Class #300

Intermediate Mat Flow

55 min - Class
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Description

Welcome back, Monica! After taking maternity leave, we're thrilled to have Monica Wilson back. The first class marking her return is a challenging level 2 Mat class. Enjoy!
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

Nov 04, 2010
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Well, good evening class. Tonight we're going to focus on working our legs from where they originate. A lot of times we muscle through using our quads. And today I would like to really focus on using all of your hips, your outer thighs, your inner thighs. We're really going to get a good workout and lengthening the legs from where they began from our powerhouse.

So let's go ahead and actually take the front of the mat and we'll start off with a [inaudible] set. So stand in the front. Good. And I would like apply the stance that's two to three inches apart with your toes and heels together. See if you can do that. It's like a small pizza slice between your toes. Very nice. And I'd like you to take your weight forward onto the balls of your feet. Very nice.

So you're like a leaning tower of Pisa or hurricane could come at you and you're so strong right now that you're pushing into the wind. Go ahead and put one arm on top of the other, one foot in front of the other and try to keep your energy up as you lower yourself down to the mat. All right, that's okay. How's that? Good to know. If you have bad knees, you always want to just lower yourself down, however is best for you and of course at any time, admit an exercise if it doesn't agree with you. All right, while you're here, just go ahead and relax. One thing, one thing that I noticed right off the bat, which is a great cue to talk about for the rest of the class is how you sit. When you sit. We are sitting with our behind really behind us and we want to keep instead of our behind behind us, you want to keep your behind under you. It should be part of your box.

You use your powerhouse to hold your bottom as you lower yourself down to the mat. So when you go ahead and let go of your bottom and you push it behind you, you're automatically starting to use those quads, automatically. Start to use those hip flexors. And then the rest of your workout is going to be using your legs from here down rather than moving your leg all the way from up here. So think about that when we're working on the mat for the rest of the mat class.

And we're going to lie down just with your knees bent like that is beautiful. Just lie down, head on the mat. And we're just going to do very briefly a few helvic tilts, which is not traditional Pele's, but I just want you to be very aware in this group setting of if your waistband is on the mat or whether it's off. So go ahead and tilt your pelvis towards you as if your pelvis is a bowl of water and you're gonna tip all the water into your chest and you should have no question right now and keeping your waistband on the mat. No question that your waistband is absolutely flat on the Mat and it's pretty easy to pull in your stomach muscles when you do that.

And I want you to go ahead and let that pelvis tip the other way towards your tailbone as if a little could crawl under your waistband. Can everyone feel that, that their waistband has lifted? Okay, this is more of an arched back and if you do any of your leg work today, your hundred, your sidekicks series, any of the series of five, if you do it in this position, you're going to be using your quads and your hip flexors a lot. So let's try right now not to do a complete pelvic tilt, but just engage the powerhouse to try to get that waistband down as much as you can. Very nice. Go ahead and hug your knees into your chest. Waistband should still be flat on the Mat. Lift the weight of your head to your chest, long arms by your side and let the legs relax.

They shouldn't be tense, no tension in those legs. Take a big breath and instead of extending the legs out, exhale using your abdominals to pull those legs towards you a little bit more just with your stomach. Beautiful. Keep that engagement in your powerhouse and take a big breath and exhale. Lengthen the legs away from you to the point where you can still keep that back flat. And let's pump those arms. Inhale, two, three, four, five. Exhale. Beautiful. Everyone knows how to do the a hundred inhaling.

Now let's take a look at those legs. Excellent. Are you holding them from your hips? Inhale, two, three, four, five. Exhale, I'd like to see your inner thighs, so that means hide your outer thighs, pull them around, let your legs naturally fall out into a palarmis position. Applauded stance, so naturally hide those outer thighs. Turn out. There you go. And squeeze the back of your inner thighs together. Beautiful. Really relaxed legs, low energy guys. Inhale, two, three, four, five. Exhale, two, three, four, five in with the other should be about 90 really trying to engage all of this. And last exhale, hug those knees into your chest. Nice job. Hug them.

Go ahead and hug them. Good. Resting the head down on the mat. Extend the legs long on the map. We're preparing for roll up when the legs are down on the Mat, I want you to try to keep your waistband flat. Cool. Those out or thighs around wrapping and squeezing. But let's try to avoid just tightening and just getting real tight.

I want you to engage them and then lengthen your legs from your lower back. Imagine that from the waistband in the back. You're lengthening your legs all the way out into a beautiful Palladia stance. Try to keep a Peloton stance. All right, inhale arms. Reach up to the ceiling. Exhale, they're going to reach back behind you to start this exercise.

Here we go. Inhale, arms up. Exhale, bringing the head up and all the way forward. Rounding, rounding, rounding, and inhale. Start to roll back cause if you're pulling a heavy weight and exhale all the way down. Inhale, arms lift. Exhale, try to roll under me for me, Christie. There we go. Under, under ESDC. There we go. Stretching forward. Inhale, rolling back. You're going to lengthen your legs away from you. As you roll that, exhaling all the rest of the way, good in with their arms up, head between the arms and not try to curl under me. Instead of pushing, overthink you, really articulating that spine and inhale, rolling back and exhale all the way. Very nice. Two more times. Inhale arms curling up, trying to hold yourself a little bit more from there. Good. Okay.

And you're gonna roll back, lengthening those legs away. Beautiful. One more time. Inhale, arms up. Head through and curling into yourself as you stretch forward. And inhale, pulling a heavyweight back with your powerhouse rolling down lower back, middle back, and upper. And we're not going to [inaudible] take a break. We're gonna go right into the wall over so the arms are pressing down by your mat. And if you were still engaged, everyone had to adjust, which is completely natural.

Let's go ahead and leave the legs on the Mat for right now, which is completely normal, but it's our goal is to actually do the legs in the exact place, to not slide back. And that is by lengthening continuously lengthening from your powerhouse. From that waistband. We're going to go into the rollover, which is the exact opposite of the roll up, so your thighs should still be rapping and squeezing. You're trying to squeeze all the light away from your inner thighs. Your navel is sinking down to your spine.

Press those arms into the mat and if you can do all over from here, great. If you need to start at a 90 degree angle, that is fine as well. Choose your position, but you're going to go ahead and go over, touch the toes to the floor behind you. Hold it there, push back to a flex tow separate to shoulder with push back one more time and control. Rolling down one vertebra at a time. Once you come down, circle those legs together and right back over and touch the floor. Push back open shoulder with push back. Roll down, articulating one at a time.

Circle them together and over for the last time in this direction, open shoulder with and rolling down. We're going to reverse that. So you're going to click the heels together, but then open and go back over. Open. Yes. Slide together. When you're back here and roll down one vertebra at a time, leg should be nice and loose and circled down. Open and over and slide those legs together and look at your thighs.

Are you squeezing a the light away or is there light between your thighs? One more time. Circle them down. Open over, pushing over. Get a nice stretch wrap and squeeze them together and see how close you can get your thighs to your chest as we roll. Leon, enjoying just a delicious stretch. Keep the right leg up. Drop the left leg down. Good. The left leg should be down in the middle of your body as you stretch the right leg towards you. This is preparing for single legs circles. Good.

Anybody want to stretch that leg? Yeah, I seen one stretching. Stretch it grabbed. Put your hands up. I'm sorry. With your hands. You can put your hands behind that leg and give yourself a good stretch. If you find that it's really hard to bring this leg to a 90 degree angle, bend your left knee and put that foot flat on the mat. Absolutely. You want to get the most out of this.

Rest your arms by your side or press them down, I should say like up to your nose crusts around and up. Cross around an up. Good Cross around and up. I'm gonna Pause right here and hug that right knee into your chest. Yes. Yeah. Just go ahead and hug it. Everyone's really, really good at this exercise and I think you guys could take it another step. And so I want to want you to go ahead and do that today.

So the goal of this exercise is to almost do a split and then really reach from your lower back across your body all the way down to that other foot open only as wide as you can. Keep your hips from dancing and then pulling it back up. So I'd like to start off with everybody's bottom leg back for just a moment. Good. Extend that right leg up to the ceiling. Good. And it needs to be turned out here because when your leg is not turned out, when it's up, that right hip is going to rise up. So I need a straight line across your hips.

Put your hands either behind your thyre calf and give yourself a good stretch. Very nice. For some of you it's super easy. Some of you, it's not so much. Now I want you to go ahead and let that knee roll in as if it's pointing to your left shoulder and give yourself a stretch. Do you feel how that right hip came up? Can you feel the alignment is off when you do this exercise?

Make sure that your right knee does not point to your opposite shoulder. Okay? Instead pointed to your right shoulder. Super important. As you push it, point it to your right shoulder. You can feel that hip dropdown and getting good alignment. Now I want you to take us as hard. You're gonna have to follow your rights and lefts.

I want you to take your right hand and push down on your right hip like this gym. That's pretty good. Good. And take your left hand and cross it in front and grab just behind the thigh. I want you to pull that leg up towards your right shoulder and then pull it over towards your left shoulder without letting that right hip come up. In other words, you're keeping your hips square with your right hand, but you're getting across over stretch with your left. This is the most important stretch of this entire exercise.

Hug the knee into your chest one more time so we don't get too tired and we're going to do one time going through the circle slowly. So extend the right leg up, arms, press by your side and start with that leg coming. Use your stomach to bring the leg as close to your nose as you can. Boom. Stop there with it. Turned out. Try to touch your left shoulder as much as you can.

Don't let those hips get off alignment. All I'll use your stomach. Come on, unless he powerhouses pulling that leg up to your shoulder. Now go as low as you can. Go without lifting your waistband. Open as wide as you can without losing the hips. And stop it. You know as if those who can straighten the left leg. Do so. One more time. Slow up to your nose. Pull it up, up, up, over to your left shoulder, pulling it up, up, up. Go all the way down. Watch Wendy here.

Look how low I'm going to make her go. She's going to sweep her ankle over here before she opens up a bit and then comes back up. Did you see that really big range of motion? We're going to do that but to Tampa now here we go. It's starting up at your nose. Five Times. Cross around, up, cross around ups. You're thinking hip alignment. Cross around up. A little bigger range of motion around. One more time. Cross around and up, reversing, reaching away from that waistband.

You always been sinking down, but you're lengthening your leg in a turned out position. Keeping your hips aligned. One more time, nice and dry down and that's enough. Hug that knee in. Much, much better left knee in. We don't need to go through all of it with your left leg. Let's just straighten that leg up to the ceiling. Make sure it is turned out as you stretch it towards you and either choose a bent knee, probably a bent knee gym and this one, there you go.

Or a straight leg and let's pull it up one time. Slow to your nose. Cross over to your shoulder, reaching down. Sweep that ankle. You can do better than that Wendy. All right, and did that. Boom. Here you go. Add or add. Cross around up. Big Range of motion. How big would the waist down? Staying down to more.

Cross around, up. One more cross around Ann Holt. Reverse it. Open a little down. Across it. Up. Good. Open a little down. Crossing up. Sink down your powerhouse or me cause the, I knew it. There we go. Two more grass. And one more time. Up in a little cross around. Beautiful everyone. Hug your knees into your chest.

Good sitting up for rolling like a ball. Roll on it. Lift your bottom forward to your heels at the bottom of your mat and balance in a beautiful c curve. Good. You can also hold underneath your knees and that is very acceptable to all right. Go ahead and inhale, roll back. Exhale, rolling, and inhale, roll back. Exhale, roll up. Beautiful. Now let's keep that position. Keep pulling in your powerhouse and there's some tempo here. You guys.

Let's inhale, roll back and exhale right up. There we go. That's better. Inhale, roll that. Exhale right up. Squeeze the air out of you. Inhale axial. Squeeze the air. How do your lungs more in? How light up would that XCL better? One more. Inhale. Exhale, imbalance here. As you try to use your powerhouse to get your ears between your knees, get really rounder, relax those shoulders. Relax those toes and rest your feet down. That's nice.

If you're in the front of the Mat, lift your bottom back to the middle of the mat and we are going to transition into series of five. I'm going to ease you, Christie, so I want you to go ahead and hug your right knee into your chest. Good, and the left leg, this is not easy. Let me tell you, the left leg is going to be extended a little bit up and she's going to hold it not from her quad. Soften just a little bit about from her powerhouse. And I want you to roll away leaving this leg here. Yep. Take that right knee with you, with you, with you. Beautiful. And then she's ready to go. Oh did you get a little cricket? Come on up. Okay. And now c I, she, she got a little help there but I'm going to make her do it again with you guys without help.

So you extend the left leg reaching way cause you're not holding it with your quadricep. God forbid you're going to be holding it with your powerhouse. And it's like almost like your teasers, right? And you're going to roll away from your left leg. Rolling, rolling. Bring that right knee all the way into your ear. Everyone's heads are up and ready to go. And here we go. Switch to left, switch to right, switch to the left, all to keep them moving.

All of you know this exercise really well. Are you extending that leg from your bottom and wrapping and squeezing or are you just locking your knee and using your quad? Really be careful on how you're extending that. Like down the middle of your body. Elbows up a little bit here. There we go. Pulling in. Let's pull in, right, stupid and left. One more set. Right, left. Grab both ankles. Yeah. Inhale, reach and hold that reach. Lengthen. How are those legs? Are they wrapping?

Are they squeezing? There's a plotted stance and empty the lungs to pull in. Beautiful in how reach is your waistband down length and more and more. Good and exhale in with the, have you ever been on a reformer? Imagine you're pushing the bar away from you and exhale and in with the air Xcel. Pull it in and with the air. Exhale. Pull it in. One more. Watch that bloody stance. You don't put your quads. Exhale right leg up, left leg forward and switch. Left, right, left. Listen to my tempo.

It's right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right and left. Bend your knees and relax for a moment. I'll give you a little breather. Why is the tempo so fast? Because your quads are not working in that exercise. It's all your powerhouse would like, should be light as a feather. They should be able to fly through the air like the rock cat's just flying.

Okay, so if you're there getting a little stiff, then you're starting to use other muscles that you don't want and your back. We'll get into it. All right, enough break. Let's go ahead and put your hands behind your head. Use your powerhouse to lift your head and shoulders up. Extend the legs into the most beautiful Palati stance I can see you holding from your hips and watch your belly sink even more. As those legs go down, down, down, and exhale. Up and down, down, down, and exhale up.

We chose lights for the ceiling. As you go down and come up, really reach him out of your waist and pull it up. Two more stomach pulls in and up in the opposite direction and up. One more time. Reach, reach, reach, good. And now lower that left leg is the right knee, pulls in and twist to the right knee. Twist and up. Keep twisting up. Keep twisting up and switch. You need to keep working on that.

Twist is your left elbow on the mat. M man twist to the other side. You need your right elbow on the mat. Pull it back, pull it back, pull it back. Good. And what I'm trying to left, get it in within the boundaries. Bullet, bullet and hug both knees in and rest your head. Nice job everybody. Go ahead and sit on up. Stay sort of in the middle of your mat so you have enough room.

Extend the legs and prepare for spine. Stretch forward so they're just a little bit, you can have a little wider. It should be about three inches wider than your shoulders. Now everyone, show me your best posture here. No working on the computer. We've got a pull in and up. If it's hard to do that, go ahead and soften your knees. That's absolutely fine. And show me nice strength in those arms.

Lifting off your seat even more as you inhale and exhale. Roll off an imaginary wall trying to touch the crown of your head to the mat. Exhale, exhale, exhale, exhale. Inhale. Use your powerhouse to roll up one vertebra at a time. Beautiful and damn down, down, navel to spine. Beautiful. And I'm just going to stretch you a little bit in.

Inhale, rural it up. Beautiful. Dropping those shoulders nice and exhale down, reaching, reaching, reaching. Very nice. Stretch a little bit and inhale, rolling up. Beautiful. One more time. You're going to exhale down, stretch, stretch, stretch, feet are flexed, are pushing your heels away. Nice nature and inhaling up. One, two, three. Good.

Relax your arms. Go ahead and lift your bottom forward a little bit and you're going to prepare for open leg rock or we're going to start with the feet together. Knees apart. Hands are just like nature. Thank you. Perfect. Right there between the legs, Huh? And you're going to balance in a nice c curve. Very good. Good.

Later on, when you guys are all super advanced, it is more of a straight spine, but we're going to keep a little bit more of around a c curve back right now. All right. Focus on something in front of you and I want you to just extend the right leg. That's not really fair because you guys are opposites here. And then bend it. Very nice gym and extend the left and bend.

Now take a moment, relax the shoulders and get into your powerhouse more. You don't want to feel like Humpty Dumpty and you're wobbling on the wall. You want to really feel solid within your box, within your powerhouse, and the leg should be light, light, light. Let's try the right one up again. Nothing changed. Oh, that looked like a hundred times better and bring it down and then the left nice, steady. Their stomach pulls in even more and down. Extend both legs up and feel the balance and control.

Focus on something. Try not to lose it for very long cause we're going to come right back up to that spot. So let's inhale. Roll back XL right back up. Well, you guys hung out back there for a while. Let's come back in with your roll back. If they'll come right back up. That's it. That's it. Inhale, roll back. Exhale, root or not look like you enjoyed a little bit. Inhale, roll back. Exhale, rule up. How about one more? Inhale, go back. Exhale, roll up. And another beautiful transition. We're going to squeeze those legs together, wrapping and squeezing, but always lengthening.

Get a little light on your hands. You barely need them. Show me a little preview to your teas are beautiful. And now leave the legs there like you did in series of five and roll away from your legs willing down, down. Bring the legs to a 90 degree angle. Good. This is ready for corkscrew. Bend your knees though for a moment and hug them in for a second.

Just giving you a little bit of a break in case your lower back or quad. Started to feel it a bit so, but we will do corkscrew. Now the first one, I want you to keep your back completely flat. If you're strong enough on the second set, you can go ahead and lift gesture pelvis. That means leave most of your back down. And on the third one, if you feel strong enough, you can lift your whole backup, okay for corkscrew. But the most important thing is actually to make as big of a circle as you can.

Not really how high you can come up, but how much you can length in from your lower back. So legs up to the ceiling in that Palladia stance, pressing your arms into the mat and let circle to the right as low as you can. Go to the left and center to the left as low as you can go to the right and center and to the right. This is the only way you can lift just your pelvis if you want, and down into your left all the way around and center and to the right all the way around. Lift your whole back up if you want. Roll down through the center to your left, all the way around. Nice nature.

I like that. Sweep and come down as you come down. Come right on up for saw. Get right into position aren't. Yep, that's it. Good. Some of you might want to adjust a little bit. Varied. Good. All right. Keep your pelvis right where it is is you twist to the right and exhale, reaching past that baby toe. Reach, pass, pass, pass, inhaling, twist using your waist and exhale as you saw that baby toe. Good, good, good. Inhaling up and twist to your right and XL instead of bouncing.

Let's just try to keep both hips right here. Inhale up and twist. Use those waist muscles and exhale down. Lower, lower, lower, beautiful inhaler and twist. Let's just watch these hips. How low can you go without moving that pelvis? There we go. Much better. Inhaling up and twist using the waist muscles and exhale down, down. Beautiful.

Inhaling up and relax those arms down. Very good. All right, bring your legs together and we are going to flip over in just a second to do some stomach work. I'm going to do a quick little demonstration though of what I do not want to see so when you flip over and we're going to, we first are going to do a neck roll, which is fine, but when we do single leg kick, when you're going to be prompted up onto your elbows and we're going to kick our bottom. I don't want to really see a knee impression. Impression of your knee on the mat as you're kicking, you really want to lift as you kick your bottom. Okay? The more you go down, the less you get any of what you're trying to work. So you're trying to press your hip down and knee up as you're kicking, okay?

Also, I don't want you to start doing some salsa kicking side to side. As you're kicking, your hips are square and pressing down and you just go in, okay? So again, no side to side. All right? When we hit double leg kick again, I don't want there to be a tunnel under your hips and the knees making a impression onto the mat. Instead, I want you to lift from your hips and then kick in. One, two, three. Okay? So you're trying to get as much light underneath your knees as you can't, okay? And then when you go for the transition stretch, the legs are going to be relaxed and down as you like lift. Okay?

I don't want to see a combo. The legs are just relaxed and down. Okay? All right. So we're going to go ahead and flip onto your stomachs. Just turn on over, Jim, that'd be perfect with your head facing the same wing. Excellent. All right, and we're going to start with neck roll. So you're gonna have your hands underneath your shoulders.

If you know you have a stiff back or maybe a delicate back, you might want to bring your hands a little bit forward and a little wider to the side. Okay. All right. Legs are still wrapping in squeezing together here. If you're not able to keep them all the way together. When you come all the way up, that's okay. We're going to pull your powerhouse in and slowly come up your head and your chest. Imagine like you're rolling over a big physio ball behind you.

Income to straight arms as much as you can. Good it always just supporting with your powerhouse. Look over your right shoulder, circle down around to your left and look forward to your left shoulder. Circle Your Chin down around to your right and look forward and you're going to slowly come down and still feel like your legs are lengthening behind you. Instead of tensing. One more time. We're going to roll up.

Good. Scooping in, using your powerhouse. Look over your left shoulder, other shoulder down around to your right and look forward. Look to your right circle down around to your left and look forward and come down as you lengthen each vertebrae away from the other. All right, we're going to lift up onto the elbows for single leg kick like I showed you, so left up onto the elbows and it says if I could watch an entire movie on your chest. You want to make sure your chest is nice and lifted, not sunken. Okay, very good. Push your knuckles into each other and see if you can feel the under our muscles engage. Nice. All right, let's squeeze the light away between our thighs. If you can lift up the legs a little bit only if you don't take it in your lower back. Okay. Be careful. The higher your legs lift, maybe your lower back will feel.

And we're going to start with the right one to left to right, to left to right, to left to try. Trying to really lift that thigh up, bringing that heel to your bottom. One more set, right to left to bury. Nice job. Place your right facial cheek on the mat and put your hands behind you. You're going to try to bring your hands as high up to your shoulder blades as you can and impress your elbows into the mat. All right.

Squeeze both of those legs together and before and beginning, lift them straight. Make sure you feel it in your bottom and hamstrings instead of your lower back and three pulses in one, two, three legs. Go down and you stretch up higher. Higher switch cheeks and lift and kick. Knees up three and lower and lift. Lift, lift and switch and kicking.

One higher to 30 and lifting up, up, up last time. Kick thighs up three and stretch, stretch, beautiful stretches everyone. All right. Round your back and sit on your heels and nice stretch position. God. All right. I like everyone's to flip back over, but have your feet facing each other like you did in the very beginning. So this road, such beautiful transitions. I love it. You are good. All right. Go ahead and lie on your back. Nice neck.

Pull his next hands behind your head. Good. Actually, I'm going to cheat a little bit. We're going to have arms down by our side to start off. We're going to build it up because like short, uh, the first one we did roll up. We're going to try to keep our lower body actually where it is. Instead of sliding and sliding and sliding in net pull, the legs are different from the roll up.

They are hip with the part line with your hip bones and they're pointing straight up to the ceiling. It's really easy to press your knees down into the mat and flex those quadriceps. I want you to be conscious that you're softening those knees and using your bottom instead to push as if you're pushing on a brake pedal or something pushed your heels away. Skin digging your heels down. Okay. Hands by your side. They're going to crawl up your legs. As you inhale, bring your head up to your chest and exhale all the way till you kiss your knees. Good. Inhale, sit up tall with your arms just by your side. Tall, tall, tall. Let me see the energy off the bottom and push your heels away as you melt back down. Round down. Yes. Push your heels away from your bottom. From your bottom.

There we go. One more time. Inhale up. Exhale all the way forward. Inhale, sit up. Tall. Exhale. Use Your Balm to push your heels away. As you roll down. Once you're down, hands behind your head, and you can allow your elbows to come to kiss each other. Go ahead and bring them in. Yep. And we're going to inhale. Roll Up. You're still [inaudible] pushing your heels away from you as you curl ups. Yeah, let you have a little break. Inhale, sit up tall and exhale.

Roll away from your heels or your pushing away with your bottom. Love it. There we go. Right back up in hill. Exhale all the way forward. Inhale. Sit up tall and use that seat to push your heels away. Let me see that energy in your seat. That's it. Good. Inhale up. Try to keep your elbows as wide as you can for now on.

Exhale all the way forward in house. Sit Up tall elbow. Stay wide as you roll back down. Elbows wide again. Anyhow, roll up with those elbows wide. Exhaling all the way forward. Inhale. Sit up tall. And on this last one, keep your stomach into your back and stay tall and hinge back tall for about five, four, three, two. Now curl the rest down. Nice job guys. All right. Now we're going to go into our sidekicks.

Everyone lie on your right side. Your Oh, you guys are going to twist, twist. Okay. That sounds, um, actually rollover and we'll start on your left side. You guys are great. Just roll over. So everyone's facing this way. It'd be great. Perfection. Let's make a straight line on the back of your mat from your left elbow to your feet all the way straight. So I'm going to have you bring all the way back the back edge of your map.

Very good. Yes. Good. All the way straight. Yep. Perfect. Now, if you have a sore neck, you can keep it down. If you don't, we're going to rest our head like a beauty queen for now. Bending the elbow, it's up all the way flat with the underarm. There you go. [inaudible] just like this. That's it. That's it. Good. Okay.

Now I'm having you in this position because I want you to imagine that you're standing and I want you to pull your powerhouse into your back and I want you to wrap in. Squeeze your legs and lift them just a few inches up off the mat and with your powerhouse, bring them forward to the front edge of your mat. Good and lower on down. You're going to lift up your right leg just a few inches, so it's the same level as your hip and turn it out so that I can see your inner thought. Turn it out. Good. We're going to keep it at the same level as your hip as you kick it forward.

All the way your nose and hold it there. Hold it. Look at your leg. How is it? Same levels. Your hip is it turned in as it turned out. You want to keep it turned out so those hips can state stacked. And now let's go back slowly. Go back and stay back there. I don't want you to keep going. Just stay back. Good.

Can You keep your hips stacked and just the little, oh, I'm sorry. Now. There you go. And then this thigh keeps squeezing to take your leg further back. You think you can take it back in it? Oh yeah. One more inch. Beautiful kick. Get forward and take it back. You say Hampton, nice and forth all the way. Do your nose. Oh sorry. And back and forward and back.

Let's double time that tempo. Forward and back and forward and back and forward and back. Watch the alignment forward. Powerhouse. Last one forward and squeeze it back. Back, back. Good legs. Together. We're going to kick it up towards your ear.

We're going to kick it up and squeeze it down and kick it up and squeeze it down. And up and squeeze it down and lift and reaching to more up and squeezing. One more time. Up and squeezing. Good. I want you guys to all just do a quick, if you don't mind, sit up and I'm going to demonstrate that real fast. So I am not flexible at all, but you want to work your hips a little bit more when you're doing the uh, stop the lifting up.

So this hip wants to stay stacked right on top of that. So when you're kicking this leg up, you don't want to see your waist shrink. So I'm don't want to just go up and see this area shrink like that. I also, unfortunately can't see a top view, but I don't want to see this hip fall back. So as it comes up, I don't want to let it fall back as it comes up. Okay. So it has to stay in alignment with your bottom hip in two ways.

One not coming up towards your shoulder and not falling back. So with it just feeling free, which is nice. It just looks like this and I can get up pretty high. And then squeeze down. But if I want to change anything in this area, I have to change the way I work. And so I have to keep this hip right over here.

And now I'm going to push up with my outer thigh and I'm going to squeeze down with my inner thigh. Now I, again, I am not very flexible, but a ballerina could still keep her hips stacked and still bring the leg up to here. So it's not necessarily the range of motion. It's how you do it. Keep your hip stacked and on top, not this way or back as you kick up and then squeeze down. Can you all see the difference? Okay, let's give it another shot. Lying on your side. [inaudible] so the question was what to do with that right hand and instead of putting it in front of you like a kickstand, I'm going to have you guys put it on top of your right hip. Like just like I was. Perfect. Good. I'm right here.

I like that. Good. And I'd bring your legs for just a little bit more. That's good. All right, so now your hips are stacked. We're aware of them, and I want you to turn out that right leg, lifting it up just a little bit. And now kid, get up, feel the difference and wrap and squeeze down. Push it up. Oh yeah. And wrap in. Squeeze down. Push it up and wrap in. Squeeze down. One more.

Push it up and more. Up and squeeze down. Now holding your hip there still. Let's lift it up a little bit. And we're going to do five tiny circles. One, two, beautiful. Three, four, five, reverse it. One, two, three, four, five. Good. Let's give that leg a break and bend your knee, placing the foot on the floor in front of you, and you're going to grab your ankle. Christie's almost got it here. You can grab it in front or behind. Very nice. Good, good. All right. And now I want you to imagine that you have a big stack of books on your inner thigh and I want you to lift those books up a little higher, a little higher. Good. And now I want you to relax that foot a bit.

And imagine that you have this huge sugar pot or a huge barrel here and I want you to scrape every edge of that pot. So we're going to go up and really big. I'm going to come over and help you and up and really we're going to do five circles really big. It's this big and I want you to scrape every edge. Use that inner thigh to get it yet all the way forward. One more time. And now reverse it five the other way and maybe take a look at your foot.

Is it all going cock God and changing? Is it leading the exercise? Cause you want your inner thigh to lead this exercise. Two more. That's better. Last one. Good. And you get to give, give it a little rest. Lie Down, right? Like straightens out. We're going to do bicycle, so bicycle is lifting that leg up just a tiny bit and we're going to kick it towards your nose. Bend the knee to your chest, take that need to the other knee. Take that knee behind you as far as you can and extend the leg. Beautiful.

All the way to your notes. Bend the knee to your chest. Take that knee to the other knee all the way behind you and extend one more forward. Bend the knee to your chest. Take that knee back, back, back, back, and extend legs together for the reverse kickback. Bring that heel to your bottom. Need a knee, knee to chest and extend and take it back. Listen to the cues of music. Take your heel to your bottom, not your knee forward. Take that knee forward. Now keep the knee on your chest as you extend. That's better. One more.

All the way back. Take your heel to your bottom, knee to knee, knee, all the way forward and extend and [inaudible] like together. Beautiful. Okay, now we're just going to have a little bit of fun here. We're going do hot potato. If you have bad hips, probably leave it out, but hot potatoes, you're going to tap it five times here. A pro at this editing. Gonna fly it up five times behind. You fly it up. Then we'll switch to four in front or behind three, three to two, and then four sets of one. One, one, one, one. All right, good. Okay.

We're going to start right in front of you. I'm going to challenge you though to be a little bit aware of your hips since we took that time to go over. Keeping your hips aligned. Here we go. Tapping. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three. One, two, three. Up. One, two, up. One, two, up. Why not one? I'm going to let one up. One up. And Jan. All right, wrapping and squeezing.

We're gonna lift both legs up for a little bit. Hold them there. Okay. And keeping your upper body your box. Completely stable. I want to see nice big scissors reaching one leg in front and you can have your hand down. Yes. And switch. How big can you make it? And switch and switch. Nice. And switch and switch. Now keep the legs up, but put them a little bit together and we're going to go for really fat together. Really fast. Manhattan walk. Here we go. Walk, walk really fast, really fast, really fast. Don't move the upper body stable fast, faster, faster.

Don't bend at the knee. Quick, quick, quick. And we'll onto your stomach. Making a small pillow for your forehead. With your hands. Legs are still lifted, of course, because they're still working, right? And we're going to click those heels together 20 times. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. And relax into the mat. Just relax into the mat. Just melt into it because I gave you a little buy there. And now we're going to Redo it a little differently. Some of you, um, you're letting me to straight now as he, Jim, scoot your legs over towards me a little bit. There we go. All right, looking pretty good though. Okay, so now I want you to support your lower back with your stomach.

I'm sure you are all doing that anyway and wrap and squeeze your legs. We'll lift him as high as you can without taking it into your lower back. Open your legs about the width of the mat, found the width of the mat. Now squeeze those legs all the way together. Wrapping, squeeze them. I don't want to see any light between your inner thighs.

Open them the width of the Mat, and now wrap in. Squeeze as if there's a little dime between your thighs. One more time, open about the width of the mat, and then we'll wrap in. Squeeze. Well, now you have the intensity and the range of motion. Let's do that at two tempo. Here we go. One, two, three, four, five from your inner thigh, squeezing in time a little bit higher. Get some light underneath those knees. There you go. Four, three, two, and that's enough. Roll to your other side, but let's all face again the same way would be awesome. So whoever needs to switch. There we go. Christie's got it.

She's on it. All the legs are long. The left hands in front of your stomach like a little kickstand. And we're going to wrap and squeeze the legs. Lift. Bring them forward to the front angle and lower them down. Lift your right leg up a little bit and just your right.

I knew that was true. Left leg a little bit. Turning it out and we're going to do one time kicking it all the way forward and just looking at it. How's it look? Are you keeping it at the same level as your hip? Is it turned out or is your knee rolling in your foot? Work on that and then take it as far back. Find your range of motion, keeping your hip set. How far can use the hamstring and bottom? Take that leg.

Nice. Now to tempo, forward and back. Good. Forward and back. Beautiful forward and wrap and squeeze and use your power house. Use your bottom. Use Your Power House. Use your bottom three more stomach. Pulls that leg up. Squeeze your seat, not your quad. Forward and squeezing.

One more time. More power house and back and legs together. Now I want you to put your left hand on your left hip like we learned on that other side, pulling in stomach and kick that leg up without moving that hip and then wrap and squeeze down. Push up with the outer thigh. We use a thousand pounds down. Push up, pull your belly and deeper as you reach out from that lower ways to Maura wrapping. Squeeze down long, long, long. One more time. Watch that hip. Don't let it come up too high. Little down, down, down there. Keep [inaudible]. Keep it working. And five little circles. One, two, three, four, five it. Very stable. Upper bodies. Love it. Three, two, one, and relax. Good. We're going to give that leg a, we're going to bend the knee, put the foot in front, grab the ankle, either in front or behind, and now we've got a stack of books and I want you to lift that stack of books up a little bit higher, a little bit more. Okay, now we've got a big barrels and we're going to scoop all the edges here and I like to think of a sugar pile. They're real big sugar bot.

Really get all those edges lifted up and reversing it. Try to keep the foot relaxed and put more energy in the upper part of your leg. Then on the lower part of your leg. That's it. Make sure your foot is not doing the work. Either one more bigger, bigger, bigger and legs together. Ready for bicycle.

That left hand returns like a kickstand and you're going to lift that left leg up a little bit. Turned out, reach it long and two your nose. Need a chest. Take that neat back, back, back, and extend all the way forward. Need a knee good. Taking it back and extend and one more forward. Knee to chest. Take your knee back and back and back and extend legs together. All right, the reverse. Take it back.

Keep your knee as far back as you can when you bring your heel to your bottom. Take the knee to knee, knee to chest and extend and lengthen out. Towed your bum. Good knee to knee, knee to chest, and extend last time. All the way long, long, long. Take your heel to your bottom. Need a knee and extend good legs together.

Good job. All right, we're going to squeeze those legs wrapping in, squeezing and let's lift them up a little bit. Good. Now I want to take a big moonwalk, big, long s, lifting up, really trying to take the bottom leg back as far as you can and switch and keeping the top leg only at hip level when it goes forward too. And last time. Now keeping them up and in front of you. Let's go for that quick Manhattan Walk. Here we go. Walk, walk, walk, walk. Faster, faster. Keep that up. Provide stable. Yes. Fast, fast. There we go.

And lower the legs down. Finally we're going to do a little hot potato. Starting with that left heel right in front of the right and the hips are gonna stay stacked. You can put your left hand in front of you if you want security, you can everyone feel or powerhouse in their back to support it. Here we go. Tapping. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. Up. One, two, three. Up. One, two, three, four, one, two, three. Up. Justin behind. One, two, up. Just in front. One, two up. Now, set of one up, one up, one up, one up and rested down. All right, everyone's favorite time.

You get to lie on your back, hug your knees into your chest and shake out your legs. Like you're throwing a tantrum. Shake them out because maybe just maybe your quad started to work a little bit. Probably not though. I don't think so. Okay. Does this row want to face this row? Are you guys good like that?

You guys look good. Okay. All right. Hugging those knees into your chest. Let's all regroup and we're ready for our teasers. We're gonna do teaser one, two, three, and four. All kinds of fun stuff. We knew there were so many teasers. Okay, so you're going to extend the legs up to the ceiling in a [inaudible] stance, rabbit and squeezing, lower them down to a 45 degree angle. Try and keep your waistband down, but it might come up. Extend the arms reaching behind you and you're ready.

Some of you guys still need a lower down to a 45 degree angle. All right? And we're gonna roll up and try to touch those toes rolling up. Oh, nice. And roll away from the legs. They don't move at all. Two more. Roll it up. Your goal is to keep those legs exactly in one spot and roll away.

Last one, roll it up and you'll stay up here with your upper body does not move as those legs drop down and pull up and dropped down and pull up. No movement that everbody dropped out and pull up. Hold. I see a lot of toes together. Turn out those legs and roll everything down. Turn them out, turn them out from your mouth and everything goes up right back up. Nice. Nice. Make sure you're not using those quads.

Lift the legs and roll everything down and roll everything up. Well, everything down. How'd your knees in for justice second. And before we get into teaser for, so there's a lot of fun with teasers, but if we lift our legs like this with our toes parallel and we're really, really, did anyone really not feel their quads in that? Those you guys feel? I'm a little bit, not much. You did Jim. He's super honest. Okay. So when when your legs get to parallel, then it's really hard not to use your hip flexors and your lower back a little bit. And for teaser four, it's almost impossible to do if your legs are too heavy.

Teaser four is getting up into a full teaser and then your arm circle one way while your legs circle the other way. It's kind of a little bit of doing this. You kind of have to regroup and think about it once you're up there, but you're not able to do it if your quads are really into it and it's really heavy. So let's give it our best shot of keeping them super, like everything's long on the mat, turning out those legs and we're gonna roll on up and holding it there and try to circle your arms one way. We're gonna use her as an example here and pots and go the other way. Go ahead and pause. You're getting it at the other way. Try to hold your legs from the back of it. Pause and reverse.

We only have one more set after this. Good. See how small and tighten. Keep it this time instead of big circles. Let's paint really small circles. [inaudible] oh yeah. Oh, I like it. Hold arms. Extend to the ceiling and roll everything away. Nice. Good shot. Rolling up to a seated position.

We are going to end with seal. You're going to lift your bottom to the front edge of your mat and then straighten your mat out a little gym. There we go. And this time it's underneath the ankles and feet. Just an inch off the mat in front of you. There we go. Good. And Clap two, three in how? Roll back? Two.

Three forward. All right, hold it here. This is our last exercise of the day. We're going to try to clap one little inch off the mat in front of you and one little inch off the mat behind you, but I do not want you to do that by lifting your bottom all the way over onto your neck and cracking your neck. You're just trying to extend back there. It's a massage for the spine. Just try to enjoy it. Okay, here we go. Inhale, roll back and clap. Two, three, exhale. Up to three. Inhale, roll back. Two, three.

Exhale up to three. Inhale back. Massage that back. Exhale, two, three, two more. Inhale back after the next one. You're going to let go and roll to a standing position. Roll back after this one, like go and we'll all the way up to a standing position. Good. Everybody faced this way and you want to stand in a nice ballade stance just like you started. And I want your weight on the balls of your feet and I want you to exhale as you reach up to the ceiling. Poems out, powerhouses in and up, all the way out to your fingertips and start inhaling as you push the earth away, leaning still forward, and exhale here.

Beautiful job, everybody. Nice work.

Comments

Great class, thank you. I really liked the side leg work - very challenging - aaah!
I am so glad to have you back online teaching!!!
What a beautifully instructed Mat Class, I love the clarity on the side work, I can't wait to go back and teach the Leg Circles to my students! Very inspiring and smooth. Perfecto!! Cheers Monica :)
F B
Monica what a great class. Excellent cues, greate pace. New classes from you as soon as possible!!!
This was an awesome class! Very challenging and I really got a great workout. Can't wait for your ither classes!
Monica is back!!!! :) :) Yay!!!
Great class! Great pace and cueing... Loved it..
Great class! Excellent cueing and awareness of exercises. Thanks, Monica! I look forward to more of your classes.
really great class! loved the explanation about the correct way to do side leg lifts!
Great class and wonderful instruction every step of the way!!
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