Stabilizing Reformer Flow

Hi, thanks for joining me for this reformer class. My plan today is to use a couple different types of ball. Two just generally challenged, balance and proprioception, and then also bringing awareness to just specific muscle groups. So what I had here is an overhaul, but it's almost all the way deflated. I can almost press it flat and then I have a much more inflated larger ball.

This is a triad ball, so those are the things that I have. My reformer is set on three red springs getting ready for foot work, and that's all of the information I have for you at this moment. So let's do this. Turn towards the back of the reformer. Place your heels down right at the very edge of the reformer. Place your ball not right behind your pelvis, but a little bit further behind you.

And then bring the hands to the knees and lifts the spine at nice and tall. We're going to inhale here and as we exhale we're going to Tuck the tail under and reach back to put pressure on the ball. As you're putting pressure on the ball, my arms have straightened. What I want you to think about doing is to rotate more deeply feeling as though you might try to pop the ball or round your spine more. Take an inhale and Xcel lift up and sit up.

So I'm using my arms a little bit to sit up. Inhale, exhale, round the spine, the tilt Tuck Sunder, reaching back, looking for the ball. And as you find the ball, you rotate your pelvis even deeper under and you push into the ball with your abdominals. We'll inhale there and then we'll excellent lift Baca up to sit tall. Just warming up the spine, getting a little abdominal work, Xcel around, sign the ball as you know, push into the ball. Really deepen.

So there'll be one thing to just lean back on it, right? And rest. But so that's an option I suppose. But you have to kind of use your brain to find the depth of the work here and the ball supports you slightly as you really work to deepen the articulation of the lower spine and up. One more time like that. Inhale and exhale. As we roll down, feel the bat come into the bone. I'd like for you to hold there deeply.

Tek the pelvis to let the arms reach forward taken in here. As you exhale, open the arm closest to the out to the side and rotate on the ball without moving the ball. Exhale, come to center. Inhale, open the opposite arm out. Look back at that hand. Oh, I moved the ball so I've gone too far. Exhale, come to center, so using the ball for feedback. Inhale, we're just feeling the rotation in the thoracic spine. Exhale back through center. Inhale, reach over. Exhale, come back to center. One more time through any reach over. Exhale, come back to center last time. Inhale.

Exhale. Use your arm to push yourself back to center. Taking an inhale, reach for your knees and XL. Roll yourself back up. So what we're going to do now is we're going to turn around your feet or you're going to go just underneath the foot bar and we're going to put the ball cause school kind of towards the front of the carrot and then put the ball a little higher up on the body, maybe a little bit lower than the shoulder blades. If you don't feel like this is giving you enough space on your reformer, just do it on the ground and then you'll get on the reformer when we're actually using it as a reformer and not a mat. So now hands come behind the head. We're going to extend the spine over the top of the ball after reach around my shoulder blocks XL to curl fo, deepen in his, he reached back extending past the shoulder blocks. I'm touching them, but I'm not resting on them. XL come up.

Inhale, reach back as you excellent. Come up. Think of lifting the feet off the bar without actually lifting the feet off the bar. Oh yeah. I hope you feel that as much as I do. Inhale to go back. Exhale to come up. Lifting the feet and back. We'll do two more. Excelling, lifting. Okay, and back. Last one. Exhale, lift. Now hold here.

Actually lift your feet just a little and put them down as three. Lift and put them down and last time lift and put them down and take the body over the top of the ball. Inhale, as you exhale without moving the ball, rotate towards me. Inhale, come back. As you exhale without moving the ball, that's the hard part. You turn the other way and back and lift and across ceiling. The the fiber is in the lower abdominals.

Working equally as much as the fibers of the abdominal muscles, which are up more around the rib area. We've got to put our focus where we want to find sensation. Exhale, come up and over. Inhale, go back. Exhale, go up in over in. He'll go back. Now as you come towards me, pick that foot up. Just still a little bit. Inhale, put it down. Exhale, lift up and over.

Picking the foot up just a little bit in how to go back down. Exa I pan over. I'm trying to maintain a fairly neutral pelvis and up into the back of the room or that's my bad, the back of my room, but I don't know where you are in space, in relationship to your room, but we're turning and we're alternating sides and center and turning and center. We'll do one more journeying and center one more in my world means both sides turning and center. Once you find your center, reach around for the backs of the thighs, curl up all the way and take that larger ball and set it down onto the ground. Pick up the ball as you have it. That's a little bit more squished and come all the way down onto your back.

So we're going to place that ball in between the thighs. Notice I said not, I didn't say knees. I said thighs, so the knees are kind of peeking out over the top of the ball. Arms come straight down next to the body. We inhale, Xcel peel the body, sending the shins forward, listing the pelvis, hold in in. As we exhale, we dropped the chest through the arms and we just begin rippling through the spy rippling through the spine, dropping the tailbone all the way down and inhale and exhale as we lift that feeling the back of the legs, feeling the insides of the legs. So now we're using the ball for placement and just to find some tactile feedback for the adductor muscles and then rolling down, making sure that the shoulders are just soft and arresting into the mat. Inhale, tailbone drops. Exhale, hurl at uh Ah and inhale and exhale as you roll down really maximizing the curvature of the lower spinal area. We're going two more times with a little bit of fun at the top of the next. The second one, a little bit of fun coming up in hand and XL to the lower and you're ready for the fun part. Excelling to lift.

So we're going to hold at the top. No, you stand on your right, like don't shift the pelvis. Straighten the left knee. Put the left foot down. Don't shift the pelvis, straighten the right rightly. Notice if the ball is moving side to side, it might wiggle a little left leg and pelvis stays. Sta right lay and down. So as you're straightening your leg, I want you to press into the ball. With that straightly and bend rightly and bend. Keep lifting the hips, left leg and bend rightly and inhale and exhale rural all the way down.

Once you arrive at the bottom, reach back. Bring your hands to the hooks where the straps live. Pick the feet up off the bar, press into the ball with your thighs. Inhale, rotate towards me with your lower body XL. Push with the lower leg into the upper leg to bring yourself back to center. Inhale over. Exhale, push into the ball with the lower leg to pull yourself through center. Inhale, rotate over. Lower leg press. Exhale, center. Inhale, rotate over.

Excellent. Press one more to each side. Inhale, exhale, press in you XL. Press. Place your feet down. Take your ball, lift your pelvis up off the mat and place the ball underneath the small of your back. So my, the end of my, my tailbone is actually not on the ball and my sacrum is on the ball. And then just take a minute to feel real heavy on that ball. We're going to do is just a single leg lifts here. So as you exhale without shifting anything on the ball, bring the left knee to the chest.

It's harder than it looks and Mac, you feel that there's no movement on the ball, right leg to the chest. We're going to challenge this idea a little later on and left. Flick to the chest and back and O'Reilly to the chest and back. One more time on each side. The place where you're changing, where one fits going down and one fits coming up like that transition or transition or what's the word? The term place where you transition is the hardest place for me. So now we're going to walk the feet together on the bar. Here we go. Stand on your arms, lift both legs up and yeah, feel how when your come into your chest you just draw the sacred in the back of the belly button back into the ball.

And back and [inaudible] exhale to bring the knees in as an idea or just decide what breath pattern works for you. Notice if you're shifting from side to side on the ball, that's, that's what, that's the appropriate septic work that we're doing here. One more time. XL to lift. Place the feet down. Separate the feet. Sit Bones, distance apart. Again, feel the pelvis, pelvis heavy on the ball. We're going into foot work here, so we're going to stretch the legs out straight. Try Not to talk the tail. Try to keep that neutral pelvic position reaching over the top of the ball with the pelvis.

Then Bend and press out and pull in. So creating a Merith Mick action with the legs and out and back and just again noticing are you shifting? Are you feeling equally weighted on the ball? I do a little shift in it where it's hard for me. You are, it's mentally challenging is a better way to say that for me to stay real. Even on the ball. Do two more.

One more and back. Place the toes on the bar. Press as long spine and, and press out and bend and reach of feel. If you are the back of the legs working really a lot. Really a lot. What a good cue. So here's a different way to say that.

Can you feel the heels dragging to the back of the sip bone? So we pay attention to the muscles in the back of the thigh. Inviting connection to the back of the body. Yeah. Okay. We just do two more.

Let's do that pelvis sit nice and easy on that ball. Last one and back. And then bring the heels of the feet together. Separate the toes on the bar again, drop into that sense of heaviness like you're floating above the ball. Reach Ah, and full [inaudible]. Stretch the legs long, squeezing the heels and the inner thighs together and drag the reformer in.

Stretch out. And he was in the ball just to notice, is there rocking in the Pallidus? Does the pelvis go down or shift over on either side of the body. Okay. If you're completely still on your ball, that's amazing.

And we'll do three more and two more. Oh, I just got myself losing my concentration for a second. Just full disclosure, uh, the way, uh, uh, the way back. Okay, so from there, simply just go back to parallel on the toes. Press out all the way, lower the heels under, lift the heels up and go down to three up full range in the fee. Feel the length from the top of the head all the way dragging through the heels and then lengthening out through the top of the heels as the top of the head as the heels list. And we'll do five and lift for wrapping the yields under left three and lift up two and lift that one out. Here's the tricky part.

Can we go into our prancing without moving the ball? So down, up, down, up. That's a little more thought provoking, shall we say. So down, ah, ribs are soft. They may not be all the way on the mat, right, because the ball is lifting the pelvis off the mat, but still make sure that they're just softening towards them. That pelvis is super still floating over the ball. Are you going two more times on each side? That's one. And this is too, so you may have been wondering, well three red springs, that's light. Well that's because we're going to go into a single leg press here.

So take the right heel on the bar, lift the left leg up. Now we can really check to see if for shifting as we stretch that right leg long and bend and fairly simple work but definitely not without challenge and reach. Ah, and back and a reach. Yeah and back all the way to street reaching through the entire spine and we'll do four. I'm attempting to take us to 10 fury to abdominals softening back into the ball and the last one as you come in, can you, without doing a lot of pelvic shifting, place the left foot down, get it ready to push and lift the right leg. Transitioning. Press out with the left.

Come in with the left. That right like just stays floating right over the pelvis, which again continues to just rest or flow over the ball and back. Stretch long and back. I'm a little bit more rocky on this side. We have five to go and resist.

Four to go and resist. Three to go and resist breathing, concentrating last time, come all the way back in place both feet on the ball bar on the bar, Tuck the tail, lift the pelvis, and then list that ball out from underneath. You put it a lot lower, like way down towards the tail and then try to really round the lower back down. Not gonna be able to get the pelvis down because, because the the balls underneath it and then just go back to neutral. We'll do three so we get that little bit of a stretch in the back, which may have had to work as we were trying to balance through our footwork and Dan and just one more or you are rocking back and forth I just said, and her flex and control. All right, so we're going to pick the hips up.

We're going to take that ball out for just a moment. Help yourself up. I'm going to use a red and a blue spring for the next section. Good spring. I've tried it, the boat's going to go back to the same place, the first place, the place where it was right underneath the sacrum. Okay, so get sorted.

Now this is a little tricky and I take the hands this. You're going to take the straps in the hands and bring the arms just above the shoulders without changing the pelvis. Lift the feet up off the bar. Inhale. As you exhale, press down evenly with both arms, reaching past the hips in your lifter. Nice and soft on the ball. X up. Press it and ratio away. Inhale, come back. Exhale, press and reach away.

Nice and easy floating over that ball and press and reach away. [inaudible] one more time. Try not to shift back and forth. So now turn the palms to face your body. Take the arms y and back down and why and back down.

And why? Using the abdominals for stability three more times. [inaudible] two more times. [inaudible] last time. So now we're going to go back out to the side, stabilize the pelvis, stable as the carriage. Stick the arms over the shoulders, and then pull the knees into the chest.

As you bring your arms down, lower the pelvis, open the arms, arms come over the shoulders. Pull the knees into the chest as the arms reached down. Reestablished table top out to this side, over the shoulders, knees into the chest. One more to the side. Go over the shoulders, knees into the chest. Now as the knees come back, the arms come up, the knees stay still, the arms open. Bring the knees into the chest, the legs come back, the arms lift up, the arms open.

We bring the knees into the chest and up. Open knees into the chest. And two more open and knees into the chest. Spring feels quite challenging to me. Uh, open knees into the chest. Lift the arms, carefully placed the feet back down onto the bar. And then we're going to bring the feet into the straps.

[inaudible] okay, so get organized again. I've got a stability challenge coming up. So keeping that nice neutrality of the pelvis. We're going to do some circles that we're going to go down around and to the top and out to the side evenly, evenly around and to the top. I'm maintaining my external rotation and I'm watching to see that my legs are circling at the same distance.

I'm trying not to heavy up on one side or the other on the ball and I'm trying not to let the springs bull me off balance. So those are all the things I'm trying to do. What are you trying to do? Energy? Two more and one more. And then once the heels come together to touch and take the legs out, press down and together and lift up. Ooh, this is this directions a little more challenging for me. How about you Dan? And together and Ah, well Ben, both things reaching out towards the opposite side of the room.

Tailbone is down over the top of the ball. The pelvis is stable on the ball. We're pressing the legs through spaces though. We're moving through something heavy. So create more resistance in the springs. Provide we just do three more like that.

Down around and back. Open down, around and back. Open down, around and back. What do you think Peter Pan would feel like? Let's try bending the right knee, taking the left leg out, pulling back mostly with the left leg and letting the right leg go straight. That's pretty challenging. Bend the left knee, right leg goes straight, right?

Like tolls. Left leg comes to meet it opposite side. Separating the five bones evenly. Yeah, this is a bunch more challenging because there's different loads against the lay and inhale. And please share what you think. And in here and back, just do one more to each side. Inhale. Yeah, and back. Okay.

In here and back. So what I'd like for us to do now is to bend our knees, lift the pelvis off the ball, and take the ball out from underneath the back. Then reach up and place the ball in between your heels. So at une, feel as though you're squeezing evenly. Going to send the legs out. Straight squeezy of squeeze the inner thighs.

Lift the legs just to vertical. Now start healing the body away from the reformer holding the reformer. Still looking for our back extensors. We're going to inhale. We're going to exhale and we'll roll down. Press the lights down. We'll do two more. Lift the legs up, contract through the abdominal, squeeze the inner thighs, lift the spine up off the mat.

Inhale and exhale to roll down. Coming all the way down to the pelvis before pressing the legs away in here and the lifting up and are rolling down. Whoa. You lose your focus for a minute and everything falls apart in my experience. So heels are touching the ball. I've got my knees bent.

Now we're going to do a couple shorts. Friends, say three. We are going to reach forward. We're going to keep squeezing the ball as we fold in. Half come to the stopper, roll up, pressing into the ball, noticing that the knees are evenly externally rotated. Bend and roll down, dropping the pelvis, bringing the legs through and ass and over and I okay. Bending the knees, bringing the ball into the pelvis.

In lifting the pelvis to the ball and XL. Sure. Roll down in through and rolling over feeling that Paul come right over the top of the head or seeing it rolling up as the knee bend. The ball comes to the pelvis, the pelvis lifts to the ball, and then your role all the way back down again and through. All right guys, let's take the bot from in the feet. Put that on the floor. Take your feet out of the straps. Okay, and come all the way in.

Okay, so we're going to come up. Let's get rid of the blue spring and let's grab the larger ball. If you don't have a larger ball, you just make belief or get a big pillow or something like that. So I'm going to come onto my knees right up against the shoulder by summit. Take that ball in between my thighs, reach down, pick up the straps, press the pelvis forward, lift the back.

So all I'm doing with the ball is just noticing that I have some attention to detail there. I'm thinking about pressing the knees into the ball and almost sending my knees closer in than my feet in my imagination anyway. Then we're gonna press down and press back, press down and press back. Press down and press back each time the arms go back. Feel that you're sending your abdominals in that general direction as well.

Pulling the front of your body away from your clothing, pressing the pelvis forward, reaching the head towards the ceiling. And we'll just do two more and one. So as the arms come forward, I want you to sit down on your hips as you come up. Press your pelvis forward, arms, pull back as the arms come forward. Abdominals and sit straight down. As the arms come back, we use the arm, suppressed the pelvis forward and again Ben and again press and again, yeah, and press squeeze the ball. And three more. Lifting up, two more. Lifting up last time, lifting up and then sitting all the down.

Put boss steps back. Turn to one side. Keep the ball between your knees. It can just come with you as you come. Probably gonna want to readjust the springs and use a blue instead of RN. Okay. Lifting all the way up onto the knees.

The hand that's furthest away from the strap is going to hold onto the strap. The hand that's closest to the strap is going to hold onto that hand. We're going to inhale, rotating away from midline, pressing into the ball and squaring the pelvis. As we exhale, we pull the body across and then d rotate. Notice that you can squeeze the ball, that you can find your abdominal on the way over as well as on the way back. Let's do that three more times.

Reaching across and squeeze and a cross and back. Last time reaching your cross and back. Does the reach down. Put that strap down. She made your way over to the other side. Now you can take the ball out and put it back in, but it's kind of fun to try and do it with the ball in your legs.

Opposite hand holds the strap inside. Hand holds the hand. Pelvis is squared and right over the knees. Exhale, rotate the body. Inhale, Dee, rotate. So you feel the work in the opposite sides of the waist on the rotation and the d rotation. As you're working into that rotation, try to keep the arms and the wrist really straight and just allow the head to rotate with the body. So the gaze is always just out over your hands and back.

Here's our last one. Okay. And back. Okay, awesome. We're going to put that strap back. We'll just leave the ball on the reformer and we're setting the springs apple to put all the springs on or just as many as you need to feel safe in your side overs and to get the strap. Well my strap through. I'm just going to set my bar back up cause we're going to use it again.

Okay, good. So we get a box. Can we slide the top foot underneath the strap and then we're going to come down. Okay. So we're going to play a little game here. So the body is long in a start with the ball out over the shoulder. Line yourself up. Let go. Lift the ball over head, lift the other arm, pick up the ball, change sides.

So we just bring the arms up overhead, pick up the ball and change and having to hold the trunk against the changing center of gravity in the body. One more time. Over and back. Now hold the ball overhead and take the body down and out. Body goes down and out. Wow. This is hard.

And add any. I'm bringing the ball with you as you go over it, down on the floor and try to roll it away from you, Eh, and then roll it back towards the other hand. Use that hand. Take the opposite arm, just overhead. And then roll the ball the other way. Just changing the dynamic of the stretch. Help yourself out of that with your hands.

We'll change sides. Okay. Okay. So we find our straight line. We're ready to go. Ball comes up over the shoulder, opposite arm reaches down. We go up and change up and change.

Uh, and Shane's, uh, one more, Huh? And Change, ah, up and change both arms overhead. We go down and out. Down and out, down and out. Rest your hand down on the floor. Take the ball down, push it away from you.

That doesn't feel good to just do something that does hold the frame. You can lean into the stretch, lean backwards from the stretch, and then we can then roll the ball towards the other hand, letting the upper arm reach overhead. So we try to push the ball in the other direction and then help yourself abuse your hands. Okay? When more things almost there and it turn the box. Okay, go to a blue or a red spring.

Either would be fine. I'm choosing blue. Okay. We're going to lie on the box so that the chest is just at the end. Am I going to bend the knees and put the ball back in the knees so you're not actually touching with your heels, but you're bending your knees around the ball. So just hold that leg position for a moment. Press the pelvis into the box, stretch the arms out as you stretch the arms out.

Can you stretch your legs out without losing the ball and then bend and and squeeze? Okay. Presa stretching the legs long, holding that ball still and bending and squeeze pelvis is still on the box, right? Let's do two more. Reach out and Bendon Henry Chow, [inaudible] and all the way straight. Meredith and Bendon. Now keep the knees bent as you press with your arms, lift your thighs and lift your spy, bringing the feet all the way up towards the back of the head. Bend the arms and lower the size pelvis is still on the box.

Press the pelvis into the box, lift the legs, lift the spine, bringing the toes back around towards the back of the head, and then bend back down. One more time like that. Press and lift in bend, and then take the ball out from behind you. Put it down onto the floor, come up onto the box, sit back towards your feet. Can just rest your arms out over that football and then just crow a little bit and sit back down. So now we make the spine the shape of a ball curling a and back down. I don't. One more time, truly no, and back then and bringing the hills to the box. Lifting the spine up and carefully readjusting, so the hair sitting on the box and that's it.

Hope you had a ball.