Class #4147

Cardio Mat

50 min - Class
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Amy Havens adds some heat to your Mat class with elements of Cardio. You will start with a standing warm up and work your way down to the Mat for more traditional exercises. You will build power by adding challenges such as squats or jumps to Rolling Like a Ball. She encourages you to allow movement to heal your body and mind.
What You'll Need: Mat

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Good morning, everyone, or happy day to you wherever you are in the world. Here we are again live. And thank you. I can't say it enough, I can't say often enough. Every time I step in the amount of gratitude that I have is, it seems like it's getting bigger, if that's even possible.

So thank you for stepping in, for being here, for moving with me and letting me help you move better and more fully, but also helping each other because I know you know you're there because you're chatting with each other and you know you're here and that's hugely important. So, I want everyone to just stand up and we're gonna take a few deep breaths together 'cause I need them and I get a little emotional and the world is crazy right now and I will calm that down. But a lot of you know that's what happens because we feel things and we feel the things in our body and we know that movement heals. So let's move today. Let's heal ourselves.

Let's move ourselves so we heal ourselves but let that permeate into how we go out today, if we do leave our homes today, even how we go out in our emails, how we go out and our text messages, how we go out in our brain to other people, but also moving forward, how we move forward, if you know what I mean. And I think you know what I mean. So today's class is definitely a little more tempo. Thank you for letting me have that surface because now I feel better. It is about tempo.

It's about rhythm, but it's also, I wanted to kind of bring that flow into things too and just like have us keep going, right, and move through. One more gratitude. Okay, here we go. We're standing with our feet apart. Oh, and I should say that we might get to the exercise of rolling like a ball to squat as our kind of finale exercise, rolling to the ball to maybe even a little jump after that squat, if you're up for it.

And things to think about along the way, we'll wanna get good hip flection, of course we have to, if we're gonna squat and jump. We want good ankle flection. We want some good mobility through our hips and everywhere in order to do that. Okay, now I'm ready. Standing tall, let's take a deep breath in through the nose.

Raise your arms up, get space through your body and exhale and lower your arms. Oh, boy, inhale and lift. Start grounding your feet down. Start feeling the strength beneath yourself, where you're standing. Let's get one more time.

Inhaling, grounding those feet, exhale, lower your arms. We're gonna start with some shoulder circles, guys. So both shoulders in big circles. I'm going forward, up, back, and down. Forward, up, back, and down.

Two more. And in this class, you'll kind of have sets of like four counts this, two counts that. Take a hand to a shoulder and circle your elbow around. Do the other side. Hand to a shoulder, move your elbow around.

I want you to allow and be okay with just moving everything. You don't have to have your pelvis facing forward. Four more times. Guide that arm around. Think of a big circle through that elbow, creating some good space.

And I'm also thinking of lifting my ribs up off my pelvis. Now the arm big circle. I do have my Palm facing out. My upper arm is an internal rotation, if you're curious, as it goes back around, it's an external rotation. You don't have to overthink it.

But (chuckles) if you want to. Four more and three, just want you to move. Two and one. So we're gonna do all of that with the reverse rotation, so shoulders go back, up, forward, and down and back, up, forward, and down, and back. Let's start some breath that feels right for you.

It may be an inhale (inhaling deeply) and an exhale. (exhaling deeply) Two more of the shoulders and shoulders. And let's do single shoulder. One shoulder, one shoulder, one shoulder, one. Four, three, two, and one.

And then it's gonna be that hand to the shoulder, draw the elbow back and forward. So we're just reversing all this. It's a little awkward, but good for coordination and good for movement. (sighs) and three and two with the elbow, and then you'll take your whole arm. Here we go.

Reach your arm behind you like you're swimming and back and up. See, now if you wanna start limiting just a little bit of the pelvic movement and see if you can get it more than your thoracic area, your rib cage body, right, and last two, whew, and around. Now, what I'd like you to do, take both arms up, bend your knees. I'm gonna show it from the side actually. And we're going to do just a little bit of a bend and a swing.

You've seen me do these many times. I'm trying to start rounding and flexing my spine. The arms just do a little bit of a swing. My knees are doing what I kind of call a rebound, keeping them parallel, starting to put a little bit of pump in those big leg muscles. We're gonna do eight more.

Here we go. And one. Now while I'm upside down, I'm trying to scoop my stomach. I get that feeling of the abdominals inward, upward and inward, upward. Four more.

Up. Take it into a jump some of you, if you really want to. (laughs) Last two up, and last one. Hopefully that has woken you up. Gotten a little bit of blood flow.

I'm gonna face you now. Good, and let's step out wide into a pretty wide stand second position for, or even actually wider than second position. But here we go. I want us all to bend their knees deeply. If you can get your pelvis on the same level as your thighs, fantastic.

May take a moment or two. If you can't, that's fine. What I do want us, everybody to do is put your hands on your legs to support your body weight. And we're gonna just do a little pulse down and up and down. What I am having us think about is the rotation of the femurs, right.

That wrap that turnout so your knees actually are trying to go back rather than leaning forward. Yes, four more. And down. So four more. Now it's two.

And this next one, I want us to stay down in the squat. Think of it as a squat, touch your hands down. You can get fingertips, some of you, you can get your fist. Go for flat hand, that's fine. What I want us to do now use your legs, push yourself up, lift the arms.

We're doing eight of them. Go down, touch, use your legs to push you up. And whew and use those legs. Four more. Push, and squat.

So I'm kind of leaning forward in my squat with more of a flat back than a round back. One more and then come back down, hands on your knees again. Just start to shift a little side to side. If you feel ready to start shifting so much, that one leg goes straight. You can go there or you can just stay back and do a little bit of these.

But if you're going to the straight leg, this leg again is wrapping, this leg is wrapping. They both still are turning out. So I'm feeling my feet help me push from side to side. I'm really using my feet on the floor. More than thinking of knee movement, it's feet pushing, feet pushing.

Okay, four more, then we'll add some arms. Mm-hmm, here we go. So go to one side and try to touch, other side and touch. Is this Pilates? Not really. It's not from the traditional mat, but we're moving.

Okay. We're warming up for that bigger exercise. We need the hip flection. We need our knees to be ready to push us up into a kind of a jump, right? We're rolling like a ball to a squat.

And let us do four, three, and also just getting blood flow, and hold. Come back to the middle place both hands flat, if you can, bend your elbows, if you can get even lower and let's just do a nose roll up to standing. And then I want us to pivot. Ooh, I'm a spillover. Pivot turn, pretty wide stance between the feet.

My back foot is up still, the heels up right now, front foot is flat. Have your hands come to your hips, everybody. Bend both knees. Let's kind of slow our tempo for just a moment so we can get alignment, grounding, centering, and balance because what I want you to do from this position, if you can go lower now, so maybe this knee touches the floor where you would touch and straight, not all the way though. Let's try eight of them.

Bend. Once again, I'm thinking of my front leg doing a lot of the work of pushing me up, pushing me up. This would also, the back foot is pushing down into the floor, helping to push me up. So the center of me, my hips are doing some focused work being neutral right now. And I've got my two legs front and back to help maintain that.

One more down and up. Okay, now go back down. Here now we get to move that pelvis. Go into posterior tilt. Oh yes, it should feel good in this hip.

Take both hands. We're going back into jazz dance class. Push your hands forward, contract your stomach back. Round the spine. Now, put your elbows by your sides and arch your back.

Lift into a little upper back extension. Flip your palms, push the wall away from you, contract elbows bend, release. Four more. Exhale, contract inhale, release, and last one, contract. Last one, release and then change sides.

Okay, other side. Great. So you split stance. Pretty big distance between front foot and back foot plumb line relatively through your head to your pelvis, bend your knees, and just pause there for a moment. See what you can do to get more centered, more balanced.

Back glute should be contracted. All, both legs are parallel. And here we go. We're touching the knee down, if you went that low, just down and up eight times. Do something with your arms if you'd like to.

I'm going to keep mine on my pelvis so I can keep my pelvis relatively facing forward. But I wanna focus on the feet, how they're helping push me up and lower me down. My feet have energy and pushing down into the ground. All right, last two, (exhaling deeply) last one. Okay, ready to go down now, guys, pelvic tilt.

Contract your glutes even more. Pelvic tilt. Take those arms and push the wall away. Pull your stomach away from your hands and then flip. We're gonna do an upper back arch.

Inhale, exhale, push away and arch. So with the push away, I am trying to contract my stomach in more posterior tilt. You can kinda release the pelvic tilt here if you'd like. Four more times. One, two, three, four.

Now we're done with that. Come around and then just feel your legs. Hopefully feel some stretch and release in all of this area around, right? Standing at the back end of your mat, take a nice deep breath. We're gonna do a standing roll down.

I want you to take your head forward around your shoulders. Yeah, that should feel a little bit easier to get there. Bend the knees, roll up. Inhale, exhale again rolling down. I want us to start thinking about how we're gonna get from standing to all the way on the floor.

We have two more opportunities. You probably know what I'm gonna do, do you? From here on the next one, we'll crawl out into a quadruped position. Here we go. So as you crawl out, though don't rush through it, we get to slowly go, let the ankles bend, let the toes bend and come onto your quadruped position.

Get onto your hands and your knees. I do want you to start this quadruped today like right now with your toes bent, right, and start to shift your body weight back so that you're increasing the bend in your toe joints and your knee joints and your hip joints, and then coming forward, load the wrists. If you feel like going a little further past your wrists, you can. Right now if you don't wanna go that far, you don't have to go that far over your wrist. It doesn't feel great for everyone.

What I would encourage us all to do, however, is with the pads of our fingers, press the pads of the fingers down on the mat and almost think of like creating a little dome. Not almost. Try to create a dome-like feeling in the palm of your hand as it's on the mat. That could take some pressure off your wrists. Keep on doing this weight shift forward and back.

Your upper arms are externally rotated. Let's take three more of forward and back. Challenge yourself to go farther if you'd like. Last two. Forward and back, and then last one forward, and back.

Finally, come meet me in neutral, okay? You can keep your toes this way if you'd like to, or if you're tired of that, you can set the tops of your feet down. Either way you can go back and forth between the two, which I would encourage actually. Okay, thoracic spine rotational warming up. I want everyone to take one hand, your choices.

This hand could go on your shoulder or your hand behind your head. That's not so accessible for some of us. Don't hurt your shoulder. No rotator cuff strain on this. Hand on your shoulder, I'm gonna turn myself to face you trying to open up my chest.

This elbow is going to arc around and try to touch the wrist of the other arm. I'm not bending that supporting arm. I'm keeping it nice and straight. We're inhaling. It's kind of like a version of thread the needle, but we're not threading, we're just touching elbow to wrist.

How you get there is you have to rotate your thoracic spine, right, and rotate. Now I'm staying in a neutral spine. I want my head away from tail, tail away from head. No flection here. We want extension, we went length elongation.

Let's go one more here, guys. Inhale and exhale. We'll put that hand down, back in a quadruped and just sit back off your wrist for a moment. We'll go to the other side, but we have one more thing to do on this side. So the same knee of the arm that you just lifted.

So I'm on my right side. I'm gonna lift my right knee and bring it real close to my chest. Still keeping a neutral spine. We're gonna mobilize the hip. I want you to reach your thigh behind you, open it and try to do a huge circle of your thigh.

Five times in this direction. Start to think about something, though, that I do want your shoulders to stay square to the floor and a neutral spine. Your pelvis is rotating and you're certainly making a huge circle in there. Let's go the other way. Thigh around.

You can guide it with thinking your knee is circling. That might help you make the coordinated circle, but it's really getting all juicy thy circle, hip circle. One more here (exhaling deeply) and around, okay. Let's do the other side. I'm gonna just turn around so you can see if you need to keep looking, monitor.

So I know I'm using my opposite arm and I did my hand on my shoulder and I want you to open up your body toward the front. That's an inhale, or your hand behind your head. Now you're thinking elbow to wrist without bending that supporting arm, you have to turn your thoracic spine to get there. Inhale, open and exhale, rotate. Inhale to open, exhale, rotate.

Two more. Check in on your neutral spine. One more to go. Inhale and exhale. Okay.

Here you go. Settle off your wrist for just a second. And then we're coming into those really big hip circles. Get a nice connected, neutral spine. Bring your knee to a chest.

I like to go back forward so just think back and then open that hip. How big of a circle can you do with your thigh in your hip joint, shoulders stay square to the floor, breathing one more this direction, elbow staying relatively straight if not really straight. Other direction. Go around and in. Circle in.

When you can, you can try to square your pelvis also, but it's gonna move a little bit. It's gonna move a little bit. And last one, everyone. Around and in. Okay, one more cat-like movement.

I'm gonna turn around again just 'cause I like to face this way. Okay, I want you to get wiggled back on your hips down to your heels and place your forehead on your mat. And if you can, start yourself with your hands back by your feet. I guess it feels like a little like a child's pose. Now, palms face down.

Keep your hands on the floor and circle your arms from your feet out through a T position all the way in the front of you like you know where you're gonna put them on for quadruped. It's a nice big shoulder stretch. Slowly, press yourself or your shins to your feet, to the floor, lift yourself up into a cat. Keep that cat spine really round and then lean your hips forward. At the very end, let's go into what we would do as a Swan.

We would lift that thoracic and look up. And going back, head rounds, tail rounds, lift your spine up to the sky. Keep that cat spine until you don't have to have it anymore, which is when you're sitting on your hips, and then we'll circle the hands back around to the feet. And we'll only do it once more, everybody. It's slow.

We'll get into more rhythmic movements certainly. Okay. Pressing the feet, pressing the shins. Mm-hmm, Cathy grant cat. So far, this one is the part of blossoms cat.

I think another one was sleeping cat, what we just did there. Yeah. And then all the way back around. Okay, instead of taking your hands back around by your feet, let's just go ahead and come on up and we're gonna meet each other in the middle of the mat. Okay, how are you doing?

Feeling good to help. All right. Let's take some abdominal work now, all right. So everybody come on down to your back. And, sometimes the abdominal work, we don't have to get too fancy with all of it and lots of variations, but we can make it a little bit more exciting if we change in tempo.

That's what I really wanted to do. So let's take a look at the hundred and we'll do some of the series of five and we're gonna change the counting. So what I wanted to do with the hundred, just hug yourself in is inhale for five pumps while we're pumping the arms, but just exhale for five percussive, but no pumping, okay. Here we go. So bring your chest up, take your legs to where you want them for your hundred.

I'm gonna go right here to start. Arms by your sides, we'll pump and breathe. So we go one, two, three, four, five, and (exhaling percussively) And two, three, four, five, just (exhaling percussively) In (inhaling deeply) and (exhaling percussively) Inhale (inhaling deeply) and exhale. (exhaling percussively) In two, three, four, five and (exhaling percussively) That pumping percussive exhale is stomach. The stomach is (exhaling percussively) Four, five, in (inhaling deeply) (exhaling percussively) (inhaling deeply) (exhaling percussively) Three more.

Four, five, and (exhaling percussively) (inhaling percussively) (exhaling percussively) The last one. (inhaling percussively) And (exhaling percussively) All the air (exhaling percussively) Hug your knees, roll up. Roll up. Very hard to do and talk at the same time. If you wanna know more, about what that was, inhale for five pumps, stop the pumping and then (exhaling percussively) You'll see it again.

Don't worry. Okay, sitting tall. Arms in front of you round your body forward as if we've just come up from the roll up, okay. We just come up from the roll up. Emphasize that deep lumbar flection, deep abdominal rounding.

Now, roll yourself back. Let us just go ahead. Knees to just do a roll over, roll yourself down knees to chest, roll up for the rolling. And you're just playing. This is really about getting some role emphasis and over because I do plan on doing a role to squat in a little while.

So we need to start learning what this feels like to go from that roll back knees to chest. You're rolling over knees to chest. Reach your legs in front of you. You've just done a roll up. Let's take four more.

Just roll with it, guys, literally. (exhaling deeply) You're moving your body weight, rolling and massaging that spine and playing. (inhaling deeply) (exhaling deeply) One more. And we'll pause when we get to the top of that roll up again, there, and then we'll roll ourselves slowly all the way to the floor, hands by our sides. And then just take a moment, feel.

Hopefully that was kind of fun. So yeah, you can do that. You can roll back and forth. Now, knees to chest, hug yourself tightened. Okay.

As we do the single leg circle today, oh, take one leg down, keep one leg in. What I'd like to do with a pattern in some rhythm is one leg will go in a tic-talk. So we will go across the midline out and then a full leg circle around, okay. You can kind of hear how my voice is already kind of getting a set. So get your pelvis square as square as you can, leg to the ceiling.

Yes, it's in slight turnout. Do all your fundamentals. Here we go. So it's across and open and one full leg circle. Again, cross and open and one full leg circle.

Again, cross and open and a full leg circle around. One more across, open and a full leg circle around, reverse and out. And over and an outer circle, you get it. In. (inhaling deeply) (exhaling deeply) And around.

All the steps, all the components, you're just moving differently, circuiting your brain. One more breaking out, kind of the monotony of that normal. Although I really liked the normal, okay, and the regular sequencing, but to play with it, all right, and change your rhythm. So here we go. Other leg is up.

Anchor everything, get yourself set beautifully on your mat. Here we go. A tic-talk over and out, full leg circle around to the top. And again, cross. Now I didn't talk about muscles.

You can contract your glutes on those circles, of course. Yeah, contract your glutes right here around. One more. Open and open, down. Now we reverse the circle and open.

Leg across midline, go out circle around. Shoulders are level, right, they're square. Your stomach of course is always engaged and open while you're doing your mat work anyway. And around. Last one, open across and legs circle around and up, okay.

Knees to chest, chest comes up. We're staying with a little bit of tempo of a single, single four movements, right? So get yourself ready for a single leg stretch of your choice. I'm today pulling my knee close into my chest trying to square this hip down. So we have change, chain or slow, slow, quick, quick, quick, quick, again, slow, and slow, and quick, quick, keep that going and slow.

Slow, quick. (inhaling deeply) (exhaling deeply) Keep going. Slow, slow. I'm gonna repeat the whole thing four more times. (inhaling deeply) (exhaling deeply) Good, and change.

Two, three, four, and slow. Go let's do 'em again. Quick, quick, quick, quick, slow, really reach quick, quick, quick. One more, slow and slow and quick, quick, quick and quick. Both knees in, rest your neck down for a minute.

A breath in and out. (inhaling deeply) (exhaling deeply) Curl that chest up. Double leg stretch. It's all slow. Four reps, slow, slow, slow, slow, and slow.

Change it up so you can imprint your back. (inhaling deeply) (exhaling deeply) You have all this time to stretch farther, further. Only one more stretch. And around, everyone place the neck down scissors. Take a leg up.

Take the chest up, squared off. Slow, slow, quick, quick, quick, quick. Slow, slow. Just change, one, two, three, four, and slow. Slow.

Quick, quick, quick, quick, slow, slow. On the quicks. I'm not pulling, there's no time. There would be time and I'm just letting my legs move all again, slow, slow, quick. Keep breathing, guys, just find your center.

Find your breath. (exhaling deeply) Twice more. Slow, slow. Move when heals the body and mind and slow and slow and slow, quick, quick and quick. And it gets you confused.

(laughs) I don't even know what I'm doing sometimes when I get in that state. I'm kidding, I do. Hands behind the head. You can guess, it's gonna be slow. Double, straight leg, lower lift.

Bring that chest up. Three counts down, one quick up. Here we go. Slow, slow, slow, quick up, slow, slow, slow, quick up and down. Scoop those elbows up.

Steepen, go lower to the floor. Squeeze your butt, you guys. One more. Slow, two, three, and up and a slow crisscross. You're just gonna hold, hold and hold other side and hold.

Curl higher, hold. Curl higher, hold. Oh my God. Another slow. Tempo can be slow sometimes.

It doesn't always have to be fast. Other direction, but, let's change it up and go fast for eight, seven, six, five, then four, three, two. Eight more, one, three, four, six, seven, and rest, rest, rest. Arms by your side, lift your pelvis up. Just lift your pelvis, lift your arms up.

Stretch that nice long body, that healthy body and slowly roll down your spine. Slowly roll down your spine. Beautiful. Can't see you, but I'm sure it felt delicious. And just let your legs move a little toggle from side to side, everybody.

When we're coming up for open leg rocker. Come on up now. Open leg rocker. It's another rolling piece. As most of us know I need to wipe the sweat from my forehead and my upper lip.

Here we go. And balance. Find your balance position for a moment. Okay. Let's take a look at this.

And I want us to just deeply contract the lower abdomen for a moment and go back a tiny bit further on your sacrum. Take both of your legs up. You're in slight turnout of the legs. What I want us to do and everybody from here, bring both legs together and then apart, bend the knees without touching the toes to the floor and then right back up again. Okay.

So it's legs together that comes parallel here. As they open, they go a little bit of external rotation. Bend your knees, keep your body in the same position relatively, right. We are gonna go again together. Open.

Then I'm thinking really deeply contracting my stomach and extend the legs. Together legs, open, bend. Okay. Remember that sequencing. Let's just try a few of the rocking movements.

Here we go. Rock back, rock up. Rock back. I need to move myself on my mat so I don't keep my plant over. Here we go.

Rock back, rock up, rock back. Keep going, you guys. I want us to do four more today. We're gonna add that little legs together transition after the next two rockers, which really challenges the sense of balance on our sacrum. Here we go.

Get ready for it, stay up so legs come together. They go apart. We bend and stretch a rocking movement back and up. Transition together apart, bend, stretch, a full rocker and up. Couple more together.

And open, and bend, and straighten, rock. We've got one more. Together, apart. Bend and stretch, hold it. The next time you come up, we'll hold it.

We're gonna hold, hold, yes. Okay, great job. Just put your knees down, put your feet down. Kind of rest for a sec. Great work.

So see how we're kind of playing with tempo and rhythm change and spice up some of our normal. Okay, let's come in and do some sideline positioning. You know who is talking to me from behind the door. Okay, elbow in the back corner. Legs in the front corner.

Get yourself ready for quiet a lot of the sideline hip work. Okay. So as you're here, let's all put our hand right by your ribs today on your fingertips. Get your body ready for lifting their leg up. Flex front and back.

Here we go. Front and front and just a reach back. Front with a kick and just a reach back and a kick, a kick just a reach and a kick and kick and just a reach. Again, kick and kick. You get the rhythm, and (inhaling deeply) (exhaling deeply) Last two, a kick, reach, a kick, a kick, and a reach.

And I want you to bring both legs together. Turn out that top leg, maybe the bottom leg too. But before we do the whole side pose exercise, that bottom leg acts as a support. You can press the leg down to the floor, this top leg. You're in your rotation, towed to the knee, knee to your shoulder, leg up, and down.

So I'm in a waltz thinking now waltz. One, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, toe to shoulder and lift and lower. And one, two, three to two to three, three, two. Four, one more. Toe to the knee, knee to shoulder, sky, reverse.

And it's one, two, three, two, two, three, three. You get it. And find breath. Good. Keep moving all the way through.

Two more up. The whole time in deep external rotation and that's up, and touch. Ooh, good and long. Bring that toe back to the knee. Okay, this knee is gonna go down to the floor and up and down, even counts and touch, and press, touch and press.

Only five of those because then, I want you to tap the toe to the knee. Five, four, three, two, one ankle, five. Four, three, two, knee. One, two, three, four, one, two. We're moving from the knee three times.

Ankle, three, knee, two, ankle, two, and singles for four, three, two, one. Stretch your leg all the way long. Let's do it again. Hold on the knee for pose, okay. I got this from Brett Howard.

I can not take credit for it. Love that man. Love all his work. Love the sequence. So thank you, Brett Howard.

We bring the knee down. Bring the knee up. You can track those glutes to move that knee back. We know we do. Three more.

You could probably waltz it. We could one, two, three, one, two, three. It works for those. But now when we tap, it doesn't work. So we have five, four, three, two, one, ankle, one, two, three, four, knee, four, ankle, four.

Knee, three, one, two, one, two, two, one, two, one, two, single two, three, four, and a stretch. We do some lovely circles. Two, and a three, and a four. More, one, two, three, reverse. And a one, two and three, three, two, and a three and a four.

Now, I want us to kick up and down just eight quick ones. Kick, lower, kick. Go for it behind your head, if you could, if you could. Some of you can. Three, and two.

Last one. We're done with that. Good, okay, come on up. Just loosen it around for a second, okay. Now I want us to go back down on the side.

I'm bringing in some of my teachers, aren't I? I brought Howard. This is a no little moment to Kathy Grant. There's a few hard ways to do this and there's an easy way to do this. I'm gonna show us the easier way.

Take this hammer like this. Your bottom hand underneath your head, knees are bent. Your heels are aligned with your sit bones back here. It's the side sit up, okay. If you want, let me show you come the hard way, you could take this arm and have it straight out here.

As you use this hand to help you do a pushup, this arm comes with you. I'm gonna wrap mine this way, actually. And I'm gonna use this hand and I wanna push myself up. Now what we wanna think, no matter where your other arm is, is that you're long through your spine energy through the tip of the head. We don't flex.

We're thinking extension and just lightly touch. Three more. And two more. Oh, and last one, and lower. Okay, now we can go to the other side, find yourself up.

Do you remember all the rhythms? We'll find out. Okay. Elbow to the back corner, legs to the front corner. Make that diagonal line.

Get your body nice and imprinted. Okay, get yourself ready. And on the mat right in front of your chest, leg up, flex the foot. We went front kick. So it is a kick kick, but I want you to take your leg and stretch to the back.

Kick, kick, stretch to the back, Again, and kick, stretch to the back and kick. And four more we go. And kick, kick. Just reach a little further back. Kick, kick, reach a little further.

Last two. Back we go and a front. Send a front and back, back, back leg. Together, churn out pose developing. The three count waltz.

One, two, three, knee to the shoulder, up, two, three, two, three. To the knee, knee to shoulder, to the ceiling and down. A couple more to the knee, to the shoulder, up, and lower. One more. So it's one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, reverse.

One, two, three, four, puppy, down two, three, low. Long leg and knee to shoulder. Knee to toe to knee, stretch long all the way up. I'm trying to deeply turnout through the hip. Remember we have a squat to do in a little bit.

You need to do that rolling to a ball squat jump, if we can. Okay. Now, pose developing. We did the Red Howard Special. So it's a knee to the mat and back.

Knee to the mat and back. Back, and using the glutes to turn the leg and press it hold. Tap two, three, four, five, ankle two, three, four, five, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. Three, three, two, two, single two, three, four, stretch your leg all the way long. Ready to do it again 'cause it feels really good here.

Toe to the knee. Let's tempo it with the waltz. One, two, three, press back. Two, three, one, two, three, contract, two, three. On that contraction, I'm trying to also press my pelvis forward, forward, forward.

Last two. Press. Last one and then taps for five. One, two, three, four, five, and one, two, three, four, five and four, two, three, four, tap. Three, one, two, three, one, two twos.

One, two, one, two, a single, a single, a single, a single, a stretch. Eight small circles. One, two, three, and four, four, three. You got it other way. And four, three, two, one, four, three, two, and one.

Good. Come up for just a second. Shake things out then we have those Kathy Grant side sit ups Here we go. Bottom arm can tuck your inner little clam set up. This hand is the front, the one that's gonna help push you up.

Now, I also didn't say this, as we get better, stronger, this hand goes lower. When you're learning these, you can start at way up high and you can get yourself off the ground pretty easily ish when your hand is up here. As you get better and stronger, we start to take it down and we also move this arm elsewhere. Okay. Food for thought, your lung and your spine.

Five times, push. It's as if you're just setting that shoulder down lightly and push, setting it down lightly. And three. Yeah. I'm gonna try to just pride myself.

Last one (exhaling deeply) and then all the way down. Wonderful. Come all the way up, you guys. Okay. We're getting close to what I had planned for the rolling like a ball squat stuff.

However, we need to come up first, do a little bit of lateral lunging. Come and join me. Come on up. And then we're gonna go down and try the rolling like a ball squat. So if you stand in the middle of your mat, step out either to either side, parallel and go into a big lunge and push yourself back up.

Same side, let's do five. And I want you to start thinking about the pushing relationship. We did all that hip work. We did some good core, some good ab. One more other side for five.

You don't have to go that low. You could just tap the mat. You could even just step to the side and you're doing the work. But what I want is that if you're going for it, get low and push. Get low and push once more, then we're gonna change direction.

This leg goes to the back diagonal. You also turn your body a little. This leg doesn't go anywhere. It stays parallel. You turn, you squat, and you return.

Turn your body, lunge to the back diagonal, return facing square. Turn, lunge to the back corner, return facing square, down and up, and down and up. Okay, other direction. I'm gonna turn as if I'm going out the door. I'm not, right back.

And yep. You're changing level. You're gonna need that in that rolling like a ball. You gotta push yourself up. One more time.

Okay. Now, meet me down on the mat. Here we go. Let's do some rolling like a ball movements. Okay, actually before we do, hold on, don't go all the way.

Everybody, can you come up on your knees or you bring your body into your squat like this. Okay, and right about now, if you're thinking and there's no way I'm gonna get this. My knees are icky, my feet are icky, just do some rolling like a ball right now. You're fine. The rest of us, I want us to get this movement going just for a second.

Wait on your hands and rock back, okay. Now when you do the rolling like a ball to squat, and if there's a jump in you, if your body is based down like this, you're not going to get up. We need to, if you can, squat for me. You can face me for this if you want or stay, and look up. You know what we should do real quick.

We should all do a couple swans. Let's do it. Just put wherever you are, do a couple of swans because you need to go up. You need to look up because that's really gonna help us when we do the up motion from the rolling ball. Okay.

One or two more. Yeah, get that upper back. Good. And one more time. And then let's reevaluate our squat real quick.

See what you're doing, okay, and see if you can get that little lift of the chest. Okay. As many of you know, sometimes I get eclectic in my thinking and then zip offline and then come back around, circle back, like I just did. Okay. So, here's what I'm thinking.

Rolling like a ball, I'll try a couple. And I'll just move into my squat. Roll back, gotta get your body weight forward. Roll back, look forward. Think a little bit of a Swan.

Your body weight forward. If you wanna start standing more, push into the floor and stand. Roll. Our knee forward, push and stand. I've got a couple more in me.

One more in me. I'm gonna stay standing at the top. (exhaling deeply) Ah, I did it. How did you do? I hope you did okay.

I hope you had some fun. We're gonna now, we're not quite done. Come to standing everybody wide stance with your feet. Squat down, put your hands on your legs and just kind of sit into it. Okay.

Gently move from side to side. Yeah, and so if you're ready to go and move on to the rest of your day or go to bed and all the things, if you're finished, thank you so much for coming. If you're still with me, all I'm gonna do is kind of wind down with a little bit of this shoulder forward rotation. Just kind of finish that theme of rotating through the thoracic spine, breath extension movement, and slow that tempo down. And as we transition from the rotation, stay in a nice sense of extension through your spine.

And then the other shoulder comes forward. Take it slow. Feel some big breath in through the rib cage. One or two more each side. You can use your hands to press your knees more into external rotation, if you'd like.

You could sway from foot to foot a little bit. It feels rather nice. Come to your center. I'm gonna take myself around and enjoy just a little bit of weight shift from to one knee to the other knee, feeling how that actually brings me into more rotation. One more each direction.

(inhaling deeply) (exhaling deeply) Movement heels. You can heal the world with Pilates. That's what some of us really truly feel. I think it is that movement heals ourself. And so when we're better to ourselves, we're most likely better to others, right?

That saying goes true. Straighten those knees, just bring your legs together. Everybody, we'll do one final roll-down together. Take a deep breath. Lower your arms and just finish with that sense of completion.

Hopefully, you got some heat today. You got some blood flow, you got a little sweaty. And then roll all the way up. Next week, I'm back at it. And next week I do have planned a little bit more of the restorative class, more of that fascial stretching kind of work.

I will have music with me to really just downtempo. So again, as I'm riding through my own waves of up and down and teaching and offering what I like and balancing for you. So next week is more restorative, that's for me. We have Mary and Christie tomorrow, girl time, 8:30 California time. We have Leah Stewart on Friday.

We have Christie on her own. We have some amazing things happening, you guys, and stay tuned. Okay, so again, thank you so much. Voila! Until next time. Bye, bye.

Infinite Vitality: Move with Amy

Cardio, Power, Flow, Heat

Aug 11, 2020
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Cardio Mat
Amy Havens
Intermediate
50 min
Pilates Conservatory®
Mat
Restorative, Release, Breathing, Music, Centering

Aug 18, 2020
Thumbnail image
Sweet Release
Amy Havens
Beginner
55 min
Pilates Conservatory®
Mat
Foam Roller, Stability, Mobility, Balance

Aug 25, 2020
Thumbnail image
Let's Roll
Amy Havens
Intermediate
55 min
Pilates Conservatory®
Mat

Comments

Paola Maruca
Amy is not only a beautiful mover but also a beautiful soul. I met her once at her studio in Santa Barbara years ago. It was the first time we met in person. She had the same reaction. We hugged and she got emotional just like at the beginning of this video. To me these tears speak more than a thousand words. I believe it's her natural way to open her heart and invite you in her world. As a teacher myself, this happens to me quite often. I truly believe it is a beautiful thing, especially now, while the world is facing a very difficult time. It connects us and it brings us all together. Keep on being you 'bella Amy' and thank you for being just you. 
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2 people like this.
Amy I feel like I have know you all my life !! I love your teaching & appreciate you so much Can’t wait till next time Canada loves you !
Chuhang G
2 people like this.
Great workout as always! I really enjoyed the movements at the beginning to warm up the body. The rolling like a ball to squat at the end was just icing on the cake! Thanks so much Amy!
thank you, I love the exercises, however I don't really feel "cardio" is truly an apt description. 
2 people like this.
I love your honesty  and vulnerability . Great movement class
2 people like this.
Loved this slightly different class and how it gradually led us to the grand finale. Beautiful teacher Amy, thank you.
Cynthia G
1 person likes this.
Agree with Shona.  Lovely and a challenge for me.  Luckily I can repeat it till my co-ordination gets better. Thanks Amy, I know you feel better.
Norita
1 person likes this.
Excellent class. Thank you Amy!
2 people like this.
Loved the class and your many videos I have enjoyed! I also feel like I have known you all my life! I so appreciate your honesty and vulnerability during this most challenging time! Loved the connection to both fitness and dance in this workout!
Lina S
1 person likes this.
Great class! It gives me ideas on how to play with rhythm. I've loved the way you prepare for the final move. I've been able to get up after the roll like a ball and squat move, something I haven't done for a while! I felt like a child! You were right. We need to look up in order to stand up!
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