Playful Floor Mobility Mat

Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining me today for this. A bit of a mobility exploration is when I was planning it. It's not a workout. It it's not a session. I think just can you play? Can we get down on the ground and play? That's kinda from the spirit that I was creating this class, as well as rolling, but not dangerously on our spine.

So we're gonna be looking a little more lateral, movement and play. Have fun. Be open minded. We're gonna start lying on our back. You'll need a bolster like a yoga bolster or a big blanket or a big cozy pillow something that when you will do side lying between the knees and ankles completely, I happen to have my yoga bolster which is a wonderful, wonderful, comfortable prop.

So here we are. We're lying on her back. Out stretch your arms out stretch your legs. If you want, you can start with your arms higher and more like in an x shape for my body. It feels better if I'm a little more out here.

Slightly hinting toward an ex. Take up space. Take a breath. How can you, you know, take up space on floor? So we'll big breath in. Just let it go and exhale and just let it go, right? So before we get going and deepening the play, let's hone in our on our back in contact points.

So if we started our skull, there's the middle of the skull on the floor. You're not pushing it down. You're just noticing the weight of your your skull, coming down the back of your shoulder girdle and chest wall down to the base of your rib cage, rib eleven twelve. My two favorites, those floating ribs. They'll they'll wanna indulge in class maybe and do this maneuver.

And it feels so good sometimes, but I'm gonna ask us to we'll keep checking on that. To see if you can ask them to stay more bound on the floor or connected to the floor. Your sacrum, your pelvic halves, the back of your thighs, calves, heels. And just what does that feel like? Kinda nice. Right. So we'll start with our imprinting of our lumbar spine during the exhale.

So we'll take a big breath in. And when you exhale, really work your deep abdominal hun traction and see if you can get those lumbar vertebra to meet the floor, inhale, let it go. So I wanna have us feel like the the imprint of the lumbar is happening without a lot of extra pelvic movement. Now my we're gonna have relative movement of the pelvis because we are, but I'm not aiming it from my pelvis. I'm aiming it from my lumbar vertebra, right? And I wanna also, add, keep going.

We're all differently built, right? I've got some glute glute tissue here. So sometimes this part of me gets in the way of me being able to get my lower back down. So you just kind of to move that flesh sometimes. If you don't have such fleshy area, you're gonna your lumbar is probably gonna get the floor a little easier That could be a body type thing. Or if you're just not as mobile in your lumbar, you may be craving moving your hips.

I'll show you, like, hips to get your back down. See, that my back is down but that's not the feeling I want us to go with, right? Be a little more of gentle. So it's an exhale. Feel that difference. One more breath in. So get connected to your center area and hold it now.

Hold that. So that's at work. My rib eleven twelve are coming down. My lumbar are there. I don't have tension on my neck. Check your neck.

Yep. Feel how much stay with me. Stay connected. So also stay with it. I'm kind of getting a little connection of hips pulling toward ribs ribs moving toward hips. This band of strength around my center.

Stay with it a little bit longer. Okay? We're gonna need that through some of the movements in class here today or this section. Now, let it go feel the difference. One more, breathe in. Just an exhale like a three count, imprint one, imprint two, imprint three.

Notice I'm not saying scooping. I don't need you to hollow this out. You're just thinking about the bones getting closer. Okay. Wow. Now with that feeling, we're gonna do a leg slide So take a breath for a single leg.

I'm gonna use the one closest to you. And as I exhale and get that feeling, I'm just gonna drag the other leg up. Really relax foot and leg. Take a breath. Inprint first, please get your back anchored and connected and slide your long leg out.

Breathe in. Here first. And this is second. Inhale first. So we connect the center, then move the limb.

Two more. Breathe in. The goal is to keep the pelvis and trunk stable. Let's do the other leg four types. While we do this very easy but very common leg slide. Go from your center.

Move your limb. Breathe in. Exhale, ribs, sacrum, lumbar spine, and limb. So in Pilati, you talk about that often, right, work from the inside out. This is an interpretation of that, exploration of that, one more time.

Slide along leg is a fundamental Now we're gonna have a little fun with it. Take a breath. We're gonna begin to do two legs at the same time. Not all the way to tabletop, but we could. Get your back ready to maneuver the weight of both legs. Take a breath.

So getting your back to the floor, your stomach to your back before you move the weight of your limbs, right, two more. Reinhale. One more. Stay centered, exhale. Now, you know what? Let's go single right now.

We're gonna alternate So you notice someone out on a mat. We're on a nice, easy floor so you can move your legs easily. Yes. For how rooted are you in that lower lumbar, sacrum ribs eleven twelve, and then just rest both legs down. And then rest for a sec. Feel the do you feel that? It's so nice. Okay.

With your arms outstretched, right now, palms facing the ceiling, Keep a little imprint of your lumbar spine, ribs eleven twelve. And right now we're in external rotation of our arms which are in t position. It's right internally rotate your arms forearms and hands, but keep your collarbone expanded. That's our internal rotation of upper arm. Go back to external and internal.

I'm giving this because we're gonna allow this easy movement and shape and rhythm rhythm in the shoulder girdle momentarily. Right? So I wanted you to feel when there's external, when there's internal. Now do one and then the other and just pick and alternate So it's the arm bone moving ball and socket in that shoulder joint. Get your hand fully flat. There we go. And then one more, and you can leave your arms in external rotation.

Wonderful. Slide both legs up. Take a breath through your nose. We're gonna do some leg slides, so my feet are apart fairly wide. I want you to drop your knees or sway your knees to one side. Take a moment before we bring our legs back up, use that feeling in your center to move the weight of those legs.

Inhale, same side, exhale, and lower the legs. Now my rib eleven twelve on one side back here is intentionally off the floor. This side is on the floor. Keep it there. Exale from your center, bring your legs back. Let's do an inhale to drop and exhale.

I want you to think of that and feel that as your ab workout. Knees drop. Exale get in there. Other side for four. So as I drop my knees over, this side of my back, of course, is coming off the floor.

The other is on. Inhale, they sway to the side. That's the inhale breath. Inhale, they drop, legs are very relaxed. One more. And then, of course, we'll alternate, right?

Feeling that weight shift and change. So let's go inhale first side, exhale center. Inhale second side. So if you're someone who wants to condition your abdominal area and you don't wanna lift your head up a lot and do crunchy moves or flexion moves, if you're not if you're told not to, this is a way It's kinda nice. It's different.

One more, but there's beautiful rotation rhythm occurring in the spine. And last one. And now we're gonna add on to that drop your knees to one side. Here we go. The lake that's closest to the ceiling, let it make an arc and swish up kind of around up to this hand. It's a big stretch for your hip and let it swish back where it started.

Let's repeat that. Lead drop. I'm gonna call it a swish and a swish. Now this is an unswish This is where those arms might internally and externally rotate. Right? So the one I'm coming to is staying in external. The other arm, I'll do one more to show that with you.

Is moving gently in naturally into internal rotation. I think you can see that. I'm gonna do the other side now. So I drop and swish. Unswish.

It's this front arm that changes it internally rotates a little bit against the movement and motion of the other side. I know I did five. I've been trying to do fours. We'll do two more to make it five. Okay. Yeah.

And swish and unswish alternating sides, inhale, exhale, inhale exhale from the tummy. Let's just inhale. Exhale from the tummy. Inhale swish, unswish, and swish four more. Are you getting the feeling everybody? It's playful. You're rocking.

You're opening. You are mobilizing different way to mobilize. We've got last one now over and and then just give it a rest. Feel what you feel. And just pause for a moment. Stretch your legs out.

Now we're gonna connect upper body to lower body. Take a breath. Let's use exhale and bring your knee and your elbow toward one another without side bending. And stretch him back out. Inhale, use this as the exhale, knee to elbow. Inhale stretch him out, couple more.

So I may not be fully imprinting any longer, but I'm doing the feeling of it. No side bending. You should be feeling a little more of your side abs, okay, other side. Oh, My limbs come off the floor when I do that. Yours may or may not. You don't have to lift them.

You can. Try to keep your spine elongated and stable here. One more. Now we get it outside flexion first side. And I'm also gonna let my head and torso move.

I'm watching my elbow in heel stretch. Same side for three more. You feel that side body activation, getting some nice mobility on your side and in, and four more. Other side for four. El woe to knee.

So these are the oblique muscles everybody and side bending body muscles. And important to get these side bends Keep your self stretch. It gets fun when we alternate. Here we go. Other side.

So I'm doing eight and I want you to exhale into that feeling in your center. As if you were imprinting the floor for four more. Notice there's that little internal, external rotation of your arm that remains on the floor. Last time, and out stretch and then just relax. How are you feeling? It's kind of fun. Right? Okay.

So now roll to inside. Let's get our pillow or our bolster. Okay? We get to go in this really wonderful side lying series. So how I am organized this, everybody is clam ish shape of your legs, bring your bolster or your blanket very close-up to you. Inner thigh all the way down so your ankles are on. Hands behind your head.

Let your head relax. So I want you to take rotation. So lengthen your spine out the tip of the head and tail first. Did you see how much longer I got And then as I rotate my upper body first, I have a light squeeze with my legs against the bolster and just open the shape. So we're stretching the obliques and chest Now how are you gonna get back to side lying without momentum through your top elbow? You got it. It's through your center. Take a breath first.

So if I activate that middle, it just is like the key and the engine, it just allows me to start moving back to where we went. Came from. So we open. I'm just watching the ceiling. Try to make that relatively smooth inhale and exhale. It's quite a bit of ab work.

I will admit, and it's nice. You don't have to chest, lift all the time, take a breath. So we're remaining very long in the abs. We're not shortening. Right? And one more, and then it gets fun. And close that shape. So we'll do it again starting up her body, inhale open, like her book opener now.

Stay there. Add the legs coming. Let your feet fully feel the floor. Don't look. Hopefully your legs are underneath your pelvis relatively in alignment. If they're not, it's it's okay.

Bringing the legs back Oh, and then the upper body back. Ready? Inhale. Inhale legs. You're gonna need it. Exale full body, couple more, and then we'll do both together.

So we're separating our upper and lower body. Different portions of the abdominal wall and spinal wall. Last one open and close lower body and rotate two together upper and lower body. We're preparing for something in a moment where you're gonna need some upper body connection. One more both together and both together That's they're getting tired.

That's good. Okay. And then rest. So I'm gonna turn my body to face you still from my other side. Interesting, isn't it? Okay. So here we are. Hugging that bolster way up on the inner thigh, knees, ankles. Okay? So I'm gonna let my upper body rotate first.

Take a moment to inhale and then close as a exhale. Now I will be honest with you all watching because I've got an interesting arm pack on my arm. I'm not able that's okay though. To get my my body fully down. You get what's happening.

We make arrangements here in the studio for our technical equipment, right? But if you because you don't have that on your arm, I want you to really take that arm to the floor. I'm still getting a workout. Don't you worry and we come back to center. Okay? Now let's go upper body.

That's the breath in engage your legs to your bolster, exhale and bring yourself around feet land. Now return legs. Here we go. Center to pick you up. And again, upper body and lower body and lower body and upper body. Good. Couple more open. Lower body upper body.

And the reason for the whole the prop being all the way between the ankles is we need that line continuous. Not just a yoga block between the knees, but all the way down. Okay. Oh, boy. This is getting tired. It's so good. Two at the same time. Upper body lower body upper body lower body and last one inhale exhale inhale exhale, exhale upper and lower at the same time? Did we make it? We did? Okay. And then rest.

How did that feel? I hope that's kind of fun. So roll yourself up. Move your prop back out of your way. Now I told you at the beginning this was some play, right? I'm gonna lie on my back with my head facing you.

I you won't be able to see you anyway. We are gonna do a little bit of a log roll type of move. Okay? You've already done upper body lower body. So we are starting this way with the knees bent feet flat, somewhat open, hands behind the head. Okay. Get long in your spine.

Need drops first. That's a breath in. Here goes your upper body but now we're gonna turn ourselves all the way on our stomach. You can put your hands down if you need to. Think swan.

In fact, let's do a little baby swan and come back down. Now I wanna keep rolling that way. So one arm is going on the diagonal, stretch your shoulder, pick of your legs, try to get back into that shape. See, I'm a little crooked. It's okay. I'm gonna slide myself center other direction. So it's knees lower body, upper body, swing around.

Now if you don't have to put your hands on the floor, try not to, then do for your swan. Okay. We'll do a couple more each side. Now I wanna go toward that direction. So I need to reach one arm, roll onto it and get back to the start position. Let's play legs, upper body, prone, I did it, and extend, and lower.

Reach to this diagonal. The other hand can maybe push you back around to get you back to center. Again, legs, upper body. If you don't have to put your hands, you just did it. Use your trunk muscles to help you roll. A little bit of a swan. Right now I have to go back that direction so I need the other arm.

And I can push with this one to get me back. Let's go for one more. Have a little fun. Maybe we don't have to make it so stop and start to see if you just flow how much different it can be if you just play Right, lift, and all the way around. Exactly. Okay. Now I'm gonna borrow something from What I learned with Kathy Grant's work, a bit of it is a side sit up.

We're gonna do something in a side sit up lamp. So we already been doing it, but I'm gonna break it apart. So take one hand on the floor The other hand wrapped around you, I'm in my sideline position. Now, I don't know about you. I get out of bed from the side every day, and I do a little side push up to get out of bed every day.

And every day, I think about god I'm really glad I learned how to do that pushing with the single arm. Now my other arm's not doing anything to help me. Yes, I'm stretching this leg out but the intention is I'm getting up. I'm going somewhere. Right? Yes. We could just sit here and pump our arm and do tricep push ups, but I'm in that idea because we're getting ready to move a little bit. Right? See if you can get most of the work from your arm and your trunk And that feeling we had in our center couple more yep. And I I feel like a little ragdoll on us and is nice and loosey goose.

Okay? So I'm in this interesting shape with one leg straight, one leg bent. We'll play with that on the other side. So swing your legs coming down. The bottom arm is bent underneath you. Heads up a little bit. Your your head's off your pillow.

Here you go. Press stretch your leg and sit. Oh, back down. So again, it's primarily from arm and trunk, but I'm letting some rhythm in my whole body get me up out of bed and down. I'm not even joking with this every day. It's this side I get up out of with this arm and I just smile to myself and my god, Kathy Grant, Gotta love that lady.

I wonder if she told told people it was to help get out of bed. Dear Kathy, give me a message. 7. And then the last one where we'll stay up. Okay. And the last one when you stay up, stay up and really see how you're sitting on your tushy.

Okay? Now let's get our feet this way. We're gonna go back down and review just one thing quick. These knee drops with a bigger sway. Just see how much more mobility you have in your back hopefully a lot more So I'm really letting my legs swing and I'm gonna turn and look in the direction of that foot. I want my back really round. Okay.

Something really wacky's coming guys. So if this is wacky enough, you can stay here, but we're gonna play and make a little rolling on the ground, right? Which we've been doing. So here's what happens. Come all the way up. So I wanna start you wanna watch me maybe first.

I'm gonna go from the KG sit up. Cathy Grant, Kathy Stanford Grant and sit up here. And I've gotta stretch myself. I wanna roll over to the one side onto my back and keep going. There's me getting out of bed. I'm gonna sit on both cheeks Well, going over, roll on my back and repeat it. So we're kind of making this circle in space.

I'm rolling on my back but I'm also using my arms to help slow me down. I'm gonna keep going in the same direction. Kathy Grant sit up. You're sitting going to the other side, roll on your back. Kathy Grant sit up.

One more and voila. Oh, other side. See? You don't have to roll like a ball all the time. Alright. We can roll this way. So I'm gonna do Kathy Grant.

On my buttocks. Keep going to the same side. We roll. Kathy Graham. I think she called these clown rolling.

I'm borrowing here. But making it a little Amy havens. I think about I mean, of course I wouldn't do this in bed but that first initial movement of getting out of bed. But do you see how we're also kind of playing with some falling practice? Maybe that's another class. One more time.

Get yourself all the way around. Use that arm to help you get up. Nice. One last thing. Grab your bolster. Grab that bolster or blanket.

Get cozy. Souls the feet together. Bring it way up into your body. Give it a hug. You can hug your ankles too and just calm the nervous system.

We've done a lot of movement, but playful and just feel what you feel as you settle in and let your head really relax. And roll up to sitting just stay kinda hugging your pillow or blanket. And you can close your eyes. My eyes are closed. It feels good right now to close that, off that vision.

To just feel what you explored, there was flexion in there There was extension in there. There was lateral flexion. There was rotation and a full complete spiral, right, and left. So in our pilates practice, we really do try to get all the ranges of movement in our spine Right? So this mobility play is exactly that. It's playful. I'd encourage everyone to try to get down on the ground more often.

I'm gonna say that too as as we're aging, I'm the one in there. It's it's we gotta stay down here. We've gotta stay mobile and these joints and these limbs and Have fun, right, and get grounded on the ground. So thank you. Let me know how that felt for you. Happy to answer any questions too. Thanks, everybody.

I'll see you next time.