice big stretch. Yes. Okay. In your stretch. Try this. So the palms are facing you. Yes. You're trying not to lock in those elbows. When you release, I need you to gently release, which means you actually have to use your tummy.

Thank you. As you circle the arm, I saw a little like thriller moment. Grab onto your ankles, pull out the corner of my eye. So you know, can't have that usually. Tell me. Sit Up nice and tall. Shall we tease her? Here we go. Inhale, pull into the chest. Find that strong spot. Thumbs. Go down and out to the side. Soft point. Lift the legs up. Find Your teaser position. Torso down and up. Inhale, exhale down. Inhale, exhale to come up. Say Hello. Hello. As you go down, no one's talking.

Hello. Thank you. It actually does help to breathe. Hello and hello. Stay here. Legs go down. Inhaling as you exhale, come up, come up, come up, come up, come up. Two more to go. Inhale, and as you exhale, come up slower and I don't care if you just go down one inch, you got one more to go. Just that much works for me. And come on up. You're going to grab onto the legs and breathe. Stay holding onto the legs.

Reach your right arm out to the side. Bring the legs to the left and come back to center. Reach the legs to the other side. Bring your left arm out to the side and come back to center. Same thing, both hands. If you can. Woo and center. Other side and center. Hold on. Bree, grab on.

When you're ready to bring the hands behind you. Pulse the nose twice. Go pulse, pulse, small circle and a pulse. Pulse. Reverse. This is a doozy. Pulse, pulse. One more set. And a pulse. Pulse lasts one and a pulse pulse feet come down.

Wow. Right? So it's really hard up on those on the hands. You could go down here. I just, it's just not the same. So honestly, if that's re I some just maybe instead go to the teaser and just do the little side just to get those sides and everybody just hold on. Hi. All right, so guys, when you're ready, let's um, flip onto our tummy. So, but still face in toward each other and let's go for our swimming, right? So reaching both arms forward. Yeah. You can also use a yoga block if you want and put it here, suppress down if that helps. But we're going to go for it.

So from here you are going to let them know. Watch my friends to this time. For this one, you're going to reach the arms forward. [inaudible] head is resting and breathe. Whoa. Get my hair out of my face while I do this. From here, you're going to lift your head, arms and legs. Stay looking down at the floor. Really Tucking the chin and rest back down. Let's do that a couple more times.

So in the lift, there's a want to almost lift the chin. You're going to do the opposite. You're gonna Tuck the chin. That's the angry turtle. No. Tuck the chin more. Reach forward. Everybody. Let's swim. Inhale. As you look down, exhale. As you look up, jaw muscles. Look up, Carolyn [inaudible]. Inhale, looking down. Big Legs. Exhale as you look up. Don't go too fast. Keep the control. One more breath.

Inhale, looking down. Parallel. Big exhale. As you look up, jaw, muscle, Chin comes up. And rest from here. Push back. Sit on your heels. Yoga pose of the child. Please take a nice moment for your back. Cause there's some nother doozies coming up, but we're going to break this next bit down. So when you're ready to come up into a cat position onto all fours, please. Yeah. Battle cats. Ooh, it's east coast. West Coast, east coast, west coast. Anyway, so from here, shift forward, inhaling and shift back.

You are trying to maintain the length and position of your spine as you go forward and back. One more time. Shift forward and shift back. Stay right here. Tuck all 10 toes underneath you. Lift the knees up, shift forward. So we're slowly making our way to the neck pole, but I'm hoping that you've see how it's really a torso exercise and not the feet and take it down. Knees down from here. Bend the elbows by your side as you go forward. Inhale.

Push the booty backwards as you come up. Yes, two more times. It's the cat pushup. Inhale to go forward. Exhale to go back one more time. Inhale forward. Exhale to come up. Let's put all together Shelley. Full pushup position four. Yup. Are we ready? Heels are lower than the hips. Hips are lower than the rib cage. Head is the highest thing. First thing, shift forward. Inhale energy out of the top of the head as you shift back again, inhale, shift forward energy out of the top of the head. As you shift back, try not to lift the bottom as you lift your right leg up and whole shift forward and back. Twice. Breathe guys. One more.

Take the leg down. Change sides, shifting forward and back and shift it back. Stay there. Take the leg down, kneel down. Yoga pose of the child again please. Brief spicy, right. This is why we have the towels. [inaudible] shall we? Next exercise, leg pull. So have a seat facing into in toward each other. Again, feet are going to be flat on the floor. So the hard part about the leg pull it is this position, especially in the shoulders but especially in the knees.

So we're going to break it down to a little nice thing. So bend the knees, put your feet flat on the floor, do feet together but not the heels. Let's talk about the arms. So hands either out to the side, little diagonal or straight back. Figure out what works best for you. And what works best is usually what doesn't make your elbow twists. Yeah. So here we go. Pelvic lift. Look straight ahead cause this is not yoga. And slowly come down again. Pelvic lift.

Feel the work of the hamstrings, the hips, they're right there. Exactly. Extend your right leg along the Florida straight, right leg goes. Point up, flex down. Point up, flex down. Slide the right leg inside the left leg out and point up. Lift the hips. Point up, lift the hips. Lead leg inside the other out. One more set. Lift the hips. Change legs please. Along the floor and up.

Point up. Stay here with the straight leg. I know other leg goes to straight read. If you can. Looking straight ahead and lifting the hips up. Ahh, I think light thoughts with control. Energy to the top of the head. As you sit down, breathe. Inhale. As you exhale, pelvic lift. We're going to bend the knee farthest away from the ocean. We're all going to twist to face in bend, that leg turn and twist.

So you're going to be on your same arm and leg. Put the toe big toe down and just take a moment right here. Head leans back into the hands. Rest your leg, a top leg down, Carolyn and breathe. So a couple of things. Send the hips away from that support. Hand lift. Yes. Find the lift of the waistline. Top of the leg lifts up. Inhale, lift up. Stay right there internally.

Spiral that leg and take it down two more times. Inhale, lift up and exhale down. Last one lifted up. Stay here. Little circle right in the hip socket. Dun, Dun, Dun, Dun. Reverse the circles please. So I have kids. It happens sometimes so you'll get little nursery rhymes. How's the leg come up on both knees hall strong, right thumb behind the right year, I believe, or the right for the east coast.

Left for the West. Here we go. Lean old. Come right back up. Me Mean Lean again. Just talking about there and come back up. Now go for, you're going to lean, but only put your hand down when you absolutely have to. Now Lean your head back. Lift. Send the hips away.

Lift the leg up and take it down. Oh, some people have is harder side. That's me. Up and down. Last time lifted up and stay here sir. Gold leg right in the hip socket. [inaudible] dit down to actually should be tic Isla tie internally, rotate, whatever. Happy reward food. You have one more up. Come up on both knees.

Ooh Huh. Right. That's some work. I'll say when you're ready to push up position, let's face in toward each other. So next is the side bend series. So I'm, I'm borrowing a little bit from Yoga and I, I'm calling it the twisty hybrid. So come along and we'll try it together. So full pushup position. Oh, hold on. Got to get the hair. Don't want to have that. Ain't my way.

Full pushup position. You're going to step your right foot four, but don't set between, between your hands. Step it halfway forward. So almost between your feet and your hands. That's it. And you're going to turn. So James and Romina face me, Caroline, you and I are going to face the opposite direction. Reach up, push into that bent. Sending like and lift the hips up. Keep the top of the head and the arm reaching up as you lower the hip away. Reach up, reach up, reach up. There's some sort of dance pose like this. Right?

Where's Jane Fonda and reach up lift here. We'll bring her back later and again, reach up. Linkedin, Linkedin, linkedin. Keep reaching up top of the head. T. That's it. Get that stretch and lift the hips up. One more time. When you lower down, enjoy the stretch now to come up. Push into that front leg. Hold it here. Say here, thread the arm through. Don't move the hips. Keep threading, keep threading, keep threading. Oh, I've got a back adjustment.

Reach up. Yeah. From here, if you want to challenge yourself, just taking the front foot off is hard or one foot on top of the other. It's up to you what you and you decide. Go back to your pushup position. Who are other side please? Full pushup position. Whip to the other side. When you're ready, step your left your other leg forward, twist to face. Now stay there. Lift, reach up. Use that standing leg so you're fine. When you're ready, top of the head and arm reaches, Oh, this is my side that needs the stretch. We're going to hang out here for a few hours.

Woo and come back up again. Reach, lower, lower, lower, lower, top of the head, top of that, because the more you reach up, the more you get that oppositional stretch. Oh Momma. Yeah. One more time like that. And lower reaching up, reaching out and get the opposition and come back up. Stay here. Thread the arm through twists. Reach back up. You decide if you're going to try to balance or just stay there for another couple of breaths or twist again. I like it. James. One more breath.

Inner thighs. Lift those hips up. Full pushup position. Kneel down. Yoga pose of the child. Just for a moment, please. Okay, now it's the home stretch. Actually, that's true. I call it rolling home. So we're going to boomerang. We're gonna do several kinds of boomerangs. Three altogether. So we're facing in toward each other. Let's do right leg over the left. Sit Up nice and tall. And the first one, let's just roll. Okay.

Inhale and exhale. One more time. Inhale and exhale. Let's roll back both legs over the head. Chris crossed the legs. Think about your teaser now as you lengthen away, come up, find your teaser position. Oh yes. Circle the arms around, lower the legs and the feet together. Timbre. Intertwine your fingers. One Bend and stretch. Now remember no thriller hand as you slowly arms around.

Grab onto your ankles pole. Sit Up nice and tall. Hair width and roll back. Row, back, open, close, open, close. Think about the teaser this time. Circle the arms around. Intertwine the fingers behind you. Stretch to a girl can dream. Circle the arms around. Grab on and pull. When you're ready, sit up tall, Mr [inaudible].

You're going to push into the hands. You're gonna try to lift the legs up before you roll. Go [inaudible] roll back. Open. Close, rural through the spine. Find it. Teaser, teaser, teaser. Circle the arms around reaching the head forward. One bend in. Stretch the arms. Ha. Circle the arms around. Grab onto your ankles. Pull. Use Your Tummy. Sit Up.

Target. Ready to lift the legs up. Lift, rollover. Open. Close, rural to the spine. Come up, back up, back up, back up, back. Get over there and circled around. Intertwine your fingers and stretches you. Lower the legs. Circle the arms around.

Grab onto the ankles and Paul feels like we've been doing that one for three hours. Yeah, let's go for curl. So this one, I don't have a better name for the movement, but you whoosh forward and you try to roll back in this position. So shall we starting here. Let's whoosh. Forward, whoosh. Forward. Roll back both like up and over your head. Both arms over your head, Chris. Cross the legs come up. You're going to find your teaser for a moment. And then in my mind, I think swan, like lift the chest, lower the legs down. Woosh. Forward. Roll back.

Chris Cross. See Your Swan Lake in your mind. Lift the chest. Lift with lift with the legs. Grab onto your ankles, pull tight. You're gonna bring the soles of your feet in hold. Bring them together. You're going to hands are going to go in. Hold onto the outsides of your feet and just balance is enough, right? If you want to add on, you're going to add the claps. One, two, three.

If you want to add on, you're going to go clap and then roll back. Let's go. One, two, three, rollback at a clap here. One, two, three. Oh, I forgot about it. I had to sneak it in. One. One, two, three. Roll back. One, two, three. Rural. One, two, three. Back. One, two, three. Roll up one more time. I'm enjoying this. Apparently. Roll back. One, two, three. Rola. One, two, three. So apparently where their seals, there are sharks is what I learned, but then we go right into the crab. You going to Chris? Cross your ankles.

You're gonna hold on right here. This is enough. Just balance. If you want to add on, you can do. Wow. Okay. Dolphin roll back. Roll back, Chris Crass and come back up. This is plenty. Roll back again, Chris, Cross and roll back up. Now if you want to add on, make sure you have enough space at the front edge of your mat.

Sometimes you forget and in the back of your mat, let just hedge that a little bit more. Okay, so let's do that again. Roll back. Chris, Cross your legs. You're in a role for it. And here's the tricky part. You're going to put your feet down. Sometimes you might have to push down into your hands, lift up and over those ankles. Try to stay holding onto the feet if you could, and you try to stretch the back of your neck. Now this is too crazy. You can just do this. Let's try that again. Roll back, switch to the cross of your ankles and come back up.

Try to put your head toward the floor if you can. Maybe pick the feet up off the ground. If you're feeling Sassy, let's do it again. Roll back. We can add on some other variations. This time in a borrow this one from rail, you're gonna put your knees down, lift up and stretch, which actually feels really great across the hips. And again, you're going to reach back through your feet. Roll back, Chris Cross. Let's try that one again. Knees down. Lift the hips. Reach up.

You're gonna do two more. Your choice. Here we go. Roll back. Crappy, crappy, crappy, crappy. Crab. Krave, Carly. Crabby Cra. One more. Oh, your hair whip in now. Yes. And Roll on down. So from here, call onto your tummy. Let's get ready for our rocking roll roll roll. So I used to hate the rocking and then I realized it was a really great quad stretch that I kept missing out on. So, um, cause um, extension is not my bag, but flection is, but you can still get the great stretch for the legs. So staying here, let's just start with both hands underneath the forehead. Oh, the phone.

Okay. Oh, good. Breathing Room and talking. So from here you're going to bend your right leg only and hold onto the instep behind you. Sometimes it takes awhile to find that. Okay, so heel to your butt is what most people do. It actually feels pretty darn good. If it doesn't feel good, then release the heel a little bit in. That usually feels better for some of the people. I said many people, by the way. Okay. From here I'd like you to give me a little pull with the arm, but be careful of the twist of the elbow. You know, giving me a little bend to the elbow, push the foot against the hand and lift the thigh up.

There's a stretch waiting for you and take it down. One more time. Push the foot into the hand, bend the elbow and lift the thigh up and take it down. Yummy change sides please. Right hand goes underneath the head, left knee bands, and you find the foot. Oh good. It's there. So from here again, you can just do heel to the bottom. Hopefully that you can reach that flesh of the thigh away.

And this is a great stretch. And if you want to add on, push the foot into the hand and keep the elbow soft. Try not to twist as you go up and down. Think heel away from the bone and take it down. One more time. Really enjoying that stretch and take it down both hands underneath your head. So in theory, the next thing that's done is you hold on to both legs with both hands. If that's too much, just do single legs again.

So if you can do both legs, that's what we're where we're going to head now, hopefully. So here we go. Bending, hold onto both feet with both hands. Number one, let's keep the torso down. Push the feet into the hands and lift the thighs up parallel ish and take it down again. Push lift up and take it down. Keep the thighs down, which is no easy task as you try to buy were the way Romeo did you have a pad underneath you? Okay, good. Sometimes the pubic bone gets sensitive. You can always put a pad underneath. You push into the hand and you can lift the chest down, lift the chest or and take it down. One more time. Lift the chest, add the thighs and breathe.

And I used to be obsessed with rocking, but if you just breathe, you actually rock and that's enough rests. Release the hands. And from here, let's all just slip onto our backs please. Oh wait, no. Stay there. You need a little Shimmy Sec. Your fingertips underneath your forehead. Try this. Bend both knees. Just draw, keeping your feet together. Draw a circle on the ceiling please.

With both feet and really go for it. Yeah. Big Circle. Big. Yeah. And let the hips go. That's the my little shimmy. I call it the swizzle. I think of a swizzle stick in a tequila drink like a Margarita. Reverse. The circles are going to be like that blossom. She must drink a lot. I just like to talk about drinking. I'm all talk about the drinking.

That should feel good because I kind of just resets the hips a little bit. So from there, let's just flip onto our backs. Our back, we're going to be head to head, right? We're going to, you should just flip onto your back. I'm going to go with Carolyn and we're going to bring um, both legs up and over our head for the control balance. So any way you wish, you're gonna bring your knees into the chest and swing the legs up and over your head. Here we go. So this is enough. The next part is reaching both legs up to the ceiling. That's plenty. If you want to add on scissor ever so slightly, and this is plenty. If you want to add on, the fancy part is to circle the arms around and hold on to the ankle that is closest to you. Yes. Through space.

Change sides, reaching up. Yes you do what you can. You're reaching up as much as you're lifting in the waistline. One more set reach and I actually don't rest the leg coming toward me on the floor. You could have, you need to pull one more side, reach both legs over the head, stretch and roll up fast. But we're just going to come up to sitting and extend the legs forward.

So you're gonna roll back and roll on a couple more times. So I like to call this roll up rollover. Yeah. Nice and easy for the back. Couple more times. One more time. This time from the roll back. Can you come all the way up to standing her turn in. Lets face in toward each other. Huh? We're going to reach down to touch the floor.

The most important part is to not go to the bathroom, right? At least not right now. Soft knees reach up and over as you reached down to the floor. So the up and over is happening in the tummy. Not necessarily the arms. You can do the arms but as long as it's happening in the tummy.

I really hope I didn't go back because that would be really bad. Right here. Walk out into your push up position please. Hi Yah. Three pushups, please go. Three must come up slower than you went down to one more. Three kneel down. Yoga poses the child. Please take a little breather for our cooldown, which is going to be thing that Kathy called the Jane Fonda.

Um, it really is the tiger stretches on the reformer, but we're going to do it on the mat. Ready? Freddy's, I'm gonna talk you through it. You might want to watch it the first time. It's um, a really great stretch across the front of the hips and there's definitely going to be some hair whipping going on. Yes. Okay. So here we go. You're gonna drop your head Oh necklace out of the way. Drop your head round your spine. Please. Bring your right, right knee into your chest.

You're thinking of keeping your heel to your bum as much as you can. Keep the head down the spine rounded. Take the thigh back and under the torso stays rounded the whole ton and go back and under and back and under. Please come with me in the rhythm, in and back and in and back and add the torso at the torso. The heel stays close to the bum at the torso. Add the leg and the stretch and under stretch and under stretch and under and stretch. Change sides. In and out. In and out.

Apparently I have a new accent in and back and heel stays. Close. Spine is rounded. Let's add the torso at the torso. Keep the heel close. Keep the hill close to trees. You add the leg stretch and under stretch and under stretch and under. One more set please. In back in, back in back. It is a Roebuck and torso, torso, torso and torso.

At the leg stretch and under stretch and under stretch and under stretch. Change legs in and back. In and back. In and back and in at the torso. How are we doing at the torso, at the torso and the leg. Stretch and stretch. Two more on the last one. You're going to hold it. What? Ah Huh. Take the leg down. Sit on your heels for moments. Stretch those feet out.

Yeah, that's it. I know what just happened, right? Did you get a stretch across the front of the hips? A few other things too. Right? So that's it guys. So I hope you just really take some time and it try to play around with those exercises that we often skip because there's some really great gems and moments in there that, um, are really fun. I mean, I think they're really fun, but it's a good challenge to sort of just mix it up just a little bit.

Thank you so much. And that's it guys. Thank you.

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Comments

1 person likes this.
Thank you Blossom for a great class and perfect cuing!! I will be looking for more of your classes. I really enjoyed your teaching style! The last sequence was so fun!!
1 person likes this.
Whew great ride Blossom. Yah, what happened? Loved the ending. We all need a little Jane Fonda. Ha ha.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Great class!
What a fun class! Enjoyed starting in the middle and spending more time on the second exercises. Jane Fonda at the end was a surprise and turned out to be enjoyable.
So, love the "whoosh!"
1 person likes this.
Thanks for the comments everyone! The "Jane Fonda" is a wild ride, but that is on purpose. Kathy Grant used to teach it that fast and I just can't help myself. Kristi, I can't help but say "woosh" everytime!
1 person likes this.
I love your classes! They are always fun, challenging and have such interesting variations!
1 person likes this.
Never a dull moment in yr classes Blossom! Thank you for rockin my day & body, literally! Sniff, Sniff, Blow & Whoosh. Still laughing.
1 person likes this.
you are absolutly fantastic and so was the class. loved it!!!
1 person likes this.
Thx Blossom! Fun class
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