Class #603

Back Body Mat

55 min - Class
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Description

Play with the idea of working the front of your body by focusing on the back of your body. Experiment with a few exercises with this as the focus then it's back to the ones you know like Spine Stretch, Open Leg Rocker, Mermaid, Side Bend, and Push Up.
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

Jan 10, 2012
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Transcript

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Shall we begin sitting up tall? So you're going to sit right up on your sits bones, scooting yourself forward. Mine, move forward a little bit. So you're kind of in the middle of your mat. There we go. Holding on underneath and following Andy's Lee. Just check in with your self. Check in with your body.

Loosen up where you need to shake. Take notice of what needs some attention and maybe you don't know yet. So let's hold on relatively strongly. That means activate the biceps, activate the muscles of the upper back, and all you have to do there is to allow your body to remain tall. Take a deep breath in, filling up and as you exhale, see if you can exhale all your air without shrinking at all and see what you notice. Where do you feel the tightness or the contraction or what? Inhale fill up [inaudible] feeling expansion in your body. Exhale, letting go.

We're going to kind of use the breath as the the tool for expansion. Inhale, filling up [inaudible] and exhale. Can you feel a little back of the neck long if you can imagine, or if you can sense the tip of your nose. Just keep breathing. Draw a little line ever so slightly down to feel length to the back of your neck. Exhaling your feet if you'll look at them, they're straight ahead. I'm thinking about sits bones, distance. It's four or five inches there on this next, well, we'll roll back. Let's just warm up the spine. Rounding it to roll back. Go ahead, Tim. About mid back. Good, good, good. Inhale, exhale.

Come forward holding back at the low belly and then stack your spine. I'm going to move a little bit quicker now. Inhale, exhale. You'll feel the hip bones draw backwards as you roll back and inhale, exhale. Actually use your arms, but try to hold the waistline back so you can. It's okay to work the arms here, right? It's not going to do much, but it gives you a sense of opposition. Exhale down, so resist your way down. Checking with the shoulders. Collarbones are wide. Inhale, exhale forward and stack your spine at the top in here.

Thinking about blowing out all the a, prove it to yourself. Keep blowing it out. If you've got more, inhale and exhale. It's true. You kind of have to get all the air up to match the motion too. That's part of the dance. Exhale down. Now that you're down here, draw your feet in a little bit closer. Check that your tailbone is not tucked to go down a little bit more.

Modsy about mid back. That's it. Everybody released the tailbone and then go ahead and tuck it will XL tuck. Inhale, release. Exhale, draw the abs in. And Chuck, let's do it again. So the upper body's not going to move. You're going to bring the pelvis toward you, pubic bone towards you and release.

Try to do it without any additional pressure on your feet and release. One more time. Exhale, tuck. Inhale, release a tailbone. And on this exhale, trying to keep your feet where you have them. Exhale and roll up to find your way back up. Tall, rotating towards the front.

So you're going to take the hand that was in back and hold onto the front. So it looks like that. All right. If you need more room, you can for crowded sake, you can move your feet out from here so you've, you're on that rotation. We exhale and roll down and again, resist using the arm a little bit or I should say, use the arm as resistance. Inhale. Exhale. As you pull yourself forward, the arms you pulled back with the obliques there, right? And then you can lighten up and straighten up. Inhale. Here we go. Exhale back. Good, good, good. Inhale, loving it at. Exhale, pull with the arms, but try to create your own sense of opposition.

Just one more for three and exhale, right? It feels a little hot already. Inhale and exhale. If we go stacking your spine, switch to the other side. Inhale and exhale. Resist. Like someone's pulled, like you are pulling yourself back at the waist. Inhale, how much resistance in the middle can you get? Exhale, come, foe and straight NA inhale, exhale, feeling the motion come from the spine, right are from the pelvis. Maybe inhale, start pulling with the arms, but try not to let the spine come up.

And in fact it's going to one more time. Inhale and exhale. Inhale there and exhale, blowing out all the air. That's how we're going to get those muscles stronger. Come back to the center and we'll roll down all the way. [inaudible] drawing your feet a little closer to your glutes. Arms pressed into the ground.

Open up the chest. Inhale, exhale. We roll through the pelvis, minimizing use of the feet all the way up the spine to the shoulder blades. Hang out there. Check out your body here. This is another great place to look to see where do I need to stretch out? Maybe the front of the hips. When you're ready. Taken. Inhale, press the upper arms into the mat and roll down. Trying to feel the whole backside of your body. Inhale, exhale to Rola.

So in a way don't think about the front of your body. You'll get that work. That's a nice Juliana. You can talk a little bit more. Juliana right at the top. Inhale and exhale to come back down. Upper back, middle back, lower back, and then at the top. Hop here. Try to feel the back of the shoulders pressing into the mat. Inhale, go a little slower. Start, go up, come back down. Now exhale and peel up one piece at a time, so you're going to round your back.

There you go. And you can just stop there. Blow up, inhale, hold. Beautiful, and then exhale, roll down. There you go. That was the part that was missing before. One more. Take your time. Inhale, perfect. Start excelling. Feel the low back there. Go. Oh the way it is. A top little Mark. There you go. Inhale, hold. You can still talk a little more Juliana and exhale down and we go right from their hands. Come out to a tee position for now. Just zip up the legs to the feet and knees are together. Tailbone neutral.

It doesn't mean your low back will be on the ground. It may not be coming towards the window. We inhale two, rotates a both arms. Put the focus right now in the pressing of the arms or the back of the shoulder into the ground. Please start. Exhaling. You rotate. Bringing the knees back to center. Nice and easy. Go the other way, the feet stack. So they're lined up as if they're one. Press the upper arm in the sh into the mat. Exhale back to center, one more each way like that. So it's as if you had one knee.

I kind of go up on the toes. This looks good though. And exhale. I'm still kind of on the keep thinking of the back of the body. So as you're there in the back, the first thing you feel is the back of the rib cage being almost forced down right now. That was the second side, right? So bring up both legs. You could keep it down. Make sure you feel the back of the shoulders down. Let's do it again to the front. Inhale, start the exhale. Feel the ribs.

Press in trying to feel that sensation more than anything else tonight. See if it's different for you. Exhale, feel the ribs pressing. I'm trying to avoid a big swivel of the hips. Again, inhale, two, exhale for resting down the last one. Inhale, the inner thigh bones are pressing together and exhale. From there we press the, take the feet down, curl up to reach behind the legs, pull with the arms. But as you do, press down with the abs Z what you can get. It's all you. Inhale. Exhale, come up maybe two inches.

Don't move the tailbone until you have to grab a little higher. Perhaps. Exhale, pull up two more inches. Inhale, exhale, pull up two more inches. Oh, that's the fun part. Watch the shoulders. Inhale. Exhale, sink the belly. That's what gives you the stretch. Squeeze the glutes. It will help. And you can finish rolling all the way. Oh, should I open the door? There's like a little minute. Okay. There's hesitation. So I'm gonna wait, I'll let you build a sweat. Not yet. You're concentrating. Okay, so let's keep the feet together and go on down just to shoulder blades about.

Everyone's a little different, right? I'm really aiming for if when you look at your body, so do that. You're looking for the longest trunk you can get, but with the deep flection right under the chest. So it's a difference between this. This is one way, but it's not what I'm going for. You want to get this much length while contracting from there.

Slide the feet in low, closer. You're on your tip toes, but nothing else changes. Inhale, that's the right light on the exhale. Sink the belly first. Watch it as the other leg floats up. Inhale, that leg goes down. Same side. Exhale, sink the belly without letting the pelvis move again, same side, so it's not just a slow breath, it's rather deep contraction. If you're not sure, put your hands on your waist. I'm doing one more on that side. What pelvis is neutral, neutral news. Let's switch sides. You know if you can, if it's, if it's something you have to do to relieve tension, that's cool. Rather try to do it from the upper end. Did I say switch sides? I meant to. There's three pushing it down. The leg is light as a feather.

Four and five leg is down in. He'll grab the legs or not, and exhale to roll up. When you roll up all the way. Of course there is tuck and ball. Right? Okay. Inhale, exhale. Down we go. All the way this time. Take the hands behind your head. Make your feet comfy and again, take a moment as best you can and don't do anything to hurt yourself, but press the whole back of your body. That's touching now into the ground.

Feel the bottoms of your feet through your sacrum. Pressing in. Feel the back of the ribs pressing. Can you also press the shoulders and can you press the elbows in? Not everybody could do that part and that's okay. Press the back of the head in. Yeah, you have to kind of use the front to do that. Don't you think? No.

Okay. All right. From here. So you do. I know it. I'm just going to say you said yes, I mean, right. Cut that. Alright. Chin Everett. No, not chin. Nose. Slightly down. That's it. Don't change your neck from here on out. Okay. Still roll. Rola just to the shoulder blades. Chesler press your head backwards.

Curl up a tiny bit more. Inhale. Exhale, rotate front. So it's that back shoulder. Reach into the front hip. Now stay here and press the forward shoulder down into the ground to rotate you more on that diagonal there. Yeah, come through the center. We'll go the other way. Now the shoulders. Well that's in the back precedent in the ground. Literally present down.

Come on. You feel that? Oh my God. You guys are not giving me anything. Come through the center and take it down. Really? I promise you I just cramped. What can I say? What can I say to you to make you feel that you feel it? All right, let's do it again. Inhale. They're always like this, man. I can't. You want to see me cramp more? Yeah, you notice him up now. I'm like, I wasn't the short when I started. I'll give you, okay. Exhale. Curl up. I think I was a inhale. Exhale, rotate towards me. You're great. Okay.

Just to prove a point. Maybe take that forward on. Put it out in a T position. Okay. Put it on tee position. Right. That forward arm. Push into it. Push into it. How on take the other hand. Reach it forward and touching the thigh. So this is what I'm doing right and slide forward into it.

But this is the arm I want you to focus on. Push it into the ground. Okay, good. Then put them back. Come through and go the other way. Right. Tee position. Slice it or both. Hips level. You got to check for that. Breathe however you want. Cause I got other things to say. Yeah, he's pressed into that bottom arm. Put your arms back, come back to center and take it down. I know I was afraid I wasn't going to know how to cue it so I didn't start that way. But it does help to put in a T. okay, so let's do it again. It starting from the tee position. Check this out. Um, other arm up. So, so your forward arm is in a T? Yeah, the other arm is straight up. Yeah. All right. Probably a better way to do this.

Sorry, both arms up. This is why I didn't start this way. Curl up, reaching forward so that you've got your, your good curl. Now put that arm in at T. okay. And push into it to rotate over, push into it, push into it, push into it and just lay back down. I changed my mind like the first way, pushing into the back of the arm that's on the ground. Don't even worry about how you're going to get up.

Don't even just roll up pushing from that arm as if that's how you are going to get up. Everything else can even think about nothing or relax. Come on forward with that arm forward with the arm and down again. It's like you're just same side, same side, same side. Come again. Is it just rolling? But do the way you get up isn't, don't think abs. Just starting to think out. Push into that forward arm. Yes.

Yeah, exactly. Almost right there. Now that's it. That's it. So you get over here and then push dad down. You gotta be feeling that and other side switch side of it. So I liked it better with the TCE down, other arm up and just roll towards it. Now just let me just do a subtle swivel.

Reach using that arm to push you over there. Nice. And then come back. Lovely. And again, two more rolling into it. You're using the right arm that has it feel like if you were to continue getting same side, same time, not alternating. I'm just doing three on each. If you were to actually get off the floor to use that right arm, you would, or the back arm I should say, and down. Last one coming up. That's okay. Keep alternating. If you started that way, that looks great. Debra.

All I want to do is just wait this side, but I think you're pretty in and then bring it home. Nice. Mod. Very good. Okay. Keeping or take both arms up, stretch out your legs and from here press the back. Your shoulders into the mat is come, you know, without straining, look forward. Press the upper back into the mat and continue up, up, up, up. Keep the curve of your low back. There you go. Nice. Inhale, exhale, roll back. Move from the pelvis is the spinal exercise.

We're going to speed this up. Now that we have the idea, the arms reach all the way and inhale the arms come forward. Exhale to continue reaching forward. Hold. Squeeze everything in the middle, but soften through the arms. They'll keep them straight and down you go. Nice. Nice, nice. And inhale. Exhaling up. Good. Nice. Very good. Inhale, hold. Energize your arms just a little there, huh? And exhale down.

We go. Keep talking all the way and when you reach back me. Sure. You don't arch the upper back. Here we go. Let's get two more. Aaron looks beautiful. I run and urine to inhale and exhale down. Jimmy, you can put your feet totally together just to complete the picture and up we come. Yeah, and you get, when you squeeze to the upper inner thigh, it really does help.

This time we're going to roll back all the way and once again, go into the T position or a low V would work. Let's bring the back knee up. You might want to hug it for a second. Give it a quick hug. Give it a gentle stretch. That's probably a good idea. In fact, do this as you're holding it, whether or not you can get to straight right now, that's not a big deal. In fact, don't worry about too much. If you can, you should then curl up just enough to look at the line of your hips.

And what I'm talking about is basically right where the shirts ending. The temptation would be to hike that hip so you wanted, as you hold onto that leg, draw the hip downward a bit. Okay, give it that little stretch. And then just while we're here, let's just change sides so we get, not don't, I was going to say get it out of the way. I don't mean it that way, but it's sort of a nice loosening up. Take the little stretch and then just look at it and probably you'll have to reach the hip downward a little bit. Since this one's up. Now go ahead and let your head go down. Arms down in that T. press them into the ground. There's your anchor. Flex the top leg, pressing the back leg down. Here we go. Circle around. Inhale, same direction.

Exhale. Inhale around key. I'm keeping the leg parallel. Exhale, doing four cycles. Inhale, two. Exhale. One more. Inhale and exhale. Go the other way. Inhale around up. Exhale around. The energy is almost more on the stabilizers and last cycle and quite the toe and the knee and crossover, right? Stretch.

Good. Come on back. Let's bring the other leg up so you imprint your body into the ground so that the leg in the air can be free. Let's go. Crossing the midline of the body. We inhale around, boom, same direction, X, and in looking for freedom in the hip, inhale to exhale, a cycle. Inhale to exhale. Switching sides. Inhale, check your neck. Is it easy X in letting the leg be heavy in the hips in to go.

Oh, last cycle in to go. Oh, point the toe. Bend the knee and crossover. All right, we come back and slide the legs down. Uh, take a minute and just allow your, well, squeeze your glutes so we're in. Our legs are straightened together. Squeeze the glutes so it's like you're shrinking the hips inward.

Then so just you can put the arms by your side. I think that'll make it easier. We're going to lift the sternum almost like we're going to come on the back of the head. So I'm actually lifting up my upper body, trying to just focus on the upper back, not very high, and then settle it back down. So essentially, so you're back in flat again. All I'm trying to do is not move the hips at all. Lifting the sternum to give that little bit of extension in the back. You can use your arms with, keep them straight.

I'm not trying to go into a full, I forgot what it's called. Fish or something in yoga and flatten out one more time or yeah, flattened first and then as it used, if you can just the muscles of the back so it's not really coming from the arms. It says this, the sternum is trying to reach out over your face. Good in the glutes. Being tight is important so you don't go into your low back, then settle it down with that float the arms up just above your chest as if you were hugging someone. The thing we look forward, lower the arms, exhale to come up. [inaudible] so check in with yourself. Are you strong in the middle still? If so, it should be easy to just put your hands by your hips.

Scoop forward to pick it up. The feet ready for rolling like a ball. Nothing changes. Here we go. Roll back. Inhale, exhale, nothing changes. Trying to avoid the wobble as much as possible. Easiest way to do that is cheaping the chain. Absolutely consistent. Inhale back. Exhale, left. Inhale back. Make it so you're just thinking about rolling.

You're not tossing anything. If it's easy, you go a little tighter or you enjoy it. One of the two and I Sandy, maybe soften the shoulders a little Andy, but I liked the position a lot. Last one. And if you go down, back yourself, up a little, picking up your, well actually let's pick up the feet again. So you're still in sort of a ball like position, but hands at your knees this time. Push yourself, your knees into your hands to slowly roll down to your shoulder blades. I'm going to do this in phases. So first of all, try and press the back of the shoulders to the ground.

They're not going to get there, but they'll be close. Keep the knees at the angle. They are let go in health tip. Touch the toes, barely Xcel. Bring it back up. Inhale, touch. You can reach as far back as you want X here, but you cannot move your body in Hilton. And as you come up, make sure your butt's tight and you're not moving your hips. Inhale, touch, exhale. Look at your abs a little bit here and make sure they start or the breath starts. Let's change it. If you want to, you would go down, you'd stretch out and come back. Sorry for the late cue, you'd go down, you'd stretch out. But if you stretch out, you cannot move the low belly, right? So there's an option here that's too much and you feel yourself changing the spine. You shouldn't do it. One more. Touch out and up.

Heads go down. Come right back up. Extend the leg closest to the front of the room. All right, so now you've squeezed the hips again. Are the glutes right? Make sure it's not that easy. I don't think. Now let go of that top knee and from somewhere deep in the body. Bring the knee to your nose without coming up any higher unless you needed to squeeze the glutes. More. Change change. Now there are traditional hands right outside hand, at ankle and and it's all from the middle of the legs. Yes, they're reaching, yes, they're strong, but it's coming from the middle. And last one here. Let's bring them both in. Let your head go down.

Look to the front, press the back of the shoulders in without arching your back. Look to the back and then we come back up. Curl up again. Extending the lane closest to the back at other Lake to the ground. Okay. Checking your hips. We're going to pull the leg forward twice. One, two, switch legs. I'm going to start slow so that you could feel pull, pull, change that your body doesn't move. If your neck gets tired, you could support your head. You can make the leg length smaller. And, but the important part when you start adding in these long levers, nice gym is that you don't bounce out of it. Let's do a few more quicker. Let's go. Pull, pull, switch, pull, pull, switch, pull, pull, switch.

Last one both legs up and head down. Put your hands behind your head. Squeeze the glutes. Are we hot yet? No. Okay, good. You got to speak up if you want me to hear that. Curl up a little bit. Not a little bit. Curl up to your normal level from here. Curl the tailbone up. Squeeze the glutes, release tailbone down, but leave your upper body still. Curl the tailbone up.

Release the glutes and down. Try not to take the legs any closer to you. Might shorten the move a lot. That's cool. And up and down. One more time. Head is relaxed as much as possible. From there, squeeze the glutes. Curl up a little. Let's turn the legs out just for fun. Inhale, reach the legs out just a little Xcel and bring it up. Inhale, reach it out. When you come up, you are not too tough like we did before. You get uh, an L shape with your body. If your hamstrings are tight, you're going to keep your knees bent and put even more. Focus in the middle.

One more time and bend the knees. Let your head damn right for the moment. Put the foot and back down. See about not tucking the pelvis if you can. You may have to, depending on your spine. Let's try and keep it down. Draw the forward knee in. My head's relaxed as much as you can without moving your pelvis just on your own strength and hopefully from higher than just the hip joint. Then from here, take that other leg straight up. Squeeze the glutes a bit, but don't let that be an excuse to lift them.

Sweep them. All right from there, curl up. Head. Neck controls are lower. The leg. Can you reach the straight like further, not lower, but further where you lengthen the front of the hip. You see the difference? I'm gripping here and there and lengthening. Turn towards it. Come on, squeeze the glutes LOR. Change sides. Stay there. Stay there. Prove to yourself that you can't reach further and I have no idea.

Squeeze the inner thigh. Push into my hand here. Good and change and change. That's it. Good. That's trying to keep it the elbows from moving. They go with you of course, but they don't change and reach and reach and reach and hold. Just checking. Reach. Let go. The hip a little. You're there. Good.

And switch and switch. And last one, switch. Rest in the center gracefully, hopefully. Good. Nice. All right. From there, draw the well rest, rest, rest. Okay. Now draw the feet back to the bench. Right. Beat, beat, beat. Cause that enough already. All right.

Your feet are parallel. It's a pelvic curl, right? There's rest and not really. You can make it work so feet apart. Just a little, and you're gonna roll up and just hang out. Yeah. So Juliana's something slightly. Your feet just barely. Okay. So can you feel the bottoms of your feet?

Pick up the toes for a second and just sort of lengthen and then rest the feet. That's it. Exactly. All right. And then feel the hamstrings. Circle back to the back of the body part where if you can't feel the hamstrings, ideas would be first. Try and tuck your pelvis more so that pubic bone goes toward sky or chest. Draw the hips towards heels, that this is a stretch for the front of the hips and we've been in flection for a long time, so I'm going to talk good, right? Maybe Deborah, chest down just a little bit. The hips are good. All right, that looks great.

One last tiny, tiny, tiny thing. I was going to let it go, but am I going to do just barely texted. These are going to go down. Pupil phone goes up other way. Other way. Sorry. There, there you have more of a stretch there. Okay. What? Okay. From there, pick up the front leg. An extended, I'm not doing what I normally do. Reach it long when you can't go any further without arching the back.

Bend the knee, touched the floor and draw it back in other side up. Reach it along, feel the back of the leg, put it on the ground and bring it back. I'm alternating this gigantic bicycle. Reach it up. It's a real propensity to go into this big extension of the ribs. So keep the ribs down. I slide back. Last one, bring it up to slow or to reach. I mean and down and hold it there.

Re tuck if you've got up in your upper body and roll down. And with that we'll just, let's see about, let's just move the feet away a tiny bit like maybe two inches away from you and roll up. Oh, maybe four inches. Nice. Good. Now sit comfortably. I have my feet apart. I'm on the sit bones. So adjust however you need to. I want to just do an easy year rotation before we get into it.

More hands behind your head and as best you can, try and find a way to pull up on your head, your skull so that you can pull down on the shoulders. From there, rotate to the front. Inhale, opposite hand. The back hand goes toward the forward knee and let's use it to push down so we get more length. But use your own, your muscles to rotate you further. Not your hand back, shoulder down gym is that one. There you go. Return the hand. Inhale, exhale comes in. I know you wonder why.

I call it a mirror and he'll turn the back or the forward hand goes to the knee and the back. Exhale, use it to sit taller. Inhale, return your hand behind your head and come center mod. You can move your feet forward that you've got those long ups away from you yet so you can sit up even straighter to the front. Inhale, rotate hand to thigh. Use it to get taller and then no more traction with the arm. You do it with the muscles of the spine and the abs. Bring your hand back and center. One more time to the back. Inhale.

Exhale. Hand up. Babak, beautiful in how? Return your hand and center. All right from there, stretch out your legs. We'll go into spine stretch from here. I'm gonna go right into the full one. This one's got a lot of words. If you've never seen it, just watch maybe one, but the idea is to stretch your back. The only way you're going to do that is by tightening your abs. Inhale, exhale.

Think we're tall. You're going almost vertically down. We're not pulling on the head. We're letting the spine go down. Maybe getting the forehead to the mat from here. I thought that to give it a shot. Inhale, lengthen on the diagonal so that means your tailbone kind of reaches out behind you. You're lean forward and you are once again kind of lengthening the skull off the spine, whatever the breath is. Now extend your arms. Thank you.

Thinking taller, not necessarily more forward. Inhale, refold the arms and then we round forward rolling up as if the hipbones could dive deeper into the body and we're backup straight. Inhaling in there, if you haven't already, exhale to go down, blow out all the air, prove it to yourself. Don't go forward until you have to get the forehead or crown of the head on the mat. Inhale extent. Flex those feet if you aren't, extend the arms as if this is an extension of the spine. Excellent. Really nice. Erin. Inhale, refold and I mean both. Exhale round to roll up in here. Gently pressing the head backwards into the hand.

Even now as you go forward. I think it helps if you think about squeezing through the inner thighs in here, finding the long line weight forward. Exhale, extend, checking the ribs that they kind of come in and up in how refold Alex, good and exhale. So in this work to roll back to the upright position. In this work, you're looking for more spaces. You're looking for differences. Go head. Exhale, round down. Just checking. Speraw then inhale into the long line. Go ahead. Good. See all the arms hanging out if you can, and will.

And then they pulled us all the plates down. Ian, get longer. As you pull their arms, find your head again and exhale round. That's it. Good. We'll add the variations. So we all come back to upright sitting. Here we go. Inhale. If you have an exhale, we round over. Inhale to the flat, back on the diagonal. Be mindful of your shoulders here.

Exhale, just float the arms up, thumbs toward the ceiling, arms are straight, and then gently pull the shoulder blades and arms back. Whole one. It's kinda slow too. As you're doing that, can you allow yourself more length through the spine? Like you're trying to lift off the sit bones? Very nice. Mod couple more. One more holding it there. Inhale. Refold the arms. Exhale to round and go ahead and roll up.

We okay to move on. Sort of similarly. Good. Keeping your arms there. We inhale, rotate to the front. You're going to take this forward elbow inside the knee. Okay. Inhale, roll up to straight on this rotation. XL center. Inhale, rotate to the back. X and now you can't move the hips.

So that's the hard part that Justin said. Need to touch the elbow. Jim, go ahead. Touch the elbow. Go ahead. Yup, yup, yup. And goody and heel Rola. Just making sure you're trying to the front and now try just beyond the knee but keep the hips pulling backwards. Inhale, Rola and Sen. So you are trying to stretch the spine further but you don't get to rotate the hips. Touch, be on the knee, pull those hip on the front. Hip bones backwards. Even more. Inhale, Rola and sand her hand. Let's go in to exit. Press into it.

If you actually make contact, press into it in hell. Turn. Sorry for the light cue on that. Exhale. Inhale. Roll it up and center. Staying here. Let's just cross the ankles or sit diamond position. I wonder if that's better. No, either one. Actually. Either one. I'm going to sit cross legged and um, if you need to check out the arms do but put them back soon.

All we're doing is lengthening for, Oh look how flexible you are. I'm going to have you sit back. Perfect. Right there. So what you what we all have to do, Aaron, you good? Julianna slightly. Okay. Everyone else looks good. So what we're trying to do is squeeze the glutes simply so that you don't go into arch low back. And then from there it's going to be settled.

I don't know if you'll see it on me, but it's an inhale if squeeze my glutes as I start to once again, lift the sternum to maybe travel the eyes up. I can see my elbows. I think it's less stressful and release. So your neutral, so to speak. Squeeze the glutes. Inhale as you start to extend the spine, trying not to lean back, but finding those, that spot between the shoulder blades. Exhale, center. Notice if you instantly go to tension in the back of the neck, it's a common thing. I have to think about it. Almost constantly inhaler.

And if you do just relaxing ex, I'm gonna, I'm gonna change it a little. We start the same and how come up, I'll just add an extension of the arms, extend them just like you did a moment ago. Weight up, up and return them and come back to neutral. Only one more. We lengthen, lift the chest, squeeze the glutes. If you're gonna, especially if you're gonna add the arms up, try to get those hands behind you, return them and just Roundup rounding off. [inaudible] relaxing the arms and then roll back up. We're ready for open leg rocker. So just to play with this start, I won't do much of it. Hold on in front. So and feel what the difference is for you.

It maybe put the toes down for this first part and if you were right up on the tailbone, it's fine. Once you get there, but it's not easy to balance and it's really not where we want to be. So with the toes down, tuck the pelvis a little, but don't sync. Just tuck a little. That's where you want to be balanced. Just behind it. Extend both legs, huh? [inaudible] bring them back down. Don't move the pelvis again. It's all like that.

I doubt. I'll do one more on the next one will go up. Now it's getting hot. I can't even hold it. That's good. All right. Check your collar bones a little bit more of a tech. Send you on your way in hell. Roll back. Trust the breath. Exhale up and grow back into the long position. Avoid the tailbone.

Inhale back. It's not like you're going to hurt it. It's just, it's not how we want to end up balancing and inhale back. Good. And [inaudible] keep that little tuck. You won't have any hopping whatsoever. Inhale back it. Squeeze the glutes despite what it feels like you need to do there. Beautiful. Again. [inaudible] okay, go ahead. But if you down for one second, I just want to point out one thing. Um, there's a tendency to press energy through the knees if your legs are going straight. Um, so I want to try one or two more where you, it's not really soft knees, but it's as if, well, let's just say soft knees for it will say soft knees and the whole time, so when you come back up you don't get to kind of relax and then drive energy into the knees, keep them soft but still straight. Here we go. Inhale, roll back. Don't drive to the knees, squeeze the glutes, keep them that way.

And one more. I just drove totally through the knees so we had to do last one here. Right. It's a different, I don't know, maybe it's just what I need to work on. Okay. How are you doing? Good. Turn this way, that way. Exactly. Exactly.

Exactly. Well that would be nice, wouldn't it? I'll do. I'll do it. Here you are. Okay. So what do we want to do for now? Just sit comfortably, like, like we are, what did we call that figure for sometimes and then I'll tell you what, put the hand the outside hand down. So yeah, exactly. Lift this hip or butt cheek up and then try to get it down all the way. I can't. I'm trying. I promise. Oh, close to the normal and then down.

Lift it up and down, right. Try and leave it down. Stretch your ribs away. Then it's going to come up here. It's okay. Slide out a little further. If you have to walk the handout, that's cool. Now try to press the hip down a little. Don't. Yup. Keep that as the energy going. That way as you rotate around the waist, maybe your hand, I'll get to the floor. Try for it. Okay.

If the low back rounds a little bit reopen and then as if all of a sudden you're getting help to press that hip down. That's how you come up and Oh, we should. The ribs goes a little further. If you can anchor from that end and rotate the rib cage arms. Think of a long spine here. It will be rounded, but minimize. Does that open it up? Energy goes down to help you lift up. Excellent. Last one.

Rich to come down to rotate. [inaudible]. Let's stay here for a moment. You can use your hands to push the hands into the floor to try to get the hips away from the hands. My hip, that one side's no lower than it was, but I, there is energy going there. Then the hand that rotated you over here, thread it through so you're gonna just, yup, that's right. So you're all rotating even further toward the back and then unwind that till you come to the T position with the arm. And besides that hip going down for you to lift up, find the forward knee to reach up. You can let this shoulder hike up, do it. Go for it. Stretch this side just by being here. Then let the arm drop.

And then Paul, this can be done in different ways with the knees, right? You can just stack the knees. All right, and change that. Take care for the moment. Let the forward hand be down [inaudible] and then lift the hip up. I'm just, I'm not doing anything special. I'm just letting it up. I kind of, I guess I press it forward and then set it down. It's like if the inside of that inner thigh could be on the ground, that's sort of what you're going for.

Whether it happens or not as a whole different deal. Just let it up so you can feel the difference. Press it down to lift it up. Yeah, it's probably different on each side. I'm feeling much better on this side than the other though. No, closer to the floor. Okay, ready? So now you reach out. Let's go bar. Even if when you land you want to walk out a little bit, not a whole lot of weight on the forum but some and then anchor the hip.

Go ahead and turn. Go ahead. Inhale to open. Imagine something pushing down on the hip here to help you up. Yeah, and reach. Find floor. Keep the hips where they are. Rotate from the waist up, no open. You don't want to push off you on an anchor and float off.

Here comes the next one or reaching out. Rotate. We hung out here for a moment. You use the palms and the hands to kind of allow you to press back a little into the legs and then that hand that got you there is going to row thread through increasing the rotation, still pulling back at the abdominals to add to the stretch and then reopened all the way to the T position. Feel the whole lower body anchored as you lift up, holding on where you can allow the shoulder ups. We get a good lat stretch way up. That may be enough there. I'm with you.

I know. And then if you can just drop the arm over without having to really reach for it with your head. If, if, if they becomes, although everyone here is fine, but if it becomes something else, just leave it straight and then thrust the rib cage that's in the center over there as you stretch it toward the outside of the room. It's like you're trying to and then breathe. Move the ribs accordion up. Oh, okay. Come on down to your forms for a single leg kick. Okay.

Hand elbows under shoulders. Unless your low back is tight, you can move them forward. So traditionally is down below and I'm going to say let's just either laced the fingers or fist into the ground. Either one. I tend to go laced from there. Reach the legs, hover the legs, keep them like that acumen low for the moment. So you feel most of the site and use your elbows for a second to push. So I'm as if someone's pulling me by my ankles, I'm actually letting my elbows assist that feeling like into the ground. Yeah, like that. Exactly. Then you might be able to five ons a tiny bit more maybe.

Okay. Now instead of pushing with the elbows, pull with the Elvis. Don't let the legs come forward though. Don't transfer. Just traction. So you get that upper back working. Looking forward. I'm going to go right into alternating kicks. Here we go. It's kick, kick, kick, kick, and exhale. Two, three, four. An inhale, two, three, four, an XL, two, three, four and out. And I'm going to pause just for a second. How are both lik straight?

The reason I'm pausing is I'm seeing some [inaudible], not much, but enough that you could work on it. So there's just a little bit of a shift in the pelvis or you might see it in the low back. It can happen. So let's start slow. Reach the legs, find a position, pick up one and kick, kick pause there. No bony landmark changes, meaning the pelvis doesn't change. Switch sides, slow kick, kick, press the all three bones, hip bones and pupil going into the floor. I'm just going that pace. Nice and slow. Kick, kick, transition, kick, kick, transition, kick, kick both legs strong the whole time. I think better. Let's go a little quicker now and inhale, two, three, four and exhale. Two, three, four. Inhale, abs are in and up so there's no sense of dropping into the low back.

If there is go lower. One more set. Inhale two, three, four and exhale. Two, three for both legs are straight. Lower down so your forehead is on your hands. Ask yourself if you can still feel the whole front of the pelvis. Parallel feet, legs are still off the ground. Excellent. From there, reach all. Say the right leg, a tiny bit longer, but don't change the hips. It's just a sense to lift the leg a little higher. Same leg. Again, it's a sense of length and to lift, it's not going to look real big again. Length to lift. Yup. Length to lift.

I'm trying to zero in on the glute. Really. So relax your foot and do two more like you're being pulled. Keep that like energized to change to the other side. Lengthen. Lift won for laksa foot. Lengthen. Lift to no bend to the knee, right. Relax a little bit. Beautiful. Beautiful. Nice.

Helen and good Dick from right there. There you go. Squeeze live. Excellent. One more and then press back. So you're into a rounded back rest position. So [inaudible] okay. Yeah. Ready? Up to hands and knees. If not, take more time. Hands right below shoulders and just a quick little rhomboid push pushup for lack of knowing what I really want to call it, your arms are straight and try not to, um, let's say you want to lock or is that just me? Alright, nevermind. I'll spare you that conversation. Sync into your shoulder blades gently though. Please just sink, squeeze the glutes a little, and then rather than pushing into the ground, just lift back up to what feels like a nice level position. Good. Do it again.

Nice and gentle. Get that motion there and then lift. And one more time letting the shoulder blades come together without too much strain. It just sort of letting it happen and up. All right. From there, extend one leg back. You're gonna curl the toes under. You want it on the ground. And then before you do anything else, remember the feeling you had a moment ago when the leg was straight and strong. Squeeze the glute. Put the other foot in place. Nice. Long neck. Pick up the left foot. Point a. Don't even point the toe.

Just leave the leg soft lifted up one. Tried to get higher than your hip lift up too. But with a straight leg. Three Aaron Goldman, you can lower your hips a little four, five out of six change legs. And remember how you're lifting up one, you're not sinking into the shoulders. Now to reaching along. Three, four and five from here. Bend the elbows. I'm sorry, six. Go ahead. If you didn't, six, boom. Bend the elbows, drop the knees, lower your chest, and then flatten out the knees and feet to come into an upper back extension.

But what I would suggest, I'm just going to stay low. Squeeze the gluten reached the tops of your feet along your mat. Further down your mat. Elbows in, curl the toes under. He have a choice here. You either go to your knees first or you level out your spine.

That means you're looking at the mat. Shoulders are down. They're not coming forward. Abs and butt tight. Press up. Excellent. Pick up the left foot. Flex it this time. Take a quick peek down at it. Toes are pointing to the ground. Start to move it out to the side.

If the toes are still pointed down, you bring your head back in alignment and then bring the leg back. Go again. Reach out to the side. Bring it back to the side. Don't lower it as it goes out there. Lower your hips. A little mod you can is how many is that? Four. Good. Here's five. We'll just do five. Put it down. [inaudible] other side. Check it out.

Don't turn the foot out. Strong legs. We take it out to the side. Everything else is still. Here's to find the glute. Squeeze. Here's three. Squeeze it back in both ways, four and five, but the foot down. Lower yourself. Either go to your [inaudible]. These are lower all the way down. I'm going to arrest is not arrest, but all the way down where these toes extend your arms out in front of you, keeping the tops of your feet on the mat for the moment. Stretch the legs as far away from you as possible until you feel the glutes engage. Excellent mind actually what you did before.

Reach the legs, low belly in and up. That's good. Hovered the feet and legs. However the arms [inaudible]. Imagine pressing the very top of your quad into the mat. And now we go into swimming, so it's right arm, left leg, left arm, right, like alternating. You can go at whatever pace you want to. If you're going at a quicker tempo, it's the a hundred breaths. Inhale, two, three, four, five and exhale two, three, four, five.

Inhale, two, three, four, five and three, four, five and last time, pick your head a little Juliana. Just look forward a little bit more. There you go. And exhale. When you're done, settle to the mat. [inaudible] I'm giving you that pushup option. Out of this. You don't have to do it of course, but if you want to, your hands are by your side. You roll the shoulders back so the elbows are of low. You draw the abs in.

Flex the feet so the toes are under. Legs are already straight unless you're going to do a bent knee version. And then from there, abs pull up. So you lift up in one long line. From there, take the hand closest to the back of the room and put it in the middle or close to the middle. Start to swivel your feet. If they're really close together, move them apart. A little. Swivel your feet. So you're on the outside edge and your hips face front. No, I didn't cross them.

So you guys are all going towards the window and then take that. Fabulous. Well, I'm mirroring you. It's a skill that's lifting up good. Love the elbow. Form a modification. Come back, lift a little so you can turn back and swivel on the chest. Let the hand opposite hand. Go tour a little more toward the middle. Then it's perfect. Swivel the hips or the feet, so you're on the outside edge. That other arm is that, and then you lift up like a rainbow, reaching the top arm over. That's it. Very good.

And then come back to what looks like a T position. Swivel face. Front. Square off the hands. Lower halfway down. Squeeze you. Then come up, squeeze your glutes down to come three. I'm doing five. I'll go to your knees. If you want our tee. Don't go any further than your shoulders can handle. There we go.

Lift up to an up stretch. Walk your feet forward a little bit. Come way high on the tip toes. Bend your knees quite a lot. Reach the tailbones super high to the sky so you're almost resting your ribs on your size almost. Okay. Then begin to lower the heels.

Only you know there's no point in getting them all the way down if your hamstrings are super tight or even calves for that matter. What you're more interested in is the sense of length through the spine. So tailbone, ribs, long head is heavy and free. [inaudible] lift up high on the toes. Keep the legs straight are straightened and when you can. Yup. Tuck your pelvis.

I'm just gonna roll through. If your hands are too close, you'll have to stop early, which is what I'm going to do. So when we come back and then from underneath the chest, you pull up, keep the legs straight till, pull back. See what you can do in lowering the heels. If you found like you were way over your your arms, walk your feet back a little step. Probably not a bad idea for everybody. Lift high on the tiptoes. Roll through your body.

So look at your belly as you roll through and then eventually your head comes in alignment. Flex your feet when you get it. Then pull the ads up. Points, doze. Lift only gonna give you one more hair. Drop the heels for a strategy. Lift up on the toes. Tuck the pelvis rolls through. Looking at your belly til the last moment. Straighten out long without sagging to the hips.

Flex the feet there last time round. Dropping the head, pulling up on the abs, finding that long pyramid like position. And then watch your feet forward about halfway. Then walk your hands. Yeah, back to your feet and just dangle over your legs. Let your hands rest here, wherever that may be. If it's on your legs or the floor, let your knees be bent if that's appropriate to do.

You want to feel ease right now. Hopefully breathing relatively easy. Let's bend the knees a lot again enough that you can feel your forward or the front ribs or the ribs on your legs sitting kinda back in the heels just so you can kind of almost arrest there. And then when you take a couple of breaths, see where you can feel it. How many places can you feel it expand? Become bigger, take up more space. [inaudible] excellent. The back of the body should be moving still.

[inaudible] head is so heavy on your next exhale, slowly straighten your legs, trying to keep your ribs on your thighs as long as you can. [inaudible] and again, no sense causing strain. At this point, you're looking for something that feels good even if you can't get to straight. All right? All right. From there you feel your feet on the floor, a light squeeze of the glutes, just some awareness there. You're going to draw the abs up to roll up. You may decide you want to use your hands on your legs for a little additional support to roll yourself up, stacking, realigning, lifting off yourself, and then when you get there, if you can imagine you're just going to hang out.

If you can imagine the bones of your body hanging or the skeleton of your body hanging from the ceiling so you kind of just dangle wherever your pelvis wants to be. Hit is light on the joints. The arms are just hanging. Can you feel the link to the neck? If everything being held up from the ceiling, you feel your feet, but they're not. It's not a grounded lifting off there. They're more, it's like your feet are reaching for the ground instead for a change and then just let the arms float up in front of you, taking a deep breath. [inaudible] let them fall where they may eat. Yeah, and again, collecting energy, feeling the lightness of your body as we resisted gravity and exhale.

I'm going to give myself one more. I hope you'll give yourself one more fill up. What do you need? I encourage you to at least acknowledge the time that you took for yourself and the work that you did. Good work. Thanks guys. Thanks for coming.

Comments

1 person likes this.
I really want to do this class but it is only offered in High Def. Can it be converted to have the low def option????
So sorry Susan! It is fixed now. Thank you for telling us!
Thanks Kristi. Another great class!!! Any chance you could take a look at my suggestion about a child friendly class? I posted it 24 days ago in the suggestion box forum. Would love to hear what you think.
I just responded! I think you'll like the answer, despite how long it took to get it (sorry, I missed it completely, I wasn't ignoring you).
1 person likes this.
Thanks for a great class, loved it!
1 person likes this.
Wonderful class!! Loved it!
2 people like this.
Hi Kristi. Great class. I enjoy your reminders about checking in with our body, reminding us to use opposition in our own bodies, and your clear and concise instruction on getting the most out of our practice. Thank you!
I absolutely love the chemistry you have with your classes. You are always spot on and your workouts are so rewarding. It's obvious you are a great instructor because there are always so many famliar faces in your classes! Always a pleasure working out with PA!
Thanks Petra, Kelly, Linda and Valerie! Valerie I'm delighted you noticed how dedicated my Tuesday night group is. Someday I hope you'll join us.
1 person likes this.
Love the class. Just want I needed to release some low back tension.
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