Class #2198

Release and Freedom Mat

40 min - Class
147 likes

Description

Find release and freedom of movement in this Mat workout with Michele Larsson. She starts with a warm up to mobilize your spine, and then sneaks in more challenging exercises to make sure you are present in your body. Enjoy variations to Single Leg Stretch, Saw, and so much more!
What You'll Need: Mat, Magic Circle

About This Video

Jun 03, 2015
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Transcript

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Okay, everybody come up and sit on here. Sit. Sit right here. So the back, sit the front, whatever. Sit on the side. Put your feet to the side. Can you sit facing inside? Okay. Oh my goodness gracious. This isn't going to work. Oh, okay. Everybody get your feet on the floor.

Feet on the floor. Okay. Yeah. What am, I shouldn't even be in the middle with. Why? Oh, that's where I'm the tallest one here. I should be at the middle or at the end of the line. Okay, hold on. Alright. Okay. Now find your feet. Find your feet. Find your sits bones. Find them where they are right now.

All you want to do, you've got both buttons on there. Okay? Is you want to slide yourself forward and up. That's it. So these are sits bones, sits bones back and down. Whoops that I moved that. Sorry. And forward and up and back. And now do this really exaggerated thing. Flat back. Stand up.

Flat back and down. Now pull your belly in flat. Back and up. Flat. Back and down. Flat. Back and up. Stay here for a moment. Bend the knees slightly and come up and Ben slightly and come up and Ben slightly find that pelvic floor.

Go up on the inside and think of those beautiful little clear jellyfish. Hi, right. They go down and they come up and they go down and they come up. [inaudible] so look down as you go down, but don't change your torso. Head straight. Look down, heads striked. Look down, head straight. Now reverse this head up as you been and forward and head up and forward and head up and forward once more and head up and forward Dow. Soften those knees. Just make sure they're really soft. Spread those feet out and rolled out slow.

Now let your upper bacco let your middle back toe. Now right about here when your hands are about your knees, bend your knees to meet your hands. There you go. Keep going down now slowly stand up slowly. Let the legs straighten. Come in all the way up, all the way up to standing. And again, start from the head and roll down and just peel yourself down. This is the roll up, right roll all the way down.

Let the knees go here. Don't put any strain in your back. And then slowly roll up. Take the weight equally on both feet. There you go. All the way up last time. This is the roll up, but you're doing it downwards and all the way. Let it go. Let the knees, Ben, soften all of this. Now as you come up, stand on both feet.

Find the weight equally on both feet and just stack all those vertebral all the way up. Good. And I'll go to your mats and get your magic circle all the way down. Put the magic circle in your upstage leg. Whoops that I'm right on this right. Okay. I can't lie. Down. Upstage leg. Keep the upstage leg slightly flexed.

Straighten the downstage leg using the upstage leg. Roll yourself up the city. Lever yourself up. Don't, don't straighten it. Bend that upstage like that, and roll. Just roll. And now come all the way forward. There you go. It's hard. It's harder than you think, isn't it? Now come down, elbows are straight.

This is not [inaudible]. And go down. There you go. Keep it bent. There you go. Yeah. And again, where are you wanting to go fast or sort of fall is where you've got some issues, right? Right. Where you're your one, one vertebra doesn't communicate with the next vertebro. Right? So what you're trying to do is you're trying to get each vertebra to communicate with the one above it and below it so it can move independently. And you're using this to let it happen. Right. Okay.

And again, so don't use your stomach muscles. Forget about your stomach muscles. Use the leg to get you up. There you go. There you go. And then use the leg to support you as you go down. Beautiful.

Good. Let's change sides and do three on the other side. So you're just taking what you did standing and you're taking it out of gravity and you're using the circle to assist up. You come up, you just don't bend your elbows. Cause then I know you're using muscle. You want to use leverage. Don't lock the right knee or the downstage knee, whatever you want.

Yeah. So the effort for us Palladio's as teachers is not to use muscle. Right? It's a problem, right? It is a problem. Yeah, you get one more after this. There you go. That's it. Now you're beginning to find it right and rolling down.

Take both knees into your chest and take your hands into the magic circle above your chest. Right? You're going to roll up into hundreds position, bringing the the legs out straight in the circle towards your knees and then roll back down and then coming up. Come up into hundreds positions. Circle towards your knees and roll back down to more. A little squeezing of the circle as you do this and come down.

Now this time as you do it, pull the circle apart and Amina and come down one twice more. Squeezed the circle and come down and pull the circle of Copart and come down. Place your feet on the floor. Put the circle over your knees. Yeah, plant your feet. Press the knees out into the circle. Yeah, out. So you're really pressing out through everything. Bend your elbows, palms facing you. Pressing the knees out into the circle. Lift your pelvis up in the air and use the whole upper body to press down in the floor. And now roll down circle. There you go.

That's it. Now. There you go. Feel that. So you're really standing on that. Whatever you want to call it and come down. Yeah. And you really anchor through the sacrum. Press out. Find that stability and to me down. Good. Last one.

And pressing now through the knees and calming down. Good. Take that circle off your knees. Just put it to the side and take both your knees downstage and just stay there. Just breathe for a moment and then roll back onto your back. Using your rib sene. Come the other way and just breathe for a moment and rolling up. Good. Bring one knee into your chest. Then the other, we're going to come up for a hundreds, but you're going to, you're going to go sniff in and blow out. So you're gonna go, ah, AH, right. We're going to do 50 and calming up and sniff.

Sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff. Ah, sniff, sniff, sniff. One more. Sniff. [inaudible] and roll down. Grab onto your knees, circle of women the same direction, same direction. Roll round your back. Roll around and reverse. Same direction.

Rolling around. Good. Good. Okay. Um, not using the magic circle. Use your leg to do the leg liver roll up. So straighten the downstage leg on the ground. Upstage leg up to the ceiling. Hold behind the upstage leg and lever yourself up.

Staying up. I would like you to roll down onto your back. Roll that way onto your side and sit up. Roll down onto your back. Roll this way and sit up. Now the important Co's important part is rolling to your side or you sit up. Basically you're going to sit up right to here. From over there.

Yeah. So you roll down your roll to the side, you sit up, you roll down your roll to the side, set up, pay attention to the roll to the side. Okay. Off you go. Ah, rolling down. Roll this word that way. Come up and again, and I'm going to talk to you as you keep going. You're rolling down stage. Notice what Ben's first and then when you roll up stage, do you roll the same way to the side or do you roll differently? Yeah, and again, and roll to the thought and coming up and roll down and roll to the side and coming up.

Just rolled down onto your back. Yeah. Draw your upstage leg up. Put your hand on it and circle. Well, their leg. I didn't. I don't know how to do it.

Upstage is the only one and go the other way. Good. Come back center. Straighten the leg to the ceiling. Bend the leg. Straighten the leg to the ceiling. Bend the leg. Straighten the leg to the ceiling. Bend the legs. Straighten the leg up. Bend, change leg circle. Use that arm. Just find out what's going in that hip, right. Go the other way. Just find out what's going on.

Then you get to stretch your hamstring a few [inaudible] times. All right. Then we'll do something difficult and a coming up and I'm up. Two more. Last one. Good. Straighten that leg out. Change legs. Bring the other leg in the other legs up to your chest. No, your upstage leg is bent to your chest. Downstage leg is straight. Your arms are by your side.

Take your downstage leg off. Roll your upper body up off the floor. Straighten the top, the leg to the ceiling. Other leg and circle. Tiny, tiny. Now just reach to those fingers. Find the length in the body and reverse direction with the leg circle. That's it. Just find that stability and coming down and do the other side. I love sneaking hard things in. Right.

And then coming up and go. Just four tiny circles in one direction. Four tiny circles in the other. Good and calming down. Nice. Bring both knees in. Grab onto the knees, keeping your arms straight.

Roll up to your mid back, your waist. And now rock the little rocks. Tiny little rocks. Tiny, easy. Find the bumps, the bumps, right. [inaudible] good. And now coming all the way up for rolling like a bowl. Do the sniff blow.

So sniff blowers should go back. Sniff blows you come up. [inaudible] one more good. And put the feet down and roll all the way down onto your back. Good. Keep your knee, bend your knees and puts your knees to the sides of the Mat. So the outside. Yeah that keep it on the mat. I think cause you're all fairly small, you're gonna keep your feet here, but you're going to let your knees sway to one side.

So sway your knees down stage or up. There you go. And stay there for a moment. Feel that stretch in your back. Sway your knees to the other side, sled. Everything opened up. I think we need to do one more each side, little kinkies here and there, right? Just let it reach, sled it. Go and go to the other side. Okay, come back. I'd like to do single leg stretch, but I'd like to do it in two different ways. So you go pull in, in, in, in, just barely touch, touch, touch, touch. So you have one that comes way in. And the other, the more British style is, I call it where you really have. And I think the first one will be quick and the second version will be a little slower. So bring one knee into your chest, roll your upper body up off the floor, extend the other leg and go. And one, two, three and four. Slow it down.

Reach at right and reach for your feet. Reach for the feet. That's it. Yeah. And quick and quick. Quick, quick, quick and reach. Reach, reach and reach. Last setting, right quick, quick, quick, quick and worry. Rich, rich, rich and reach and come down. Ooh. And relax. Oh, goody. Goody. Goody. Goody. We're going to do old style. Double leg. Old Double leg is where you hug in, and then you go out and your arms are right by your legs.

Okay. And so coming up and hug in and go out right by your legs and come and buy your legs and come and buy your legs. [inaudible] come in and oh two more and out. In and out. And then roll down. Let everything just fall apart.

But there you go. And you know what you want. Yeah. Okay. We're going to do the swivel hand saw. So first we're going to have to sit up face front. Take your legs off of the Mat. You can't be on here.

So turn around face that way everybody so that you can get your hand on the wood. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Now you're going to take the hand that's the right hand in front of you here. And what you're trying to do, I'm going to turn my back. Sorry people, what's you're trying to do is you've got something here and you're trying to do this with the hand. And so the, as you do this with the hand, your shoulder moves around and you can twist. Do you feel that? Yeah. Okay. There you go. So take the other arm up. So the other arm is here. You're going to take this hand and use it.

And as you swivel, you reach behind. You like us. There you go. And come up and then do that again. That's it. And it's the important thing is this whole swivel here. You want to open this whole side. Yeah. So you're paying attention to the other side. One more.

There you go. And come up. Change sides. So it's the hand swivels and see what it is. Everything's elbows. Got to go with it. There you go. So this moves right. Come back up. So all of this goes there. There you go. There you go. ADDS it.

One more. Good. Now see what happens to your saw now that you've done that too. Your shoulder blade, right. Okay. And inhale to your left. Reach out. Inhale. Good. And other side, reach out. Boy, that looks better on everybody, Huh?

Yeah, it's really different cause we all get fixated on that arm that goes back. Yeah. There you go. One more. Each side. Last one. Good. Good. Okay. All right. Yeah, that's, that's different. Yeah. Yeah.

Let's take the magic circle and see if we can do something. Um, with spine stretch with the magic circle. What if we have, you're here. Okay. Ready? Yes. Good. I squeezed right. And now roll forward and come up. It's nice, isn't it? It gives you, keeps you up a little higher. You don't collapse. You have to reach out. Here you go. There you go.

Nice. Nice. And coming up last one and coming up. Put the magic circle to the side. You get to do these. I don't know what to call these. Okay. Now what you wanna do is as you straighten the leg, you don't, as you attempt to straighten them. Oh, I should've done my warmup. You don't want to get, you want the leg to drop down into this position. So straightened leg.

So one leg straightens and dropped down. Yeah, it can't throw you back and it can, you know, so you can only go as far as you go and you have to drop it. So you have to get, you have to have control and release. Control and control and release. Control. Yeah. Both legs. Oh God. Somebody had to do it or I was going to go over and knock one of the over and here. Okay. Now hold on. Take your right arm and go swing.

And don't let it pivot. You Ha yeah. Hold on real tight and go one more and other side and go. Yeah, he keep hitting that thing. Sorry about that. And good. And put the feet down and let your hips just back and forth and back and forth. Back and forth and back and forth and forth and back.

Good. All right. Roll over onto your bellies. Put your heads this way towards one another. Put your forehead on your hands and just wiggle. Waggle for a moment. Just let everything wiggle. Waggle we're going to do the same thing that I did earlier today, okay? Without, with no expectation about it, an exercise that this is an exercise. Just lift your head and look forward. Look at your friend and come back down.

Good. Now turn your toes. Bring your feet a little closer together everybody, I think turn your toes underneath you so you're on the boat. Tippy, toes, balls of the feet. Slowly straighten your knees and then put the knees back on the Mat and do this back and forth slowly a number of times you want to feel what it does to your lumbar spine. If it throws you into much extension, pull your navel up. Okay, but everybody's lumbar spine is a little different. Good. Try to get your ass is your front hip bones on the mat.

Now next time you straighten your legs, keep them straight. Connect your elbow to the back of your shoulder, down to the hips, just in your mind's eye and with your legs and feet in this position. Lift one leg off the floor, put it down in the other leg. No movement through the pelvis. No hyperextension in the lumbar spine.

Just work those buts. Get a nice Brazilian tush here, right? Yeah. Up and down. Finish off. So you've done equal on both sides. Bend your knees down. All right. Relax for a minute. And now straighten your legs again.

Now like windshield wipers, take both your heels to the right. Stay there. Take a big sigh. Mm. And now take both your heels to the left. Stay there. Take a big sigh.

Hmm. Come back into the center. Put the knees back on the Mat. Release your feet and come up into a small swarm. Look forward. Just look forward. Come up, up, up, up, up. Look at that freedom. Woo Hoo. Yay Girl. Nice. And come back down magic and come back up again.

Calming up really fine and come back down. [inaudible] this time as you come up, slide your elbows in underneath you. So you come into sliding position. Now round your spine by pressing your elbows away from you. Just the upper spine. Nod into the waist. And then arch the spine, pulling the elbows back towards you so it's really tiny.

You're just trying to get into your thoracic spine. That's back and forth. You can let the head follow as much as it's comfortable to more so it's just getting as much mobility. Shoulders broaden, shoulders get more close together. Again, shoulder blades, I should say the blades. Good and coming all the way down. Cool and wiggle. Waggle just loose, easy, comfortable. Sit back and rest position, rounding everything. Come up onto all fours and just do a simple cat cow.

Just simple and easy. Round up to the ceiling and down to the floor and then up to the ceiling and down to the floor. Last one, up to the ceiling and down to the floor. Yeah, find your center position so you're really stable. Extend opposite arm and leg and come back often with that arm and leg and come back the that arm and leg. Stay here. Open them to the side, arm and leg. Come back and come back. [inaudible] one on the other side. Open to the side and come back and come down and sit back. Letting your wrists relax, stretch those risks out, and then come back into Sphinx position or whatever you want to call it for single leg kick. Now pull up the belly, press down any way you want.

Point Flex, release n point, flex, release and point. Flex release and point. Flex, release at point, place. Release. The arthritis is getting so bad that my rhythm sections getting weak. Last one and sit back on your heels. The clipping doesn't happen as well as it used to. Whatever you call it, your finger snapping, right? Yeah. Okay. We're going to do double leg kick from the shoulder blades, so lay on your belly, predict your arms to the back of your waist and protract your shoulders by letting the elbows go. Turn your head to one side.

Really separate your shoulder blades. Now gently kick your butt three times. One, two, three. As you come up, bring those shoulder blades together. You can do whatever you want with your hands. Head the other way. And shoulder blades. Two, three shoulder blades together. Two, three shoulder blades, two, three together and separate and together.

Last one and separate and two. Gether. Oh good. Nice. Sit back and rest position again. This time turn your toes underneath you so you have to stretch the bottom of your feet. Just breathe. Okay. We're going to do a crisscross. Just easy and relaxed. So sit with your feet into the center of the room.

Rolling all the way down. And I want you to think about reaching the elbow to the floor today. Just so twist, twist, slow and easy. Reach the elbow to the floor. That's it. Twith twist, twist, twist, twist. Two more.

Twist and twist. Good. And roll all the way down. Put your feet on the floor. Let your arms release. Let your knees go side to side. Just whatever feels good and roll over that way. Ben. Both knees flex both feet. Alright, put both hands in front of your chest and do a great big fan opening.

Just open like a big fan. Nope, just the upper body and come back and open like a great big fan and come back one more open like great. Big Fan. Good. And come back. Put that hand on the mat in front of you. Put the other arm underneath your head. Flex both feet, right, and reach your top. Sits bone towards the center of the room, tops it's bone.

Okay, now lift the leg up as it is bent the top, like take it behind you, keeping it bent, pressing the foot, those into the air. Bring it forward and put it down. So you have inhale and exhale forward and down. Inhale, kick behind you and exhale good. And uh, and up and back. Just come this far forward and down. Up.

Now open up the front of that hip. Forward and down. Two more. Up Front of the hip. Opens all the way open. Yes. And down last one. Up and forward and up and down. Yeah. Good. Other side.

[inaudible] so three big fans, right? Both arms in front and open up. Whole thing opens up to the side. Good and comes back. So here you are, opening your chest is the whole thing rolls and you come back and one more big opening through the chest and come back. Put that underneath arm and the head. The other arm in front of the chest.

Flex both feet. Very formal. You lift the top one up, you take it back, you're trying to open up the hip flexors and down six of these, up and back reaching that top sits bone towards the center of the room. So your waist might come off the floor depending upon your, um, shape. Yeah. Six. Yeah. Yeah. Good. [inaudible] okay. Now roll back around to the other side. Lay all the way out on the arm. Bend the underneath leg, underneath leg 1990 and you're going to do sidekicks in this position.

So bring the leg up. There you go. Flex at the foot and now kick it forward and back and forward and back. Forward and back. Forward and back. And two more. Back and forward. Go back.

Stay there. Been that back leg. Reach back, grab onto it with your hand and just stretch your quad grab. Yeah. [inaudible] just breathe. Yup. Good. Slowly let go of that legs.

Straighten both legs out on the mat and slightly to the front of you for double leg lifts. Just three of them. Flex through the feet, lift both legs up and down three times and then add the torso three times. But I, I don't want you to come up far at all. I literally want you to just float with the torso off the floor and uh, and flow. Just fire the whole top side of the body. Last one, float and down. Good other side underneath leg bent, six foot sidekicks and forward and reach back. Be careful that when you go forward, if anything, your toes pay face up to the ceiling just to hair so you don't hyper mobilize that as I joined. There you go. Yeah. [inaudible] and then on the sixth one I believe you stay back, you grabbed that foot and you just stretch for a moment and then carefully let it go. Straighten those legs out three times, lifting in three times, adding the trunk, very small. It's just to pull that one side of your body together, right? Doesn't, you don't have to come out. Come up big, good.

And after the third one then you just press down and you float an inch or so. That's it. Just pull everything down together and um, and last one and come down. Nice. Okay. Come up on your forearm. You're here, right? What's you're gonna do is you're going to basically do a teaser from here. It's like the teaser on the chair.

So I actually think you should start with your knees bent. So when you come around your knees, I'd be right off on the floor so I can't demonstrate it much as I would like to. Okay, so your teeth, I away with that one. Right? Okay. So you roll around onto your Tush and you come up into a teaser, go back to the same side, then those knees and come up into a teaser. Go back to the same side and come up. I don't care.

She, they've got it down. You've got it off. It's perfect. And come down other side. No, it's great. It's perfect choreography. Wonderful. Ready and coming up and then and coming up and down. Oh, I liked it the other way. Keep you guys. Keep your arm down. Yeah. There and come down. Good. Good. All right.

Rolling. Rolling. A seal. Seal. Rolling. [inaudible] seals. We already rolled seal, go and [inaudible]. Good. Come all the way up. Good standing all the way up on your mat.

Then roll forward and roll all the way down. Bending your knees when you get down a little ways. I don't want you to stay straight and then slowly roll up. Let your arms pendulum and swings you slowly stand up. There you go.

Step off onto the floor. So you're on the floor itself, not on the Mat. Just bend. You can face each other and straighten and Ben and straight and straighten from the sits bones. So you bend, sits bones, go over the heels. You straighten the sits bones move you right up. There you go. Go right into relevant. Right, right through those sits bones.

Come right up. That's it. Yeah. Spread those feet. Keep those ankles strong. Come straight up. Good down and just come straight up. Alrighty guys. Good.

Comments

1 person likes this.
Thanks so much...I have been away for awhile from Pilates due to massage therapy school commitments...this class was a great to start back again! Thanks Michele, and everyone @ Pilatesanytime!
Nice workout--I feel much more limber in the back. Extra attention is paid to working each buttock separately--I never thought that was necessary, but it helps me see where my glutes are so different in strength that I'm forced to compensate. This breaks it down and makes all of that clear so I know what I have to work on.
Well paced and well thought spine exercises... I could feel each vertebra releasing the tensión...
It is always a pleasure to learn from you. I enjoy the way you break down movement and then tie it all back together. The result, more awareness, more mobility and great effiency. Thanks!
2 people like this.
Nice class :) I liked the pre-saw exercise, the spine stretch forward with the ring, and all the rest really ! AND everybody's laughs !!! Thanks Michele :))
Great easy going class that bring results!
Tahmour B
That was a magic class! What an inspiring teacher Michele is! That was the best front kick I've ever done. Love the fine tuning! Thanks
Trisha Donnelly
love this class, great ideas to take and teach with, thanks.
Love and appreciate your style, Michele! Feel much more open in my lumbar spine now. Thank you so much!
Thank you for a geat class. It was refreshing to see women of mixed ages in the class. I, too, have arthritis and this was the perfect class for me. You are an inspiration!
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