Class #2644

Mat with a Partner

30 min - Class
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Grab a partner and get ready to have fun in this Mat workout with Niedra Gabriel. This class is about your relationship with your partner just as much as your technique, and it allows you to feel each movement in a different way. She teaches creative variations and assisted stretches that allow you to work on the connection with your partner as well as your own alignment.
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

Jul 10, 2016
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Good afternoon. Everybody. Today is a real fun class we're going to have together. It usually creates a lot of laughter. It's partner Polarez and the beauty of this is that you, it's not really just about you and your technique, it's all about your relationship with your partner because if you go down, they go down. If they go down, you go down. So life is about relationship and believe it or not, you get to work even harder. So let's start.

Let's all of us get on the floor here and I am delighted to say I am getting to do it myself, which is always fun. So get yourself into a tabletop position. This is probably the hardest part where you find the right angles and everybody is said Sally, you need to get closer to Katie, just a little bit closer. And ideally by the way, your partner should be about the same body height as you are. And when you put, you want a slight pressure into your partner.

It's not a war, it's just enough to say like a good handshake. Hi, I'm here. I'm feeling you. Now everybody, everybody introduced each other arms over the head. So you want to feel the nice length. Then bring the arms up to the ceiling, curl your head in, chest stop, and now stretch your legs up into a v. So you kind of test the position. Bend your knees, head down, arms over your head, and extend up into your v. And by the way, if anybody needs to adjust that, fine. If you need to get closer to your partner or further out.

Sometimes leg length is different. Very good. And one more time. So notice how nicely this puts you into your powerhouse. Lift up and we're going for a hundred breathing in. Five. Exhale, three, four, five in two, three, four, five. Exhale, three, four, five into five x sale, three, four, five, deepen in the powerhouse. Exam, three, four, five into three, four, five. Exhale for five into three, four, five. Exhale for five into three. Four, five sale, three, four, five. Last one, five. Exhale, very good.

Bend your knees, tabletop, arms over your head, knees to your chest. Grab your knees with your hands. Roll yourself to sitting. Four roll back and roll up. So this is a fun half roll down. So feed to feed, grab each other. So some people like to hook like this, sometimes people hook like that.

But I recommend the fingers. Everybody sit up nice and tall to first pull the shoulders down just to get the lift and then round your spine. And actually you were roll back and I will roll a little bit forward and then roll back in the person bending forward. I recommend opening their knees a bit so the person rolling back and go further. And, and use your stomach and your hips as a fulcrum.

And some of you will be more flexible and some of you will be more stiff. So as you, you like to tear, I can feel Heidis a stretchy girl. So I'm going to give her an extra stretch. And also as you work with your partner, talk to them if they're going too much or too little, just to let them know. And a wonderful sensitivity develops between you and your partner.

As you go and some something magical happens. You Fall in love. Ah, and now lie, lie down. And you want four single leg circles, leg to leg, and the other leg to the ceiling. So the important leg is the one that you're pressing into your partner's foot. Cross the leg across your body, down, around and up.

Cross down, around and to cross down around in three cross down, around and four down around and five reverse out to cross and up and I don't know. Cross and up and down, across and up, down, across and up. Plus one down, across and up. Just for a moment, give your leg a little stretch and floated down and let's see if we match. Good, nice pressure in with your partner. Anchor your pelvis and curry your shoulders. And here we go. Cross down across, send up, cross down and out and up, down across, [inaudible], up, down and out and up, down, around and up. Reverse out, across and up. I'll do cross and to out across and three Oh two cross and four out across and five pull the leg towards you.

Float the legs down. So both feet anchored in. Reach your arms over your head. And see if you can roll up, if you can do come up any which way you or ah, lovely work into the lower back. Yes. Now pop your body further forward and rolling like a ball. You hold behind the knees and this is the fun part. You will be foot to foot I think.

So you may need to adjust yourself closer, further away so you can actually be in relationship with your partner. And guess what? You have to stray in the straight Arrow or else you will lose. So we have to come back to this position. Katie, get your shoulders down. I know. There we go.

You were going to roll back and come right back up and meet up partner again. So here we go. Roll back and roll up and to hello and roll back and roll up and say hello and roll back and roll up and roll back. Yay. There's some cheating in the back and roll back and row up and roll back and row up. Very good. Feet down. Ooh, let's try this feet up every time it gets.

Let's see if we can roll on our backs like this. [inaudible] and then we need to, okay. But we still need to adjust and get into back into tabletop. So we need to tabletop. You want your bottom right under your knees so you're in this kind of 90 degree angle. Yeah, very good.

Curl your head and chest up for single leg stretches. So I'm going to stretch this leg and one switch and reach towards your partner with your hands and three and stretch. And this is where the relationship really the, what is it? The tire hits the road, the rubber hits the road. Stretch and stretch and stretch and stretch.

Two more times and stretch and stretch and tabletop. Head down on the Mat. Double leg stretches. Curl your head and chest up. We'll go slow for the first run. Stretch your legs to the V, reach your arms over big circle and tabletop and reach circles, tabletop and stretch and in and stretch. And in one more time and stretch and in lower your head down just to rest for a minute. [inaudible] extend the legs to a v again. Ideally you'll lift your head up, but if your neck is troubling, you stay down so you can lift up if you want to. Now the legs closest to the ocean, move away. No, this one.

So you pull and back other leg pole, add back and Paul and back and [inaudible] and back again. [inaudible] and back and [inaudible] hole and back. Lower your head down. Bring yourself back to tabletop water table. There we go. And we go to skip lower lift because I haven't figured out how to partner that, but hands behind your head. So any suggestions on the forum?

Most welcome curl your head and chest up because we're going into criss cross. So twist, switch, twist, switch, twist. I love this one because it anchors me better than any other way. And switch and switch and that's if we can go faster and switch shifts. Switch and switch and switch and switch and switch.

Whew. Lower down. Is that cool? Hands by your knees. Bring yourselves up to sitting. Spine, stretch forward as but the bat. So here we are but about feet a little bit wider than the mat. And I want us both to imagine that we have a big belt around our waist with it as we belt forward is as we bend forward is getting tighter.

So at the beginning when the arms are stretched in front, just lift up. So there's probably a separation because the spinal curves come in and we just want to use the pressure into our partners. Get as tall as we can and now big breath and now start rounding forward and push your waist into your partner so the wastes cannot move away. [inaudible] there we go. Now there we go. And then we roll back up and sit up tall and again, round impress your waist.

So you're actually pushing into your partner and you're allowing your upper back to round and set. And one more time round and up. Now the neck, get your bottoms back towards each other if they came apart because we can't, they tend to this next one arms over the head. Now this one, you have to be super, super, super careful with your partner because, um, the person bending backwards is getting a huge stretch. So I think let's have the person bending forward. The palms face them so their hands are right over the head.

So even just above the head ladies behind, that's it. Now I'm going to have Heidi bend forward and don't pull too fast on my arms or and push your rib cage into me. Yes. So she's opening up my chest sole beautifully and then come back. Okay. Right.

And now let's flip the hands and I am pushing my ribs into her and I'm giving her a stretch. And you can talk to your partners. You do this with a person bending back is getting the best stretch ever and up. And no, it's tempting to do it out. See, you can experiment where it feels good. So you pull your partner up Yas. Oh, I love being on the rack. Yes. Oh, what a beautiful stretch. And up and hands up and lift and oh yeah.

And up. One more flip. Lift and stretch. Oh my goodness. So right. Oh yes. And up and flip and lift. And if you're smaller. So Sally, grab her wrist, grab her wrist. Yes. Now pull her arms to the ceiling. There we go.

And now Sally, Sally, look in my direction. Round your back. Push your rib cage into her so her chest opens. Yes, that's it to the person bending forward is really rounding. So the person going back gets a nice stretch. Wonderful. Feels good, doesn't it? Next one will be the variation on sauce. So the hands come out, one person hands a wrap, one person's hands are down and you need to put pressure into each other.

Yes. So just enough that it's not too much a person pressing down. We'll have a lot more strength than the person up and it doesn't. And also see, you can get a sense of where middle is that a Katie lift up and lean back into. Yes, there we go. Now gonna twist towards the camera.

Twist and twist and twist. The way. Twist. Both hips have to stay down. So you're spiraling off the middle and twist Katie, right hip down. Yes. So you, and again twist, twist. Don't you love it when your teacher is sitting next to you and yelling at you at the same time. Now flip your hands the other way. I love being yelled at. Seriously. If anybody wants to yell at me, I'm like the first volunteer twist. Again, twist, twist, twist, twist. That's it.

So the person with the palms below, below, that's it, I suppose. Doesn't matter. Twist, twist and twist, twist. Wonderful. Relax. Shake your arms out. Cause you probably got a bit of juice going and let's lie on our stomachs facing each other for a bunch of fun things. So actually we're going to do a variation. So here are the hands and the feet are hip with the part.

And now let's just lift our hands up. This one you will need to definitely adjust the height because it depends on a lot of things. So now can we straighten the arms and we're going up? Yes. So you lift, there's your swan and bend down. And again, arms go up and lift. Whoa. I can feel my crooked back and down and lift and down. Now keeping the hands where they are.

Let's lift the head and chest up and pull the shoulders down and feet. We'll come together for single leg kick. So you may want to get even some, sometimes people get closer together or further apart. You want to find that place that you get this nice lift. Now see if you can use the pressure into your partner's hands to widen the shoulders. That's it, Katie. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And also just for a minute, that's bring our head down.

Lift the chest and then when you lift up, don't break in the neck but feel if you push the back of the neck long. Yes, very good. Now one leg kicks your bottom twice. Kick, kick, switch, kick, kick, switch, kick, kick, switch, kick, kick, lift the chest even more. Kick switch, switch and kick. Now four double leg kicks. Let's see if we can do it. Both legs kick in at the same time. Sometimes it doesn't work. Kick two, three legs.

Go down and up we go. And lift and down and kick to three. So lots of work in the back. Animal lift and down. One more time. Kick two, three and lift and down.

Okay. Child's pose. All by your lonesome self. Stretch out and sit up. So for the next part, which is the single leg kicks, the most important part is we're going to be back to back. The hips are your major place of contact. So you're lying back to back. Um, let's see here. Heidi, why don't you lay down? I will buy like this. You will be like that.

So when I am looking at a group of people, I always check the hips that in an ideal world, if the body sizes were the same, we also need ourselves to be shoulder to shoulder. So you really feet the foot and the feet, the feet may not, maybe you'll be ankle to have or calf, it doesn't matter, but you want everything in a straight line. So you're really on the side of your body. So this is going to challenge your sideline incredibly so that let's lift the top leg up so it's just in line and I'm going to go forward. And Heidi, you will go back and we stay in relationship to each other.

So the person going back has the hardest time cause they arrange a movement is limited to the person going forward. Can't lose the part or they can't go beyond the range of the partner. So you really are doing this with your partner and back and ideally you stay in touch with your shoulders and with your bottom we hips the hips. Yes we are. Yeah. We find out that our body sizes are different and back back, very good. And now let's lift up sideways.

You lift and down so you can only go as high as your partner can go. I'm sure Heidi could go much higher than me, but that's what it happens with time. Your partner just isn't as good as you know. This hip doesn't go very high and one more time like this, and I'm gonna now we do little circles. So I go forward or a up and back and down. I have to say I love working with a partner because it forces the leg to move in the hip and one more time and then reverse it back on to okay, and three and for, yes. Oh, okay. Now we do the other side and have a look at your own hips.

You really want your hip stacked up because almost always when you're working by yourself, you're chances are you're not really on your side body. So shoulders to shoulders, but about leg to leg. And let's go forward and back. I'll go a little bit forward. Good. I'm checking her range of movement and back and she's checking mine and I have to let go of my tight hip flexors. Ahh, and rules lease. Oh my goodness.

I feel so good and forward or seesaw. It's like a seesaw. And one more time. Very nice. And now up and down to the side. So go as high as you want to go. Told you I'm better on this leg.

She's finding out all my deep, dark and down. Yeah. And lift and down. One more time and, oh, and now little circles. So we're gonna start, I'll go forward. Up and back. Whoa.

And up. We're having some challenges in our relationship. All but all good relationships. You need to work at it. And it's not all about you. And reverse one Pilati is for couples therapy for PyLadies for couples. Oh, okay. Oh, I love that. That makes my hip works feel so good. Okay. On our backs for the favorite of all time teaser.

So we start in tabletop. Okay, what's Nice also, if you push into your partner's feet very slightly, you can really anchor your own power house. You kind of, it gets that whole lower back into the mat and integrated. Now Heidi, let's take this leg to straight. So the other leg stays in tabletop. Can we come up into, I can't come up but net remind that's good and back and the other leg and see if we can get up and back and again and live and back the good news. It's a good workout and lift and back.

Now both legs at the same time, that sprint, lift the legs up into a v. I'm going to move an inch out and see if we can grow up into our teaser cheat like crazy if you can. And now I grabbed my thighs and I moved out a little bit. That's a little cheat tricks here and let's see if we can make it happen. We have to be this, am I not? I'm not even and down.

That's another way of doing it. And again, not bad. Up and down. Use your hands on the floor. No one will know. And the lift. That's it. And down. One more time and lift. Yay. And down. Okay. Bend your knees into your chest. Ah, let's come on to our stomachs again and happy the arms again in this long position.

So we are preparing now for swimming. So in this position, let's take the hand that's closest to the ocean and just lift it up. So you lift one arm and down. Head comes down. Other arm, lift and down. First arm, lift and down and lift.

And now let's add the opposite leg. So lift the leg and the arm. And now as we do this, try to keep your pelvis stable. Yeah, there we go. Somehow being in relationship magnifies our own unique imbalances.

At least it does for me. And what do I need to work on to be in good relationship with Heidi and down and the lift and down. Now can we do this fast? Let's try lift a leaf. Ooh. Ooh. Lift and lift. I liked this. I lift the hand lower down child's pose again.

Whoa. Nice work. And um, seal would be just like rolling like a ball. We have to kind of meet up in the middle again. So coming back, lifting the feet up. Yes, you're absolutely right. They shuffle moments. Let's see here.

So we're going to clap like this one and two and three. Rollback. Clap three times overhead. Clap, clap, clap. Roll Up, meet your partner, clap, clap, clap, roll back, clap, clap, clap. Roll Up. Meet your partner and go, whoo. Back, clap, clap, clap. Now come forward. Let's see if we can actually, can you stand up from here? So you, you, I think you two ladies will need to be a little bit further. Yeah, you'll need to hold wrists. Do you see how we're holding risks engaged? Now you're going to shift onto your feet. Let's see if we can all stand up.

You have to go over Katie. That's it. Good, good. It always helps to pull your partner a little bit. She was being nice, but that's good. And just to finish, this is just a fun how to ring out the body. It's a form of saw that stand foot to foot, legs apart, right? One Hand is down and lift the stomach and reach over and hold your partner's hand. Right? So we have just a nice stretch.

Now start bringing the top hand down and look up at your bottom hand and lift up and ring yourself out and look at the ocean to over you. Go and get the other hand to the ceiling, ladies. Yes. And look at the bottom arm and again, so you kind of have to do what it takes and that's it. Good. Yes, it's amazing. People figure this one out. They think they can do it and they just do and stretch.

Okay. Now we get to do the other side so that Dah, Dah, Dah, Dah, Dah, Dah, Dah, Dah and stretch and over to the floor sometimes also adjusting the feet closer or wider, but it kind of stretches out every lap past last little part that hasn't been stretched or moved. And one more time and over and up and back together. And give your partner a hug. Thank you so much. Have Fun. This is great. Fun. Good work. Okay.

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Comments

What a fabulous class Niedra!
I had such fun with my clients this morning and they loved it too!
Niedra Gabriel
Cool! I know this is a real fun class. So glad you are spreading the fun...
Это чудесный класс!!! Niedra Gabriel, thank you!!!
Niedra Gabriel
Thank you Anna, I am not sure what you wrote - but thank you anyway.
Awesome! I have never seen such a class ever! You really need a partner because I tried to mimick the moves as if I had a partner and I think it's not as fun...thanks so much!
Niedra Gabriel
Thank you Rahman, yes, you really do need a partner to get it. Love that you tried on your own! you are VERY proactive about living life and I really appreciate that.
That was really nice. I took the class with just me, myself and I and just adjusted it. Worked very well. It was fun to be part of the fun. Thanks!

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