Ageless Strength: Chair Yoga to Stay Strong with Sherry Zak Morris, Certified Yoga Therapist

Name: Ageless Strength: Chair Yoga to Stay Strong with Sherry Zak Morris, Certified Yoga Therapist
Uploaded: 2025-05-20T03:51:15.780Z
Duration: 45 min 18 s
Channel: Exercises for Seniors
Description: Ageless Strength: Chair Yoga to Stay Strong with Sherry Zak Morris, Certified Yoga Therapist

Exercises for Seniors

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2 Video Views·May 20, 2025 #Exercisesforseniors #Healthandfitness

#Exercisesforseniors #Healthandfitness

We're going to begin, and the very first thing we do is we gong the gong, right? And I'm going to have Larry do that. Can you do that? Larry, I want you to come up, and I want you to gong that gong. Because Larry is back after his surgery. Can you do it? Okay, hon? Let's see. Okay. Take your time. We're good. We're just so glad you're back. I would love for you to read your poem. Come on up. Let's read your poem, and then we'll gong. I sure missed yoga a lot. It wasn't a plot. First I broke my hip. Then I gave myself a hernia. You would think that was enough mania. So to correct all this destruction, I needed what seemed like a reconstruction. So here I am ready to make my body better again. And I hope I don't repeat my last dilemmas. Once or twice is certainly enough to bear. So here I am ready to yoga with extra care. Rather than everyone remembering me as a 90-year-old high-timer, how about an ancient rhymer? I couldn't come back without that. All right, so this is what we do. We give you this little guy. And we just do it with whatever strength. Very good. That poem was so good. We have spectators looking through the door right now. Oh my gosh, what a day. Okay, let us begin. I think this is a really good example of what happens. We get ourselves worked up over something. It's not even a bad workup. It's just high energy. Things are happening. Things are moving fast. Something interrupted us. How can we get the calm back? How can we do that? We can do that only by ourselves. So we're going to close our eyes, and we're going to just breathe. And we're going to bring our awareness here to the chair and just to our breath. So let all the little thoughts that are kind of traveling around in your brain right now, let them kind of dissipate. And all I want you to do is just notice where your breath is traveling in your body. And feel that. Feel the motion of what moves in your body, right? The chest, the belly. I hope by now you are all really trying to breathe a little bit more in the backside of your body. Right, that area between the shoulder blades. Try to make that a little wider. And the backside of your ribs, almost down where your kidneys are, down low. So every time we take that breath in, we are calming our nervous system. Super important. But also bringing in life force. We're bringing in the prana energy. And then if you're really tuned in right now, I want you to just notice any of the sounds around you. It could be the sound of your breath or your neighbor's breath. It could be the sound of people in the street. And then on your next inhale breath, I want you to pretend you have that string at the top of your head and someone's pulling you up. Inhale, long, long, long, long, long. Exhale, tuck your chin down. So we're going to lengthen the neck. And there's going to be two breaths here, right to the backside of your neck. So this should feel really good if you can get the breath there. This is stretching the cervical discs and the cervical ligaments. They get super tight. We all know that necks get super tight. We can stretch it by breathing into them. And then take it over to the right. So the right ear is going to roll on over to the right. The chin comes down. And we're going to take it to the left. So just do that a few times. And then just notice where you feel a tight, achy kind of pulling sensation. One of my good friends, he's a yoga therapist and massage therapist. And he says all the little muscle fibers in our necks, think of them as like violin strings. And there's a couple that are maybe out of tune, right? So when you get to an angle where you feel like, whoa, that's really tight or that's kind of achy, I want you to hold it there and then nod your head up and down, no matter what angle you're at. Just find one of those little violin strings. Nod a few times and then take it back and forth a few times. And maybe on the other side you'll find another one. Oh, that one's super tight for me. And then we're going to nod up and down. So that will lengthen and contract that muscle or group of muscles, actually. It's not just one little fiber. And then bring your chin all the way back. We're going to go one more time to the right, right ear, right shoulder. Left hand's going to reach all the way out to the side. And then dangle your arm down towards the floor and let it be loose. Maybe even shake your arm, your elbow, your fingers, everything is loose. We're going to open up the shoulder socket. So I want you to take a little circle with your left hand, maybe 2 or 3 inches in diameter. So your fingers are facing the floor. You're kind of letting your arm be dead weight. You're just kind of circling around in the shoulder. And then go the other way a few times. So bring a little synovial fluid into that shoulder socket. And then bring your hand and your chin back down to the center and go to the other side. So it's left ear, left shoulder. Right hand goes out to the side, stretch it out a little bit. And then drop it down to the side and then wiggle. Just let everything be loose. We're trying to loosen up that shoulder a little bit. And once your arm is loose, you're going to just take your arm and your fingers and just roll around. Remember, it's a small circle. It's not super big. A few times one direction and then a few times the other direction. And then you're going to come all the way back down to the center. And then open your eyes and roll your shoulders up and back. Good. Take one shoulder back and then the other. And maybe even look behind you for that little bit of twist. Good. Let's go forward. Okay, we're swinging forward. Yeah, good. And let's do the breaststroke while we're doing the swing. Good. Patty, you're really going for that dive. Man, she's like, whoa! Getting into that wave. Okay, this is a big wave. Up and over. Butterfly. Oh, up and over. Good. Side stroke looks like this. You twirl and then you kick out and glide. Good. And you twirl and you kick out and glide. Oh, that feels good. One more. Up and glide. And swirl and glide. Good. Come all the way back in. Good. Shake your hands a little bit. Take them down a little bit. Shake them all around you. Shaking loosens up your limbs so that you can flush all the impurities from your body. So when you're up here, I want everyone to shake like this, too. Just shake it all about. Do the hokey pokey. Yeah. Shake. Good. All right, take it above you and shake it a little bit. Take your feet up and shake them a little bit. Good. You're going to get a little tingly. Good. And come all the way down. Woo. Do you feel the tingle in your hands? Yeah. Put your hands on your laps and just kind of notice that, right? Maybe even your feet feel like a little momentum going on in there. Very good. All right, we're going to do a little sideways bend. So we're going to start with the right hand down, left hand's going to come up, and we're going to take it up and we're going to take it over. So it comes like this. Up like this. And exhale over. Make sure you're holding on to the chair. Yeah, that gives you a little more leverage. Good. Inhale up and exhale over. Good. One more time. Inhale, exhale over. Hold it here because now we're going to arc halfway forward, right? And then watch what we're going to do. We're going to take it back and turn the palm up and look up, and we're going backwards a little bit. Good. So here we go. Arc halfway forward. Palm is down. Chin is down. And then we're going to inhale. Palm is up and chin is up a little back. One more time. All the way over. Oh, it stretches into your back, your shoulders, your hips. All the way up. Good. Now take that left hand down and we'll do it to the right. So here we go. Inhale up. Exhale over. It's one of the best things we can do for breathing better. Right? Opens up the ribs. Make sure you're breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Stretch it. And last time. Inhale up. Exhale over. And then we're going to arc it over. And then we're going to lift it up. Palm is up and chin is up. Go back a little bit. And then arc. Exhale. And inhale. Flip and look. And last time. Exhale. Stretch it. Inhale. Flip. And then release it. Good. Now bring both shoulders up and back a few times. So we're going to do a pose that we haven't done in a little while. And this is called Miss Sassy Pants. Okay? I named it because I think it just looks really sassy. Okay? So there's a couple options. First, you're going to put your hands on your hips. And you're going to take your elbows back a little bit. Yeah. So if you walk around the house spreading like this, don't you think you look really sassy? You do. Yeah, you do. You look really confident and really sassy. Okay? So that's the first step of just opening up here in the pecs. Right? The next thing would be to take your hands behind you and just do this. See? You can almost just touch your fingertips like that together. How are we doing on that? Does that feel like it opens up your chest a little bit more? You are a little sassier. Okay? The one that's a little trickier, and let's see if you can do it, the palms go like this on your back. If you can't do it, don't worry about it. Just do any of the other options you have. And then you really are sitting up nice and tall. What muscles are we strengthening in the back? Our rhomboids. They pull our shoulder blades together. And our erectors, they keep us straight. Good. And then release. Now take both hands in front of you and give it like a big hug like that. That'll stretch those muscles out. Good. Tuck your chin. Interlace your hands now. And on the inhale, bring them all the way up. And on the exhale, turn them inside out. Good. Then bring them all the way back to your heart like this. And now we're going to push it out. Like that. Bring it in. Good. And then come all the way back to the center. A little cat-cow. If you can scooch up, it's even better. So on your inhale, your palms come towards your hip bones and your arching. And then we'll exhale, and we'll round a little bit. Oh, just getting the back to stretch. Make sure you're breathing good. Exhale. You can even open your mouth a little bit when you exhale. And inhale, always through the nose if you can. And then exhale down. And then inhale up. And then exhale down. Good. A little core strengthening with the official stir the pot. So it looks like this. We've got a big ladle. We've got a big pot in front of us, and we're going to stir around. So that circle is as long as you can feel yourself stay upright. You can make it as big as you want. Good. And you can lean over one side, weight forward the other side, wherever you feel that your stretch wants to be. But do you feel your core muscles working? Yep, they are. Because if they weren't, you'd be falling forward. Good. Go the other way. Circle around. Good. And one more stir the pot. Good. All the way back. Walk your legs in, and we're going to go a little knee lift for a moment, and then a little kiss your knee. Okay, so I had the pleasure of being in three different assisted living classes this week for three different purposes. One was to teach. One was to actually shop for an assisted living location for one of my relatives. And one was to check out a facility where I may be teaching. And in every single one of them, this was the mantra. I think it was probably plastered invisibly around all the walls, is let's get stronger. That's it. Let's get stronger. Everybody in that assisted living, especially in the rehab section, because they're only there temporarily, is let's get stronger. And they work really hard. They work really hard. So you have these 70-, 80-, and 90-year-olds. They are working hard, working hard. So this is my mantra today is let it be hard. When we're doing our movements, and it's hard, it's hard sometimes to do some of these things, let it be hard because that's making you strong. So this is one of them. This is the soccer kick and then the quad straightener. It looks like this. We're going to lift the leg up. We're going to kick that soccer ball, come back down. And then the other one. So that's the motion. So you can use your arms if you want to, but if it's all about your legs right now, the arms can be like this in cactus, and we go like this. Up, kick, and down. Good. So this is good for your leg strength, the muscles of independence. Also good for your core strength. And then we're going to take it one more level. This is where it's going to be hard. Take that first leg, bend it, hold it. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Good. Down. And the other one. Up, hold, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Good. Take your legs out. All right, we did it. See? And then push around side to side. So my relative, I was asking her how things are going, right? And she said, I'm exhausted, but I'm sleeping so good. Isn't that a nice benefit? That's a good benefit. When we work harder and we exert our energy, we sleep better, right? So it's all about doing that. So that's good. Let's do some arthritis work. All right. Oh, I'm going to do this one. I did this one in the library yesterday. This is memory and finger dexterity. So we did this before. Wait a minute. Peace and love. Boy Scout salute. Be well and prosper. Remember, that's the hard one. Be well and prosper. And high five. So we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and they each have a different shape. Then there will be a quiz at the end. So the other one is wait a minute. Peace and love. Boy Scout salute, all three together. Be well and prosper. High five. Okay, good. Left hand is going to be be well and prosper. Right hand is going to be wait a minute. All right, good. Left hand is going to be high five. And right hand is going to be wait a minute. That's an easy one. All right. Oh, good, Maxine. You're doing well. Okay, one last one. Okay, so left hand is going to be Boy Scout salute. And the right hand is going to be peace and love. I've got to think of that myself. We got it? Boy Scout salute, all three together. With the pinky and the thumb. Okay, good. All right, you guys, good. Now, lotus flower. This one looks like this. We're going to take it and we're going to turn it inside out. Dip the petals down and take a drink of water. Bring them back up. Make a bud. And then we're going to rise up over the muck. And then we open up. Good. One more time. All the way down. Turn those petals inside out. Take a little dip down and drink. Back up. Good, Jim. Back together, little bud. Rise up. See if your elbows can get a little closer together. Yeah, a little stretch for the shoulders. And then open up again. Then open and close. Good. Interlace them on the top. Interlace. Good. And then lift them all the way up. Good. And then release. Good. Roll it, roll it, roll it. Okay, let's do a little side saddle. So side saddle is any movement that goes to the side, right? So we're just going to kind of warm up a little bit by just pivoting back and forth. Good. If you want to add the arms, it's always a nice little fun thing. It gets the whole body to move around. Good. Okay, then we're all going to swing so that our left knee is in the front, right knee is going to drop. We're going to do the pendulum. Okay? So this is a somatic movement, which means there's a little bit of complications going on. Okay? We do a lot of moving parts. So you're holding on to the chair, right, with your left hand. Your right hand is dangling down by your side. Yeah. Larry, adjust how it feels good for you. Good. Okay. So left hand, everybody's dangling. Take your left hand back behind you and look at it. And then take your left hand in front and look at it. Good. So swing it back. Oh, I'm sorry. Right hand, I'm sorry, you guys. Right hand, I'm doing it here. Okay. And then swing. You guys got that motion, right? Bring your hand back to your side. Now it's going to be the right foot taps. Toe taps forward and the right foot toe taps back. And one more time. Forward. Good. And back. So these are your walking muscles. Now we're going to add them together. So toe tap forward, swing your arms back, but look at it. Good. Toe tap back with the foot, swing your arm forward and look. Good. So we're working neck, shoulders, hips, knees, toes. Everything's going on. We are singing and walking. Yeah. And guess what? There's a lot of brain stuff going on here, isn't it? We're doing opposite stuff. Okay. Next time your arm is reaching forward and your toe is back, take that front arm and reach it inward so you get that nice little side stretch again. And open and close your fingers and stretch. Make sure you're breathing there. Breathe, breathe, breathe. Good. Come all the way back down and now gently pivot to the other side. All the way around. Okay. So now it's going to be right knee in front. Left toes are actually tucked, you guys. When they're tucked, it's like a little kickstand. It keeps you solid. Dangle that left arm down and we're just going to practice the arms. Right? The arm goes back and we look at it. The arm swings forward and we look at it. Good. And swing back. Swing forward. Good. Now rest the arm. Now the toes. Toe tap forward. Toe tap back. Toe tap forward. Oh, it's that cramp, Paulina. Dang it. That hamstring. Good. Toe tap forward. Arm swings back. Look behind you. Toe tap forward. Arm swings forward. Good. Toe tap forward and back. Good. So alternating. Good. You got it good on that side, Larry. Good. Don't you feel so proud of yourself when you get it? I love that feeling. Good. Now next time arm is forward, reach it in a little bit. We're going to open and close the fingers and open and close. Breathe, breathe, breathe. Good. Come all the way back. Slowly come back to the center. Good. And once you're there, maybe the legs can be a little wider. We'll just do this in and out a couple times. Good. Want to add the arm movements, right? Always going to do that. All right. So walk it back in and then move your feet a little bit. Okay, we're going to do our Sun Citation, but before we do that, let's move the feet just a little bit to get our circulation going. So point and flex a little. Roll your ankle one direction. Good. And let's do the other side. Point and flex. See if you can keep that knee nice and straight, because that's your quad muscle working. And then roll around. We got into both. Now here we go. Point and flex. Yeah. Pumping the blood back to your heart. Good. Roll both in one direction. And then roll both in the other direction. And then paddle them. Paddle them. Very good. All right. So bring them back in. We're going to just check our alignment before we do our Sun Cells, because we do eight of them. The most important thing is we're etching in our good posture, all right? So where are your shoulders, right? Let's bring them up, back, and down. Do that a few times. Up, back. One more time. Up, back, and down. Then they're in the good spot. Okay? Hands to your heart. On your inhale, the arms are up. We're looking up. On the exhale, the arms come into cactus arms. Take a nice breath. Exhale halfway down, but you've got to pull your elbows back just a wee bit. Take a breath. Hands to kneecaps. We're sliding towards the floor. Keep your head up if you've got glaucoma or high blood pressure. Inhale. We're coming up halfway. There's your arch. Good. Exhale. We're bowing again. The right arm's reaching up. We're looking up at the right thumb. And then lower. And then inhale the left arm up. Good. And lower. It's a big circle back up. So inhale. Big circle. Hands will touch. And then exhale. We're back to the heart. Very good. Here we go again. Inhale. Lift up. Exhale. Halfway down with that cactus arms. Take a breath. Nice and strong. Exhale. Hands to kneecaps. Slide down. Inhale. We're arching halfway. Exhale. We're bowing. Inhale. Right arm's reaching up. Looking up. And then lower. Inhale. Left arm's reaching up. Good. And lower. Draw your belly button in a little bit. We're going to power up with the hands touching. And then we're back to the prayer. One more like that. Inhale. Lift up. Exhale. Halfway down. Remember, elbows back just a wee bit. Take a breath. Hands to kneecaps. We're sliding towards the floor. Inhale. We're arching halfway. Exhale. We're bowing. Inhale. Right arm's reaching up. Looking up. Exhale. Lower. Inhale. Left arm's reaching up. Exhale. Lower. Remember, bring it all the way back up. Inhale. Up. And exhale to the heart. Now we're going to add a twist. Inhale. Lift. Exhale. Arms and cactus. Halfway down. Take your breath. Hands to kneecaps. We're going to slide towards the floor. Inhale. We're arching up halfway. Good. And exhale. We're folding. Right arm is reaching up. Remember, the elbow's straight. Exhale. Lower. Inhale. The left arm lifts. Exhale. Lower. And then both arms come up to the top, but then we're going to bring them out really long and straight. We're going to exhale and twist to the left. Get ready. Inhale. Exhale. Twist. Inhale. Center. Exhale. Other way. Good. Inhale. Center. Exhale to your heart. Here we go. Keep it going. Inhale. Up. Over halfway down. Exhale. Halfway down. Take a breath. Hands to kneecaps. Slide down. I hope everybody's getting sweaty like me. Inhale. Halfway up. Exhale. Take your bow. Right arm's reaching up. Look it up. Exhale. Lower. Left arm's coming up. Good. Exhale. Lower. Bring both arms up. We're going to take a hold of the wrist or the forearms. Whatever feels good. Take a breath, and we're going to exhale. Pull to the left. Inhale. Up. Exhale. Pull to the right. Good. Inhale. Up. Exhale. Bring it back to prayer. Now the feet. Inhale. Lift. Exhale. Going halfway down. Take your breath. Hands to kneecaps. Slide down. Good for your low back. Just stretch that. Inhale. We're coming up halfway. Good. Exhale. We're holding. Right arm is reaching up, and we're looking up. Exhale. Lower. Inhale. The left arm up. Good. Exhale. Lower. Bring both arms now out in front of you like you're holding that beach ball. And remember, when you're leaning forward, you're going to feel your belly kind of pulling in, and that's good. Right? That's the strength there. Toes are down. Heels are up. And we're going to strengthen the ankles. Drop the heels. Inhale. Lift. Hands touch. Exhale. We're back to the heart. Two more rounds, everybody. Inhale. Up. Exhale. We're going halfway down. Big breath. Hands to kneecaps. Slide towards the floor. Inhale. Halfway up. Exhale. Hold. Right arm's reaching up. Look up. Exhale. Lower. Inhale. Left arm's reaching up. Good. Exhale. Lower. Take the arms out in front. Hold that beach ball one more time. And remember to work on that leaning. Good. Heels are down. Toes are up. And you're going to spread your toes so you can have room in your socks. Good. And then wiggle them. Let me see that mind-body connection going on. Good. Drop it down. Inhale. Lift. Hands to your heart. One last time. Bend shavasana. Inhale. Exhale. Halfway down. Take a breath. Hands to kneecaps. Slide down. Inhale. Halfway up. Exhale. Hold. Right arm's reaching up. Exhale. Lower. Last one. Inhale. Left arm's up. Exhale. Lower. Big circle takes us back. Inhale. Up. Exhale. And hands back to your heart center. Whew. Anybody sweating? You all are glistening. You look so healthy and glistening like that. Right? Okay. So we're going to take a moment with your hand on your heart. And we're just going to take a moment and thank our hearts for all that work that they just did. Take your nice, deep breath. Bring in that beautiful oxygen, life force, into your being. Feel your heat. That is your internal energy. You want to feel that internal energy because that helps with your digestion. So if you have any issues with your digestion, just know that this little hot and bothered feeling is super good for you right now. Because we are going to do one more little extra effort. Right? It's going to be the blast-offs. Anybody have a number besides 1 or 2? What do we think? What do we do? 2 and 1. 21. Whoa. Is today the 21st? No. Today's the 22nd. Right? Yeah. Okay. We'll do 21. Oh, I don't know if I can do it. We'll try it. Okay. So remember, this is for my return folks. Okay? 21 times of bending your knees can really hurt your knees. I don't want to say hurt. It's going to wear your knees. Right? And it might not be enjoyable. So this is the other option that we came up with. We call it the butt lift. Okay? The butt lift is pushing the balls of your feet, your heels down, and you're lifting your butt up off the chair. So everything is contracted, but you're pushing down. And if you don't believe that this works, I want you to try it. I want you to put your hands on your thighs and then do that. Push down and lift your butt up. Does this muscle get hard? No. Marilyn, that's a good one for you. Right? This is going to do the same benefit as going up and down 21 times. So what you would do is, when we're counting down, you're going to be doing that butt lift. And if you're doing it, I'm going to see you be a little jack-in-the-box. Okay? Then I'll know you're doing it right. Okay? And then tomorrow, your butt will probably be a little sore. Yeah. If you do it 21 times today, it will be a little sore. Okay? So otherwise, people with the blast-offs, we are going to do it together. So there are two ways. You can swing your arms, or you can put your hands on your shoulders. And you can do a combo, okay, of the 21. Here we go. 21, and there will be a little pause at the top. And we're down. 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 66, 67, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, We're going to look up at the 12 o'clock position, and only the eyes are moving, only the eyes, no chin or neck. So we're going to look up with the 12, then look over to the 1, look over to the 2 as far as you can go, all the way over to the 3, you should see the side of your nose, look down to 4, down to 5, and then all the way down to 6, maybe you see your kneecaps. Over to 7, up to 8, way over to 9, 10, 11, when you come back to 12, blink your eyes 3 times, 1, 2, 3, and then squeeze them really tight, because that will release that muscle effort. Good, and guess what, we do have to go backwards, so here we go again, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, down to 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, back up to 12, blink 3 times, 1, 2, 3, squeeze tight, and then take your hands and we'll give ourselves a little eye bath, a little energy bath. So we're going to rub until we feel it warm, and then we're going to rub more until we feel it hot, okay? Heat is energy, right? If anybody's ever studied or heard of Reiki, right, it's the ability to have energy in your hands, and you send that energy to the place that you want healing, and we're going to heal our eyes into their eyes now. So you do that little cup, sensation, right, you've got your energy ball there, and then you place it on your eyes with your eyes closed, and for any of us who want to have better eyesight, that's me, I'm raising my hand almost, and just notice, just let your eyes relax, absorb that beautiful energy going into your optical nerve, your cornea, your retina, and then gently blur your eyes open. Okay, we ready to stand up now? Alright, everybody come on up, grab your chairs, I have part of your chair in front of you. This is the balancing part of class, okay, so the number one thing that I hear from every single person over the age of 57 and a half, I believe, is my balance is getting worse, and the only thing that improves your balance is practice and strong legs, that's it, those two things, and that's what we're going to do in this segment, right. So the first thing we're going to do is we're going to do a little prancing, you know that this is something I've been doing recently, it's super, super important, it keeps the whole feet, the train, the high fascia train of the feet really healthy, starting with your arches, your Achilles tendon, your calves, all the way up your legs to your hips, okay. And then let's add a little attitude in that, and then move side to side, get your hips to move a little bit, that will help your hips and your low back, okay. All right, then one arm's going to reach up and the palm's facing in, so that's good shoulder alignment, good. Come on down, and then it's the other arm, good. Bring it down and see if you can bring both up, it doesn't have to be super high, okay, whatever feels good. Good, so that's a back lengthener. Hands down, and we're going to come back into downward facing dog, so when you bend your knees, you're going to make an upside down L with your body, right, so as you start to lower, you're going to bend those knees a little bit more, and see if you can feel the stretch under the arms, in the armpit area. That's where you kind of want to feel that nice long sensation, this is where your limb ducts are, so when we stretch and open this place, we're flushing out the toxins. If it doesn't, if your shoulders don't like it, bend your elbows a little bit. Two nice long breaths, and if you can bring your breath into any part of your back, shoulder area, lower back area, and look at your thumbs, and we're going to walk ourselves all the way back. Good, hold on, just so that you don't get dizzy, take one leg and give it a nice little shake out to the side, so we're going to work on the strength of our hips right now, so the muscles we're going to be using are all the hip muscles that kind of wrap around your hip bone, and that makes you solid when you stand, right, so we're going to do the triple hinge, that means there's three options here. The first one is the leg out to the side, let's say right leg out to the side with your toes facing forward. That might be hard on some of you because of your hips, so just do the best you can. Now, slowly like you're moving through mud or peanut butter, I like peanut butter better, okay, slowly move it in towards the center of you, so slow. Or maybe melted chocolate, I like that. Bring it one more time out, slowly, bring it back in, good. Now when we bring it out, I want your toes to go out and your heels to go in. Same idea, pull it in slow. Do you feel that muscle in your inner butt? Piriformis, that's your piriformis, good. Go out, and then pull it back in. Good, last one. When you go out, pigeon toe, big toes in, heels out, and then pull it in, and you should feel it way on the outer edge of your hip like that. Out, pull it in, remember to slow, good. And when you come back down, move that hip side to side. So your hips and your butt might be a little sore tomorrow. Then you know that you worked it, huh, good. Let's go the other side. Okay, left leg out, remember toes face forward. Slowly move in, slow, come in, take it out, slowly come in, good. Alright, now when we go out, toes point out, heels point in, slowly move it in so you'll feel inner thighs working, inner butt muscles working, good. Out you go, and now in one more time, good. Now last one, you're going to go out and pigeon toe, so you're going to roll that toe inward and you're going to pull it in. You might even feel your core muscles working on this one. Good, and then pull it in, good. And then the last one is that little hip movement, swing it out a little bit, very good. Now I'm going to move my chair, but you guys are all in the right spot. We're going to do our little tai chi warrior flow. So it looks like this, we're going to take a little wider stance. I'm going to mirror you, but it's going to be the left foot that's going to point and it's going to be parallel to the back of your chair. The other foot, the right foot, is slightly angled, so that means the heel is down and you're a little bit angled, good. Now take your left hand and take it out in front so it's matching the direction of that left foot. So everybody's looking at their left hand, right? Bend your left knee a little bit. Make sure when you look down you see your toes, right? You don't want to overextend your ankle and knee. Turn that palm up. And on the inhale, we're going to come to the heel, straighten the leg, and reach the arm up. Good, now stretch your calf and your hamstring, good. On the exhale, we're going to bend the knee, take that arm and swoop it down and behind us and maybe even look at it. Good, so here we go again. Inhale, we're coming up, looking up. And exhale, we're bowing down and looking behind us. Good, and one more time. Inhale, coming up. Exhale, coming down. And last time, hold that nice warrior position in front of you. Knee is bent, arm is up, nice and straight. Hold that. We're going to hold that for our strong legs. Now only if it feels good. You're going to take that back hand, the one that's holding onto the chair, put it to your hip. Good, just working your balance. Otherwise, hold onto the chair. We're going to hold it 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. Good, now other side. So we're just going to pivot that foot in and then the other foot, right foot is parallel to the back of the chair. Then you take that right hand and it matches up with it. Bend the knee. This is super important. When you bend your knee, you see your big toes. Palm faces up. Inhale, you're on your heel. Your knee is straight, you're looking up. Exhale, bend the knee, swoop the arm in and back. Good, so here we go. Inhale with the breath, good. Exhale, swoop it down. Inhale more, inhale up. Exhale, bend and swoop. Now come back to warrior. That knee stays bent, the arm is out in front. We're going to hold it. Just hold it. This is all we're going to do. Hold this pose. Again, if you want to let go of the chair and put it on your hip, you'll have a little bit more balance challenge. Just going to hold for strength. Then release. Then bring it all the way back. Walk it back in, toes out, heels in. We're going to do the plie. It's a little ballerina. We did fairy dust, and now we're doing the ballerina stuff. We're going to go down like this, with the back straight, and up. We're going to go down. Keep your back nice and straight. You can add the arms, and it looks like this. Good. One more time. We are going to hold it. Take the arms out to the side. Just hold it. Good. Heel, toe, heel, toe. Then march it out a little bit. Now the last balancing pose is actually truly a balance one-legged. It's going to be tree. We're going to take that off to the side. One leg is going to be down. One leg is going to come up. We're going to use all the muscles we were just working on. When we're standing on the leg, it doesn't matter which one, the other foot comes into the instep or the calf. In the standing leg, you want to feel your quads working, the outer hip muscles working, the inner thigh muscles working. Everything's holding you now, even your core muscles. Then we're going to shoot an arm out to say cat, just to begin with. We'll allow the back to line up. Then maybe you can tap the chair to let go, or let go of it completely. Hover on it. You can let go of both hands. Then come on down. Shake it out. Last pose, then we get to sit down. Nice strong legs. Remember, think about a tree trunk. It's really straight. We're going to lift that foot up, standing leg strong, quads lifted a little bit, outer hips pulled in. Now bring an arm up, doesn't matter which one. We're going to hold it for five breaths. You just decide. You can hold on to the chair the whole time, because it doesn't matter if you let go. We're working the legs. If you're shimmying or swaying, it's all a good sign. It's a good sign. That means your body's trying to adjust. It's learning. One last breath, and then bring it down. Shake it out a little bit. Grab a hold of your belt. We'll do nice stretches of beautiful legs, our pillars. You doing okay, you guys? Okay, the fans are on the highest, I think. How are you doing, guys and Lena? Okay, good? Hanging in there? Thank you. I'm good. All right, here we go. Belt across the ball of the right foot. Now we're going to straighten that right foot out. The knee is straight, hopefully. See if your toes are facing up towards the ceiling. If they aren't, then move your ankle a little bit to do that. Your elbows are a little bent, so you're working your arms. You think we're passively just kind of hanging out here, but no, we're doing isometrics, which means isolating muscles. Now grab the belt with your right hand. Left hand goes out with your thumb up, and you're going to open up to one side and gaze off to the thumb. This is going to be the widest stretch you do today. Taking up a lot of real space. And then when you come back to the center, flip your grip, so now we're grabbing with the left hand. Your right hand is out, and you're crossing your leg over a little bit. Good. You should feel that outer hip stretch. And then bringing back, here we go to pigeon, so that's the ankle on the knee, the belt across your lap. Good. And we're going to pull your toes, each of them long. We did that before, but we're also going to circle them too. So I want you to start with your big toe. You're going to pull and wiggle, and then circle. Little baby circles around one direction or so, and then the other. Good. And then the next one, pull and wiggle. You have long legs, you have a long way to go to do this one, right? Circle the toe, circle the toe. And while you're circling, you guys are still doing a little pulling. So the tractioning is important to get the joints nice and straight and the circular motion gets that lubrication in the lower joint. Good. And then keep going until you get to that last one. And the pinky is always the hardest because it curls, doesn't it? Yeah, so just pull and wiggle that one, circle that one around. This will help with bunions too. Good. And then we'll release and let's go to the other side. Okay, so here we go to the left leg. Nice and straight. And it really doesn't matter how high the leg is. That is not the purpose of this one. This one is a little bit of pressure on the bones. So we're pulling the bones, we're stressing them, and when we stress our bones, they get stronger. So we're doing that and we're doing the same thing with our arms. Larry, one hand on each side of the belt. Like you're holding the reins of a horse. Giddy up, giddy up. Once we got that, now we grab a holder. One hand out, thumb is up, other leg goes wide. We're going to gaze off to the thumb. So you're really not leaning in that direction you guys. You want yourself to be centered. Good. And when you come back to the center we'll flip it and the leg crosses over. Oh, that nice stretch for your thighs. Keep a thumb. And then when we come back we'll do that little triangle pose. This is what is called seated pigeon. And remember your foot is flexed. Okay, keep it flexed as you do those little toe movements. So we're going to pull the big toe long, wiggle it, and then circle it one direction and then the other. We do this with our fingers a lot and they help with arthritis, but we get arthritis in our toes as well. Give a little love to those toes. Just take your time. I'm at my middle one so far. And as you can see, as you work down your toes towards your pinky, they tend to get more curled, don't they? And it's not bad that they're curled. We just don't want them to be super tucked under. And if you do have your bunions, this helps. Alright, so you might even look at your foot and see if you have bunions. Bunions is when your toe, your big toe and your little toe are slightly out of alignment in your joint and there's a little bubble or bump on the outside. Okay, so the big toe, this is the most common, usually happens when you have shoes that are tight. High heels, they jam your foot forward and they squeeze your toes. And the little toe, you know how you get a bunion in the little toe? When you sit cross-legged on the floor, Indian style, you know what I'm talking about? They're called tailor bunions because the tailors in the olden days used to do all their sewing sitting cross-legged on the floor and sewing and that would take that little toe and curl it in. Yeah, isn't that interesting? So what the toes want to be is in alignment, right? They do not want to be pointed like that. How many of you still are wearing pointed shoes? Don't raise your hand, okay? I don't want to hear it, okay? So hopefully we've all learned that, you know, unfortunately the hard way in our generations. But the younger girls, they don't realize that because they think it looks super awesome, right? To have these really high heels with the big pointed things and you're like, oh no, just wait, just wait, wait, wait, right? Okay, so take your feet give them a nice little love. And then we're going to take one leg up, point it and the hand's going to point and we're just going to match it up a little bit and the other one match up a little bit and then we'll do both, corner one match them up and then alternate them. Good, and then shake it off.