Class #4107

Expansion Mat

50 min - Class
259 likes

Description

If you are feeling stuck in multiple ways, this Mat workout by Kristi Cooper will help you claim your space. She invites you to explore new movements, your breath, and yourself so that you can release stress and move freely in your body. She includes creative combinations that will wake up your entire body so you feel better than when you started.
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

May 13, 2020
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Transcript

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Yeah. Hey everybody, welcome. It's a whole new world, isn't it? Welcome to my world. Thank you for coming. I cannot wait to move in. Today is really going to be about expansion. Many of us are, I'm not going to say stuck at home, but stuck at home and so those walls can come in on us. Then I really want to commit or claim my space today. So today's all about expansion. So whether it's through your breath, whether it's through exploring a new movement, whether it's just exploring yourself, that's what today is going to be all about. Okay, so without much else to say, other than thank you for being here, let's just start standing. Just stand up. Feel wherever you are in space.

I'm having having red carpets on me. Stand with your feet parallel and just feel yourself in space. If you've taken my class before, you know, I like to know where I started so that I know where I'm going and then hopefully reevaluate and feel better at the end. That's the goal today expands. So just inhale. Okay. And exhale, let go. Whatever. Just inhale.

You just notice yourself like where did you naturally stand and exhale for me, I need to shrug my shoulders cause they're already up there anyway, so I'm just going to go. Yeah. Okay. You're there and, and for me, I like to pick a word for myself. Expansion is one of them. Another one is I'm going to be nice to me myself today. A lot of new and different and uh, discovery population is a word that comes up for me. Someone to center. I want to feel good in my expansion. Inhale, shrug up and exhale. And then now you can start to heal. What are your feet doing? Really?

They just there or you just hanging out on them, feel for them, you know, spread out the toes a little bit. Look down, you can look at yourself, you can talk to yourself, you can go, they're not even close to parallel. Fix it in here and exhale and the shoulders just don't enough. So I'm just going to inhale just a little bit. Just bringing air in, reaching out wide and exhale. Sometimes it press down. Feel like I'm going taller. Inhale up. This is your time. I mean already the hard part's over and made it, you nail them.

I'm going to do just a few to the front, you know, and exhale and it's just not enough. Some of the bend. Right. So just inhale happy birthday, Hillary. Happy birthday rail. You're not there. Yeah. And then again, as I, as I'm doing this, I'm going to do a few more. I'm just noticing the rest of my body. What am I knees for? Like am I hips feel like what's my natural tendency? I don't need to judge. I just need to notice it. Well those first principles, right?

Awareness and um, Alrighty. Starting to go. All right, chill out, Christie. Just live. Excellent. And then like maybe do anything you want for just a second. No one's watching. Okay. You know, like what's the motion you need to give you a sense of expansion or right from the beginning, whatever it is, whatever it is. I know there's some dancers out there, whatever, and just kind of go, Oh well I'm done that well cause it had been sitting or I'd been just like watching TV. Ah, I just have one more breast sort of centered so you can feel that right sort of center. You just email and exhale. Now I'm going to do a roll down. That's how it's different. The world is today. This is go to our mats.

Lie on your back, feet. Knees are bent, feet flat, arms down by your side. Okay, and from here again, feel your feet. So we're about to do my standard warmup that you want to feel where you start. So are your feet turned out or your knees hanging out? Everything is sort of, and this train track of alignment including your arms. Collarbones however going wide, it's like the T. Here we go. Inhale and just exhale and notice how if you exhale for a little bit longer than you normally would, that belly just starts to draw downwards naturally. You don't have to try. Inhale, let it expand, fill up that whole space, that vessel.

I'm trying to take off of what Amy did on Tuesday. You really focused on the breath, exhale and it makes such a big difference in my day. So I'm hoping that if you took her class, you can take some of what she said into this one. If not for now, just think of inhaling to expand to the sides. Front to bottom, top to bottom. Okay. And exhale. Shake it out. Shake it out. I'm starting to feel the earth underneath me.

Thank goodness. Inhale, how about you? Okay, I think we're ready to move a little bit. Still warming up though. Inhale, start that exhale and allow that deepening of the abdominal wall to rule the pelvis to the back so you feel more pressure on your low back. Then inhale and just release it. Yeah. Again, exhale again. Amy spent so much time talking about breath and there's so much to be had. Breath itself has movement. So as we exhale this next time, just notice how no matter what, if you, if you get to the point of forcing the breath, it will tell you, I don't want to go quite that far. You get it, you gotta use your muscles a little bit consciously and we'll further in here.

Start your exhale. We roll through the low back. We're going to roll just to the base of the ribcage. So keep the top right so hopefully feels good, right? You haven't popped your hips up, you're still kind of quite low. Inhale here and exhale back down and slowed the breath down a little bit more as we move. Inhale. Exhale. Same thing.

Just roll to the lower tips of your shoulder or sorry, rib cage or shoulderblades either one, but keep that long line of your low back and inhale, exhale, roll down. Now as far as breath actually is concerned, just breathe. Um, I have the habit really keep going. Yeah, of queuing the breasts because it's sort of my choreography and it helps me remember where I am. But you don't have to do it the way I'm saying. So the last thing you want to do is constrict, right? This is about expansion. Let's go for those Galway. Let's get crazy. Inhale, spread out. Those collarbones start low. Exhale, roll up.

Find every bone you can in your spine. Just look for them. And then somewhere around shoulder blades. That's where people let go. And I dropped their hips instead. Keep the tub stand on your legs so you've got this long line. Feel it. Touch yourself. No one else is going to in the near future.

Touch it and feel the back of your leg touched them. If they're not working, what could you do to get that sense of I've got length expansion in the front of the body. Yeah, but some energy, a lot of energy actually in the back. Then take an inhale and from your chest, maybe even your throat. Start to roll down. Keep what I call a tuck the curve. Keep the curve as much as you can. You might have to keep redoing it. Oh, way down. It's not a rest at the bottom. It's just like point a again. Exhale, roll.

Well, I'll cool ever so slightly faster. Not much. Inhale as the top. Check your front of your hips. Nice and long. Exhale, roll down. Chest, sternum, ribs, waste, sacrum tail. Inhale, reverse that same line, tail, sacrum, waste ribs, whatever I said first chest and while we're here, stand on your triceps or the back of your arms. Push into them. Try to get your risk down. It's, it's a feat for some of us. Excel roll down. Oh gosh. It's amazing how that pelvic curl can change. Exhale roll.

Especially when you just sort of let it be. Stay up here this time. Take an inhale, slide your arms further down the mat. You may or may not see seeing anything, but you'll feel it. Exhale, reach the arms up and take them back till they hover by your ears. Hold there. Inhale as if someone were you by your wrist. Roll down. Keep the arms where they are. Same thing. Inhale, this time as you roll up, start that. Exhale. Roll.

They have subs start pressing those arms through the air so they end up on the mat. When your pelvis gets to the top. Inhale. We're just reversing that for a few more. Exhale, finding more space. The arms start to float up as this buying goes down. Back. Yeah, so here you could lift the shoulders. Come up on me too. Just like the length in your arms or your elbow. Straight.

Exhale, roll up, push through. In this case, it'll give you a little bit more sense of working with and against and for gravity. Inhale, I'm at the top. If I didn't say I'm going back down one more time. Exhale down. Reach those arms. Collarbones wide neck is long, arms are overhead. Lace your fingers fully together. Kind of we're committing to ourselves or expanding, but in this case we gotta hold on tight to the pants. So all the way. Yep.

Cradle the back of your head. Okay. I say occipital Ridge. So if you don't know what that means, it's just fine. The um, the curve at the skull right there. Just let yourself hold that elbows up a bit so we don't have to go real wide with them. All we're doing now is we're going to lift her up her body and that's all you have to think in him. It's a lifter of a body. Look at your knees, maybe. Oh Hey. Inhale, hold it there. Start excelling.

You might even see your belly drop a little bit as you go back down. Hard to have it drop when you're up like that. But it does. Inhale, start the exhale, let it pull you up or just look forward. It's slow on purpose. For those of you who may be newer to this, we're going to push it a little bit, but it's slow on purpose. Inhale, exhale. Imagine LinkedIn expanding your spine as you go back down, you know, and exhale. All right, more cues. Just what you wanted. Nod your chin, your chest, just a little.

Let your head come up in your upper back. Then you know, maybe up to your shoulder blades. Inhale, hold. That's the hard part. Exhale. Stretch yourself back down in reverse order. I was just about to relax. I can't do that. Reach your arms forward this time. Grab on. Use your biceps. Why not pull the body forward? Elbows wide. Yes, you've got nice strong arms. Well, look how you are now.

Feet are still on the floor though. Don't, don't pull so hard that you can't keep your feet down. Can you let go in him? Exhale back down. Put your hands behind your head. We'll do a few more of those. Inhale, these are gonna add up. Quick. Exhale now to chin. Just a little, pick your spine, a bone by bone or what? Just get forward. Inhale just to the back of the legs. Look at your belly. Exhale, pull and see the abs. Stay here. You're not to drop back at all.

Let the arms come up right by your ears or further back. If you can. Put them behind your head and go back down. Whew. The garage is cold in the morning. We're going to have a long, warm up. Inhale, exhale, and at night, wherever you are. Excellent. Inhale, reach to the back of the legs. Exhale, pull, sink. Feel strong here. You can continue holding on or you could go, I got this and lift your arms up a hundred and take it back down.

Ooh, I told you it's going to add a quick on the can you do two more. Push again. Here we go. We needed to have anything. Exhale, curl up however arduously slow it is. If we haven't inhaled you already do now. Then exhale, sink, pull. Use your biceps. Don't come so high that you're doing a full sit up. Inhale, hold the position. Take those arms back, put them behind your head, and down we go. Oh, take that breath. Inhale. Take as many breaths as you want. Exhale.

Just by loosening up her spine, we're going to feel more expansive. The end of this inhale, reach to the back of the legs, and I'm going to warn you right now. Don't think we're going all the way back down. Exhale, cool. Inhale, arms go up. They go behind your head, but you're going to rotate toward me. Exhale, rotate. So it's like shoulder to opposite hip bones. Stay up there as you inhale through the center. Go the other way.

Exhale no with me. Inhale and exhale. So the idea is that you stay up kind of high or as high, whether you do or not a different story, but that where you're going kind of forward and toward that rather than just a complete rotation. If your needs to go inside the side or swaying, you should put them together and squeeze the inner thighs together pretty good so that you can feel that that's happening. Resting your head in your hands. That's the hardest thing to do. I think I was like, all right, I'm not just reaching my face forward.

I'm reaching my upper body collectively forward. One more time. Come to the center. Oh, grab those legs now you're happy about that. Pull forward. Let go. Reach the arms all the way back. And then just to take them out to the side, we have one more little warmup. You can leave your feet on the ground if you'd like. Otherwise, we're doing what we call supine twist. Knees up tabletop ish, 90 90 or maybe not quite 90 you can pull them in a little closer. We're just trying to get some rotation.

So you inhale towards me or towards the front for the screen. Start the exhale like we talked about, and seek the ribs. Sync the app so that it almost feels like swaying. Palm trees. Inhale to the other side, and then there's that breath. Exhale. It's the ribs, the waist, the hips, the knees.

I'm gonna give you a couple more like that. The way you really feel it though is keeping these totally aligned. Otherwise it's just waiting for me to give you the next exercise. But when they're together right now, look at them. There's one out further than the other. It shouldn't be.

So what do you have to do to make it lined up? And that kind of changes things and it makes us more beneficial for later exercises. Inhaling to the side. Start the exhale. Pull back. Yeah. Yeah. I just noticed that my legs are heavier than they were used to be and I'm starting to all out of it. So bring them closer if you have to or as a city can put them on the floor.

I'm doing one more each way. Inhale, reach Richards. It's as if you're stretching from that low back. Excellent. And finally, I'm starting to feel warm. I hope you are too. So we're going to go onto some buddies. Actual, yeah. Uh, my friend Benjamin taught me this. The way to get into this has really helped me cause I load a hundred since the day I was born. It feels like, but I like this idea that he taught me.

So I'm going to share it with you. Take your arms up. For those of you who don't know, the a hundred is a breathing exercise. You're going to inhale for five, exhale for five, pumping your arms, heat up your body more. We do that 10 rounds. That's why they call it the a hundred so what we're going to do is when you're not going to lift our legs, all we're going to do is exhale forward. Just curl your head, neck and shoulders. Look at your feet. What are they doing?

By the way, if I didn't say so, put them together and try to make them parallel. Not easy for some of us. Then inhale back down. Okay, so I'm just right above your shoulders. Inhale, exhale. Hey, kind of imagine my triceps are pushing through a thick solid as I curl up. So then by the time I get my hands above my hips or legs, I am, I'm feel strong and alright, this time the deal five positions would be with both legs up. But for now, what we're going to do is we're going to lift one leg, but before we even go, just if your legs are already together, sync, I'm going to lift my right leg. Just think it and do everything it takes to lift your right leg without actually lifting it. Okay? So you get that kind of energy, that side or really all over. But okay, so we're going to do that. And you know you've already engaged.

Like I know my right leg is coming up so I'm ready. Exhale. And then now actually lifted up. No, just reach it. So it's like you're trying to get to it and come back down. We'll do the same. Like again. Inhale, I didn't call, actually did pull ups, but you're not collapsing. Hold everything together. Get ready. I know I'm lifting that right. Like I'm gonna engage it as if it already is.

And then we go up. Exhale. So it just, it almost levitates on its own, doesn't it? And back down. Let's do the other side to regroup, rethink whatever you have to do. Keep those interfaces together until the leg lifts. Inhale, think of lifting the left leg, just thinking you can even push down on the right leg if you really want to feel this. Exhale curling up. And then finally it will lift. Look at it or look right above it and then inhale, push it back down like you're pushing through a solid. Yeah, in him thinking it. It says if it's lifted, exhale, curl up.

I'm pushing down on that right hamstring too to float the left leg up. It turns out the body supports itself in beautiful ways. Okay, here's the deal. We're going to do both legs or you can do right. Left, right, left, right, left. Okay, here we go. Inhale. Exhale. I'm thinking about lifting both those legs. Mm. I may not, but I'm thinking about it. You don't even have to lift him, but and inhale lower everything down when you go down.

It's not like this hard thing anymore cause you're staying ready. Exhale would be your left side. If you're only doing single leg, go to the second side. And Dan, we're doing two more and we're going to hang out on the next one. After those two exhale. I feel like I'm already in position. Oh and then you are, and one more, but we are going to stay up there.

So for those of you doing single leg, you'll take yours back down and push both legs into the floor once we stay up. Exhale, curl, lift them if you're going to inhale and exhale. See pump the arms in two, three, four, five and two, three, four, five in and you can make it more vigorous. Two, four, five and Apple, do you feel how your arms connect to your back and in an hour? I'm not doing a full hundred cause I never do it seems like, but we did a lot beforehand so just do one more. Inhale. Okay. He pulled up. Exhale, lower everything down. Reach those arms back.

Take a big stretch arch back. [inaudible] cause we just contracted and that's the best way to get that expansion. Sometimes hug one knee [inaudible] kind of rock and roll. Whatever you need to do there to loosen up your back a little bit more cause there's more to come. All right, from here I'm going to take the left leg down. You may decide to leave, uh, your, the bent. Sure. Eventually you're going to straighten it other like a straight up. Hopefully, if you can't straighten the top leg though, then the bottom one rather than battling the top, if you have a TheraBand that too, but you don't want to have, it's hard to do this with a bent leg as much as you may want to.

Okay. Arms either in a T or down by your side, maybe palms up either way. All right, I just have a soft, but I have a slight turnout on the leg. I'm going to cross over on an inhale, sweep down and around on an exhale and stuff at the top, you know, cross over and exhale down around an inhale. Push it over, exhale down around. Inhale over, exhale and try to keep those hips still. It's kind of key when we're first learning it. Stop there. Let's reverse it out. A little check before you go check. Your hips are level right? You haven't rolled to it, right?

So we went out on the inhale and we circle all the way back around and stopped on a dime. Inhale out, exhale. It doesn't have to be even as big as I'm making them and some people can make it a lot bigger so you just got to pay attention to those cues of the rest of my body is still, I'm only doing one more. How did that leg first in by bending it, see if you'd been in it and pull a little, you could do it behind the side as well. I think of anchoring the tailbone. Yeah, we'll just lower that like down how I move over. I guess I got to practice a little bit more. Hug the first leg, the second leg in. For me, it's my left and there's a sense I'm going to share this with you because it, this was a hard exercise for me for years when I pulled in like this. There's a subtle sense that I've learned to create for myself of the front of my thigh, kind of conveyor belting into my hip.

So I really try to soften the hip there so that when I go up, I'm more ready to go. And it's sort of like, here's my bowl, my mortar and pestle kind of thing. Alright, where you had him cross the midline of your body. Exhale down around. Try and stop on a dime. Push it over. Come down around. Hold. Inhale over. Exhale down. Inhale. Oh, he fell down around. Hold one more time. Inhale in this direction. Anyway. Boom. Go the other way out a little bit. Check your hips. Exhale down, around, up. Oh, exhale.

Okay. What's your other leg doing? It's not waiting for the next exercise. It's helping you push into the floor. Ooh, I got longer. One more. Let's kick them a fake wall. Alright. Hug it in. Think of that conveyor belt. I actually slide the skin of my shin toward me as I pull so that the other side can relax. Radio both speeds in so far so good. Still happy you came. You're feeling expansive. Wish I could see you. Here we go. That's okay. I know you're here.

I can feel that from here first. And stress, grab onto those knees and by them I closer to this chin. Cool. Elbows, wide, shoulders down, neck push. You're not going to move your arms by the way. Okay. Hold strong like you have it. Push your knees into your hands and tell me you don't feel how your whole body is connected. I almost lost my breath. Inhale, relax. Exhale, pushing your hands. I'm an exaggerate. In case you're just watching.

Push into your hands and notice how this sort of circle of, I want to say resistance, but it's connected in the belly. Soft, not soft. It drops. Relax. Inhale. We're going to use that. Exhale, push in and curl your head, neck and shoulders up. So I'm still pushing that way and it's helping to keep me up. It's also helping my abs cause I'm going to let go. So for now all we're going to do is [inaudible]. [inaudible] Xcel. Girl, I'm pushing. Watch your abs. Drop or feel it. You got to hold it.

Don't drop back when you let go. Inhale, let go and so grab, I'm pushed into it and sink and find the middle. Just inhale. Okay, good. So if you keep dropping back, meaning when you let go, just keep practicing that one. If you don't and you're ready to go further, just inhale, stretch out. Okay. It's, he'll pull it in and hang on in helping us out. I now actually pushing my thighs and exhale in. Inhale, you can do that conveyor belt thing. Really pull into, it's a little harder to try. The little trick I was giving you a boat. You'll figure it out. Email.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Excellent in here. Okay. Exhale one more and yeah, exhale, rest back. Take a deep breath. We'll go right back up. As you exit, you can start to push your knees into your hands. Keep the elbows a little bent as you go so they're not just totally straight. That's weird. I mean, not if he didn't know, but it is. So don't do it.

Curl up. Extend the leg closest to the front of the room. Okay. Pull that other knee in, but don't fall back. If you fall back, you're just going to push into it, right? Let's just play with that for a second actually. So if I were to just pull in and not thought about my abs, I would have fallen. So instead I'm going to hold that resistance and we're just going to rock and nothing else changes, right? Just a little rock to prove it.

My arms didn't change, my legs didn't change. Just going forward and back with a little momentum of breath, change legs. You can rest whenever. Of course I really went through at the moment, but I'm not going to get that resistance back and forth. Yeah, I'm not yanking, pulling in, yanking, pulling, cause that's not smooth. It's not expansive. I'm finding new places to do this. All right. Bring that light back in. Put your head down. Take it from side.

You get the point of hope. Emoji. Fingers crossed both hand on each knee. Curl yourself up. Look at him or thigh, maybe a little higher, but probably somewhere around the knee. Take both hands to the right knee. Other than like extends to straight without changing your trunk, your torso at all switch. Yeah. It's kind of easier this way, but it's also when you, when you have a good form and you set it up well, you actually get more work and you don't want, Oh, here we go.

I'm going to go quicker. Wow. And to Hey shorts. The pros in the room, he gets you do your thing, right. Tell you want. I like reconnecting to myself this way. I'm doing two more rounds of breath. One more coming up. I'm inhaling. Inhaling. Excellent. Excellent. Both knees in restaurant.

Again, shake it side to side if it, if, if after you do start to really build tension, either because you have a new teacher or I'm too slow or too fast, whatever it is, it's worth it to take that break. Okay. Rather than just ride out the neck tension, rather come down and set yourself up again. Right on keeping a couple of here. We're going to go back to leasing the fingers. It's exact same exercise we just did, but yeah, twisting, so knees are up. You curl yourself up. All right. Let's extend the leg loose. I don't know. Turn towards me. Turn towards me. Okay, so you remember that first rotational exercise you did grab onto your knee.

What's your knee and your hat? Oh hi. Now you're up again. The trick is staying up. Put your hand back, leg falling. Switch sides. Grab on just in time. Push me in your hand. Rotate a little more. Remember we're going shoulder in this case a little more towards hips today, right? Oh, can you put your hand back? Let's go switch in house. Which again, inhale. Now exhale for two rounds or two motions and reach a longer out out.

And imagine you were holding onto that knee or pushing it against your hand. How many more? Well, if I'm in charge, only one. Here we go. Yeah, out and out. Both knees and rest. Okay, catch your breath. Alright, same principle. I know I said expansive. Trust me, you're going to feel it when you get really tight. You too.

There was no other place to go, but expand. Hold on behind your size. This time. Do what we've been doing. Push. I got my knees together. They don't have to be totally together, but I do think it's easier if they are meaning more effective. Press your thighs into your hands. Keep a small bag. My strength. Pick your head up now tuck your pelvis or maybe it makes more sense to press your low back into the mat. It's okay to let the book come up a bit.

It's going to have to, I'm going to start rocking. You might have to do a little kick to get first, but your goal right now is to find a smooth ride, meaning there's no flat spots in your back. You can keep that tuck. Not going to turn into circle. Christine, not going to turn into a circle. I'm going to try and stay straight ahead up the spine, down the spine. Interesting what you learned about yourself. Every time you do this, that'll work. It's always different. Alright, we're making it bigger, but we're not kicking our leap legs.

We're not bending and straightening the arms anymore than where they were. So we do four, three. I'm inhaling back. You can do whatever you want. Last one was stay up. Okay. I don't know if you can hear the train, but when I'm at the studio or not, it's always there when you live in this area. Okay, so here we are. We're up. We're going to bring our knees again to bent. At least for now, I may, I may straighten them out actually, but hold on tight.

We're going to just roll ourselves down. Stretch your legs out when you get almost to the bottom. Hang on tight. We're coming right back up and bend your knees. Okay. At the top. Hold onto the shins and expand it. Tall crown. Straight up. If you have a mirror or a friend nearby, have them tell you.

Am I straight? Exhale, roll back. I'm stretching out the legs. I got as I go down just to about the shoulder blades. Maybe you don't go that far and exhale, pull yourself forward. Okay. Bend the knees to help you and then sit up tall so you're kind of right under sits bones for a lot of us. We may need to have our feet further away to start. Inhale, exhale. We're gonna go all the way down this time. Stretch your legs, take your head to the back, pick it right back up.

Then the knees to help you back. Yep. And scoot forward. If you're sliding down your mat, hold on. So you find that linked stretch expansion of the spine. Exhale. As I go back, I'm not just dropping, I'm trying to think of the hip bones, the front knee bones pulling back first. Stretch the legs out. It kind of counterbalances you touch you. Don't rest.

Let's go a little faster. If you don't need the arms and you know a different arm version, do it now. Exhale, roll back. You can take the hands over. Head in here. You don't have to bend knees XL I do today and instead of Phil, I am doing the setup. Tell still and exhale back. I want us to feel that difference. Roll back. You can reach up back or not.

Inhale, head up. Exhale. Yup. Some days are just like that, right? That's the beauty of learning about where you are. So you know, I need to go and this is it. Yeah. Yeah. We okay. From here. What I'm going to go into is a, a different version of the spine stretch. Okay. That rail taught me, but maybe he didn't see this like version of that.

Anyway, again, in honor of his birthday, this is pretty much my favorite exercise. Spine stretch has traditionally gone with straight legs and not all the bells and whistles that are about to come into it. So do you want to do your own thing? Go ahead. Otherwise, join me in a bit of a diamond position where it's comfortable. It's easy for me to sit up tall because I really want to work my back on this next one. Okay, so, okay, here's how I like to do it. At least the fingers. My friend Aaron [inaudible] started doing the Caesar.

He was a triathlete and couldn't get his leg straight, so he started doing this and I just thought it was brilliant. So here we go. We're inhaling, we're tall. Let the breath make you taller. Now we exhale. We're going to squeeze out all that air simply by the shape we make. As we go forward. The elbows can be down or up. It's up to you. Make it easy.

I mean on your neck. From here we're going to link our back on the diagonal from the butt. First said that word. But anyway, so from the tailbone, so there's a low back. You're elongating yourself looking to find a straight line. If you can't see, I can't see but I'm trying for it.

I might talk to my backwards, probably kind of close, I don't know. And then we're just going right back down. Exhale. And we roll up as if we were sitting against a wall. Lots of words for one exercise, but hang on to, but there's going to be more. You know, we start exhaling. It's as if we're folding in on ourselves.

We're squeezing the air out. Well we didn't lean back to do it. We're trying to get the top of the head on the floor. I know people that can do it. Possible. Inhale, start to lengthen your back on that diagonal. Sit into that inhale. Nice and long. You're not pulling on your head. If anything, you're pushing into your hands XL round and right away you can start coming back though. So the breaths are long, but take more if you need it. Inhale, exhale, round forward. Get down there, get down there. Don't leave those up. Well so high it pinches your net.

Then from the base of your spine, start elongating. Can you get even more forward? You'll feel the stretch in your hips too. Most likely. Exhale, reground and come back up. I'm going to do well just like that and make it a little more fluid and easy. Shimmy, shimmy, shimmy. Inhale. Exhale down. We go. Squeeze it out, squeeze up, prove it to yourself.

Get all that air out because once you do it makes it so easy to do the other part cause you have to breathe and there's more room to breathe in that long line. Excel round and go, huh? Adding on in here. Exhale, round ball. Inhale into that long diagonal. You can kind of traction your feet on the floor to stay here. Extend your arms on the exhale, sums to the ceiling. Get longer, get hold those ribs in a little. Inhale. Refold your arms.

Exhale round over and roll back. That's the extent of it. We'll go faster and anyhow, exhale, get it out. Don't, don't rush yourself. Get it out. Get it out. Folding on yourself. Stayed lifted, if that makes sense. Inhale, lengthen. Exhale. Extend your arms out. Long thumbs to the sky. Come on, come on. Inhale. Refold your arms. Exhale re round. Oh my God. Ooh. Are you still in your sits bones? When you land up top, check stuff out.

Touch self. Look at yourself. It's still down. Inhale. Nice long line. Exhale, extend your, I'm stay here. Really like shrug your shoulders. Even like someone is truly pulling you, but you're anchored by the tailbone. Soften the shoulders and now reach the arms back. And by arms I kind of mean the upper up arms. I don't really mean the risks.

It's back back. I don't care how you do it. Just think about it. Even if they don't move, even if they don't move, you can sit taller. Right? So just go long in the spine. Long in the back. And by now I'm expecting your feet when and you're in between the shoulder blades. I hope so. Anyway. How about two more reach into it. Can you be any more forward any longer? Hold this one.

Just leave your arm straight. Round over and rest. Ooh, that'll counter computer a little bit. Anyway, right up. You come sitting tall. You can stretch your legs out a little more on traditional, but I'm not really doing traditional version. I'm going to keep them like this. You can cross, you can sit on something. Anything you want to do, do it with me. One arm over the other. It doesn't matter which, if he could, he can change it each time, but I'm not sure. I can't say I'm not going to say it any more than that. Okay. You're upright. We're going towards the front. Up here. You just rotate.

You stay equal on the hips. You can exhale and extend those arms exactly opposite each other. Not one in front, not one way back here. You're still as tall as you were and you've got wings. Now inhale, come back and refill the arms the way. Inhale, rotate and rotate. The inhale kind of allows you to go up or, or maybe you think it and that works.

Exhale, extend your arms. Check it out. Oh, they opposite each other. I forget what the breath is, but I'm going to inhale again just to go further and look for it. Exhale, come back to center. Yeah, the whole Lake. Okay, but go for it. Inhale to the front. Exhale, and even though we're thinking arms, it's just, it's almost a sense of allowing me to get taller. Exhale, go further. And now exhale, come back to center. Refold the other way. Inhale, rotate. Exhale, expand, reach. Find the far corners of the room. Inhale, go further. You can and up too. By the way. Exhale. Refold and come back.

All right, here we go. Exhale, extend. Inhale, get well, I think more tall as you wrote too. Exhale back to center. Last one in him. It's hard. I can't tell her that other tournaments, so I'm going to look for it in him. Exhale, back to center. All right, for fun, try to straighten your legs out. If it's too much sitting up right, you can bend them or you can stay. Same position, but otherwise we're taking arms straight out. I always think of Michael Jordan on this, that, that poster wings, I forget what it's called, wingspan or something. Anyway, turn the palms up and not just from the wrist, but you take the entire shoulder up and over. That's different. Coming toward the front, you're going to do two exhales and without leaning back it's twist, twist, center, twist, twist center.

It's sort of like twist and a little more center twisted at a more center. Again, do what you need to for your legs and hip flexors. It's not an easy one, but it's a good one. And it does prepare us for some tougher ones later. If the arms get in your way and they're just like, doing stuff in your spine isn't, the harder way to do it is keep your hands behind your head. So let's try that for few, unless you know you're perfect. Yeah. Oh, that'd be okay. That's good.

That's good. Let me have you roll down. Yeah. Uh, we're going back to that pelvic Crowell position to do a little bit of a shoulder bridge. So just rolled him. Yeah, we inhale, we exhale, we roll. Take your top lip or one leg. Doesn't matter which straight up you're going to kick down one flex and kick up two, three for only five. Five hold it up, go down, go down, go up, go down, go up one more, and that's it. Plates the leg down. Check your body still in that long line. Other leg up. If you need to fix it, fix it. Exhale down. One flex up. Do. Don't worry about the foot.

If it gets in the way. Three, four, stay up lower and lift down up. One step on that lower leg too. Three, four and I put the foot down. Inhale, exhale. We roll down right on. Turn onto your side. Getting there. Very close actually. Well not that close. Close enough. Come up onto your elbow. Bottom.

Knees bent for this version and we're just stretching. Talk about, I like to kind of use the forward hand so that I don't roll back. It could be behind your head, but anyway, lift the top leg for now. Just lift and reach. Lift and reach. And it's a sense of like when you lift, you're not dropping anywhere. Right? You're just living in the leg. Everything else is your base. Hold. Flex the foot kick forward. One, two, way back. Stop. Look at it. Is it behind you? And by behind you, I don't mean like you can just see the back of the room. I mean you stayed where you were and the leg is behind your body. Let's go kick, kick, sweet, kick, kick, kick, sweep, kick, sweep, kick, kick. One more.

Hold it back there. Look at it. Is it still back there? Prove it to yourself. It's not because the knee is bent and the foot's behind you further. It's because the thigh is behind you. Try rolling that top hip forward a little and still do it.

Then if you want a nice luscious stretch, take the top arm and spiral that and keep pushing that thigh bone. The side. I don't care about the foot at all. I mean I do, but not right now. Right? Okay. Sit up and arms around. I'll get to the side. Remind me if I don't, I will reach out. Put your hand on the ground somewhere as far out as you can without falling.

And now you've got it there. You're just going to rotate, rotate it. Find them the floor if you can. If you can't, it's okay. [inaudible] supporting arm is really the one supporting. Reopen it. Yeah, so the other way, but got up to go over. Okay. Let's just do a couple more. You're tall, Michael.

That way trick. I'm pushing my foot into my knee, Sarah Tamina because then it's just like, alright, there's weight over there. I don't just land. Well, kind of, but little bit more gracefully. Exhale, rotate. Oh really? You know, for those of you who have this rotation, go for it. You know what I mean? The heart shuts off. I just enjoy it. It's really the point. Find that stretch. Reopen. I know only one more, but a go over finish. Oh, that's the good part to go over. Hello.

Find it, and then from here it's just that spine again. We've already done it. It's just different positions that we're doing. An end stay here. If you can't get your hands, both of them now again, it's okay. But try to find a way to traction your chest forward through your upper arms. Even though the legs and hips stay back there. It's again not a big show, it's just a feel and then sort of semi back out of that reopen.

I'm on it if you can. And I say that because it took me about 1510 years to do it and avoid that work to do there. Again, put that bicep on your arm with a straight arm and, and I, I don't cheap like I just did tilt into it, pull into it and then you'll keep it. You bet. Oh my goodness. How did my laps get tight? Switch sides. Okay, so we ha we did the side kick first. Remember? All right, so I was up on the elbow and this part does matter if we're going to do it this way, like we were doing the anti TV posture.

So you're up, wait in your forearms, her elbow point doesn't have to do at all. Lift that leg. And then once you've lifted it, if you can see in a mirror, you have a triangle of space face underneath your body. If you can't see, imagine it or feel for it so that you're not swept out. That's it. Just a few. Make sure that that triangle of space doesn't change at all. Okay. Well then I can list though. Hi. Good luck. More efficient. That's the bowl. All right. Reflect the foot before we go kick, kick. Okay. Kick, kick, sweep.

Hold it back. Look back. Did your entire lower body go back or did it stay there and you feel the thigh bone going back? I hope it's the latter. Let's do three more hopeful. It's kind of sharp. Hmm. I think that was three but do you have another one anyway? Hold it back. Is it still high? Turn into it a little bit.

Maybe we rolled that hip forward a little. We've reached, as we continue to press the five bone itself back, try to tighten anything. It'll just happen. Sure. Come on out. Have it sit up for a version of mermaid. We are. Your hip doesn't have to go down. If it can. Great. Um, no, not really sure about that. I try, but then I do think so. My right. My, anyway, let's go reach out. I'm anchoring hand lands and then rather than going over where you rotate, we rotate. We feel like we're rotating out of something.

Away from something then reopened. Yeah. Grab on wherever you want. Arm up and over and out again. Reach kind of lean for it. Then land rotate. X reopen is this. Someone pulled you from the other side to lift you back up. Grab on. If you start playing with that bicep thing. This one's a little harder on me, but I'm on track. Yeah. No reason why even take it out. Just my body.

Excellent. Reopen it. I'm starting to feel better. Okay. I didn't feel bad coming in, but I'm starting to feel like, Oh, Oh my bridge. Fucking it. Okay, great. Great. Hmm. Okay, so we are going to all fours. Okay. Check in. How are you doing? The next one's kind of constrictive, but again with a purpose. There you go. Hands down. Stand into a position like position, pick up one light. Let's say right. Just lifted five, four, three, two, one switch and five, four, three, two, one foot down, lower yourself all the way to the mat.

If you can do it in a push up, do all the way. Take your time, take time, take time and you are down. We are stretching the arms out all the way. This is very close to the very last thing you'll do. So stay with me. It's swimming. I'm looking at the floor. You draw the belly up as if you were doing any one of those out of exercises we did and however the feet, I've heard the arm lift, the right arm and the left leg and the little your, you can just keep looking at the mat or if you could go higher, go ahead. But I'm going to recommend not switch it.

So now it's a the opposition really. I can't say it every time. Switch. Switch. What you watch for is that you do not, I not right? Yeah. You don't want to rock the body at all. It's like cement block in the middle. Go as fast as you want. He knew. Exhale or pick a breath pattern networks for the speed you're going. Yeah.

Exhale. Come on in here. Exhale, hold it. Still. Put the tops of your feet back down on the floor. Take your arms around the T position all the way to your body. Keep your sternum on the floor, but try to look forward a little or lift without taking the sternum off the floor and then come on down. Hands by your shoulders. Take us. Secondly if you need it to let you back release and then coming to a rest position. Same wave.

Okay. When you're ready, come up to your knees if you can. If it's not okay to be on your knees this way you could do kneeling or your patients. I'm just finishing like started for breathing. So office you, it's just a simple and as if the actual breath, moving arms, just like let them be, let yourself be. You can go all the way up, whatever you wanna do. Okay. And then the expansion part sometimes comes out of contraction almost always. And he just did a lot. Take your arms wherever you want.

I'm going to go forward. And so if you can kind of think of that, you'll find moments and hopefully in your day or in your sleep or whatever time of day it is for you. But whenever you feel that kind of construction, remember that there is an opposite reaction and see if you can give that to yourself, even if it's only a deep breath. I thank you so much for being here, and I hope to see you again.

Pilates with Kristi Cooper: Garage Sessions

This Video
Expansion, Space, Release, Exploration

May 13, 2020
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Expansion Mat
Kristi Cooper
Beginner
50 min
BASI Pilates®
Mat
Balance, Creative, Expansion

Jun 24, 2020
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Mat with Theraband
Kristi Cooper
Intermediate
50 min
BASI Pilates®
Mat

Comments

2 people like this.
Thank you so much for sharing a part of your world with us Kristi; I enjoyed the class a lot ...
Amy S
1 person likes this.
xo thank you, Kristi,  so lovely so necessary.
1 person likes this.
Kristi, this was wonderful.  You are the best - as always!!  Can you tell me where your white shirt comes from?  I want one in every color!!
Thank you for always being you!!
Beth L
4 people like this.
She is so annoying! Talks nonstop way too much instruction
Discombobulated is a good word!  I can relate - after living with so much personal contact with so many people lockdown is making me feel slightly unhinged.  My small studio reopened today and finally sanity returns.  I wanted to HUG everyone which is NOT allowed but I love my people and missed them so much!
Jordyn
1 person likes this.
Thank you so much Kristi for such a fabulous class to take partake in lock down,  just what I needed, loved your cuing , energy and flow xx
Angela S
2 people like this.
Great class! Feeling great after lunch to go sit back at my desk (aka dining room table) Thanks!
Esti T
1 person likes this.
Thank you for this home to home class, I loved every minute of it.

1 person likes this.
Can’t wait to try this!
Jen U
1 person likes this.
Thank you Kristi!  Great class
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