- I have another Live Ballet Workshop coming your way,
on Sunday, December 6th, from 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM (PST).
But guess what?
I'm not the only one teaching,
I'm pairing up with two mega ballet dancers.
Alessia, from Lazy Dancer Tips,
and Kathryn Morgan.
We're bringing you three hours of ballet content,
plus a 30 minute Q&A, where you can ask us anything.
Early bird tickets are available
but only for the first 100 purchasers.
So if you're on Instagram, swipe up on this story,
or go to the link in my bio.
And if you're on YouTube, go to the video description,
and click the little link to go
to the event details and ticket page.
This is for all levels, all ages, and all time zones,
we can not wait.
Hey everyone, today,
we're gonna be working on back flexibility.
So just a disclaimer, your back is very sensitive,
and you really wanna make sure
that you're not forcing yourself
into any positions that your body doesn't wanna go into.
So I'll offer some modifications, but just know
that if you ever feel any strain or pain,
that you kinda wanna pause, modify and then keep going,
so that you don't get injured
and you can keep progressing in your mobility.
We're gonna be on the floor, so let's get started.
(upbeat music)
Alright, so go ahead and start, sitting down on your booty.
Now, normally we start with a good warmup,
but wanting to change it up for it today,
if you've been following along with our other
Friday Flexibility class, we're gonna do a little pulse.
So this is gonna get your blood pumping,
it's gonna get your muscles warm,
but it's also gonna start to activate your shoulders
and your arms and your back,
which is our hot topic for today.
Flip your palms up, and if you notice,
I have my muscles engaged.
So you don't wanna have them drooping down,
just lengthen, check your arm's straight,
and pulse, pulse, pulse.
And then drop your palms down, again pulse.
We're gonna do a little baby circles on the way back.
So small circles, you don't wanna let them get too big
or move your torso around.
Keep everything engaged,
keep your core engaged, keep it tight,
and activate and let's move our circles forward.
Super, super straight arms.
Just get your blood pumping.
Good, and release it down.
Take one palm to the side of you
and just stretch up and over.
Get a good side body stretch.
You're gonna round, through the middle,
tuck your chin to your chest,
and stretch over to the other side,
and come on up.
Hand goes to the side again, reach over, opposite direction.
Keep it long and lengthened, try not to crunch over,
keep your chest expansive.
Roll through the middle of chin to chest,
opposite arm comes over.
Let's do that a little faster.
So you're gonna go side, round,
chin to chest, opposite, lift.
And side, round, opposite, and lift.
Keep going, side.
This is a good warmup,
but it's also already stretching that back out.
And lift, feel like getting into that cervical spine,
that high part of your spine,
by rounding your chin to your chest.
Should feel like a neck stretch, and up, and release.
Bring the soles of your feet together
in a nice butterfly position,
you're gonna lengthen over.
Now, however close your feet are
or however close or far away your feet are to your body,
the distance the stretch will be.
So kind of find the position that works for you.
You're gonna walk your hands out and you're gonna hold.
This is a really good one,
not only for your back, but also for your ab adductors,
that lateral part of your legs.
Keep your neck in line with your spine,
make sure you're breathing.
From here, you're gonna walk your hands over to one side.
Kind of exaggerate the stretch to the side,
to get a really good, low back stretch
on that opposite side.
When you're here,
that coccyx bone is gonna wanna come off the floor.
so keep it glued down,
and hold.
Good, you can kinda play with
a rounded spine into a flat spine.
Walk it over, keep it long and lengthened,
to the other side.
Just a reminder to glue that booty down to the floor.
Holding it here, this is so good for your low back.
This is also a good recovery sequence.
So if you're feeling sore or just kind of tight today,
this is a really good one
to get some energy flowing back into those muscles.
Come back through the middle, and hold it here.
If you're not quite that far down, then it's okay,
just keep your body activated.
So try not to just stay here and be stationary,
I want you to move the energy line out.
Give a little bit of love to that back.
And if you're all the way down, awesome.
From here, dancers, you're gonna roll all the way up,
through your spine, and bring your knees together.
We're gonna lay on our back,
so I'm gonna turn to the side so that you have a good view.
We're gonna lay all the way down,
hug our knees into our chest.
So sometimes when we get here, we just pulled our knees,
but I want you to actively press your knees into your chest,
and I also want you to make sure
that every part of your back, from your neck
all the way down to your shoulders, to your cervical,
thoracic and lumbar spine, are actually on the floor.
So really take a moment to make sure
that there's a tactile point of touch
for all the parts of your back.
Now go ahead and roll side to side.
Let's get a little bit of loosening up
happening in that mid back.
Roll side to side, like a little roly-poly.
And then dancers,
you're gonna drop one leg to the floor,
keep the other leg up and pull it into your chest.
From here, that top leg is going to cross over.
Let that knee fall heavy to the floor.
From here, we're moving into a spinal twist.
So if your leg is dropping to the front,
you're gonna look back towards the opposite direction.
This allows for the completion
of the line of a spinal twist.
Keep that bottom knee straight,
those toes pointed, keep everything activated, and breathe.
You always wanna breathe when you're stretching,
but especially in any sort of twist.
From here. This hand is gonna come
on top of that twisted ribcage.
I'm gonna straighten my twisted leg,
and I'm going to reach my top out, in the opposite diagonal.
And I'm gonna bring in, and I'm gonna stretch out again,
and in, and then through the middle.
Beautiful, from here, go ahead and shift which leg goes up,
draw that knee into your chest.
So oftentimes with stretching, it's not even the stretch,
it's how you do the stretch.
It's your alignment, it's your consistency,
it's are you breathing?
How long are you holding the stretch?
So, for those of you struggling with your back flexibility,
take an inventory of all of those concepts I just shared.
Go ahead and cross it over,
might even get a little back crack there.
Go ahead and lengthen your arms out to a T,
and look the opposite direction.
So for flexibility progress, alignment is everything,
the way that you stretch is everything.
So really, really focus on that.
From here, you're gonna lengthen that top leg out,
it's still crossed over.
Take the opposite arm, and you're going to reach diagonal,
so I'm doing an extra twist.
Now I come back to the middle, and then I lengthen out.
A spinal twist is a great way
to get that back flexibility up and moving.
because it's taking your body in a different direction,
and it's really, really
stretching you out on different planes.
Good, and bring it back in.
Take both knees into your chest one last time
to get one more little roly-poly pull side to side,
and then go ahead and bring those feet down.
So from here, we're gonna do an assisted bridge.
So when I do an assisted bridge,
I shoot my hips up to the sky,
I bring my shoulders underneath my body.
From here, I take my thumbs and I'm gonna put them
around my lower back and the lower part of my spine.
So my thumbs are towards the middle of my body,
and then I place my hands underneath my low back,
and I'm gonna hold it here.
If you feel like you're not being supported,
you probably need to move where your hands are.
So from here, I'm gonna shift back and forward,
back and forward.
Again, this is a really important one,
to listen to your body.
If you're not able to come all the way up,
just hold a bridge and then come back down,
hold a bridge and then come back down.
That's really great,
not only for stretching but for strengthening as well.
So we're holding here,
my thumbs are in the middle part of my spine,
and I rock back and forward.
Once you feel like you've had enough,
try and roll down one vertebra at a time.
instead of coming down in one piece.
That's also really good for your back flexibility,
is articulating through the spine.
From here, we're gonna roll into our cloud.
Now, cloud sometimes, is difficult
for people who have hamstring difficulties.
So, I'm gonna show you the actual position.
So we're here, right, I have my legs straight,
I'm up on a demi-pointe, or a half point here.
You can also point your toes.
I'm using my hands on my low back to support myself.
Now some of us may not be able to get there,
if you're like halfway, that's okay.
If you can't get all the way over, no worries at all.
Maybe focus on just doing a little rock,
and then coming back down, a little rock.
Just to get the idea of back mobility,
and you're also working on your core simultaneously there,
so that's a good modification.
For those of you here, we're gonna go ahead and hold.
You can even do a little bend of the knees,
and then stretch it straight.
And if you feel like you have enough stability,
you can release your hands,
and breathe.
Okay, this is a really good test.
You're gonna come down to articulate through your spine.
Look where I'm going, one vertebrae at a time,
on the way down.
Instead of doing,
that, that hurts, okay.
So go one at a time on the way down.
Let's move into our last little set of stretches,
we're gonna roll onto our belly.
We're gonna press all the way up
into like a little baby cobra.
So for some of you, this might just be it.
I honestly do this one a lot,
because I have a tighter low back.
So I need to push into the floor,
lift the chest, and hold.
Another modification from here,
would be to just come down here
and then use your muscles in your cervical spine,
your higher spine, to just lift up,
and then drop down, lift up.
That's activating different parts of your back.
And it's totally up to your body.
From here, the progression would be to come all the way up
into our seal stretch, push your palms into the floor.
You really wanna make sure to not sink into your shoulders,
this is doing nothing, friends.
So push out, arch back once,
look down to get a nice stretch of the neck, and hold.
From here, we're gonna move into a child's pose.
Child's pose is one of my absolute favorite,
it feels so good.
Take a deep breath, lengthen your spine forward.
When you're in a child's pose, you can also walk over
to one side and let your weight fall onto the opposite leg,
and then come back up.
I'll show you from the front.
So you're here in your child's pose.
If I were to go this direction,
I would lean the opposite direction to get
that oppositional pull and that more intensified stretch.
Bring it back into the middle and hold it here.
(upbeat music)
Good, and tuck your toes behind you.
Coming into a tabletop position.
I'm gonna shift my booty to one side and then the other,
and then come back center,
tuck those toes, push back into a downward dog.
Now there's a difference between being here,
and then sending your hips up to the sky
and pushing into the back.
And then walk your hands back.
Our last little part is rolling up, one vertebrae at a time.
Nice and slow, nice and slow, nice and slow,
head is the very last thing.
Ah, we did it. (chuckles)
Alright you guys, great job doing our Flexibility Friday.
Back flexibility stretch routine
really rolls off the tongue.
That's one that you can do every day,
and again, it can also be a restorative kind of routine.
So it's good to warm up and it's good to kind of
recoup your body from all of that strenuous exercise.
Let us know what else you wanna see
on your Flexibility Friday, my loves.
Type in the comments, let us know how it's going,
and don't forget to tag me on Instagram.
I love, love, love seeing you follow along the videos.
It's really sweet and it makes our day, right, "B"?
- [B] Yeah. - Yeah, it's really fun.
So thank you so much for watching.
Love you guys, happy stretching, and we'll see you soon.
(upbeat music)