Class #29

Efficient Mat Flow

50 min - Class
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Learn to work efficiently right from the start! In this class, Amy provides good explanation of important concepts like neutral pelvis, and Pilates breathing. It's a great workout too!
What You'll Need: Mat

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Okay. I'd like everyone to stand for class to start and yeah, you can stand it in the back of your mat or wherever you're comfortable really on your mat. Let's just take a quick review and some of the theme today is going to be about the pelvic triangle that we work on here. So hip bones, pubic bone, nice sense of a level. So cross left to right, right to left. And then of course down to the pubic bone, even in this plane. So take a second, lift your right hip. Okay, drop it. And then the left hip, then drop that.

Now bring the bottom tip of the triangle forward. Okay. And then take the bottom tip of the triangle and reach it back and then find that place right between all of those ups. Oh, we forgot one. Let's go one side forward and then level the other side forward. Okay. So you've seen a few different ways that that can move. So I'll be talking quite a bit about keeping that level symmetrical in balance in this frontal plane. There's also one in the back. So just quick, put your hands behind your back at your sacrum, back of your pelvis and same thing. Let's do that. Stick the bottom, tip back.

Just feel that. Okay. And then the bottom tip forward and feel level. And then maybe one of the hips up again, the back of the hip and down other hip up. You can feel all the ranges are possible there. And then the back, one forward center, and then the other side [inaudible]. So rarely are we going to want to be out of those in those places, but on certain exercises or during certain, we may reference one, moved the bottom triangle forward, move it back. Okay, we're checking that they're all level. So let's go ahead and then sit down to the mat.

And I'm going to do this with you and let's just start a little breathing first before we get going. So legs are a feeder apart, wider than your hips. If that feels good or you can be sitz bones with the part and that's round our back. Set your hands right on top of your feet and encourage your head to drop the weight of your shoulders to drop. There we go. And depending on how your body feels right now, that might feel good to do or challenging to do. So just be with your body, move with what you can do and let's focus on the volume of your inhale so we know our breath too. We want to fill those lungs up. Take a nice full breath in.

You'll try to feel some movement through your ribs and on your exhale maybe the ribs just soften and close. And again, a nice full breath in feeling the width of the ribcage, sides and back. And then the exhale, a closing. So you're taking volume into the lungs and there the lungs are inside the ribs and see if little little bit of extra weight with your head dropping down. Feel that weight may open up your back a little bit more and just check in also on the shoulders and let maybe those kind of soften a little bit as well. And then on your exhales that start to put a bit more focus on the texture of your abdominals, getting a little bit more drawn back or deeper inward towards your spine. And know that is to help open up the joints between vertebrata Vertebra.

The more that stomach comes into it, the back and broaden. So let's take three more together. Inhale and exhale. I had a big expanded breath in and exhale and keeping the weight of the head down. And one more time. Breathe in and exhale. Okay. Okay.

So if we start then from there, working ourself up to a vertical spine or what your body feels as though it can be vertical spine. Okay. And let's place our hands underneath the base of the knees or the backs of the knees and I'll show it from the front just so you can see. Can you let your elbows point out? Yup. Shoulders down. So there's a real broad sets through your elbows and your rib cage. And let's start working on moving the pelvis. So if we referenced the triangle, we'll take the two front parts of the triangle and pull them back. Okay, so as tall as you can on a breath in the exhale. Here we go.

I like to think of my sits bones pulling together and my belly pulling back. Inhale, let's come up on top of those sitz bones and exhale again to pull back. This is abdominal work, but also glutes. If you can feel that in your base. Inhale, coming off tall and exhale. See there's a weight shift back. Elbows, nice and broad.

And inhale, think taller through your top of your, of your head. And again, exhale and curl. Pulling those tips of the triangle back or possibly the bottom tip forward. And inhale up tall. Let's take three more and exhale and pull widening the lower back. Just checking in that the neck is not trying to participate. Here.

You can relax the sides of your neck. Two more and a little more. Pull from the belly. So when, just the next one that's going to lead us all the way back to the mat. Here's our last one up tall and exhale. Let's let go with the arms. There's guide yourself down smoothly. Bone by bone.

Here we go. Okay, good. So move your feet back towards you a bit. We're going to still stay in that uh, hip bone with the part position sits bones with the park. And I think I'll have a start with some of upper abdominal work. So if we can interlace the hands behind the head. All right. And then here we will want level, pelvis, level triangle.

And as you take your elbows just slightly up off the floor, you may be able to see them in your peripheral vision. Okay, so let's take a nice full inhale and on the exhale, lift the head, neck and chest. And we're coming into that curled position. Now when you roll back, keep the quality of your contraction. So let's inhale, roll back and exhale and curl forward. You're going to look right at the knees or across the tops of your knees and inhale and roll back. Little adjustment. Exhaling her girl. Good keeping weight even on the back of the triangle. Inhale, roll down and exhale. And Pearl stayed right there for a moment. So the part of your back that's touching the mat, maybe your upper back between your shoulder blades.

See if you can press into the mat and possibly curl higher without moving your triangle to keep that level. Okay. And let's take that back. Inhale, do more times without that stop. So we curl up. Yup. And inhale, roll back. And last one, let's curl. No, let me just throw this in. Holding this position. A little endurance for the abdominals. If your neck gets tired, just put it down. So on your first exhale, let's lift the left leg up into 90 90. You just take that leg and hold it up. Let's inhale and take it back down and exhale the right thigh up.

And inhale, lower down. Keep alternating. If you want to use your eyes to check down at that bottom part of the triangle. Keep it flat. So I'm going to come behind you and try to lift. You're a tiny bit more off your shoulder blades.

Yeah. One more. Each leg. I know this is a lot. Exhale, left leg. Inhale lower and exhale, right leg and lower, and then lower the chest down. Okay, good. So I think we feel a little bit of energy there. So, uh, moving on. Uh, you can take your arms off to the sides of the mat if you'd like to think that might feel good with your palms face up and still working the feet and legs hip with the part of your sits bones with the part, some, uh, pelvic curl.

Although I'm going to start a little differently with this too. So rather than taking articulation up, we're going to work it down so, and that'll bring in another concept of the torso position. So guys, let's just take our hips up, hips up. You'll be up more weighted on your shoulder blades and stand firm into the feet. And this is the ever important plank line that we see in other exercises. This long connection from the rib cage to the triangle and down and out the thighs and knees. Often that pelvis drops back down.

So we'll want to keep that lifted. Okay, now take your upper back and start to press it into the mat. We're going to segment each part of the spine and come down, breathe on your own. So feel the back press into this mat surface. I might come around and pull on your legs a little bit just to give you a sense of reaching out longer through your back. You're using the mat to press into. All right?

And when you've made it all the way down, just notice that you're in that flat triangle position. Okay, so let's go ahead again, stand into the feet and lift the hips and I'm gonna make sure to see the plank line from your ribs down through your pelvis and thighs. Good. All right, let's go again to roll down and take your time. Breathe as you need to. So right now on the way down, your lower part of the triangle is much higher than your hips are. The two part, the upper parts of your triangle, you probably haven't had that. Yeah, yeah. All the way. How long can you make your spine? There we go. All right, let's go again. Pelvis and spine, up up to the tops of the shoulder blade.

Now to breath cycles to come down. First breath cycle. You'll inhale, exhale down to the lowest rib on your back. Second breath to the tailbone. Here we go. And exhale down to the lowest ribs. Inhale, exhale down to the tail bone. Take a pause. Breathe in. Exhale, lift the hips to breath cycles. Inhale, exhale down to the lowest rib.

Low of triangle. Tilt it up, yes, and all the way down. Second breath to the tail. Okay, one more time. There's a little extra at the top of this one. So again, pelvis up. Now lift your arms to the ceiling and then back behind you without your arms touching the floor completely. So as you're looking to the ceiling, you want to see your arms in your peripheral vision. Now as you start to articulate down, you can reach your arms farther back to the wall behind you. Here you go.

It's really yummy for your upper back. Chin stays steady. Head stays steady. Just feel that segmenting of your vertebrae. How long can you stretch your back? And then as you feel your pelvis come to that level, place arms down by your sides. Now we're ready for the hundred. All that warmup. Bring your legs together, knees together. I'm going to have you take a breath. Exhale.

Both lays will come up to that table, top position. And this morning for class, let's take our rhythm of the breath in the two counts. So the, okay, and I'll tell you when to move your legs. But for the beginning we'll start with tabletop. So arms straight up to the ceiling. Inhale to get ready. Let's exhale, curl up. So use that contraction. Stay steady there and pulse the arms. So there is a rhythm in our movement, good and legs to vertical and drop that sacred and the tailbone.

Stretch your feet. So this is a fine place to stay if you'd like to. If you want a little more work, you'd lower the legs down a few inches or lower. If you can maintain that level triangle as well as safe feeling in your back, you get a little more broad Elisa across the car. Yes.

Good. And Eight, seven, six, five lifts a little more off the mat and last breath hold and then bring everything down to rest. You need a little head turn. Okay, the roll up. Let stretch your legs down. Long arms again, overhead with a nice active spine. So we know if our arms are too far back, we often lose that and we distend the rib cage, shorten the back, so oppose that and pull that back. So, uh, you know, it depends on how your back feels. If you feel like you're going to get stuck on the way up, you may want to bend your knees a little bit. Okay, so let's take our inhale, lift your arms, head, neck and chest. Exhale, push into the mat with your back and roll up. I like to have that feeling. The top of my head is following the direction of my fingertips.

Now pull the base of the euro tailbone under just a little bit and lower belly back. Now let's pull ourselves back on the inhale. Place the back of that triangle down on your mat and there's the sequential roll down through the vertebral bone by bone all the way down. Arms go overhead without losing that contraction here. Lots of talking. Let's go again. Inhale and belly. So our energy stays funneling forward with the spine, but the abdominals pull the opposing direction. Now to go back.

Inhale, lower belly sits bones together and you're wanting to place that triangle mice and flat and sequentially rolling down. So let's do three more repetitions. I'm just gonna want you, here you go. Sure. And then make June. I have to actually just say, make sure your head is not hanging down underneath the level of your arms. All right, that's better. And pull back two more repetitions and inhale, exhale and roll up. Pull that low belly back. Good. I saw that Leah. Inhale and exhale, pull lots of belly pole. Stretch through your legs, through even the tops of the feet.

And one more to go. Inhale, arms, head, neck and chest. Dan, rule up. Ah, yeah, it's all right. Yeah. Here we go. And breathe in and exhale, rolling down and hopefully feeling good in the lower back after that. Okay, so with legs circles, our next exercise, let's go ahead and take our arms down by your sides. Again, I'll leave it up to you if you want palms up.

I kind of like that to open up the upper arm and shoulder. If that doesn't work for your arms today, you can put your heart, ah, hands flat. Okay, so in a little developed pay or half a bicycle move, let's start with our right leg, bend the knee and then the leg comes to the ceiling. It's a slight turnout as we know, and take just a second and feel the back of your right hip. Reach into the mat. Now we're not unleveling that triangle. You just have a little bit more weight because sometimes it does not want to stay down against your mat. If this bothers your hip today, you can do it with a bent knee. I might show mine here what you guys do.

Yours with straight like five across inward, five across outward. Here we go. The breath will be an inhale cross and an exhale to circle. Inhale to cross and exhale to circle your goal for yourself. Level that triangle. She doesn't have to be a big circle of the leg. Last one here looks good. Okay. The other direction.

Think about working within the frame of your mat and oh out to the right, down around and lift. Sink that other hip down. Yeah, there you go. Maybe not quite so low. I think that was, why wasn't it? You think it was? Okay. Bend the knee and that, stretch it all the way down to the mat. Okay. Bicycle. The left. Bend and stretch to this ceiling again. Checklist the back of your hip, anchored into the mat. Also.

The other one should be anchored as well. Here we go. Cross inward and exhale around center. Here we go. So there's a continuation of stretch in the leg that's still on the mat all the way long through the hip and foot. Last one, this direction. Cross circle around lymph then, then reverse open down and live. Keeps sinking. The back of the pelvis.

Yeah, there you go. Different turn in butter. Okay, hold right there and then go ahead and lower your leg down and rest. Do something for yourselves right now. Shake your legs. Just Blah, blah, blah. Engineer's, shake your hips around us. Let your leg muscles relax for a moment. Okay. And then let's do a roll up to get ready for the rolling like a ball. So get yourself ready and you don't have to be too formal about it.

Go ahead and get on up. And the rolling like a ball. Okay, so options again. Uh, I like, uh, maybe as an option. Elbows out again needs a little more apart. If you're feeling the tension or tightness there. If the roll up might wasn't quite as smooth for you. If you're feeling okay, close the knees up and perhaps the hands down on the shins. Okay.

So find your balance point for a moment and take a check in on the sits bones. I'm gonna pull those together and that low belly in. No, we're not in a level pelvis. We know that the bottom tip is forward. The top, top two are pulled way back. We'll do six repetitions. So the inhale takes you back, pull into the stomach and roll. Exhale up and put the brakes on. Eh? Good. You guys. Easy shoulders, nice, easy. Roll through your back. Sounds good to, I'm going to have you actually do two more and just notice how quietly you're all rolling in your back last time and finish that. [inaudible] no thumps today. No lumbar thumps. Really good. Okay. Single leg stretch.

You know where you're going so you can roll yourselves back. Yes, let's go ahead and keep both legs up in that 90 90 positions. Your knee joints are up above your hip joints bolted. Come on up into your chest lift position where you're a curl and let's extend our left leg forward and place the hands on the top of the right shin outside hand. Lower. Now the the straight leg, I'm going to let you play with this a tiny bit. If you can take your leg down lower than toe level, you can do that to open up your hip line in the front, but you shouldn't feel the back.

Go into an arch so you know you've got to really pay attention to how you're feeling there. All right, so let's do just exhales as we stretch the legs. So inhale, change, exhale, stretch and stretch. I'm watching your hip get old Ben here and open little faster. Just a titch and a stretch. There's our rhythms. Are you curled up a high off your shoulder blades, your focuses in your tummy.

Nod in the neck. Go with just four more. One, two, three and four. Both knees come in. If you want to let your head go back just for a moment. Okay, good. How about our double leg stretch? So exhale, bring your head and chest back up as your hands are on your knees. I want to see just for a second if everyone can not drop the bottom of the triangle.

Did you all feel that we are a little bit pulled up and that happens after some of that abdominal work. So just keep trusting that you can drop that very bottom tip down. Okay. You're now you're very level. So the double leg stretch, let's take the arms and legs up and not a big circle with the arms. How about a little wet about mat width and close curl? A little higher in your torso will do four more and exhale, lift and close lift and you're off the bottom of the triangle. Two more.

Shh. And last one, a big stretch and exhale close everyone lower your head. You can place your feet down on the mat. Roll your head from side to side. Just how you're feeling. Don't have to answer out loud. I'm just checking that uh, your neck is okay. Now we'll do one more, um, before we turn over to the tummy. So come on up, find your way up to sitting and we'll sit in a diamond position, diamond feet together, knees open, and later this actually becomes the seal. So you'll recognize that position. So we'll start, get a little preparation for a saw, but I want us to start with arms crossed. Mr.

Cross your arms across your chest and notice how even you are on your sitz bones. Your triangle is level. Now breathe in here. Let's agree to rotate to your left. Okay. So take your torso, rotate to your left. Just notice for a minute. So I want everyone to think about the, the opposing hip. We've rotated left, so right hip. Pull it back a little bit. Sometimes in spinal rotation that deviates and we lose the leveling.

So opposing hip, back and center. Let's just check in. Switch your arms actually, and then rotate to your right. It doesn't have to be a big rotation, it probably won't be opposing hip back kind of bias toward doing that. Okay, and center. So let's take a little bit more. Challenge his arm slightly out to the sides.

Don't have to be too balletic with your arms just to lift. So your torso have some freedom to move. Inhale here. Exhale as you rotate to your left. Again, opposing hip pulling back. Can you see how you're even on your seat? And inhale center and exhale, rotate to your right opposing hip, pulling back.

Let's take that again and exhale and rotate. May want to pull the ribs back a little bit. Everyone in this class today and we'll talk about that at another time in more detail and center. Okay, so keep your torso alive. Let's take our legs and straighten them forward in line with your mat edges and this will be ours are saw. So that inhale, let's say inhale to twist to the left. Now take your exhale, round your spine and stay there for a little bit so that the front hand of course is trying to saw off or touch the outside of that pinky toe. You're even on that seat now, if it feels okay, see what happens. If you may, maybe turn your head, add some rotation in your head, maybe looking to the backhand. Okay, let's roll up and face your center and we'll do this. Do one more slowly to check in and then we'll take four to tempo.

So take a rotation, right? And reaching forward, you're still in the rotation. I'm going to ask you to bring your upper ams in. They're pulling out opposite hit back. And if yes, if it feels okay to turn ahead and looking at the back hand and let's come all the way up to vertical spine. Alright, so to tempo it, let's inhale, rotate, left and exhale. Saw the left toe. Inhale up on the diagonal and exhale your center. Inhale, rotate, right opposite hip pulling back.

Okay. And exhale center. How about two more each side. I kind of fibbed on the repetitions, so I'm watching that. That triangle of your, of your base. Keep going. Tempo is stable. We're not doing the switches there.

Is your stomach pulling back as much as it can be or you lifted as much in your spine as you can be. Last one left, Paul. There you go. And sent your last one to your right and all the way up and center and relax your arms down. Okay, let's turn on to our stomachs. Heads facing into each other. Great. Okay. Flight. They call it flight.

So our arms long down by our sides, palms can face up to the ceiling above. Okay. And again, a check in on your triangle. It changes. Now the weight differentiation a little bit different when you're face down. So what if we just check in, put most of the weight on your hip bones. What that will do for you is increased this dip, the lumbar dip that we don't want to exercise that too greatly. All right, get stressed down there. So maybe put a little more focus on good.

A weight on the pubic bone. Yes, you're still on your hips more than pubic bone. Okay, so basic back extension or flight. I want you to take a breath in to prepare for this and exhale as you lift your head and your chest and your arms and your arms will reach down and just hold this position. So there's lots of good musculature right here at the base of your underarms. Pull that down now through the top of the head. Get Long. Let's inhale.

Bring the body down and how about an exhale to lift up? I wonder how do you focus on the strength coming right from here, your middle back. Stay there. Inhale and changing of breath guys, and exhale down. Let's do that. Inhale to get ready for it and exhale the lift. Notice how nice and long your net can feel. Stay there. Inhale and exhale as we come down, say two or three more. And if it, if you're able to go higher a little bit with each repetition, please do keep the integrity of where that, that pubic bone is in that triangle come down and two more.

Okay. And lower down last time man. And I'm going to have you stay there and just recognize the sensation, the feeling. I wonder if you could pull more in your stomach though. Is the stomach up as much as it can be off your mat? I didn't remind you to do it. Is your chest as broad as it can be?

Neck nice and long. And it is. Let's bring everything down. Rest. Okay. Fold your hands or stack them one on top of the other. You can place your forehead down and just take a check in on the shoulder blades. Okay, so this will be lifted along leg and we'll start with the right. So again, what I'll be watching for when you're doing your leg lifts is can the pelvis stay stable? Is it not rocking laterally? Left to right. Okay. So again, maybe a little more weight on that lower edge of the triangle taken. Inhale. So it's again, exhale the back of the thigh, lifting up to the ceiling. You'll feel the work in the back of the thigh and up into the buttock. Alright.

Little more lift there. Yeah, so maybe not as high. And then lower your leg down and here we go. Exhale and lift the left leg again. It's not about how high right now. We'll get there and let's lower and right leg. Okay, so feeling the back of the leg, hamstrings into buttock, even into the lower back and leg down and the left leg. This looks really good. Abdominal work is good. Connection to your back and leg down. Now I'm going to add a little something after one more each time.

So right les coming up long, even wait in the pelvis. Good. And inhale down and last time left. Exhale and inhale lower. So let's, we'll add knee bend in there. So exhale right leg come up. You want to maintain that level position. Bend your right knee a little bit with your thigh, slightly hovered off your mat. Okay, inhale, stretch it back and exhale down to the floor. Left leg.

Inhale, lift. Exhale, bend the knee. Inhale, stretch the knee and exhale. Lower the leg. There's the rhythm man. Lift and bend the knee and stretch the knee and thigh goes down. Four distinct movements, thigh. Then knee bend and extension and down once again and lift and then feeling the back of the thigh. Stretch. Lower the leg, last one, and then and extend and lower. I'm going to add just one more. This looks so good.

So instead of one knee bend at a slow tempo, the rhythm of the bend will be two little pulse pulses. Okay. We know that to be a little bit more like a something else in the mat. So let's take it again, right leg up and kick, kick extend. Lower the leg, left leg up, kick, kick, good, lower back and to the mat again and lift, kick, kick. Stretch it back before you take it to the mat and left. Kick, kick and stretch it way back into the mat. One more.

Each leg I promise. Lift, kick, kick and rest. All right, one more face down. Move your hands. Now a little preparation for uh, the Swan. So yeah, open up your hands. I like the open almost jazz hands on when the mat and forearms down, elbows are down. You still have that quality of work going on in your abdominals, pelvis level.

So, uh, not a full swan this morning. Take an inhale first please. And then as you're exhaling energy through the top of the head, the chest and feeling the strength again coming from your mid back, much like you did a moment ago and flight. Now I'm going to have you stay there and if you can keep your torso in the same height and just now hover your hands off the mat. Little bit of honesty check there. Can you stay up that high wore or were you using your arms to stay there?

There we go. Enhance down and then torso down. Okay, so let's do that four more times. So let's inhale to prepare for it and exhale and, and gay. Inhale. Hover the hands. Forearm, stay there through the exhale. Good. You guys inhale, place the hands and exhale and rolling. I like what I'm seeing guys in Exhale, right? So it doesn't have to be too extreme. Say honest with it.

Over the hands, forearms, elbows without losing that level of extension and abdominal contraction. Pelvic placement. Hands down. Four, arms down. Two more. Yeah, you could probably come up higher. I have to come on. Yeah. Yeah. And you're holding back on yourself. One more time.

However, [inaudible] hold. Where are your shoulders? God work you guys. Place the hands down and chest down and let's rest the back. So come back into either a cat stretch for yourself or that Shell position. Child's pose. Either take a few deep breaths. All right, so moving on to sideline position and some side work.

I would love for you to be on your right side facing the front table up here and let's start a stack ourselves with the legs in line with the pelvis. Okay. And so good. Again, if you want to look down and check hip pubic bone hip and you're getting the idea and if we took an aerial view of it, I would like to think about that. Yep. If I were up here looking down, there's the pelvis in that nice frontal plane even and the back is even, and then going a little more into a more bony landmarks. Maybe the rib cage in line as well. Sideline, we do start to get a little bit, can get a little distended if we're not careful. Part of it is about the balance on lying sideways. So good. So I'm going to have you also take the top hand, place it on the mat and you can kick your elbow out away from your rib cage.

And as you do that, a just a little gentle pull down in your shoulder blade, especially if you're feeling some uh, shoulder stuff this morning. And just a second, I'm going to bring you there. Check everybody real quick with their leg line. Okay, so it looks good. Bottom waist as we know needs to be lifted right now.

I think you all had that position. Okay, so I want to have you take a breath, use your exhale and lift your legs now above the mat without disturbing your pelvic position or dropping your bottom waist, keeping that integrity, lower the legs down on your breath in. So we'll do four more. Exhale, lift the size up, absolutely stable here. Inhale as you lower and exhale as you lift or your legs getting long sense of reach. I saw that guys inhale lower. Yeah. And exhale, lift and lower. We're going to do one more lift in whole this time.

So let's do a little footwork. Flex your feet. As you breathe in a hard flex, you might feel stretching your calf muscles and then exhale as you point, a contraction from the calves. Inhale, flex the feet and exhale point all with keeping balanced in the sideline position and point and flex and 0.4 more. And flex hard. Flex and 0.3 more hard. Flex and point to more hard flex and point.

Last one. End. Flex and point and lower your legs all the way down. And rest for a second. Okay, so, uh, let's do this now. So all of that, we had a wonderful lift at, at the waistline and now I'm going to ask us to move that lift down. So there'll be a movement of the pelvis of course. So if we started, yeah, let's take her legs up as well. Just a little hover of the legs.

So how about an exhale to press this waist down to the mat and just feel that this side moves up? Doesn't it? You feel how that moves up and contracts. Now as we inhale, lift this side, we level again. Whoa, I'm losing my balance. Exhale, press. Inhale level and exhale and bottom waist to the mat. So actually your spine is doing a little bit of bending now and level and exhale and waistline down and level.

How do you feel with that? Do you feel things you feel a contract? Maybe your obliques on your side. Do More Ben Gress in. Print them out. Leave your impression in there level and last time pressed down, lift and then rest. Now we wouldn't want to do that all the time. You know, especially as we're walking would move our pelvis in a weird way, but just to condition a little differently in your, your waist and also in your back. Your lower back. Okay, one more side on this side. Come up on to your elbow and I want you to be elbow right below your underarm. Look down, move your leg slightly forward.

Now I like to put them right at the front of the Mat. Okay, now let's do our lazy shoulder for a second. Careful. What's the other side? Okay. All right. We would not want to be here. Unsupported shoulder, upset, neck, perhaps a little lazy. So if we press our elbow down into the mat, I'm going to have this everyone tune the palm down also. Now let's bend the spine to ward the legs, so there's a big lift underneath the bottom waist pulling up. That should feel like a good stretch here and then a pretty big contraction in your waistline. Okay, so hand down lightly on the Mat. We'll do a little bit of legwork here. A leg can come up. Hip Height.

If you want to look at that, you can. Let's take a breath with a foot flexed foot forward and just one breath on each one. Exhale you're working that glide or crease in the hip and then opening and close the front and open. How about four more and keep the sense of pulling up to the side bend triangle still very steady. One more time. Last one. Just keep it there.

If you can perhaps open the front of your hip a little bit more by long, long leg reach and then run your leg down. Arrest. Okay guys. Good. That's enough of that. Let's flip to the other side. So we started to low all the way down and the first round our legs were in line with our hips. We had that bottom waist up, hips stacked hand kickstand. I called it the kickstand and let the elbow kick out. Okay, an extended feet.

So let's breathe into prepare. Exhale and hover both legs up and inhale as you lower. And again, exhale and lift and lower again and lift lower. I'm going to do something for your feet, your legs forward, a little bit of your hips. Tiny bit. Keep going everyone. I'm got my hands on Leah. Okay, no knock you over and there's a good sense I'm looking at long line through your torso all the way up. Posture looks good. If you took your body and stood you up right, you'd look real good, good posture. Know head's forward. Let's take two more and then we'll add our flex and point. Lift the thighs and lower lift and hold this last one.

Okay, so really working around your waistline. Let's inhale. Flex the feet and point. It's a hard flex. Stretch your cabs and point and stretch. Four more. [inaudible].

[inaudible] I like the focus on your breathing. Last one, holding here and lower both legs down just for a little breath. Okay, now I've got our waistline work, so again, a stack first. Lift your thighs up. All right, so a literal press down of your bottom waist. There you go. And you exhale. Press that waste down. You want to flatten this sucker down and inhale and a little lift and exhale and notice as you press it down, this top hip will come up into your waistline.

You're going to feel that squeeze and inhale level. Exhale and press down. Good and stretch level. You might want to think of doing it by, by hiking your hip. Maybe that makes the waist movies here four more times and press the waist and press two more. Exhale, prs, and last one, press good. All right, good. Clear on everybody. Come on up.

Come up. Let's come up to that elbow and again, a leg slightly forward elbow right below the underarm. Hollow, straight down, palm face down, and again, lift that wastes. Try to bend yourself very firmly toward your legs and then look down. I think we might want to check in as the top hit back too far. We don't want it there right now and bring it up right over your pelvis. Hip over hip. Okay, and let's take our top leg and lift it with a flexed foot.

We're going to come forward on the breath out. You'll add your doing your leg movement. Keep asking your spine to bend toward the legs. Yeah, good. A lift and bend forward just four more times. [inaudible]. Okay, last one for lax and open the thigh hole here.

Maybe bend a little more on your spine, toward your legs. You'll feel that contraction. Reach the thigh tiny bit longer. Take one more breath and exhale thighs together and let's come all the way up. Okay, diamond position. One more time. You can face each other.

Well, you know face this way you might have more room to move with your arms. That's all. Okay, so just a little more side bending just about there. So I want to have everyone take your left arm out to the side and just to reach of the side just to reach what I'm saying there. Reach your left side out to the left and hopefully still even on that opposing sitz bone. And take this as a little closing maybe to Matt class today. Big, big stretch.

If you want to bend your bottom elbow and see if you can go a little farther, that might feel good. And then all the way up, we'll do each side a few times and then over to the left, really opening your right side to the right. Checking the Sitz bone, leveling again, if you want to bend that left elbow and let's come all the way up again and maybe I'll, you know, lighten up on the discipline for a second stretch. Just take a normal human breath. [inaudible] breath and all the way up. Other side and stretch.

Sure. One more you decide. Okay, last one to the left and center and finish your, your movement with your legs again. Bend. Just place the hands behind the knees, pull a little bit and lift your chest. There's the sternum finished with a sense of Nice back extension is sense of being upright. Ready to walk through the day, open up through the chest and shoulders, and then bringing the self right on top of the sits bones.

And thank you all for coming to class this morning. Thank you.

Comments

Thank you Amy for another great class! The side lying series was super challenging for my obliques and now I feel great and longer! It's easier to stand tall now!
Thank you Rena!!! :)
Thank you for the reminders to take a moment to consider what feels right for the body today.
Thank you Cathy! This was one of the early classes on the site and I remember I wanted to be very clear with the 'reminders' and details! :)
Still my all time favorite feel good class! It does wonders for my old arthritic back and hips! LOL! Thanks again Amy! Your spot-on cues really help me get the most out of the work.
1 person likes this.
Oh Rena....thank you so much! I love the fundamentals and the 'roots' of the work too! So glad this class feels good for you and your wonderful and wise back and hips!! :) I appreciate your feedback and support!
This class was yummy for tight stiff body this morning. Thank you Amy. I always enjoy your classes.
Thanks Jodie....this is fun to look back on....one of my very, very early classes 'back in the early days of PA'!!
Hi Amy,
I hope this note finds you well. I woke up this morning thinking about this class. I haven’t visited it in a while, and knew I needed this particular fundamental mat today. I saw that the last time I wrote to you about this amazing session was 6 short years ago. And now, to take this class again, with a deeper understanding of the work, it felt just as challenging, but I got to dig a little deeper and gain even more insight. It’s so interesting and inspiring to me how Pilates evolves in our bodies and minds. I want to thank you for your ever-amazing and thoughtful cues and reminders. You truly have a gift, dear one. Keep doing what you do! Hugs to you, Amy! With sincere appreciation and respect, Rena
IOS C
1 person likes this.
Awesome! I’m super new to Pilates and this was amazing! It’s exactly what I wanted and needed. Enough challenge but patience as well for a beginner. I’ll definitely be feeling it a bit tomorrow but in the best way. Thanks!! xo
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