- Welcome everyone to today's Quick Fit class with me, Cassy Vieth.

Today's balance challenge will integrate the three systems required for good balance: vestibular, vision, and somatosensory, particularly the sense organs within your feet and joints.

I'm excited for everyone to give this class a try, so clear a space and have a nice, firm surface to work on.

[gentle music] Today, we'll be working with our eyes opened and closed, but we'll be keeping two feet on the floor at all times.

In order for your feet to send the most accurate sensory information to your brain, work with your shoes off.

We'll be starting with a nice, stable, two-foot stance, arms nice and wide.

[inhales] Take a nice, big inhale and exhale, and I'll have you close your eyes.

Now allow your body, your brain, all of those sense organs to be communicating.

At first, you might feel a little wobbly, but just wait till everything kind of calms down.

[inhales] Okay, arms are closed, don't hold your breath.

Now I'd like you to take your pointer finger, your right arm pointer finger, and reach it across and touch your nose, and extend that arm right back out.

Let's do the other arm.

Pointer finger, touch the nose.

Hopefully you touched your nose and not your eyeball.

And open the arm again.

Nice, big arms, eyes are still closed.

Let's lift that chin up.

[inhales] Big inhale, exhale as you drop the chin down.

Also be aware of your balance.

Your arms should be at shoulder height.

Your stomach pulled in.

Now don't lock the knees, but have them just slightly soft.

All right.

I would like you to lift one arm up by your ear.

At the same time, drop the other arm down by your hip.

So one arm up, one arm down, and then a slight side bend towards the floor.

Good.

And then come right back up to center.

So nice, wide arms, all right?

And we'll do it to the other side.

Lift one arm up, one arm down, [inhales] and a slight lean down.

Now turn your face as if you were looking up at your hand, but of course, your eyes are still closed.

[inhales] And then we'll come right back to center.

Face is facing forward.

Arms are horizontal, right up at shoulder height.

Now we're going to twist through the torso.

Arms are still wide.

Eyes are still closed.

A gentle twist towards your right.

Big inhale.

[inhales] Exhale.

[exhales] Come back to forward.

Always going as slow as you need to go to allow your brain and your muscles to stabilize you.

Let's twist the other way.

Big inhale, [inhales] exhale, [exhales] and coming once again back to forward.

Don't let me rush you.

If at any point you feel like you need to stop, then just stop and begin again as soon as you think you can.

All right, twist one more time to the right.

And now I'd like you to do just a forward bend.

A hip hinge.

Just bending right at your hips.

Arms are still wide.

Come right back up.

[inhales] Let's face forward and we'll twist in the other direction, adding that hip hinge, just bending at the hips and right back up, [inhales] facing forward.

Remember to keep breathing.

Eyes are still closed.

Now your torso, your whole body is gonna stay in place with the arms wide, only turning the head.

Let's turn just your head and neck to the right, and forward, [inhales] and the other way.

[exhales] Face forward again, [inhales] big inhale.

Posture check, arms are getting tired.

[inhales] Stomach's in.

Head and neck are over your shoulders.

Let's relax the arms, open the eyes.

Good job.

All right.

[inhales] Roll those shoulders just a little bit to help you relax and relieve the shoulders and arms.

Next challenge, let's bring the feet closer together.

You can have them touch or slightly touching or just slightly apart.

See what you can do.

Okay, we will be closing our eyes again.

Big inhale.

[inhales] Open the arms.

[exhales] If you feel ready, close those eyes.

Let your brain and the sense organs in your feet and joints communicate.

It might take a couple moments for everything to feel stable again.

Don't forget to breathe.

Okay, eyes are closed, stomach's tight.

Arms are at shoulder height.

I'd like you to once again try touching your nose, okay?

Go as slow as you need to, to touch that pointer finger to the nose, not your chin, not your eyeballs.

Hopefully you made it to the tip of your nose.

All right, and extend that arm.

Other arm.

Nice and slow.

[inhales] Stomach in.

No need to rush.

Quick movements are just gonna make you wobble.

All right, we're going to twist through the torso only, meaning I would like you to keep your face forward.

Not holding your breath.

Smooth movements, twist your torso towards the right.

Inhale and exhale, untwist.

[inhales] Then continue on, twisting towards the other side.

Nice.

And bring the torso back to the front.

[inhales] Let's just turn the head.

Torso and arms stay in place.

Turn your face as if you can look down one arm, but your eyes are still closed.

Bring the face to the front when you feel ready, 'cause your brain and your muscles are all rapidly trying to communicate to keep you stable.

Look the other way when you're ready.

Face forward, [inhales] eyes are still closed.

Let's turn the torso and the face as one, one direction.

[inhales] Don't forget to breathe.

Stopping whenever you need to.

Joining again when you feel ready.

This is just wonderful.

Twisting towards the other way.

Your brain is growing right now.

That neuroplasticity is happening because you're practicing new things that you probably haven't been doing in a while.

Eyes are still closed.

[inhales] Deep breath, let's lift those arms up.

[exhales] Exhale.

Relieving those shoulders, [inhales] and then slowly lowering the arms down.

Very nice, relax, open your eyes.

Good job.

All right, one more challenge before we finish.

We're going to reduce that base a little bit more.

I'd like you to take your left foot and put it in front of your right, lining up your big toes.

See that?

Now slightly shift your weight forward and back, getting used to being in this position, and I'd like you to land in a place where your weight is evenly distributed between both your feet.

You might even have slightly soft knees.

[inhales] Arms are wide again.

We will keep our eyes opened for the rest of this part, okay?

Let's just twist through the torso.

Face stays forward.

Pausing whenever you feel like you might want to widen your feet again.

[inhales] Okay, nice.

Slow as you need to go.

Arms are at shoulder height, stomach's in, weight is evenly distributed.

Untwisting, [inhales] if your feet feel wobbly, just pause and wait until you feel more stable.

And as you get tired and your brain gets tired from all of this speedy travel of information that's going from your feet to your brain, your brain has to interpret it and send it back to your feet and legs, you know, your brain's gonna get tired.

So take your time and be patient with yourself.

[inhales] All right, I can tell I'm getting tired.

My legs are starting to tremble.

[inhales] All right, torso and head twist together.

Slow as you need to go.

[inhales and exhales] And then we'll come forward.

[inhales] And the other way.

We're getting close to being done.

Hang in there, guys.

[inhales and exhales] And untwist, your arms are probably getting tired.

All right, now we're going to just close your eyes briefly.

Let's count to ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, don't hold your breath, two, and one.

Very good, relax the eyes.

We'll do it one more time with the other foot in front.

Okay, lining up the big toes.

Shift a little bit forward and back.

[inhales and exhales] Very good.

Evenly distributing your weight.

Slight soft knees.

Keeping those eyes open, stomach's pulled in.

Now this time, we're only gonna twist the head.

You ready, head and neck looking towards your right.

[inhales] Big inhale, exhale.

[exhales] And to the left.

Well done.

So good, guys.

[exhales] I know some of those moves challenged me.

So if you a hard time at any point in the class, be encouraged that you found the specific areas you need to work on.

This will greatly help you going forward.

And the best thing is, all you have to do is come back right here to pbswisconsin.org/quickfit and repeat this particular class as many times as it takes.

But I suspect you'll improve much faster than you think.

Until next time, keep on moving.

- Announcer: Funding for Quick Fit with Cassy is provided by Greg and Carol Griffin, founders of ElderSpan Management, Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programming, and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.