Class #5229

Mat with a Twist

45 min - Class
244 likes

Description

Rock, roll, twist and play with Sarah Bertucelli in this Mat class! Sarah adds layers of zest to the classic BASI Pilates flows to intensify and play with movement. She targets your core, legs, and shoulders and finishes off with her famous boomerang. You will move with ease and power and kick your day off energized!
What You'll Need: Mat

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All right, welcome. Today we are gonna flow on the mat. A little bit of rocking and rolling, a little bit of twisting, maybe some shouting, but I sure hope you have fun and that we get a nice workout. So the most important thing is that you do you, and I'm gonna guide you. Let's begin.

Let's turn around and just kind of settle in. I have this trustee towel just in case I need it either for my tight, low back or for my sweat. And we're gonna begin with our feet just resting off the mat so you have plenty of room to roll back when the time comes. And take a couple moments to settle in. Feel your pelvis just kind of sitting comfortably.

I did this in a class a couple of days ago, so you perhaps have already tried it, maybe not. But just this quick little exercise really helps me to warm up and be ready to go. So I invite you to sink in before we flow. Roll your body forward to as point where you feel the first bit of resistance. So I've got both sides of my sit bones grounded and I'm just gonna rock a little bit side to side.

And I'm gonna notice what I feel. I feel a little tightness in parts of my back. I feel my head relaxed. I feel a little tightness in my neck, so I'm just kind of breathing and loosening up some of those sticky spots. I'm relaxing my belly actually here too, not holding anything in.

And then I'll sit. The first one is the assessment. So here, I'll bring my knees and feet together. Put your hands on the outside of your knees and push your legs together. Allow your shoulders surround and reach your forehead in the direction of your knees.

Notice where you feel the first resistance. And notice where it is. Don't blow past it, just feel it and breathe. Deep breaths settling in. And then come up from that.

And right away we're gonna try a rolling exercise. So do make sure you have enough padding. Take your arms out in front of you. Curl your pelvis back or curl your tailbone underneath you. And feel your belly fully engaged.

Lifting one leg up the shape sounds stays exactly the same. Lift the other leg up. Try bringing those legs a little closer to you. Maintaining the shape of the ball. Hold with your hands.

See if you can roll, inhale. And hopefully you can find your balance that first time. But if not, try again. There's always next time. (Sarah laughs) Woo, today I'm a little tight.

One more time. So the first round is an assessment. Take the legs back out in front of you. Feel both sides of your pelvis equally weighted, and relax your body forward. Now, round two, I feel quite a lot more room to release.

See if you can assess that both sides of your pelvis are grounded. I know I tend to not sit enough on one side, so that's what I'm doing right now. Breathing in and breathing out. Draw your belly back a little bit this time and see if you can create a little bit more support to perhaps go a little deeper. Breathing in and breathing out.

And then you'll sit up again. We'll make shape number two. Knees and feet are together. Squeeze the legs together, push with your hands, dry your belly back and see where your head goes. Easy connection, my knees and my eye sockets have met.

Breathing in and breathing out, I've loosened up some of the tightness. We sit tall again. Separate the legs, sit up tall, curl your pelvis underneath you, support with your belly. Lift your legs up one or two at the same time. Tighten up your ball.

Hold with your hands. Maybe the ball gets a little tighter and we roll. Find the breath that suits you. I've got an easy ride now, so we'll go again. Maybe you're still loosening up some gunk.

Maybe it was easy in the beginning. I find this exercise a little magical for me, for my body. Hold here, take the legs out in front of you. One last time, we fold. Breathing in and breathing out.

You do you. Now my forehead almost wants to touch the floor. It's easy for me to be here. I'm not pushing through anything, it just feels nice. The stretch has changed a little bit in my body.

I feel it in different places and sometimes I just touch where I'm feeling it so you can see or so I can sense it as well. Go ahead and sit up one more time. We squeeze the knees together. We try to make a connection piece of cake for me to make that connection. Breathe.

Maybe not a piece of cake yet for you, but you'll keep trying. And someday it will be, I hope. And if not, that's okay too. Curl back, find your ball shape, tighten it up. And we roll.

Nice and quick for a warmup there. So I'm never looking for perfect, my friends. I'm just looking for a perfect experience, how's that? (Sarah laughs) The exercise doesn't need to be perfect, but enjoy the experience. Hold here.

Send your legs out in front of you and just sit for a moment with two straight legs, arms out in front of you. Inhale here. We're gonna roll all the way back. You can try it with straight legs, or you can bend your knees if you want. Just one time back and then we stay.

Allow your arms to go wide to the side. Palms facing up, bend two knees. Take your legs to one side, a little twisting of the low spine in the hips. Use your breath to pull back to center. Go the other way.

Inhale and use your breath to come back to center. So continuing with that flow, that pattern. Inhale and exhale back or breathe when it makes sense to you. That's the most important part. You can add a little zest to this by twisting and then pushing through one foot to go into a little bit of a back bend and pull back.

Or you can keep it nice and casual and soft and easy. Let's do it one more time on each side please. Little press. Assessing where you are, how you feel in this moment. Enjoying the movement, I hope.

Settle here, take two legs to tabletop, perhaps one at a time. Float your hands to the ceiling. Inhale, arms go back. Take a breath. I said that twice, inhale and take a breath.

How about we lift the head and chest and we lower down? Perhaps you're using an exhale to lift, that's funny. Add an inhale to lower down. Sometimes I say things out of habit and then I realize I've said the same thing twice. But maybe you heard it differently.

(Sarah laughs) One more time and then let's pick up the flow here. Lifting the head and chest. We stay single-leg stretch happens. Nice change and change. You know the exercise.

Think about your pelvis, think about your breath. Enjoy the movement. Use your arms with intention to maybe lift just a little higher. Today let's go ahead and keep using the arms as an assist for the legs when we twist. Or an assist on the legs when we twist.

So hands on the outside to find a little extra lift and twist. You can reach with the other arm or hold, change hand on the outside to find a little extra lift, reach or hold your choice. Let's do another one like that. Just a little extra lift that feels nice today. And a little extra lift.

One more on each side please. So by slowing down here and giving myself the opportunity to go deeper, I'm feeling the feels. And last one. And that feels like a good idea. Come back in, hug your knees into your chest.

Put your two feet on the ground and separate pelvic bridge. Inhale here, exhale to curl up. Find that deep bridge position opening across the front of the hips. Inhale and exhale to lower down. Now if my breathing cues make sense, wonderful.

If not, we're simply breathing and moving, lifting up. And as you lower down, we're articulating through the back one vertebrae at a time. Check in with your body. Your shoulders should be tension free. Your chest is open, your head is grounded.

As you lower down, you wanna articulate through the ribcage, through the middle back, through the low back and the pelvis. This time we lift and we hold. Holding that high position, we're endeavoring to have a straight diagonal line so the pelvis is lifted enough for the hips to be open. Both glutes are working. Abdominals are working.

Low back is long, not tense. Can you lift for me one leg up? Flex the ankle, put it down. Lift the other leg up. Flex the ankle, put it down.

So we're changing. Find your breath. See if you can feel the support from the back of the leg that's on the floor. And easily shift from leg to leg. One more time on each side please.

Two feet are down. Press your pelvis nice and high. Articulate down one vertebrae at a time. And then lift those legs to tabletop position again. Stretch two legs to straight for me.

Holding onto one leg with two hands. Put the other leg on the floor. Enjoy a nice little stretch there. Lift that leg up. And we're gonna change sides.

Just a little loosening through those hamstrings before we pick up the pace a little. And then lift up, two legs are up. Lift your head and chest. Look at your pelvis. We're endeavoring to keep the pelvis square and stable.

Holding onto one leg. See if you can take the other leg all the way to the floor. A lot of times we get a rotation in the pelvis. Can we keep the pelvis square there? Which might mean you don't lift your leg as close to your body.

That's what it means for me. Nice and slow and methodically we change. So I am going a little less fast in order to be a little more clear where my pelvis is until I feel I have it. And then you can go with a little pulse. Pulse, pulse, pulse, pulse, pulse.

So the pulsing is the leg that's up in the air. The other leg is really grounding. Trying to get both the glute and the hamstring to participate in that grounding. One more time. Two legs are up.

Hug the knees into your chest, rock and roll yourself up until you find yourself in a sitting position. Here, stretch your legs straight out in front of you, putting your feet on the front corners of the mat. Scoop any tissue out that needs scooping and settle in. Flex the ankles. Inhale here.

Exhale to roll forward one vertebra at a time into your spine stretch, inhale. Use the exhale to curl yourself back up until you're sitting tall, repeat. One vertebra at a time. Nice, pleasant journey through your spine here. And curl back up.

I think we should add a twist here today. What do you think? Good idea? Here we hold the forward position. We lift to a flat back.

The arms are up by your ears. You're gonna rotate around and look underneath one arm. Rotate around and look underneath the other arm. Come back to center. Lunge forward and sit tall, repeat, inhale.

Exhale, curling forward. We can go the same way. Inhale, flat back, look underneath one arm. So I'm looking at you. And now I'm looking at the ocean.

And come back through and round forward and back up. Let's change it. Inhale, exhale to round forward we'll go the same direction. Inhale, flat back. Rotate, so I'm looking at you.

My bottom hand reaches around and holds onto my foot. And I see if I can reach a little more into the rotation. Should you need to hold your leg, you hold your leg or you hold even your thigh. Whatever makes sense to you. And if you have a hair in your eye, maybe you take it out.

Unwind here, reorganize. Go the other way. Hand goes to where it makes sense for you to create a little more rotation. Boy, that rotation, that direction feels delicious right now. I needed that.

Breathing in and breathing out. So we unwind, we lunge forward, we come all the way up, lift one leg up, bring it in to center the other leg up. So again, we wanna be sitting up nice and tall with the legs glued together. Let's clasp the fingers. Put them behind your head.

Actively press your head into your hands. Sitting nice and tall. And we twist. Ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta. So double exhale perhaps.

You breathe when it makes sense to you. Will you do me one favor though? And look up a little. So let your eyes take a journey. Just like your body.

You're looking around and up and slightly up and slightly up. One more time please. Good, and we rest fat. Scoot forward on your mat just a bit balancing on your tail. We'll tip back.

Getting ready for yes, you guessed it. Open leg rocker. My single most favorite exercise, which you know is not true because I say that about everything. So I'm balancing on my tail. I stretch my legs just straight.

If you need to hold the backs of your thighs, you do it. Otherwise you're in your rocker shape. We inhale a roll and we exhale to endeavor to balance perfectly with a smile. Inhale to roll. Exhale to balance.

Woo, second one a little less of a smile for me. But we'll give it a go. See what number three brings, a little better. Couple more please. Just breathe and move.

Have fun. Again, I don't care about perfect, are you enjoying it. Does it feel good to you, if not, make a change please. Hold your shape here. Can you hold this without your hands?

Can you bring your legs together? Will you take a breath please? Yes. Roll down one vertebrae at a time, hands by your side. Inhale here, exhale, we're gonna roll over.

We're gonna then flex the feet. Separate the feet, tap the floor take a moment. Use your breath to roll down with control. And we repeat, feet are pointed 90 degrees. Exhale, roll over.

Flex the feet, separate the feet straight, strong legs. And we're gonna roll down. And point the feet again. Find a breath, find a flow. If the rollover doesn't suit you, my friends, don't do it.

Feel free to return to the pelvic curl. It's always okay. The rollover has become over the years, one of my favorite and least favorite exercises at times. Do you roll down, hug your knees into your chest for me. Take your legs first to tabletop, and then two straight legs to the ceiling.

Arms to the side palms open. Let's take a pendulum to one side, legs glued together and then to the other side. So try really hard to keep your legs glued together so that the rotation is coming from your core, not just from your legs flopping around, okay? So here we go, pelvis is rocking side to side. Find a breath.

If it doesn't work to make the movement bigger don't. If you put your hands palms down, you might find you have a little more power to go a little deeper, which is okay as long as your body says it's okay. And one more time, come back through to center, bend your knees, hug your knees into your chest. Releasing through the back there. Place one foot down, place the other foot down.

Resettle, if you've gotten a skew on your mat. Shoulder bridge take a breath. Exhale to curl the pelvis up. Find that nice high curl bridge position. Take one leg straight toward the ceiling, flexing the ankle.

Point the foot reach down, flex, lift up repeat, And breathe and move please, good. Let's do another one at this pace and then let's go a little faster. Down and up, down and up, down and up. If it suits you last one. We change nice and methodical at first, reaching down, flexing up, reaching down, flexing up.

Nice and slow, kind of carving out the edges of the movement for you. And now let's pick up the pace, here we go. Down, up, down, up. Last one up. Place your foot down, take your feet wider.

Press your pelvis nice and high. Bring those shoulders and arms together underneath you if it feels good. And really enjoy the expansion of your chest, feel free to wiggle around a little. I like to do almost like a little hula dance with my pelvis. Again, if you've taken class from me you know I'll always say that you need to be patient and curious in any movement, and also have wiggle room.

So if you're trying so hard that you can't move, you're probably a little beyond your limits at that moment. So play around with your limits, but don't go too far. How about that life lessons in the Pilates class, hmm. Rest for a moment here. Lift one leg to tabletop, followed by the other.

Reach your hands to the ceiling. Inhale, exhale, lift your head and chest stay. We're gonna stretch the legs in the direction of straight. We're gonna hold onto the backs of the legs straight. We're gonna curl the body even more in keeping that shape without throwing the legs down and up.

We're rocking and rolling that's the goal. This is all preparation for a request from my friend to do the boomerang today. And we're gonna come all the way up and we rest that good. Let's have a seat and face one another for a moment. Cross-legged legs.

Again sit side to side a little. Walking on your hips. I did not plan to do this but it feels good. So can you do a little marching side to side on your pelvis for a moment? Feels really nice actually.

And then settle. And do you feel both sides of your pelvis grounded? Put your two hands next to you tent the fingers, lift your heart and look up, lift your chin. Round your body forward reach forward. Let your body relax.

Again, we're gonna lift and look up. Yeah, and we're gonna come forward one more time. We're gonna lift and look up. Last time come forward, nice. Let's go ahead and come around onto our hands and knees here.

With your hands underneath your shoulders and your knees underneath your hips. A little cat cow. We round through the back looking in the direction of the pelvis and then we arch through the back looking forward. Now I'm trained by Bassy Pilates. And Bassy Pilates we limit a little bit this cat cow.

Today I want you to really go beyond what you thought you should, even if you're not Bassy trained. So as you extend your back, does it feel good for you to really open your heart? Does it feel good to move your gaze around? Does it feel good to really go anterior with your pelvis and maybe move around a little as long as your body likes it, it's a good idea. Come back to center around same thing.

Relax your head. Can you really spread those shoulders? Perhaps you're swirling around. You're creating the intention of more movement, looking in a different direction, moving a little bit side to side. And then settle.

Hands are underneath your shoulders. Knees are underneath your hips. We slide one leg back, we're in plank. We slide the other leg back we're there. Did you put your head in the feeding trough?

If so, please bring it back where it was meant to be. Can you feel lengthening through the crown of the head? Power through your core. We're gonna bend our elbows all the way to the floor. Go right back up, you got it?

Yes, if you need to, you put your knees down, two more good or the legs are up, you decide. And this time let's lower ourselves all the way to the floor and take a rest. So put your hands on top of one another. Rest your forehead on your hands and shake out for a moment. Shake your pelvis a little bit, settle in.

So often when I move quickly in a class, if I don't take just a beat to set up, I find myself not so happy in my body. So take the time you need, even when moving quickly. Press down through your pelvis, draw your belly a bit active. Try hovering your legs, if you feel safe with that arrangement keep it like that. If you don't keep your legs down.

Here we're gonna hover the arms, or I'm sorry, hover the head and send the arms straight over head. So we have two straight arms, two straight legs. We're gonna do one arm, lifted the opposite leg, and then alternate. So I don't want to fast swimming a nice slow cross patterning, swimming, changing, tapping the floor each time with the opposing arm and leg. And lifting a little higher with the opposing arm and leg.

One more time nice and slow. Breathe when it makes sense, rest. Shake out your body for a moment. Take your hands just outside of your shoulders. Elbows are bent.

Again, I just had to wiggle around a little and get organized. We're gonna inhale to upper back extension. Finding a place where you know you can lift without using your arms. So try that again. We're gonna inhale to our upper back thoracic extension, and then lower down lift again.

So here I'm in my thoracic extension. I could lift my arms, but I'm gonna keep them there. I'm gonna use those arms to pull forward a bit more. Finding a little more lovely range in the thoracic. Thoracic, the thoracic.

In the thoracic spine. Open through your heart and look over one shoulder. Good, and if you're with another person, look over and say hi to them. Good, try that again. Look over one shoulder and maybe the other shoulder.

Good, comeback to center lower down. Let's do some single leg kicking here, sound good? Yep. Inhale, we're gonna lift the head and chest into that same extension. We're gonna hold that shape and take the arms forward so you can clasp your fingers together.

You'll press down through the outside of your hands simultaneously, pull your body forward. That feels so good on my front body. You should have ease of movement here. You're supporting with your arms, but a lot with your core as well. Hover two legs, kick one knee.

Tatata, tatata, inhale. Inhale and exhale and exhale and inhale. Inhale, exhale, and we keep that flow. And now let's just look around. Look around the room with your eyes maybe wherever you want to go.

Everybody always laughs at me because I always sing when I do this silly exercise tutu. Yeah, I know I'm being silly. One more time. Good rest that please lift a little higher perhaps. And we rest completely.

Bring your hands outside of of your shoulders. Push yourselves to your hands and knees. And let's take a rest pose for a couple breaths. Child's pose, rest pose, you do you. So maybe your knees are wide, maybe your knees are together, everybody is breathing.

Another breath or two. Come back to your hands and your knees please. Hands are underneath your shoulders. The knees are underneath your hips. Let's once again come to our plank sliding, one foot back power through your body.

Slide the other foot back hold. We're gonna hold this general shape, but we're gonna bring one hand to the fist and try to rotate as much as we can. One fist to the chest, not a hand to a fist that's funny. So bring your fist to your chest and open. So we're marching with our upper body here.

Now my pelvis responds, but I'm trying to not open it too much. Let's do that one more time. But it does respond. Good, lower to your knees. This time keep your toes tucked so you can get a foot stretch and kind of push back on those feet and roll side to side.

So you can keep it like that. You could put your knees down if you need to, but if you wanna work a little bit harder, I'm going to add an extension of the arm there. And a change of the gaze is the eyes will change as well. A gaze change is probably what I should say. Come back to your hands and knees.

Slide back to a plank position. We're there nice and powerful. And we're gonna look up and we're gonna look up and I just want you to think of first rotating and then extending the arm, looking up. Now at my pelvis is moving a little, but I'm not intending my pelvis to be what's moving. It's more my upper back, one more time.

And we lower ourselves all the way to our belly. Take a pause here. Resting your two hands your head on top of your two hands. Bend one knee and then reach around and hold onto the top of the foot and stretch for a couple moments your quads. Remember to be curious and patient.

So you might choose to just hold this stretch. You might choose to bend the knee a little more. You might choose to take the foot a little out to the side or a cross body to feel whatever it is you need to feel. Most importantly, you should be breathing. Change sides please.

So again, I'm holding the top of my foot with my hand and I'm just kind of exploring the tissue. Breathing in and breathing out. And I have found just such a lovely stretch on this leg right here. You'll notice if you happen to be watching me ever, that I do wiggle around a lot in my stretches. And that's 'cause I'm constantly exploring what's sticky and asking that tissue to just soften a little bit so that I have more ease in my movement and release.

So now we'll bring our hands once again underneath our shoulders. This time going to a full back extension though. So we'll inhale to upper back extension. Use your arms to pull forward and perhaps all the way to straight supporting your body. Gently come down with the elbows and then the rest of the body.

Legs are active, but they don't need to be lifting. Inhale to upper back, exhale to pull forward. And up and come all the way down. Let's just try a little bit of tiny bit of rotation. I don't want it to be a big movement.

Can you just look over one shoulder and then try looking over the other shoulder and then lower down. Let's do that one more time. Inhale, then exhale forward. We're gonna go the other way first. Looking over the shoulder, just checking it out and looking over.

Come back to center and we lower down, good. Let's just roll onto our side so that we're facing each other I'll look at you. I've got one arm long and straight and I'm gonna rest my head on that. And I'm gonna put my hand down, my palm down. Just helps to intensify the lats stretch there.

Hover your two legs away from the floor and get organized. What's going on here? We have our hips stacked. We have our shoulders stacked. We're using our belly muscles to support.

You may use your fingers out in front of you if you need, but if you feel balanced, you can also put your arm, right by your side and work on your balance here. Simply because I'm talking, I'm gonna keep my fingers down. I exhale to lift those legs up and gently lower down. Let's do that again. We're gonna lift and gently lower and lift and gently lower.

So two legs are lifting. So my inner thighs are working a bit. My abs are definitely working. And we'll just do that one more time. Lift, keep the energy of the lift and just kinda glide yourself up onto your elbow.

Opening through your heart here, front body is open back body is active here. Think about that front body to support you. Here is open back body is active. Lift the leg up, hand behind your head. Sidekick a little pulse and a little reach back, a little pulse.

So usually when we do this, we keep our bodies somewhat contained. So we're trying to keep the the ribcage quite stable. There's a little bit of an adjustment that has to happen, but we're generally not leaning into it. Today I'm gonna invite you to lean into that rotation and that rotation. So we're gonna rotate up as the leg goes forward, rotate down as the leg goes back, give it a go.

If that doesn't work in your body, choose not to do it. One more time, please. And hug that knee into your chest. We'll take ourselves to a seat sitting on both legs once again. On both hips I should say.

Well, I guess we're kind of sitting on both legs. So I had my other leg in front before, maybe you didn't pay attention, but I'm gonna make sure that it's my opposite leg. My less comfortable leg is now in front. So perhaps you can figure it out which one that is. Just roll a little side to side.

Remember we did this little walking thing. It was kind of funny. I sort of liked it. I don't know where it came from. It just felt good.

(Sarah laughs) Told you we were gonna rock and roll and twist and shout and see what happens. Anyhow, we're settling on both hip bones here and we're gonna open the heart with the hands behind you and fold forward. Breathe please. Hands behind you, open the heart. And forward.

And just one more time please. Hands behind you, open the heart and forward. And then we're gonna slip onto our other side. So you're gonna lie on your other side. I'll still face you.

Palm is down if that suits your body, you're resting your head on your arm, hovering your legs. Hips are stacked, shoulders are stacked. Abs are active. Here we go, we lift, yeah. So where's the movement coming from?

The legs are certainly moving, but the focus, the intention is that the abdominal obliques are moving you. So think about that. Feel free to balance if it suits you. Again, because I'm talking today, I'm just gonna keep my hand down so I can cue and also use my body correctly. Just one more here please.

We lift and we hold. We're gonna try to keep that intention, that integrity of the core as we just slip ourselves up onto our elbow. Resting on the elbow, supporting from here, lift the other leg up, hand behind your head, a little forward and a little back. So again, when we do our sidekick, generally we're trying to contain our movement a little bit. So you're not allowing your body to shift as much as it might want to.

You're not compensating, that's important. But then you can add an actual rotation and it feels quite lovely if it feels lovely and it does for me. So here, leg forward, heart open. So I'm actively rotating my thoracic spine. My pelvis is still staying pretty contained.

And then I'm gonna take my leg behind me and rotate looking down. Let's continue on, leaning into it with the spine and leaning forward. Actively rotating and reaching back. Quite frankly, I don't remember if I did the pulsing on the other side, but hopefully you do so you can can pulse or not pulse. Both would be okay.

Just one more time please. And reach back. Hug your knee into your chest. We'll come to a seat just one last time here. And just rock a little side to side on the tush.

Let's spin around. Have your legs out in front of you. And let's do a little bit of my favorite exercise. My very favorite exercise, the boomerang. So we're gonna play a little bit with this.

We've got the two legs are crossed, okay? So I've got one leg on top. I want you to avoid squeezing the feet. Try to squeeze your thighs toward one another and keep your feet somewhat pointed. Hollow out your belly a little bit and reach your arms forward.

Take a breath, decide how this feels. If this feels good, this position, you should be able to lean back with your core fully engaged and float those legs up without your body responding. That shows us that we're ready for it. So try that, feel that shape. Float the legs up.

Come forward. Try it again. We're gonna lean back. We're gonna float the legs up. We're gonna tap them down keeping the core, lift.

And one more time, lift, lower down. Let's change which leg is on top. That is the foundation in my opinion, for success of this exercise. So squeeze those inner inner thighs, round back through the belly. Lots of pieces working here.

So here I am I've rounded back. We'll try again. We're gonna round back, can we hold it? And can we lift? That's my harder side takes a little effort.

Come forward again. We're rounding back fully committed to the core, lifting those legs. And this time we'll round back and do three lifts, please. Round back, lift the legs three times. One, two and three.

Round yourself forward, beautiful. Okay, let's change which leg is crossed. And let's see what happens when we try to do some boomerang. So we're squeezing the thighs together. We reach forward with the arms.

If you don't know the exercise, you can feel free to watch. If you do, you'll follow along. Exhale, we round back, we roll over with the legs like this. And we hold that shape. We switch, which leg is crossed here.

Now we're gonna roll up to a teaser shape. So you're gonna roll your body down, find your balance in your teaser. Let's just reach the arms forward. Hold that shape you've got it. Use your belly as you come forward.

We repeat, inhale. Exhale we roll over. Switch which leg is crossed. And we're gonna roll up to a teaser with the legs crossed and we reach down. Let's try adding the shoulder stretch if it suits you.

If not, stick with what you're doing. Switch the legs. We roll ourselves up, we find it. We take the arms behind us and enjoy a nice little stretch. And then we reach forward, inhale.

Use a breath to roll over. Switch, and we're gonna roll up, finding our shape. Hands behind you, finding a stretch and release and come forward one more please. On each side that is, huh? Switch which leg is crossed?

We're gonna roll ourselves up. Some of you know I've been known to do an entire boomerang marathon. Not today, just a few boomerangs. And last one. Maybe one day we'll do a boomerang marathon let's be fun.

Should put it on a boomerang. Ooh, talking and doing boomerang is not good, Sarah. Here we go, we'll come up, we'll hold it, we'll stretch it and we'll release. Okay, let's come around onto our knees facing the front. With your two knees underneath you, you'll stand tall, opening through your heart, opening through the front of your body.

Reach the arms up, stretch over to one side, stretch over to the other side. Stretch over to the other side now reach toward the floor. You're endeavoring to reach the hand without actually fully side-bending yet. Reach, reach, reach and let's change. So I'm reaching one hand up and I'm reaching the other hand toward the floor.

And now I'm going to cartwheel. You're gonna cartwheel with me. Your two arms are stretching wide to the side. We're gonna reach one arm up as we cartwheel into the other arm. We're gonna send that top leg forward and send the bottom leg back.

And we're in a lovely little side plank. Use your inner thighs, use your body, breathe and enjoy. Let's undo this. Bring the knee underneath you. Reorganize that side bend really using your core and pressing your pelvis through.

Bring your leg in and we undo the cartwheel. Other side up and over side's harder for me. Here we go. Up and over we cartwheel in. We send the top leg forward, the bottom leg back, squeeze the thighs together and we hold.

Feel that? Undo it, you're trying to press your pelvis forward as you bring that knee underneath, you wanna press into hip extension. Bring that other leg in. Gonna see me struggle right here in front of you. There we go.

Hand up and over one more time. This time we're gonna stay one leg forward, other leg back. Squeeze, bend both knees have a soft seat. Heart is open, abs are active. We inhale to lift.

With an exhale, we lift the hips high and we twist reaching the arm through. Looking underneath your underarm, we unwind. We come back to that side plank. We take a very soft sweet seat. We inhale to reach.

Exhale up with the hips, reach through with the arm. Hold it for a beat or two or three or four. Unwind and have a soft seat. One more twist here we go. Inhale to reach exhale up and reach through.

Unwind, flip your hair back where it belongs. And have a soft seat. One last time, we're gonna come up to the plank. We're gonna come back and reverse that cartwheel. Press your pelvis through.

Gotta use a lot of glute right here to come up from that other side. Here we go, up and over, cartwheel down. Foot, foot, nice side body work gently bend. Inhale to reach, exhale, thread the arm through. Feel that stretch feel the twist.

Feel the work. And around, and have a soft seat. And inhale and reach through. So it's interesting this side is always a little harder for me, but by the third one, I always feel like what needs to show up begins to show up. It makes me wanna stay there one more time, but I won't do that today.

Let's have a soft seat. Now we're gonna go back through the cartwheel we lift up, we bring that knee in press. Really use the glute as you come back to your knees. Please let's spin around. We're in a quadriped to a plank, we hold, we lower ourselves to the floor.

Hands are outside of your shoulders. We inhale to full thoracic extension. We exhale to full extension and gently lower down. Couple more like that inhale. So that beautiful back body all the way up and down.

This time little swan push up. So you are gonna keep the energy through your body and gently bend your elbows until just your elbows touch. And we come right back to where we came from. Super supported in your upper back, super supported in your lower back by your abdominals. Two more here and one more here.

Gently lower yourself all the way down please. Take a beat, push yourself to your child's pose, rest pose, and pause for a few moments there. Breathing in and breathing out. Maybe you'll walk your hands over to one side and just stretch your side body for a moment. Not quite finished here.

Definitely cooling down though. Walking to the other side. Come back to center, hands and knees. Tuck your toes, lift your hips up nice and high. Feet are flat.

Walk your hands to your feet and be in a forward fold. Shake your head, relax your body. Bend your knees if you need. Keep them straight if you prefer you do you relax. Let's just roll ourselves up to standing one time here.

We are going to continue on a little bit longer. So reach your arms up high to the sky, opening your heart as you do. Take your arms down, let's roll down. Walk out to a downward dog position. Pressing your hips high.

Perhaps march a little bit or prance a little bit stretching one foot toward the floor, stretching that back leg. And then perhaps the other foot toward the floor. Breathing in and breathing out. Good, look between your hands. Step forward with one leg.

Lift yourself up to a nice lunge. I feel like I want less long of a lunge today. So I just brought my back foot in a little bit so I can really enjoy this. I've taken my arms up to the ceiling. I'd like to take my one arm down the same arm this leg is up.

And I'm just gonna reach over a little into a side bend there, breathing in and breathing out. And now there's one logical way to turn. So perhaps you'll have to change directions if it doesn't make sense to still face me. So I'm turning my two toes forward, looking straight on now. And I'm just gonna fold it my hips.

I'm basically a yoga stretch here, putting the hands down toward the floor. I'm starting with a flat back and pretty straight legs. And I'm doing a little bit of a side side from my pelvis to just feel the tissues that are tight. And then see if you can square your pelvis, aiming your tailbone backing up. Perhaps your fingertips are down or perhaps you can fold deeper and bring your crown of your head toward the floor, breathing in and breathing out.

And then come to a flat back again. Recovering your body here so that you don't get lightheaded when you come up. Take a breath and then flat back, round back. However you wanna get up just make sure your body is safe. We're gonna lift ourselves back up to where we came from.

Let's turn back where we came from, back to the lunge. Lifting the arms up again. And then take your hands down to the floor. Step back with that leg. And then we'll do the same thing on the other side.

Let's go up to a downward dog again before we do. Just take a little ease there. Rolling your head side to side, perhaps little easy stretch. And then bring your other leg forward. Hopefully you remember which one you just did.

And find a lunge that suits you. And today I'm just feeling like I want my lunge to be slightly less big so I can feel a little more stretch, a little less work. Both are great, but today it feels really nice to not be in such a big lunge. That's what I've chosen. So reach your arms straight up to the ceiling first.

Keep same arm as leg that is back up. And then take the other arm down and feel that nice little stretch through your whole side body, front body. Breathing in and breathing out. And then I'm going to face you again. So I'm just gonna switch just for the camera angle, but you can face the way or however you wanna do it.

I'm just going to quickly switch sides for you. It'll just look nicer if I turn to face you this way. There we go, okay? And now we'll take nice flat back once again and we'll fold forward. Hands can be on the floor with a flat back, exploring a little bit.

Second time around, maybe you'll bend your knees. Hmm, you just kinda do what feels good and then fully hang if that feels good releasing. Hmm, and then walk your feet slowly in just a bit and a bit until they're underneath your hips or slightly wider. If it feels good to you, allow your elbows to kinda cross your forearms to cross. And you can kind of swing and sway a little bit side to side.

And then bend your knees quite a lot, allowing your arms to relax. You might give a hug to the backs of your legs. If that works. And then slowly begin to roll yourself up to a sitting position or a standing position. Had a little wardrobe malfunction there.

I had to just adjust for a second, pardon me, to your feet underneath your hips. Just steep still for a moment, palms are open. Inhale the arms up. And as you exhale, just bring your fingertips together and allow them to kinda float down in front of your body. Like liquid breath, soft.

Inhale the arms up. You can look at your hands or you can close your eyes. And as you touch your fingertips together, I think it feels really nice to close my eyes. I'm floating this ball of energy past my mind, honoring my mind and my wellbeing. Honoring my heart's wellbeing.

And in my spirit center, my gut area. And let's do that one more time. Just take the arms up nice and flirtatious and relaxed. I like my eyes closed, my fingers together gently. I'm just swaying a little side to side that feels good.

Moving energy past my brain, my mental wellbeing, past my heart, wellbeing of my heart, and to my center as well. And in your own natural time, allow your arms to release that energy that was in your hands can flow to the rest of the world. Awaken your eyes when you feel ready. And I thank you all so very much for playing. I'll see you again soon.

Comments

Ruby A
3 people like this.
Really enjoyed this class, thank you Sarah. Love your fun energy! 
Julie Lloyd
1 person likes this.
Absolutely brilliant class, thank you Sarah!!
Meira H
1 person likes this.
Twist indeed :) Lovely class, thank you Sarah!
Sarah, seriously delicious mat class !  Love the pace and intentionality  of each  movement ... Many thanks !!
Norita
1 person likes this.
Excellent class Sarah. Thank you so much.
1 person likes this.
So excited to try this! 
1 person likes this.
Loved the boomerang preps! Always great to find a new fun class!
Gisela G
Great class! All my favorite rolling exercises
That was just the loveliest class! Thank you :)
Adam M
This shook up - in a good way - my mat routine. Thanks!
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