Class #518

Flow and Precision Mat

60 min - Class
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Description

Amy teaches this higher-level Mat class with flow and precision. Fluid transitions keep you moving through this workout and complement the advanced exercises. Challenge not only your stamina but your spirit with this fun and lively class. Enjoy!
What You'll Need: Mat

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Sep 15, 2011
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Oh, okay, good. All right, so we started standing last week. I won't have a start, you know, moving the weight shift works, so just try to go back to last week if you can. Uh, if you were here and we're going to be in a stance with their legs right underneath their pelvis, a little bit of space between the feet and ankles tonight. Let's take your arms nice and long by your sides right away. Begin to pull that energy from your lower core up inside your tailbone slightly under your low abs, up your rib cage, elevated away from your hips, your chest open. You've got a good sense of alignment through the back of the neck.

Let's take a breath here. All right guys, we're rolling down. Exhale. So this is, you can consider this [inaudible] domino warm warmup. I want you to contract those upper abdominals. Try to let the head go. Do your best to keep your weight forward rather than back on the heels. Take an inhale and exhale as you recruit from deep and low and those low abdominals.

Roll yourself up and start to assess what's going on in your body. Have you shifted left or right? Did you feel any of that? Inhale. Here we are wanting to go really evenly over our legs, standing even weight on both. Maybe your [inaudible]. I've been at the desk all day, and your legs and your lower back feel kind of tight. If you need to bend your knees, you're allowed to do that. It may feel better.

Inhale and exhale as you begin to roll up, start to change your thinking from where you were previously today to right now, what you're feeling, what you're sensing. Let's take a breath. Yeah. And exhale. Going deeper into your body, contracting those abdominals more towards your back, gaining some suppleness in your spine, stretch in the back of the leg. Some of you may even feel your calves. Inhale and exhale again. As we pull the abdominals deeply in and out, up helping us recreate that standing posture two more times. We're going to add a little something to it.

Breathe in and exhale and rounding over this loose arms. Um, now as you're down, uh, put your fingers forward or flat hands if you can get there. What I'd like us to do is lift the heels and come down into the squat. Last week we ended with this little squat tonight we're going to begin with it and focus on pulling that pelvis down and under. If you can get that in, drop that head, this might be there or you're feeling for rolling like a ball. Really pulling that pelvis down in, under. All right.

And then extending the legs, straightening those legs. If you can straighten your knees fully and let your head hang low. Take another breath. We're going down again. Exhale, start by pulling your abs in, rounding up, back, tailbone under. So in quite a few of the rolling exercises that rolling like a ball open, like rocker rollover, it's that lumbar region if it's a little bound up and tight, doesn't enables to F, you know, have that fluid movement. So here's your chance just to put some thought to it. Okay, we want length down there. We want suppleness, we want strength in the abdominals. Let's go ahead and extend the lanes.

Curl yourself up to standing, pooling those abdominals up. Okay, let's take another breath in at the top here. One more time, man. Rounding down. [inaudible] evenly weighted on right and left foot. Inhale, let's go back into that squad again. Exxon. No walking out into a plain position from there, a little differently. Just stand nice and steady on those arms.

You want to be in a relatively tippy toe foot, but you're not too high on want to check and see. Ideally, if you could measure this, your heels would be above the balls of the feet, so most of us in this room have corrected it. We needed to have come forward. Does that feel different for some of you? Probably so. All right. Now on the exhale, let's go ahead and walk backward into your little crouched position. Again, round that lumbar spine and get down to there. That curve, we're going to do that two more times. Here we go. Guys, stay low to the ground. As you walk out, remember that foot pro position and a correction in your feet. You got a long chest reaching forward, your pelvis down. Let's breathe in.

Contract your abdominals first. Bend your knees, walk back, hand, hand, hand round that pelvis, drop the head. Inhale. Exhale. One more time. Walking out some weight into the arms. Long chest forward. [inaudible].

Elvis is down feeling the strength in them, center of the body. And that's not necessarily just the abs, it's part of the back. What's, what's in there is the spine. We're going to breathe. Exhale your choice to step or jump the feet forward. I'm going into a jump and let good you guys. Let's set our hips down, reach your arms forward and then just a nice easy roll back to the mat. So rather than too many abdominal, uh, variations for warm up, which sometimes we'll go into, we're going to do a pelvic curl. So let's bring those heels close.

And last week, remember how we measured it? I had you bring your heels in, ideally, maybe fingertips close to the heels, so they're going to be closer than usual. Let's take a breath here and begin the pelvic tilt. Enjoy a quad stretch on the way up. Some of us remember, don't worry about getting too high. Concern yourself with the quality of your abdominal contraction, so those upper abs are working your feet, feeling like you're lengthening your mid spine towards your knees. The back of your legs are hooked and ready right there at the base of the butt.

Inhale and use that exhale as we begin to roll down. This is a still abdominal work. This is the warmup. Continuing the warmup. After these pelvic tilts, we're going to go right into our 100 X sail and contract. Feeling the strength move through your body. Inhale out the top. Exhale, roll down.

Can you reach your hips more toward your heels? We can't and you have to effort that. Get some more space in that lower back. Reach your pelvis to neutral. Inhale, exhale. Again. Contract deep belly contraction. Peel your way up. We'll be thinking about the inner thighs a little bit. Sometimes we forget.

We want to work those. We want stable feet. Inhale. Yep. At sail, we've got a hamstring cramp back there. Work it out. If you need to stretch it. Take your time all the way down. Let's take another breath. I want you to stay there on your exhale. Just raise your arms up to the ceiling.

Feel the heaviness in the shoulder blades. Take a breath. Exhale. Again, pelvic tilt to peel, working your way up. So were you relying on your arms a moment ago for your bridging? This way you can't do that. Exhale, roll down. You want a broad chest [inaudible] deep abdominal contraction. Inhale. Exhale. Again, rolling up contract in those upper rear thighs right there by the glute to extend the hips. Inhale, exhale. We're rolling down and press your palms to face him forward. Press your arms down as you peel your pelvis up this time.

[inaudible] and just pause here for a moment. I want everyone to connect. So arms are on the mat. Feel the press of the arms against the mat, the back of your shoulders, the back of your upper arms and the triceps. All right. That feeling is what you want to connect to. When you pump in the 100 and we know that's difficult cause we're not touching the mat, but trying to stimulate that work sides of upper back and down into the back of the arm. All right, inhale, float your arms. Exhale, peel your spine. Shoulders are pulling down toward the hips.

Let's take a nice deep breath from level pelvis. Exhale, knees to tabletop. Inhale, exhale, chest to chest, lift, legs out into the 100 angle and let's go with our five and we have four or five X. So again, that press through the back of the arm working pretty light, feet relaxed feet. There should be a very consistent reach of your arms longer. Don't let go of that. Make them longer. Can anybody curl higher? Pull that sternum in your deeply curling into your upper body.

Anybody dropping down nine and 10 Oh so where I'd like us to go tonight. Raise your arms up alongside your ears. L lower your body, legs down, arms back without arching nuts. Spine. This is a tremendous load on your body. Be careful there. Now coming into the roll up arms. Exhale, head and chest, peeling your way up. Inhale and exhale. Let's begin to pull it back.

So seeing if you can keep those abs working even here or you think it's arrest? It's not arrest. [inaudible] keep squeezing them in and up. Keep them curved here. Breathing in and exhale. Nice. You guys rolling back. See if you can maintain that contraction. Keep it going.

Inhale and exhale up and over. One consistent curve of the spine. Excellent. [inaudible] bone by bone, checking into the articulation. Quality. Do more. [inaudible] still very thoughtful, very mindful head. Should be above your arms a little bit here guys. Yeah, and rolling back or both sides of your abdominal wall working evenly.

Hopefully you say yes. Xao we're coming up. That's right. Pull those shoulders down toward the hips. Feel the work there. Inhale and exhale. As we come back, we're going to pause when we get to our shoulder blades. [inaudible] right knee and hands on that ankle or the calf and shin. Lift your left thigh up. Just hold it there for a moment.

Feel a really level pelvis. Can anyone curl up higher? Tuck that chin down a little summer. And guys, let's just check into that position on the other side. So the weight of the leg bone really dropping into that hip and here we go for 10 exhale and two and tabletop on that bent leg. [inaudible] six snow rushing, seven, eight, nine. Keep that going. Hands behind the head and Chris cross is coming. Here we go.

Cross [inaudible]. Let me think of the rotation through your rib cage, not your elbows, rib cage, rib cage, rib cage, and we've got seven, six. Keep stretching your leg. I'm just not seeing a lot of stretch in the thigh. Four, three, two, last one. Let's take it in. Hold right here. Hands on the knees. Let's take our double leg stretch.

Exhale around lots of energy. Remember we're working on civic quality change. You have modified the arms if you need to. Nice. Yvonne. Shh. Like a burst of energy there to open up that shape. The chest day is up. Two more.

Last one. Oh right. Hold right here. Put your hands behind your head again. Hold on to it. Let's take your legs up. Ah, hold that position. Yes. So I want us to feel the back of the neck long. No pressure. Drop your legs down about 45 degrees on an inhale. Exhale, bring right back up. Inhale, lower. Exhale right back up. One more time.

Inhale, lower. Exhale. Finally knees in. Let the head and chest go down under the arms and thread your legs back down on your mat. We develop. Pay that right leg up, 90 degrees or lower. We have a friendly bumblebee that just cruised in, so be mindful and prepared. If you hear it near your head, turn your leg out slightly. Now we're anchored. Whole body is down on this map. This is the free joint. Ready? We circle left around. There's abdominal. She'd be very prepared for stabilizing you after all that cross and up. Cross around.

That's five other way around and up. Remember, we want to be cross over that other leg too. More. Add the other leg on. The mat is absolutely stable. Let's hold hands behind the thigh. Believe I did this last week. Curl yourself up. [inaudible] hands to the calf.

[inaudible] draw the leg closer to the body, maintaining a heavy pelvis, a good level pelvis. Some of you, if you'd like to go deep hamstring stretch, you may want you to reach that hip opposite though. All right, so as your leg is coming in towards you, keep it right there. Let's roll the body down. Head and chest. Of course. There we go. I'm going to slight turnout, so that's fine if you want that. So keeping your leg there. Let's let go. Now. Pulsing the leg toward the torso. Percussive rhythm.

I'm thinking stomach, stomach, pull, stomach pool, stomach, full stomach pool. Eight other legs. Anchor down on the mat. There we go. Excellent. You guys lower your leg. Now it's long while it's down there. Even though you're done working in circles and things, you're still reaching at long. Okay, left leg. Develop. Pay, reach to the ceiling. Check your body. Anchor it down. Loose foot. Here we go. Cross right. Inhale, round, cross and circle. Cross sex Hale. All around.

We're looking for stability and our base here. Oh the way for five [inaudible]. Every exhale you're sinking deeper. Your spine, your bones. [inaudible] last time. Sure. Hands behind the thigh. Ciesla walk your hand to your ankle, calf if you like. Connect the XCL to contract those abdominals and just feel how that leg will want to come toward you. Try not to resist it. Let it come in.

I want me along. Gate, back here. Ah, still reaching along in this bottom sigh. Alright. Towards the stays right there. It looks really good. You guys take your chest back. Okay. You all probably feel that extra lengthening. Try to maintain it. Okay. As you let go stomach pull. Here we go and pull it in. Pull it in. There will be some hip flexor. I won't lie.

There has to be, but do more internally for three to our last. When they're lower the leg, reach the arms up and back overhead. We come up for the Rola. No tonight, just drag those heels in. You're rolling. Likable. One ankle crossed with the other hand. Hand on opposite ankle. Find this position for a moment. Your position.

Mine's different than yours, et cetera. So let's go back to our warm up and we thought about our pelvis being rounded under. That's what initiates our rolling like a ball. We're going for six repetitions. Inhale, we roll back. Exhale, we roll up. Try to squeeze and hold that position and again. Yeah, and we rolled back. If you're feeling good about this, tried to bring those heels closer in a hug. A tighter for three more.

Two more. Last one. Keep your concentration. Here we go. Okay, everybody reach your left leg forward. Hold onto the back of the right calf. We didn't do our scissor a moment ago, so we're going down for scissor now. So as we rolled back slowly, carefully, your right leg tonight, let's just all stop it at 90 degrees. So those of us that have that flexibility where we can bring our leg farther back, let's not use it tonight.

Try to use more precision of this degree here. Okay. The other leg can go down. And what I'd like us to focus on is the flection of the spine toward this right? This leg that's up. Okay, so good Megan. Just an XL change, a whole change and you can focus on your level pelvis, pause in level, pelvis level, pelvis. [inaudible] I want you, I'm going to take a quick look. You guys, keep going. It's not out of the question. Also is your holding on that leg.

Press your leg into the hands. Press your leg into the hands. Here it goes. A little deeper. Stretch. There we go. Let's hold the right leg up. One more I think to change and hold. Okay. I'd like you to take your arms down by your hips. Palms face up. Okay, so if we want to post this just toward a thigh, eight times little X sales and we've got one and two and look down to the bottom foot so you're not looking up before three to stay up there. Change with control.

Ready and exhale one and yeah. Oh for reach with those arms. Six. You got it. Look straight ahead and okay, hold leg up. Lower your hands to the mat. We're going into rollover. Inhale. Exhale. Up and over we go. Now guys, take a minute yet.

Try to take some of that momentum out. Flex your feet, let your legs open. I'm going to invite some of us to drop our feet to the mat. If you know you have some neck, uh, you know, challenges or stuff, don't go down there yet. Okay? Don't, don't push it. Really, Steve, working what your body needs is a different stretch in our hamstrings in the spine. More advanced, I would say. So as we rolled down, keep reaching through those heels and notice how your legs are lower to your torso. I want you to do that tonight. Use the back of those arms a little bit. Not too much. Now let's take a little journey here. Points your feet.

Take your legs down, maybe through 60 degrees. Bring them together 90 degrees now. Inhale, exhale. Up and over. Flex the feet, let the legs open and on the way opening, you can place your toes to the mat. Breathing in if that works for you. Exhale, coming down, reaching through those heels. [inaudible] how are we doing? We like it. Drop down 60 degrees.

Inhale legs to 90 XL N up and over. Flex the feet. Inhale, open. Carefully. Precisely. Placed them down. That's right. Inhale, beautiful. What I love, I'm seeing some really long arms and some flat wrists. So when chins are lifted, you're not jamming down onto your chest. You guys were making some progress here. Lots of progress. Now we're going over with the legs apart. Bring them into 90 degrees.

Exhale up and over. Same thing. Flex and bring them in. You can touch the mat. Inhale, exhale and bring them down. Shoulders are open. You'll have that spine just roll sequentially. Your legs come down through 60 degrees. Open hip with inhale 90 degrees. Exhale up and over.

Flex. Pull them in. Inhale can drop them a little lower and begin your roll down. [inaudible] do we have happy hamstrings right now? We like a stretch. One more time. Drop. Open. Inhale. Exhale. Up and over. Flexible. Amend together. Breathe in.

[inaudible] yeah, I'm going to help us transition as we roll down. Keep rolling your body up into a teaser position. [inaudible] just for a sec. Reach those arms. Just checking into it. Okay, good. Bend your knees. Let's stagger ourselves on the mat. We need a little saw. Open those arms up. Okay, perfect.

Let's rotate to our right tonight. As we inhale and exhale, reaching pinky finger. Pull that back arm up. I want you to look to the back arm. Inhale, roll all the way up, twisted the other side. Exhale, you're slicing off the baby toe. Inhale, not just that the opposite hip should be pulling back. Inhale all the way up. I'm watching ya. Opposite hip pull back, but wait on that opposite hip. There we go guys. This is that one really tricky exercise that often will lift off the back hip.

Nice. Lindsey aside, I've got Eagle eyes, weight on your right hip. Now one more each direction. Wait on the left tip. [inaudible] and on the right hip [inaudible] and all the way up. Bend the knees, draw the legs in. Open leg rocker. Those of you who did move back yet, sorry, bring it forward. Okay, so our open leg rocker arms are straight.

Let's not be an unextended spine. We're good at it. I think a lot of us are very good at this upper back extension in this exercise. What I'd like is to come play with is right be a little bit more round in your low back. That doesn't mean crowd. Let the shoulders slide up. It's just if someone's had a really heavy bowling ball right in your low belly, you'd have to hold on to it. Cool, right? That's again, what initiates the role. Here we go. Six repetitions. We roll back.

So key flexed in there. It's different for some of I inhale, I'm very prone to going into flat backs. I'm going to try to stay around in my lower back. Inhale. Good to change up the way you normally move your body. The, when you think about how you move it [inaudible] do more. Keep those arms straight. Feel how the calves will press into your hands. One more time. We inhale. Exhale. Come on up.

Now I want us just to hold the legs like that. Let go, but feel how you can pull your femurs, your thigh bones in toward your hip sockets. Let's try three. Rolling with not holding on. How fun. Inhale. Don't worry. No judgment. We're playing. We're moving. Inhale. [inaudible] Oh, one more time. Look straight ahead, Megan. When you come up, look straight ahead. Laser beams right out. Those beautiful eyes. Straight ahead. Straight ahead. Go look. Yep.

Do you feel that helps stabilize you? Okay. Hands on your legs. Close it in. That made difference to you? I think so. This is, you could get caught without [inaudible]. Okay guys, going back for some corkscrew, maybe a little tick talk. Prepare. So let's roll it back. Keep those legs there if you can. Is your head touching? We there? Yeah, we are. Okay. [inaudible] your legs to 90 degrees. Okay. I know you're close with each other side by side, but open your arms a tiny bit away from your body just a little bit.

It's okay if your legs right now need to bend. I'm okay with that. Ideally we're looking for street. Let's take our legs as they're straight. Way over to the right. So we didn't warm up tonight with knees side to side, but it's based on that. It can be based on that. So as you go over to your right hip, how far can you go over but not have your left shoulder leave the floor, right? And then exhale, come right back to center.

Go to your left without the right shoulder, leaving the floor and exhale as you come to center. Now keep going over to your right. What I'm seeing a little bit of is slight release of your upper abs. Try not to, so even though you're doing something that's taking laterally, exhale center, I have a great vantage point because if daylight shines underneath your back, I can see it from where I am. Don't let me see it. To your left upper abs deep there and center.

One more each side. Inhale over and exhale. Center. We may visit this little diagonal in our corkscrew momentarily. Good. Okay, so let's take a breath. We're rolling over the shoulders. We know our corkscrew. We're going to roll down the right side of our back. Wouldn't be out of the question is he feel the back of that hip touched the mat that you dropped the legs that far over where you wore a Martin to go circle the legs. Hit the left hip. Talk, roll up to the shoulder blades.

Here we go. Down the left side. When the left hip touches the mat. Try to tick talk left over, up and center down. [inaudible] use the breath guys. And down the left up the right shoe. Let me watch one more. Each side, the adventurous, but safe. All right, last one. Keep going. We're slowing down. Keep going. Go back over your shoulders for me. Alright. No, again, as we come down, I want us to roll down our back and come up into a teaser again.

This time teaser can come up above the head. [inaudible] why can't ya? Okay. Bend your knees. Let's just reach our arms forward. How about a goalpost for spine twist? Goalpost being that reference. Pull those shoulders down. Now I want us to flex our feet.

Feel like you're reaching your heels long in a way. Your bottom can squeeze almost like it's reaching toward the heels. That's breathing here to our right for two pulses and shit. So the arms aren't the pulsars. The waist is the pulse twist, twist, twist, twist again. So with thinking through rib cage, better with your feet.

I'm watching. So no feeder scooting. Okay, I've got a secret. Go to your right and hold. Often what happens is that's the hip that pulls back. So that's the foot that I see. Slide back. You've, most of you have heard me say that for years. That leg needs to be longer as you twist toward it, okay?

So it actually comes from your hip, your low back and hip through that hamstring and out through your heel, right? Check it out to other side. Left leg is the long leg. Okay? Four more with that thought. Here we go. Exhale. Pulse, pulse, left leg long. It doesn't go longer. That's the one to think about. Last one. Okay. I want us to reach the arms.

Roll yourself back on the way back. Bring your heels in. I'm gonna do a little pelvic curl to a bridge. Hands close to those heels and take the tilt. Feeling the stretch in your quadriceps and hold on to that just for a moment. Some basic position. Breathe, breathe, breathe. Okay, this is interesting. I'm going to just have you breed.

A few of us have her feet wider than hip bone width or sitz bones wet. Okay? I'm going to say you've won stepping in. You're not nearly that wide even more. It's hard to appropriate herself, right? Sometimes when we've come from and then some are, just scoot him out a teeny bit, Rachel in a little bit. Pat open a little bit. Everybody else seems to be pretty good. Now if my fists were right between your knees, that's about the width. Okay?

It's what? Three inches, maybe two. Now take an inhale. Exhale. Float your right leg into the tabletop position and just stay there for a moment. Accentuate the squeeze in your high left hamstring, low buttock. We're going to push the pelvis up from there. Four times. Push up. Think back of left thought up, up and up. Now bring your pelvis all the way to the mat. Push it back up and lift. Three more. Pull a little hip down. Exhale, hip up.

Two more down. Push it. Push, push, lift. That's it guys. One more time and lift is primed. It's ready for the leg extension. Take your leg up with your heel. Flex. Lower down and lifted up and lower lift. Three more. We've got a down. We've got an up. You've got a down.

We've got to lift. We've got it down. We've got to lift. No, you don't need to pulse anymore. Point the foot. Bring it down. I don't want you to come down yet. Breathe in. Exhale, transfer weight. Slip that left. Fight a tabletop. Okay. Four deep squeezes of your high hamstring. Low glute. Ready, squeeze and press. Exhale, press, upper abs still working. Press and press four times the whole pelvis comes down.

Whole pelvis presses up. You're loading that right leg and PRS. Lower and press last one. Lower press. Extend the knee. So foot comes up, flex the heel. We go down and up and down.

Resist the urge to kick. It's a lift. Those ebbs. Pull the leg up. Last one, add, lift, bend that knee. Step down. Now guys, clasp your hands underneath your back class. Like then push your hands to the mat and extend your hips higher. No, I'm looking at you. It's okay. Your back is arching. Of course it's arching. Let it go. Look to the ceiling. Breathe.

I would suggest your upper abdominal stay connected. Breathe. Keep that fist with between those knees, right? Keep going. Push those hands down at each of the mat. Are you guys doing okay? Release your hands and let your body come true. Cooling down all the way.

You may want to just kind of toggle your legs from side to side. Alrighty. All right, let's keep going. I'm going to have everybody flip over into their tummy. Head's facing in. I have to deviate. You keep going. I'm going to keep you moving. I want you face down with your arms long by your sides and please put your hands by your size.

Hold on cause feel how much work it is to hold your hands right against you. Okay. Forehead on the mat. No. Suspend your belly button up so that your back becomes longer and more supported. Take a breath here. As you exhale, float reach first through the crown of your head. Nice read. Let that energy continue to reach, but start to extend your upper back. A little Swan little Swan pad. I love it. Beautiful you guys.

Now the reach of the arms is important. Coordinate reach of arms with upper back extension. Keep holding your hands against your thighs. There we go. Inhale. And as you exhale, reach along. As you come down. Inhale, hold at the bottom. So we want to see the reach through the crown of the head first since that and then the length and that's it, right?

So the upper back musculature needs to draw down. Chin down a little. Just like it wasn't open leg rocker. Now I know you could go higher cause I've seen it. You've got to reach the arms. You should probably broaden that collar bone and see you can do it without having to move your head. Yup. And then coming down. How are we doing? One more there. Exhale and reach with the arms.

If you the coordination of the reach with the articulation in your upper, upper back. Yup. Hold those legs. Palms to face your legs. I know you don't like that. No one probably loves the hands holding the legs on my ride. That's hard. That's why we do it. Work. Some inner tricep. Lat, mind your breathe, breathe, breathe. See you have all that. Inhale, exhale, come all the way down.

Now I'd like you to take your hands and put them like stacked like this one over one and right here. Your head down. Inhale. Exhale, same chest lift or your head float. Your hands come with your head on this variation. Yes. Okay. Now can you all pull your elbows higher to the ceiling? Activate your upper back. You're probably gonna feel a little squeezer Rue in the back of the upper back here.

We want to untrust inhale and exhale and come back down. Breathe in. Prepare. We've got two more than two or three. Exhale, coordinate shoulders. Slide down. Reach through the crown of that head. More connection there. There you go. Elbows up toward the ceiling. So recruits talk to those upper back muscles between your scapula. You might feel like they're squeezing. They should be.

This will open up your chest. Breathe in. Exhale, come down one more time. Exhale and reach it ahead first. It's like a wave that goes through that cervical spine, up in the upper thoracics, elbows up and back. Upper traps. Quiet. That's a tricky one. Is your belly still suspended? Pull it up. Pull it up, pull it up, not your legs, not your legs.

It's your upper body. And everyone come all the way down and arrest. Okay. Now I'd like you to surround yourself back into a what you think is a rest pose. Make it a cat stretch. So you're active in your abs. Pull those up again so you can just be right here. You worked at C, curve in, through your lumbar.

Breathe it in and shrugged those shoulders again. And, and exhale. Let's come back around to face each other for neck poll. All right, so starting up tonight, see what happens if I improvise. Here we go. So I'm going to have invite you take those arms, just how you've, uh, as you were a moment ago and bring your elbows back a little bit so you feel how you can activate the upper back in this pose. Trying when we roll up from the mat to keep the elbows wide. Okay?

Squeeze your legs in right now together. Pull all of your focus into your low abs and down into your sitz bones. Really weight yourself down. Okay, get tall. Let's start a hinge back, but about two or three inches is all. I'd like us to stay wide with those elbows. Now flex the lumbar spine. Begin to roll yourself through. Don't get comfortable. Come right back up.

Inhale, exhale and over deep contraction. Now stay right there. Read. Open up those elbows there. That's what I want you to think when you do the roll up. Okay. Roll up the spine, everybody right and continue to move. Roll back. Just slowly. Pelvic tilt to roll. There you go. Just get knocked too comfortable, right back up. Elbows open and flex the spine forward.

Inhale, roll up. Take her right back into that hand. Exhale, contract. If you need to close your elbows, that's fine. I'm doing a little bit of that, but open as soon as you feel like you can to flex forward and roll up one more time and take it back. Flex with control. Squeeze those legs in together. Right back up. Inhale better guys and stay low. Squeeze. Squeeze to everybody. Stay there. Stay there. Continue to breathe for me. I know what happens with um, some of us, we get in this position and we've gone a little forward.

We've gone too far forward. So if, if I could, I would with everybody, but I won't. I'm behind a few of you pulling your ribs back effort. That idea that your ribs are being pulled back, but you're also trying to curve forward. There's a sense of opposition that happens there. All right. I think you feel that everybody come rolling up your spine. We're going to take one more to get us back down. No, we're not to come right back up. Turn to face me.

I'm dealing with something here. Come onto your opposite hand like this. We're going to do our little side plank. All right, so open up that hand. See that it's in line with your hip. Breathe in. We've got a lot of support. Exhale, and everybody come up. Want you to take that arm overhead? Okay, we're going into our side bend. We did it last week, I believe, right? The, the hard, they're all hard now assigned. Ben, take a look up at the upper arm. Start to reading this upper arm to your hip. You're bringing your hip down, but a lot of you have intelligently asked me. No, it's not arresting of the hip.

You'll never get back up. Press up and side bend and look to the other arm. Okay, let's center. Bring your hips down and rest for a second. In between. Breathe in. Exhale, press up. So start with your arm near your ear. Good. Look up. Take that upper arm as you're taking your insight hip down.

You're lifted up on that side of the waist. There's a side bend, strong shoulder. Press up side. Been the opposite direction. Looks center, and bring your hip down. One more time. Exhale and press up. Open the upper arm. I start Joel, lower your inside hip down, but pull this waist up and press yourself up. Bigger side bend. I know your hands are slipping. Come to face center and bring your hips down.

Okay, quickly the other side quickly, just in transition. Don't get out of thought with it. Here we go. Ready? And other side lift. Okay, inner thigh should help you here. Look up now. Is that arms coming to the hip. You're bringing your hip down, but you're teasing that idea. Not going to drop it. You're stretching that waist, Mister shoulder girdle.

Push you up. Look to the bottom hand, look to the front center and bring your hips down. Little sweep of that arm. Big oxygen breath and inside hip. Look to that hand. It's like a bird. Just landed on your hand. Press and side bend and center and all the way down. Last time getting stronger. Don't you think? Some of you I think so. I'm looking at your stamina. Your shoulder. Girdles you're getting stronger. Trust it. Trust, trust, trust. Summer.

You got it, Bush. Yes. Yes it was. Okay. Center hip. Tommy's down. Let's go for a single leg kicks. All right, so as we are single leg kick, I want you to take your palms, face up, your elbows, underneath your underarms, or slightly forward. Take a minute and engage your hamstrings and lift your thighs above the mat a little bit. All right. And just stay right there. Stay right there. Look at each other or pass each other. I know it's a little odd.

Yeah, you can. Don't go cross side. Okay. So what's your upper back Jeff? For back there was a, yep, keep breathing. I just keep going to this Elisa here cause she's right near me. So I'm doing two things. I've got my hand on her breastbone and I'm kind of pushing on it but I'm also taking my hand on her upper back and trying to pull it down.

There's that opposition again. Okay. Stay with it. Breathing. These setups are kind of fun, aren't they? Get you connected. Sternum is up. There we go. Scapula down. Feel strengthen those mid back muscles. Now here we go for our kick kick right leg begins. Kick, kick, change, kick, kick, kick, kick, kick and kick.

There we go. What I'm looking at really closely. Pelvic stability. We want our hips level, no bouncing. They might be bouncing due to some tightness elsewhere. No worries. We anchor good press into those elbows. Megan, press more press into those elbows there you feel that? Eight, seven, six, five and four. Three, two, last one. Lengthen both legs down.

Double leg kick. Let's use do six repetitions. Right cheek to the mat. Interlace those hands. Walk them up your back. You guys relaxed your legs. You're about to work your hamstrings again. Okay? Suspend your belly. No your hamstrings and lift your thighs just a couple inches. Here we go to pulse and we have three. One, two, three.

Reach your legs back and all the way to the mat. Reach your arms long. Contract that upper back, chin down. Other direction. Exhale, and one, two, three. Inhale and stretch. Other side. Exhale and one. And I'm right behind you. Okay? Yeah. Other side. One, two. You can kick me later.

Now I've got a bigger body here. Now can you do that? Lift your arms higher. You guys keep going. Alright, look forward. Not that much. You're ready? That's something to think about. Okay. One more. You decided to be there or this left? Last one. One more. Thank you. We've kind of gotten out of it. That's okay. One, two, three, reach up. Everybody. Hold right there. Drop your chin. Gone.

Breed. Okay, everybody relax. Come on down and make your cat back. Stretch again. Just keep breathing. This is a stretch for your lower back. Stretch for your lower back. Keep it active. I was like, there was a big wheel rotating in your pelvis, down and under. Bring your knees forward a little bit down and under. Alright, come back around and face each other.

[inaudible] a new couple of little teasers. Alrighty, so let's start up in a folded leg position. Extend your legs and reach your arms forward. Maybe just in line with your kind of shins here. Breathe teaser one rolling back. [inaudible] arms are going all the way back to the floor. Just like roll up earlier.

Not letting go the AB work. You can stop with your arms here or you can carry them up. Your legs might drop down a little level. Going back again and sh over and again, up continuous movement. One more time. Inhale, exhale. Then over and rounding up when everybody actually reached their hands here just by their thighs or as shins, lower your legs two inches without moving your upper body.

[inaudible] bring those legs up. Yes, your quads are going to work. Last one, lower lift. Now. If you try to effort reaching your toes a little more. Okay? Yup. Round your back. Round your back and tried to reach your toes a little more. Now we're going for teaser. Three arms up, legs come down.

I don't want anybody to touch the floor with their legs. All right, so your abs. Stay working. Here we go. Everything Rose up. Try to touch your toes. Then up to the ceiling with the big reach. Then back to the toes and rolling down. Got it. Don't let those legs drop. Oh no.

And curl and reach up. Reach to your toes. Roll back, roll up. Reach to the toes. Reach up. There we go. To the toes and roll back. One more. Roll up. Reach the toes and up. Reach to the toes. Hold on, hold onto your legs. Give your brain the legs a little [inaudible]. Okay, breathe.

So we've got a little hip circle preparation or some a teaser for, sometimes it's known as their five. Depends on who school you're talking about. Our arms are going to reach toward our calves. Our arms are now going to sweep right as our legs sweep left. It's a tick. Talk back to center. Same direction, same direction. I know I'm teasing her and sent her same direction. Legs left arm is right.

Two more. Yep. Okay. We've got our other direction to go. Arms left legs, right. Arms, left legs, right like you're slicing through space center, slice, center, slice and center. Take a quick restaurants like this. Keep breathing. Don't stop with your breath. We're going to go back to it in alternate sides.

Get in that brain. Arms left legs right over center. Now switch it. Reach the opposite direction and switch arms. Left arms, right. Look forward. You got it. One more each direction and reach. Center, reach and center. Okay, let's rest.

Bring your legs down and bring a stretch into your legs and into your back. Take some breath into that beautiful body that's working very hard with the new exercises. Ah, there's more of that exercise. A lot of, some of you know the arms and legs. Do a circle at some point in opposite directions is to really get things wacky. Rolling up. Let's go with a little back support.

So if we go hands behind the back fingertips facing your hips, open up those shoulders. Of course you are allowed to have your hands facing sideways. Okay, Marie. Then here we go guys. No articulation. Let's just lift the hips. This hold for second. This requires a great deal of strength in the upper back. The upper arms we're just going to hold. First round is just holding.

You'll like, you're trying to stretch your feet forward to the mat. Nice, nice. Just lifted. Now on an XL is just simply bring your hips down. I'm going to go back up. If anyone's out for a three leg changes on each side or three leg lifts. Here we go and press. Okay. I'm lifting the right leg first.

Don't have to go high. Then control and down. Control and down. That's it. Control other leg and we have lift. We lower, we left lower. Last one, a lift and a lower. Set the hips down. And once again everybody reach up, reach over, flex those feet and get a big hamstring stretch. Can your head touch those shims?

[inaudible] [inaudible] who's up for some Swan dive? Yes, I thought so. All right. We're open over. We're going to thank you. Bring your legs back around. Slide out into your prone position. Extend. Oh, excuse me. How about your arms underneath your shoulders? I'm getting a little excited for it. I mean the shape already. All right, so is your hands are at the ready right by your shoulders.

Collect your abdominals again. So your little mantra. Swan dive, hamstrings and back sensors, hamstrings, back sensors. Those are the large muscle groups playing with each other to create the rocking. Okay. Or if you don't even want to think about your back, just think about your hamstrings. They'll propel you. They really will give you the source and energy. Okay? Abs two. It's really not about your apps, so bring it in. Exhale, Swan.

Reach to the crown of the head. Bring yourself up. You can preparation your, you're a Swan's to you. Do not have to dive if you're diving and rocking. Six. Here you go. Release hamstrings, right? Hamstrings. Don't Rachel lift and that's it. And lift hamstrings.

Keep those knees straight. We're getting much better. One more thing there. All right. And roll it down, down and rest. Good. Come on up around your back again. You guys good. So things I saw there. Very good for me to watch it. We need to work on ad ducting cause we get a little wacky with our, it's good we got our hamstrings active.

But what happened is our, I'll just tell you real quick, some of them, your legs were like out here. Okay, we'll work on it. Get them in here. Wouldn't it be cool if we could all Swan dive in, our heels would touch and I'm still working on that too. I hope someday I'll get it. Okay. Uh, that and then also the knees being a little bit bent. That tells me maybe these aren't firing enough to really extend the hips for that full extension. But that's what I get help you work on. Okay. Hands here. Come up into your front support but beautiful because some of you took a chance tonight that normally don't do your dives. So great. So starting again in that front support.

So your heels are above the balls of your feet. Lift your right leg up slightly. Let's pull that Lake five times. We've got one. Speaking of no knee bend. They're high hamstring. Low but high hamstring. Low buck. Last one. Now guys, last week we did it lift with your right leg. If I had my hand on your foot, I'd be pulling that foot up. Your eyes should look at your bottom foot. The one you're standing on. Let your eyes see that. Okay, stay right there.

Now I know some of you have more extension cause I've seen it. Breathe. I think you want it. This is another place ad duct the leg. It shouldn't be so far out to your neighbor. Pull it towards your own body. All right, breathe it in. Now as you lower your leg, your chest comes down to that front support position and you can simply step down tonight. Her other leg, left leg comes up so it was high hamstrings, low bud, and we pulse. One, two, three, four, five. Hold in your abs in there. Now that's better Yvonne.

Alright, square it out of control. Flexibility. Hold on. Ribs, rib cages, upper abs, which muscles? Next hamstrings. Squeeze it Megan. Good. I'm going to have a sore back tomorrow. Lift booster. A little Annie. Very go. Don't mean took. No, you bring those ribs in rib cage. Okay. Come on down everybody. Now find your fun support.

How about three pushups? San we, Dan. Inhale, shoot. Push the floor away. Push the floor away. Last one. Push the floor away. Now let's jump the hands feed into hands. We have one more. Rolling exercise. Boomerang guru. Sit on down. Cross your left leg over your right leg.

Arms reaching long. We exhale. Curl in to that. Lower back. Let the legs come over. There's a quick change. Open, closed. Breathe in. Exhale, we roll it down. It's a Deezer teaser. You can take your arms above your head. Try to keep those legs fixed. Arms come back like you would for double leg. Kick stretch.

Lower your legs. Dive your head to your shin. Hold. Release those arms around. Scoop that low belly back. We roll up again. Exhale, contracting back, legs up and over. Quick change. Open. Breathe in. Coming down as a teaser. Find your fundamentalism, teaser, arms up.

Fix the legs right there. Just like you have for corkscrew. Preparation arms come back, open up that chest, clasp the hands, lower the legs dive, hold them up there. Release things around, reachable that belly back. Once again, each side we roll up. Exhale, we contract back. Quick change where you then rolling it down. Arms forward, arms up open.

Bring the hands behind you. Coalesce. Great. Focus. You guys over you go. Lift, lift, lift. We've got one more. Take it around. Stomach, back and exhale. Roll back. Quick change. Breathe in. Exhale and rolling down.

Lift. How's that long waist. It's still long after all these exercises. Longer pull, hands back, chest down, release, roll around his whole dead, handsome stretch. You can even out your legs. [inaudible] well no class would be complete without swimming, so you roll up, you sweep yourself around swiftly. You extend your arms and legs. We're ready and this is another place. No bent knees in this room.

No bent knees guys, you guys, beautiful ad duct your legs. Bring them to the center for three, two last breath there. Now let's. Hi your last one. Come all the way down. Excellent focus guys. Bring your hands back once again. A little rest, cat stretch. Reach one leg back, the other leg back, you and your front support for three more pushups if you're going for it and one push down.

Push. Lift those hips for that pike position. Stay right there. Walk your feet tonight to your hands. Stay right there. Let your head drop. I'd love everyone to bend their knees so the pelvis actually comes down in space. With your heels down, you don't have to be too low. Just take some deep breaths cause excellent class again tonight.

Keeping the energy coming toward me so I can give it back. Good for me to have a little moment with some ma watching, but also doing with you. Take your breathing in. Exhale. Now start from the base of your spine and stack each of those wonderful vertebra right up on top of the other. Shift the weight onto the front of your ankle just slightly so you're not on the heels. Feel how nice and open their front of your hip joints are. Hopefully breathe in. Let's do it one more time. Rounding over Reid loves the hamstring stroll much. She's still hamstring stretch.

Stay down there. As your weight shifted forward a little bit more, everybody breathe in. You could roll up in a slight tippy toe if you really wanted some check-in. Ah, moving is fun. Movement is fun, right? Nice work. You guys happy 4th of July. Good work.

Comments

Amy is a pro. She is great at cueing and her reminders about good form are excellent. Great flowing class!
Thank you Amy....two phrases I will borrow from you: "effort the idea" & "collect your abdominals" plus the slow deliberate execution of the exercises. So thankful!
I truly appreciate your direct and clear feedback Linda, thank you so much! :)
So nice to hear from you again Jennifer and I really love that you enjoy some of my phrasing and cueing. Things just come out when I'm teaching so it's nice to hear that it's hitting home for others as well. I appreciate your feedback on my teaching very much. :)
Pele
I was pleasantly surprised ! I saw the word"deliberate" and assumed this would be very stationery like a pre-bed routine, but the challenge was more from holding everything for a long time than from actual flow. Did we actually do 40 spine rotations/twists (with gold post arms) ?
Why thank you Pele! Early on, PA had been filming one of my regular Mat classes that I teach at my studio ...this being an open level class. I get all kinds of students in this class, therefore I teach to who is in my room, not necessarily for the website. I do teach other classes at my studio, various levels (Mat and equipment). Recently PA has been filming another one of my regular studio Mat classes, more intermediate/early advanced level. All this said, I do believe in holding positions--when needed---to connect to the objective of the exercise, to put the mind and body together, to discipline the mind to slow down and for the person to think. I counted, we did 16 reps of seated spinal rotations. I agree, a bit too many....note taken, thank you!
Marlisa E
Beautiful class. Great cueing. I especially liked the static/pulsing poses (for instances, after scissors). I also appreciated the cue of keeping heels over the balls of the feet in plank. Cues/teaching for engaging thigh adductors in the swan dive were helpful also. All around, great workout with excellent instruction and flow.
Marlisa....thank you so much for your comments and feedback. I do appreciate hearing what was liked, what cues made sense and helped with connections. It's important for me as a teacher to hear this kind of feedback so thank you again. Glad you enjoyed the class and I hope I hear from you again!
Great class, very challenging at points- I always have trouble with the neck pull, though- I find that by the time I get one good repetition, the exercise is over! What am I doing wrong?

P.S. More arm work! That's the part that I always have to supplement to feel complete.
1 person likes this.
Holy crap. This class was no joke. But as usual a great challenge from Amy. :)
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