Class #262

Stretch and Strengthen Mat

55 min - Class
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Description

Get ready to stretch and strengthen in this BASI flow class. Meredith focuses much of the work in this class on strengthening the abdominal muscles with a balance challenge near at the end to complete a thorough workout.
What You'll Need: Mat

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Sep 20, 2010
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I suppose while we wait for her, we could just stretch your legs out straight and sit up and stretch forward and do a little mild stretching while we wait. So as you reach forward, most gently guide the backs of your knees into the ground and let your spine just relax forward over your legs, all your head to relax. Feel the shoulders heavily reaching down towards the hips. Okay. And then coming all the way up and we'll just bend our knees. Let the feet just be slightly separate to one another. Reach the hands behind the knees and with your arms, just gently guide yourself up into a little bit of a straighter position.

And with that, just take a couple of big breaths. Inhale, let the breath just happen. Let the chest rise. Exhale as you breathe out, let the spine grow a little taller and try and release tension from your body. And now this time, as you inhale, keep the chest still, but feel the size of the rib cage expanding as you draw your abdominals inwards and Xcel letting all that breath go fully exhaling can help us to connect deeper. To our abdominal muscles is a good thing to remember. One more. Inhale this time as we exhale, we're going to move the pelvis. So let's move the pubic bone towards the front of the ribs, the tailbone underneath, or through the thighs and just round back until your arms become straight.

Inhale there and Xcel to curve first forward and as you care for, to keep pulling the abs back and then inhale restack your spine into a straight line. As you exhale, allow the tail to start moving through the thighs. That's tucking the pelvis, drawing the abdominals backwards in nailing at the bottom and excelling first a forward motion so the shoulders come back over the hips and then we long gate the spine from there. What does do that one more time? Excelling as we curve back so it's not just, we're not moving the backward pulling act with the ABS. Maybe we'll even be able to accomplish a stretch there in Nealta. Hold. Exhale. As you bring your shoulders forward over your hips. Inhale, Elongate the spine.

Let's bring the legs together. Decide whether or not you want to continue to hold on. If not, reach forward. As you exhale, we're going to to same thing. The legs are now together. We're going to roll down a little bit further, so if you're deciding to hold on, just allow your arms to slide down your thighs. Inhale, pause, exhale, curve. Again, forward allowing the spine to move like a wave we lifted at the top.

Inhale, exhale, talking the tailbone under, so anytime we're rolling we want to feel the motion of the pelvis first. Finding the position, don't just to the bottom of the rib cage. Inhale, pause, and exhale. Take care of yourselves forward. Inhale, Elongate the spine. In addition to abdominals working, let's squeeze the inner thigh muscles towards one another. Maybe press down through the backs of the legs and squeeze the bottom just a little bit. Inhale, annex also to curl up last like this. We're excelling this time. See if we can make it all the way down to just the tips of the shoulder blades. Once you arrive there, we're going to challenge that position by raising our arms on the inhale.

Exhale. Just allow the arms to reach forward. Keep the trunk pretty stable. Pretty still. Inhale, arms up. Exhale, arms forward. Inhale, one more time, arms. Exhale, arms forward and spine comes back up from here. Once you get tall, I'm going to turn in my direction with this spine. Gentle rotation XL rounds just down that side of your spine. Inhale, keeping the lower body so come across center. Exhale, roll up that side of your spine and sit and tall in rotation and come back to center. Breathe in as you go the other way.

Breathe out as you curve moving the pelvis first. Feeling good. Work through the waist as you come across center, keeping the lower body still. Exhale. We come up that side and inhale, come back to center and rotate again. XL round down, breath patterns. A little confusing in heel. Come across [inaudible] roll up. Let's finish the XL as we returned to center so that we're inhaling as we head to the back of the room. One last time, Xcel coming down and he'll come in across center to Xcel. Income up. Once you arrive back to center, reach your hands back behind your thighs again and first get tall, and then let the chest extend up towards the ceiling.

So a little gentle back extension. The chest is rising, the eyes arising. And then letting go of that. We're gonna roll all the way down onto our backs as we come on down onto our backs. Let your feet slide a little bit closer to you and then once you arrive on your back, separate your feet into a position where their hip distance apart. So there's about space for one more foot in between your two feet. Inhale, prepare, travelling through a pelvic curl, letting the low back flat and first and then slowly rolling through the spine, sending the knees out through over the toes in healing up the top and exhale, just mobilizing the spine, coming through the chest, finding the ribs, allowing the low back to release through the Mat and relaxing the to elbow, not the bottom. Inhale again as you exhale, starting with Adam and tech of the pelvis, drawing the abdominals down.

Then continue leading through the pubic bone as you roll up again into your pelvic curl position. Inhale to pause. Exhale to come down slowly. Chest first ribcage, lower back, and all the way down through a neutral spine position. We're going to do that a few more times. Exhale to roll yourself up, guiding yourself slightly forward through space and yell to exhale and articulate the spine back down. Maximizing the curvature of the lumbar spine or the lower spy. Last two. Inhale. Exhale, curving the spine, sending the knees towards the toes. Inhale, we pause and we exhale to curve back down, right last one for the night in here, XL rolling.

This time at the top, we're going to inhale raising the arms back towards our ears. Exhale, reach oppositionally through your arms as you slide your spine back towards the ground. Once you arrive all the way back into a neutral spine with your tailbone down, raise your arms over your chest. Inhale, spread out the arms. Feel media stretch through the chest. Keep the shoulder blades broad. Exhale, bring the arms back. See if you can get a sense of opening up through the entire trunk or feeling the rib cages fan. It's the arms open and then Xcel closing up or knitting the ribs together.

One more time like that. Getting a stretch through the chest, broadening through the upper back. Exhale the brewing the arms back and then opening the arms up for the very last time. On the inhale, we exhale to reach just a little bit further. As we place our arms down on the ground, let's bring up the left leg to a tabletop position. Draw the abdominals downwards in and words. Bring up the right leg and let allow the legs to meet one another. Inhale, bring your legs towards me, spine twist, and exhale.

Come back through center. Inhale, taking the legs away from the front of the room and excelling to come back. So things to think about here as you continue to alternate towards me. Inhale, exhale, center our that the knee should say connected any to the back of the room and exhale back to center. So allowing that to be a rhythm, working with the breath, pulling the abdominals away from the knees as the knees travel. Exhale back. Keep the knees connected and in that way you'll know that your pelvis is level and healing to the front of the room. Okay, and exhaling to center and inhaling to the back of the room and XL to center. Let's place the feet back down on the floor.

Reach back and fully interlace your hands, bringing your hands behind your head. Heading into the chest lift. We breathe into prepare. Draw the abdominals down. Press the ribs into the ground. Lift the head and chest so that you're looking just over your knees. There's an inhale here to draw the abdominals deeper and an exhale to feel work or of a lengthening contracted. As we lower the body to the mat, exhale, we lift straight up again, curving the spine, looking to maintain neutral.

Pedal this inhale, pause, exhale. Working our way back down. That stomach draws down or gets heavier. As we come down XL, we lift again once again, any heel to pause or look for intensity as you inhale and exhale to lower down this time as we act, we're gonna stay up when we get up XL. Lift. Inhale, reach the hands behind the thighs. Gently Guide yourself into a little bit more of a forward curl and then reach the arms just past the thighs, letting go and he'll raise the arms up and exhale. Lower the arms back down. Imagine pushing against spring tension or pull, pulling down weights. X O he reached the arms down, has the arms travel overhead.

That's what we're using to challenge the curvature of our upper spine. Exhale, arms down. Inhale, arms up again. Rebend your elbows, hands behind your head, and exhale. Lengthen your spine back down to the ground. Coming straight back up on our next exhale. Here we go. Reaching that and chest up. Inhale, hands behind thighs. Draw the belly button into the earth. Curl a little further. One Hand on top of the other, reaching just over both knees. Inhale, bring your hands over towards me. Reaching over that top knee. Exhale, bring it back to center and here we go. Across to the opposite side, flattening the spine as we come in, he'll reach, challenge the upward curvature of the spine and heel to the back of the room.

Notice that the pelvis is staying still. Keep the legs actively, feet pushing into the ground. Innercise actively reaching into one another. Anyway, we come back, separate the arms and reach back. Ribbon the elbows, hands behind the head and exhale, bring it to the ground. Exhale to come back up again. I'm gonna offer the next hardest step to that. You can reach your hands behind your thighs if you are happy with what you were doing. Go back to here if you wish.

Bring your hands behind your head for the chest lift with rotation. We're coming towards me and coming back. Inhale as we go to the back of the room and exhale as we travel back, it's an up and over type of feeling. Hand back, not a lean from side to side that had just rests heavily in the hands as our spine moves back and forth. Pelvis stays really heavy on the ground. Last one. Bring it back, reach forward, reach up, hands back, and bring it all the way back down. Oh, here we go again. Exhale. Two. Inhale, hands behind the eyes. Exhale, guide yourself a little forward. Let go.

Bring up the left leg. Bring up the right leg, meeting the knees together. Inhale, we're just going to reach the right toes down and we XL to change sides. So you're hindering from the hip joy. The upper body stays still in space. Just a little leg changes. The knee doesn't change angles as we just tip the toes to the ground and change and tip the toes and change and keep curling the spine forward.

Pressing the chest towards the thighs. When the leg that's closest to me is lifted in the Air Paz, turn towards it and hold on to it. So we're using our arms to help us curl a little higher. We're going to inhale and exhale to change. So I'm pushing into my thigh to help me rotate and lift and she and she and she, as you present to your thigh, pull your shoulder blades down so we get a little bit of back work as well.

And a couple more times to go and change. Let's do one more rotation, either side to change both legs up, reach behind both sides. Just give yourself a moment to encourage that forward curl. Let go. Both chose reaching down towards the ground. Exhale, pull them back. Keep the back flat. If that means the legs only move away from you one inch, that's okay. Hand back. Do you want to challenge this as your toes go down?

Raise your arms up and back. Anna Marie, let's do about two more times here on Polan analyst. One to pull in and reach around your knees. Hug your knees into your chest. As you place your spine down onto the ground. We're going to stretch the leg, uh, sorry, the left leg out onto the ground and just press through the back of the leg to anchor that leg. Stretch the right leg up towards the cla. Going into leg circles.

Let's inhale as we circle across the body into the middle of the body and around and up. Exhale, draw the same circle so every circle has its own breath. Excelling on in yelling. One looking for stability in the pelvis. And last time, pause at the top. Go the opposite way. Let the like fall to the side. Circle the down around and pull up.

Try to get a sense as you pull up of pulling from just behind the belly button, letting the leg gently rotate in a hip socket. Last two in this direction. Here's our last circle. Let's bend that knee. Hold onto it with the opposite hand and just twist. Turning the body over the straight leg. Coming back towards center. Stretch out the leg that was bent. Ben, the leg that was on the ground.

Anchor the bottom leg into the ground and then stretch the top leg up. Pull the abdominals down. You want to look for stability? Circle the body inwards first, then down around enough annex. Yeah, and and XL. Feel the shoulder blades flat on the ground, the neck long and relaxed. This is our last circle here, and then reverse it. Go to the side, swinging around and catch to the side. Swing around and catch.

Catch the light by pulling the abdominals into the ground. Last two circles. Last one, circle. Then that knee, hold onto it with the opposite hand and stretch oppositionally over the leg that's still on the ground. Bringing yourself back towards center both legs straight and together. Now, arms over the shoulders, reaching straight up towards the ceiling. Breathe in as you pick your head and chest up, reaching your hands, toes towards your thighs. Exhale as you curl yourself forward. Stay around but long at the top and breathe in.

Breathe out as you move the pelvis just like we did in the beginning with bent knees. Continue moving the pelvis that you lie down through your spine. Reach your arms over at as your head comes down. Inhale, head, chest lift. Exhale. Press the abdominals in as you reach up. Will the abdominals back as the spine stretches up in forward. Exhale, rolling back. Looking at first spinal mobility, spinal control, back of the head touches. We're coming right back up. Inhale to exhale and curl a long spines.

Long breath. Exhale as we roll down. Again, shoulders are heavy. Where there, maybe it's a little bit of inner arm pressure here. Let's do that about three more times. Lift and curl as you get to the top, all the gears blown out of the body so that you're ready to end the allies u and then Xcel to move yourself down last two times. Head in chest coma. Exhale to curl the spine, drawing the abdominals back as we had forward. Inhale and exhale as we go down. Nice. Look, here's our last one. I think we'll stay at the top here, so as you exhale and come all the way up once you get there, let's just stretch once again, forward over both legs. First pointing the feet and reaching a hang on where you can reach ankles or we're shins or even your feet. And then from there, flex the feet and see if by drying the abdominals backwards you can lengthen the low back slightly more forwards and then articulate your spine coming up into a sitting up position, separating the feet for the spine. Stretch forward. The legs can either be straight or bent.

Ben's preferable if it helps you sit up straight. A straight spine is more important than straight legs were sitting up at the top with the arms reaching straight out in front of us. On an inhale, exhale, the head falls forward. The shoulders dropped down, the ribs pull back, the abdominals pull back, and we send our arms through the feet and yelling. There. XL resect this behind working from deep within the body so we worked the front of the body more than the back of the body. As we come back up to sitting. Inhale XL as we had the chest or bring the chin to the chest.

Pull the abdominals back as as we send the spine forward in. Just check here that your shoulders are pulled back away from your ears. Exhale as we roll back and you get a sense of getting taller or longer as you set up. Inhale, exhale, folding fo [inaudible] nippy collating the spine from the front of the body. Breathing and breathe. That is we curl back, creating space between the bones in the spine. Last one. Just like this excelling foe.

Feel a lot of tension in the front of your hip. Soften the knees a little bit. It might make it better for you and excelling to come back up. [inaudible] all right, we're going to add some extension into it. XL starts the same. Rounding the spine down, curling forward first and then in Hilson the chest forward over the knees. Stretch the arms up near the ears, lengthening on a high diagonal.

Exhale as you go down first and then articulate this spine back up and sitting straight. Inhale again. Exhale, folding forward, reaching back with the, send the spine, the arms out. Lift the chest towards the thighs. Look down, uh, Helen and marina and then exhale, reaching back down all the way. Articulate, manipulate, sitting up tall. Inhale and exhale. Backing a rounding back down. Stretching the spine, long on the diagonal to keep the gaze down just between the feet. So the chin slightly tucked into the chest. XL down and up. And let's do that just one more time. Xcel two fold forward. Inhale, so find a long, extended [inaudible] back.

Pressing the chest towards the thighs, lifting the chest up just a little bit more. Eyes down. You're good, you're good. Look down. And then from there, just little pulses back with the fems. Just squeeze upper back, upper back, upper back. Good, excellent, excellent. And let's do that five more times. I'm taking my leg away. You stay where you are. Four, three, two, one, bringing ourselves all the way back down and we'll all the way back up. Once you get to the top, we're going to bend the knees rolling like a ball coming up. Um, it's easiest to be a little bit of a bigger ball. It's harder and harder. The smaller your ball gets. So you can hold your ankles, you can hold your knees, you can hold behind the size.

But what we want to do is create a round shape with our spine, drawing the abdominals backwards, however, the feet up off the ground, and then inhale, rock back toward your shoulder blades, keeping your head off the ground and XL as you roll up and find balance. Inhale, rock back, keeping the shoulders reaching away from the ears throughout. Inhale, rock this fine back. Exhale, roll the spine. Try to by. Keep going. Just work with your breath balancing just behind the tailbone.

When you arrive there are going to do that about three or four more times. Check in with your shoulders. They're going to want to left. Our job is to really keep them down, so we want to feel the muscles just underneath the shoulder blades working. Let's do two more and last time here. All right. Finding our way back to the top, but the feedback down.

Stretch the legs back out straight. This time they're gonna stay together. Okay. Once again, we're going to sit tall. Once again, it's always okay to bend the knees. Let's bring the arms. Do we have space? I think we do. Arms out to the sides. Palms facing up. Lift the chest up. Lengthen the spine up. We're going to Xcel and come towards me. Inhale, raise your arms up. Feel spine. Grow in the direction of your arms as you push your arms down and lift taller.

Then we're going to come all the way around through center to the other side. I haven't figured out the breath pattern as you can see, but I'll figure it out. Now let's lengthen the fine up. Bring the arms down and return center. Inhale, exhale, rotate. Inhale, guide the spine up long as the arms reach up. Exhale, bring the arms down and return to center in Hilton and I feel like it has changed it at night. Inhale, reach. Exhale. Inhale, exhale, reach.

Inhale and exhale back in Hilton. Move on. Sticking with this one. XL Arms. Get to all or intolerant, he alarms down and exhale, bring it home and heal a couple more times. Feel length, feel heavy. Shoulderblades as you reached all, open up and return back to center and we're deeply through the way through the abdominals. As you grow taller, reach the arms back down. Return to center. Last one to either side. Inhale and and open and exhale.

And here's our very last one for the day. Any of that reach open back out. Return back to center and stretch forward over the legs coming up. When you're ready. I'm going to have a spring, our right foot, either up against the left thigh or if it feels better, just put it right up against the left calf or left knee. Make sure that you're comfortable with your position, both hips facing forward. We're going to rotate just slightly so that the chest reaches over the thigh. Start to walk yourself forward over the leg and then just pull the abdominals back, stretching back.

Bring the right Yan. If you're holding on with your right hand, let it go and just start your reach past your foot or a pass where you're holding on with your left hand and then just start to turn the right rib cage up towards the ceiling so you're rotating towards the straight leg with the bottom rib cage stretching out through the spine. We're going to exhale and bring it all the way back down. Inhale, lengthen a little further and exhale as we roll ourselves back up. Stretch out the right leg bed in the left, sitting on both hips evenly. We just turn the chest so that our chest is reaching over that straight leg. And then we just walk forward hanging on where it makes sense to you and just gently pulling yourself forward into the stretch, leaving the right hand where it is.

Reach the left arm further than the right arm. Start to reach the left ribs open towards the ceiling, bringing the right chest forward, the left chest, and then I add yourself all the way back forward. Maybe even reaching a little longer. Inhale, hold and exhale as you articulate this spine Baca, bending both knees here, we're going to go into the open leg rocker, so I'm going to offer a modification with bent knees or we can just go for this straight legged position. Whatever you're choosing, you want to start balancing behind your pelvis. A bent knees would look like this. Straight legs would look like this. Both hands holding on both ankles are both shins.

We're going to inhale with the shoulders down, pull down a hardware and a rock back towards the shoulders and roll back up at the top. You want to lift your chest towards your knees or between your legs. Inhale round the lower back, roll back, exhale, roll and grow. The spine tall. It's okay, you won't. It's not okay to not make it every time. Okay. It's okay to just keep going. Let's do a couple of more times to any of that XL and nice work you guys all back. Excellent.

Last time, bend the knees. [inaudible] flatten back out along the mat, straight or bent. I always the option we're going to do the saw so that what we're gonna do first is I'm gonna change it a little bit to start and here's how it's going to go both arms out to your sides, knees straight or bent. We're going to turn in my direction for us. I'm going to ask you to put your hand on the ground, your backhand down, and then bring the forward hand across in. Push with the back arm, sending your front arm forward past the foot. Inhale as you start to raise the arm forward on the diagonal, let the back hand go and come back to center. Inhale, we turn.

Let the backhand assist. Shoot gently as you take that front hand. Pass that outside foot. Inhale, lengthen back out, raise up both arms and come back to center. On the exhale. Inhale, we turn, pull the abdominals back as we send the spine flow. We're further than last time, maybe in Neal length now and Xcel to come back and inhale to gently assist yourself with the back arms stretching forward in heel, spreading up the spine and excelling. We come back. Now we're going to leave that backhand off the ground. We're going to still turn. Push the arm away from you, behind you, and then he sit up and exhale to come back and he'll to turn the spine.

Exhale, the back arm pushes back to send the front arm forward. He inhale, lengthen out and exhale, return back, rotating on a spiraling plane, reaching forward, lengthening up and out and exhale back. Last time we're reaching down, lengthening up and bringing yourself all the way back. Place your hands down and bend your knees. The hands are going to be behind us either facing forward or facing out to the side. We're going to do a bridge. So we're going to start with a straight back or you want to be thinking about working the backs of your legs and thinking about biasing towards just a little bit of a Tuck as we lift. So on the exhale, yeah, marina just either forward like that or out to the side woods at whatever's comfortable on your shoulders. Here we go.

So you're pressing up away from the ground. Press into your legs, lift your pelvis, press up through the hip, flexes up through the chest so you get a shoulder stretch and then with a flat back and abs and we sit down and bring the hips down. Exhale to lift to reach the knees over the toes. Press the hips towards the sky, press the chest towards the sky and sit back down and exhale, left reaching. Okay. And inhale, sitting back and exhale, drawing the abdominals downwards and inhale. Sit down. And last to seeing about pulling the pubic bone slightly more towards the ceiling to open up the hips more and sit down. Here's our last time lifting up and sitting all the way back. Once you get down to the bottom, let's stretch the legs back out, straight, reach back forward.

And with that we roll ourselves all the way to the ground, placing one bone sequentially. After the next, once you arrive on your back, we're going to bend the knees, heading into our second abdominal series. Hug the knees into the chest. For one moment we're going to do the double leg, single leg stretch, and Chris Cross. So you're going to push your knees into your hands, curl the head and chest up. You want to be lifted off your shoulder blades from that place. The backstage is flat. We let the knees go, we stretch the legs out and reach the arms up the arms, make a circle, the knees come back. Inhale, let go.

Arms reach overhead and then they circle to the sides. Use that when you come into the where you're holding on to your knees to encourage your high lift, reach. Feel the knees being pulled in from deep underneath the ribs and reach and coming back. And let's do five more a little quicker, but no less precision and circle to spread out the body on sir. Um, three and two, feeling the backside of the leg. Stay strong. Holding Center. Stretch the right leg out. Keep both hands on the left knee.

Push down into your knee and curve your spine up. Now try to push your knee into your hands. That's going to help you stay lifted and change. So you're pushing down on your knee with your arms and pulling your knee into your hands to keep you lifted and drawing the dorm of town into the ground. Feeling the inner thighs squeeze as they pass. One another.

And here's five and five and four and four. Three 32 two and won and won both knees in reach back, putting your hands behind your head. Stretch out the leg furthest to the back and turn towards the leg in the front and turn Chris Cross feeling that bent knee reach across the center line of the body. So the head heavy in the hands. Feel the rotation happening around the waist, around the rib cage. Let's do five, um, five, four, four, three, three, two, two and more. When bend both knees, reach around your knees and hug your knees into your body. Once again, take a moment. Let your back settle. Turn your head over to one side.

Try to look below the shoulder were behind the shoulder, and then keep [inaudible] the chin close to the chest as you come back to center and look over the opposite shoulder. Coming back to center, we're going to ha rollover, so you're going to start in a tabletop position with your legs, arms at our sides. As you stretch your legs off, stray. Do so on a diagonal that you can keep your back to totally pinned to the ground. Then bring the legs up. Exhale. As you roll over, flex the feet there, separate the legs and slowly roll through your spine. Coming down one bone at a time, keeping the backs of the arms pressed into the ground. As the tailbone touches, we point our toes. Circle the legs to touch. Inhale to vertical and exhale to roll over. Go ahead.

I'm just sitting up to luck in heel flex and separate and exhale, slowly rolling yourself down, pointing the feet as you arrive with the pelvis down. Inhale, lift and exhale. Yami rolling over. Flex up, right? Just you're doing fine. I'm just going to give you a stretch. Yeah, yeah. Just keep using your ams. That's it. She ran in a circle, bringing the legs together and heal this way. And then just, it's just a slow contraction of your stomach because you peel down placing one bone at a time. Okay. Alright, lovely point. The feet circles are like the touch last one.

Reaching the legs up and over. Flex and separate animal using the abdominals to place the spine into the ground. When you get to the bottom, bend your knees and, and then I'd like for us to turn and face me on our side. So you're gonna lay all the way down on your bottom or I'm, your legs are going to be reaching straight out to the side. So you were in a straight line here. Legs together. You can use your hands for balance or if you want to challenge the movement, you can hold onto at sigh or rest your hand on your thigh.

Reach your legs away from you until they hover up off the ground. What we want to be working is the trunk so it's not a big leg focus. We lower down just a little and then we reach out to lift up. Inhale down with the length and exhale out to lift up so there's always an energetic pulling away like you're trying to pull your legs out of your hip socket. Working deeply through the trunk and lower ugly, [inaudible] lower. I'm going to do about four more there.

How stable house strong can you keep the center of your body. Here's three and two on one. Lowering ourselves all the way down with our legs. Take the top leg, reach it back. The front arm reaches forward and just spread out the body, reaching the fingers in the toes and opposition to one another and then coming back. We're going to come up onto our elbow. The first thing you want to do when you're on your arm is pull away from your arm with the lower side of your waist. Feel that shoulder blade draw down away from the ear and then pick up the top leg for the side kick. So pull up away from the ground marina at perfect.

Take the leg forward, kick twice, point your foot and reach back. Kick twice. This is our exhale and we inhaled to point in reach back. What we're trying to do here is keep the trunk stable so the swinging of the leg is distracting the trunk from wanting to stay stable, but we're all doing a good job of resisting that. Here's five and back. Work in the ABS specifically the leg goes back to avoid overarching the lower back. Here's three, okay. And two and one.

Take the leg out to the side, lower yourself all the way back down and bend the leg that was on top. It's going to come down in front of you and you're going to reach around and hold onto that ankle. We want uncomfortable there. Okay. So push the knee that's in your hand away from you and feel it. Pull the shoulder blade down. You can reach her on the front if you want. Is that you're happy there? Okay. Pick up the bottom line. Flex that foot.

Press the leg up into the other leg and down and, and, and uh, so you're just trying to squeeze the bottom of inner thigh into the top inner thigh if it's not comfortable. Yeah, for you to hold onto your foot. Let it go. It doesn't matter that much. Last four and three. So what we're working is our abs and our industry. Fise here's one hold. Take the leg to the back, lower it slightly, pick it back up. Take it to the back.

So you're making about a capital d shape back down and lift back down and left. Last three, two more. And last, when we hold at the top, we go down, back and up, Da, back and last four, three, two and one and gently lower the leg to the ground. Okay. Bending both knees. Just help yourself up. Slide the bottom leg in so that the leg that was on top is out to the side like it was on the bottom. The foot is up against the opposite, so I okay.

Take this hand. Yes, reach this way. So you're reaching towards the leg that was just on top and then we're going to take the body forward. Bring the arm with you. It's a big bend forward at the waist, traveling around in a circle. That hand's going to come down on the mat. You're going to press up with your hips, pressing the back of the hips into the front of the hips to open the hips up, reach the top arm up overhead, reach it first Oh away, and then make three circles with it opening through the shoulder.

Hopefully you're also get a stretch to your waist and a stretch through your hip. No reach. See, I'm all the way back overhead. Sit down towards the Mat, taking that arm back in a circular motion when you can let the hand on the floor come with you and bring your body all the way back into that initial side stretched position. And then come up, swing your legs around to the other side and we'll start from scratch. Okay, so coming all the way down onto your arm, legs straight and together. Abdominals active already before we go anywhere with that, reach the legs away from you to hover them off the ground.

And then from there they only lower just the littlest bit and then they reach out to lift up your lower, just the littlest bit and lift. Reach out. Then again, drawing abdominals inwards. Each and every time we think about moving our legs so it becomes more of a waist exercise than a hip exercise or leg exercise last fall, last four. Good thinking. Concentrating below the belly button as well as above the belly button.

Yeah, and I think there's two more and last one. [inaudible] allow both likes to reach down to the ground, take the top leg back, reach the top arm forward and just reach them in opposition to one another. How does space out or spread out that side of the waist. And then coming back towards center, we're going to help ourselves step onto our elbow, pulling the rib cage away from that bottom arm. Shoulder blade, reaching down top leg lifts up, flex the foot. Uh, Jim just re pull your ribs up. Yep. And here we go. Kick the leg forward and reach it back and bring it forward.

So we're working in the hip now, but also working through the stability of the trunk. So focus on pulling the shoulder blade away from the ear and lengthening the neck outwards. It was five to reach back and six to reach back. And last four and three, two here's our last one. And then we lower the leg down and we lower bodies down.

And you take that top leg and bend it, putting it down on the ground if it's comfortable for you to reach around and hang onto your ankle, do so. If it's not, don't do push the knee away from you slightly. Do you flex the bottom foot and do lift the bottom leg? And with that highest lift, we just try to challenge it by going slightly more up [inaudible] and every time the lave lifts in space, we want to focus on working from the waist or drawing the abdominals back to support that movement. Staying at the top. We're going to take the leg back slightly down and swing it back up, back slightly down and swing it down, up, down. We're not trying to keep the neck relaxed last to one more and we go the other way. We go down a little back, a lot, up, a little and down, a little back and up. So trying to keep that um, circling leg in line or behind the hip.

Last three, two more and last one. And then place the foot down on the ground. Both your hand down, bend both knees, help yourself up. Slide the bottom leg out from under the top leg. And then when he reached the time, or I'm up the, when you're just lying on and we stretch over to the side and then take the body forward, reaching the arms way, 'em space following with the other arm, placing that hand down, reaching up onto both knees, pressing that into the front of the hips with the back of the hips, taking the top arm overhead and just three big circles with that top arm, reaching the waist longer as the arm circles. One more time, and then the arm's going to reach overhead and you're going to sit down on the mat and bend the spine forward.

Bringing that supporting arm around as soon as you can and reaching all the way all over. Okay. Coming all the way back up. Um, turn over onto your, Matt's coming down onto your abdominals. All the way down. We eat it. Put your arms, just the forums, just to the outsides of the Mat. Maybe spread out your arms a little bit. Deborah [inaudible] and Jim, bring your elbows closer to your body and that looks good. Yeah. Andy, let your forms go out a little bit more. Just so you have some space. Okay. Kind of a simple exercise, but it doesn't mean you're not going to feel it.

I hope what you're going to do, so pretend I'm lying on the, on the ground, just like you guide the elbows downwards, press gently into the forums and as that happens, let the head and chest come slightly off the mat and then return all the way back as you draw the elbows down with sending the head forwards. Feel a sense of lengthening forward as you lift up a gym. You can keep your arms down and put your chin down just a little bit. Yeah, and then lower the body down. Let's inhale, prepare, exhale. Send the spine forward. Yeah, so it's the action of really squeezing into the upper back that we're looking for. Added release down. If you feel a great deal of tension or any tension at all for that matter in your lower back, don't lift a sigh. It's not about the height, it's about the feeling in the center of the bar back and release down.

Let's do that about two more times. Reaching the spine out and forward. Nice work you guys and release the spine down. One more time, guiding the elbows, the shoulder blades down the top of the head for the chest slightly up, and then lower yourself all the way down. So from there, stretch out your arms so your arms are reaching forward on the mat. Find as you press into your arms and draw your shoulder blades down.

A slight lift so you're still on the ribs, maybe just slightly off the chest. We're going to go into a swimming prep abdominals and pick up the left arm in the right leg. Inhale, lower those arms and legs and the XL change, so you're reaching away, not necessarily high, but trying to stretch the body. It's a similar feeling to the stretch we did when we were allying on our side, so you're just alternating arms and legs feeling the sense of spreading. Now if you wish, you can speed it up and keep everything off the ground and just alternate. Inhale for four movements and exhale.

Try not to kick the legs. That's, yeah, it's just inhale, inhale. That's it. And Change. Yes, the legs are straight at the knee joint. The work comes from the hip and let your body rest down all the way. Once your back has settled, press yourself back into a rest position. Let the elbows bend, placed the forehead down on the ground, and then we're going to gonna come all the way onto our hands and knees.

I look down at your knees when you set them up, they should be just underneath your hip bones, hands just underneath the shoulder bones. This is a balance, but it's also a little bit of a back extension. So what we're going to do is take the right leg out, straight, lift the right leg up so it's now level with the pelvis, and then send the left arm forward from there. Allow the right leg to just reach down and tap the ground and pick it back up. So you want to work through your abdominals as well. If you wish, as you lift your leg up, you can just slightly lift the arm a little higher. So it's almost like swimming except for we're on one knee and the legs moving a lot more than it would if you're on the mat. Last three and two and one.

Bring the leg back. Set the arm down and sit back on your heels. Spending knee elbows as you lower your forehead to the ground. And then when you're ready to come back, roll through your spine, bringing yourself back on your hands and knees. Stretching the left leg out. Look down. See that the pelvis is level.

Raise the right arm up the left leg up and we just hold that position. Drop the left toes to the ground hen. Reach out and back. And, and I looked down at the ground, Jim and Marina. Look, look down. Jim, look down more. Last three, two and one. Bring the hand down. Bring the knee down. Sit back towards your feet. All right. And then rolling up. Turn towards me, but on our knees.

Is everyone okay on their knees for a minute? Okay. All right, so we're going to do another side exercise as a stretch involved with, it's also some good oblique work. So put your hands on your hips, you should feel that the front bone of your, the two side bones of your pelvis are directly in front of those, the bones directly to the back of them. So for some of us, that means a little bit of a Tuck. Arms out to your sides. Straight. Debra, you're leaning back just a little bit. That's perfect. As you inhale, let's all go this way towards the ocean. We reach over, stretch that opposite waist and we exhale, engage that side of the body to bring ourselves back in here we reach over to the other side and Xcel, we engage the waste to come back as you reach over and stretch things, not just down, but out and up. And the arms see straight. So their only reason one is dropping down is because we're bending our waste. Excelling. We come back in, you know, we reach over and excelling to come back. Let's do that just a couple of times. Let's say three more. Yeah.

Nice. Hell engaging that sideways in here. Annex. Yeah, and this'll be our last one. Breathing in and breathing out. I'm going to turn, but you guys can stay where you are. I just want you to see from a side view, so arms down at your sides. Again, looking for the pelvis to stay in a neutral position. We're going to do a little bit more back extension. This works sitting down to, if you're not comfortable on your knees, but what we're gonna do is reach the arms down the sides of the thighs. Go down as far as you can down your thighs and then like a lever your chest is going to start to arise. Allow the arms to reach to allow the chest to rise, and then with the abdominals like you're doing a setup, we just bring the ourselves back to a neutral spine position. Inhale, reach the arms down, send the ribs up, the chest up.

It's just a small extension of the upper back and exhale using the abdominals to bring yourself back to a neutral position. Let's do two more. Lengthen the arms down to lift the chest up. Focusing on the upper back extents. There's a lower back, just stays where it is and we release back towards neutral and we're going to do it one more time. Arms reaching down. Chest and eyes are reaching up, letting the chest open up and we come back from there. Reach your arms up the uh, forearms parallel to the floor. Inhale, send the elbows in front of the hands. Exhale, stretch the arms up. Reach it slightly on the diagonal behind you and try to feel that you're growing your entire spine. Wider arms is easier for tight shoulders.

We're bring the elbows back down and then return the hands back towards neutral. Inhale, turn the elbows. You want your hands to go slightly behind the elbows if possible, and then exhale, stretch the arms up. Feel the arms light in space, but all the work is happening in the heavy upper back. Rebound the arms and then return the hands back on during and back. Inhale, elbows forward.

Feel the shoulder blades reach in opposition to the hand. The arms are practically wheat, less in Hilary. Ben will get taller and taller and bring it back home. Let's do that two more times. Turn the L, send the arms up and the uh, elbows bend and return. And we're just going one more time.

Hopefully we can all feel some pretty good work in our upper back area. And then folding me all those back and bring the arms back and hold just one shoulder with each hand and just allow your head to drop down to your chest, pulling down just gently on the shoulder so that you get a little bit of a stretch to the upper back. All right, let the arms come down. We're going to finish standing today with a little bit of balance. So you may want to be on your maths or you may just want to step to the back of the mats on the ground. Let's start with the right leg behind us. We're just gonna reach it back and it's gonna start active.

So you want to squeeze the backside of the leg. Your arms are just going to be down towards your sides and as you exhale, you're going to squeeze the back of that thigh, start to send your body forward as the leg lifts up so the body never travels below the leg. It's the action of lifting the leg that moves the body and then we're going to come back up, start to bend that back leg, brewing it up towards the chest, way up high and then stir at it forward and then we're going to bed. Start to reach the leg back as the leg straightens, continue lifting the leg and that's what's going to send our bodies towards parallel. Working through the abdominals is going to be really beneficial here to help us balance. Start to come back up, fold that back leg and bring it right up into the chest and then stretch it out in front and we fall and as the leg first reaches down on a slight diagonal, then when it's straight we start to move the body back forward, just reaching towards the ground, lifting back up, folding that back leg again, bringing it roiled up to the chest.

And then lengthening it out, keeping the spine long. We're gonna do that one more time. Then reached down on a low diagonal. Once the leg is straight, then start to lift that back. Thighbone. Yeah, and then bring it back. All right, you had enough. And then just bend it and place it back down on the ground.

All right. [inaudible] we got to work our tired leg now or him. Okay, so you got your left leg reaching back straight. We're gonna squeeze the back of the leg by. As you lift the back leg, that's when the spine starts to move. Don't worry how low you go or challenge yourself to go low will definitely listen to what your body needs for now. And then bend that back leg. Start to bring it right up into the chest, pulling it up through the abdominals.

Then stretch it forward and then fold it back. Reaching down and back, engaging just below the glute on the backside of that leg, lifting the leg, sending the chest forward. Reach your arms past your pelvis, behind you. Start to come back up engaging through the abdominals. If you've forgotten that pole, the thigh towards the chest. Lengthen the leg out in front. Two more times we been [inaudible] [inaudible] actively lifting through the back of the thigh like you're pushing your thigh bone towards the sky and then Ben and then pull forward and then stretch ya last time.

Stretch the leg down and back. Send the chest forward, bringing ourselves back up. Fold the knee back in, bringing it up as high as you can towards your chest and then stretch it out, keeping the spine along. And then let's just drop that leg into the ground. Positioning your feet parallel to one another in hailing standing tall, allowing your head to fold towards your chest. We're just finishing with a couple of roll downs, reaching down through the spine, drawing upwards into the abdominals, letting the head melt down towards the ground. When you get to the bottom, allow your right knee to fold in. Your right hip will drop and you want to lean and press back into that left hip. They soft in the knee so you don't want to be just hanging on at the knee joint.

And then let's stretch that leg and bend the opposite leg. As that left knee, Ben's left hip drops and we press back leading into the right hip, and then both legs back towards straight. Take a breath, pulling up with the abdominals. We're curling up through the spine, allowing mobility to happen. Feeling the stretch in the spine as we come up towards standing in heel, raises the arms overhead. Circle the arms down towards the ground, and just one more time on the right, so fall forward with the head po up on the abdominals. As the spine travels forward, just letting tension flow out of the body in Yellen as you come back up, gather energy from the earth, bring it with you for the rest of the day. When you arrive at standing, you're free to go. Nice job, you guys. Thanks a lot for coming.

Comments

1 person likes this.
Great ab class. I worked hard in this one! Thanks.
1 person likes this.
Nice flow!
thanks ladies! always great to hear what you think!
1 person likes this.
Great class. Logical transitions. Learned a lot.
As a new teacher myself, what might you offer to students who have had total knee replacements and they don't put pressure directly on knee(s). So while most of the class is on all 4's or the movements where you were on your knees going side to side, what might you have the knee replacement students do ? Thanks sandy
Great question Sandy. If someone cannot be on their knees I might offer them a box or something else to sit on for the lateral work. As far as being on their hands and knees you could offer some sort of padding or choose another exercise with a similar goal/muscle focus for them to do.
2 people like this.
Finding so much work in these "old" level 1/2 classes. Strength and stretch in lovely balance. Quoting Meredith from another of her classes "I feel good!"
As always, I thank you, sweet Joni, for looking back to past classes and always being so supportive of me. Lots of love and come back soon!!!!!
1 person likes this.
Thank you Meredith! Such a nice flow :)
Thank YOU Markella. I appreciate you going back in time to find this one. It is probably one of my first classes on Pilates Anytime. I'm looking forward to seeing you in London in September! xoxo
1 person likes this.
3 hour plane...4 hour car ride....5 hour car ride....and then THIS. Thank you thank you. Level 1/2 can definitely provide all the work I need and want when you cue the class!
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