Fluid, Back Lengthening Mat

Hi, everybody. Amy Haven's here with you to do a mat workout, focusing on spinal mobility. I have a ball, bring a ball along. I wanna just address one quick thing, and this is something near and dear to me. Don't worry if you feel like you have a stiff spine, okay, or a stiff body. You can do Pilates.

We all can do Pilates. It's for everybody. There's a quote somewhere from Joseph Pilates. If you're if you have a stiff spine at 30, you're old. If you have a flexible spine at 60, you're young.

I'm an old soul. I still have some stiffness in my spine that I'm discovering and working through, and you're really getting to know And as I get older, that's a conversation that's becoming more exciting for me. So if that's you too, don't worry. Let's just move. It's about movement and hydration and getting our spine going. Okay? Everyone can do this. So I want you to start with me. I'm gonna turn sideways just so you can see standing tall, bend your knees first.

I've got my feet about hip width apart, and so you'll bend, and I just want you to put your hands first on your knees. Okay? And for right now, let your shoulders shrug up. Just kinda hang out in this little squatty kind of position. Take a few breaths. Movement is medicine.

So you'll hear me say that a few times today. If you have encountered some sticky stiff spots in your body, say hello to them, welcome them, we work through them. I want us to kind of feel the lumbar spine, the thoracic spine, and the cervical spine, all of our curves. They're all meant to curve a certain way. Some of us have dominant patterns that keep them in a certain, pattern. Right? So we have to work through some of the sticky stuff.

Take a breath. So let's focus on bringing our tailbone under us round your back. You'll hear the c curve cue and let your head round in. Now Is your shoulders are your shoulders up by your ears? Probably so. Let them say there if they are. I don't care.

Round your back as much as you can. Change that to arching your back as much as you can. So I'm really gonna open up my sit bone, stick my tail out, reach my chest forward, and actually look up to the ceiling with my eye. Big extension. So we're gonna go big movements than smaller movements, right, global to local.

Round, tight. Get in there. Round this under. Extend. Stick your tailbone out. We're gonna really let the spine dance. Okay. Express itself, curl.

So yes abdominal muscles. Can you tug those inward a little more? Can you lengthen underneath yourself a little bit more? If I had a skirt on it, it'd be kinda like I'm pulling my skirt underneath my bottom and then extend that out reach your chest forward. Pull your arms back. Look up. Let's go one more big one. Started the tail.

The whole spine is moving. You're curving. And extend. So, yes, it's a pretty big movement. We want to promote that, but now let's get a little more precise.

So find a place in between those two big curves. You'll hear maybe neutral. I'm gonna say kinda my natural place with a little more length focus. And then everybody, let's get a little more detailed. Round your low back only and arch your low back only if you can.

Right? And it's from the back of your waist below your ribcage to your tailbone and sitting bones. That's flexion and then your extension. Some other cues might help if your dog and you're wagging your tailor kinda your bad dog. You got in trouble. You can tuck it suck it under.

And then it's a happy dog that sticks his tail out. And one more rounding under. Meanwhile, the whole spine up above is staying stable. Arch, arch, arch. K? And then go back to your in between place.

Now focus on the head, neck, chest spine. Can it round and can it extend without changing the lower spine? Might be a little more tricky. Round your neck, your chest spine, also your thoracic spine, same thing, chest, neck, head. Couple more. Segmentally finding the control in neck and upper without changing the lower.

Pretty tricky. But again, movement is medicine. Keep moving neck. Thoracic spine, neck, and thoracic spine. So go back to your neutral. K? How you doing?

Let's do this. We're gonna do lower inflection, upper body flexion. Lower body extension, upper back extension. Again, lower flexion, upper flexion, lower extension, upper extension, one more, lower, upper, lower, upper. So we they're back in that arch again. Now we're gonna reverse it from the head and neck flex, then lower flex. Chest and neck extend.

Lower back extend. Again, neck and chest round, lower body round. Thoracic cervical extension, very tricky to control lumbar extension one more. Cervical flexion, thoracic flexion, lumbar flexion, and one more thoracic extension, lumbar extension, and then relax to come all the way up. You're done. I'm kidding. But feel how you feel. Right? Hopefully a little warmed up and a little mobile.

Come on down to your mat. And we're gonna continue. And I want everybody to grab your ball. Put your ball at your tummy, bend your knees, put your hands behind your thighs or where they feel comfortable. You can have one on each or wrap.

I want you to bend forward. We talk about the breathing so much in Pilates about breathing into the sides of the ribs and the back of the ribs. Here's your chance. I want you to push your feet into the mat a little bit. I'm pushing them forward.

And I'm actually gonna work on trying to get that skirt on or round that lower back region a little bit deeper than just sitting there. Pause. Take another breath. Inhale wide through the back. Exhale, push the feet, try to work the tail under, putting on your skirt, lengthening the muscles from your ribs to your tailbone. And again, breathe in wide.

You'll start to notice, I think, that during your exhale phase, your front body is getting contracted. That's what we're looking for. Inhale sit tall. In the curve, I should say, two or three more push your feet? Can you wrap more over your ball?

Push your feet, put your skirt on, stomach is back. Wasteline is getting narrow. Do it one more time, everybody. You're not resting on your ball. You're wrapped over it, inhale wide, push your feet, work that tail curl, work that lumbar flexion.

Stay with me. Now, hover up off the ball a little bit, keeping your curve. We're gonna do eight more little curls at the tail go a little deeper. One, and curl, two. I'm also thinking of reaching my low back back. To the wall behind me. Four more. Just do a little shoulder check.

Sometimes they get excited and they go up, you can bring them down. Lumbar vertebra back. Hold this one hold. Hold, hold, hold, hold, and then everybody just relax and come back up slowly and just, right? So focusing a lot on your lumbar region. Now I'm gonna sit, like, I call it a diamond sit. The soles of the feed are together. You can just put your ball here.

Sit up tall, hands on your thighs or your knees, and imagine doing a little bit of what you just did, a little bit of the work. So you're not sitting here resting with your tummy forward and your ribs forward. It's like you're on the ready to go back again. But you're not at your hip joints, you're actually gonna lean forward a little bit. I'm looking out in the floor, out in the distance, and come back in.

And just this is a hinging at the hip joints. We're trying to keep the spine in that diagonal line. Just worked at stability a couple times more. I'm gonna just change it and put my fingertips at my sternum and then one at my rib cage and just make sure that those points don't stick out. And thrust forward.

Moving from your hip joints. Just a nice easy hinge, hopefully feeling some of your back work muscles. Okay? And then pause. Now I'm gonna turn toward you for this one. Stay in the diamond with your feet.

Side bending. We're gonna still in kinda warm up phase. Place a hand on your head. These are not sticking out. Sit tall, press your feet together. As if you're growing from your tailbone through the top of your head, You should feel a little bit of that axial elongation, hopefully. These don't stick out.

They're actually going more upward. Now, bend from your neck, everybody, cervical spine, your neck. Right below that is the thoracic spine. I just call it my chest spine and clients like chest spine that they can remember where their chest is. I'm gonna lower my hand. Now as you go lower, this might be where you start feeling a little stiff It's the low back, perhaps.

Don't worry. Movement is medicine. Keep moving, bending, bending, bending, bending, bending. The opposite hip pretty well on the mat, and then roll yourself up from the lower spine. Middle spine, upper spine. Let's do the other side.

Axial elongation, press your feet, sitting tall. Right? So your cervical spine is your neck. Here we go. We're gonna bend that just that. Control that flexion. Oh, feels so good. Then the chest's fine, thoracic.

I'm gonna take my hand down. And as the ribs on this side opening up, these guys are closing, but the whole idea is curving. We're encountering that lower back. Bend, bend, bend. Now the tendency could be if you're a little stiffer to, like, lean on it.

It's okay. You get a few chances here. We're trying not to do so much of a lean, but a bend. Okay? And return, lower spine, middle spine, upper spine. The ball might help.

Here we go. Place it on this side. I'm gonna do this again, lengthen up. I'm gonna keep my fingers on my head pushing my head up into my hand. That's gonna help me elongate even though I'm curving curving. Now what I want you to say to yourself is curve more into yourself. You might feel more muscle activation here.

I love it. Press down here. Can this open more? Can this side stretch more? Pause for a second. Are you sitting evenly on this side? Let's come back to it and pull into that side. Bend a little more.

Let your neck go. Good, you guys. And come right back up. Other side. Feeling a little more movement. Yeah. And here. Hand on the ball, sit tall, press your feet.

You're gonna go up. Up to go over. That's a cue we hear. Lot in Pilates. Up to go over. It means to lengthen before moving.

We are always interested in elongation with strength. Right? Okay. I'm coming into it. I'm trying to bend more. I don't wanna lift this butt. Try not to try not to.

Can you bend into yourself? That includes the neck. That includes the ribs. Ben, bend, bend, Yes. And everybody come all the way up. I trust you got that deeply like I did, hug your ball, interlace your fingers. Now we go to sitting tall again, and we're gonna rotate just right around our central axis. This is e kinda easy compared to last few. Right? Now notice I'm let me actually hug it this way.

We are not moving the arms or shoulders. You are moving your whole spine on its axis. So I want you to use your eyes and track the room track the space you're in. I don't want your head going more than your shoulders. Your head or shoulders going more than your ribs.

No. I mhmm. It may minimize your range. Let's minimize. Press the feet. Go into yourself a little more. We have three more moves.

Rotation on our axis. Feel how well balanced you are on your sitting bones. Let's bring a little naval to spine cue in there for yourself and just feel what you feel. I wish I could see everybody. I trust it's going well.

I know it's going well. Okay. And then come back to center. Wonderful. We're gonna see a lot of those moves down a little bit more movement. Okay? So, guys, come on back on your back. So with the why I love the ball so much, the ball's like, I'm just gonna hold it like this for a second. The ball, obviously, ball's roll. Right? I've talked about this before. So if I roll it this way, that would be maybe me rolling backward.

If I roll it forward, it may be suggesting forward motion. Backward motion forward motion. That's what our spine does. It can go backward. It can go forward.

It can go sideways. It can go on a re rotation. This prop is so useful for connection for many of us. And whether you're a little stiffer or not, it's a great prop. Props are for intentional connection.

So I want you to place that ball underneath your sacrum, the base of your by that's not in your lumbar. K. That lumbar is off the mat. See that all that negative space there. Because, and our knees are bent feet are flat. I want you to place your hands on your rib cage. And gently press your ribs down to the earth.

You may or may not get those to touch their mat. That's not the requirement. The connection is the requirement. Now I want everybody to take their pelvis into more of that rounding, put the skirt on cue. Right? And you can see I've kinda sloped a little more.

I'll get my arms out of the way. And maybe there's a hollowing in here that we're trying to perform You may feel some stretch in your legs. You might feel some work in your buttocks. All of this is good. Hold that please just a little longer.

Right? That's the flexion of this bind. Relax into your normal position. Let's do it again. I'm just gonna keep my arms up so you can see. Alright? And flex your spine.

I'm thinking naval to the farthest, lowest part of my low back body to the mat. Hold hold, hold, and release. Inhale. Let's do a three count exhale. Ready? And one, two, three. A couple more. Inhale release. Flexion, exhale lumbar, two, three, inhale release once again, and two, three, and release.

Rate, hands on ribs now. Extension of your lower back. Just dip your tailbone forward and let it come up. Most likely this is not as mobile for some of us. It's okay.

Move it anyway. Movement is Madison. When we move one portion of the spine, all the vertebra get response, they get some kind of referred movement as well. Right? We're trying to unstiffen some of these segments. Without other segments going crazy, that'd be the rib cage right here.

So reach that tailbone down. Okay. Now for as little bit of challenge, go ahead and hold your elbows. Get into your connection here. You can buy as this with a little bit of little lumbar flexion. It's okay. I want one one leg just to come up. Oh, boy.

And then take it down. Bias it toward that lumbar flexion. Okay? The reason why is sometimes these leg movements, the rib cage will go crazy. It it could arch, and that might be a sign that your back is doing the work where we want the front to be working. We want the back to stay long.

Okay? And if your balance isn't going well, just put your elbows down. It's okay. The it won't change what you're focusing on in your middle body. It shouldn't. Let's go once more, exhale. Yeah. Keep that skirt on.

I should try this in a skirt someday and see if that this image that comes to my mind. Okay. Elbows on the mat, bring your knees up. And now watch this guys. You're gonna bring your knees really close to your chest. Relax for a minute.

Nice. Now work the cue, work the tailbone toward the ceiling, work the stomach in, and you may feel like you're kinda tucking more, almost lifting your butt off off the ball a little and then bring it down. XL. So that lower part of our stomach wall is very active in a lot of the Pilates movements. Right? Two more times. So are the waistline muscles right around the ribs. Get those a little more connected.

Again, hold now see if you can hold it there. Hold it there. Not in your neck. Tailbone up off the ball, get a little, like, 1% more off the ball, and then we're gonna come out of that. Great. Now add come off the ball. Just let yourself come down and wag your tail.

Put the ball behind your knees and calves and hug it. I want you to bend your cervical spine. You can put your arms by the sides here. Bend your cervical spine that's your neck. Really bend it.

And now bend that thoracic spine, the chest spine. Some of us are not very mobile yet. Don't worry. Movement is medicine. Keep moving hands on your shin bones.

Press into this curled position. Squeeze the ball. Generate a little rocking movement. Just a little rocking movement. Keep going. Yes.

It's like a little foreshadow of rolling like a ball. We'll get there. 321. That's it. Alright. One more down here and then we're gonna get up. I want you to put keep the ball behind your knees.

So what where we just were was a really good deep hip flexion where the thigh is close to the chest, and there's less a healthy compression in the hip joint. And notice when we do that, there's a natural rocking with the low back that happens. See that? That's great. Can it be a little different for an intention?

Let's try. So instead of this is harder for me, instead of moving at the hip. If I don't move my thigh, can I just try to round my lumbar spine and maybe tick pick up my tail one or 2%? And then relax it down. Ready again. Exhale is gonna be our friend, inhale release.

Put your arms wide on the mat. You can push down a little bit with your hands, but try to pick up your butt. Your tail. A couple more. I am fighting very hard not to flex up my hip.

This is where my spine, my old soul spine. She probably rounded really well at some point in this some lifetime. Right? But I'm happy with that because I feel connected. Yeah. And then relax. How you doing out there? Let's come up to sitting.

Just rock yourself up. Okay. It should feel good to sit up. We're gonna do the traditional movement of spine stretch forward. We're using our ball for a little connection, out stretch your legs, flex your ankles, toes remain up, legs remain parallel. Now take a moment.

As you said on your sit bones, a little little bit of bringing your low rack awareness back. Right? Not spilling forward, but bringing the low back back Notice how well anchored you are in your sit bones. We're gonna stay right there. Hands on your ball, movements in segments, right, neck. First thing that happens, selection of thoracic chest spine.

You've gotta lift the skin up in your body and come over your body. I don't want you to flex your hips. We just practice that. I don't want you to drop your chest on your thighs. I'm working to lift the my back body up.

And roll back up to sitting tall. That's your spine stretching. Take a breath. Circical spine starts, thoracic spine second, lumbar spine third, Now you could probably try to keep extending the length in opposition. We're pulling that naval to the lowest part of our low back, feel that work in there, and come back up to tall. Let's take a breath.

Reestablish and curl neck. Terrassic. I'm also again trying to curl into myself into inside myself, curl. Like a fern, you know, to plant the fern, how it's all curled in when it's starting its growth pattern. And then as it grows, opens up. I hope that image kinda worked.

It came out from my brain. One more inhale. Neck. There's always a lift, internal lift and up and over, the up and over, curl into yourself, resist the urge to gum off your sit bones. I know you want to.

Movement is medicine. We're gonna work the little pulse one. Post two, we're doing eight of those. I'm rocking the ball a little bit forward. I'm not coming off my sit bones.

I'm lifting my back in a curve. And three, two, and one, and all the way up. Yeah. Now adding a little bit of turning just do this for a second. Turning with the rolling forward.

So sometimes you'll hear the saw, exercise the saw with the ball this way today. Put your left hand on the ball or right hand, depending on what you're doing. And start rolling that ball toward the inner line of the other foot. Torso rotates. Now, I'm gonna just put my other arm behind me with my palm face up and I wanna roll, use your little hand and roll it forward toward that foot.

Same principles, not coming forward. That's hip flexion, and that's something else. We wanna keep lifting back here up and over, and then reach the arms in opposite directions. You can turn your head to your knee, You can turn it to the side. You can also turn it to look behind you. That's pretty advanced.

If you don't feel good about that, I would look down at your knee and roll back up to the same side a couple times. Neck, thoracic lumbar, extend the length of both arms, pull your naval back, roll it up. Alright. One more. And then we'll do three on the other side. And we'll alternate. You're not coming off your sitting bones.

You're lifting. Now let's try something. I do want you to spiral your neck. Let's mobilize that neck. Don't worry. Mobileize look behind you.

Keep reaching, and roll yourself back up and return other side. Hand on your ball. So you're sitting tall on your sit bones, you're turning, you're not pushing your rib cage forward, and behind palm up, breathing, cervical spine, thoracic spine, flexion, lift into that flexion, reach the arms in opposite directions, really reach, resist just dumping out on your leg. You're not gonna chest to thigh. You're lifting up off the thigh.

Roll up. Take your breath. And up and over neck, thoracic lumbar, lift round, reach the arms. I'm looking at my thigh, rolling up this last one. We will try to do the neck turn if you're up for it. Alright. You're not gonna collapse.

Now as you're there, you're gonna turn your neck. Turn your eyes. If anyone is a swimmer out there, look what happens. It's a swimming head position. Reach. Get your head out of the water.

Come back up. Let's do for fun just a little flow first side and go. Reach. Other side, move. Reach. You can do that, turn. I just want you to go in neck, chest, lumbar. Neck, chest, lumbar twist a little more now.

Start to twist the ribs a little more. I'm told that that rotation would come back. Twist the rotation of the ribs. One more. Rotate. It should be a little easier.

And a rotate. Okay. Hey, guys. We're doing great. Now, shake your legs. That's been a lot of rounding. Right? So keep the legs here. You can also go into diamond if your legs are dying. And in fact, I'll show it here just for a difference. We warmed up with that hinge. Right? Go back to your hinge. Place your hands on your ball.

Maybe it's on your feet and press. Press down with your arms. Connecting to your back. This is tricky. Can you lift your gaze and your sternum up the wall in front of you without letting your lower back go too lazy? Keep that stomach connected. Right? You may have to roll the ball towards you to pick up your chest a little bit, and then come back to your hinge.

Most of us is gonna be very small. The shoulder slide down. The chest rises up I used to image that I have a big eyeball on my chest and I'm opening the eyeball, and I wanna come down. It may help to do no ball. Why don't we try this?

Lean forward. Shoulders back, extend your upper spine. Change the position. Feel free to change the position. I'm gonna stay there.

I wanna raise my arms just a little bit. Place your hands on your toes, get anyone just hold that, and once again round your back. We're gonna get into more back extension now. Just round. But we have one more exercise up here. That's the rolling like a ball. So move forward.

Tuck your ball behind your knees, hug yourself with appreciation, movement is medicine. Here we go. We're gonna roll back. Keep your chin on your chest to come back up. Place your feet. You made it. Try it again.

Let your feet touch. That's step one. Hug your ball with your legs. Step two would be not to touch the feet down, see if you can balance. Keep hugging the bowl.

I want you in cervical flexion, thoracic flexion, lumbar flexion. Have fun. We warmed up with an inhale into our back. Breathe in. Exale come up.

Three more breathe in. Exhale come up. Two more breathe in. Exhale. Last one.

Then hold, and you did it. Alright? Good. Okay. On our stomach. So that was a lot of front body focus. Right? So now when we put our front down, the back body is the focus. Have you ever wondered about that in class?

Okay. This is fun too. So the ball goes underneath the sternum. Now if you have lots of tissue, you're gonna have to move it out of the way. I'm just saying I want that ball on the breastbone Hands in front of you. Legg separated is fine.

Parallelells great. All the way together was great. It's more challenging with legs fully together. It is challenging in the low back organization. So we'll see. I'm gonna try this to start.

Index finger thumb together, elbows pressing on the mat. No. We're not resting. Well, no. Heck, no. We're gonna round over the ball. So even though they said face down is usually back body focus, I want you to keep feeling the effort of the front of you connecting round over the ball and then release a little bit.

Breathe in. Press your hands and elbows lift your rib cage, your sternum off the ball around. Notice that your rib package is up off the mat. Your belly button is up off the mat. And then extend two more times.

So that control needed here. And I wanted to focus on this because when we do face down exercises, keep lifting up off the ball. C curve. C curve. It's really important to know how to move and support the body in various places. Right? Flex. So upper back is in a c curve.

Can you get the low back kind of in a curve? No. It's not gonna go, but you can pretend it's going there. Feel that working in tummy and release. Okay. Now move the ball a little bit higher, just a touch, move your elbows more forward.

Let yourself relax. Feel the difference between the work, and not. This is passive. Feels kinda nice. We're not being passive. We're gonna active.

Be active. Press your elbows. Press your hands. Now, lastly, pull the chest back a little bit off the ball and reach your breastbone forward and up. Last little place to feel is your tummy. Try to pick it up.

Hold that shape. Hold the shape. Can you pick up one leg and pull your heel to your buttock twice? One, two, put it down with control. Other side, pull, pull, and lower down. Keep picking up your sternum up off the ball, but reaching it forward.

It's kind of a weird idea, up and forward. A kick, kick. Kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, one more each side, kick, kick, kick, kick, and take it away. And then relax. Shake your tail. Now we're gonna do something very small, a little smaller.

Can everyone just we're not gonna use well for this one? Place your hands right by your shoulders. Let your forehead and your nose get very close to the mat. Obviously, for right now, because I've got a microphone on my face. I'm going to be mindful on not resting completely, but I want you all. I can do it on this cheek. If you turn your head, and I'm gonna turn my head and just look at you, so I'm on my right cheek, lengthen your tailbone, do that little bit of z curve in your lower back if you can.

Now just pick up your head, just a little pickup. Rotate your cervical spine so that your nose faces the mat, and then turn to the other side, and then just put that cheek down. This is where I'm not gonna fully do it because of the microphone. And then you pick up your cheek, turn and glaze it and turn to the other side and just put it down. I just wanted to give you one or two of these little neck movements. Try to keep your tail long to your heels.

Keep reaching your sternum toward That's your chest toward the top of your mat. Right? You are doing a hint of spinal extension, well, a lot of extension, but not the swan extension. We're about to do that now. Okay? So then level your head, put it right between, bring your legs together if you can. I'm gonna move my hands much farther back, right to the side of my rib cage. I'm gonna do that same movement of reaching my chest forward, and then not pick up my chest yet.

Pick up the sternum, the neck, the eyes. Now I'm gonna keep lifting my upper back, my upper back, my upper back, and then at one point, the arms are going to have to help me, and they come up I'm not dropping my ribs out, keeping them up. And then as I come down, it's like I had that ball earlier when we faced down. I'm not just gonna rest on it. I'm gonna act like I'm going over the ball a little bit.

K? Two more times. I know it's a little strange. If the ball were there, you'd be kinda pushing on it. But I didn't wanna use that for this exercise, push your body up, lift your body up. As you come down, as if that ball is there or maybe half of its inflation, and you're gonna go over it, lengthen over it with control.

And just one more time. Use your upper back. A big eyeball on the front of your chest is opening up. It sees the wall there. Seize the wall. And now from here, make a cat back.

There's that lumbar flexion. You can tuck your toes. You can push with your hands. Push with your hands. Okay. We're gonna move on into some side work now, everybody.

Use your ball. And so we when our spine dance at the beginning, we did a lot of flexion extension. This one has more side bend rotation and extension. So place your knees together ankle stacked. You're on your elbow, palm is flat.

Crop this ball right by your ribs and try not to squish it. Try not to squish it. K? Lift away. You've got all this awareness, hand behind your head. Side bend. We did it in the warm up. Bend your neck. Bend your root cage, bend, bend, turn toward the ball over it around.

That's that flexion. You're gonna work a little extension here. Reach sternum forward, sternum forward, and then unwind to face the front. Interesting. Neck, rib cage, rotate extension, sternum. It's a little tricky.

You've got a dome rest on the ball if you don't have to and come back to facing front. Again, the lateral neck, lateral ribs, turn that into rotation of your spine, going into extension of your spine, chest, neck, eyes, one more, neck, thoracic spine, rotis, very spiny. Motion is lotion. Movement is medicine. Right. Okay. Good. Now rest your neck for a second.

We're gonna do front kickback kick. You all know it. Extend your top leg. We're not dropping. We're in more of a straight line, but I'm gonna have us bias with a little flexion and extension. Kick the leg forward and rotate toward the ceiling.

Kick the leg back, rotate over the ball. You see me do it. Kick kick. I love this pattern. Mobileize that spine. Don't get too stiff.

Let it swing. Let your leg swing and swing. Two more. Swing. Swing. And swing. We're done with that side. Okay. Wonderful. Good. Give this arm a little rest.

Alright. We have that on the other side. So just crawl around. Good. Really wonderful work. Everybody needs together, feet together. You're on your elbow and is flat. You're not dropping your ribs.

You're in your position. Now let's go back to cervical spine. That's your neck. Bend it. Ben, bend your rib cage.

Pick those ribs up away for the ball. Right? Flexion. Rotation, twist, extension lean with your nose, your eyes, your chin, your chest, a little swan in this very strange extension place, and then come back to facing me, and neck. It kinda merges all in one rotation. But you're still working to dance the spine moving in these beautiful ranges, neck flexion, thoracic flexion, rotation and flexion. Extension.

Can you get long, longer, longest, one more, and neck, ribs, round, spine. Spine, spine longest, stay there extend front kickback kick with a bias of extension rotation, and over the ball. Let your legs swing a little bit. Swing. Have fun here, root in with your stomach, swing the leg, rotate the spine, last one here, last one here, and give that a rest. Good. Okay.

Everybody come on up off that elbow, shake that hand. Now, I wanna come into one little section of quadruped on hands and knees. We're nearly done. I think this is beneficial. We do so much cat and cow or cat flexion extension in in Pilates. On the mat, on the equipment.

Let's do it here, spread your hands, knees are a part about hip width, and do what you can to get in a neutral spine. We've all got a neutral, nice and long crown head forward. Ribs aren't relaxed or shoulders are on your back. You know, all your cues, your stomach is up. Now today, I do want you to start with your feet down.

Like we did in spine dance, head to tail, tail to head. I am pushing the mat with my arms. I'm pushing the mat with my feet and my shins. And what's not is lifting. Everything else is lifting up.

And then just do global head to head to tail head away from tail. Arch as much as you feel safe with, pull your arms towards your legs. And again, push feet pushing, shins pushing. You're putting that skirt on. There's that skirt cue again.

Right? Extension, tail out, top of head out, extend. Alright. Let's pick it up. We're gonna do one more, and I'll give you an option, a choice. You could continue with what we just did. Or join me and flex your toe with. Bend your toes down.

Stay in the curve and pick up your knees. Oh, shift a little forward and back. In my mind, I am putting on a heavy skirt. And it's heavier. I have to drop my tail under, and I'm around one more, and I'm gonna set my knees down. I'm gonna set my feet down, and I'm gonna push my hands.

I'm stretching the mat away from my tummy, and I'm rounding, rounding, rounding. Okay, everybody. Walk your hands forward. Just about done. Stand up with two straight legs.

Bring your ball with you. Put it right by your toes. Place your fingertips on that ball and push it into the ground. And one more time, we've got the round shape. Started the heavy tailbone. You can leave the ball there.

Thank you, Ball. It's the tail. The lower back. I want you to keep shifting forward. Let that head hang into the very, very end. There's your chest spine, and there's your cervical spine.

And just take a notice. Once you stand here for a moment and just, you know, I like to say feel what you feel because I think it's extremely important to feel what you feel. And hopefully, you can relax. Hopefully, you feel better and and open and awake and maybe do a little bit of this and just see how you feel. Do you feel spiny? A little more loose motions lotion. Moving his medicine.

Keep moving name of the game. Thanks, everybody. I'll see you next time.