Class #210

Balance and Coordination Mat

60 min - Class
12 likes

Description

Challenge the principles of balance and coordination with standing foot and leg work. Go deeper into your abdominal muscles with challenging yet simple exercises. Enjoy opening your spine with twisting and lateral work. Finish with easy-to-find upper back exercises that you can't help but feel.
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

Jul 15, 2010
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We're going to start standing today. So, um, on or off your mat, we are going to do a little bit of footwork, balance work so you can decide where you want to be. I'll be here I think. Um, and just look down. Make sure the outside linings of your feet are in parallel. Oh, hi. Thanks for coming. Sorry. All right. Outside bindings of the feet in parallel and then just rock forward kind of hinges from the ankle jointly. Lean way back Rockaway for like swinging in the breeze way back and then just settle yourself somewhere in the middle where you feel like you're balanced over the center of your feet.

Reaching your arms down towards the floor. Breathe in, big breath in. As you exhale, allow your head to fall forward right away. Start committing to the abdominals as you take the head down. The upper spine. Fall is the middle spine, fall is that, and then the low background's last. Inhaling at the bottom, perhaps lengthen a little further out of the low back.

Exhale, pulling up through the center of the body. Draw the abdominals up into the spine. Press the ribs into the middle back and then return all the way up to standing with your arms, reaching down the center. Sure. Up the sides of your thighs in here. Exhale, going again, allowing the head to float forward. Using this as your opportunity to check in with your body, to check, uh, to link your mind and your body and then decide [inaudible] what you want to work on today or what you want to focus on. Excelling to royal apple.

Definitely be focusing on all sorts of things that maybe make a commitment now to perhaps go deeper into your [inaudible] practice. We're going to do that one more time. Inhale and exhale. Folding forward. The head is heavy, the arms are heavy, but the shoulder blades are in pulling up into the ears. They're just held gently down the back end. Heel hold and exhale, lifting like you're being pulled up from the center of your body. Really light from the top. The arms are going to do a front and back motion as the, anyway, here we go. Bend your knees, lean back, put most of your weight into your heels and support your spine with your abdominals. Squeeze your butt, squeeze your inner thighs, and then press up pressing the arms. Just pass the hips and finding the muscles between the shoulder blades without squeezing the shoulder blades together. Inhale, we bend keeping working to the back of the legs and we press.

We're going to go a little quicker now the arms just float up or they press up and then we press off. So as we continue this movement pattern, continue to focus on the backs of the legs on the support through the front of the box. Remember that you can hinge forward at your waist as much as you want. So you definitely want to feel like you're leaning back, putting a little energy into the upper back as you come up. And we'll do three more and two acts, hail. And last time from here we're just gonna rise up onto our toes, perhaps leaning just the littlest bit forward. The other heels won't lift very much at all. And it's the same thing. We lean back, we squeezed from the tuition and we press all the way up to standing and we go again. So creating a rhythm with the breath, folding forward. Inhale, exhale.

Let all the air out of the body committing to the center of your body will help you balance. Maybe he'll bend and press. And last five, four, three, pressing up to no one pressing up saying at the top this, this, this, this, this. I thought that would hold me up and apparently it didn't. All right, now we're all down again, so we might as well start from the bottom. All right, heels together, toes apart. Once again, lift the heels just a little bit, not a lot. Same thing. Inhale, squeeze the inner thighs. As you sit the hips back, press up.

By pressing into your heels, you should be able to connect to your inner thighs throughout the movement. Zipping up the legs as though they were as zipper a little quicker. Now, squeezing from the glutes at the bottom and squeezing from the glutes at the top. So there's a sense of wrapping. The inner thighs are around to the outer thighs. Okay. And last time a little faster in, you know, two X. Yeah.

And last three finishing. You're coming all the way up to straight last too and one lower your heels down and take a small step outwards. Your feet or perhaps just slightly wider than your own hips. From there, see if you can just get an Energen jet tick sense of inward Paul. So there's our inner thighs. We inhale that it's the same movement. Really.

We sit back way back and then we press the arms down to stand up, breathing in as we go back. Allow your eyes to just travel downwards as you chest reaches forward and travel forwards as you come up. So they're just following the movement of the spine. Had staying in line with the spine. Continue that active inner thigh focus and let's do four crossing, holding up from your waist as well as from your legs last too. I don't one way coming all the way up.

You're going to rise once again up onto the toes a little. Okay. Last set. Bending and pressing and inhaling. Two X help holding the arms down from the musculature just underneath the armpits. Oh Kristy. I said, armpits, what are you going to do? Well, I can't mentally block it.

It's not an ugly word. Less three do more than one way. And then lowering the heels down, stepping the legs back together. I'm gonna turn back this way. You'll be wherever you want to be. A feat again in parallel to one another from a straight body. Lean a little bit forward at the ankle joint, slightly tuck the tailbone, feel the backs of the legs.

Engage all the way up to the glutes and rise up onto your toes. And then we lower the heels. I could reach up through the top of the head, barely touch the heels and lift up again, trying to get full range of motion in our feet, trying to articulate our feet and the majority of us are going to want to push into our pinky toes at the top. So let's send a little energy inwards. The inner thighs, the big toes, the fingertips are reaching down. Let me go down with the heels, but the head stays where it is in space or if that was truly possible, at least that's our focus up. And three more lift, squeezing from the hip from just underneath the glutes.

[inaudible] hold at the top. Bend your right knee, lower down to your left heel. Lift back up. Whoa. Up and down. So little faster. It's a raise up and then allow her and then I try to get a feeling of pulling up from the belly, reaching down with the arms, reaching through the foot in all directions and keeping the pelvis sta. And let's do three more to each side. Two, two on one and one lower both feet down.

Lift up onto your right toes, just barely touched the ground. Arms again are going to be doing that forward, backward movement. This is a single leg exercise. Ben, sit back, stand up, squeeze the hip of the leg that you're standing on. Ben and press and bed. Press now. If you wish to add an additional challenge to this exercise. As you stand up, you can lift, float the leg up, place it back down as you sit back. Mostly just work in the leg.

That's your standing on their legs. Kinda lightly. I'm moving through space. If you can feel the abdominals, pull the leg up. I'm going to go four more times as [inaudible] and two and one. Ben, the leg that you're standing on. Once again, slide the leg that was lifted out straight. Reach your hands in front of your body, one forearm on top of the other.

You've got all your weight and your forward like from here. As you exhale, bring the knee up towards the forum's. Reach back, try to keep the leg up off the floor. Exhale, pull from the abdominals, reach back and exhale, pull in and pull in and we'll do two more. Um, last one. Set the foot down on the floor next to its friend and stand up. I don't know. Do you think your feet are friends? They ought to be. If they're not, they're around each other. Light. Here we go. Another leg.

Okay. Feeling a little silly today. Here we go. Sitting back all the weights in the right leg, or if you're on a different league than me, the other way. Pressing back actively through the upper back. Remembering to transfer the chess away to the body forward. As you lean back, like you're going to sit on a chair or a low stool.

Last four here, continuing to find the back of the like finishing the extension of the leg at the top by pressing the pelvis forward. Last two. Oh, I did forget. Sorry. Floating the leg if you wish, because we'll do a few more on the side. I think one of my favorite things you ever said to me is balance is overrated. Symmetry. Cemeteries over rated. So here we are, overdoing the one side. That's an aspect. That's okay. Yeah, and stretch the leg back forms stacked.

Wait in the front leg, front, knee bent. Exhale. Pull the knee up towards the forum's. Inhale, reach it back. Try to keep it off the ground. We did six. If we're looking for symmetry, it's the abdominals. That reel the Legen last two. One more. [inaudible] place to fit down. Stand on both feet and come up. All right, so there's a little bit of leg work and a little bit of balance work and we're just going to move too.

So I'm just gonna sit on the opposite side that I thought I was. So sitting down facing inwards. Thanks candy. Okay. Feet flat, knees bent, arms just on the tops of the knees today. Right away we're just going to curve the spine, but keep the shoulders over the hips so your abdominals are drawing you back so much so that maybe you can even create a stretch in your back.

Inhale as you lift up, perhaps assisting yourself with your arms slightly XL, the tailbone slides under you. Pull the ribs back, the belly draws deeply into the spine. Inhale, come on. As this happens, resist the urge to around the shoulders forward. So just keep the arms plugged into the shoulder joint. And by that I mean the collarbones stay long. Just going to do that one more time. Last chance for a great big stretch.

It won't happen unless you're really working through the front. Inhale, lift up tall. Let the arms go and exhale, feeling the feet heavy on the mat. We're gonna roll through the spine. Rounding down towards the tips of the Scapula, feeling the abdominals contract into the mat. Breathe in, breathe out. As you engage first start the breath. Roll yourself up. Travel forward with the arms so they pass the knee. Shoulders over hips, and inhale to sit tall. Exhale, we draw the abdominals back. The shoulder blades are heavy. Not a lot of forcing.

Maybe there's a little inner arm contraction. Inhale to pause. Exhale, roll him back up. Just mobilizing the spine. Starting to get a little bit stronger. Abdominal work. Exhale, rounding back. Okay. In healing paths. Exhale, rolling up. One more time like so.

Lifting tolerance, holler with each straight back. Pause at the bottom. Inhale, raise your arms up. Exhale, press your arms down. Inhale, raise your arms up and your left leg. Can you do it and stay stable. Exhale, press the arms down there. It's like the arms. Push the leg down. Inhale. Right arm land, right leg, both arms. Oh one more time. Arms, left leg, left leg down, arms down, arms, right leg, right leg down, arms down. One more. Inhale, two pause. Full breath. Exhale, roll head. Finding a tall back. Turn your upper body in my direction, but keep the knees lined up with one another. XL. Roll down, rounding down just outside that side of your spine and heel.

We're coming across center, keeping the lower body stable x so we come up that side of the body and we're going to return to center at the top. Inhale to turn the opposite direction. Working from deep within the wastes or from the obliques. Exhale, come and down. Inhale, cross the body. Bring the arms across to the opposite side. Exhale, roll up. Um, lift and unwind. One more time around just getting a little rotational component to our movements here in hail across the body. Deeply working the abdominals.

Xcel up. I'm going back to center. Last one around. Reading in, breathing out, reading in as you come. Cross center reading energy. Come up, breathing in as you come to center and raise the arms up and raise the eyes up. Exhale. As you start coming down, let your arms drop in front of you and slide the feet a little closer to your body. Placing your arms down on the mat in your head down on the mat as well. If you need to readjust so that you're fully on the mat, now would be a good time for that. Heading into the pelvic curl. The arms are straight and long. Inhale, prepare. Exhale, flatten the spine.

There's our first movement in that. That movement perhaps will give us some traction in the lower back. The rest of the movement's gonna involve some lakes, so we're going to start to peel the pelvis up. Continue though that tucking of the pelvis until you arise up and create a straight line from the shoulders to the nice inhale. Hold. Exhale, starting from the chest, you undulate back down through the spine. Continue rounding through the lower back of the sending your pelvis towards your chest. And then finally you released the pelvis down to a neutral spine.

You fail your tailbone XL to roll up again as you move up and down. Feel a strong sense of continuing to work in or thighs or hugging the midline of the body with the insides of the legs. Exhale, coming down. Lots of mobilization of the spine tonight. Um, just keeping in mind that it's not just moving the spine that we're looking for, but it's can you create the movement of the back of the body from the front of the body? One more holding at the top. Exhaling as we go up here. Inhale, raise your arms.

They float towards the ceiling and then they float maybe just towards the ceiling, Christie, and then towards your ears if you wish. Excelling as you stretch your fingertips back. Slide your spine down into the ground. Let's bring the arms back over the shoulders when you could come down. Don't let me, Russia, and then how to the sides if you have enough space.

I think we all do. So go ahead and roll all the way back down. New HSA, picking up the left leg, arms are now out to the sides. We're going to bring up the right leg and hold them together in a tabletop position. Feet are just out in front of the knees. We're going to inhale traveling over towards the right hit. Exhale, work in the left side of the body as we drag the legs back through center. Inhale, traveling towards the left hip. Exhale, pulling the abdominals back. That's what gets us going. That's what starts our movement anyway, the deep contraction, and then we try to pull even more to come home.

Just a couple more times. Let's say three so you can go as far as you want. As long as your knees are touching and connected and lined up. As long as your shoulders are still, as long as your abdominals are helping you create the movement. This is gonna be the last one coming up right now, so the back of the room and then we come back to center. Place your feet down on the ground. Raise your hands back fully.

Interlace your fingers. Hands behind the head for the chest lift. As you exhale, lift the chest. Start to press the ribs down. Pull the abdominals flat into the ground and lift as high as you can. A look forward just a little bit new HSA, new Shit, new Shin with an n, and then release down. Sorry, I'll get it. One of these days. Chest down, ribs down. That contraction or that energy is going to lift us lightly up the head is weightless being supported by the hands. Inhale, pause, feel work.

Feel the contraction, the length of the abdominals as you come down. So creating work in both directions. Coming up again two more times. Here we go. He been here. We can get a sense of hugging the inner thighs. Imagine that you're squeezing a tennis ball between your knees or maybe it's slightly bigger ball. And again, did I say to this must be two holding at the top this time. Allow your hands to float forward and reach behind your thighs from here.

Energize a forward curl. So it's not really about coming up much higher. We all look great. We're going to let go. I'm going to bring the hands up and back behind the head and then from there we're going to try and just challenge it a little bit. Curl forward and forward. It's a little pulsing action. The movement happens on the XL.

As the abdominals draw deeper, the chest reaches forward lasts three. Here's two. Here's one. One full inhale at the top for intensity. Exhale, lengthen the waist. Feel it. Stretch and work. Breathing again. Breathe out and lift up. Breathe in and find the backs of your legs.

Breathe out and look for intensity or look for more. Reach one, reach one hand on top of the other, reaching forward, pointing at the knees. Inhale, take both hands over the right side. Exhale, bring it back to center. Inhale, we travel over the left. We're looking for height and XL to come back to center as you go from side to side with your trunk rotating around through the rib cage, you're looking for stillness in the lower half of the body. Stillness in the pelvis, keeping the thighs still for an English major.

I don't have very many more words besides still oh well over to the other side. Back to center. Separate the arms, raise them up without falling down in your chest, but them back behind your head and lengthen and work your way back to the mat. Cool. Okay. We've got one more to go. X, how we lift? I guess it's one more movement with two separate sides.

Any aliens behind thighs. Exhale. Find more. Let go. Hands behind the head. We're going to turn creating that same work as we go to one side or the other and then just a little curvatures forward. You might not get very far past where started, but just the action of drawing deep into the abs and looking for more. It should give you some work. Last two, one more.

We're gonna come back to center and we're going to work our way to the ground. Oh yes. Here we go. I've got a second side and then we'll be, I don't know. I'm not done. For sure. Reach the hands behind the guide yourself up a little further. Let go. Hands back behind the head. Turn from the ribs head to heavy in the hands and then just ah, ribs down. Belly button to spine or to Matt.

Hold was still tiny little contractions, just trying to go higher, maybe not even down. Oh, is that even possible? I don't think so. Don't worry. Last one. Bring it back to center. Find your way back to the mat and stretch your legs out in front of you. Oh me two ladies. Take your arms. Just step over your shoulders and then feel the all 12 ribs on the mat as you pull your abdominals in, in stretch your arms as high as you can without lifting through the rib cage part of your spine. From that place, reach your arms back up.

Follow your arms with your eyes so your head and chest come up right there is where we start to exhale and roll ourselves up. All right, stay round, but long at the top we're going to inhale here, filling up the back. Exhale, folding yourself back down and sliding the tailbone out from underneath you pressing one vertebrae at a time into the ground. As the back of the head touches, the arms are traveling overhead. Inhale, the arms come up. The head comes up. Creating one seamless movement as we finish exhaling. That's when we arrive at the top. A big inhale, pulling the abs back and spreading out the ribs. Exhale, coming down, working with precision, with control, with intention.

Inhale, exhale, curve long curves by heavy shoulders. Roll down, stop just behind your pelvis and go down one bone. From there, it's just one and then one, and then once it kind of slowing it down, imagine your spine is a string of pearls are Juju, train or something. If I'm like that, lift the head and chest. Come up. Just one bone up. Just one more. [inaudible] just one more. Continuing to drag the abs back and then fold forward. Inhale, we're going to go same movement little faster, but that's the precision that you want to look for. That sense of one bone at a time and spreading out the space between the bone.

So once we get down, we're going to come back up on the count of four head, chest, and here we are, four, three, two. We're at the top in here. Exhale, take it back. Two, three head is down on four arms or up. Inhale, head, chest, exhale, ribs down. ABS. In four, three, two, one, and rolling back like you're peeling tape. Paint something off a wall and head down. And two, Maureen. Yeah, I keep saying we're going faster and then I slowed down and down. Poor three, two, one all the way. Here's our last one. We're gonna stay at the top, coming up for four, three, two. Take a big stretch forward. Hold onto your feet. Maybe even flex them.

Press the backs of the is down into the mat. That's not enough of a stretch for you. Once all those things are in place in bend your arms and guide yourself forward a little bit. All right, from here we're going to roll up and bend our knees. Just a little gentle twisting for now. So take your elbow straight out from your shoulders with your fingertips facing forward.

Pull your elbows back just a little bit and then just look over your shoulders and see that they're at a 90 degree angle. From that place, we're going to turn the Elvis forward. Fingertips just over elbows and everyone should be feeling their back. Now if you are, show me by turning your palms inwards. From here, you're getting through the obliques. I don't know what's wrong with me, but there's something turn towards turn towards the mirror.

This is not a mirror window, but that's, you know it. And then come back XL, turn and look at Perry. Hi Perry. And he'll come back. All right, without all the silliness. We're looking for dolphins this time, thinking about getting taller. As you turn. Inhale, we've come back, but work your way back.

So there's always work in both directions. Big rotation, IG lift. Inhale to come back. Check in with your legs. They should be totally still. So as you turn away from that outside leg, it stays in place. Bringing it back, go in the other way, bringing it back, bringing it this way. Stay there, stretch your arms out straight. Raise up with your arms and try to lengthen your spine of even more. And then from there, can you turn even more than you are? Revenge your elbow.

Fold yourself back to center or rotate yourself back to center. Go in the other way. Stretch the arms out straight. Stretch the arms towards the sky. Lengthening this financed or eight arms, shoulders heavy. Read the elbows. Durag the arms back to bend and bring yourself back to center. Lower your arms down. Open your knees out to the side.

Take a quick stretch forward. All right, here's an exercise in stabilization. Reach your arms forward. You're going to side bend slightly to your right, meaning right ribcage pulls towards right hip bone. Then tuck the tailbone under. Try to keep the leg still as you roll down that side of your spine.

Come around through center. So your left rib cage is reaching towards your left hip. Roll yourself up and unwind. So we start with lateral flection, meaning rib to hit. Then we pull the pelvis out from underneath Seth's, the Tobin's reaching out towards our heels, which are pressing together. We roll down that side. Come across the other side. Roll Up. [inaudible]. That sound means I'm cramping and come back to center.

One more time to each side. Side Bend. [inaudible] I'm just alternating sides. Come back. Okay. And then back. This'll be our last rib to him.

Tuck the tail. Nice. Beautiful, stable bodies. Ladies, we're, oh the way up on the other side, and we're taking it home. All right, heading into the spine, stretch forward. Let's stretch the legs out straight along the Mat. If you need to bend, you can. What's most important is that you're able to sit up straight, so whatever that means to you.

Arms are straight out in front of the shoulders, feet or flax. Chest is pulled through towards the fingertips. As we exhale, we're going to take the head down first. I'm going to start to pull the ribs back and then we're going to travel forward towards the feet. That hands go. Just inside the feet. There's an inhale to hold. Exhale, we pull back up. So drawing the abdominals backwards against the spine.

We stack the spinal bone by bone, like we're coming up against something flat. Inhale at the top. Exhale, starting with the head and ribs. Pull back, spine travels forward. Inhale, go as low as you can there with the abdominals. Really, really heavy at the back. And then exhale. I'm just going to give you a wall to stack against that. Straight in healing again, folding away. So the head goes first.

The ribs pull back. There's not a lot of a lean back. It's more of a lean forward. Inhale, stay and exhale. Restack. Okay, we're going to go forward one more time. On the exhale, the abdominals pull back. The spine travels forward, keeping the feet flexed, stay there when you get there and hold on. Let's say ankles. So here we are with our hands on our ankles. Try to send your hipbones forward in your tailbone back.

Now we've linked in out through the lower back. From there, use your arms just a little bit as you send your chest upwards so you're creating a long diagonal spine nation. That's perfect. Stay right where you are. Can You keep that and let go from there? Can you just float the arms up and keep the spine relatively still pretty still? If anything, it's going longer. Inhale, reach down, maybe give yourself a little bit more and then when you're letting go in your arms or traveling happy, it's a floating. They barely barely have any weight in on it. All the work is happening at the upper back. Inhale, reach down.

Let's give ourselves two more like that. A little bit more energy, a little bit more length. I don't know. Float, nice, heavy, heavy shoulder blades. One more like, so I'm reaching down, lengthening it, give it all you got. And this is the last one from there. Bend your elbows again so they're back in that 90 degree angle and then just try to press the thumbs back, the chest, forward the spine, long, the abdominals, and about three more to one. Stretch the arms back on that same diagonal with the spine all the way back up and bring your arms around behind you and to bring the legs together as well. That work for you. Okay. All right, so the backs of the legs are super important to this exercise. The fingers face either inwards or out to the sides.

It's the back support through a squeeze, the back of our legs and we pick the pelvis at wanting to think about a slight pulling of pubic bone towards face and we sit down and the chest reaches for it. So it's a hinge at the hip joint. Your spine stays straight. Lovely Xcel to press that, backs of the legs, working hard, chest, reaching up through the shoulders. Keep that sense of trying to lift out of the shoulders as you sit your hips down. So here we are back into a light touch and the lift.

So there's work on the way up and a lot of different places. Backs of the legs, abs, shoulders, arms. Most of the work has the legs come down as happening in the ABS and the lats or the muscles underneath your armpits. Last one, when we come back, let you sit up and we bend and we're going to do the open lake rocker. So a modification for it is to have the knees bent. It works just as well as holding onto your ankles. If you're wanting to go for the whole thing, let's do it. Um, you want to sit just behind your tailbone, one hand on one ankle or slightly lower on the calf, either hand on the other ankle and then finding a v-shaped position and lean back a little on the diagonal.

We're going to Tuck the tailbone under and rock back. Then we roll up and we set in the spine long and then again, just a few more times a rocking back, rocking up on lengthening the back of the top. The tailbone moves forward, spine rolls back, spine rolls forward, and the chest lifts up a couple more times to rolling back. Yeah, and left. Last one here it is not the top whether or not your legs are bent or a straight. Let's let him go. Hold him up in space. Lower the legs if they're bent, straighten them or keep them bend and sit up tall for the saw arms are out to the sides here with the palms facing forward.

So turn towards the ocean. Press the back arm back. Send the front arm forward past that front foot. Inhale, lengthen upon the diagonal. Reach the background back as you reach the top arm forward and come back to center in. He'll turn the opposite direction, rotating from the white waist. Exhale, reaching forward. Inhale, creating length in the spine as you reach the arms and opposition and come back. Keeping the legs still. It's a spine that we're primarily interested in.

We go down, we lengthen out, let me come home. We turn bottom of body stuff. You reach out, you reach up and we come back. Let's make this the last one. Go ahead and we reach out. We come taller as we rotate through center all the way over to the other side. Exhale as you dive down. Inhale as you create length, remember the opposite reach of the arms and exhale as you travel back through center. Lower your arms down and once again, bend your knees. Please reach your arms forward. As you roll towards your back, low back. Start to move the feet a little closer and closer and closer to you.

So they're pretty close into the body. Once you can get your hands down towards your hips and your back is flat, pick up your legs. Okay, so we keep the back strong. We keep that high lift in the trunk. We inhale, touch the toes and exhale. Pull the legs back. The hinges. Action is happening around the pelvis. And exhale back.

Inhale, toes, touch. Exhale, pull it back. Keep the body steady. The low back connected, do more. Reaching down, pulling back, reaching down, pulling back. Put your hands on your knees. You maybe you'll use your hands to curl a little higher. Maybe we'll just use them for a break. Send the legs out straight. Just let go.

Send your arms now over your head. Perfect with your back. Circle the ams around. Bend the nice double leg stretch. We go in a little faster. Inhale back stays flat. Xcel circle if it's tough to keep your back flat, um, higher on the diagonal with the legs is more real helpful. And as the arms go overhead, your challenge is to keep the trunk lifted in space. Go and form more times a little faster here as a one and two and around.

Push through space like you're moving through mud. One more. Bring your knees to your chest. As you place your head back down on the mat. Curling up by pressing the knees back into the hands, we press the ribs down. We find that optimal curl way up off the shoulder blades. A little bit less way. Perfect. Hands behind the head.

I'm going to stretch out the leg closest to the back. Turn now towards the leg that's in the front shin is parallel to the knee. Go on a couple of times. Slow. Yes. Yup. And then change and then change. So on the bent like keep going, you're good. And then change.

So on the bent knee you want that kind of 90 degree angle or table top shape. And then the straight leg just aligns up with the bent leg and Tufts and, and, and let's do four more. Here it is. One faster. One, two, two, three, three, four for both knees and hands behind the head. Pull the leaves right into the chest and lower the head down. Is that enough abs for everyone for now. Turn and face me onto your side.

Sorry. Get your attention. You're doing our Segal. Did you have something you want to say to me? I want to keep that. I'll have to, I'm so sorry. Trading. Hey, we're going all the way down the legs glued together.

If I think about the inner knees being connected. Um, so there's that. It's going to say more, but I'm not now stretch the legs away from you so long that it feels like first your waist is lengthening. Squeeze the abdominals and then hover the legs. They won't come very high and then we're just going to take them down a little, the littlest bit and we're going to lift him up. You can have your arm on your thigh can reach your arm into the air. You can put it on the mat. You decide what you want to do.

But what your focus is is can I lift my weightless legs from my waist? Given that all of your focus, all that you've got working hard from the trunk. She likes skinny, skinny, cause she just showed me her skinny stomach without a shirt on last two. And then we're going to reach both legs. Dan, take your top line [inaudible] back and your top arm slightly forward and then just stretch the toes away from the fingertips and see if you can give yourself a deep, pretty decent stretch there. It's the length away that's gonna work the best in my opinion.

And then come back to center. Help yourself up so that you're on your elbow. Bottom leg is going to be bent today. Just give yourself a quick moment to pull away from the elbow with the bottom side rib and lift the leg and just I'll lift up away from the ground a little. Perfect. We're going to flex the foot and it's going to kick forward and it's going to kick back. And as we create that movement, what we're looking for, um, stillness in the trunk.

Inhaling forward, exhaling back, flex forward, point back, making sure that you're not arching your back as your leg goes to the back and we're going five more times. It's one and stretch set a way. Action that we just experienced in this stretch that we're looking for in the exercise. Last to one more, bring your leg back to the front. It's gonna reach down towards the ground and then it's going to lift and it's going to reach behind and it's going to go up to go down and up to come back and say go down and up to go back. So challenging even more the stability of the trunk.

Everyone is doing such a nice job with that. You can pull your ribs in just bad and tough and tough and let's do one more and then once again reached the leg back. Once again, take that free arm and reach it forward. And again, just look for a sense of opposition of length and then come up, stack the legs for now. Lift all the way up and then take the bottom leg out from under the top leg. I guess you didn't need to stack that. That was the easiest way for me to transition us. Okay, so let's do the mermaid I feed and both arms out. Going to be going away from this leg.

Reach out through the waist, reach down, put your hand on the ground. Some of us like to slide it away a little. You'll decide when she starts to rotate your spine lift. We back through the ads, get a good stretch in the back. Inhale, unwind from that position. So now you're facing Ford. You're in a long straight line with your body and exhale.

Use The obliques to lift you up and then stretch over. And then now the where you feel a stretch is where you're going to lift from. And here's some breathing arms out. Inhale down over. Place the hand down. Xcel. Turn right the waist. Pull up the ribs, pull down the shoulders. Inhale, unwind, eyes forward, fine forward and exhale, float back up to place that hand down and reach over and lift back up and both arms out and reach across and turn the body and he goes, our exhale in healing, we unwind. Exhale, we lift up neo, we stretch over.

Big Breath. Allow it to last so that you can appreciate the stretch. Exhale up. One more please. Neon and guys down. Exhale the ribs press upwards into the spine. The lower belly pulls in. Inhale, reach around XL in yellow over [inaudible] and then exhale, just give it a little time coming all the way back on in a place that hand down. Come from here actually. Sorry. Take the arm that we're still, where are we?

Just we're good. Reach way out. Forward. Press the tailbone down towards the matter of keep the hips still bodies making a circular movement around the spine. The hands going to come to the mat. We're going to really lift up onto both knees, bring the opposite arm up towards the ear, press forward into the hip stretch. Circle your arm twice at the top once again. And then the arm once again comes up over the head as your hips dit down to start to turn the chest forward. Sitting down on both hips.

Continuing to circle the arm that's already circling around. Follow up with the opposite on that. You were just leaning on and stretch to the side once again. And with that we'll come up and we'll swing our legs around to the other side. Okay, so we're all the way down.

We've got our inner knees turn towards one another, potentially touching, maybe hopefully, and head on down on the arms. Deeply engaged. Start to reach away and then the legs just float up. So once you've created that nice long way, she want to keep that long waist as the legs just lower a little and float away. Well, little, maybe we'll get a sense here of trying to make the waist longer as we move our legs, as we move our nice light legs, any part of the legs are working. It's the inner thighs interviewing to focus the majority of the energy through the trunk.

Reaching out out in a way and a, am I going to go four more times? Yeah. Mm. Drawing the rib cage back Dominoes d and last too and this is it. And then we lowered our legs down and we took our top leg and our top arm when we reached to them in opposition. And you can play with that stretch. Sometimes it feels good to drop the leg on the floor and try and slide it away from you.

And then coming back and we just sat, I see me elbow down on the mat pulling the ribs up away from the hell of oil on that side, creating a straight line from shoulder to hit. The bottom leg is bent, the top leg is straight and reaching away. We flex the foot and we brought the leg forward and we pointed to reach back. We kept energy in keeping the body still and stable as the light travels through space. I keep the like pretty consistent as far as height as well.

So it's like it's sliding across a a Mesa or table. Trying to think of something more clever. Last three, I don't know, I think table's a little more clear. Go forward, drop the toes, lift them up like you're clearing a small child and then back. And then super, super strong in the body. It's the bottom of lakes that are going to keep you there by the way, as well as the shoulder stabilizers up to go back. Not a lot back. A little back and up in forward. And let's do three more rich too too.

I don't last one. Oh, stay back. Stretch the stretch to leg away. Little be different up here so you can find. Okay. And when you're ready, come up. The bottom leg or the one that's already been is gonna slide away as we bring the top, like into that foot. Okay. So for the Mermaid, I believe we did four. Both arms are out to the side, her abdominals are strong.

We're going to go this way. Reach down, touch, Xcel, big turn, big, big turn. Feel the shoulders reaching away from the heaters. Feel the ribs, the ABS pulling back. Inhale. Exhale from that side. Lift Up, put the hand down. Inhale, stretch the opposite side. Exhale. Feel that side work to bring you on.

Float the arms back toward straight. Inhale over. Exhale, turn big rotation. Inhale, we come back. Excellent. We come up [inaudible] let's reach you. Overthink long and then bend and Xcel to come on last two. Ranging from the waist. Lengthening on hand comes down. Good work. Turn the body to lots and lots of work in the EBS. The more the abs work, by the way, the more likely you are to get a bigger stretch. So let that be motivation for you.

Right? What's that last one? Hindering away. Placing the hand down, folding forward and reaching around. Inhale, open. Excellent. Any lacrosse? Yeah, cause I'll give it a minute. Take another breath. Take that on. Forward and reaching out through the spine, not just the arm. In fact, the arm is just an extension of the spine. As it travels across.

That hand comes to the ground. You come up on your knees, you're pressing forward with your pelvis. Free arm reaches over your head. Let me just make a couple of circles here. Opening up through the shoulder, allowing the neck to just be perhaps heavy and we're going to reach back overhead sitting back towards the ground. The freer, I'm the one that's still in the air, starts to reach for the other one fall. Is it when it, can we just find our way back over to that side stretch and then we come up. Okay. Coming down, almost lost my microphone coming down onto your stomach. And what I want to do today is going to end involve needing a little bit of space and it doesn't work as well with the mat as it, it works better with your hands on something would you can find some wood around this. Put your hands on it. So anyway, I have a look at what I'm after and I'll, and then I'll help.

So we're just going to be lying face forward with the abdominals pulled and then the legs slightly active. From there we're going to slide our hands towards our body by pulling the shoulder blades down from that action we're sending the chest forward. I want you to think about bending from just under or over your bra line and then you slide yourself back down. It does work but just not as well. Okay, so you're lying down, you've got your arms straight out in front of you, you've got your legs together if possible and just a little energy through the legs as well. So I did a little slight glute connection but without losing the abdominal connection. Here we go. Breathe in. As you breathe out, guide the shoulder blades down the back. As that happens, the chest is sending itself forward. It's a lot of upper back work.

It looks beautiful and then you lower your body down and the arms just kind of slide back and forth along the wood breathing and again, breathing out as you slide your arms through space. It's not an arm movement really, but more of a shoulder under blade movement that's creating good, nice just there. So you want to look at the ground the whole time and then you reach out and you just slide yourself back down again. What was I saying? Excelling to Pola. Don't think about, think about work. Where are you finding the work in?

He'll stay. Exhale. Can you get a sense of working on the way down as well? The abdominals dry and perhaps even more spine lengthens as you go down. Let's do that two more times. Sliding the shoulder blades down and reaching, reaching, reaching, gorgeous and really seem down. One way. Hold. When you get to the top connection recheck for your abs.

They should be on you're gonna lift your right leg, stretch out through your left arm and slide them away from one another. Lower those two limbs down and pick up the opposite ones. Focus on the length of the leg rather than the height of the leg and the height of the arm instead of the height of the leg. Not really being clear, but you guys got it. I think stretch the fingers in the toes, away from one another.

It's not about hike. It's about stability and work from the middle back from the upper back without a lot of, yeah. And do strain or pressure on the lower back. Let's do a couple more, a little faster. It's a swim prep leg. Opposite leg reaches opposite arm and leg. You're right, Christie, last one and the other side as well. Are we even, sorry, I got lost. I'm not doing it. So if you're even lower your body down all the way, can yourself stop just a moment. Let your back settle.

Put your hands underneath your shoulders. Press yourself up at journeys. Round your back. Sit on your feet. You can put your arms, they can eat to stay out over your head. Can put them down around your legs. You put on your feet and pull your hips back towards your seat.

It's really about you here. So find a, a stretch. That feels good. Okay. And then we're going to come up and we're going to finish our back extension on our knees today. So, uh, remember in the beginning of class we did that chest expansion action. All right, it's going to be similar to that. And here's how it goes. Let's do palm station and then just check for a moment that your pelvis is just over your knees.

Newson and I are going to Tuck our pelvises just a little bit. And from there we're going to reach your arms down the side of your thighs. Now start gently pressing back, not very far with the arms and as you press back with your arms, allow your chest to rise. So it's more of a sense of getting taller than it really is of pushing or pulling. Was that good? Did that I, that may work for me, but I don't know if it works for everyone. And then return. So I'm going to say it differently. The arms reach slightly down, they start to reach back and as they go down, it's like the spine is being pulled in the opposite direction from the fingertips. We lift the breastbone ever so slightly on. With that, we lift our eyes and then we reengage.

If not already deeply engage the abdominals to bring their ribs back into place above the pubic bone. So there is a slight upper back extension. We're again trying to bend just behind the bra line or just underneath the shoulder blades for all your tough guys out there. And then we come back. It's a very small, very, I don't know, I wouldn't say gentle movement cause I'm getting a fair amount of work. But um, if you're gentle with the movement, I think it'll allow you to get some pretty good work. Reaching the arms down the chest, reaches a low backs and not involved at all. And then return. How about just one way? No, I'm just reaching down.

Start growing the spine or building the spine or creating space between the bones in your spine and only at the last minute. Do you lift the chest ever so slightly and then come back and let's just round the spine. Place the hands down near the knees. And then with the hands here, just press the abdominals back really round as much as you can. Drawing the pelvis towards the eyes, the eyes towards the pelvis. The belly button through the spine into the free space behind you.

And then with that, we're going to tuck our toes under, rollover the toes. Make a moment here to just sit down and towards your heels, right, the weight of your body, and give your calves a little bit of a stretch. And then as we start to stretch the legs, the heels will drop to the ground. Hands can just be supporting you there. Taking a breath, two breaths.

Let's exhale and build the spine again. Rolling up lightly, letting the leave the ground on your way up. I'll tell you arrival all the way up at standing. We're gonna send ourself back forward. One more time to stay. So head first. Maybe take a moment as you roll down and do a kind of slow and notice if you feel any different than you did than when you started. Yeah, I do a little [inaudible].

Maybe you're connected deeper into your abdominals. It feels more natural or easier once you arrive at the bottom. Let's all bend our knees. Not a ton, but not just a little either. I don't know how to say that better, but anyway, as your knees are bent, pull your abdominals up so much that it, you can feel a sense of trying to pull the fiber into the hip joints. Let them sink a little deeper in the hip joins and an Azure fiber and sync up or your hip joints sing down on your thigh bone bones. Hello, your low back should just cascade over the front of your thighs.

Your head is heavy. Take a couple of breasts here. Expanding the back of the body, pulling the front of the body inwards. Big, deep, fulfilling breath. Exhale, let it out. Let's do two more and one more. If your back feels we're going to keep our knees bent and roll up.

If you feel like you need to hold onto your knees and perhaps support yourself as you move through space, if that was a huge stretch for you, that might be a good idea. Could also hold onto your elbows and just hanging heavy there. Whatever you wish to do with heavy arms or holding onto your elbows or holding on to your knees. We're going to start rolling back up. How deeply are you up? Kristy and I are still playing in town. I can't see you guys. All right, so we'll roll up. Ta-Da. Done. Thanks for coming.

Comments

1 person likes this.
Good ab workout
PilateNewBee
1 person likes this.
Love your variations and how you concentrate on each area as the program progresses!
Thanks PilateNewBee! You found an old one :)
Getting annoyed that the streaming quality is poor. Kept freezing 24 mins in and onwards.
1 person likes this.
Abby ~ I'm sorry you had trouble with this video freezing. I have just tried it and it played through for me. I recommend trying a lower video quality as the internet connection may not be strong enough to support the full video. If you continue to have trouble please email us at contact@pilatesanytime.com.
1 person likes this.
I can see this is a very old one but I still just wanted to say how much I LOVE and appreciate this mat class! The strong/deep focus on the abs and back, as well as the great instruction, helps me find SO much more work and get such a great workout! :)
Hanna, I appreciate so much that you go back to the older classes.
I believe them to be equally valuable to anything filmed more recently.
Thank you for taking class with me and sharing your feedback!

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