Class #2499

Playing with Tempo

45 min - Class
98 likes

Description

Play with the tempo of the exercises in this Mat workout with Leah Stewart. She works on gaining rhythm with the movement, breath, and cues so you can see where it takes you. Working this way helps you notice your strengths and where you need more work so you can continue to grow in your practice.
What You'll Need: Mat

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Mar 01, 2016
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Hi everybody, this is Leah and I'm doing another mat class, which is just awesome. So fun. So thank you. I'm so excited to have six lovely ladies here with me and for you to be joining home. And today I just in this, you know, 35, 40 minute mat class, I really want to just play with tempo. Super simple. So nothing, you know, just like out of the ordinary, but I want to play with tempo of the exercises and kind of how that feels and kind of just, um, kind of a classic Bassey formatted mat class that we're going to be doing today. So I want to, you know, we have, we can find tempo with music that we have, you know, to order to provide rhythm for us and tempo is for us, but I want to just kind of gain that rhythm with this, the movement, the breadth, and obviously just the way that IQ us through the exercises. So we're Kinda just going to see where that takes us, where that leads that.

So go ahead and start in a seated position at the front of your mat. Good, nice. Very good. Okay. So we're going to go and actually we're going to start in a seated position, which is just real classic Fasc, which we really like to do. Nice and fun. And we're going to start with the hands behind the thighs, the feet nice and flat, and just right on top of that pelvis, shoulders again, right over the head. So just feeling that, um, kind of where your body at is where your body is rather in this opening position, how easy is it or how hard is it for you to obtain that vertical rise of your torso up, out of your pelvis? Do you have to use your arms a lot? Is your back over firing?

Do you feel a good balance between the front body and the back body? Are Your hips protesting a little bit about that deep hip flection that you're in right now? So just kind of take into consideration what that feels like. So we're gonna take a big breath in here. Now with our exhale, we're going to keep the shoulders relatively over the hips and we're going to bow forward as if our head is coming right down in between our knees. And then inhale, we're going to articulate that. Okay.

Again, and exhale over. So I want you to really pay attention to your breath and I'm going to try to lead you with a little bit of temple. I'm certainly not going to sing for you, but I'm just going to think about, think about the little bit of the way that I use my voice in the queuing and kind of if your movement can kind of match some of that energy, some of that temple change and rolling yourself up nice and tall, hold a suspended and then Xcel over and rolling up suspend and XL over. Okay. And rolling up and suspended up. Hold it up for me right here. So here, right away you should feel the hip flexors, the public floor, the back extensors, the abdominals, feel everything married together, working collectively to provide that stability that takes the hands down to your side. Good. Just topping them out with your fingertips.

And then once you to exhale, reach over the head and then inhale, bring it all the way down and then exhale, reaching over the head. Feel that lean, feel that length. Good and inhale, reach it down. So naturally. Good. Excellent. We had this big dramatic movement. We can feel that length through our spine. You can almost feel like you are elevating up out of your pelvis with your torso. Good.

Because we have that slow tempo to guide us to be able to do that. So if we speed it up, exhale and down and exhale and down. Good, and exhale and down. Q, maintain that same stability, that same length through your spine, and exhale and down. One more, and exhale, hold it. Good, good. Now reach a little bit higher. Yes, good.

Reach a little bit higher. No elevation of the shoulders. There you go. Feel a little bit more direct extension, right where your lumber spine meets your thoracic spine. Get a little bit more. They're good. Now. Feel as if the femurs are going to dive a little bit deeper into your pelvis and you're going to hinge a little bit further forward with your torso. But now elevate your sternum a little bit. Good. Yes.

Hard work. Challenging work here. Hold that position here. Now you're going to bring your chest up as you sweep your arms down to your knees and bring it up and sweep and up and sweep and up. Good. So fill that tempo of pressing those arms down and pop it back up. And press and pop and press yes and pop. Beautiful. Press and pop. Last one. And press.

No, hold it. Suspended. Push the arms down on top of the knees or the shins. Yes. So get those shoulders activated. Now lift that sternum up a little bit more. Good. Now you're going to take 10 full counts to raise those arms. You're going to go 10, nine, eight, seven.

Slow it down. Six, five, four, three, two, one. Press for 10. One, two, sternum them up. Three, four, five, six, tournament Levy, back, eight, nine, 10 up one, slow to three. Oh, hard to do. Five. Six. Elevate seven, eight, nine, 10 and hold it. Good. Now, where's that thoracic and that lumber spine. Me and read stuff. Reach up a little bit more. Good. Now circle the arms around. Good. Nice.

Good. Wrap back of the thighs. So that's the start of the energy of the class. Do you feel the difference between working with a slightly different tempos? Do you like it? Yeah, it's fun, right? So let's play with it. Sake your breath in and we're going to roll down. Roll down, sweep your legs in. Feed in, hands down by your sides. Good. Okay.

So now's your time to mobilize through that spine that we just worked so hard and that stabilization. So we're gonna go right into our pelvic curl. Taking your breath in and exhale. You're going to curl the pelvis and you're going to roll that roll up. Now feel the anchor of the feet going down into the mat. Fill the image of the knees reaching forward. Take your breath in, and then roll yourself down.

So this isn't even even Steven Pelvic Curl. Really Nice and steady, nice and flowing. I want to give you the opportunity to work out the back here to kind of mobilize it. So go ahead and roll that up. Good. And rolling yourself up, feeling that flow, that nice even tempo here. Take your breath in. So it's almost like as much times as it takes you to go up, it takes through the same amount of time to go down. And this is how we generally practice our pelvic curls.

And Go ahead and release the pelvis to neutral. One more time like that for me and XL. Roll lap. Yes, good filling that bridge. I want everybody to feel like your toes. All 10 toes are really long. Fill that length. Yes.

Now give me a little bit more activation of that mid back. Push those arms down a little bit more. And once I want to see you as a result of that, I want to see that your sternum essentially gets a little bit longer or your rib cage rather gets a little bit further away from your pelvis. That's beautiful. It's exactly what I want. Now hold that position. The power of the bridge. I love how powerful bridge positions are. All of you have beautiful open hips.

I'm very happy to see that. So take your breath in. So take another XL and you're going to roll down for five, four, three, two, one release, and you're going to exhale, come up on one to hold it down for five, four, three, two one release and XL. One two down for five, four, three, two, one letter. Roll out, release and Xcel. Sweep it up. One, two XL, down to three, four, five release. And then sweep it back up. Beautiful. I want you up by two so a little bit faster down five, four, three, two, one, release and sweep it up.

One push up to yes, down to three, four, five. Let rule out and then sweep it up and hold it. Yes ladies. Now two more times for all of us. Collectively. The goal here is to just say a one second, one second. The goal is as we roll that pelvis out, you have that moment, the wave and then wound the ti comes back in and sweet second. But I don't want you to lose the integrity of the articulation.

Every little vertebrae. So let's do it two more times. Coming down. Five, four, three, two, one release. And one, two, yes, down five, four, three, two, one release. Sweep up. One, two. You guys got it. That was beautiful. So holding here, pushing those hands down, feeling the extension, the length of the toes. So what you're going to do here is you're going to lift your heels up and you're going to walk your feet a little closer towards your body. Towards your bottom. Yes. Now you're going to open the leg that's closest toward me and you're gonna open that leg and you're going to allow yourself to rotate over. Feels a little funny cause you're in a weird little planter fluxion position.

But I want you to rotate tiny. Dip your knee down to the floor. Yes and schoolies and bring it back up and go the other side. So rotate. Good. Try to dip that toe down or that knee down to the floor and then push those hips up as you come back to the center and rotate old bed. Feel the arch of the body. Yes.

And then press and lift up. Good and open all the way. Now allow your torso to rotate a little bit, a little bit more, a little bit more. Good. And then I want you to reach and hold it. Suspending over the top is like going over the top of a ruler scope coaster. And then over. Yes. And then sweep. Slow it down at the top.

And then you go over yes. And reach up. Get those hips up. Feel that poster tool. Pull the pelvis. Good. Now we're getting fatigued in the spine. Go One more set toward me and away from me. So this is where you really have to tap into that energy of the abdominals, the posterior pool of the pelvis, the energy through the shoulders and the upper back. Yes. One more for me.

Hold onto that move in integrity holds onto that focus, that control. Yes. And sweep it up. Good. Lower heels down. Slowly. Take your breath in and roll yourself down. Yes, rolling down. Nice. Let that back release. If you need to hug your knees into your chest, please do so now go ahead. In fact, open your legs a little bit and bring your knees in towards your arms and just feel how that lengthens out your back.

Pull the sits bones away from you and just with each breath, feel like your lower back gets a little bit flatter, a little bit heavier onto the mat. So bringing the legs together for me here, arms out to the side. We're going to rotate over with an inhale and exhale, bring it back. Rotate over with an inhale and exhale, bring it back. Rotate over. So just side to side a little bit faster.

Then kind of how I generally teach this exercise, but we've already gotten so in touch, um, with our stabilization that I really want you to feel kind of a tic talk rhythm here. Tempo here. Not maybe quite as fast as a pure tech talk, but a little bit more of that just side to side. So reach and over to the center. Good to the side and to the center, to the side, to the center. Good. Now notice how, what does that change? Your range of motion can't be as great, but you shouldn't lose any integrity of the pure rotation coming from the spine. That pelvis just rocking over one side of the hip over the other good, and holds it through the center here, finding it, feeling the legs together. Good. Reach your arms over your head. Beautiful.

So what we're going to do here, a little bit different twist, so to speak, on the a hundred prep. So you're going to come up, but you're going to just bring your right arm down and keep your left arm back. So that's the arm position that I want. Good. You're going to switch one to bring it back and bring it up a slow go. One to bring it back. XL Up. Boom.

And switch. Switch. Bring it back. Oops. XLF, Bo and switch. Switch. Bring the right arm back. Good. Two more. Xcel and switch. Switch. Bring it back in a, hold it there. I said two more, but I lied. Just one more. So you're gonna do the other side. So the goal here is to do a slow up, dynamic tempo on the switch of the arm and then a slow east central control down. So this time your right arm will say back in, your left arm will come forward. Okay, so take your breath in and XL up and switch. Switch and back. Boom. Good. And, and switch switch.

And that beautiful ladies XL and switch. Switch and back. Beautiful. One more. And, and switch switch. Bring it back. Guzzle. Hold it there. Now we're going to go back to the right arm. So now we're going to reverse that temple property. We're going to come up fast. We're going to go so slow. Sorry. Slow for the switch.

And then fast for the down. So we're just going to flip flop it. So take your breath in and exhale. Boom and slow. Reach. Slow reach and down. Up Boom. And slow retreats. Retreat. Three, three, three. [inaudible]. Slow. Read. Three, three, three, three, three. Treats and down and up by one.

So retweet three, three, three treats. Reach back further. Back, further back. Now fight to keep your torso up into flection. Good. Slow, slow, slow, slow and down. Good. Other sides. The left arm comes up this time and won and reach and reach and back and up. One Nice and reach. Now can you come up fast on this next one but not let your body shift it on no pelvis shift. No little jerk in the body. Yes. Better.

And saw it and sue it and down. Let's do one more for good measure and up and switch. Beautiful. And switch. Switch. Yes. And back. That was so good. Good. Hold your knees into your chest a little bit more. Great. The stay away from the little bit of flection for a moment.

Go ahead and bring your knees back up to that table's hot position and extend your legs up for me. Go ahead. So really challenging on the abdominals here and this is it. Sometimes this is a contrary indication for people, so, but I just want to play with kind of that sensation of stabilizing in the torso, holding the integrity of the abdominals while kind of working with some scissors and even a little bit of bicycle. The legs. We won't do this for too long, but it just wants you to feel some of that rhythm. Because when we start to bicycle and this translates into our equipment work, especially on the Cadillac, as we get that tempo going, it's really hard to maintain that control in our body and not let the rest of the body be effected by it. So let's kind of just play with that just a little bit here.

So take your right leg down really slow, and I want you to bicycle really slow. Now when we start to move this very slowly, of course we all feel the challenge. There's no denying that, okay? But as you start to move faster, faster, faster, faster, I want you to think more of the idea of zippy up through the inner thighs, faster, faster, faster, faster. Try to keep that extension and try not to let the body get all wild and out of control. Now bring the legs up and hold. Find it now reverse it and reach out slow and slow. So what starts to happen when we up that tempo?

So we're going to gradually start to get faster, faster, faster, faster. Okay. What happens in the body? Where do you hold tension? Where do you grip unnecessarily, faster, faster, faster. What happens to the range of motion as we work? Yes. Can we still get that full knee extension?

Good. And stop and hold all the way up. Hold those legs up. Beautiful. Ladies from here wants you to bend your knees, open your legs just a little bit wider than your shoulders. Take your breath in. With your exhale, you're going to bring the head up into like a chunk function and you're going to roll yourself up. We're going to go into a modified open lake rocker here into a full open lake rocker. Good. Can I get some smiles? Yeah. You guys having a little bit of fun?

Yeah. So we're like, we're just kind of playing with stuff and just thinking about how all of this sex, our practice. So hold here. Nice. We're gonna do a pattern. We're going to do too slow. Too fast. Okay. So you're gonna roll back slowly. Nice and slow up. Suspend and slow hold.

Now we are going to do the spinal element of the open leg rocker with the back extension rolling slowly and app. Then we move faster. We go roll and roll and I feel like three's a good to do roll and app in holds. Find it and slow and and slow. Huh? Some of you went fast. Hold it. And Ra and app and Rolfe tried to find that extension and and rural and uphold it there. Now use your arms. Go back to that first position we ran.

We receded on our bottoms. And you had that beautiful back usage. I'm sorry. In your mind you're like, ah, okay. I'm going to go back in that position right now. You guys are good. You're actually listening to me. I'm so glad. Okay, so go back to that section. Hi.

Hiding your spine and your spine and your spine and how wonderfully elevated you felt. How on fire your back was, how deep that articulation was in your, yeah, see this is it. Do you guys feel that at home as well? That's what we want. I know. Isn't that so I you say so. I want you to, it's easy to find this on your slow. So we're gonna do the pattern again. But what I want you to not speed up in your SLO is the sense of curving that pelvis underneath you and rolling back. That's something we tend to forget.

That is such a beautiful nuance of open like Rocker, which leads into the nuance of the teaser is that ability to see that moment of that pelvic curl. Right? And that's what knocks us off our balance or takes us off our balance. So I want you to find that here in this slow one. So breathin excellent. We see that Powell bit curl and shoulders steady back up and find that articulation. Use this moment to feel beautiful, long, gooey and roll the pelvis underneath you and then find that articulation.

Let's do one more cause it's just starting to feel real good and roll. Good and app. And we're going to go fast and roll and up. Boom and roll and boom and roll and uphold it and slow it down. Yes. That's so much better. And find that extension last one.

Slow and slow it down. Yes. And find that ascension. Good and fast. Roll and extension up and roll. Extension up and roll and extend up. Hold it. Yes. That was so much better. So much better.

I saw the same nuances being carried through from the slow to the fast with just the different tempo in the different pace. Lovely. Thank you. You guys. Okay, so let's carry on. Let's keep our flew. Good. So from here, bringing the legs together and lean back a little bit more. Yep. We're going to do teasers. Arm's dead. We'll start with our teaser prep. Rolling down, rolling down. Just kiss your lower back to the mat. Keep that flection and up. Up, up, and extend. Roll back.

Just kiss the mat with the lower back and reach up. Up, up, up, and extend. Oh, everybody grabbed the back of your thighs. Reach up a little bit more. Go ahead. So holding there. Let's roll down. Roll down. Hold that position. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it and up. Yes, ladies, find your extension. Find your extension. Find her extension. Yes.

As much as your body can do. Good. Now, roll back. Yeah, just don't fall onto your lower back. It's just ever so slightly. Now hold it there. See if you can hold it there and see if can muster the energy body to do a little bit more flexible with your upper body. I start to come up to sell pretty good. You got it. Good. And find that extension. Find next engine.

Find the extension so we're changing the tempo by simply one more time. Holding at the bottom position. I'm not going to make you pop up into your teaser, but I want you to feel, usually we get there and we're like, oh, we're going to keep our Gump, but now we're going to hold it there. Now to get back up, you're going to think a little more flush and let your spine float into a little bit more flection. Flow, float, float. Good. Floating up. Continue to float. Just if you're going to start levitating off the mat. Good and rest. Oh my gosh. Ladies. Gorgeous. Good work.

Good. Full body work. Let's move forward. We're going to go into our saw today, so legs can be as wide as you feel comfortable. The wider than your mat, not with whatever it feels good for you. Ahrens out to the side. Good saw is such a classic example of different tempos that we can do it with, right? Some people do it fast, some people do as slow and it's really a beautiful way to do it. So I want to start with a faster tempo for me. Okay. So we're going to go reach flop back over for everybody. Come toward me. Sorry.

Reach toward needs so you can see me. Good. Let's go straight down. Reach up and center and one and reach and up and center for parts and two and three and up and one. So when we do at this tempo, it becomes very kind of just not rigid, but it becomes not robotic in a bad sense, but you have the sense of anchor through your pelvis, through your two sits bones, through your legs. They also have this sense of the spine stays pretty erect and steady as you move. And it's very simple. It's very clear cut and one word set toward me and then away from me. Good up and center. Good and away from me.

Down and up and center. Good. Now toward me, we're going to reach up. Hold it there. Good. We're going to draw forward. Good. Now what if we take a moment here to grab the foot? So turn the hand and grab the outside of your foot and we reach up and we do a little circle within our saw of our arms. So we accentuate that rotation. So why you can do with your hand and your foot here so you can pull back on your foot and you're gonna really turn into that rotation of your torso.

Such a pretty position. Good. But then we're going to take it a little step further and we're going to sweep over when to let the arm continue to move. And we're going to come right back up the arm. Did a full circle. Good. And back to center. So make sure your feet are really flex. Your hips are anchored, you're feeling really steady.

So let's just review that one more time. So we're going to rotate. We're going to hinge forward. We're going to grab the outside of the foot and we're going to rotate the body, reaching the arm up, feeling that stretch, and you're going to continue to circle the arm as you bring your torso closer to your thigh. Good. It's going to continue to circle. You're going to come right back up into the rotated on the vertical position and center. Do you guys feel that? So let's go twist and reach up suspending here.

Oh, all the way up around and we reached up. Yes, you guys got the rhythm naturally. So reach over and flat over. Grab the outside of the foot and circle around. Feel it and feel how the arm kind of swings your body up and center. So we have a reach. We slow the tempo down here. We feel that expansion, we feel that reached the arm circles around and Koch and track up. Boom.

Can we all come up on my rail inspired, boom and reach. You know him. Bassey when I'm doing, boom. So over right Mary and app. Boom. Good as center and one more set. Right? And find that essentially, slow it down. Slow it down, slow it down, let the energy of the movement ring you up. Yes. And middle and last one. Reach over, expand. Feel the reeds, feel the reach.

Circle the armor round up and boom and center. Good. Reach the arm back. Now you can decide for your back support cans here. Her hands out to the side. So few are going to be nice and flexed. Good. Bring that chest up and we're going to practice with the legs open and wide here. So from here we're going to do a couple of different versions here.

The first one, we're going to pelvic curl. Point the feet and press up. Now pushing energy of the heel of the hands down. Bring the Tweetbot bone up toward the ceiling. Let the scapula glide together. Really pushed into that posterior body. Open the anterior part of the body.

Now this time we're going to roll down. So we're going to come through flex and flex your feet. Yes. And into that seated position. Take your breath in. So think I'm going to be gooey. Yes. And I'm going to roll up and then when I get to the top, I'm going to suspend it. I'm going to reach, I'm not going to stop my energy.

I'm going to keep going. Keep going, keep going, keep going. And then I'm going to draw the energy. May Cajun. Yes. And I'm gonna roll down as I flex my feet. One more time like that. Then I'll let you shake out your vest and exhale and tuck and rule lap. Yes. Feel that expansion. Feel that power. Let those shoulders open. That looks beautiful. Good. And then roll back all the way. Nice.

It's keeping the feet flex now holding a different sense and different energy here. We're going to hinge. Nice Co contraction up and down five times. We're going to go up, down, up, down. Okay, so here we go. We're going to press up and down, up and down. Up. Keep your feet flexed up. Nice. Fifth one. Hold it. Nice. Hold it. Okay.

And roll down. If your risks are up for it. Let's do one more set of five and with a nice hinge and we go. Exhale, hinge down and up, down and up, down and up. Last one down and hold. Suspend it and [inaudible] roll down. Row Town. Beautiful ladies. So beautiful.

Good line toward me for our sidekick. I'm gonna have you go on your forearm. Good feeling good. Nice, good, good. Bend your bottom knee, top leg extended. So reaching out there. Good. I want your arm to be here today. Nice. And lift that leg up. Flex the foot.

Two little kicks forward and a sweep back and one, two and sweep and one, two and sweep and one, two. And sweep. That leg should stay on one level and I literally want you to feel like you're moving through water as you push. Boom, boom, push, boom, boom. So in and of itself, the exercises designed to have different tempo feeling. Boom, boom. And hold it there. Hold it there. Good. Now two pulses back and a suspend forward. Boom, boom and push. Boom, boom. And Push. Yes. Press, press and good.

Now push down through that bottom elbow. Good. Last one, and hold it. Good. Now point the foot and go back. One five counts. Two, three, four, five. Flex forward. One, two, three, four, 5.1, two, three, four, five. Good. Forward to three. Keep reaching for five and swing one forward to forward.

Keep the hip hop. Three forward. Four. Good. Nice. Last one. And hold it. Good. Hold that position. Beautiful. Now point the foot. Go ahead and swing your hand out to the side and you're going to push yourself up. Yes. Could, I know it's a lot of work on the outside of the hip. You guys got it pushing there. Hold it there. Go ahead and swing around to the other side. Nice ladies.

Yeah. So fun to feel, you know, I know you guys are always like, oh look at that beautiful sky. So pretty. Okay. Um, so nice to feel like physiologically how our muscles respond different. Right? Good. So let's bring it up. Just good old classic side kick and one, two and back and one to m back.

We get to look at all your faces and back. Press and back. Two more. Press and back. Beautiful. Press and back. Hold it. Now we go back back and slow back. Back and slow. Good back, back, and slow.

Keep in mind what's going on with your upper body. Slow back, back and slow. Good back, back and slow. Last one. Good. Holds it. And swing. Two, three, four, five. Forward two, three, four, five. Okay. I did not do the other side with you all the way, isn't it hard? So I have to do it. Two, three, four, five and forward. Two, three, four, five. Good.

Two more. Good. We're going to keep you guys or just pretend like you're on stage. Everybody's watching you and boom, but I mean literally the whole world on plebes. Anytime. Press forward, press forward. Last one. Forward. Good. Hold it on out.

Press up, press up, press up and rest. So good ladies. Wonderful work. I want you to come on to all fours. Stay with me. We have a couple months sequencing and then we're done. But if you feel like you need to, you can kind of like, let's just take a quick moment and just push your hips down onto your right heel to kind of stretch out. Yeah. The outside of the hips there, those beautiful glutes we love. And then just kind of come up and do the other side.

I love your glutes too. Okay, so let's work on some planes before we do some back extension here. So I'm actually going to have you bring your knees together, your feet together. I love this little series. It's just really fun and so I'm excited to play with just some different tempos with it as well. So your legs are gonna be together.

It's a little bit different in how we kind of generally practice a plank with a open leg position. So one leg back, sweep the other laid back. Good. Now I want you to bend your knees, tap them to the mat and XL up and go bend up. Bend up, no here. You want to make sure that your pelvis doesn't dip with this fast movement for more for keep your pelvis floating up as best as you can. Think of just a hinge at your knee and a hinge at your hip. Of course, there was naturally a little bit of a dip. Hold it, good.

Come back in and go into a little bit of arrests. There's actually naturally a little bit of a dip of your pelvis, so I'm not looking for absolute stability, but by giving you that cue when I'm trying to get you avoid his sink and sink, obviously you guys know that. So I just want you to feel disassociate in your mind's eye, the pelvis through the spine, through the shoulders to the head, that energy out. Just keep that really solid, that beautiful plank on that slight day agonal and then just feel that movement coming from the knee and the hip joint. When you do that one more time. We're going to mix up our tempos and we're going to add a little bit of rotation. So this is where we're fatigued and you've got to dig in deep.

Use your breath and stay with me. You can do it. This is where we have, this is where our f our physiology starts to change, where we start to change our endurance capability and our strengths can some capabilities. So extend one leg out, reach the other leg out. Five fast down, up, inhale, exhale, inhale, good, good holds and go. One, two, three should dip by five five switch one, two, three, four, five and down. Two, three, four, five and up to three, four, five, fast down, two, three, four, five. Hold it and rest. Nice. Go. So on the slow, so much more of a necessity to maintain that beautiful. I feel shoulder integrity and abdominal integrity. Not to let the rectus abdominis be pushed out by the internal little pressure, but to really kind of combat that with that beautiful stabilization and that full where when we do it fast we have a little bit of the, the motion and the energy, the exercise to kind of help us radiate that energy.

So it's a little bit like, does that make sense to you guys? I'm not explaining it perfectly like biomechanically your physiology by anything, but I'm just saying there's just that that difference in the sensation, being able to feel that. And how can you provide for yourself as a practitioner those challenges, we tend to get into the same pattern when we practice doing things at the same rate, the same speed, the same tension, the same repetition. And it's really fun to explore with what it feels like to be a little bit different. So let's go on down to a prom position and we're gonna work on our back extension. Just to kind of wrap up our class here.

Okay. So the exercise of chosen is swimming into swan dive. Okay. So sweep your arms out in front of you. Okay. So stay with me. Take your breath in and exhale. Lift up.

Yeah. And we're going to go, just breathe naturally here. You're going to switch. One, two, three, four, five. Do it again. One, I want to see full extension through your knees. Three. Good. Four. Five. Do it again. One, two, good. Amy? Three, four, five. Keep breathing. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. Find your best. [inaudible] how did that works for you? For Five. One, two, three, four, five. Okay. Four. Five. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. Okay.

One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. Stay a and stay. A float and Resi. Yes. That was so good. That was so, that is so incredibly hard to do. That was beautiful ladies. Beautiful. Good. Okay, so let's have a little bit of fun with some little bit of Swan dive. We're gonna, I'm gonna Demonstrate, I mean we're onto the falls one dive.

We're gonna do the prep, which frankly I think is more fun. So take your breath in. So you're going to have your elbows tucked down to waste your hands underneath your shoulders really tight. So you want to feel that beautiful, not excessive, but just that kind of that natural kind of depression and just stability of the scapula there and that really tightness of your arms to your body. So take your breath in. Now I want you to feel like you're going to reach energy out through the crown of the head. First reaching up.

How much height can you get here without pushing your hands into the mat? Now from here he start to use your arms, your shoulders, your to come up. Reach up. Good. We're going to go slow. Bend the elbows. Now when you start to feel kind of right below your belly button, gets the mat. I want you to lift your legs up.

Now don't relax your lower body onto the mat. Keep that energy reaching out. Now keep your legs up and start to reach out through the crown of the head. How high can you get without using your arms? Now as you start to lift, if you feel now, surely your legs have to accommodate and go down. Let's do one more time like that and then reaching. Fill the elbows, pulling down. Let those legs fill up. Float up, brother. Hip Extension. Good. Now we lift up. Same rules apply.

How high can you get without those arms? Now you can take as we go into the rock your hands to your forehead. Okay, rocking. We'll catch herself up in this position. So if you need to watch a couple of times you can. So taking your breath in and you're going to go XL, rock and hold. So the legs, the hip extensors are the power here. So here's my secret for you.

Keep a little bit of energy in your upper back. Extension. Got a little bit about hierarch and use your hip extensors to really push you forward into that dive. Take your breath in and Xcel, press and catch. Press and catch. Press and catch. Yes, keep going. Press and catch. Think hip extensors. Good. Hold that energy up in your thoracic spine as you go forward. Two more.

And press yes and up last one. Press and hold. I love it. Now from here, gooey, gooey, gooey, pull in and rest you guys. That was lovely work. Powerful work. Beautiful work. Okay. I seriously almost just forgot that I have to wrap up my class. I was like, oh, this sounds bad.

So go ahead and roll it, but we're going to watch it together. So go ahead and roll up. Good. Nice. Stand up for me ladies and face to where you can see that beautiful sentence. She talked the camera. Good. Wonderful. So there it is, right?

You wouldn't feel your body here. You can feel the pleasures and the challenges of working with different tempos and you know, just the importance that it is to, you know, just to add a little bit of variety to, to shake it up a little bit and to just experience that on our body. And that's what those types of things, those simple things are really what keeps our practice fresh and new, which keeps our body ever challenged and ever growing. And that's really the point of Palladia is we intend for this to be a lifelong practice. We for this to be a part of our daily life. And just like life always changes always. We always have to adapt to it.

So does our practice. We have to do that deliberately sometimes and kind of exploring the work. So we're going to do real classic Bassey roll down here into our sunset. So our arms are just going relaxed sound by the sides. Take a beautiful breath in and exhale. Go ahead and roll down.

And if you're familiar with my classes here on [inaudible], any time, you know, I always love to have you guys have a moment of reflection and I first one to have to acknowledge what you just nailed in today's class. Go ahead and roll up what felt good for you, what you just felt like, wow, doing it faster. I really kept my control or doing it slower. I could feel the, the, the depth in my body in a different way. So whatever that is for you, taking the time to recognize that now. So breath in and roll down.

Okay. Giving yourselves a metaphorical pat on the back. Okay. And with our final roll down gently with love to yourself, I want you to then kind of hone in on, wow, that really revealed maybe some things I need to work on in my practice, whatever that may be. Go ahead and roll it down one more time and kind of just think about what that is in your practice, what you kind of maybe what you discovered.

Maybe you didn't discover anything like that, particularly in this session, but maybe if you tried the class again or maybe in another class, but kind of just thinking about maybe some things that were revealed that you could work on and being humble in that revelation. Okay, so filling nice and tall, opening your eyes, looking at that beautiful sunset, appreciating obviously the beauty around us and the magnificent beauty of our body and the wonderful aspect of practicing plays. Thank you so much, ladies. Thank you for joining me. I hope that you had a little bit of fun with that, playing with tempo. Thank you.

Comments

Brenda B
Interesting variations. Thank you,
Thank you so much Brenda!
So creative, challenging and energetic--thanks!!
2 people like this.
Not quite as challenging or quite the workout I was hoping for moderate pace
Pele
1 person likes this.
I also think this is more deliberate than moderate. I like the creative part to this but I really miss Leah's earlier classes (circa 2010). They seemed to flow and move more then.
I really love the way you teach I am going to add this class to one of favorites. You are so nice...
1 person likes this.
Thank you Leah! Always creative, always awesome!
What a beautiful class! Thank you so much. Playing with tempo really made me focus on the quality of my movement- I am excited to try this when I teach my next class!
Leah, wonderful class, as always. I missed you and I love it when I can take one of your classes on PA. Love the hair too!
I continue to learn from you. Love and miss you!
Lovely class. Thank you.
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