Class #2152

Innovative Mat

75 min - Class
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Get ready for a few surprises in this innovative Mat workout with Pat Guyton! She works on organizing the body so you can feel what is happening instead of just doing the choreography. She plays with tempo and adds extra exercises to prepare your body for what's to come. You will definitely feel more aligned after taking this class!
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Are you ready for math? Yeah. All right. Um, what I decided to do today in class stems from an experience I had as a gymnastic coach. What, what's going on is there was a whole line of kids on the balance beam high beams. They were advanced gymnast and they were, two of them were doing their backhand springs and the form was wrong. They were landing their skills and they were talking about what they were going to eat for dinner at McDonald's. So I suddenly realized that no matter how difficult his skill is, if you repeat it over and over again without keeping your mind turned on, it can become routine. And so today we're going to do a mat class pretty much in order, but I'm going to add little surprises in it. So sometimes the surprises, I may have to stop you and show you what I mean.

Other times will probably flow through it. You don't have to get it. Perfect. Okay. So the first thing I want you to do is let's just do a little organization, uh, for some of the cues that I might give you in class. I'd like your feet to be under your hips. Pull your toes up, think about waiting your heels way across the front of your foot and feel equally balanced and then lower your toes back down again.

Let's go up to the side of our hips and you'll know this is the ilium. Walk to the front of it and probably everybody in here knows about this little bump, this little promintory in the front. And then you have your pubic bone down here. So if you were to draw a line across and down and up, what shape would that be? That would be a triangle. Good. So if we're laying on the floor and I say I would like the triangle bleed to be level in the same plane as a floor. That makes sense. Good.

If you walk around to the back, there's a little promintory, little less prominent, not as easy to find, but that would be the two corners at the top of your sake room. And then you know where your tailbone is. But we're not going to show people that. All right. That's for you to know. Okay. So I'd like you to just feel like your tailbone is hanging down and take your tailbone and move it in front of your toes.

If you're looking at the floor and you had a flashlight on your tailbone, can you make the flashlight come in front of your toes? And we call that a pelvic tilt, right? Anterior or posterior? Yeah, it's posterior tilt. So if my thumbs where my ass, these bumps here, we'd go back. But we're doing this from our tailbone. That's what we're thinking about.

So take your tailbone now and shine the flashlight that's on the of it behind your heels. And that would be the opposite. The anterior tilt. So let's just take the tailbone front and back and front and back and front and back and sort of let it come to a middle resting place. So put your hands back up on your back, on your sacred, and on your lower back. If you shine your flashlight in front of your feet, does your back become more arched or does it become longer and straighter? Longer and straighter? Cause that's a flat back.

But notice we did that by tucking our pelvis. What if we take the flashlight and we put it behind our heels? Does the curve get bigger? Yes. Notice your chest, particularly since I've been working with Amy, chest goes a little bit. Yeah, like I was a little bit forward though. We're going to be talking about that. All right, so a little cue I have is called happy dog, naughty dog.

And I saw it on a youtube and I wish I could remember who the PT was. She was presenting at a conference and so I might do this sideways. She s she was supposed to teach how to sit quickly. So she said if you sit and you were a dog and you had your tail between your legs and you were sitting on it, this is what it looks like. Do you all recognize this? [inaudible] have you ever lived in this position?

Yes. Then she said, what if you had, you know, I think of an Irish setter here cause they have such magnificent tales that wag like flags. So you have a happy dog tale. Okay. When you have a happy dog, Pale, the tailbone goes slightly back, this goes slightly in, and then you see something called the dimples of Venus. Do you know what those are? Okay, those are those little women you remember in the renaissance when they sat there, usually they did not have their clothes on like we do. And you can see this little dimples back there. All right? Those are dimples of Venus and that means that your sacrum is slightly forward and your tailbone is slightly back.

And I call it happy dog and people are happy with that. So from this position, just taking that information in, I'd like you to round forward and come down to your mat and then stretch out long and put two feet forward to the center of the room and you can come forward on your mat. So we're going to sit up for a moment, put your hands by your side and let's just play with happy dog. Naughty dog. So the naughty dog is the one that got into the bag of treats. So Naughty dog, happy dog, naughty dog, happy dog. Naughty dog. What's happening to your sternum? It's dropping his sternum. Dropping a good. Okay.

So let's be happy dog. Put your hands back on your dimples and Tuck your tailbone under. Do Your dimples appear or disappear? They disappear. So let's go up, feel our dimples and get up on your sit bones. And then just for a moment, let's take the ankle. Make this line straight. So we call that point and flex. But I really want you to think about your ankle and flex and point and flex.

Now I'm going to look at this point as hard as you can now flex, flex, flex with Lex flex. Good. And Michelle, you're the one that is going to demonstrate this. So when we do some of the exercises that we do and our legs are in front of us such as roll up or spine stretch, what I did is I used to press my knees down and I was told that if I get my heels off, that was a great position. Okay, so let's everybody open your legs a little bit. All right? So what I'd like you to do now is put your heels, wait them on the floor, your knees are going to be a little loose. Put your hands on the inside above your knee, see if you can get your knee to straight and get up on your sit bones using this above your knee and keeping your heels down. Does everybody feel that? And release and again, lengthen.

And this is called your vastus medialis. And so when we get to these exercises, Michelle, every now and then if I, if you notice your heels are off, this is something for you to practice. Okay? And then let's roll down to the floor. So I want you to roll down, make sure you have a place for your head. Bend your knees up and put your hands down by your side. So I think I can talk you through this.

I find that a good 15 or 20 minutes of warmup makes the rest of the hour more productive. So the first thing you're going to do is you're going to lift and lower quickly. And I call it the plop and some, some of you know this where you're going to tap two, three, four, five, six, seven. So here we go. And tap two, three, four, five, six, seven and again, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. So just stop for a minute. Hailey. When you are doing the little tap, do you notice there's a spot specifically that you're landing on? Yeah. Okay. That's going to be your anchor. I don't know. Haley, I, I've worked with all of the rest of you. And so they may have heard this before, but think of your pelvis as being maybe a boat and you've dropped anchor at that specific spot. All right, so now we're going to do a leg lift and we're going to challenge ourselves.

Can we keep the triangle level? Can we keep the weight on our anchor? Let's lift the leg that is closest to me. And Inhale, lift and exhale down. And Inhale, lift and exhale down. And Inhale, lift and exhale down.

And we're going to just stop for a minute. I'm going to take Haley. The top of your femur is that you know, the end of your bone? Is it a square or is it a ball? Okay. What I'd like you to do is just roll the ball in your hip. So right now you're making a beautiful piece of [inaudible] choreography.

We're going to do that later, but for now I want you to really feel can you make the intrinsic muscles of your hip joint work to bring your knee up? Does everybody understand that? All right, so let's go to the other leg and do that one four times and lift up. Inhale and exhale. Let your feet be heavy and inhale and exhale. Just let that foot be heavy. Inhale. Okay. Inhale up. Come on up, up, up with your hip and down.

Do you understand the difference and hip up? So we're alternating now and up and down and use your hip. Does that feel different and down and up and down to more. Stay on your plop and down and up. Come on hip. Now over here. Hip, hip, hip. Use your hip. Use your hip.

Do you feel the difference between doing that? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's the warmup. Very good. That's, that's it. Now can we do both legs without rocking off our anchor and up with your hip? Good and down. I don't care if your feet are pretty or not. It has nothing to do with working your hip joint and up and down and stay. Now we're going to go to that little part of the chest where Amy said, yeah, my chest comes forward.

So I'm going to lift this arm over my head and I'm just going to take my sternum, pull it off the table and then press it down. So it's really my ribs. My ribs are coming up, my ribs are coming down, so let's try that. You don't need to lift your hand. I just did that so you could see. And ribs up, ribs down, ribs up, ribs down, ribs up, ribs down. Now I notice this sometimes I'm just going to ask Michelle to exaggerate.

We lift our ribs up and we bring them down by adjusting our pelvis. So we've already established where the pelvis goes, so now we want to isolate this. So she's got a nice triangle. Ribs up, everybody do it with her and down and lift up and down. Now between where your ribs are on the math and your anchor is on your, on your, in your pelvis, you have a neutral spine. Yes. Yeah. That's how you find it. So you find your neutral spine by finding where your upper part of your body is, your upper trunk and your pelvis.

So let's see if we can maintain both. What I'd like you to do is your right arm is going to go over your head as your right leg slides out on the mat and inhale, reach out. Did you keep your ribs and did you keep your anchor and exhale and let's alternate and inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale and inhale. So for you it's really important to feel that and exhale. Excellent. And then we're going to do a bridge.

So come back in starting from your tailbone. Let's do this in four counts. Rolling up. One, two, three, four and breweries and rolling down. One, two, three, four and again up one, two, three, four. Notice your shoulders, your upper arm on the, on the mat. And down. Two, three, four. If you can move your heels closer to your sit bones, not uncomfortably. And what I'm going to have you do here is a little side bend. It's really a prep for a corkscrew. Rolling up. One, two, three, four. Take your left arm over your head.

Slide your right arm down. And if you can grab a hold of your ankle or your leg, turn your head toward the right. Rolling down. One, two, three, four. Coming back to the center and lowering your left arm down. So pelvis goes up. One, two, three, four. His left arm over the head, left arm goes up.

Now side bend, reach over and you should be able to grab a hold or get close and your head looks at the hand that's reaching towards your feet and rolling down. One, two, three, four. Center your body. Bring your arm down, right. Arma our, sorry. Pelvis up first. Pelvis up. One, two, three, four. Reach that right arm over your head and reach to decide. Two, three, four, rolling down. One, two, three, four.

Coming back and down. So I'm, I'm going to just show something on Haley. If you want to sit up and watch you all can self monitor. Could you do the same arm right arm up or sorry, pelvis up. Good. Now do you feel the weight on both feet equally good. Take your right arm over your head. Now you're going to go over there.

So what was happening to you is this, is the weight on your feet equal? No. So that's going to be one cue. You might also take your free hand here and just monitor your triangle and then rolling down on the side. Rolling. Rolling. Rolling. Rolling. Rolling. Did you all understand that you need to watch it? Yeah. Everybody usually there's one side, so yes. Yeah, we need to do the second side.

Let's do the second side and do one more on the right. Just so now that you have that information loaded into your hard drive. All right. Tailbones up to three for left arm over and reach. Now reach toward the side.

Go to the side and look at your hand and roll down. One, two, three, four. Come back as a center. That looks good over here. At least you all landed in a gun place. Now the other side, rolling up. One, two, three, four, right arm over. Well, let's just do the little cube. Put your hand on your belly. Feel the triangle, the triangle reached to the side.

This is where the triangle sometimes wants to go in the opposite direction or tilt and look at your, that's it. One, two, three, four. And come back to the center. Good. And bring your hands down. And from here, just bring your legs up on an inhale and exhale. Hold. Let your feet be heavy. So we're going to feel the body. We're not going to do choreography. Just roll over onto your right hip.

On an inhale. Exhale, come back to the center. Over to the left and back to the center. Preparation four corkscrews and twists and back to the center and over and back to the center. Keep your shoulders rested, resting on the floor and back to the center. Good. And last one over and back to the center. Feet flat on the floor and slide the arms down to the table and roll up and reach and roll down and roll up and hold that position.

Obviously we're getting ready for the one hundreds. Here's what you're going to think about. Inhales pointed feet exhales flex fee. So extend the legs out. Ready and 0.2, three, four, five. Flex two, three, four, 5.245 out, two, three, four, five.

And you can do this turned out or a parallel. Watch your nets. Three more sets. Enjoy your ankle. Are you thinking about that? Yes. Good, good. And stay right there.

Lower your legs down. Roll your upper body down onto the floor. Now take your arms over your head in preparation for the roll up and just check in. Did your rib cage come off? Uh Huh. Okay. My left side comes off, not my right side. So be prepared that you could have two people.

You know you could be a split personality. So we're gonna roll up on lifting up one, two, three and four and rolling down one, two, three and four. Can you come up with a flex foot coming up? Flex two, three, four. Good. Rolling down one as she 0.2, three and four. Now we're going to get ready for a little, little mind saying and rolling up. One, two, three and open on four. So you're going to come up to here. Now we're gonna take our right arm.

We're going to put it on the floor and do a side bend and uh, and left and uh, and over and up and over and up. Arms together. Flex. You're gonna roll down and roll down. One, two, three. Watch the ribs on. Four coming up. One, two, three on four. You sit up and you point. Now we're going to go to the left and over and up. It's okay.

Mandy. Up and over and up and over and up and rolling down one. Let's do that whole thing again. Three, four, coming up. One, two, three. As you open your arms point, now we go to the right and inhale, right and up. Inhale and up.

Can we get a little spirit going and up and over and up? Just because our brains are involved. Doesn't mean we can't smile and have fun and rolling up. One, two, three, point open on four and the left and over and up and over and hold. Hold right there. Check your sit bones. Check your dimples of Venus.

So do you have a tail that's slightly lagging behind you are, have you sat on your tail? So go ahead and sit on it. Yeah, that's not how we want to do a side bend. So get up on your sit bones. Here we go, to the left and left and up to end up three and up and four and up and arms roll down. One, two, three. Check your ribs as you go over your head. Bring your hands back down to your side and stay. We're going to do the rollover. So normally we rollover and then we open and flex.

And then we come down and we do that three times, right? And then we do the other version where we're going to alternate like you do in the semi-circle. So here we go. Legs come, bend your knees in and come up. Hands down and inhale over. Open flex, roll down and pulling ain't stay open. Now rollover, open together.

Flex roll down and point. Now how low you go depends on your individual strength so you can come to vertical if you're at home or you can come down a little bit lower. So do you get the pattern? Everybody ready and roll over. Open flex, roll down.

Stay in that open position and point roll over and together and flex and roll down and point and stay together and up and over together and open and flex and roll all the way down and point and stay last time up and over and together and flex and roll all the way down and then bend your knees. Put your legs straight out on the floor. Good. We're going to get ready now for single leg circle. So I would like you to slide up as if you were going to do the hundreds with your upper body. Just in that position. Open your arms out wide. Think of yourself on a tight rope.

Think about the anchor in your pelvis so you have that little anchor dropped your triangles. Where you need to be. Bring your right leg up and change legs, change legs and hold. Now the bottom foot is off the floor for challenging or you can put it on the floor if things get tough. We're going to do four across, ready and across, around an up and two around an up smile, ladies three around and up and for an out and out around Mandy. That looks great. Out around and AH, out, around and up and out, around and hold change legs, change legs, change legs that you should have the other one up. I'm just going to go around. Those of you who are very flexible, sometimes bringing the light closer to the face feels like vertical.

This is actually vertical and then I'd like you to bring your chest, maybe one vertebrae further toward that leg that's lifted. Okay, here we go. And a cross surrounded up two and up. You'll notice the circle gets smaller in order to keep the anchor and out around and up and two around and up and three around. Then up and Haley that looks good and leg comes down and roll down arms. Over the head. Check your ribs, check your anchor. Let's just have one deep breath in and out.

And I need another one. Sorry. Right in here in. So you're going to really work on both sides. Good. And then arms will go down eventually. Make sense? Very good. And that feels good in there right now. Go ahead and let's roll up and get ready for rolling back or rolling like a ball if you will.

Come forward to your mat and make sure your feet are not going to run into your neighbor. So let's do three of these. I just would like to say this. If you pull your heels close to your sit bones, your spine can't be round. So the ball is also in here as well as the round. So you want to have your lower background. We roll on round things.

So here we go. Backward and inhale and up on the exhale and back on the inhale and up on the exhale and back on the inhale and come up on the exhale and stay. Slide your legs out on an exhale and then bring your legs in. Inhale, rollover. Put your arms down and exhale overhead. So you have to think about this. Inhale up.

Exhale out. Inhale in and hands down. Exhale back. Now I think you've got your girls who've had it and inhale and reach out. Yeah, it's timing. And inhale back and overhead.

Are you thinking about those knees, Michelle? And inhale. And as you stretch out, think about your knees and then pull your legs in and just hold that position. Hold, hold, hold. Balance. Yeah. Good place to think about these. Huh? So why don't we do this. We'll start with the leg that's closest to me.

So you're going to stretch that leg out and roll down and get ready for your ab series. So roll all the way down. Roll down. So tips of the scapular off. This is called single leg stretch. Yes. And sometimes people think, wow, the hamstring. Wow. And the hamstrings. Really stretching here. What about the open hip? So basically both legs have an opportunity, take one vertebrae on the mat and lift it up just a little bit more.

We're going to change and change and two and three and four. Five and six is your anchor down in your pelvis, Michelle and one and two. Three. Watch your shoulders, Mandy, and five and six and seven and eight. Bring both legs in. I just thought of something that Ron Fletcher used to do. He'd say hold onto your ankles and pull your pelvis down. Right? So you're stretching here, but your pelvis is down.

He never liked hands up here. Now reach out from that position on an inhale and Polan on an exhale. Try to keep your, your pelvis down. Inhale out and exhale in. If you can get one more vertebrae off the floor as you come in. One more.

One more. One more. It's always one more and in and the last one out. Good and in. Take the right leg up for scissor. Good. Now drop your anchor. One more vertebrae off please. Ladies and change and two and three and four. Think of the hip rolling in the hip joint like a ball in a socket and one.

Think about the leg that's down. That hip stretches open. Five and six and seven and eight both legs, up, hands behind your head. I'm going to use a, well, I'll use something in the over here. We're going to do he want to rest? Huh? Okay, so we're going to do walking on the Cadillac one rung, two rungs, three rungs, and then just a little tap together, right, left, right tap. The tap is just so you know, you got to the bottom or the top. All right. We'll start with the right leg. Hands behind and reach right, left, right and together. Right, left, right and together. Other side. Left, right, left and together and left.

Right, left and to gather. Right, right, left, right and together. Right, left, right and together and left. Right, left. And that's cute. And left, right, left together. Now just for those of you who need to have it done the right way, let's do two double leg, lower lifts and down and pull up. Flex down and point up and bend your legs and stay. So you're going to follow me and I'm going to have to make this table fit the space. Hands her out to the side. NIESR up, so you're going to roll to me. So roll to me with your knees.

Keep your shoulders on the floor, roll over to the other side. I'm going to hang onto the table so I don't fall off and then I'm going to roll back over and then I'm going to come up to here. It's important if you're watching at home, you don't want the knees down here. You want the knees coming straight off of your hip joint, puts your hand on your hip joint. If you rock it back and forth, you're going to be a little bit, I'm confused about the movement we're going to do. We're going to do just the ribs, so put your hand behind your head or if you'd like, you can put it on your hip.

Think about lifting your rib cage up and down and two and down and three and down and four and down. Now we're going to add a little twist. Lift the rib cage, twist the top elbow to the bottom hand. Stay in that position. Let the rib cage go to the table and then rotate and look at the ceiling. We have the pattern rib cage up. Rotate down rib cage down, rotate up rib cage up, rotate down rib cage down, rotate up. One more rib cage up.

Rotate down rib cage down and rotate up. So put your hand slide out which your shoulder joints, both of them on the mat. Now you're going to do three twists. Go to the other side and back to me and to the other side and roll over and come up. But remember knee off of hip. The problem is if the knee is down here, you'll start leveraging your upper body with your lower legs. So you don't want to do that. So Haley, can you bring your knees up more?

You can bring your feet out. You don't have to be tuck like this. Good. Now can we get a little ribs? Let me see your ribs going up and down. That's nice. All right, here we go. Lift up and down and let's have a little breathing and down. Lift and down lift and that you see the difference.

Lift and down. Sir, we have to do a little bit more of a Mandy year. Lift and hold. Now twist, drop your ribs down, ribs down and then twist and come around. Ribs up and twist ribs down, twist to the ceiling. Ribs up, twist to the floor, ribs down and to the ceiling. Ribs up, twist to the floor, ribs down to the ceiling. Put your hand down, slide out along the mat. Rollover and center yourself. So Les, do think I forgot the Chris Cross?

That is my warmup for Chris Cross for two reasons. I'm usually tuckered out by the time I get to the Fifth Dab and I'm not warmed up to rotate and I want to see if you enjoy this as much as I do now. So coming up for Chris Cross, I don't care which leg or arm you use. Here we go and twist and two and three, four, five and six and seven and eight. Twist, two, three, four, five, six, seven a and legs out long on the floor. Arms out over your head. Take a deep breath in.

Did anybody feel that that helped? It helped you fluidity for her more range of motion and looser. You stayed around your central access grade. Uh, until those ribs start twisting, they don't, they're not warmed up the twist. So let's roll up for spine stretch and rolling all the way up and open your legs out. Now before you go into spine stretch, I'm going to add a little bit of rowing arms from the reformer. So place your arms here, press out and down and lift.

And then I want you to bring your elbow straight down to your sit bones. Same line. And I want you to be a happy dog with, with the dimples of Venus. Okay, we got that now round forward and an inhale, arms straight at an an exhale. Hold that. That is a spine stretch. Keep your fingers right where they are. Roll up through your spine. One, two, three, four. So that would be a full breath. Inhale up and exhale down. I think we have it round forward.

Inhale, arms out. Exhale, rolling up one via the Scapula, coming together. Three, four and lift and calm down. And rounding forward, reaching out and rolling up one. Think about those knees. Think about the feet on the floor and lift and come all the way down. Bring your legs in. Now, mine will be a little short because I'm facing you.

Imagine that your two sit bones, you're in a boat, a canoe, and the Kiehl's down through the center. So if you weight one sit bone more than the other, what's your boat gonna do? Yes. So let's do our boat deliberately. So let's wait. The right sit bone and the left sit bone and the right one and the left one and the right one and the left one and center.

Bring your feet in here. Take your right leg up and put it down and your left leg up and put it down. Now as you're doing this, think about the weight on the right and left. Sit Bone right like up. Keep the weight centered, put it down, left leg up and down. Your boat's rocking a little bit. That's okay. Up and down. You know what, they never told you that when you're trying to settle your boat, the water is moving underneath it. So you have to be prepared for that too.

Now both legs up. Sorry about that. Just an interesting little tidbit. So we're going to, don't do anything yet. You're gonna rock back. Come up and close your legs. Roll back with legs close. Come up and open your legs. So we're gonna alternate and over. Open up and hold close over.

Close up and hold. Open over. Open up and hold close over. Closed up and open and hold. And then close your legs and then bend your knees and roll down on the floor to get ready for corkscrew. That's fun.

And I liked it when you have to do the open and close change still at the top. Yeah. So you can't suddenly close it and fall backwards. All right, so light straight up. We're going to get ready for corkscrew. What I'd like you to do is just cross one leg under. So let's cross the uh, left leg under his right leg is on top and then reverse. And I'm going to talk about, I'm going to cue it from the bottom leg because when you're rolled over that'll make sense. So let's go over for court.

Screw up and over. Up and over you, Huh? No you're not. You're not crossed yet. You're not cross yet. Now I want you to put your, open your legs and put your right leg under. Right, like under. Is your right leg under? It looks like your left leg is under it. You see? Yeah. Under is going to be there. Right leg is toward the floor. Yeah, I told you when you get up [inaudible] yeah, yeah, yes. The right leg is closest to the floor. Okay. Now you're going to roll down on the right and come up in the left. Here we go.

And down on the right and up on the left, see you immediately stop. It's not boomerang. Now Open your legs and change and down on the left good and up and over on the right open change and down on the right and around and up and open. Change and down on the left and around an up and open change. Last set down and around what your shoulders Mandy and up open, close and down and around and Ah, and open and put them together and roll down that and bend your legs and lengthen them out on the mat and take a deep breath in.

Did anyone here feel a little bit of a different kind of feedback with your legs crossed on? How was it for you, Mandy? I felt like I was coming down on the side, so it, it helped you get that. And I always say this is the set joint exercise. So you want to feel the right versus the left. Anybody else? I just feel you felt more organized. See I don't, I think sometimes it's not that this position is better choreography, it's the brain just notices things when it's given a little something a little bit different. Yeah. And I also, I felt a bigger keywell stretch the quadratus stretch when I did it.

So that's why I liked it. Alright. Open your legs and flex. Get prepared for Saul. I like to roll up sometimes with my legs open. I don't like to just come up always the same way. So rolling up. Good all the way up and open your legs out. So I'm going to tell you that we're gonna put our thumbs up and I'm not going to discuss why.

Just gonna put our thumbs up and we're going to go to our right foot and one, two, three and around. Left to three. End Right. One, two, three and left to three and together. Roll down halfway. Pray to get up one more time and open your arms. Thumbs up and right. One, two, three and one, two, three and hands together.

Roll down halfway and [inaudible] to get up. It's, we're getting there. Easter, you know, so a little bit of, you know, asking for help is okay. Thumbs up and right arm across one, two, three and reach one, two, three and we're going to pray and rural back halfway. Bend your elbows, reach up with your sternum, open out, thumbs up, left arm going across. And one, two, three end reach, one, two, three and good. I like the noise. Sometimes a little bit is good thing and there you are.

Bring your legs together and you're going to roll down on the mat, nose down. So I am going to give a friend and a wonderful teacher credit for this Mr. Allen Herdman because I think it's a good prep. So arms are going to be down. You're going to lift up on an inhale. No, no, no. Don't do anything else yet. One is up. I want to feel as if you're pressing the back of your arm into my hand.

Slide the scapula down. Lift on an inhale down on an exhale. So arms up. Inhale back the arms, slide the scapula down. Exhale, lift up on an inhale and exhale and down. And again, arms up. Slide down, lift up and hold.

Now notice your chest is lifted. Put your hands down by your thighs. Just let them go down to the floor. Does your chest lift or lower it lifts. When you put your hands down, it does. You're very unusual. And let's try that again and just check it out and lift the arms up. Slide them down. Chest up. Now if you lift your hands up and pull back, does your sternum lift more? Yes. Well that's what I'm looking for.

[inaudible] this position. Spring your arms all the way around to the front and put them on the floor. Ready for the swan prep. Okay, now lift up on an inhale and exhale and come down and lift up on an inhale and exhale and come down. Now I'm going to give you two images. Straighten your arms and push your chest up on an inhale.

Straighten your arms, push your chest up. Very good. And then bend your elbows and lower your chest. That's one image. What if your chest lifted up and pulled your arm straight? [inaudible] lift your chest up. Good and banned and down. Which one do you think I want? The second one.

Very good ladies and come all the way up. And now here we go for, let's do three of the swan dives ready. And you're just going to do it with the arms here. Okay. Ready? And one and two. And think of that chest cue and hold that position.

Come down for single leg kick. And here's where we get into a very interesting pattern. Okay, so I'd like the arms to be open because your scapula will be in a better position. So we're going to do two sets, right? Left, right, left, ready, and right, right down, left, left down, right, right down and left and hold. You're going to keep your chest right there. You're going to bring your arm straight out in front of you and bring them all the way around to your back. Here we go. Arms out. Reach all the way around to your bag there to do this fast. Good.

Lower yourself down for double leg kick. Take an inhale and exhale. One, two, three up and one, two, three and up and hold. Bring your arms around to the front. Put them down for a single leg. And here we go. One, two and down and one, two and down and one, two and down and one, two and down and arms. Yes. Another set of these reach all the way around. Can you hold your chest there? Head down. Inhale and one, two, three and up and one, two, three and up. Bring your arms all the way round, put them by your chest and go back to child's pose quickly. Now that to me really shows how much strength and control we've developed in our erector spin A's. Yeah. What'd you say? That's a good one there.

But I only like to do two sets because I just do them well and I get out of there. Alright, so let's come around. Lay down on the mat and are sorry. Come around and sit on the mat for a moment. Good. Take an inhale and an exhale. So I'm going to add a little exercise here as a preparation when she to reach out forward. So think of it as a spine stretch, but your hands are on the floor.

Pull your chest through your arms without bringing your fingertips forward. Then lift up, put your chest on the ceiling and come back to sitting. So arms slide out on an inhale chest only through the arms and an exhale coming all the way up. Chest should be on a ceiling. You should be on your sit bones and center. You should have dentals of Venus. Nice, high chest and round forward reach.

Slide those arms out and then pull your just through bull bull pull, pull, pull, come all the way up and come back to sitting. Arms behind your head. From here, let's just do a little upper body work. I want you to come forward, separate your scapula and put your elbows on your knee and then roll up, pull your scapula together and elbows come apart and round forward. Good. And then roll up. Chest opens, elbows open. Now that's how I like to do that part of neck pool. I do it for my scapula. It needs your back.

Needs to broaden and your back needs to narrow. So we're going to add what we just did and put it all together with the neck pole round. Forward. Chest goes out all the way up. Reach back, roll all the way down. Good round and roll all the way.

Uh, [inaudible] up and then chest through. Elbows wide and elbows. That's it, Haley. That's it. Haley up and one more neck. Pull all the way back. Browned all the way down and let's just put our elbows on the floor for a minute. Open up, check your ribs, did your ribs come off the floor and then come all the way up, up, up, up the shell. That's looking much better over the years and ran. I'm serious. And then open out, out, out, out, out and up.

And put your hands down by your side. Seriously, I've known you now for maybe close to 10 years and you're getting better on your hips, but that's what it's called. It's a [inaudible] practice. You're not supposed to get perfect. This is not about perfection people, it's about the practice of it. And as your body changes, things change in you. So everything is fine. Just take it as a compliment. So let's go down for shoulder bridge. So roll all the way down. [inaudible] well there wouldn't be any reason for us. We've learned, we've learned at once, then we'd be done. Okay, so bend your knees up for shoulder bridge.

I'd like your legs closed cause I want you to be more on a center line. And so let's just take an inhale and bridge straight up and inhale up and exhale down. This is your hip joint. Inhale up and exhale down. Watch your shoulders, your shoulders don't come up. Your pelvis goes up and down and inhale up. Now put your leg closest to me straight up in the air. Okay, so we all know the pattern down and point up and two and point up.

We're doing just four and down and up. Watch those pelvises and up and put your leg down on the floor and lift the other leg up and flex down and come up and down and come up. And this stays still because you're using your hamstring and put it down and stay there. Make sure your feet are close together. Now you're going to spread your toes out on the floor. Lift your heels up and press them down and lift your heels up and press them down. Lift your heels up and press them down.

Lift your heels up when you press them down. Don't drop your hips, so put them down. Keep your hips up there. So relax your shoulders. That's asking a lot, heals her up. Now raise your right leg up and we're going to do just three and flex down and up and to where we feeling our hamstrings and down and up and put the other one down. Put your heels down, lift the heels back up, and check your center. Left leg up and down and up. Two and up three and that's enough which you put down.

Lower heels. Roll back down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down. And we're gonna do one more. Set a little differently and plank up. Let's do the right leg. Lift the right leg up. Now you should know now that you're supposed to get your hips up, hips up. So your left hamstring should be talking to you.

And we're going to do little circles and across two, three, four other direction. One, two, three, four. Put your foot down and other leg up. Now I wouldn't necessarily do this to my class, all of these, but these are variations and other side one, two, and these are strong ladies and put it down. Good. Roll down the good. You feel your hamstrings. Yes. Straighten your legs to no, but nobody ever complains about you work in their hamstrings.

There's nobody that is, everybody wants Nice, you know, tight hamstrings. So rolling all the way up and let's come up and think about our spine twist. Good. Very nice. Do we have enough? Do we have enough space between everybody for spine twist? Okay, we can stagger. All right, so as I'm sitting up, if I'm on my sit bones, I am going to have dimples Levinas and if I were to a puppy dog, I would be able to wag my tail. So we don't want to be twisting in this position.

So can everybody just sit on your tail now get up off of it, wag your tail, feel that, and let's start going with the left one back and twist to three and twist two, three. Think about your dog tails. One, two, three. That's the key with the day and one to hold. Hold. Think about this. Knees. Think about this. Neat right here. I want something working there. Good. And then come back to the center and hold that position.

Think of spear of the whale. You're going to turn to me, turn to me, reach back and then live with your chest and come center and turn and reach and up and center and turn and reach and up and center twist. This is an arch back lift up and center and twist. Haley is this one. Okay for you and up band center. We've been making that Gal twist a lot lately. Over and up and center.

Bring your legs in and let's all lay down so that our heads are this direction. Same direction as me. And we're going to get ready for legs series. So we want to come out on an angle here. So my buns are behind me on the mat. My legs are forward. For those of you who have worked with me before, I'm very interested in three dimensional movement because we live in a three d world, so we're going to think of our hip is a ball rolling in one direction.

It'll roll this way and then it'll roll on this plane and then it will roll like a steering wheel on this plane. And it's our job to feel those muscles doing the work. Not. Don't think about your feet. So put your hand behind you a flex to the top foot. Bring it forward on a right angle. Now I want you to just kick cake, cake, little kicks from your hip joint kick, kick, kick, kick.

You feel that in your hip. Okay, so when we go kick, I'm going to suggest the second kick is in the hip joint and back and kick, kick and back. Do you feel the difference? Kick, kick and back. Kick. Kick. You have to control it. You have to use something in there. You have to turn from the steering wheel. Kick, kick and back. Kick, kick and back. Last one and back. Bring the feet. Turn the top. Heel upward.

We're internally rotating because we want to get all of our glutes lift and lower. Now when you lift, this doesn't go down to lift that, so you might even want to put your hand here and lift and you can feel the connection and down and lift and down. Which hand back lift. Do you feel this lift and down lift. I often describe it something heavy on my hip that I have to lift up from here. Lift and down and lift and down.

Bring your leg in. I suggest this one for the men in your class. They need the hip opener, which your hand here and feel the hip opening, opening, opening. Put your hand back here and see if you can do that from inside of your hip, hip, hip, hip, hip. Then knee down, toe down. This would be your, if you're head of steering wheel here, it would be in this direction. Knee, toe, knee, toe, knee, toe, knee, toe. Put it down. Another one of my twists. Lift, twist, top leg back, rotate to the ceiling, center yourself and come down and lift and twist. Leg back.

Look at the ceiling and center and down. I need to watch live twist like back twist. Center yourself down. One more lift, twist back and up and down. Now what I'm really looking for, I'll use Michelle is lift. When she twists, this doesn't do anything, doesn't, you know, doesn't have a migration pattern here.

And then as she's twisted she goes back and she puts it there and then she twists and hold it there and then everything centers it looked pretty good. That's just a reminder. If you're doing it home, what am I gonna Watch for here? Let's lay down long on the mat and I'm sorry but I have the box underneath me so I may look a little strange here. Like I have a lump and so here we are laying on the mat and I'm just going to show you that if you came up, that's the kind of head position you would be creating in your body. So when you're here can you just keep your head up, your ears listening to your arm, but try to imagine that your spine is in line with your body.

Lift your legs up and put them down too and put them down three and down a flex the flex this hand on the floor and down. Now lift up and bring this one over the head and then lower the legs in the hand and lift and down. I'm going to how many times you do this? It's always a challenge and down and lift and down and come up from here. Lift the top leg and lower and lower and lift and lower and lift and lower. Lift. Lower lift, lower lift, lower left lower and come up to a mermaid position.

Arms out and inhale over. And exhale. Inhale over and exhale. Ah, and one more over. And uh, and now we have the other side. Do you want to know why the sideline series is? You never know which day it's going to balance. Want to know what? I think because your food is traveling around in your intestine.

So whenever you wobble you just tell your teacher that's because your big Mac landed in this quadrant over here. But that is true. Everything inside of our body is moving. So here we go. Let's just come out here. Let's check in, check it out. Am I really using my hip to do this? Good and kick a little bit more.

And back up a little bit more in back three and back. Four and back. Five and back six. And that is excellent. I like that. Oh and back. And the last one and back.

Now bring the top leg over the bottom leg and then from here, remember we're gonna turn this some to flex this and I want the heel to come up because you turned your hip. Turn your hip and get that heel to come up. Good. So let me just see it. Turn your hip. Turn your hip. Turn your hip. Do you feel those guys working? Those are the ones we want working. Can we bring your triangle back to there? Okay, now turn your hip. Good. Here we go.

And lift and lower and lift and lower. Lift my hands. Lift and lower. You feel the difference? Lift and lower. Up and down. Nice open chest and dam up and it's designed to make you feel your hips and down. Very good. Bring the leg in. Hip opener. Now if you need to press it open, this is where you'd press.

Otherwise I want you to use your external rotators. EAD Out, out, out, out, out, out, out, out. Then down touch. So when we first started, it might be just pretty two dimensional. And then I started getting a little more three dimensional, down, up, down, up, down, up and out. My little twisty, lift, twist, leg, twist. Gather yourself and down and lift and twist. Leg back, twist.

Come together and down and lift, twist, leg back. Really stretch back. Now turn, turn, turn, turn your upper body turn and come together and down. Lay down. Long on the Mat. Yeah. So I know. So everybody here ate Kale, but it still goes around. All right, so bottom hand is flexed. Your bottom hand is flexed. This is off.

So now we have the ribcage instead of a Plop, we have her hip joint. All right, so hand is down here on the top. Lift the legs up. Try to keep a little space this time under your ribcage. We can do it many different ways up. But I've been working on rib slightly and down and up.

No top arm yet and down and up and down. Don't rest your head on your, yeah. You remember how the head neck? Yeah. Once you see that, like I don't want to do that. And arm over the head as you lift and come down and up and over and come down and one more up and over and come down. So ideally your hands would look, hopefully something like that with your head in between. Okay, so LE, lift the legs a little bit. Now the top leg is going to lift and lower up and down. See, you have your own pattern. Had to think up, down, up, down, up, down, up and down.

Now bring your bottom leg forward and come up for mermaid and reach over and come up. Inhale and open up the rib cage and uh, and over and up. Okay. And over. Okay. So I'm going to make a little correction for you. Watch that. You don't throw your head. So go over, over and up. So think about your spine going over in your head is just on top of it. That looks better and up. Sorry. Had to, had to see something about that.

Bring your legs together. Do your muscles of your hips feel like you've worked good. That's the whole idea. No one complaints about that in your classes, so bring your legs and Tuck them in. For those of you who may have studied dance gymnastics, you may recognize these as dance movements. We're going to think about this from sort of an anatomical point of view, a little bit of imagery. I'd like my Acetabulum to be polished off, smooth and slippery. Is anyone else interested in that?

An acetabulum? Very good question. That's the Little Cup that holds the ball of this bone into the hip joint. It's held in there by muscles, but it rolls. That's a little simplistic, but we're going to think of it that way. Put your hand down on the floor. Now as you lift your leg up, I want you to bring your foot forward so you can really get a good hip opener and down. Keep your sternum up and lift your knee up. See if you can find those muscles that rotate that bone.

So our pelvis is relatively still, but the bone is rolling inside of the little hip joint and happy dog. Yes, you should be in a happy dog and up. Now take your hand around because we're going to do this to experience what it feels like to sit. You're going to turn and sit on both of your sit bones. That is your pelvis moving around your leg and then lift up and you can put your hand down and then turn and put your hip down and lift up and turn and lift up. Now some of you seem to get a little bit more.

If you press pull your knee, press your hip joint down. When you turn, your leg is relatively not moving, but your hip is moving around your pelvis. So put your leg down, Femur, pell, this, pell, this Femur, femur, pelvis, pelvis, Femur, Femur, pelvis, pelvis, femur. Shall we do the other side? Do you feel how working the hip joint and then going to the stretch kind of helps everything? Okay, so first thing you want to do is find yourself in a nice position. When you bring your leg up, you'll notice that some of you need to come further forward. You don't want to be in this position. So you're right here.

So let's go up and down and up and down. See if you can get your sternum up. And as Amy pointed out, happy dog and down and up and down. Now take it up, think about your sit bone and press it into the floor. So right now you have to sit bones down on your mat, lifted up and come around to face front. So we have going around.

Is the pelvis going around the bone and up. Now some people would say yes, but the bone is moving. The femurs moving. That is true, but we're focusing on just one thing at a time and up and down. Let me watch and reach and around and up and I'd like you to do it one more time with this correction. As you turn, when you drop your sit bone to the floor, keep your sternum lifting so you're really lengthening your QL and then come up and face front and put the knee down and open and sit bone and up and down. Open, pelvis and Femur, Femur, pelvis, pelvis, Femur, Femur, pelvis, pelvis, feet, the center of the room in this position.

So those of you who have worked with me before, you know that I think a teaser comes from around spine. And so we're going to do a little teaser prep where you rolled down and you roll up and your feet don't push in or out so you're not using your hip flexor to get up and down and roll down for two and up for two good and down for two and up. Now this is really enough. Lift your arms up over your head and bring them back down. Roll down and roll up and lift.

Straighten your legs. Good. Now you're to just keep your toes right here. Roll all the way down to the mat, all the way down to the mat. Stretch out long and come all the way up and finish with your arms by your ears. This time you're going to lower everything. Everything goes all the way down. Good. And everything comes all the way, all the way up, up, up, up, up, up, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And arms up and bring your legs in for seal.

Yeah. All right, here we go. I'm rolling back and we're gonna do the three claps. So let's start with the claps in the middle and clap two, three and back. And Clap two, three and cut. Not The camera. This is just a little thing I have when you're doing this.

One, two, three, back. One, two, three, up. No rolling and no rolling. And so in other words, you have to control after doing all these rolling exercises, you should have some control by now because you, everybody thinks the seals at the end. Oh, it must be rest because it's not as hard. How come? This is very hard. So just try it that way. Ready and clap, clap, clap and roll and stop and clap, clap, clap and, and stop. Something to work on and clap, clap, clap and stop and come all the way up. And you're going to straighten out your legs and roll over for leg. Pull Front.

You know, let's face the, the center of the room. So I'm going to do an interesting of this. We're not going to take our foot off the floor at all. So getting your plank. Imagine there's a string at the top of your sternum. Pull your chest toward me through your arms.

Your heels will come forward, and then push your chest back through your arms. So this is not originated by heel up, heel down. So chest through the arms, chest, back, chest through the arms, chest, back, chest through the arms. This is nice and chess back. Good. Now, little pushup. Little push up. Good. And come up now you listened carefully. Push up and extend into no, go, go all the way down. Sorry. Go all the way down.

Now push it into a swan. From there, good. Up to a downward dog or an up stretch and out to a plank. Good. And Bend and push through to a swan and come back to an up stretch and rest for a minute. The way I see this, I guess I should get up here, is it comes from a chair exercise. It's PyLadies. So I'm going to go down and then I'm going to go through, you see, so I'm not down here.

So down it's my chest going up that makes my arms appear to straighten up. Stretch plank. It's done with your feet on the pedal, on the chair with your hands out on the front and the Mat. So bend your elbows. Now pull your chest through, pull your chest through, pull up to an up stretch and come out to a plank. Will do just one more and bend your elbows. Now really pull your chest through and then up to an up stretch.

Good. And then come back down. And I want you to sit on the floor and come forward on the mat. Roll all the way down. I'd bring your legs up and over your head and bring your right leg down to the floor. Holding on. Now you should be in around back position. Let's change and change change legs. Try to get the top leg to the ceiling. That's the challenge. Get it up there, but keep your round back and change. Good and change.

Now we're gonna roll roll forward as you go back. Change legs, roll forward as you go back. Change legs. Let's do one more set. Roll forward. As you go back, change like Haley, you've got this one. Roll forward and go back and change. Bring both legs together and roll all the way down. Bring your legs together for rolling back.

Listen carefully to the directions cause I'm not going to do it up here on the table. Roll back and forward, back and forward, back and stand. And that is what this exercise was originally done in gymnasiums for gymnast, which is probably where Joe learned it. We all have it. Number three, we stand up the best we can. Ready and roll back and up and to and up. Now get ready. Roll back at your momentum up and come up and stand. Excellent.

Everybody got up perfectly and thank you very much.

Comments

Fabulous!!
Amazing! Incredible teacher! Hope to see more of you. Your cues are so easy to follow...boredom does not exist! Thank you from Switzerland
Playforever
Wow! My new favorite collection of ideas to teach! I can hear my class moaning already! Thank you!
Wonderful to hear that you are inspired to pass on the work! Hopefully the class will moan with joy!
Playforever
Absolutely!!!
1 person likes this.
Such a great session! I love the variations of the classical repertoire and the create combinations of exercises to make new, flowing sequences. A great way to bring back curiosity to the movements and to understand what the exercises want and what the body needs. Love it!
Brenda B
Fab! Thanks!
1 person likes this.
Perfect for me today as I have been busy practicing a variety of classes and I have some compression. This intelligent class is a slower rate, note "deliberate" and gratefully brings you into your body and your brain focused on Form...This intelligent teacher has a great inner and outer awareness and is not just dictating the cues but working with class in front of her and making adjustments, she knows her stuff. Important for students who are learning Pilates as it brings you into the environment of classical training. Thank you.
Thank you, Judy. It is my greatest achievement if I am successful at assisting a student connect the mind and body through self discovery. Pilates is a personal journey and teachers are guides. May you continue to be inspired.
2 people like this.
Wow, hands down (on the mat) I must say the description for this class is spot on "feel what is happening instead of just doing the choreography". I definitely got much more into a lot of the exercises, though I've done them for years - leading me to a whole new experience AND range of motion. Especially in the CrissCross. Thanks Pat !
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