12 Wake Up Steps

These are the 12 wake-up steps outlined in Ron Fletcher's book "Everybody is beautiful." So David is sound asleep. (chuckles) And I'm gonna ask David to gently wake up and roll onto his back. It's time to wake up David. (laughs) And onto your back, and then extend your legs out on the bench. And let's begin by warming up the hands, waking up the feet. So flex the feet back, flex the hands back, and then reach through those fingers. Reach through the toes.

And again, flex back, and reach long through the fingertips, longs through the toenails. Two more times. Inhale, flex back, and exhale, press out. One more time. And strongly flex, and strongly point.

And then reaching the arms up to the ceiling. Circle the wrist, circle the ankles around, and around. Two more times. Last one. And circle the other way.

Exaggerate the circle. And around. Couple more. Last one. And press the arms down by your sides.

Good. So let's warm up the breath, placing the hands right on the sides of the ribs a little bit higher up, and take a deep, expansive breath in. And then, as you exhale, (David audibly breathing) feel that engagement through your upper abdominals. And again, deep breath in expanding into the sides of the body, and exhale down into your upper abdominals. Feel that connection into the back, in to the bench.

Two more times. Deep breath in, and exhale. Try to get a little more movement with each repetition. (David breathing) And last one. Deep expansive breath in, and press the air out.

And then deepening the exhalation. So take a big breath in, and as you exhale, try to feel that sequential movement down the front of the body. Good. Keeping the hands right around the pelvis. Let's feel those low abdominals.

Take a deep breath in and exhale. Take the breath down, engage through your low abdominals. Feel that connection to the lower back. And again, breathing in (inhales) and exhale all the air. (David exhales) Two more times, breathing in and out, warming up the body with the breath.

One more deep breath in (inhales) and exhale. Press it out. And then placing your hands behind your head. Elbows are wide. Let's take another breath in.

And as you exhale, flex your spine, curling forward, draw the legs into your chest, and a full breath to open and stretch the body back out onto the bed. And again, full breath, come forward. Engaging the abdominals, working the breath. And open. Let's do that one more time.

Full breath to flex and round forward and open back out, and then just draw one leg in at a time, folding the right leg in and lengthen back out, and the left leg in, draw the leg in, and out one more time on the right and folding in, out. One more time. (David audibly breathing) Folding in and out. And just to center the body, draw both legs in, grounding forward, hollow through the belly, stretching the back of the body, and then lengthen back out onto the bench. Keeping the hands behind the head.

Let's fold the left leg in towards you, and extend it up, bend it in and lengthen out. So feel that fold from the hip, lengthen the leg, bend the knee, and then open the front of the hip back out. One more time. Pulling in, up, and stretch out of the hip. Last time.

Up to the ceiling, bend and extend. Draw the first side again, up to the ceiling, and then bend the leg toes to the knee, and then twist from the hips, Keeping that opposite shoulder down, and gently pulse. Two, three, four, five, six. And come center. Stretch the leg back out on the bed, and draw the second leg in and up to the ceiling.

That's it. Bend and twist the hips. And pulsing down. Two, three, four, five, six. And pull back through center, and stretch out onto the bed.

Lower the arms down by your sides. And let's bend both legs set in place the heels right up underneath the knees, separate the legs, just hip-width apart, and then take a deep breath in. Exhale, curl your pelvis up. And roll it back out onto the bench. And again, curl the pelvis up out onto the bench.

And this time, curl the pelvis up and come up a little bit higher, pressing up into a pelvic press position and use your breath to melt you spine. Back down into the bench, rolling through the waist, (David continues ocean breath) rolling out through the hips, and again, curl the pelvis, peel the spine up to the ceiling, melting down chest, ribs, out through the hips. Let's do that one more time. And curl the pelvis, peel the spine all the way up. As you rolled down, soften your sternum, roll the ribs, waist, and the hips.

That's it. Draw both legs in towards you. Hold on behind your knees. That's it. And extend both legs up to the ceiling, bend and extend up to the ceiling, and bend.

That's it. Open the backs of the names bend. Last time, keeping the legs up to the ceiling, turn out from the hips and open the legs wide to the sides and gently pulse down. Two, three, four, five, six. Flex the feet. (David continues ocean breath)

And flex. Two, three, four, five, six. Draw the legs into a diamond, and back out. Pull to a diamond, and point to extend. Flex to pull in, and point to extend.

Last time in. And flex to extend. Draw the legs into a diamond position and place that diamond down onto the bed. Lift the arms up, curl the head forward, and round up and over the diamond. Hands to the ankles, and gently pulse forward from the low back.

Two, three, four, five, six. And roll up from the tailbone as if you were rolling up against a wall behind you sitting up tall. And again, peel the spine forward, rounding over a ball. Bone by bone. And pulsing forward.

Two, three, four, five, six. Rolling up from the tailbone up through the crown of the head, draw the legs together and roll over onto all fours. Good. And if your bed isn't from, you might wanna come down to the floor for the quadruped position. So the knees her right up underneath the hips, hands her right up underneath the shoulders, and from the tailbone, round the body up towards the ceiling.

Going for that, even curve of the spine. And again, from the pelvis lengthen out to a long flat back. So let's not go into extension quite yet. And again, from the pelvis, find that even flection all the way through the crown of the head emerge that even design, and then lengthen out to a long flat back, pulling the shoulders down the back, and again, going into flection, all the way up, and this time lengthen out into extension, reaching out, draw the shoulders down, pull the chest through. And again, from the pelvis, rounding up all the way through the hinge, and reaching out through the hips, and feel that extension out the crown of the head.

Placing the forearms down onto the bench, curl the toes under and press the hips up to the ceiling, and then reach the heels long and press the heels up. And again, reaching down, and as you lift the heels, try to lift from the hips. Two more times, reaching and pressing up. Last time down and press up, pressing up onto the palms. Walk the hands at a little bit closer towards you and bring the feet a little closer together.

That's it. And extend one hip, one leg out behind you opening up that hip. Try to keep the pelvis exactly parallel to the mat and place that foot down. And again, extend the other leg up. So just opening the front of the hip, and back down, and the first leg up for reaching long or through the toes, and back down.

Last time. Reaching out long through the front of the hip and back down. Knees back to the bench and sit back into a rest position, hips to the heels, stretching long through the sides of the body. And again, feel that breath into your back. Deep breath in (inhales) and exhale.

And one more time, deep breath in and exhale, rolling up from the tailbone all the way up. Good. (David continues ocean breath) And then step off the side of the bench. Good, and go ahead and face front. So now we'll stretch the sides of the body.

Stand with the legs parallel. You can stand in a slightly open stance, and let's reach the arms up to the ceiling, and as if you're climbing a rope, but I love what Ron said. Think of reaching for something wonderful up there. Wrap your hands around that rope and stretch, and reach, and reach, Little further, opening the sides of the body. Stretch two more.

Up. Last one. And then open the chest, press the arms down by your sides, and just circle the shoulders around to the back. And then coming to the end of your bench. Face the bed and place your hands just on the end of the bed.

Walking the feet back. Bend and contract the hips under, and extend the hips out. And again, bend and contract, rounding through the low back, and stretch the hamstrings. Two more. Bend and press up and out through the hips.

Last one. And up and out through the hips. And this time bend the legs, contract the hip under, release the heels when you come down into a ball shape, and gently pulse the hips down towards the heels. Two, three, four, five, six. Reach the heels to the floor, press the hips to the ceiling, and roll-ups through the spine all the way up to a standing position.

Good. Let's do a little bit of towel work just to open up the chest. So I'll use the old-fashioned version of the towel, folding it in half, twice, twisting it up, and let us do a progressive opening of the chest, opening of the shoulders, and just inhale. Take some air in and press it down, and lift it up and press it down. Two more times, lifting up and pressing down.

Last time. Lift and hold it up there and inhale, stretch back and come up. That's it. Keeping the wrist nice and long, and reaching out of the shoulders. And up.

One more time, hold it back there. And gently pulse the towel down. Two, three, four, five, six. Lift the towel up and press it down, and then just pull the towel taut. Release it down, circle the shoulders up and around.

And one more time, up and around, and you David are ready for your day. (chuckles) Those are the 12 wake-up steps as outlined in Ron Fletcher's book "Everybody is beautiful."