Who's got your back?

Greetings friends. Welcome to this practice who's got your back. It'll be helpful for you to have a couple of blocks handy, so grab those and let's start in child's pose to beginning. Take the knees wide. Settle the hips back, relax your forehead down, and just take a load off for a moment.

Let everything drop off and drop into your breath here. Just fill a rib cage and the lungs expand into the legs as you breathe as you exhale soften and ground down in any special intention or dedication that you'd like too. Just let come to the surface here. Take a moment or two to bring that into your awareness. It's always good to give your practice a purpose.

So on your next inhale rise on up to hands and knees. And as you exhale round the spine, down the upper back. As you inhale arch your back, drop the belly, open the chest. Simple cat cow back and forth exhaling to Rome, inhaling to arch. Really moving generously through this range of motion.

It's so simple and so satisfying. Great for our spine. Nice big breath in and out. And just take that twice more big inhale. Big exhale.

One more breath in, and breath out. Coming to neutral, extend the right leg back, flare the toes, place a ball the foot on the mat. And then do the same thing as you lift the left knee, pull it in first, and then extend the left leg back. Place the ball of the foot on the mat. Let's bring the heels together, the toes apart. So we're in a little Pilates v. We can rock forward and back.

Moving into a classic Pilates mat exercise leg pull back. So let the left leg lift as you rock forward and back and then set it back down and lift the right leg as you rock forward and back. Set it back down. Just feeling the back body engage while maintaining the integrity of your plank, lifting the right leg forward and back. And it's a nice little warm up for the shoulders as we move into this rhythm one more time each side. Right leg lifts.

And then lower the knees to the mat parallel the shins. Hips above the knees walking your hands forward into Anahata. Awesome. That's great heart opening, mellow backbend. Feel free either forehead on the mat or if your chest and shoulders are a little more open, chest and chin on the mat, and breathe. The shoulders and the hips are the gateways to the spine.

So this is a really nice place to start as we're going into this back core practice and this opening for the core shift forward. Into forearm plank. So stabilizing the front core maintaining the length of the spine. And let's see if we can feel that leg pull back right here, lift your left foot up, rock forward, and back. And then go ahead and take the right leg up.

Just feeling it a little closer to the earth. From here, lower the hips, plant the palms shoulder width apart, and pull your heart forward into sphinx pose, feeling that foundational backbend let the head roll, little Stevy Wender style from left to right, relaxing through the neck. And then centering your neck and head, curl the toes under. Let's make our way into dolphin. Just like down dog, but on our forearms, opening through the heart and shoulders, keeping the integrity of the spine as we pull in through the front core and breathing.

And from here, either come down to the knees and plant the palms for down dog, or you can lift right up into downward dog if that feels good for you. We'll inhale to the toes. Bend your knees. Take two big generous steps to the top of the mat. Lifting the heart halfway will stay kind of on the lower range here.

XL forward fold. Bend your knees move into utkatasana, which means fierce thunderbolts direct your thunderbolt upwards. Exhale, stand tall, bring the hands to the heart. Tadasana, moving into surya b. Bend your knees.

Let's come into our utkatasana. Once again, direct your thunderbolt upwards. Exhale, pour it out, forward fold. Lift the heart, come up onto the fingertips, exhale step back to plank, and let's lower Chaturanga, Dandasana. Inhale to your upward dog or cobra exhale downward facing dog.

Lift the right leg to the sky big inhale. Exhale step it all the way through. Set up for warrior one. Inhale come on up, just like we did in the previous practice, left hand to the nape of the neck, take the tip of the elbow so we get a nice extension here, nice shoulder release, exhale. Let's add a simple twist, It's warming up the spine three dimensionally for back bending, and then step back to plank and lower chaturanga. Inhale to your back bone.

Exhale downward dog. Take the left leg up on the inhale. Exhale step it through, warrior one base. Once again, right hand to the nape of the neck, take the tip of the elbow, opening up through that spiral line into the backbend, exhale right hand down. Left arm up, taking care of all these ranges of motion.

Hands come down, step to plank, Chaturanga, maintaining the line in the spine, open the heart, downward facing dog. Take a couple breaths. Let's inhale to the toes. Ben the knees. Take two big steps, top of the mat. Lift the heart halfway. Exhale, melt, uttanasana.

Ban your knees, uttanasana. Take your thunderbolt upwards. Exhale, stand tall tadasana. Bend the knees. Oh, katasan. Exhale forward fold.

Lift the heart a little bit different here. Let's step the feedback to the middle of the mat and lower to the knees. You can take your blocks in place one on each side of your foot and come on up to your knees. We'll work with a little bit of hinging here. So just leaning back a bit.

Palms face up. Arms extend forward as a counterbalance. And just feel this hinge. Should we do this in the Pilates work on some of the apparatus, the reformer, the Cadillac, where we work with maintaining that danda of the spine, Chaturanga dundasena means the staff of the spine So working with keeping the front and back core engaged, the legs engaged so that you've got your back here. And just be careful that you don't dump into the lower back. Right? But we keep the work in the legs and in the stability of the core. Let's go ahead and hinge back and pause.

Take the right hand to your block. You can turn it tall if you like. Lift up through the left arm, press the hips forward and feel a little asymmetrical camel pose. Sweep that top arm in front of you. Let the hips shift back for a moment, and then we take it to the other side.

You can turn that block tall. Taking the left hand to the block. Lifting up through the right side. So we start to bring in this back bending side to side here in an asymmetrical pattern, which the spine loves working our way towards a symmetrical backbend. So just take this a couple times.

We're combining some ranges of motion with the same concepts apply. Working with our whole body to support the back. Good. From here, cross the ankles, have a seat. Take your legs out in front of you, and then set your blocks just a little bit behind your hips. And I like to turn them to the lowest height. So plant your palms right on the blocks, bend your knees, and lift your hips up into table pose.

We try to create one long line. We're working with that danda again, the staff of the spine. From the knees to the shoulders. So really lift from behind the heart, lift the hips. If it feels good to drop your head back, go for it. Otherwise, you can just keep looking gazing down the front of the body, and it's nice to see the alignment of the legs that they're neutral. It's a pretty massive shoulder opener here.

So enjoy it. And then as you exhale, soften back down, let's take a little forward fold as a counter pose and to give the wrist a break. So coming into your Pashimottanasana forward fold. And then rolling up the spine. Once again, bend the knees, hands fingertips can curl around the front edges of the block. Puff up through the chest and shoulders this time, then let the hips join the party lifting up into your table. This is, gonna become perva tenasana upward facing plank in our next visit to it.

And we'll add on one of the classic Pilates mat leg pull front. Shifting into that forward fold counter pose, take a deep breath in here, lift the spine a bit, elongate, exhale, melt it down. Roll it on back. Hands can come to the blocks. It's just nice to have a little bit of lift here.

Puff up the chest. This time we keep the legs straight and articulate through the balls of the foot all the way through the toes. You have a full point plantar flexion in the feet. And as you lift up, legs stay straight, lift the hips coming into that upward facing plank. Feeling the back body engaged, the staff of the spine may be the head drops back. Exhale, flex the feet, lower down, forward fold. Take a moment here.

Slowly rolling back up. Feel free to work with the blocks again. Or if you wanna try at Sall's block, set them to one side. Take the hands about a foot behind you, puff up through the chest. Now we move into leg pull front, which is just kind of the first cousin, the sibling of upward facing plank.

So here we are in our Provotenasana and then just lift one leg up and then bring it down. Try to maintain your plank. As you lift that one leg up and down. A lot harder than it sounds. Keep working with maintaining the staff at the spine as you lift and lower each leg.

And then lower down. I am allowing myself a little bit of a cheat with external rotation there as I came in and out of that, which you can work with on your own. Eventually, we will come and do it one more time. Wanna keep the feet parallel as we lift and lower. But as you're learning it, feel free to work with that little outer edge press of the foot.

It just gives you a little more leverage and is a little kinder on the back of the ankle Come on down. That was kind of a mini set, but we've had plenty of time there on the wrists. So let's move on. Go ahead and cross the ankles, make your way back to downward facing dog. Take a little bicycle pedal, recover the breath, and center yourself. From here, let's take the right leg to the sky. Nice big inhale.

Open the hip, bend your knee. Stretch it out, come up high on the ball of your left foot, and then step it all the way through. Coming into warrior two this time. Lead with your left arm all the way up, Verabhadrasana two. Let's take that Gomel Kastana variation.

This time, right hand to the nape of the neck, snuggle your arm behind your head. And then maybe the left arm reaches behind, you can stay here, or you can take it behind your back. Sometimes it's nice to dangle a strap down, or you can grab onto your fingers, whatever works for you. Feel a little reverse warrior action. Sink into your base.

A little bit of a side bend. A little pulsation. Sync it to the base. Just massaging this opening through the shoulders. And let's turn this into Trico Nasana straighten the front leg. I love to work with a block here right behind the ankle.

You can turn it tall, medium, or low, and then extend upward. And just stretch into the angles and architecture of this shape. Feeling the openness might be one of my favorite poses of the 14464 or something. They're endless, awesomeness. Let's just turn this into a half moon.

So bring the top hand to your hip Gaze is gonna come down. You can shift forward, or I like to sometimes slide my foot back underneath me. Tip the block to its tallest point, and then shift into artist andrasana. Half moon. It's basically another iteration of triangle pose. It's just tipped up onto one foot, one hand.

And then from here, you can add your tapasana, bend your top knee. This is just an option, but really nice to pay attention to open the quads. That's preparation for back bending. Couple of breaths here. Release your foot.

Extend long. Come into the shape. And then step back to your warrior two, reverse your warrior, exhale cartwheel the hands down, step on back to your plank, but let's float that right leg up, and I'm gonna move that guy out of the way. Take a little leg pull back action here just to get back into the toes, switching feet. Once or twice on each side, gets you back into the core, and then lower Torunga, inhale dive through to up dot, exhale back into down dog. So just infusing these moments into the flow. Let's take the left leg to the sky.

Open the hip. Stretch high on the ball of the foot, reach up nice and long through your toes, step it all the way through setting up your warrior two, second side. Same variation, go mokasana, upper body. So we open up the shoulder, hang out here or find that connection behind the back. Maybe it's with the fingers. A strap, your shirt, and then finding a little bit of expression as you pulse and side bend, just feeling how the shape moves and breathes, little water element action.

May we not get stuck? From here, let's turn it into our triangle pose, trikona, setting up our block so that it's right below the shoulders, and then extending. I like to adjust my back foot so that it's a steeper diagonal that allows that femur bone to spin in the hip socket a little more better, and then breathe. Feeling the length in the spine. That's kind of our theme.

It's really just taking care of your back, back body front body, side body, the whole entire core, top to bottom, front to back, three dimensionally, Let's turn it into a half moon, bend the knee, adjust the block forward, the foot back a little bit, tip it up to its tallest height, and then open up into your artist andrasena. I like to line up the block under my shoulder and directly in front of my baby toe. So it's just a little to the left of your foot. Feel free to take the quadricep opener that always changes the balance. You might fall for a moment, but you can always come back in and press the right hip open, press the right shoulder back.

Stead focus, concentration. And then release your foot coming into that half moon once again. Step it back to your warrior two. Oh, I'm off the mat. Let me just adjust forward a little bit.

And reach into your reverse warrior, exhale cartwheel it down, clean up your situation, step back to plank. And this time, let's lower the knees, hips back, walk the heart forward, Oh, Anaha Tasana. Feels a little deeper, a little more open now. Travel forward, find your forum plank. Everybody's favorite votes.

Feeling that rock forward and back. If you wanna turn it into that leg, pull back moment again, you can. And then lower the hips down. Yes. This might be my favorite pose right here, sphinx pose. Pulling the heart forward, tractioning, really beautiful, back bend, hard opening.

Spend the elbows. Come down for a moment. Let your forehead melt, bend your knees, and you might hang out here for a good minute or two and just let yourself enjoy and indulge in a little windshield wiper action. If you're feeling a little fiery and feeling like you need to get upside down to get right side up, grab a block. Place it right between your hands. Come up into your dolphin, and you can work with alternative alternatively.

Is that a word? Lifting one leg, then the other. If you have Forearm balance, you can take it over to the wall and come right up into your inversion, which is a fantastic way to open up the shoulders and integrate the danda of the spine. Breathing and focusing. And as you're ready, if you're in that forearm stand or end dolphin, we come down and we enjoy child's pose. One more breath here. Rising up to hands and knees.

And let's shift our blocks out of the way. We'll continue our path shifting onto our tummy. So forward and lowering down. Reaching your arms back. Bend your knees. We were in this kind of swimming to our bow pose and a few a few practices earlier in the season, but let's put it into play.

Grab the feet. Lift the chest, lift the thighs, find your bow in the Pilates mat repertoire. We actually rock rock our boat, our bow forward and back. I'm gonna stay steady for this moment and just lift through the heart and the thighs. As you exhale melt and turn your head to one side.

And then do that again. Inhale rise. Open up through the chest. XL, melt. Inhale one more time. Third times a charm. Exhale, release your feet, right arm out to the side, get these guys stacked up really nice, bend the left knee and roll onto your right side.

Listen open twist a moment. Let's take it over to the second side. Left arm reaches out. Bending the right knee, right elbow roll onto your side. From here, coming back to the belly, pressing back to child's pose.

I'm slowly roll on up. Spin around to face the back of the mat. And let's just take this visit to leg pull front one more time, taking the hands behind you about a foot, puff up through the chest, point through the toes, inhale lift up, try to find that long line from feet to head, taking the right leg up, Any amount, even if you lift it up six inches, just lift and lower a few times maintaining the danda of the spine, and then lower down such a powerful exercise. Hips come forward. Let's roll on to the back.

And feel this ability now, this accessibility to play around with saying hello to wheel. We'll move into it a with a little more regularity in the next practice, but Just feeling the beginnings here as we lift the hips, pressing palms into the mat right next to our shoulders, come up onto your crown, bringing the elbows in. And as you inhale, pressing up into your full wheel, Maybe walking the hands a little closer to the feet or the feet a little closer to the hands, thighs hugging to the midline, the heart is open and lifted, head and neck are relaxed and breathe. As you exhale, lower to the back of the head, roll it all the way down, adjust your costume, bringing the left hand to the heart, the right hand to the belly, taking the feet a little wide, and just receive. Breathe.

Feeling the beat of the heart and the temperature, the expansiveness of your breath. Wheel is such wonderful medicine. Potent. So let's counterpose from that big backbend. Let's come into basically plow, but we call it the rollover in our Pilates mat repertoire because we'll come in and out of it. So extend the legs to the sky for this for the beginning.

Press the palms flat, engage through the core. The low belly draws in as you exhale roll over into plow. Keep your gaze at your own knees. I'll try to be as specific as I can. And then slowly roll down the spine and lower the legs down to about 45 degrees, anchoring the small of the back.

This time, separate the feet as wide as the mat. Flex your feet. Like, you're tracing the frame of your mat. Once again, take the legs up and over into your plow, rolling over, bring the legs together, point the toes, and then roll it back down. Nice and slow. Sholders down the back, lower to the 45, kinda putting yourself back together. Open up and flex.

Just keep keep it as wide as the mat. Exhale as you go up and over. Bring the legs together point. Keep the legs active. Everything drawing to the midline as you roll down.

And then open it up, but keep the core engaged here. Now this time, keep the legs together. We go up and over. Separate and flex. Feed as wide as it matters.

You roll it down slow. Feel so good on my back after that big backbend. Point the toes, bring the legs back together, maybe flare the toes, separate and flex, roll it down. And then lower to that 45, bring the legs together, right knee draws in. Left leg relaxes down.

Take a twist onto that outer left hip. Open up through the chest. Let go. Come on back to the center. Extend your right leg to the sky flex in point.

One big leg circle, single leg circle out, down, around and up, and then change legs. Draw the left knee in, and we'll go into the twist on the second side. Come on back to the center. Extend that leg up for a hamstring stretch, release your arms, take one big leg circle, and then lower that leg all the way down. Maybe army crawl yourself back a little bit if you need to adjust to where you're at on the mat.

I kinda like doing this. And then stretch out for your shavasana. Give your legs a little shake, rattle, and roll, shake out the hands, the arms, maybe even roll the head side to side. Draw yourself up into a tight little ball of energy, engage, engage, engage. Inhale right here, scrunch up your face.

And then exhale let everything relax and open up. Shavasana integration. Follow your breath down the spine. Central channel, the Shashumna. All the chakras located along the channel of your spine, organizational centers of all the parts of who you are from internal to external, from personal to practical to professional.

Was feeling that reorganization right along the central channel, trusting the process without having to think about it, trusting the practice. Slowly bring your awareness back into your body. Send a little movement to your fingers and your toes. Reach your arms over your head and stretch out to your full length. And then exhale draw the knees into the chest.

Rock it on over to one side. Come on it to a comfortable seated position. Bringing the hands together at your heart center. Thank you so much for joining me for this practice. I hope your back feels amazing.

Have a wonderful day.