Class #3512

Moving Environments Mat

50 min - Class
176 likes

Description

Use props to help you sense where you are in space with this Mat workout by Jared Kaplan. He starts with a standing self-assessment to unwind your thoracic spine and trunk. He then moves on to the Mat for variations that will test your stability, rotation, and placement.
What You'll Need: Mat, Yoga Block (4), Triadball, Pilates Pole

About This Video

Aug 13, 2018
(Log In to track)

Transcript

Read Full Transcript

Hi, I'm Jared Kaplan. You're going to do a proper laden mat class called moving environments. Matt. So what you need is you're going to need a ball, you're gonna need a dowel rod and you're going to need a block. So I want you to start standing. And what your first series of exercises will be is justice or self assessment to unwind your thoracic spine and your trunk.

So if a Mirman Danielle could join me on the mat. So you're gonna take your right sum up really easy. I want you to rotate following your rights on them all the way around as far as you can twist. Great. And just see how far you go. Kind of put a thumbprint on where you're looking, and then come on back and do the left side just to check if one side rotates more easily or not. So you can check in space how far you're going. Great.

And come on back. Cool. So a little information on which side maybe goes a little more easily than the other. Let's improve those sides. So right thumb's gonna come up again. Your task is now to not move your pelvis at all. So go ahead and rotate again. Make sure your thumb is visible at all times, pelvis not allowed to move whatsoever. Good. And then come on back. Do that one more time. Nice and easy. Relaxing this mine as you go, fully rotate. Good pelvis stays facing each other.

Nice and centered. Come on back and let's do that one more time. Make sure your eyes see your thumb. Great Pelvis Nice and steady and come back next up. Same exact thing except don't move your chest at all. So just your head is gonna move with your thumb around to the right. Good. Keep seeing the thumb. Make sure the center of your chest faces straight ahead.

Come on back. Do that again two more times. So I borrowed this from a Feldon Christ exercise. It's really good for trunk rotation to use the [inaudible] system to reset any imbalances between feet, pelvis, chest, head, and eyes. Just to be the last time you keep the chest steady. So about three repetitions for each region. Now this one's a little tricky.

Keep your head completely still. Just move your eyes as you rotate your thumb to the right. Really check that your Chin does not move at all. Yeah, there you go. And come on back. Nice. Let's do that again two more times. So again, don't move your Chin at all if it helps to have your own hand on your chin. You can try that. Good. Make sure you still see your thumb. Come on back.

Okay, last one. Keep your eyes straight at your thumb. You're going to move the thumb and just tracking your peripheral vision where your thumb is at all times. Little trick when you get almost out of the range where you can see it when a wiggly or some so you know it's still there. Then take it out of range. Good. And then back in. Keep your eyes straight ahead. Great. [inaudible] bring it all the way back. Do that again two more times. So I as again, nice and easy. Straight ahead. Using your peripheral vision to track where your thumb is in space.

Take it out of frame a little bit. Wiggle back in the frame all the way back and do that one more time on the side. Good. Make sure you see the thumb only peripherally. Don't change where your eyes are facing. Using a different sense for your peripheral vision. Make it disappear.

Come on back and relax that arm just for fun. Same side. So it's your right thumb up. Go all the way into your full rotation. Let everything move. And you might feel a kind of strange sense of ease. You might've gone further. Come on back. Okay, let's do the other side to make sure that they're balanced out. So going back with the left thumb now. Second side, you're just going to keep the pelvis still. You're gonna rotate your trunk, your chest, your shoulders, head, eyes with the thumb.

Come back. Do that two more times. Chest stays. Steady rib cage, not moving. I said that wrong. You're gonna go pelvis steady. You got a trunk rotating around and come on back. So again, third time, pelvis steady. Allow your chest to rotate. I's your thumb. Third Time's a charm. Come on back. Now I was a step ahead.

You're going to keep your chest still got it. Go around seeing the thumb. So really only the head and neck are moving. Come on back two more times like that. If you have your feet nice and easy, eyes relaxed. As you see this on at all times, greats come back last time. Chest steady. See, the thing is you go, great. Now moving up. Head stays still again. This one's a little tricky, so I'm going to suggest if you put your own hand on your Chin as a physical reference. Good. Keep the eyes moving and come on back.

So the eyes are the only thing moving with the thumb goes slow enough at a tempo where it feels easy. No strain, no tension. Just yet. This is meant to unwind your spine using the vestibular system as a tool to help you loosen up. Go again. One more time. So three times total. Nice. And come on back. Now. Relax the arm that's helping with the chin. Last one. Peripheral vision only. Thumbs moving. Eyes are straight ahead. Good.

Come back when you're ready. We'll do that again. Two more times. Some rates reach around. Only peripheral visions sees the thumb. You can wiggle. Again, make sure that you don't change your eyes though. Caught you. Yep. So it's easy to want to look, catch yourself. Try again. One more time. Eyes straight ahead.

You can make faces at your friends if you need to. Thank you. Nice and easy, relaxed body. And then come on back. Okay. Drop that arm for a second and let's recheck the left sides or bringing the thumb up. Rotate all the way around to the left. And note for yourself how far you go. Little different. Okay. So you noticed with clients, with yourselves moving, you get a little more range each time you go. So that's that. We're gonna move on to a big bang. Next stretch. This is from Paul Check's work.

Take your right arm out to the side, you know, tip your left ear towards your left shoulder and come back up. Let's do that two more times. So a little bit of reach to the right arm side, bending lefts, little stretch across the right side. Come back up. Third time we're going to hold and ad rotation. So you're going to reach the left ear towards the left shoulder. Now I want you to use your eyes. You're going to look down to the left, switch towards your left toes and reversing that diagonal. Keep the hands still.

Lay Your eyes, look up and rotate up to the right's good. Reversing again two times. Looking down to the left. Good. Looking up to the rights. Nice. Keeping a gentle draw of the scapula. Wide and down. Back Down. And last time back up. You were relaxed. The right arm.

Bring the head back onto the center. Second side. So reaching out, you're going to tip the right year towards the right shoulder and return to center. Think of the shoulder blade reaching rock wide. As you send your fingertips away, left your comes up and over right year towards shoulder. Come on up. Last time we to the arm is a still point. And moving through the cervical spine holds eyes initiate. Look down to the rights.

So looking away from the arm that's reaching and reversing, looking up over your left shoulder. Easy breath, smooth tempo down to the right. So I want you to feel for is a gentle, really gentle ringing out of all the muscles at the side of the neck, the scaling's attaching through the collarbone all the way down. One more time might feel the upper trap stretch. Then come on back up, relax the arm, bring the head back to center and reach your arms out to the side. Here is enough enough room that you can really reach.

You're going to start with the eyes looking to the right and your corkscrew the arms so that the arm you're looking at faces up. Hold for a moment, reach the arms wide and smooth reversal eyes initiate back to center and continue around again. The arm you're looking at, palm is up and switch again. So think of the middle finger connecting all the way through to the opposite middle finger like it was a string going infinity. Your head is balanced, your eyes are level. You're trying reach out like you're in a really wide doorframe without too much tension. So let's do this one more time. Each only to feel the spiral from your fingertips through your arm, elbow, shoulder. Basically the neck and out the other side.

Come back to center. Bring the arms down by your sides. Last part of the upper body series, right shoulder is going to go forward. Lift both shoulders up, reverse all the way around and drop the left shoulder. Do that again. So your chest is gonna face lefts. Lift both shoulders. Your chest will face right and drop both shoulders.

Keep going and start to smooth out that quality. I want you to keep your eyes centered. See if you can relax your feet a little bit. So just getting a nice easy flow through. Nice you can reach through your spine. One more time. This direction, chest to the left, chest to the right and down.

Reversing that chest goes to the right both shoulders, both of them up. Drop them down. Nice. Then again, swing through. Elevate them both. Keep the head on the center. Find the full spiral back down. As you do this again, challenge yourself to feel what's happening in your feet. Go One more time. As you rotate, where does the weight want to go?

Let it go there. Notice the different pressure points. Next up, hands to shoulders. Elbows are high. Same exact pattern. You know, rotate to the left. Lift both elbows up. Swing them around all the way down. Continue that circle chest to the left. Elevate. Feel the lift through the toes. Out The elbows. Back Down and around. Do it again.

So I want you to feel the connection from your shoulder girdle through the trunk, down the pelvis, through the legs. Last time. Up and around the lists. Both sides working equally. Relax the shoulders. We're going to reverse right away. So chest faces, right. Lift the elbows up. Good. Nice, easy breath through the chest. Wall out the ribs. Reach them up. Good around.

Allow your feet to adapt. Last time chest goes to the right. Connect through the elbows wide and up. Bring them back down. Now we get a little more fun, both arms by your sides. Same idea. A longer lever chest to the left, both arms lift up, reach high, swing around both arms. Come down, see if you can keep the eyes again straight ahead. So you're basically carving a big circle through space.

Taking the same pattern we started with, but adding a longer lever. And again, can you connect this through the feats? This is a great way if you're a teacher to see if your clients are dancers or not. Can tell if they add a little bit of jazz to this. One more time. Reach up and around. Feel the fico through the fingertips, connecting from the fingers through the shoulder and we're going to reverse swinging around, reaching up nice and tall. Now reach, there you go. Easy. Collarbone, connection through the ribs. Feel the weight of the ship, the weight of the shift, the shift of the weight as well. And one more time.

Reach up and around. Good breathing through the back as you go and back down. Good. Shake the upper body out for a second. So nice couple of things we can do just to warm up the whole upper body. Get your shoulders integrated, talking to your torso.

We're now going to move through some weight-bearing, so I want to do is grab four blocks. So we're using all four for a quadrat pen position. You're gonna place them hip distance apart and shoulder distance apart, and what you're going to do is you're going to come onto all four, like you're in a quadrant head position. If you don't have four blocks, you can do this at home very easily. Just quadramed. You won't get the same range, but it's completely fine to do it with just the ground. So as we set up with the four blocks, they're just going to check that your hip is in an easy alignment.

Femur stack right below the pelvis. Nice and smooth line from the torso. Firstly, I want to do is just sense your weight. You're going to start by sliding the whole body forward. Good. Go as far forward as you're comfortable. Good, and then slide all the way back. Good and just repeat that pattern a couple times. Getting an easy hip glide.

Spread the fingertips nice and wide. Keep your elbows straights. Good. As you're doing this, I want you to track your spine and make sure that you're not changing any of your curves. One of the ways you can feel that as you can keep the shoulder blades really broad. So as you go forward, pause there. Don't go so far forward that your shoulder blades pinched together. Great. And then slide on that and do that one more time.

Sliding forward, keeping the shoulder blades. Why does he come to the front? There you go. And then back again. Come to the center of all four blocks. We're just going to shift a little bit left and right. So let's go right side first. Great. Come back to center and then slide to the left. Now again, I want you to change the distance you're going based on where you feel your shoulder blades are. So if we go too far, you're going to feel like your shoulder blades have to kind of sneak behind you.

Great. And then come back to center. Start going to the left for Danielle. Nice. Staying nice and broad across. There you go. Then come on back to center. One more time, side to side. So you're going to have to really reach through the arms to keep that congruency of your shoulder blade. Now that you're in center, I want you to take a really easy arch and curl for your full spine. So nicely, easy bow. You're going to lift your chest up. Good art through the back, reversing push through all four points of contact. So the reason I have you elevated on these blocks, let's do that again.

You're on the blocks so that you have a real clear sense of ground information through your spine. Think of using all four blocks to help your spine really fully move through arching curl. We'll go one more time into your full arch. Good. Pressing down through both hands. End The news. Good. And one more time going into full curl and then back to center. Great. From here, what I want you to do is you're going to simply take a full circle around yourself. You're going to start by going forward, nice and easy. Go to the right. It's carving a circle with your whole upper body, around and down, past the knees, through the hips, back around, and up to center. Let's do that again with a little more tempo to the rights.

Good. So again, using your awareness of the blocks to challenge yourself as you're going through. Arms are straight. Shoulders are wide good. You'll feel if one shoulder really wants to pick up going back around. Good. Last time coming through center. Pause. Let's reverse around to the left. As you go this direction. Check if one hip wants to lead more than the other.

Can you equalize the full length of your spine? Head detail as one long unit coming around. Good. All the way through. Pressing through both arms. Good. Swinging around. Nice. Not favoring one knee or the other. As you travel through last time, swinging back around and to center.

Now in center, I want to take your right hand and I simply want you to remove that block. So from four blocks we go to three. Just bring it off to the side. Great. Now keeping your hand where it was on the block like a ghost. Here you are a little different. Stability Challenge. Make sure your head is equally as far away from the ground as it was before.

There you go. If you want to think of your head rising away from the ground without changing your eyes. Now if you straighten your elbow but flex your wrist, you could almost get to the ground but not quite. Then I want you to press your arm towards the floor so your chest rotates towards your left arm. Good. And then bring it back up and just do that again a couple of times. Two notes. Don't change where your weight is between your knees.

All I want you to feel is the rotation of your upper body, where the block was. Then bring it back to level. We're going to reverse that. So can you look over your right shoulder, twisting to the right and then back down where the block was. So again, playing with this phantom block, you're going to rotate to the right, mobilizing the right rib cage as you twist and then back down where the block was. Let's go one more time to the right so you can feel how pushing down to the left arm increases your right rotation and then back down two times only.

I want you to go hand to the mat. Keep that arm straight. Now reverse and go all the way up as you rotate your chest to the right, looking over shoulder. Got It. Then back down again. Hand touches the Mat. Feel the rotation of your chest to the left. Now reverse. Come all the way into right rotation and back down. We're going to put your other block back in. Let's switch sides.

So set your weight and center again. Then remove the left block, ghost it, feel where it was. You're gonna touch your hand to the mat. Chest spaces, right. Good and backup is center. We'll do that two more times. Feeling the full height of your whole torso. Great pressing down, then back up, taking care of that. You don't change the pelvis or it's facing at all. Staying nice and tall through the spine. As you find your full rotation.

Now we're going to reverse. You're going to look over your left shoulders, spiraling to the lefts and then back down only to the height where the block was. And again, nice easy spiral. Trying not to lead from your shoulder blade pulling, but the center of your spine initiating the rotation. One more time, pelvis steady. You have a rapping effect all the way around to your left side. Now you know all the way down to the mat, chest faces, right? And reversing sternum faces to the left.

Great two times. So just mobilizing the full rotation of the trunk on a stable base. If you're not using blocks, you can obviously do the same action, but you're just not going to go as far. You could also bend the elbow as you go down so you don't have to go all the way through the block would have been last time. We're going to come back to center and I want to take that same block, bring it back under. So you have all four blocks. Again, we're gonna take the same idea to the pelvis and the knees.

So take the right block away from your right knee. Okay, so you're on your three blocks. You have the phantom right knee block. Now make sure that your heel is not kicking up at all. You want to keep kind of a heavy lower leg and you're going to start by letting your whole Shin Foot and knee go down towards the Mat. This will cause a rotation of your pelvis to face left.

Then bring it back to where it was. Good. Do that again, rotating your pelvis to let the knee come towards the floor and note for yourself if you tend to want to shift over towards that left side to make it easier. What happens if you really make sure that your weight is fully stacked between your arms? So the tendency will be to wanna shift over towards this block that you're on as opposed to one that's not there. Come back to center now small, you're going to rotate your pelvis to face, right again, check that your weight is right in the middle of all four blocks. Good. And again, lifting the right side of the pelvis, trying to suction the left inner thigh towards center. Good. Then back to the middle. One more time.

Good. Now we're gonna go full range three times. So the whole pelvis faces to the left knee, goes towards the Mat. Reversing slightly picking it up without shifting over to the left. There you go. And then back down. Good job, Danielle. Keep it nice and centered.

So as you come up, go slow enough that you don't shear over to the left. Exactly. Then back down last time. So these are small motions, but in this environment your bodies have to do a lot of work to sense where it is in space. Really specific action of the pelvis moving on the femur. Go ahead and replace that block. We're going to switch to the left side.

Same idea. So let's give yourself a chance to sense where you are in space. Again, shake it out for a second. So removing now your left knee block. Again, if you're at home, you can just pick your knee forward. If you don't have blocks off the ground you're in. Allow your pelvis to rotate to the rights. It's a small range of motion.

It's a lot of work. How are your obliques during, yeah, exactly. Then back up to level so all the hip muscles have to work. All the lower abdominals. Oh, bleak sling have to work as well. You're getting a lot of stability through your upper body. Shoulder blades are wide.

We'll do one more time as you drop the left knee and Shin Pelvis faces. Right. Coming back to center, let's reverse. You're going to pick it up, pelvis facing to the left. Good. Then back to center again. Two more times. Notice if one side feels a little easier. Maybe it's easier to organize on this side.

There's good information for your body. One more time. Since you've been here for a bit, I want you to just go back to the sense of your neck and head floating away from the arms. You don't dip down too much. So kind of like you filling up the trunk, pushing me towards the ceiling here. Pressing through the arms a little more. There you go. So really that buoyancy of the trunk is what I'm after through the shoulder blades. Full rotation please. One more time. Good.

And then back to center. Let's put one more block back on your use of your back on all four blocks and then you can rest for a second. Okay, so we went from four blocks to three. I then want to go to three blocks in a slightly different way. So you're just going to take your right hand. You're going to place it to your forehead and you're going to rotate as you look towards the right all the way around towards your right elbow.

So it mimics what we did in standing. Then come back to center and let's just do that again. Two more times. Pushing down through left arm to get the full rotation to the rights and then back on down. Last one, pressing down through all three blocks to move the trunk to the right. Easy upper body twists and back down. Let's switch arms. Nice and simple. Feel the pressure through all four that are moving left arm on a salutes.

You're gonna use the eyes again. As you twist all the way to the left. See the room around you. Come back down to the right. You're going to go slow enough again that you can sense. Can your pelvis stay level without shifting? Left her rights and then back on down.

One more time. All the way left. Stay right in the middle. Good. And then back down, replacing everything back down. Next up, when you go from three blocks to two, so you're on four, I want you to take your right block away, right hand for a little fun. You're gonna take your left knee block away. So putting these together, I want you to get your knee and your hand the same height as the blocks, so you're just in a ghosted quality pet. Again. Again, at home you could have one hand, one knee off the ground. You might notice you have to stabilize here. That's what we're looking for. This is an easy progression just to hold steady.

If you need more of a challenge, I want you to add the rotation of both upper and lower body. Here's what it's going to look like. Take your right hand, go towards the floor. As you bring the right hand towards the floor, you're going to lift your left pelvis away from the floor. So you're going opposition than back to center. Great. Find Center for a moment before you move.

Allow your right arm to go towards the ground for this repetition. Left. Hips going to come up. Okay. Then come back to the middle. We're going to two more reps here, reversing the pattern with the lower body. So as the right hand goes down, the left knee is going to go down. Good. Come back to center. Saving yet both the right hand to go down and the left knee. It's not going to go far. Good. And then back up you go.

Let's switch to the other side. So you're going to flip out your two blocks. You can either bring them in or switch them out. It's before you go. Just make sure they're really well organized. Again, if you don't have blocks, reset your quadrant. Head position. Take one hand, one knee off the ground. Okay, so here we go. Your left hand is going to go down. Your right hip is going to come up at the same time.

Good. And back to center. Good finders stability. Moving through, left-hand goes down, right? Hick comes up. Good. If you fall down, totally cold as try again, get your sense of center and then back you go. Okay, great. Going to arrest in center, you can get rid of the blocks for now. Having done all of that fine motor control, what I want you to do really simple is take all the blocks off the mat. Come to all fours, neatly stacked. Thank you. So take right leg all the way back.

Tuck your toes under, reach it straight behind you. You're gonna Tuck your toes onto the mat. Yup, you got it. Then bring your the second leg. So join the first balance control front. Familiar exercise. You're gonna lift your right leg. Good. Bring it back down. Lift the left leg. So we did all that prep work with the block with the hips.

See if you can get the easy clarity of your leg rising up saying really broad across the shoulders. We'll do two more repetitions. Right leg. Rise it up. Remember where the blocks were really pressing through. Sensing your body in space last time, coming up left side. Nice. And then back down. You Go. Come with your knees back down onto the mat.

What I want you to do is you're going to have a seat. You're going to grab the balls that are in front of you so these balls have a bit of air in them. Let's move the blocks out of the weight. Take your ball. First thing I want you to do, nice and easy, you're gonna lay face down. The ball is going to go under the top of your chest. Your hands are going to be nice and easy in front of your elbows, elbows bent on the mat. Really simple.

You're going to roll the ball forward. You're going to lift your chest up, but you're not going to come off the ball. Come back down. Good. Let's do that again. Super simple. Reach through the crown of the head. Try to move the ball forward, opening up the chest as you do that, and then back down again. One more time. Pelvis stays nice and still try to really reach the ball forward towards your fingertips. Great, and down you go. I waited. Then lightly place your hands behind your head. You can add a little weights.

Okay. Drop the head down all the way. So starting a little flection, you're going to rise up by moving the ball forward. Hold here gently rotating to the right, keeping your pelvis level come back to center. Pause. Gently rotate to the left. Now the range is not going to be big. Come back to the center. If you feel yourself rolling onto either pelvic, half means you've gone a little too far. Good. Go back to center. There you go. So see if you can keep it that small yet so you really feel the extension and the rotation across the ball. Let's go one more time. Going to the right, back to center and down. Place your hands down on the mat. Take the ball away off to the side. Now just nice and easy. I want you to lay all the way down, preparing for swimming. So the same extension work you just applied and you started with the arms coming. Remember where the ball was.

You're gonna lift your chest, turn your thumbs towards the ceiling. Then raising your legs up off the ground. Feel the stability through the pelvis. On an inhale on wires. Switch right arm, left leg. Let's do 10 seconds of swimming. Starting now. Nice and easy. Your own tempo to switch. Eight more seconds.

Go back to where that ball felt like you were helping her roll through the chest as you went here. Nice. And then relax. Come back down all the way. Now you're going to lie on your right side. I want you to take your ball again. So we're going to go into a little series here at your hips. Ready for a sided leg kick and tall kneeling side leg kick.

The ball is going to go below your right foot. Yep. So lying on the right side all the way down. Get comfortable here. Simple prep. Make sure your leg is directly in line through the ball and your pelvis. You can lightly flex the feel.

If it gives you a little better contact on the ball, you're going to push the ball away from your head. So it's going to be a small leg. Reach on your side and then you're going to keep your legs straight. We're bringing the ball back up towards your pelvis. So small, hip drop. Good. You're going to reach away. So your pelvis on levels reach the leg. Good.

Feel how your spine responds and relax that effort and let your waist move towards the floor. Good. And again, reaching through the ball, using the ball to help sense where is your leg moving from? How it impacts your spine as you reach through. So you get opening of the lumbar spine on the left side as you reach the left leg away. Nice. We'll do one more time. As you relax, really let the pelvis adapt back towards the ground. Take the slack back in this time as you reach, you're going to hold the reach.

Making sure you're not rotating at all. Keep the traction of the ball away from you. Float the leg off the ball hold. Inhale, slide your leg forward. Keep that sense of reach. So legs gonna come towards the front. Maintain the heights. You're above the ball. Go back behind you all the way to extension.

Now as you're going back, can you keep reaching as if the ball was underneath you? Nice, simple sensory input. Come forward again. Remember how it felt when you reached through the ball. Keep that action as you reach through front. One more time going back. Good. You're going to come back to center. Replace your foot on the ball. Relaxed for a moment, but just a moment. Reach the ball again.

This time you're going to reach your leg out and up towards the ceiling only as far as your pelvis doesn't move. Then reach again back down to the ball. Let's do that three more times. So using the ball to start revving up by rolling through the ball and keep that reach. Growing field, the deep hip muscles work good and back down. You go again. Reaching out to go up. Maintain that traction is you let the hips slide. Good. Then back down. You Go. Great rest there. When you go onto the second side so you can stay facing me, but switch over and we'll go ahead.

So get yourself set. Get Nice and comfortable. Again, simple hip reach. We're using this action to really inform how your hips going to glide to get the leg straights. Great. You can flex the heel a little bit so you have nice sense of gravity and as you reach, I want you to really make the connection without lifting the rib cage. Can you get the pelvis to move with the foot than backing off of that? Relax and go again, you'll notice for yourself if you favor rotation, you're not really getting the action through the hips.

Keep it small enough that you are really specific with where the movements occurring. Good. Now we're going to take that same reach. Again. You're going to hold the attraction of that. You're going to float the leg a little bit off the ball and here you go. For your front leg kick. Any of you guys in space, good. Only going as far as you can not kick the blocks or the person in front of you.

Stay above the ball. We have to be like back behind you. Keep the reach going as if the ball were there. We're gonna have a total of three times kicking forward using that same map of where the ball was. Good. Keep the heights. You don't touch the ball as you go back there. Yep. Just a little bit above. Nice. And one more time.

Same idea or getting the hip to really extend back without compromising the traction of your waist. You're gonna come back to center for a moment. Let your leg rest. You're gonna reach again. This is a momentary rest. Here we go. Straight up towards the ceiling. Keep the reach as your intention. Nice. Then back down, you go resting on the ball again. Reach out first. Raise up second.

Nice breathing fully through your torso as a nice buoyant base for you to work through the hip joint. We'll do that one more time. Reach out, sliding on up. And then all the way back down. Great. I want you to get rid of the balls and you say on your mat and I want you to come into tall side kneeling. So we just did all that upper body works are gonna come onto your news facing me. I want your right leg to go out first. Arms out to your sides and take the right leg out to the side.

Okay. There you are. Nice and easy reaching through the arms. You're going to side bend to the left. Place your left hand down on the Mat. Remember the blocks, even though you're in this sideways position, remember the ball as you try to lift your straight leg up off the, use the right hand. Sorry. Left hand to really ground. There you go. Now we're going to look straight ahead towards me. Place the foot back down on the mat. So let's put those intentions back in here.

You had the blocks for stability. Press down through your arm and knee. Raise the leg like you had the ball underneath it. Making that connection now holds side the leg forward a little bit. Inhale, good. Exhale, bring it back. Think about your elbow being soft enough. It's not overly rotated. Great. Using the full reach of your fingertips to ground through the mat.

Good reaching back one more time. Nice. Keep the higher the leg like you did on your side and back down to the mat. You can replace your foot and knee. Come back up to tall, kneeling. Great. Let's go right away to the other side. So set in center, arms out nice and wide. Again, map again where your knees were on the block. As you tip over, you're going to send your torso over. Let's add the leg going out.

Now that you're steady before you lift the leg, remember the blocks pressing through the floor. Remember the ball as you reach your foot out on the map to raise the hip. Good. Once you're at your height, remember the elbows a little bit bent so you're not overextending your reach to the leg. Forward in Hell. Good as you exhale, sweep the leg back behind you to your range. What I'm looking for is your pelvis is not moving here. Good. Bring it back to center. We'll go two more times.

Really use the standing knee to provide stability as you're, there you go. Reach the leg back behind you. Good job. Try not to change the pelvis. Keep it small enough. You can do that one more time forward. You Go. Press through the ground with both your knee and your arm. You're on your back. One more time. Good.

Return back to center and rest. Great. Shake it out for a second while you're resting, grab your block, grab one ball. You're going to sit down. You're going to face center. Really simple. You gonna take the ball behind your shoulder blades. Take the block behind your head.

Okay, you're gonna use the block is a little bit of a head support. I want you to make sure that your hips are well-grounded, so your pelvis has comfortable feet, hips distance apart. You're gonna lightly hold onto the block so it's comfortable for your head and neck and you're going slightly. Tip your body forward. Come in Deflection, nice abdominal work, even elbows a little bit in front of you. Hold for a moment. Make sure your pelvis feels nicely centered on an inhale. Take your time. You're going to extend slowly back.

Let's do four of these. Take a deep breath in again. Here we go. See if you can feel the length through the back of the neck. As you curl forward, you visually can check in with the pelvis and the feet as you come to center. Are you lined up? Good, nice and easy. Soft neck. As you go back and again, use the ball again for sensation.

Can you feel the role of the ball assisting your thoracic flection back you go last time coming up. Make sure that you can rest the head into the block so the neck muscles aren't overly working. They are going to work as you flex though. Holding here in your flection. Nice wide elbow. Stay here. I want you to rotate across the ball so you look to the right. Then back to center again. Rotate. Now to the left.

I'm going to do three of these. You're gonna keep your pelvis nice and steady. Now CV can come a little more forward. Thank you. Rotate to the right's great. Challenge yourself to come as far forward as you can. As long as you don't change the pelvis. Good. One more time.

Going back to the right's good and back to center. Last time. Left. Good. Back to the middle. Nice and slow. You're not off the hook yet. Take your time slowly. Back breathing. Pelvis Center. Yep. Reaching to the block. It be a nice moment of release. Once you get there, high abdominals.

Think you staying here. We're gonna flip the position. So take the block and ball away. Okay. Now I want your pelvis to go on the block. So a little bit of bridge position. Yep. Okay. Just a little bit of height. So just to help release the hip joint until we get to the next exercise, we're gonna bring the right knee folding in.

Pause there using the block to feel your weight nice and stable. Reach a leg up to the ceiling. Breathe. Take a moment. Let your whole torso relax. Slowly. Extend the leg down without changing the weight of your pelvis. You might not touch the ground. You might. We'll see.

So making sure your pelvis is the driver not moving. Let's see where your hip extension goes today. Great. Then you're gonna do three repetitions. So bring that knee back in. Hold it at flection for a moment. So knee all the way into your chest. Good. I want you to stay there and see if you can tuck your pelvis under as much as possible. Now keep that position wherever your weight is on the block.

Steady. Reach the leg again. Take a big breath here. Keep the pelvis where it is slowly. Let the hip extend. Yup. Nice. And here's where it's going to account as you get to your end range. Don't let the knee bend. Don't let the pelvis or the lumbar arch at all.

So a combination of Lumbar flection with hip extension. Great. Let's go one more time. One more note to make as you go down this last time. Can the foot stay right in line with the hip socket? So no going to the left or right.

Steering the heels straight down center. There you go. As your pelvis stays steady. Good. Take a moment there. Leave your heel on the ground. If it's there, you're gonna hold here. Just take an extra moment for talking the tail under. We get a little extra stretch. A little extra breath please. Too. Nice. You deserve it. Relax. Bring that knee in. Foot back on the mat.

Let's go right away to the second side. Pelvis is easy for the first one. Reach to the leg in and up. You go deep breath in, spread the collarbones back of the neck, relaxed. Let goes down. You can start to go a little faster. Now that you have a sense of this, tracking your pelvis, making sure it doesn't move good. Bringing me back in and then reach the leg up again. I'm borrowing this from a fantastic teacher named Christine, right? Who does this on a rollers. You can really sense the pelvis moving on. This next one, I wanted to bring the knee all the way in.

Make sure the leg stays right in the center, not abducting it all. Hold here for a moment. Inflection. Take up the slack. So bend your knee n roll the pelvis into a posterior tilts. So really tucking your tail hold. Now reach the leg. Great. Keep it here. Don't change the pelvis and make sure it's evenly weighted last time down you go. So the block will help you sense.

Do you have equal weight on both back pockets or both? Cheeks? Leg stays straight down. Try not to go out to the side. Good. Once your heel, if it touches the ground, it's gonna stay there. If it doesn't go that far, just keep it where it is. You're in an increase the rotation of your pelvis to get a little extra extension work, little extra lower abdominal work.

Then you can bend your knee. Take a big breath and relax. Remove the block please. Okay, so we did balance control front. We're now right away. You're going to go into balance, control back, having prepped the openness of your hips, so setting yourself up nice and easy. Hands appropriately wide for your shoulder joint. Feel your feet before you go anywhere like they were on the blocks before.

Nice and easy. On an inhale, all I under stretch your legs out. Flex your heels from a straight leg position. I want you to go up with your pelvis. Remember the ball was before. Can you roll your chest open? Can you ground through the arms and Scapula? Can you point your right foot and bring it up off the ground? Nice and easy.

Good three times please. Let's alternate right away. Left leg switching. Reach it up. Same application of the ball. Rolling. Good. Nice work. You got one more. Reach through that leg like the ball had you before. After your third one, you're going to set your pelvis back down and bend your knees. Good. Here we go. Back Down. Then the elbows have a seated position.

Nice job. Take the arms out to the sides. Take your feet a little bit wider than your pelvis. Okay. Where's the rotation work we did on the blocks? I want you to feel the Azure stack.

You're going to spin your trunk around to the left. There were there around to the left. We go. Come back to center. Good news is there's only another option. Go to the right. Here we go. Feel that rotation as you spin and as you're doing this, go again to the other side. Can you feel that opposite? Reach through your hip joint, like when you were on all fours, so you've changed the environment, but can you apply that same skill one more time, each direction, grounding through the heels, like they're helping to drive the rotation. Nice.

Then back to center. Last side, coming up, reaching through the legs, through the hips. As you go around broad arms, back to center. Bring your feet a little bit closer for me. If you need to bend your knees, you can. And when you reach your hands forward, go and just take a nice, easy forward bend. Lay your hips, relax from all that work. Let your arms rest on the mat for a moment. Taking a stretch here. You're gonna roll your torso from the pelvis back up to a seated position. Try not to change the legs at all.

Nice easy arms are going to come back up to center facing in front of you. Let's repeat that again. So find your full spinal heights. Deep breath. Take your whole self forward, reaching over the legs, whatever stretch you need after working good. Let your arms rest for a moment. So the prompts are all different environments to get you going here. Come on back to center. Roll back up.

Great. Resting there. I want you to come back up to standing for one more thing. We have these dowels. You're going to take your Dell. No. Really simple to finish up for today. Take your doll with your right hand behind your back, holding onto the doll.

Just with your left hand. Make sure it's touching the back of your head. Once you have a sense of that, take the left hand away. So it's just a reference for your spine only holding it again with the right hand behind the small of the back, making sure you feel three points of contact on the devil. So you have the back of the head, you have your thoracic spine, and you have a hand underneath your lumbar. So let's actually flip your hand position so it faces the, there we go.

One more comfortable. Okay. Really simple here, keeping the dowel. I want you to take a standing squat, so just bend your knees a little bit. Simple little plea. A good cracks are optional. Then backup, just center. Track your spine with a doll. Okay, so nice, easy band. We'll do that just two times more as you're bending.

Make sure you don't lose any points of contact. Okay, good. Now switching it instead of vertical. I want you to take a hands. You're going to bend, but as you bend again, make sure you don't lose contact through any of three points. Nice and simple. Stand up. Okay. Don't go too slow with this. Just move, but track your spine as you go. Bending the knee is good. One more time. Three points of contact moving through, space in standing. You're going to hold here. Keep the three points touching.

Shift your weight to only the right foot without any points. Losing the dowel. Take your other foot off the ground so you're on your right foot. Left foot comes up, place it back down. Shifting weight again, back to the left side. Track all three points. Take the foot off. Okay, you can keep doing this or if you want a more advanced variation, come back to center. Shift back to the right. More advanced are going to take your foot off. I want you to abduct that leg out to the side holds internally rotate.

Bring it back to center behind you. Keep your weight on the right foot. Good back out to the side. You go reach the leg wide. Good. Stay internal rotation. So try to spin your flight inward as you come back across the middle. One more time. Nice. Try to release the toes wide.

See if you can again, keep three points of contact. Yep. Last time on this leg. Good as you come back to center. Fight for it. Good. You got it back down. You Go. Let's switch sides right away. So going to your left side, stay low. Make sure the pelvis is level. I don't want you hiking your hip up.

Once your weight is set and you have your spine checked in, take the foot out. So simple version. Just take the foot off the ground. More advanced out to the side variation. Internal rotate. Come across. Sweep the leg behind the other one. Nice. Say hello to your glutes. Deep rotators are working out to the side. You Go.

So really dynamically coordinating spinal position, hip mobility. One leg work with the hip. Really moving. Let's go two more times. Spread those toes out as your platform and base. Good as you come across. I want to internally rotate the hip as you go behind you into extension. Good.

Back to center and back on down. I'm going to take your dowels. You're gonna stand, you're gonna Finish today with an easy roll down. So it was about halfway back on your math. That's fine. Bowing forward, top of the head goes, take your whole spine with you. You can bend your knees if you need to. Just hang here for a second. Feel your whole body.

We did a bunch of small input to big movement on your own timing. I want you to come back up. Nice. Bend the knees if you need to as you arise, and thank you so much for joining me for our class.

Related Content

Comments

4 people like this.
I just took your class. It’s fantastic. I’m roasted.
<evil laugh> <evil laugh> <evil laugh> Though it starts out small and slow, #TheRoastisReal by the end! Hope you enjoyed Monika W ...and just wait until tomorrow! ;)
6 people like this.
This class is so amazing. It takes a lot of skill to teach a very strong class with a gentle approach. I really feel the body loves when we get the brain out of auto pilot and have it participate. And the body loves to be challenged without aggression. Thank you, Jared Kaplan for sharing your gifts with us!
You nailed it Angela : small input for big motion means the brain and the body have to *work!* Those challenges are the placse where transformation and change occur- not the mundane auto-pilot of familiarity! What I love about this particular series is it harnesses recognizable patterns + exercises we know and love while approaching them (gently yet with strength, as you said) in fresh ways. Thanks for sharing your comment, and it's my pleasure to teach!
2 people like this.
Thank you Jared and P/A for this wonderful class, I have enjoyed instructor creative work exploring and moving the body with rotational movements.
This ideas will assist clients with pathologies too, thanks again. Svitlana
You're so welcome Svitlana! It's a fun mix, and I'm glad you can see the possibilities for taking these principles and applying them to your own work with any body.
1 person likes this.

Awesome, Thank you for Feldenkrais approach.

I use it a lot, and with the infinite number of moves, there is always something new.

Looking forward to more of your classes.
1 person likes this.
Thank you! My body really enjoyed these small yet BIG challenges!
1 person likes this.
You're so welcome Ileana and Rebecca ! Synthesizing all that I've studied, including the Feldenkrais-inspired technique I used in this class, is one of my passions and strengths. I've also learned through experience that sometimes its the smallest adjustment that yields the biggest change. Hope you continue to enjoy the new spin on old classics!
3 people like this.
Great cues and so many exercises that were new to me! Definitely going to try to integrate these principles into my classes. This one started slow but then quietly pushed pretty hard. Thanks Jared!
1-10 of 26

You need to be a subscriber to post a comment.

Please Log In or Create an Account to start your free trial.

Footer Pilates Anytime Logo

Move With Us

Experience Pilates. Experience life.

Let's Begin