Class #3058

Environmental Change

30 min - Class
138 likes

Description

You made it to Class 10! We're so proud of you! Join Amy as she steps outside the studio to enjoy moving outdoors. Even if you can't freely go outside today, come back when you can to see and feel how delicious it is to move in a different physical environment.

By now, you can see that there are a multitude of options in the framework of our Mat environment - singular focus on breath or tempo, an area of the body, a concept or theme such as balance or overall strength, and stability or cardio continue to challenge us to think along this in terms of exercise selection, programming, and intention! With this, there should be no way to get bored or run out of ideas to do for and with our bodies! It's all here for us - pure joy and passion!
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

Jun 21, 2017
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Transcript

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Hi everyone. I'm back for class number 10 and I am so happy to see you here with me and as I promised the last class was in a special, we're kind of a special place. As you can see, I'm outside and if you don't have the luxury of taking your mat class outside today, try it sometime. Okay. You've seen the whole challenge has been about changing the environment within our mat practice. Sometimes that environment included just the cardio aspect or alignment focus that each and individual environment within the class am in a literal change of environment. Today what I want you to think about, whether you're outside with me or you're inside your studio or you're inside your home is play with your five senses. Okay?

Play with your five senses. So we have our visual field, we have our auditory, we have our taste, we have our feel, and we have our smell. Outside is a perfect place to bring all of those senses in, but you can do that within your inside environment as well. Today's class, the last class of our challenge is fairly standard. No props. We're doing mat work. Change your environment, play with your environment, and let's go. Let's fly down everybody and we'll start with our pelvic curl right away.

Put all of our concepts that we had in each class. Bring in a few of them. Take a nice deep breaths. Feel your hands on your mat. Feel your feet on the mat as you exhale, feeling the abdominal sink, how your spine moves across your mat, the legs, helping open up the hip flexors and as you exhale, rolling down, feeling your back, articulate smoothly all the way to neutral pelvis. Just two more. Inhale and exhale. Sustained with the sense of feeling right now. What do you feel?

How can you have your hands touch more fluidly or completely your wrists? How can your feet feel more balanced? What can you see? What can you hear? What can you feel and taste and smell all the way up? Let's stay up on this one. Bring your arms up and overhead. Feel yourself reaching. Take a breath in and as you exhale rolling down, I want you to reach for something with your hands behind you, even though there's nothing there possibly for you to touch.

Feel as though you could touch something that you've reached that far to get open your arms wide and feel the space that you're taking in. Wrap your arms around your shins. Press down on your shins and feel deep. Inhale, exhale, lift your head and your chest. We just listened to what your body is about to express what's your body is about to give you. Listen to your environment around. I happen to have these amazing waves around and then just lower your head down. Let's take one more breath together and exhale and take a nice inhale.

Let's go ahead and extend your arms and legs to the place you want for the 100 and here we go. And so keep inhaling fluidly, exhaling fluidly today. Use Your eyes and really see something at the end of your body. Recognize your length, the extension of your arms and your legs. Continue listening to what's around you, holding your ears nice and steady. Two more breaths.

I can smell salty ocean air. It's really nice. All right, bring it all in the roll up. Here we go. Stretch it out. Inhale, exhale and round. Do what you need to do to get through your roll ups. Stretch and roll yourself back and feel the continuity of your spinal movement. Here we go again. Inhale, listen to your exhale. Listen to that breathing. Let it guide you. Let it help move you smoothly.

Let's take one more roll up today. Guys. In here I see. Feel your work. Feel your abdominals pulling backward even though you're reaching a lot further forward here and roll yourself down, leaving your arms right by your sides. I want you to bicycle your legs in for your rollover. Inhale and exhale. Take it over. Flex those ankles.

You can lower your toes if you have the mat space and rolling down. So once again, what do you feel? Notice how you're touching the mat. Bring your legs up and over again. Flex and open. Notice how the weight on your shoulders is helping you roll down your spine even more smoothly than before. Just one more today. Inhale, open and exhale, rolling down. We'll keep our pelvis level.

Bring your legs together. Lower the leg of your choice for single leg circle three times. Free up your movement today. Just three each direction. Less reverse [inaudible]. Stay listening and feeling the work in your body. Change. Lay eggs.

Three pause. Inhale the other way. Exhale around keeping your eyes open. Look right up to your ceiling. Look right up to your sky. Lower the legs. Bring your knees in towards your chest, your chest up towards your knees, and rock yourself up. Move your hips forward. Three rolling like a ball. Find your balance first.

Feel the connection. Inhale into your back as your role. Exhaling to more be the ball. Remember from earlier classes, be that ball. Be Inside your ball. Take it all the way up. Extend the leg of your choice. Keep the other leg nice and close in. How much can you pull it in?

How much can you reach the other one away? Pull. Pull single leg stretch. See how far you can stretch your leg away from your hip? Four really reach three, two, and one. Double leg stretch. This go for three repetitions. How far can you feel yourself reaching in opposite directions and the exhale. Close and squeeze. Feeling yourself.

Stay right on your shoulder blades and exhale. Last one. Inhale, stretch a little further. The last double leg stretch of the series, and exhale, scissors. The leg of your choice comes up. Pull, pull, pull, pull. As the other leg pulls down, down, down, down. Keep inhaling. What do you smell? I smell suntan lotion.

Salty air, little organic dirt down below my legs. Four, three, two, last one. Double straight leg. Lower lift. Three times crisscross three each way. Twist, twist. Feel the ringing out. Feel the ringing out. Last one. Last one. Roll all the way up. Move your hips back for straight legs. Spine. Stretch for rift. Feel yourself sitting up. Look ahead.

Deep. Inhale. Feel yourself excellent. Inhaling all the way back up. Exhaling, feeling your ribs. Move back, your stomach. Move back. So visualizing the next exercise. Openly. Rock. Alright.

Inhaling all the way up. Open your arms. Put your legs together, hands by your hips, and bring your hips right back up towards your feet. Feel how you hold your ankles and extend your legs, your balance three times. Inhaling back and exhaling. Inhaling, feeling the ease in your movement, hearing your spine roll smoothly on your mat. Everyone hold. Take your legs together. Let's roll down for our cork screw with the rollover head down on the side of the spine of your choice. Feel your mat work.

Be Yours. You can keep your height, yours. You don't have to roll all the way over. We're doing a three each direction. Connect to the fluidity of breath, the fluidity of your body. Rolling down right off for saw. Open your arms. Take a moment here though in. Feel your expansion, your height, the distal energy out your feet and your hands.

Let's turn to the ocean first. Inhale, stretch, which you can look behind. You pulled back with the abdominals. Pull the back arm up. Three each direction. It's your ear that listens down to your shin. It's your ear that listens to your knee or your shin. Last time, all the way up. Swan, flip over to your [inaudible] hands where they work best for you today. Same with your legs.

Three times. Lifting the head, looking forward, chest forward, arms stretched. Look straight out. See something there and coming down. You're tracking with your eyes last to only see, I feel I'm tapping into the sun and the sense of temperature change on my body. The heat not going to do dive today. Feel free to die. I'm going to do neck roll instead. I want to tilt my head, look down to my abdominal, tilt, the head and center the other way.

It's a tilt and a circle. Tilt in a circle. Now we're going to do the opposite, which is looking and then circle, look and straight ahead and last time look, circle, look and straight ahead and all the way down. It's coming to single leg. Kick C, here we go. Kick, kick and lower three each leg. Keep bringing that chest high and forward. Last round and double leg. Kick one each side. Only today. Take a deep breath. What do you smell?

Exhale. What do you smell? Take the time, thighs, stretch hands in front of your thighs. Feel your alignment. Feel your glutes can track. Let's go ahead everyone and breathe how you need to to feel control and strength. In this exercise, we only get three hands by your thighs and center. Let your eyes track straight ahead up that building right in front of you and all the way up when everyone just to find a front support for just a moment.

Feel your hands solid on your mat. Crouch. Jump to your hands. Sit on down. Neck. Pull hands behind your head, legs slightly apart. Feed flexes. Go ahead and find your hinge. I'm going into flection today. That's all taking that flection forward and rolling up.

Feeling my limits today. Feeling my abilities today. I'm using and feeling my body last time and leaning back. Flexing the spine, coming all the way forward. Rolling up legs together. Please bring your hips forward. Roll back. Let's do some scissors.

Three each side. Pull that leg down. Pull that lake down. Feel the sunshine on your face. Okay. Riding your bike. Feel the work it is to try to reach that leg further forward and down toward the mat. Forward and down. Forward and down. Reverse. Feel that challenge.

Last bicycle. Put your legs together. Okay guys, bend your knees and I want you to desist to take one step and one step. Transitioning to shoulder bridge legs close together. Take one of your legs up, flex your foot. And we do three down and up, down and up and down and up. Change your sides. Lift and flex the foot and point. Feel the stretch. And then from here, take your hands away and feel yourself slither down to your mat when everyone to pick up their heads. Once again, hold onto your shins and pull yourself in a stretch your spine and roll yourself up. Back up for spine twist. Moving your hips back.

Take your arms out to the sides and reach to the sides of you. Feel that energy come from your chest out to your arms. Three each side. Let's take a breath here toward the ocean again for three, two, one and three. Two, one. What if you could actually touch that water with your hands? What if you could touch that sand with your hands?

Bring all of your to this work. Look forward. Just lower your arms. Let's take a jack knife. Rolling back overhead. Pike your legs up. Let your toes rolling down your spine, keeping your feet high again, over and up, rolling down. Feel your arms supporting you as you lower the weight of your hips and spine and last time yelling your arms.

Support you as you roll and bend your knees and let's face each other for sidekicks. Come on down to your side. Legs slightly in front of you, both hands behind your head and everyone. Lets use do front and back today. Inhale here three times. Let's kick and stretch and kick and stretch and kick and stretch and bring your legs together to throw the Mermaid in here now. So bending those knees, walk yourself up and take that arm and lift the nice and tall and side bend. Feel the opening of these muscles in rib spaces here.

Then that elbow over your head. Feel yourself brush out for something else along your fingertips. Coming down on your elbow and take the top arm overhead. Let's do each side. Once again, three actually two more each side. So we're leaning, lengthening and leaning. Then this felt a nice breeze come a by my body.

Kind of help to move that brushing arm movement last time. Like you collect the air a little bit and collect the wind and leaning out. Okay, I'm going to turn a face to you again. My other side, front kicks and back kicks leg slightly front, hands behind the head, top leg flavor. Just doing front and back. Front and front and stretch and stretch. Front and front. Feel the stretch across your hip flexors and feel legs come together.

Mermaid and side bend as the lean, that opening of your skin and your soft tissue on your side. Body Bend and brush, leaning out. Arm overhead last to see what you can do to pick up a little more space in your spine. Ribs, a little higher away from your bend and Lincoln side bending and one more time. See what you've got. This is our last one in this series. Go a little further. Brush inside, bending over.

Let's take some teasers. You guys come around. Let's start facing up with their legs. Teaser one. It's rolling down two or three times of teaser. One doing two because I want to move on to teaser too and I really want to move on to teaser three. Rolling everything down, reaching an opposites, but feel the stability and control. Roll back up. Reach for those toes one more time, rich. Rolling up. All we finished.

Our teaser is let's take a little swim on the mat instead of the ocean. They'll come on down. Everybody. Theo, you're so strapped, so I feel like this one is a breather. Pick up the arms and legs. There's the lavender Bush right in front of me, so I'm trying to smell the fragrance of the lavender. Motivates me to keep swimming. Front support. Press yourself up. Let's pick up one of your legs.

Push and pull three times. Yes. Second leg. Push and pull. Three times. [inaudible] put your knees down. Stretch your hips back. Let's turn around for leg. Pull back. Okay. Hands down behind you.

Feel your strength between your shoulder blades. Feel the reach of your feet. Lift your hips. I'm just holding because I want to feel the sun. I'm gonna feel the heat on my body. Stability of my knees and lower down.

Okay, let's come up on high kneeling office. You just take one of your legs out to the side. Put your hand down the other hand, behind your head. Take a moment to feel your head back in your hand. Pick up your leg. Since we already did front back, let's do some circles.

Three in each direction and pause and back and two and three and pause. I want you to lower that leg. Set the bottom foot out from underneath. Feel the long arm above you here. You could rotate face down. We'll come along with me and rotate. Face Up. Take advantage. Open and breathe. Face back to me in one another.

Less to our other side. Kneeling side, knee down. Just tell. Go right up and over. Foot out to the side, hand behind your head. Feel that open chest. Pick up that leg. Three circles to three. Reverse one to three.

Putting your foot down the length. Open and rotate. Feel that breath. Feel a big inhale facing one another. Let's put her hips down. Face your feet. Okay, let's go for a little boomerang. Take a deep breath. Rolling yourself back up over your shoulders. Open. Close.

Okay, everybody. How about another teaser today? Instead of shaving, almost lift your arms up. Open those arms, feel that chest open. Feel your self class, lower your legs and then your head hold and circle. Feel the stomach pool back. Inhaling and exhale to rollover. Open. Close. Rolling yourself up. Arms lift.

Okay. And Challenge. Challenge. Stay there. Class toes, hands behind Paul. Legs go, chest goes. We'll only do one more. Each side. Rolling up. Let's see something. Stay focused. Stay focused. Look right at it. Feel how strong your legs are. Feel strong in your abdominals. Helping hold your legs up. Taking it over one more time, everybody for one more boomerang.

How you can play in your mat. Work Environment. Whoa, little seal. Just three times. Let's go for a little rocking down on her stomach again. Okay. Bend your knees one hand on each. Shinbone.

Flex your feet open. No shoulders. I've got that lavender Bush in front of me again, so I'm going to look at it. I'm going to start to smell for it. The only my heels reach up. My Shins reached back. There we go.

Control balance. Taking your feet down, hands around. Hold one of your feet. Bring your leg up. Feel your point of control.

Other side, we can get a few more chances. One more. Try to stand in the back foot. Lift the top leg, unroll, stretch forward for one moment. Roll yourself up. Let's find a front support position. Let's try three piles. Pushups together. Here we go. One do three roll up to sitting. Let's face each other.

When a face you cross your legs or sit in a diamond. And I want to finish with one or two little neck exercises. This has a lot to do with the senses. Okay? You get to choose which side you look to or turn to first. But I really want you to connect your visual, your auditory, your sense of smell, what you might taste and what you might feel.

And that's not just with your hands, but feel your environment around you. Okay? So I'm going that way first. No, I'm gonna go that way first. I actually want to let my hearing, my listening skills guide me to the side. I'm feeling my heart beating heavy, feeling the sun on my back can smell the lavender again. I can see beautiful windows, you can hear ocean and breeze and it tastes all to ear.

So if I go the opposite way, that's really let the eyes this time guide me around. It's a little different view over there, but many things are still the same. I want to hear and when I feel you can smell saltier air this way you can see different textures of the waves, but it's all been mat work that we've done so matter. If you're looking at a wall or if you're looking at an ocean or if you're looking at a studio floor or the sky, it's all the same, right? It's all mat work. So we've changed the paradigm a little bit. We've stretched outside the box. We've added variety in our literal environment today.

But in each of the classes I've allowed you a little different environment within the matte framework. Please let me know what you think. I've had so much fun with you. Thank you for joining me for all 10 classes. Leave some comments and I hope to see you again for another challenge. Thank you so much.

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Comments

1 person likes this.
I jumped in on this class. I did not do the series. I am a Pilates instructor so I am familiar with all the exercises. It gave me a lovely burst of energy to start my day Amy! Thank you so much! I love the outdoor setting and sensory reminders! I was in a room with lovely garden views and it really helped me take everything in!! Have a beautiful day!
1 person likes this.
Wonderful Darlene , thank you for taking this class and let me know if you head back to class #1 and beyond. I'd love to see you with us in the 10 class challenge!! :)
Thank you so much Amy. I did enjoy this challenge and I am so grateful on many levels that I was able to do it. Thank you for all that you have to offer and all that you do.
4 people like this.
Love that mention of "another challenge". Ready when you are. So very appreciative of all the care and attention it requires to create 10 classes with such focus and creativity.
I'm so happy you were with me Christine and Joni !! You gals are why I created this challenge, really -- students like you inspire me to keep thinking 'outside the box, a bit'. I appreciate your feedback, comments and clarity in expression as to how my classes work for you! Joni -- thanks for the support for the next challenge! :) .
Kim W
1 person likes this.
Perfect ending to a great series! And what a miracle the train didn't go barreling by! Enjoyed all the classes, but this was one of my favorites. WIll come back again and again.
Congratulations Kim !!! And THANK YOU for moving with me in this challenge! I appreciate you!!
1 person likes this.
Thank you Amy Havens . I loved this Challenge!
Congratulations Mary , you made it all the way through with me!!! Thank you SO very much for moving with me and the others here at PA in this 10 Class Challenge! See you again soon!
2 people like this.
Amy, I feel so much stronger and flexible since doing your series. I enjoyed the variety of exercises and ways of doing them. You had great fluid through each challenge and set us up for success. Teasers have always been hard for me but I've got them down now! Thank you. Have a blessed day
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