Class #2046

Imagery-Focused Mat

35 min - Class
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Description

Use images to move your body in this intermediate Mat workout with Monica! She uses imagery to help you stay rooted in the Mat when needed, so you feel the energy moving throughout your body. At the end of the class, Monica adds a posture check to make sure you take your Pilates principles with you after class.
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

Feb 05, 2015
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Today we are going to do an intermediate mat a, but I want you to feel really good. If you're a strong beginner to be able to do this intermediate format. Uh, you're going to be able to look at the exercise at the basic level and if you are more advanced than I will show you where you can take that exercise. Most important though is imagery. Today we're going to use images to move our body to make our body feel different instead of really breaking it apart bit by bit.

So we're going to get it for fun energy moving ref a Matt today and we're going to start on the front of our mat. So go ahead and step up. Good. And your weight should mainly be on the ball of your foot, two to three inches apart with your toes and the heels are together. All your weight, like I said, is leaning forward. Arms when one over the other. And now put one foot in front of the other and lower yourself down to the mat with your energy staying positive, lifting in and up until your bottoms on the map. Put your arms behind you and lift your bottom back halfway and rely on down.

And I always love to start with a stretch where you're going to reach your arms back, reaching that way and your legs that way. And I love imagining that there's a horse on each limb and that they're pulling us in all different directions, really stretching out. And same thing with your legs, just allowing that. Let's see if you can get your back to get nice and flat while you stretch Kajabi. And now bring your arms up to the ceiling and down by your side. Good. And I want you to go ahead and hug your knees into your chest. Good.

And I want you to picture a tree trunk and its roots. Okay. So the powerhouse, the center of your body is gonna be that tree trunk. And I want the roots rooted down into the mat. We'll use that image quite a bit today. Go ahead and use that powerhouse to lift your head to your chest.

Now the hundred is to pump the blood and it's your only warmup exercise. So I want you to reach your arms long by your side and imagine that they're like a water pump cause they're going to manually pump the blood for your heart. Okay, so we're going to pump them up and down. Inhale, two, three, four, five. Exhale, still thinking of that tree rooted into the mat. Exhale two, three, four, five. Inhale, two, three, four, five.

On this exhale, straighten your legs. Just a little shy of straight up to the ceiling. Having them turned out so a little higher for me. All the a hundred great. So I can really see on the exhale you're a powerhouse scooping into the mat, rooting into the map. Now you want you to squeeze your bottom and zip up the back of your inner thighs.

We can keep those legs right there and this is where I want you to keep it if you're a strong beginner, but if you can advance it, let's use the legs, the length and out of that tree trunk and reach as low as you can. Maybe an inch off the two inches off the floor, but the belly is scooped in. It is not like a loaf of bread rising in the ovens. I'm going to bring yours up just a terror and pull up just a little more into, oh, I liked that upper belly last one. Big Breath, thighs and hips, reaching and lower those legs. Nice and long and arms reach up overhead as you lower the head. Good.

And I want you to pay attention to where your heels are right now and give you a challenge. I want your heels to stay right where they are throughout your mat. That is not something we might achieve today, but something I want you to work towards. And we're going to work towards him by working your hips to lengthen out of your lower back. So instead of your lower back staying compressed, we're going to keep reaching them to our ankles. So we're going to inhale, bring the arms up, head up, and then exhale and reach. Good and stretch, stretch, stretch. Now look at your heels and roll back.

Rolling away from your heels. Push them away and squeeze them away. Roll them away and then reach back and arms head and scoop it up. And reach forward and we'll back in with the air reaches heels where come on, squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and and five more arms. Head one bone at a time and stretch forward. Good and rolling back. Squeeze. Lengthen, lengthen, reach. I love those long legs, arms head and scooping in. Good.

Reaching forward and rolling back. One of the things that all hundreds doing really good and reaching back is when he reaches forward and he doesn't stick his tailbone out behind him. He still keeps that nice scoop, which allows for his pelvis to stay in the right position as he's rolling back. And two more arms. Head scooping in and stretch forward in a big seat curve. And now working the thighs in the back of your inner thighs and reaching the legs and one more arms.

Head and scoop and reach forward and rolling back. Thinking of the rollover already, we're going to add the roll over so your head should be on the mat. Come force a little bit. Calling. Good. And now legs go over open and rolling down. I love to think of a diver here and roll over when they're going to pull into a pike. So open. And as you roll down, keep your thighs really close to your chest and down.

And now pull them as close to your chest as you can. Open and willing down, really tight to your chest. We're going to reverse it for three and open and over. Use your belly to pull those thighs to your chest as you roll one bone at a time. Two more open. Oh for squeeze those inner thighs together. And how close can you get those? The eyes. One more. Don't forget about lengthening out your lower back.

So as you're pulling them into you, reach your hips away. Lengthen, lengthen, lengthen. Keep your right leg and lower your left for single leg circles. Pull it towards you. Put your hands behind your thought calf. Good. And I want you to imagine that you can do the splits right now. So if you went straight out into a split, you'd have one leg straight behind you and one leg right full in front of you. And each time you do your leg circles, I want that leg to go into a full split.

I want that light to come all the way up to your nose as it crosses over. That's your challenge today. Arms by your side. Yeah, cross around, up, cross around, upkeep it where you need to. If you are, begin across, around up, powerhouse, around up. One more add hold. Don't forget to split all the way down to that like reach all the way down around, up. Good. Damn around, up. Good. Round up.

So both of you are keeping your lower back, flat, good. Cross all the way up and cross all the way and up. One more just for good measure. Thank you. And bend the knee and stretch it in. Let's switch legs, right like down, left knee in or left leg up. Stretch that left leg and again, put your hands behind your calf so that we can imagine we're doing the splits.

Really working that stretch. Good. And you're only gonna take it as low as you can. Keep your back flat though. Arms by your side and cross around up. Good crusts around. Up Split each time. Splitting. How close do you know it's going to get? And hold. Reverse down, around, up. Reach down. Pull it up with your belly. Yes down.

Cross it up to around, up last one around hold. Hug that knee and beautiful both legs down. Roll up one bone at a time and lift your bottom forward for rolling like a ball. So I love to imagine a tennis ball here cause I love tennis. But you can imagine a baseball and your hands are on your ankles and your body is so round. It's like the stitching of that ball.

So I want your ears between your knees. Yes. So that all of that, the stitching of the ball is really, you can see them intertwined. Open up the back of your ribs a little bit more beautiful. And then see if you can use your lower belly to curl your tailbone towards you a little more and open up that lower back. Love it. So your goal is to keep your ears between your knees and your heels on your bottom as we inhaled to roll back and Xcel ears between the knees and in with the ear. And exhale, scoop it up.

Stay tight as a ball and exhale, ruling and massaging each vertebra. And exhale two more in with the air. Lower belly really keeps that lower back open. Last one, hold and rest your feet down. Put your hands behind you and lift your bottom back halfway. Good. And we're going to just go ahead and lie down actually. And bend the knees.

Perfect Colleen and feet flat on the Mat. Bend the knees stacked up but feet flat. Good. So I want you to revisit that image of a tree trunk and your powerhouse is rooted into the map. The series of five is like tapping, patting your head and rubbing your belly. It's all choreography and everything.

If I was looking at your frame, I would have known anything was happening. Nothing would be different. Whether you're doing single leg stretch or whether you're doing double, straight leg, nothing would be different. So I want you to use your powerhouse to bring your knees into your chest. Good. And I want you to put your hands behind your head, one over the other.

Good. And I want you to use your powerhouse to bring your head almost to your knees. How tight can you get? Scoop scoop scoops of the most important part is that your lower back is staying supported and anchored and rooted into the mat with your powerhouse. Now put grab onto your right leg, right hand on your ankle, left hand on your knee. And let's low reach the left leg. Just here. Yes, it's easier to keep your back flat and switch. Good.

Pull it and switch a little higher. Good and switch. Good. Now if that's too easy, you can take the leg where it challenges you best. Good. And switch man. Four more sets. Pulling and staying in route into the mat. I shouldn't see too much change in your shoulders. They're easy.

They're not tense on the upper body. Good. You're using your seat to reach out. Good. Two more sets for me. Lengthening, scooping in and up. Last set. Bring in both knees, still rooted in, and I want you to just reach your arms to here and your legs to here. So small angle reach. Good. Pull in in, in now with stay there calling and get up there. Reach, reach, reach and pull it back together. Good. Make it a little bigger for me. This time. Retreats, retreats, and pull it.

Stay there if that's where you need. Otherwise go wherever you can. Maybe two inches off the floor and pull in. But stay rooted and then reach root first. Get in and then pull back in. Three more. Reach. Lengthen longer arms from your center and blend. Two more. Inhale, reach long, long, long, ample in one more.

Your legs linked and beautifully low. How low your arms go to two. Yas and pull and right leg up, left leg forward and pull into your center and just switch. Easily. Pull into your center and switch. And the whole thing is, can I stay rooted? One more set at this tempo. And if you can not wobble, let's do it really fast and right. Left flying through the air. Those legs, right? Flying, flying, roofing, swimming. That's it. Nice. Staying strong into the center. Beautiful. One more set, right, left both legs up, hands behind your head. Good.

Lower two inches and pull back up. Oh, those were 20 and we're going to lower it to yes and pull from your trunk. One more from the hips. Good. Now if you can stretch your lower back and reach those, go all the way down. Strike a match and reach all the way down. Strike. Imagine two more [inaudible] long from that way.

Since last time you use your bottom and and now bend that right knee and twist to it. Still it's all from that stomach and twist to the left. Good. Keep that as hard work. Stay to your right. Stay right there for me. Calling and tried to pull your right elbow all the way back to the center of the Mat and now to the other side. Left and pull the left elbow at least onto the mat. And one more set and make a straight line from that back elbow to that toe.

And last one to the left from the left elbow all the way to the right toe. And hug both knees into your chest. Whew. Nice job. Sit up tall. One heel in the middle of each block. Good. All right, so for more basic, I'm going to put your hands behind your head, one over the other. Yep. And I want you to pull your powerhouse in and lift off your bottom.

And I want you to use your six pack as you exhale to touch the crown of your head down to the mat. That's it. Exhale and use that six pack. Feel that stomach really strong. Feel that powerhouse. And then use it to stack your vertebra up one at a time. Take a big breath and exhale. One more time, really using the upper abdominals in the middle. Then the lower head down, down, down. Good.

And then roll up from the lower back a little more back in here. Pull. Fill that Aha all the way up. Good. Now keep that intensity but reach your arms long. And I love imagining a u shaped magnet. So there's energy out your fingertips, energy out your heels. Lift off your seat and use that powerhouse to curl it and crown of the head.

Exhale. Exhale. Exhale. Exhale. Energy out your heels still off your bottom and inhaling up, up, up, and exhaling down. Exhale all the way down. Energy out your heels, energy out your fingertips. Inhale all the way up so that you exhale all the way down. So go ahead and exhale down. [inaudible] you can add another breath in there, but more intermediate is to exhale down.

Inhale all the way up. Good. And now without letting your muscles relax, we're going to first pull these bones back a little bit. Excellent. Keep pulling back in that powerhouse cause we're going to let our legs float up to the ceiling. So pull back in your pelvis and float those legs up. Grab onto the ankles. If it's too hard to grab onto the ankles, you can grab behind the calf's. Good. And we're going to inhale, roll back. Exhale Rola. Hold it here. Hold it up here.

Stay no movement. Because if that is too hard, I want you to go ahead and be able to keep everything like that. But just bend the knees and lower the toes together. Beautiful. Whole the toes hovering over and extend just the right leg. Nothing changes, just like we were talking about. And lower it and then just the left and lower it.

And if that's easy enough then we can extend both legs. And again, you can have your hands behind your knees if that was too hard. And bring the toes back together. Bend them down again. Yes. And then one more time up and bring them together. So it's a pre, no, sorry. At Q there. Go ahead, bring them up, keep them straight and bring them together. So it's a preview to your teaser and you're getting less depend on your hands and more on your powerhouse. Excellent. Open your legs again. Good.

Stay here if this is hard enough and practice your balancing. But if we can, we can go to our rocking. So five more. Rolling. Here we go. Inhale, roll back. Exhale. Right on up. I don't like how long you're hanging out back there. So we're going to inhale, roll back and right back up like you're doing a pure Owlette cause you both are beautiful dancers. So you're going to not forget where what you're looking at, right? So you're gonna get right back up to what you were looking at and one more in with the air and right back up to what you're looking at. Hold it there.

Beautiful. Squeeze your legs together. Leave them there and roll down your lower back and your middle and your back upper until your head is on the mat. Legs up to the ceiling. Good. We're going to corkscrew. Reach to the right just a couple inches around to the left and center and then reverse. Go left around to the right and or maybe a little bigger to the right.

How big can you make it and center to the left. How big can you sweep? I think I can see bigger from these to go as far right as far down as far left and center. Again, as far left as far down as far right now if you want, add a lift when you come around. So right around all the way and lift anything you had down and to the left around all the way and end with the lift and then melt down with control and precision. Sit Up for saw. Great. Same thing here. I love the position, but I'm gonna have you put your hands behind your head and I want you to feel your stomach and I want you to feel your sit bones on the mat and don't come off of them as you twist to the right. Using your abdominals. Twist as far right as you can. Twist, twist, how far uses stomach?

Use those obliques. Now reach your left arm forward and you're right arm black and die for your baby toe in. How will your belly up off your thigh? It shouldn't have been there anyway. And hands back behind your head and twist either side, using just your stomach. Good, your powerhouse. And now reach your right arm forward and your left arm back and reach, reach, reach and pulling back up.

And this time let's keep the arms extended. So I want you to keep that connection if you can and twist to the right and exhale, scoop in and in. And then inhaling up and twist to the left and exhaling down and up. Now this is a breathing exercise and twist as you inhale, as you exhale, pull the ribs into the lungs. This, squeeze that air. There we go. And hailing up and twist to the left.

And as you exhale, pull the ribs into the lungs. This squeeze out and inhale all the way up. Beautiful. Keep all your muscles working as you squeeze your legs together and flip over onto your stomach. Great. So right off the bat I want you to think of your hands as suction cups and they are glued on to the mat. Okay glute. And I want those suction cups to be pulling the mat behind you.

So imagine that they're pulling back the mat and your stomach is going to pull up into your back and that your spine is stretching in the opposite direction out the crown of your head. So your stomach is up and spine stretching this way against your arms, pulling that mat as we come up for the neck roll. So start lifting the head and lifting the chest and come up as high as it feels okay on your lower back and without moving those beautiful open collarbones. Look to your right circle to head down to your left and look forward and look over your left and [inaudible] down right and look forward and hold. And now I want you to continue to pull that map behind you as you lengthen your spine coming down. We're gonna do that one more time.

Pulling that mat behind you as you lengthen your spine out the crown of your head coming up. Good. Without moving those Coloradans look left this time to start. Circle down around right, look forward and look right. Circle down around left. Look forward and keep pulling that map behind you as you lengthen your spine.

To come down. We're going to come to single leg kick, lift up onto your elbows. Good. And you're gonna push your knuckles together. Good. Yes. All right. And I want you to imagine dancing and you're onstage and you have to touch your toe to your head cause that's what this exercise is about. So use your stomach to support your lower back. Lift your legs up just an inch and let's try to kick the right heel two times to our head. One, two and switch left too. And they pass each other. One, two, one, two. Cheer head. Lift that knee. Lift that thigh. Get it up.

Touch your toe to your head. You're lifting your upper body. You're trying to get your thought knee and thigh up off the mat. Can you get it up off the mat, Coleen? I bet you can get it. There we go. And last set and now right facial cheek on the mat. Let's do your other cheek. That's all right. Good.

And same with all a hundred. Put your other cheek on the mat just as stay together. Thank y'all. All right. Now I want you to really think about the advanced exercise. Swan, how much you want to come up in that back bend. So we're gonna think about that. We're going to use the back of our legs to squeeze down into the mat or bottom to squeeze down into the mat and our stomach to pull up when we lift up into our back bend and when we bring our heels to our seat, I want you to think about that swan again. How much power you got to get from here to get those legs all the way up to the ceiling. I know you have a beautiful swan died, so let's work on this one.

And we're going to lift the legs up as high as we can. And then three kicks in. One, two, three. Let me see the back bend with the legs pressing down and switch cheeks and pulling in one, two, three and let's lift up into our back then and switch legs up to three and up up last time. Really get those knees up off the mat. Yes. All a hundred gray up, up, up, and enough round your back and sit on your heels for a little breather. Good c curve here. Like it. Good. We're going to flip over and let's start with our heels as close to the front edge as we can hip with the part. Good. All right, so we're gonna put your hands behind your head. Good lifting up, and you're going to roll down, rolling back onto the Mat till your head is down on the mat. There we go.

Good. And you can stay there. Sorry Alejandro. But we're going to start with our hands here. Now. May start off with the basic form and they're going to climb up our legs as much as we need. Work head to your chest. Inhale. Exhale all the way to here. Kissing your knees and he'll sit up tall. Now squeeze your bottom and look at your heels and keep them there as you just roll back. Curl under your sit bones. Push your sit bones to your heels, pushing away using your belly. One more with your arms down in with the air.

Exhale all the way to those knees. Inhale, stacking your spine up, but then roll down. So push those heels away. Yeah. Curlin long, long. Now, if that was too hard, keep it there. Otherwise hands behind your head and you can allow yourself to let your elbows come together and kiss each other. So hands behind your head and go ahead and let those elbows come as you curl up in with the air and exhale all the way to your knees. Inhale, sit up. Tall. Eyes on those heels. Push them away as you roll down. Just rolled around.

I know it goes against every grain in your body here and elbows together and girl all the way. Good. Inhale, sit up tall and again, curl down. Yeah, rounding, rounding, love it. Good. And now keep your elbows as wide as you can. Try to and in with the air. Exhale and think of your reformer and think of short box and we're doing flat back now. So stay flat and long and go back six inches tall and heels away and heels away and heels and now curl down. And two more like that. In with the exhale.

Kiss your knees in, stack your spine up. Do Short box, your lengthening, pulling in and up, in and up, pushing away from your heels a little more. And then curling down in one more for me. In with the air. Exhale to your knees. Inhale, lift off your seat and pulling in and up as if your feet are in those straps and you're pushing away, and then curl the rest down. Excellent. That's lie on your left side. For sidekicks, they seen this way. Voila. Good.

And I want you to blind your whole body up on the back edge of the mat. So slide back a little bit, even your shoulders and rest your head on your hand for me. Great. And this hand is going to be in front of your belly. Good. Now bring your legs forward to the front edge of your mat. Good. They can come more forward if you're more basic and you need more stability and we could use that box, but these guys are more than fine. Yeah, Coleen, I bring your bottom forward just a tiny bit. Good. All right, so we are doing sidekicks, but your ideal is for the frame, your body frame to still stay squared and your powerhouse.

Not to just hang onto the floor, but to pull in and the little up from the floor. Yeah. And you're also goal is that your head is not resting on your hand completely, but it's almost like the extra things you just did. Neck pool where you're lengthening that neck. So I want you to keep the image of beautiful posture in the upper body. Beautiful posture. Now we'll lift that right leg just a little bit, just a hip level.

And I want this leg to always fight to be longer than your bottom leg. So reach it out of your hip and make it longer reaching for all the walls. We're going to do 10 kicking forward and back powerhouse and kick forward and kick it back. We'll do a little double post one too. I like it. And take it back to nothing in this frame moves right and Alejandro, nothing good and forward and back and six more longer than your bottom. Like reaching out to all the walls.

You want that leg a little turned out and really working for more forward good stability in that powerhouse and forward. Good. Now take it back further back, back, back. Yeah, and again, two and back and one more time. Let me see that length in the neck and posture there we got it. Legs together. We're going to do up and down and going to kick it up to our ear and then squeeze and hold it down when it's down. I want what? We want to stay down for me. They give.

We're going to try to get the heel in the bottom. Legs, archer, reaching so long. Imagine you can do that and I want zero space between your inner thoughts. Zip them up right now. Can you squeeze him all the way together and then use the outer thigh to push up and now get those inner thighs all the way glued. Beautiful. Call me up and squeeze in. Lengthen out of that hip.

Great and up and squeeze and lengthen. One more. No. Resting your head on that long. Beautiful posture. Hold it there now as if you're on stage and everything's pulled in and up. I want to see those five circles or two smaller, three little fast and four and five reverse it. Yes, one, two longer than your bottom leg and five. Nice job. Roll onto your belly and make a small pillow for your forehead.

Nice. Again, you don't have those suction cups, but I want you to really stretch your spine in and up out the crown of your head while your legs reach long in the behind you. Lift your legs up as high as your lower back is. Okay, and I want you to open just to the width of the Mat. Open up as wide as the mat for me. And now squeeze your legs all the way together and stay there. Hold, hold all the way up. Zip Up like you have a zipper behind your eyes. One more time.

Open the width of the mat and then squeeze them all the way together. All the way together. Zip, Zip, zip. Now same range of motion, but typer speed. Here we go. 20 Times. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten one, two four by six, seven, eight, nine, 10 roll to the other side. Bring those legs forward. I love how you're on the back edge. Yep. And your head is on that hand. See maybe a little further back, two inches with your shoulders and your bottom a little bit too.

Great. And then maybe a little further back with Harrison, you're more supported in the right through, there's awesome. Okay. And your left hand is now in front of your belly. Good. Lift your left leg just a tiny bit. And again, that leg is longer than your bottom. Like it's reaching out of the hip rather than tightening in here. And your posture is reaching long and we're gonna do a double beat forward.

Here we go. And it's forward one, two and then back two and forward two and then back two and we're working on the stretch and then the hamstring and bottom here and forward. Good and back. As the leg goes forward, don't get round. Stay nice and tall and forward and back. Really work in the hip. Yes, forward and back. And let's do three more phone and reach and two and longer leg and reach.

Even you go forward. And one more time. Reach and back and now legs together again. Imagining that your heel could go into the bottom legs arch as you push up to the ceiling and squeeze until you've got all the new things together and push up with the outer thigh and get taller and longer in your posture and up and squeeze that heel down to the other [inaudible] too. And long belly in and up. And last time up and squeeze. And now you're back on sage and we're going to do the five tight little circles.

What are they called? One to small rivers that I met in Bellay terms. Do longer leg four, five, add rest, lie on your back. Isn't there a fancy name and belly? Run your tongue and lie on your back. Lie on your back and shake out your legs cause we're going to do some teasers.

Speaking of Romana, she is to use a beautiful image of the uh, opening up a flower in teasers, right? So we're going to really use that. So make sure you're a little more center. Shoulders over, just a hair in the head on the mat. Head over that way. There you go. Sorry Alejandro. And Hug your knees into your chest. We're going to start off with teaser one. And if you have too hard of a hard time doing this, teasers are not easy. You could actually put your feet up on the wall and practice doing that either rolling down with the feet on the wall or rolling up to try to touch your toes with your feet on the wall. But you want them up at a 45 degree angle.

So let me see that 45 degree angle, imagining they're up against a wall a little bit higher. Thank you. And the legs back. Arms back. Good. All right. Now imagine you're gonna go up and touch your toes. [inaudible] here. [inaudible] that's it. Good. And now leave them there and roll away cause they're against the wall.

Roll down your back roll and right back up to him. Scooping up. Up, up. Yes. And roll away from that wall. And one more time you go. And this time we're going to stay here and we're going to move the legs and we're going to lower them down and pull them up and lower them down and pull up and one more down and hold. And now I want your arms to reach up. And I love this. V is going to open like a tulip open. And Go ahead. Your arms reach back and open the body down, down, and everything closes up like a flower at night and arms up and everything opens up slowly. One more time.

Up and hold and arms up. And I want to challenge you that your toes and fingertips touch this time at the same time. Toes and fingertips. Don't let your feet touch before your head. [inaudible] Ah, Nice. Go ahead and roll up and we're going to go into seal. Lift your bottom forward. We're gonna do six seals and then we're going to stand up.

So make sure you leave yourself enough room. Good. Now seals have nice, flexible flippers. So I want you to make sure that your flippers aren't rock hard like crab claws, but we're flipping. All right? Yeah, but I do want to rock hard powerhouse. Let me see that rock hard power house. Yeah. All right, so here we go. Let's clap two, three and inhale two, three and forward two, three. Inhale, rolling back. Exhale as you roll and fall more in with the air and exhale and in with the air feeling that stomach exhaling.

Guys have done a great job to more in with the air and exhale. And last one. Let your liberty be a little. Let go. Cross the ankles and stand up as if you're onstage. Pull up all that energy. Let's bring your heels together and toes apart and arms down by your side just like you started. But let's step kind of back and off to the side.

Still facing me. Good. And let's make sure that we take our piles with us today. So we're going to stand with our toes three inches apart. Heels together. There's weight on the ball of every toe. What weight on the ball? The big toe, the next toe.

All the way to our baby toe weight on the side of our foot weight on our heel, but the weight on her heel is as if someone could slide a card under you so you don't want too much weight but never any way under your arch. Ramana always used to say to keep a grape under there and don't make wine right, so keep that great and now keep your frame. We have our box, we'll start with our hip bones are a little bit in front of our ankles, so they're leaning forward a little bit because our bottom has woken up today and it's engaged and those hipbones are looking straight ahead. They're not looking down at the ceiling floor anymore, right there. In fact, our stomach has pulled up our hip bones so that our pelvis isn't dropping anymore. It's had a workout, it's engaged good, and we're not lifting our chest from by dislocating our shoulders, but we're lifting up our chest with our strong powerhouse. Beautiful. I want you to stay like that and let's make our share.

Our outer thighs are working as well. And we're going to take five counts to lift up our heels. So we're going to slowly lift up one, two, three, four, five and hold it up there. Feel a zipper behind your inner thighs. Hopefully your keels are not separating, they're staying together and take five counts to lower back down as if there's an eggshell this time underneath your heels and you don't want to crush it.

Nice. We'll do it one more time, a little more powerhouse in and up to make it look easier and a little less tense cause we don't want to look tense when we're around town. And now we're going to slowly lower down easily and in control. And we're going to take a little walk to keep all of that in our body. Let's go ahead and turn this way and walk just around your own mat. Feeling your stomach can help lift up your pelvis, feeling the back of your thighs, propel you forward, feeling you push the earth away with your feet instead of melting, giving into gravity. And I think you, that was wonderful. Good job.

Comments

2 people like this.
Monica uses good imagery; for example the powerhouse rooting into the mat and melt down with control.
2 people like this.
I enjoyed this class. A nice working pace. Energizing yet really good focus points. Thank you Monica.
Monica Wilson
Wooho! Thank you!:)
Brenda B
2 people like this.
... and the grape under the arch of the foot. Great, thanks!
1 person likes this.
Great visualisations thank you
Jaime_sf
1 person likes this.
Nice mix of moves with a nice challenging levels. Excellent visuals and explanations. I'll do this one again.
Angelika G
1 person likes this.
Beautifull cueing! Thank You
1 person likes this.
Yes, nice flow to the class - this is what I like and feel is very right for the mind and body. You helped clarify the balance of cueing simple but with visual depth!
1 person likes this.
Classical moves with great imagary! Thx!
2 people like this.
great class! loved the visualisations, it really helped me :)
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