Class #1291

Stress-Relieving Cadillac

40 min - Class
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Description

Amy Taylor Alpers teaches a lovely, stress-relieving Cadillac workout that will feel amazing on your body. She focuses on moving from your center and finding a lift in the body. By going deeper into each exercise, you will have the control to move your body without the springs taking over. Welcome back Amy!
What You'll Need: Cadillac

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Nov 07, 2013
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Welcome. I'm Amy Taylor Alpers and today we are going to do a lovely stress-relieving Cadillac workout that you just feel amazing in your body. Okay. So we're going to start with roll down. So have a seat and your feet will go against the Poles and we'll take the roll down bar. Yeah, just on this one, I think I would just go on the outside. You want to be shoulder with so you don't have any stress and you don't have too much tension. And then this one kind of cuts the difference there a little bit.

Alright, so just first couple, you're just gonna roll. So you just feel your spine articulating, checking in to see how does it feel today. And then as you go into the next one, let's do round. Okay. And into it you just want to start feeling like, oh my back is so flexible, soft and supple. And then on the way up, have a sense that the spring is doing the hard work. This spring is doing the lifting.

You get to do the bending kind of on the way down too. So think I pull, I bend forward. I think I've been forward, forward, forward and down. First few, right, so that you're really starting to see, can I bend, is my bag going to give me some range today? And then as it warms up, right, then we're going to start to get a little more lift going. So up through the front of the spine, making sure you have a sense that there's no compression through your vertebra. Exhale, let's do one inhale and exhale and not the top. You might even just go a little farther each time just to kind of find a little more range. And then last time, head seeds down.

You roll all the way down and we'll stay. All right, so now let's do straight arm press right to the thighs. Big Inhale, huge inhale and exhale. Feel that you're stretching through the lowest parts of your ribs in the back. Okay, so you're filling the bottom of the bucket first. So that's key. Exhale, one more. Stretch all the way into the kidneys, in the back with your air and exhale. And then we'll bend the elbows, pull to the low ribs and access. Same feeling. Okay, so you think I'm widening my back along the Mat.

I'm filling it. Why? [inaudible] and backwards. Maybe I'm filling the Cadillac itself. Yeah, exactly. That's a really, that's the way. There you go. Let's do one more of those really deep and low and back and full. Beautiful. And then take a little more time on the way up. Let yourself float through this feeling that maybe all of that breathing helped you open up your back a little bit more. All right.

And then let's put the left hand in the middle and the right hand on top or across. Either way, and again, kind of start round just so that you're not holding any tension. That's all right. Especially for a day when you're feeling like it's a little bit stressful today. So you're just going to fill, you're going to rule and you're gonna fill your back and you're gonna curl all the way down. Good. And then we're going to take the top hand out to the side, up to the ear, and take a moment here and really feel from your right foot to your right wrist that you're just as long as you can be. And then you're going to take that right side even longer to bring it over.

And if you can take the outside of your Cadillac, great. And they're going to take a little extra time and fill that right rib cage. Okay, so let's take two, three, two or three giant breaths. You're going to open the ridge, you're flaring them, splaying them open like a big fan. And then let's bring your right foot over to your left and increase it a little bit more. Start. Let's just bring the feet together first. All right.

And you might even try to share that right leg a little longer than the left. Yeah, so that you truly are bowing and you can feel those sides of the, like the transverse process on either side of your spine, just flaring deep in there, behind the heart, behind the lungs, behind the kidneys. And then if you want to continue, you can take that leg even further by crossing it over and it's just a sort of continuation of the idea. Okay, one more breath. Fill the whole lung. Exhale. You can bring your right foot back and your right arm back. There you go. And let's roll up, curl all the way through and rescue it. And then let's switch hands so you can do a switch underneath.

I just find that that's kind of a little too cool. Too complicated, too complicated. Yeah. So allow yourself to rest forward just a little bit. And then big inhale, rolling down saying curled good now left arm. I like to take a kind of low and out and feel it all the way. And you get this nice stretch here and you're reaching your left foot and you're letting this arm reach way out. It's not technical, it's just freeing. And then you just breathe the whole length of your body, right.

And you feel, you want to start to feel now that like your tissues changing texture a little bit and that in the breathing you're starting to absorb oxygen. We're moving, we're getting the heart moving, but we also need to have texture that absorbs. And that's really, really key. And then we're going to bring that left leg over and just increase, intensify a little bit. Everybody's gonna feel this differently. Kinda just enjoy it. Breathe where you need to. One more, really big, just fill that spot that's got a little extra tension and then come back and Murray your foot back and your arm back and then a soft and slow.

Let the head dive through and go all the way forward. Give yourself a little extra stretch. Maybe even take the poles of the Cadillac, bend your elbows and pull yourself forward, right? And then you could also do another big inhale. And on the exhale, maybe reach your hamstrings and straighten your legs a little bit and pull back. Now gentle so that you're using more your air. So one more time, we're going to soften the knees. Big Inhale. And then on the exhale you're going to squeeze your abdominals and reach and lengthen and just enjoy that nice little stretch. Beautiful. Alright, excellent.

Yay. Okay. So now we're gonna take the springs down and we're going to have it be just a little bit above, about maybe five, six inches. Kind of like the archival setting is what we always call it. That's a couple inches above the of the Cadillac and then turn and face the other way. Where do shoulder massage? So you're sitting up actually, and you're going to reach out behind you. Take an overhand grip, and I'd probably go, yeah, again, on the outside of that. All right, now you're going to, everybody's going to figure out where they need to be. Depends on your spring tension, your height, your stretch, all of that stuff.

So you're just going to destroyed arm press, curl the knuckles in, slide the bar up, give yourself a little wiggle, get on up there and then stretch it way out by. Alright, so our task is oxygen. Our task is changing the texture of the tissue so that it can absorb right, making the spine very soft and flexible so that your breathing is free. One more time. Big Inhale right here. I'm reverse and inhale. Big Lift. Those lungs stretch the lungs pressed down and stretch it and in the yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So now your last to try to get the lung, get into the lungs a little lower.

So even though some people maybe can lift their shoulders a lot, we want to make sure that it's actually still happening way down in the lungs and not just, it's nice for shoulder range too, but really want it to connect into the lungs a little bit more. That's very nice. Beautiful. Beautiful job. Good. Okay, so now we're breathing excellently. All right. So go ahead and let go of that and let's lie down right where you are and we're going to use some legs springs and do just some straight leg circles, all the good movements that do for your lower body, what we just did for your upper body. Okay so I to bring this down just a little bit, cause again we're kind of working a little bit on a little more on stress release, feeling good and not so much on or really hard. Hands on the polls always about six to eight inches up like that.

Thumbs with fingers if you can. Good. And if your wrists ever get tired, you do have the option of go in the other direction if you need to. So let's take your leg straight up. All right. Yeah. And when you're at the top, have a, the spring released. Okay. And have a sense of, I'm holding my own legs. I'm moving my own legs. I'm not moving the spring. I'm moving me. Okay. So you're going to open down around together. Exhale, back up, open. Inhaling and exhaling and inhaling.

Right. And as you reach the bottom where the inhale is, feel like you're not only down, but you're up. So in other words, you're standing in the strap and it's pushing you back into your hands versus you're just pushing the spring away so that it ends up connecting you right in the middle. So you inhale up into yourself. Nice job. Exhale. One more time. All the way around and reverse. Now when you go down, cut low and wide, cut low and wide, get into those hips as they start to warm up a little bit more. Not too turned out maybe. Yes. Right. Big Inhale, stretch open through the hips and up x-acto.

So you're carving out some space in there. You're trying to get a lot of heat, lot of blood flow deep into the hips. Let's just do one more of those in healing and then go into the bicycle. Big Generous hips just like you just did. And I think that we need to be more and more and more aware of hips, you know, I mean we've got an awful lot of population that's aging, a lot of struggle with hips, um, osteoporosis, hip fracture, et cetera. So deep in those hips, lots of blood flow.

You got it. And then last time and back pedal it. Now if you can try it when you come down, let's actually do this leg since this one's easier to see. See if you cannot hang in your ankle. So a little less. Yup. Hyper enter through the ankle and through the knee and feel like what's happening is up in here a little bit more. And that go ahead and switch that you're opening you, you're opening the spring. Yes.

As opposed to moving your legs, straightening your legs, pointing your feet. Yes, that's the way. So again, it's always very chewy, very yummy around the organs. And then take both legs up to the ceiling. All right, now let's just do turn out, turn in for a couple, right and find again that power in those hips. We all could use that and feel, stay here for a second and feel that spiral that comes all the way up into your arches. Okay? From the hips, press down to about a 45 degree angle. And then not too fast. Let's go out in, out in and again, you're focusing on that deep power in your hips. Yeah. And then you're going to slice a cross and across and you really feel, yeah, nice and Yummy and good and deep. Deep work in the hips. And then we'll do one set a little faster. So we'll go heels, two, three, four, five, six, seven, cross hole on two, deeper, deeper.

That's the way. Very, very nice. All right. Bring your feet together. Bend your knees in, straighten the legs up, circle wide out around, down together. Keep them together. Bend the knees wide, yes, and up open down. And again, you feel that tremendous hip power and all of that heat and all of that deep flushing that goes on in the hips. Let's do one more big inhale and exhale, reverse it. And inhale, you push through the whole body. Keep the power, open those hips and barring them back together.

Beautiful job and stretch it out and open up. Yes. Good Ben. Now right here, a little less pointing, pushing the, the arch of the foot. Push you to the whole foot. Open wide through the foot. So you're way out in that. Strap out. One more time. Bend down. Push whole body. Whole body. Whole body. Yes. Beautiful. And let's do some walks. One, two, three, four, five, six, tap. Tap Up to four, five, six.

Clink, clink. Good. And again, find your hands. Get a good push. Thumbs with fingers, whole body doing this. So even though the hips are down, there's almost a sense of levitation. Like you're actually doing the flying leg springs while you're doing the hips down ones. Hey, one, two, three, four. So you have a feeling maybe almost of climbing up, whether you're going down or up. One more and down to two, three, four, five, six tap, tap in the counting and then little clinks at the top, just for the control. You got it. Very nice. All right, so now just bend your knees. Take hold of the strap, right above your ankles.

You got it. And just give yourself up a yummy stretch. Yeah, opening everything. Ah, couple nice deep breaths. Beautiful job. All right, and then let's go into single leg circle. So we'll take the strap that was on your right foot. We'll take the left one off and we'll put the right one on your left. You're going to crisscross. Okay hands. We'll come back up where they were.

Other leg. In this case, we'll have our right leg down. So we're gonna start with the left leg. Now you can do this with a little more total precision, but in the really classical work, it's big and it's twisted through the spine. Okay, so you're actually going to take this whole right hip over the left one and then push down. Meet this other foot and slide out along the mat with a straight leg.

You got it all the way and come back up. All right, so at you, everybody goes at their own size, but you do get to lift that pelvis and then find again that you're feeling that the movement is happening way in the center of your body. So as you cross over this hip will come. Now keep this hip right here. Reach this foot while that hip is still there. And then center as this foot comes to the mat, right? So you come right to this nice centered place.

Then keep your center as you'd take that leg around and back. Two more over. Keep the hips so you can push through that long side circle around. Um, last time, up and over. Reach through that foot. Yes, answer, nice and reverse.

As you go wide, you go low and then you twist the whole thing and continue this leg and come back to center and then just won't go ahead again as you cross this leg. A little tiny bit of turnout just because you're gonna want to turn in. But go ahead and let that hip come. So you really will see that the pelvis is perpendicular on the shoulders, are trying to fight for level. And then the center pulls the leg right back, open down, push through the whole body, twist the whole thing.

And then center. And then one more time. Yeah. Over. So just that little bit of turnout and then when you come back, think even as you come back that you're going to bring your right side back first. Yeah. So you don't overwork that outer hip too much. Let's try one more like that. So open down around crossover and then bring the right side. Yeah. Just a little bit so that this leg doesn't overwork.

And when you come to the middle, really come to middle. So, so relaxed your outer hip a little bit. Yeah. And find your center like right in front of your third eye. Like that. Yeah. Beautiful. Okay. And uh, they're like right. So generous big movements that twist the entire organism. So you tour listing your skin, waking up all of the nerves, waking up, all the blood vessels, everything in your skin, which is incredibly important to your entire immune system.

Deep into the muscles and the Fascia, moving fluids, breathing and filling everything with oxygen deep into the skeleton. So every joint and all of your bones workings a little less leaning on your knee and a little more feeling. Yes, the whole length out. And let's do one more. And through all of that too, right? You're getting the entire nervous system is waking up, really come back to center each time.

And that's why you also want to find center each time. So your nervous system goes bang, really clean and then you open so you're not heightening yourself. You know, especially on a day when we're doing more of a kind of a stress release thing, you really can find ways to take Pele's without making it slow, right? Without making it easy, but make it calming to the nervous system instead of waking it up too. Crazy. Okay, so over you got it. And then the control LG part of it where your in charge and you find these places every single time.

That's a big part of what its training in as well. And you find center each time like that. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful book. Great job. All right. Very nice. Okay, so now let's come to the other end and let's do push through series. All right, so one spring. All right, let's start on your back again. So your head will be right here. Yep, you got it. And then two hands legs will be straight.

Okay. And you want to take a, always take a little moment each time just to make sure that you haven't hyped your nervous system too much, right? And that you are in control. That's key part of it. So maybe let's move down one tiny little bit. All right. Strong. Anytime it's spring loaded, thumbs around the bar, right? So now bend the elbows. Why? Take a little moment there and feel this big yummy stretch and then exhale through. And here's where Ramana would always say she'd give you the candy.

So this is the candy area. So I've got one hand on your hip and I'm just gently tractioning out a little bit. Yeah, just so you'd be really long. Okay. Now you take a big inhale, you stretch, and you want to feel like you're stretching. It's not a joint d thing. It's really muscular. Pulling the muscles and straightening the arms up. And let's do that twice.

Inhale, big lungs. Exhale. Feel that nice stretch. One more time. Inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale. That's right. All right, now this time we'll come up. So say movement first. Straight in the arms and stay. All right, let's just do the upper body.

Curl the head through the window and articulate all the way up through your spine. Nice. Now let's come back down just a tiny bit. So we're just coming to about right here. Okay. Okay. All right. And we're gonna bend the elbows. Inhale and exhale. Let's have you curl just a little bit more. We might have you a bit far away and ah, but your breathing is big. Big Inhale. You got it. Beautiful.

And then keep that lift, curl and open. Feel like now finally, ah, we're able to open that back like all the way back from our roll down at the beginning when we were just trying to warm it up. Now we have space, we have heat, we have a lot of oxygen. So again, bend the elbows wide and stretch the arms through and again in. And now we'll take the legs up. Before you go, just soften the knees a little bit and lift them slightly. So you're holding them with your abs. You got it. And maybe just tiny bit of a bird on a person of your feet are quite active.

All right, the head comes through the window as the feet come eye level and up, right? So this is where you want to come, even when you don't have the legs and the legs do help balance the exercise a little bit better. It's a little softer. Knees a little more underneath, a little more button. Okay, now we're gonna take the legs down. Inhale and exhale right here, right? So this is your teaser obviously, and exhale, gorgeous breathing exercise, great job. Exhale. And then you take the whole thing down. Inhale, exhale, inhale, and exhale. Good. Now skewed. You done one little tiny ants go and then we'll do the whole thing.

Okay. Just the same rhythm is good. Okay. So Ben, the elbows and straight in the house. Curl through and exhale. Bend the elbows in. Yeah, that's much better. Hey. Oh, and now again, holding from the hips. A little less than the shins. Yeah. Maybe Burt on a purchase a little bit more. Flexing slight at the ankle. Just enough. Yeah.

And then lower and exhale deep into the abdominals. Inhale. One more. Sorry, I didn't say that right. Stay straight arms. Now we'll do legs again. Inhale. Exhale. One more time. Legs only in him. Exhale. And then abdominal pull in thinking long, really long, all the way through to the head.

And then you bend the elbows and stretch through. Nice job. Okay, so let me say this real quick about that. So sometimes when you do modify an exercise by say, taking half of it out, it kinda throws the exercise off a little bit. I think that was a perfect example of how that happens. It's designed the way it's designed and if we choose, oh, because it's a day and we feel like that's too much to not include part of the exercise, it may actually require that we then rethink it a little bit, so don't be surprised if that happens.

So the legs really counterbalance it well, and if we don't use them, we may have to say something slightly different over here. That's just part of the deal. Okay. Then the elbows and steroid and the arms and come on up and then you can let go of the bar at the top and turn and face the other way and we'll go into the push through. Now typically you might do swan next, but a lot of times I might go into the push through and a couple other exercises and do swan a little bit later, especially as we're saying today, a little more kind of a stress relief kind of a time. All right, so arms up onto the Poles, shoulder with always thumbs around the poll. Always if the poll, if the poll is spring loaded, and again we kind of all were taught to give the candy on this exercise and you could come in those of you at home who don't have a dear friend who's giving you a lovely massage, you can pretend it, pull the belly back deep, bend in and then lift up and a nice massage right here. And again, you know, you're just helping to make muscle tissue a little more supple and then we can deep in we press and lift and reach it through.

And the only thing you have to, you know, just worry, don't bang your toes and then keep nice and long through the spine as you roll back. Deep Curl in and then lift. And the last time, cause there are times of charm and [inaudible], you're so long between your pelvis and your rib cage that you can find this deep curl way inside your lumbar spine as you start back. And then when you press down, you go up and over and again it's trying to help you decompress your spine. And sometimes that that moment it can feel more like it's compression at a decompression.

So you have to figure out how do I kind of stand on this bar to help me lift myself up? Nice job. And then just take a little moment here, an extra breath. Sometimes at this point it can be kind of Nice to do a little twist. Let's take your right hand over to the left side and give yourself a little twist. Now just always be careful that you're not leveraging and torquing too much, but that you're just using it to help your body twist a little more and then come back off. So it's sort of like a little saw in the middle of things and then turn.

Yeah, and if you can't grab that pole, if it's too far for you can just grab your leg or the front of the Cadillac might help. And some Cadillacs also have a bar right here and that can be a nice thing to grab. Two. Beautiful. Yeah. All right. Very nice. Let's turn and face the other way. We'll do reverse push through. Yup. You got it. So you're going to pull that part down and we're going to see we have two hand positions. Thumbs down or thumbs up.

Typically you start palms thumbs up. Um, Yep. The underhand grip. And that's theoretically because it's going to go the other way. Oh, there you go. Gotcha. That's a lot. No, it be a lot. Um, typically this one is easier. It's not always though. So if you should find that you're feeling like, oh, I want to do the other hand first. The other, the other hold first. That's fine. Okay. So again, just a little, I like it. I like the knees a little bit.

Not soft, but not hyperextended. A little more glute hamstring and a little more foot instead of ankle. So I just like to see that the foot is really quite active and that the ankle is not so stressed. All right, so you start with a curl and we've got all of this length now. Now when you're here, think of lifting the bar, trying to lift you up to the bar rather than say, lean down on the bar. Yeah. So you're going up this way. Yes. Beautiful.

And then forward and the setup is such that you can make that movement. So if you are too close to the bar, right, you might not be able to do this moment right here. I mean you come back up and you'll know you're good and you'll know it because it's just too tight. So then you can scoot forward a little bit. Now, right here, again, you're not hanging in here. You're thinking, how tall can I be? And can I lift that bar up almost like you were doing jack knife and then up, right? And again, soften the knees a little bit in the ankles and then pinch into the butt a little bit more. Pass away. And now as you pull it down this time and you get control of it, this is where you turn your wrists. So you just flipped your grip. You got it.

Two each ways. Plenty. So again, you're not hanging, ever want to hang and politesse no hanging in place. So always lift. You're thinking, how do I decompress myself? Yes. And lift up and lift up and lift. Good. And even here sometimes I'll say, especially if you have a lot of range, pull the bar down an inch and then lift you in it. Yes. And then pull from that power. Exactly. And stay in your power.

Beautiful job. That's the way no hanging. Just stay in it. Yes. Yes. You're moving from your center and that's awesome. Good. And that if you have the range, you can let go of it here. But as a teacher I'd probably bring it down a little bit and then she can let go. Got It. Yep. You got it. All Right, nice. Let's turn and face the other way and lie down and we'll do shoulder bridge with kicks. Okay, so arches on the bar. Nice.

And the set up is usually just vertical or maybe a little bit past vertical. For me, I liked that the most because when the legs come, when you bend the knees, the setup is going to be that it really does cross your center just enough to feel like you'd really connect. Okay. So the arms are down next to you. You're going to bend your knees and straighten and then we'll roll up and lengthen. Good. And just take a moment here. Again, don't hang into your hyperextension really hard in this position. So you're going to maybe stick your butt out the tiniest little bit. Yes. And then reach long through your, so as through your Lumbar, wrap your shoulders back and press your risks and palms down. Nice.

And then you can do it kick and think that you kick from the pressure of your hands and the back of your shoulder girdle. Right? So you feel almost more like you lift from way up in here. That's the way. Okay. Three or four each leg and then switch. Right? And think about your standing leg quite a bit while you're doing it. The working legs often distracting, but we really want to feel like that whole body. And then deep curl.

Yes. Without hanging too much. Yeah, exactly. [inaudible] extension. If you happen to have that kind of range and then bend the knees and again, you're feeling how because these legs can just a little over your center. They help to keep you in your center, right? And then we want to sometimes kind of go into that little extra here.

So try not to just think of yourself as very horizontal and that you're growing long. And then from that continual length, you find your fluxion again and you come right over your center like that and then up. So that helps just for me to set the legs deep into the center. Rise up, keeps stretching out long again. Very nice, right? So we didn't hang down into those hip flexors at all. Lifting the back all the way up to between those shoulder blades, press the palms down. Let's just do alternating three kicks now. So we'll do right leg and returned left leg.

Now as you go, right? So as this leg goes, that leg goes too. And think of it again, that it's coming from here and not just from there. That's it. So that when you're doing it in the math series, right, it's both legs, both legs from the center out. You got it last time. And now stretch your spine for your feet. Roll it down. And even though you're going to articulate, you're not necessarily gonna over bend anything, and then you pull deep in the center. So awesome. And when you straighten, now here's the best moment really, and this was a float throwaway moment. Half the time is that this, the legs are not deep in the center and you bring them out, you stay, you stay, you stay, you stay right.

And the legs never fall away. They never drop off, et cetera. Nice job. Okay, go ahead and bend those knees, steroid and your legs up and let's come to kneeling and we'll do kneeling side arms. Now these can be done sitting as well, but sometimes it's kind of Nice to do a mailing and then there are a little bit more like on the low chair, but two. Okay. Okay, so right hand on the pole or on the bar, sorry. And then, and you have to set yourself setting up on, this one's actually the hardest part. So straight arm, go ahead and bring that bar up and then scoot away from it a little bit more. And then this handle be in front like that. All right. Yeah, I have really serious and but everybody teaches it just enough different. Yeah, exactly. That's why we're doing stress relief glottis today. All right, side arms. All right, so first we're gonna just do three. Press and straighten. Okay, this arm, let's just have it nice and strong here right now. Okay. So you're going to press down and then lift back up. And let's have you move out like a quarter of an inch to your left.

Just enough to give that arm a little bit of room. So you want to feel everybody's shoulder girls a little different. So you want to feel like your shoulder blade is pretty solid and you're articulating the arm in the joint and not so much pressing your shoulder blade down. Yes. So it's really an arm movement. Now some people do need to work a little bit more on the shoulder girdle itself, so we have to kind of look to see what's the thing. Okay, now we're going to stay, we're going to take that left arm up to the ear and then we're going to side bend and stretch as long as you want. And then we're going to come back up, press those shins down and feel how tall you are.

I exactly press down to press down. This side already starts up and you're going to go the same distance. So as much as this right arm is moving, this left side is growing and then you come back the scene [inaudible] nice. You press that lifts you. That's the way. And it coordinates completely and then we come back up smooth and steady. Um, good. Nice. And let's turn and face the other way. Okay, so this you might get a better view of the shoulder blade on this side.

Okay. So the right arm or the other arm can be here or it can be straight out to the side. We're choosing down mostly because this is a nice connection, right? And on a day we're doing a little bit of like taking it down a little bit so it's not so intense. This could be an option. All right, so straight arm press and nice job. Come back. Yeah. And your shoulders are to feel quite different from one another. But this is actually quite nice.

So that shoulder blades not moving too much and we're getting a nice arm movement instead. Exactly. All right, so now pressed Alice, take that right arm up to your ear and then you try to, sorry. Coordinate the two ideas that this movement here and this movement here are part of the same idea and you'd come back up. Nice job. Okay, we're going to inhale. So the air also acts as part of the ballast part of the lift, the support, the integrity of the exercise. I want one more time. Yes. Nice job. I then exhale and come back. Nice. Alright. Very, very beautiful. Let's turn, let's actually do swan now. Okay. Should we done a lot of flection?

We've done some twisting. We've done some side bending. Now we'll do our extension. So take your bar down. Let's do two different versions of this exercise. So straight arms, just like very similar again to it. Like on the low chair. Okay. The head is straight, the arms are straight.

The whole time you're just going to lift your eyes, your nose, your chin to your chest at the shoulder blades. Slide down and back. Lift your spine up as high as you feel comfortable, and then you pull your belly across a cross, across and down, and again, you lift and you feel that nice articulation through always that tricky spot. Most of us have between the bottom of the shoulder blades and you stay with that, stay with that, stay with that and through, and we're going to do one last one. Inhale. See if you can find, yeah, just a little more in that one moment, right? That you go round or round and then it was, we come down, there's that feeling of going through. Beautiful. Gosh, okay. Term one cheek to the map. All right, now let's do a small version and then we'll see if we want to go into the full swamp. So you're going to bend your elbows high and wide.

Very similar to when we were doing the teaser with the push through bar, right? You're going to come to a little head stance. You're going to turn right and you're going to pull your belly off the floor. You're literally going to do a headstand and pull your belly off the mat, and then you're going to turn your cheek to the mat and stir etch the bar through and well, more like that. So you bend the elbows, you swoop up, the elbows can be nice and high and you're lifting the bar, but you're lifting the bar to lift your belly and you're pressing your head down in opposition and then you turn and it can be really nice to do almost a little extra turn. Okay? If you want to do the full thing, scoot forward just to another inch. We tend to sometimes just move back.

All right? So when you do the full exercise and let's move your hips slightly that way, you would like to have that bar be right where the lift should be. Okay? So you bend your elbows, you pull back, you're going to come up into that little headstand and you want to feel like this is right here. Okay? So that if you continue to come up beautiful, it's right where you wanted it to be. And then head first you got it and curl through right into that head stand and turn your head and through. Good.

Now here's another place where we give the candy hand right on the seat room and a little bit of a stretch, right? And then we'll just do one last time. So we bend the elbows high and wide. It swoops you up and it takes you all the way up and you're lifting even relaxed. His elbow was just a little bit so that you now headfirst into the headstand and turn a stretch. Good. And you can give a little extra when the body is this warm. That's great.

Alright, very nice. I will take the bar. You can sit back into just a little child's pose. Hmm. And then let's actually finish with a cat. Mealing cat. Okay. So hands come to the bar, always shoulder with always opposable thumbs when the bar's spring loaded. Now for me, the setup for this exercise is the final movement.

So you press down a little bit on the bar and you lift your spine way up and you see if you've got the right leverage. So maybe come forward another inch or two gut. And so you're pressing and that's giving you this, okay, right? And then you start your curl right from there you curl and you head head right for your knees. Beautiful. And then are chewed out and come up a couple inches and even a little higher, right? And pull your shoulder blades back a little bit.

Goodness Day for just a moment. And get a yummy stretch from your pubic bone to your solar plexus or maybe from your hip sockets to your arms sockets. Really Nice and long. Press those shins down. Keep the bar where it is and start your curl and then pull back. Keep forward. You got it.

And straight arms and you just come right up into that extension. Right? And the whole feeling is only up, it's not really back. And this is kind of, I think of it a little bit like you were treading water on it. It's helping to lift you. Yes. And then right away you curl had for your knees and then art shit out and get a big beautiful stretch and see if you can go a little far, but just don't leave your feet so you can get a nice stretch, but you're still standing on those shins, not on your kneecaps. And then you stay forward. You start curling the head and the sit bone.

Sit bones come to meet you. Yes, forward for a nice job. And that takes you right up to the ceiling. Big Lymph. Oh Man. One more time. Curl, weigh in. And then we, I just feel just like a dolphin, it should feel so great and then curl the whole thing back in. Scoop and left. Beautiful job.

And then up high. And let's just stay there for a one last breath. Biggest one yet. All the way and never ass. Great job. Awesome.

Comments

Andy M
6 people like this.
Woo hoo! Thank you Pilates Anytime. More Amy, Rachel and Kelli and other TPC teachers please. What a lovely way to start my day!
2 people like this.
Awesome as always Amy!
1 person likes this.
Awesome indeed!! Feel so good and stretched out. Thank you:)
2 people like this.
Simply the best! ;)
1 person likes this.
Started the weekend with this - Thanks :)
Thanks guys. Had a great time as always at the beautiful Pilates Anytime studio.
I re-took this class using my Pilatesstick off my spiral staircase. Amy... have I told you lately that I love you (cue Van Morrison)?

1 person likes this.
Delicious! I nice "cup of tea" for the nervous system. Thank you Amy! Lindy Irwin
1 person likes this.
no hay nadie como tu ¡¡¡ beatiful class
2 people like this.
Awesome class Amy and Kristi!
Thank you, just what I needed this morning!
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