Class #2204

Moon Box Challenge

35 min - Class
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Description

Grab a Moon Box for a little extra challenge in this Mat workout with Amy Taylor Alpers. While the Moon Box is not necessary for this class (you can push two yoga blocks together, or use no props at all), Amy uses the Moonbox to find a central theme throughout the workout. She believes that performing the Mat exercises on a small surface teaches the body to hold itself together and find internal lift, assisting the body in organizing and connecting. Amy uses this feeling, along with fun imagery, to help you better understand and perform the traditional Mat exercises.
What You'll Need: Mat, Moon Box

About This Video

Jun 13, 2015
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Hi everyone. I'm Amy Taylor, outbursts from the Pilati Center in Boulder, Colorado and I am here with my lovely group and we're going to do an intermediate level Mat, approximately intermediate level, but that is something very different and I just want to clarify that a little bit. We did an intermediate reformer, but that's the level of the exercises, but the level of their performance of the exercise is very, very high. Right? So I'm going to work to get the bodies into a much more advanced level within themselves, but doing the intermediate material. So hopefully that makes sense. As we go along, we're going to do a little surprise thing here. We've got moon boxes from our Max. You could create something at home. It needs to be a little bit solid. Okay. But you could use for instance, a yoga block or maybe two yoga blocks next to each other.

The point being that there's a kind of belief system a lot with the equipment in plot is that it needs to get bigger cause people are bigger. The reality it needs to get smaller so that people hold themselves together versus let the equipment hold them together. All right, so we're going to actually do our first two exercises on something much smaller than a mat in an effort to organize and connect and then take them away. But try to keep that idea going the whole time. All right, so you can make shifts something at home even even if all you did was stacks and mats together or maybe, and it doesn't even, it needs to be a little comfy. So if you have wood or something, I would put something a little bit comfortable over it so it doesn't hurt, but it doesn't have to be this size. Exactly. This height or this size. Exactly. The bigger, the easier. The smaller, the harder. Okay.

So we're going to just come around to the front of your box, sit down on the front edge of it, because you'll have to figure out, again, you know, if you were, if you were like the piece of wood on a teeter totter, where does that fulcrum need to go? Right. Based on the fact that maybe our wood isn't the same weight or something the whole way. Right? So you're probably going this good forward, maybe be on the very tip of your sacrum and then lie down and bend your knees into your chest because you've got to find where you can balance here. You're gonna take your hands behind your head, your knees, to your ears, all the way to your ears. So you're tiny, tiny little ball, right? Knees are apart and not just take everything up, everything up. Not so much your leg. Sorry, I didn't say that right, but you, everything in you up, right?

What if the thing you were on was actually smaller? Yes. Okay. Needs together. These apart feet together. We're going to press out on a diagonal footwork. So we're going to go out and come back, exhale and go out and come back. Exhale. Right. And your goal is, what if that thing you were on was maybe just the size of a palm?

I often think of those figure skaters where the girl is way up there on his hand and she better hold herself up and together. Right? Exhale, do two more. Stretch and bend and stretch. Bird on a perch and out. Exhale in. See if you can't bring those knees all the way to your ears and the knees get to come apart a little bit.

And imagine your feet are eagle talons and they're holding onto a trout for dear life. Truly they need that trout lecturer, ankles a little bit more and hold with your heel talents too and pull that trout all the way home. Yeah, it's and Aly all the way home and now we're flexing the feet and stretching the soles of the feet out and come up a little bit, a little bit more Liana and open the elbows wide. Everybody lift everything. Exhale. Stay up here. That's gorgeous. Candice. Exhale. You got it. An excess day up there. Don't let those straightening knees throw you right. They have to float out and float back home.

Now we're going to stay out and we're going to point and flex. And if you want, you certainly can take the back of those legs. I don't mind at all. No hyperextension because you have to stay in your center, not your knees. If you are holding your legs, lift your elbows up and lift you up and lift your hamstrings up. Soften the knees a little bit and hold your hips up instead. Yes. Good. And then last one, exhale your knees into your chest. Give yourself a little moment there and then feel free to put your feet on the floor for a second and even arch your back out a little bit and stretch your abs for a moment. Yeah. All right, that could be enough right there, right. Okay. However, we're going to continue. All right, so now we're going to do a hundred again.

You might have to play a little bit with where you're, you're sitting on the box or where your body is touching the box, but your goal is to get less of you touching anything. So if we were on the mat, it could be this small. All right. So we're gonna take an inhale and exhale, stretch arms and legs out, and then start your pumps and breathe in three, four, five and out. Four, five. And soften the knees. Hold the weight of the body on the box. Don't let it teeter totter you off, right? And equalize the legs by lifting and filling the lungs a little bit more. So Haley, soften your knees slightly. Good.

Lift your shoulders slightly towards your, behind your head slightly. Yes, there we go. So you're not pulling on your shoulders. Yeah, your shoulders are free and your lungs are breathing. Exhale. And then last one, no hyperextension keep the knees light. Yes. And then bend your knees in. Hands, squeeze. Good. And then roll up to sitting and we'll take those away so you can just set them to your side. But your goal is to kind of maintain that lift. Right? So that we don't just kind of a, thank God there's this big mat here and I can lie all over it. Kathy grant to say stuff like, don't let your butt hang out all over my equipment. We go, okay.

So now we're not going to let anything hang out on anything. Okay? So you're going to lie back down. You're going to flex your ankles nice and strongly. No hyperextension right? So you're not pressing your shins to the mat. You're flexing your ankles, okay? You're going to take your hands up to the ceiling.

Let's actually pretend to roll up our make strong fists, wrists, and forearms, and then take your arms over your head, but not all the way to the floor. Okay? Now imagine that small box and you have to hold yourself up. Inhale, roll up. Arms head curl. You reach up, but you don't lean. You reach out and then you rolled back and you kind of have to have a sense that you get to hold those legs your whole life cause they're yours. And inhale, rise, lift and hold the legs and reach them out like horseback. No hyper extension. Stand out onto your feet. Yes, pull your belly back.

Stand on those feet if he can, and exhale. You got it. I mean, he'll jeep curl. Watch the tendency to use your knees for abs instead. Use your abs for abs and we're all back down and got, and also don't use your elbows for abs. Elbows stay soft. Knees stay thought dish and reach out. So it's not that they're bent necessarily, but they aren't doing the work of your abdominals.

And then take your arms down next to your hips. Okay, let's bend your right knee into your chest and we'll straighten the leg up and you're going to sit behind it. Just give it a few little gentle pulses right now. Flex your other leg, flex that foot. Strongly stand on that foot. Imagine you were standing up. Okay? Put your hands down. All right, now levitate yourself onto your box again.

Points your foot and we're going to circle cross over, down, around and up. And what if you had to pick everything up, even your head a little bit now with a tremendous amount of effort, but as if all of you were attached to big hot air balloons. And then we come to the center and we reverse and around what was that cartoon movie where the House lifts up right up, up, across, way over. Let yourself come over. So you get a spinal twist and then you center again. And then last time, five each way.

If I wasn't counting that and now bend your knee and gave herself a little stretch and then put that leg down, right? So it can be a little trickier. Each exercise is a little trickier to maybe find that suspension, but you're still looking for it. All right, so the leg is up, you're standing on your right foot, right? The left foot is up and pointed and long and strong and the arms are pressed to the mat. But maybe even here have a sense. I'm present to the mat so that I could levitate everything else up. Beautiful. And I circled the whole nice, strong arch in your foot, right? So your foot doesn't wander or dangle.

It's a nice long length through your whole leg and each time you come to center and pause, reverse, inhale, exhale, come to center. Remember your center is on the box. Two more. Inhale round and exhale around. Very nice. Bend your knee even though yes, you couldn't totally do this on the box. Pretend it roll up to sitting and keep yourself small and connected, right? Let's go right into rolling like a ball from here.

So take your ankles that your knees part to your ears and then you stay lifted on your tiny box. Inhale, roll back and return. And exhale, lift and balance. Nice job in Halen, lift and balance. And in Hill said, balance that. So good. Two more in Hale. Hey, exhale and inhale. Exhale. Very nice ladies. Good. Now guess what? We're going to grab our boxes again. We're gonna do our single and double leg stretch on your box.

All right? If you don't have a box, that's fine. You just pretend. Imagine what the feeling would be like and keep thinking it, right? So you're going to bend back. You're gonna, you gotta Find Your Balance Point Right? Take hold of one knee and pull it to your chest, right? So the task is not so much to like find your balance, even though you have to. It's to lift, right? So you're really lifted.

Take your knee to your ear, not your nose. Elbows wide and high. And we switch. Stay balanced. Stay balanced. Yes. So which um, switch, switch, switch. Good. Breathing in for two and breathing out for two and one more breath. Try not to hyperextend stay in your belly and bend both knees to your chest, knees to your ears, all the way to your ears. Take your ankles, take your knees apart. Yeah.

Take your ankles with your hands and lift your elbows up. Okay. Put your knees on your ears. Put them on your ears and your thighs on your chest. Inhale, stretch out balance. Exhale, squeeze all the way home. Put them on your chest. Inhale, stretch it out. Exhale all the way home, all the way. Inhale, stretch it out. That's the way I say all the way home. Two more.

Inhale. Exhale. Last time. Good job into your scissors and pull twice. So switch twice and pull. Now stay for one second, but not too long. Take your leg over your head. Take your ankle, pull your elbows behind your head. Okay. Hold this leg and hold on with your belly. Got It.

In which case you might fine. I do need to switch a little bit. Right. And switch. Like change where you are on your box a little bit. Switch. It should feel like you're a little farther back. Your down leg doesn't waste so much. Your down leg is not hanging. Your down leg is balanced in opposition to your up leg.

And then hands behind your head. Double leg, lower left on. Inhale, I'm hyper. Extend your knees and hold your hips in. ABS. Lift your lungs, lift your elbows wide. Last one, and exhale. Bend your knees. Good. All right.

And then you give yourself another stretch there just for a moment, because that's a lot of abs we're not doing the twist is because it's very difficult to do up there, but you could imagine it, right? Okay. And then take those away and you're done with those. You're done with those. All right. Fuck. Guess what? You're not going to let your button. You're not gonna let your butt hanging out all over the equipment there. You're going to roll up.

You're going to have your feet a little wider than your mat. And I want to take a little moment here and flex your ankle strongly. And then spine, stretch your feet and set to your spine. Put your heels on the floor. Yeah. Curl your toes. Arch your toes down towards the floor immediately.

And, and they could they, oh, they could. They could go all the way down toward the floor. As long as it's not done here, it's done here. Yeah. Arch of the foot. And then back up again. The ankle is the last joint to move all the other joints move first. Yes. Right.

So I would love to have feet a little more active like that. So when they're flex, they're strong. When they're pointed, they're strong and they're not dangling off the ankles at all. Okay. So here we have flexed or to take our arms up. Big Inhale. Now you're sitting on a tiny little box. Everybody up, up, up, up, and exhale. Round over. No. Hyperextension keep your heels on the floor in here.

If you're a hyper extender, maybe even love it. Take your hamstrings off the mat in Helen. Hold your own legs. Don't rest them on the mat or lean on them. Just hold them up. And how you could go a little wider. Leanna with your feet and Haley too. A little wider. A little wider.

Flex your ankles, not your toes, and exhale over. Yes. If what you were on on the floor was a scale, it doesn't get heavier as you go over. Right. As you go over the mat, does it get heavier or your weight on the Mat doesn't get heavier? Yes, exactly. I'd come back up and we'll do one more and exhale up and over. Good. And so Candice, what I would say is heels down and then lift your hamstrings up onto your femurs a little bit. Yes. And hold him like that. Right.

Versus kind of pressing them down and levering your fields. Your feet off. Yeah. So that depends on each person. Some of us are tighter. We actually need to practice kind of straightening the knee. But if you're straightening the knee, don't lift the heel. Yes. Right. So you want to learn how to keep the heel down and straighten the quad up into you versus down onto the mat. Yeah.

So the leg pulls up into the belly so that you could bend your knees, take hold of your ankles, and go into open like rocker. No hyperextension keep holding them and inhale, roll back. Now again, pretending a little year on that tiny little box you'd be, you're off the box. Luckily that's why most of you are just going to pretend it and inhale and you're gonna pick your hips up instead of your hamstrings. So bend your knees just a little and pinch your button stead and pick your butt up. Pick your butt up and bring your butt back down. Yeah, that's more fun, right? So you're not, you're not holding yourself with hyperextension and hamstrings. You're narrowing your hips and lifting them just like you had to when you were on the box.

And knee straightening happens because your quad pulls up into your belly instead of your knee gets pushed into your knee. Ligaments. Right? And then last time, and we'll come up to stay for a moment. Bring the feet together, leave your feet there and lie down. Hands come next to your hips. Okay. Now again, you're still on your box. Up We go, right? Let's Jack knife over parallel to the floor.

So you're gonna Jack Knife over and then just pick your feet up like two inches so they're not hanging. Think about how you spine stretched your feet, hold your feet nice and strong. Point them, they're pointed, but they're pointed by the foot, not the ankle. You're going to twist to the right. If you're getting a cramp, it's correct. So you're going to point, twist to the right, roll down the right circle, around and up the left and up and up and up and twist to the left. Where are your feet so that your brain knows where your feet are because it hears them twist and down and we're just staying. You can be keeping your hips on the mat.

You can be going just a little bit above parallel to the floor or you can jack knife all the way up if you want, but you're keeping your feet. Yes, no hyper extension. Toes pointed and then, or we even, and one last one and around and up and then roll variet up to soft feet come a little wider than your mat. Flex your ankle, strong feet. And again, you're not resting your hamstrings on the mat. For some of us, we need to actually a length, lengthen the leg to get the hamstring on the mat. But if you're natural, very, very flexible, don't let your hamstring hang. Just lifted a little bit. Yeah, take your arms out to the side, soft elbows, wide chests, and inhale, twist to the right. And exhale, keep twisting and inhale up and twist and twist. And stay here for one second. Sit on both hips but not both hamstrings. Yeah. And twist your right shoulder to the mat between your knees.

Twist your right shoulder to the mat between your knees and roll back up. And who was to the right now your left shoulder comes to the mat between your knees. Keep rotating your spines and inhale up. We come. Feel your shoulder blades. As you twist, your left shoulder blade keeps moving towards your left spine and come back up. Right. So the shoulder doesn't get stuck in the way. Pull this back shoulder blade towards the spine.

Yes. And rise up. Flex your ankles a little bit more powerfully, which is not the same thing as hyper extending. Yes. And come back up. That's right. And last time twist. Keep twisting. Keep twisting. Unlock your knees a little bit Candace, and sit on your pelvis. Sit back on your pelvis. Yes and come back. Good. And B, even if I didn't go gut, does that make sense for you? A little bit. That kind of tendency.

For some people it's a tendency to kind of lean forward on the legs like this. You actually want to stay back in your pelvis and twist your spine as opposed to lean on the legs. Okay, so then we bring those legs around and swing them behind you. Be careful if your box is in the way and lie on your belly and we'll do swan. All right, so palms right under your armpits, forehead on the mat. Feel the length of the back of those legs. Right.

And now also feel the length of the front of the legs and have a moment where you feel the spine stretched foot. Remember your spine stretched foot. Yes. Lift your eyes, your nose, your chin, your chest Halen. Bring your hands back a little bit. The other way. Yeah, there you go. Even more, even more. Even more like that. Okay. Eyes Up. Chin, chest. Rise up. Keep the arches of your feet.

If he can rise up as high as you can and then come back down and still feel the arches of your feet. Right. So you're not so much pressing your feet into the floor. I would think of actually lifting your toenails off the floor and arching your feet. There we go. There we go. That was gorgeous. And come back town. Yeah, right. And it's not, am I going all the way til I straightened my elbows? It's going all the way to the top of your inhale. So we inhale. Inhale, inhale.

Maybe don't lock your elbow. Just keep inhaling and exhaling down. Let's you know one more time. Keep your feet though. Inhale, eyes, nose, chin, chest, lungs rise. And let's rock release some push or you can take the hands out and dive. Keep the eyes up the whole time. Haley, just keep your eyes up and up and up and up. Ah, nice job on a good. And then let's sit back on your heels for just a second. Take a moment in your child's pose. Think for a second about, again, trying to get your weight back over your pelvis as opposed to on your thighs.

How do you do that? Right? Point your feet. Yeah, Candace, there you go. And put your weight on your pelvis so that your hamstrings are under you versus you being sort of over your quads so that your dominoes are in and your spine is open, right? Versus if you lean too far forward, you're just going to get knee and hip compression, right? Whereas we really want to feel this, which is more our spine stretch, feeling our short spine or stomach massage feeling. Okay. And then we're going to lift the belly, come back out onto the belly and up onto your forearms. All right, so elbows a little farther forward maybe then you might be normally used to.

You can go knuckles to knuckles like that. I don't mind if you go hand to hand. Sometimes that's helpful, but now kind of just, I always think of it as getting onto a kickboard. Kind of lift yourself onto the kickboard. Imagine you're balanced on your box. Lift your legs off the Mat and hold yourself there and hold yourself with the back of your body instead of your quads. Yeah, yeah. Put your pelvis on the mat, lift your legs off the mat and then we kick one switch.

Other switch, kick, switch, kick, switch, kick. Good. Are you balanced on that box and kick? Cramp, sank and kick and kick and kick. What if the thighs weren't on the Mat at all? They literally weren't. Your pelvis was on the mat and your belly was lifted and your thighs were lifted and then be even and rest once she got on the mat, hands high up on the back of your rib cage. Same idea. So we didn't just go, Oh God, there's so much mat here for me to lie on. We actually took this position, but we levitated ourselves.

And even though the elbows are down, they're not actually resting, are hanging down. They are put down. You lift both legs. Take a big inhale and you kicked three times one, two, three and you rise up and you're on your box. You're on your box and other side, kick two, three on your, on your box. Stay there for one second. Lift your triceps, up your eyes, up, your hamstrings up. Okay. Find out where that box really is. Stay on the box. Even when you come back down, stay on it. Kick.

So you don't rock forward and back so much as you go down and up. Yeah. And then other cheek had kick two, three. Now you go up, not back. You go up, arms up, eyes up, legs up and exhale, kick two, three and up. So this is the opposite from hundreds. You're just up. You're not on your thighs. And XL, kick two, three on upstair for a second. Flush your ankles. Took your toes under, push yourself forward onto the box. Just leave your hands where they were. You just pushing with your feet. So you're forward on that box. You're not leaning back. Point your feet there and stay on that box.

You gotta be there ladies last time and a kick two, three and come up to that place. Don't lean back, lift those legs, lift them, lift them, lift them on, rest back on your heels. So hopefully that one particular make sense. If your box has to stay here right in your center, then when you kick, it's not that you're going to go forward on the box. And then when you straight and you're going to go back on the box, you literally come in and you go out like, like a flower from it's Caleb from its center as opposed to rocking back and forth, right? So that it's not in a way that different from your foot work in your hundred and you just always know where that center is and you can't rock around on it.

Okay, let's align your box and let's just do jackknife. Okay, so you're lying down. You can have your leg straight up to the ceiling or you could start with your feet on the floor. Either way, no hyperextension nice strong feet, right. And then, um, your, your lifted, right? So your legs are not hanging. Even if the legs are down, they're not hanging or resting. You're holding them. Yes. And you rise over, you pick the whole thing up and you lift the whole thing lifted and lifted, lifted. And then you lift your way back down onto your very, very, very small platform. And you lengthen the legs away there all the way down or just a little bit.

And then you rise up. And again, how could it be a little less? I roll onto my shoulders even though you do, but rather than I lift up and I lift my way down very preciously and I lower my legs so that I don't roll forward on my box. I last time rollover and I pick it all up. See if when you're up here, Haley in particular, see if you could stick your butt out a little bit. Yeah. Now extend the backline rather than pushing the quads.

So you're arching up a little bit higher and bringing your hamstrings over here and your femurs, not your feet, your hamstrings and femurs. Yes. Got me back down. Yes. Nice hand. Bend your knees. All right, let's do some sidekicks. Okay, so let's find our right sides. Yeah. Beautiful. Flip this way. And if these are in your way a little bit, just slide them out of your way. Yeah. Okay, so now here again it's different. Yes. But your weight's really on your greater trope, canter and your back of your tricep. Everything else is off the bat. Everything is else is off the mat. Yes. Feeder resting lightly, but they're still lifted. But primarily your whole right side off the mat, off the mat, off the mat. Now you're down.

If you can be put your hand behind your head, you just start not resting. Now it's also not the same thing as propping. Ideally. So you're not levering off your elbow. You're actually lifting your right side. Yeah. So you're really high in perched and your weight is over here a little bit more than at the end of your legs. Okay. Pick up your left foot, flex it, and we're going to come to the forefront. Front to the back.

You're perched right on this and in Halen decks. Hail. That's right. So you don't shift up and down and you specially in particular, don't let the leg pull you off of your upper body in half. I index. Hey, I can sell two more. We go flex to the front and point to the back and heel and exhale.

Bring the feet together. Turn the leg out, keep your lift. Inhale, lift up, flex down. Inhale, lift up. Now you guys see if you could lift less with hamstrings and quads and more with deep rotators and inner thighs as you're working your rotators. Yes, and you're not. It's not so much even a hamstring stretch. It's definitely more of a spirally feeling. That's the way. And then last time, very nice parallel and we'll lift both legs up. Stay here, flex your feet, turn out and we'll clap, clap, clap. Keep your turnout, but points your feet. Point two, three, four, five, six and flex. Flex two, three, four. Keep the rep, keep the lift. Point two, four, five, six, seven. Keep it. Just stay pointed. Now we'll roll through the belly to the other side.

Bring your feet forward. They, if your back is lined up with the back of your mat, your feet should be on the wood. So bring your feet a little more forward than you might be used to. They would be on the moon boxes if you were on the Mat, right? So you've got a pretty good 45 degree angle there, so you don't have to do the work of holding that part up. But everybody else is up, especially your left waist and ribs.

And how high is not a rule, it's just up and it's up inside you. Not necessarily just up off the floor, right? So it's you pulling yourself together like you did in your footwork. You're gonna pick up your right foot flex and we come to the front and you just keep yourself together, which is not the same thing as heart and pardoning or tightening or gripping. It's just integrated, organized into one.

Like you are a single cell, right? And you're not stretching, hyper mobilizing, you're moving, you move your parts forward, you move your parts behind you, you inhale and you exhale and the movement of your leg doesn't weigh on you. It doesn't pull on you. Exhale and last time, inhale and exhale. Bring your feet together. Turn out in a find your turnout muscles. So we're not hauling with quads or hyper mobilizing hamstrings. We're lifting the leg up and flexing the leg back down and inhale it up.

And if you can, you come down just in front of the other heel or ankle so that you really have to find those turnout muscles to lift with, right? So if you could even a little bit more, Liana, when you lift, you're going to lift, right? So that again, that quad doesn't overwork because guess what? We love to overwork those guys. Yeah, we're trying to find deep, deep rotators and the leg muscles that help spiral and keep your body more balanced. Very nice. Okay, so parallel, lift both legs up, flex your feet, turn your legs out. Find those deep rotators again and clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap points your feet. But keep your turnout so there's just a little coordination and flex your feet and point your feet far. Five, six, seven at lower your legs, which is not. Same thing as dropping them and come up to sitting.

So you guys can come back and face each other. We're going to teaser. All right, so again, there you are. What if you were perched right on the front of your box when you come up and when you lie down, you don't [inaudible] right? You come down and you just put only that much of your spine on the box and you come back up again. All right, toes are pointed. No hyperextension what I mean, our speeder feet, our spine stretched. So when I say point or toes are pointed or feet pointy, they really mean your feet. Our spine stretched.

So your arches are working right? You're narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow hands. Knees are lifted just a little so they're not hanging. All right, take a big inhale on the exhale. Curl back on your tiny little box and lift your feet. Eye level. Take your arms parallel to your legs, and then you lower your spine to that little box and you rise back up again and you in down, and you inhale and you exhale down gorgeous and up. Alright, last time, and our state person, we're just going to lower lift three times down upstate, perched down upstate perch, gorgeous. And stay.

Relax your elbows just a little bit and lift you instead. Yes. And then roll the whole thing to the floor. Arms above your head. Stay there. Take your hands down next to your hips. Roll up to sitting, but only like roll up about halfway. Bend your elbows and put them out behind you. So you're going to roll up, put your elbows up behind you. Take an inhale on the exhale. Pull yourself together and levitate your legs.

Just a little bit like not really off the floor, but just up in you, right? No hyperextension yes, no hyperextension put your on the floor and just lift them without lifting them, right? So you got them. Take a big inhale on the exhale, belly to floor. Lift the legs to the ceiling. Keep them circled to the right, keep them agg a little, let them get underwater. Inhale, keep them and they don't pull you away from your breath or your upper body. Inhale, which might mean maybe watch your hyperextension again, but maybe you might even decide, oh I just have to shorten my legs a little bit because they're so long and exhale and we're even, and bend the knees. Nice. Good. Turn in, line your bellies. All right. Actually you know what?

Let's do this on our boxes swimming. Ah, I did my, Oh God, I'm so sorry. I'm so, so I'm not really that. Sorry. And so you, so you know one of the things that you might've even learned to do swimming on the barrel harder, right? Cause then the, the amount that you're on is really small. So guess what? You have this giant surface. It's huge. It could actually start to look quite large after awhile. Alright. So instead your that figure skater up there in a beautiful swan position, belly on the guy's hand, that's it. And you lift everything else and you swim.

Eyes up, eyes up and legs up. Get him up. Get him up. Come on. Inhale. Exhale. Keep your center. Don't rock and roll around your center. Move your arms and legs from your center. Gorgeous unrest. Nice job, you guys. Sit back, remove your box and we'll do seal.

Bring your feet out in front of you. So again, no box, but on the s on the as if it's still there, right? It's a tiny little, tiny little space that you have to work in, right? Let's go prayer foot, right? Curl your toes towards you and allow that to round your spine a little bit more. Okay? And then it says if the toes go to the floor over your head, inhale, roll back, toes, go to the floor and exhale. Return. That's the way. Good. And you can add claps in both directions or just in one direction, right? But you're keeping yourself together.

You've got to keep it together. Narrow. Yes. And on a very tiny platform so that you are organized into one entity. Nice job. You feel it. You don't want it. That was gorgeous. Two more. Inhale back. Oh yes. Exhale. Fantastic. Last time. Inhale and exhale.

Great job. Excellent job.

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Love her!
4 people like this.
My unabridged Webster Dictionary 8 1/2 x 11 1/2 x 3 was my stand in for a box. First time through the beginning exercises were more than humbling. Closer to impossible. So glad I did the rest of the class. Swimming on the box was actually fine. That cue for bringing the upper leg down in front of the standing leg on side lying leg lift was a game changer. So was the cue for bringing /twisting the shoulder between the legs on spine twist. Thanks Amy H for expressing my sentiments during those Oh NO! moments! :) Thanks Amy TA for what I found to be tougher than level 2 class.
Great energy and instruction!
1 person likes this.
Amy you were handing out all the golden nuggets today. Wonderful cues to keep it all moving and working from the Center. And those feet! A project of mine too lately.
Dominic D
Very cool first pilates workout ever!
of course wonderful
a lot of important cues for the hamstring to keep connected all the body and donĀ“t stop the flow in any part.
Thank you Amy and Pilates Anytime
please subtitles in English for non English people.
Loved this! Because I have reformer at home I tend to only watch reformer classes. I think I might be falling in love with the mat all over again!
And i do iit Again today
Thanks AMY!!! So glad I can experience your class here in Asheville!!!!
1 person likes this.
This was absolutely fabulous. I don't have a moon box so I took Joni Nichol's suggestion of the Webster Collegiate dictionary. It seemed a bit small compared to the moon box in the video, so I put it side to side with the Chicago Manual of Style and topped with a towel. What a challenge!!!!
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