Class #140

High-Energy Mat

60 min - Class
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Description

A high-energy class taught at a quick pace without sacrificing the integrity of the exercise setup. Work precisely and find yourself challenged with both the standard exercises as well as some interesting variations. Feeding off of the group energy, Kristi has fun with the cues and the class. We think you will too!
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

Mar 31, 2010
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Transcript

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Okay. We begin sitting up tall, right up on your sitz bones. Feet. Sit bones distance apart so your knees will be bent and you set the tone. Now I think we've all got round Mary. I'll be careful. Okay, these are bent. Loosen up. Decide right now what you need holding on behind the legs, just like sandy is here. And use your arms to find the length of your spine to feel the fall.

Reach to the back of the head. Sometimes when we think sitting tall, that automatically makes people look up. And I'm going to suggest an imaginary horizon where if anything, the chin's maybe slightly down. Okay. And from there, just inhale. You've got space between the legs. Let's hug that space just by exhaling. So just imagining to Ha as if there was something there. Inhale, filling up, exhale. And as you let go, feel space between, I don't know the bones, if that works for you. Inhale and exhale, letting go. What we know about this work is that the free are of tension.

We go into the workout with the more efficient we're going to move. So that's the point right now. It's worth it. You inhale on the exhale, you can roll the hip bones deeper into your body, creating that curve, rolling down to about mid back, or what suits you at this point. Inhale still on the horizon with the eyes. Exhale to come forward. Keep the curve tonight for now. Keep the curve still scooping the belly, still squeezing the glutes. Inhale a little and exhale, roll back. Okay.

If we can think about that horizon, let's make the collarbones mimic the horizon throughout class. Exhale forward. In other words, they're not up. They're not down, they're not forward, and they're not back. Inhale and exhale. Take it back. Okay, so at this point you're starting to get a sense of what you need. I'm going to just go a little faster, but no less precise. Exhale forward. Inhale, exhale, back. Inhale, exhale, foe.

Start finding the rhythm where you know you can't really restart and the breaths won't be quite as deep because I've moved you a little quicker. Where's your horizon? Don't bury your heads too much. You know? In other words, you're not looking up and down with your neck. It basically stays. Next time, go down to the mid back. Hang out there. When you get there, draw your feet in a little bit more and make sure you feel the full spine on the mat at this point, with the exception, I suppose if above the shoulder blades. Inhale, lithiums come up, eyes are forward. Exhale from under the arm. Press down and empty the lungs. Really let go. Here we go. Inhale up. No pressure. Changes on your spine. Empty the lungs, checking out your wide collarbones again. Inhale, yes.

Exhale and inhale. Two. Exhale, subtle change. No, it's not set a little. I'll keep the arm. Sorry Emily. Inhale, one leg. Pick a leg. Exhale. Inhale. Put it down. Other side. Exhale, so you're just checking in. How stable are you? Keep going and healing as you're lowering XL. Scoop, picking up the leg from the deepest part of your body so I don't want quite so much hip joint action, although it is going to happen from there.

Try and feel belly sink as if the leg were full of helium. Solid. Holding it down both arms. Up. Inhale. Exhale. Put them down. Draw the feet in a little closer. Inhale. Exhale. Float the legs up. Both of them. Oh yeah. Inhale down. I talked about trying to be spontaneous, right? Exhale, arms up. Who knows?

I don't either. Inhale, put it down. Here comes the legs. Exhale, you can do one leg at a time. You inhale down with the legs, arms up on the exhale. Inhale down with the arms. Exhale, legs. You gotta be ready for it so you don't rock last time. This time, arms go up and release them back behind you. Accommodate your body. We're about to do a pelvic curl, so feet are still apart about sis bones. Distance. Here comes the pelvic curl. Inhale, exhale, scoop the belly rolling up. Press the arms through the air as if the air were solid.

Finding the long line connecting to the back of our body. Now inhale, we reverse it. Exhale from the chest, reach through the arms, imprinting your body into the mat. Arms will just float by the ears at the most. Inhale, exhale, hollowing the belly to roll up and press through. Yeah, so you've already tapped into the front of your body. Inhale, try to tap into the bat. Exhale, articulating, reaching beyond the length of the extremities. Yes. Inhale, Nice, Sandy, and exhale peeling, right? Yeah. Lovely. When you get here, stay here. Let's press the arms into the mat and actually fire up the triceps a little bit. Fire up the back of the arm and the upper back a little and most certainly the hamstrings. Inhale, stay here. Exhale.

Just a little tiny attempted to post your tuck or or Tuck of the pelvis just to get more hamstring. Inhale, you won't see it. Maybe you'll feel it. Exhale. Good. Basically staying in place, but energizing the back of the legs again, just those little breaths. Inhale, release, exhale, and tighten in a thought I have is if your feet are relaxed, you can gently think to draw your hips toward your heels. Again, you won't see it, but you might feel the intensity in the back of the like one more time. Good. And from here, inhale. Exhale. As you roll down from the top, your arms. Once again, come overhead. They'll stop though at your chest waiting for your body to finish coming down.

Fantastic. Sandy, I'm going to go all the way down. I'm going to encourage you to come onto your mat just a little bit more. So your head's comfortable cause I'm gonna leave you down for a bit. Turn your palms toward each other. Yeah. And then make the pecs engage like hug something imaginary.

Make the lats engaged. So you are so called the whole power house. I'm going to assume that you also feel abdominals and even glutes keeping your arms like so bring the knees up to tabletop, zip them up. So it's as if you only have one arms are not to move if you can help it. Taking your legs to the Front for spine twist in helps her rotate. Won't be as big as you're used to with your arms up. Exhale, drop back.

Preparing the obliques and the spine. Other way in here. Yes, your stabilization is everything in your work. Again, inhale toward the front. Nice work. Exhale. So more important is the stability. Rather than the range. I see Aaron. Very good. Couple more at least. Yeah, in here. So if you glance at your knees, they're lined up side by side.

There's no sense of one leg sliding on the other. The rotation coming from the middle and going into the back again. Here it is in here, and exhale. Last set each weight. If at this point you're noticing, you know, I've been sitting all day or whatever, you need, a little low back stretch. You could, you could take one meaning. Let your legs go to the ground. You'd also want your arms to, I mean feet to everybody. Feet on the floor.

Take the arms back from here. I've turned the pumps back up to the ceiling and just take a mental check or feel that the entire back of your ribs are on the mat. Inhale prepared. Leave your legs for now. Exhale, curl head, neck and shoulders up. Reaching forward. So in this position, collarbones are wide. You look good. I'm going to ask you to have your hands or your wrists slightly higher than your shoulders today. Yeah, just slightly got over achievers here. Good.

Pressing the shoulders. Press the shoulders down a little deeper. Okay. Yes, Sandy, exactly. Now just breathe there. Inhale and exhale. Sink the belly. Deep, deep, deep, deep, deep. It's gorgeous, Mandy. Just make sure you feel that low back. Really releasing it into the math and exhale and you know that's good, Jim. That's really good. That's exactly how you'll do your a hundred a minute. One more time.

Exhale from there. Take the arms all the way back. Inhale. Let your head go down. Okay. Bring your legs to tabletop. You're going to end up in that same position with the arms and then we'll probably add the pumps. I still haven't decided. Here at comes. Inhale, get ready. Exhale. Go ahead and add the legs. If you're going to for the a hundred check out your hand slightly higher and let's go. Exhaling down. Two, three, four, five and email and excel. Two, three, four, five and inhale, filling up and exhale, two, three, four, five and you knew, oh, I'm seeing focus and exhale. Keep reaching the armpits toward the waist. Five.

It looks so good and that's exactly what I meant. That one day we practice that and exhale and inhale. Notice how still whole body is. Yes, my lungs in the house. You get three to go. Good. Keep reaching. Just a little less. A looseness in the risk. Real strong is to heat you up. That's it. One more time. Inhale and exhale.

Draw the legs and keep reaching the arm pits or arms. Inhale, touch the legs to the floor. Barely exhale, scoop deep. Pick them back up almost to your nose, but without tucking in, helping them down again, I'm doing just two more just so you know what to prepare for. Oh, you're looking strong. I love it. One more. What la? Hold the knees. Put your heads down. Great. Mix the order up a little bit from me. Maybe it's something you normally do. Um, I really enjoyed what I just saw, so I'm going to keep to the theme of, I don't know if armpits is too weird of a cue.

Arms towards your waist. That worked really well. Do that now. So you feel the elbows have to go to the side of the room a little bit. Chin toward chest. As you curl up, looking to your knees today, just inhale, open up, take it slow, try to get hands quite close together. I actually looped my thumb if you can bring it back. Exhale and reach like you just did so you separated and I reached. Inhale, open up hands or close stretched to the lax. Exhale from the belly.

Reach might be helpful to look at the belly. Inhale, don't look at the feet. They're too high and exhale. Let's go five more quicker on things that matter is that you don't let the bat change. One more. Bring it in hold. Put your heads down briefly. Elbows are to the side. Armpits to waist. I'm sticking with it.

Extend one leg doesn't matter. Squeeze the glutes, squeeze the inner thighs. Find this connection change. Hold it for a second. Hold it for a second. Line up your feet if you can, or raise the legs. If your backs coming up, change a little quicker now it's and two, two and three. Three press four. Four. You've got to modify when necessary. If you get tired, take the break. You probably have time to come back.

Just two more sets and bring both knees in. Set your head down briefly. Look to your left ou roll across. Look to your right, come on back. Curling Chin to chest. Once again, extend the leg closest to the back of the room up are forward. If try and stretch the bottom like to the floor, I'd prefer that one down. Even if you have to bend the top one. Okay. And it's, you know it change.

Take a minute. So you get there and yes, there's a significant pulse of the top leg. However, if when you let go, it rocks you or you lift off. You are not stable enough to do that. Keep it smaller. And and last four passes, one and two. Keep the back still. Three nice work. Bring the bottom leg up, hold it up. Their hands behind your head. Head goes down. Exhale, curl back up. Squeeze the glutes a little for help. That's what stabilizes you or at least helps from here. Lower the legs, I don't know, three inches and yelling. Two, three. Exhale.

One count to come up. So I've given you four counts. Inhale, reach doesn't have to be long. Two, three, exhale. If you go along, you have to prove to yourself that you have not changed your back. It's not safe and it's not working your abs. So No, no show offs here. Make it work for you. Give yourself one more. When you get to the top, stay there. Bend your knees, check that your head is resting in your hands. I've actually pushed to the back of my head into my hands.

A little armpits to waist. Extend the back leg and rotate. Here we go. And on one Chris Cross, two, two, wringing out the spine. Three oops, are there three, four and five right? The elbows are pretty constant. You're rotating from the waist. The face as it relates to our chin as it relates to your chest is also constant and last set. Boom, boom. Come back to center and arrest. Hopefully you guys are working hard. Stretch your legs out onto the mat from here with your arms down or even as t. That's cool.

Feel the back of your ribs on the Mat. For a lot of us, that almost feels like you're going into a chest lift. That's probably appropriate for you and I, especially Mandy. Take your arms up above your chest, make sure it didn't change your ribs, and then as you slowly go back, meaning reach the arms by your ears again at maximum. You make sure that you haven't changed your spine. Perfect for the role up we go.

Inhale to reach forward arms all the way to the legs on the first one. Exhale the liftoff. Okay. Keep the curve of your spine kind of tall. Yes. Inhale, exhale to roll back. There's definitely some scooping and tucking happening to reach back. Now, if you're finding the flat spot, I'd encourage you to start with a slightly bent knee, initially arms all the way to hips. Exhale to get off so you don't have to see. Now you're exhaling, right?

Why trap that extra weight? That's what I, how I look at it. It's not really, but it feels like it. And again, soft pen. So check this out. I'm going to break it down and you're going to hate it, but here it goes. He inhaled, just curl up to your chest, lift or bottom of your shoulder blades and stop. That should be inhale, lower your arms Sandi, and curl up a tiny bit. That's all. Now and this is going to be dreadful, but you'll be fine. Start exhaling and slowly lift off if you need to bend the knees. If you need, grab your legs. It's appropriate, but at least you're working what you should be working. Inhale, exhale, rolled. [inaudible] a lot of variations on the roll up and they're all good. Probably. Um, what I would encourage is length is a sense of lift and support.

Lovely. Let me think. Okay. You're way too pretty. That's a real cue that I'm going to use to do that. Way Too pretty to bury your head. Go ahead, gang. There's Emily and down you go. Yeah. Remember the collarbones it's everybody come up just once more.

Yeah. If you let that air out just before you go to lift, it's gonna make all the difference. Once you get up, stay up and draw your knees in. If you want to move toward the front of your mat, please it. Since we're all doing that, let's get just behind the tailbone. Draw the feeding quite close. Create a kinetic chain.

So push the shins into the hands, the hands into the shins. Here we go. Inhale, roll back. Exhale up. Hold at the top if you can. Otherwise you keep rocking. Inhale, roll back. Exhale up. Whoa. That's it. The trick to taking out the flat spot is a couple of things. You could spread the ball out, meaning don't make it so tight initially. Keep going, or probably more important.

Make sure you don't lose the Tuck at the back where you start. You stay. That's nice. There's no need to kick the legs. There's no need to land at every time. So work and I'm going to go back to my armpits to waste cue again. Somebody helped me think of a better one. I'm not loving that, but it's working. Huh? I don't like to even think of the armpit for summary.

For someone who loves anatomy for that word, I don't like. I don't like it. That's enough. Don't you think one more? Andy says, thank you. Right. Stay up. Sit yourself back. Let's do a little spine stretch while we're here. It was like summer.

I swear. I think it's your Tan I. It's like, all right. The Sun helps. Here we go. Should we go right into the back extension? Yes. Then that case, let's vary it slightly so the hands are behind your head. What I've taken to is thinking that I'm hooking my thumb as I pull my head up off my shoulders and oppose it with my shoulder blades from their feet are wide and flexed. Exhale to round forward. Go ahead. [inaudible].

Then from the tailbone, start lengthening your back on the diagonal. Everyone will be different here. Your head would come into line last. I'm a little tighter right now, so I'm starting up a bit. High. Exhale, extend your arms alongside your ears should just be a straight extension. Inhale, refold your arms behind your head as your spine gets longer. Now we can be a little dramatic here. Exhale, go forward and roll back up the imaginary wall.

It's a lot to think about. We'll say it every time. Inhale, pull the ribs and Emily and exhaled around. Yes. It's like you're just rolling down a law. Then start like you're sticking your veranda out a little like it's okay to bend the knees. Inhale, lengthen your back on the diagonal. Feel the long spine as you just let the arms drift into place. Watching the ribs. For those of you who know you need to inhale.

Refold the arms getting longer there. Exhale. As you round forward, you'll pull the hip bones deeper into the body to roll up and hold. Inhale, continue thinking. Long lifting, lifting, lifting, ex hair. Yeah. Again, emptying the air. Just a plot. He's talked a lot about emptying there. Inhale into your flat. Back up, up, up, and hopefully. Excellent. Exhale. Float the arms. Yeah. Can you hear? I was a little straighter. Jim. Inhale. Refold.

Exhale to go forward and down and roll up. Nice job, Sandy. Nice job. Inhale, exhale round. We're taking your time. This is like you're going over the barrel on this one. Then inhale, lengthening your back. That's it. Keep lifting. You're good. You're good. You're good. Keep lifting. Keep lifting. Just lift your spine to touch me there. Then your arms come here. Inhale.

Refold your arms and exhale for sandy doesn't have the benefit of seeing this one and at least how many years did you live over there? Five. Okay, here we are. Back to the beginning. Everybody. One more time. Inhale. Exhale. Rounding forward so you starting at the low back, the middle, back, the upper back. Find your long line. Exhale the arms hang out when you get there. As usual. Inhale, lower the arms to your shins. Assist yourself forward is probably not a good cue. It's more on the diagonal. You've already created. What breath are we on? Somebody? Tell me what you need.

How about an inhale? Lift the arms up. Exhale, press the arms down and you know what I want to say about the arm bit. Inhale up lack. Just let, okay, let's to the waist. Lats towards your waistline. I love it. Shoulders down is so cliche though. No, you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. All right. Come back up. I know. It's really all it. Hey, we don't have to get too creative. Dewy.

Exhale round over and hang out. [inaudible] you know, I always think I'm going to be the one to come up with a creative cue and it just doesn't happen. I just have to keep stealing. Huh? What'd you say? My line and jiggly part of the arm? No, that is even worse than armpit. However, if it works for you or it all yourself, can you imagine if I went up to you and said, Emily, can you pull a chicken? No, I would not. Okay. We must do something exciting. Now after that, let's come forward.

You don't have to go forward much just where you can get behind your tailbone. Again, I won't be rolling much. Shins parallel. I'm going to hold on cause I want to get the back pretty flat from the start. From up here. Um, I'm going to go with it's teaser preparation, which I think is quite fun. Squeeze your glutes a little. It's got to help. It will help.

I mean slowly roll down and I also am pushing my legs into my hands a little. These are things and when you get down here, don't let go the glutes. It's way too hard. You're just working against no anchor. Come back up. Take your time. It's not about getting there. It's about going there.

I swear. I'm sure someone has said it, but that was pretty organic. Too Bad. The scene fell apart. Too Bad. The scene Elevar right. Roll town. What did I say? It's not about getting there. It's going there. I swear. Tick. Not Han. Watch out. And Lincoln. Okay. It's way too easy for you, Wendy.

See, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead and come on back, right? Yeah. Okay, go ahead. Never. I'm not going to go ahead. I don't see, yes, it's a great idea. If you guys want to challenge yourself further to once you get up to a flat spine, encourage more. Yeah. I don't have it tonight by extending your arms. All right, we will go up one last time here.

Stay here. Bring your arms back after you've done your fancy stuff, and we're just gonna tilt one way. So I took my knees slightly the other way and then I switched [inaudible] a pretty flat, pretty flat. The truth is, man, sorry. The truth is, Mandy, I have a slight posterior tuck to maintain a flat back. In other words, sorry, I'm trying to get job, Debra. I was like kick you. In other words, I'm not neutral and I never was. Okay. Oh, how are we doing? Finish your balance. Set it down and roll down. Spring your feet and closer for that shoulder bridge. I know you're dying for. So find your triceps. Find that collarbone and exhale to roll up. Encouraging the hips toward the heels again.

Yeah. Oh, the opposite reaction to a contraction is a stretch. So if you expect to release those hip flexors, you better be tightening your hamstrings and glutes. It's just the facts. Inhale, coming back down, zero in on the abdominals. Inner thighs may be a little for help and as soon as you touch, just take yourself right back up. Now if your hip flexors are, I'm really still burning and you'd rather just hang out here. Go ahead.

Otherwise, if they were burning it all, take your right leg up, hips level and we'll go right into shoulder bridge. So exhale, kick one and up. So we've already mentioned the stability is everything. Range of motion doesn't need to be big. Five and up and six and up. Seven, eight, nine, hold it down. Bring it back into place. Check yourself, slide the other leg up and Xcel to come up too.

Typically I flex the foot coming up. I know it's done differently. Don't let it throw you. Focus on the point which is stability. The trunk. I'm giving you three more. Two more. Oh, one more. I never know how to do that. Hold it down. Put it back in place. Find your glutes and hamstrings.

Adjust the feed if necessary and roll down please. Yeah. All right. Bringing the legs up. One at a time to tabletop. Um, let's have them apart a little bit. So the knees are apart. Chin towards your chest. And we're kind of in this wet bucket like shape, sort of already at your chest lift, get a little tuck of the pelvis to go. I'm doing an exhale forward. Keep it small initially.

Keep it small just so you can prove to yourself that when you roll back, you don't need to let your thighs get any closer to your ribs. We're preparing for the open leg rocker and too often people go to the back end of this position and let the legs come in and then yank out and it's just fun I suppose, but it's not doing anything. Come up on when you feel like you can hold it up. Do straighten out your back. If your hamstrings are tight, you'll stay here. If you want to challenge it, you had in the direction of straight legs holding underneath the ankles. If you can the white, try not to go wider than your own, maybe as wide as your hips. All right, lie on. Here we go. Inhale, roll back, exhale and hold. So just initiate you guys.

It's as subtle as Tuck of the pelvis. It's, it's so subtle. You'll hardly feel a change. You might not even trust that it's enough, but it is. You don't need a dramatic change because the truth is is when you're in a flat back, you are in fact already slightly tucked. Yeah, the breath helps in the back. Extensors kick in in how? Back light legs. This is one of those exercises.

People often psych themselves out. Just two more. Maybe. Imagine bringing the leg bones deeper into the hip joint. You can even pull by pull. I mean I'm just sort of sending my legs in the direction of the hip socket. Was that too already? If it is, stay there. I'll find Ya. Close up the feet.

Oh, I had a plan. What was it? One more with feed together. It wasn't at all. It was it venture. He's totally, yes. That was it for now. Faced front. I'll come back in a moment. A Little Mermaid, little mermaid. Can you tell them kind of addicted to this one? I'm not going to do many. Three. Three is all you get, so make them good in reach out. Tip so that you find it.

You may decide you want more so you can slide out as long as there's not much weight. I'm going to ask for this tonight. A subtle rounding or tucking of the pelvis. Turn the rib cage, the arm follows. Your hands will probably not line up square. Don't worry about that. Not a big deal. And you're just encouraging the rotation. I've gone as far as I can and then I am trying to rotate a little more.

So long as it feels good reopen. Same Path you came and the tricky part. Acting like someone's pulling you up. Yes. Again, inhale, reach. Find it. Exhale. Aaron, I like your Bassey shirt. I was seeing that color. Very nice. Inhale open and one more. Yeah, so rotation, good stuff for the spine and you should also feel good. Some for some conditions. The rotation just doesn't feel good. So you'll know.

Come back open when you feel like you've had enough and lift. Find Your Shin or your knee or someplace comfortable. First, lift up. I'm even going to say, let the shoulder lift so that we can stretch the lat away from the waistline. Inside bed. Yeah. Okay coming back up and just swing the legs around to get this side.

Cool. No Bra. Nice reaching out. If you're not set, don't do it. I wasn't nice. Now I am. Go ahead. I'll catch up. Once you found the line, exhale, rotate. There's always opposition. In this case, it's your legs and your hips. Inhale, reopen. It looks good, Emily, and exhale energetically lifting up and in what's gone on over there. Jim. Exhale. I like the smile. Whatever it is.

Inhale, reopen. [inaudible] there's no doubt you're going to have to do a little bit of a push off that lower arm, but we just try to minimize it and exhale. Yeah, inhale and right. Finding your knee. [inaudible] reaching up first. This may be all you want is just to go up with it. If not, you can aim to hand to where the ceiling and the wall meet first. Get that long line first. Then if it feels okay, you maybe take the hand middle of the wall opposite you and if that just isn't enough for you, well then you can try to aim for the floor. I'll hang out and unwind.

All right. Coming down onto your forearms and your, um, so you guys face inward so you're not worried, you're not wondering where we are on your farms and hips. I suppose I'm going to let you decide. I'm going to let you, I'll be back to normal in just a second. So it's just single leg kick just all right. I'm going to give you a couple options here. If you know you go to your low back, really easy, can you feel the laser beam? Um, move your arms out. Okay. If you're not sure, move your arms out cause you'll definitely get the word.

Everybody draw the abdominals up so much that you almost or maybe even do clearly hipbones from the floor. Just the, I should say the two top hip bones, not the pubic bone. Looking forward. Chest is as open as possible. Reach your legs. Do not lift them yet. Reach them until you feel your hamstrings and glutes together as if that's all that matters. Then it should be effortless to hover the feet. You don't go any higher, much higher than that. That's good. Sandy. Just stick your chest out a tiny bit. Okay. It will go right into it. So for our two, pulse kicks or inhales, here it goes. Inhale two, three, four and changed yet alternating.

Inhale two, three, four. You got it. And exhale. Two, three, four. Inhale and exhale. Two legs are parallel. There's a temptation to turn those knees out. Try and keep them together. You look good. Good. It's looking good. No rocking. Pretend you were going to lift your forearms. Don't look, pretend.

Put more energy in your upper back to hold you up and somewhere there's an exhale. One more set and out. Two, three, go back to straight legs. Everybody move. If you're already out lower with the elbows, stay there for a moment. Everybody else, if you were upright with the elbows underneath, you move them forward. Good. Hover the legs. If they're not still are hovered. Okay. Turn the farms over. So we were some version of this or this.

Just turn the pumps over. Huh? Legs are still reaching and hovering. Take your right arm, slowly reach it. It's going to be kind of low like you're straight out. Yep. If that's okay, you're going to have to oppose with the left leg a little more. So you might think to reach the left leg not higher yet.

Start taking the right arm up. In fact, don't lift the left the legs anymore. Just the right arm higher. If you can. Your gaze is dipped. It's kind of, I would say for this crowd, for you for sure. Like right about Emily's heat. Yeah, I'd probably two to three feet in front of you. If you're up nice and high like everybody here and then bring it down.

Lower your feet for the moment. If you need an upper back break ticket, you need to move your arms more forward to otherwise recommit the abdominals first. Open up the chest second. I am drawing my lats to my waist. Still both feet hovered. If they're not and then go ahead. Andy will follow you. Reaching the left arm straight ahead first. Make sure it's cool, you decided it's different and then if you have the wherewithal to extend the arm up, do and just put a little more attention to that opposite leg in terms of helping you stabilize. And bring it down. Ooh, hands by your shoulders. Take a back break there if you need it. Otherwise, push up and round back.

[inaudible] we roll up to hands and knees for the moment. Taking your hands right below your shoulders. Stabilize looking at the floor. Try and sense again the straight line across the collarbones. We're going to head into a plank. So whichever leg you want to lead with, make sure you feel a hamstring. And glute. Put the other leg in place. And Emily and Andy, I'm going to show you in one second if you can hang out and plank, try to keep your weight, weight, waist and hips pretty straight. And everybody, this is an odd cue. Pull from the high rib cage up.

So you're gonna let your head drop a little and just a little contraction like you're trying to get out of your arms a little. I did encourage a little round, not a lot, a little the lengths and back out to the crown of the head. So good. All we did. Yep. You got it. Exactly. So not much happens at the pelvis. Look, everyone's got it. Fabulous and then lengthen out like we were just holding on your head to come back to straight. Good. If you need a break, you can always put one leg down, do one more like that and literally try to get light. That's it. Line Long. You've got it. Literally trying to like, how could I get up if I couldn't use my arms? You can't. Well you might be able to, you might be able to last one this time.

Go all the way into an upstretched so you just continue. You continue. Don't release the hips until you have two. But then do an enjoy and that means you're in like a pyramid shape. Adjust your feet. Absolutely. Or your hands back, your feet forward, whatever you need. I'm even going to encourage everybody for the moment to lift the heels, bend the knees a lot. If you haven't, and reach the ribs toward the thighs, your head crown of the head to the floor.

Elongate the back more so it's really feeling like I'm sitting my sits bones to the sky. And then if you want to, you would encourage the heels down. Continue reaching the sitz bones up as this heels err towards down good. And with that we're gonna come down to the knees and face front onto your elbow or come to your elbow facing front. First option for side kick is a really balanced version of it and where you're really only focusing on the um, objective.

So that's an option I want you to know you have I nine times out of 10, teach it that way. But today we'll go for the real deal. The version rail likes to give us, which is on the tip of the elbow. So the reason I'm making sort of robot arms is because it's important to put weight in the forward arm, move that, uh, support elbow out and before you load it and make sure you could actually balance on it. And how I know that is by trying to draw once again. Yeah, exactly. Oh, that's really nice, Andy. Really, really nice.

So all the work is here or most of it anyway, their hand here. Okay, Sandy, can you move your elbow out a tiny bit more? You're gonna need your hand to do it. And then the shoulder down will be there. That's it. Perfect. All right, here we go. Top leg is up kind of relaxed to the knee. We flexing the foot to come forward. Exhale, two inhale and exhale too.

So I don't often do it fully like this because it's a lot for me to think about. So I might go here cause I really want to get the work which is hip flexors, hamstrings and of course glute medius and or all balanced between the two and asking for one more here and hold it to the back for the moment. At the risk of going out of alignment, reach for a little further. Like someone pulled you by the Ankle, Huh? Uh Huh. Should be kind of heavy now. And then just lift. Just a little tiny lifts. Yup. Okay. Sandy looked straight ahead. Dropped that bottom shoulder. Huh? Okay, that's good.

Help yourself out by putting the forward arm down and then the other arm down and we're coming. Hmm. I want to switch. I'm going to have you go back and forth and it's just a long time to be on the arm for where I'm taking you next. So here we go again. Tip of the elbow if it works for you, if you did it last time try. I'm going to kind of go in and out like before another tip. Theoretically we're meant to be straight, right feet just opposite our hips.

You can bow a little bit, that's fine. If you're working on this newer position, top leg up, reach it a little further and now exhaling forward and, and, and again, it's most certainly hip flexor work, right? But can you feel where the leg ultimately attaches? Probably not. I can't. Only if I'm really concentrating, but it's higher up is my point. Yeah. So good. Give me one more holding it to the back just for a second. If anything looked down on your own body, cause this is, it's really easy to open.

Just make sure that the hips are still stacked as best way. I can say it, reach a little further. So [inaudible] and then we lifted one. I have to remember to relax the knee. I'm going to suggest you do the same. Make it come from there. Gotcha. That's really good.

And finally good. If you need to stretch it, do. Otherwise we're going face down for devil lay kick. So you three know that if you want to just turn onto your stomach, I'll bring you back in a second. This is the one where you lace the fingers high up on your back.

And I want to encourage you to take a moment right now and see how high can you take your hands up. Theoretically you do that every time, but you gotta kind of have to know it before you speed your way through. So that's great. Sandy, just turn your face to one side. I'm not partial to either pick a side and then gently allow the elbows to fall. Yes. Oh, this is a good one for you. I'm going to give you one more thing from there.

Same setup. A single I kick reached the legs so they hover. Sandy, just hold this instead so you don't have to go quite so either. Okay. We kick the feet to the glutes three times. It's exhale. One, two, three. Inhale, straighten the arms and the legs. Looking down maybe slightly forward. Turn your face and bend the knees and elbows kick. Two, three and stern. Don't worry about height and change. One, two, three. If you are in fact lifting your chest somewhat significantly, you're going to have to look forward a little bit and down. Good. Two, three and stretch. Yup. And one, two. You got attended. You got it. Keep going at that pace. Perfect.

And will someone tell me when you've done an even amount? Must be one more la, la, La and reach whole. Straighten those arms. Jump straight in. The palms will face each other. They'll face each other. Keep going, keep going. There you go. And everybody just rest. Let go. The hands and rest. Huh. Lovely. Lovely.

Coming up to your hands and knees again to round back. All right too. To prep for something. I'm kind of playing with, um, come up to hands and knees and sandy and Debra. I'm gonna have you face inward. Yeah. And Mary, thank you. Okay. We played with it a little already, but I'm toying with a workshop that's putting equipment from the, I'm sorry, putting exercises from the equipment to the floor and there's some fun ones that we can do. If you're in this all fours position, you can draw the abs in enough to curve the back a little bit. Right? It's not excessive rounding of the upper back, but there is some sense of curve to draw weight out of the arms. Right?

So do that and everyone seems to be already done it, so that's cool. Then make that into a subtle little pulse. So you're not gonna push into the floor with your hand just like this. I'm like good. Just like that. You're not going to see much. Right. But your goal is to feel the ribs sort of pulling up deeper into the body.

Exactly. Is that too weird for anything? Okay. Cause I see it. It's happening. All right. So if you were to do that, say and take one arm off, then matter which is pick an arm, take it off and do the same thing and let your heads hang. I'm thinking some a heads up. I shouldn't do that. Okay, no big deal. Right? So same thing. Take a actually just switch hands just so you get a sense of that. And again, a little rounding. It's okay to encourage the lumbar curve to please. So my glutes are lightly engaging as I add some intensity. All right, put both hands down. Again, assuming your hands are right below your shoulders flat, not your back. Back to stay neutral. Let's walk your hands toward the front of the room.

Leave your hips where they were. Just move your hands full front of your mat or more toward, yeah, exactly. Let's say, let's say one hand is off the mat and the other hand is not. How's that then do that curve of the spine. The entire spine. So it's a gentle curve shift. I'm just going to change them just now.

So they were theoretically square. Shift your hips, where'd you put your hands? You put your hands forward. So shift your hips to the back. Shift your hips away from where your hands are. Just a little Sophie. I knew I just shifted over. Okay, so that ana emphasize one side ever. So slightly more. Is that true?

Can you make the little contraction there to feel one side? Well I was afraid you were going to ask. Um, uh hmm. I'm not going to tell you which side cause it's going to be different for people. Um, when we get into the real exercise, I'll be more specific, but for now if you can feel one side of the abdominals more than the other, I'm thrilled. Okay. And not a lot of arm work switch. So take your time, settle out the hips in the middle, move the hands the other direction. It's as if you are just lifting up. You could almost take your hands off the ground and we find and then shift the hips to the front of the room and little pulse one and two.

It's as if I put you in a posterior tuck and added just a little contraction. Okay. It's just a, some more, I'm heading to get you the feel of where it comes from. I realize it's sort of not. That's right. And in fact I am right. So she's preparing to draw the leg up to her nose, which so am I okay, but not yet. All right. No big deal. All right, come back to center that shouldn't have tired your arms out too much. So you should be able to go into a plank hopefully.

And if you don't want to be in a plank, please do this on your knees with the feet resting. We are heading into pushups. So first things first, armpits to the waist and here we go. Inhale, bend, elbows. You decide. Exhale, push up. One inhale, exhale. Two. I love the range. It looks good. Lung on three and we'll do five, four or just hold plank five. Head down. Think of the contraction you just did to walk back to your feet. Try not to sway side to side. It's all right if the knees bend roll up.

From what I understand, and I have seen someone do it before. Again, rail that push up, please don't do it, but come from there. You push in your back. Does that make sense? You would be here. You push and come back and it would have to be that contraction we talked about. We're not doing that, but I'm just saying here we go down again. Five again or plank. If you prefer, head is down.

You don't need to see where you're going. You just place, make sure it's secure place. Try to be there by three at most. Four stretch through your heels. Here you go. You decide one again. It's not getting there. That looks great. Andy. Andy's got perfect form. Jim's got perfect form. Christie's not counting five after the fifth one. Pull the ABS in.

How about this? Walk one to do that contraction from out here and come up. Yes, Emily. Yeah. I want to know all abs. One more set again, you decide one pushup, no pushup, five pushups, five at the most, and one, two, three and we go, what? Don't let those shoulders crowd the ears. It's a lot to ask. That's a nice and listen up. We're gonna head down. Walk two steps. One Hand's still far out from you. A little elbow, Ben.

Deep connection to the ABS and inner thighs push to come up. That's it. Windy. Okay, so playing [inaudible] with another exercise face front. You guys want to do it right? I kind of gave you a little preview. All right. How are your arms? Oh, all right, so here we are. We're just going to [inaudible].

I'm really wide a couple of different ways into this, but I'm doing it this way for a bit of a stretch too. For those of you who want it, in fact, let's start there. Very easy to hyperextend and lock the knees here, so let's be mindful not to do that. Rather it's like you're pulling the feet together. Adducting from there I'm going to stretch first hinge fold with a flat back may not go very far. You might need your hands on your hips. That's absolutely fine.

Okay. What I'm trying for is a little hamstring stretch and back stretch. If you can go lower, do everybody round enough to put the hands on the floor even if it means slightly bending the knees. No big deal hanging out. Yeah. Good God, that's great, Andy. Yeah. Okay, so you've got your feet wide, comfortably wide. If you want them wider, take them wider. You slippery. Are you okay? Okay. I'm not gonna push on your then. So then gently guide from wherever you are.

Uh, reach your right. D a one hip, doesn't matter which reach one hip higher than the other in this position it out a head down the inner side, the other leg or some version of that and then go the other way. Lift the other hip higher. I do have both legs straight still, but if they were slightly bent they would still be Emily's head on the floor. Let's do that again. Kind of just reaching out of one and reaching out of the other alternating. Find your way back to center. It may be that your feet have slid wider. If so, bring them in a step or so, so that you can comfortably roll up. Roll Up.

No flat backs up. Yeah. Okay. We're going to go left first for this little thing. Turn your left foot out. If you need more room, you'll take it. You're going to bend the knee. Yup. And then if you can side bend, put your hand down.

Now this does not work for everybody inside, or let me say this forward and slightly in front of. Now you may decide you need your other hand down. Fine, Beck. Let's do that. Since we've never done, put your other hand down. Pick up that leg and put it in front of the other one. Okay, so yes, you do not have to hook the ankles. You could just set them down. So I've got one in front of the other, like our side bend normally, but the legs are reversed. So Sandy, from where you are, the one that is over to yours, your left leg is going to be in front of your right leg and yes, yes. You've got those long lower legs. Okay. From their lifts, your waist like a side bend. Keep the waist lifted. That's it.

Turn. Keep the waist and hips where they are to place that forward hand or the hand that was in the air on the floor. I've just got to back my arm up to get it on the mat. Okay, happy. No heads down. Pull the upper rib cage up to take weight out of your arm.

Squeeze your inner thighs in your glutes. I either do little pulses there like you did earlier, or pick up the forward leg, soft bent. Keep your rotation and lift it toward the ceiling. The inner thigh to ceiling heads are down, pulsing kind of both ends. Oh yeah. Last two for eight.

And set the foot down. Listen Up. It's not going to be any easier. Lengthen yourself out. Almost like you're going to plank. Open it up so that same hand goes up. Yeah. And have a seat. Draw the legs in and Oh, my arm is super. You felt it great. It's meant to be obliques. Now in that case, I didn't tell you again, did I? But it would have been the side, hopefully of the arm that you are on. Yeah. Fabulous. So then the question is, what exercises are you actually trying to translate?

Sort of blend. I'm thinking twist. Yeah. Twist on their reformers. Of course, that can be translated more easily. All right. Guess what? We have to just stand up again, but let's do it more fun. Um, let's do this. Turned to the back, not quite done. We're going to do a little quick back support up and down. You'll be fine.

I'll get two or three at any point. You can go to your fist or just do this on your forearms. All we're doing is with straight legs in your hamstrings and glutes engaged. We lift up on hinge, no rolling. Touch your butt to the floor. Eyes forward on that horizon.

Exhale to do not look at the wall behind you at most. You're looking straight up at most and down and tighten your glutes. Before you go. It's way easier and down to more. Well, you can tell which are, and we'll just work to count yet. One more. Now come on down. I'm going to give us three rolling and then just stand up.

So on the third one you roll up or you can just stand up, right? I'm just having a little fun at this point. Draw the knees and feet in. We roll back. Inhale. Exhale. If you are going to stand up, you'll need to cross your feet when you do too. Here comes cross the feet as you lean forward to stand up facing front. Yes. Just reminded me of my friends. Ed's cardio.

[inaudible] we may have to do one of these days feet wide. You know what's coming. Yeah. I'm going to skip the stretch this time. Alright. Anybody need sticky mats? We're good. We do. Okay. All right. Let's see. All right, I've turned the right foot out. Okay. Now if again, if that was a really tricky entry, you don't have to go through all this. I'm just trying to get some stretch in it.

I set the hand inside but forward from me a little bit. Then I put weight on it. You can even rotate forward a little. Don't worry about that right now and then set that. That's it sandy. That's good. Alright, now that we're here, it's a little different than we're used to, so make sure you've got the inner thighs engaged. Lift up away from that arm for your side bend.

Keep the hips basically where they are. As you rotate the chest to face the floor, feel free to adjust your hands. Yes, exactly. I almost always do. Head is down. Shoulders are square from there. Draw up into that. I think of high rib cage, but it's truly the oblique, right for a few, a little pulses so you can get the little tuck of the pelvis. Yep. All right. Everyone's ready to bend the knee if they're going to do, for some reason it helps me to flex the foot and you just lift the inner sigh for eight to pull a weight out of that arm. Three, four, keep your rotation. Five don't turn the whole body. Six, seven and eight foot goes down.

Lengthen yourself out first. Open by taking that arm up again. You can adjust the arm if you need to. Ah, and then we can draw the knees in. If it feels good to take the arm up. Do if the arms had enough, you can leave it down as well. All right, so close was I was not at my toe. I was really on the side of my, the one foot that stayed down the back foot. That's right. Yup. Exactly. All right.

First person to call the back extension gets it. Okay. Combination. All right. I'll try not to mumble my quiz next time. I said first person to call the back extension gets it and she said combination. So here we go. You're on your hands and knees and now that our arms are tired, it's a great call. Right now their arms are tired.

You'll probably get more back extension out of it. So if you don't know what it is, again, it's from the equipment, it would be, what is it? Um, alright. Okay. From, I'd like to curl my toes under. You don't have to. For a lot of people that's not comfortable. It comes from out of a knee stretch position. You tuck your pelvis, you roll forward. Hands are going to have to be somewhat forward. I'll adjust that for you.

Hips and glutes are x or engaged and then you come into this long arched position. Do not sink the back. Right? It's lifted from there. Pull from the low belly, probably the whole belly and around, back. So in real time you start with this really outstretched arm and hips low. I think most of you have done it. Now that you've seen it, you're going to lose. I like to, I love the foot stretch, but if that's too uncomfortable, leave the tops of the feet down. It works almost as well, actually, probably just as well. Draw the ABS in. You feel the ribs come off the thighs, your shoulders are pulling towards your hips, your hips toward your shoulders as you roll into what to me feels like I should be on the front of the ship. Then light arms, exhale, head goes down almost immediately and almost taking weight out of the arms and you inhale to roll forward and up. In fact, you can lightly press into your feet no matter where you've chosen to leave them and exhale, so left.

I pretend again that I am doing this with almost just pure core coordination and up. There's a lot of versions on this. Kathy, grant and blossom. Do this really cool cat-like thing. Well, many of them. I'll give you a sample, come forward and just hold. Once you get forward and look over one shoulder, find the opposite heel, start to pike the hips, bring it ahead back and around. That's just like a baby baby version. What that could be. Let's do it again. Come forward, find it again.

I'll play with it and then bring it to you. Turn ahead. Once you get there, bums are tight. Bring it back last time just to go forward, forward, forward, forward. Start to bend your elbows and pull yourself forward. It won't look like you're pulling yourself forward, but just to lower yourself down to come off your form or come off your wrist and place your forearms down four head down as well. This'll be it. Drawing this shoulder blades down your back to articulate your chin or your neck. Forward enough. It's like the reverse of a chest lift, so do not go for height. You're trying to fold. If you folded the bra line, going up into an ab curl and you're doing it to the back end.

I don't know what to tell Andy and Jim, but anyway, down you go. I think they know and sliding the shoulders or shoulder blades or lats or armpits as you reach forward and then at this height, sorry, stay there Mandy for a second. At this height. Try to draw the abdominals off the floor. I won't. Maybe you will, but try that out. A kick in your upper back a little more. See if you can maintain that. And without your feet lifting. Can you float the forearms without your feet lifting? Okay, I'll let you do it again. Put weight down, no feet lifting.

There we go. Lift him. Extend your arms forward if you can. If you're done, just leave them where they are and bring them back by your shoulders. We are pushing up to get out of this. Take the rest position for a moment. Hm. And this is where we remind ourselves of that breathing. This is where we go. Okay. We worked hard. We had a little fun. I think. Um, let's go back to that idea of ringing in really fresh, new air and energy and exhaling any tension, any thing that you want to let go of.

Maybe it's a good place to remind yourself about how the entire trunk expands on an inhale. I try to feel it throughout my whole body. Actually inhaling to relax the body, exhaling to relax the mind. And since we did a few things standing, let's just end that way. So bring your hands in closer. Curl the toes under our step forward. However you need to be to feel rooted into the ground with the lay on your feet, hanging your head, shake it out, whatever you need to, and then when you're ready, don't let me rush you.

Draw the abdominals in and up. Arms are still on your back. That means the collarbones are still wide. Trying to restack with the hips over the ankles, getting taller, more supportive, knowing you worked hard, feeling good about just simply taking time for yourself. That doesn't happen enough. Everything. All right. Inhale half [inaudible]. No instruction from here on out. I'm just taking three breaths, however you want.

[inaudible] and you are done. Thank you so much for coming. Good work.

Comments

Great class with a good pace. Some different moves at the end that made a nice change. Thanks!
Pele
1 person likes this.
Love the creativity but the pace wasn't necessarily accelerated IMO as there was quite a bit of time spent on transitions with plenty of talk.
"It's not about getting there, it's about going there." Kristi - that's a pretty perfect quote from this class! Put that on a t-shirt or a coffee mug! :) I liked it so much I saved it for future reference/inspiration and motivation.
Did I say that?! I love it when I say smart things!! Thank you Catherine!
I like feeling the camaraderie of the group without sacrificing the continuous work. The side position with top leg/foot extended in front of lower leg/foot nearly toppled me over on one side. You clearly found my inbalance on that one!
1 person likes this.
2010...definitely oldie and goodie I'd never taken before.
Thanks Joni!

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