Functional Intermediate Mat

Hi. My name is Ed Boefer, and today I'd like you to join me on an intermediate mat flow. So this is a my personal go to mat workout. So just, enjoy, have fun with me. If something doesn't feel good, leave it. Alright? Try do something else. But what I do recommend is you just keep moving with me for the next fifty to fifty five minutes. Alright?

So I'm gonna start standing tall, arms alongside my body, spreading all 10 toes, palms are gently just touching the sides of my thighs. I'm gonna breathe in. And on my exhale, I'm gonna start with a roll down. Just softening my neck, finding flexion through my thoracic spine. So I'm just breaking just under the ribcage, and then I'm allowing my hips to flex forward, softening at the knees, and relaxing down.

Arms are completely soft and relaxed. Take a breath in, and exhale as I'm leading, with my lumbar up to the ceiling, trying to keep my pelvis quite natural and just allowing the vertebra to stack up one at a time. So we'll do that again. Inhale to prepare. Exhale. Head goes heavy, not compressing the chin, allowing the arms just to stretch out from the shoulders, softening the spine, and relaxing down.

Remove all tension from the neck, inhale at the bottom, and exhale. And not too dissimilar to the reformer. I'm really thinking of pressing equally through both feet, as if you were doing footwork on the footbar, up into tall standing one more time for me, please inhale and exhale. So head goes down. Upper back rounds, then we are moving from the hip joint as we roll down. And breath in at the bottom, and exhale start pressing up from the lower back.

Stacking the spine, one vertebra at a time. Alright. Good job. So from here, I'm gonna go into a little bit of standing hip work. So I'm gonna start by lifting my leg up to a tabletop position, and I just wanna balance, right, getting a little bit of work on my standing leg. And then bringing the leg down.

Right. So I'm gonna change to the other side, so I'm lifting, finding a little bit of balance, and bringing it back down. So I'm trying to bring that leg up to about 90 degrees or parallel to the mat, so I'm gonna bring other leg up. So finding my balance. Boom. And now I'm gonna open up the hip joint, so I'm abducting.

And then I'm gonna close the door and bring the leg down at the side. Lifting up. So find the balance. They're good. So leg is at a parallel to the floor, so it's about 90 degrees, opening up at the hip joint.

So we open the door, and then closing the door, and then bringing it back down. So we'll be adventurous. We're gonna add in a couple more movements. Yep. So I'm gonna lift the leg up again up to the tabletop. Alright. I'm gonna open up the door. I'm gonna internally rotate the hip, and then extend the hip.

Taking the leg behind me. And I'm gonna reverse, so I'm gonna extend the hip. Open up the hip. So the door opens up again, and then I'm gonna close the door to bring it back. Beautiful. So I've been doing a lot of running lately, so this feels really good on my hip joint.

So same thing other side. So lifting the leg up. Opening up the hip, internally rotating, extending the hip joint, and bringing the leg back. So if you don't feel confident with the balance, You could hold on to a foam roller and onto a door frame. So I extend the hip, abduct, open, and close, and bringing it back down. Awesome.

So we're gonna make our way down to the mat. So I'm gonna start standing at the bottom end of my mat, and let's see if we can make our way down into a squat. So I'm gonna reach arms away and hinging at the hips and going to about halfway. So ribs are in, and I've just sent my sitting bones back. And from there, I press back up into tall standing. So this is gonna depend on your hips structure as well, your knees.

So from here, I'm gonna go again. I'm gonna push the pelvis back a little bit hinging at the hip joint, bending at the knees. Don't worry about the knees going over the toes. Keeping my ribs in, abdominals engaged, and lifting back up. So this time, I'm gonna take it all the way down, bum all the way to the heels. So from here, I'm gonna reach back.

And I'm squatting down, down, down, and as low as I can. And now from there, see if you can bring it back up, and pressing back up into standing. So just allow your spine to be natural. So if you go into a little bit of a posterior tilt, that's fine. So again, we're gonna reach back all the way, so I'm tipping back, and trying to sit back, getting my bummed down to my heels all the way down, and then pressing back up into tall standing. Alright? Last time, we're gonna make it all the way down to sitting. Right? So there might be a little bit of a drop off when we get to the bottom.

So I take my hips back, sitting all the way back, back, back, and I'm reaching, I'm reaching, And now from here, we gotta go down into sitting. Boom. Alright? So the little drop, just be careful when you transition. I'm gonna sit feet parallel. All tend to spread, hands. Under my thighs and lifting myself up tall.

So I'm using my arms to help elevate my spine. So careful. It's very common here that you end up lying back. So I'm really using my hips and my arms to help me to sit up as tall as possible. So I'm gonna take a breath in to prepare, and as I exhale, I let my head be heavy just like the roll down, and I think of just gently pressing my lower back back towards the mat. So I'm not consciously tilting my pelvis.

I'm thinking more of like a a cat stretch feeling. So I lift the spine. Back up tall, using the arms to open up across the chest. So inhale, and exhale again, I'm thinking of the lower back gently pressing towards the mat, and the head just going down. And inhale as we lift back up and exhale, pressing the back down, and this time I start straightening my arms and I go back as far as my arms are straight. Right? So it depends on the length of your arms, how far we go. Take a breath in, exhale bending the elbows, drawing yourself back in, and then we lift the spine back up, tall to sitting. So one more time, just think lower back pressing back.

So I'm not opening the hip joint yet. And now I lengthen my arms. The hip joint will open. And let's see if we can go a little bit further down towards the mat. So I don't wanna drop all the way back.

Challenging the hips take a breath in, and then exhale, drawing back up hands under the thighs again, finding our shape, and then building the spine, back up as tall as we can. Alright. So this time we're gonna go all the way to the tips of our shoulder blades. So I take a breath in. I'm going to create my shape, start rolling back, and sliding down down, down, so I'm getting to the tips of my shoulder blades. If this is the point of no return, I'd like you to stay up a little bit higher.

And then rolling back up, hands under the thighs, rolling over those sitting bones, and lifting as tall as we can. So this time as I go down, I'm gonna find those shoulder blades again, and I'm gonna slide my feet in a little bit closer to me. So I find my shape. So there I get the stretch of the back. I let the hip joint open up again.

I've got support from my arms for now. Now I'm letting go. I'm sliding the feet in. So I'm anticipating my setup for my chest lifts and my pelvic curls. And from here, I can go supine. So I've got my arms just relaxing down next to my sides.

Inhale to prepare, exhale abdominals first, posterior tilt of the pelvis, and then we keep maximum flexion as we start extending the hips. Alright. So I'm lifting up using my gluteals, my hamstrings, and my inner thighs. When I get to the top, I'm gently pressing through the arms and opening up across the chest inhale at the top. Exhale as I melt down, upper back, mid back, lower back, and releasing back into neutral pelvis. And inhale, and exhale.

And so I'm very aware of what's happening with my feet as well. I'm trying to create or keep contact with all 10 toes on the mat, so I'm not rolling with my feet. Pressing into the arms, inhale, and exhale as I'm coming back down into neutral. So you can give the toes a little spread there just to make sure they are gently pressing. And again, exhale. So spine is just like a wave, rolling up, pressing back into the arms, inhale at the top, and exhale as I'm coming back down, stretching the back extensors, and one last time, so breath in, prepare, abdominals first, tilting the pelvis, using the hip extensors. So I'm also aware that I don't wanna abduct my legs. I'm using the inner thighs to keep the legs parallel.

And hold there and pause. Alright. So we're gonna stay up at the top. So I'm gonna bring my left arm overhead. And as I exhale, I'm gonna lift my left arm back to my side and lift the right leg in opposition. So I'm going one, and I inhale as I lower.

And two, so a bit of a cross pattern, and in good for the brain to start the session. And three, and place the foot. Good, bring the arm down next to our side. So, generally, we drop a little bit when this happens on the single leg. So I've gotta get myself back up to where I was. Right arm can go overhead, just a little stretch over. And we're going up.

One, and tip keeping my pelvis as stable as possible. Two, and one more time. And three, and bring the foot down. And if you have any issues with your hips and your lower back and the single leg bridging feels awkward, you can just do the arm choreography. I'm gonna take a breath in, and then exhale rolling the spine.

Back down, vertebra, by vertebra, taking my arms out to the t position. So table top one, and two, and then adducting the legs. So I'm really thinking about my ankles and my knees squeezing together here. Gently pressing my back into the mat for our spine to supine inhale as I take the legs over to one side, and exhale as I bring it back into the center. So you wanna be a little bit conservative with your rotation on the first view.

So I'm going over, and back in to the center. And rotate, and back into the center. So very simple movement, and inhale, and exhale as I bring it back. Now I'm gonna take my arms alongside my body, reach my legs to the vertical, and I'm gonna turn this into a corkscrew. So again, I'm gonna inhale, legs to the front, exhale as I circle round and back up the other side. And reverse, inhale slice across, exhale round and back up.

And now, because I've got the longer levers. I've gotta pay a little bit more attention to the abdominals. So check that middle, drawing it in. Inhale, exhale circle around, and back, and change. Inhale, exhale, circle around. And back. So we may as well while we're here, I'm gonna lower my left leg down, and Dorcey flex the right foot ready for the leg circles.

Right? So think of an oval shape in front of the body. And we're gonna cross the midline. It's a inhale and a exhale. It's a two. And three.

And four. One more for five and exhale and hold the leg up. Right. So I'm gonna reach up into the hundreds position. So we're gonna add a little bit more abdominals, and I'm gonna reverse. So it's inhale and exhale and two and exhale and three and exhale and four and exhale one more for five, and exhale leg stays up.

And then I'm gonna lower. Good. So I can bend the knee. Just slide the leg away. Left leg straight up from there, flex the foot. First direction will stay head down, crossing the midline.

So inhale, exhale, two, three, and exhale, four, and exhale one more for five and exhale, and we hold the position. So this time, I'm gonna go up into that same lift, but I'm gonna actually float the arms. So I'm in more of a legitimate 100 position here. And so we've got a little bit less balance. So you would need to take that into consideration with the size of your ovals or your circles.

So inhale, exhale, two exhale. So keeping stability, three, exhale, four, exhale, and five, and exhale, and up. Bend the knee, and let's lower the body. Alright. So I'm gonna place the foot down, join the other leg, legs are still parallel, and interlacing The fingers, hands behind the head, elbows just in a relaxed position. And I keep my thumbs hidden away, so I'm not pulling against my neck into the first chest lift. Exhale, keeping the neck quite long, and lifting up towards the tips of the shoulder blades.

I inhale at the top, and then exhale as I come down out of the chest lift. So inhale, exhale. I inhale. I draw the abdominals in and exhale. As I come down. So take that opportunity at the top to remind yourself to pull the abdominals in so we exhale as we lift. So over here, I inhale I remind myself to draw in with the abdominals and then exhale.

As I go back down, so we'll repeat twice more and exhale. Inhale at the top. Exhale as we go back down. And one more time. And exhaling hold our position we can circle our arms round, nice straight elbows, wrapping the fingers, bending the elbows to come up an extra inch, and then hands go behind the head, and we're going into chest lift with rotation, and just looking past my thigh one.

And change. Two. Exhale. Three keeping the pelvis stable. Four.

And five exhale, six, and seven, eight, nine, one more time, and 10 and back into the center, holding the chest lift, inhale at the top, and then exhale as we bring it back to our start position. Good. So I'm gonna bring my arms down to my side. Single leg lift, right leg, exhale, float the leg up to tabletop or a little bit deeper if your hip joint can manage without changing the shape of your spine, and then just tip, and we go two, and we tip, and three, and we tip, four, and last one. Four, five. Just smooth movement from the hip joint, other side, and we're going one, and it's down, and it's a two, and down. Three, tip, four.

And one more for five. Hold the leg up. The 10 leg changes. And switch one two three four five six, seven, eight, nine, and switch 10. Beautiful both feet down. And then I'm gonna adduct my legs.

So I've walked my feet and my knees together. Arms reaching overhead, palms facing inwards, and we'll go into our roll up. So try keep those fingers together, elbows straight, and I'm gonna inhale as I find the chest lift phase here. So I'm all set, exhale, allowing the legs just to slide away and rolling up. And I'm looking just out over the top of my knees inhale and exhale as I roll back.

So I'm just keeping that shape that I created here and over without the ribs flaring. So again, I'm coming up inhaling. I'm lifting up with my head and my chest. So I'm looking straight ahead if I can. Exhale. I just maintain that shape moving from the hip joint, coming forward. Inhale.

And exhale as I roll back. Roll back. Find the tips of the shoulder blades, and then opening up. And again, inhale, lift, exhale, maintain our shape, So we're moving from the hip joint. We've already created our flexion. We don't have to do much more.

And here, inhale, exhale. As I'm drawing back down, Tips of the shoulder blades and arms over. I'm gonna come up inhale. Hold the position this time. It's like you turning a steering wheel, and I'm just gonna rotate over to the front, and I'm gonna do five little pulses here. One, two, three, four.

Five back to the shoulder blades. I turn the wheel this way and five one, two, three, four, five back through the center. And we'll come up. Yep. That feels good all the way up into the top of our roll up. So I'm gonna roll back down, and this time I'm gonna draw the feet in again, and back to supine.

Leggs coming up into the tabletop. So I prefer you to do one at a time for now, adducting. Arms overhead. This time, my palms are facing the ceiling, and I'm avoiding flaring the rib cage. So I'm actually actively pressing down a little bit. We're gonna take a breath in to prepare and exhale as we lift the legs out 45 degrees.

We're in our hundreds position. Inhale to prepare, and it's into three four five. So it's out two three four five. Two three four five. Out two three four five. Into three. I'm keeping the pulses small, out, two, three, four, five. In two, three, four, five.

And in two, three, four, five. Maybe take the legs a little lower. And out two, three, four, five, two, three, four, five, into four, five, out two, three, four, five, into four, five, out to three, four, five, in two, three, four, five, last one, two, four, five, in two, three, four, five, see if you can lower both legs to the mat, turn the palms, and, yes, we roll up one more time coming forward. There. So we've already got our shape. We're just gonna tip the shape backwards, bend the knees.

So you can do one at a time, and we're gonna hold onto the shins. Now here, I'm not quite satisfied. I wanna get myself a little bit deeper into that ball shape. Right? So scapular state of press, heels are pulling towards the back of the thighs, and I'm looking down. So the eyes looking down and the breath are probably the two most important parts of the roll like a ball for me. Inhale as I roll back and exhale.

As I roll up, and inhale, inflate, exhale, deflate brings me up, inhaling, and exhaling. Inhale. And exhale. Keeping the eyes down. Inhale. And exhale.

We'll do two more. Inhale. XL one last one. And inhaling and exhaling, placing the feet down. Use your arms under your thighs, so it's quite a close position here. Lift the spine back up as tall as you can.

And from here, we'll start rolling back to the tips of the shoulder blades again. And we're gonna bring the legs up. One, and two, arms or hands just over the bottom of my knees, and I'm looking straight through my thighs. So my legs are a little bit deeper than 90 degrees of hip flexion for my double leg stretch. Inhale, reach arms and legs, try to touch their hands behind you, exhale circle round and back.

Two, and circle. Three. And circle four, and round. Five, keeping the trunk stable. So this trunk stabilization in this exercise, So I don't wanna lift up and down.

So try stay consistent five more times. One, and round, and two, and round eyes forward. Three, and round, I straight elbows reaching back four, and round one more, and five, and back into position. We're gonna lower down. Just turn your head to one side, getting a little bit of neck release, try gaze all the way to the one side of the room, follow the wall all the way up through the ceiling, turning the head all the way to the other side, getting that lovely stretch through the neck, back into the center, coming up into the chest lift position again for our single leg stretch.

So I'm gonna extend my right leg both hands over my left, and I'm gonna switch one two, three, four, five. Try keep your feet. Six on the same horizontal line, seven, eight, nine just staying neat and 10, and bringing both legs in. And we'll lower. We'll do rotation one more time. So we go one of the neck.

Look around two. Back to the center, use your arms to your advantage, draw yourself up, find your chest lift, interlace the hands behind your head, and we're going to our crisscross. So I'm gonna rotate towards you, so I'm going opposite leg extends. One, two, and I'm just looking past my thighs. Three, four, so my neck for five stays in line. Eight with my spine? There I do one more and rotate and back to the center holding my position.

Both legs up to the ceiling, and I'm gonna wrap my arms behind my calves. From here, I'm gonna lower right leg down to the mat, and hold. So I'm gonna bring my leg in a little bit closer to me if I can for the hamstring pull one, trying to pulse from the hip joint, one two change. Two. Three, four, five, anchor the leg every time. Five six, and seven, eight, nine, one more time, and 10, both legs up.

Hands behind the head, fingers interlaced. So I'm keeping the chest lift, and then I'm gonna lower the left leg down. This time, right leg is pulsing in towards me. Ham string pull two, bum, bum, and change two, and three, and four, and five, and six, seven, eight, nine, one more time, and 10. And let's rotate over to the leg, and we double pulsed just the leg.

For number three, and three, and four, and five, yes, six, and seven, and eight, nine, last one, and ten, bring both legs up hold the position. Good. Hug the knees into our chest. Beautiful. So I'm gonna go into the first inversion.

The rollover. Right? Please if you've got any issues with your neck or your back. I would recommend just doing the pelvic curl or a spine to a supine so you keep moving. Right? For the rest of you, just take care. Palms are pressing down into the mat. We're gonna bring the legs back into a tabletop now because it's a little bit more of advanced move, I'd like feet and knees together, and we're gonna float both legs up.

Both legs up. We reach both legs up to about 45 degrees, inhale up to 90, exhale as we roll over. Lead parallel to the mat, flex the feet, separate, and taking the legs down. Keeping the legs as straight as I can as I start rolling down. So this is where I get the best part of my stretch. Plan to flex when I hit the vertical.

Adduct. Inhale. Keeping this angle of the hip joint as we lift the pelvis over. So it should feel like a reverse crunch, pressing back into the arms. Exhale. Now the angle's gonna change as I flex the feet separate. This is where I hinge at the hip joint, and then I roll down.

So you don't have to touch your legs onto the mat. Just if it feels comfortable, plant to flex, and together. Inhale and exhale. Sh flex, separate, legs come down. And roll through, trying to keep those thighs quite tight, plantar flex together two more times. Inhale, shoulder extensors, exhale.

Flex, separate, hip joint, rolling down. We'll go one more time, please. Inhale, exhale roll over. Flex the feet separate, taking both legs down. Rolling.

One vertebra at a time, through the spine, plant to flex, and together, bend the knees, and let's just rock ourselves up into a sitting position And so I'm gonna just straighten out my legs for the spine stretch. So I want my arms shoulder width apart. My legs are just a little bit wider than my shoulders. Try keep your feet and your knees pointing up to the ceiling. Back sitting up as straight as we can. Alright?

So we're gonna do exactly like we did the roll down. The first phase is really just this flexion of the thoracic spine And then the second phase is the pelvis tipping forward. Alright? So try think of those two parts happening. So I'm gonna soften from the top of the head under the rib cage, And then I've kind of run out of flexion of my spine, and then I just allow my pelvis to tip forward. That takes me a little bit deeper into stretch.

Pelvis stacks back up, and then the spine just returns back up into its sitting position. So head goes down, flexing through the thoracic spine, then tipping forward from the pelvis. They're getting deeper into the stretch. Tip the pelvis back up, and then the spine coming back up tall. And repeat, so we go, head, upper back, soft ribs, Tipping forward from the hip joint, there hold that position.

So what I'm not doing is trying to make myself feel like I'm stretching further by pushing my shoulders forward, so I keep my scapula slightly retracted, Pelvis, and then the spine. So let's add in a little bit of extension to that. So we go head goes down, thoracic flexion, pelvis tips forward, that's pulled onto something that's gonna help us. So ankles' feet depends on where you're comfortable. And then we start gently, you can gently pull onto the arms, keep the ribs soft.

Try aim your sternum up and forward and tipping the pelvis further. So we feel the back extensors engage here. Now from here, you're gonna bring your arms up. Try keep that same spine position. And we wanna feel like we're in a lengthened position here.

So from here, we're just gonna fold it forward again. So we're back to where we would have been if we just did the regular version, and then restacking the spine bring it up tall. Let's go one more time. So, tipping forward, soft ribs from the hip joint, taking hold of the ankles, or the feet, so I'll defeat this time, drawing up. And if you look at the position that we're finding here, it's very similar to our open leg rocker, which we're going to next, and arms come up. Reaching, so finding that length through the spine, and then we can come down.

And we're gonna roll back up to tall sitting. I'm gonna move towards my feet, bending my knees, lifting one and two. And from here, straightening my legs out, and if I can flatten a little bit more through my back. So I just don't wanna sit around. So the emphasis is up. If you need to keep the legs bent, that's absolutely fine.

The one thing I would recommend is to try keep your arms straight. So we round the lumbar spine, just like the roll like a ball. I keep looking down, rolling back up, And then once we're there, try flatten at the top. So we go round. We stay round, and we flatten.

And we go round, and we go round, and flatten the spine. And again, round, Stay around, and then right at the end, find the flattening. Let's go two more times. So flexion. Keep flexion. So eyes stay down.

Little bit of extension. One more time. Flection, I keep it, lifting back up, bend the knees, and then I'm gonna use my features to scoot me back. And I'm in the sore position. So arms out in a tee, lifting up through the spine.

So the sore is a little bit more choreographed. Alright? So, you know, obviously, I learned this from my teacher, realize afterwards, but it really honors each part of the rotation and flexion of the exercise. So you can break it up really nicely. So I'm going to inhale as I rotate and my chin and sternum are just past my knee in the front.

I bring my arms into position without rotating my shoulders. I lean forward from my hip joint. So I'm in my flattest back possible. Right? So this would be round. This is my flat back position. Some people might be flatter. I keep extending to lift up, and while I do that, my back arm pops out perpendicular.

To my body, so I'm in an l shape. I open back into the t shape, and now I rotate. I inhale. I grow taller. I bring my arms into position.

I try not to rotate my shoulders. I reach forward from the hip joint. So I'm stretching straight over this knee here. There. I lift back up using my back extenses.

Find the l to the t to the center. So we have t, arms into position hinge forward, l shape, t, d, rotate. One last time. Rotate the t, arms into position, and stretch forward. Both weight equal on both sitting bones. I don't wanna lift up. I've gotta anchor down on my left side here.

Lifting back up, find our l shape, find our t shape, find our center, adduct the legs, turn the palms up to the ceiling, and I'm going to spine twist So I'm gonna rotate double poles. One, two, and center. One, two, and center. One, two, keeping my ankles together. One, two, and center.

Lifting out of the lower back. And center. One, two and center. Last one, one, two, and back to the center. One, two, and back to the center. And we're going to relax.

So I'm gonna turn onto my hands and knees. I'm gonna face to the head side of my mat. Alright? So we're going into a quadruped position here. So all fours. So you've got the options. You can go on to your palms. Alright? Or if you've got any issues with your wrists, some of you may like the option of rolling the mat. So that really helps Alright? Or you could always just go onto your fists. Alright? So all of those are absolutely fine.

So I wanna keep my back as straight as I can. Shoulders are stable. And from here, I'm gonna do the cat stretch three times. So, again, it's that same movement that we started the session with, where we think of just pressing the lower back away from us and our upper body responds. I go back into long line position here.

Keeping my pelvis stable. I aim my sternum forward. So I'm not arching the whole back just through the upper back. I come back into my straight line. From here, I'm gonna press the lower back up to the ceiling again.

Lifting up, pressing I bring it back into my straight line. I'm gonna lift up sternum aiming forward, and back into center. And again, lower back. Presses up. Try it lead the belly button.

Pull it through your spine all the way up to the ceiling. Go back into your straight line. Hold our position, and then lifting the chest forward, and then we bring it back into a straight line. Now here I'm going into about a quarter of a cat. So I just tilt my pelvis ever so slightly.

So it's just gonna help create a little bit of stability through the lumbar. I take right leg out. Left leg goes out, and I'm in a stable spine position here. Right leg slides in one, and out. So this is the front support, two, and out. Three, and out.

Four. And five, just moving at the hip joint. Six, and seven, eight, Nine, one more time, and 10, and the legs out long, hold the position, plan to flex the right foot. So keep the abdominals in, keep the thoracic slightly extended leg pull front. One, Two, three, without arching the back, four just extending the hip, four, five change to the other side.

So soft plantar flex foot, one, two, three, four, and five. And then from here, I'm gonna draw into an up stretch. I'm just gonna adjust my hands. I bend my knees to flatten my back. Once my back feels like it's got all the length that can, then I'm gonna try to drive my heels down stretching through the back of the legs.

We're gonna hold this up, stretch position. And now from here, I'm gonna roll forward, so this length should still be fine, finding a long line, and we're gonna go into five push ups. Elbows in towards our sides, pressing up one. So keep the pelvis stable. Inhale down.

Two. Inhale. Three scapular stable, and four, one more, and five, and I'll go back into my up stretch position. Now from here, I'm gonna make a little adjustment. I walk my feet a little bit closer.

I'm gonna take a big step. Right leg is gonna go through my hands. Alright. So I wanna walk my foot so that my knee is directly over my ankle or my heel. Back leg stays nice and straight, and we're gonna lift up, and I'm gonna bring my arms out to the t position. Keeping that back leg as straight as you can.

So I'm thinking energy through this leg, and we're just gonna hold for five counts for five, four, three, go a little bit lower, two, And, one, bringing the hands back down. I'm gonna step out through up stretch. So into the up stretch position. Again, if you need to shuffle forward slightly with your feet, you can. I've got long legs, so I can take a a big step through. Alright? But feel free to adjust me over the ankle, arms out, find the t position. This time, we'll take the arms to a vertical from there, back leg, energy.

Nice low position. Another five and four three two and bringing the arms back down. We're gonna step out Find our front support position again. I'm locked in, and I'm gonna bring my knees in. One, and two, I'm gonna turn on to my side to face you. So I've got a a frame position under my body. Top foot is in front of the bottom foot.

And from here, I'm gonna lift up into a t position. Pellvis moving up not pushing with the legs across. Right? So up and not across. So from here, push out of the shoulder, lift up with the pelvis, get into the t. Bottom leg should be pretty relaxed.

Lift the pelvis higher, arc over without rotating, turn your head. Go back into your t position. Lower the pelvis. Just to a float. And up again, lift into a diagonal, arc up, look down.

Go back into our t position. Lower the pelvis. We'll go one more time. We arc up, all the way high up into that arc, rotate just the head, not the shoulders. Turn back into our tea, And then slowly coming down, down, down, down, down, working through our shoulders.

I'm gonna just take my legs round to the other side. So we're gonna do this side bend three more times. So you can see, I I put a lot of emphasis on using my oblete as opposed to my legs to get me up into position. And that comes from pelvis up, not diagonal. So we'll repeat. So arms at our sides, lift up with a pelvis, find our t position, arc up, look over the side, turn back to your t, pelvis just lowers floating a little hovering.

And again, lift up into the arc, turn the head. Back through the t position, floating, coming down one more, and up and lift the pelvis rotate, come back through our tee, bringing it all the way down to sitting. Good. So I'm gonna go prone for some back extension. So head is gonna be on this side. Of the mat, and I'm gonna start with a basic back extension position. So, arms are just gently against my thighs, legs are together, wide across the collar bones, inhale to lift.

Exhale to lower. Head stays in the hover. Inhale to lift. Exhale to lower. Inhale to lift.

Exhale to lower. One more. Inhale. To lift. As I lower, bring the arms out, find the t position, we're gonna raise the arms for 10.

One, Two, focusing on the deltoid posterior, three, four, five, six, seven. Eight, nine, and 10. Then we'll bring the hands in underneath us and interlace them. And then the elbows can go directly under the shoulders pushing up with the chest and aiming forward. Alright? So try not to pull around in this position. I want you to think more of opening the chest up and just using the abdominals to support the lower back. And we'll get additional support by pulling the elbows and then engaging the back of the legs. So I'm gonna use my gluteals, hamstrings, and my quads, and I'm gonna float the legs up.

Starting on an exhale for my single leg kick. So it's exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale keeping the legs afloat.

Exhale. Inhaled. Yeah. Exhale. Inhale.

Last one. Exhale. And inhale both legs go out straight. From here, I'll lower my body down. I'm gonna reach my arms out straight ahead of me, and I'm gonna use the same tempo from the hundreds. So I'm gonna lift right arm left leg for my swimming, left arm right leg, and it's out to three four five, in two three four five, out to four, five, in two, three, four, five, out two, three, four, five, and out two, three, four, five, in two, three, four, five.

Hold our position here. Bring our forearms down next to our body. Keep your legs up. For as long as you can, press into the forearms, lifting up. And when you can't anymore, the legs will come down.

We press into our palms, and we're in our swan dive prep. I bend my elbows, floating the legs, and I just keep that arc shape. I'm dragging with my elbows towards my hips, pressing into my palms, lifting up. Opening the abdominals, pressing down, finding the float of the legs, lifting up. And down.

And inhale see the legs are active for as long as we can. I can't drop. I can't drop. I can't drop. And then eventually, they have to come down. And back. And lower one more time for me, please.

Legg stay active. Press up. Use the arms. Back extances, lift. Exhale. As we come down, and we'll hold there, lower the legs, push yourself back into a rest position just for a moment.

So taking my bum bones down towards my heels actively pressing with my arms. So I wanna push back, stretching the lats, stretching the lower back after the extensors. And then I'm gonna come back into a sitting position. Alright? So I'm just gonna turn around. So from here, I'm going to the teaser prep.

So I'm just gonna float my legs up. And my arms are reaching alongside my body, back is up at a bit of a diagonal. Exhale, rolling the spine down, melting just to the lower back, inhale as I lift back up into my diagonal. So again, I'm just melting the back down, trying to keep my legs stable, and then coming back up. Should we? Yes. I reckon, let's go to our teaser. So we're gonna lift those arms, try get our back as tall as we can.

Leggs stay stable. We exhale as we roll. So we articulate, so we wanna work with as much control as we can, and bringing it back up, melting through the back, lifting up, try to get those arms up, in line with our ears, legs can always be a little bit higher. And arms down alongside our body control as we go back. And lift, and coming back up.

Always a challenge, especially if we do it slow, and then we'll bend the knees. Alright. And sitting up tall. So we're gonna just finish with the stretch of our hips and our shoulders, which would be our back support. So from here, I'm gonna lengthen my legs out. I'm gonna use so if you can use your fingers in or out to the sides, that's up to you, whatever feels comfortable.

So push out of your shoulders, already get your back active. I'm really active through my feet here. I think of aiming the soles of my feet. Down towards the mat. So I press the soles of my feet down, and that allows me to open up through the chest, and then I bring it back down, and we'll just pause just off the mat.

So, again, think a little bit of back extances, hip extances, shoulder extances, lift up, get our beautiful stretch through the chest, coming back, and down. And, again, up, soles of the feet aiming towards the mat, lifting. Just create a nice diagonal. Yeah. It's a good stretch in the pecs for me. And down, and our traditional finish will use our seal puppy.

So I'm gonna go under the knee, over the foot, under the knee, over the foot. Lifting. So trying to not cave into your back, feel like you're lifting yourself up as much as you can, although we're in a lot of deep flexion here. We roll onto the shoulders. One, two, three, rolling back up.

One two three. Rolling, one two three, roll one two three. So you're just having fun in this exercise and up one two three. Last one. One two three. And let's pause one two three.

So for those of you who want it, you can get up to standing, or you can join me. We're gonna roll back. Do one of our seal puppy claps, and then cross our legs and come up into standing. So we're gonna roll back. One, two, three, cross the legs.

Push yourself up into standing. And we're gonna finish with our last roll down. So arms down at our sides, tall standing position, inhale, prepare yourself. And exhale head heavy, thoracic flexion, pelvis tips forward, allowing the body just to relax, inhale. Exhale, and coming up.

Tall, thank you very much. I hope you enjoyed the class and stayed safe. See you next time.