Foreign Movie Recommendations

I randomly do deep dives into the film offerings of a country, often just before I'm going to travel there or for a random reason that's piqued my interest. Plenty of other movies just catch my eye because they're up for awards, of course, but I also get ideas from internet lists by country (especially when soon traveling there) plus suggestions from friends and contacts at any time. Then, based on what I can get my hands on, I watch away.

Unfortunately, it's hard in some cases to say which country a movie is truly made in, and in some countries - like Canada and Great Britain - there can be a sizeable overlap with the U.S. movie industry. In any event, what's below is a small subset of foreign flicks I've checked out and particularly like. Some even have the tiniest of descriptions following their title.

I'm always happy to get more recommendations! (Most foreign films I've seen or entire countries are not listed here, so I might already have seen what's recommended.)


ARGENTINA
La Ciénaga (The Swamp) - dir. Lucrecia Martel
An Argentine family retreats to their country home under the most sweltering of conditions. They're a bourgeois mess, and their servants have to put up with them both at the house and in the nearby town. It's not pretty, everyone's sweating buckets, yet it's rather compelling in its odd lack of drama nonetheless.
Nueve Reinas - dir. Fabián Bielinsky
Two con artists work a grand scam - or each other. Pieces keep falling in and out of place, so it's hard to keep the eye on the prize - which is to actually understand the exact scam being run.
Relatos Salvajes/Wild Tales - Argentina,Spain - dir. Damián Szifron
Six shorts that fully intend to grab your attention, and do, one not necessarily more or less shocking than the previous or the next, but all worth an eyeball and generally graphic to boot.
Rojo - dir. Benjamin Naishtat
A lawyer of some local repute finds himself in an odd argument with an unknown man in a restaurant, leading to surprising ramifications. A mysterious tone pervades, and this is not yet another retelling of the dark years of the junta in spite of its happening on the verge of its arrival.
El Secreto de sus Ojos (The Secret In Their Eyes) - dir. Juan José Campanella
Past and present combine to help solve an old murder mystery in Buenos Aires. Good intrigue and a twist or two.


AUSTRALIA
The Castle - dir. Rob Sitch
Mad Max: Fury Road - dir. George Miller
A visual feast if not much of a plot, but there never really is in Mad Max land. Water is being hoarded by a cultlike organization that has various tankers driven by star drivers. It seems that everyone else is loaded on some kind of drug or in tattered rags and barely life. Enter a star driver - Charlize Theron - who decides to go rogue at the same time as Max escapes from his prison within the cult's walls (where his blood is being drained for use as long as he's alive. Again, this is a visual feast. And nothing more.
Picnic At Hanging Rock - dir. Peter Weir
The Proposition - dir. John Hillcoat
In the Outback of Australia, a gang of brothers and their associates wreaks havoc. When two of the brothers are captured, one is kept to be hung shortly if the other - who is freed - doesn't kill the brother who is the leader of the gang. The flies, the heat, the horrific treatment of aborigines who are seen as subhuman by British colonizers, the blood and the more blood. A revisionist western in Australia that is a credit to the genre.
Shine - dir. Scott Hicks


BRAZIL
Black Orpheus - dir. Marcel Camus
The classic and definite film that helped popularize the bossa nova craze that Brazil unleashed on the world.
City Of God - dir. Fernando Meirelles, Kátia Lund


CHILE
Nostalgia de la Luz - dir. Patricio Guzmán
Focusing on the Atacama desert of Northern Chile, the two very different worlds of astronomy - Atacama hosts some of the most advanced observatories in the world - and loss - as in the victims of General Pinochet who were encarcerated, killed, and dumped in the desert - are brought together. Interestingly, this works to bring forward a discussion about the "Disappeareds" that Chilean society (at least up to 2012) chooses all too often to ignore as inconveniently ugly and distasteful.


CANADA
Exotica - dir. Atom Egoyan
Nothing is as it seems in a stripclub that aspires to be a classier such, where both the DJ and a client keep an unhealthy amount of interest in one particular dancer. This mysterious onion slowly unravels, cleverly and surprisingly.


CHINA/HONG KONG/TAIWAN
Chun King Express (Hong Kong) - dir. Wong Kar-wai
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - dir. Ang Lee
The Emperor and the Assassin - dir. Chen Kaige
In the Mood For Love (Hong Kong & France) - dir. Wong Kar-wai
In 1962 Hong Kong, two couples find rooms to let in adjacent residences... as their marriages begin to fall apart. Cheating leads to longing and possible romance, under pacing, cinematography, and music to have a classy sheen drape all over this one.
The Story of Qui Ju - dir. Yi-Mou Zhang


COLOMBIA
The Colors Of The Mountain - dir. Carlos César Arbeláez
Guerrilla war descends in earnest on a small town in Colombia, where the local peasantry are forced to take a side or risk the consequences. As seen through the eyes of a nine-year-old boy, whose birthday soccer ball wastes no time in being held hostage to a suddenly-discovered minefield.
Maria Full of Grace - dir. Joshua Marston
Rosario Tijeras - dir. Emilio Maillé
Based on narco events in Medellin, a girl from the tough side of the barrios and a presence that oozes sex makes her way. In the meantime, both on her account and the drug trade, bodies start dropping bloodily to the wayside.


CZECH REPUBLIC
I Served The King Of England - dir. Jiří Menzel


DENMARK
After the Wedding - dir. Susanne Bier
Breaking the Waves - dir. Lars von Trier
Festin (The Celebration) - dir. Thomas Vinterberg
The Square - dir. Ruben Östlund
A short slice in time concerning the job of a man running a modern art museum in Scandanavia, royally taking the piss out of the entire scene in using the exact language and content one finds in that world.


FRANCE
Blue - dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski
In the first of the trilogy, Juliette Binoche is a sudden widow from a car crash that took both her husband and small daughter. She tries to learn to cope with this massive loss, but she also must soon deal with the discovery that all was not completely aboveboard in her marriage relationship - both romantically and professionally.
White - dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski
A Polish hairdresser living in France is divorced at the outset of the movie by his beautiful wife (Julie Delpy) for not performing his consummation duties as husband. He flounders about Paris and then Poland before figuring out what he might be able to do to win her back in this odd but definitely winning comedy.
Red - dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski
The last of the trilogy centers on a young woman model who returns a dog she hits with her car to its owner, only to soon find that he's a judge who could care less and is in the middle of a depressing life crisis that has an oddly criminal element. Over time they learn about each other as some events come to a head.
The 400 Blows - dir. François Truffaut
In an apparently somewhat autobiographical telling, a boy in Paris goes through the routine of (1) attending school at a learn-by-rote institution that he rebels against and (2) dealing with the mixed amount of love and annoyance he gets from his parents. So he thinks of escape and perhaps living on the streets... whatever that entails. A nice time capsule of 60s Paris and adolescence.
Day For Night - dir. François Truffaut
A movie within a movie, including a director who's being directed by a director. This is almost a mockumentary before they became a thing, where the camera follows a movie under production and all of the highs and lows, seriousness and silliness of the entire venture. There's work to be done, egos to be stroked, details to be attended to. A fine ode to the industry.
Amelie - dir. Milos Foreman
Amelie lives in her own little world in Paris, an innocent looking to help others and perhaps find love in the process. A most French of gems.
The Artist - dir. Michel Hazanavicius
There's no subterfuge involved in this homage to old Hollywood and the day of the silent movie. But that doesn't make it the less entertaining as the baton is passed to the "talkie" movies via the biggest actor from the silent age and an ingenue.
La Belle Époque - dir. Nicolas Bedos
The Class - dir. Laurent Cantet
A teacher struggles with students that seem vastly more concerned with challenging than learning from him. Inner city Paris or the nearby banliues form the milieu.
Delicatessen - dir. Marc Caro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Diaboliques - dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot
La Femme Nikita - dir. Luc Besson
Indochine - dir. Régis Wargnier
Jean de Florette - dir. Claude Berri
Ma Vie en Rose - dir. Alain Berliner
The Sisters Brothers - Jacques Audiard
If there were more westerns that were like this, I'd like westerns. Joaquin Phoenix and John O'Reilly are two gunslingers for hire in the Old West out to collect their bounty of sorts. It's the little, sometimes comic details that take this one beyond merely gorgeous cinematography.


GERMANY
Das Boot - dir. Wolfgang Petersen
The classic German WWII flick about a U-Boat putting to sea in the Atlantic with a green crew but a seasoned caption - and a journalist. Morale, courage, wisdom and wit - all come into play now that the Allies have learned to fight back against this menace to the supply lines.
Go For Zucker (Alles Auf Zucker) - dir. Dani Levy
Europa, Europa - dir. Agnieszka Holland
The Lives of Others - dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Nasty Girl - dir. Michael Verhoeven
In this documentary, young woman confronts her small town's participation during WWII. They'd rather it all just be forgotten, for the most part...
Run, Lola, Run - dir. Tom Tykwer
Stalingrad (1993) - dir. Joseph Vilsmaier
The Tin Drum - dir. Volker Schlöndorff


GREAT BRITAIN/UNITED KINGDOM
Excalibur - dir. John Boorman
A gorgeous retelling of the King Arthur legend, from a wisecracking Merlin to a devilish Morgana (and her incestuous child) to some beautiful uses of Mozart's Requiem and Carmina Burana. Beautiful.
Dr. Strangelove - dir. Stanley Kubrick
One of Kubrick's best, comically exploring the ridiculousness of the nuclear arms race and the dangers that are inherent to it beyond the obvious one of a nuclear warhead exploding over a city. It's the dominos of bluffmanship that get there.
A Clockwork Orange - dir. Stanley Kubrick
Kubrick's landmark dystopian movie set in the near future, where crime has run rampant and the gangs starting to take over are only looking for the next thrill. So society tries a version of aversion therapy on a scale not tried before, using drugs to repulse someone in viewing the world as they (previously?) did.
Full Metal Jacket - dir. Stanley Kubrick
2001: A Space Odyssey - dir. Stanley Kubrick
Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels - dir. Guy Ritchie
A very London heist movie, dancing on different sides of the underworld as some novices try to edge their way in.
Casino Royale - dir. Martin Campbell
Chariots of Fire - dir. Hugh Hudson
The Crying Game - dir.
The heydey of the IRA conflict in the UK is taken to a very human level, where love, gender, and duty intertwine and allow for no easy escape.
The English Patient - dir. Anthony Minghella
The Following - dir. Christopher Nolan
This bank heist flick is Nolan's first time out trying the short term memory condition made much more famous in Memento. I think this is the better stab at it.
Hi Fidelity - dir. Stephen Frears
In The Name Of The Father - dir. Jim Sheridan
The Meaning of Life - dir. Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam
My favorite of the Monty Python offerings, with the most quotable moments and, frankly, the most philosophical take the troupe has on offer. It is, indeed, the meaning of life.
Midnight Express - dir. Alan Parker
Romeo Is Bleeding - dir. Peter Medak
The Rutles/All You Need Is Cash - dir. Gary Weis, Eric Idle
The rise of the Beatles story told from another angle, more crass and comedic, of course, given that this comes from a (Monty) Python.
Secrets and Lies - dir. Mike Leigh
Sense And Sensibility - dir. Ang Lee
Sexy Beast - dir. Jonathan Glazer
Shakespeare in Love - dir. John Madden
The Tango Lesson - dir. Sally Potter
To Die For - dir. Gus Van Sant
Perhaps Nicole Kidman's best role, where she plays a striver who'll do anything to become a somebody, a celebrity, on TV. Darkly humorous.
Trainspotting - dir. Danny Boyle
In Scotland, several friends live on the edge of the mainstream public, catching as catch can and playing with heroin's deadly fire in the meantime. No paean to the glories of heroin, but it doesn't downplay its deadly draw when things are otherwise going so hot. There's some wicked humor here.
T2 Trainspotting - dir. Danny Boyle
A sequel that performs the rare feat of living up to the original, here twenty years later. Virtually the entire cast from before returns to deal with how the story left off after the heist and its ramifications.


IRAN
The Salesman - dir. Asghar Farhadi
A couple of actors, a couple, move between apartments, only to find that the previous occupant of their new apartment has left a legacy that will come to affect them as well. An interesting look into contemporary Iran, which in so many surprising ways seems like everywhere else, imams, censors, or no.


IRELAND
The Commitments - dir. Alan Parker
The Secret of Roan Inish - dir. John Sayles
My Left Foot - dir. Jim Sheridan


ITALY
Amarcord - dir. Federico Fellini
Cinema Paradiso - dir. Giuseppe Tornatore
8 1/2 - dir. Federico Fellini
Life Is Beautiful - dir. Roberto Benigni
Malena - dir. Giuseppe Tornatore
The Tree Of Wooden Clogs - dir. Ermanno Olmi
Using non-actors, this is three hours showing a slice of life in rural Italy around 1900. It's essentially still a feudal society, and that's abundantly clear in following several peasant families working on the estate of a wealthy landowner.


JAPAN
Tokyo Story - dir. Yasujiro Ozu
The most acclaimed work by the acclaimed director, a simple story of an elderly couple making their way to Tokyo to visit their children. What responsibilities do the children have for seeing that their parents have a good visit, and how much should the parents impose themselves on their children. Calmly handled and messaged, these points play out in terms of guilt felt or assigned.
Tampopo - dir. Juzo Itami


MACEDONIA
Honeyland - dir. Ljubomir Stefanov & Tamara Kotevska
A documented year or so of a woman living on the far off fringes of the modern world, keeping her bees and caring for her mother as a family temporarily moves to her derelict village of two to try to similarly make it while imposing on her. Poignant.


MEXICO
21 Grams - dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu
Amores Perros - dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu
Babel - dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu
Roma - dir. Alfonso Cuarón
A family in Mexico City heavily relies on its maids for its everyday existence, but the question is whether they actually see them or not as people as well, not to mention equals. It's complicated...


NEW ZEALAND
The Piano - dir. Jane Campion


NORWAY
The Worst Person in the World - dir. Joachim Trier
A woman makes her way through her twenties and into her thirties, stumbling and bumbling through her life choices but not without considering them to the best of her ability. An appealing, greatly nuanced flick.


POLAND
Knife in the Water - dir. Roman Polanski
My Life As a Dog - dir. Lasse Hallström


RUSSIA/FORMER SOVIET UNION
Alexander Nevsky - dir. Sergei Eisenstein
Battleship Potemkin - dir. Sergei Eisenstein
Come and See - dir. Elem Klimov
Prisoner of the Mountains - dir. Sergei Bodrov


SOUTH KOREA
Burning - dir. Lee Chang-dong
An young aspiring writer meets a pretty girl from his village by chance, is afforded a surprising chance at love, but things take a turn or two when she leaves for a vacation to Africa and a mysterious other man enters the mix.
ParasiteBong Joon-ho
This one gets darker than expected, but damn it's good. A family of con artists latch onto a wealthy family that they see as the perfect mark to help their finances significantly. Things begin to spin out of control all too soon, though, in trying to keep the ruse together.


SPAIN
Amantes (Lovers) - dir. Vicente Aranda
Intacto - dir. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Matador - dir. Pedro Almodóvar


SWEDEN
The Seventh Seal - dir. Ingmar Bergman
Together - dir. Lukas Moodysson


TURKEY
Mustang - dir. Deniz Gamze Ergüven
This flick perfectly captures the struggle between the Islamic and modern worlds, where women are essentially treated not much better than marriageable chattel far too often. Five young sisters find their world suddenly constricted in a massive way when a neighbor deems them too free and easy in their relationships with their local male schoolmates.


YUGOSLAVIA (FORMERLY)
No Man's Land - dir. Conor Allyn
Time of the Gypsies - dir. Emir Kusturica

Back Recovery/Strengthing Routine

This is what I've been doing to help my back, one portion coming entirely from yoga classes back when and the other from physical therapy (PT; some are yoga poses as well). I originally did the PT routine twice a day, slowly building to what I describe below. Any sharp pain or numbness while on my way there meant a pose that was skipped or reduced. I mention some of the earlier motions I did here and there while noting the ones I'm currently doing with ***. NOTE: I'm neither a physical therapist nor a yoga instructor... so I'd go to one of them if you really want a professional approach to this. This is just what *I* do:

PHYSICAL THERAPY ROUTINE - 5-15 MINUTES

1st Part - ON THE BACK, with a pillow under the head.

1. Lie flat on back, with legs flat to floor and slightly parted, arms loose at sides, and head elevated on a pillow. Take 10 very relaxed and deep breaths.

*** 2. Still on the back, lift the knees over a pillow or perhaps up to 60degrees to the floor. This is a subtle one, where I tilt the pelvis to feel it flatten against the floor, holding this for several seconds, then releasing. Do this 10 times. Over time, this will feel like flexing an engaged band of muscle. This is the one pose I wish I knew better how to explain as my physical therapist had to have her fingers under my lower back while doing it at first to teach me the feeling of what was being worked. She lightly pressed that band of muscle to let me know when I was doing it correctly. Another exercise I sometimes do here is the same timing and pattern as above but instead of tilting the pelvis I contract the muscles as if trying to hold back peeing. (Kegel)



*** 3. Still on the back, with the knees still bent but now sliding the feet even closer to the butt, pick up one foot and put its outer ankle on the other leg's knee. Roll the knee that's in the air slowly toward the ground while trying to keep the back level (having arms splayed outward helps this a lot). Count 30, then bring the knee back up and switch to do the other side. A harder/different version of this is to do the same with the ankle on the knee, but now you grab the hamstring of the planted foot leg and try to bring it toward your chest. Another version is to put your hands on top of your knees to push away as you use your stomach/leg strength to try pull the planted foot leg toward your chest in a resitance exercise. If these are brutal, consider doing instead some easier motions, like heel sliding one foot at a time all the way out and then back before doing the other, or marching your feet by lifting one foot up a ways and replanting it before doing the other.



*** 4. From the same initial position as #3, slowly roll the knees together toward the ground on one side, then the other, like windshield wipers. Try to keep the back level. Do 10 of these.

*** 5. Also in the same initial position as #3, this time simultaneously allow both knees to fall toward the ground to their sides and then back together again, like a butterfly. Do 10 of these slowly.

*** 6. With the calves still at 90degrees from the floor, and arms straight alongside the body on the floor, lift up the torso and butt to form a bridge - where the body is in a plank or flat alignment from the knees to the neck. Do this 10 times, going up and down slowly. Curling the spine in the process of doing this is a nice next level to take it to. After those 10 reps, another nice add is to again push up into the bridge position and then marching the legs dramatically in the air for 10 reps. In general, the bridge is a good "reset" which gives the back a break.

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*** 7. On the back, with the knees in an open butterly, lift the feet in the air to grab their outsides with the hands and extend the legs/feet upward and hold for a 30 count. This is sometimes called Happy Baby pose.

8. [NO GRAPHIC YET] Something I sometimes do at this point is an exercise for the stomach muscles. An easy one to do while still on the back is to move the legs in the air, like riding a bicycle. The lower the legs are to the floor, the harder this is. A significantly more difficult exercise to do is to place a pillow between your ankles while lying completely flat on the floor and with your arms stretched upward above the head. Swing the outstretched legs and arms slowly into the air toward each other, exchanging the pillow, then bring them down to the ground again still in a long outstretched position. Then repeat this pillow pass in the other direction to make 1 rep complete. Do this 10 times. It's tougher than it sounds...

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(***) 9. Moving to where there is a wall corner that is exterior, first use one side of the corner and then the other in lying on your back with one buttcheek placed against the wall to allow its leg to splay flat up the wall as the other leg lies flat on the floor and along the other side of the corner. It may take some time before the leg going up the wall can be flat against it - but that's the object of this position, ultimately. For back injuries, this might be the worst one of all to do of all my stretches/exercises. Take it slow and don't push against pain/nerve freakouts. A balled towel can be placed under the lower spine, if necessary. Hold this position for a 30 count, then twist the ankle 90degrees in one direction for another 30 count before switching to have it twisted in the other direction for another 30 count. Finally, roll the foot at the ankle for 10 reps of clockwise and then counterclockwise circles. Move to the other side of this wall corner to do the other leg similarly. If this is too hard, first try to just have both legs be up the wall in parallel and slowly work toward the legs flattening against the wall before moving on to the one leg up-one leg down position.

2nd Part - On Hands and knees.

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*** 1. Start with yoga's Cobra pose: This means first lying on your belly, then planting your palms to the floor with straightened arms and pulling up your torso to look up. The beginner version of this to at first just be on your elbows; the advanced version is to pull/slide just that much more of your chest through your arms. Make sure the back and butt are relaxed. Count 20 or 30. While in belly-to-floor position, another pose you can do is to fully lie on your belly with your calves up and 90degrees to the floor while allowing your calves to splay back and forward like windshield wipers.

*** 2. Pull up to being on your hands and knees, with both your arms and thighs perpendicular to the floor and your torso. Now do yoga's CatCow alternation, arching your back slowly between convex and concave positions. Do 10 of these pairs of arches slowly. The depth of the arching will get better over time.

*** 3. Back to the hands and knees position, this time rotate your hips to first one side and then the other as you lower your hips toward the floor back and forth like an upside down pendulum. Do 10 of these pairs of vertical hip drops slowly.

*** 4. Again back to the hands and knees position, now swivel your hips back and forth on the other plane, mentally/physically trying to bring a hip toward/under the armpit on the same side before swinging the hip to the other side and doing the same. Do 10 of these horizontal hip swivels.

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*** 5. Here I often do a child's pose, like #5 of the Evening Route.

*** 6. Back to hands and knees, at the same time lift one leg and its opposing arm to level and parallel to the floor/torso while looking straight forward, slowly extending then switching to the alternate pairing of leg and arm. Slowly do these with control 10 times for each side (alternating between sides). This can be upped by moving the palms on the floor further from the knees. Balance will come with practice.

3rd Part - Still on the floor, a couple of twists

1. In what I call the half-swastika [NO GRAPHIC YET], sit on the floor and flatten first one leg to the floor in an L-shape before doing the same with the other. The two Ls will be at 90degree angles to each other (thus the look from above and the name) while you plant your palms on the ground, one between the legs and one outside while the torso is upright and you look forward. Hold for a 30 count before switching to the other side.

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2. This one is called the pigeon pose, where, with your belly toward the ground, you swing one leg up so that it lies on the ground and its calf is perpendicular (as much as is possible) to the torso while the other leg is long in alignment with the body - and whose knee and toe both touch the ground. Place your palms onto the ground above the bent leg and look forward and count 30. Up this pose by doing 10 reps or more, where you lower your face to the ground (kissing it, essentially) before returning to the up position. When in the up position, clench the butt cheek of the leg that is long, releasing it when going down for the floor kiss. Another, easier, version of the pigeon is to do it standing in front of a bed. In this one you bend one leg, placing its calf against the bed's edge while leaning into it and stretching that leg's buttcheek.


OTHER THINGS...

1. Sitting is the source of a lot of back problems, so the less sitting you do in the first place the better. If you are sitting for 45-60 unbroken minutes at a time, a great idea is to get up if only for a moment. Maybe this means (while driving) stopping the car and getting out to just break the sitting pattern. Even if this means doing nothing more than merely standing up, or perhaps walking in a small circle, it helps. Lots of activites we sit for can instead be done lying down, particularly reading, surfing the internet, watching TV/movies... so that's a good habit to adopt. While sitting, meanwhile, you want to feel your weight being fully supported by your sit bones, not from leaning back and using your lower back. Better still, sit a bit forward in a chair while letting one knee drop below the other, sometimes changing which knee is a little down from the other. This lowers back pressure as well.

2. Walking is good for the back, engaging all kinds of muscles in the back naturally. Walk more!

3. A good release for the back is to approach the edge of a sturdy desk/table/counter. There, twist the arms backward so that your palms can grasp the table's edge and support your body's weight as you allow your lower body to go limp (with the tops of the feet dragging on the floor somewhere behind you). This can be something of a relaxing reset for the back while relaxing the lower spine and any built-up pressure there.


POSES FROM MY YOGA ROUTINE - I USUALLY ONLY DO 15-20 MINUTES WORTH

My morning routine uses traditional yoga poses to elongate and twist the body while contributing some more strengthing of the core stomach muscles which are so key to back issues in the long run. What follows is what I'm doing right now, but in the future some of these poses might get swapped with others that work the same areas while adding variety and perhaps more complexity/challenge. One of the key things to me has been to try and keep this to something like a 15min session so that mentally I don't come to dread it as an undertaking. The idea is to keep this daily, short and sweet.

1. Lie flat on back, with legs flat to floor and slightly parted, arms loose at sides, and head elevated on a pillow. Take 10 very relaxed and deep breaths.

2. Still on the back, lift the knees over a pillow or perhaps up to 60degrees to the floor. This is a subtle one, where I tilt the pelvis to feel it flatten against the floor, holding this for several seconds, then releasing. Do this 10 times. Over time, this will feel like flexing an engaged band of muscle. This is the one pose I wish I knew better how to explain as my physical therapist had to have her fingers under my lower back while doing it at first to teach me the feeling of what was being worked. She lightly pressed that band of muscle to let me know when I was doing it correctly. Another exercise I sometimes do here is the same timing and pattern as above but instead of tilting the pelvis I contract the muscles as if trying to hold back peeing. (Kegel)

3. Standing, with feel slightly apart and perpendicular to the floor, I droop over to do a classic forward bend. The neck and head hang loosely, as do the arms at first. This pose is held for 60 seconds, slowly elongating while doing it via pulling the hands to the floor upon exhalations. The thigh muscles should rotate outward and there should be even weight distribution between the heel and the forward pads of the feet on each side. The knees are not locked. Ultimately work toward having the knuckles grazing on the floor and then even having the palms touching and splayed on the floor.

4. Downward dog pose, 60 seconds. I find for spacing that I like to get in the pushup or standard plank position, then push the butt up into the air. The leg muscles will rotate outward, as will the shoulders - as if trying to get the shoulder blades to touch each other. The head should hang limply and the heels might not necessarily be on the floor at first.

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5. Here I do a child's pose on the floor as a brief rest, first getting into a kneeling position, then slightly parting the knees before settling the butt on the heels. I palm-walk or slide my hands on the mat away from the rest of the body until fully extended as the head hangs limply or rests on the floor as I again rotate the shoulders outward as if the shoulder blades are going to touch each other. Alternately, an easier version is to have the arms to the sides limp with the hands resting on the ground past the butt.



6. Planks. I first go briefly into forward plank, or the upper pushup position on hands and toes, then roll to one side to let one inner ankle rest on the other for a side plank. The chest and stomach should face forward as I raise one arm up to the ceiling and turn my head to face its flattened palm. The body should be straight, not sagging. This plank is often seen as difficult and can be worked up to, for example first resting on the forearm instead of the hand or just facing forward and perhaps having the upper hand on the hip with the elbow in the air. Hold for 60 seconds (eventually - it's hard!), then roll through the forward plank to do a side plank on the other side for 60. Then I roll back into a forward plank which I hold for 60. This forward plank I sometimes change a bit and make more demanding, by perhaps alternating legs that I move to a side and then back to the center again 10 times each. Same thing with the arms. Sometimes I do the forward plank before the side planks and eliminate a child's pose.

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7. Repeat 5.

OR

8. Standing again, I spread my legs very wide with both feet forward. For this item, I go through several poses where the feet don't move at all, starting with three upright ones where I'm first facing forward with a vertical torso and having my arms down at my sides and gripping my upper inner hamstring muscles right next to the butt. The shoulders are rolled backward, as in the other poses. Count to 20, then move the arms up and out to a level position and count another 20. Then move the arms to straight upward with palms facing each other [NO GRAPHIC ABOVE YET!] and count another 20. For these first three 20-counts, there can be a tendency for the butt muscles to clench - which you want to consciously release if that happens. Now I bend my torso forward for the last two stances, first planting my palms on the ground (or on blocks at first) in front of me to make an upside down U arch. Lift the head to gaze forward and rotate the hips back. The weight should be even between hands and feet; palms are directly in front of shoulders. Hold this for 20 (eventually 60), then move the palms (if possible) to be as much below the body as possible and let the head hang limply and hold for 20-60. Again, the weight should be even between hands and feet, and now you will try to bring your elbows toward each other so that the arms are parallel. This last pose will likely feel much more strenuous than the others, and it may take some time before the palms make their way to being under the body. Over time, the arms will hopefully come to bend at a 90degree angle, the leg muscles won't quiver, and the head will touch the floor!

9. Standing on first one foot, then later the other, I do the eagle pose. This means curling one leg over the other so that the butt moves downward in the direction of being almost in a seated position. The top of the toes of the leg curling over the other will press under the other leg's calf muscle. The arms similarly will be twisted around each other to make a 90degree angle with palms clasped. NOTE: The arm that is below will be on the same side as the leg that is curling over the other. Gaze forward and into the distance, with forearms straight up and upper arms horizontal, counting 60. Switch sides.

10. Triangle pose, which was easily the hardest of the bunch for me for a good while - and shot a lot of pain down the leg which didn't even let me attempt it for a good while! Again stand with the legs apart - but not maximally so, by any means - and turn one foot to be in complete alignment with the body as the other only turns 45degrees in the same direction. Putting the arm for the 45degree foot up horizontally and the other arm straight up, rotate this 90degree arm formation along with the torso to move down and away from the 45 degree foot. Rotate until the 45degree leg's arm is now the one that is straight up. As for the now-lower hand, at first I only put it on the knee, but then I slowly start working it down over the top of the shin and then down and over the top of the ankle (or more) as I count to 60. Leg muscles are rotated outward as I twist my head to face the palm of the hand reaching toward the ceiling. There will be a good twist in the sides on this one, and it might take a bit to get the balance down. It's important to remember to calmly breathe and, should the butt cheek you are leaning over start to clench, release it.



11. If I'm in the mood, sometimes I fold up my mat and place it near a wall to do a headstand on it. I do this first with my feet straight up in the air, counting 60, then I let the legs drop away from each other to the sides while "pulling" the leg out through the heel, again counting 60.