Relieve Back Pain! Breathe & Let Go - Kickstart Chair Yoga Therapy with Sherry Zak Morris, C-IAYT

Hi. Are you ready to kickstart your yoga practice? Well, if you've been sitting too long, or lazing around too much, or just need a structured program to get you back into your yoga groove, then this series is for you. This is a kickstart program that has seven different practices. Yes, you can do seven different practices one day at a time, or just mix them all up. You'll find that they're easy, accessible, and guess what? They're fun. Hi, I'm Cherisek Morris, and I'm a certified yoga therapist, and I am the founder of Yoga Vista, and I welcome you to this practice. It's a seven-day challenge. Each class is about 15 to 25 minutes, and we focus on lots of different themes. We'll focus on posture, and balance, and back care, and movement, and mobility, and fun. This program is based on chair yoga. We will do poses that are sitting down. We'll do poses that are standing up. As always, you can pace yourself. You can stay seated the whole time, and when you're standing, you can hold on to the chair. That's the reason why we use a chair. It's our great companion to get us to be a little bit stronger. We are at the beautiful Rancho Guahome Adobe here in Southern California. Look at this beautiful environment, and every single one of these classes, we're going to have a different location, so you'll have a beautiful tour of the Adobe as you work out with me. Always remember to check in with your doctor or your health care provider to make sure that these kind of practices are good for your health condition. As we age, we know that we need to take good care of ourselves, just like this Adobe is so beautiful because it's been well taken care of. This series will help you do that. I hope you enjoy this beautiful program I created for you here at the Adobe, and I'll see you at the Ranch. Namaste. Namaste. Namaste. Namaste. We'll see you at the Ranch. Namaste. Hi, I'm Sherry Zach Morris, and I'm a certified yoga therapist, and today our chair yoga class will focus on back care. I am here in this beautiful Ranch here in Southern California, where I'm sure there's been a lot of back-breaking effort going on. So all of you who have back pain, this class is for you. So those of you who have like tight muscles and achy kind of muscles, we'll be able to get into those tight spots with our breath and our movements. And those of you who might have a little bit of structural issues that cause your back pain, things like osteoarthritis or stenosis or some disc issues, we'll make sure to lengthen your spine so that we can avoid some of the compression that comes with those kind of conditions. Now first and foremost, always make sure to take good care of you, right? Whatever feels good, do it, and whatever doesn't feel good, just take a pause and just sit and breathe. And you'll see if you come back often, you might notice that you'll be able to progress in other sequences that I'm offering. So I always offer you different options, right? I call it progressive. We'll start with a basic option and maybe go a little bit further on those options, but it's all up to you. Remember, you're in charge. So the very first thing we're going to do is we're going to stretch the body from the inside out. Now how do we do that? Right, we know we can stretch our body by just moving like that, but from the inside out where those tight muscles are around your spine is very important to do, and we can do that using our breath. So I want everybody to sit up nice and tall, and it's important to be nice and tall. You want to make sure your spine is erect. You don't want to be rounding back in your seat because that's not going to be good for your back care, right? You want to be sitting up on your sit bones. You could be supported by the chair behind you, or you can have a space like I do behind me. So either way is fine. You could be scooching back like this, or you could be scooching forward like that. So now let's begin our class with our breath. So having your hands slightly open on your laps, I want you to close your eyes just for a moment. Let's find our present moment, maybe catching the vibe of your practice and the fact that you're going to be taking good care of yourself and your back today. Just a couple of mindful breaths. Breathing in through the nose and out through the nose. We have the ability to calm our nervous system by just using our breath. And then flutter your eyes open. Good. So the breathing practice we're going to do today I call pulling taffy. If you ever had taffy, it's kind of a thicker kind of candy, but once it gets warm, it gets more pliable, right? So imagine that we have this kind of glob of taffy, and we're just going to rub it around, and we're going to get it nice and warm. Good. Rub your hands. Feel a little heat there. Feel a little heat. Good. Once you feel a little heat, then I want you to rub a little harder. Good. Heat generates movement, right? So when things get a little bit warmer, they get more pliable. So we want to make sure that we're always feeling a little bit warm when we're practicing our yoga. Good. Okay. So imagine that we've just got this taffy, and we warmed it up a little bit, and now we're going to pull it using our breath. So here we are. We're going to hold on to it, and we're going to go inhale slowly out. It's a little stiff still, huh? And exhale slowly back in. Good. And again, inhale slowly out, and exhale slowly back in. Good. Make sure it's slow. Inhale, and exhale. And inhale, maybe a little bit longer, and exhale. Let's do one more time. How far can we go with that taffy? Inhale, and exhale. Very good. Now we're going to go up and down. So take your taffy, and we're going to have one hand high, one hand low, and we're going to inhale, rise up, and exhale down. Good. Flip it around. We'll go the other way. Inhale, and exhale. Flip it again. We'll go a little taller. Here we go. Inhale. Nice, tall, straight spine. Good. Exhale. Flip it one last time. Inhale, and exhale. Very good. Now we'll go sideways. So we'll go inhale, one arm is up, one arm is down, and exhale. Inhale. Stretch it out. Exhale. Good. Two more. Inhale. Stretch it. Good. Exhale. And last one. Inhale, and exhale. One more big stretch. All the way out to the side. Big, big stretch. Inhale. Open your fingers, and then exhale. Come back in. Give yourself a nice little hug, and maybe a little twist. Very good. All right. So that warmed us up from the inside. All those tight muscles we're starting to get into, right? So when we talk about back care, we're just not talking about the lower back. I know a lot of people have lower back pain, but guess what? Your back, your lower back is connected to your entire spine, right? The spine starts with your neck and ends at your tailbone. So we'll be working the entire spine today. The spine is also known as the altar of the body. I like to say it's the circuit board of the body, right? Because so many nerves coming through there, and those nerves help with your mobility. And if those nerves are pinched because your back is compressed, then you're going to have some issues, right? So we're going to open up the neck area first. So sit up nice and tall. Remember when I said sit up nice and tall? That means your postures are erect. Your ear, your shoulder, and your hips are all in a straight line. So that's what we want to have when we start to work our spine. So gently, we're going to tuck our chin down, and then up. Good. I call this nodding yes. So whatever you want in your life, that's a good thing. Let's say yes, yes, yes to that. Good. So you can exhale down, and you can inhale up. And a few more times. Exhale down, and inhale up. Last one. Exhale down, and inhale up. Good. Head back to the center. Now we're going to turn to the left. So we go inhale here, exhale turn. Inhale center, exhale turn. And back to the center, and then turn. And back to the center, and turn. Good. One more time. This is saying no, right? So this is the no sign. No, no, no. Good. Back to the center. Now we're going to do the maybe. So we're going to inhale, and exhale, tilt your ear. Good. Inhale, exhale, tilt your ear. Inhale, tilt. Inhale, and tilt. I call this maybe yes, and maybe no, right? It's the middle of those two. Good. And one more time. Good. And then roll your shoulders. Yeah. Open up those shoulders. So an important part of your spine is the middle of your spine. The area right in here. It can get tense. It can. So we want to make sure that we get those muscles stretched as much as we can get the lower back in the next stretch too. And we're going to do that by hugging a tree. And what appropriate thing to be out in the beautiful outdoors here in Southern California. Lots of trees around me. We're going to be hugging the tree and bringing that beautiful energy of Mother Nature in. So it looks like this. We're going to take our hands and we're going to pretend it's a big old tree like this. We're hugging it, right? Big tree. And then we're going to pull the energy in with the fists when we come back. Good. So here's how the breath works. We're going to inhale like this. Right into your upper back. Good. And then exhale. Pull the energy in and squeeze those back muscles. Good. Here we go. Inhale. Hug that tree. And then exhale. Pull that energy in. Good. Two more times. Inhale. Big stretch to the back. Good. And exhale. Pull that energy. And one more time. Inhale. Big breath. And exhale. Pull that energy in. Good. That feels great. And then roll your shoulders. Good. How about one and then the other? Yeah, that loosens things up. Very good. How's that feeling already? Good. Now take one arm out to the side and we're going to come into cactus arm. Good. And then release that. And the other arm comes into cactus. Good. So this one's just going to slowly open up our shoulder joint as you can see. But also what's important is it lengthens our spine. Good. And then release it down. Now we're going to see if we can do both. So bring both arms up. Good. And bring both arms down. We'll do it on the inhale. Inhale. Bring it up. Exhale. Bring it down. Good. And inhale up. Maybe elbows come up a little higher. Good. And exhale down. And one more time. Inhale. Bring it up. And exhale down. Very good. Now bring one arm up. Doesn't matter which one. And it's robot arm. Yeah. Good. And bring it down. And the other arm. Robot. Like a robot. Yeah. Good. And bring it down. And we'll do one more time each side. Good. And bring it down. And up. Good. Now we're going to see if we can lift that arm a little bit higher. A little bit higher. Good. And then down. And the other one comes up a little bit higher. Good. And down. Let's do one more. Can we reach all the way up to the sky? All the way up. And down. Take it with that breath. And inhale. All the way up. Good. And down. Let's do both robot arms. Good. And down. One more like that. Inhale up. And then down. And let's reach all the way up to the sky. Here we go. Inhale up. And all the way down. Oh, we can do one more. Here we go. Inhale all the way up. Let's see if we can stay up there. Climb the rope. Oh, yeah. Like we're in gym class. We're just climbing the rope. Oh, does that feel good? Yeah, it does. Stretches your side muscles, right? And also, we're lengthening the spine, which gets rid of compression. Good. All the way to the top of the rope. We got it. Good. Bring your hands together in prayer. Bring it all the way back to the center. Good job. Great work. OK, we're going to start to get a little bit more movement into the lower back. So I want you to take your legs out in a little bit wider position. Yeah, this is called our goddess position, or we can call it a triangle position in terms of where our body shape is. But you want to make sure that your legs are a little bit wider, because we're going to get into a very important part of your back. So the lower back, there is a very important piece of fascia called the thoracolumbar fascia. It's in the shape of a diamond. And it starts right in the middle of your back and ends at your tailbone. And it goes out to the two edges of your lower back. And that area gets thick when we have back pain. It's a stabilizer, right? So if you have back pain, your body's going to try to brace you. And that bracing creates stiffness. We're going to stretch into that diamond right now. So the first thing we're going to do is sit up nice and tall. Take your left shoulder towards your right knee, like you're just trying to hover over there a little bit. Good. And back to the center. And then the other side. Now you can already maybe feel a little tightness on that lower side, right? And bring it back. Good. And now we're going to take an arch like this. Lift the chin. Pull the chest forward. And then we're going to take a tuck. Tuck the chin and round the back a little bit. Good. So those are the four points of our diamond, right? We've got the top of the diamond. We've got the bottom of the diamond. We've got the sides of the diamond. See, like that. OK. So here we go. We're going to go a little bit further into that stretch, using our breath as always. Because remember, the breath stretches the body from the inside out. That's where the deepest muscle tension can be sometimes in your back. So we're going to inhale. We're going to take those palms towards our hip bones. Arch our back. Lift our chin. And then exhale. We're going to tuck the belly in. Tuck the hips back. And we're going to take those hands over the knees, if you can, and tuck. Good. So we're going to inhale. Arch. And we're going to exhale. Round and tuck. This is called Cat-Cow. It's a very common pose you would find in yoga. Inhale. And exhale. Really super good for the back. So any back issues, this is your go-to pose. Good. Stretching the top edges of your diamond. So you're noticing how I'm arching and I'm lifting my chin. And then when I round my back like a Halloween cat, I'm tucking my chin down. Good. So we get the neck as well. Good. When you're back to your neutral position, we'll do the crisscross. So left shoulder towards your right knee. And this time I want you to look down and look at your toes. Good. So a little deeper stretch. Good. Come back to the center. And then we'll crisscross and look over the other side. Good. If you're feeling tight here, then that means it's working, right? And back to the center. So take a breath. Inhale. Exhale. Tilt. Inhale. Center. Exhale. Tilt. Inhale. Center. Exhale. Tilt. Hold that. Don't hold your breath. And then take the opposite arm and you're going to reach. Oh, yeah. I know you're feeling that because I'm feeling it too. Open and close your fingers if you can. And then let's just breathe here. Inhale. And exhale. Good. Come back to the center. We'll do the other side. We're going to crisscross it. We're going to reach with that arm. Good. And then open and close your fingers. Good. Stretch a little bit more. Now take a deep breath. Inhale. And exhale. All the way back to the center. Great work. How does that feel? We're going to do one more little motion. We're going to crisscross. And this time we're going to take that arm and we're going to dangle it. I'm just going to dangle it. It can go forward and back like a pendulum. Or you could swing it around in a circle. We're just creating a little dead weight, a little gravity stretch, let's say, for the shoulder and the low back. And then go the other direction. Good. Come back to the center. Crisscross. Drop your arm. Maybe just swing it forward and back a little bit. Good. And then around and around a little bit. Oh, you should feel that nice stretch and a pull. Make sure you're breathing. Good. And bring it all the way back to the center. A couple more cat-cows. So here we go. Inhale, we're arching. Exhale, we're rounding. Inhale, the lift. Exhale, the hunch. And one more. Inhale, lift. Exhale, hunch. Good. Bring it back together. And then kiss your knee. It looks like this. You could bring your knee up like that. Right? And just give it a nice little stretch. This stretches out the low back. Or you can kiss it by just scooching down a little bit. Yeah. And just scooching down a little bit. So it stretches the upper back and the lower back together. If you want to get the neck involved, then you can really go for the kiss like this. Like that. And go. Oh, we love our knees. Let's do one more time. And next one. Good. Now, much of our back pain can be caused not just because of things going on in your lower back or your upper back or your neck, also things that go on in your legs. One of the things that really play havoc on your low back is tight hamstrings. If you are sitting in a chair often, then you're going to probably have tight hamstrings. The hamstrings are the muscle that goes from the back of your knee to your sit bone. So we're going to stretch into those hamstrings. I want you to scoot yourself as far forward as you can. Good. And then you're going to take your hands to the side of your chair. That's going to brace you and extend your left foot forward with the heel on the ground and toes facing the ceiling. Yeah. And as much as you can push that heel a little bit away from you, like you're kicking your heel away, you should feel it in your calf. You should feel it behind your knee and probably in your hamstring too. So sitting up nice and tall. No rounding backs on this one. Good. And then release it. Let's go to the other side. So straightening out that leg. The heel is down. The toes are up. Make sure you're breathing. And release it. Good. And now we'll add a little tilt to that. So we're going to straighten it out. Toes are up. Take a breath. Inhale. Exhale. Lean forward a little bit. Inhale. Back up straight. Exhale. Lean forward a little bit. Inhale. Back up straight. Exhale. Lean. Back up straight. Last one. Inhale. Exhale. Lean. Good. And hold that for a count of three, two, and one. Good. All right. Let's do the other side. Straighten out the leg as best you can. You want to have that knee straight if you can. OK. So toes are facing the ceiling. Take a breath. Inhale. Exhale. Lean. Inhale. Straighten. Exhale. Lean. Inhale. Straighten up. Exhale. Lean. Stretch it out. Last one. Inhale. Stretch. And exhale. Lean. And hold it for a count of three, two, and one. Good. Back to the center. And when you come back, how about a couple of marches? Yeah. March, march, march. Marching in place gets the heart and the lungs working a little bit more. Very good. OK. So now we're going to combine several movements together. We stretched out our hamstrings. We stretched out our shoulders. We lengthened our back. Now we're going to do a little bit of marching. So if you want to, you can scooch back in your chair. Remember, when we raise our arms, you're either going to do the robot arm, or you're going to raise it all the way up. You get to decide. OK. So we're going to take the left arm and bring it all the way up. And then the opposite leg lifts up. Heel is down. Good. And then release it. Other arm all the way up. Opposite leg. Heel is down. And then return it. And we're going to do one more cycle. So on the breath, we're going to inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale. Now let's see if we can lift the leg as well. So inhale. Good. And exhale and inhale and exhale. So this one, we've got the super deluxe thing going on, right? We're lengthening the spine, right, by raising the arms. And we're stretching those hamstrings, which could be the culprit for some of that low back stuff, right? Good. And we're marching in place. We're like a toy soldier. Very good. And one more cycle there. Good. Now we're going to reach both arms all the way up. Good. And if you can, only if it feels good, maybe even scooching back, see if you can lift both legs up, even just a little bit. Could be a hover or could be a little lift. Hold that up. If that's feeling OK, you're feeling strong in your core, then reach both arms up. This is L for love. Yay. We love our backs. We love our spines. We love our bodies. Good. And then all the way down. Good. And how about a march? Very good. So another area of our low back that we tend to ignore is the side body, right? We are not just a two-dimensional structure. We actually have lots of dimensions where we can twist and bend. So we're going to be doing a twisting series. And it's a gentle twist. So I want you to progress through the twist at your own leisure. It's called the washing machine cycle, OK? We're going to start with a gentle cycle. So this is just a little hug around your shoulders. And we're going to take a breath. Inhale. And then we're going to exhale turn to the right. Inhale, center. Exhale, turn to the left. Inhale, center. And exhale, turn. Inhale, center. And exhale, turn. Good. Back to the center. This time, when we turn to the right, we're going to lead our head to the left. Back to the center. And opposite. Back to the center. And opposite. Good. This works the neck and the back. back to the center and up and back to the center. Good. Now we're going to go into the medium cycle of our washing machine. We're going to take it into the elbows. So I call this I dream of genie arms, right? So we're going to inhale and exhale. Elbows to the right. Inhale center. Elbows to the left. Inhale center. To the right. Inhale center and to the left. Inhale center. Now the head goes the opposite way. So inhale. Exhale. Lift the opposite. Inhale center. Exhale opposite. Inhale center. Opposite. Inhale center. Up and back to the center and release it. And now we have the large capacity washing machine cycle. So we'll take a big hug. Remember we were hugging a tree before? It's that motion, right? So we're going to inhale and exhale to the right. Inhale center. Exhale to the left. Inhale center. To the right. Inhale center. To the left. Good. Inhale center. Now the opposite way with our head, right? So we inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Good. Back to the center. Good. Shake that out a little bit. The super deluxe capacity, right? Big open arms if you can do it. Otherwise, go back to one of your favorite options of the washing machine cycle. Okay, here we go. Inhale. Exhale to the right. Inhale. Exhale to the left. Inhale. Exhale and inhale. And one more. Exhale and inhale. Now the head turns the opposite way. So inhale. Exhale to the center. And exhale to the center. One more cycle. We can do it. And to the center. Good. And to the center. Good. Put your palms facing up. Bring them all the way up to the top and bring them back to the heart. Good work. So now we're going to get into another area of the body that affects our back. And that is our side body, right? The feeling of stretching your sides is a very important feeling. It's called a lateral bend. There's a very important muscle there called the quadratus lumborum that can really get tight and cause one hip to jack up and get super tight, which of course is going to affect your low back. We're going to stretch into that one right now. So I want you to come back to that nice straddle position and we're going to do something called windshield wipers, which just starts to warm up the hips and the back a little bit. So I want you to drop one knee down as you twist your body and then the other one, right? So hopefully you've got a chair that allows you to slip and slide a little bit. You want to have that feeling, right? So back and forth a few times. Good. Just warming up. And now we're going to pivot our body. This one gets a little tricky, so bear with me here. We're going to pivot our body so that only one butt cheek is on the chair. The other leg is in the front. The bottom leg, you see how my shoulders, hips, and knees are in one line? If you find that you're kind of tight here and that doesn't work, then scooch that foot forward. It's okay. If you can, scooch it back. Try to keep that nice length if you can. That's going to keep your spine straight, right? And long. We want a long spine. That stops compression. So you're holding on with the other hand on the chair so you're not going to fall off. The outside hand comes to your shoulder. This is called the hip glide. It's a beautiful movement for your side body. We're going to inhale and we're going to touch the elbow down towards the hip but we're going to try to take the hip up to touch the elbow. Good. And then when you lift the elbow up, we're going to drop the hip down a little bit and we're going to lean sideways into the chair. Good. So let's see how that works. We're going to inhale. Everything is super tight on that side. And exhale. Everything is super long on that side. Good. We're going to inhale and we're going to exhale. And inhale and exhale. Good. The next one we're going to hold. So we're going to inhale. We're going to exhale. Hold it here and then take this hand and you're going to take it up and over your head like you're just kind of hooking over your head. Yeah. Okay. If that feels okay, then I want you to reach maybe a little bit. And if that feels good, what about reaching forward a little bit? Oh, get the outer edge of the diamond. Open and close your fingers. Good. Come all the way back and we're going to go to the other side. So feel free to kind of readjust whatever you need to readjust. And we're going to slip on over to the other side. So remember, only one butt cheek is on the chair. The other one's kind of off, right? We're holding on to the chair for support and that bottom knee. We're trying our very best for that bottom knee to face the ground. I know that some of you have your knee like this and you're kind of worried about that, right? It's okay. But it does mean that this is a tight area. It might mean you're sitting a lot, right? Because this is the muscle that gets really tight when we sit. So the best you can, we're going to start to scooch that leg back so we can open up this area of our body. Good. Outer hand to your shoulder. Doing the hip glide. So with your breath, we're going to inhale. Elbow down. Hip up. And then we're going to exhale. Lean sideways into the chair. Good. So inhale. We're tight there. Exhale. We're long there. Good. So inhale. And exhale. And inhale. And exhale. This is the last one. We're going to hold on this one. So we're going to inhale. We're going to exhale. Hold that. Maybe bring your hand and hook it over your arm so that opens up the side body a little bit more, doesn't it? Yeah. You can reach your arm a little bit or you can even reach it diagonally in front of you. I'm going to see if I can stretch and reach one of these branches right here that stretches that outer diamond area. Good. Bring it all the way gently back. And when you come back in, I want you to stay in your straddle position because we're going to be doing our cat-cows to get the spine back into the center after those little sideways bends. So we're going to inhale. Remember we're arching and we're pulling those hands all the way to your hips. And then we're going to exhale all the way down. Good. And then we're going to inhale up. And we're going to exhale down. Good. And let's do two more. Inhale up. Exhale, round it. And then inhale, lift. And exhale, round. Good. Bringing your feet back together and a couple of kiss your knees. As you know, that's one of the best stretches for your low back especially. And if you want to go all the way for the whole spine, you could just like round into like a little ball. That feels good. Good. All right. How are you feeling? Roll your shoulders. Rolling your shoulders backwards always helps with your posture. So if you ever feel yourself slumping, just roll those shoulders backwards. All right. Are you ready to do some standing poses? Yes. Let's do standing because posture and back pain go together, right? If we have poor posture, we're probably going to have some back issues. So we're going to gently rise up. Very good. And you can come behind your chair. Everybody's nice straight and tall. Remember we want our ears, our shoulders, our hips, and our ankles to all be in the same line. That is good posture. If we ever feel like we're rounding like this and our chin is forward, we want to make sure we do this. Yeah. Those nice shoulder rolls. It's the best thing for just correcting your posture right away. Very good. All right. So take your legs out just a little bit wider and we're just going to do a gentle movement with the hips. We're just going to go around and around. You're going to hold on to the chair, right? Just like a little hula hoop sensation. Good. And then go the other way. Just a little hula hoop. Make sure those knees are bent. Good. And then take your hands to your hips and you're going to go to the side and to the side. Yeah. Why is that important? One hip is up, one hip is down. That's important for your low back, right? So you have mobility in your pelvis. Yeah. Your pelvis is the joint that goes this way and your spine is the joint that goes this way. And now we're just moving it, right? Side to side. That starts to loosen up those low back muscles. Very good. And then bring it back to the center. And then take one leg out and give a little shake. And the other leg out and give it a little shake. Very good. Take your chair to the side of you because we're going to do a couple of hip movements. So as with everything in the body and the reason why I love yoga so much is that even though we're working on our back right now, right? We are working on our entire body because it's all integrated. So our hips are a very big part of our low back function, right? So we want to make sure we have good hip mobility so that our back doesn't get all tense and fights with that hip mobility, right? So we're going to take one, the outside leg up, hand on your hip and you're just going to hold it there. Good. And you're going to take it down. You're going to lift it up and you're going to take it down. Good. And then we'll go up and down a few times. Yeah. Good. Good. Next time it's up, you're going to hold it and it's going to go out and then in. And then out and then in. And then we'll circle out and then we'll circle in. Good. And when you come back, we're going to take that leg all the way behind us with a little toe point. Good. And then bring it forward with a toe point. Take it back with the toe point and take it forward with the toe point. And then take it back in. Very good. Turn yourself around or turn your chair on the other side. Okay. So here we go. We're going to take that leg and we're going to lift it up and we're going to take it down. And we're going to lift it up and we're going to take it down. Good. And we're going to lift it up and down and up and down and up and down. Next time you lift it up, we're going to hold it and we're going to go out and in. Out and in. Now the circle out once, twice. Good. Circle in once, twice. Good. Take the leg out, toe point. Take the leg forward, toe point. And back, toe point. And forward. Very good. Does that feel good on your hips? Now I want you to take a little bit of that movement. Remember the hips up and down. Good. And then a hula hoop a little bit. Just a little. Just loosening up. Remember those knees are bent a little bit. Go the other way. Good. And then bring your chair back in front of you. We're going to do a little bit of balancing. And balancing is important because you cannot have a bent over spine and balance at the same time. So balance helps our posture to be erect and of course that helps our spine and our posture both. So we're going to take the left leg out to the side and we're going to hold it. Just hold it. Your toes are facing forward. Now I want you to double check, okay, because a lot of times the toes want to go out towards the side or they want to go in towards the middle. We want them to be straight out in front. Know why? Because we're working this really nice strong hip group right here. This muscle is going to keep you nice and strong. These muscles are strong. It's going to reduce the work that your back has to do, right? So once you've got that, I want you to shoot an arm up into cactus. Good. Then bring it back in and a little sideways movement like you're skiing. Yeah. That will stretch out those nice strong muscles. Good. We'll go to the other side. So we're going to lift the opposite leg up. Maybe this time check again, right? Look at the toes. Are they facing forward? If they're not, try to get them facing forward. You'll find a little different motion here if you can get those feet forward. Good. Then the arm is in cactus. Good balancing. You got it. And then release it. And then the ski. We call this the ski because you're going down the slope like this. But that also stretches your lower back and your hips at the same time. Now we'll add a little bit to this balance. This is a progressive movement. So again, if your balance is a little precarious, stay with the first one. Otherwise, let's go for it. Okay. Leg is out. Toes are facing forward, right? Arm is in cactus to begin with. If it feels good, shoot that arm all the way up. All the way up. Good. And if that feels good, maybe tap the chair. Yeah. Try to lose your balance a little bit, but keep the chair nice and handy there. Good. Got it? Good. All right. To the other side. Oh, we got to do a ski on that side, huh? Yeah. That feels good. Okay. Other side. Leg is out. Remember, toes face forward. Arms in cactus. You can stay here or shoot it all the way up. I call this one falling star, right? So once you feel like you're kind of steady, challenge yourself. Let go of the chair. Tap it or hold on. You're doing good. Good. And then release it. And of course, that's skiing. And if it feels good, take those ski poles and let's just ski. Good. Great work. We'll come on down to the chair and we'll end it with a beautiful little motion that I call stirring the pot. It's something you can do very often throughout your day as you're sitting in your chair. The most important thing is we're going to go a little wider on that stance. Why is that? Why are we going wider again? Because we want to get into that diamond, right? The diamond, that thoraco lumbar diamond, that fascia is very, very tight. We want to always keep that thing a little bit loose, right? So when we do cat cows, we loosen that. And when we do our crisscrosses, we loosen that. And having our legs straddled will keep us stable so we don't fall off our chair. Okay. So we're going to incorporate all of those motions of the diamond into a circle. It's called stirring the pot. We'll do it first, an easy way, and second, a more challenging way. Here we go. Crisscross. You got it? Good. Forward. Squeeze the shoulders. Crisscross. And roll back. Yeah. See how that goes? Now we're really getting into that lower back and all those four points of the diamonds. And you're probably saying to yourself right now, like, oh Sherry, that is so tight and it's so achy. And guess what? You're starting to loosen it up when you're doing this. Slowly but surely, you will start to loosen up those tight muscles, especially those really deep, intricate muscles that wrap around your spine. Those are the muscles we really want to start to loosen up a little bit. Good. You've got that? Good. Come back and let's do two cat cows. We're inhaling and we're exhaling. And last one. We're inhaling and we're exhaling. Good. Back to the center. Now for those of you who want to work a little bit on your core as well as stretch your back, we're going to do stir the pot, but we're going to hold the ladle, right? So now we're not holding on to anything. So we've got to have a strong core to do this one. So what we're going to do is we're going to pretend we have a big cauldron or a pot in front of us, right? And we're kind of just stirring around like this. Good job. Good. And then go the other direction. So remember, you're doing a little bit of lean, a little bit of going back. Maybe you feel your belly kind of getting tight when you start to move in those different directions. Good. And when you're back to the center, we're going to do it one more round. And this time, imagine it's a super big cauldron. Super wide and just slowly go around. Don't go fast. It's not important to go fast, right? It's not important to get her done. It's important to do it right. Good. And when you're back to the center, let's go super slow and super big the other way. So you're feeling that. I know you are. You're feeling that in your back. You're feeling that in your core and probably even in your shoulders. Good. And when you come all the way back to the center, walk those legs all the way back. And we're going to end it with the beautiful kiss your knee. Remember, the knee can come up like this, which is a great stretch for your low back. Or you can take that nice little rounded tuck, which will take your entire spine. So thank you so much for joining me today for this chair yoga class focusing on back care. And the most important thing is taking the time for you. So thank you for taking the time for you today, and we'll see you soon. Namaste.