Class #50

Focused and Fun Mat

45 min - Class
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Description

Meredith guides you through this class focusing on the basic components of exercises that are traditionally done in intermediate classes. Take this class if you want to keep it simple, focused, and fun.
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

Jan 16, 2010
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I'm so glad you're all lying down cause that's exactly what we're going to do. Lie Down. Hi. Okay. Is a specialist that lying down? Yeah. Alright. So lying on your back just for a moment, figuring out your position.

So let's actually bring the feet all the way together so you feel your big toes, your ankle bones, your heels touching, and then just separate the toes. So the big toes. So they meet your feet, make a small v and then separate the heels. So now you know that your feet are truly lined up. And with that we're just going to breathe for a moment. So as you inhale, feel the ribcage expanding out to the side. So start now as you work with your breath, exhaling to feel the ribs in it together that the abdominals grow heavy to set your intention for the class for the day. Breathing in and breathing out in.

And as you do so, look for a sense of being really heavy through the center of your body, particularly the space just below the rib cage. Inhaling and exhaling out. And as you do, so setting your intention for this class, what does your body need? How can you incorporate the principles of awareness, of breath, of flow, of balance, of concentration, of precision, all of those things that make Palladia is what it is and how can you incorporate those into your practice today? What do you need? And with that sliding the arms a little further down towards the heels, we take her one last big fulfilling breath in. With your exhale, just allow your abdominals to become a little heavier. That's gonna start to shift the pelvis upwards so you'll feel your pubic bone raised towards the ceiling. We're just going to press the low back flat. Inhale, release the tailbone down.

So we're moving back towards the neutral spine position in neutral spine. We want the pubic bone and the two front hipbones to be in a flat plane XL to flatten again in the lower back. And again, just think about a heaviness through the center of the body. Don't make it happen from the legs or the arms or the neck muscles for for sure. Inhale, release the tailbone down one more time. Like so a deep exhale and actually let all the air out of the body feel the ribs come together, pressing the middle back into the mat.

Inhale one last time through neutral spine, and we're on our way into pelvic curl next, so finding the flat back position as you begin to pick up your hips. Think about the pubic bone being the lead bone in the body rolling up through the spine and the minute the hips leave the mat, your legs are going to have to start kicking in, working for you. Feel a sense of the knees stretching out over the feet. Breathe in at the top. Use Your exhale. Breath to feel the chest drop away from the Chin one bone at a time.

Relax into the mat as the front of the body works very hard to manipulate the back of the body. Release all the way down through the at the end of the exhale and take another breath in. Exhale, dropping the abdominals down where it's talking. The pelvis. Start to roll up and feel an energetic magnetic light contraction through the insides of the legs, the knees stretching out over the feet, the arms consistently long and straight. Breathe in at the top and breathe out as you come down bone by bone.

So he just really relaxing the back into the mat. This is our chance to look for a stretch and all the parts of our back then that we might feel tight or gather tension and regular life. Inhale again. Exhale. Begin your next contraction. Curl the spine, heaviness through the rems, stretching the knees out over the toes. Good parallel innercise. Nice solid position at the top. Lovely work. Inhale at the top end. Exhale. We're on our way down.

We're going three more times, just like so. Breathing and prepare for reading. I'll find your way up as you move through each exercise or each. Um, each pelvic curl. Look for something different in each one. Can you feel your hamstrings a little more? Oop, minor camping now.

Okay. Feel your spine rounding even more. Okay, I'll start laughing now. All right. I can find my hamstrings. Good for me. All right, let's do two more XL to a role at, can you, can you get a sense of relaxing into the movement? We all know this movement. What can it do for you? Okay, for a stretch to the friends of the thighs at the top, exhale, making our way down. Can you feel that your spine grows longer? As you come down, that your shoulders move further and further away from your ears? Here comes out of last one for the day. Breathing in, breathing out to move ourselves up. This is it.

Make it perfect. Make it feel amazing, and then coming back down as you arrived down, back into your neutral spine, raise your arms up over your shoulders, turn your palms inwards, and then just reach your fingertips up towards the ceiling. Let your shoulder blades creep up off the mat so you're kind of curving through your collarbones. From there, derive the shoulder blades. Don't force or squeeze them together, but feel that they just go heavy. They go down onto the ground and just a little bit of attention to the muscles just underneath the armpits for up for an even more solid position. From that inhale, open your arms. Feel the shoulder blades still, maybe even a sense of them stretching away from each other and then exhale to bring the arms back. They've kind of float through space in here.

The arms are heavy. As they reach out. All the attention's put in middle back in between the shoulder blades. Exhale, feel those bones stable as the arms just float back together again. We open the arms out, we feel the ribs moving as the arms expand. Why the ribs expand? And as the arms press back together, we feel a contraction or a knitting together on narrowing in the ribcage. Two more times like that. Can you find a stretch and x? Can you find depth or heaviness through your middle?

One more time here. Inhale, we stretch. Maybe going a little further out each time to definitely don't squeeze those shoulder blades and definitely keep them still. We're coming back up and we're going back down. This time. We're gonna go through that stretch. Take a moment there, reach a little further away and gently rest the arms down. Take a breath, pay attention to what's happening in your abdominals, in your pelvis. As you pick up your left leg. Can you pick up the right leg without moving anything except for the leg glue. The legs together feed should be just in front of the knees.

We're going to take the legs to the front towards me. Inhale, spine twist supine. Exhale, feel the left rib cage or that that rear rib cage contract. Pull back and come back to center. Inhale as you go away from me. As you exhale, it's the rib cage closest to me. Pulls back that oblique contracts. We come back through center, so again working with the breath, how deep, how fulfilling can you make your breath? Exhale blow all of the year at work for a really concentrated center position.

In here. We go across to the other side and Axa, we come back. As you continue through this movement, see if you can make the lower body move a little bit more without allowing the upper body to to shift at all. Go into the other side. Knees are lined up one more time around maximizing the rotation around the lower spine, but supporting the lower spine with the abdominals as you travel back to center. Last one away from me and bring it home as you put your legs down on the floor.

Do it with intention, so don't just drop them down. Place one they done. Feel the abdominals contract to support the movement. Place the other one down. Reach back. Bring your hands behind your head, interlocking your fingers, Hook your thumbs just at the base of your skull. You'll find a little legend there. And then just for a moment, take a minute to decipher the difference between pressing your elbows way back. You'll feel the shoulders kind of lift up. There's a, it's probably a little bit uncomfortable on the neck even there.

Now as you bring your elbows just slightly away from the floor, more into your peripheral vision, can you feel the back expanding slightly? With that, draw the shoulder blades. Jump down away from the ears and inhale on the exhale. We're coming up into a pelvic curl. Keep your head heavy in your hands so it's not a lift from the neck muscles.

We're coming up drawing the kids down towards the Mat. Inhale as you pause, maybe intensify it a little bit. Exhale, work your way down so there's a sense of not only lying down but with stretching the abs as they work. Inhale at the bottom, supporting the head as we exhale to lift up with the upper back muscles. Not only pulling the shoulder blades down, but trying to pull the shoulder blade slightly apart. Inhale, we hold and we exhale to work ourselves down again, going three more times like that. Exhaling to lift up, feeling the ribs knit together, and then as they press down, can you curl yourself up a little bit higher from just underneath them in heel? Hold. Exhale, working down. No, two more times. Linking each breath to each movement. There's nothing wasted and never we just losing it or letting it go.

We're working in both directions. Coming up one more time. Exhale, we left. Inhale, allow your hands to come behind your thighs. Hold the back of your thighs gently and with your arms, but more with your abs. Curl yourself up a little bit higher. Use the hold of the legs to just pay attention to.

Are you totally just talking your pelvis or can you relax the tailbone down a little bit more? Look for neutral spine. However, look for a relaxed low back. Let your legs go. Inhale, raise your arms up. They're nice and light. They're really light in space and XL. Press them down and as they reach in front of you, can you curl a little higher? Inhale, the arms float overhead. They stayed nice and straight.

The body doesn't move down. Exhale to go down. Doesn't matter how high up they go, what they're doing is challenging the work in the core. We're coming back down. One more time in Haleigh. Maybe a little further back this time. Exhale down and with this next inhale we bring arms up. Let the head come down with the arms. Exhale, come right back up. Inhale, wrap the hands behind the size again. Exhale, cruel up a little bit higher.

This time we're inhaling the arms up. They're going to come back behind the head. We're going to come to the front of the room for the chest lift with rotation. Here it is. Turn the ribs. Inhale, come back to center, so try to minimize or alleviate completely the rotate or rotation in the neck so it's not your eyes that are rotating you. It's your own obliques, elbows. There's again in your periphery, slightly wider than ear distance.

I guess a better way to say that is you can see him with, you can see him inhale back to center over to the other side to the last time we come back to center or reach your arms forward. Maybe look for a little bit of height in. He'll come all the way back. Exhale, we go one more time lifting the head and chest. Inhale, reach behind your thighs. [inaudible] Yep. Sorry, I was coming up. You just reached behind your thighs and look for a little bit of intensity. I'm coming up to look you raise your arms up, bring them back behind your head and we're going in the rotation again.

Three to each side. Exhale to turn in my direction. Beautiful. And he'll come back. Your pelvis should be still stable. Exhale, turn the other way. Looks good. I'm coming back to join you in coming towards me and back to center and to the other side and back to center. One more time around this is it intensified and make it work for you. Last one. Oh, back to center and really stretched out.

Oh my gosh. I know, I feel. Yeah, reach your arms over your head. Stretch your legs out in front of you and maybe just for this moment, just let the ribs lift. Reach the shoulders up into the years. Do whatever you need to do to relax any tension. And then let's refined our position. So gently press the legs into the floor. Underneath you. Slide the shoulders away from the ears. Again, there's no squeezing, it's just a sense of heaviness in the upper back.

Let the back of the ribs touch the mat. We're coming up into the role up in heel. We lift the head and chest. Bend your knees if you need to. Just a little bit. Xcel to roll yourself up. Yup, Yup, Yup, Yup. Up and over. Inhale at the top. Exhale, we're coming down, so sliding the tailbone out from underneath inner thighs. We'll do marvels for you to squeeze them back at the head. Touches.

The arms are traveling overhead. Think about the rib cage. Inhale, head and chest. So we're coming thinking about creating length as you curve forward. Shoulders over the hands, little bit of heaviness through the upper back or through the shoulder blades. Rounding down. Here's another place where we can put some good intention into how can I manipulate my spine? Can I feel one bone at a time? Peeling off the mat?

Can I stretch upwards as I still round XL two round downs. Feel the tailbone first, feel the sacred area, then one bone at a time through the spine, back of the head touches, arms come up last to inhale. We lift. Exhale, we come up, create a long curl. Shoulders down. Good. Lovely. Uh, I forgot how many more I said we had to do. How about too, this is all right. Here we come. Come all the way at this time. And as you reach forward for a stretch, continue to pull your abdominals backwards towards your spine. So just stretch. Yup. Reach down towards your feet. Let your head go. Relax. Any tension in your neck. I'll pull up my pants while you do it.

Then we'll move on. And with that, articulate yourself up and we're going to go into this spine stretch forward, separating the legs. Joe, if I were you, I'd bet a heck of a lot. Um, so anyone out there in the world with tight hamstrings, bend a heck of a lot. Bend as much as you need to. If it's easy with bent knees and work towards straight legs. If, if you can have straight legs, that's ideal, but, but make it worth, it's worth it to bend your knees it to help your low back get straighter. Here we go. We're arms are out in front. Let's play around with the shoulders, getting everyone bend your knees, relax your legs, squeeze your shoulders back together. You feel how the shoulders lift up.

It doesn't really even feel good in the neck, so it's definitely not a shoulder squeeze. Let your shoulders separate. Reach your arms a little forward slightly and then just be heavy, heavy in the shoulders in the lot specifically as the muscle that we're talking about. Stretch your legs out straight if you're going to go there. Inhale, prepare. As you exhale, drop your head, drop your ribs, but feel essence of lengthening up through the back before instead of just collapsing photo rounding down. Can You keep that long back end? Take the whole thing forward in. You know we hold, we exhale and articulate. Work your way up. So CreateSpace length in the spine, shoulders heavy, no forcing. Head Up. Breathing in again as the head drops down, knit the ribs together.

Think about up so that this low spine stays pretty long for awhile and then it goes forward. Inhaling at the bottom, exhale, starting from the lowest portion of your belly. Start to curl your spine back. Imagining that you're coming up against a wall, thinking tolerant, taller. Each time we go again and he helped prepare, exhale, knit the ribs together. Come up and over. Feel the shoulders heavy in the direction of the pelvis.

Can I let the neck relax? Inhale, hold, exhale, articulate. Okay, last one for now. Breathing in, breathing out. We go hang up. So there's always a contraction of the ams. There's that sense of of staying long in the low back is so important and so valuable and we go, we're coming up and I'm going to take us down one more time and then we're going to do a modified spine stretch forward so we come same star. Go to your low position and then just rest your hands in front of you.

Wherever they land. Let's all bend the knees bend and he's just a little bit, for those of us who are flexible, maybe a lot for those of us who are more flexibly challenged, pull with your arms, your chest forward, stick your tailbone out behind you and think about creating a long take off ramp with your spine. Good. It's good. All we're gonna do here is let go. The arms are going to float the spine. It's not going to change. It's going to get a little harder as our arms reach towards our ears. And by harder, I mean more intense, probably in the back muscles, definitely in the abs reached down to touch the legs. They land where they land and we're going to just intensify that.

So tailbone reaches out, chest reaches forward, ribs, pull back, lots of ab work. Let go, let the arms flow. Heavy shoulders, not a lot of forcing, not a lot of squeezing. Reached down two more times. Can you create a stretch in your lower back or definitely some work. Let go. So arm should feel real light in space. Last one for the day. Reached down. Give yourself a little bit more heavy. Shoulders, ribs in reaching up, reaching up. Is that all the way up? Bring your arms to your sides. Bend your knees, bring the bottoms of your feet together.

Put your hands just in the front of your knees sitting tall. I want you to try to incorporate that same idea that we just worked in the spine. Stretch forward of compressing through the ribs, but lengthening up through the spine and then pull back with your abs. So you are rounding backwards, but you're not collapsing back. It's just a stretch. Can you find a stretch in your back and then lift the spine back up. Reach to the top of the head. Feel buoyant in your spine. Pull, bend your elbows and pull your spine forward so there's a straight back.

As you come forward, come back to sitting up tall. Exhale, contract through the ribs thing tall through the lower back and then at the last minute, pull the abdominals a little for this. Are the low backgrounds. Inhale listed on an exhale. Send it forward. Again, working with the breath, letting the breath be fluid, letting the breath control the movement. Exhale one more time through the stretch talking the tailbone slightly. The arms might straight and they might not inhale lift.

They'll definitely bend as you send yourself forward and then coming back up. So I'm pretty comfortable in this position. Joe, you might want to move your feet just a little bit further away from you. Make sure you're comfortable and you can be straight, but you don't have to be super squished. Okay, arms out straight. Again, I'm going to ask for you to just float your arms up. A, the theme for the day is can we not force, can we not push? Can we not jerk the arms? Can we just let them be heavy? They do. Reaching towards the ceiling. From there I want you to turn towards towards me. Open the arms out. Put the backhand behind you.

Take the front arm around towards that front knee and lift first and then guide yourself into a further stretch. Raise your the arm, the hand that was on the knee. Raise it up, raise up the back arm without moving any further forward. And then return to center. We're going to inhale intern. Exhale that backhand comes around towards the front knee. The front arm goes around to the back. Lift, pull twists. Get Taller now support yourself with some serious ab work.

Pick up the back hand. Let the front arm lift up and return to center. Here's a breath pattern. Breathe in. Breathe out as you work for a supported but intense stretch. Float the Baca.

Don't let go with the twist with the front arm and return. Oh yeah, the breath pattern we inhale. Exhale, stretch. Inhale one arm at a time. It's gotta be a big inhale to make it through both arms. And exhale, we go back to center. We're going one more time around. Inhale, exhale, arms. Inhale both arms at this time and XL back. Last one. Maximize the turn. Exhale, arms. Let them help you.

Inhale, arms up and exhale. Come to the back. [inaudible] come back to the front, I guess was a better way to say that. Hold the back of your knees. So starts sitting tall. We're going to do just a little bit of rocking. What I'd like for you to do today is just curl the spine backwards once you get into a place and allow the theme again for today to be ribs in and long, low back.

Then shift back behind your tailbone and just let your legs hover when you do rolling like a ball. But we're going to keep it pretty big today or the the position pretty big anyway, so let the feet relax towards the hips a little and then we go. Just gonna rock back on the inhale. Try Not to change the position much or at all. Inhale back and exhale as you work for intensity in your breath. See how much that helps you as you come up to balance.

We're going three more times. Inhale back and exhale. Inhale back and exhale. One more time. Chilled with heavy place. If he'd done for a moment, separate him. We gonna do the openly rock, rock, [inaudible] prep, lean back. So now it's relatively similar to the one we just did except for moving from a straight back two around back, which we've done a fair bit today, so we should all feel comfortable with that movement anyway. Um, students parallel to the ground. Nice, tall spine, a separate your knees a little bit, Joe.

Just a wider and bring your feet a little closer. Okay, so pull, put a little pressure into the backs of your legs and use that to lift the chest from there. Keep the chest lifted around the lower back only and rock back XL to a roll up and then find the straight back position again. Inhale, we tuck the tailbone and we roll back. Exhale, we come up, let all the air out and finish excelling as you straighten up your back. You're doing really wow. Two more times. So it's like in my mind, it's almost a sense of growing as you come into that flat spot in position and growing. Let's, let's use the term for both directions. So you're not collapsing, you're staying long, you're growing your spine as you curve it. No, that's not good English. But it's a good idea. Anyway, one more.

Okay, last one. Can we let go? Bring the legs together. Let me just let go and balance for a moment and with that, that same squeeze, you're like, stay on that same tuck of the pelvis is you just make your way down onto your backward. Just going down. Can you do it with control? Bring your knees into your chest. Take a moment. Hug your knees into your chest. Congratulate yourself on a job. Well done. Okay, hands on the knees. We're going just a little bit more outward. Oh, put your hands up. Push your knees into your hands. Curl your head and chest up.

Take a moment here. Use your arms as much as you need to for the moment too, to help yourself in a position where you're real stable through your back. Then check in with those heavy shoulders. Send your arms to your sides. Double leg. Stretch a modification. We're taking the toes down in the arms, up. Exhale, everything comes back. We go again. Remember the heavy arms. The body doesn't fall back as the arms raise overhead and we come back and inhale and exhale.

Can you find a sense of pulling the legs in from reweigh underneath their ribs from deep within the trunk? [inaudible] one more time. Reaching your arms forward. We hold just the right leg goes down. Exhale. Changelings good. Push the arms forward. Engage through the lads and change and change and change.

Go in three more cycles. Here's one. Lift the upper body. Here's two. Push the hands against an imaginary table. Last one. Lift both knees. Reach for your knees. Roll yourself back, hugging your knees into your chest. Turn your head to the right for the left shoulder, heavily into the ground underneath you. Try to roll your head so you can look through your mat into the floor.

Come around through center with the Chin tucked into the chest. Roll around to the other side. Oh Roland through center. Chin tucked into the chest. A coming back up. We're doing an oblique twist and we're going to do it a little bit differently today, so let's just make our way up into that. Upward position come towards me so you can see what I'm talking about.

We're going to drop the leg that's furthest away for me. [inaudible] turn your body, placing that, that ham that you're rotating. Anyway, this hand here, the other hand underneath it, pull yourself up. This is where our hands are going to go. Now I don't want you to yank yourself out there.

I want you to push into the leg. The hands push the spine turns more. K. So that's what the arms are doing and now we're changing. [inaudible] as you push into your leg with your arms, can you allow that to encourage a little inner thigh recruitment or remind you to your inner thighs? Let your arms assist you, but don't rely on them. Do not fall back as you come through center. Okay? Keep the pelvis stable.

How about three more? Here's one and one and and two. Last time for the day, and by the three I meant six or three on each side. Come all the way down. Place your arms down. We're going to do the shoulder bridge prep today. So you start in the pelvic curl position, arms long and straight. And again, just before we get started, set your intention. Separate the shoulder blades. Reach the fingertips towards the heels. Take a breath. Exhale, we start flattening the low back that give you a little decompression there. Roll yourself up, coming up into a pelvic curl.

Take a moment here, maybe lift your head just a little bit and look down the line of your spine. Your ribs should be lower than your pelvis. Your knees should be higher than your pelvis. Okay, we're gonna put some weight into our left leg. Can you just shift to your left leg without changing anything in the hips? Now go light on the right toe.

So we're going to lift upon the right toes is a better way to say that. And from there we exhale. We're going to pull the leg up, stays bent. Inhale, reach down, tap the toes. Don't change the pelvis. XL Pole. Inhale as you're pulling your leg up. Do it by dropping the rib cage down. Uh, by that I don't mean lowering the ribs towards the Mat. I mean allowing the ribs to be heavy to more.

Last one, the ABS to do in the work as far as pulling the leg in space, lower the toes down. Can you roll through the foot without changing the hips? Here we go. Putting the weight onto the right leg. No shifting in the body left. We come up onto the left toes and we're up. We pull putting attention into the back of the leg into the hip extensors and pull and he'll reach tab like you're touching hot water. You come straight back up just to more.

Are you gathering tension in your fingers? Do they look white claws? They shouldn't. Last one place to lay down. Oh, just in time. Here comes another cramp and x how we rolled down. All right, and please turn and face me. So just lying down on your side.

We're going to stretch your bottom arm ant and put your head on it. That doesn't work. Fee Or is uncomfortable for you. You can point the elbow forward, preferably a straight arm. Let's see. Let's leave the hand on the ground today and let's put it right in front of the ribs. Yeah, so I looked down the line of your, your body. Uh, as you assessed your position, your should see one hip right on top of the other.

Should see your feet pretty close to lined up. And by that I mean one foot is not told back. All right, so we've got the arm just in front of the ribs. We're going to pull the ribs away from the [inaudible]. That'll help you remember to contract your abs, reached the legs away from you until they lift off the ground. Notice as that happens in one leg shift, I'm no is the answer in this room.

And exhale to lift again. So reminding yourself that it's not about the legs before the legs lift. There's a deep contraction is all about the center. How deep can you go there? Inhale down and we exhale to come. God.

Inhale down, feeling the inner knees lined up. Feeling a sense of oh way. Not Up, not heights, not jerking, not shoving. But can you relax? Can you lengthen into it? Okay. I think just two more for now. Here it is. Number one, releasing number two, holding here.

Keep them them. Lift the top like just an inch higher. Keep it there, lower the bottom leg, lift the bottom like so. Now we put a little bit of attention into the bottom like for sure are the inner thigh on that side. But can we continue to make it not just about the top side of oblique but about the bottom side of bleak as well. So imagine picking up that side with the leg and a draw inwards. Pick up that lower oblique with the leg. If you have any doubts, if it working, you can. If it's working, you'd touch. We're going for more little quicker.

Here's one up and here's two, here's three. And here's the last one. For the day. Lift both legs or the length in both legs and relaxed, both legs to the ground. Take your top leg, send it back, take your top arm, send it forward and reach oppositionally through toes and fingers. Oh, you can play around with this stretch. There was no really perfect place in my mind. But find a stretch that feels good to your body.

Don't be afraid to kick the person behind you. You probably won't. And then come back. Then both knees, the legs are going to stack on top of one another. So what I'd like for you to find is a straight line from the hip to the knee and then a straight line from the knee to the foot. Yep, you're good. Maybe just come in a little bit with your knees towards you. Okay. Now from there, put your hand on your belly and kind of just underneath the ribs on your belly.

Pull up with that pull up. You may feel that the lower waist lifts a little, not a lot, and definitely don't force it, but just feel light on that side of your body. And maybe by doing that you can get a sense of lengthening the upper waist as well by pulling the top pip away from the top shoulder. Here we go. We're going to lift the top leg, just turning it or opening it like a book. What we're doing is external rotation of the hip. And, um, what do I want to say again? It's not a foresee place and again, bad English, but a good idea. It's a can you go there and work into it? I'm going to do three, um, three more.

So good strong rotation in that joint without moving any of the position that we set up. Here's our last one and I don't think I've counted correctly, but anyway, bring the knee down. Lift both feet up. Can you lift the feet without losing all of that waist and hip stuff? Now we go again. We're going eight times. Nigos up. Nigos down, nothing else changes. This is a great place to practice. Holding onto the ABS, holding onto the low back, making sure nothing else moves around. All that bottom hip might already be tired and that's a bummer cause we're going to have to work it in a minute. Last too. And one more. All right, I've got one more thing for you and we're going to do three.

We're going to lift your knee. Now I want you to think about turning the knee towards that top shoulder as you stretch it out towards the ceiling. Rebend it and turn it again this way and bring it down. Lifted up should be pretty intense. Try to turn it behind you as the leg stretches out.

Try not to hold a lot of tension in the foot. Rebend and really one more to go. We lift up first. We stretch. Feel like much of a stretch anyway. It feels like work to me then and release down. Okay.

Drop the feet. What should we do? Turn onto your back. Yeah. Oh, the leg that was on top, the ankle of that leg is going to go on the opposite knee. Now maybe that's enough of a stretch for you already. Maybe not if it's, if it's not reached behind that leg. So pick up that that leg that you're resting on either hold onto the back of the leg or the front of the Shin. Whatever makes sense to you.

So we're just gonna pick it up and pull it in. And to make an even greater stretch, you could use that elbow to push the knee, the knee of the hip, that stretching away from you. Oh, that's kind of a big one, isn't it? [inaudible] okay. From there, uncross the legs. Hold the back of both legs. Lift your head, support yourself with your abdominals. Rock twice. And on the third rock, come on, turn yourself around to the other side. So face this way still, you'll just be at the other end of your map.

Bring yourself all the way down into that side. We started with a long line in the body. Again, take a minute to kind of assess your position. Look down, see that one hips directly on top of the other, that the feet are lined up. Place the hand down and pay attention to not, uh, moving, uh, after you've looked down your body makes sure that you lift your head. So it's in line with your, as you prepare to do the position or the movement. Okay, here we go. Pull the ribs away from the forum.

Feel that sense of elongating the body and then a lot of legs to just hover. How much can you feel in your waist and how little can you make your legs work for you? Reaching out and lengthening out. It's not a huge movement. In fact, it's not a big movement at all. Remembering or letting our arm in that position reminds us to pull the ribs back, pull the abs back to get the movement happening or to make the movement go. Okay. We'll go on two more times here for the day. Lifting up, putting attention maybe to the inner thighs, but trying to let the feet, um, not grip hold at the top, pick up the top leg a little higher just to smudge, lower the bottom leg only and pick it up. Reminding ourselves that as that leg moves, we're using it to remind us to pick up those lower obliques as well.

Got to keep using the upper obliques to keep that top leg in the air. Waist is on, shoulder is relaxed. We have two more today and last one. We'll let the legs come together, reach him away from you. And then we'll lengthen them down towards the ground. Okay. Take the top leg back. Take the top. I'm forward just reaching energetically in two directions.

Pulling like you're stretching taffy fingers, reaching toes reaching. You can lean into it, you can lean back into it, forward or back. And then come back through center. Bend both knees. Set your body up so that your knees are just in front of your hips and your feet are just down from your knees. Perfect. Okay, so heads down on the arm. Uh, the way we sat up set up here was to look for a abs first and then maybe just to a little bit of a contraction through the lower waist that we'll probably send the hipbone down slightly. So now you've got to stack pelvis in. Here we go. We're going to lift the top legs, turning the hip in its socket and bring it down.

So the focus here is quite obviously on the outer hip, but can we add some inner thigh on the way home or push the abs back by bringing the legs together. Got Two more to go. No movement in the pelvis. Not even a little last time mean the knee down. Pick the feet up. Shouldn't um, lose everything when the feet come up and we're going again eight times up, squeeze together up. Feel probably roll around on one another a little bit. That's not super important. Let's see.

I'm pushing my feet together a little bit and that's giving me inner thighs. Try it. Never neglecting the contraction around the middle. This one six, we did eight, so there's two more to go. I am last one. All right, here we go. Here comes a toughie. Lift the knee, stretch the leg and as it stretches, think of turning it behind you.

Oh, ribbon the knee and bring it down. Lift it up. [inaudible] go a little further. Maybe if you can, without changing anything else, stretch. Paying attention to the focus at near the pelvis rather than pushing through the foot or the Shin. It's not a kick of any sort. More of a lengthening movement and [inaudible] and back and down. Not Fuck, lie on your back.

Bring your leg. That was just working. Put the ankle on the knee. It's worthwhile to make sure that the hips covers straight across there. And then I think we all picked up that bottom leg. As you pick up the bottom leg, make sure one hips not hiking higher than the other. Hold it. Hold the Shin, hold the back of the side. It's totally up to you and pull it towards you. Again, you can increase the stretch by taking the arm that's closest to the leg on top and pushing it away.

Yep. Okay. And then when you're ready, just uncross. And from here, I'm going to have you just roll all the way over onto your stomach. So we're gonna do just a basic back extension exercise. Why don't you to position your body or forehead's going to be down on the mat.

Arms are going to be at your sides with your thumbs facing downwards. Actually, let's put, let's do this, uh, turn your palm so that they face your thighs and then let your hands relax towards the grounds a little bit and then bring your pinky fingers further towards your legs and your thumbs. So turn your thumbs out a little bit and then let the arms relax. What? I almost dropped that on the ground. I didn't realize it was off. Okay. Yeah, that's what I meant. And it's maybe a little bit separate, so it's more of a relaxed position than a, than a kind of a struggle. Okay, so with that, lift up through the abdominal, so that's the most important thing. Feel a sense of lengthening through the legs and press gently into the hands.

Just gently to to draw the shoulders down the back. From there, start to bring the head forward. Lift the head and chest. It's going to not be big. Should be pretty intense in the upper back. That's it. And then release it back down. I feel just like the, the, the trunk curl or all the Ab work where we lift, but also length and down. That same sort of feeling. Here we go again. It's the forehead lifts off the floor.

Send the head forward as the shoulders pull down. Got God. Really paying attention to the muscles just in between your shoulders and underneath your shoulders. Lower yourself down. Here we go. In here x. How can you feel a sense of stretching forward? It's not about height, it's about length. It's about focus. It's about intensity and lower yourself down.

One more time. Good. Hold there. Lift your arms. Hover them. Bring them out to your side so they create a t shape. As you exhale, bring them back and right next to your body. So your pinky fingers face your legs in how they float out to the sides like an airplane. Xcel, they reach back towards the outsides of the hips, not higher than the hips. Really just next to them. Inhale, open. Exhale. Bring them back. Inhale, open them out. This is our last one.

Exhale. Bring them back. Gently. Rest your hands on the floor. Gently rest your spine down. I'm gonna do that one more time. It's the end. Here we go. Stretching through the spine. Get a sense of length. Feel the head reaching for the shoulders, reaching down, paying attention to that triangular space between the shoulder blades. And here we go. Last set for four arms out to the sides, palms face down the whole time.

Xcel pull from the upper back from just underneath your wings. Inhale Open. I just had a forehead done. Perfect right there and back in the hell out. Can You keep the pelvis still? That's part of it. I think this is for the promised. Finish.

Gently place your hands down. Gently place your body down. You can put your hands underneath your forehead for just a moment. Just create a little shelf with your hands and just allow for a moment for your back to settle. And here's a really nice place to can we practice just three or four times to feel the back of the ribcage. Expand even here. And here's a group, really lovely place to try and feel [inaudible] that your ribs can expand, not only laterally but three dimensionally. So feel that the expansion maybe even helps you create a little bit of a stretch in your back and exhale. Just relax it downward. So no forcing, no shoving.

One more time. And with that, when you're ready, put your hands underneath your shoulders. Just carefully make your way up onto your hands and knees. I want to do a cat stretch. Just maybe three. So hands underneath the shoulders, knees, just underneath the hips.

We're separating the lower body and the upper body in this exercise. And here it goes. So before we get started, let's all pull up on the ribs enough so that you feel your abdominals pretty active, but you don't round your spine from there. Start to move the tailbone underneath you. It's an abdominal contraction talking under, under under allow that had to be affected. So you're looking down the pelvises at tucks. Inhale, come back to a straight spine. As you exhale on the top of the head forward.

Fold forward from the space just behind the rib. So you're coming into upper back extension, but you're not letting go of the pelvis. You guys look great. Inhale back to center. Exhale, feel the pelvis move forward. Relax the head down. So don't push it down. Maybe gently release the shoulders downwards. A little in him.

We come back through neutral and like a wave we exhale and come into back extension. So No, again, movement is wasted like a dance. We come back through center moving with the Xcel into a curvature. In the lumbar spine, shoulders down, just the littlest bit, Jo, towards your hips. That's it right there. Inhale, come back. Exhale, extend the spine forward. And with that, sit down all the way onto your feet and just really stay hip to all the way down into rest position, maybe sliding the arms a little further forward.

Separate the arms if it's not a comfortable place for your shoulders to be. You can also bend the elbows and rest your head on your hands. Whatever works for you to allow you to have a pretty good, pretty solid, fairly good kind of a stretch. And take a moment or a couple moments to just inhale and exhale again as the rib cage expands, can you feel the low back? Expand perhaps, and then letting tension go on the exhale. Inhale, filling up with brand new energy and exhale, letting tension go.

And maybe just one more breath like that for the day. And then when you're finished and when you're good and ready, help yourself out. Good job guys. Really good.

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