Class #2730

Side Kick Kneeling Prep

25 min - Class
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Description

Prepare your body for Side Kick Kneeling in this Mat workout with Benjamin Degenhardt. He sequences different exercises together that include the many components that are needed for Side Kick Kneeling. He focuses on creating hip stability while maintaining a limber torso so that it can work against the moving leg.
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

Oct 12, 2016
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Hi everybody. My name is Benjamin. I'm here with Benny and Alisa for, I'm a mat workout that is inspired by the kneeling side cake. There's many components that come together in the kneeling side. Cake we work on hip stability, we work on Nice limber towards so that can move against the moving leg. Um, so there's a bunch of exercises that we sequenced together. He had to prepare a body for that. That will be a tutorial that focuses on the getting side kick in isolation as well.

This is just a nice little class that helps you with your practice of this very complex movement. We'll do a little bit of a standing warmup to get used to being on our knees right from the start. So walk forward to the front of your mat and we begin with our feet together, heels and toes touching and your arms reaching out in front of you. We'll just take the arms there for now as a counter way to our body and we're just kneel down one knee at a time to start. So let's take a knee right side comes down first.

Make sure that you need comes down right underneath your hip. Add your left knee to that without shifting your hips forward or back. Take your right foot back to standing and then come all the way up. We'll take the other side. Left knee comes down first, add your right step onto your left and then come all the way back up to standing. Beginning again. Right knee comes down, left knee comes down, right, footsteps forward, left foot comes forward. Keep doing that left side begins as he rolled down and up.

Begin to understand how much your spine wants to move here. Forward and back, side to side, maybe even into rotation and see if it can keep a sense of verticality all throughout so that your hips start to become more responsible for bringing you down and up. Let's pick up the pace just a tiny little bit. Right knee down, left knee, down, right for tall with step it up, left side down and right. Step Up. Come to standing. One more round, right and left. Set forward. Come to standing. Last one. Nice little way to get the hard beat up a little bit as well at your arms. Come down by your sides and let's take one step back here onto our mat.

We will come into a thigh stretch in a second. Again, letting our knee slowly descend towards the ground and we'll come there from a squat position. So place your feet, add a generous hip with apart parallel is preferred. If you need to turn out a little bit to make your squad happen, that's fine. Let's test that with that first one here. You stretch your arms forward, you'll sit your hips back nice and far behind you and let your hips come down as far as you can maintain a long forward reaching spine against that, that you arms be an extension of that. So there's a bit of swan happening through your chest and then stand yourself all the way back up. Let your arms come down by your sides, right? If that went well, maybe narrow the stance or go parallel.

If you try to turn down, we'll do that again. Fortney is that you find a squad that you're comfortable with, right arms reach forward against the hips, reaching back. It's almost like you're trying to fold your belly onto your thighs, sitting your sits bones back and reaching your arms forward against that. So it's a very stylized squad. We try to load the heels as much as possible, so once you're down, shift Kuli back ever so slightly against the chest, lifting up and then come back up to standing and then try to not hold your breath while doing that. We'll do one more. Send the arms forward, send the hips back. This is when we start to transition into our thighs stretch. Begin to curl the hips down and forward and try to land your knees down on the mat in front of you all the way, leaning your upper body back and then send yourself up on top of your knees.

And here's the funner part. Reverse it. Take your body back into a thigh stretch. Send your hips back, your heels come flat down, your chest is lifted and you come back up to standing. We'll repeat that a few more times just to get used to that. It might be super awkward at first. It's part of the game starts. You on school would send you a hits back, ripple through your spine.

Send your knees forward against your chest, leaning back, lift yourself out of your thighs, stretch, and then go right back into it. Take the body back, hips down and back. Nice, and then stand yourself all the way back up. Let's do two more here. Arms forward, hips back, ripple through. Send your knees down that your body counterweight backwards so that you need to land safely. Reverse it. Take your body back. He looked down his back. Lift the chest. Come all the way up. Here's your last one.

Take it down into your squad. Ripple into your thighs. Stretch. Be Gentle with your knees. You want to make sure that you have a good amount of padding for your knees, their hips back. Whew. Yes. Falling is totally normal. That's how you know you found your edge. Come on up to standing. We'll take just one more here. Take the arms forward, the hips back.

Roll into your thighs stretch. Then we have a super fancy transition where you cross your feet behind you. You sit down behind both your feet. You'll send your legs out long in front of you. You get to be on your back. We're not warm to start our traditional network.

We begin with a hundred as always, take your arms over your head. Give yourself a nice long reach. Feel how long your spine is right now and commit to keeping it that long. Lift your arms up and forward. Should know of your chest. Lift your legs into your a hundred position.

Begin to pump your arms up and down. Breathing in and breathing out and breathing in. Breathing out the squad really triggers the bigger muscles in our body to warm up. This is more about our postural strength or postural control. Breathe deeply and slow while pumping the arms. Super strong. Tens and fast. XLR The air. Ouch. Expand your ribs in all directions.

Left, right forward, back, up and down. Exhale, narrow in, stretch long through the arms and legs. We're halfway through. Continue to reach the legs out of your body. The hips in to a place where you can continuously extend the feet forward and away from you. Deep in the ribs. Down against that, we have one more breath. Inhale. Exhale. We keep the arm still for just one more breath. Take an inhale, take an exhale. Now keep the tension in your body as you release the legs down. As you release your head down. As you bring your arms down by your side, even as you lift your right leg straight up to the ceiling, think the a hundred still continues. I said that for our sidekicks later, our legs move against a moving torso, so that's where we're warming up in a one leg circle. Take the leg across, let the hip lift. Take the leg down around an uphill move. Nice and slow.

Take the leg across the hip lifts me. Move your right shoulder into the Madden opposition. Circle the leg down around and up. Do that one more time. Notice how it's not just the leg moving, but how your foot, your leg, your hip moves your entire back in this exercise. And then we versed the circle open to the side. Bring it down.

The right shoulder keeps pushing into the mat as the lay comes around. Nice. Open down across an up. Activate your bottom leg, the one that's on the ground as well. So it gives you a foundation to move from down across an up. Let's do one more. Open down. Swing it across, lifted up. Take the leg all the way down other side.

Find that hundred tension in your body again, right? That's strong activation through your center. Take the hip up to bring the leg across. Swing it down, around and up. There's many ways we can do this exercise with a stable head. Super slow, super fast. We're going forward and really wide reach that pulls the hip into a stretch of our back cause that'll serve as later in our kneeling side.

Kick one more time this way and then take it the other direction. Think about that. Bottom leg again. Think about your arms too. How can you use them in such a way that it keeps your chest open to give you more space to breathe down, across and up. Let's do one more. Open down. Reach it across. Last chance to stretch. Lower the leg down. Bring your arms over your head and in one movement, lift yourself up until you're rolling like a ball start position.

It's another little squat, but very different here in that the spine is rounded. You hear that to your seat. We're gonna use this one just to roll it out a little bit. Roll to your shoulders, lift your hips up nice and high and kind of right back up. Let's do that again. Roll to your shoulders if the hips and come back up.

Try to find the central line of your mat and roll your spine all the way along the length of it to your shoulder. So the fact up a couple more. Rolling back and lift yourself up. Here's your last one. Roll back to your shoulders. Lift up at the top. Hold yourself there. Stretch your arms out in front of you. Reach your legs out in front of you. Roll your spine unto the lower back. Shoulders are still lifted.

Head is still lifted. And once you're there, hug your knees back into your chest. Give yourself a squeeze with the head up. We go right into our double x stretch from here. Inhale, reach your legs forward and out. Press your palms into your thighs like you're holding them together with your arms. Exhale, bend your knees back and give them a squeeze in a hug. Go again. Inherit reach down and out as far as you can. Opposition through the center. Exhale, bend your knees back in. Give them a squeeze in a hug. Go again. Inhale, reach long and low. Exhale, knees come in, getting strong through the full body here. Inhale, reach and exhale.

Come back and feel how your body stretches in two opposite directions here. Out through the center, out through the legs. Exhale, come in final on a promise. Deep breath and stretch. Press your legs tight. XL knees, come in, squeeze in tide, and then rocky south up to a seated position. Nice work. You guys. Open your legs as wide as your map. Now we'll take our saw twist to go back into the idea of rotating our spine.

We'll take the Saul to a new place today, right? Cause it's a little different from the traditional version of it. Take your heels into the corners, flex your toes back and reach your arms out to either side. Try to hug shoulder blades together without losing that width across your chest or the width and your upper back or the length of your spine, not going around over the leg. In today's side. Instead we're going to twist all the way 180 degrees, maybe more to the right.

So begin to twist to the right as far as you can when you start to get stuck, allow your left hip to lift up and continue the rotation. So again, the spiral of your torso continues through the leg until you see the wall behind you. You check out the beach, yes, it's right there. And then maybe even take your hands to the mat to assist you going a little deeper, but mostly getting a little taller. Feel how that spiral runs all the way into that back leg. Now push out through your left heel to begin coming back through center, right? So it's a movement that travels all the way through the body.

Ticket up and to the left. You corkscrew your head right through the ceiling. Once you get stuck, keep that hug of your shoulder blades. Allow the hip to lift instead so it's a full body experience, right? Take your hands through cyst you not to force you into a deeper rotation just to hold you in place like a kickstand. Maybe create more lift. That's it, and then push out through your right heel to pull yourself back through center fields. Quite lovely. We'll take one more. Take it up and over to the right twist, twist, twist, twist.

Let it be an endless motion. Even when you arrive, let your breath be what takes you deeper into the twist. You expand your lungs, your ribs, and then you push out through that left heel to return back to center. Let's do one more to the left. Lift up and out of your waist. That's what makes it easier to lift that hip up as well. This is again, will be very helpful in what we're experiencing in our kneeling side. Can come back out, push through the right heel, come back through, center from here. Cross your feet in front of you. We have the reverse of that fancy transition.

Bend your knees and rock yourself up onto your knees and cross your feet behind you. And we're ready for our thighs stretch. So stand on up on your knees. Your knees are hip distance apart. Your shinbones parallel. Maybe peek back at your heels for a second. Make sure that points straight up. Center of your shinbone pointing down and the shoelace part of your feet is pushing into the ground. Now without moving your knees, feel like you're dragging the mat together between them. Send your arms out long in front of you. We've done a thigh stretch earlier.

Now warmup. Now we isolate that very movement. Lengthen your tail down, your eyes. Keep looking forward. Take your body back from the side. You look like the letter z. You hold that for one breath in, one breath out. Then you'll lift yourself back up. And if that's hard to hold, you may have gone too far too fast. Do that again. Take your body back maybe just a little less than that first time and hold it longer instead. Exhale. See if you can breathe there and then lift yourself back up. Let's do that twice more. Take your body back.

So obviously in our kneeling psychic, we will be on our knees. We will have to extend the hips quite significantly, so this is a great preparation for that. Lift back up. Take one more. Take your body back, keep reaching forward through the arms will recharge your fingertips away from your chest. Exhale, lift yourself up and then we'll take a quarter turn, two hour ride for what I call the sites. Sit Down, come to the middle of your mat. We have space to both the left and right side of you and take your hands behind your head. All right, this is another exercise that really helps us get into the sides of our body. And again, adding hip extension to that.

Press your head into your hands the same way you would in your neck pole to lengthen the crown of your head up your tailbone down. Keep your knees together and then try to sit your hips down on the left side of your feet to start trying to keep your spine as upright as possible without falling into the left side, which is the most challenging part, and then lift yourself back up. Now you might find that you have to slinky your way up onto your knees. Let that happen. Play with it. Take it down to the right side. Now again, keeping yourself as upright as possible, but don't drive yourself crazy about not bending your spine. Anyone way, just move slow and with breath, take it down on the left. Keep your head pressing into your hands. Even if you start to bend, we'll start to find your obliques kicking in, but it's really mostly about that hip extension driving you up onto your knees.

Again, take it down on the rites and lift back up. Let's just do one more set down on the left. How can you stretch the crown of your head up at all times? Lift yourself back up. Needs to gather as much as possible. Last one down on the right and come back through the center and turn and face the other direction. Here's our super fancy transition.

Again facing this way. You Cross your feet behind you. You sit down behind both your feet and you hook your feet underneath the strap for our neck pole, right in our kneeling sidekick, we do have the hands behind the head and quite a specific position which we will see later. Um, so this is a great preparation for that part of it. Take your hands behind the head, pull your toes back and actively use the strap. They are about hip distance apart and want to press your legs outwardly as much as pulling on the strap. Now lift yourself off your seat as much as you can. Push your head back into your hands and then begin to round yourself down over the legs. Stretching forward with leasing your spine.

But all the while pushing your head up into your hands so your belly never rests or collapses onto your thighs. Then lift yourself back up. Take a deep breath in. Think spine, search forward. Exhale, rounding down and forward. Pressing the head up into the hands so it's not a bend at the neck. It's an even curve throughout the spine and traction coming down the entire back. Lift yourself back up. Let's do it once more. Just forward before we take it all the way back. Rounding forward, lift yourself back up. Keep the strap Todd and enroll yourself unto your back.

Using that same mobility of your back and the same push of your head into your hands until your head is all the way down. These guys are doing it painfully slow. We do one more like that and then we speed it up a little bit. Jen over chest continued to press your head back into your hands, round over the legs, sit yourself up and then we'd go three times a little quick. Roll on down, pull on the strap, release the head and come back up round over the legs. Keep flexing your feets it up and rolled right back down.

You really pull back on that strap, especially as you come up and lift. Take it all the way down. We'll take one more full wrap. Open through the chest. At the bottom and lift yourself back up. Keep that open as in your chest. Lift up tall, roll yourself down with great control, keeps sending you heels forward and away from you. Release your head and then again with our hands behind our head.

In the next exercise, we'll take our sidekick. You can lose your strap. We're going to keep our legs facing this direction. Just roll onto your right side, facing out that direction. Take both hands behind your head. Bring your legs out in front of you. Lift your top leg up and bring it back behind you.

And then just pause there for a second. Now think of that side sit down and how your spine was bending in an effort to keep the crown of the head reaching straight up to the ceiling. Can you make something similar to that happen here? When you press your head back and you'll stretch your head away from your hips against your toes, reaching back nice and far. We're going to take these fairly slow today.

Swing the leg down and forward as far as you can. See how much your torso has to accommodate the leg and then bring the leg back and then do less towards the movement and more leg movement. Go again, forward and a back. Nice. Continuously. Press your head back into the hand. Swing the leg out in front of you. Keep the top side of your waist long and swing the leg forward. One more time. Slow. Take it back and now we go like crazy fast. Take the leg forward, kick and bring it back area and kicking ball. We're bringing it back.

Almost go so fast. You don't have time to think about it. Sometimes that does wonders for your movement ranges. Nice. One more time. Kick forward. Kick back and hold. Stay right here with the leg behind you. Bend your knee, grab a hold of your foot with your left hand and give yourself another thigh stretch here. Heel to seat. The knee pulls back behind you, but your left hip bone is pushing forward all at the same time. Take a full breath here, a full breath out, and then we'll do the other side.

Roll over your stomach to face the other direction. Line yourself up with the back of your mat. Your legs come forward, hands are behind the head, top leg lifts, top leg goes back as the leg goes back with the chest forward and up. And again, we'll take four nice and slow. And so Winnie sewing it forward and reach it back. Look full length in your torso and observe how much your spine as part of this, right? It's not just a kicking leg, it's your full body working, moving, reorganizing itself to allow the hip to free up. One more time, swing it forward, swing it back. Crazy fats, kick it thought and reach it back and kick it forward and reach back. If I only saw you from the hips up, could you make it look as if you're just lengthening your spine more and more with each second that passes. Last one, kick it forward.

Reach it back as far as you can. Keep your knee right there. Just bended. Grab a hold of your foot and give yourself a nice little thigh stretch here. Heel to seat. Nigos back. Lengthen your tail down towards your left heel. The one that's on the ground to assist you and your thighs stretch.

Puff your chest up against it and then let all of that go. Now we have a nice little crazy drill for you here to get into that rotation. Again, come up to a seated position. Next up in our sequence would be the teaser. We'll combine that with our swimming and turn that into a nice little rolling exercise. Yes, we're going to face this direction when he comes on to the center of your mat here. So we all have space. Um, so we're working on rolling the hips around in the same way we did in a one leg circle, right? Do you remember how the hip brought the leg across the center?

We just do that out of a teaser. No big deal right now from this position, pull your knees into your chest, find your rolling like a ball start position and then unfold into what is your teaser are today. That might be straight legs and straight arms. Definitely a rounded spine. Definitely a lot of breath. Perhaps a hint of a smile. Now from here, lift your left hip up to roll onto your right and try to arrive on your stomach with your arms reaching forward. Yes, you may use your hands for assistant because you might have to, maybe you have to also recalibrate the way that you on your mat. Make that happen. But try to maintain the lift. We're not going to do swimming because that would be so evil right now.

Let's take one more turn the same direction. So roll yourself onto your heads, lift yourself into a teaser. Again, readjust your position and then bend your knees into your chest. Give yourself a squeeze, and then let that go for a second. Reposition yourself on your mat. We're going to take that same exercise back one more time. We'll just do it once each way today, right? Um, of course, when you practice this, you can do 10 of them. Super Fun, Super Fun.

You just need a lot of space to make this happen, right? So again, it's about initiating that movement from the center of the body and from that hip lifting up. We'll need that in our kneeling sidekick. Stretch your arms and legs forward. Last one. The right hip lifts to maneuver you onto your stomach. Press both hipbones down to lift your arms in your legs, away from one another. Collapsing. As part of the learning process, can you stretching your fingertips and your toes away from one another?

Take one more. Turn onto your hips to lift into a teaser. Pull yourself up. So good you guys. Squeeze your legs into one another. Hole the shea for just one more breath. Whereas that hint of a smile. Yes. Bend your knees back into your chest. Give yourself a squeeze. Nice work you guys from here.

Swing your feet around to the left side so that you can stand up on your knees. And we're gonna face that direction here. And we have a couple more things on our side. Of course, leading up to our grand finale on kneeling sidekick, we're going to do a little site set up this time. So positioning yourself sort of in the center of your mass. We have space for your left leg to reach out to the side.

Send your left leg out to the side. Flex your foot so the inner edge of your foot is down. The outer edge of your foot can be lifted. If this starts to get cranky in your left hip, you can make little adjustments here, such as turning the leg out, placing the foot down, bending the knee, right? So let that be a variable that you find for yourself.

What I'm looking for is that your right hip extends, meaning your right hip bone is right above the right knee. Throughout the whole exercise, there's no sitting back because we always default into shortening in the front of our hip and letting the back of it go weak. Take both hands behind your head position that you now super comfortable with. We're going to take a little side. Sit Up here. You take your body out to the right on a high diagonal in line with your left leg already here. Start to notice.

Can you push your right hip forward just a smidge more in? Does that make your position stronger? Yes. Lift yourself all the way back up to a vertical spine. We'll do that again. Stretch it up and out to the right. Send energy through that left leg as well in our position.

And then pull yourself back up on top. We'll take one more out on a high diagonal. Now stay there, add a bend of your back down towards the Mat, and then lift yourself into your high diagonal. Then come back up in a straight line. Do that again. Straight-Line ouch. Bend it down like a little slinky and then a lift out into diagonal. Come back up. Do that one more time. Stretch it out to the side. Bend it down, lift to the diagonal, lift back up.

Free the right 10 and place it down next to your right knee or in line with your right knee. Rather, shift your left foot slightly back on your mat to make space for your right leg to extend in front of it. So now you're in a side plank with your right foot in front of the left. So yeah, keep that leg back. Shift the other one in front. You can flex both feet and have them down here. And this is where we just hold and hang out for a second cause that's super fun to hang out here, right?

Lift your top elbow up away from the hand that's pressing down. Lift your left hip up towards the ceiling, but also your right hip up towards the ceiling and where your inner thighs meet. Squeeze them together and then breathe. Take a full breath in. Take a full breath out and then gracefully bend your right knee back underneath your head. Push that hip forward. Take your hand behind the head, lift yourself all the way back up. It's totally over. Bend that knee back in. Let's do the other side.

Right leg stretches out towards the right inner edge of the foot down. Outer Edge lifted again. Make all the adjustments you need. If this puts your back into an arch, right, you might have to make some adjustments through the hips, but that left hip is the star of the exercise. All right, finally find that high diagonal. Again. Lean your body up and over to the left in line with your right leg on arch. The reds. Stretch your head into your hands and pull yourself back up.

We'll do that twice more. Just isolating the diagonal up and over to the side. Looking for staying parallel through the sides of the waist. Yes. Great adjustment. One more time. Stretch it up and over to the left. Lift back up. We're going to add on on this next one. Stretch up in, out. Bend through your bag.

We to try to puff out your right side rib cage length and into the dinette diagonal income. Back Up. Let's do that two more times. Stretch it up. Get longer, longer, longer, longer, longer. Get even longer as you bend down. Lengthen the bottom side of your ways to lengthen out and then come back up. We've got one more. How's that left hip coming? Is it starting to sit back? I know it wants to. Yes. Good. Stretch it out.

Lift back up for your left hand. Take it down in line with your right foot and left knee. Shift your right foot back a bit. Make space for your left leg to extend underneath you and then just hold. It's like your torso never changed in this transition. You NRG your ribs, you hug your legs together, where they meet, you lift your right up to the ceiling. You lift your left up to the ceiling.

Yes, you take one awful breath because you can and because you should, and then you bend your knee underneath the hair, pushing that head forward right away. Bend your right knee, lift yourself back up, and then guess what? We're ready for a psychic kneeling at last. Take your right hand down, stretch your left leg out to the side. Transition into that movement right away. Your left leg reaches out. What we're looking for here is that your torso and your leg lineup. I don't need this leg to be parallel to the floor at all, especially if that gets you tied in your hip. Swing the leg back behind you.

You've done all the pieces that led you here. Push the ground away with your right hand. Feel that puffing out of your left side rib cage and then add your side kick. Kick it forward, or to reach it back. We'll just do four more here. Kick it forward, forward, reach it back and you're hand pushing into your head.

Help you here to find more stability. Kick, kick, reach back. One more time. Kick, kick. Reach it back. Bring your leg out to the side and then float yourself up onto two knees. Both hands behind your head, transitioned to the other side. Left hand down, right leg out to the side. Swing the leg back behind you to wind up some energy.

Give yourself space to move from off you. Go kick it forward. Kick. Reach it back for a more kick kick. Reach it back and arch the reds. Push that left hip ball and remember how we worked on that? Yes, you do. One More Jack Gig of ball with one, two or reach it back and hold. Swing your leg out to the side.

Pull yourself up onto two knees while you're on your knees. Turn and face forward. Tuck your toes under. Reach your arms out long in front of you. Guess how we come back up to standing? I have an idea thigh. Stretch your body back. Flatten your feet. Sit your hips back into your squat.

Take a moment here and then lift yourself all the way up to standing. Shake it loose. You guys are all set. That is your kneeling sidekick inspired masterclass. If that last movement was still elusive to you, there is a tutorial that comes with this class. Watch that as well. Hope you enjoyed it. Thank you guys so much.

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Comments

2 people like this.
Benjamin, you are such an inspiration! I absolutely love your classes. Thank you!
3 people like this.
This was an awesome class progression to side kicks! Loved the saw variation! Thanks so much!
Benjamin Degenhardt
Thanks for watching! It's been so fun conceptualizing and teaching these short sequences, so glad you enjoy them.
1 person likes this.
Love your classes! Bonnie said it, your progressions and variations are really great!
1 person likes this.
Awesome as always!
Ann S
2 people like this.
Some "wicked" exercises and variations...whew, I'm tired just watching:) Your cuing was spot on as well. Thanks for sharing.
Brilliant!!!!!!
Oh man! This one for me to work on... I love a challenge.

I love your teaching too Benjamin xxx
Tried this class again today and it was much more do-able. Still some work to do - despite this feeling inspired not frustrated.

These short nuggets of awesome are very much appreciated especially as these days 30 minutes is all I have to practice.


Thank you so much Pilates Anytime for sharing this wonderful, intelligent, kind and encouraging teacher with the world.
1 person likes this.
Loving this classes preparing for the exercise S2. You're the Best Benjamin!!
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