Hey, let’s move! 💪

Hi! Master Tea Theresa Byrne here. If you are in a place where you want to join in and work— workout, warm-up workout, all of those things, we're going to start with a boxer's warm-up. So depending on your shoulder flexibility, I always recommend that you start with your elbows bent, and then if your shoulders feel awesome, you can extend those puppies, right? Starting with elbows bent. 3, 2, 1. Good. Now take them backwards again, starting with your elbows bent. And it is harder to do both arms at the same time. If you have shoulder impingement issues, you can just do a single arm. So those are your modifications. Bent arm, arms together. Good. Now you're going to cross in front and reach back behind. Cross and reach, cross and reach. Good. If you can think about it, switch which arm comes on top. It's a lot to consider though. I get that. Oh yeah, working up shoulders. At some point your neck might start to feel warmed up. We'll see. All right, now hands come up, open, close. Step forward, open, stretch your chest if you can. You can also look up, swinging those arms. Nice big swings. Good. 2 more. 1 here and 1 here. Good. Now hands into fists. I'm gonna have you rotate and actually make contact with your body. So this, from Qigong, is a way of moving chi or energy through your body, and we like that. We want to move that energy. We don't want to have stagnant energy in our bodies. 3 3, 2, 1. Good. Now shoulders are nice and relaxed, head is above your neck, is above your shoulders. I want you just to rotate your body, extend, nice little punches, and you're rotating on the ball of your foot, each foot. So as you punch, you're turning your hips toward the direction that you're punching, and you're using Your torso to rotate as you punch over to the side. 3, 2, 1. Now let's punch higher, warming up those shoulders. And Mother, before you freak out, no, I did not get a tattoo. It's temporary. It's fun. It's all for fun. I think she freaked out a little bit when I got purple and blue hair, and then I got my nose piercing, but Now she knows. She kind of likes them. All right, now we're going to take these same moves. You're going to rotate. Keep your eyes forward, neck is forward. You're rotating around your own body almost like you're squeezing a rag. And this is a really good move to help you and your spine release energy and tension and get some of that cerebral spinal fluid flowing. Oh, we like that. 3, 2, 1. Nice. Now you're going to take the opposite arm, forearm, or elbow and touch your knee. So I want you to think about crossing the midline of your body. You can go whatever speed is comfortable for you. Maybe you did a lot of sitting recently and your back is like, I don't feel like rotating that much quite yet. Touch with your hand. Give that Give yourself some somatic contact. And if you're feeling flexy and you get your elbow towards your knee, that's great. Just don't jam it in there. Good. 7, 6, 5, 4 more, 3, 2, 1. Awesome. Hands on your hips. We're gonna do hip rotations. Push out to your level of comfort so you sort of feel a little stretch. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. In your hips. And switch the directions. Notice if you're feeling tension in your back. Maybe you're feeling tension in your hips. You can go spend some time there later. Good. Now push out side to side. Push, push. Oh, it just feels so good. Excellent. Now you're going to pick a leg, any leg, and open it up. Open it up. These moves, while they're not typically what you consider exercise, they are range of motion, and you are using your joints in the way that they are intended to move and not in the ways they're not intended to move. So you are actually doing some very good things, even if it's not like hardcore. And that's one thing that always cracks me up about my students. Is they think it has to be hardcore. No, movement in itself, it can be the light version, it can be the heavy version. You can go lift weights, but all movement helps your body. All right, now we're going to work on some moves to actually work on strength and flexibility. And here's what I want you to think about. Hands are nice and relaxed here. Oftentimes when I teach people box, they start pulling their shoulders up. Or pushing your head forward. This is not a comfortable aligned position for your neck. So hands are up. I'm going to have you put your right foot in front and you're just going to punch across your body. Good. Rotating. 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Good. Now we're going to add a back knee. 1, 2, knee. 1, 2, knee. 1, 2, knee. 1, 2, knee. 1, 2, knee. You're going to balance on that front foot as you bring your knee up. Now, I always tell my students, especially if they're kicking in Muay Thai, to point those toes down. It's called a dragon tail because if you point your toes up, you might run into someone else's shin. You might hit something you don't want to hit. This makes a nice long lean Weapon. 3, 2, 1. Good. Switch to the other side. Other foot back, nice and light. Boxer punches, jab, cross, or 1-2. They are very similar. They are the same depending on which art you use. And I've studied many martial arts, and there are very similar moves just with different names. 4, 3, 2, 1. Jab, cross, knee. Jab, cross, knee. Jab, cross, knee. Jab, cross, knee. Nice. Good. Breathe it in. Letting that breath be the antidote to stress, to anything that you are dealing with that you might not want to be dealing with. Let it out. 3, 2, 1. Nice. All right, center your stance. I'm gonna have you take a squat of your choice. So squat means you just push your booty back. Now you might be comfortable going down low, you might be comfortable here, you might be more comfortable here. It doesn't matter. Take a squat of your choice. Good. And we're going to pulse it up and down. The only thing I want you to make sure is that your knees never go in front of your toes. What does that look like? So knees in front of my toes means all the pressure is on my knees. So I want to scoot my booty back so that I am not putting pressure on those knee joints. You remember how we talked about making the joints go the way that they're supposed to? Knees don't like it as much if they go in front of your toes. There are some squats where you can. All right, now hold that squat. We're going to do a back fist. So you're hitting with the back of your hand in that squat position. 3, 2, 1. Other side. Good. Hitting with— make sure you don't hyperextend your elbow. You want to just extend to the point of impact and a slight bend. It's kind of hard to see on a camera. Good. Your quads might be burning right now. 3, 2, 1. 2, 1. Good. Come back up. Push your heel up here, your boot to your glutes. Good. Getting a little stretch and a little strengthening. So this move will also help you if you have tight hamstrings. This move can help release your hamstrings because you're tightening your quads. All right, now I'm going to take a boxer shuffle. So we'll do this in a centered stance. But you're still going to shuffle. So this is a boxer shuffle. So you're just side to side, side to side, and then we're going to add punches. Good. Center stance, shuffle. Now I want you to put your right foot in front, and we're going to do a hook and an uppercut. Hook to the front, uppercut from the back. Nice. And if you are rotating your hips, you'll start to feel it. In your core as well. Switch. Hook. Up. Again. Ha! Breathe. Exhale. Exhale. Exhale. 4, 3, 2, and 1. Nice. Relax. See if there's anywhere in your body that has some stress, stress, some constraint. I try to keep these under about 10 minutes. The last thing I want you to do is send some gratitude into your body. So grateful. Ah, thank your body for what it does, how it shows up, what it offers you. I hope you have an amazing day.