Class #1253

Fletcher-Inspired Reformer

50 min - Class
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Description

Welcome back to Risa Sheppard who teaches a Reformer workout that she learned from Ron Fletcher in 1975. She uses the same principles that he used to make each movement feel like a dance. This is a great class to work on your form because the exercises are simple, but get really deep into your body.
What You'll Need: Reformer w/Box

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Oct 19, 2013
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Hi, I'm Risa Shepherd and today I'm going to do an original Ron Fletcher workout that I personally did in 1975 it has changed a lot since then, but I'm going to go a bit back in time and I basically use the same principles in my workouts today. This is Michelle, and today we're going to use a grotty machine, which best simulates the force spring workout that we did at run, Fletcher's it back in Beverly Hills in 1975 so Michelle, would you lie down on the growths on the machine? Your feet are in a turnout position and we want to make sure it's a straight line. Do you want to think of yourself as if you're on the straight on a graph, papers, straight lines, up and across the navel is pulled into the spine. The back is imprinted along the floor, the Chin is lifted up, the hands are almost up. So we can keep the shoulders open. And what you're going to do is you're going to imagine the center, the center of your body as the main fulcrum, the area from which all movement flows from. And what we're going to do is inhale, press the carriage back for four one, two, three, four.

Think of squeezing the inner thighs together and then exhale forward. Now what we did in those days, which I think they do now is the percussive breath, which is a very strong inhale through the nose and an actual exhale, full exhalation through the mouth, letting all the air out like you're wringing out a wet dish rag. Inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale and we keep the pace nice and smooth, not too fast, not too slow. We incorporate the entire body and exhale and inhale and exhale and inhale and we're using three springs here in the old days and in my days we use four springs, but I think the springs have changed. Then you have to feel with whatever is comfortable with you and forward.

And we did up to 12 each. I think this because Ron was a dancer and he was always using 12 and forward. The next position is the called the prehensile, which is like a monkey hanging over a tree or a bird on a wire. We want to stretch them editorials as much as we can and what we're going to do here, instead of just pressing back and under, you go back about halfway and then all you do is think of pressing the bottoms of the knees to the floor as you pull the heels under the bar. All right, so you don't go back all the way and then bend the knees and come forward. Now also what we did, we actually worked with the feet together.

If the client could with the knees touching belly ends, we will say no to that, but as it actually works for most people to think of keeping that whole girdle of strength, which is what Ron called it all the time. What I want you to do is inhale, pull the heels under the bar and exhale forward and again, inhale back to sit there, call the heels under and if you're teaching at somebody else, you can actually give the person a nice stretch by being right behind their feet and pulling the heels under. Inhale just about to their Michelle. Now just think of pressing the bottoms of the knees to the floor. Good. Keep the heels really pulled under the under the bar and bend the knees and come forward. And again, back to sit there, pull the heels under the bar and bend the knees and come forward.

And let's go one more time that and just press the bottoms, the knees to the floor and again, think of stress in these matador souls and forward. All right, very nice. Now I want you to put the heels on the bar. Once you imagine that there's an imaginary line right in the middle of running all the way through and there's like a plum line up through your body. And I want you to do again inhale and think of lengthening the body up beyond the top of the head and exhale forward and inhale. How tall are you? Once you imagine only five, six, no, but seriously thick, always growing from the century, lengthening and Linkedin in the spine and forward and inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale and inhale. We actually wouldn't even leave like a Choo Choo that it shoots you, but like really making sure all the air is out. That's it.

Inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale and lengthen. Lengthen and exhale two more times and inhale, think of squeezing those inner thighs together. One more time and inhale and exhale. Okay, very nice. The next foot, leg and foot work we would do would be the toes. You want to pretend like you're wearing maybe some high heels. If you're a man, you say looking over a fence.

I said that once to man about high heels and didn't get it. So I finally just said, okay, let's say looking over a fence. The heels are high this time, same thing. Inhale, and as you come forward, make sure you lift the heels up and to and forward and pay attention to the buttocks. Make sure it's nice and engaged and forward. And the spine is again in printed along the floor and over. The shoulders are relaxed.

Inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale. Good. Tan and forward. Two more. 11 and forward, one more 12 now also what we would do in those days about this time, just give somebody a nice little stretch. They could ideally do it for themselves.

It maybe take the right leg up and stick of stretching the hamstrings, but by stretching you don't stretch just from the hip. You actually stretch from the abdominals from the center and you think of flexing the feet heel up towards the ceiling, toe towards the face and the back of the knee towards the front of the room and then point and two and point and three and we could help them a little bit or they could just come up and reach, grab a hold of their leg and stretch it themselves. Okay. And hold good and release because we did a lot of stretch and work and stretch and work. Now same thing. Flex think the heel up towards the ceiling, point the toe in that point, the toes and toes point good and really think of lengthening from the lower back all the way up. Like there's the knives line that lower back and it keeps lengthening up to the ceiling and okay, good Ben and then damn, all right, let's go back into the toe position and we're going to do some flex Relevate.

So you're going to inhale again. There's a lot of breathing that goes on. And exhale, drop the heels under the bar, lift the heels and bend the knees and come forward. We always did up to about six. So now we'll do two flex Relevate one and two and heels high on three and one, two, three and heels high on four and one, two, three, four. Regard for groups on four plots.

These police are coming after you and forward on five and one, two, three. Good. And really speaking like you're pushing through mud as you press those heels down and even lift them up and forward, cause a lot of people just plop the heels under and lift. You want to really use the air as resistance. We tend as you're pushing through peanut butter, chocolate, whatever image works for you. I've always used good old fashioned mud. Okay. And bend the knees and come forward. Okay.

Now we're going to do a single leg and we always take off one spring. You know, you're working with two. In the old days we worked with four springs, but I'd take off the spring. If you're working with single leg, um, here, we're just going to extend the leg as much as you can. You point the foot. If it's too hard to keep the hips stable, you can go ahead and go into the tabletop position. We didn't use it too much in those days. We lengthened the foot out and beyond, so whatever you're more comfortable with, just make sure that those hips are nice and even on the lower back is to the floor and we're going to just inhale and exhale. You're going to keep this leg actually in one place.

We didn't get too fancy with it. Just going to do the typical workout that we did, although we did add some more flavors later, but five is what everybody started with. Six Nice and flowing movement seven and again, pretend like the movement is coming from the center of the body. A linkedin nine Tan last two 11 one more. And notice I always rock with the movements.

That's just while I'm kind of no force, so. Okay, let's do the other foot left leg extended and as you want to sort of the two knees parallel to hips, nice and square rib cage pulled in and inhale and exhale forward. Good. Two and forward and three and four and four or five and forward. Six, seven. Good. Eight, nine, Tan last two 11 one more and 12 all right. How do you feel? Okay. Okay.

The next one as a addendum to the l a single leg, we would many times go into a flexed foot. All right, but this is the same thing with the foot extended, but both feet are flex. This time we are going to be working a little bit more of the buttocks, pull the rope cage in and hail and think of almost like you're dancing it. I remember Rono was like to think of every movement was like a dance and I personally like to feel like I was like a dancer without being a dancer because personally I'm not a dancer. Inhale, six, seven, eight, nine, Tan last two 11 one more and 12 all right, good. Michelle, let's do the other side again. Flex the foot, extend up and press back so it's nice and simple movements. There's nothing fancy going on but you know it's what I still do to this day because I believe in the principle of kiss. Keep it simple, stupid and I like all the fancy things we do, but there's nothing like going back to the basic six, seven, eight, nine, 10 11 and 12 okay, let's go back another time. How do your legs feel? Okay, we're going to put another spring on now and we're going to finish the leg on the foot. Work with the, well, we called it running in place. We don't do running with say walking in place or the prancing again, nice and simple out and you inhale.

One heel goes as high as you can and the other heel goes as low. Okay, so press back and one heel in and then you switch legs and then you exhale twice. Sh Sh. So it was inhale, inhale, inhale, inhale, inhale, inhale, inhale, inhale, inhale. Inhale. Now we were always told that the clients should go up to about 50 prances. However, I've found that usually if smoke starts to come out of the calves as definitely the time to stop, so it's more important that we're getting the stretch or you're really feeling the heel press down so you don't have to do up to 50 how are you feeling?

Are you starting to burn in those legs? Okay. Then stop because you know it doesn't do any good to go through the burn. It really doesn't. A lot of people that old, that old fashioned go through the burn. This doesn't hold anymore, nor did it even when I was at bronze. And again, I don't know, I like to just do a lot of little TLC in my workout. So you know, I think sometimes taking the foot and feeling is stretched out always, always makes it feel better too, and make sure that that ankle is being used and there's not a lot of tension in the feet. All right. Okay, so that's it for the leg and the foot work. We're not going to go onto the abdominals. I'm going to start you with, first of all, a couple of preparatory.

I want you to lift the feet up. Now we use three spring. I think you can maybe use two springs with the, with the garage here, and go ahead. I won't put you on the three spring, but let's start first because Ron did talk so much as I do today on the body center and I'm moving everything from the center, not from the head and not from the shoulders, but moving from deep within the body. Okay? What I want you to do is I want you to mentally focus on that center and just extend the arms. Use the ears, businesses, take a straight down by your side. This is just the preparatory and inhale lift up. Particularly if somebody doesn't quite get the idea of moving from the center.

Just a simple movement like this to start is a really good way to get them to understand and to feel in their bodies. Okay, good up. Now what I want you to do is you take the arms down. I want you to curl the upper body up and make sure it's the center of this curling the upper body and not the head. Good, and exhale and down and exhale. Make sure the knees are right up from the hips because it's about here. The stomach will start to poop because people are extending the legs out too much. Just keep everything in alignment for now and for always.

Okay, good. Now if you can straighten your legs, you can, if not, keep it in tabletop. It doesn't really matter. As you know, this is tabletop is the, is the beginning way this way, and then of course the lower you get them, but it's more important to keep your abdominal zen. So escape with a form because form is foremost. That's my motto. Okay. Take the arms down, lift up and we'll begin the one hundreds and one, two, three, four. Yeah, two, three, four. Yeah, two, three, four. Good. And two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Okay.

One, two, three, four. Notice that I breathe along with clutch because that's just the way I am. Keeps all round for a long time. One more end. Two, three, four, sure. And release. Okay. Has the two Springs Vale. Okay. Yeah. Good.

All right. We're going to go into the short spine. I'm going to keep you on two springs on this one. All right. You tell me how it feels is we began it and um, what I'm going to do is take off the handlebars and just place them down and let her put a foot in. Each bin. The knee, she puts the right foot in and then she puts the left foot in. Now let's start first with the nes. A Nice simple, actually want to put your head rest down and down where you draw the heels into the center of the body and then just push it out. And again, keep that imaginary plum line, that imaginary straight line.

Inhale and out. Incorporate the buttocks. Three, use that girdle of strength and press. Inhale and press. Okay. Now let's go into a parallel. We're going to go straight into the short spline because we did go straight into the short spine in those days on following. Okay. Nowadays I dealt so much depending on the client, but I know Michelle is experienced as she can go into this short spine.

Legs go back, the tailbone stays down as far as you can. You lift up high into the shoulders, but the soles of the feet together open up the knees, right over the shoulders and slowly roll down through the spine. When we did this, come over here, hold the feet over the head and slowly use our fingers so that they would know that you come down one vertebrae at a time and so some of us would come and even help somebody else with this nice stretch. This is essentially the short spine stretch and then she brings the heels in, bring the heels in to the body and then extend out point and extend out. Okay, so let's do that again. Just take the feet back over the face and so long as you can even give a little stretch here and lift a pie into the shoulders and souls the feet together.

Open up the knees and keep the hands over here. If you're instructing, if not, just make sure you keep the hands, the feet over the face. Slowly roll down through the spine, pull the belly into the spine, this nice long diamond shape. Draw the heels in to the middle of the body and then turn and extend out. All right, you do it one more time and take the feet back and lift high onto the shoulders. Soles of the feet together.

Open up the knees and slowly roll down through the spine. Good. Trying to keep the feet over the face, making as much of a diamond position as you can. Draw the heels into the center of the body and extend now your shoulders. Sorry. The hunch up a little bit. I can see, I know it's very easy to do because you're like, but the most you can keep all that relax. The more you can keep all that relaxed, the better. Alright.

And then we would go into a couple of simple circles around, but we always make sure that when you get about to where the shoulders are, you go into a turn and then you kind of want to turn out and bring the heels in together and then parallel and take the seat back. Open up the legs as you turn it out, and then swing it around. Not Swing it around, but take it around. Okay. And back. So we'll start parallel. Yes, parts start parallel and then turn out and then go back into parallel. One more time. Back. Turn out parallel. I mean, turn out and, and, okay. Now we're going to reverse it. You're going to take it back close and then parallel straight down and turn out and open and parallel and straight down and turn out and open and parallel at correct.

And one more time. [inaudible]. Good. You don't want the straps to go too much, if at all. Below the shoulder pads. All right, good. Let's bring the knees into the chest and right foot on the bar and left it on the bar and release. All right, Michelle, we're now going to do the stomach massage. I want you to just turn your knees to the side and make it as a fluid of emotion as possible. I'm going to ask you to sit up for just a moment so I can put this pad down here to see you won't slip.

That's the only reason you're going to turn towards the machine. Put your feet up intranet position, and I'm going to have you do this again on two springs. You could try it with three springs within. You tend to, does she use the feet? This is actually really intended to work deep the muscles of the inner, of the [inaudible] of the Internet, okay? Way, way and what you want to do is almost think of scooping the abdominals up and under the rib cage and you want to be in a c position with the fingers at the front of the Mat. And again, you want to think of scooping the abdominals up and under and you want to see position from the top of the head down to the tailbone, shoulders relaxed. And I want you to inhale as you press back and the you exhale, drop the heels under the bar. No with straight legs. Drop the heels under, lift the heels and forward.

And what you want to do is not clutch on so hard back, barely, barely talks to the front. I'm hold on in the front and drug lift and then front hip it rounded. Keep like a c curve, like a cup. Up and forward. Lift and back. Up and forward. Lift and back. Up and forward.

Lift and back up. Okay. Now from the base of the spine, Michelle is if it's a string of pearls, start to lift it up, lift it up, lift both arms up, circle around behind, and we're going to go to a flat back position. Hands are going to be actually on the head rest, I'm sorry, on the shoulder pads either on the top of them, but if they're hunting the shoulders, put it on the bottom. Okay? Whatever's going to keep that back nice and flat and the chest opened. All right, and so with the Nice flat back, we're going to do the same movements.

You're going to inhale, bat and drop the heels under, lift left and come forward. Good and back and drop. Lift and forward and back and drop. Lift and forward. Very good and back and drop. Lift and forward. Two more and back and drop. Lift and forward. One more. Back and drop.

Lift and forward. Now this is a, this is a movement that I still do with my clients. They love it. What I want you to try that I did back then, take the right leg out as far as you can, extending from the back of the thigh and the knee and then place the foot down on the floor. Take the other leg extended out and place it down. I want you to move to the body. Is that the front of the carriage? Place your hands on either side.

And what I want you to do is gently press the chest through forward as you think of taking the knees back. So you're going to feel a nice stretch in your inner thighs and you're going to do little percussive breath. That's going to be inhale two, three, four, and then exhale two, three, four, and inhale two, three, four and exhale two. And because we've been so lean to Europe to nail, we're going to do a little bit of rotation, a little bit of lateral work secretly to sit up tall. One arm's gonna come up and you just screened to stretch over. Keep the right hip down over good is, it feels good to stretch that way and lift up and let's stretch the other way.

Exhale. And uh, and now staying in that position, the arms out to the side. You're going to rotate from the torso. You're going to place your hand on the shoulder pad, either the front one or if you can put your hand on the back. It's fine if you can give the client of stretch or your friend to stretch. If not, just think of rotating and stretch. Three, four and sure feels really good too, doesn't it? Yeah.

Okay. We always do it to each other. We get as much as we can. And the instructors and terns, same thing. If you can take it all the way to the back there, that'd be great because you actually, you will get more of a rotational stretch. It just depends. You don't want to use the shoulders and you want to move from the center and from the thoracic spine. But your hands go ahead and put your hands on the, on the bar and stretch and breeze. Six, seven, eight, again two.

So just little pulses to the side and eight good and front. Now as an added bonus, what we would do is come behind the client, give me your hands, let's go down if it's too high for the camera, but lengthen. Then we linked in or out from the waist, three, four and reach six, Savane eight and then we may do some arm circles. Circle one too. And let me do all the Movement for you. So yeah, four, that's it. And so don't resist it. One too. And so if you don't have anybody stretching for you, you can certainly do this by yourself. I know, and I put my feet in the back and I walk all over the client. Okay. All right. Very nice. Now we're going to lie bound back down. We're going to do the pelvic press.

I'm actually going to put another spring on I think, and we're going to use three springs. Does she know this is one of the more with the pelvic prevalence, the actually the more spring, the easier it is cause it's using your body. And this time we're going to put one foot on one side and the other foot on the other side. Now this is padded, which is really groovy because in my day there wasn't padded so we used to have to get some pads and put it there. So we've learned that, you know, to the age that we want the feet, knees and hips presses back down. Now I want you to tilt the pelvis first and the start to lift one vertebrae at a time. Three, four, six, seven, eight. Now keeping the buttocks right where it is. Take the carriage back, inhale and exhale.

And I'm so now you exhale rolling down one breath. Yeah. So what it is is that inhale, exhale back, inhale forward and then exhale down and all that. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah. Okay. I know it's a whole choreography with the breadth, but you and I would just, as long as you breathe is a good thing. But the second, the second best is to go with the, let, let the breath actually facilitate. The movement is always how I feel about it cause it actually the Brep makes the movement easier. Whether you're into Picasa breath, which we were with the big or not, but as long as you let the area in and let the air out as Joe Palati said.

So again, inhale, tilt the pelvis up and press back and lift up and then slowly roll down, pull the rib cage in and again, tilt the pelvis up and back and forward. So don't let the buttocks drop and then exhale roll down. Has It feel okay with the spray? Three spring good in one way and silted up. Oh sure. I yelled back. No, it'd be very hard to do it with less than three springs on here and exhale down and two more times up and back and forward and slowly roll it down. And one more time. Tilt the pelvis up and back and forward and roll it down. Okay?

Once the has mastered that, we'd go, you take a spring off this time and we go into a turnout position. You can do it either in a second position or a first position. It's a little more difficult in first position. So let me start you [inaudible] second position, okay? But it doesn't matter. Now what you're going to do, the only difference here is you're going to inhale as you lift up, but you're going to go back and forth four times and then roll it down. Okay?

So we'll try three times. I'll let you know. Tilt the pelvis lifted up and go back one and keep the buttocks up to there. You Go. Okay. You can do for good war and then same thing, slowly roll it down. We usually about do about two to three repetitions of that.

So let's do that again up and press back one to three. Keep the heels high four and slowly roll it down and then put just a little more challenge. We may go into a first position, turn out, give it a shot. Shoot, go forward. I think you can do it though. You seem pretty strong up and press back one and again you lifting from the center and two and three squeeze the inner thighs together or and slowly roll down one vertebrae at a time. Woo. Nice. Okay, knees together. We're going to do the indie stretch, so again, you just going to swivel over to the side. We can remove the padding. Okay, and there's some, you're going to be on all fours face in the front with two springs on your feet are going to be against the shoulder pads and we're going to start and the rounded position similar to what we were doing earlier in the stomach massage because I want you to think like a c curve or the inside of a cup. All right?

Again, pulling the abdominals way up and under the rib cage, I want you to think of a round line from the top of the head to the tailbone. Those shoulders down. And imagine as though there's a rod running through your hips, keeping them in place, and you're going to inhale as you take the knees under the Rod and exhale front. Good. Most people have a lot of trouble with this keeping this body still cause it's literally like moving one part of the body without moving the other or, but once you get it, it really is helpful in all walks of life or five because again, you're imitating just from the center, moving from the center and you're able to control all the other parts of the body while one part of the body is moving.

So even though it seems at the top of her body isn't working, it's very active. Good. Now let's go from here. Going to go into a straight back. I don't want you to move the body forward or back. Just think of you're kind of uncurling the spine so that the spine goes, the lower the tailbone goes up towards the good and take the hips back. Perfect. Now we're in second position and also good that notice that the um, wrists are nice and straight. She's not breaking at the wrist.

Great. Her shoulders are down. Six, seven, eight, nine, 10 last, two 11 one more now. 12 Michelle, what I want you to do now, I want you to take the knees back until the thighs are on the floor. You go into the extension and then you're going to lift up with the chest, go back into a rounded position and then I'm curl. Okay? What am I going to do is take the knees back all the way back, all the way down. Good.

Now I want you to come forward with the chest. Good. I want you to contract the abdominals. Come back again or head down and from the small of the back is if it's a string of pearls, it starts to, I'll just UN curl and go into a straight back. Okay, so let's do that again. Inhale, take the knees down, pelvis down a lift. Open up that chest. Very good contract the abdominals round all the way back. I love this one.

And press a small, the back down and lift and again going out beyond the top of the head and back and lift up and round and smaller the back one vertebrae at a time and again it goes beyond the top of the head. Let's do it one more time, Michelle and back and lift the chest up and round and release. Okay, now we're going to have to go into a standing so that the buttocks is high standing leg. The buttocks is high, the heels or starts first with the elephant where the heels are actually low on the carriage. The head is down. You want to think like you're in a High v shape and what you're gonna do is take the legs back, but you're only going to bring the legs back into the chest by using the abdominal good and back and lift and back and lift. Make sure it's those abdominals that are working in that center that's working. You feel the stretch in the bat. The shoulders are relaxed, the shoulder blades are also pressed down our list. Do a few of those with the heels a little higher. So ideally where we had it before, but they had down a little bit more.

Make yourself as much in a v shape as you can. Stabilize the shoulders back by really pulling those short two blades down, three, four. If you're feeling it a little bit too much in your upper body, then that means you're using too much of your upper body to take the legs back and forth. Again, we focus your mind onto the center, back, back, and left. Okay, good. Now move a foot forward and up in the, you can stand straight up on the carriage and roll up. Why does that feel? Okay, we're going to go into the standing leg stretch.

So what you're going to do is you're going to face the front of the room. Your right foot is going to be on the bar. You could take my hand if you want. Okay. Now we first start, we started somebody by taking their foot all the way out if you can, if you don't feel comfortable with that, start with your foot about in the middle. All right? Wherever you're comfortable, right? Yeah. All right, so there's a lot of good stuff we could do with the feet out there too. But here, one, what the most important part is just to think what you want to do is open both legs at the same time. You're just not using your left leg. All right?

You're going to open both at the same time. Let's just take the arms out to the side, keep the shoulder blades, press down and press back one. Now the further out the foot is, break it back and the the easier it will be less challenging, the closer and the more challenging. So that's why I like to start with people about in the middle and three, don't let the buttock stick out, keep pulling up and four. And I like to put my hand here to remind the client to constantly pull up in the abdominals while their buttocks is being squeezed.

One more. Okay, good. And I'm going to take off the spring. We're going to work the inner thighs, the adductors, as you know. And what you're going to do is this is different. The further out, the harder it is. The closer in the easier. Okay. So let's again keep the foot about in the middle and take the leg out and then think up when you squeeze those two legs together, just think like that imaginary line is going way up above the top of the head and lift.

And we lift everything up in the torso and out and lift and out. And lift. Two more times out. And lift one more time out and lift. Okay. Now we're going to put another spring on. You're going to, I'm going to hold your hand as you put the, actually you should be putting both feet on the platform cause I don't want you to turn.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to put all the springs on from moments you can go back on the carriage and turn around. Do you want me to step on the carriage? Yeah, you can step on. The care's does. I've just put all the springs back on so it's strong enough. Okay. And turn around and put your left foot on the platform. Okay.

So again, I'm taking the springs off and we're using it. Yeah. Out. Keeping the shoulder blades down, keep all up and the tailbone. Press down towards the floor and inhale back and exhale forward and inhale back. Good. Know this that the Chil, the chest is open, the shoulder blades again are pressing way down. The fingers are also should be extended. One thing that Ron always impressed upon all of us was the idea that our bodies go way out beyond where are our limitations in, so that the energy is always spreading out beyond the fingers, above the head, below the feet.

It's sort of like putting a stone in water and seeing all the ripples ripple positively. That's what I have up on my refrigerator. Ripple positively. Okay. I'm going to take off this spring. We're going to work the inner thigh now and press out and exhale, bring it in. Think of zipping it up all the way up to the top of the hat out and lift. Think of that imaginary line going way out into the galaxy, out and four out and five.

Let's just do one more and six. Okay. Very good. I'm going to put all four springs back on. Okay. And you can, yeah. Turn around. And we're going to do the long spine now. So you're going to sit down and you're going to put your head back down on the, um, you can step off of it. And the Kamaya.

Yeah. So, uh, this is going to be similar to the short spine that we did earlier except that you, um, never bend your legs. Okay. So we take the long straps and we feel good around the shorter straps here. You can do that one. We usually use about three springs with this and she lies down again, staying centered and a foot in each [inaudible] and another foot in each. Okay? So this time again, we extended out, but remember, we're not going to bend the knees and the straps are also not going to go below the shoulder. The shoulder pads, you're gonna take the feedback, you're going to keep the tailbone down this time. You're not going to feel as much of a stretch in your hamstrings now, but you are however going to squeeze the buttocks, pull the abdominals.

And the center in and lift up high to the shoulders as high as you can. Squeeze in the butt. Then she opens up the legs into a second position, a little bit water about over the shoulder blades and rolls down through the spine. Again, one vertebrae at a time when her tailbone hits is the same thing we talked about earlier. She turns out a little bit. Takes the legs down to gather and then parallels. Okay, let's do it again. Take the feedback and roll up high onto the shoulders. Get the toes, touch the ceiling. Good. Open up the legs, turnout and roll down through the spine and widen the legs even a little bit as you turn the, take them around good and together and then parallel again and back and roll up. Good. Open up the legs and roll down through the spine.

You don't really have to turn out until you get all the way down. Now you can turn out and take the lower the legs a little bit and together and then parallel. Now we're going to reverse it. We shall see gonna open a turn out about here. Take the feet back, kind of open up into a Nice v shape and then come on up with legs open into the stuff. Pardon me? Should I be on this docker? Should you be, what on this? On that? All the way in. Okay. Yes you should be all the way. I'm sorry. And so cause you want to feel the nice stretch in the lower back.

And so go ahead, raise all the way up again. Don't let it go slack. Close the legs parallel and exhale, roll down again. You can use your fingers if you happen to be with a person or imagine somebody whose fingers are rolling down your back and then use your abdominals. You take the leg straight down. Hey, let's do it again. Turnout and bat he back and raise it up and close the legs parallel and slowly roll down through the spine.

Feeling one vertebrae at a time, a string of pearls, whatever vision helps you and use the buttocks and the center, that girdle of strength to take the legs down. And let's go just one more time and open that and lift up and close and parallel and exhale slowly roll down one vertebrae at a time until the tailbone hits and then bend the knees and release. Okay? All right. We only have a few more to go. A couple more. Let's do a little upper body. I'm going to have you sit on your knees facing the beautiful ocean is beautiful.

[inaudible]. Yeah. I'm going to have you actually sit up on your knees, your foot, your, I'm sorry. Your thigh is going to be against each of the head rest for a little further challenge. You can actually sit back or for right now, I'm going to have you sitting right there. You're going to hold onto the straps with the one thumb on top of the strap and the other thumb on top of the strap.

You're going to sit up as tall as you can and now you're going to do a slight little tip back. You don't want to be straight up because you could find yourself falling forward. You also just want one spring. Okay, and this is the chest expansion. It will also work the ever back in the back of the arms, but I want you to more or less that it's really opening up the chest and what is going to be, let me just show you this really fast and you're going to inhale as you take the care, as you take the straps back and you're going to exhale to the right, hold it in the next sale for the left, and then complete the exhale forward. Okay? Does that make sense? Okay. So, and if you need more tension, you can just move your hands up. But I think that should be okay. Okay.

And of course you have to incorporate the aquatics corporate, the body, the entire body is being utilized. And so it's inhale back, open up, hold it, turn to the right, turn to the left, and exhale, completed. Good and inhaled bat and turn to the right. Turn to the left and exhale forward. [inaudible] and inhale back. Turn to the right, turn to the left and exhale forward. And inhale back. Turn to the right, turn to the left.

Exhale forward two more. And inhale back to injure the right turn to the left and forward more time Michelle, and press it down and turn [inaudible]. Do the right turn to the left and forward all. Alright, now I'm going to ask you to turn around and normally we'll do one more with you. Put place your thumb where it is and we're going to have you do a bit of a thigh stretch.

What you're going to do is hold onto it and you're going to think of just going back as far as you feel comfortable. And then as you come forward, you lift the bar, the straps up and come forward and then release. You want to lift the straps up a little bit as you come forward because that helps propel you forward. Otherwise, if you just go back, you could just kind of fall forward into the carriage. Lifting it up a little bit, just kind of gives you a little bump. Okay. Okay, so it's back. Lean back. Good. And as you can forward, lift the arms and then forward. Very nice and back and lift. Just do one more and back. Good lift.

Have you do all the way back so that your back is on the f? Just kidding. Sorry Randy. It's okay. I don't even know if I could do that anymore, but I could try and when nobody else was watching. Okay. Turn this way. Sitting seated. Yeah. Well yeah, I think I'll just have you see it at this time, but we, we you could do with for more challenge standing up, but I'm just going to have you seated. You know the arms is, have you seated with a hand here in hand? Here are we going to do what we always called serving a platter. All right. And this, just extending the arms out. You're serving a platter and bring it back and extend one and forward. That's all good too.

From the center and forward and three and center and four and center and five. Bring it back. Good. Okay. The back nice and straight. And let's just do one more. Eight and down. Alright, that was kind of it for the, for the arm work. But let's, um, let's sit up for just a moment and we're going to give our finale. That was basically the very basic with a couple of little Adelante reformer work that we did. There's more things that would, that we did, but that was really basically what we did, and I'll be showing a little bit the poster that we used to use so that people in those days with four, they had private people would just kind of watch, look at the routine up on the up on the wall and do it. But let's, let's do what, what I, what I call some Fletcher balance. I don't know if they really are called that or not, but I learned it when I worked with him.

You're going to come down and you're going to think the buttocks right above the heels and you're going to do four little pulses. One, two, three, yep. For take the nose to the knees, dredge and then come down again. Little bounces, one, two, three for nose to the knees and one more. Come on down. One, two, three, four, nose to the knees. Now bend the knees, slowly roll it up. One Vertebrae at a time is if your back is against a pole, take a nice breath, inhale and exhale. Press the arms down, feel the shoulder blades down. Inhale and lift up. I have from the waist. Keep the waist nice and lifted as you lower the line the arms. One more time.

Inhale and Exhale, and thank you, Michelle. Thank you.

Comments

1 person likes this.
Truly Beautiful ! I really enjoyed how connected I felt all throughout work. and you work as much as your client, I giggled as you moved along with her :)
Risa, thank you:) Great session, loved the cuing and the flow.
1 person likes this.
Back to Basics! Love Love Love!
Awesome class!
Candy
Back to basics, great class!

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