Class #584

Wunda Chair on the Mat

60 min - Class
65 likes

Description

Variety is the spice of life, or one of them anyway! Amy's Magic Circle class brings a few concepts and exercises in from the Wunda Chair playing with the idea of the circle being the pedal. Of course, you'll see a few traditional exercises, but this class has a lot of variety and new challenges. Starting with standing work to warm up the shoulders and hips, Amy then brings you to the Mat for Pelvic Curls, Roll-Up, Climb A Tree, Teasers, Swan, Kneeling Arabesque, and Thigh Stretch to name a few. At the end of the class, Amy brings you back up to standing for some balance work. Even teachers lose their balance sometimes! Enjoy this fun, detailed and creative class!
What You'll Need: Mat, Magic Circle

About This Video

Dec 14, 2011
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Transcript

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The guys who were going to start standing tonight, we're going to be doing a little bit of magic circle work and yeah, you may be come fill it in. Sure. Uh, so, and most of you worked with the magic circle and e some of you have a interesting relationship, magic circle that you don't like it maybe or um, give it, give your ring, just a couple of little tests squeezes so you know what you're working with. Okay. Um, what it planned for tonight is a little bit different, a little few different exercises that are normal mat workout and wanting to blend, uh, some one to chair exercises or this kind of the idea of one to chair and this as the pedal on the one to chair. Some of you know what the one Megan's like, what the heck is that? Why are you going to do that? Um, to push down against and control the resistance back up with our legs. And then, uh, definitely some things with hands. And so just a little variety, not, not as many. Um, normal pieces of mat work made me okay. So let's actually start facing me and you guys can stagger on the mat. Let's go ahead. I'll just be on the floor and let's go with legs all the way. Zipped up the middle and just take a nice easy scan across your, your pelvis.

So we don't want to be too tucked in the standing position, but of course we don't want to let the tailbone be sticking back either. So nice flat front, pull your stomachs up, your shoulder blades down. And we're just simply going to start with the ring right in front of our body. Long wrists and fingers. And as I look through this room, most of us can hyper extend pretty well, can't we? Yeah, so, and I, I will tell you, I default to that and I'm trying to really be aware of that for myself and with you guys. So it's not that we want to bend the elbows and you know, unless it's purposeful, which there are going to be a couple of those things, but just a softening of that elbow joint so that you're working your bicep tricep uniformly, and that's more of a stable joint rather than not overextended joints. Okay? All right, so let's take a nice breath and we're going to reach the ring just right in front of the chest and exhale, just lower and inhale, reaching forward right in front of the chest and exhale and lower.

Inhale. So applying your lateral breathing, the side to side breathing through your ribs. Want to fill up the lungs and exhale. We're going to add a little ple, a knee bend and exhale as you lower. So with the vending of the knees. Also think it's a crease in your hip joints and once your heels to stay on the floor, your feet even against the floor.

Chest lifted. I'm gonna cue lots of stuff. Shoulder blades down with the ring. There's a little press in on it with your poems. You feel your upper arms engaging your chest muscles, engaging your shoulder muscles, good sides of the Vac. Two more.

Just this basic whole the chest up as you bring your arms down and we're going to keep going with the PA. Raise your arms higher. Now up. If it goes above your head, great. If it doesn't get that high, that's fine. Feel the shoulders roll down. Try to coordinate the idea. Shoulders roll down like your shoulder blades being little cars, little hot wheel cars that roll down your back. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't and center four more times.

Inhale and exhale. So if your heel start to pop up, don't go quite as low. Has something to do with your ankle flexibility. Inhale and exhale. And one more. It's getting some oxygen and blood flow in our body here and down. Okay, take the ring right in front of the chest. Now I do purposefully want you to bend your elbows, bring that ring pretty close into the chest. So we're looking to get the elbows up.

Good shoulder height with the shoulders to be pressed down. So it's a significant amount of work in the lats and the back of their shoulders. Let's call that the inhale and then the exhale is reaching forward and again, so you're pulling the strength of to yourself is how kind of how I perceive it. I'm pulling into my center standing tall and exhale, reaching forward. Apply a little more squeeze on the ring if you want more muscle work in your upper body. And I want us to start tapping into the upper back. Okay, so it's not about squeezing or pinching the shoulder blades together necessarily, but there is a little bit of muscle work going on in your upper back.

Keep going. So I'm thinking my muscle fibers kind of moving like this on my upper back and like that when I reach my arms out this and a little bit of that. Inhale to the chest and exhale to this away. And one more time. Inhale. And then exhale, reach it. A where I'm going to go into the double breathing and the pulse breathing.

So we're having, yeah, now keep going with this. Work your stomach. Really pull your belly buttons back. Lift your waistline tall. There we go. Everyone grew about a half an inch and four, three, two. We're going to keep going with the pulse is going a little higher. You use your shoulders down. Doesn't have to be straight. Elbows and down.

Think of reaching your ring toward me, but your shoulder blades are still on your back. Good. You guys. We're gonna do one more pass up and down and [inaudible]. [inaudible] squeeze your legs a little more. Yeah. Waistline waistline up and up. And four, three, two. Let's it down. So as the rain comes down, you're growing tall. Good for color.

Bonus wide. Four, three, two, and one. Okay. Take a breath. Let's turn the ring this way. Oh, could see. Getting warm. Rolling down as you exhale. Just in Nice, easy. Roll down this first time and just place the ring lightly on the floor, right in front of your feet and just taking a check in on how your weight is distributed. Okay, good. You stay right there. Drop your head. See if you can shift your weight forward of your ankles a little bit.

Almost everybody was a little back on the heels. Very easy to do. Shift that weight forward. Take a breath in through your nose, and then exhale as you start to restack, pull your bellies up, bring the ring with you, and just aim that tailbone down for your heels. Okay, now let's walk to the back of the matter just so you can stagger a little bit differently. And we're going to keep them working without idea. I'm going to stay on the floor. So again, standing nice and tall. Get that ring ready right in front of your feet. Breathe.

Open up your chest and we roll it down. Exhale. So right away, even on this roll down, get your weight more on both of your feet. Place that ring. Does anyone know where I'm going? Wash your woman. There's an exercise. Yep. On the roof. One to chair, Washer, woman or hamstring stretch number one. Depends on what school. There's a lot of co course, other names. It's a stretch for your hamstrings. It's a contraction for your belly.

It's a flection exercise for your back is some arm work. Okay, so if you're upside down right now and your knees are bothering you, please just bend them a little bit. It's absolutely fine. I want you to take your fingers in length in them long. Try to get that nice contraction in your upper belly. Take a breath. We're going to exhale. Push down on the ring a little more. Now you've got to control that spring resistance.

Part of this work is about that control. Inhale, release the spring tension. Exhale, push it back down again. Inhale, scoop up into your abdominals and exhale and press down on the ring. Inhale, pull up into the waistline. Exhale, press down. We're going to do one more and we're going to change the breathing on the next series. Okay, so this round you're doing. Exhale on the press.

Inhale, begin to roll yourself up. Roll all the way to standing tall. Leave your shoulders heavy and open up your chest. Okay, breathe in again. Next round. Going forward. That last one, we exhaled on the push. This time we're going to inhale as we press down. So the inhale is you push down on the ring, pull up into the belly that that concept of opposition. Exhale. As you release the spring tension, I want you to think about pulling your tail under more on the exhale. Inhale, press, scoop the stomach, and exhale n Ah, pull the strength up as your tailbone is down. Inhale, press the ring. Okay, Yani, exhale and release the spring tension.

Try to do that with this amazing control. Can You keep the ring steady? Inhale, press [inaudible] two more. Yep. So that ring should ideally stay in this, you know, vertical alignment if possible. Ah, easy. Neck and shoulders, long fingers in nail. Press at XCL. Pull up, bring the ring with you. Restock everything up to standing tall.

We're going to do two more roll down. So in the match or the wonder chair work, there's an arm release. So we're going to do that. Now take a deep breath. Exhale, same thing. Rounding down. Now take your right hand palm facing in towards you. Really light long wrist and touch your leg with your hand, the palm of your hand. Now that arm is going to reach back behind you. Keep bringing it up to the ceiling. When you think you've got it high enough, reach it a little more because I want you to get that.

If you could see what I'm seeing, I'm pretty darn good. Straight line from your top arm down to your bottom arm. Relax your head. Are you still weight shifted forward? Okay. Most of us needed to reconnect there. Okay? Yeah, it's tricky stuff. Long fingers.

So can you hold the magic circles resistance with your lat and your tummy? Right three times. Inhale, press on the ring. Exhale, contract up. Reach the top arm like someone's above you, pulling you up with that arm you pushed down away from 'em on your inhale. Exhale are gonna pull you up again. Resist with your core higher arm up there.

One more press and exhale. Pull yourself up. Roll Up. Just standing. Just drop that right arm. Hold the ring with your right hand. I'm going to go the other side and exhale round now. So on the one to chair, this is the pedal that you push on.

Go ahead guys. And release that left hand back up and around. Let me check and make sure that you're all up there. Make that arm come higher. Use the back of your upper arm. Good Lindsey, reach. Think about long fingers and wrists. Check in and drop your shoulder blade or contract your lad.

I should be more clear about what that is. Scoop that belly. Okay, so working the control of the magic circle. Okay, before we go square your shoulder, Kathryn toward the floor there. Yeah, both shoulder heads. I should have said that on the other side. Should be facing the floor. In other words, you don't want your ribs to be rotated or shoulders rotated. Okay, Amy? Three times. Inhale, press, exhale and contract which that top arm up. Inhale and exhale all your arm man. One more. Inhale, press. Exhale, contract and let's go ahead guys. Roll up to standing.

Drop that left arm and just come up to standing tall. Okay, good. Take the ring into your hands again. I'm just going to face you for a sec. I want you to took, put your thumbnail on the inside. Okay. As opposed to we've been doing in the outside and then just take your ring. I'm going to stay facing this way up all the way above your head. Now let's play with letting the shoulders lift. Yay. Rise.

Raise your shoulders up. It should it almost everybody smiled. It feels good. This is like taken off his sweaters and natural stuff. Lift and stretch. Your waist is fuel. It puts some space in your backbones right now. See if you can hold the space in your backbones and just melt your shoulders down and we're going to do it again and he'll raise the shoulders. We're not going to injure ourselves right now, so it's okay to raise our shoulders. Exhale and let them drop down. Inhale, raise them up good and exhale and slide him down two more times as you raise the arms.

Also bring those ribs in. It's really maximizing your work around your waist. You're kind of seatbelt zone. One more time. Go Catherine, lift and exhale and drop the shoulders down and let's bring the ring down. Okay. Stand in a second. Position. Feeder apart. You good? You can go wider than the mat. That's going to be fine.

Now engage those inner thighs toward that midline. All right, bring the ring back in front of your chest. Let's go ahead and keep the thumb on the inside. We're going to add a play of the legs, so I want you to think about opening your hips. Point your knees side to side. Your tail bone should be pointed straight down. All right, now when you come up to standing, squeeze the inner thighs even a little bit more. Inhale, we're gonna raise the ring and exhale and press the ring down just in front of the chest again. Inhale, raise the ring. [inaudible] there we go. Exhale. And did you guys hear that than waiting for days for that and my right hip just decompressed. [inaudible] exhale.

This looks nice. Two more times. I'm good. Keep going. I'm really seeing good rotation from your hips, not faulty rotation from knee and ankle. Okay, one more time. Stay right there. Just enjoy it. Let's reach the shoulders up again. Inhale and exhale. Slide your shoulders down, saying that plea and reach the shoulders. And exhale, shoulders down. Two more. Inhale, shoulders up, shoulders down. One more.

Inhale, shoulders up. And as we shoulders down, we can go ahead and straighten the legs, lower the ring and stagger. Bring every other person forward. Thanks. Good. Going back into the play. Bring your arms up. Now we're going to stay in this plea. AA. I want us everybody to bend side. Bend yourself to your right. I'm going to go to my right, so as we side Ben, we want to keep even weight on both feet. All right, exhale as you bring yourself back to vertical. Inhale, lift both waistlines sides and exhale, come back to center. Let's do two to the other side.

Inhale up and over and exhale back to center. Inhale up and over and exhale back to center. Lower your arms as you straighten your legs. Okay, let's do it again. Simply turned toward me right where you are on your mat. Just turn toward me. We're ready. Please don't bring your arms up.

I'm going to go back over to our right. Stay in that plea. Ae Open up those hips looks better and all been inhale and exhale. So you're using both sides of your waist, both sides of your lower back. One is being contract and one is being stretched center. Let's go to the other side. Linkedin, both sides of the waist. You guys.

Beautiful. Exhale and lift up and over to the left and exhale center. We're going to do singles left and right and left. Inhale and explore going a little farther Ben. That's fine. Play with it and stretch again. Oh over Jean, you're doing great. And exhale and up side been over and exhale up. Let's give a little relief. Bring the arms down, legs straight again going through it and one more little pattern.

So getting that nice lifting. Then chest open, shoulders side, bend to your right. Okay. It's going to be a little funky. Bring the ring, kind of like a little hat. Okay. As you stretch the ring, stretch your legs and it's an exhale x. He'll go a little further in, he'll pull it over your head and exhale, reach both waistlines further to the side. Good. Two more and exhale, stretch. And once again, and this time is you stretch them. Gonna have you hold. Heck another breath in. Exhale and bring yourself to center. Here we go. Pleo your legs. Take a breath. Exhale first to the side. Bend to your head.

Inhale and exhale. So really feel connecting, standing evenly in both feet. Inhale over your head and exhale, stretch you. Tuffle two more times. Explore that Weist. Explore the reach. Explore. Go, go, go, go, go. There we are. Last one and all the way up. Lower your arms. Good. Bring your feet in.

We're going to head down to the mat. So as you come down to the Mat, I'm going to have us go on all fours. Put that ring. I've got my thumbs right next to it here. Good breath in through your nose. Now pull your shoulders to your hips, your abdominals through the ceiling. Step back with your right foot and then your left.

And just get yourself nicely stood, placed in your playing position. If you release your right foot with a pointed foot, take a breath. We want you to exhale. Now, bring that knee towards your chest and round your back. Slowly let your head drop. See your thigh. Stay right there, your shoulder blades. Right now, I want you to separate them a little bit on your upper back so you really try to curl the spine. Now as you stretch the leg back, extend the spine.

So now the shoulder blades actually come a little closer together on the back. Ready, left side, exhale and contract. Now the standing leg is straight. You've got a solid leg. Let's inhale. Exhale and stretch the leg back. Inhale, hold. Exhale, contract, pull in. Ah, inhale, stretch back. Exhale, contract. Come in. Inhale, stretch back.

Exhale, contract. Come in, head to knee. Good Danny. It's directed back. Other side. Exhale to head to knee. Stretch your back. Let's take one more each side that's going to come from that. Bending your spine. Stay right there. Stay right there. Can you contract your abs even more? Contract. That's it.

You guys know. Stretch that right thigh back. Inhale, long body and second side. Exhale. Stay right there. A little more flection, Aaron, if you can there. Yup. Stretch your back leg straight. Inhale, and then guys go head. Exhale, bring your knees down, take your ring and just reach it form to stretch your shoulders a little bit. Take a few deep breaths. Beautiful work. Okay, let's come down onto our back.

I'm going to have us do some, this might be familiar. Okay, so I life might be a few things tonight that are little familiar. Put it between the knees and start with your a pretty solid squeeze in your inner thigh. I'm going to take some bridging. So feet are parallel. Shoulders are open. Take a good breath in. Here we go. Exhale into the pelvic tilt. Really getting the Lumbar flection. Now I guys, I want you to go up pretty high, but without popping those ribs, squeeze that ring. Take a check in on your feet. Inhale here.

No exhale. As we rolled down the spine, reach your arms long. Come up to the ceiling with those arms. Come to a level pelvis, take a breath in and exhale. Peel the spine to bridge. As you press your arms down, really feel the mat with your arms and press your arms to it so you're finding your back extensors, your upper back extensors, your arm extensors. Inhale and exhale. Roll down your spine as if you're trying to reach your tailbone through that ring. Ready? Inhale. Exhale, press getting some butt work. Hamstring work. Let's inhale, hold, and exhale.

Reach through the arms, enrich the arms up two more times. Inhale, exhale and press. Ah, inhale really long reaching your body toward that ring. Hips toward the ring. One more. We're going to add a little to it at the top. Exhale, press up now.

So you're using a little bit of work in the back of the arms. Press your ring a little more now I think we're okay with where we're standing. Raise your heels up you guys. So you're on a demi point. Little Relevate. Squeeze your buttocks a little more. Tuck your tailbone under. Exhale, 10 little squeezes of the ring. One and two and three.

Ah, five, six, seven. You should be even on your feet. Eight nine accounted wrong. 10 hold it. Lower your heels. Raise the arms as your roll your spine back down. We're going to go one more round up into that bridge position. Inhale and exhale again. Peel, broaden that chest.

If you had a collarbone on the back of your body, you'd be just as wide as the front. That's an image I sometimes have for myself. Raise those heels again. Now lower your heels without lowering your bridge. So just inhale heels to the mat and exhale. Squeeze the heels up. Inhale heels to the mat. Exhale, heels up. Three more heels down, heels up, heels down, heels up. Last one heals up.

Inhale, heels down. Lower your spine. Raise your arms all the way up to the ceiling. Okay, get that ring out of there. I take your legs long arms back overhead. Let's put the thumb on the inside of the ring. Rolling up. Inhale, exhale, curl. Just get into a couple familiar pieces of movement, but take a breath and exhale and roll back down. Work the articulation, the mobilization, and your spine. Feel long here and breathe.

Rolling back. Squeeze your legs together. Commit to that. Squeeze. No arching. Inhale. [inaudible]. Inhale. Could you guys pull it back? Squeeze those legs. Good lines. Two more times.

[inaudible] [inaudible] last one. [inaudible] it's the roll up to sitting tall. Excuse me. I didn't give you enough. Ooh, that was beautiful though. Yeah. Kay. Take your right foot into the magic circle. Now this could come from the reformer, a little climate tree. Look, if you put your foot in there, can you everybody flex the foot, reach through your ankle. Now, depending on height of arms and body and torso, this could be easier done with your hands. Feet and pulled in like inside the ring. Some of you might want to hold it here.

It's okay either way for me, shoulders in position. Try to get a nice tall back to start. Okay, and are you sitting evenly on that right hip? Just sit into it. Sometimes when we're feeling tight, we kind of lean off a bit. We're not thinking about it. Okay, so we're going to roll back again. Take a nice breath in. As you roll back. Flex, that's fine.

Bring your leg more to a vertical line above the ceiling or to the ceiling around yourself. Back little hamstring stretch. Although you're not going for maximum stretch now curling up, feel your foot. Press into the ring. It's going. Perhaps it might help you get back up and then restack up to sitting tall. Lift the back it up on the sits bones and exhale contract to roll back.

Take your time track evenly down that spine. Inhale at the Mat and exhale as we curl back up, scooping in, up underneath the ribs. Press the shoulders down. Lift up through the chest two more times and exhale. Get that nice mobilization and curling up. Ah, once again, and exhale and curl.

Ah, [inaudible]. Exhale, rolling up. [inaudible] shoulders. Press down. Take your left hand to the inside of that ring. Twist toward your leg. Turn and rotate. So really you can stretch your arm back.

Bend your, you can keep your bent ring, elbow bent if you want, or you can straighten it. Either one. I'm going to keep it bent. Now when you turn good the rotation guys go up in your spine. There we go. I want you to take your palm up. Bring that arm up above your head. As you rotate to face your thigh, bring your arm down. We're going to do that again. So arm goes up, torso twists.

Looking back into the palm of that hand. Let's inhale, raise the arm, raise the waist, and exhale, come back to facing front. And one more time lift. They give it out. The waistline is the waist that turns the body spine that turns the body. Last one here. [inaudible] contract back just slightly. Let's transition without having to, you know, I guess put her feet down. Yeah, here we go. Okay. Up Tall.

Remember both legs are different ones that are going to be a little more loose. All right, breathe in as tall as you can. Here we go. Exhale and scoop out the belly. Feel that tail c curve under. Bring your leg with you. By the time you arrive, you want your leg right up above your hip and we roll up. Start pressing the foot into that ring. You use the tummy.

Restack shoulders go down. Just lifts up and exhale. So as you're holding the ring, keep awareness in. What's your feeling in your neck? Never want to feel it above the shoulders on the side of those necks. If you're doing that feeling that chances are you're shrugging upward with your shoulders. Keep creating a resistance to pull down. There you go.

Nice Jean and roll it back. Yeah, lot of strength right here in the base of the underarm. Lots, right against the side of the back. Use that related to the ABS. Curling up. [inaudible] one more time after this one, we'll take the rotation. Exhale, press down and roll back. Nice and smooth. You guys are getting great connection in the opposite leg as well. Good stretch and curl.

Okay. Okay, so you're going to hold the ring with the right hand. Reach the left arm up above the head. Turn your torso. Look at that hand as you stretch back as a chance to get some stretch in the chest, the upper arm. Make sure the ribs aren't flaring out. Raise the arm. Inhale and exhale. Come back to face in your leg. You can lower your arm. Two more times this lift up.

Think about your whole spine, the piece of licorice. The twisty, twisty vines or red vines. Lift and rotate back. Once again, we watch you inhale arm, torso rotate. Keep connecting to your foot in the ring. That's it. An arm and exhale. Torso and hold. Okay guys, bring your second foot up. Just hold for a second.

So we're gonna try some transitions to get into a putting the ring between our ankles. It's not that hard, but if you lift a little teaser and [inaudible] for OpenLink Rocker, right? We're ready. Gorgeous. Roll back. Inhale, touch shoulders. Oh yes. Exhale. Come back up now remember, don't pop out of those ribs. Hold that like a bowl of like a bowling ball right there. Something heavy. Hold it with your tummy. Create a little hollow pocket for that to be in. Okay.

Roll back. Look at that. Roll Up. Keep holding onto it. Don't pop it out. You can lift your sternum, but you don't want to pop through the ribs again. Roll. Exhale, come up. Find a little rhythm. Let's go back for three. One, two, three and up to three. Roll back and a couple more. Two, three and up. Press your shoulders down. Last time. Roll up two and three. You guys hold onto it. Very good.

Take the ring out of there, put it in your hands. Bring your legs to teaser. Okay, so I'm going to have you put your arms up above your head. A little higher. Try to lower your legs, maybe a few inches, but not too low. Reach up, not necessarily back with your arms. Reach up. Now we're going to go to teaser three. Roll down your spine. Oh, we've done plenty of articulation. We're only going to do a couple of these.

Your arms reach all the way back. Teaser three as your arms, head and chest start coming up. So do your legs. You've got to tense your back down to the mat. Rola reach toward the feet first, then up to the ceiling. Okay, hold onto it and then rolling back. Reach towards your feet. Roll down. And if these are too hard for you right now, I would just sit and watch. Think about it. Two more.

Pull in to that waistline. Hold that imaginary little ball. Arms go up. There we go. Reach and roll back low. One more time. I'm going to take a look. Shoulders pull down, abdominal scoop in and up. Look straight at your feet. Good. You guys reach toward the feet. Inhale and exhale.

Let's roll everything back and take a little rest. Yeah. Okay, so you know, holding the ring for teasers. Not that much different than doing regular teaser. I just wanted to utilize it a little bit. Okay, come back over onto your hands and knees in all fours. Okie dokie. Now let's take a thumb is right by the ring, or maybe even a little wider is basically there for a reference of space. We're not really gonna use it other than that.

Take your right leg guys and reach it behind you. Point your foot and start this in a parallel alignment with your thigh. Now. Nice solid plank support with your upper body. Rotate that signed to a turnout and external rotation. Rotate it back to parallel. Let's take a breath. Inhale, rotate to turnout, and exhale back to parallel. However, your shoulders and pelvis bones are still facing the mat.

You're just really turning your thigh or femur right inside that joint. One more time to a turnout and I want you to hold the turnout, contract your inner thigh toward the midline of your body and begin to raise your leg. See if you can raise your leg without collapsing your lumbar spine. Okay, so for some of us that's new, you're not going to raise it very high before your back dips in. Lower your leg down.

We'll do a few of those before adding a little height to it. Exhale as you reach. I'm thinking of reaching long and inhale as they come back down. Exhale and reach long. We're in turnout. Yeah, femurs turned out. Exhale, reach. Inhale, lower down. Now, one more time. Let's exhale. Reach through the thigh.

So if your leg is parallel to your hip, fantastic. Go a little higher. Now with your thigh, as you go higher, your back muscles are going to engage. Think about maintaining the length through your torso. Okay, good. You guys. Now from that position, keep raising the leg a little higher. We're going to bend the elbows wide toward the sidewalls.

Continued to bringing your leg up. This is a little arabesque. What if this was a, if you were horse and you're drinking water, added that ring, slurp it up. Keep the thigh up. Let's keep the scion. Keep that sigh up. Ready? Take a breath. I want you to now keep the as you like. Keep your leg up, bring your chest up, think a little swan. You're going to extend the elbows. Try to keep your thigh up as high as it was.

Extend through your sternum. We're going to nao take that leg back down, tuck it in and make around back. Breathing in. You've got all that on the other side. Let's come to all fours and reach the left thigh back. So starting with your foot on the mat in parallel in hill. Externally, rotate and exhale back to parallel.

So there's a nice long line through your torso, gene and Lindsay, just reach your sternums forward a little bit there. Good. Now one more time. Everybody externally rotate and hold it there. Okay, so you're about to lift the thigh thing. Just small for the first couple. Think long leg is going back and then bring it down as you're lifting that thigh. Concentrate on how much energy you can contain or work within your tummy. Don't let that load. Let that dip out. Okay, two more little ones.

If you want to go a little higher. This is glutes, lower back extensors. Last little one and in, so when you're going higher this time, let's go for it. Think of the inner thigh. Also staying drawn to the midline. There you go, Annie. You know how ACU the swan and always say, bring your legs closer together. This is kind of that same idea. Many of us can do this arabesque leg, but our leg is away from our midline. Strengthen in. Okay, summer. Beautiful you guys. Excellent. Use Your glues.

Now Bend those elbows start dipping down at the same time. You're bringing your leg a little higher. Can you stretch your knees? Swan? Often. Our mistake is, and I've done it before, has bent the knees. I want you to reach from your hip, through your thigh, through the knee, through the foot, through the ankle. You've got it up there. Now keep the thigh up. You've got to start thinking swan.

This is like a swan die of kind of preparation or variation. Lifted the sternum. Extend the upper back, press the elbow straight, keep that thigh up, lift your heart. One more breath and exhale. Let's come in and round all the way back. Can you see how that will help with Swan dive? Okay. Alright. Yeah, go grab a hold of your, I mean I figured you did but just to think ahead.

Okay. Now take your ring into reach with your arms. Get a little more stretched through here. Come all the way down onto your tummies. Since that was significant, lower back extension, we're going to kind of look at upper back extension. This one that we've done many, many, many times or I've been with the ring is we've stood at this way and we've pressed down on it. If we go back to thinking one to chair, if your hands are on the pedal and you're doing a swan front, it's a lift of the back. You're not really pushing down on the pedal.

We're lifting, so turn your ring this way. Hands on the outside edges. I'm going to put my thumb on the inside again and just reach head right between the arms. I don't want you to start with your head on the Mat. Start with your forehead. Just hovered a Scotia. Okay. And as you're there checking on your abs, your weight should be relatively, if not perfectly even hip, hip pubic bone process. Now check your shoulders. Okay.

So if we think upper back extension, press your chest against your mat. Start to peel the front of your spine off of the Mat. You're not most likely going to get very high. I don't want you to get really high. It's a lift. So I'm thinking my chest off my boobs off the mat, my heart up where your shoulder blades and your fingers long took your chin.

Just a little NZ there. Okay, you guys. Excellent. Breathe in. Now if your sternum was like an Arrow, head pointed toward the ring, get a long toward the ring as you roll the front of your spine back down. Let's breathe in at the bottom. No Hubbard, no head down. Just hover it. Exhale, using your mat. Push into it like double sided, sticky tape, peeling your foot off of the mat, lifting yourself using the erectors to lift. Inhale, exhale. Get a little longer reaching toward that ring. And let me take a look two more times. Inhale, finding that coordination of slide in the shoulders down out of your way a little bit. As you're reaching up.

Inhale, it's feeling better and lengthening down. Reach longer, longer, longer. If you're not already with long fingers, play with it. I like that. Aaron. Inhale, Erin's got our thumb. A little. Check that out guys. Try it. Looks like it's working. Thank you. Ready and pressing up scapula down your back. Chest forward. Do you guys like that? Does it feel a little more connected? Thank you Aaron.

Breathe in and exhale and reach long this time. Go ahead and let your forehead come down and just rest for a second. Okay. I'm gonna move on into some arm extension. I meant to do this standing. I did lose track of it for a second. We can go here. It's a little funny looking cause the a ring is right above your butt. Oh well, thumb again on the inside. Reach your arms long.

Your forehead can be down. Recheck your tummy now instead of your collarbones being curled forward, opened them back. Okay, just and then reach those arms nice and long. So we're going to take a breath here. As you exhale, can you hover your chest? Maybe an inch. Don't worry about how high you go right now that the back has your back, has done a lot. Reach your arms up.

Now we're going to take the arms up above your back and bringing them back. Danny can touch the ring to your body. Exhale, reach long and up and inhale and come back down and reach up. You know, do a little compare contrast and here in just a second. So right now our thumb is on the inside, right? This, feel what you're feeling. One more time. Reach the arms long and up and bring it down.

And then bring your torso down. Rest for a sec. Now if you take your thumb out of there and put it out on the outside with the fingers, just feel the difference. I think you're going to notice it and breathe in. Exhale, chest up. Feel it. Why is that? Someone Charter four times. Exhale, reach the arms up and collarbone wide and just open. Looks good. You guys down last one, and reach and down and let's lower the head and chest all the way down.

Okay? Bend your knees. So funny, a little transition. Put the ring between your ankles. Bring your hands around, stack your head, or put your head on your stack. Hands. Did you make it? It's funny. Okay, good. Okay, so again, because we're doing so many things down prone, be very mindful right now how your back's feeling. It is intended to work your low back, but I want everybody to almost exaggerated pelvic tilt here. Okay? Now if you engage your hamstrings and your glutes right up there by the sitz bones and your back of your pelvis, squeeze and lift your thighs. If you can, your thighs off of the Mat. Okay? That's going to put some of us right into our, into our lower back. So just be a little mindful. Flex your feet, take a breath.

I want you to exhale and try to push the ring a little higher to the ceiling. Let's go up one and lower and exhale just five of these push and lower and press and lower press. Either Aaron engineer's more and lower. There we go. Last one, press point your feet softly. Now extend your legs back until your legs are nice and straight, which is going to mean you have to lift them a little higher so that ring doesn't drop on the floor. Breathe in. Exhale, re bend your knees. Bring the rain towards your bottom. Just five of them. Inhale as you extend and exhale as you bend in. Inhale, as you extend, exhale. As you pull them in, feel those hamstrings. Feel your glutes. Two more trying to keep the ring steady and last one and exhale. Bring it in.

Lower your legs, reach back and take the ring away. Just let it come off to the side. Push yourself back to one more rest pose or a cat back. Just take a couple of deep breaths. Okay, five stretch. So here we go. Up onto her knees.

I'm going to stay facing this way for a minute, okay. And as you're up on your knees, it's okay to have some space between, it's actually okay to go into everyone's a little different, uh, going in all the ways, going to be more stretch against your it band and your quads should just be already there. I'm going to go a little space. Bring your ring forward right in front of your chest. Okay, I stretch. So if I stretch, if you tuck your tailbone under here, start to hinge your weight back just a little bit to test it out. If you've never done this before, so you want to get pretty, pretty well on your Shin. Moans right in. Reach your sternum up the girls and exhale and bring yourself back onto the knees. Let's take full breath to hinge back. Inhale, exhale.

Where your shoulder blades can they come down to your hips? Inhale, exhale. Come right back up to the knees. And again, so all of that leg work that we just did, lifting the ring up triggered your hamstrings in your butt. Those should be really ready for you here. Say Muscle grow. Using those to help you hinge. Two more little basic ones. And uh, last one. I'm gonna add a little variation here to it. Okay, so whatever arm is closest to me, you can go ahead and put your ring in that hand. I'm gonna rotate the body. Put the ring behind me right behind that right foot for you guys.

It's going to be your left foot. Now the other arm is up in a nice diagonal. I've got my right arm back. That's the pelvis that might want to also rotate back. We don't want it to move that right hip forward. Left it for you guys. Okay, now tuck your ribs in.

Can anyone hands a little further back? We're going to take five little presses of this ring from your lad in your tricep. We have press one and release. Exhale, press to release three Oh five. Now pick it up with that hand. Come up off of that side. Stretch to face the other side. Here we go. Unhinging back. I'm going to go this way so I can watch everybody.

I need to make sure you're safe. I think you're will be okay. So as you take the ring in the other hand, now over your torso stretch we did earlier in climate tree, kind of get that stretch chest, the chest stretch, diagonal arm. Check your pelvises for your ribs and tailbones under. Here we go. Add one and open. Exhale press and sorry hips look good guys for and five and lift and bring it all the way in. Okay, relax for just a second.

A cat on the one to chair, cat on the Cadillac cat and the mat. So put your fingertips on the top of the ring. Cat often will a produce this and a sitting back or breaking at the hip line. Try Right now guys, if you're on your knees, can you lift your shins and your feet up? Okay, so your weight is really forward, right? Let me watch a couple.

We want to have our ribs in our tailbone pointing straight down and be able to trust having the weight forward. Okay, so not a big deal right there. Now it might be a bigger deal. As you start to flex your upper spine, keep the weight shifting forward. You're now going to oppress, resistant to precedent of the resistance of the ring. Now use your lats. They're there for a reason on this exercise. Let that head relax. Find their relationship. Lats, abs, hamstring, but that good old powerhouse, [inaudible] powerhouse. Push. Okay, now take an inhale.

You're going to move from cat into the extended part of the cat. Reach your tailbone back. You've got to make sure that that ring doesn't completely tip. Reach your chest for the ring. This is a little awkward. I realize now your hips are behind you a slight bit.

When have you press on the ring? Three times we've got press release, press release, press and release talk. Take a breath now. As you returned deflection started at the abdominals, pull that tail under. Drop your head. Try to get back onto the top of those knees in front of those knees. Check if you can lift her shins. Okay.

Almost keep them lifted in a way as roll up to your top position. I'm going to take the pattern two more times. Exhale and rolling down. We're going to take a full breath to find that extension. Keep control of that ring. So you're reaching your tailbone back, your sternum forward.

Your ribs haven't dropped out, but you are in a flat back. Ready. Press the ring for three and one from your upper back. Try to find the ability to squeeze that ring from your upper back. Pull it down. Good. Inhale and exhale. This returned to flection. Drop the head. Get onto the front of those knees.

Try to lift your shins. Get those hamstrings working. Rural your spine tall once again, and exhale and curl. Oh much spine flection. Can you get an extension? Keep control of that. Ring your sitz bones, reaching back your chest forward three then three pumps, one, two, and three and release. Breathe. Exhale. Return to your flection.

All the way up unrest. Okay, come back down again. Just reach it in front of you. Stretch out the shoulders. Me. Give us a little, uh, I'm not a yoga person. I don't claim to be one. This stretch feels delicious for me. I'm sure it will feel okay for you to, so I've just talked my left foot forward. I've got my right leg extended back into a lunging stretch. Might feel nice to reaching the ring.

Connecting this link from her ring to back foot. Hip Bone should be facing the mat. Stretch that ring. We've done a nice variety of shoulders up, shoulders down tonight. So right now, oh, I would love to see straight elbows retreat and well yeah, unless that really pinches in anybody's neck. There you go. So your shoulder blades right now, way up on the ribs. Okay.

Alrighty. Take another breath. Exhale, pull the ring with you. Come back and just said there the f the front of your knee and can you come up back up into more upper back extension, lift through the chest, keep reaching through the back leg. Shoulders are open. And then as you transitioned, go ahead and put weight in your hands. Bring that back leg up. That shift and reach. Try and get some hip.

It's stretching the front hip length through the back leg. Shoulders can be up near your ears. How long can you get hipbone square to the mat. One more breath in. Let's use this exhale, connect the shoulder blades to the pelvis, sternum along and lifted. Nice. Stretch through your back leg and lift and then the last little piece we're going to do is standing up. So let's find our way up to a standing position.

This'll be fun and interesting. Face me guys. All right, we're pretending this is the pedal again on the mat and the when to cheer. When everybody do put the ball of your foot. Let's go right foot. I'll do my left ball of foot in parallel. Other foot in parallel. Oh boy. This is a humbling moment because boy, my left leg would rather be turned out.

I loved turnout on this side. Okay, that's so cute. Well like that. Okay. I want us to fold our elbows. Jeannie position. There's a lot of this in the [inaudible]. Joe Liked this position for some reason. Okay. We are not locking that knee, but the hamstrings are engaged. That was a nice correction, if that makes sense.

We want our pelvis is level. Okay. The leg you're standing on. Pull up through that abdominal area and wait the other hip down. So you've got a lifted. We've got a lowered hip. Oh Gosh. Okay. Now I want you to take the exhale and press down on the ring. Think from your hamstrings. Press. Yep.

And a little release. And again, hey, you may not have much motion. [inaudible] yeah, wonderful to experience something new. I love it. Whoa. Two or three more. FCE. Let's take two more. Nice focus. You guys.

[inaudible] okay. This is going to be fun. Lower your arms. Can you pivot? I'm going to go to my right. You guys go to your left. Oh, it's okay. What? Hey, not bad. What I was going for here is that the leg is in external rotation.

You're still on your standing leg. Nice and tall. Feel the wrap of your thighs. I know this is, this is kind of tricky. Wouldn't it be nice to have a bar to hold onto? Okay. Same thing with the Gini arms. Now, inner thigh and inner hamstrings. Depress the ring about three to three to five times.

Let's press down and release it. Think of kind of coming from the back of the hand, the leg back of the inner thigh. And now hyperextended knees and [inaudible]. Yes. And could lift and chew more? Press lift and last one. Press yes and low. Just in time and lift. Okay.

Re-Pivot let's return and do the other side in. Lord goodness. Oh Gosh. Note to self. Do more of these [inaudible]. Okay. Yeah, so standing leg is tall leg. That's up. Hip is weighted. Okay. Here we go. Press your lats towards your pelvis. Wow. And here we go.

Press through the hamstring. One to keep going. If I lose it, I'm about to keep going. Three whore five. One more time you guys six. I think that was about the same as the other side. Okay, now pivot. You can lower your arms. [inaudible] I'm just, we might have to edit all of this part.

This is not a good representation of whip. A lot is to do. You'd be like, Oh God, Elvis folded. That was horrible. Ready? Using the inner thigh back of m string and contract and release and contract. Keep going. Release. Ah, one more time. You guys press and release there. Turn back to face the front.

I was going to have you do a little trick. Okay, bring it up. Let's do one little full body thing to finish. Okay, so come back a legs. You're apart. You got that nice stance. Raise your arms straight up again. So let's do a nice circle with the ring. The whole body movement. All right, so take your side bend again. We did lots of these. Take it right now. As you rotate, open up, bring the ring down toward your feet, circle around to your left reach way out.

Go through a side bend and then back up to the center and over I can contagious and rotate. Sweep down toward the floor. Reach out, go to rotation and all the way up to the center and we were side bed. Rotate going down across rotate side. Then center other side side bend, rotate, sweep around. Reach through rotation, side bend and up. One more each side, side bend rotation as sweep around.

Reach out, rotation side bend and up. Last one in over twist, sweep around, go through a twist, side bend and up and lower. Okay guys, walk your feet all the way in. Thank you very much. We will work on some of that other standing stuff at another time cause I think it's valuable. I have a very good night. Thank you.

Comments

2 people like this.
Great class Amy! Loved all the different ways you can use the ring to do your pilates mat exercises.
1 person likes this.
Thanks again for another great class. I was laughing at myself so much at the end as the balances were really hard. Glad you didn't edit it out!
Nice variations with the magic circle Amy!!
1 person likes this.
Hi Elaine......glad you enjoyed the Magic Circle class. Yep, many, many ways it can be used to keep things fresh and new!
2 people like this.
Annie......I was tempted to edit out the ending of this class as my balance was horribly off that evening. But alas, I decided to keep it just as it was......humility!
Thank you Jamie!
Brava Brava, Amy! Fantastic variations using our beloved ring...esp loved the thigh stretch variation, cat stretch sequence and ALL the prone work! thank you & merry happy!
Jennifer....I had a feeling you'd like the thigh stretch variation! Merry happy to you too!!
Loved this class, Amy. Although I didn't have a Magic Circle to hand, I did some of the variations with a resistance band instead. Worked a treat! Thanks again.
Hi Claire......nice to know a resistance band worked for you with this class. I'll play with it too and see how that feels on my end. Thanks for taking class with me! Happy Holidays!
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