Return To Life To Bring Life

Hi. I'm Ashley, and I am gonna take you through a prenatal mat class. I like to call it return to life to bring life because it's modeled after Joe's classical Matt series. But modified for a pregnant body at any stage of your pregnancy. Let's get started. So standing on your mat, feet together, inner thighs zippered for a standing hundred.

So imagine you're lying on your back, but we're gonna be upright and challenging the movement of or I should say the stabilizing of our body by the movement of our arms. Breathing in? And out. So your arms are trying to destabilize you while your breath and your funneling of everything into the center and outward long along the spine keeps you nice and stable. Breathing in, getting taller with each pump. It's like we're pumping air into each vertebrae, and two more breaths.

Get it all moving. Feel the wind on the side of your body. Squeeze those legs together. One more. And rest.

It's almost like you could take off. Right? So let's go into a the roll up still standing and arms to the ceiling. So I'm imagining my mat behind me as if I'm lying down, peeling the head with the arms, rounding forward, lots of hamstring work here versus hamstring stretch, and rolling back up, zippering those inner thighs. And again, two more times, rounding forward, letting the head reach towards the toes, but not dropping into it, zippering those inner thighs, and coming back up to stand. Which would be like lying down on the mat. Last one up and over.

Imagine a big barrel, and then rolling back up to that long, tall position. For one leg circle, we'll do a little balance challenge. Facing you, my arms are out to the side for balance, and then I'm taking one leg forward. And let's circle that leg in front of the body and to the side of the body. A little wobble is okay, but the arms are there create that balance. Four, five, and reversing. Open and around.

Really stabilizing on the left leg as you circle the right And last one, arms can come down for a moment, reset. So feel that pelvis over the right leg. Arms are here strong glass to support and circle. The left. Five times getting tall with each circle, and five and reverse. You can see a lot of stabilizing going on in my ankle, my knee, my hip, woo, and one more.

And rest. It's called a balance challenge for a reason. Right? So now we're coming down to the ground, and let's just come down in a mindful way that's safe for if a very pregnant body. Doing a deep, deep squat, bringing my hands to the ground one knee and then the other knee. Swing the legs around for saw.

So skipping forward. My heels are hugging into the mat a little bit, sitting tall. You can always sit on something if you need a little extra help to lift out of the low back. Arms to a t. Rotate to the left. Reach your right fingers to your right toes. So this isn't about a huge bend or a huge twist. It's just about finding that lift and finding what mobility we have while you keep that inner thigh connection of heels hugging towards each other. Coming up and center. Reach towards the right toes right heel, but keep that right hip back as you reach and coming up and center.

Rotate. The left hip stays back as the left fingertips reach over those toes up and one more. So we've got some rotation. We've got some flexion and lateral side bend. Last time arms are reaching away from each other as you lean a little more into the left, heavy through the right hip to come up and rest. For shoulder bridge, we'll do a bit of a table variation.

My fingers are facing away from each other, just a little kinder on the shoulders, and pressing into the feet hip distance, lift up, finding this nice bridge, hold and lower down with control. You might feel like you wanna just do regular shoulder bridge, shoulders on the ground, and hips going up and down. That's usually safe for all stages of pregnancy, but this is a nice variation without having to lie all the way down. Let's try kicks. You can just keep going with what I just did or add in a little single leg kick. Like doesn't have to be perfectly straight, but we're finding that extension of the hip, and then lifting from that hip flexor pushing up out of the arms, bring the leg back, and then the other side.

Stretch that leg out as far as you can and lift and kicking that leg up and down, finding that hip extension, and then lifting from there, bring the heel back under the knee, lift for one last moment up out of the shoulders and lower back down. Spine twist, legs are straight, and they're glued together hard flex of the feet. Arms out to a tee. Inhale as you exhale and twist, let your right heel go further past your left. I know. Totally different than any other time we do it. But this is a way for us to rotate, but not make it about a huge twist where baby is growing and expanding, but taking your pelvis with you and feeling that glide through the pelvis as you look behind you.

Exhale right heel reaches past the left. Inhale, exhale, left heel reaches past the right and back to center to go into side kicks. Lie on your left side, propping your head into your hand, and legs are slightly forward on an angle. Both hands behind the head, of course, you can put your hand forward if you need a little more balance. I'm pressing into my left elbow, my left leg kicking front, and back five times front, and back. Little bit of counter balance as the leg goes.

But staying long and lengthened one more and back leg over leg coming up and over to the other side. So right side on the mat had propped into that right hand, legs a little bit forward, and hands behind the head. Find the length as you lift the left leg and kick it front and back. Finding again that rotation, slight counterbalance rotation as the leg goes back. Five times, last one, and leg over leg.

Coming into some kneeling side kicks. So find yourself centered on your mat, onto the knees, and we just use the left leg, so we're gonna start with the right. Left palm onto the ground, right leg extended. Pushing the ground away and right hand behind the head creating a little length for yourself. Lift the left, the right leg, and lower.

Lift and lower. Keep the hips stacked over that left knee and hip, and then holding here little circles, two, finding length, three, four, five reverse for five, four, three, two. One, use your side body to come back up, and we'll go to the other side. Right palm down. Weight is over this left knee.

Hand behind the hand as you extend the left leg long. And just lifting and lowering to work the stability of that right side. And two, one more and hold at the top, circle for five. Two. Three finding length. Five, reverse.

Two, three, four. Five and using your side to bring you up. Little extra balance challenge there. Side bend. So you can absolutely do this on your knees. So I'm gonna show the full thing because I think it could be available to you. Also option to stagger the feet. So pressing into your left palm, soft bend in the knees, lift the hips, push into that side of the left foot, lift your hips and arch your body up and over, bend the knees and come down with control.

And again, pressing up. So option to have the feet staggered, and also option to just have the knees bent and staying on the shins. So one last time, breathing in, lifting that waist up and over and bending to control the down. Let's bring the legs to the other side. And flex feet, hard flex, so you get and end up on that nice edge side of the foot. Pushing into the right palm, pushing into the side of the right leg, and then lifting the hips as you bend up and over, and controlling to come down two more times, up and push the ground away and control the down one more.

Press and lift and lower with control. Carefully, coming up to stand, same way we got down on all fours, but one foot steps forward and then the other, and coming up to step to the back of the mat for push ups. Let's take a hip distance position. We're gonna end up in a down dog, not actually a push up. Arms come up. Spine rolls down with control. When you get to the bottom, absolutely can bend the knees.

Walk out and stop when you reach a down dog or elephant position. You can have the leg straight if that's available. Bending the knees can give you a little more length through your low back and pelvis. Use your hands to walk you back. So you've got that upper body weight.

And roll up two more times, arms come up, and rolling down. When the hands find the floor, walk out, shifting your hips forward of your feet, find that elephant position, breathe in, and then using a strong exhale, push back from your hands, working that upper body, and rolling up last time. As you round forward, feel the length of the back body as your hands walk out, feel the stretch to the front of the shoulders, breathe, and then walking back through those arms, roll up all the way. Lift and lower the arms. Hopefully, you feel nice and centered connected to your body and that you still held on to some of the traditional work.

Thank you.