Magic Circle Challenge

If you think teacher [inaudible] students, we're going to start standing tonight, isn't it? Are you starting with balance? I am. I'm going to start. We're going to do a little bit of standing balance today, today to start. So what I'd like for you to do is you can just place your rings kind of down on the ground. For now. I'm going to start with a couple of roll-ups. So if you would please stand with your feet hip distance apart.

Take just a couple of moments where you shift back and forth on your feet a little until you can find place where you feel like you're situated in the middle of your foot. Pressure in the outsides and the insides of the foot, and then from there lengthen up through the spine. Try to create a lot of lightness on the feet and with that Xcel as you bring your chin into your chest, rounding the spine has your head folds forward in your ribs, knit it together, the abdominals. Continue to contract holding yourself up or creating a sense of buoyancy through the center of the body in healing at the bottom. Starting from the abdominal contraction. Be Aural yourself back up again. Allow the tailbone to slide underneath the spine. Stack the boons of the spine just over the pelvis field.

This shoulders come just over the hips and the head lifts up last, we're just going to go two more times excelling to round down. Using this as an opportunity to connect your mind with your body, your body, with your breath, and let anything else that might be occupying energy in you [inaudible] or body to go a for now in healing at the bottom and exhale to guide your spine back up. Using the front of the body to manipulate the back of the body. Shoulders gently glide down the back. Eyes come forward and we'll just go one more time like so.

So here it is excelling as we travel downwards. [inaudible] again, a nice sense of lightness or buoyancy in the upper body. Maybe an energetic reaching towards one another of the thigh bones. Okay, pause at the bottom here and just bend one knee at a time. So inhale to bend the right knee and exhale to straighten it and inhale to allow the left knee to bend.

But keep the left heel down on the ground as I happens and Xcel to straighten it. So just giving the hips a little bit of a stretch. We'll go one more time or we haven't been the right knee. Um, stretch both legs and bend the left knee and stretch both legs. And with that, what coming all the way back up. So go ahead and reach down and grab your ring starting again with just a little bit of, um, we'll do arm work and leg work at the same time. So I'm going to have us all go into a wide v leg position. Foot position rings are reaching straight out in front of you and as we squeeze the ring, I don't want you to hold it and get really grabby with the fingertips.

We're just going to hold with the heels of the hands. So depressant to your ring for just a moment for me. And can you find a sense of yes, definitely working the muscles of the chest, but also maybe paying a little bit more of attention to the muscles in the back. So as you squeeze your ring, it's, it's the front of the body on the back of the body working evenly. From there, we're going to bend the knees and the elbows, the knees go into a plea, a light position, the burring poles in towards the chest. As you exhale, stretch your arms, continue pressing into the ring and straighten your knees.

Any of the Nathan elbows bend. You want to look for the spine to say upright over the body. Wendy, lean back just a little bit. That's it. And then press back forward. So for a lot of us, we're going to want to lean forward a little bit. Think about talking to the pelvis or pressing the pubic bone forward and and keeping the shoulders just over the pelvis. Then we press that. We go in about five more times, they're a little bit quicker.

We inhale to bend and pull in and Xcel to stretch and reach forward. Try to find an a squeeze in both directions. It'll definitely be easier as you're pulling your ring towards you, then it will be as you press your ring away. But we can find work in both directions for sure. Last one here, we bent and we press forward from there.

We're gonna rotate towards the back of the room. Slide the back toes around so that both sets of toes now face forward. So your right toes are facing forward. You're up on your left toes or up on your right toes. Candice and then we're going to bend both knees going into like a lunge position, pulling their info into the chest.

We straighten the arms and straighten the both legs are coming all the way. Bending the front knee and the back knee as the back knee Benz. Press forward into the hip and by that I mean engage the muscles behind the hip behind the leg to try to create a sense of tucking the pelvis so that we can maximize or achieve a hip stretch. Here we go for five more, a little bit quicker. We inhale bend and exhale. Press in our thighs. Working pretty actively here as well. Exhale, press. Here's three, three and rage. Again, working really hard or really focused through the upper back muscles. See how little tension you can collect in your upper neck or in your neck itself. One more to go hold here. Gonna Transfer, keeping the front leg straight and actually bend it and the lifted the back leg off the floor. We'll start to lean forward to use the back leg as a lever.

The ring will end up coming just underneath the chest as you come into a hinge position. As you start to come back or land on our back toes, the room will come up in front of us and we're going to bend that back knee down the arms again, stay straight throughout. So again, squeeze the glute on that front. Legs start to push off, put all your weight into the front leg, then activate the muscle in the back leg and start to straighten that front leg as the ring travels underneath you. You okay? Candace? I have a little cotton so I'll say out for the [inaudible]. Okay, we're going to go one more time. So we press into the front leg, we lift up and forward raising that back, like coming into a standing balance holding. They're just going to bend the leg that we're standing on for three and straight. And again, paying attention to the glute. You could even put your back to his down Candace, which would make you the leg with slide back and forth along the floor, but you can do it a little easier. Oh, okay. And then we're going to step back, bring the ring up, turn back around to face forward and come back into the plea. A position from there. Stretch both legs up, holding their feel, an energetic pulling together with both feet so you feel the insides of the legs connected. We're going to go up and over to the back of the room. That's sorry.

Inhale and exhale. Engage to the waistline of the opposite side and lift taller in. You know, we go keep the pelvis stable as you stretch the spine away from it and XL to come on. Feel all though that the ring is over the head, the shoulders is still reaching down. It's always appropriate to bring the ring a little forward if it's creating too much tension over your head. Or You could bend your elbows a little bit. Last one here, up in, over creating even more length, even more of a stretch. Last one to go and we exhale to come all the way back.

So I turned around to the other side. We're coming up onto our back toes. The ring drops down in front of us. Stay up on the toes and then bend both knees, pull the ring into the chest, feel that upper back working pretty hard there. And then squeeze the ring as you press straightening both legs. Inhale, bend down, innercise magnetically reaching towards one another. Exhale, shoulders reaching back as the ring presses forward. Inhale, Ben, you're okay on this side though. And again, so long breast, maximize the use of your breath so it's not just tiny little inhales and exhales will fill up the lungs.

We'd go down deep and then press all the out of the lungs like you're pressing your air out, your ring three more times here. Breathing in and breathing out and too, I mean again am breathing. Now here's our last time holding her bend again, the front knee. So in that way, put a little bit of weight or all the way there. Then activate very strongly the muscles of the back leg. As you start to send your ring under your chest, your that you're standing on will straight in. When it comes just underneath, you start to bend that front knee. As you start bringing your body back upright, land back on the toes and then bend the knee and come back into that hip stretch again. Activate the glute on the leg that you're standing on. Start to activate the opposite glute as you lift the leg off the floor, hamstrings involved on that back leg as well.

Stretch the Lait and then bend the front knee and bring it back. The rings, just gonna ring kind of just goes with you. So as you come up in your chest, starts to point downwards, the ring points downwards, and as you start to bring your body back and come back down onto that foot, the ring comes just in front of the chest. Come back up to straightly. Oh, come back up onto the front leg. Are we gonna stay here for just three bends and straightens? Have that standing likes so we down. So inhale and press connecting to the glued, connecting to that back, like that's what's going to help you stay lifted and stayed balanced.

And then we bend the front knee one last time we come back onto those back toes. Lift the spine up, roll back through center. Stretch the legs back up. Lower the ring down. Start to roll yourself down and the rings going to go down onto the ground. Once we get there, just let it go onto the floor. Then one knee, it's been the right knee and lean to the right. I'm going a good, good stretch through that left leg and then come up and over to the other side and then come back through center, holding the leg stable, reach for the ring again and roll yourself and then just heel toe your feet together, bringing the legs all the way together, bringing them into a Pilati stance position.

We're just going to do a little bit of arm work here, so again, that same kind of gentle heel heel of the hand pressure rather than a really grippy hand position. Check the alignment of your spine or feel that the pubic bone is perhaps pressing forward, slightly. Ribs are drawing down abdominals are definitely engaged and then slight softening of the elbows. Then we just pulse and release as you pulse. Imagine that your ribs are doing what the rings doing. So inhale, expand the ribs, exhale, contract the reps, feel the movement of the ring happening in the trunk, the whole trunk and we'll do five and four, three and two and one from here. Continue to squeeze the, we'll bend it and bring it in towards the chest.

By the way, the inner thighs are nice and tight. The glutes are tight as well. Same thing. You'll be able to squeeze the ring a little bit more here. So we pressed feeling the rib cage narrow as a ring narrows and inhale, expand the ring in the ribs. Exhale, contract. Again, it's not about the front of the body nearly as much as it's about the stability of the shoulders, the back of the body working good and five more times. Inhale, expand and press. Keep the neck long, the top of the head, reaching towards the ceiling for three, two and one. Release the ring. Bring it up onto your left shoulder. Same tight legged position, very strong through the lower half of the body.

Again, heel of the hand on the top of the ring and let the other arm just reach down where it's towards the ground and then press downwards into the ring. It's a bicep contraction, but also make it about a waste contraction or can you continue to use the press of the ring to illustrate or intensify what's happening in the middle of your body? Resists the ring as it releases. So there was never any wasted energy. We'll go four more times here and three, don't forget this energy den, the legs, let that other arm relax so it's not really providing any moral support or tension. And last time and then just swinging re oh that's my elbow marrying around to the other shoulder. Other, I'm just kind of hangs down maybe a little bit of heaviness through that shoulder. Uh, opposite shoulder, relaxing gun and we press down and pulsing type motion candle looking, checking with the hands they turning into talons.

Nominals nice and tight. Working with our breath. Five and six. Your last three for the day and two no. And with that, go ahead and let the ring come back. Grab it with both hands. Let's do one more stretch. We're reaching the ring overhead, stretching up and over to the back of the room.

This time let the hips go in the opposite direction, a little bit different with the legs together. Engage to the waist, lift all the way up. Maybe growing a little bit taller over to the other side. Your hips, travel away from your ring. Keep your head centered in your arms, in between your arms, out in the ring, like a picture frame like your head is the picture in picture frame and back on last time. Bring it all the way up. Bring the ring down in front of Ya. Roll yourself down, relaxing through the neck, relaxing through the upper back. Place the ring down on the floor. Take another breath in and exhale to come up.