Class #1303

Creative Reformer Variations

65 min - Class
71 likes

Description

Amy teaches a Reformer workout using many variations of traditional exercises. She includes Saw on the Short Box, a One Arm Salute, and much more. Amy also brings to mind the idea of creating energy without creating tension in the body.
What You'll Need: Reformer w/Box

About This Video

Nov 20, 2013
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Transcript

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Hi everybody. Amy here today with Lizanne and Becca to teach a reformer class and I'm fairly standard all those, some themes on variation, which I tend to like to do. So nothing outrageous, probably an intermediate level, uh, will include the short box long box. You don't need a stick or any other props. So we are ready to go. We're set up for footwork to start. So, uh, here they go. Lying down and let's start you guys in a PyLadies v today. So on the balls of your feet and let's just take about three to five transitional breaths. You know what I mean by that?

You've just come from your day, what not where, wherever you've been. And that gives me a chance to see where you are on the reformer. And I also like to kind of remind myself every now and again, drop your sacrum there is to check in on where if you might be bracing in your body anywhere and sometimes it's the back, it's the back body that might be holding a lot of unnecessary grip or tension there. So just be kind of a bag of bones here with a little bit of muscle, just hard because we're athletic, so we like to use those muscles. But think a little less about that. And let's take an inhale to prepare. I want you guys to exhale as you push out. So 10 reps, press and return and press and pull.

So feeling the back of your legs, doing quite a bit of the activity, depress you out as well as pulling in. Excellent. And press arms are slightly pressed on the mat. Just see you kind of waking up some of the tone in the back arm. Press and in and harass. I believe that. Use your 10 I hope. Yeah. Okay. Lift your feet and just wrap.

Prehensile. Thank you. And so let me just feel your feet. Knees are hugged. Your feet have energy but not tension, which is kind of a hard thing to differentiate. Say crumb. Here we go. Exhale, press back and pull in. So I like to think of this. By the time my knees are straight, my heels are as low as they can be, right? So is the knees straightening. The heels are as low as possible. Nice. Does that feel okay? That extra little ah, assist. Yeah.

And we know we, you know, we try to get those heels down, but sometimes that extra little bit we go, oh wow. I didn't know I had all that extra in there. Two more stretch. Good and stretch. Good and in. Okay. Just lift those feet and place your heels and flex your feet. Yeah. And you can go all the way at ducted if you don't mind. So ankles together, knees together. Yeah. And then here we go. Exhale, press in, press in and press and pull in.

Good. So the foot bar is like the floor, right? So if I'm standing here on the floor, like you guys are on the foot bar, uh, your toes or even the metatarsal heads or even the base of the foot is even sometimes pinkie toe edge forgets about that. So almost think about rotating your inner ankle in there. Yeah, right. And or Pinky toe edge that way towards you. There you go. That worked. So it says a little bit more contraction on your outer calf.

And I think what was that nine? Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't count. Well, last one for right now and hold. Okay guys, go down to or up to the ball of your foot in a high relevant. Now with this one, let's put a little bit of space between so you're a little bit more like your pedestrian self beautiful guys. And then exhale, just have to straight legs and just stand there and just see. So you're standing on the metatarsal as your back isn't bracing. I want you to lower your heels in two counts toward me both. So one two rise, one, two again, lower, lower and lift. Lift and lower, lower and rise. Keep going.

It's trying to maximize the ankle motion down, down and presses. Take that five more today and making sure as you lower those heels that the knees don't overextend behind them. So your hamstrings have to stay supporting the back knee joint. That was really nice. Yeah, and rise to more lower, lower and lift. Lift and lower, lower and lift as high as you can do 10 little pulses of trying to go higher. One, two. So you're contracting than Kat. The gas struck in the soleus. Six, seven, eight, nine, 10 no, drop the reached the heels, not drop him. Stretch your heels toward me. Okay.

And then same thing. Pulse toward me. So now you're finding your shin. Four, five, six, seven, eight 90 guys, nine 10. And then keep the heels down. Bend your knees more to finish that part of the foot work. Oh, good. Lizanne all the way in and rest. Okay, I'm going to do this for you. I'm going to take off one red.

They were on three red. Now they're on two red on these balanced body reformers. So going to single leg, I want you to take your right ball of your foot on the bar. Left leg just in tabletop. Nice, clean, relaxed, that hip flexor just to kind of do a little shake a brew. Okay. That leg stays there. Push the right leg out nice and steady and controlled. And again, you're just standing on that leg for a second. Good. Again, press n, N I want you to only to do two more prs.

Good. And thinking about the big toe joint and [inaudible] hold, hold, hold. Where as you straighten that leg, you're fine. Now eight more lower your heel. Lift your heel down, down and up and up and down. Down and up and up and up. Up soon. Being careful on the up up that the pinky toe doesn't take too much weight.

Yeah, that lateral line. See if you can put more on that inner line edge of your foot. That's your last one. Hold. And then come all the way in. Okay. Other sides. So left foot on there, right in line with your pelvis, your sitz bone. Good. You guys press out.

So we just did for plane extensions all the way out and all the way in. Relax. Any bracing in your back. That's it. So following that inner line of your leg, think groin toward big toe joint. That was better. Last one. Hold. Okay. A little faster from down, down, up, up one, two and up, up, down, down and up, up, down, down and up. Up and down. Down and lift, lift and four and lift lower and stretch down. Lift one more down. Lift, bend that knee and come all the way into the stopper. Okay, good.

So heel on the bar, this is where it gets a little funk or maybe a variation on the theme. So as you take your left leg tabletop externally rotate a little. So that might give you a sense of your pelvis kind of tips that way. So we have to work a little more tummy to not have that happen. Okay. And then the other weird odd thing, instead of your right heel in line with your right sit bone, put your right heel on line with left sit bone.

And that hip externally rotates. So now it's actually not that wacky cause both femurs are like this, but with could be tricky is the pushing foot. You're nodding. It could be that you accidentally rock your heel sideways. So we want to still be as evenly on the heel bone. Let's do eight regular presses. One good.

So you know, I am a believer in that wrapping cue. I like it. I like also a spiral image. So from hip down the leg toward heel, like a beautiful coiling ribbon or of course like our springs down below us cause they have the coil. Nice you guys. So there's a coil, but then there's another cool going up and out the top of your head. Weird diagonals and stuff and spirals all over the place. Excellent. Last two prs. Good job with your pelvises last time. And as you come all the way down, you're just going to simply dissolve it, lift that foot, place it up, and tabletop, your left will go a heel on bar. Let me make sure.

So is that, yeah, you place your left heel on. It's kind of tricky to know where you're right. Sit Bone is there. Okay, excellent. Not that far over, believe it or not. You're right. Yeah. Good. And all right, so take just an extra second on this side. You guys reach both sit bones towards your foot bar and have your machine or the reformer. Exactly. Exhale, push wrap and lengthen out. Pull from those lateral hamstrings, wrap and stretch and feeling that coiling. Again, we're kind of imaging the coil, relaxing those rib cages down.

Beautiful. Yep. How's that feel? Do you feel anything different in the back legs? The dairy, your section. And it's nice cause neither of you are over gripping the glue there. But I can definitely see tone change in that upper rear leg, which we're looking for but not so much that it lifted your tail. I think that was your eight. Maybe it was nine.

And then come all the way in and rest. Okay. Excellent. Organize your feet on the bar in line with your sitz bones on your heels or your arches. I want you to decide, take your headrest down. So we're going into some spinal articulation and bridging. Um, yeah. Perfect. Okay. So I want you to take two inhale, exhale, breath cycles to roll up to your shoulder blade bridge so you have enough time to do that. Let's breathe in to get ready. Exhale, sinking that tummy wall down and curl that tail and feel as though your, as you're doing that the backbones are getting heavier but the lower backbones are getting lighter and there's your second breath cycle. And your up. Okay. And I know two springs still right, so feel your back body reaching toward your back. Knees. Good. I want you to do four pushes of the carriage. Here we go. Push back.

Big Strong, pull back in. Back body is strong. That's it. Push and pull. And of course our one objective. Many on them not dropping pelvis so the butt gets to go activated. Lift those hips all the way in. Now hold yourself two breaths to roll down. Inhale, exhale, maybe two back of rib cage. Nice. Inhale, exhale, lower back to sake rum. What kind of recover things in the, let's do it again instead of four pushes out there, you're only going to do two.

Okay. However, two breath cycles to peel up. So exhale, belly down, tail curls. You're kind of going through lumbar right there. Second breath cycle. Ribcage up toward base of shoulder blades. Feeling some big strong hip extension through the front hip joint. Now just to presses of the carriage. Inhale, good and exhale. Think about using this one a little more. Probably that's protecting your back today and all the way in.

Reach your knees toward me. Good. And you got it. And to rest, to roll down like you're bringing your spine toward me, the back of your spine. Nice. Becca, all the way down. Now it gets even more fun. I think we always say fun, don't we? We love this stuff and the harder stuff. So I would love for, you know, to change your feet so that your ankles come all the way together and knees together. Okay. All right, so two breaths to roll up. It's a little harder when the add, the legs are completely abducted. So just pay attention. If your knees get a little, uh, you know, tender, but you too. I know you're fine if anyone's watching them, that our full adducted does not feel good. Separate those feet again. Okay. Now here it goes.

Take your right leg up to the ceiling and I want you to flex your foot. Give me your heel. Push up. Okay. Now the other foot pushes against that foot bar. Strong, strong, strong. Four pushes of carriage. Doesn't have to be big with this pushing leg connected. These end points. Something's up. Yeah. And something's down.

Here you go at three. Nice. And in and for excellent you guys all the way in. Bend that knee. Step the foot to the bar. Roll down. Two breaths. Soften the back. Yeah. Softening your body in a way because you know you have to get wet when you go back up. So here we go. Rolling up. That was lovely.

So good. And we know the challenge. So much of it is keeping that don't carriage this way until we're ready to push it away. So as you're rolling on up, you're fine. It maybe did a little. Okay. Left like up. Yeah. So feel that directions. Write something up. Something down. The foot bars the ground. That's your ground now. Four pushes of carriage and exhale.

Good and inhale. Good. So the back body was totally active here. Back of the arms, the back muscles, the butt, the hamstring, the calf, the foot, this foot, everything on the back. And we haven't neglected the front body. Last one. I think that was it. Put your heel on the bar and then you get to roll down. Thanks you guys. These women are strong.

So strong. Hug your knees. Okay, good. So I'm going to do this for you. I'm going to lower your foot bars cause I'm nice. I think I'm nice. Plus it's just time. Nice for you to take a moment and let your back do that. Okay. So for hands and straps and some ab work. Um, right now we're on to read. I'm going to take off a read and put on a blue. All right, so you're all going to be doing a red and blue and I think you're already now for hands to reach back. Pick up your straps, head rest right now. Um, choose what you like.

Sometimes having it down is really nice. Um, in a moment we're going to be rolling over so you could keep it down. Alright, so we're gonna do some hundred or variations of a hundred. So I want you to breathe in full lungs. Exhale, beautiful, clean chest lift. Just nothing fancy. Just curl up, right? We know we're reaching long through fingertips. We're going to inhale five, exhale, five, we go. Inhale, three, four, five, exhale, three second set. Take the leg straight up. Third Inhale. Exhale, give me your right leg. Fourth breath cycle. Bring it up. Fifth breath cycle.

Bring it left leg down. Sixth Rev Cycle. Bring it up both legs. Inhale, three, four, five, stay. Two, three, four, five. Back up, two, three, four, five and state again, down two, three, four, five in Stage three, four, five and up to five and stay to three. Back to tabletop. Two, three, four, five. And exhale. One more round. One, two, four, five and x, sail three.

It might've been 11 we know probably it was with me. Lower your head. Raise your arms and pause. Great. You guys. So we just finished the 100 and let's carry on with that idea of, you know, variation on the theme a little bit. So if you take both legs you did a moment ago and externally rotate your femurs, you know, it's a little diamond kind of thing. I'm not going to be too detailed on strong point feet.

It's really the femurs and where they've gone. So I want you to breathe in through your nose. As you exhale, curl up to chest lift. Let your legs open to a straddle ish and reach your hands through. Now Flex your feet, point your feet lower, your chest, arms go up, and you return into your diamond. Okay, four more exhale. You curl up, reach, flex point and lower down. And again, exhale, curling up. So how much can you reach through those legs? Flex point, good arms up, chest open legs and diamond, and two more curl reached like crazy. Flex point.

Sacrum is heavy and coming down. Here's your last one. Nice. You guys. Ready to find maybe just a little more external rotation through your femurs. Nice flex point and all the way down. So keep your body ready. Open your arms to a t. This one maybe is a little easier. So on an exhale, chest lift, arms come into body, legs to parallel, and you squeeze all that air out of that body in. He'll collect it to go down for more strong. Exhale, squeeze every ounce out. Inhale, bring it back in. Three more.

So the inner arm into those inner rib squeeze like crazy good you guys. Gorgeous stuff last to exhale and the legs are very defined in strong last time and lots of great, beautiful inner thigh work. Nice and all the way down. And then reach your arms straight up to the ceiling. So I'm going to have you do rollover or overhead. Did you both keep your head rest down? You did. Okay, so overhead in a diamond.

So it's again a little variation, but there's a surprise at the top there'll be a little leg straightening thing. Okay, so inhale, get ready, exhale, arms to the mat. First, Curl your tail up and roll your spine overhead. And pause. This is a great place to just kind of have a moment. Relax your chest. Now take both legs into parallel and straighten them as if you were doing your regular rollover feet pointing to the back of the reformer.

That's a nice challenge that you don't roll too far back on your neck. Now return to diamond. Inhale good. And exhale. Articulate down your spine, keeping that diamond position. So again, the back of the spine. Getting long, long, long little breath transition. Inhale, arms go up. Two more like that. Exhale, arms come down. Pick your tail up first arch over.

So those beautiful sit bones are straight up to the ceiling. Nice you guys. Parallel legs as you stretch your feet towards your risers. Return into diamond by opening the hip joints. There's open femurs. Breathe in there and exhale as you start to articulate down, I like to really find my arms and my collar bone with Nice Becca. You guys. Beautiful. One more time. Arms float.

Get that air in those lungs to press it out. Have enough left to pick up that tail rollover. Oh that exhale. Good. Inhale, stretch those legs. Beautiful. And exhale. Return to diamond. Gorgeous. And as you roll down, how broad can your collar bone get held strong and connected to? Are Your Arms Nice? And then simply close into parallel.

Let your knees drop in towards your chest and rest for a second. Feeling good. Okay, go ahead and lower your uh, arms back and hook up your straps. We're going to move into pulling straps, so I'm going to be a little nice here. Grab your box for you. I'll be nice again to beck in a minute, I think.

Yeah. All right. Why am I doing this drill? I mean, hey, whatever. So it's a red spring for me. I like the middle red because that is my personality to have that thing lined up. I mean, God forbid we'd have it over there. Okay, so go ahead and mount onto your tummy, shoulders or chest right at the front box line and go ahead and pick up your straps. We're doing kind of traditional pulling straps, one and two. Okay. And we'll do five repetitions of pulling straps, one and three repetitions of two, just so you know what's coming. Now I like to beautiful. Give you a chance just to organize.

I find that really important. With so much of our work, we moved pretty quickly, so I want you to inhale, prepare right now. Exhale, drag your arms along the frame. I'm right behind you. Pick your arms up. I'm going to have you do maybe a little different thought here. Bring your arms up so that your fists are right by the sides of your hips. Squeeze your inner triceps towards your route inner lats and bring your chest more forward. Becca there, and then lower your arms down so find the wood and kind of follow that and just be mindful of what's going on in here. Exhale again. Durag the hands.

Now I want you to all think about what are those risks doing? They're not cocking and flexing. You're not riding a bike or motorcycle right now. They are strong, good and lower down and very beautiful. Three more. I'll let you move a little faster. Exhale, pull, squeeze. Shine your chest forward like it's a huge searchlight, right.

Look and arms down and last too from those shoulder blades. Good. Searchlight. Very strong reaching for, looking for those risers. Nice. Becca and down last time and little less neck. More chest, more. Yeah, more that. More chest, less neck. Excellent.

Open A, sorry. Lower your arms and we'll do three of the number. Two arms up to t, K and he'll get ready. Here we go. Exhale. Same thing. Inner tricep to last, more chest, less neck. Yup. And lower down. Does that make sense? Yeah. So many of us, I'm one of them. I love to get up there and crank my net back. It's just I'm in that moment.

I want more chest lift and less neck bending back cause the neck bending back as we know as not really back extension. It's something else in the neck. A little bit of compression perhaps. Okay. I think you've done your three and lower everything down. And I know your favorite is teaser, so you're gonna flip over to your back and lie back on your back. Let's do this. Uh, there's a few ways to get set up. I think school to school and let's today shoulder blades at the back edge of your box I think will work quite nicely.

And you can go ahead and find your straps guys. And as we do the teaser, you know, remind yourself where you are in your body today. And this is, I'm saying it out loud. Progress not perfection for some of us. All right, so let's take our arms out to a tee position. Have a little bit of tension in the reformer. You're already in a slight chest lift. Take your breath through your nose.

Let's use exhale today. As you scoop your arms down towards your hips, extend your legs and lift that chest up homes or just slightly above those Shin Lines. Good. You guys. Now reach toward me with your leg energy. Breathe in as you roll back. Pull your tummy energy away from your legs. Articulate very gracefully and strong. As you roll all the way back the arms, go ye ice down and out to your tee and heel there. Xcel. Let's go back up again. Pull that. That's all right. Die Nice. Recover belly back a little.

It's going to feel like you're going to roll back. What? I want you to get your sacred more back. Sacred. Yeah. Gotcha. Sacred back that way toward the ocean. You got it. Breathe. You're doing it. Exhale, roll back. So more sacrum under leg energy out like these leg energies are meeting right there where I am at one more time.

You guys strong. Feel out of know your external obliques. Your side buddy activates to wrap in, which might open you up here three times. Your arms are just going to go down a couple inches. Inhale, exhale, scoop them up. Feel your biceps or your elbow should be a little bit bent here. Arms come up, more belly back. Inhale, arms go down.

More belly back. Look here. Inhale. Good. Roll down everybody. You too. And roll down. Oh Nice. Okay. Awesome. Put Your straps down. Beautiful teasers, excellent teasers. And then we're going to, I'm going to move you into short, short box. Now you guys can turn your boxes for me.

I'm going to get you a little more organized and you're here. That was the lovely, so on me. The reformers were on and you guys have used me for, but the the carriage has to go back a little bit like that. Yeah. For the foot bar to come in. Yeah.

Oh good. Okay. So we are going to start with our short box round back. I know. Who is this? I mean look how nice I'm being. Okay. Now I am pretty usually pretty accommodating. Okay, so this might be different too. So if you don't mind, sit back a little bit more in your box. Open your feet, pull out on the outside edge or the edge of the strap and flex your feet. So you're actually going to be no feet on wood, no feet on frame.

Yeah, way back. So Yep, get on that right. So it's Kinda, it's, and there's an outward tug, you know, to find your lateral hip abductors and then the ankles inflection and then no touching wood. So you're kind of, you're hooked, you know. Now let's just have the elbows slightly folded here and I want you to first start in vertical. There you are, inhaling, nice and tall to regular rollbacks. Round back. Here we go. Start it. That sacrum. And I want you to to, because I'm just take your body where you'd like to go with this basic ground back cause it is probably a different sense with your legs and that strap situation. Breathe in there. Exhale. Now find your side body and those external obliques. Here we go. Round forward.

Notice how that squeeze on the side body will open up this nice space in the back. Inhale, sit tall. Same thing again. Exhale, c curve. Nice. Good for you. Getting that expansion. We three are built. So similarly with our strong legs in our lumbar curve, we hold there. Inhale, go deeper in your exhale and as you're rounding forward, tree eight some of that upward space in the vertebrae, so we're not going to lapsing them. Try and traction up and over. Okay. In. He'll sit tall, not weary. Two more times. Inhale. I know. It's weird. You'll get it. It's just new, I think. Round back.

Good. Yeah. Beautiful. Scooping it. The hollowing quality going on with you guys. Now hold where you're at. This is fun. Take your arms a little higher. This is more me. Challenge abdominal control over your arms. Chest level. Breathe in, curl back up again. Deep, deep, deep scoop or contraction in hills. You sit tall, your shoulders, press down.

Let's do that piece one more time. So if I have the ability to take your tail, I'd pull it like this and then pull yours like that. Wrap them in a little bow arms. You never know. Up. Nice control cause that moment there, that belly could have popped up but it didn't breathe in. Exhale, curl up. WRAL use those obliques. Find that flection. Good. You guys sitting tall.

Open your arms so some flat back. Go ahead and maybe interlace the hands. Try this today too. I'm kind of playing with some stuff instead of behind the head all the time. Cool. Behind the neck. You know, really cradle that neck and think and Matt work as we're about ready to do a neck pole. That sense that you as you kind of use those hands to pull yourself up. Yeah, let's just do a basic two times flat back. Ready here.

The goal there [inaudible] they've got a nice rube control and they're coming forward. Inhale as you lift up, hinge back. Good. And it is to use some of this of your body. Yeah, use it to come right back up. Some of those ribs down the front body. Okay. We're going to combine a little hinge with flection. This is fun. Inhale, hinge back. Maybe not as far as you just were. Okay, so from that hinge, flex the spine. So I want you to tail to come under c curve.

Now you're going to look straight out of your eyes. You're in that c curve. Now take that seeker back into your hinge. Your eyes now in your chest will be up on a little more of a diagonal. Bring that hinge forward. Nicely done. Let's do one more inhale. As you hinge back.

Now when you go to your secret lengthen space within your spine, bones into the flection. As you curl your tail, your eyes. Now we'll also imitate that or not imitate, but you changes your spine curve here. Inhale back into your hinge. I know I'm talking, and then bringing that hinge forward and pause. Gorgeous. You guys. Take your arms again out to your tee. Palms face up. Let's do a little progressive. Exhale. Exhale, spinal rotation to your right.

Ready and he offers to the right. Exhale. Exhale, one to recover and left left ad. So this is kind of just a little in between. Little add on once again, each side, so you're really getting a chance to sit. Even exhale, exhale. Now we're going to add a little sod just because inhale, rotate towards your right is like the mat saw, but it's up on shore box saw towards your right.

We really know about this already from the mat work that that opposite hip doesn't lift up. Inhale as you restack your soul on your diagonal and return center to your left, breathe in. Good you guys. So the sod direction, you know you're going towards your left knee. Now inhale, return up to that sitting diagonal Xcel return just one more. Each side knowing you have one more each side. Maybe you want to get a little more out of it. Reach more. Tuck those abdominals in. Up Underneath, right ribs. There we go. Inhale.

Restack and exhaling center. And your last one. How are those legs? Hard holding as strap. Oh, some of toes are up there. Yeah, it's hard. It's different. I know you're probably not as used to that. Good and rolling all the way up. Return centered. Now let your body relax for a second. Oh, we'll go down and touch your foot strap and just relax cause there's a side over a variation. I want to give you. So why don't you release your left leg and turn toward the left.

And you can this a line, your shinbone just up on the box there. Flex. So this is gonna be a different tool. Maybe flex your foot on the strap. Lean out foot should not touch frame again. Okay, so to get this set up in the news is going to be different. Put your left hand behind your head, right arm buyer right on your side and just hold onto that beautiful, lovely position of being stable. I'm going to organize your shoulder and hip. Okay. And take an extra moment. Can you elongate, are in the middle of your body. So your spine, right your spine out through the head and up to the foot.

I want you to take your right arm. Now you're just going to do three arch, the arm up towards your ear and you're doing external rotation of this. This is to extend you even longer. And then just the arm goes back down by the hip. So it's just an arm gesture, arm arcs up over ear stretch and exhale by the hip. One more time. Inhale, exhale. I should have said one and a half because it has to go back up again.

And then hand joins the other hand behind the head. Now three times only. Exhale, rotate toward the headrest. Turn your thoracic and mid back. Good. And he'll return to your center again. Pelvis stays pretty darn. Still twist the upper spying. Nice. Inhale Center. Your last one here, ringing out and inhale center.

And then you know what, go ahead and take yourself down. Rotate toward the headrest. Again, walk your hands out pretty far on the frame if that feels nice. So you've got rotation but lots of length in your sides. You can even walk further out if that doesn't bother your back. And then take like three to five deep breaths into your back rib cage and side rib cage. Yeah, really fill up this space in your back.

Cause that last little piece is not just for obx weeks as a quad radius work. You know your external obliques come all the way into your back. So that's part of what that was for. Let's do the other side. That counter stretch. I know and I said, yeah. All right. So yes, right hand behind the neck and head again, left arm just by your hip.

And give me just a moment to make sure you're square because I am teaching to youtube as well as the camera, but I want to make sure you're safe. Okay. And then the sternum is up through the tip of the head kind of thing. All right. Inhale arm, arms overhead. Exhale, arm arcs back down. It's like you're pressing the belly back to spine. Inhale, this reach can be more stretching, spine and body. Exhale back down. Keep the length you just found nice. And one more time. Inhale overhead and exhale down to hip.

And then you're half one to transition that hand behind. Head. Breathe in first. Now without moving your hips, rotate toward the head rest. So it's from ribs to head. You twist. Inhaling to the side. It's your Chris Cross in a very, very strange way. Twist, inhale, great level pelvis has guys last one, ring out and center and then your last kind of releasing ring out. And then take your hands on the frame walking out. Take some deep, deep, deep breaths. Again, you're trying to really fill up into the back body here. Ribs, hips, lumbar spine, a couple of those.

Nicely done. Okay ladies, great short box work. We are now ready for some long stretch series. So organize your bar, probably the middle slot or high bar. And I don't know what you like personally for long stretch, red and blue to red buttons. Let's do red. Blue. Yeah. So spring and a half and they will get it ready for the long stretch.

And I'm kind of, and let's do head rest up. I probably snuck yours up somewhere along the way. All right, so put a hand. Have you ever heard the peg leg mount? Oh, this will be fun. I like this. So it's a really great way to organize. So hand comes on without bending knees or putting knees on Mat.

This leg swings around. I'm already in this hip, in this style, this abdominal wall, which is nice. Second hand. Oh a second foot. And hopefully by that time that, well sorry, after you do your long stretches, then your dismount is very much the same. Okay. It might feel a little wooden, but it's kind of a nice little entry. Yes, no knee bend, right? It's actually very precise and kind of um, it's really lovely. So I want you to, to relax your heels a bit, meaning not to be so high in your tippy toe. Okay, good. Now chest is strong and reaching forward. Five repetitions. Lets go. Inhale, push the carriage back. Exhale, drag the kerogen with your abdominals and lats. Inhale, push the carriage back as if you're leaving your heels back toward the head rest. Just a tad. Nice. Inhale.

Exhale, drag. You're going to love this one. Drop those heels from you a bit even more. So instead of your legs helping you use your fine, your middle. Nice. Becca, one more time. So I've just taken their heels and I'm not letting their heels pop up so much. You're going to lower your knees, you guys for down stretch. That made sense, didn't it? Okay. So Yup. Separate the feet.

Chest isn't your swan or spine is in your swan. Use your find your hamstrings a little more. And I want you to kind of break your own mold in a, in a way cause your form is so perfect here and it's lovely. Now, I would love for you to almost not even think about looking forward that way. Look a bit up. Think more swan or someone die for Mat work.

And you know when you're in the dive moment with the arms up, that's no five repetitions there. Challenge yourself to not look with your chains, your eyes. Exhale. Come forward. Think more swan dive moment. Yep. Inhale back. Exhale forward. Inhale, exhale and catch you baby. Trying to keep your heels back. Heels. That's it.

So I'm a, that was at five reps. Can I have you do three more please? So yeah, go for it. You guys are fine. We're swan more swan. Yes. Back. There you go. Lizzie. Do you feel that? Four swans. One Swan. Same with Becca's heels. Push your heels back. Nice. You guys. Last one. Lovely changes all the way in. Now find a round back position. Yeah. All right. That's a nice change. So climb up to up, stretch position up on the toes.

And more now a beautiful flat back line rather than such an arch. And let's just do kind of a five. Push the carriage out. Lower your hips into your plank or your [inaudible] three I think for Bassi we're about maybe two. It's up stretch to pro chest right there. There now, Huh? Maybe two. Yeah. And then as you go back up, hips carriage comes in. Yeah. And again, inhale, exhale, come down plank. Proud chess wrapped those shoulders coming back up, dinging from hips.

Get those nice long hamstrings really stretched up into this hip bone. Three more. Love the control of your timing, you guys beetle stuff and come back in. So a lot of times we, I like to think of that as a slight bit of coordination and control as you're carrying, carrying your body into that plank, your chest and your pelvis and your legs. Everything arrives in it in one timing and then it really folds in such the same way. Okay, one more time. Inhale and exhale. Coming down to the up plank position and coming back up into your pike. Pike, Pike. So let's just take an elephant. So flatten your feet and I want you to go for, try to play more a spine flection.

And this is ACU and I like to give credit to people who have helped me along the way. Gary Calderon, thank you so much. His hand, I'll never forget it came right at my upper abs and he just plunged that hand up in my gut and in a loving way of course. And then his other hand came onto my sacrum and that contact was essential for me. My shoulders may have been shrugged, who knows? But this got me more elongated, right? Toes go up. And then of course you would say no Amy, you're not going to move the carriage much, are you? Well, I'm sure. Try to do 10 nice little movements of carriage without losing that.

So inhale, push away, exhale it in. Push and pull it in. That's it. Nice you guys. Yeah. So here's what I see. This is gorgeous. This line down the bottom to your feet and it says, if the heels are dragging that carriage back in underneath you. Exhale, go five, a little faster out in, out, in, out, in, out, in, out and in and hold fuel. Okay.

Okay. That was lovely. Now take your right foot, you guys and put the ball of your foot here at the front and take the back foot up onto the it's ball as well. So you've kind of owned both the ball feats. Thank you. Yes he will can be against shoulder rest back there. Okay, so it's a little, you know, kind of asymmetrical in a way. Can you go down to bend both knees. Thank a single leg, knee stretch cause it kind of is going to be one and be a little more genuine. Generous with your bend and your Lumbar fluxion bend those knees. Yeah, get down there. So I'm almost like your pelvis is in line with your front knee. Okay, can you bend more now here's the deal. Front foot stays ready.

This heels up. Sorry. Push with your back leg five times. Just the back leg and try to get all the way to hip extension. Yes, there you go. Hip Extension. Nice. Back Up, hip extension. I hear things. This is five. Good. Pause the carriage forward. Lift your from your stomach to straighten your legs. Step your front foot back and your back foot forward. Good. Inhale, exhale. Now sometimes what happens, it does on me a little bit too, is my front foot.

Sometimes it'll come a little narrow, so move it a little bit there. Okay? Yup. And as you're balancing on both ball feats, lumbar flex, get down into it. So it's the back leg, right hip extension. Here we go. And extend. So find those hamstrings them into your glues. Three good.

And four and five all the way in carriage. Front, footsteps back. Good you guys. Let's come on down to both knees and just a nice easy stretch into a cap back stretch. I'm not going to make, we're not going to do any strip series, although I could. Okay. What I do want us to do now is to come into a little bit more, um, feet and straps or get into feet and straps. So come on down off the reformer. You can lower your foot bar. Yeah, we can take it all the way down out of the way and lie back down to new back again.

I'm going to keep you on a red and blue and just go ahead and climb into this. Straps feed and straps. Good. I had a parallel thing in mind and a diamond thing in mind or nothing. Piece of movement, not formal. So fine tabletop with your shit.

So it's actually going to be a little less than that. So shins will be slightly higher than knees because of the ropes situation. Okay, so we're going to talk just for a second on which which joint to move from the knees or the hips. And the first joint set will be your knees, which will take you into extending your legs forward now from your hip joints. Lower your legs down with them straight from your hip joints. Bring your legs back up.

Not Quite to 90 but probably pretty well to 90 and then your femur stay still. Bend your knees back to where we started. This is the odd one right there. Okay, so femur stays steady, ish. Knees extend. It's really detailed there. Then femurs extend from hips down. I'm getting too academic.

Legs go up, but you see what I mean? Is there your hip joints right now? If you could pause right there enough. The femur stay perfectly steady and you find your hamstrings to bend your knees. Good. Lizanne there. Let's do it two more times. And femur stay steady and knees extend.

Then our long hamstrings moved along. Legs down. There we go. And then the long legs come back up. Good. And then the femurs stay steady and you bend your knees. That's the weird one. You want to do it one more time? Okay. And knee extension.

Good Becca. Long legs bring the long hamstrings town. Excellent. Yeah. So which joints are we moving from? Hip joints right there. And then hip joints again to raise the legs and then the hip joint stays steady and we bend our knees. We're going to do that. Something pretty similar but in a diamond.

So open up the femurs. Now it's actually going to start from hip joint. Then knees. Okay. So from here, lower your femurs, which is working from the hip joints. Keep your femurs where they are. Extend your knees, which is going to be actually, I'm going to have you go to like a small straddle. Okay. You probably noticed something different and then bend the knees, keeping your femur still bring your thighs back up toward 90 degrees. And that is your, the return and the pattern. I know this is like one of these weird one. So femurs down, hold the femurs there and it's like a, a small straddle.

The knees extend without moving the carriage, which is we know the legs are going. Woo. And then bend your knees, you're finding adductors, hamstrings. And then as your femurs come back up, it's the stomach muscles and your sacred miss steady. Let's just do it two more times. Femurs down to music, scanned to nice you guys. Knees Flex and run your hips back up into flection.

Last one. Hip Joint, knee joints, knee joints with hips being steady. Excellent. Hold. Now go back out. Knees extended. So you're going to go into your small straddle, flex both feet and just three times. Add duct squeeze, both like in, in, in, and open. Open, open, last to n in n and open, open, open, and last one in Indian where they're going to hold close. Parallel. Let's do five circles. Regular. Good old lake circles up we go to 90 let's open today from the top. Beautiful circle down, add duct parallel. And then here we go.

Those hip joints again. Yeah, and we open without moving the carriage and squeeze. That's even with the stomach muscles parallel and gracefully. Raise your legs back up and open because this is familiar or league circles are familiar. Just check in or you're bracing your back. You maybe last too, the side of domino muscles helping her wrap the ribs so that you achieve more width in your bat. And her last one, this direction we open and arch down, legs in parallel and up the midline and one a five the other way. So keep those adducted muscles working. Pull down, articulate, open with the legs into turnout. Now as you close, remember, carriage stays really perfectly still and we go down, down and open and add dock, belly flattens. And in three more nice stuff you guys. So what's coming in after this is short spine, just so you know where we're headed last too.

So just to kind of already get yourself ready for uh, lowering your head rest. You can do it now if you'd like. It makes the transition kind of fun and easy. Yeah. Okay. So might be being my background. Pretty eclectic up. I love all the short spines I do each and every one of them.

But today when I want to have you to do is keep yourself at 90 and let's go ahead and fold the hips and let the carriage drag all the way in. And you're going to do long, straight legs. You're fine just to really get that hamstring length now, right? And then the tailbone curls, the lumbar spine flexes, the tee spines flexing in. You're kind of aiming that tail right up through to the back of your heels.

So Nice you guys. Perfect control. So now from up there, flex the feet and knees. Open your knees to shoulder width or carriage with shoulder rest. Breathe in and roll yourself down and bring your legs with you today. Connect again to the back of the arms, the back of the shoulders. Relax your head and neck. Press your legs long and out.

Parallel again. Inhale. And here we go. Don't carriage comes all the way to stopper. If the, if the sacred could stay, we would have a stay there. And now you really find your stomach and curl the spine. Use your external obliques to flex the spine. Yep. Beautiful. And now for Rog, breathe in. That's a wide back moment right there.

And then exhale as you roll down, keep a sense of your feet lightly pressing up into the straps of the feats. Put straps. Okay, just two more today. Stretch parallel fold at the hips. Feel that nice long body, hamstrings and spine and peeling up. Good.

You can do that again, just feeling the sense or finding, visualizing that how wide your back is. Inhale frog position. That gets even wider and rolling down. This is always fun to try. Okay, good. Yeah. And one more time. Yeah, I remember the first couple of times I got that reminder of Amy put your wrists down. I had no idea they weren't down. Oh my gosh. How much I was like, oh I left that.

You know it really just isolated my body. Yeah. And the triceps, how my arms were organized for my shoulders, all kinds of things. Peel your shoulders open with debts. It, it's amazing if I can feel it all the way down there. And then once you place your pelvises down you guys go ahead and take a stretch that feels good for you. Like a straddle stretch or so just for a couple of breaths cause I've kept your pretty small in range of motion and also the stretch might feel really nice and then we'll be coming up for just a bit more work and we're getting to spend a little moment on some arms. If you come up on kneeling, high kneeling up on the reformer and feet back against your shoulder rests.

Just because we don't need a down and reach back and pick up the straps carefully cause there's a lot of spring on there. I don't want it to propel you to the foot bar. Okay. Do you do your bicep curls on much weight? Yeah, I think you guys do. So yeah. Let your arms start way back behind you. You know, and almost even let your upper arm externally rotate for a moment. And so I love having you bend your toes down and try to dig. Yeah.

Down in there. And then heels reaching back. That has helped me over time get my hip flexors longer. We're kind of built the same. So the heel thing, hip extension, you feel that? So kind of, I'm not going to push on you, but it's somewhat push. It makes you kind of feel your hamstrings hug onto those femurs. Okay. That's just the setup. So as you exhale, bend those elbows, bring your fist to the back of your waist and inhale, reach back.

Let's do 10 of those. Yeah. And inhale as if you're reaching your form. We back behind you. Exhale, fold and unfold. I don't want to confuse you while you're doing your own work. But there you go. It's Kinda cool too because it gives you another dimension. Okay. You know your bicep work.

But what if you approached this next time thinking about your hip extension and your heel reach behind you. Good. And they're doing a lovely job of not cocking their wrist or doing any motorcycle revving. Really Nice and neutral. So their work is really coming from the bicep curl. And just one more time. Good. And then reaching back, just to kind of hold this, I'm gonna take off one of this spring.

So I'm dropping down just to blue and go ahead you guys. And we're going to do just three repetitions of arm circles or scoops forward. So bless pre to prepare and scoop the arms down in foreign. You guys are fine to go pretty high and rotate from the upper arm and open. So as you're opening your arms, you're growing ever tall in your mid body and to more scoop forward.

It's kind of Nice to have that light spring all of a sudden and grow lighter than feel lighter. Enlightened your mid body. Yeah. And one more like that and [inaudible] and circle and three the other way, Huh? Yeah, in it and open. And then the poems of course face the ceiling as you come down, cause it arm has changed. Angle palms facing out big lungs and lower one more. Instead this time the arms won't come all the way down.

They're going to end in salute. Okay. And just hold your solute position. So suddenly I'm going have you do four reps and you'll see why. Well, I'm sorry, two regular salutes. Ready. Exhale. And Prs, we always do salute with two arms at the same time, but there's really no reason we don't have, we can do one at one time. So choose your favorite arm and do it. So do it on that side without rotating your torso yet and do your other arm. It's Kinda tricky not to rotate. So do your first arm. Again, holding steady. Nice you guys.

You're probably going to feel some additional stuff going on in your, in your back and on purpose. Okay. Now, favorite arm at a little upper thoracic rotation ever slight. And then return second side. This is a tricky little thing not to do the hips and do the same thing. Single arm. Nice work. Yeah, and other arm.

Good. You feel some oblique kick into. It's really nice. Yeah. Okay. Of course we're rotating. So arms come down. Turn to face the back of your reformer. I'm going to keep it nice and light for chest expansion because we are going to do a single arm chest expansion and then some rotation as well. Okay. All right.

So go ahead and hold the tape now and it's not, so it's classically not going to be chest expansion, Amy, because I want you to you guys to start with your arms in front of you. Okay. Find that same hip extension. Let's just do two regular. Pulling your arms back. You can exhale, pull both arms back. Inhale. Let them sweep forward and pull both back. Pick your favorite arm. Pull with that one in. Rotate with it.

I had a feeling you'd take your right side. Good. So as you take it through these single arm pulls with rotation, find that center body or central access and try to go upward that coil again. There is that image of spiral going up, keeping even weight on your knees. Lovely you guys. And just for me, give me one more each side. I know that's different than what I just said, but you're fine. Yeah. Nice. Okay.

And your last one and rest. Okay. Place the straps on the shoulder pegs. Just go back into an easy little child's pose position. Just to rest your back. We're nearing the end. I'm going to give you, um, a squat kind of number. Little spleen a thing. Cause I know you guys do a lot of plays. I, someone said you like him.

So I'm going to go, um, okay. I'm going to be a little honorary to you and keep you on the blue spring. So have a straddle, sit on your reformer far. You know, distance from front is where you're going to lightly place your hands on your foot bar. Okay. And just find that nice vertical sit without thrusting the ribs forward.

So I am going to take us into a little inhale. Inhale, exhale, Xcel rhythm. And what that is is trying to find the glutes and pulsing your thighs back. Here we go. So keep going with that and just keep growing really tall up your back and [inaudible] four and three and two and hold it. Okay.

Bend your elbows just enough so you can kind of do a slight Polonius push up forward. Now you're going to get into your legs, push your feet onto the floor and stand up and almost two straight knees. You won't be able to because of reformer is wide. Okay? Now if you want, you just float your arms off the bar cause you don't really need it and that may help you try to achieve a little more external rotation, stirring them up. You got it. Now two counts to almost sit on the reformer. One to two counts up and just two, three more down, down had beautiful guys like you're trying to pry your knees back away from that foot bar down, down and up, up. Now it's your choice. You could stay there or put your hands on the bar.

I want you to lift your right heel, just your right heel. Four pulses down, down, hips wide. Gown down. Stay down please. Thank you. And put your heel down. Other heel goes up without the pelvis going up and down. Now it goes up and down, up and down.

Up and down. Up and down. Hold it down. Their heel goes down. Let's do it. You side again. Ready and uh, pulse and pulse and pulse at post. Heel stays down. Other heel and four, three, two. You're going to hate me. Hold your heel up. Add the other heel up. Four or eight pulses. I'll let you choose. Ready? Endo. One, two, three, four. There going forward. Four and three. Two and one.

They're going to sit down ever. So controlled. Heels go down first. Hips go down. Second hands, go to foot bar. Oh my goodness. You put your hands behind you and you should pull your hips back. Whew. Oh, we're going to do finish with a hip flexor stretch. Okay, so you probably are. Yeah, that might feel nice right now. I would change it to a red, no blue with a red. And how about you put your right foot against the shoulder rest for Eve's lunge with a little extra, a little flair. Alright, I'm gonna sneak in here.

So go ahead from me and just slide your carriage out in a way that you also lower your torso down towards your front thigh. So this for me, you can have the focus of just hip flexor stretching or you can also go to straighten this knee and get a little more hamstring and take a few breaths with it cause it feels nice and you guys are doing really great self-correcting cause I could see you working on squaring. Okay. Yup. Nice. So then you will return the carriage to bumper and I like you to think, go back to the down stretch we did earlier on. Think of your swan dive with your spine like you're going to back bend, back, bend, back, bend. Yeah. Nice. Good. Now go into a little lunge stretch and take your right arm forward and then it goes up toward the ceiling. So the same arm, his leg. Now, this is what I have to kind of pretend I was. Yeah.

Turn to your chest this way. Tore the hand that's on the foot bar. Good. Take that arm and circle it three times. Yeah. Big Inhale, circle and exhale around. How's that feel? Does it feel good?

It's just a different kind of angle that we normally go in, right? And then open the arm, circle it back around and put it on the foot bar. Turn your torso to the other side and then you can try to reach back toward that calf and just reach it toward it. Now play with maybe moving your carriage in or out. Good and rich. [inaudible] try and have even weight on the outside leg and in.

And just one more beautiful. Inhale now to recover. Exhale, circle the Arma and notice how it comes onto the foot bar so cleanly and you come all the way in and do the other side. Good. You guys. Lovely. Yeah. That was pretty, just to change it up, you know? Yeah. And I, I mean, I'm a big believer in obviously variations on theme. Uh, we do get used to the same sensation in our body and our mind and our patterning. Oh, here I go with ease. Lunge. So how else can we change it? And you know, our fascial lines through body, uh, are all over. There's, there's diagonals and rotations and things going on all the way all around us in there. One to play with those and find those.

So if you turn your body just a little bit, you feel something sometimes in a big way. Good self squaring. Yeah. So as you come into the bumper, thinks one dive. Let me get on you for that. No, it's great. Notice how your glute just kicked and we could do a whole thing on that. Okay.

No slide back out again, which we probably will cause it's great. And then your left arm, this time goes up. Yeah. And then rotate your torso. So what is it going to be your tour? So come. Yeah, that's it. It's your turn away from your front leg. I'm feeling a little like, okay. Circle the arm now. Back Down. Forward up. Big Breath.

Feel how the skin stretches almost as you take that big circle. Yeah. And down around that hands going to go to the bar. Then the other body turns or the other side turns and you try to reach towards the back calf if it's available. And just take your spine into that nice easy rotation. Play with moving and carriage a little bit if you'd like.

Yeah, good stuff. And then one more time. So that last gesture, would that arm reach back into space a little bit more? Pick up those ribs, return the hand to the bar, come all the way forward. I never liked to leave feeling like one side, it's got more attention than the other. So if you can just stay, you know what I mean by that? That twist. So stand just by the side of your reform or wherever you'd like you guys and just kind of center your legs. Center, your spine, your body. Just one easy standing roll down for yourself. Yeah. Inhale, nice and tall and forget you've, you know, you're not doing holidays anymore so much as you just being yourself, which has actually for many of us doing Flonase, but you look more aligned up that Rebecca, and then roll yourselves up. Fantastic work. Yay. Thanks for taking a class with me. That's fine.

Thanks you guys.

Comments

Paola Maruca
1 person likes this.
I am always so excited when Amy has a new reformer class on PA because I know she never disappoints me. You recognize a great instructor when her cues are so spot on that it is like you are the third person in that class while you are actually thousands of miles away, when time literally flies and your body feels amazing at the end. Thank you wonderful Amy. That's is, this is the year I will be meeting you and have the honor to take a class with you.
1 person likes this.
Ditto what Paola said...except the part about getting to meet you and take a class with you :(
...ahh,but one never knows...
1 person likes this.
I am one who actually has been lucky enough to meet Amy and take a couple of her reformer classes in person...Her instructions and cuing are incredibly clear! Thank you Amy for another great class!

1 person likes this.
Paola.....I can't tell you how much I appreciate your clear, honest and heartfelt feedback. Thank you so much! What you've said here is such a fantastic compliment! I cannot wait to meet you in person!! When's that going to happen?! :)
And Kerry......thank you! We need to get you out here to CA so I can give a class in person too!! :)
1 person likes this.
Hi Melissa......thank you so much for your kind words! :) Glas you enjoyed class with me!
Hello my friend! Loved the class! Your cues when doing coordination and star were great! Also loved the plie stuff at the end. This was a great class to do after a day of feasting! Happy Thanksgiving.
1 person likes this.
Thanks Amy. Really enjoyed this workout. Love the creative twists on traditional exercises. :) Very fun.
1 person likes this.
Hi Connie! Thank you so much....glad you enjoyed this class and some of the ideas I presented. Let me know how folks like them! Talk soon!
1 person likes this.
Deborah....thank you for taking the time to leave a comment here. I do like to give 'variations on the theme'......it's really nice to have some options, to change things up a bit for ourselves and our clients alike. Glad you enjoyed this class..hope to hear from you again soon!
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