Class #2634

Agility and Stability Mat

50 min - Class
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Work on strength and balance in this Mat workout with Ed Botha. He teaches a conditioning class that will help with agility and stability in your body. He includes many wonderful variations like Monkey, Push Ups, and so much more!
What You'll Need: Mat

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Hi, my name is Ed. I'm from Cape Town, South Africa. It's great to be back on Pilates Anytime. I'm gonna be taking you guys through a conditioning mat class with a little bit of balance and strength. I've got Kylie, Ashley, Mandy, and Inga with me.

Alright, so enjoy! So, we're gonna start in standing with our feet in a pilates hip distance apart. Arms relaxed down at your sides. We wanna bring awareness to the abdominals and to the ribcage. We're gonna go into a gentle little squat position. So not very deep, but we're gonna raise the arms up to the sky.

There we go. So we're keeping a little bit of extension through the thoracic spine, but keeping the ribs soft. And then, we're just gonna drop down into the flexed position and allowing the spine to restack up tall. Vertebra by vertebra. So, particularly paying attention to our hamstrings as we come up.

I don't want it to be too rigid. I just want you to relax into the position. Again, we're gonna squat down, hinging at the hip joint, arms coming up to the ceiling, keeping the shoulder blades down. Super! And then, we just allow the spine to relax. And then rolling back up.

And tall. We're gonna do two more times while I talk. You're gonna reach the arms up, and hinging down at the hips. So the whole idea here is that we've gotta activate the muscles. And then, relax the muscles.

It just allows us to go into a deeper relaxation and a deeper stretch initially in the movement. And we're coming back up. Up, and tall. This one we'll hold a little bit longer. We're gonna squat down again, reaching the arms up to the sky, abdominals tight.

I like to call this, again, from our former sessions, I always refer to this as the "Iron Chair." We hold the seat. Great for conditioning for the legs. And then allow the body to relax forward. And then restack the spine. (strong exhalation) Tall position, excellent.

We're gonna just place the hands on the hips. Right knee, we're gonna lift it up to hip-height. Going into a gentle hip flexion. We're just starting off with a little bit of balance. We've got hip flexor.

We've got adductor. We've got the glute meat of the standing leg. And you can feel your ankles and feet moving around. Good. And then bring the leg back to standing.

Excellent. You just bring it to a comfortable height, alright? If you feel that you lifting at hip-height's gonna throw you off balance, bring it a little bit lower. We'll go again. So we go left leg.

We bring it up. There we go. And then challenge yourself, see if you can go a little bit higher. And then see what happens if you use your abdominals to go up a little bit higher. Excellent.

And then we bring it back down. Good! And we'll do one more on the other side. So, abdominals. So we lift up. (strong exhalation) Find your height.

If you can, we're gonna extend the leg out in front of you. You may need to put your hands under your thigh. That's also okay, but I just want you to get that feeling of, quadriceps, hip flexors. And then bend the knee, and bring it back down. Excellent, good.

Softening the knees a little bit, bring the other leg up. I do prefer that the standing leg is a little bit soft. I've got the left leg up, abdominals engaged, in that order, and lengthening the leg. Great. And bend the knee, and placing it back down.

And then stand up straight. Give the legs a little shake. Right, so we're gonna do the same thing, hip flex, and then we'll just abduct the leg. And you can take hold of the leg with the hand. So from here, we'll go slight softening, right leg up, (exhalation) hand on the knee, and just open it out.

Once you're open, and you feel that you've kept your pelvis more or less facing forward, bring your hand back onto your hip, there we go, bring it back to your center, and bring it back down. Beautiful! And the other side. So we go up, and we lift, and the hand on. And we open the hip joint, (exhalation) This is pretty passive, the opening of the hip joint. Then, when we let go, that's where those muscles really kick in.

Your abductors, the rotators. And bringing it back and down. Excellent. Take a small step forward on your mat. I'm gonna come a little bit further forward.

Right leg, bend. There we go. Hinging at your hip joint, both hands, we're gonna try to touch the mat in front of us. Just a little touch, or not, and then come back up, but we stay up on the one leg. Alright, so we'll do that a couple of times.

Great for hamstring and hip abductor strength. We're going down, (exhalation) and bringing it back up. As we're coming up, the hamstring is drawing us back into position. And also super position to correct anterior pelvic tilt. We're going forward again, this is our third one, little touch, cool.

And bring it back up. And that's enough, and down at the side. Cool! So, a little bend. Pretty important that we keep this leg bent. This acts as a rudder, alright?

It controls our movement. We just passively let the leg lift up behind us. This knee is soft, but I'm really focusing on the hinge, 'cause you're gonna get people who go, "Oh, I can do this, this is easy," and they end up doing a roll-down. We're keeping the spine quite rigid while we're here. And then we come back up.

(exhalation) And we find our balance. Cool. And then we go down again. And pause, and coming back up (exhalation). There we go, Kylie, good dance.

And then we come back down. Alright, all the way from Estonia. And bringing it back, and coming back up. (strong exhalation) Excellent. And we'll change, alright.

We're gonna do combination of exercises. We'll go right leg lifts up, in front, hand on, abduct, bring it back in through the center, excellent, the rudder goes behind us, and we touch. Excellent, so you're just focusing on spots in front of you, coming up, hip up, hip out, (exhalation), we open, bring it back in through the center, good job and, rudder, hip hinge, and touch. And bring it back. And control, and down.

Good, so two's enough there. The other side, so we did, hip flexion, hand on, abduct, think center, bring it back in, leg stays bent, bring it behind first, and then, hinging at your hip joint. We wanna get activity through the hip. There's the touch, and bringing it back. And, not just for conditioning, but these are amazing warm-ups before you do any kind of activity that requires a lot of balance.

So just to switch those hip abductors, adductors, extensors, rotators on, and down, and reaching. And of course I've got four people next to me here, making it look very easy. And up (exhalation), And there's no reason why you couldn't add resistance when you do this. So if you add two little weights in your hands, it would make it pretty straight forward. Good work, alright! So let's go down onto our mats.

We're gonna start supine. You can go down all the way, hands down at your sides. Gently pressing your arms into the mat, keeping the abdominals engaged, and we're gonna start with the pelvic curl. So we're gonna take a deep breath in to prepare us, on an exhale, we maximize the lumbar flexion of the spine, and we're just peeling up off the mat. We're rolling the spine up off the mat.

And pause when you achieve a long line up at the top. We take a deep breath in at the top, and out breath to bring it back down vertebra by vertebra. And release all the way down to the bottom. So we're just gonna do two more pelvic curls. On my exhale, I draw the abdominals in.

Again, I'm really keeping a connection of my inner thighs, by pressing down on the big toes. I'm pressing into my arms, I'm using shoulder extensors. Deep breath in at the top. And out breath. Sink through the upper back, the mid-back, the lower back, and release.

One more time. And out breath (strong exhalation). And we roll, and lift. And lift, and hold. This time, as we come down, just allow the arms to lift up overhead.

(strong exhalation) And reach the arms all the way back. We're gonna take the hands, we're gonna interlace the hands. And just press the two palms together. So I've got my palms together, hands interlaced, and we'll go to, we call it the "semi-circle," on the mat. And I just do the pelvic curl over here, but at the same time, I'm really pressing down, with my arms into the mat.

So it feels pretty normal up to here, but now, when I come down, then I get the thoracic spine to articulate, so I get more thoracic articulation, as opposed to lumbar. And I release the pelvis all the way down. So we'll do that one more time. So I'm going up, I scoop in with the abdominals, I roll up through the pelvis (strong exhalation), get a little bit of height through the hips, trying to keep your arms as straight as possible. Deep breath in at the top, and then exhale, (strong exhalation) and down.

And release. Arms down to the sides. Good, so both legs together. Abdominal connection. Safely bring both legs up off the mat for me, and then reach the legs vertical.

If you have trouble with keeping the legs straight, if you've maybe got a little tightness of the hamstrings or possibly a bit of weakness in the hips, you can keep a little bend in the knees, but what I'd like to do is a corkscrew. So we're going to take the legs to the front of the room. So we're gonna cut across, inhale, and then exhale as we draw a small circle round, and up through the other side. And then we reverse. We cut across, inhale, exhale, (exhalation) and back.

And again, reverse, inhale, (strong exhalation) and back through. Important is that we go across and pause, so that we feel that we get this rotation, and then we circle over the sacral area and back through the center. So we'll go to the front again. So I slice across, I get rotation first. And then I circle round, and round, so that I put emphasis on my obliques.

And inhale, so it's not just a hip flexor exercise. (strong exhalation) I'm using the obliques for good rotation. And one more to each side. So I go across, inhale, exhale, (exhalation) and back, and last one. I cut across, and round, (exhalation) and back in through the center.

We bend both knees, hands on top of your shins, and just rolling yourself up. (exhalation) So try roll it all the way up for a roll like a ball. I'm gonna place my hands on top of my shins, shoulder blades are drawing down, my eyes focusing midway through my thighs. And on an inhale, I allow the lower back to press into the mat, inhale, and (strong exhalation). Exhale to come up, keeping the shoulder blades down, and, (deep breath) I'm working in, trying stabilization.

(deep breath) Abdominal strength, and in-breath. And (strong exhalation). And you can notice how we're all using our breath to assist us to come up. (strong exhalation) So the breath helps to keep that C-curve shape. And one more time, in-breath.

(strong exhalation) So from there we just go straight into a single leg stretch. Both hands are gonna go onto the left shin. And I roll down to the tips of my shoulder blade. Super, so I don't wanna be too high, just above the tips of the shoulders. And we change, so, steady rhythm, (exhalation) and, (exhalation) and, three, good, Four, five, six, seven (exhalation), eight, (exhalation), nine, and ten.

And repeat, and we're going one, two, three, four, powerful exercises, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and then hold for ten. So, we've all got our right leg in front, correct? We do a small circle. So we go down with the leg, out with the leg, back through. So we're going down, out, round.

We're doing our leg circles, three, And four. One more. Five, (exhalation). If you find this difficult with the head up, you can put your hands behind your head. But what we're gonna do now, for those of you who feel comfortable, take both arms out, and we circle in the other direction.

So we're going one, (strong exhalation). It's all about the stability. Two (exhalation). It's a combination of single leg stretch, three, and leg circles, four. Ashley's showing you an option with the hands there.

And five, and hold. And change (exhalation). So we go down with the left leg first. Down, out, and back. And two, out and back.

And three, there! And four, (strong exhalation). Trying to stay symmetrical, five. Good, and hold, arms out to the sides. And reverse. One, (strong exhalation), and two, (strong exhalation), for three, yeah! And four.

One more. Five, and hold. Just bring the leg down to the mat, arms out, palms up, leg straight up. So I'm just gonna scoot back a little bit. We're gonna keep that position.

Top leg we flex, and we're going into the leg circles. So we cross the midline of the body. So we're going, inhaling, (strong exhalation), exhaling. Two, (strong exhalation) And three. (strong exhalation) (strong exhalation) Good, deep in the abdominals.

One more time. And (strong exhalation). And hold the top. And the reverse. Inhaling, Exhaling.

Two. (strong exhalation) Deep breaths. (strong exhalation) Abdominal scoop. One, And out. Last time.

And one, and (exhalation), and hold. Bend the knee. Push yourself up (exhalation) in that position there. So we've got the leg up. Hand goes behind the calf.

And we go up, and draw the leg in. So it's like a "Climb a Tree", trying to get your back up. Lovely, we've got some beautiful backs there. I'm envious of those backs. And bend the knee and roll it back down.

We can just slide the leg. Other side, arms out, back into your T-position. So we bend, we elongate, we dorsiflex, we're crossing the midline. Inhaling, (strong exhalation), and two, (strong exhalation), and in, (strong exhalation), (deep breath) and over, (strong exhalation), and hold the top, just get steady. So guys, just make sure that, our emphasis, it's not necessarily the leg.

It's that the abdominals don't bulge, and the bottom leg is working. So again, hip extensors from the bottom leg pressing into the mat. And we go into the reverse. Inhaling, (strong exhalation) Two, (strong exhalation) And three, (strong exhalation) (inhalation and exhalation) And in, and (strong exhalation), good. Let's just hold the top position there.

So we bend the knee, push yourself up, (exhalation), and lets take the leg up long. And lengthen, so it's like a "Climb a Tree" on the long or short box, and extend the spine so we get the stretch up through the back. So we're perfectly set up here just to bend the knee, and to roll back down, and just float the other leg up. We've got the hands, all they do is transfer. And we're going up and over.

Rotate (exhalation), and change (exhalation). And (exhalation). (exhalation) And four, so the crisscross, five, so scapula, up and over. Up and over. Up and over.

So I'm not laterally flexing (exhalation), I'm keeping the chest high. The chest high, so I don't want to drop in between. (exhalation) And (exhalation). And (exhalation). And (exhalation).

Two more. And one, and back. Two, bring it back to the center. Lower the head and the chest. Come up once again into a chest lift.

Deep abdominal contraction. Lifting up (exhalation). Let's bring the hands behind the thighs. Give yourself a little bit more, little bit more, little bit more. Hands back onto the shins for the double leg stretch.

Bring the knees in a little bit deeper this time. Flatten the naval, and we reach arms and legs, and we go long! And then exhale (exhalation), And we go long, extend. And (exhalation). And again, long! And (exhalation). Beautiful! And reach! And (exhalation).

Three more. And we're going one, And (exhalation). For two, (exhalation) one more time. And reach, long! Circle back and in, back and in. Hands on the shins, deep in the middle.

Push yourself all the way back up into sitting. Stretch the legs out long in front. Arms out, for a spine stretch. Breath in to prepare. Exhale for the head to go heavy.

Articulate through the upper back, through the mid-back, through the lower back, pause. Deep breath, and then restack (exhalation). And tall, ribs soft. Body tall. And exhale! So the head is going heavy, so through the upper back, the mid-back, the lower back, and we pause there.

Deep breath (inhalation), and out breath (exhalation). Three more times. And exhale, so we're just flowing from one (exhalation). Down, down, down, down, pause. (inhalation) And exhale! (exhalation) Building the spine tall.

A great way to practice this is up against the wall (exhalation), or back-to-back with a partner. Deep breath (inhalation). And up (exhalation). And let's repeat, last one. And out breath (exhalation).

Inhale, And exhale! (exhalation) Tall spine position, good! Legs go together. And then just rolling yourself down onto your mats. I'm gonna just scoot down a little bit. I've always got tall issues. And you're down flat.

Palms down next to your sides. Bending both knees, so we slide them in. I like you to use both legs together, alright? Abdominals connecting to lift both legs up at the same time. So, use all your abdominals.

And then lift the legs up, okay? Believe it or not, English is my first language. And the legs go out long. We're gonna bring the legs up to 90. Into a rollover position initially.

(strong exhalation) And then flexing both feet, if you can take your feet towards the mat for me there, and then take hold of one foot, and the other leg we're going to lift up all the way to the sky. So it's a control balance. So we double pulse the top leg (exhalation), and change (exhalation), and change (exhalation), and change (exhalation). Good! And change (exhalation). And you really want to try to get this leg to anchor down on the mat, working in full hip extension, on the top leg (exhalation).

And, exhale, good. And exhale, one more time! And just stretch it up at the top. Hold it there. Then take both legs down to the mat if you can. I'll join you in a sec.

I've gotta find my space again. Both feet are down. I've got both hands on. I'm holding on to both my feet, and we come out in The Monkey. So we're just rolling with straight legs, rolling through the spine, through the spine, through the spine, and pause.

Let your arms come down to your sides, take both legs away from you again. And let's repeat The Monkey one more time. So we do a rollover. We go up to 90, we do an exhale to rollover (exhalation). This time flex both feet, take the feet down to the mat, circle the arms round, if you can, straighten your legs, and then roll through.

(deep breath) Roll through, roll through, roll through, roll through, good. And hold. Take your right leg all the way down to the mat, holding on to your left calf, come up with the head in the chest for a hamstring pull. So you just allow this leg to fall down. So we double pulse the top leg.

And one, and, two (exhalation). And three (exhalation), good, Four, And five, good. Six, pulse! Seven, pulse. Eight (exhalation), And nine, one more. And then ten, good.

Both legs up to the top, bend the knees, and rock yourself back up into sitting. So we'll take the legs shoulder-width apart, arms out into a T-position. A little bit of rotation work with us all. So we're gonna rotate to the front. We're gonna go inhale, and exhale, reach.

Inhale, extend the spine up. Back to your center. And rotate, and reach (exhalation). Elongate the spine all the way back up to the center. And release.

And again. One, and down. And up through the spine. And release, good! And rotate. And we reach, stretch! Strong up through the spine, all the way up vertical, and then bring it back.

So you don't wanna lift up or rotate until you get, or should I say, you don't want to rotate 'til you get to your vertical axis. So from here, go go go, don't stop here! Come all the way up, up, up! Then we can bring the arms into position to rotate. So we go across again, there! And we stretch forward, there. We lift through the spine. So the best extension that you have, through your spine.

Get vertical! Arms, arms center. One more time. We go there, on each side, and we go down, and elongate through the back, we lift, we lift, we lift, we lift. We go, arms, arms center. And again, we go, rotate.

And we stretch down, so I'm looking just past my thigh, opposite sitting bone pulling down, reach up through the crown of the head, coming tall, tall, tall. We go arms, arms, center it. Adduction. Palms turned up. The spine twist.

And, one, two, center. Two, two. Sternum is leading the way. One, two. So I don't want to over-rotate.

I just go as far as my sternum allows me to go. There, center, good. And rotate (exhalation), and center, good. And rotate, good. And center.

One more to the back. And bring it back and pause there. Arms up to the sky. Have a comfortable stretch forward. Release.

Sitting up tall. Cross your legs, so have a look there, take hold of your feet, and just pull yourself all the way through to all fours. Excellent. So guys, I modify things on my fists 'cause I've got an issue with my wrist. Please, if you can, you're gonna be flat on your palms, or you roll up your mat, just do whatever's comfortable for your body.

We've got the spine tall and long, all the natural curves are in place. So, automatically, a lot of people, they start in this posterior position here. I want you to think of length. Be natural, we've got curves for a reason. But just be engaged.

We'll start, the left leg can go out first. And we put the leg down on the mat so it's a front support. The right leg goes out afterwards. (exhalation) And we're gonna hold for ten counts. For ten, and nine.

Eight. For seven. For six. Five. For four.

For three. For two, and one. Then your hand that's at the back, you bring it to the middle. And then we turn out into, just into a T-position. We're not going into a full side bend yet.

All we want to do is hold the ten count. For ten. Nine. Eight, Mandy you can lower your hips a little bit, Inga your head a little bit. Six.

Five. Four, together you guys are perfect. Three, and two, and bring it back to front support. And then we'll change to the other side. I've just modified my hand for my wrist.

So you guys get my back for a second. And we hold for ten. And nine. For eight, and seven. For six, abdominals! Five.

For four. For three. For two, and bring it back in through the center. Take it into the up-stretch position. Bending the knees a little bit.

Sitting bones up and away. And then we're gonna bend down. On the knees, and just stretch it out. And then roll yourselves up. So guys, we're gonna do a little bit of load for the upper body.

We're gonna do a bit of shoulder work. You can modify this to make it more difficult or easier, it all depends on how high you bring your pelvis up. So we're gonna do, it almost looks like an inverted push-up. A decline push-up. An incline push-up would be if you're doing a push-up on a box where your upper body is higher than your legs.

Now, we're gonna get our hips up higher than our shoulders so we're gonna be going down and up. So it ends up being more of a above-the-head press. Again, I'll modify this on my finger-tips. Go ahead and get the up-stretch position. From here, we go one, two.

And then find up-stretch position. Then from the up-stretch, walk in a little bit closer. Hips stay up high. The elbows for this one, they do go out to the sides. So it's not a elbow-in position.

So we bend, and we bring the top of our head down to the mat. And we push up and out there (exhalation). Keep the ribs connected, and we go inhale, touch the head. Exhale as we come up. So it's like you're doing a hand-stand push-up.

And we go inhale, and then exhaling (exhalation). It's really important that the shoulders, we don't just do flat push-ups, keep going (exhalation). See, I can multitask. My wife told me I can't, but I'm proving her wrong. So I can talk and I can do these push-ups.

So we go again. And we go inhale, and then we go exhale. One more time. And we go inhale, and we go exhale. Super! And then we go down onto the knees, bring the legs through for a back-support position.

We just wanna stretch out the anterior portions of the shoulder. Arms are gonna circle round, alright? Again, fingers facing forward is the optimum. Out to the side is good. For wrist-issue people, the fists is possibly the safest.

And then we lift up (exhalation). And we do our ten count. So we're going for ten. Nine, and eight. Seven.

For six. For five. For four. For three, beautiful! For two, and one. So we're just reversing everything we did.

We do the cross of the legs. Alright, and we push it back up into up-stretch. From there (exhalation), And we're gonna repeat that one more time. So your heels don't have to stay on the ground. And we go in, as much weight as you wanna give yourself.

And up, one! So we go for six. And exhale, two (exhalation). And inhale there, for three. In-breath there, and four (exhalation). And inhale, for five.

Good, one more time to go. And there, and then six (exhalation). And then just walk it all the way through this time 'til you're sitting. And let's take the arms behind. So we reverse again, and let's push up.

And back-support, we've got our ten. For ten. Nine. Eight, and seven. Six.

Five. Four. For three. For two, and bring it in. And I'm just feeling like we can do one more.

I'm not quite there yet. Let's go forward one more time. And, one, and two and up-stretch it. This time, we're only gonna do three. But we're gonna go down for the count of three.

So, we go one, two, three, we hold for one, and then one count, up. We go for two. We go one, two, three, we hold for a count, and then one count, up. That's great, one more time. One, two, three, and (strong exhalation), pushing it up, excellent.

This time, we're gonna inchworm. We're gonna walk our feet, watch. We're going one, and two, and three, and four, and five, and six, we're going in, and seven, and then we squat, as low as you can. Try to get your bum comfortably onto the mat. And we'll go into our last back-support position.

This time we'll do five repetitions, so we change the dynamic. So we're up, one, swing down without sitting, and two, you get the idea? Right, so hands behind us. Super! And, exhale, up we go (exhalation). One.

And we swing and pause. And two (exhalation). And swing and pause. For three (exhalation). In, and four.

(exhalation) And one more time. And exhale up (exhalation). And bring it all the way down to sitting. So we're gonna scoot a little bit forward. Now we gotta work a little bit more in the middle.

Again, so a little bit forward. Legs are going out long. Arms are coming up. So we're going into our Teaser One position. Exhale as we bring the arms down, and we roll back, arms as straight as possible.

So we practiced that semi-circle earlier. So we go up head and chest, so work on articulation to come up. And guys, there's so many modifications for the Teaser and options that you can use to modify. And then we go back down (exhalation). And, to make it a little bit easier for yourselves.

And we go up again, and we lift up, and we take it through. And this time we lower the arms. So we'll go for Teaser Two. So we go, arms up, legs down, not too much. And one (exhalation).

Two (exhalation). Three (exhalation). Two more times, four (exhalation). One more time, and five, good! And this time just keep the arms. Roll back, but this time, if you can, let the legs lower as well.

If it feels uncomfortable, we just pelvic curl it out. And we go up again, from here. So now it's arms, legs together. Arms and legs together, that gets us into Teaser Three. And we go down again.

Down, down, down. And we reach, you really gotta connect. The hip flexors are strong, the abdominals are strong. And we come up, and up, and up. And here we go.

And tall, and we're lifting, we've got this. We've got this. And then from there, stay right there, guys, for a second. I've gotta move for your sake, and then we're doing a rollover. So arms come down, and we roll over (exhalation).

Alright, then we bend the knees. We take the hands into the small of the back, for a Bicycle. I'm sorry, let's start with some Scissors. So, there. There, legs go long.

And we open, and we Scissor, one, two. And switch, two (exhalation). And three (exhalation). And four. One more.

Five, and then hold. And then we bend, and we touch, touch the mat. And switch. Touch, and switch. Touch, and then just switch one more.

And then, if you can, place your foot on the mat. Otherwise, just come up into the rollover again, and come out of the exercise. And then do a pelvic curl for me, and then meet me up in the shoulder bridge. So you're gonna meet me up in the shoulder bridge, with the right leg up at the top. And we go down, and up.

And exhale down, two, and up. And three, lift! Four, and lift. For five, lift! And six, and up. Two more! Seven, and up. One more.

And eight, and we find the lift. Bend the knee, switching legs. Try again, height of the pelvis, we want extension, we're moving on to some extension exercises next. So we got leg goes up. Reach the leg up.

Exhale down, (exhalation). And flex. For two. And flex, good. Three, and there.

Four, and up. And five, and up. For six, there. And seven, and up. And eight, and up.

Hold the top. Lengthen. Bend the knee. Hips up a little bit higher. So now, go into a bit of back extension.

So allow yourself to bow a little bit. To bow a little bit, there. And then pelvic curl out. (deep breath) And release. Give the knees a hug into the chest.

Alright, and then guys, if I could get you guys all lying facing each other to the center. So we're going prone. So our heads on the side. Hands under the shoulders. For a Swan Dive prep, okay?

So we'll start straight-away into full extension. We should be nice and warm. So we're going up. Head, chest, arms, extension! And then from there, abdominals, elbows in, not collapsing, hip extensors activating, legs coming up. Good.

And again, we go head, chest, upper back, and we lift, good. So this is the best part. We're getting the stretch of the flexors, the stretch of the abdominals. And we're coming back. Elbows, abdominals, down, down, and lift.

Right, now while you're there, while you're there, hold on for a sec. Can you guys bring your legs a little bit closer together? Just a little bit, just a little bit, there. And then we go, lower the legs, lift through the upper back. So I don't want that adducting to cause any pain in the lower back, but it will get those hip extensors to work a little bit harder.

And again, we go down. So elbows, elbows, elbows. And hold. Bend both knees. Reach back and take your feet.

Head stays relaxed down to start. We'll do the Rocking prep. So inhaling, we lift the head and the chest, but now I really think of pushing up through my feet. Through my feet, through my feet. And then come back down (exhalation).

So we'll do two more Rockings preps. So abdominals in, push up, through the feet, head and chest lift, opening the chest, but push! Legs up. Legs up, legs up. And then back down. (strong exhalation) Last time.

And lifting up. So besides the extension, if you're someone like me who likes their shoulders to get opened up, this is the best. Then stay high. Separate arms and legs. Arms go forward.

Staying high. Staying high. Deep breath in. And swim! And one, two, three, four, five! In, two, three, four, five. Two, two, three, four, five.

In, two, three, four, five. Three, two, three, four, five. In, two, three, four, five. Four, two, three, four, five. And in, two, three, four, five.

Five, two, three, four, five. Hands under the shoulders, and then pushing back. All the way into your Rest position. Knees together if possible, sinking, down, down, down, down. Down with the bum onto the heels.

(exhalation) And let's go into Front Support once again. So we're gonna go Front Support position. Legs go out, one and two. Abdominals connected. And then we'll do three solid push-ups in this position here.

Inhaling. Exhale. Two. (exhalation) And one more time. And three, and now this time go up.

Stretch and walk yourself back with the hands. One, two, and then push. And roll up, through the spine. Excellent. And this is where we want to be tall.

Take a deep breath. Exhale, let the head be heavy. So we're gonna roll it down. We're gonna roll it down, we're gonna roll it down. And we'll take a little walk.

We go, one, two. And hold! Little bit of extension through the spine, guys. Now the left foot goes into plantar flexion. So left foot into plantar flexion. We do two push-ups.

We go inhale, down. Lovely, Kye, head up. Exhale, up there. Inhale down. Exhale up.

Now, with the leg in extension, walk back with the hands. Go, one, two. And then keep the leg up, and then finish in an Airplane. So you bring your hands off the floor. Hands off the floor and airplane the arms out to the sides.

You got it! If it helps to make a noise, do it. Whatever we can do, whatever we do. There we go. And then we take the hands down to the mat. We walk it all the way forward.

Good, it's pretty challenging. All the way down. Changing legs, switch. Yes! And we go again. One, just two push-ups.

And then two. These guys are doing great! And then we walk back. One, two, and then Airplane. So not too high with your back leg. Not too high with your back leg.

So you just wanna find flight. There, there, there, there, there. Find flight. Okay, then we'll stay there. See if you can bend your standing leg.

Bend your standing leg. Straighten your standing leg. Can you do that one more time? Bend the standing leg. Straighten the standing leg.

Come up all the way from there. Just come up to standing, and we change. We'll do the other side. Arms out. So we're hinging forward from the hip.

So we're hinging, we're hinging, we're hinging. We've gotta find our Airplane. We gotta find our Airplane. And then we bend. We sink.

And we extend. There we go. And we bend. And we extend. And then we're gonna take a walk again.

So hands go down, walk all the way forward. Forward, forward, forward, forward. Both feet down. Great. And in our last one, we're gonna hold.

And then I want you to take your right hand and touch your left shoulder. One. And change to the other side. For two. A bit of agility.

And three, and four. You've got it! For five, switch. And six, yes! You'll rock slightly. And, there! And bring it back in. Bring the knees in, and then sitting back.

Roll up through your spine. Roll up off your bum. Arms out in front of you for a Fire stretch. Okay, this could be it. So, abdominals engaged, posterior slightly, eyes are gonna stay on the same level.

As we sit back, we sit back, we sit back, we sit back, we sit back, we sit back, we sit back. And (strong exhalation), as we bring it up, good. So careful of going into hyperextension, here with the spine. Alright, so this one, it's more of a connection here. As we go, so think of ribs sliding toward the hips, hips to the ribs, hips to the ribs.

And (strong exhalation). Good, let's do it one last time. So keep our connection, keep the connection. We've got it, we've got it. This opens the hip flexors as well.

It opens it, it opens it, it opens it. Where're my limits? And (strong exhalation). Hands down to the mat. Tuck the toes in underneath.

Lift your hips up to the sky for me. Take a gentle walk back with your hands. One, two. Give me a bend of the knees. (inhalation) And exhale.

Rolling it back up (exhalation). Curling through the spine. (exhalation) And, one more time. Deep breath in. And we finish with a roll down, so the head goes heavy.

Legs straight, legs bent, this is your time, to connect with your body. I'm done with you. You're taking over. Inhaling, and do what your body needs, as we roll up (exhalation). (deep breathing) And thank you all for your efforts.

Thank you, guys, good job. (cheering)

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Comments

Mayu
1 person likes this.
Always such good classes Ed Botha, thank you so much!
2 people like this.
Fabulous class, Ed. Challenging while giving us all the tools for success. This is great teaching!
Thank you.
Thank you Ed! That was awesome!
Wow…Great class, great teaching!! Thank you!
Very effective class with excellent instructions. I liked the variation of push-ups focusing more on the shoulders, I will definitely use it - especially with the male clients. Thanks, Ed!
challenging, clear, wonderful! thank you!
Wow! Wonderful class Ed, fabulous que's and loved the balance act at the beginning. Thank you.
Wow! Amazing session just clear precise and so differant , loved it .
Ash
That's my kind of class!
Dolly N
Addicted to your classes come to COLOMBIA ....
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