Class #2139

Dance with the Machine

60 min - Class
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Learn how to "dance with the machine" in this flowing Cadillac workout with Kristi Cooper. She teaches variations on the themes from a previous Cadillac workout, placing more emphasis on the hamstrings and feet. She also works on finding the grip in your hands so you can find more engagement in your core.
What You'll Need: Cadillac

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Apr 15, 2015
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Hi there. I'm Christie and we are going to work with the Cadillac. Obviously I'm I built this class on another class that I recently taught just so there's a lot of familiarity hopefully that you'll see. I think it's class ID 1794 I think and um, basically I'm going to repeat a fair amount of that but then add in some other options whether it kicks it up a notch. In some cases it may bring it down a notch to go a little deeper. But in any case there'll be some variation on that theme.

So let's come down here and just first of all the way I have the Cadillac set up again as how I typically would leave it, I have using balanced body yellow arm springs or short springs with the rollbar attached. I'm going to start there. The leg springs, I use purple. You can go lighter or heavier. I am going to use the strap today just for an assist in maybe two cases, but certainly one, I have the two blue up here, up top and then to red springs, short springs off the back end here where I am going to do the pushing through with the legwork. So from bottom loaded for, because it feels really good. So let's come to the end with the roll-down bar and collect ourselves as we often need to do when we're getting ready to do a good workout and need to leave other things aside. The bar here is pretty short to hold wide or at least the width of your shoulders and maybe a touch wider initially.

Just a little bit of pressure here and that pressure comes from the shoulder blades, right? We can take this time, we can allow the sense of a downward press to elevate the upper spine, elevate the head if we want to include that as the spine. Go ahead and get a full grip on the bar today. So my friend Benjamin has been teaching me that I could benefit from a lot of grip strength and I know I'm not alone, so I'm practicing holding that bar from there. Just exhale, press down a little bit. Nothing else really happening. Sort of in hell. Bring it back up. Exhale, and it's from me, comes from under the shoulder. I feel a sense of length to the neck and opposition.

I'm finding that opposition right from the start and exhaling down to grow. I'm also starting to think below the arms, right? How else can I support myself, but feel the feet, feel that inner seem of a thigh field, the whole center of the body and not just the front side. I tend to put a lot of emphasis on the hamstrings and I hope it becomes obvious. Let's do the same thing as you exhale this time slowly without leaning too much forward. Rise up. Oh, we're going to have to back up, aren't we? Just a little step back. So let's begin that again.

Just enough that when you press a, you can accommodate at least the length of your foot. Exhale, we press and rise up and right away you kick a little more into the back of the legs. I think as you lower the heels down, we're going to let the top of the head reach to the ceiling. Exhale, lift up. We're going slow for now. I'm going to do a few that are a little more ballistic for some of that Fascia training. Keep a hearing about with Mr Tom Myers and Elizabeth [inaudible] and down. What am I, but for now I'm just going for the focus. Okay, now we're going to go about halfway with the resistance of the arm, so you're exhaling somewhere in here and now just it's a bounce down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, push. Work through the foot so you're down. Push through, down, push through, down. Push through one more and slowly down.

Come and touch closer again, not by much. We're going to bring the bar down and close to us and do a bit of a roll over, standing, roll down, bring it down to exhale somewhere in there. Take an inhale, bring it close to you so that when you roll down those arms and up right under your shoulders, remember that firm grip. Be Safe. Inhale here. Now let the spine create the motion to bring the bar back up, not just the uncoiling of this rings. In fact, you want to almost try to leave those spring coils open. Exhale, start to bring it down. Go ahead and roll into that. Exhale, go. Let all the air outlet, the body shape. Get the air out. Be careful that you don't push just the arms.

Inhale and exhale. Inhale here, and exhale, bring it down. Go with it. Follow it. Top of the head to the bar. Push down, push down. Do it with your spine shape, not just the arms. Go, go, go and inhale, hold, exhale. You'll feel the abdominals naturally push up against the spine to support it.

You don't really have to think about that. And while I put the bar through on the other side and while I'm thinking about it, this cross bars probably a little higher than I need it for where we're going later. So I'm going to lower that now to about my shoulder height cause then the legs brings me all set. Okay. Sitting onto the bed for some rollbacks. Um, the strap, if it feels like it's in your way, just move it, but it's kind of where I need it and a little bit soon. All right, feet right up against the Poles. You can start with slightly bent knees. That's fine. Get that same sense under the arms. Take the big breath.

That's all that matters right now. Fill up, let your belly go. If that's what needs to happen, then again, you just gonna make your way to the bed. Make your way to the top of the table. Rounding down, let's go just shoulder blades from right there. Pull the bar into your chest. Let go. Don't let go. Put Straight and pull two, two more. One and this time, pull it in hold and come back up and let it go. A little change here. Inhale. Exhale. Take it down. Nice straight arms.

Reaching the feet into the Poles. We'll do three holding it here on three go. One, two, back out three this time don't come up so round. Just let it bring you up and then let go the arms. Okay, so that'll be the more fun, more traditional way of doing it. We roll down, send the hips underneath you. Make it the shape of the spine that's getting you their shoulder blades. We pull in out, one in, two in a three.

Pull hold and rise up. Let it go. Now let's just let it flow. We roll down. Keeping those arms connected. A strong grip of the hand helps pull, reach, pull, push, pull, push, push, hold, lift and bring it around. Do One more. I think we're getting it now. It feels good. Rounded down. Round it down. Rounded. Oh, make contact with those poles and its pull. Reach, tighten up through the forearms. Next one you hold. Let it pop you up. And Voila. This time, let's just roll all the way down.

Oh, the way down, all the way down. Take the right foot, cross it over the left. Don't worry about the hands. Just reached that right? Like from here, pull the bar. One head is down. Pull the bar to three, back to straight arms and just roll up. But now as the springs pull you, you pull them, right? It's like it's trying to pull you, but you're pulling back on it and you finding it in your belly and you sit up tall. We're going to go back down just to the bottom here again, it's you're not just going with it.

Imagine those springs are trying to pull you away or perhaps you should push. Maybe that'll work better for you. I'm working in opposition to them. Damn. Damn. Now go all the way down. Level off the shoulder, switched the feet to the other side. Oh, that's a different stretch for me. And from here we're just going to pull, stretch, pull, stretch, pull. Hold this straight arm. Then inhale, lift your head. Keep reaching that top leg that's crossed over further and here's that resistance. It's like I'm trying to hold back and we're up.

We'll go right back down. Same thing dancing with machine, albeit slowly. Head goes down, foot goes back and up. We come just straight arms this time a week. Okay. Before we go to one other one, that's going to require a little extension. Just keep your feet on the poles and draw down the bar. Open up the coils of the springs from grip again, right.

Press down as you lengthen your spine up and at the top there you're going to go into a little upper thoracic or upper back extension. Try not to release the ribs fully. They have to release some, but you're not. You're not just, it's more the low back, right? Keep the low back. Still. Press down, lift up. It's like you're looking toward the ceiling. Find that upper back. Find what's even and release.

One more time and breathe as you on. I'm inhaling I think as I go up. Yup. Not forgetting about the inner thighs, the reach into the Poles and set the bar down for a moment. Spin yourself around and the strap I'm going to use again for the strength of it, but also it's as an assistant. It might let me get into a position that is familiar to me and hopefully you, um, and make the exercise different. More about to, uh, take our legs over the rollbar completely spacing on the name so I'm not going to worry about it. Yeah. But anyway, you'll be holding your strap and you want to be able to hold it, so make sure it's not so loose that you're able to bend your elbows back up enough that you can almost not reach it because you're going to be here. You're really pulling on it. Yeah. But with straight arms, once you feel pretty comfortable with that, reach up there, grab your bar, take your legs over it. Okay. Now you, you know, if this is a good one for you, if you need someone there to help you hold the bar, do or perhaps wrap a sticky mat around it so it doesn't feel so loosey Goosey.

Sometimes a fee. I'm going to do it slightly apart since I don't have a little partner helping me. I run down there and find my strap and see I can barely reach it. Yes. All right. From there it got a good grip. It's not just your fingers. Your feet are down, your butts down. Pull into that strap. I want, I'm tempted to move closer to the strap, but don't do it. It only makes it harder. Later peel up.

Just roll through your hips and pull on that strap. Feel the back of your shoulders into the mat. Feel the heels gliding towards your butt. Inhale. Exhale. Just come on down. Get used to it. Still pulling on the strap. Opening the chest. Oh yeah. Don't you want to kind of move back now? I Dunno if I do or not.

I'm going to hang out. Exhale PLF, but use it. Use it. There's no harm in using your arms as harm and not using your arms and roll it down. All right. Which version do we want to go first? We'll go forward. This starting this same way. You're gonna roll up. You really got to use the whole arm, the back of the arm. Let your heels leave. Bring the bar up, fold it over. You got to hang on to it.

Gotta keep those heels close to roll it down. Touch your feet, peel it up. Don't worry too much about the breath. Get a little rhythm going for yourself. Smoothing out the spine. Touch down, peel up. You can do a little jump, but make it more about the connection of the back of the arms to the trunk. Of course, do the front one more like that. Lift hamstrings. Get 'em up. Get 'em up. Fold it over and down. Of course we can go the other way. Why not? You're gonna bring your knees up, roll up, back of the arms. Hamstrings, toes are going to touch first. Yes they are.

And you're going to do it gracefully cause you trust your strap. Roll it down. Oh and peel it up. Keep it close. Now extend the spine to make the shape. The legs don't change that much. Do they roll down? Let's do it again. Two more. Pull it in. Pull it up. Use your arms and reach the body long. Last one. Oh, it's fun. Thank you Ben. Rich, rich, and roll it. Damn. Okay.

You're going to help yourself carefully out of the strap and we'll just let the bargo up and from here, nice and easy. Just exhale into the a hundred from there. Set the feet down. Press the heels together. Press the arms in tight to the body. Preston. Whole body strongly together. Take the arms up to the ceiling. This time as you exhale, you curl forward.

Push down on this left leg to float the right leg like you're going to it. Really going to it. Come on. Reach both everything. It doesn't have to be just hanging out. Go make it something right. Take it down. The arms go up. Innercise are pressing strongly together. Again, XL right legs pushing down, left leg up. It's not just pushing down, they're pushing toward each other. Still come on, shoot like an Arrow and down and back. This time we will end up with both feet in the air. Exhale forward.

Start thinking about how do I pick up my legs now? Keeping them together. Oh, that's a tough inhale. Two, three, four, five and out. Two, three, four, five in, out. Make it a long breath in, fluid out every thing. Use the arms as the pump to get it out. [inaudible] org from the backside, little legs. Look anything you want. Try not to stress about it. [inaudible] arms are absolutely straight. Connect them to your mid-back. I'm only doing one more cycle. Some make it good, good, good.

And then set everything down and background onto the Poles. Right behind you. Get a good grip. Again, bring your knees up just for a little more rotation here. You could do it with your knees down, but we're going to the window there. Uh, if you, sorry, if you can keep your elbows flat. It's a nice stretch. It's not about how far we go. The opposite hip. In this case, the back hip does lift the knees, stay side by side. Exhale, bring it back to center and switch. Inhale as you go to the back or towards you I guess.

And exhale center and to the window. So it's idea ideas that you're really rotating straight across the waistline. And in here that you're not hiking a hip, that you're not letting the shoulder come off. It's a bit of a checkin and one way, but it's also just another place we're going to go in a moment, so I like to just check in some sometimes, right with that, let's just curl up, grab onto the right knee and hug it in. Really, really, really close. Use the quad, the side, front of that leg to push the air out.

Then inhale as if the lungs were pushing the thigh away, but hold the arms strong like it can go it. Try it. Inhale like it's pushing it away. And now the act of pulling everything in, deflates it. I'm exaggerating my breath, but that's the, at least right now. Oh, work with the body.

[inaudible] challenge it with just yourself, right? That's a sense of control. Ology switch legs. Pull it in just naturally, right line everything up so you're not splaying and crossing and hugging in how that inhale will almost push the thigh up a tiny bit. You didn't have to see it. Just feel it and then see how the action of your arms, everything pulls it in and almost forces the air out. It's an idea more than reality, but who knows? [inaudible] okay, it's so high that you're up off your back completely down here. One more.

[inaudible] do it in real time. Sort of what you know, starting with the other leg, we go, I go into ins. Two outs in, in, out, out. Now just think I'm filling. Now I'm emptying. Emptying. You can change the pressure on the how you're pulling for fun. Why not? Yeah. One more breath cycle both knees in. Inhale, just push the thighs away. It's okay, but let's just a little right now. Xcel, bring the heels in close.

Get the air out. Inhale, push, filling up. Resist it, right. My hands aren't going along for the ride. Exhale, double leg stretch. Shoot it out. Inhale out, sweep around and pull the air out. Inhale out and exhale. Inhale. Let it be big. Exhale, bring it back. There's life expanding, contracting.

Let's be other two more warm and in one more. I'm not doing the whole series and in, but I am going to take the right leg up the left leg down. Try to square off your hips now, then take your head down, bringing the leg with you, hopefully, or closer. Bend the knee that's in the air. And but as you do, I've got my right knee in the air as I do. I'm going to reach that right sit bone almost toward the left ankle.

They're spending it a little. Now I'm gonna keep my sit bone there and he attempt to go straighter and it's gonna Freak out on me. Oh right. It feels good. We're not bringing the hips up at all here. We're going to allow ourselves to bend a little bit. Point the toes, and by toe. I do mean the toes, but I also mean the ankle. I mean, can you feel the bottom of your foot?

Then release the toes, stretch the bottom of your foot until you get into a flexed ankle or, yeah, that's enough. And then something I like to do is pull on the legs. I'm actually pulling into my hip socket to feel like it's broadening there, but I'm reaching the like upwards as I now go back to trying to straighten it so that pull and a rich, it's possible. Let's change legs, so we'll take the pick your head up first. The first leg is just down flat. You're up relatively comfortable with checkout. Can you level out your hips?

Then take it down, bring your leg with you to the extent that you can and allow for a little Ben. This is where I actually start pulling down on the leg. Yeah, the hip of the leg in the air. Slightly rotate it towards the ankle usually. Then really pull the leg bone into the hip. Allow the hips just to relax.

Don't suck them off to support really anything with your hands here. The hurt towards straight [inaudible] falling down and lengthening up. Getting that stretch or quivery has a case maybe. Wow. Okay. Bend point. That tells quite significantly hope.

If you don't point your toes very often, you're going to get a big stretch in the front of the foot. That's all right. We're going to use our feet in a second if you haven't guessed. So from there I did bend my knee a little. By the way, if I didn't say it. Now let's flex the toes. Start reaching through the ball of the foot through the arch of the foot to the whole bottom side of the foot. And so you come to a flexed ankle. I'll trying to line up the toes, the sort of middle of the foot, second toe, maybe to the knee and whatever.

You've got to gradually let the hips remain heavy. Let the leg grow long, enjoy the reaction. Whatever that is is I wouldn't fight it, but I also wouldn't strain too much either. Okay, good. Help yourself up. We're going to come around to the end where we can bottom load and what we'll do there is bottom loaded. So put your safety strap on first. And I'm going to put two red springs coming from the bottom onto my push through bar.

I like when I start this to have my springs have just a tiny bit of tension. I don't like the springs to go loose. Um, so that's what, where I set my strap here. Like, like I don't like that. So I'm going to fix that. Hopefully. Perfect. I bet to keep that nearby.

Okay, so are going to climb underneath. Be careful of course at the bar. Um, you might want a sticky mat. We actually usually have a sticky mat wrapped around here and it's, it was taken out for a filming that we did and I'll be fine without it, but if you feet do good, slippery, you should know that this is a place that could easily happen and you might want to wrap some sticky mat around. Just press pause and come on back and then climb underneath. And I'm going to attempt to keep my hips down. So that means for me, most likely I'm going to have to scoot to the back of the the table quite a bit. Some of you may have pretty long hamstrings, but also really long legs and you may need to build something or perhaps you have a table that has an extender. So the idea is that you're going to try and keep your hips pretty down.

And if it's really hard to do, you have one more option, which is determined the other way and backup, but you, that becomes slightly different deal depending on how far you go. So here we go. We're putting her feet up one at a time. I'm starting with the heels on the bar. I have the safety strap in the middle just in case, and I'm just situating myself so that I feel centered on the table and that my heels are stable. I'm not at the tip of the heel. I'm basically right in the heart of the heel right now.

Feeder easily flexed from there. If it's tremendous amount of tension, but you think it just needs a little time, you could start on your toes. Okay. All right, arms are down. Now we just allow the knees to bend and we reach. So that's the action here. Letting them bend in them straighten. But you could get so much more. Keep going.

It's the idea that you're pulling the bar to you and then pushing it away or reversing it. You know what I'm saying? If if it were attached to the ceiling and somehow you can pull it to you, but now it's attached to the floor and you're pushing it away, always in that opposition. Let's just let you do five more. One's not real deep, usually two, and then fully, fully straightened and finish it. So you're going to have full tightness in the legs. I'm actually, I know this is five, but let's do a few more since we're thinking of that. Finish it right? You're not getting up there and going so far that you drop into a locked knee, meaning locked, no muscle support, no ligament support.

You're in charge, you're placing one more. Stay up on the next one, move it one at a time to the balls of the feet. So again, it's a secure feeling. It's also the feeling that you could go into some plantar flection so you're not completely flat. You're not at your high point, but you're there. Innercise, engaged, and find the lines of your body, right? You can feel the straight up and down with the leg. Of course. Can you feel from the head to the tail? There's action happening there too. The arms are involved, aren't doing anything really notable, but they're there.

They're there helping what isn't moving or your ankles. They're just staying there. So when you bend also dropped the feet, stop it, figure it out. They come with you one more time. You have the tough stay up there. Put your hands at the high point of your thigh into that crevice. Make sure one that it's not super tight there.

And then spin the legs outward so that the heels easily come together. Legs are straight that you have not tucked the butt up into the air. Pull the tailbone down and then arms let go. Ben, like a frog for us up. You'll get a little more range on this typically, but be mindful that you're not really changing the pelvis and resist it down. Push it up. Same thing with the ankles.

They're not moving down and up, down. Hmm. Hmm. Stay up on this one. Next one I do. I'm moving my heels to toward the edge of the bar and I have the flexibility usually to them. Put My ball, the ball of the foot. On the bar outside. Um, if you don't have that, just go just inside. Okay. If you don't have that flexibility of the ankle and, or you have a different kind of Cadillac. I, I don't know why that would be that, that would matter, but it might, here we go Ben and let it be wide. Right?

Still Kinda tracking knees over toes still allowing the base of the what feels like the base of my spine to expand laterally feels good. I like to feel good. And if you're one of those people that thinks, well, it's not heavy enough to really do anything, it's just not true. Um, but let's think in terms of all the things it can be doing. I think of that inner thigh sort of action. I've truly, I mean it's a thing I really need. I'll bet you do to find that inner thigh keep going.

When you're squeezing toward each other. Can you also have the sense of it wrapping around the back without tucking. And if you can maintain all those sort of lines of action that are happening, I suspect you'll be quite happy with the weight. You get one more around to kind of find that moving to the feet. If they were wide, they're still wide, but now they are definitely on the bar.

Most of the ball of the foot, preferably all of it. Check that you haven't tucked and we bend and straighten ankles. Don't move one or you can go deep. Just don't let the hips pop up. Right? Getting longer as we do it. Let's go three more.

What? And three if you need a break, pause and take it. Otherwise we're moving on. So I'm just bringing the feedback to parallel balls of the feet. Um, got to watch for the hyper extenders and those that are afraid to write. So let's keep it straight where you feel the muscular tension working, but you haven't gone so far that nothing's happened in the back other than a joint release. Slowly you reach the heels to the sky. Oh good.

And then just notice the weight on your body is one side of your pelvis more weighted. If so, notice it. Not going to tell you what to do cause I don't really know, but just notice what goes on for you and flexing and pointing a little quicker now, not fast, but just working through the feet. Noticing that I can still maintain a sense of connection to the gluten. Yup. Press and press and Ben, you can move the feet a little.

You know one thing I'm playing with now as as I bring it down, I'm actually trying to wrap the bar more than I started and pull the bar to me. Use the toes to pull. Making my feet a little more like hands pole. It's good for you. Do it a little different. All right, I'm getting close to a break. Let's go up to the tip top. Check your points. Bend the right knee, flex the left ankle.

Push them both back up till both legs are straight, not locked in. Your Butt's still on the table. Switch. Okay, now you know it. It's up and down a little bit quicker and make them hit at the high point, up, down, up and down. Feel the feet or if they've gone numb, it may be time to stop. I'm doing four, three do and one both up. Bend your knees, reach up to grab the bar, let your feet come off. Huh? Shake out your feet. Nice. At this point you could crawl out from under here and take off one spring.

So I still have the one out. We're just going to do a single like here version. Um, push it back up and I'll start with the left foot health that left heel straight up. And by straight up, I mean out of the hip. I'm not going for center on this. It usually takes a peek down the body and adjustment of the hips and then the, the straight leg that's on the table, if you can, you can bend it by the way, the straight like, be mindful. It doesn't drift out to the side. Right. If anything, you're kind of aiming a little more toward the middle to keep that inner thigh connection. All right. You know the drill Ben too straight and bend.

And the thing here is as you've been the top, like reached the bottom, at least in your mind, it energetically down up. I'm typically exhaling on the way up. I'm not super attached to the breath on this one more time and of course I'm attached to the breath, but as long as it's feeling natural to me, I'm at this level. Okay. Changing legs and adjust right where you need to.

This is the side has a bit of a thing for me, so I'm gonna pay attention to it and I trust you'll do the same ankle flex bend, make sure that didn't hike that hip and stretch straight in one [inaudible] and, and again it's not so heavy, especially if you're flexible, but imagine it were a little heavier even. And Let the light be drawing downward too. Not just that. Let's get about five more. Okay, bring it down and we're going to head into the hip opener. This is one we did in the other classes. It'll be identical to that.

I think a turn onto your side. This is not for everyone. By the way. So you might opt out of this and do maybe even just a side kick. Um, I, I'm not scooting down, if I scoot down further is more opening. So I'm happy I'm gonna stay here. I am going to have to be careful getting myself into it. So I'm putting the foot not right in the middle. I'm aiming towards middle. I, I'm, it'd be silly for me to go to middle some a little in front of it.

The legs turned out. I'm on the ball of the foot. And then the real trick here, you can hold. I think it's a good idea to hold the pole if you have that. Or you can hold the bed, right, but make it something solid and it's not a pull. It's, if anything, it's a push in either case. Right? Um, uh, the next thing is to keep the hit. Try to get the hips stacked one on top of the other. The real natural thing is for this top hip to get right up next to your ear. So you're going to do your best to have the sense of the lower or the upper sit bone reaching. All right, where am I? Gonna put my hand. Here we go.

It's a Ben and in this is small. Think of this upper leg rotating backwards as if it's gonna point right behind your hip, but all the wild member who can't lift the hips, you've got to drop the hip down too. That's it from me. And then straighten it from there. Ben's not huge and straight. Feels good though. Wow.

Constantly trying to get just a little more. I'm not changing the foot a lot on the bar either, right? You don't want to just spiral the foot, otherwise it will maybe a little the whole leg, but it's sorta from this deep inner part of the hip joint, trying not to grip the hip. Let it be. He can almost just let this one happen. If you're conscious about how it's happening. Let's just do one more. Oh, we'll try a little transition here. It's not the easiest thing to get into, but if you can, it's just a little stretch inch away.

I didn't move the foot. Remember it was near the middle, but more towards you. And then if I can get my hips square, I'm already getting that outer hip stretch. So my leg is just crossing over me a little bit. Oh, it's an optional reaching down of the street like and then cause it's about to be too much for me. I'm going to lift the hip a little. Wow.

But I'm going back down and I'm going to, as I lowered the hip back to the table, I'm also thinking of reaching it towards my other foot. Yeah, good. So then you can cross the leg over and don't go too far. We're going to be kind of near the middle and then with the lower foot you're going to guide your way over onto the other side for the hip opener. [inaudible] okay. I think I can back my foot up a tiny bit. My hips are stacked as I think I could get. 'Em. How about you hold the pole or if the springs in your way hold the bed in front of you and and then reach the space, reached the top of the waist.

From there we bend and we straighten. It's a subtle outward spin of that upper thigh bone. It's so subtle that not a whole lot changes in terms of the look of the leg, it might a little bit, but the general sense is reaching behind the shoulder while not letting the hips roll back. [inaudible] come play with going a little further. But the minute you feel the hips rolling towards you, you're kind of just making it look bigger even though it's not doing anything else. Give yourself three more.

Yeah, see if you can both straight in the leg and let it be heavy in the hip socket. One more. Okay. Back to that stretch. So we're going to help ourselves back if you need to take the foot down first, do it, but use your arms for help. Otherwise we just left it in place, squared off our hips. [inaudible] and then maybe we straightened the bottom like and the top.

You could even if it's not enough for you, wow. But if it isn't, you could flex your foot to or slightly move the foot further across your body. I doubt you have to do much of that reaching out. If you need a little break, which not a bad idea to kind of release it a little anyway. Then as it comes down, it's almost like a screwdriver coming down and around [inaudible].

Okay, we're right where we need to be. We're going into the long set up as we call it meant Bassi legs are nice and long, your adjusted and ready to go center of the table. You can do this without the spring if you're not clear on what's going to happen, but I'm basically going to do a roll up to seated arms. Remain straight throughout the the curling up and down must use your legs. Inhale, look through your arms. You're already pushing the bar. Exhale, come up, up, up, straighten out at the top, but if don't go so far that you really thrust the ribs from here, we inhale, bend the elbows wide, straighten up, exhale, roll down.

You're pushing the bar away, but let it push on you too. I'm going to back up just to smidge from my shoulders. Inhale, head up or those arms straight. Exhale up, up, up straight and at the top. Get Taller in your spine because now you're going to let the arms bend and straighten them. Keep them straight. Now feel the hipbones pull away. Push the bar forward. Push the bar forward as it tries to weight you down and inhale, head up. Exhale, grip the bar. Use the arm strength.

Pull the bar out of this guy. Push the bar up, changing it a little bit. Inhale here. Bend like you started to exhale. Float the right leg and it floats not high. Push it back down. Continue Rolling down. Inhale, exhale up. This is the add on from the last class. Grow Taller as you bend those elbows wide. X. Hey, we're rolling down.

Just the maybe to the top of the sacrum. Inhale, keep pushing the bar away. Here comes the left leg. Exhale, scoop to lift, right? Like can be pushing down to both legs into the mat and roll it all the way down. [inaudible] inhale, exhaling. You're there. Bend, straighten, roll back your, we're doing two more of these so you can do right left or you can do both legs.

Inhale, legs down, exhale down. If you did one leg, you'll finish on this next one with the other. Inhale, lift. Exhale. Oh, get up here. Enjoy this while we can roll back. Staying connected. Scoop and lift till they float. It's just a piece of cake. When you hit the right sweet spot and show good tower, slide yourself down until your arms are fully straight. Again, this is all a bit, or not all, but most of it's a take on the last class I did of Cadillac.

So if your don't want to go as far as some of these steps will, you can take that class and not have to. You don't have to here. Their arms are quite straight though, right? That's where you want them. Then you're gonna need to take them off to get your feet in. I'll do one prep for a reminder. Do you keep your arms up here? Okay. For this, and for most of us, that tailbone is going to start to come up a little bit, but try to keep it down. The hamstrings matter. From here, you're going to bend the knees. This is a prep. You're going to bend the knees a little and stop. Now, can you feel how your can push into that bar?

Push away to get the hamstrings to work? It's like I'm pushing away and I'm trying to draw it towards me. That's going to be key for this one. Absolutely key. If he can't do that with bent knees, you're not going to be able to a straight leg, so don't move on if you don't find it here. So we've done that. We've bend the knees.

Now we're going to pour ourselves into the position so I'm not getting smaller in the ball. The bar will raise as it needs to, but I still have this energy in my thighs and I have to think about it. I don't do this one that often. Let's roll down meltdowns. Keep the hamstrings involved. As you go down, you're straightening the legs. Are you holding those bars? It's almost like you're pushing the bar away at the bottom. Flex the feet.

Point the feet. We'll do it again. Peel up into it. Love this exercise. Feel the hamstrings. Feel how that supports your back. Straighten the legs if that's available to you or you could just go back down and you're pushing the poles away from you without shrugging your shoulders to take it down. Now either stick with that. It's a bent knee roll up, then straightened or everyone flex points and now you have the option to just go up with straight legs, regular tower up. If your knees were bent, straighten them. Now if they're straight, you're going to bend them and then we all catch up together and roll down. Now try not to lose the arms. I caught myself getting a little lazy up there, so now it's almost like I'm pulling the arms flex and point peeling up.

Hamstrings are included here very much. Very much. Very much. Keep the body still except for the knees are going to bend and then you push him away, then you roll down, you're still pulling that bar toward you. Even as you push it away. And again, flex and point up, we go push, push, push lengths and lengths and Ben, but stay lengthened in the spine. It's slightly curved. We know and down we come, getting longer, enjoying it. Full extra feet.

Take your hands off, take your feet off and come on out from there. Push through series is next. Okay, so we're going to do some seated, push through again. Let's get taking off the red spring or the spring that was on still. And sometimes they use one red spring at the top. Usually it's two blue, but sometimes this feels heavy, so we'll see. It's, it'll be fine, I'm sure. Okay. And I'm just taking the safety strap off and getting it out of my way.

Um, like in the other class I keep referring to, I didn't yelling. Um, this one. Okay, I'm going to skip that and just go straight to the seated version of it. Okay, so we're right up feet right up against the polls. Arms widen again. Take the grip. Right. For years I taught and probably still do, um, with the hands open and it was as a means of making sure I wasn't over using the hands and I think I overcompensated. And so I'm learning that too. Actually hold tighter doesn't mean I won't hold elsewhere.

It actually is seeming to help. So I invite you to think of that for your own self. Okay. Here we are. We're tall. It doesn't matter if the top is loose, you're going to scoop just like we did earlier to round. We're doing just the seated first. Keep those elbow straights, scoop and progress through. Take the stretch. Go ahead. Watch the shoulders though. Then inhale, we'll just do one like this, round back and come back up to seated. Okay. That's it for now.

One more and then we'll move further. It's the spine, right? It's the spine doing it. Even here. How am I going to get the bar down unless I really toss it? I'm going to think about this whole complex dropping lower, deeper center of gravity. Then we go forward, stretch, inhale, roll back and up. We'll change it. Now we're going to start exactly like that, but as we come back toward the end of it, I'll add the rolling back part.

Still going forward. Take it, enjoy it. As you roll back, find that place where you can hang on the bar or you can pull on the bar. I should say bend. Slide yourself in and start to roll the hips up and then down. [inaudible] slide back and back to the start. Only we'll add a final little stretch there. Y'All knew that was coming, didn't you? With the hair thing again. Here we go.

Who you around back pressing forward first. Let the arms move around. Try not to flex the risks a lot. Enjoy that. Push with your feet too. Now as we roll back, we're going to bend the knees. We're going to drag ourselves forward or heads come down. We peel up bar on the thighs, watch the ribs and squeeze your bum.

Then as you start to push a roll down, your head can come up. You might have to slightly lift just depending on how sticky everything is and then stir edge. Push the bar away, adding Alon around back. Push through, seated. Inhale, glide closer. This time you can go to the top of your head if you want to peel only if you want to. You're light barely touching up and chest, but tight.

When you roll through, it's simple. It's easy. Get almost down. Let your head come up. Push back and stretch. Either stay with that or around back. Seated. Push through first. I won't skip it. Round back. Same thing. Slide your hips in. Good grip.

Roll up either to the top of your head, to the shoulder blades or from here. Just straight on up. Ah, hamstrings again. Right. Then we're going to just Ben touch the head and we're coming back to that same spot. Come up and this time head goes down. Roll through it lightly and sit back. I'm just talking to his right to this. Next one.

Roll back and we're not pushing forward this time. Keep the right hand on the bar. Keep the weight even if you can, you're in a scoop. Reach the left arm. Keep this good with a belly. If you can reach through the left arm, reach through the left foot. Keep going, keep going. Keep watching it. I know. Keep watching it. You're going to start rounding your upper back.

Keep pushing into the left foot. Then come around again. Open, open, open. We're going to finish with a saw over there. Instead of going down with the solid, let's go up with the push and twist. Almost looking behind you. If you don't need the pole, go past the pole and find something else you can do to, but stay long is what I'm trying for there. Back to center. Round, back both arms on. Make sure you've got the ability to scoop your right arm off, right hip reaching. Yeah.

Enjoy the stretch. You can just follow it around. You'll start flexing somewhere where you need to. Don't worry about it. Let it feel good. Open it up. Aww. Come through for that saw and stretch. Okay, good. As far as you want. Just trying for an upward or a long line could be a lot lower than me, but still for the long line. Okay, good. We're getting there.

Turn around. This was not at all in the last one, but I'm just thinking I want to do it. So here we go. Turning around same springs. Bring the bar down and hold onto it. Sitting tall, pushed through, sitting back. I have my fingers turned away. Um, and you know, if you, if you're newer to this one or even if you're not always going to watch that, you're not just resting on the joints, that means you're just making the motion. Rather sit up out of your seat. Get a good grip on the bar and we're going to, what are we going to do?

Let's go back first. Watch his elbow. Scoop the belly of good. Sending those feet forward. Keep the shape as much as you can. Your forehead goes to your knees. Try to let the bar go up without bending the elbows if you can, and let it pull your waist long. So now it's up to the top.

Lean forward again, bring the bar down and then just to sit back up straight. Okay, so somewhere in there, you may have to bend the elbows for now, but try not to. And here we go back, back, back. Keep the chest open, trying to almost squeeze the shoulder blades a little there. Then die forward. Here's where it's commonly where people might bend the elbow. That's okay. But if you don't need, you don't. Instead push the bar up, push the bar up, push the bar up.

Then you can die forward to bring the bar down and sit back up straight too. To go around, back, back, sending the feet in the opposite direction. Fo and up again. Maybe using the body to help us breathe. Oops, I almost went too far. I think I said one more. [inaudible] let's do it.

Oh Lord. Oh, shaking k carefully. Your cell phone. A fare. All right, we're very close. Let's just put the push through bar down. So it's not in our way.

And, uh, grab handles. And while you're doing that, you may want to grab your trapeze too. I'm not using it yet, but you may want to grab that now. And then we're going down here to the short springs and where the strap is hooked up. We're just going to do sort of arm standing, but kneeling and just taking off the blonde bar. Let's move this cross crossbar up a bit even higher and changed my mind about where I was going to do with the leg. So we're, if you're kneeling, it's Ma, maybe you're gonna be a little higher than your shoulders, I'm guessing. Totally. Where am I going to be? But it'll work out fine. You can just place yourself differently.

And then I'm just moving my legs spring so that I can use the wide outer buckle for my short yellow. That's what's going on over here. Okay. We don't need the strap yet, but we will in a minute. So just leave it there. And essentially we're going to do the chest expansion here. So with a little resistance, um, you could go, let's try for knees together on this.

Press them really together and also somewhat down, right? So you're instantly getting length in the front of the hip. Here we go. Exhale, pulling down and back. Oh, I'm too far away and pulling down and back. I'll give you the neck in just a second. Give yourself that sense of almost an arking action of the hands. And you know, I'm going back to the fist now and I wanting to almost feel like I'm going to tip over. That's where the strap could be helpful, right?

And you could certainly use it to practice that. I'm just going to save time and not practice it on this side of things. Next one. [inaudible] inhale, hold the straps back. Hold your breath, look to you right. Look to your left center. Exhale, get taller. Inhale, pull again. Hold the breath, look left, look right.

Keep reaching those arms down. Open those coils. Exhale. Inhale to the right than the left [inaudible] center. [inaudible] great. From there, back up to about the middle of the table. Maybe needs a little a part on this one feet parallel to that. Get a little press. So it's as if you're going to do the same thing and now, so I've pulled as much as I can. Hold on to and I'm gonna take it back.

Take it back, take it back, bring the arms in like we did before and then come up. So it's sorta like that rollback we did earlier. Poor. Come on, press those hips forward. Present boy forward. Lean back for thigh stretch. Pull the arms up to the chest, elbows wide, and just ride home. Two more. Pull it in, get tall, almost tip over. But tip over the other way. Pull and up. Last one. Come on.

Energy hinge. Pull it up and [inaudible]. Wow. Now turn around, but your feet, it could be your ankles or your calves. I mean do it where feel secure. Oh, I made this really nice and tight for my hands. Okay. Hmm. Nothing like a cramp now, right? You'll know where you need it, right? If you have, you can take the arms out.

So right here we're going into a hug, a tree on a bit of a lean, so lean. So again, so you have to have those hamstrings engaged again, right? Not the strap alone isn't doing it. The straps, the springs are helping to of course this elbows wide, double, somewhat up. Exhale forward. Inhale. Now grow tall. Get the air out of you so you couldn't get good, fresh air in.

Here's your shot. And then it just happens. You don't have to be so dramatic about it as I just was, but can you at least feel that that's a possibility just by moving certain ways. Reverse the breath, whatever. When you were doing so I'm going to need to inhale here. Okay, sale open. So now why in the back? That doesn't mean round my back.

It just means let me get some room to the lungs. The front is definitely shortening, right? The pecks are coming toward each other, limiting how the lungs can open. So where am I going to put him back there? One more time from here, there's bring your hands up to your forehead and then elbows go wide.

Okay. You could open your fingers. I'm not going to, I'm gonna stick with the theme a little more lean and just both arms forward. Both arms back. We'll be careful. Forward and back. Where do your arms extend? Squeeze the handles tighter. It's weird, but it works. Ask Benjamin why? I'm not really sure, but it's working for me means that when I, the more I pushed forward and tighten the handles, I'm actually feeling more in my trunk. I feel more about where I need to go, where I need to stay connected. It's cool. All right, now then come forward. Don't leave the strap fully. If it's too tight. Mine's kind of tight. I have to do it under my arches right now.

Okay. What I'm wanting to do is go into a biceps curl here, so, oh, I better, I better figure a way to keep my heels on there or I'll eat it. All right. There we go. That'll do it. All right, so you're leaning the whole time. Oh, I lost tension. I better hang on somewhere else. And now biceps, wine, biceps too. If you really want to get it stronger in terms of muscular stuff, you could walk away. We'll do a few together that way in a moment, but for now, okay. Okay. Now take yourself out from the strap. If you've got a little left in, you know, for this one, come forward a bit more so that when your arms are straight, it's barely loose, right? SORTA. How we did the, uh, bottom loaded springs, a little bit of a lean and now, so you're working that [inaudible] have touched more than the last version. [inaudible] elbows are nice and high behind you.

Try not to let them turn out to the inward on each other. Let's get five more. One stretch to stretch. Pull three, reach away four and come on up. I'll let that go and we'll finish with a prep for the exercise, I think is the hardest ever. Even the prep is not easy. Um, we're going to grab the trapeze. You might want sticky mats. You won't be doing a lot of them, but you might.

So I've set up the trapeze. I don't have a set place for it other than if you're really tall, you're going to probably hit the polls no matter what. In this version, I'm not so tall, I don't have to be real precise about it. You'll, you'll see what I mean in a moment. But if you're really tall, just head toward the far side, but knowing that your foot may hit this, you might want to get the crossbar out of the way, so that's something to know. Okay. The hanging front is an exercise where you're in a prone position, body face down, and you basically do a pull up in inverted shape of your body. So you're in a u shape but you're facing the ground. Okay? I'm not giving us that. I'm giving us some things that go with that, that make us feel like we're doing that. Keeping your right foot on the ground.

It's basically a stretch. Get a nice good grip. Thumbs around, left foot. You'll find the comfort zone on it is going into the strap and not on top of the trees. Trapeze. But the strap from here, you get where you can straighten that leg. And if you can't straighten the leg, you might need to stand on something taller cause you need the flexibility and you won't go through the whole thing and you gotta get to the leg straight. That should be working already. A stretch here in the front. But that's how you're going to end up doing a lot of exercises is the ability to know where the full leg is. Not here. I can still tighten my hamstring when the knees bent. No, no, go straight.

Alright, so from there, just enjoy a stretch. No big deal. But it is later. You're getting that sense of reaching the leg backwards. You're getting the stretch. If that's all we do, that's cool. Right? Then we would pull ourselves forward and up. You can push down on that straight leg in the back there. You're coming up, up, up using the arms, come to the tip toes. Don't give up on that leg in the strap.

And then it's as if someone pulls the leg and you're resisting your way down. The heel goes down and you take this drop. It's a swinging motion a little quicker now. Not a lot, but some use the arms, use everything. Enjoy the stretch. Okay. If that's going well for you. Yeah. Add a little hop at the top end and by hop I mean a pole and you pick the foot up and then down. Right?

And you pull him and pick the foot up and not really hop. And then you doing it with happening to the back leg. Push down on the back. Lift up on the front. Oh, it's fun. [inaudible] push down on the back leg. Good. Next one. We're going to go up. I'm going to put the other foot up while we're up there.

Maybe let's give it a shot. You gotta take your time. Here we go. Back leg already straight. Use your arm. Strength Up. You go foot up. Put it in. Oh, that's beautiful. That feels good. Switch feet, Beth. Like straight. Here we go. Just enjoy a stretch for a minute or a second and then just come forward and back like straight. That means she should feel the glute. I have to actually check.

Feel free to tell me I'm not cause feels straight and then it's not. All right. Sometimes the glue for me helps go to the toe and [inaudible]. If you're doing it, here's now's the time. Use that back leg. Do not give up on it. Pick it up and full extension of the arms too. If I haven't been saying that.

[inaudible] next one, go up. Stay up. Put both feet in again. Use the back leg. Enjoy. Just stay. And then first leg down, second leg down turned where you're not going to hit the roll. Then we'll, we'll stop it right here. Arms are hanging. Heavy. Deep breath. Exhale to around, all the way over. Balance at your feet. Okay. And Johnny's a little. Straighten them. Hang your head just a little heavier.

And then at your ease, at your desire. Roll yourself up, standing firmly on the ground or the Mat, wherever you choose to be. We are done for the day. Thank you.

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Comments

Z A
2 people like this.
It is great to be heard Kristi, thank you very much.
Marcelle M
awesome!!!
My goodness Kristi you look so beautiful in your movement! this was just awesome... thank you! I really loved the legwork with the bottom spring on push through bar! Loved it all!
I appreciate all of your comments very much, and Z A, I do hear you and it's always my pleasure when I can respond quickly! I hope you're enjoying your new (?) Cadillac.
Z A
1 person likes this.
Yes Kristi it is brand new:)) and It is more usedul with you and PA!! Thank you very much.
Paola Maruca
1 person likes this.
crystal clear cues...Loved it. Thank you Kristi
Praveena C
1 person likes this.
Love this practice Kristi...
1 person likes this.
Perfect!
1 person likes this.
This is my new love, Kristi
So happy to hear that you like this one! As an aside, I really love that so many of you have put your profile pictures in! Join us Marcelle Mello!
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