Class #4421

Glued To The Wall

60 min - Class
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Description

Place your Mat next to your wall and get ready to work in the first class of Wall-to-Wall with Alexandra! She’ll teach you how to find the push and pull in each exercise using the wall as a feedback tool to deepen your connection to your core. Join Alexandra and learn how adding the Wall as a tool can advance your Pilates workouts further.
What You'll Need: Mat, Wall

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Welcome to my studio, by the way, if you hear cats and dogs, and kid, and a bell, all these things, this is a home studio and I have three children and a puppy. So the bell, something, just so you know, (laughing) if you hear noises, right. So we going to start doing the 100 to get warmed up, and we're gonna use the wall to help us out. So you need to figure out where you need to be on the wall maybe back, find your sweet spot. So just the tip of your toes, if you can see my heels are off the wall.

So imagine you have, it's like your feed is on the bar, and something that I'm very adamant about is that, try not to touch your pelvis, and tight your hip flexors. Keep your tailbone down, your heavy sacrum on the mat. So we truly working from your center and we're not working from your hip flexors, yeah? So keep the tailbone on the mat, leave it alone, keep it nice and neutral. Push the wall to find every little inch of your lower back on the mat.

So I'm not forcing my hips, I'm just pushing the wall to pause. You can start to do that, find your sweet spot, where you need to be on the wall, your head still on the floor, on the mat, your shoulders are relaxed, your collarbone is nice and broad, and you just pushing the wall and then you feeling okay, I'm not using my hip flexors, I'm really lower down, right my pubic bone, right on top of this little bony area and I'm gonna pull everything in, pull, close the ribs, feel every part of your lower back on the mat. And then from there, wrap your thighs in your thighs drawing together without tension, just drawing everything in as a unit, and now push the hands into the mat and feel your back connection to your hands, to your arms. And now you're gonna push the mat with your hands and then use your abdominal muscles to lift your head up. So you just don't, you don't just lift from your neck muscles although they are getting stronger, you wanna lift from your center.

So lets do that again. Pick up your head from your abdominal muscles, lift the head, feel that the center is lifting you up and you push the hands into the mat. See how far you can come up and come back down. So we just kind of prepping for the 100 in a minute. Again, close the ribs, pull yourself up, hold it up here for a few seconds, push your hands into the floor, push the wall away to pull into your center, up through the heart, through the head, and then come back to here.

And now this time we're going to stay, so close the ribs, pick up your head, nice and long with length. So we never close or crunch with length in the energy through the head, we bring everything up, we stay up, we push the wall to draw into your center, lift the arms a little higher than the thighs and start pumping your arms like you mean it. Breathe into your nose. (inhales deeply) And out through the nose. Breath in two, three, four, five and out, two, three, four, five.

Breathe in two, three, four, five, out two, four, five. In with the air, out with the air. (exhales sharply) And you breathe into your nose and then out through the nose. Now keep pushing that wall like you gonna break through that wall. Breathe into your nose, expand your lung capacity (inhales deeply) and exhale all the old air out.

We going to do 120 today because you guys are always all athletes. Push the wall, you stronger than you think. Breathe in two, three, four, five, out two, three, four. 90 in with the air (inhales deeply) and pump nice and strong with your back connection. And last time, breathe in for five, (inhales) drawing those legs together, ribs in, and exhale.

Let's do one more time, we're gonna breathe in for four counts in two, three, four exhale for six, five, four, three, two, one, all the air out. Stay up here and then lower your body down. (exhales sharply) Hopefully warmed up now. Bend your knees into your task, give yourself a little hug, and then pop the legs back into the wall. You're going to use your feet again.

Push your toes into the wall to draw into yourself, bringing the arms over the head give yourself a nice sort of opening of your chest. Bring the arms up to the ceiling, pick up your head from your center and roll up to the wall. You may just go halfway or partially, and then go back down. So just go as far as you feel comfortable, exhale, and then roll back down. But don't let gravity help you, you're resisting gravity and you're lengthening through your center.

And exhale all the air, arms over the head, arms up to the ceiling. You decide how low or high your legs want to be today. Push the wall to pull into yourself, inhale, come up, and then exhale halfway there. So I feel that naturally my feet wants to go a little higher so I'm gonna allow my body to tell me what it wants, stretch over, and then you roll down, pushing the wall, push, push, push, to pull into yourself and then come all the way down, ribs are in. So even though my arms are over my head, my ribs are drawing into the mat.

Arms up, pick up your head, inhale, come up, long waist, round doesn't mean crunching, round is lengthening the same time as you coming up. Beautiful long C curve. Good, now this time you're going to place your hands on the wall if you can, of course, if you're flexible, if you need to, you bend your knees a little back, but push the wall to feel this connection through the back. If you need do bend your knees, if not keep it straight. Push, push, push, push, feel the back connection, feel the core going in and up, the more you push the wall away, and then roll down for the last time.

Long waist like a giant is lifting you from the waist and then you go down, exhale, exhale, exhale. (exhales sharply) Lovely, bring your right leg up, give yourself a little stretch. And, this time we're gonna do The Single Leg Circle. So sometimes when people are doing The Single Leg Circle they don't really feel anything. So let's get extra feelings and feedback from the wall.

I want you to press your left heel into the wall, and the other leg is gonna come up and you're gonna turn the leg out maybe a little bit, half Pilates V. This heel is pressing into the wall because I want you to activate all the back of the thighs and the bum. So, and also you stabilizing the sides, so press the wall. You may need to soften your knee a little back. So you don't wanna feel the back of the knee, thighs and bum, press down, feel anchored on the side.

Long right leg, press the floor with your arms and circle that right leg around into your body and out and hold. So you pressing the wall, and this is where you emphasize in today. You pressing the wall, and you feeling cause eventually you gonna do it on the floor, on the mat, and you wanna have that feeling that your thigh and your seat are doing something. Let's do two more, so this is four, and then five, reverse go the other way, so the idea is that you don't do the samba with your hips. You keep your hips nice and anchored and stable.

Your arms are helping, and that leg is anchoring this whole side. Two more, away, across and up, away, across and up. Give yourself a little stretch and then swap legs. So now try to press this right heel into the wall, bring the left leg up, make sure the back of the knee here is soft, thighs strong, bum is connected, arms are strong passing down and we go, circle the leg around and up to the nose. Around and up to the nose.

How are the ribs? Are they drawing down? And pulling all these muscles with you? All the way down getting your waist smaller and stronger and stable. Last circle, reverse go the other way.

Away from the body across into the nose. Away, across and up two, away, across and three. The bottom leg on the wall is working really hard to stabilize this other side. Last time, and bend the knee in. So hopefully you can take all this feedback to the mat later, and bring your arms over the head, bring the arms up, lift your head from your center and then give me another beautiful roll up.

Breathe in, long waist, and come up and stretch. Bring your head to your knee, feel like you're doing the tree on the reformer, lengthen the waist a little bit and rest. Good, so now we're gonna do The Rolling Like A Ball. And again before we roll back on the mat, we're gonna use the wall. So I would advise you to maybe be a little bit away from the wall, but not too much, otherwise you'll pay for it.

Bring your hands on the ankles, keep the heels from flying up, you wanna keep your heels with you, your tiny little wall. I'm trying to bring you against the wall so you don't use momentum. So you wanna bring your body against the wall and then you use your center to lift up to the ceiling and forward. So you scooping in and up, you touch the wall, you lift your waist, lift the C curve, lengthen the C curve and bring your body forward. So we don't cheat, we go back, and we go, now how am I gonna go forward?

You have to use your center. Now, see if you can go a little bit more maybe just a centimeter or two, not even an inch or a half an inch, a quarter of a inch, and you go to the wall. Maybe it will be stuck, we'll see. And now pull yourself in and up off the wall. So Ramona used to say that the ball doesn't open.

So you don't want to fly your heels out when you're doing your ball on the mat. You want to keep yourself nice and small. One day your head is gonna be in between your knee and you going to do this same thing. And you're gonna come off the wall, breathe in, exhale when you come off the wall. Let's do one more.

Breathe in, hopefully you feeling just how hard it is to do an honest movement without momentum. Good, get what you learned from the wall, turn around, and then see if we just can do maybe three repetitions, just doing the balance. You're gonna go back a little bit, we're gonna feel like we touch the wall. Now we go to the ceiling, our ears are reaching up to the ceiling and forward. One, again, so I don't want you to collapse, keep your energy up, and go over a little bit, and I'll come back forward and up, up and forward.

Last time, go back just a little lifting in your waist, nothing collapse, and come up to the ceiling and forward. Good, now see if we can keep it and roll all the way back and enjoy. Rolling back with your heels really close to you so it doesn't change. So imagine if you had a little ball in between your heels and your bum, and your squeezing this ball in, and we go again, inhale, go back and then exhale come back up without any momentum. So you actually try to push the brake when you come up.

Inhale, and then you exhale nice and slow to come up. If It's too hard, your hands there, feel free to bring your hands on your thighs, that's okay too. It's all about not using the momentum to roll back up. Let's do two more time indulge the stretch, keep your head in, and exhale. Romano used to say, pretend you're holding a towel with your chin, between your chest, inhale, last one, exhale and come back.

Well done, I'm really warm now. Now we're going to do it your five stomach series. So we're gonna use the wall to push one foot, while we bend in the other knee. So let's start with your right foot, pushing the wall to pull into yourself. This is the same thing as you did with your 100, you still pulling and now using a pelvis, and we go push, push, push, swap.

So today the emphasis is pushing into the wall and swap. So this is two, and three, and three, and again, push, push, to pull, pull, pull, pull as you push. How hard can you push into your wall to pull into your center? How high can you feel that connection between pushing the wall and coming all the way into your center? Remember your abdominal muscle starts between your chest and push, push, push, push, push, push, push, push, push and the back of the thighs and the seat should also be firing as you do that.

Let's do that one more time. Push the wall, pull in, swap, last time, push the wall, pull in, and bend both knees. Wonderful, if you need to rest your head, please do. We're gonna go right into the next one. Inhale, push the wall, push, push, push.

Just like the 100, right? But instead, we're going to try to come up, high and bend in. Again, inhale, come up high, high, high, high, push the wall, push, push, push, push and exhale. So thought it's good to stand there on tummies. Push the wall, pull into yourself long hip flexors, and exhale.

Keep the elbows nice and wide, inhale, feel like a giant is picking you up with your arms and lifting you up so you're about to do the teaser, but you're not doing it, just stretching into your double leg stretch, and bend in. (exhales sharply) Inhale, push energy through the feet, through the fingertips, through your center, exhale. Inhale, reach, draw the legs together, exhale. Let's do two more, inhale, reach your arms long by your ears up through the ceiling, exhale. Last one, make it the best one.

Inhale, reach, draw, pull, lift, reach, scoop and bend in. Rest your head if you need to, right leg up, left leg down, push this wall, pull, pull, swap. Push the wall with one leg, as you stretch the other one. Keep your pelvis relaxed. Keep your tailbone on the mat.

Keep your flats, sacrum on the floor. So doesn't need to come up. We crunch often on this exercise. Keep it long, we want long lengthen muscles, long lengthen muscles work a lot harder than short muscles. Pull, pull, according to the new research, and again, pull, pull, which Joseph Pilates do all that, which is incredible.

Pull, pull, that's why he always wanted us to lengthen, push the wall, push the wall, feel the whole leg alive, and, pull, pull. Two more, pull, pull. Last time, push, push, push, push, stay, both hands behind your head, lengthen your neck, draw the legs together. You just gonna say hi to the wall, it's hot and you come back up. Inhale, exhale.

Now you're gonna touch the you're gonna touch the wall. You're going to lengthen your legs through the wall, scraping every inch of the wall to the ceiling. Again, so there's always energy going out, before you bring it up. It's not just up and down. Down, I'm gonna go through the wall and I'm gonna scrape the wall to bring it up.

So once again, you're lengthening those muscles, you're reaching to come up. Let's do two more, down, down, down, reach, push into the wall to bring it up, long neck, smile with your face. Romano used to say, push, smile with your eyes and rest. Good, now let's see you criss-cross. So opposite elbow to the knee, I want you once again to push, push, push with the foot on the wall to pull into the side, come up and swap.

Push to pull, see if we can pass that knee, or touch it, say hi, and swap. So you should feel really anchor with the side that's connected to the wall, and swap. One, two, three and swap. Should be cramping by now. One, two, three.

There's so many things I can say here but I just want you to focus on that, push, push, push. So you can really feel lower. The lower tummy a bit sleepy sometimes. And again, push, push, push. Let's do one more time, right leg, and one more time, and rest.

So you should be cramping, screaming. (screaming) So that means you did a good job. Good, we're gonna go into your Spine Stretch Forward. So just open your arms as a bit of an extension of your abdominal muscles here, bring the arms up. Let's come to the wall a little bit so you can have that feeling still of pushing into the wall to pull into your center.

You should feel that really deep, that center goes really deep into the mat. Bring the arms up, the legs are together, find your sweet spot on the wall, come up with long body, and roll up until your spine stretch forward. So you want to keep your heels pushing the wall. Almost like if your feet was on the carlac on that, on the pole. So you wanna push the wall, if you need to bend your knees a little bit, please do, push to pull.

And we just gonna feel a little bit of this, the lower part of your body. Then we're gonna switch it around. So sit up nice and tall, inhale, lengthen through the ceiling, peel you head off and forward, push your heels to pull into yourself. Get your toes off the wall as you push your heels to pull deep into your lumbar spine. Exhale, now push with your hands as well.

Push, push, push, and then roll back up, and sit up tall. Again, inhale, lift up, and then exhale, push the wall away to feel the lower abdominal muscles. Exhale, push the wall, connect with your back and your center, and roll up. So this is as hard as you make it to be, last one, inhale lift, and then exhale, push through the legs. Exhale, exhale, lift through the center.

Use your hands to connect through your back, push the wall as you stack in one bone at a time. Up, up, up. (exhales sharply) Now turn around, see if you can feel the connection still through your heels, and you want to be really close to your wall, and you want every little part of your back to be on the wall. Open the shoulders, stay nice and open through the collar bones, lift through the ceiling, so you're lengthening your whole body, inhale, (inhales) and then peer your head, your shoulders, everything else still pulling into the wall, belly button, and you exhale as you go forward, but you still feel the energy of pushing through your heels like you did earlier, and then push everything away, and come back against the wall. Pushing every little bone into the mat, into the wall, and sit up tall.

Take a deep breath in, lengthen to the ceiling, (inhales) and then exhale as you peel your head, your shoulders, your wings, your ribs, your waist, and you say hi to the floor if you can, with your arms reaching with energy. And then you return inhale, (inhales) and then exhale for a last one. Really feel every little bit of your back on the wall, and sit up tall. So you should feel like one with your wall, really scooped in. Nice, now we're gonna do, The Open Leg Rock, and The Open Leg Rock is an extension of your spine stretch forward.

You just did this, right? You had this beautiful C curve. Now we take your beautiful C curve, we push the floor, and we see if we can lift the legs from the same place of your spine stretch forward. So push the hands on the floor, pull the leg in and up, if you need to bend your knees, please do, pull the legs from your center and then the legs just levitate, to come up, and bring it back down. One more time, push the floor, draw everything into you, push the wall, imaginary wall in front of you, to pull into yourself, keep the legs up there, hold your thighs, hold your calves, hold your ankle, whatever it is that works for you.

And you're going to treat this just like the Rolling Like A Ball. You're going to lift in and up, you're going to touch the wall hopefully you're not too far from the wall, and then you'll pull everything in up and you come forward. And again, you touch the wall, you stay nice and lifted and tow to come forward. If you feel like this is too easy, feel free to come a little bit away from the wall, if you want, and then check, can I feel the wall? Oh, am I gonna feel stuck?

And you're not just touching the wall, you are lifting to come forward. So you just say hi to the wall, and then you come forward. Once again we're now using momentum. So it's a very honest movement here. Your center has no help, but to work.

Good, now turn around, see if we can keep that feet back. Of having something behind you stopping you from using your momentum. Open the legs about wider than your shoulders. Try not to use your elbows. If you're using your elbows, you are using momentum once again, to help you to come up.

So once again, go back just a little bit, like the balance part of the open like rock, and come forward, go back to sending your waist back and then touch the ceiling to come forward. Let's do one more time. So my arms are not helping me, if anything my legs are pushing into my hands, and my hands pushing into my legs. Three, now keep your chin into the chest, and go all the way, inhale, go all the way, keep your chin and then see if you can stop momentum from helping you. So you kind of pushing the brake a little bit.

Inhale to go back, and then exhale come forward, and up. And again, change to chest, inhale, exhale, and lift the energy through the ceiling. So your legs are reaching, your head is lifting, last one, inhale to go back, and then exhale, come up up, up, up, up, up, up, good. Bring your legs together, and walk your hands down. Good, bend your knees into your chest, just give yourself a little hug, thanking your body for in doing all this, wonderful things that are challenge for our bodies, lift the legs, push the hands into the floor, and then just the few vertebrates, you're going to scoop, lift in and up, and then take your time to return.

So pretend your wall now is up there and you're pushing the ceiling to scoop back down. So we just gonna work on this little portion today. Nice and clean, nice and honest, going up, push the ceiling now, and come down. So there's no cheating allowed. And again, so it's better to do a small range.

You just go a little bit, but it's more honest, versus flashing things around and now really feeling. So scoop in and up, go just a little. And then you push the ceiling away to come down, last time, scoop and lift. Even if you're doing a quarter of what I'm doing, push the ceiling with your feet like you did of the wall and come down (sighs) and then sit up for saw. So your feet are gonna once again push away from the wall.

If you need to bend your knees, or sit on something a little high, if you have your hamstring, quite tight. Sit on a little pillow, let's move your arms out to the side. So my arms are always in my peripheral vision. They're never back there. My shoulder joint doesn't really like that.

So push the wall, feel this lower part connected as you push, arms are reaching like a branch growing out of a tree. Inhale, don't move the arms, twist, twist, push with the opposite heel. When you twist, grow tall, tall, tall and come back in, lift up, push with the opposite leg when you twist to the left, push, push, push. And sit up tall, and center. So think of your pulling straps a little bit on the reformer.

Keep the arms nice and strong, connected to your back. Inhale, twist to the right, push, push, push with the opposite foot, and center. And again, inhale, lift, now exhale as you twist. So one thing at a time, and begin to do it again adding the breath, inhale, lift, exhale, twist to the right, pushing with your opposite heel into the wall, to anchor this hip and center. Inhale lift, twist to the left, pushing your right heel into the wall to anchor the opposite hip.

Exhale, exhale, exhale, and center. Oh, I'm relaxing arms. Good to have. Nice, go ahead and turn around. I pushed the wall for real because my mat moved a little bit.

Right, so come into your tummy. We're gonna use the wall in a minute for your lower body. Now, from here, we just gonna think of pushing the hands into the floor to lift our bodies into extension, to opening of your chest. So to do that, before we start, we're just going to, think of lifting the back of your head up to the ceiling, pushing the hand, and come up, up, up. So the back of my head, pushing the ceiling.

I'm nice and long. And I come down. I'm going to do that again. My hands are pushing into the floor, to connect with my back, to lift with my head, lengthen your whole body, and down. Good, now let's stay here and lift your elbows with this idea that you pushing the ceiling away with the back of your head.

You lifting abdominal muscles from the floor. You drawing those legs together and you're going to stretch your neck looking over the right shoulder, chin across your chest to the other side. And look straight ahead. The hands are active. The belly buttons lifted and we go left.

Look over the shoulder, bring your chin across the chest to the other side, look over the shoulder, and look straight ahead. Good, pushing the floor away, lifting your abdominal muscles, kick, kick one leg at a time. Kick, kick. And there's so much happening. Your hands are pushing to pull into your center.

You're lifting with the back of your head to keep the neck nice and long. You're pressing your hips down to the floor, to really stretch the front of your thighs, and engage the thigh and the back of the thighs, and the seat. Kick, kick, kick, kick. Let's do one more on each leg, right leg, and left leg. Good, now draw the legs together.

Bring the arms long by your side, and we're going to find that sweet spot again going into the wall only with the tip of your toes. So you're going to be doing a double leg stretch. You're going to come up, but first you're gonna connect with your lower body. So draw on the legs together, and you can kick your seat three times one, two, three, with both legs now, and then you push the feet against the wall to draw your thighs together. Wrap your thighs into your little Pilates V and then come down.

Now we're going to add the head coming up. Kick three times, one, two, three, bending the knees, stretch the legs, push against the wall. And now you come up with your body, up, up, up, up, up and down. Rest your cheek on the mat, kick three times, one, two, three, push the wall with your feet, and push the hands to lift you up. Up, up, up, up, up, up, up, and now look to the other side two times.

Kick the legs three times, one, two, three, push the wall, and push the hands out against the mat to lift you up. And last time, kick one, two, three, push to draw those legs together. Push the floor, come up, up, up, up, up, up and down, they should be burning. Now, sit back on your heels, and round everything. So you wanna round the back muscles that helped you to come up, and in a minute we stretch the legs.

Good, nice, now go ahead and turn around. I'm gonna draw my little working hard. That's the sign I'm working hard. Good, so you're going to do your Knack Bowl. So you're going to either bend your knees, and you can come a little closer to the wall.

Your hands can go behind your thighs, so we can try that, let's break it down. So push the wall with your feet parallel. Your feet are in line with your hips. Let's bring your hands by your thighs first, and then lift your head off the floor with your abdominal muscles, inhale, (inhales) and then come up all the way and bring your head to your knee, lifting from your center. Sit up nice and tall, (inhales) and round to go down.

Now, can you round to go down and still push against the wall. So there's oppositional energy happening here. Always employ these. And again, peel your head off the floor from your center. Inhale, come up, and then exhale, head is gonna go in between your knees.

Lift your center away from your thighs. Now draw the belly button, below the belly button, to roll up. Now, if you wanna keep your hands on your thighs, please do. I'm going to transfer my hands to the back of my neck. I'm going to push my heels against the wall to round to go down.

So push to round, push to round, push, push, push, push, push to round, and exhale. Good, I lost the wall, so I need to get little closer. And again, inhale, round, roll into yourself. Roll, roll, roll, and bring your head to your knees and sit up toe stuck in the vibrate one at a time, lift up tall, push your wall away, and round. So your energy is going back and through the wall at the same time, lengthening your waist.

And come down, oh, good work. So now let's do a mini bridge here. So you got to come a little closer to the wall. Sorry, if your wall is gonna be a bit dirty later, but you can use wipes or something. It's worth it, it's worth it.

Right, so let's keep your feet in line with your hips, arms long, and then see if we can lift the hips off the wall. See how that feels for you if you have never done that before. And then you round to come down. So your sternum, your ribs, your waist, one little area at the time, coming down to the mat, and let's start it again. So, come up and stay.

(exhales) Hold, arms are active, pushing into the mat. Neck is long, no weight on your neck, is on your shoulders. And then you roll down with control. Good, now see if we can stay there a little longer. So you're going to lift your hips, and then you also need to find your sweet spot.

Am I wanting to be closer, further, these should be bent at this point. Feel if it's even for you. Am I putting the same pressure or weight on my right leg as I'm putting my left leg? Can we test it? If this is a lot for you, stay there.

Can we take the right leg off the wall a little bit and see, okay, is this working for me? And then come back down. Now lift the other knee off the wall. And then there's nothing moving. There's no samba or salsa with the hips, and then come down.

We leave that for another time. And again, find the muscles, scoop everything in, find the arms, pushing against the floor, and pick up your right knee, and place it back down. And again, I'll push through the right leg and pick up your left knee. And then for some of you, it's gonna feel really different. That means we need to strengthen one of the sides that feel about weaker.

The body is very efficient, we just have to train. Press the arms, and lift your right leg one more time, hold, place it back on the wall, and last time, lift your left leg off the wall. Really pushing that foot against the wall, the supporting leg, and bring it back on the wall, and then round to come down. Very nice, good, and then from there, we're gonna do your sidekick. So roll up the best way that works for you, I'm going to turn around and face away from the wall and I'm gonna use my sidekicks also, especially the first one.

So we won't do all of them, the first one. So come on your side, pick a side that works for you that you wanna start with. You lie on your side, your hand can be sustaining your head, or you can go all the way down, it's up to you. I promise I was not gonna make this one really hard this, so everyone can do it all levels. So you're on your side, and you're lengthening the top leg to being the same level as the bottom leg, because what happens is one hip kind of sinks and you can see the difference between the heels.

So lengthen your waist, pull the ribs in, lift the top leg up, make sure you're square. So you're nice and in line. And you're going to take the leg forward, not very far, because we don't want to engage the pelvis. Now, push, push, push the wall, keep your knee nice and soft, and you're pushing the wall with your thighs. Whoops, and again, go forward for two, one, two, and then you go push the wall with your thigh with your bum, and go again.

Kick, kick, so that's three, push, push, lengthen your neck and the same time with your hand behind your head. So you always lengthening one way and the other way. You're lengthening through the waist. So if I allow you to like to go too far forward, you're going to start giving your pelvis. Your pelvis is gonna start going forward, and you'd be using a hip flexors.

And push, push, push. So you won't go very far, but you will feel that efficiency of your movement. It's not about how far are you gonna go, it's how deep you connected to the movement. Lengthen that hip to kick back against the wall. And six, and kick back, the bottom leg is also actively pressing down to the floor, press kick two, press, press, press.

And last time, let's do eight, one, two, and then press for three, two, one, and come in. Good, just so for the sake of stretching, the thighs area little bad because of all this wrapping and pushing. We're gonna do the up and down. So you're gonna kick the leg up, same thing, you won't go very far, and then resist to come down. Kick up, resist to come down.

My neck is lengthening as I'm doing this exercise. My head is pressing against my hand behind. So I keep my neck active and long, and just two more, kick up, resist coming down, and then kick up, resist coming down, last time, kick up, and resist coming down. Good, now you're single leg circle that you did earlier, lying on your back, you're gonna think of here. You're gonna lift the leg, and you're going to do your single leg circle into this.

And it's the same thing. And you're pressing that leg back like you did early on the wall. You pressing the thigh, and the bum to circle, and reverse, go the other way. So it's the same thing we did earlier. Pressing your heels against the wall.

You're going to do it here. It's the same thing. All the exercises are really interconnected. And three, two, and one. Good, let's do the other side.

So I'm gonna have to move my mic to the other side. And, yeah, your sweet-spot where you can kick forward and you still can kick you heel against the wall. Lengthen, stay nice and long. Excuse me, lengthen the waist, press the floor, press the head, and we go forward. Kick, kick, press, press lengthening So it's not just going back.

You're reaching to go back, and forward. Kick, kick, and back, back, back. And again, so we don't need any weights. We have the wall, so it's gonna be as hard as you make it to be. It's like adding extra springs on the reformer, press from all that, kick, kick, kicking the stay away, kick, kick, kick, so I go for two forwards, and one, two, three, back.

One, two, forward, one, two, three, lengthen always. If it's helpful for you, you can keep your hand on your hip, helping you to lengthen out, kick forward, and back for three, two more, ribs are nice and in, everything is drawing together. Last time, kick, kick, and back, back, back. Good, let's bring the heels together, lengthen your hips away, so if your heals are one on top of each other, and we go kick up, and go down, kick up, and two, kick up, so stretch the inner thighs that we have been drawing together for less time, and five, and we circle, just like we did against the wall. Back, back, so maybe a little slower today, just so you can feel that connection of the wall you made it earlier with, and reverse.

Eight, seven, six, five, four, lengthen, reach, pull. And one, oh, nice. Good, and now let's do the teaser, so you're gonna lie on your back. If you feel too crampy, you can go ahead and stretch out a little bit. (laughs) Let's bring the legs, a little higher now, so it's different than the 100, just a little higher. And let's do the teaser.

So if you need to, please hold on to your thighs, if you feel more efficient, it's not a competition. Listen to your body. Otherwise, bring your arms over the head, bring your arms up, and roll long. So if anything, if you can think of that for today, lengthen to roll, you don't need to crunch to roll up. Lengthen, lengthen, lengthen, reach forward, and then come back down, either directly down, or with your arms by your ears.

If you want to suffer a little bit more. And again, come up and roll. So just the tip of my toes are on the wall. And I have that same idea of pushing to pull, lift the arms if you want to, push the wall, try not to lose you feet against the wall and come down. Let's do one more.

So find your sweet spot. Push to pull, roll up, you gotta feel every inch of your abdominal muscles as you coming up. Hold there, smile, lift your legs from your center. So way between your chest. That's where you moving those strong legs.

You lifting off the wall, and you place it down, and then you flick up again, two, and then you place it down. Two more, up. Nothing else is moving in the body, just the leg, and rest, beautiful. Let's go into your seal, stay nice and lifted. Remember what we did on the rolling like a ball and you clap your legs three times, lift your waist and roll back.

And then come back up. Lifting, clap, clap, clap. So every wrong position can have a lift to it. It doesn't have to be crunch, lift through the ears, Romano used to pull gently our ears up. Always lift, lift, lift, go back, clap, clap, clap, lift, lift, lift, clap, clap, clap, and come up.

You can clap back there if you want to. I just focusing on the lift for today. And then come back up, there's so many variations. Lift through the waist, last time, clap, clap, clap, and see if you want to crush your legs to come up, or just come up the best way you can. So now we're going to use the wall to just do some mini pushups.

So you step as far as you can if you wanna start here, and maybe just do this, with your neck, nice and long, you can do that. If you want a bit more challenge 'cause I'm guiding you guys too. One day we get, the last class would be like a superhero class. So you gonna be doing lots of crazy things on the wall. So push the wall today to connect with your back.

So the more I push, the more I connect with my center, and the more I connect with my back. So your muscles that you should connect attached to your hips back here. So push to pull, find that connection, and then from there you go into your pushup. I think England, they say press up. So I don't know what they call in other parts of the world, keep it, push the wall away.

So you wanna feel connected, push, to pull into your center. So as much as feedback as you can feel from the wall, you draw that connection into your center, and you stay nice and tall. And the legs are still hugging. So without tension, and push it away. Last time, and push it away.

Nice, let's come against the wall, sure my mic is not there. Let's see, I can actually go on my mat. So, I'm roughly one foot distance from the wall. So you feel what works for you. It's nice, I'm gonna have to do a little bit more.

It's nice to feel that your lower back, it's hugging the chair. It's connecting and becoming one with the wall, sorry. Just like we would do on the baby chair, on the high chair. So you wanna push into the wall. But what I don't want you to do is this business.

And if you can see of my pelvis, crunching up all my hip flexors and I'm no longer on my powerhouse. So the pelvis is relaxed, and I draw everything else in from my belly button, below my belly button up, but I'm not moving my pelvis. So if that means you need to walk, follow that, please do. Push, become one with your wall. Don't press your hand into the wall, but gently place it, and then see how more, how longer can I get up there?

Like if it was a puppet, and I'm lifting, and my waist is growing just as much, and I'm going to take it inhale, and with my ribs into the wall, I'm gonna move my arms up. I'm gonna keep it into my peripheral vision. I'm gonna struck all my arms away from my body and then back down. Because I'm so focusing on, a focus on, my Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, everything, my accent, push into the wall and reach the arms long. So I'm so focused on becoming one with my wall that I'm not really pay attention to what my arms are doing yet.

So today I just want to really draw every inch of your body into the wall, without tucking. So it's that famous tucking. If you want to be really technical, posteriorly rotation of your pelvis, I don't want that. I want long waist, and now let's reverse your circle. So you're gonna go out first, drawing your waist, tiny, tiny to the wall, and exhale.

You can add breath, inhale, (inhales) reach, exhale down, inhale, reach, exhale down. Let's do that two more times. My legs are still drawing together because I'm thinking of my wall. I'm pushing my feet, whoa, I did go slide. I'm pushing my feet into the mat, so I can push into the wall.

So I'm taking the wall now, and I'm applying the wall to the mat with my feet. Good, now I'm going to bring my feet in parallel position. Oh, no, nevermind. Let's stay here for a little bit, heels together. You're gonna peel your head off the wall.

Everything's still drawing in, your shoulders off the wall, everything is still in. Your scapula or your wings coming off the wall. And then you're going to stay here with your lower back. Nice and place one with the wall. So I shouldn't be able to bring my hand behind you.

Let your arms just draw down. And then just small little circles. Now my circles are just to open my back muscles that I contracted this whole time. But my waist is still lifting in and up against the wall. And I'll reverse your circle.

Go the other way. Tiny little mini circles, lifting your waist, lifting the belly button in and up, through the heart, and then roll yourself back into the wall. So we done with the circles, and we go back into the wall. Nice, now let's go into your squats. You're gonna, we're almost done.

So make sure you have enough distance that when you're down, your knees never really go over your toes. You wanna keep your knees, a little behind your toes. So you're going to peel your arms off the wall as you slide down the wall into a squat position. And you hold the here, one, two, three, and then you press the arms and you come back up, exhale. Inhale, reach the arms forward, ribs are still trying to stay on wall, and we hold the here for two seconds and we push the feet against the floor and the arms come back into the wall.

Let's do that one more time. Inhale, reaching come down, hold here, how much do I need to fix, but, where should my pelvis be? I don't want it to be too posteriorly rotated. So can my pelvis be okay? Nice and relaxed.

Can I pull everything else in? Even if I'm not touching the wall at this point, which is fine, and I'm just talking so you can suffer, let your muscles get stronger, and I'll push the arms down, and then come back up. (exhales deeply) Nice, let's walk back against the wall. In the future week, in the future classes that are coming, we're gonna start working more and more in extension. So for today, I'm just going to press my arms into the wall.

So I'm doing the chest expansion here. So find your sweet spot. I think I went too far back. So once again, the pelvis is not moving. Pull everything else into the wall without your pelvis pulling, that's not a scoop, this is a tuck.

So keep the pelvis relaxed, pull everything in. Which takes a lot more effort if you think about it. Now, bring your arms in front of you, inhale, push the wall away and open your chest, and your collar bone. And look to the side, look to the other side, center, exhale. Inhale, draw yourself into the wall, press the arms, look to the opposite side over the shoulder, then the other shoulder, center, and exhale.

So this for most people, you know, with this computer life, internet, online life, will be a lot already. Just open your chest against the wall will feel like a big extension. We look one more time over the left shoulder, right shoulder, the ribs are still going into the wall, center, exhale. Let's do one more. Inhale, press the wall like you mean it.

To open your shoulders, to feel, the back of the arms should be shaking a little bit. Now we look to the left, to the right, pelvis relax, belly in, center, exhale. Good, now walk yourself back into the wall. I'll never forget Romana teaching this at Drago's. Back into the wall, learn everything, feel like everything you've learned from the wall, pull everything in because essentially you want to have a wall behind you when you walk around.

So you wanna place the arms against the wall, pull everything in and up with a nice relaxed pelvis. You don't wanna go too far this way, or too far the other way, just pull the abdominal muscles in and up. Draw the ears through the ceiling, wrap your thighs into a little mini Pilates V, nobody needs to know that you standing that way. Press the wall, with nice and proud chest, and push your wall away. And hopefully, you can walk away and have that lift with you whenever you go.

So thank you for joining me on the mat. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you get a little warmed up today. I hope this whole makes sense to you. If you learnt something, I'll be really happy.

I love what I do and I hope you enjoy me on the mat today. There's more to come. So stay tune every Thursday same time, here at Pilates Anytime. So thank you.

Comments

3 people like this.
Good Class from Alexandria. A wall (or stable vertical surface) is a great prop. There were 2 challenges for me: 1) I don't have a free wall (so I modified with an old flat faced bureau & a post. 2) I am not flexible enough to roll up with my legs raised (so I modified with by wearing leg weights or hooking my toes under a slightly opened drawer in the bureau). I had fun, got a nice workout, and feel much better. Thanks Alexandria:) 
3 people like this.
That was a great and informative class. I felt that my posture was much improved. Cueing and attitude was excellent. Looking forward to future classes. 
1 person likes this.
I wasn't sure whether at the beginning of the class when you were prepping for the Hundred etc - whether you had imprinted your spine on the ab prep or remained in Neutral spine - you seemed to indicate NOT imprinting at the beginning but then referred to pressing your lower back into the mat - can you confirm which position you were using? Many thanks!
4 people like this.
Phenomenal class, a real gift.  My students sometimes view the wall as a variation for weaker individuals, but you showed us the TRUE strength (not to mention flexibility and awareness) required to utilize it as a prop.  I can't wait to integrate some of these technique into my training of the disabled and chronically ill. Thank you, Alexandra -- I look forward to studying with you via the remaining classes in this series. 
O V
2 people like this.
great class. feel more connected after the class.
2 people like this.
Great class. Thank you.  The wall closes the chain, gives you feedback and helps you connect.  It made me work harder.
2 people like this.
I agree that the wall makes me work harder. Loved the class!!
3 people like this.
Great cuing that I can use for my recuperation and for when I teach class.  How would you offer this to individuals with low bone density, osteopenia, all of whom are at risk of compression fracture from forward spinal flexion? Thank you.
2 people like this.
I enjoyed the class, which I did after your second class. In the side kicks are you in a straight line head to toes or are hips to feet forward at a slight angle from the hips to head. 
2 people like this.
This is a great series. I'm doing it out of order :) Started with the second one. I'm getting back into Pilates after a long period doing yoga and this is the perfect series to get me thinking and feeling Pilates again. Thanks!
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