Class #223

Magic Circle Stability

55 min - Class
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Description

This is a level 1/2 class that will challenge the important muscles that stabilize the pelvis (the glutes, hamstrings, and abdominals). There is a balance component as well as attention is placed on posture. A little over halfway into the class, we move to the floor to focus on the abdominals and back extensors.
What You'll Need: Mat, Magic Circle

About This Video

Aug 03, 2010
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Transcript

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Okay. We had a request for energy. So you came on the right night, Sandy. Yeah. Um, let me have you stand just behind your, Matt's facing forward please. And since we can, we're going to, let's just set up, so we're all ready to go. Take your band and place it. If I'm, you place it on your mat and then your ring kind of just like that. Exactly. I will figure something to do with them and that one. All right, so taking the first couple of minutes just to loosen up a bit. So standing with your feet, I'm going to say completely together for the moment as best you can and organize yourself. So you're standing tall. Take a minute, deep breath in, exhale and become just a little heavier on the bones, but allow the powerhouse for everything in the middle just to rise or be easy for the moment. Yeah, letting go. Take a big deep breath in.

Nothing's going to change except now. Maybe you'll lightly engage your abdominals. Recruit your abdominals tightened around the middle, just a little, and we'll do one roll down from where you are. It's an inhale. Listen to your body. He may not want to go into this and yet, but you could do part of one exhale. As you round down everybody [inaudible] the knees bend. As you go, continue pulling the abs up as you just slide your hands down towards your ankles. Looking to your navel. That's right. Inhale heavy heads. If you can.

Shoulders towards the hips. Exhale, we're rolling right back up. Using the hands actually against the legs to give you just a tad bit of support. I said we're only doing one, didn't I? Darn. Let's do another cause. We're going to come close to our ring. So if you're, if your rings way out in front of you, you get next to it. Inhale gently pressing into the sides of your body. Mostly with the upper arms.

Exhale as you roll down, start bending the knees. The further forward you go, the deeper you're pulling up on the ABS. Arms are straight. Yep. Slide all the way down. Bend your knees a little more, a little more. Inhale, find your ring, pick it up and exhale. We'll roll back up and we have the ring with us so I'll remind her anytime we're using the ring, it's, it's meant to be an aid for the powerhouse, so it's never about the ring. Um, having said that, we're going to use it a fair amount. Bring your arms up, elbows to the sidewalls. Everybody Shrug your shoulders up gently, Dee shrug. So just let them fall and press into it a little. And from there we squeezed the ring on an exhale.

Little puffs of Arrow one and two and three. Okay, good. We all have the hand part down. Um, keep doing that. Lengthen your low back. So I wonder what that might mean for you. I'm trying to just create a little more space between say the lowest rib and the tailbone for s it might feel like a Tuck, but I'm, it's minimal. All right. Little presses. Okay. Now keep the action going, but minimize it a little. And what I mean is less pressure on the ring, but make the ribs or the breath almost seemed like it's moving the ring.

So exhale. That's it. Exactly. Exhale. Just slightly tuck underneath shin. There you go. There's your long line and then Nancy, if you'll just let the shoulders fall a little. The ring is pretty light. It's pretty light. It looks good. Helen and Sandy, one more tip. I know we're just breathing right now. Just tapping in. When you press on the ring ever so slightly, lift the chest, not going to probably see it, but you might feel a little more action in the lats. Let's do four more exhale.

You're [inaudible] your head just lengthening or sitting up on top and now it's slightly changes. The ring is close to you. You press on it, it's a long exhale. Extend your arms, keep some resistance though. It will lessen as you straighten the arms. Relax, pull it back. Exhale, press collarbones or wide so you don't want to see anything else. It's just there and bring it back. All right, we got it. And for us, I had one one a little faster now and pull in cause Nooshin want an Intergy.

I forgot. I forgot for a second. And Pur good at anytime. If you feel neck tension, you should let go of the ring or at least don't, don't squeeze on it, right. It's not. It can easily go there. So we got to watch for that and press okay. Stay out there and ask yourself, cause there's no way to really check.

Can you feel where your shoulders attached to your back and I'm, I'm more or less mean the lats. The little action there. Keep it out here. Soft and lower. A little bit, little p little pumps, just barely touching the ring. Just press, press, press. Almost straight arms. That's it. Yup. Yup, Yup. And Five, four, three, two, one. Bring it in. Nice and close. Rising up on the toes. Okay. Be Press the ring out to straight. Squeeze your inner thighs a hall and bring it down.

Okay. Waken up the feet a little bit. Press. You don't have to go all out, but he might. Inner thighs or were you interested in and bring it back to more. Just like that. Feel the breath. Start to leave your body first. The exhale, the ribcage closing as your retreat reach and bring it back. One more time. Rest and reach rising up on the toes. All right, and all right. Going into little standing foot and leg work. We're here. So from, from the sides. Well first of all, separate your feet about hip distance or sit bones. Distance, four or five inches. It's a little far, sandy here. Hips aren't that wide. Good. All right. We'll use the ring in the way that we had been, but it's the last thing they were thinking.

Now shift your weight back so it's in your heels so you could lift your toes. Yeah, squeeze the glutes a little but not enough to change back. And Are you ready for some energy? She's like, yeah, here we go. Pur. Sit back and not really sitting into your heels. If I left you here for a while now relax the toe. Sorry.

I know I told you to dig. Just relaxing and for the moment I'm not really squeezing anymore. Now that it's out here, push it into the heels. Don't let it, chuck, you come up a little and rest, rest back down, push into the heels or into the floor and then rest. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Now we've got that. So let's go down and then as you come up, bring the ring in and now the full deal, it goes pressing out and pull in. I'm not squeezing hard on the ring. I promise you I'm not even trying to fake it.

I'm just using it almost as space to remind me to feel both sides of the body. Now keep going. I'm not going to count. So just let that go. Now. Um, if keep on, if you feel that you have a lot of tension in the front of your shins, it could be just the leg proportion, situation, bone proportion. So you may sit, tilt forward more. In fact, everybody could do that and probably enjoy it. So let's go down and hold it down wherever you were going. Keep your, bought your hips where they are, but tilt the body more tabletop to our knees are very bent. Still very, very been tailbone ever so slightly up. That's it.

Now again with that little squeeze release, push the heels into the floor release. I'm not doing anything on the ring at the moment. Not at them all. I want you to find your glutes. Can you tell? Are we not there? Your Butt. Okay. No one's talking to me. You do. Thank you. Okay, good, good. That's all I need to know because and then we'll come back up.

So that's an option for you. If you don't go ahead and come all the way up. If you feel like, cause I'm going to be here a bit, that you don't want to bend your knees that many times. Do a soft bend and then turn it into here to here. Okay. Or if it's in the front of your Shin, ready? 10 more just like we've been doing down in one and come all the way up and breasts you a little resistance on the right and 30 and dress up and four working through. Fix all that. Did I only say five stay up on five.

Liens are lean forward and hover the heels. Do your best to relax the toes. They're going to wobble. It's not a big deal. Here we go. 10 Oh one I said I wasn't counting and I'm probably won't but rich and keep going. I'm gonna do one little shit. Keep it on your, all right. I'm stopping your knees from going any further. So that's where your button needs to go backwards. Go ahead. There you go.

Saves your knees. You get to a point where they're just getting too far forward. How about four more and that's it. Inner thigh. One more time and all the way up. Lower the heels down. Nice. Touch your heels together. So it turned the mass pretty small. V Pretty tight through the inner thighs. Okay, so wrap yourself around.

You should feel your glutes. You should feel lifted. Hover the heels and its small gang. Don't feel like you have to be way up here. It's just barely. Same thing. Hinge forward at the hips. We go down. Yup. And we come up hole one, finish it at the top and two and come up sir for hats. It is, I feel all right. Good. Well where are you going to too much paddleboarding for you.

You've got the ocean on your under your feet three more. You can give you those heels down and get just as much. Right. I throw in the balance just because that's how we do it on the reformer, but this can be done quite effectively without raising the heels. That must be it, but it will do more. There we go. Hold it there. Heels wide, heels wide. I'm going to change this one a little bit tonight. Take your ring and place it on your left hip or a hip. Doesn't matter which, and he just needs to be relatively comfortable.

The other hand when we're working with the ring, tried to grab the ring because it just causes unnecessary attention. It's the heel of the hand approximately. This is a funny arm position. I think you're going to have a slightly bent elbow about as much as I have mine bent. However, it's not going to point down like I have it. It's going to point backwards. Exactly the free hand for the moment. Reach around, find your ladder. Just the sigh almost into your back.

I guess it is your back without pressing on the ring. Press the shoulder down. See if you can make that muscle pop up. Can you do it without moving the ring? Kinda hard to do without moving the room, but that that side muscle, that muscle is what we need. Bend your knees. We're going to just simply bend and pull this time. I'm not hinging forward if you need to, you can, but otherwise I'm just sliding straight down and up.

Now you can rest the arm if you feel it and I'm going to come check. So as I go down, I am pulling the ring toward my body a little bit. Being mindful not to hike the hip. This thing to shoulder up. Stay down on this one. Hold it. Relax the toes. Slightly tuck under Nancy. Sandy, you can step wider.

Fabulous and pull in one out of 10 to theory can always stand up if you need to. Six, seven, eight, nine and 10 everybody stand up and doing it again. You should. I think you should step wider to, yeah, make it comfy on the knees. Here we go. Five down. We go down to one and and two. And imagine just sliding down a wall with your spine. Next one we go down and stay down. Hold it there. Just the arm or the lot.

We pull in one. It's pretty small dude. And three and four. It's not meant to work your arm. Five. It's meant to work just shoulder. Seven, eight the Lex toes. Nine stand up. We can do one more set. Here it is, and we go one end. Press two and press up. You're collecting shoulder tension. Skip a few or hold down. Hold it down. One. This is where people, we want to naturally dip forward.

So line it up and pull in and in. Let's get five more out of it. One to tuck under three and if we come, no problems. Which sides? Oh did I say only one more. We gotta do this arm. Same deal. Here we go and we go down to one. Another thing you could look for is ease on the shoulder or neck. Restaurant. Hand up there. It should not pop up into your hand.

Go down and stay down. And it's just subtle. Boom, boom, boom. Good. Keep going and fine and good. Six, seven, good. Eight, nine and stand up. Here we go. Set Two of three. Let's go one and two. Work the way up as well. It might be obvious but both directions is what I'm trying to say. Hold it down and yeah, and, and that's it.

I'm not sure Sandy, but just a tiny bit of popping the elbow backwards. Yep. Yep. Maybe more bent too. That's got to be close. Stand up. Five down. Here we go. One, two. It's almost like you're squeezing a giant magic circle, which is not a bad idea in as you come up next one. Stayed down holding it there and oh two and three and eight, nine and all the way up while La back to center.

This time take the ring behind him. See if I can talk us through into this. Probably not. I'm going to try. This is not going to go well and gonna tell you that right now. Take your ring. Try for just above the elbow. I'll be right there if you need for early [inaudible] baby.

Then if this doesn't work, you're gonna end up here. And that's absolutely fine. It's just harder to keep good form, but it can be done. So you're here, then grab the ring if you can. That's going to be the hard part. The other one, right? So if that doesn't work, I'm going to come fix it for you. But if it does it or if you don't have me to come fix it for you, you're doing it right there. Okay. So straight arms and low. You got it. You got it. Good. That's, that's perfect. Do you want it up here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good, good. All right. No matter where the ring is, we're all working exact same muscle. Um, and that is to first reach your arms down.

So you'd like your reach, reach, reaching to the floor. Then is this okay? Okay. Then everybody comfy from there. It's, that should be almost enough that just the simple reach. So if you're, if your ring is up here, you still have straight arms. Okay. And now try to squeeze shoulder blades together. May or may not happen. I mean the ring may not move one bit and I and your focus isn't to move it. It's to lift your chest in opposition to, I'm barely moving my ring if I am at all.

Oh, that's gorgeous. Gore dress dress for last year and sh there you go. There you go. Do you feel it kills me this way. How should we do something with it? Yeah. By the way, if you don't have or if you didn't want to use a ring, if it just bothered you, keep going. You would here and let's, let's add the feet if you want to. Not, if you want to add the feet. Here we go and forgot. I was in charge for a second and down and up and right.

Oh yeah. Triceps are good. Triceps and back. This is sort of the deal, right? If you look straight ahead and you don't let the ribs pop forward, you're exhibiting good posture and working the exact muscles that we need to. How about just this last one and then somehow drop it out. I'm behind you. Fabulous. Standing wide. Once again, taking the thumbs inside, reaching the arms up. Should I be nice to you? Since you've had awarded?

So what you could do if your arms are tired from paddleboarding or whatever, you could be here or even you have to, oh, she's ready. Here we go. Soft, no soft knees, but I'm not real bent. We're going to pick up the rib cage. Just exaggerate it. Pour out the rib cage up in high or over over it. Now, while we're here, pressed into that opposite foot. It's your left foot right into it. Engage the abdominals and bring it back up. Inhale up and over. Press into the right foot just for now.

Start exhaling and feel that whole right side of your body kind of contract to bring you up. Then we relax the shoulders and we pick up the pace for new shit. Here we go. Inhaling over, start. Exhaling. Pull it up. One. Inhale, reaching up and over. What you have to monitor is that you don't rotate through the hips. It's looking good, but still worth monitoring. I'm going to suggest Nisshin a slight tuck. I'm not sure I'm right though. Yeah, yeah, that's it. And okay. 10 more. The ring is not being squeezed.

It's not really even being pulled upon. It's more of a spacing situation. Looks Great. Sandy was loosening up those shoulders and up and reached to come feel the suppleness of your body. We get in to more out of the deal, I believe. I love it. It's amazing how quickly that happens, isn't it? Okay. We're done with that. Bring it in. Heading into yet another leg deal.

Um, let's go with the ring on the right side in between your shoulder and your neck as comfortably as you can get it. That I'll tip a tip is that if is to leave the shoulder down and pull toward the shoulder, there's a tendency to bring the two ends together and that's just gonna be uncomfortable. So from there, right foot ball of the foot, is that right? No. Hold on. Left ball of foot. Sorry. Switch. The thank you and option is just to, as you pull on the ring, you hinge forward a little. I guess option one is to not actually do anything but the BICEP is.

You could be there. Option two is going to be a stationary lunch. This is the one I'm going to suggest for us, which will be down and up and down. You're dropping right in between. Okay, so that's option two and then I'll teach you option three later. So let's all start here. Unless you don't want to be launching so you can just step straight back. It'd be fine. Yeah, exactly.

Come up on the ball of the back foot and you have about eight inches. You can still move that foot back and not be on her mat. Go ahead [inaudible]. Yeah, good. Because you know we've got to fit in there, right? We want to be relatively comfortable. So with your backlog we go down, I'm squeezing the ring and we come up straight up, straight down, down and up. We're not going forward and back.

It's down and if you need us, I want to do it. You don't need to hold it down. Make sure you're tucked under little. Your back is long and I just bicep for ten one, two, three, four, five. Nice position. Six seven press eight press nine. Stand up. Ah, set to either just like that or stepping back into it for those five.

It's up to you. It's up to you. Here we go. And w would you, let's turn to the center so you're not worried about where you're stepping. Turn Center. There you go. That same leg is working and I'll face you. Okay. Here we go. Step back. If you're going to step back or just dip down if you're not and excellent and back to come and to come up to more to come up. Nice job down.

We've got to do one more just to get down and stay down holding it there. Check your backs and we press one, two, three. Keep going. If you're not lunging you can pick up that other leg for a little challenge. Thank you. All right. Stand up. One more set. Yeah. Option three.

You have those first two that you've chosen or that you've been shown? The last one will be stepped back up to any pick whenever you want today. Okay. It's the same like same lunge. Lots of options. Rope. Sorry. Here we go. Sorry, Nancy, we stepped back. If you're going to do that one and either tap or pull the knee up, step back to very long spine. Wow.

My arms tired or let's stay down on this one. Five. Here we go. For our 10 on long bodies too. Sandy, a little bit longer in your low back. Tuck under been the back of me more. It'll help. There it is about three. Do one stand up and free that arm. Well done.

Other side. Sorry. Sorry. Okay. Pick your poison again. That one thing you could do if you don't want to bend the knees is if that hinge forward you'll get some glue. It's just too many options. Perhaps we started stationary so we've moved the ring over to the left side.

The right leg is behind you. Here we go. On dipping straight down. The way you do that is by bending the back knee a lot. Not to mention the front, but the back knee is the one that's going to get you next one. Stay down and hold it and we maybe visualize your spine just straight up and down. Good. A couple more. Come up to upright and this whole crowd mostly stood in with it. So here we go.

Stepping back, take your time over one and bring it up. And remember the ring. You can get rid of the ring honestly and get the other work. Two more. Next one stays down holding it there. And one, two, three, four. I think you need a little bit wider stance Nancy, and that'll give you a little more room for your knees. Good.

And bring it in. Last set. Here we go. Stepping back optional. Bring the Nia one and t last one. We'll stay down and on prs to Tuck your pelvis. Almost everybody. Yup. And that's just to bring it to the straight last to one and to bring it on.

Whooo. Well done. Next. Moving right along. Shake it out. We are standing wide, not wide, wide enough just to place the ring at your ankles relatively comfortably. Yeah. So if we play, if we took our feet parallel, so there's pointed straight ahead. Little less natural. I know. Yeah. Without moving the feet. Can you try to squeeze the ring? I guess that's the end of the sentence, period. A question mark.

What I'm trying to do is can you feel the entire inner sema, the leg, maybe even the sensation of wrapping around, even though I have your feet parallel, sis, turn those feet straight ahead. I know it's gonna be hard to do and just see what happens. It's like I'm trying to squeeze in and then draw the ring up. It's gonna. You're not gonna see that, but that's what I'm trying for. So there is not super, not a ton of energy in my feet, but certainly above the ankle on both sides and relax.

Maybe you'll see it and as you squeeze, just think that's it. Exactly. And kind of relaxed on it. Almost collapsed in yourself just for a second. Don't tell anyone I said that now. You wish you were up front, don't you? [inaudible] here we go. Squeeze Delta in. Right and pull up. And then just like, just so you kind of know the difference in your body, it's in, it's a thought almost and relaxed. One more and I'll make you actually do something in and up.

Keep that barely let the feet turnout just so it doesn't stream lean to your right until the toes point on the left, the big toe touching whatever you need to do with your arms. I kinda like I'm here. Then the foot that's touching the big toes, touching, relax it and inner thighs pull together one and the same idea of lifting up through the front too. From your side view, not that you have one, but if you do use it, the back is long. Yeah, it's pretty, not a big movement, but maybe a strong one. I think that's about 10 here's the trick. Bring the leg forward. You may have to reach down and adjust it so that you're still on the handle.

So we're working a little balance here. There's no exact spot. It just should feel like it's going to stay there. All right. Now it'd be real easy to just drive the ankle into it and that's not going to, not only not feel good, you know, won't feel anything from, it's like reach the foot toward the floor, the whole leg toward the floor, I should say. Then from right where your leg in, but meet, pull back. If you're not sure, touch it like I am. That's how I have to do it. And as you draw the leg back, lengthen the spine up so you get used to that sense of in and up. [inaudible] we lost one. I can hear it. This is it. Step forward onto that leg. Again, you may have to adjust your ring.

I'm seeming to need to until the back leg points just to touch. You're gonna want to turn the leg out a little bit just so that you can clear the floor, but hips are straight ahead. So go ahead and do this as if there are lights or something just so you can see where the hips are pointed and you don't want to be off to one side. Bring it in there. We go and pull in and now again it's from way up where the leg and the hip meat and you're tall.

Even here trying to have a long back and yes, it's absolutely fine to touch the floor. I recommend it actually as long as you're going for the feeling upfront. La La. One more time. Good. Bring it back to the side reach. Now I'll come back to do the other side. Reach down and take the ring above the knee a little bit. You may decide you need to keep it below the sea. Can we do it? You don't do it below? I'm sorry. Do it just below the knee.

It's a tiny bit more comfortable and I think you'll be able to feel it just as much. Okay. So bring the feet in underneath the ring a little bit. Still a little bit. And I have my knees bent so I'm not squeezing super hard yet. Oh that looks good. No, that's, so I'm sort of exaggerating, but not much what I wear. I want to be where I kind of there. So we're going to try without changing the knee angle to bring the hips level with the pubic bone. That for a lot of us is going to be a lot of work.

Maybe just me from that place though. Dan. Dan, squeeze the ring when you release it. Don't let the tailbone pop out behind you. Just sort of a little release. And, and I'm hearing myself say Tuck a lot tonight. I'm, I just want to make clear that I'm not trying to get everyone under here. I'm trying to get everyone out of here. Okay. So that's the direction I'm heading in.

And so I am seeing Candace, I don't know what she's like it is, but one of them is doing the work. It looks like it's stabilizing and the other one is, yeah. So feeling your own body, are they equally squeezing? If you know you have a leg that tends to work harder than the other one, initiate it with the first one that doesn't work as so much. Last one, hold. Tuck a little bit more. Squeeze the glutes, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, tall, tall, tall. And then release. Put it back down at your ankles or just above. [inaudible] a small, small turnout of the foot's fine. Leaning off to the left side this time.

Yeah. Beautiful. And it's in upper inner thighs where my attention is. Some people ask, is it more on the front? More on the back. I don't know. Upper inner thigh people feel it differently. Things to watch for. Try not to drive energy through the knee or hyperextend, but really the lower leg is quite relaxed. Yeah.

And squeeze. Hold and keep a little tiny bit of pressure on it as you roll it to the front. Fix It if you need to. Find where the leg and the glute meet. Yep. Good. And pull into it.

I'd recommend a tiny little bit of a knee bend and sustain it. So in my body it kinda feels like my two legs are scissoring together. Not just the one coming to the back, but there's a little energy driving the other one forward though. It can't actually move. Ah.

All right. Step forward onto the front leg of the light. Comes back and up and this is where those hips are just naturally going to turn out cause we want to get out of our own way. You could flex the foot if it helps. Tuck under even more than you have been in. We go and too. This one's quite small. Three, four tall, five easy neck and shoulders. If you don't need the arms, you don't need to use the arms and a of stepping back. Take it around the side to pick it up.

Cool. Next we've got to do some ABS. It's [inaudible], right? So we're going to do something from the one to chair, which if you've ever worked on it, you might recognize it. Let me just show it. Basically you're going to put your ring on your end and we have to be forward folded a little bit as I push down. Um, what do I want to say as I push down on the ring a little bit, I'm pulling up on the ABS trying to essentially not use my arms to push the ring, but rather the spine, the curve of the spine is pushing on the ring and then we'll come up a little. So in real time it's going to look like this. Inhale and exhale. I'm sorry.

I'm going to have you inhale as you push, which is kinda strange. Exhale, scoop, inhale, push, exhale, scoop. And then I have some cues for you that I think will make it feel like more so try. You don't, yeah, turn sideways. That'll feel better. So we can look up here if you need to. The trick is, is go ahead and set the ring down in a, you know, relatively comfortable distance away. Hands are side by side. You may decide that you want your hands just off the ring. That's I mean off the handle. That's appropriate if that feels better to you.

And so first things first, you're looking at maybe mid thigh, mid thigh of your on yourself. Your shoulders press toward your hips, your hips press toward your shoulders, which ought to curve your low back even more. Your head is down in hanging from here. The shape stays the same, perhaps gets a little bit sharper of an angle. Inhale, reach the top of the head to the, toward the floor as it put pressure on the ring. Exhale, scoop. Draw the ABS up and decelerate coming up. Inhale, press down. Exhale as you come up, press the hips toward the face to face toward the hips. Inhale down, keeping that contraction a little bit.

Annex cl belly button to spine. We're going a little faster now you nail breasts and up. If you want to bend the knees a little, that's okay. If you are finding your ring wobbling all over the place, which I just caught myself doing. It's going to wobble some. It's too much hands. It's too much arms. Relax the arms and move the spine down.

Down, up. It's all ab contraction down up. One more time. And with that we're gonna roll on all the way up. Yes. Good. I'm going to finish the magic circle by coming down to our hands and knees. Please place the ring out in front of you on your mat and lie down actually. So the ring is way out in front of you.

Great. Perfect. Take the ring and put it on his end. [inaudible] this is swan. Basically with the magic circle, the ring is out on its end, either hand, side by side on the handle or just outside the handle. Exactly. Dropping your body down in between your arms.

Minimize pressure on the ring at this point so your elbows are straight. The ring is just up. You've drawn the ABS in and now it goes like this. Without applying much more pressure on the ring. You start to draw the head up your head up, upper back. Once you've gone as far as you can, you can apply a little bit of pressure on the ring for help to lift up.

Then bring it all the way to, I'm going to change the breath, I think. I'm not exactly sure what I gave you. Before you go any further, please draw the ABS up. So the low back is long like we've been doing all day. Any helped? Prepare, exhale to lift your head, your chest, metal pressure. Not a lot. I don't, we don't need to get real high. We want to keep, feel it in the mid, upper back and take it down. That's your inhale coming down. X. Sorry.

[inaudible] you should, you for sure are going to feel a stretch in the shoulders. So, um, but yes, Andy, you do. It's very much a stretch in the shoulders. But if it's, if that's all you're feeling, I'm going to say get rid of it. Get rid of the ring altogether. And in fact, just lift the head, neck and shoulders. The higher you lift your back, the easier the stretches. Right? So maybe don't go all the way down if it feels excessive or we can put the ring down. But yeah, it's a tough, that's a tough place to be. Um, Yup. And preferably your elbows would be straight if that's too severe. Um, either move the ring out further or get rid of it because it's just not, I'd rather you not work with a bent elbow. And so if you're not in talk, let's everyone get rid of now just try it this way.

Put the ring down and your arms are going to be straight out on the ground, but wide. Yep, exactly. You're going to leave your hands on the ground this time. It's the exact same exercise. You start to peel your head up your net, keep the arms on the ground. That's way hard. That's a nice exercise. But you're going to slide, so it'll be head, chest, palms on the ground. Yup. And then back down. So the hands are probably just wider than the mat. Head comes up.

Chest is lifting. Curling the back. That's it. Oh, that's gorgeous. Helen. End. Okay. So it's the same thing either. Either way. This may be more effective though. If your shoulders are tight, it looks great. And let's see everybody. Everybody. Okay, so do two more. Feel the articulation of the head PT and then articulate back down the last one coming up.

[inaudible] and all right, hands by your shoulders. Press yourself up and just stretch out your back. I'm going to get these out of the way. Okay. Just resting, letting your low backs be round job hanging out there. Alright, changing gears. Swing round to your feet so you're seated.

So your feet are in the center of the room. Your band nearby. Let me, me have you face that Nancy, just so you don't have to turn your head. There you go. Okay. Sitting up taller. We're going to do a little power ab session here. Holding onto the back of your legs. You're tall. Inhale, start to squeeze the Sitz bones round your low back as you come backwards, backwards, backwards, and hold. Take a second here. Do you gotta find out? Do you feel safe from the, okay, come on back up. Let me ask you, when you're up here, when you're down there, you want to feel, yeah.

Say from the top of the pelvis to the shoulder blades berm like it's no big deal. I'm not saying it's no big deal, but like it's no big deal and if that means you have to walk your feet in a little closer or I have a little props I can give you get to that point and we'll see if we have trouble getting out of it. I'll do something different, meaning I'll help you here. We got, we're up XL. It is a tuck. Very much a tuck. It's a curve. That's it. Squeeze your butt. It will help find it. I'm going to walk my feet in a tiny bit closer just so I get the curve. Lovely little lower, lower. It'll be easier when you get, yeah, now you're there. Wide. Collarbones so it just means we're not here. We're here. Let go. Inhale, exhale. Stay here. You're all right.

Inhale. Still fill all those bones on the mat. Exhale and inhale to exhale. It's about stability. Looks good. One more time. Inhale, find your legs. Exhale. Come forward, you can now walk your feet out. By the way, if you need that a little extra help, keep the curve. As long as you can use your arms if you need them, which I think we might now let's change it a little bit. Take your theraband.

It's the same exercise. It could be construed as easier. But I want to give you a sense of opposition. So you've arrived, you've just taken the band around the bottoms of your feet holding on pretty close to with these bands are agreeing. They're, they're medium supposedly, but they're kind of loose. So we've got to hold pretty close to the ankles cause I want you to have a sense of resistance. Alright, we're s we're tall for the moment. Um, initially I'm just going to say this, cause I s I saw twice. Um, when you go back with this is for everyone. When you start the curve, trying to see what I saw in my head. It's not here, it's, it's, it's almost like my upper body. It's gonna move. But it's just going with eventually it's going to curve cause it has to, but we don't need it to right away. Okay. Thank you. Here we go in here. Exhale. Ah, gorgeous. Keep the collarbones wide though. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Better, Huh? Except pull the ads back. We're coming up.

We've got it now. And straighten your spine. Inhale the arms. We'll just stay straight. It's a little assist. Imagine pushing the bottoms of your feet into the band and inhale and exhale. Keeping that curve. Trying to feel the bones. Inhale, that's it. Looks good. Exhaling down arms are straight. Collarbones wide.

Inhale and exhale. You peel up just as much as you peel down. I'm changing it on the next one. Keep the arm straight. Straight, straight, straight. Yup. I know it goes loose and so you feel like you should bend them. Hold it here. Yeah. If you can go a little lower and Helen, you should enjoy that and now you're folding right where the edge of the chest is. So it's right there. Just a little curves sustained down here too.

Oh my goodness. We got her three blow out your air for, I'm recommending a knee band. You don't have to. Five pressing the low back into their mat. Six inner thighs together. Seven are you breathing? Collarbones wide. Eight, nine, come all the way up on 10 oh, nobody said it was going to be easy. Good. Let the van go for now. Come on down. Bring your feet in a little bit closer and hands behind your head.

Inhale, support your head. Exhale. Roll the chin toward your chest. Curling up through that chest line. Hold. Inhale, grab onto the back of your legs. Exhale, pull the chest, the shoulders towards your hips and curl just a smidge more. Bend your elbows to do it so I know you're using your arms. Yes. Drop the shoulders away from ears. Inhale, float the arms up by the ears. Put them behind your head and lengthen back down, aiming for four.

That ought to do it. Inhale, exhale. Roll Chin to chest, shoulders towards waist low back into the mat. Inhale, grab onto the back of the legs. Exhale. Let the elbows bend to the sides of the room. Blow out your air and flatten the belly. Inhale, the arms go up. The body stays exactly where it was. Put the hands behind your head and lengthen yourself all the way out.

Here we go. Two to go. Good. Inhale. Exhale. Rolling. Chin to chest. You're going to feel if you come high enough that your low back rest in the mat and grab onto the back of the legs. There's your inhale. Exhale, sink the ABS even further. Inhale, arms up. Put them back behind your head. Well done. And down you go. One more. Here comes the inhale. Exhaling up, linking the exercises. Inhale, reach to the back. Exhale, pull, pull, pull. Yes. So Nancy, this is what your tendency is.

Just so you know you're coming here before you go, elbows. So I'll just pull, use your arms. Oh, you guys are fine. Breathe however you need to. Yeah, and now do one of these. Just press the shoulders toward the floor. Stay there. You're so close. I just want to make sure, just press that backwards right here.

There it is. So these are wide and there's your fold. Now fold forward. Just just like that. Just like you. You were, you were struggling and now you're not. Okay. How you doing? Awesome. Inhale the arms go up button behind your head. Listen Up, rotate to the front. Exhale. Inhale, come through middle. Exhale. Is this ridiculous? I didn't do it. So I don't know. The last two shoulder to hip one and do come back to center and down you go.

Oh whew. Yes. Quick stretch all the way out. A little bit of arch is that feels good. Bring your right knee into your chest. How? Getting close. Draw the lower leg. The other leg, left leg, I suppose that would be an extended straight up to the sky. Turn that leg out at the hip joint. The the straight leg. Sorry.

Turn it out so it just went to the side and squeeze your glutes, your butt together. Roll your chin to chest and curl up a bit. Looking at your abdominals. Lower the straight leg, but make sure that your low back didn't change so it doesn't lift up at all and then that's plenty of love. That's great. Change the leg you're holding. Hold it there, lower down and the straight leg goes up. I just want you to feel it on this side too. So the leg is in you then turned it out, squeeze through the inner thigh or the glutes. Start to curl up, holding that knee, lower the leg, keeping it at a place where as soon as you start to move it, it should stop. And now we change legs and exhale and change and change.

So your s you have absolute stillness in your body. So now rather than lowering the straight leg, it's just sly slide sandy, you should be looking straight ahead through the inner thighs. And there we go. And, and let's go and we'll teeniest tiny bit teeniest tiny bit of a turnout. Mostly they hit what you read, Nancy. Check this out. Everybody would bring both knees, the unrest. Um, you two. Yeah, it is.

We didn't have to be at actually parallel as ideal is I'm doing that cause I wanna make sure I get the glue working, but ultimately it's going to be parallel. Um, I know I got you into it by lowering the leg, but what we're going to change it to is just slide sly. There we go. Slide. So check right here. You're dropping it right at the end. You're dropping. So it's just, Oh wow. Yup. Go ahead. You said I'm doing instead of instead of, that's not it. It's here's your target.

Well done. Don't drop it. Slide touch. There you go. Okay, rest good. Alright, so close if you would please. Oh, she likes it. If you would it take your knees. Actually we'll take your knees to the front. So I would have had to do to do, if you're were straight ahead, I lifted and kind of shifted onto the forward the hip.

Close to the front of the room. Hands behind your head. Once again, curl yourself up. Okay. If you need a neck break, you gotta take it. We've been here a while already from here. Jazz crunch into it just a little bit. The lower body still and just press. These are going to be pretty small based on the position press.

And so don't worry about how much you're moving. Rather stay relatively high and add into it. Good. Good. Take the arm of the leg closest to the front of the room or the screen crossover. Just like you're reaching for that hip. That's your direction. Your knees are pointed to the front, but your upper body is almost gone the other way. Almost not really trying to, that's it.

It's not just the net gang. It's not just the neck. You've got to move the spine. If you're gonna move anything one more. And that'll do. Let your heads go down. Bring your feet center and then switch. [inaudible] um, how much of your back is coming off? I don't know. Hold on. Let me think about that a quite a lot. If you mean I'm in black, can I use you? Can I use your back? Come knees this way.

So it's quite a lot. Is that now I don't need the knees on the ground. What I need you to feel like is that you're a no curve. So maybe another way of saying is let's exaggerate too much of it. If she were here and she created a little bit of an arch, then went to lift. You'd end up feeling like you were working your back I think so.

If you start to feel that rather bring the knees up a little bit and Tuck, so I'll, I'll let me watch for how you're doing it. Let's switch sides. That looks great. You could even take your knees a little further if you wanted to, but that actually looks quite fine to me. And then aim your right shoulder towards me. Oh, Yup, Yup, Yup. That's it. Okay. Ready to go. We're following sandy now.

So what I want from you, so I'm just going to go like Zach now. Press go ahead. Give yourself 20 okay. One and two is actually is better. That's a much better just, there you go. There you go. Here's your muscle focuses. Obelisks that you feel that good. I can feel that. Can good my dear.

Pull back into your head and just move there. That's it. You're counting out your 20 for yourself. When you've done that, you get to go center and we'll stretch you out. All done. Good. All [inaudible]. Once you're finished with that, you're going to bring, come to a pelvic curl starting position, which just means your feet are slightly apart. Take your time. If you're not there, arms will end up down by your side. And believe it or not, this is still an abdominal exercise. Your arms are reaching and spread out so you feel, I don't know what you feel. Inhale, exhale, sink the ABS.

You're rolling up through a pelvic curl, bone by bone basically. So yeah, good, good. Looking for a long line. So that's the place we tuck sandy tiny bit more. And then inhale, everybody rolls down from the top of their back, your upper back, your middle back. Start to minimize your glute. Squeeze all the way down to the level position in help prepare where you reach the arms. If they've crept up on you, exhale, you roll through the spine.

That means your low back presses into the mat. As your tailbone tilts up and off. Keep lifting it. I'm going to stop you right here. Wherever you are. Stop. Then, um, I want to say put your hand on your pubic bone, but I know no one's gonna do that. So let's just think about where our pubic bone is or the base of the pelvis and bring it toward the chest more. So get as much of a curve as you can. Then just use your legs to lift higher.

[inaudible] should I have warned you about the train, Nancy? That looks good. I'm going to just check it though. Yeah. Lovely. Inhale. Exhale. Come back down from the top of your back. Reach up right there. Yes. Gorgeous tomorrow. And we'll be done with that. Inhale. Exhale up. Straight up, staying there in here, closing their rib cage. And that can be done really just by thinking of that exhale.

And then we come back down. Your chest falls to flight control where you rounding looks good and not a lot of motion in the spine initially. Maybe a tiny bit closer with your feet. Yeah. In here. And this is it. Exhale we roll off long next, resist the temptation to look behind you and hang out here for three breaths. Inhale on the exhale. Feel yourself hugging the midline of the body, the inner thigh, the ribs. She's kind of coming towards center. Inhale again, and exhale.

Minimize the pressure on your feet. How else could you hold yourself up there? And one more breath there. And then slowly at whatever breath feels good to you. Bring yourself down. Legs. Come up to tabletop. Winding it down here. Promise, uh, [inaudible] feet apart. So they're just easy. Bring your head, neck and shoulders up and create sort of a curve to your back. So hold on underneath.

Create a little tuck of the tailbone so it almost comes off. And hold on here. That's going to be way easier. Get a little kick going and just rock. We're not really trying to do anything except for keep it fluid down and down. The legs don't kick any more than when they did. Exhale forward.

Inhale back your role at eventually end up rolling up to about the shoulder blades. Keep the curve. Keep looking down where you start. You stay. Yes. So let's get a little momentum. And by momentum, I mean controlled momentum. So initially you can get a little bit more rock. Just like la La la. Have some fun. Good. Nancy's good at this one. So we are going to not let her go that far back for last to one.

She's going to tap your shoulder blades right there and come back. Oh, now she's working on one more time up and hold. If it works for you, Cross your legs and sit like so if that doesn't work for you, uh, you can actually sit however you want. You can sit with your knees like so. You could sit with them, stretched out. You could sit with in a diamond. What we, what I want is you as comfortable as you can be upright. You could even roll a mat or sit on a pillow. Does anyone want a pillow? No.

Okay. Holding on. Squeeze your glutes or your inner just so that you can't, you won't be able to arch your back. Your low back, your tall. Take a big deep breath. Start to lift your chest and your eyes, keeping the glutes somewhat toward each other. It's a really hard place to actually get them to squeeze, but you can do your best looking for work in your upper back again and release. I can tell you I am holding pretty strongly with my arms. Recommit to hugging the middle or trying for inner thigh squeeze.

You just grow taller. Your chest starts to lift up. You let your eyes follow the idea of going up as well, trying to arch just the upper back without leaning back. It's like shining a light up to the ceiling and release one more of those easy rise little galoot inner thigh squeeze. Chest starts to lift. I start to follow or other way around. If you prefer feeling the shoulder blades gently falling down your back as you try to arch the upper back and release and around forward.

If that suits you and you are done, we'll add the last but I'm going to hang out for a second. I recommend you do too, unless you gotta run cause I a little tardy [inaudible] fact in our a good Polonius instructor, I would ask you to switch the crossing your legs so you get the other hip if you were doing it in the first place. [inaudible].

Comments

I liked seeing new ways to use my magic circle-
Loved this class! Thanks Kristi!
Really good for posture, good hints where to focus! I like the way you explain things Kristi
Thank you Ingrid!
Patrick T
Kristy, you make Pilates so doable for me. Thank you .
love this class thank you
Debbie R
enjoyed the class! Thanks!!

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