Class #243

Play with Variations

55 min - Class
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Description

Kristi does her best to meet the many requests of this skilled group of participants in the class. An emphasis is placed on the abdominals, spinal rotation, upper back extension, and hamstrings. It is a fun class for the student who has the experience and wants to play around with variations.
What You'll Need: Mat

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Sep 06, 2010
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You need some abs. What'd you say? You've been boosting it up, you know, that's the second time we're going to get her. You're going to get her reputation. Aaron. She's going to boot it today. Okay, good. Okay. I do have standards. It's like spit out your gum and sober up. Yeah. Hung over.

So we're having requests for arm stuff and twist and abs cause I can we cover that? You want to do some, Oh, that's a good idea. I'm think you're thinking of hip work. She's okay. So a little reformer on the mat with, okay. These are my requests. Let's see if I can keep track. I have, um, can you do some apps? Check. I know I can do that one. Um, second one was arms twist.

It's rotation shoulder something or other. Yeah. Remind me, um, upper shoulder. Yeah. Yeah, it can. I'll just have Mary takeover at that point. Yeah, yeah. Um, what do I call that? I don't know yet. I'll think of it. And then we had some reformer work, right? And then hip stretching too. Okay. And you bet 100% from the very first word. Go. We are working in hamstrings. Okay? Okay. Sit up to hall.

We're gonna get right into it. Assuming you didn't just have to listen to all that tall. Hold onto the back of your legs. Find your spine. We've got a spot right there for you nation. Take a big inhale, Jennifer. I bet you're going to want to move forward based on where I'm headed.

On your exhale, squeeze the glutes a little. Start to roll the pelvis back. Go to the top of the pelvis, top of the hip, Chris. So lean cells back. Feel the hamstrings right now. My, if you keep going, keep going. You can adjust your feet. Um, I didn't say whether your feet are together, part's up to you. I tend to like them together for help. Inhale, hold. Exhale. Come right back up. Press the abdominals backwards.

You're welcome to use your arms, right. Use the breath right now to create a simple spine. Inhale, and we were focusing on the ads X. He'll take it back. Let's see. I think I'm going to face it this way for now. When do you seem so far away? Inhale and exhale. Come forward. When do we, you tell me if you can't hear me and straighten up. Inhale, take a moment. Just fill your collar bones or wide exhale so that there's no sense of dropping at any point holding it there. I did go lower, I know I said top of the pelvis, but I'm about mid back now.

Inhale and exhaling up. All right, let's go a little faster shall we? You're either holding or not annex Hill, roll back. Inhale, exhale, roll forward. Since the movements a little quicker, the breath won't go quite as deep. I don't want anyone to hyperventilate or feel like I'm not giving you enough time, so sort of match the breath with your move and exhaling back. Inhale, exhaling forward. It's more of a rocking last time and back to come forward and up.

This see about extending your arms up overhead. We rotate toward the front. I'm going to check them off. All in the first four exercises are all down. If you take the pressure off, slide over to the other side and I did that just by rotating. Again, come up on that side. And truthfully, I'm pretty much coming up the middle with the exception of the upper body toward the back. Inhale, rotate. Be tall. Exhale. It's as if the hips get pulled out from underneath. You. Keep those collarbones wide. Now we switch over. Inhale and exhale coming up.

Now, if that feels like too much too soon, we're going to the front. You can hold on the whole time. You can minimize the range. Taking it down, switch over the hips, never move here and up we go, huh? And at the last moment straight ended up to the back. Inhale, grow taller on the rotation. Let's try not to anticipate too much. Go ahead and roll. Switch to the other side. And up we come. And finally back to the center. Straightening up. Hold from here.

Walk your feet in a little closer from wherever you started and we take it down. When you get to your shoulder blade, stop. Bring one knee up to tabletop. The other, you can stay here if you'd like. Otherwise, we're stretching the legs out on a high diagonal, making sure the low back didn't change at all. Either stay there and start doing your hundred breath or start doing your hundred breath and walk across the feet. Inhale two, three, four, five and exhale. It's up to you. If you want a pump, I'm not going to pump cause I'm crossing. And inhale, two, three, four, five, two, three, four, five. So we're just doing a little crossing of the legs. I never quite stop. I'm not walking. I'm just sort of alternating, lowering, lifting and inhale. Two, three, four, five at two, three, four, five and down. You don't lower your legs any more than what? P a.

In other words, keep your back flat and still and down. Two, three, four, five. We're reaching through the shoulder girdle and about three to go. So at any point, if you start to feel things in places you don't want to feel things modify by bending the knees by stopping all this craziness with the legs, giving you one more round and down. Two, three, four, five day. Get up. Two, three, four, five. Bend the knees, slide the legs out on the mat, reach the arms overhead, put your head down on the mat. Feel the entire rib cage. And for a roll up we inhale head, neck and shoulders up. Exhale to lift off.

Start those exhales before you intend to lift off your shoulder blades. Inhale and exhale down and back slightly quicker than my normal pace, but not by much in certainly no less precise and nice and inhaling up. Start. Exhaling. Good. I would recommend slightly bending your knees on that one little part and down week. If you get stuck on the one part, maybe slightly bend, knees, press, heels down. Yeah. Yeah. And are you having one more to come up? Inhaling then you exhaled the liftoff from here.

Stay at a hands by your sides. Put your hips forward to come into rolling like a ball. Draw the feet in close. Close, close. I tend to like to do it in these together cause that's how I was taught. But feel free to separate. If you do separate the knees though, the expectation is that you're going in closer. Okay. Here we go. For a rolling.

Inhale, roll back to the shoulder blades. Exhale up, hold and inhale, roll back where you start, you stay. That's the challenge on this one. Finding ease in the neck and shoulders. Even though the spine is curved. One more like that, you either keep it like that or reach the arms forward. The relationship between your legs and chest. It does not change. Here we go. Inhale back. Nor does the relationship from the feet to the hamstrings.

So even here you have a little sense of glute contraction. One more time and hold from their feet down. Slide your legs down. Take the arms out to a tee or low V position. Extend the light closest to the back of the room straight up. Now that's not accessible to all of us, probably on any given day, so feel free to bend the lower leg if you like, but the pelvis is level and down. Flex the foot encouraged the stretch going towards the window.

Five circles. It's an inhale around and an exhale. The object of the game is two. It's actually going to be three a four breath cycles. So one more full inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale, change. Go the other way. Inhale around and exhale.

The object is to keep the rest of the body absolutely still make it smaller. If you have to, you're in charge. You're in control. One more full cycle. Inhale to exhale. Hold it up. Point the toe, bend the knee and cross it over the body. Huh? Ones for you, Jim. Did you get it right? [inaudible] sorry. Love to leave you there, but no such luck.

Bring it back straight a level out your hips, right? You have to shimmy usually get them all level back of the ribs are down. Draw the other leg up first to bent in. Double check. So it's as if there's a heavy, I dunno, blanket on the the trunk. Flex the top or the foot. Here we go. Crossing the midline.

Inhale and exhale in and exhale. There's a bit of a rhythm. It's a giraffe up whole drop a whole one more cycle in and changing directions. Take it around and I'll round up. Inhale and exhale. Looking to find freedom in the hip joint. One more cycle. Looks good. Emily.

Nice rhythm. And from that you point the toe, bend the knee and now crossover. Enjoy the line. And PyLadies is always, it's not that expensive. You get chiropractic, you get all in one all in one deal. Okay, bring it back. That's enough fun. Bring your arms up right above your chest and hug that space. You know, energize it. Feel that all of this around you. I can feel your energy from here. Start your roll up please. Good. Terrific. From here, we're going to come into bending the knees, bring them in, close hands, slide up to the, probably closer to the knees and we're going to slowly lower to the shoulder blades. And then we're coming back. Here we go.

So just I'm pushing my knees into my hands and I'm pulling my hipbones and deeper into the body or tucking as I lower down, ending up sort of in a tabletop. Then go a little lower gym. Yeah, we're coming back up. Let's make it look just as easy, huh? And if it's not, you can hold behind. You can stretch the legs away from you. Just don't lower the legs. And if you keep the shoulders where they were, it's pretty intense. Yeah, I know. That's the downside. If you have a lot of lotion on, that's actually just more challenging cause some you don't have to hold on to do it. She says going down, squeeze the glutes. Oh boy. Oh boy. Carry on. Think about yourself. Yeah. One more. Squeeze the glutes. I promise you. It's everything.

You can't just work the ads guys. You just, it just is not balanced and it's not helpful either. All right, so going down on one last time. Well for now, let your heads go down and we're going into the hip work from the reformer. So, um, you have, well I'll just say this, bring the knees just a little closer to you than they were at 90 degrees. Let the knees come apart like a frog. So you're like, so flex the feet, your feet are just a little bit higher than your knees and your hands are behind your head fully cradling your head. Elbows are just off from their curl the head, neck and shoulders up and know that your entire spine, well from the shoulder blades down is touching and we go into the frog.

It goes kind of a high reach. Exhale, extend the legs. One inhale, pull them back in. Exhale, push out to, so you're curled up, curled up, curled up. Yep. And three. Now the legs are obviously somehow involved here, but can you imagine that you didn't have the lower leg there at all? Even if you'd let go of the flex flex foot and squeeze from the galoot. One more time. Work both ways like you're coming through the air as if it were solid.

Now taking the leg straight up as best you can. Softly points. Squeeze the glutes like crazy. Lower the legs a little. Don't let your back move separate circle. Bring them up one and up to, if you want a breath pattern, I would probably say inhale here. Exhale right there. Inhale as they come up, exhale as I go down. One more time.

Be nice to your back. Change directions open. Exhale, press down and around. Inhale up separate feet. Exhale down and around. Inhale up. This is what you met, isn't it? Exhale. Inhale up stability, gang stability. Look forward notion holding it up. Let your heads go down if you can maintain this position, stay here if that's too much for your hip flexors, take your hands right at the edge of the gluten.

Let yourself be slightly tucked. Turn the legs outward, knees point to the side and we go. Your heads are down. Inhale, open. Flex the feet. Exhale, bring it back together. Squeeze the glutes, heads arresting. Inhale, flex and squeeze. Trying not to drive too much energy through the inner thigh. Good. Excellent. Give me yourself about two more and one and half. Let's take it out to the side and again, you can always put your hands under your hips.

Flex the feet if they're not already and just push up. Release, push up, let go, push up, go. I'm only going about few inches up and then taking it back down. Hey, listen to your body. Feel free to bring your head up off the ground a little if you need to to. It actually makes it a little easier on the back. One more time. Bring your legs all the way together. Then down to the mat, arms down by your side if they're not already there, separating your feet so that they are just sit bones, distance apart.

Reach the arms for pelvic curl. Inhale on the exhale. We roll the spine. Enjoy that. Here we go. If and this is your first major hamstring one, so let's look for that sensation of drawing the hips toward the heels. Okay? That's how you're going to get the good sensation of stretching through the front. Inhale, and we exhale and stretch our way back down. Placing the bones into the mat, elongating your neck, opening the shoulders. We go again. Exhale. Roll up, up, up. All right, so let's stay here for a second.

Just want to take a look for a second. Oh God, you guys look good, Sherry. Maybe you could go a little higher in your hips. Ah ha. That's it. That's actually it. Inhale, exhale. Come on down. Oh, Jennifer, well done. Now Jennifer, that looks a little crowded with your heels that close to your booth. If it's not bothering you, it's okay, but just check that out. One more. We'll actually, we'll add to it. Exhale to peel up, I think a spacial problem here.

Holding it there on your next exhale. Take your right leg up off the ground, stretch it all the way up. If you can, great. From here on your exhale point and kick that leg down on flex. Bring it up and kick.

Two and three and four. Good stillness everywhere else. The last one. That's six. Hold it up. Hold it up. No peeling. This time just lower the hips. Touch the ground. Squeeze your glutes, lift one touch down. Lift to touch down the rate of six, four, five. Hold it up. Six double check. Stay there.

Double check that you have not thrusted the ribs up, although I don't see it so refold the leg. I'd like you to roll halfway down your back, maybe to the bottom of the ribcage. Very scooped, very rounded. Very good. Inhale and exhale. Roll up new. Should we need your right foot. Placed a little further out or left foot in. Yeah, so their level. Good. And your little left leg comes up.

Stretching it high. Here we go for six and reach whole one. Flex, come up, end reach two, three. There's some freedom in the moving leg. One more come up, stay up and now without their [inaudible] you just lower down. Press up one. It's very tempting to make that a, the ribs get ahead of the pelvis. Let's not let that happen. I think this is six, right? Get there, stay there pointed toe. Bring that leg back. Inhale and exhale. We rolled out.

We are all down. We roll down and I want your take on hits. We bring the legs up to tabletop. We're going to do the extended double leg stretch. Oh boy. Oh boy. Lots of words. It goes like this. Inhale, curl up like you're doing the a hundred here it is. Inhale, reach forward. Extend the arms and legs, just your arms. Exhale, circle round. Inhale, curl up like an inch with your upper body. Maybe exhale, pull the knees in, grab the knees and put your head down on the mat. Starting again.

Everything goes forward. Inhale, arms and legs like you're going to do the a hundred exhale, circle the arms. Inhale, come up an inch and a half or not. You don't have to do that part. Exhale, pull the knees in and then lower down. Touch your head going against. Squeeze the glutes. Inhale, reach. Exhale, circle, hook. Come up a couple inches when dude and pull them in and down. You touch.

Inhale, everything reaches forward. Exhale, circle. Inhale up three to three and draw it in and down. If you would like, you can do a teaser on the next one. Inhale, reach forward. Exhale, circle. Either stay here, just inhale or roll yourself up. Keeping the legs in place. Exhale. Start to bend the knees.

Pull them as deep and roll down touching your head. One more time. Inhale, reach forward. This is where the hamstrings and glutes can help you, I promise, and up. If it's all abs, you're just going to get stuck. Nothing wrong with abs, but we said we tend to say too much all the way down. Let your heads rest for the moment. That's the moment. Curl right back up. This is for Aaron, right?

Extend the light closest to the window would be the wall front one and change and one. Oh, and to put your fingers on your glutes. Maybe. Are they working a little? Just a little bit. Not a lot. Good pull. Yeah. Go ahead and find your normal position. We'll go for four, three, two. Bring both knees in, hands behind your head. Flex your feet. Keep your eyes forward. I'll be clear. Squeeze the glutes, stretch the legs out on a high diagonal one.

Pull them back in. Now you don't need to go to straight legs here. If you do, make sure your back is absolutely firmly in the mat and evenly so and three. This is it. And pull it in pointed toes. Crisscross toward the front. Here we go. And on one. I'm going a little slower here because I want you to know that your hips are absolutely still, I did go back to softly pointed feet and reach, reach and twist. Twist left. Four, four, three, three, two, two and finish it to the back.

Come back center and let the light come down to the mat. Stretch your arms overhead. Slide your legs out, Bolton together. And we roll up one more time. You can always just rock up if that was enough ads. You do good. I'll follow Jennifer's leading round over and we come up for the um, yeah. Gotcha. We'll do climate tree first and then we'll do spine stretch so that you're all stretched out and ready to go. Okay. Taking your leg closest to the back.

If you know climate tree great, but it's a little different. We're going to sit just behind the sit bone or the tailbone. So in looking for a long back, it's a bit of a leak. Yeah, just want to see it before we go. Okay. Yeah. Lovely. Okay.

So now it's just encouraging more of what you already have to Jim. You can be a little flat in Europe. Rebecca. Yeah, there you go. So we do three little pulses of the leg closer to the thigh, stretching the spine, two and three. Keep your back as straight as you can. Just as it is. Try to straighten the leg. It may or may not happen. I'd rather you keep your back from there. We ring the leg up a bit more.

Taking the body back a little further and now walk down. It's got to be, I'm, I'm promising you. I'm trying to squeeze the inner thighs toward each other down to just to the shoulder blades. Three let go. Circle arms. Now as you walk up, this leg that's in the air will have to travel away a little bit. Grab on one, two, three. Find your stretch again. Inhale and refold to start the whole business again. So we listed toe. One, two, three. Keep the back straight as you can. The one bring it back a little bit. That means the whole position. Now you walk down thinking both legs are involved. One, two, three.

Stay forward. As you circle the arm round and start your way back up. You're welcome for now to push the leg into their hands that you're climbing with, but ultimately you won't need that. Inhale here, come on. [inaudible]. One more pulse in one, two, three. Stretching and walk down. One to light on yourself. Three, circle the arms up we come. Looking good.

One to watch shoulders. Three. We're going to stay up here for a minute because I had a couple of requests. So if you can be in a straight like great, try to grab outside. If you're really flexible, you'll grab the outside of the foot. So I just took the opposite hand and the leg in the air.

Other hands to the ground and shoot it. She didn't like first. All I'm going to do for those of you who can't see is sit tall and rotate. Okay. If you need more it band, you're going to press the leg across the midline and then try and pull that hip, the hip that you're, that's up in the air back like your turns. Stick your butt out a little bit. Yeah.

All right. Come back. Come back and just take that same foot. Turn it out. So you're like, so just like that and sit up tall and we're stretching forward with that. Yeah, be careful. Is this the one? Yeah. So what are the things that can help? Your stretch is encouraging length through your spine.

So if we just round over, we could sit here all day, but if you take those hips forward as much as possible, then round forward it becomes a different deal. Ah, judging by the moaning, we're hitting the spot. Let's walk back up and let's do the other side. So tips for making it feel really kind of fun is to take this leg that appears to be doing nothing and anchor it into the floor. [inaudible] there's certain times it won't, but there's certain times that we'll, and I'll try and highlight them.

So here we are. We're tall, kind of proud, long spines. Here we go. Pulse, one, two, three. And stretch it up right here. You just try to tilt the whole position back and now walk down one, I'm exhaling. Two, three. Inhale, circle the arms. Keep your connection in your powerhouse so it's not an arm leg thing necessarily. In fact, at all. Two, three, inhale, stretch up. Challenge yourself, get a little more each time. And exhale, fold. Two, three, inhale, stretch. Now, sometimes real quick, peak up here. Check and see if you're one of these people that in an attempt to straighten your back, you look up and though you can see higher does not mean you are higher.

So feel the connection go all the way through your spine. And where are we? We're walking back. Here we go and walk down to three. Inhale, circle. I think it's just one of those things that we have to think about sometimes cause you might even be flexible and still do it. So feel the spine grow and then the head. And here we go. Last one, two, three, maybe two more.

And walk it back. One, two, three circle and one, two, three. Big stretch. I must've done four. That seems way too fast. Lift your chest. Lifted chest. There we go. Nation. And let's do one more just in case. We'll pulse two, three and stretch. Let's see, Dan. No, go ahead. Don't let me hold you back. Come on, come on.

Okay. Don't hurt yourself. Hi. Just checking. Just checking. Circle to all. Let me limit you by my flexibility. Oh right, right, that's right. Okay. This is it. Lightly flex grab either outside the foot or outside, just enough that you can use that other hand. You might even want to lean back and do it. That's all fine. This back arm, if you need to cross over, I'm trying to get, you may get hip, hopefully maybe get it banned.

Some of you will get more back and some of you just can't wait for it to end. So, um, it's about to, where do you feel if anywhere. Hip. Fantastic. Good. All right. Carefully unwind and take that foot on the instep. That's, that's honestly what I'm trying for is the hip. It's kind of a tough position. If you have tight hamstrings, you're probably getting more hamstring. But um, that's great. So here we are, straight spine as much as you can can just forward closing the gap between the hip flexors and quad or leg and then round over when it feels right to do so. This is where you sort of explore.

I think you know whenever you're in a held stretch and you can pretty much bet you've gone to your path of least resistance and then just sort of play with, you know, I don't know if I turned my foot to be totally straight. Would that change things? If I flexed my foot with that change thing? If I, you know any, any version of that? Okay, help yourselves up. I promise you spine stretch right after that. So here it comes. I'm doing the version where the hands start behind your head just for alignment and then we'll go all right, tall, squeezing the glutes, gently pressing down with the legs.

Exhale when it's time to roll, which is now, here it is. Exhale, rounding down, tightening your abdominals to make the curve of the spine. You can travel forward a little bit. Then from the tailbone, start elongating finding that long spine that you've already stretched yourself out. Four exhale. Extend your arms. Good. Get longer in your spine. Just think it. So all you gotta do. Inhale, refold arms. Exhale round forward and roll up. Squeezing the glutes here at the top and throughout. Inhale. Exhale, rounding over. Flow out all your air. Prove it to yourself without strain.

Inhale, extending the spine as gentle sense of sticking the glutes out. Head would come into alignment last. Extend the arms. Exhale. Inhale as your arms. Refold get longer in the spine. Find opposition there. Exhale forward and roll it up. And inhale. Exhale. Feel just under the CESC. Yes, very nice. Deep breath.

Good soften around your shoulder, Sherry. Just attach. Yup. Inhale into back extension nation. Your head will be last, last, last left. Look down. Let your spine keep going. Yep. And extend the arms. Yes. Inhale refold and down we go. Adding the last little piece that you know, exhale to round.

Inhale, challenge yourself. You know the exercise. You know what it feels like. Where can you go with it? Let's hang out up here. Let the arms be relatively soft. So Deborah, inhale, bring your arms to everybody. Bring your arms. Two goalposts. You just bent to 90 degrees. Exhale, rotate. Left. Inhale, extend your arms from there. Exhale, back to center.

Would it be too much to go right? I got to, I can't remember if I don't anthill goalpost arms. Exhale, rotate, right? Do not shift your hips. Oh, that's different. Inhale, extend your arms there. Light. Exhale, center. Just inhale, exhale, round over and bring it back up to the starting position. Any questions? Yes, absolutely. I just have to remember it. So leaving the arms here. Now inhale. It's the same.

Start minus the arms behind your head. Exhale, round down. Thank you for that Debra. Little inspiration. Inhale, grow into the long spine. The arms simply follow the line. They end up right alongside your ears if that's available to you. Keep your spine there. Inhale, come into the goalpost arms and do not thrust your chin. Chest forward.

Keep the ball in a rotate left. Extend the arms. That must be an inhale somewhere right there. I don't know. Back to center and that must be right. Inhale, bend. I don't know. Anyhow, bend arms. Is that right? Okay. Exhale, rotate. It's actually true. I've never done this before. Straighten your arms. Lean into initial. Let's get your back. Lean way into it. Way into it, way into it and uh, turn center round forward when you're ready and roll.

[inaudible] one more time. One more time. I do too. It's a bit much, but I'm Nooshin all I was talking about was you have this lovely lean here. We want to keep that you, you seem like you're backing up out of it. So keep wherever we are. Keep. Okay, thanks. Here we go. Feet are all wide. His mat here. An exhale round. Why's mealing this? By the way, your hands can stay on the, your shins too, right?

You inhale into your back extension. You don't have to use the arms at all, although it'll get weird here. Right? Arms up. If you are using an inhale, bend to the goalpost. Exhale, rotate left. It's not huge. Inhale, extend. Or you could just stay there. Exhale back to center to the right. Get a longer. If it's starting to do anything weird, you got to come out of it bit. Sorry. Bend, elbows, rotate. Right. Extend.

Feel the long neck there. That's it. And then back to center and round over and stay rounded. Stay around. Yeah. Malaria. We like to call the rhomboids extensors. Little bit of external rotation in there too, of the shoulder.

All right. Help yourself up. Maybe skip forward on your mat for open leg rocker. I'm losing them. Losing them. I can feel it. All right, here we go. Pick him up. Oh, there they are. Still working, aren't they? Yeah. Inner thighs engage. Here we go. Inhale. Roll back to the shoulder blades. Exhale up and at the last moment, grow long.

Inhale back. This is where you try and connect, right? You just kind of use everything we've been using lightly. It's not a huge amount of strain. In fact, the lighter you are, the easier tends to be, particularly in thinking, right? If you think, Oh boy, will I or won't tie, get back up. Chances are you on hold higher? If it's too easy. Ha.

When is this ever too easy? Yeah. Not for me. Oh, I'm gonna make that the last one. Sorry. I'll wait for you and then bring it in and let's turn to face the front, top leg in front about to go into side bend first. Um, if you don't want to be on your arm, please go to your forearm. If you don't know what the side bend is, I'd prefer you do it on your form because there's just, it's the same thing. Okay. Um, I'm going to say do what they're doing, which is put your feet this way. Yeah. Good. Cause I think that was perfect. All right. Listen to your body first things first. If you gently sync, pull away from it.

Innercise or squeeze or your glutes squeezed a switch your feet MFI, top foot in front. Ready? Windy. Here we go. Inhale, lift up and just hang out for a minute. So you're looking for a long line. Good. Jennifer, just commit. You're there. Yes, exactly. Commit to your position. Lift up out of your waist to go over. I'm going to ask for nobody turning your head just yet. Okay. And the only reason is cause I want you to know that you are in fact straight in your body, meaning not rotated. Inhale, come back on.

Feel the crown of your head. Reach out the sidewall, bend and come down. Good. What happens if people turn in, the whole body goes and let's do one more without turning your head in. I'll lift up. Inner thighs are so strong. In fact, use your lower inner thigh to push the upper one out of your way. Oops, yes. And come back, back and down. Oh yeah. Sorry Helen. I forgot to do that. This time. If you want to turn your head, you will, but it's just the same thing. You lift, you come up out of the arm and at the last moment just your head turns down, deepen your stretch or your work. Inhale open back to the tee and down we go. One more for four and lifter. Up and over.

Changing it slightly. Come back to the tee. Either bend the knees to come down or hinge at the waist. Keep the like straight and lift and lower and lift and lower. One more and bend the knees to come down. All the, all the way to the, let's go forearm tonight. I'm making this railroad.

Actually, no, we'll do, we'll keep going. Stretch your legs out. Tip of the elbow would be most challenging. Form would be middle of the road. All the way down is just a little less to deal with on the shoulder. So pick whichever one you want. In any case, let's let the feet be a little bit in front of you. Okay.

Okay. Top leg is lifted. Let's, let's be conscious to try to stay on pace to the front. Exhale, kick one, one and back and one, one and back. Good. So flexing, flexing, point, reach and lengthen out of the hip. It's a funny cue. It's probably not really possible, but we tend to suck the leg in, right? Get real long. Let the leg be free. And press, press and Rouge. Once again about the stability of the trunk. Press, press and reach. Press, press, reach. Feel where the glute hamstring connection starts to be made.

One more here. LA, LA, hold it to the back. Wherever you are. Imagine someone pulled you by the ankle and let it be pulled. Let the hip go with take the leg and all I'm asking for here, I don't know how to say it, so I got to do it. Is tuck just a little, so you've stretched in a just a little tuck from there. Hopefully you feel a little connection. It's just back straight back, back. Teeny tiny.

You should already be as far back as you can go and then you get a little more [inaudible]. Yeah, same thing. Bend the knee a little. Just a little. Flex the foot two and press press, press nine. I've got one, two, three, four. How many did I have to do? Four. No one's talking to me. All right. From there, straighten the leg back out. It's still behind you. Take it in front of you. That's good. Flex the foot there. Lift one, two.

Just out three. Good for exactly five, six, seven, nine and check it. Bring it in. Yeah. Let's take that leg in front of the other one. Push the opposite knee or the knee FOA. For me to feel much of a stretch here. I also reached the tailbone behind me so I was rather than just here. I'm also doing that.

You made like a better on your back to doing the same thing, right enough. Switch heads in the middle side. Bend everybody's face in front as far as the legs are concerned. Stretch them out a little bit. You'll you, you'll most, you'll have to adjust on the first one. Okay, so proud. It's all, if you're proud you're there. Here we go. Inhale, lift up. Long. Exhale up in O. inhale, real lengthen and down [inaudible] and inhale, push the lower leg into the upper leg. Not really critical but sometimes it helps and and inhale shits its body weight on the arm but you can really lighten it up by holding strong in the middle and down. Good and lift. Feel that arm pit almost drawing towards the waist. Come back to the side and hinge at the waist.

If you did on the other side and lift up a little one and and lift two and [inaudible] the re we held and we bent to Kim out of it, down to the sidekick, stretching the legs out slightly in front of you. Another modification you can do is to bend the lower leg to 90 we want, we want the balance work in there, but if it messes everything up, not so much we don't want it. All right, so it's a similar side bend position in that you're lifted long top leg up to the front. We go. Exhale, kick front, inhale, reach back and two, two and three three. It might be worth, I don't know if closing the eyes would be good idea, but really I'm trying to feel what's happening in the body. How much do you feel like you're shifting or controlling? Not shifting. Just good to note things sometimes and sweep all the while making the biggest RQ can meaning furthest away from you too and press press and Rory and fo forward.

Back to more far back and forward. You held it back. Check it out. Try for a little poster tuck of the pelvis or elongating the back. I just want to look at backs. Good. Fantastic. Fantastic. If you can take your leg a little further back condition, you should. Yup. Okay.

From there it's just little presses straight back. It's just from the glute. The hamstrings are involved. It's true, but think gluten slightly. Bend the knee. Flex that foot and press straight back to, and what I'm going to ask for? Good. My pain is just level. Knee to ankle. Yeah. Close to 10 it's gotta be 10 okay, good. Stretch it in front, right?

Oh no. Bring in front all the way. That's what I said. Yeah. All the way in front. Nice. And long before you get really into it. Pull that top hip back just a little. So if we brought it forward, you then pull back straight back and lift one lift is pretty tiny. Very good. Tray for Helen's getting sunburned over here and now you can stretch it out. Yeah, top leg crossed in front.

You may decide to let the hip stick out just a little bit. Maybe you still with me? Okay. All right. These two like completely spot. Oh, it's like they're like statues of like contortion. Okay. Hands and knees facing the center please.

Well, I'm about to go back into something very similar, but it can be done on the forums. If you decide you don't want to be on your hands, extend your legs back into a plank position and I'm just sitting bones distance apart and nice and long with the body. But you should be able to feel subtly your hamstrings here. Okay. Um, so look for it. How do you do it? Make sure that you, it's like an attempt to tuck your pelvis, but you stop the actual rounding of the back by pressing the legs toward the ceiling. I've got my feet on the floor. I'm not doing the magic up here.

I'm just saying image-wise. All right, from there, pickup your right leg. Let's leave it. Let's point it softly pointed and it just cross or try to take it to the midline. So you're basically in the coming toward the center one and two. Both lights work in three, four, five and hold six right close to your midline. And lift straight up from there. One, two, three, four, five backs. Do not move. Put the foot down, change the legs and lift it straight up. Soft point, cross toward the middle. One, two, three, four, five, six analysts, one, reach it long, two, three, four, five and six but foot down. Lift up to up. Stretch position.

You might need to walk the feet just a little closer. [inaudible] that. Bend the knees for a moment. Draw weight away from the hands a little bit. Try to straight in the mouth. The legs may or may not happen, but do encourage the tailbone somewhat toward the ceiling so we get along the spine from here. Rise up on the toes a little bit. How try to be clear. I'm going to take that right leg up in the air again. Yup. I've bent it foot flexed and we're going to just press from there.

Just from there. Again, it works on the forums too and sure, trying to let the knee get a little bit higher or at least as high as the glute and it's in parallel for now and press and press. This could all be done on forearms and the opposite knee easily. Okay. Holding it up that same leg as up. You're just going to open the hip. Nasty. Then me, that'll whole egg is going to end up pointing to the side or the back of the room in this case or the front of the room, his case maybe. And from there lift the knee and foot up. Up.

Take weight out of the arms by reaching the chest and body back towards the leg. Hang your head a little and then we bring it down. Unwind it. Lets come off the hands for a moment to an upright position every time. Not, not a class. Do I have every time? Tuck your pelvis. Can you hear me Wendy? Nope. Okay. It's a thigh hand.

So we're going to tuck the pelvis. Oh good. Here we go. I'll get that other side. Remember you did the right leg. Yeah, we hinge back. Yeah, eyes straight ahead. Maybe down and bring it forward. Good and tucking hinge back and forward. So a lot of glute here. Yup. Doesn't have to be far to be effective.

It can be further if you want only more. Here it is. Okay. Taking the arms to just stay rewear um, to the goalpost again. And from here all we're doing is as you feel the, the arms are light. You're going to let the shoulder blades be heavy and the arms just float up and opposition. That's it.

Fully extending [inaudible]. And then from the shoulder blades, again, that's where it says if there's little weights there, you draw them down even though they're there and come back. Rotate toward the front is the spine, not the hips. Back to center to the back and center. Extend the arms going a little quicker and pull them down as the arms come down. Feel the front of your chest ever so slightly rising. Rotate.

Do the front and center to the back and center from there. Hold it there. Tuck the pelvis, eyes come down, hinge back a little bit. Hold back from what your norm is, just a bit. Rotate to the front center, to the Beck center. Extend the arms and and bring them down. Okay. If you're going to do the hinge and you don't have to, you've got to take the whole body as a unit. So don't just lean back here. Take the hamstrings closer to the cab.

Rotate from center to the back center. Extend the arms, keep the tuck of the pelvis. Strong glutes and Oh, let's get off the knee. Shall we extend your legs back into plank? Yes. I already forgot we did. Lift of stretch, right high, pretty high on the ball of the foot, the left legs coming up. Try and get the knee up as high as you can without opening the pelvis, meaning the hipsters level as possible. Flex that foot and squeeze. Lift one, squeeze. Lift two, three, four. You can bend the forward and if you want, you can, you can even have the foot down if it works for you.

Okay. And then hold it at its high point. Now you get to keep the shoulders exactly as they are, but open the hips up and from their lifted leg. A little higher one. Take the foot with you too. Three head hangs, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and 10. From here we're going to take the foot forward into first lunge, however you need to do that.

That doesn't work for everybody to step forward like that. Whatever works for you. Yup. And then what we're hoping for isn't a stretch through the hip of the straight leg. Push through the heel of the straight leg so that foot is being drawn. The energy is being drawn backwards. Long spine include your shoulder blades coming down your back and then from here, bend the knee.

Maybe you'll touch and then go back to straight one at a four and bend and two and bend three and one more for four holding it. This next part, you're welcome to go down to the knee at any point, but otherwise I'm going to have one hand flat that if whichever leg is forward, the opposite hand flat. So my left foot is forward, my right hand is down in flat right next to it. So it's basically still in a lunge. It's basically just opposite and we're going to rotate. So you're turning toward the bent knee. Your forward foot. Jennifer, move your forward foot forward so that you have a weight on the heel, the heel on the forward leg is down. That's it. That's it. Yep. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly, exactly.

And then bring it back carefully to change legs. So just sort of finding your way, recognizing that as far as I can tell, none of us are perfectly symmetrical. So one side might feel easier and distribute your weight to the gym you that you can take a probably a little bit wider stance and less, that's the hip that's bothering you, not feeling good so that you can sink the hips a bit. Yeah, there you go. There you go. And then we allowed the knee to bend a bit and then just straight.

And so you can feel what it is to have that straight leg. There's so many moves in piles where you have to have a straight leg and know it in order for the exercise to be safe. So I'm encouraging that now. Right there on the next one. Keep it straight. Start to rotate if you did it on the other side toward the knee. That's been, I do use my hand on the thigh for assist first looks great. And then I optional take the arm up into the air and then we'll bring it back down.

If that feels like enough time and I we're going to come into that. Um, what yoga would be a pigeon. So either just walk the foot over that was forward and sit down or you can come to kneeling first, which is sometimes easier. And slide one leg forward. Gently pulling the foot out from underneath you. Okay, so the more um, what do you call that? More parallel. Thank you. The shin is to what? The edge of the mat. The top edge of the mat. Alright, good.

The challenging on the hip, but no need to do that if you're already good. All right, pull the foot closer up and feels tight and you're just stretching. You're sitting tall. You have options here. If you'd like to go forward toward the forearms or forehead. Go ahead. Trying to be level on the hips though.

I'm going to try for a little more forward. Sheri, can you roll toward your left hip a little? If not, it's okay. I actually think it'd be easier now. It's, if not, don't do it. There you go. And then just move your hands back so they can help you and take care of yourself and breathe. Right, right. Seriously, I feel like I want to roll you this way. Yeah, yeah. That's exactly what we're trying or let's help ourselves out.

So I felt the back toes under. Use your hands. Certainly take your time. It's a challenging stretch. No doubt. Bring the other foot forward. Yeah, exactly. And that's intense. Yeah. So you know, if you've never done it, bring that heel right close to your groin first and see how that works for you. And then you can move it out. Okay. Yeah. There you go.

Other options for if you don't like it at all, it's just carry on. If you're worried, if it's working for you is to do that or on your elbows or on your back. If you went to your forearms or forehead, you should do that now. We're almost done with it. And then help yourself up carefully.

Sit onto the hip you're sitting on. Yup. And carefully bring that other leg round if you can cross it over, do otherwise it can be right in front trying to square off the hips again. So I'm just going to hug the Nian clothes is, you know, just as close as you can and then you're gonna turn into your chest is going into that bent knee. Yup. And then you do whatever you need to do with your arms to help but to feel supported. Not like you're torquing Nooshin you are right to come towards me. Yup. Right. This isn't the time to crank on yourself. It's just a supportive hold and read into that. You know, when we get into these rotations, it can be almost difficult to breathe and a great time to just let the ribs expand if they can or they can probably more than we think and then carefully and whined and I just back away from it to uncross the legs and switch them.

Really? Okay. We lost Aaron to a spider and so don't kill it, don't you dare look, I'll say fit. I'm just kidding here. You can take my mat. I take my mat. Okay. To take my notes. Where is it? Oh, it's trying to get killed. Carry on. Stretching away. Oh boy. He's active. His knee. Right. I can't, I mean sometimes you know it's there. That one was easy to save.

Just [inaudible]. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I try not to [inaudible] let me throw the camera's rolling. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. No, I'm not even, Oh, breathe into it. See if you can feel your ribs expand. Ah, and then just find your way back to an easy sitting position. Okay. And let's just take three breaths together and then you'll carry on with your deep breathing, I hope and ease.

And so while we don't have to have perfect posture, we want to feel upright. We want to feel supported and hopefully easy. If that means holding hold, uh, in terms of your hands to your legs and then let the air in and, and so I'm going to suggest that you don't try hard. Just inhale and see how what happens. And as you exhale and deflate, let the weight of the skin become a little heavier. That includes your face, the muscles of the back of the neck, and inhale, feel the lightness in your body when you just let the air in, how everything kind of naturally rises, and then exhale again.

Everything on the most superficial area starts to become a little heavier. Just the structure is holding up right. And one more and letting it go. Sure. Appreciate you being here playing even with spiders and did I get them all?

I got. We got them. All right. Okay, good. Well done. Thanks guys.

Comments

Great class!
I have purchased a foam roller and I was wondering if you could have a class on using the foam roller?
Love your pilates web site.
Elaine
CJ
christi, thanks again for a wonderful classs. enjoyed it,until the train came. ofcourse, it gave me a break . love your pilates web site. more to come right? blanche
Great Class, I think I'll be a little sore from this one :0)
Check out Meredith's class number 142 for a roller class. We'll get some roller classes on the list of things to do... thanks for the suggestion!
I just finished this class and it was amazing. I love how you incorporated the stretches into the class. Great flow!
Dana S
What a great class I love this instructor!
Thanks Kristy, this class was perfect for my day. I definitely needed the stretches! And thanks for the foam roller class recommendation.
Tough class which made the body and brain work harder doing variations and non-standard exercises. The stretches were perfectly timed at the end too. Could have used a little more thoracic extension though.

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