Class #4491

Sweaty Mess Mat

55 min - Class
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Tie it all together in Alexandra’s seventh class. You’ll move and flow, referencing all the work you’ve done throughout this program. This challenging class will strengthen your resolve and your body! Remember--finding the magic in your powerhouse is a sweaty endeavor.

Props Needed: Hand Weights
What You'll Need: Mat, Hand Weights (2)

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Hi guys, welcome to Pilates Anytime with Alexandra Bohlinger, the Wall to Wall with me. Today, we gonna a squeeze the juice out doing the sweaty mess workout on the mat. All you need is a mat and a pair of hand weights. I'm going to be using a two pound weights but you can do whatever you want or not use it at all. Just use your strength, your muscles.

So, yeah, join me and let's have some fun and move and sweat. So we're going to start with lots of stuff standing. Joseph Pilates, you know, he was a boxer, he loved boxing. So there's a lot of martial arts element to what we're gonna do today and jumping and all of those things, and then we're gonna go to the mat, yeah. And my last class, next week will be my last class and we'll be doing everything against the wall, bringing all the elements of what we did today.

So first you're just gonna open your legs nice and wide, and you're going to, you can see me from the side, you're gonna hold your weight or not, but just pretend you have one, and we're going to start bringing one foot forward one foot back and you're gonna bounce it for four counts. You're gonna go, pull your tummy in, stay nice and tall, and you're gonna go one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. So left, left, left, left, right, right, right, right. Notice that I'm trying to keep my weight nice and light versus if I was pounding. So I wanna pull your tummy in, use your powerhouse, center tight and make yourself nice and light.

I'm gonna look at you again. And my arms are just by my side. And one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. Last time with your left leg. Now for three.

And three, and three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three. One more set. Now for two. One, two, one, two, one, two. Your arms are there and you're getting warmed up.

I did clean my house earlier a little bit to get me warmed up. Now, single. Single, single, single, single. And you just turning, staying very light. Remember he was a boxer.

So you gotta stay nice and light on your feet. And now we're gonna go out, out. So I am more towards the ball of my feet, more than on the heels my heels are light off the floor. And eight more, seven, six. I feel like aerobic instructor.

Four, three, two, one, nice. From here, you're gonna bend your knees a little bit and you're gonna punch forward. So this is me without adding any extra resistance. And this is me. You can make some noise, feel like you're tiger or pick your animal.

So I'm adding resistance. So you can do the same. You can either kick or punch light or you can add some oomph to it, make some noise ha. I am a black belt, TaeKwonDo, love the Korean culture, love the Korean food. And so I can hover.

I have the idea of punching from my center. So you're going to add that. And three more punches in each arm, two and one. Nice, good. Now from there, you're going to straighten your knees again.

You're going to bring your arms up. You're going to say hi to the ceiling and the sky and then you're going to go under your legs and then you go into extension. You can look up, keep your head in line with your arms and go under and you stretch. You're going to go one, two, three under and count one, two, three. Let's do two more.

My tummy's tight, my knees are slightly bent. One, two, three and we have one more set. Last one, two, three, and reach. Now you're going to come to the center. You're just going to circle your arms around and inhale.

You circle your arms around. I'm making my Pilates V, tiny Pilates V or parallel whatever works for you. Keep your shoulders nice and loose. We don't want to lock the shoulders. Ah, take a deep breath in, exhale.

Let's do one more. Big circle and exhale. Now reach your arms out to the side and you're going to bring your knee to your elbow and you're going to alternate. So that was one, knee to elbow. Then we're going to pick up the pace a little bit.

So you moving, you keeping the elbows, trying to keep the elbows lifted high, pull your tummy in and breathe into your nose, through your nose. And let's do four more in each leg. Four and three, tummy in. Two, one more. Now stay with your right leg for eight counts.

Six, five, reach the arms along with your back. Now, switch other leg, eight. So my back is holding the weight not my shoulder and my neck. And four more, four, three, two, one. Now reach and relax the arms.

You're going to reach forward because you're going to try to reach your foot. And you just going alternate kicking straight up. So show you from the side and you kick. And one leg feels a lot more flexible than the other leg, you're gonna do that four more times, four. So see how your arms are working three, two.

So they're strong enough for the last class. One more and I'll do the same thing with your arms out. Straight and I'm alternating. I'm working on my balance. I'm shifting from my one leg to another leg.

And you can also go in front of your hand if you have less flexibility, You can also bend your knee in front as a modification. Let's do three more kicks, three, three, two, stay nice and tall on your waist. One and release and bring it down. We're going to bring the arms up and down. One more time, take a deep breath in and exhale.

Really nice. So now we're going to go to the, I'm going to put the weights down. We're going to go to our mat, but how are we going to get there is going to be a little different today. You gonna somersault in. Feel like a circus performance.

You head doesn't touch the mat. Your back and your shoulders touch the mat first. So my hands are going to go to the floor. I'm going to tuck my head in. I'm going to bend my knees and I get ready for my hundred.

So hopefully, you can get any way you want, you like. I'm gonna scooch back a little bit and we're gonna pump. Breathe in with the air and out with the air. We're going to do the eight more breaths here and exhale. Let's do three more before we involve the legs.

Exhale, let's do two more. So you're drawing those legs underneath your ribs as you pump, let's do one more. Breathe in and exhale all the air out. Keep pumping if you want and cross the legs. Criss-cross up and down, exhale and breathe in exhale, that's 20.

Let's do three more breathe into three, four, five and out two, three. Coordination time, brave fitness. And again, breathe into your nose, out through the nose. Pump like you mean it. You can have your weights if you want.

Last time, breathe in and exhale, exhale, exhale, exhale and lower arms and the legs. Reach your arms over the head. Give yourself a big stretch. Oh, and then if you want, you can grab your weights or without we're going to come up and count to 10. So you're going to take us 10 counts to get up there.

Ready to roll up to your toes. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Reach beyond your toes and you can grab your weights if you want to and roll down for 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Bring the arms over the head and go again. You can bend your knees.

10 counts to roll up. Head, shoulders, chest, ribs, waist, belly button, go beyond. Your waist is going back as you're reaching forward. Oppositional work, reach those arms strong from your back and roll down for 10 counts. Six, five, four, three, two, one.

Bring it over. Let's do two more. Bring the arms, bring the head, bring your shoulders. Draw your waist and roll up nice and tall. Lift your waist, reach forward.

Energy going both ways forward and your waist is going back and roll down with control. Draw those legs together. And last time, arms, head, shoulders, inhale and exhale, exhale, exhale, exhale. Now stay there and bounce. One, two, three, flex your feet and bounce.

One, two, three, and roll down 10, nine, up on your toes. Eight, seven, six, five, four, scoop, hold, hold it here, your lower back is touching the mat but nothing else. You can have a cup of tea. You know, a little biscuit hold, pull in and roll all the way down. Ooh, nice work.

Your weights, you don't need any more. Can keep it down. Gonna dry my forehead. Hopefully you warmed up now. We're going to do your roll over.

So you're going to bend your knees and you can grab one of your weights, just one, and hug with the back of your knee and you can't lift the leg otherwise your weight's going to fall. So hug your little weight. Hug the knees, press the arms. This is the breakdown of your rollover. So lift your head, lift your hips and bring your knees to your head and come down slowly.

And again, hug your weight and lift the hips. Nice and control, pressing the arms down. Into a chest expansion type of feel. And you come down. Let's do one more, press the floor.

Scoop, lift and over and come down as slow as you possibly can, that's it. Now we can go with your legs straight up to the ceiling. And we going to go over the head again, keep looking to the ceiling or your knees with your eyes, and then come back down. And again, legs over the head. Keep the leg in line with your hips so not towards the floor today, variation.

Now see if you can bring your legs all the way to the floor and start from there. But if your tummy poaches out, that means you went too low because you got to keep this in and then you can lift the legs and go over the leg, over the head with your legs and then roll down with control. Draw your tummy in, I could be standing on your tummy and you touch the floor, scoop and go over the head. Arms are just as active and roll down, scoop. It's almost like you're coming to a hundred position again isn't it?

Last time, hold everything in and bring the legs over. Open your chest and your shoulders and roll down with control. Well done, now let's bring your right leg up and left leg is going to go down. We're going to do Joe's style from the book and we gonna bring your leg into the floor, circle around, out and away and then back to the nose. Across, down around and up.

Again, so I have not try, I'm trying really hard to keep my shoulders down. So I bring my leg over to the floor away from each of the other foot, towards the window and then towards my nose. Two more like that. So I really want your spine to move and twist. And last time rotate.

And I don't want your upper body to move. So your shoulders stay down. Reverse, go to the floor and to the foot all the way to the other side and to the nose, big circle. Two, away from the body, to the foot across and up. Reach the leg.

Feel like that leg is lengthening and straightening as you move and four around, across, use your center. And last time, away, scoop stretch and bring it up. Nice, swap legs and do the same. Reach and go across the body to the floor, down to the other foot, say hi to the other foot. How are you?

And then bring the leg away and to the nose. And again, to the floor, the hands are down. The shoulders are down and to the nose. Two more scoop, move your leg from your center and four, last time, all the way across. So the hip really comes off the floor and last time five and around away from the body and to the nose.

Good, now from here, bring that leg down and roll up nice and slow. We know have to count to 10, but you know what I mean? With control, no cheating, no jump, very humbling and bend your knees. So we're going to go into a rolling like a ball now. Pick up your feet.

And you're going to go all the way back and then come up. And now the next time we do that, we going to try to stand up. So your feet, you can use your hands and come up. Bend the knees, hands on the ankle, inhale, go back, have fun, massage your back and then stand up. So you can use your hands to help you.

So every time you do your roll up you come up or you can try to not use your arms on your, on the floor, but use your arms reaching energy for and up and down. Now this time we're going to try to do with the same thing with one leg. So one leg is pushing from the floor and then you come down into a single leg squat and you go into your rolling again, swap leg. So you always alternating. Your hands are helping you big time if you need to.

And you just alternate every time you're doing a rolling like a ball, you switch leg. Using your arms as much as you need to, of course, use your center more. Go into your rolling like a ball and swap. So propel your body forward and up. Down into that nice little squat or maybe just go halfway.

One more on each leg. Reach and then you decide, keep looking to a spot that's not moving to give you balance. Last one and reach, go down with control. And now you're going to use both legs to come up and jump. So you're going to come up forward and jump.

Rolling like a ball. Come up and jump. Rolling like a ball, head in and reach to the ceiling. And once again, land it softly, two more jumps. So you can't hear when yourself come back to the floor, of course you can modify that.

Just stand and rest. Well done, hopefully you had fun with that. All right so we get into the five stomach series and we going to add a little spice to it by rolling back and forth on our sides and our tummy and that's how we're going to be doing all of them. So go ahead and lie on your back. Bring your right knee to your chest.

And you're going to bring right knee in and swap and left knee and right knee, and reach and pull and stretch. Feel that you're pushing an imaginary wall away from you with your feet as you pull into your center and bring the elbows nice and wide. Neck is lifting with the rest of your spine. Not independently, just the head. Now let's reach your arms and legs out and roll to your side to your tummy and then do your double leg from here.

So hug both knees, inhale, reach out, exhale empty your lungs and exhale bend in. So you three, draw the legs together, and four, bring it in nice and strong. Five, reach out. Six reach out. Seven reach and pull two more.

Draw the heels together so you feel very central. Last time and then reach arms and legs out and roll to your side. Tummy other side, try not to use your arms. And single leg pull, pull, pull, pull. Take your time.

Feel the stretch, reach long. Pull the tummy in, elbows wide. You can flex your foot if you want more stretch. Pull, pull, now let's do five singles. Just one, one, two, two, three, three, two more, four, four, last time.

Now reach the arms and legs out and rock and roll. Roll to your side and double leg. Down, down, down and up one. Elbows nice and wide down, down, down, and up two. Inhale exhale, I could stand on your tummy.

Inhale, exhale. Breathe, feel your muscles burning. And two more. You working out to get a feel the burn and reach out, roll. Criss cross, one, two, three, one, two, three.

Past your knee. Look behind that back elbow. Come up off that floor. And reach and reach. Let's do three, three, three, and two, two, two one more one, one, one and rest.

Now to stretch abdominal muscles turn into your tummy, just like you did. And then ah, feel the stretch in your abdominal muscles. For a moment you can feel all the muscles stretching out. Hip flexors and have a seat. Now again, we're going to go into your spine stretch forward after doing all that and today we're going to do a little different.

So we're going to go into a spine stretch forward and then we're going to go right away into your open leg rock okay. So that's what we doing today so you know the choreography, but before we do that, you going to bring your arms in front of you, push the floor away and think of those legs being pulled into yourself and up to the ceiling. So you push to pull those legs into you. So I'm not doing it for my hip flexors. I'm doing for my center.

So I push with my back muscles and my waist and my center, I push the floor. Some people like to do it on the outside. Feel free, and then you pull those legs into you and down. Let's do two more times, push to pull, lift and down with control. One more, push to pull into yourself, to draw into yourself and place it back down.

Good, now with the understanding of pulling in and up, that big, nice C curve, you're going to bring your arms forward, sit up tall. Inhale, head, chin to the chest. Sternum in, ribs in, waist, belly button. Past the arms beyond your foot, your feet, and touch your head on the mat and then roll up against that imaginary wall and sit up tall. If you need to you can bring a pillow or something to lift your hips.

If your hip flexors are too tight, or if your hamstrings are too tight, you can bend your knees. Yeah, there's lots of ways you can modify. Inhale and head, chest, ribs, waist and reach forward with your arms long. Head to the floor. Scoop the tummy in and roll into yourself.

Stacking one bone at a time. Now lift the legs, scoop them up and roll like a rocking, rocking back with your open leg. Come up, place it on the floor and going to your spine stretch forward again. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, pick up your legs. Hold them up and go, inhale back.

Exhale, so your spine stretch forward is an extension of the open, your open leg rock is an extension of your spine stretch forward. You want to pull them in and up and back and come up and place it on the floor and round and roll up. Pick it up, round to your back. Round to come up, push those legs away from you. Push those arms into the legs and the legs away and bring the legs together and go ahead and walk down for your corkscrew.

Long arms, we're going to lift the hips off the floor and come down slowly. So there is no cheating, no jumping, nice and control. You take it up, you don't throw it up there. And then you take it down with your legs reaching to the ceiling still. So you want to go up and your waist is pulling you back in.

Now let's do that again and add your big circle. We can to reach to the ceiling. We come down active arms. Now let's go ahead and bring your legs to the right and then down. Now when your legs hit center, you're going to look to your belly button and ta da, you're into your hundred position again.

So you drawing everything in, you go down, and then you finish that circle and go up. Boom, well done. Come down slowly. And now we get to go left. Left, left, left to the floor, pulling the strings in, hold.

Look forward, boom hundred. Come down, finish your circle. So the exercises are always linked. He was very adamant, the link, they're always connected. Legs the right, down.

Just a quick look, boom, and finish your circle. Bring your leg, head down, go up again. Let's do it one more time. Scoop to come down, bring the legs together to the left away from you. Lift your tummy, come up to the hundred.

Come down and finish your circle. Now go up, this is the grand finale. Keep the legs up there. Lift it from your center Lift the arms to say hi to your knees. So up there, so you lifting the leg, lifting the legs, lift the legs.

No weight on your neck, is on your shoulders. And then you come down. That looks like a hundred again, doesn't it? Ah, and sit up tall, well done. Now open the legs.

If you have your weights, you're going to grab the weights. If not, you can pretend you have weights in your hand. So sit up nice and tall. Your arms are a little wider today. You're going to twist, anchoring the other hip, flex your feet.

Exhale, the back arm is nice and alive and awake. Reaching oppositional waist. Direction, you scoop, come up. So think of your spine stretch forward. Twist, don't reach yet.

Twist, twist, twist, twist. Touch the ceiling with the crown of your head. Past your toes. Lift your waist. Reach the arms away like branches growing and sit up tall.

Inhale, twist, exhale, reach. Inhale, sit up tall and forward. In with the air, twist. Out with the air reach in to the lungs, inhale and exhale. Plenty, now we going to go ahead and bring your weights down.

Turn around, take a deep breath and then let's keep working hard. So you going to do your neck row and your swan dive. So let's just wrap the body a little bit. You're going to just bring your hands there. Lift your waist.

Really look behind you. Bring your chin to the chest across the other shoulder Try not to move one shoulder. Don't let it come with you and then look straight ahead. Lift your belly button. Look left across the chest, all the way behind you.

What's over there? And then straight ahead. From here, hands on the mat. Scoop and lift up. Keep looking forward and come down.

So make sure you're not going in your lower back. You always scooping in and up. You want to lengthen the lower back. Scoop deeper and open your chest instead and down. Let's do that one more time.

Scoop, draw the legs together. Push the floor with your back. Stay there. Now we going to bring your hands a little bit closer to you and we're going to go into a swan and catch ourselves. So it's a little prep for the big swan.

So you're going to go forward, lift the legs and catch yourself. Two more, one more and stay there and bring your arms to the side. Joe style and lift, lift, lift, enjoy, two, one more and sit back. Round into a little ball. Very important to pull your tummy in.

So feet like Joe has punched you in the gut and you go to ah to round. You can either push the floor away to round, you can say hi to your heels, hi to the knees. And go forward. So you're gonna go into your single leg kick. You're going to make a fist today yes.

Remember boxing. Joe will be very happy and proud. Push your hands together against each other. So I'm working on my back muscles as well. Lifting your waist.

Now lift the leg off the floor before you kick and then you bring it down. Swap other leg, lift off the floor, kick, kick, and bring it down. Lift, kick, kick, and down. Push, so there's so much energy going into the mat with my hand and my arms, I'm lifting my hip off the floor. I'm squeezing my bum and the top, the back of my thigh or my seat on my boom, boom.

Whatever it is that you call this area in your language. Kick, kick and down. In Portuguese, we say boom boom. In England they say bum. Lift, kick, kick, and down.

One more lift, kick, kick, nice and proud. Your hands are still working into each other and into the floor and rest. Beautiful, let's come down. Don't go to sleep and bring your hands behind your back Nice and high and relax your elbows down to open up your shoulder joint a little bit and the muscles behind your back. Now active, wake up.

Lower the legs. Draw them together and kick it three times. One, two, three. Reach your arms with your fingers long and come up. And look the other way, kick, kick, kick, and reach.

When you kick, you press your hips down into the floor. Don't let the bum come up and reach one more on each side. Kick, kick, press the hips down and reach. One more, the best one. Come on and give your best.

Smile and sit back and stretch your lower back. Sweaty mess, sweaty mess, and round, dry and turn around. So let's do your neck pull. So you're doing really well. Hopefully your heart rate is going to, to, to, to like mine.

Now bring your hands behind your head. Of course, we talked about the modifications. Bend the knees, hands behind, whatever works for you. Feet under the sofa. Listen to your body, respect your body, push your body, but respect your body.

And inhale, lift your head, shoulders off and come up. Think of the spine stretch forward. You lifting the waist as your head is going down and then you push against that wall. That was the first class we did. Lengthen tall.

Go flat, flat, flat, flat, and Joe's punch, boom on your tummy and you go, you can probably find footage of him doing that. And again, round to come up, inhale, exhale, long waist, lift up, flat, push your heels away and then round below the waist, way below the waist. Feel the first vertebrae touching the mat. No rush, and last time, come up right away. Exhale, sit up tall.

Elbows behind you and round with your elbows behind you. Push your heels, push your heels away ta da. Good now let's go ahead and you're going to bend your knees. So this one's a bit tricky sometimes with repose wrists, you can always make a fist so you can keep you, do it down skip this one, watch. You're going to bend your knees.

You're going to lift your hips and catch your hips back here. Side, fist, whatever works for you, but very important, push those strong triceps, your muscles behind your arms, down into the floor, straightening your legs. And do you split from there and swap and breathe, enjoy. Feel the work, scoop your tummy in, don't let it pooch out into a little mountain. Lengthen the legs away from each other.

So I'm not just bringing it back and forth. I'm reaching them. I'm opening my hip and one more. Last time, now from there do your bicycle. Reach and bend that right knee.

Reach and bend that left knee. Now Ramona, When she used to teach this to us, if we couldn't do it, she'd be like, let me show you. And she was in her eighties. So she would go, okay, reach the floor like this and touch the floor. Your toes scrape the floor.

And if she could do it at eighties. Now reverse, touch the floor, scrap it away, push it away. Clean the bottom of your foot. Last time, now transition, you can just go down or both legs arrive at the same time without making any noise. Oh, I did make a little bit of noise.

Now bring your hands on your hips. Push the arms into the floor. My bum and my hamstrings are working really hard. Reach your right leg out, kick. And you can flex your foot to come down into dorsiflexion.

Point, so you just point and flex, point and flex, different variation. Swap legs, reach with your left. Kick, flex your ankle to come down, scoop your tummy in still. Hips are nice and even. Bottom leg is working and I'll bring the leg back around to come down from that shoulder bridge and go ahead and give yourself a little stretch here.

Oh see, I'm nice, I give you a break. Wonderful, and then go ahead and come up for your spine twist. So you're going to flex your feet like you standing on the floor. You pick up your weights again, reach your arms out, lift up, twist, twist, twist, twist, and then bounce back there. One, two, and lift tall and twist twist, twist, twist, twist twist, twist, and go one, two, three, and lift lift, lift lift to the other side, anchor the other, other hip.

I don't want to see any shifting with your feet because then you're doing the samba with your hips, and center and twist twist twist. Your feet are the same, same level. Hips leveled bounce. One, two, three center, one more on each side. Twist twist, twist, twist, bounce.

One, look to the hand there, middle finger and center. Last time and twist twist, twist, nice and tall and bounce. Look to the middle finger, ring finger, little finger, and center and come down. Oh, well done. Jack knife, so you going to lie on your back.

You're going to go, boom, boom, and then slowly down. So you're going to bring your arms long, long neck, lift. Take it back there. Touch the ceiling and come down. You're gonna do a little faster this time and we go.

Over and up, down with control and over and boom. Arrive and down, two more in. Reach, touch the ceiling with your toes as you come down. Last time and over and up and reach with the arms. Reach with your fingers.

Lengthen your waist, draw the legs together and turn around. Messing up the order just a little bit. You going to go for a swim, it's really hot. So you gonna reach your arms forward, breaking it down a little balance. Lift your right arm up, left leg and switch.

Push the floor, use your back. Left arm up. Other leg or whatever side, make sure your leg is different than your arm. And now go for it. Lift and go for a nice swim.

Pick your favorite beach, beach, beach, beach. Mine is Ipanema, Copacabana. Reach, reach, reach. Nice, nice and breathe in two, three, four, five, out two, three, four, five. In two, three, four, five, out two, three, four, five.

Last time, exhale and sit back on your heels. Round, tiny little ball. Pull your tummy in. Round and massage your lower back. When you scoop, you push all your organs and you massage them and you open your lower back.

Win-win, now we're going to do your, the famous Rocky. So you gonna go forward again 'cause you nice and extended. You're going to reach your ankles. Same thing, no booty up. Keep the hips down.

Rest your head. Kick your heels, three times and come up. And kick your heels, stretch the front of your hips, come up. One more, kick three times and come up. Soften your elbows.

Squeeze the knees together. Doesn't have to touch just a little closer and rock and roll. Lift, lift, bigger, better, and up and rest. Sit back on your heels, round, switch the order. It's nice to extend with the swimming and then get to the big extension.

Oh, nice, now we're going to go into a crazy plank. So you're going to go hands and toes. You stay nice and strong. You going to go, right elbow, left elbow, right elbow, left elbow. Again, we gonna do three times with that side.

One more, coming up with the same side. Change left elbow, right elbow. Left elbow, right elbow. So see, he's more possible to do on the mat. We did on the chair the other day, last time.

And stay, now I'm gonna try to do on the mat 'cause it's hard for me to do on the mat, but you going to try to lift your left leg, opposite arm, can't talk, reach opposite arm from the leg. Feel like a superhero, scooping, push the floor away. So you push too scoop, push to pull, right leg, left arm. So it's easier for me to do on the floor and then let's do it again. Right arm, left leg.

And last time, right leg, left arm. Reach, reach and sit back. Round into a little ball. Feel the stretch on your lower back. That's the main thing I want you to do.

And go ahead and go to your plank again because we have a transition to do. So a transition is an exercise and you're going to bring your hands a little closer together and then flip it over for your leg pull up. So your hands can be fingers out, fingers forward. It's up to you. Very important, try not to sink into your knees.

Lift up from your bum and your hamstrings. So I have to bend my knees a tiny bit slightly, you can't even tell, but if I don't, I sink into my joint. Kick right leg, kick left leg, kick right leg, kick left leg, and I'm kicking and I'm moving and I'm pushing and I'm breathing. Last time, that leg is going to come around under and you ready for your kneeling sidekicks. Lift tall and lower.

So you just find a comfortable position for your hand. I like when my hand is behind my head and I'm pressing my head into my hand. I can go half with my hand partly flex or completely or fist. So pick yours, now stay there and kick forward and back. Breathe, kick forward and back.

Long, forward, back. Five back, let's do eight, six, long body, energy. Your head is going one way, your leg is going another way. Pushing with my waist and my back and stay. Circle the leg around one, two, three, four, five.

Reverse one, two, three, four, five. Now stay nice and high, no resting. Bend the knee, kick forward and come back. Bend the knee to the chest. Kick, keep it high people because that leg wants to go to sleep and kick forward and reverse.

Now go straight forward. Bend and back one. Again, two, soften the other elbow a little bit if you're hyperextending with that elbow. Last time, three, good reach that leg long and come up. Boom, and go to the other side.

So fist or hand, whatever works for you. I like fist, connects me with my back and my waist. Hand here, if your neck starts to get tired, you can look down to the hand on the floor. You can do your sidekicks without being on your knees as well. Four, five, stay high.

Kick forward and back, lengthen the neck. Head aligned with your spine. Ribs are still in, scoop your tight belt. Breathe, let's do one more for five and circle one and two, three, four. There's other hand hold with your hands and reverse.

Go the other way. The other one is keeping your hand right next to you, your ear so you can press your head towards the ceiling, which is nice sometimes, people like that. And I prefer my hand on the back. So pick your option. Bend the knee kick forward and go back one.

Breathe, see, this is like a sidekick. We used do this a lot in TaeKwonDo classes. Sidekick is great for the bum and the legs and your center, and reverse, straight. So try to keep that leg nice and high. Even put a stool underneath you and then you can't touch this so you gotta go over the stool.

Two, one more and back. Very nice, so now what we going to do is we going to do the teaser the same way we did the five stomach series. So we're going to be rolling every time we do teaser one, two, three, four, five. So you're going to go ahead and bend your knees and reach your legs out. Reach your arms out and come up with your upper body into your teaser.

So for you, you get to find out what your leg feels best. Up, lower and then you're going to go down just with your torso without moving the legs anymore. You're going to come up again. So that's two. Let's do one more time.

So your arms can either go by your ears or you can keep the arms in front of you and then come up three. Now you're going to go, everything's going to go down so you can roll to your side like we did for the stomach series. Roll and come up again. Now you stay up there and only your legs go down. So your torso should be nice and quiet.

One, reach, two, draw the legs together. Three and then everything goes down and then you roll to where you came from. Side, tummy, back. Now everything comes up and everything goes down. Everything come up, everything goes down.

One more, nice and controlled, pulling everything in and down, now roll again. Come up, hold it there and then you're going to move the arms away and circle them away from your legs and then reverse. So brain fitness, coordination and around. Let's do it one more time. Arms one way, legs the other way.

Last time, reach down, roll to where you came from. Feel like a superhero and come up and smile and rest and enjoy your seal here. Open your hips. One, two, three, go back. One, two, three.

Keep looking to your belly button so your head is in. This is to throw you off, so you want to really make big exaggerated seal and your body should feel still nice and control. Nothing is moving because you're so strong. And one, two, three back. Now cross your legs and come up like a gymnastic if your knees healthy.

Lift up, up, up, up, up, up, and press your arms down. Now I'm going to come behind here. Maybe you can see me, I'm actually going to face away from you because I want to do the contrology stretch. So you're going to go back behind yourself and reach to the furthest ankle as you bend the closest knee. Breathe and then you come out of there, you straighten both knees and you untwist and you go to the other side.

So twist, twist, twist, twist, reach the furthest ankle, bend the closest knee. Breath and untwist. Whoa, come out, twist again, one more time on each side. Bend the closest knee, reach to the furthest ankle. Out use your center, last time.

Boom, stretch, enjoy your stretch and come out of it. And I will face you again. And let's all think of Joe. So you're gonna reach your arms out and then you're going to come with energy, pushing down, down, down, down, down and then you're going to go and reach your arms out. Reach, little Pilates V.

Push, push, push, like there's resistance. And then you go contract your abdominal muscles, your biceps, with length. Reach up, out, long neck and proud. And then you start contracting. Breath out.

One more inhale, reach, exhale, exhale, exhale. And you're ready for your day. Thank you very much. Thanks for joining me again today. Hopefully you sweaty mess like me.

Go check out the other classes, see you next week.

Wall to Wall: with Alexandra Bohlinger

Comments

5 people like this.
Alexandra likes to challenge us and that's fine with me:)  If it involves much flexibility, I will suck at it, but I enjoy trying.  My exercise area is fairly cool, but I did sweat. If you have trouble rolling up to standing, try crossing your feet. It's about 50% easier that way. I am a big fan of Alexandra and her classes! I look forward to next week's installment.  Thanks Again Alexandra:) 
6 people like this.
WOW! Just when I thought I was in shape...lol! Thanks for another amazing class with challenge and variety!  PS: you make it look effortless  - my new goal ;)
2 people like this.
Whew! This was a challenge for me and I'll return again to not just do the movements but to try to do them with some aplomb I thought this was just as creative as the rest of the series & really appreciate learning a lot and something new, such as the boxing moves. I didn't know that Pilates had some roots in the martial arts.
2 people like this.
Amazing class! I am a sweaty mess but your cues and positivity helped along the way. Definitely a humbling class for me. Thank you for all your incredible classes.
Lina S
2 people like this.
Definitely a challenging class. A great idea to roll on ourselves... as we used to as a child!
Laura Maria
Definitely worked up a sweat! Challenging but 50 mins flew by! Will come back to this when I need a good full body workout
Hi Gary M, Thank you again for your sweet and helpful comment, yes cross the legs great advice! Or just do the squat part of the exercise without going  all the way down. Aways it is so nice to hear you got a sweat with this class  YES! Last class will be fun just think we are all adults with a big kid inside!! 
Robin G.  Thank you for your kind words & well done for doing the class you are stronger than you think! I guess we alI feel the same way as you, haha a never ending challenge LOL! I 'm delighted you enjoyed the variations! Yes, go back to and do this class again and each time it will feel effortless to you too (BTW I felt every move haha). See you on the next class. xoxo
Hi Brian B, well done for doing it and YES return and conquer this class you can do it! Thanks again for your positive and encouraging comment! I particularly love the martial arts elements of Pilates (control of movement, precision, intension, flexibility...).  
Hi Cindy K, oh you are so sweet thanks for your uplifting words! I'm pleased to know you were a sweat mess yay! Pilates is humbling to us all, it definately keeps in check! xoxo
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