Class #335

Reinvigorating Mat

50 min - Class
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Niedra Gabriel joins Pilates Anytime with this level one class. Niedra comes to us with loads of energy and years of experience teaching in the classical style. She is clear, precise, and very fun to learn from. Enjoy beginning your Pilates practice or reinvigorating your practice with Niedra in this thorough level one class.
What You'll Need: Mat

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So good evening. Today's class is a beginner level math class. It means this is the, assuming this is the very, very first class you've ever done in PyLadies. So we're going to break each exercise down and explain what you're striving to, what you're working on, what you need to focus on so you can understand how to make this method work for you at the beginner level and with through our [inaudible]. Our focus is really what we call the powerhouse powerhouse is made up of the upper abs, which goes from the ribs to the waist area, lower abs, and the hip area. So it's really an energetic area and you're looking to get the stomach pulled in toward the spine, get the back long, and then narrow the hips.

And so you work from this integration of a center out into the extremities. So to sort of what we mean by that, I'd like both of you to lie down on your backs and then your feet up on the mat. You're lying this way. Just nice and locked. Now as you lie like this for me, I would like you to bring your feet together and your knees together. It will help you find your powerhouse a little bit better and lengthen your spine out. You need to perhaps move your rib, keeps slightly away from your hips, and then pull your stomach muscles in and up so you feel your stomach dropping down towards your back. Very good. And now narrow your hips by squeezing your legs together and squeezing your barracks together so you have a little clamping sensation.

Now just to be long and elegant, lengthen your arms down. That's right. And check that the back of your neck is long. Now for the people at home, if you happen to feel that your neck is like this, when use Candace who may, sometimes people have a neck that's going backwards in, you want to take a book with something, little pillow and put it under your neck so your neck feels mason wrong and you're not strange. So you get the neck and the back nice and long. Now in this position, keeping your stomach in, lift your right knee towards your chest. So you bring the leg up and put the foot right back down on the floor. So it's a simple movement.

Lift your left knee up and keep your stomach and in your back Wyatt, and put the foot back down and make sure your knees come together and your buttocks are tight. Lift your right knee up so you're just isolating your back and put the foot back down to keeping your trunk long. And then the left knee comes up and put the foot back down. It's a very simple movement to keep your body quiet. You're powerhouse engaged. And then move the limbs. Now check knees. Take hip, state, stomach in and back.

Long. Lift your right knee up again. Keep the leg there and lift the left knee up with our losing your stomach. So both knees are now in the air. Now squeeze your buttocks tightly together. That's it. Put your right foot down. Put your left foot down, reversing it. Lift your left, Nia and your right knee up. Squeeze your hips together. Put the left foot down and the right foot down.

Very good. And lift your right knee up and your left knee up. Knee candy. Squeeze your buttocks together. Yes, put your right foot down. That was good. And your left foot down and lift your left knee up and your right knee up and your left foot goes down and your right foot goes down. Now adding on. Take both hands and place them on your navel.

So one hands on top of the other knees together. Buttocks, tight stomach and back long. Pull your stomach in and lift both knees at the same time at the same time you do your best knees up. Very good. Check that your hips are tight. This is not a natural place to squeeze your bottom, but you want to strengthen those hips. Now keeping your stomach in, float your feet down to the mat. If your back is rocking, you just do your best not to rocket. If your stomach pressed into your hand, pull it back in here and then lift the knees again. Lift the knees up. If you lost your stomach, pull it in here. Press your back into the mat. As you float your feet back down to the mat. Nice and long.

Very good. Pull the stomach in again. Lift the knees up and float the feet back down. Keeping your back long and your hips from one more time. Pull the stomach in and lift your knees up and float your feet back down to the mat. So you will look working on your lower abs in this first part. Now it's natural.

Sometimes if the muscles are weak for your pelvis to rock a bit, it's also a lot of times you feel your stomach push out so you retraining those muscles. With this work, you just keep repairing it. If you lose the muscle groups who come back and put them back together. Now for the upper apps from the rib cage to the waist, lift your arms straight up to the ceiling and press your shoulders away from your ears, keeping his stomach muscles in. Lift your head and chest. Stop and reach arms towards your ankle. So from your ribs to your waist, you're pulling in and then flow your head and shoulders back to the mat. Nice and mall and lift up again and feel the rib cage closing and gliding under your skin towards your waist. Very good. And then float back down.

Lifting your arms to the ceiling and lift up again. And really notice that you are lifting from the ribs to the waist, not by straining your neck or pulling your shoulders up and lower back down. And now add the knees to this. So upper body and lower body from the ribs to your hips. You're working, bringing the knees in and then float back down the feet. Come down the head and shoulders go back to the map. Very good. One more time.

Ribs, all the way to the hips. The stomach pulls way up and lower back down. Very, very good. Bring your arms down and just rest for a minute. So that was excellent. So those upper abs, lower abs, long back and tight hips is what you're working on when in every exercise we do. Now, just to have a quick look before we do it together, we'll be the hundred. You will start the same way where you curl up.

So you engage this part of your body. The legs will come up and we'll do what's called Pilati stands, where you slightly take the buttocks and wrap them around. In this position, you'll start energetically pumping with the arms, taking a slow breath in for five counts and a slow breath out. Every time you breathe out, you want to pull your stomach in deeper and deeper, deeper so you find those deeper layers there. We'll start together, stretch your arms to the ceiling, Paul, your stomach muscles in. Tighten your hips. Bring your knees in, and if you hadn't chest up the way you did just a minute ago, knees come in through your chest, shoulders away from your ears. Very good. Lift your legs to the ceiling.

Turn your leg slightly out and start pumping with the arms. Breathing into three, four, five and keep the chest nice and quiet into four. Five. Exhale. Three, four, five, three, two, three, five. Exhale, pull the stomach in for two, three, four, five. Exhale, three, four, five, five, two. Oh, exhale. Three, four, five, six, two, three, four, five. Exhale, three, four, five, seven, two, three, four, five. That is very good. Hands a little lower down. Exhale, five, nine, two, three, four, five. Exhale, three, four, five. Last set, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Bend your knees, had in feet. Go to the mat, take a deep breath in and breathing out.

That was very good. In the good news. That's probably the hardest exercise that you're going to do this evening. So both of you stretch your arms over your head for a minute. Just give yourselves a good stretch. Just Nice, juicy, stretch that everything. Go lift your arms up and then roll up to a sitting position so you can roll up.

Very, very nice. Now for the people at home, different people have ranges of movement, so when you come from lying down to sitting up, this first time is like a little test. So these ladies did extremely well. They're capable of rolling up, but you can also grab and pull yourself up and you can also roll to one side and use your hands to come up. All of this is valid. What you do not want to do is do this because you strain your body instead of strengthen it. We're retraining the body so you'll learn to roll up properly over time. This next exercise is exactly for that. So Ben, Denise, ladies, hold behind the knees. Start by sitting up nice and tall.

This is rolling back and rolling up. So pull the stomach in, lean a little bit back and then Tuck your tail under you talk. So you roll over your tail and bring it under. Now Start Rolling back, articulating through your spine. So you just go a little bit back. Now pause here, pull the stomach way in and Tuck your tail under you and then roll back and sit up nice and straight. And again, start rolling back, tucking the tail. So you rolling one bone at a time as you go back. Very good.

Keep the stomach in and then roll back up. Nice and tall. Now same thing. You test it without, without arm. So start rolling back again. Make sure you really get the pelvis going under you, the stomach pulling in. Close those ribs away.

You did a minute ago and then roll back up and sit up nice and tall. Sit Up Tall, shoulders down and this time you're roll to the mat. Roll back. Tuck your tail one bone at Mc. Really dropping your back to the mat. That wonderful Unitus and long lift your arms to the ceiling.

Now lift your head and chest away. We just did so you lift up, close the ribs and start coming up. If you can't come up without help, you use your hands so you're rolling to come up. That was very good and roll back again. Rolling down one vertebrae at a time until you get nice and long. Very good. Lift the arms straight up to the ceiling.

Then lift your head and chest. Close the ribs, pull your stomach in and roll up. Roll up, roll up and sit up. Nice and tall. Very good. Relax your hands down for a minute. That was wonderful. Now the purpose of this exercise is to increase and free up the spine so every bone in your back can move. Ideally in a healthy spine, the bones of the spine should work like gears.

Now what happens to a lot of us is that the lower back and get compressed or tight or rigid, and maybe there's a section of the back that's like a flat back and you two lovely ladies don't have that. But there are many people that they start out in the back like a steel rod. You are looking to restore the flexibility of the spine with this exercise. So very, very important to honor and think about getting that flexibility coming in and then building up the deep abdominal muscles in the front. So think of rolling. It's not about being a hero and getting to the floor and coming up.

It's about getting the flexibility to come back into your back. So going to repeat the same thing, but this time with straight legs. So get the legs in front of you, stretch your arms out. And first of all just have a stretch forward. Two, you're lengthening out your spine a little bit. Now start to roll back in the first time.

We're going halfway so the shoulders are down. Start articulating through the spine. Tuck the tail on. You just have to roll over the pelvis, pull the stomach in, and then come forward and stretch forward again and roll back again. And this time if you can, you roll to the floor. So one that is so nice all the way down, all the way down, all the way down until your shoulders down, headed there. Now stretch your arms over your head. So just nice stretch of the arms.

Give yourself a little stretch, but keep your belly in. Lift your arms up to the ceiling, lift your head and chest and start to peel yourself off the floor. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Very, very nice. And give yourselves a forward stretch. So you drop your head down between your arms and then roll back again. Broadening the shoulders as you roll back. So you rolling through the spine, get those ribs in. Tuck the tail way under you. Yes. All the way down.

All the way down, all the way down. Stretch your arms over your head. Nice long stretch. Lift the arms to the ceiling and start coming up. And for the people at home. If you can't get up here, you're kind of stuck. You Bend your knees, you grab your size, and you ladies just keep on going with the role and you peel yourself up to you help. Remember, it's more important to work on the role than it is to just be down here and then Yank yourself up and go through that flat stiff part of your back because you defeat the purpose of the exercise. So I'll always remember better to back up to place where you're actually rolling than to kind of try and compete with somebody else. Very good.

Ladies. Let's all of us. Bend the knees now pull your stomach in and roll back down onto your back foot. Single leg circles. So lying on your back. Place your hands by your sides on the mat again, you check that you're lining up your spine nice and long. Your knees are together, your feet are together, your shoulders are wide, the back of the neck is long. Keep your stomach muscles in and lift your right leg straight up to the ceiling so it's nice and long. Now in this position, you want it right over your hip and very slightly rotated out. So tighten your hip.

So you take these muscles right here and make a hard so you engage the powerhouse. The stomach is in your heel is opposite your nose. Now without moving your pelvis, you'll take that leg a little bit to cross your body to the left. Draw a small circle and pause with your heel opposite your nose. So circle the leg and up, keeping the pelvis quiet. Circle the wagon up. Circle the leg up. Very good. Circle the leg up one more time.

Circle the Ligon up. Now reverse it and cross all over the body and up. Circle Lake and up. Circle the leg up. Circle the leg up. Circle the leg up. Now we're going to go for the full version. So with your leg straight, you take the left leg and stretch it out on the floor so it's nice and long.

Some of you are going to be so tight you won't be able to get this leg straight if you can't use. Stay with the leg slightly bed. Now in both variations. The purpose of this exercise is to loosen up the hips and the hip socket and you do that by keeping steady with your powerhouse and then lengthening out this part of the thigh that gets very tight for people. So from here, the first part is taking the leg across our. If you keep your knees straight and long and keep the hip down your stretch where you're tape type grass, circle and pause with the heel opposite the no stretch you need even more all yet. Cross circle the leg up, circle the leg and up, stretch and even more. Cross circle the leg and up. Circle the leg up.

One more time. Circle the leg and up and reverse it. Circle that going up. Circle the leg up. Circle the leg in up. Circle the leg one up and one more time. Circle that leg up and hold your hamstring with both hands and give yourselves a gentle stretch. Now as you do the stretch, keep your shoulders on the mat. Keep your neck long so your upper body is nice and elegant.

Then put your hands by your sides on the mat and slowly lower the leg to the frost. So the leg is long, your stomach is in your hips and narrow all the way down. So you're like lean and long and low, lengthened out on the mat. Now bend both knees and we'll do the other side. So neesa together. Feet are together. They've got your left leg to the ceiling slightly. Turn it out, pull your powerhouse in and up and take the leg across to the right.

Small circle in up. Circle the leg up, circle the leg up and stretch the knee if you can to the leg is very long. Circle that leg up and reverse it. Cross over and up. Circle the leg up. Circle the leg and up. Now when you do this circles, make sure you're crossing your body rather than going out because chances are you'll flop around in your pelvis and we're looking to get yourself steady. Then take the right left leg down long on the mat.

Remember it beginner level, you want to do a small circle so you cross over and circle the leg up. Circle the leg and up. Circle the leg up. Circle the leg and up and reverse it and circle the leg and up. Circle the leg in, up. Circle the leg in, up. Circle the leg and up.

Circle the leg and up and whole the hamstring with both hands. Give yourself that lovely little stretch so you lengthen everything out. Put your hands by your sides now and slowly floating like down, long leg, long stomach, long spine, all the way down to nice and long. And then take both hands and stretch them over your head again. Reach your hands in one direction, your feet in and another you have nice long stretched out body and then roll up to a sitting position so your hands come up, produce stomach muscles in and roll up to a sitting position.

Very good. Now put your hands close to your bottom. Have a look at where your feet are. Pull your belly in and see if you can pop your bottom forward. That's it to the front of the Mat for rolling like a ball. So put your hands underneath your knees. That's it.

Now he started by sitting up straight. But we're going to create a round shape in the lowest spine. So you Tuck your tail under, you just roll back a little bit. Yes. Now come back up again and see if you can do that without slumping. But actually pulling the stomach backwards. There we go. Now.

So you have a round shape with your back. Lift your feet up in the air. Bring the feet close to your body. See if you can hold a shape and roll to the shoulders and roll back up and balance. Staying rounded. Yes. And roll back again. Rollback and come up. [inaudible]. See if you can keep this round shape of the spine so you're really emulating a ball.

Roll back again and come up and balance tail is under. And one more time. Roll back and come up and balanced. Very, very good. And then put your feet down and rest for a second. So this is kind of a fun exercise and very challenging. At the same time, the purpose of rolling like a ball is to massage the muscles that run on either side of your spine. That can get very tight and rigid and again the back can get frozen for people. So we do a lot of rolling in polarities and the rollings too to start to soften those muscles up so they become healthy and flexible and mobile again.

Now as the back muscles elongate and relax, we re restoring a new balance to this, the front muscles. So when you're in this rounded shape, the stomach muscles are taking over and it's very common because the stomach is weak and the back is used to dominating is at the back where you'll often feel yourself go from two, from a straight spine, from the, from around positions. So it's very common. You struggle a little bit, but the struggle is good. That's the whole purpose of this. So the other thing that is can happen is that you use your legs a lot to get the momentum of the roll. We're going to work on all of that by holding your ankles and then bring the feet close to your body. Drop your head down and see you can get your knees and your shoulders quite close and keep that tail under you.

Now keep the feet pulled in towards your bottom and see if you can roll back and come up without letting the feet fly away. So you really work your stomach tight. Yes. And roll back again. Roll it back. Very tight. Little Ball. That's good. Keep that tail under your say, saying your stomach muscles. Good. And roll back and roll up and balanced. Balanced, balanced. Very nice. Two more times. Rolling back. So Michelle, stay in that round shape. Try to keep your head close to your knees.

So you curved. There we go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're like a little round position and then stay there. Hold it now just for the fun of it. Let go with your hands just for a minute. Hold it. Very good. Put your feet down. Excellent. And both of you roll back down onto your backs for single leg stretches.

So in this position, again, check that you line up your spine. Your knees are together, your feet are together, the back is nice and long and bring both knees into your chest for setting up. Very good. Now pull your stomach muscles in using your power house. Curl your head and chest up and hold your ankles and bring your feet close to your bottom. So you're like rolling like a ball on your back.

Make sure your shoulders away from your ears now left and goes to right knee. Left hand to right knee. You pull your foot to your Barnum and you need to your chest and stretch your left leg out. So it's about 45 degrees. So nice squeeze shape with the right leg. Switch your legs and squeeze the left leg in.

Switch your legs and squeeze the right leg in. There we go. Switch your legs, squeeze the left leg in, sweat and squeeze. Switch and squeeze. Switch and squeeze. Switch and squeeze. Switch and squeeze and switch and squeeze. When both knees in, pull your stomach muscles in and put your feet on the mat. Put your head on the mat and take a breather.

Now this exercise you just did was called single like stretches and it's called single leg stretches because you're stretching out the hips and the lower back of the bent leg. So in this style that one of the reasons I'm really wanting you to make a point of getting this deep compression, most people get very tight in the groins and the lower back. Now instinctively you're going to want to have the hand hold of the outside hand close to the knee. Joseph [inaudible] was pretty much of a genius because he asked people to have the outside hand to the ankle, the inside had to the knee. So you keep the leg lined up with the hip.

If you do this cause [inaudible] you will go out. So that's not a natural way to haul the legs. You're going to mess it up a few times. But the logic for the outside handle the ankle is to keep the leg going straight in the hip sockets. If you're confused at home, just figure out outside hand to ankle. Does it keep my knee straight? And then you know you're on the right track. So double leg stretches, same thing. You're working your hip strongly, but you're starting to challenge a powerhouse a little bit more.

So bring both knees to your chest, pull your powerhouse in and lift your head and chest up. Hold your ankle so you curl your head and chest up. Shoulders are away from your ears. Pull your stomach in and out. Stretch both legs out and keep your back long and your stomach in. And then bend the knees deeply in and extend the legs are pulling the stomach muscles into the legs along and bend your knees back in and keep your body quiet as you do with and extend the legs out your head and chest.

Still lift long legs. Just stretching out that said and come back in. Now if you find yourself rocking, lift the legs a little higher up extend, so nothing moves in here and bend and stretch. That's better. And Bend and stretch and bend and stretch. One more time and bend and put your head on the Mat.

Put your feet on the mat and take a break. That was very good. So if you find that the lower back is destabilizing you losing your stomach, you bring your legs higher and higher and higher up til that point where you can control the movement without losing your powerhouse powerhouse priority. Now often at beginner level, your neck starts to hurt because we do a few exercises with a neck off the ground. If your neck is hurting, it's mostly because you're powerhouse in the lower amps are weak. So, and what happens is that then this part isn't what's lifting you up. You start to strain with the neck to get that to happen. So if you're at home or if you're in this class, your neck is hurting, keep your head down and over a few classes you'll find you get stronger and you'll be able to keep the head up without straining it. So you ladies as well.

If you're next bothering you, keep it down for the next exercise. Next exercise is called scissors and it's still loosen up the hamstrings in the lower back. So lying in your back, the setup will be the same knees and feet together. Now when you bring your knees into your chest, make sure you bring both knees at the same time. It works your powerhouse. So squeeze the legs and lift them up. Very good. Put your hands on your shins and only if you want to curl your head and chest off the mat. You can keep your head down. That's also fine.

Lift legs straight up to the ceiling. Stretching your knees slightly. Turn the legs out. Take your right leg with both hands and pull it towards you. Left leg goes away. Paul Paul, scissor, the legs and other side. Paul Paul, switch. Paul Paul Switch Po Po switch.

Paul Paul, switch, Paul Paul, switch Paul Paul, switch, Paul Paul and Paul Paul. There we good. Bring both legs up. Bend your knees, put your head on the mat with your feet on the mat. Take a rest and just to relax your neck. Roll your head to the right. Roll your head to the left. Roll your head to the right. Roll your head to the left and back to the center. Now quick note [inaudible].

In all the work that we're doing, we're working with the legs right under the hips because we're strengthening the central line of the body. And usually because that area can get weak, we start to get wider and wider and wider. So most people, if you look at them, they stand with their feet outside of the distance of their own hips because it's a more stable foundation cause the center of the body is weak. So we're looking to get things back under so you really connect up with the center. So in this last exercise we did, it's very common for the legs to go wide. So when you're doing the scissoring, the legs are a little bit wide apart. Instead of really crossing and having a relationship, it's like there's this invisible line called the mid line that runs right through the body. So we'll just do a short repeat of this last exercise.

And I'd like you to ladies to really focus on scissoring the legs evenly while keeping the center of the body Nice and quiet. So you controlling your powerhouse, controlling the relation of the legs to the powerhouse. You strengthen the center. So let's have you both on your back. Again, pull your stomach and tighten your hips. Bring both knees into your chest. Very good. Only if you want to lift your head and chest stop. That's up to you. Lift both legs to the ceiling.

Take your right leg with both hands and pull it towards your left leg away from you. That already nicer pull, pull. Switch your legs with a attention to the midline. Well Paul, switch Paul Paul switch. Keep your hips nice and tight. Switch Paul Paul, switch Paul Paul, switch Paul Paul and switch Paul. Much, much, much better. Bring both legs together. Bend your knees, head in, feet to the mat and rest. Very, very nice.

Now the last one we'll do today from this series is called lower lift. So I'd like you both the clasp your fingers and place them behind your head. Bring both knees to your, just the way you did. So let's put the feet back down again on the map. So you often are lifting one knee and then the other knee that works more of your size. I want you to get into the belly. So Nice, tight hips, squeeze knees together and both knees at the same time. Excellent.

Now Paul, the stomach muscles in and up and remember ribs, lift the head and chest off the mat to up you come check that your head is resting into the hands a bit. That's it. Now lift the chest a bit more and lift both legs to the ceiling. So you want to see if you can get the rib cage now. Head into your arms. No, until you're there. Not so much halfway point. So this is what's holding, you know, keep the chest nice and lifted and take the little legs a little bit away from your stomach. Goes in and bring the legs up. Very good. And lower the legs just slightly away from you. Keep the chest up, chest up and lift again. Very good. Lower a little bit. Keep that chest lifting and up and again lower.

And if lift your chest, there it is lower just a little bit. You're going too far right now. One more time. Less than that. Keep up with the chest up with the chest and that bend your knees and rest. Okay, now rest. That's it. So very, very common when you do that movement of the legs. We all want to have a big movement of the legs going down because that kind of what it looks like externally beginner level, we're looking to strengthen this part of the body.

Remember looking to keep the back long and the stomach lifted. So especially at the beginning it takes a lot of strength to get the part of the upper ribcage to lift up. And so it's very common for this to happen. The the upper body to drop as a leg goes down, even the back to arch. But we're looking in this exercise to keep the powerhouse engage and just do a small movement without letting the body drop down away from it.

Cause the strength you're building is here. It's not, it's nothing to do with the legs. The legs are so easy to go down and up once you get this upper body. So let's just do three more times with a lot of attention on the upper body. So bring your knees into your chest, use your power, has used your ribcage to lift your head in, chest off the mat. Yes. That was so good. Lift the legs up to the ceiling. Stay lifted.

That's looking better. Yes. Can you get your hands now by uh, stay up, up, up, up now. Just small moment of the legs away. Small, small, small. Bring the legs up. Much better. Yes. And small movement and lift. And one last time. Stay up with the ribs. That's so beautiful. And lift and bend your knees. Head in, feet down to the mat and take a breather.

That was gorgeous. Stretch your arms over your head. Nice long stretch. And either with your knees bent or you knee straight. Roll up to the sitting position. Next one is called single leg stretches. So stretch your legs out. You want them a little bit wider than your mat.

So you're going to have your heels on the floor right now in this one where, again, it's called a spine stretch. So we're stretching the back of the body. So you want to be really lifting up and we're really opening up the lower spine in the middle spine from the rib cage down to the sacrum. So you start by sitting up straight. This is the first time you're actually using your back muscles as well.

Their hands are going to be parallel to the floor. The spine is lifted, the shoulders are rolled down your back. And now just for the fun of it, very stately take new hips as well. So you have a natural lift off the pelvis. Now take a deep breath in and as you breathe out, drop your head down, reach forward with the shoulders and start curving in with your ribcage and looking towards your belly button. So you're making a very beautiful round shape. And this is so nice Michelle, where the back, you're pulling back but you rounding forward just there and then you sit back up straight, stacking your spine up one bone at a time. The shoulders glide down your back and your lengthen nice and tall and again, start curling forward, dropping your head down, rounding through the spine.

So you're creating a very round shape and everything is rolling in on itself. It's like you're diving down between your arms and then you roll back up against stacking your back spine up one bone at a time. Mason Tyler, take a deep breath in and one more time. Drop your head and round and roll the spine. You're making a very circular move with the stomach is pulling way in. Make sure you go in forward, not backwards here with your hands straight.

That's the funny part. It's like dive in between your arms and then roll back up, roll back up, roll back up. Sit Up nice and tall, stretch your arms, pull your stomach muscles, weigh in and then relax down. Very, very nice. Stretch your legs out and then roll down onto your backs so you're nice and long and roll onto your stomach for what's called for a single leg kicks. He got both gonna roll over onto your stomach and let's place you. Okay, that's a good idea. Come up onto your elbow. No, you're totally fine like that. Come up onto your elbows.

You're going to make fists with the hands and make sure your elbows are right under your shoulders a little bit further forward. Nice. Now can you both bring your knees together, right? That's it. And your heels together. So we set the powerhouse up again. The first thing you want to do is lift your chest, then pull your stomach muscles in and tighten your hips. So you want to, this is different from yoga in that you can you take new hips, Tuck your tail, and then lift your belly up. Yes. So the feeling is if you're very long here, tried to up for you on that.

Now tighten your hips, squeeze about x, or there we go. So there's your creating. Remember that long spine, it's not a back bend as much as links. So from your hips up through your armpits, you want a beautiful long spine. The belly is lifted, the legs are tight together. Very, very nice now. So we member hugging the midline. Everything is pulled together without losing your nice, narrow hips.

Bend your right knee towards your bottom. So you bend the knee in and you kick the leg twice. Kick, kick, keeping the stomach lifted. Yes. Extend the leg out. Other leg bend the left knee kick, kick and long and kick kick right foot and long and kick it left foot and long and kick, kick and long and kick, kick and long and kick, kick and long and kick kick. Very good and long. So in this exercise we're starting to really tone the back part of the body, the buttocks and the hamstrings.

And we're stretching these front of the thighs out, which can get very, very tight. So that was lovely. Ladies. Now just push back from, from here, just lift your bottom up, pull your stomach in and go back into child's pose. So you have a nice stretch. Very good and lie out on your, let's see how to place you. Let's have you both on your left side. You're going to face that way. Good and line out. You want to support your head with your hands and just place yourself on a straight line on the back part of your mat. So you want your elbow, your shoulder, your bottom, and your feet on the back part of the mat. Just so you have a sentence as though there's a wall behind you.

Now pull your stomach in and lengthen your lower back. Good. Lift both legs up in the air. Bring them forward and put them on her down on the front part of the Mat and put them down and flex both feet. So the feet are long. Now this is a thing. Usually your back is can be pretty arched and you want to imagine that you're lying against the walls who taking the ribs in the waist and moving them back a little bit. Yes.

So you have this beautiful long waist in the center too. Your stomach is lifted and you will take the leg and lifted just a little higher than your hip. Now from this position, from your stomach, push all the way out to your heel. So push from your waist to me. Pull your stomach in. Tighten your buttocks. There we go. So the leg is long and lower the leg down and lift the leg up just a little higher than your own hips. You pushing the leg out, creating links and lower the leg down and lift your leg up and lower the leg down and lift your leg up and lower the leg down. Very good. And lift your leg up and lower the leg down in.

One more time. Lift your leg up and lower the leg down. Now for high side kicks, this one was just to get to your pelvis steady. Now just just to loosen up the hips a little bit more, you're going to take your top leg pointed foot, turn the leg out a little bit and swing it as high as it'll go. Flex your foot and bring it down so he'll come see heal. But keep this quiet. So kick your leg up again, kick it up, that's it.

And Flex it down and kick it up and flex it down and kick it up and flex it down and kick it up and flex it down and kick it up and flex it down and kick it up. And Flex it down. Very good. Let's have both. Both of you ladies roll onto the other side, so you'll be with your back roll over to face me over here. You start by laying yourself out in the back part of the mat. So again, it's as though you were against the wall. You want your elbow, your armpit, your bottom, and your heels against the wall. Pull your stomach up and seal.

Get your waist against the wall and then lift your feet up and bring them forward and put them down in our flex your feet. So with the legs forward this way it makes it, this is so nice, a whole lot easier to work on creating a long spine because that means you get that length under you. Very good. So with your top leg, flex both feet flex, lift the leg a little higher than your hip. Pull your stomach up and press into your heel and lower the leg down and lift your leg up and lower the leg down. Very flexing along. Lift your leg up and down just a little higher than your own hip lift and downs. A little too high just for length. This one is about length.

And one more time. Lift and down. Now high kicks to loosen the hip up, you turn it out a little bit. Lift the leg as high as it'll go. Flex your foot and kick it down and swing it up and lower down and swing it up. And as you lower down, you tighten the hips and lift the leg and down.

Very good. Lift your leg and down. Lift your leg and down. One more time. Lift your leg and down. Very, very nice. Now roll onto your backs for preparation for teaser. So your knees are gonna be bent on the mat and your arms are right by your sides. So get long spine, stomach is in back as long hips a firm, take your, keep your knees together and take your right leg an extended out.

So the knees, the knees have to stay together. So bend the knees and lift the leg up in the air. So you have a long diagonal. That's right. So like a ribbon tying the knees together. Now keep this position, lift your head and test.

And see if you can roll up and reach towards your toes so you roll up and roll down. That's right. Hands to the mat. Very nice. And roll up again. Paul, your stomach in very good and roll down. Very nice. And one more time. Try to stay quiet there. That was better. And roll down. Change sites. Whew. She's doing it the advanced way. So roll up again.

That's good role. So as you do this rolling motion, it can be pretty tricky because you feel yourself slipping, sliding from one side to the other. You want to try and move up and down the middle. A lot of it's just attention on becoming symmetrical. One more time. Very nice. Rolling up and rolling down. Bring your feet back to the mat.

So the preparation for teaser with one leg strengthened one side of the abs and then the other, and sometimes it's quite surprising because you'll find the one side really strong other side is kind of floppy all over the place and you miss it when you do the more advanced teasers. Who the real good place to kind of get that balance back. And truth is day to day, we're different. It's sometimes I think it's called teaser because every day is a new day with theaters. Some days it's very easy to do. Sometimes it's more challenging. Stick your arms over your head and roll up to a sitting position.

So seal to finish. You know what, Candice, why don't you swing around so we're both, we're all facing each other. So lift, bring your hands into prayer pose. Lift your feet up in the air and get your elbows inside your knees. Now in this position, you kind of push your knees out and squeeze them so there's a little bit of resistance and wrap your hands around your ankles and pull the stomach until you're in this funny balance position and you want around shape. So the stomach is pulled in and up and the knees and elbows are creating a little bit of resistance. Now keep that and clap your feet. Three times. Clap, clap, clap. Now haul that cheap.

You roll to your shoulders and come back up again. So back you go and come up and balance. Yes. And Clap, clap, clap, roll back again. Come up and balance stomach is in [inaudible]. Cool app. Crap. I know.

And roll back again. Come up and balance and clap, clap, clap. And last one. Roll down. Come up and balance and clap. Clap, clap. Very good income. Up to a standing position. Yeah. So we were spent the whole time on the floor.

Now we're going to take everything just for a moment and put it into our bodies upright. So you want your heels together. So we have this very slight separation of the toes. This is what we call Pilati stance. Joseph [inaudible] is used to say if you are, so I'm told if you took a baby and you lifted him up by his arms, the legs will kind of dangle from the hips with a very slight turnout. So some of the work in some of the systems we do slightly rotated out.

When you have that slight turnout, it allows you to find this place where the legs are pulling together in the back, which creates a locking mechanism. If you pull the hips together, then it allows you to pull out of your lower back. So you want this length through the legs, lift through the stomach. So you're kind of creating a lock in the pelvis. Long ways lifted chest.

Just take your arms up and feel the length up through the fingertips. So you kind of lengthening through the waist and now drop your head and roll towards the floor. See, pull your stomach in and you round your spine to not a flat back. That's it, Michelle, you're rolling. Just like we did when we rolled up and rolled down. Keep your stomach, pull the in and out, up. And then as you're hanging here, just have three snooze, sloppy, kind of relaxed circles with the arms. Your head is very soft and you're dangling, but the belly is pulling up so you're always opening the lower back. Then reverse your circle. So you circle the other way. Very nice.

And now start to pull the stomach in slowly. Roll up again. So as you roll up, you want to roll through the spine. So you start to stack up your back one vertebrae at a time. So you feel that lining and lift the powerhouse connects your lower spine. And your upper spine. Take your arms up over your head. Again, lift up. Let the even at the, even at the shoulders, go up for a minute to waste as long, and then let the shoulders relax and you float your arms out and you feel that really like a fountain where the water is lifting through the center and draping out the outside of your body.

So your weight should be in the middle of your foot. So a little bit light on your heels. Lift through the center of your legs, live through your stomach, lift through the center of your chest. Your head is on top of your spine. Take a deep breath in and breathing out. Let it go. See you all did very well. Very well at home. Keep going. Just make sure the powerhouse is the center of your life and you'll be happy.

Thank you. Okay. Okay, fun. And.

Comments

Great class! Thanks for the review of the basics. Very well done, articulations helped me correct my positioning. Really Great class! Thank you :)
Niedra Gabriel
Thank you Amani, Glad you enjoyed the class. I am very passionate about basics as all advanced professionals always go back to basics, which is why they are advanced. (No matter what the material is) Niedra
AHH! I am new to the site and haven't done pilates in years! I can't believe how out of shape I was! Thanks for going over the basics nice and slow so my body could keep up! Perfect class!!
Great class! Very easy to follow and nice pace. I haven't done pilates in a while, so this was a great refresher course.
I'm new to Pilates, and this class was a great way to start! Many thanks.
Niedra Gabriel
Hi ther Ms Graham, I am glad you foudn teh calss helpful.

We are going to create a 10 class series for brand new people to get going - so stay tuned and you may find yourself with some confidence under your belt very soon...
warmly, Niedra
Excellent class Niedra. I have been out of pilates for about 1 month or so. This was a good refresher. Back to it. Goal: pilates 3 x week.
Niedra is so clear and an excellent teacher, love it!!
Niedra Gabriel
Thank you Linda, my goal is always to be clear as a teacher - I really strive for that as one of my " teaching tools" so glad you enjoyed and got ' the intent".
thank you so much Niedra. I just completed power pilates mat 1 instructor training. This is a perfect compliment to the training and helped to explain each exercise a bit more. Thank you thank you thank you!!!
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