Extend the Side Body

Hey, everyone. Welcome back. This class works with the psoas, a set of muscles that buttresses your lower spine acts as a core stabilizer and also flexes your body. So your lower like comes towards your chest. And we often get into the sewas through flexion and extension, but today I really wanted to invite in some feel good side bends. So that's what we'll be focusing on to bring some more length into the tissue that way.

And I want you to think about this class like you're taking yourself out on a date. So go into all the feel good, pleasurable, curious and playful sensations for yourself. That's the invitation. So for your practice, you can grab a couple of blocks for your lunge practice and have them with you and a blanket will come in handy. I'll show you something with that.

Meet me on your back, on your mat, And we'll start in a position called constructive rest where you can lie down and plant your feet. Take your hands wherever is comfortable. And take your feet a little wider, then your hips and let your knees fall towards the midline. You can close your eyes here and land and locate. So maybe it's the first time today that you feel your back body on the ground, that you feel your breath. And with your lips closed, I'll invite you to run your tongue along the inside of your lips, maybe your upper or lower lip. I'm feeling that movement from the inside to the outside and you might imagine any places that feel compressed or painful or congested that same, like a tongue in those areas moving smoothness and fluidity and space and sensation.

Okay. So we'll start with an arch and curl movement from our center. So you can press your lower back into the floor. And then arch it away from the floor. So there's space underneath your lower back. Press it into the floor.

That could be an exhale. And then arch it away from the floor. That could be an inhale. So you could do that a couple of times with your breath sensing into your low back. How does it feel?

And then come to a neutral back And now shorten your left side and lengthen your right side. So it's like your pelvis is doing a little up slip down slip, then shorten your right side and lengthen your left side. It's like you're taking one hip away from you and jacking one hip up towards your armpit and see what you feel. So you're doing almost a mini side bend, right? And you can do that side bend by thinking about lengthening the one hip away and then relaxing it, or you can do that side bend by thinking about contracting your side and relaxing the long side.

And then letting that go. So it's just a bit of a different initiation of where the movement comes from. And then you can pause and maybe close your eyes, take a breath, catch that magic moment of awareness. How do you feel? And then we'll let our right leg come up into the ear and you could straighten it or you could let it hang out there a little bit looser.

And then curl your right knee in. So contracting your psoas here, draw your knee close towards your chest, and then reach your right leg all the way out. And you can even kind of wiggle your heel a little longer and then relax your leg there. That arch and curl can happen now. So you can arch your spine away from the floor and then press it into the floor and notice whatever you feel in your hip flexor there.

So you arch away from the floor again. And then with your long leg, press your low back into the floor. And I feel a little hip flexor traction, little lengthening through my right hip flexor, and press it into the floor. There. So now we're gonna banana our bodies on our back.

So you can bring your right leg across to the left edge of your mat, and then inch your head and your chest across. And with your left leg, you could even take it over so you're sort of pinning your right leg, into that side stretch, and feel free to take your arms over your head too and even pull on your right wrist. And then you could arch and curl here. So you could arch your spine and then try to flatten it towards the floor and arch your spine and flatten it towards the floor and see whatever you feel in your midsection in your right hip flexor in your side. Do it at your own pace.

Really follow those feel good sensations. And you can come all the way back into the middle. Into yourself, unhook your legs so you're back into constructive rest. Let's switch sides. So it's our left leg up.

Bend your knee and draw your thigh close to your torso. Contract a little and then stretch your leg all the way out. Get long through that left side. And then press your back into the floor with a long left leg arch your spine away from the floor and press into the floor. Keep doing this. You might even close your eyes and really locate your hip flexor area and just left side of your spine?

And how are you making this movement happen? Are you doing it through rotating your pelvis from tailbone to the top of the sacrum? Or are you doing it with your low back muscles? There's a difference there. Okay. We'll come into our side bend. So left leg over to the right side of the mat inch yourself into a bit of a banana.

If it makes sense, right foot over your left, to pin your left leg into that length. Arms could come over your head. You could pull on your left wrist, and you could arch and curl there. And instead of doing this from your back muscles, Could you do it from rotating your pelvis a little more? Or even engaging your abdominals, especially as you flatten your back to the floor.

With your right ankle, you could scrub your left leg into more lengths, wiggle into more length. And it's a mystery, but we're not quite sure why side bends feel so good. Okay. You can come back into the middle, unhook your legs. And one at a time, you can draw your legs in towards your chest, wobble. Massage out your lower back, maybe roll out through your knees.

You can roll over to your side. And we'll set ourselves up for a child's form facing the front of your mat. And I'm gonna invite you to take your blanket, roll it up, and take it right up to the crease of your hip. Then press down with your blanket. Try to jump your belly button over your blanket and come down. So now you're getting a big old stretch to your low back.

You could have your hands out straight, almost like they're in a downward facing dog. You might be able to reach maybe stacking your fists or hands flat, towards taking your head towards your hands. And, you know, for some reasons, you might not wanna do this. If you just ate a big meal, if you're pregnant, right, but it could feel extra supportive for ballooning open some space into the fascia of your low back and those muscles that buttress your low spine. One more breath.

Okay. You can roll on up here. Take your blanket to the side. And we'll come into a seat. So you could take that blanket underneath your hips, right? But we'll come into a seat comfortable cross legged and take your hands behind the back of your head.

Clasp them and take your elbows as wide as feels good for you. And we'll side bend a little over to the right. And you could do this by contracting your right side, or you could do this by lengthening your left side. See what feels better. Now potentially roll your bottom chest and your gaze towards the ceiling.

Take a breath and then let your arms open and keep going into your side bend. To wherever feels good for you. Come all the way up and go back to clasping your hands behind your head. Yeah. And then side bend to your left, maybe side bend two times. This first one, I'm gonna side bend by thinking of lengthening my right side.

And then the second one, I'm gonna side bend thinking of contracting my left side. And see where I get. And then you could roll your bottom chest up to the ceiling a little bit of effort here to twist a bit and then open it up. Let your left hand come down. Let your right. Hand come over.

Go to where you want to there. Come all the way up. And then we'll let our left leg go long so your knees are fairly wide here, hands behind the back of your head, side bend towards your left long leg. A little bit of effort to hold it there. Rotate towards the ceiling a bit towards the sky.

And then open it up any amount more. Maybe heavy through your right hip. Come all the way up. Put your right hand to the floor point your right toe and come into the stargazer form. Opening your left hip, maybe a big circle through your arm, slide all the way back down, and we'll switch sides.

So it's our left leg in, our right leg out. Hands behind the back of your head. And side bend towards your long right leg. Right? So you could rotate a bit, a bit strong here. Keep going with it.

And then open it up. Any amount into your side bend. Take a breath, lean back. Come all the way up. Left hand to the ground point your left set of toes and roll open into a stargazer.

You can open your top hand look up. And then come all the way back down. Crossing at your shins. Let's move ourselves towards a tabletop towards the front of the mat, and this is where your blocks might really come in handy so you can take them and frame the front of your mat. Hands to the floor, start to circle around your wrists.

Press your fingertips into the floor one way and then the other. And then take your hands out to the side so that your fingers point left to right and shift to side to side. Then you can walk your hands towards your knees, and maybe one at a time or both at the same time, flip your hands to your fingers point towards your knees, and you can circle or shift forwards and back. Feel free to tuck your toes, be a little more on your legs, and you might take the backs of your hands to the floor one at a time or both at the same time and start to open up through your elbows, flicking your fingernails to the ground. Shake that out.

And we'll press up and back to our downward facing dog. Take a breath. You can come up onto your tippy toes here, shift your heels to the right, and then drop them and bend your knees and get into a big left side side bent, maybe even encouraging a bit more rounding through your spine, casting weight into your fingertips. Let's go to the other side, tippy toes, and then heels to the left, and then big bent knee side bent a bit of a rounding through your spine, big rainbow through your upper body. Into the middle.

Play with that one more time on both sides. Follow all those feel good sensations for you. Come into the middle, right leg up into a three legged dog and kick yourself in your seat, bend in your knee, lift your right leg, right knee a little higher, and then draw it forwards into a low lunge. You can come up onto your fingertips or your blocks here. Pulse back through your back heel.

Five, four, three, two, One. Rule over your left toenails, drop your left knee. If you want to blanket your left knee, you can do that, and we'll come all the way up towards a ninety, ninety lunge, let your arms come up. Now, you can do an arch and a curl movement here and see how it feels for your left hip flexor, the left side of your lower back. We're gonna take it into a side bend. You might want your block for this.

I'm gonna put it on its high level over to my right hip. Maybe fingertips, maybe hand flat. Side bend over towards your right. Again, you can arch and curl your spine. Doesn't have to be a big movement.

Could be a micro movement noticing how it feels. And then you can come on up and switch your block to your left hand. Maybe on fingertips over to your left side or on the block palm flat side bend over to your left. Again, you can explore arch and curl movements through your pelvis using your abdominal muscles for that. Potentially.

Come all the way up switching again so your block is in your right hand. This time instead of having it over to the side. What about having it slightly back on your fingertips? Or on your hand. So now you're tipping your pelvis backwards a bit and leaning back. So see where it feels the best for you and it doesn't feel too compressive in your low back.

You might even kick your right leg towards straight and turn it out a little bit. Sync your tailbone towards the back of your knee and get long. Draw your right knee in. Shift up. This time, hand in your left block a little bit back. You choose how back you wanna go, posterior tip your pelvis and go a little back on a diagonal. Maybe straighten your right leg out and you can turn it out to the side.

Tail bone to backs of your knees. Maybe even engage your buttocks there. Take a breath. Okay. All the way back and lean forwards, we'll take our right leg out to the side. And I'm just gonna show you that this way. So right leg goes out to the side.

Come on up. Clasp your hands behind the back of your head and lean over towards your long right leg. Spiral up. You can lower your hands and get your side stretch. Come on up, hands behind the back of your head, and go the other direction. So now you might feel a bit more of your side body working to support that, maybe roll up.

Right. And then maybe a block or not lean into it like an extended side angle fingertips might be on the floor. Okay. Come all the way up. Face the front of your mat. Step back into your downward facing dog. Again, to be toes and rainbow your hips up and over to one side and the other.

That big side stretch kind of carving out space in your back by getting a little rounding to happen. Downward dog, left like high, bend your knee like you're kicking yourself towards your seat and then lift your knee a little higher. Yes. And then bring it all the way through for your low lunge. You could come up on your blocks, pulse back through your back heel. Five, four, three, two, and one.

Roll over your backs at a toes. Drop down into your ninety ninety. If it was tender on your knee on that side, the other side put a blanket underneath it, and you can come on up from your ninety ninety play with arching and curling your spine. You could think about this movement happening from your pelvis instead of your low back and maybe a little from your abdominals as well. And it's not wrong if you're using your low back muscles. Sometimes it's just really interesting thing to notice what you're doing, bring awareness to it, and see if you can feel something new, something different.

What does it mean to be alive? Right? Alright. So now we'll take our left block, and we're gonna go over to the left fingertips or full hand on the block, side stretch over to that front leg side. And you can arch and curl your spine and your upper body might follow that movement. Okay. You can come all the way up, steady legs, switch sides over to your right side.

So you could be quite high up if that's better for your back, a little lower down, maybe some. Come down towards fingertips, play with it. And any movements that feel like they are unwinding loosening. You can think about giant tongue inside your body, just moving into those compressed and congested areas. Finding fluidity and ease. Come on up.

And then block in your left hand, it goes slightly back slightly back so that your poster, your tipping your pelvis and maybe finding a bit of a backwards diagonal. Towards the back left corner of your mat, you might straighten your left leg out long. Come on in switching sides. Back, right corner of your mat. Postterior tip of your pelvis long.

Long side. One more breath. No need to rush. And then coming in, letting your blocks come down, and we'll take our left leg out to the side. So you could use you have a block in front and come up, toes pointing forwards, hands behind the back of your head.

Side bend towards your long leg first. Open it up into your gait shape. Take a couple breaths. I'm on up. Again, hands clasp, and you can shift away from your long leg. A little more strength here.

Rotate up. Could be a little shaky, and then take it down to a block or to the floor into your extended side angle. So good. And you can come all the way up front of the mat again. And back into your downward facing dog. Any movements that might feel good?

There could be the hip swivels and side bends. We're eventually gonna make our way back to a seat. You can come on down and take your left leg long and your right leg in. I'm gonna give you one variation. If you like, you can sit up on a blanket and take your right leg into half hero with the top of your foot on the ground.

See if that feels okay for your inner knee, a little internal rotation, hands behind the back of your head, lean towards your long leg, and a little rotate up Maybe stay a little. And then side bend. Yeah. And if you want, you might take your left shoulder in front of your left knee. And see if you can find your foot or even with both hands. Come all the way up and you can hold on to your ankle.

Release it out, switch side. So right leg long, left leg could come in into external rotation, or you could play with internal rotation maybe sitting up a little higher. Hands behind the back of your head and go towards your long right leg. Take a breath. A little rotation could happen.

And let it go into your side stretch. If you like, you could take your forearm, your shoulder, in front of your right knee, and maybe reach for your foot peek under your armpit. Catch with both hands if you like. And come all the way up. Okay. Well, let our legs go and come back towards our child's form. And if you want, grab that blanket.

You can grab that blanket and it could go the top of your upper legs. It's like you wanna jump over it with your belly button and come down. You could press your arms towards straight. You could bring your elbows down, stack your hands. How does it feel this time? Is it slightly different? Does the compression along your abdomen help you breathe into your back muscles more?

Take that magic moment to let your awareness scan. Okay. Let's come on up and come on to our back. So we can flip ourselves back into constructive rest. Feed can be a little wider than hips, knees falling towards each other.

Can get your shoulder blades flush on your back of your rib basket. And we'll go right into taking our right leg up towards the sky, bending it, contracting our hip flexor region. And then stretching it out. Stretch it out so it feels like you're making your leg one size longer. And then arch your spine. And from your lower abdominal muscles, and maybe your pelvis tipping backwards, press your little spine into the ground.

Alright, your spine. You could do all of this with your eyes closed if you can follow me and you remember. It's one of the beautiful things about repetition. You know it. So there's more to explore. Just like a long relationship.

Do you really know it? Or is there something new? Okay. And then a few arch and curls there, and we'll go into our side bend. So we can take our right leg all the way across to the left side of the mat, our chest across to the left side your arms could go up and over. Your left leg could pin your right leg into that position by coming over top.

And you might stay there and and melt, or you could make little micro movements happen by pressing your spine closer to the floor and then away from the floor with your breath. And you could unwind, shift yourself into the middle, Shift your chest and hips more neutral, and we'll switch sides. It's our left leg coming up, suspended there, contract left thigh into your chest. And then stretch it out. So something in somatics that's really beautiful is that we take muscular tissue through its full range of motion.

So that we can encourage it to be able to go to all those places and have freedom. So here, you can do the arch and curl. Try to make your left side one size longer. And basically, it's like a reset for your muscles. Just like, yawning is or like, my dog or a cat getting up to take a full body stretch, reset their muscles.

Arch and curl, notice how you're doing it maybe with your eyes closed. Maybe you slow down a little. Take the intensity down a little. Go into pleasure. And then you can side bend.

Come across. Come across with your chest. Can pin your leg there. You can take your arms over your head. And arch and curl, if you like, or simply be there and melt.

And how much movement is truly supportive for you right now? Okay. Take your time with it. You can come back into the middle, shift yourself back into constructive rest, Any little movements that you're craving, you can do those. Maybe a windshield wiper or a twist.

As you're exploring your last movements before your final relaxation, you could again close your mouth, let your tongue move along the inside of your lips. And that liquid feeling of pressing from the inside out and the smoothness of that, maybe it's even a little awkward to let it be. Think about that moving through any part of your body right now that needs decompression or space or fluidity. Whatever posture you'd like to land in, for your final relaxation or Shavasana. You can do that. And some folks, I'm just gonna show you something that could feel good for me right now.

Some folks like to take a blanket right at the upper legs. And rest onto it. And that might allow the low back and sides to really settle. Okay. Invitation to do five long breaths in silence, five count inhale, five count exhale.

Okay, my friends. So you might have some time to rest here for a little longer. You're welcome to stay. Right where you are. You might wanna close this practice in a seat so you could stretch and dry your knees in. Roll to the side.

Roll on up. And place your hands wherever you like. And you could take a moment to thank yourself acknowledge that you took time to make choices that support you. Peace.