Class #650

Traditional Beginner Mat

50 min - Class
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Bring your mind to your body right from the "get go" in this beginning-level workout in the style of Romana's Pilates. Enjoy Monica's ability to teach the concepts of an exercise while telling a good story too!
What You'll Need: Mat, Magic Circle

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Well, let's go ahead and come to the front of our mats facing each other. Yeah, let's just go ahead and face each other, make it all confusing and um, let's try to do apply sit. But if you ha, if you don't have good knees or if you, um, yeah, or ankles or feet, then just sit. Whatever's best way comfortable. But uh, it's so great to bring your mind to your body right from the get go. And that's what applaud. Sip does. So you're gonna look down at your feet and they should be in applies stance. We're going to start off by making our, just turning our feet out into a plotty stance.

And later on we'll work on really making our legs turn out, um, from our hips. But so you'll have a small slice of pizza between your toes. And I want you to have the weight on the ball of the foot as well as the side of your feet as well as your heels. But on your heels, it's not heavy. It's more leaning forward on the ball of your foot that you want to be a slight diagonal, like a leaning tower of pizza where you're, if from the side profile, your knees would be slightly in front of your ankles. And then the bottom of your box, the line of your hips would be slightly in front of your knees and then your shoulders, just a tad in front of there and your head should be right over your spine. Okay? So that would be the ideal. And your belly is gonna pull into your back.

And I just want you to let your arms hang and let your shoulders relax and see if you can bring your mind to your powerhouse and just take a breath. And as you exhale, draw your belly in. Really have it nice and pulled in and try that again. Big breath. See if you can feel it in your lower back. Pull your stomach in so much that it's you're feeling its presence, it's supporting your lower back like a brace instead of it just holding itself and taking a breath and exhale, pulling in your belly and really lighten those shoulders.

Drop away from your ears. And now we're going to put one arm on top of the other. Good. And actually I'm going to take that away. Let's put your arms down by your side. Let's start off with a little relevant to really anchor that feeling. So your belly is pulling in and we're going to slowly lift up our heels until we're on the ball of our foot. So we're going to take five counts, drawing up, one pulling up to pulling up three, four and we're going to hold it here.

And this should be easy and comfortable for five counts, two, three, four. And we're going to slowly push our heels down, but our energy is going to stay up. So we're going to take two and three. So your belly is pulling in and like under your chest phone and lift into the ceiling and your heels are damned it one more time. So we're going to draw in our belly and we're going to come up. Hopefully your heels are staying together by wrapping those thighs around, squeezing your seat, using your inner thighs. Hold two, three, four and five and slowly away the heals as your energy stays lifted and up and holding it there. Be careful, stay right there.

Be careful that as you go down that you don't switch it to an anterior tilt of your pelvis that you do. Keep those hipbones looking forward like headlights on a car, okay? You don't want to talk in a standing position, but you don't want it to the headlights to drop down and only flash the floor. Okay? So you want to look in straight ahead. All right? So with that, with that, I want you to put one arm over the other, but one foot behind or in front of the other, either one, and you're going to try to lower yourself down by keeping your bottom underneath you. Not completely sticking up because your bellies lifting up those headlights, right? Go ahead and lower yourself down again if you need to just sit down any way possible. That's good and go ahead [inaudible] bottom down. Yup.

And lie out on your mat. Nice and long. Good. Keep your knees bent. Feet flat on the floor. I thought today we could focus on upper body posture, which is very, very complicated because your upper body is really a lot determined by what your lower back is doing so you can cheat a lot with your lower back to make your shoulders open and your head get in alignment so everybody has a different posture in their lower back, whether they do talk or whether they do sway or whether they have anything going on. So it is a little tricky without a hundred percent concentrating, but we're hoping that you're going to be aware or I'm hoping I should say that you're going to be aware that your powerhouse is engaged in working. So we'll start off with a little bit awareness of that pelvis and then see if we can develop into that upper body. Okay. So that line from one hip to the other that I was just talking about and that they should be headlights.

They're going to be flashing directly up to the ceiling. Okay, but now I want you to flash those headlights towards the your head or towards the windows behind you. So sometimes I use that bowl of soup analogy where you're dumping your bowl at your pelvis is a bowl of soup. You dump your bowl soup into your chest so your lower back should be unbelievably flat. Now it should be pressing in. You just manipulated your pelvis to do that. Now I want you to go the other way and have those headlights flashing towards your feet, almost in a little mouse could crawl into your lower back and it's a big lower back stretch.

And make sure you don't go too far where it hurts or strains it only where it's comfortable and feels good. And then take the pelvis the other way again so it's flashing towards you, towards your chest. Good. And then go the other way. Lashing away from you. Good. Now see if you can pull your navel into your back. As you tilt that pelvis towards you, as you have those flash, those headlights go in towards you. Make your stomach sink.

I think you can candy make it sink. Aha. That was great. That, that little extra bit good. So this is what we would call a pelvic tilt, right? And let's go the opposite way. Really stretching and this is what we would call in and arch a lower back arch. Okay. I don't want you to do any exercise today with your back like this. And ideally I would like your stomach to be so strong that it can pull in and let's, let's get those headlights to flash only to the ceiling.

Not towards you, not towards your feet, but just to the ceiling. See if you can kind of feel around where that is. And the goal of blaze is to still have your lower back flat when it's like this, not in a relaxed position. When you're relaxed, you should be able to slip a hand underneath your lower back. But when you're actively working, your stomach is so strong that it pulls in and presses your lower back flat. And then on top of that, your lower back is so flexible. It's so relaxed and stretch that you can stretch it into the map.

But that's a goal while we're working on that goal. If you have to do a little bit of a tilt towards you to work safely, that's okay. Okay. So I would much rather you tilt those headlights a little bit towards you to have your lower back flat then tilting him away from you. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah. So I'm going to try to leave that awareness up to you guys when you're challenging yourself. Because if you're lower, your headlights are going towards your feet and arching your back while we're working on your upper body posture, you're probably going to hurt something.

Okay? So you want to make sure that you're always supporting yourself with your powerhouse and then we can make a big change in our upper body. Okay? All right. So we're gonna start off, um, with our ribs. So I want you to put your hands on your ribs. Good. And I want you to take a big breath. I don't want you to exhale good and taking a breath and exhale. So now we're just trying to feel how they rise up and if there's mobility in our rib cage and how when you exhale, they go down and inhale. As you inhale, you might lose a little contact right below your shoulder blades. Exhale, you should be able to get it nice and super flat. Big breath and feeling those ribs really go down. Exhale, exhale, exhale for as long as you can. Great. Can everybody feel how when they exhale, they really press their bra strap or bottom of their shoulder blades down on the mat? Great. Let's lengthen your arms by your side.

So that is the second really big component is making sure your pelvis is in the correct position and then those ribs, if they're out like this to get your shoulders back, you haven't changed anything in your upper body. You want to make sure that your ribs have not pulled your spine forward to get your shoulders back, that your ribs are keeping those bones. Cause if they're all touching the mat right now, they're straight cause the floor is street, the floor is flat. So they're straight. And so now can we open up our chest and our shoulders while keeping those ribs down? So we don't want to move our ribs with that.

So let's do some shoulder rolls. Let's bring them up by your ears and open the chest and down by your hips and close your chest. And let's just get nice and loosened up from the weekend and closing your chest. And let's go the other way. We're going to do three. We're going to open and come up and forward and down and open and come up and forward. Good. And one more time. Nice job. Great.

And now we're going to do one the opposite way. Come up by your ears. Open your chest. Stay here. Let's think about those ribs as we slide down our shoulder blades. Pull your ribs in, make a connection between your ribs and those shoulder blades coming down. I often like to think of a snap being between my ribs and my shoulder blade.

I'm going to snap them together. That's, that's what a tight connection is. Some people call it your shoulder girdle muscles, so really nice long neck that you have now. Okay, so let's talk about that. The back of the neck wants to be able to be straight as well. We don't want to have to feel like we're looking behind us. So if during your works workout you start seeing like that you're next going like this and you're looking behind you, then you're going to be hurting it a lot. Okay, so at least be able to look at the ceiling and then if you could almost look a little bit in front of you, like something right above your knees at the ceiling, then you'll feel a big stretch in the back of that neck. Very good work.

So pretty much from the bottom of your shoulder blades or from the bottom of your bra strap up is what we're going to work a lot on today. Does that sound good? All right, so we're going to use that powerhouse to bring our right knee into your chest, give it a hug and bring that left knee into your chest. Good. Now I want you to think about those ribs. I want you to take a big breath, and as you exhale, pull those ribs in and lift up your head to look at your belly length in your arms by your side. And we're going to start pumping for the hundred. Inhale, two, three, four, five with the knees, and exhale two, three, four. You want to leave them on the floor? Okay. Inhale, two, three, four, five. Exhale, two, three, four, five and big breath.

And exhale. Good. And actually let's go ahead and just hug in your knees for a second. All right, so we're going to be making sure that your hipbones are pointing forward at this, pointing up at the ceiling, like those headlights and really draw in that powerhouse, right? Those shoulder blades are sliding away from your ears. Try to feel those ribs and using your belly. Bring in one knee to your chest, towards your chest, and then using your stomach. Bring in the other knee. Good.

Take a big breath and as you exhale, draw in those ribs, lift your head up to look at your stomach and let's start pumping your arms for the hundred into three, four, five and exhale, two, three, four, five. Good. So the most important thing is you're thinking about that pelvis and keeping that lower back, really flat. Then when you're exhaling, make sure you're really pulling in those ribs and instead of getting those super rounded upper back, see if you can keep those collarbones a little bit open and the clavicles open. Great. It's already 50 if you feel up to it, extend the legs away from you at a 45 degree angle. Otherwise, just keep them where they are. Good. Try to feel those outer thighs engaged. Squeeze the seat length in a way. Beautiful.

And let's give me two more big breath and exhale. Really lengthen those arms away so you feel that grid everbody good and exhale, those ribs are pulling in. And in one more time, big breath. You can do it. And opening up those clavicles a tiny bit more and hugging those knees as you rest your head down. Nice job. Let's go ahead and sit on up. Use those legs to help. Sit up. Good. And you're gonna have bent knees, hands underneath your knees. One hand underneath each knee. Good. All right, so, so let me see. Great posture sitting up tall here. So if I put a bar behind you, I would be able to get every single vertebra on that bar. Okay, so Candace was closest.

So we don't want the pole to be leaning back. We want it to be, I would actually straighten your legs a little more. So your aha there yet go good. And then your head and your lower back wants to be there. Very nice. So that's tall CV. You can do that without tightening any hip flexors. So we're going to have here. That's it. Very good.

Nice. You've got your waistband, your ribs and your head. Try to again feel that without tightening anything else to, but just your stomach to try to help feel that. All right, Christie, we're going to lean a little forward so it gives you a little idea. Wow. I need to lean. You know I S I lean back when I sit. So you want to pull in, what was that? Yeah, so, and that's a good thing usually, but do our workout. So we're going to get the head back too. There you go. So try to get a feeling of that. And I'm giving you this because the next exercise is the roll back, but I want you to start off with your box being right on top of each other, not leaning back, not leaning forward. So that's pretty good.

I love a tiny bit more through the aha. Excellent, Anna. Nice. All right, so keeping your shoulders right where they are. See if you can tilt those headlights up towards the ceiling. So you're gonna look down at your belly. Yup. And you're going to pull back in your ribs. You're going to pull away into a nice pelvic tilt.

There you go. Stop. When you hit your, break your waistband on the mat and we're going to come right back up. Scooping in pretty good. Nice. All right, let's go down to your bra strap and pull it in. But if just the waist felt like that's where you could take it with control, then stop at your waistband cause there'll be no jerking. Go through each bone and then take a breath and then exhale. Come up one bone at a time. Good.

And again, so I would probably stop at your waistband and we're gonna round your back and pull back. How about you, Christie? Let's see, we're pulling back. Hold it right there. Take a breath and exhale and really pull in to come forward. Look at you. Good job. Good. All right. And I want you to to go all the way down to your head and going, you guys keep it at your waist.

Really developing that good powerhouse strength and coming on up. And the hard thing is you guys gotta go all the way down and all the way up in the same time that they just go down to their waist. I know. All right, we're going to do two more and rolling back and down. You guys go. Waistband through each phone. Down to your head. That's at Kim's. Inhale, lift the head. Exhale, scoop and wow. Good work. Ice and one more. Rolling all the way down. Good and in with the air. And exhale, scoop.

Nice job. All right, now we're going to go all the way down and we're going to stay down all the way down, all the way down, all the way down. Nice. And stay there. Bend the knees a little bit more and hug in that right knee. Good. Extend the leg up to the ceiling. Gave yourself a good stretch. All right, so while you're stretching, if this is an easy stretch, then you can straighten your left leg on the mat. Okay. But the right leg has to be directly straight up to the ceiling. Good.

Now we're still working that upper body. So press your arms into the mat during single leg circles. You can use your triceps and you can push them into the mat. Lengthen your shoulders away from your ears. Before you begin, take a breath. Exhale, drop those ribs down. Then if you can keep those ribs down and open the, do that. Five quick circles up to your nose. Cross around and up.

Cross around and up. Three more. Are you aware of how much your upper body's moving? You're trying to keep it open. The ribs secure. Last one, and reverse and down, around, up, down, around, up. Great. Three up. We're going the other way now Christie, that's it. And one more and wonderful. Hug in that knee to your chest. Good.

And press that foot down next to the one on the floor, which however it was bent or straight, and bring the left knee in. Straighten that leg up. Good. Avoid pulling behind the knee, Christie. Either the hamstring or the calf. Good. Great. So again, use those triceps to press into the mat. Pull the ribs in and open the chest. Lift the leg up to your nose with your stomach and cross around, up, cross around. Lift rib, staying anchored. Two more.

Very hard to do. One more time and go the other way. And we're going down. That's it. Christy. Down around, up. Anna, try to lengthen out that hip. Have a little bit more. Oh yeah. And two more last time. And bend that knee in and hug. Good. Alright. Put that foot down and go ahead and roll up to a seated position.

Good. Nice control. Lift your bottoms forward a bit. Good. All right. And I want you to put your hands underneath your knees. Good. And round your back. Super round, back even round or Candace, really pull your um, pelvis back. Ton of space between your yeah, exactly. Now hold that there and see if you can round your upper body forward. That's very good. Alright, staying there. I want you to look at your Christina, I need you to move a lot further back. Nope. Nope.

They had hands underneath your knees. Your belly needs to like that. There ya go. So your weight is a little further back instead of forward. Now keeping an eye on your stomach and that powerhouse, I want you to keep it pulled in and lift your right foot just an inch off the floor and put it down. And now we're going to pull up just the left foot off the floor, [inaudible] and down. Let's see if you can keep your belly in and pull up the right one. And again, you want to feel that feel sensation in your lower back.

Are you using your stomach so much that you're stretching your lower back and then put it down and now pull in and do the left. And this is same thing. You feel a stretch in down. Now those headlights are beautiful. They're almost pointing up to the ceiling and that's what I want, right? I want you to keep that with your stomach. So let's see if you can balance the right leg up.

Keep your pelvis like that and pull up the left as well. No drop in that pelvis. Bolen it up. Got a little evil eye over there, but that's all right. We're going to move your feet down. Let's try that again. With our left foot starting first pulling in.

We're going to lift up the left and now we're going to pull up the right hold and that that's great. Very, very good. Now we're going to advance that into our rolling into rolling like a ball, so every time you come up, the strength part, the building of strength is that when you come up, you keep your pelvis like that, that you don't let your lower back takeover and drop your belly. So let's inhale to roll back and exhale to roll right back up. And if that felt good, do that. If you felt like you didn't keep control, then just hold it with balancing is a hard enough thing. Inhale, roll back and exhale, roll up. Keep that yes and inhale, roll back and exhale, roll up.

Make sure when you roll back that you're not initiating from your upper body, but you're initiating from your powerhouse and inhale, roll back and exhale, roll up. Beautiful. Some of you can. Let's have you two again. Now we're going to grab our ankle and we're going to inhale roll back. So I want you to keep massage and Christie every bone and when you come up, I want you could do [inaudible] inhale, roll back. Gosh shucks, I'm making you. That's it. That's the strength I want to see. And two more in with the air and exhale, not so slow. More fun.

And inhale roll back. And Xcel roll up and hold and rest down your feet. Good job. Let's lift your bottoms back and we're going to go back. Good. And lie on down full length of your mat. Good job. Bend your knees and the feet flat. Good. All right, so we're going to do the series of five. Okay?

But we're going to really concentrate on that upper body. So when we are doing this exercise, I don't want to see your shoulders moving and I don't want to see you going down. And it would be great if when you're up, you actually held your up from here, but we're able to open your shoulders a little bit. Okay? Yup. That's a good position. You know it. So we're going to draw on the right knee to your chest, give it a hug, and bring in the left knee. Good. Now let's think about those ribs and we're gonna take a breath.

And as you exhale Pullman and lift up your head to look at your powerhouse. Bring the right in knee and further. Put your right hand on your ankle and your left hand on that knee. Extend the left leg out to an angle I'm going to have you about right here. Okay. And switch pulling in left and right.

Get comfortable with the exercise left and right. Using your powerhouse. Those headlights are looking directly up to the ceiling. Your lower is flat, but now let's think about those ribs where they in. Can we open the collar bones? Good. Can we lift the elbows up a little bit so they're not hanging in our triceps? Aren't hanging into the floor? One more set and bring in both knees.

Grab on both ankles, give your neck a little rest for a moment. Double leg stretch though. Pulling those ribs in. Take a breath and exhale and pull yourself as tight as a ball. Almost having those knees touch your ears. Hands on your ankle. Good. Don't let one bone in your upper body go down as you reach, reaching the arms up and the legs. Good.

And pull it all together. Great. Inhale, reach. Don't go down with that upper body and pull it all. Keep it up. Upper stomach crunch that did. Anyhow reach and exhale. Good in how reach. Now I want you to to hold that, but reach behind you more behind you. Behind you. Yes. And exhale. Beautiful. Two more. Inhale, reach. Come. Come on. That's it.

And Xcel. Love it. One more time. Inhale and exhale. Good. Rest down your head. Good. So on that one I'm going to use you a to X. I am the Xplain that lifting up. Great. So I want you to just touch my hands so that your arms and legs are straight up to the ceiling. The legs too. Good. So wherever your feet go, your hands go to come up. Just a tiny bit more.

[inaudible]. All right, so if her legs are going to go here, will her arms have to go here too? And if her legs go here, then her arms have to go there too and so on and so on. They have to meet equally and go ahead and hug on it. So a lot of times in restaurant neck, if you want, we can see our legs really well, so we're okay with lowering our legs, but our arms are like still straight up to the ceiling. So when you nail that, they have to open up at the exact same, preferably going straight out to that point, right? But that's what you want to work on. Not keeping those arms too high up to the ceiling. Okay.

Single straight leg. Bend both knees into your chest, both legs up to the ceiling. Grab behind that right leg and crawl up with your upper body. You want a hands all the way up to the ankle if you can. Good. All right, let's make sure the bottom of your shoulder blades are touching the mat. Open up those clavicles and lower the left leg as low as you feel comfortable and let's switch. Pulling in one and switch. It's right and left. They actually fly through the air. They don't want to be tight.

They don't want to be stalky. They want to be long. You want to scrape the ceiling. So straight legs for me, Christy, lift up your upper body more up, up, up. There you go. And switch and right and left. Open the collarbones. A little more, Anna and last set and both legs in. Rest your head down. Nice job. Rest your feet down. Two for a second. Good. And I want you to have your feet together. Knees together. Feel that sealed.

Your lower back is flat. Your hipbones are trying to point up to the ceiling or maybe a little bit towards you. If you need help getting that back. Flat ribs are in. Now let's put your hands one over the other. We don't lace our fingers implies you gonna put one over behind your head. Good. All right. And I want you to stay here.

For some of you that's a big stretch as it is just to put your hands behind your head and have your elbows open. Big stretch. So think about your waist. Take a big breath. And as you exhale, draw that belly in. So you have a beautiful hourglass figure, right? That's what we all have. Yup. And a big breath. And exhale, drawing in your belly and your waist. Great.

So you're doing that beautifully. Let's move on to your ribs. Let's move up towards your head. Big breath. And as you exhale, you draw on your waist. But let's see if we can get those ribs to seal the bottom of our bra strap or PR or shoulder blades into the mat and exhale. So that's all coming together. Good. And this next, I want you to actually really stretch your neck by inhaling.

And as you exhale, you're pressing your ribs and your waist down. Now use your head to really push down into your hands and stretch your neck. So the strength in your powerhouse allows you to push your head into your hands. Can you feel that? Good. Let's try to take another breath and exhale and strong ribs and powerhouse pulling in and heads pushing into your hands.

And now I want you to use that strength and lift up your head completely to look at your powerhouse. Up up, up, and your elbow shouldn't be curling in there. Staying wide behind your ears. Almost. Great. Take another breath. Exhale. Use your belly to pull in and bring your right knee into your chest. On the next exhale, we're going to bring in the left knee. Keep your upper body just like that, and we're going to straighten your legs up to the ceiling. Good, good, good.

And think about those. Have that high headlights. We're going to keep them straight up to say I'm doing good today in their hail legs. Go down a little bit and pull the legs right back up and down. Only as far as you can. Keep your lower back flat end up good. How's that upper body? Let's see if on the way down you can put your head into your hands.

So lowering the legs as you push your head and pull up two more. Your head pushes into your hands and your legs go down and up. One more time so that Belize in and up. Up, up and up. Good. Now stay here. Bend the right knee. Keep those nice open elbows and twist to that knee. Up to three. And now stay high with the shoulders as you switch.

Don't lie down those shoulder blades. Yeah, pull back that elbow and switch legs up, up, up, up, coming towards it. Beautiful. And up, up, up, up. We're going to do one more set coming up. We want to twist our back, elbow onto the mat, pull it back and they'll switch to the other side. Say hi. It should be at least on the mat. Good. And hugging those knees to your chest. Woo. Very good. Sit on up. Spine, stretch forward.

So when we start off with melodies, we do a lot of pulling in our belly and pulling in, but it's a lot of pulling in and up. And so when, when we get to that up feeling, then we can get into this gorgeous open chest and we can walk away feeling lighter and taller. Right? So I'm trying today to get a little out of the chest, the crunch and the intensity, but the real holiday's of the in and up. So the, this one is super hard to feel that sometimes. So let's see if we can do that. Spine, stretch forward, your hip bones. This is where it starts on this exercise, these point directly forward. If they point directly forward, I want you to kind of weeble wobble back and forth though you should feel those two sit bones in your bottom. They are on the floor, on the mat, and in this exercise we keep these hipbones right over your sit bones. That means don't tilt your pelvis like this.

Don't point your headlights down when you're doing this exercise. We're going to use that powerhouse to keep it right there. So right now if you can pull back your toes so the feet are flexed, use your belly to pull in. And like I said, use it to pull up in and up for me. And now your arms are going to lift at shoulder height and they also, you're going to keep those shoulders open with your ribs in. Can we pull the ribs in just a tiny bit more, Anna? That's it.

And now lengthen your arms away. Have the energy like electricity going out your fingers, squeeze up off your seat, grow taller, and now exhale as you go down. Touching the crown of your head to the mat. Watch those hipbones. They do not tilt forward and reach energy out your fingertips and starting from your waist. Roll back up to a tall back, sliding your shoulder blades down, opening your chest, lifting up your neck and take a breath and exhale, go down. Good, good, good. So now if you were rolling up against the pole, your waistband would go back first, then your bottom of your shoulder blades.

Keep your head down a little longer than all the bones between your shoulder blades. Then the back of your neck roll up through the back of your neck. And finally your head. Fantastic. Take another breath and exhale forward. Good. Too often in this exercise, retreats, retreats. We come up just shaking the hair out of our eyes. As we roll up and roll on up. Here we go. Pulling back, try to keep your chin on your chest, coming up one bone at a time.

As long as you can do the neck. One more time. Big breath and exhale down one bone at a time. That's it. Looking really good. Keeping those hipbones pointing forward. Nice reach, electricity. Do those hands for me and roll back up one bone at a time, not rushing through the back of the neck. Roll up through it and rest. I was very impressed.

You guys really did that. Good job. Big change there. All right, we're going to come forward a little bit on the mat and I want you to bend your knees, open them up a little bit and let's see. Put your, let's change your pelvis now so that the headlights are pointing up. So you're going to scoop in, pull back. Good. Keep going until your weight's a little further back. Good. Open the knees, feet together. Yet open the knees and hands under your knees. Good. And I want to see if you can balance with your one foot up off the mat and the other.

So your knees or feet are together and your knees are a little wider than your shoulders. A little wider. So [inaudible] and you're going to take in, the feet are just an inch off the mat. Good job holding in from here. Extend the right leg so it straightens completely and it's out to the side. Yes. And bend it. So those knees are pointing more out. Yes. So that you're holding it more from the right place and stretch and damn good.

And stretch up the right. If it's easy, go ahead and slide your hand all the way up to your ankle. Good. And bringing it down. And now do the left [inaudible]. Otherwise stay behind your yes, your knee and down. And now both at the same time. So you're going to really pull into your lower back and bend them down again.

Nice. And extend them up. All right. And stay here. Joseph Valadez used to sit on top of his desk like this for like a whole hour and teach offices. I kid you not. I you not a little narrower. Good. At least tell you a fun story while you're here, right?

So right now I want you to keep your stomach really pulled in. Your ribs are in, sigh down your shoulder blades and get comfortable with it. And think of the feeling that I just was talking about. The bell is not just in but it's up. So it's supporting your lower back and you're lifting and lifting and lifting.

And even your goal will be to come a little bit more forward onto your sit bones one day. And now I want you to bring your legs together and I want you to leave them there and energy reaching out of your legs and roll your lower back down onto the mat. Leave your legs, roll down your lower back, your middle back, fantastic until your heads on the mat and then bring the legs right up to the ceiling so they make a writing or with your body and you're going to bend your knees into your chest for arrest. But that if I didn't take you so painstakingly slow through that transition, you would go right corkscrew. That's the transition. Okay. But very nice work on that in and up, lengthening for that open leg rocker. We just did the prep today, but that is what I wanted to see.

So every time for now when you do open with like Rocky, come right back up. It's not just up, it's up. And then how can I fix better my posture, improve that position, get a little bit more forward, and then go back. So that's what we're going to try to do as we go on with that one cork screw. We're going to bring your legs up to the ceiling. Good triceps compress into the mat. Ribs are pushing into the mat.

Remember how you push the back of your head into your hands. Feel the back of the neck length and anchoring your belly. You're going to let the legs just go down a little bit and then pull them back up to your nose down a tiny bit, and then back up to your nose. Good. Hold them there. Hold them up to your nose and lets everybody drop the legs towards the ocean just a tiny bit and then pull them back. Center now away from the ocean and back center.

Let's do that one more time. Just waking up those obliques, the sides of your stomach and the other and back in. Now let's do a full circle. Go towards the ocean, down around and set a great and left or opposite of shown. Sorry. And Arad and center. And now two more sets. Go at your own tempo. I want you to do a nice circle and I want you to think of that upper body. How much are you pressing the back of your neck into the mat?

How much are you keeping your ribs into the mat? How in your triceps, back of your arms pressing one more set. How big of a range of emotion can you make without losing any of that posture? Make sure you finish even, and then hug the knees into your chest. Really nice. Good. Go ahead and sit up. Great. So a lot of times when we get nice and crazy with that, our whole upper body's kind of moving.

So you guys had really good on keeping that nice. That's good. Stay back there. And Anna actually hot back. Thank you. Don't move anywhere. There we go. Okay. And we're gonna do, so we're going to open your legs a little wider than your shoulders. And our energy again, is not down right. We're going to pull in, we're going to lift off our bottom.

We're going to lift up through that spine. Make sure we're not though popping our ribs out, hold them in. So we're straight. And now your arms are going to lengthen in your peripheral vision. Little bit forward. Good. And we're going to [inaudible] uh, I take that back. We're going to put your hands behind your head. Oh yeah.

The one hand behind my mom working on the fly here today. No lacing of fingers, but one hand over the other. Good. If you can flex your feet. Great. All right, so those hipbones pointing directly forward, I'm seeing a lot of lower back arches and ribs are out. So make sure those that's not happening right over your sit bones. Pull your ribs in and push your head into your hands again.

And now I want you to get that hourglass waist and twist as much to the right or towards the ocean. Let's go to everyone towards the ocean as you can towards the ocean. Good. Without moving those hip bones where those feet great. Now reach your hand forward and saw off your little toe and the one arm back. Sorry. And when I'm back, I'm going to redo that one again. Let's put come up. I could do that one better. Hands behind your head. I can give make you guys feel a lot better.

So we're going to pull your powerhouse in. Twist again towards the ocean. Good. Now think about your lower stomach, keeping your hips there and your upper stomach's going to do a big crunch as you try to take your opposite elbow to that knee. Big upper stomach crunch. Get down, exhale, blow out until you kissed that knee. Roll up through your stomach, twist to the other side. Pull your lower belly and to support your lower back and exhale, getting an upper stomach crunch until you kissed that knee. Exhale. Exhale, exhale. Wonderful. Inhale up. Let's do that again.

Twisting over towards the ocean. Big open shoulders and elbows for me. Next time Christie, and then exhale down. You don't want to feel like you're rolling over onto that hip and coming up because then you won't be able to change your upper body. So keep your lower body stable and twist and exhale. Big upper stomach crunch. That's a lot better. Nice. Inhaling up.

Now we can add our arms. Extend the arms so they're just in your peripheral twist or Z ocean. Reaching one arm behind and now from that upper stomach crunch, reach past your baby toe as you kissed your knee, kissed your knee, kissed your knee. Inhale, roll up, pulling in, twist to the other side more in Morin. There you go. And exhale, reaching. Nice and inhaling up and rest your arms down. Great job everybody to the middle. A little bit forward to the mat.

We're going to do seal. Did you get a lot out of that? Saw there? Did. You did. Did it feel a little different? Okay, good. Very open. Good. We're going to do seal. Scoot forward a little bit and you're going to put your hands under your ankles. Go ahead. So let's see if we can, when we're going to lift up the feet, we want to lift it by moving it from our powerhouse.

So you don't want to just pop your back up, but it's almost like the more you pull your weight in the feet, just slide with you and then they just float up. Cool. Okay, good. And now we're gonna still scoop in and we can make a really small literacy or we could pull in and it's a slightest my notice difference. But make like a big letters.

See really lift in an up for that C. all right, clap one, two, three. Inhale back, roll it back. Two, three, income up to three, enrolled back to three and come back to, how's that pelvis and roll it back and exhale up. Good. And two more. Inhale back and up. And one more time. Rolling back and up. Good job. Now go ahead and stand on up. And I want you to assume the same position that we did in the very beginning.

So you're going to have a Pilati stance and your weight is on the ball of your feet with your heels together. Good. And you're leaning forward like the leaning tower of PISA. Okay. Check your hip bones are pointing directly forward. Hey, your ribs are in and the back of your head is over your spine. It's not in front of your body. And you guys all look really good. One, two, three, four, getting you some magic circles.

That's a complete our little upper body here. So now I want you to hold your hands, arms straight ahead, and I'm going to give you magic circle. When you hold it, it's between the heel of your hand, not. Let's see. Alright, perfect. Good. The heels of your hands. All the fingers are forward. Good. So straighten your elbows. Completely good.

Some method to my madness here. So scooping in, you should feel really a lot of work in the wrapping of your thighs. The squeezing of your seat. Good, nice way. Again, is on the ball of your feet. Straight arms. But now keeping your elbows at the same height as your shoulders. Open your shoulders, ribs in, and slowly bend the elbows out to the side. They don't droop down. Sorry.

Just a tiny soft bend. Not too much. That is it. But drop your shoulders away from your ears. Oh, that's beautiful, Christie. So keeping your shoulders away from your ears and your elbows. Bed to little. Tilt it up. We're going to pull your belly in and squeeze the circle for five counts.

Hold it. Five, four, three, two, one release. I would like it coming from your ribs a little bit more. Pull your belly in, pull those ribs in. And squeeze. Two, three, four, five and release. Nice. One more time. Pulling in and squeezing. One, two, three, four, five and release. Good. We're going to bring it up to a 45 degree angle right there. Great. Slide your shoulder blades away from you. Pull your ribs back. Good. Keep those collarbones open. Take a breath and exhale. Squeeze for five, four, three, two, one, release, two more. Schoolies.

What's nice is you can squeeze as hard as you want and release or as little as you want and pull it in. But you know, summer's coming up. So [inaudible] relief. And now we're gonna bring it to a 45 degree angle here, pulling in the Valley, not just in, but up. Ribs in open, collarbones elbows. Again, don't point to the floor. They point a little out to the side cam and pull your belly in and squeeze it for five, four, three, two, one release. Make it a powerhouse circle. Pull it in and squeeze it. Two, three, four, five. Release. One more. Watch the shoulders from lifting, pulling in and squeeze. Nice open collar roads. Four, five and release.

Now we're going to put it behind our body and this is what is going to pull it all together. What you did today, we're going to keep your body forward at that angle. Headlights, pointing forward. Ribs in collarbones, open head over the spine. Okay. And we're gonna try to squeeze a circle back here, but we're not really going to. Some people are super strong and they can still want long fingers, but I don't want it squeezing if you have to round your whole upper body. So it's all about keeping that upper body.

So pulling in and thinking about those triceps. Let's squeeze it for five, four, shoulders open and release and pulling in and squeeze. Pull your stomach and open those shoulders. Come on and release. And one more time scooping in and squeeze. And this a little more like this Candace right here rather than like this. I don't know if it changed you. You, you can't. It's, I dunno if it changes it much for feeling. I haven't tried it like that, but can you hold it more like that? Okay.

Try it one more time pulling it and it's in a good way. There you go. And squeezing. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, just that slight bit of difference in grip. Okay. All right. And now we're going to bring it forward and we're going to finish with super good posture. So what we're going to do is we're going to just pump it eight times up. When you get to four, you should be directly here. When you get to eight, it should be as high as you can.

And I really mean that because what happens is as you go up past here, the shoe, the upper body starts wanting to do this and that's not what we want. We want to keep our ribs in and our shoulders open and lift the arms up where you can keep that, be aware. Am I just changing everything in my spine to get my arms up higher? We don't want that. Okay. So if you're able to keep that awareness, then for the last two sets, we'll do four sets. We'll be able to slowly Relevate as we pump the circle and slowly come down.

Okay. Does that make sense? All right, let's go for it. Our grand finale. You ready? Psyched up. Alright. Sipes bend in the elbow. Good. Make sure the way is slightly on the ball of your foot. Those outer thighs are engaged. Seats engaged. We're gonna keep those heels together and pull it in the belly.

We're going to stay down for the first two sets, pumping one, two, three, four straight ahead and only come up to where you feel you can keep the ribs and upper body and down. Two, three four, five, six, seven, eight another set, pulling in the belly. Makes sure elbows don't point down ever. Six seven eight seven dash two three four, five. Now if you're up for it, let's start relevant to heels together. Wrapping those thighs, scooping in and down. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Last time, pulling it stomach and pulling in the belly. More.

Squeeze in the bottom and down. Two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight and hold the circle just next to you and feel how you're really nice and lifted and tall. Nice job, kid.

Comments

Lovely class instruction, Monica. I really found my deep powerhouse!
really like this one - good intro to use of magic circle,too Barbara UK
The first 10 minutes at least of this class is essentially subtle cueing and very little movement; if you're looking for 40 minutes of exercise, as I was, this is not the class for you. I am sure that, if I were feeling more patient, I could learn a lot from it.
Great descriptions and cueing for posture!
I love your classes Monica!
Andrea T
I love your classes Monica. Your cueing is very clear and I feel more confident that I'm doing the move correctly. Maybe add the magic circle to the "what you need" above, as it was also needed in this class. I'll have to get one!
Andrea ~ Thank you for your forum post. We are so glad to hear that you enjoy Monica's classes! I have added the Magic Circle to the list of props for this class to avoid future confusion. Thank you for letting us know it wasn't listed!
nice breakdown of everything. my first successful open leg rocker with out losing my pelvis
Monica Wilson
Woohoo!!!🙌🏼

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